Anthropological Approach and Research: History and Contemporary Understanding

The article examines the emergence of the anthropological approach as an opposition to the natural scientific approach, which emphasizes the study of the laws of nature. The author traces the evolution of the understanding of "man in general" from the treatise of Pico della Mirandola to the philosophical anthropology of Immanuel Kant and Max Scheler. He demonstrates that the formation of the anthropological approach occurs in the context of the search for ultimate ontology in the Modern Age. A key distinction is made between the abstract "man in general," serving as a philosophical construct for addressing worldview issues of modernity, and the concrete individual described in literature and confessions. By analyzing the concepts of Immanuel Kant and Max Scheler, the author shows how the personal existential problems of the thinkers were projected onto their anthropological models and concepts. This is especially evident in the works and studies of Max Scheler. In this regard, the positions of Scheler's philosophical anthropology are analyzed in comparison with Kant's approach. While Kant is interested in the relationship between the natural and the personal in man, Scheler focuses on the issues of spirit and the biological element, the nature of personality as the center of the divine, as well as on the causes of the modern crisis, which he associates with the "sickness of the spirit" caused by false theories. The author raises the question: is knowledge of the concrete individual necessary for constructing a universal anthropological concept? Noting that for Scheler the concept is inseparably linked to his personal worldview, he concludes that anthropological research becomes meaningful only when it serves to reveal the ultimate ontological foundations of culture. In conclusion, the question of the boundaries of the anthropological approach is raised: the author asserts that this approach cannot serve as a universal foundation for philosophy, retaining value only in certain areas of human activity, such as esotericism and in the context of the contemporary cultural crisis of modernity, where the focus shifts from universal schemes to concrete individuals.