Gurevich, P. S. The phenomenon of spirit in philosophical understanding of man

Abstract: There is a widespread opinion that philosophical anthropology is a field of knowledge about the origin, history and content of culture. This statement is only partially true. Culture is demonstrative of a certain way of being. Many anthropologists and cultural scientists do not set themselves the task of finding out why man is as he is, what is his existential reality, in which his determined originality is manifested. Reduction of the whole problem of man to description of culture would mean disregard of the principal side of the question: what determines the cultural essence of man? The integrity of philosophical anthropology distinguishes it from other disciplines that study man in one particular aspect. Philosophical anthropologists wish to grasp, at least, the live wholeness of a person, his concrete «I». Philosophical anthropology more decisively than, say, gestalt psychology finds in man configurations and behaviours that are impossible to split and put to the final analysis. Spirituality is undoubtedly among the basic human existentials. The notion of «spirit» in philosophical anthropology has a long and peculiar history. Since time immemorial, freedom, reflection, spirit were considered to be man’s essential qualities. Spirit is man’s highest ability permitting him to become a subject of meaning-setting, personal self-determination, conscious transformation of reality. We, people, are the present existence, consciousness in general and spirit, that is the ideasdriven wholeness of comprehensible relationships in ourselves and in all that we have created, done and thought.

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