Gehlen A. Biography His shortcomings, according to Gehlen

The German philosopher A. Gehlen (1904 - 1976) is a representative biological direction philosophical anthropology. His main works are Anthropological Research (1964), Morality and Hypermorality: Pluralistic Ethics (1970), Man. His nature and position in the world" (1940).

The main theses of his philosophical and anthropological concept - "man is an active being", "man is a biologically insufficient creature" determine the essence of man. Here he is close to Nietzsche, who characterizes man as "an animal that has not yet been established." This method of cognition of human integrity through its specific feature is the essence of the philosophical and anthropological method as a whole. Gehlen argues that man is incomplete, primitive and ill-equipped with instincts. Due to these biological features, a person is initially open to the world, therefore he is not regionally connected with a certain environment, has plasticity, flexibility and the ability to learn. The biological "inferiority" of a person is for Gehlen a source of human activity, activity. Spirituality is a real possibility of the most vital human nature, which is biological in its essence, while culture is just a background, a boundary of life. A person has a conflict with the world of culture artificially created by him. The destruction of personality in an industrial society is perceived by the philosopher as the result of the eternal conflict of life and spirit, living and dead. Man himself was faced with the need to define himself.

The idea of ​​anthropological predetermination of cultural forms of human existence was further developed in Gehlen's pluralistic ethics. In it, the position on biological insufficient organization is supplemented by the thesis about the possession by a person of such a bodily organization that is pre-adapted to existence in certain cultural forms. Gehlen builds his pluralistic ethics on the data of modern behavioral sciences. He proceeds from the position that a person has instinct-like impulses that determine his social behavior. The philosopher refers to such innate impulses the instinct of aggressiveness, the energy of which forms various ways of behavior. But a person also has other instincts-regulators: the instinct of caring for offspring, the instinct of admiration for a flourishing life and compassion for a dying life, the instinct of safety. So, Gehlen proves the instinctive origin of moral and legal forms that regulate human behavior, which is especially clearly confirmed by the establishment of "natural law". Establishments of criminal law prescribing compensation for damages caused to the injured party, the terms of the exchange of goods, the custom of blood feud, marital relations, religious rites and holidays - all these are manifestations of the instinctive nature of man.

human nature.

Emphasizing the anthropological origin of the institutions that ensure the functioning of human society, Gehlen calls for prudence when changing these institutions. Consequently, social conflicts are explained by the philosopher, based on the instinctive nature of human activity.

Gehlen introduces the concept of "cultural-formative energy", which he understands as a biological factor that contributes to the emergence of culture. Culture appears as the result of man's biological mastery of nature, and human biology is characterized by the philosopher as vital "chaotic" and irrational. To survive, a person must act, create social institutions, norms, rules of conduct. So, the motives of human behavior are rooted in biological mechanisms that are formed due to instincts. People are by nature hostile to each other, but culture neutralizes this human hostility.

Erich Rothhacker

E. Rothacker (1888 - 1965) is a representative cultural and philosophical anthropology. His main works: "Philosophical Anthropology" (1966), "Logic and Systematics of the Humanities" (1948), "Man and History" (1950), "On the Genealogy of Human Consciousness" (1966).

Rothhacker understood the limitations of the biological direction of philosophical anthropology and tried to overcome it by explaining the person in his integrity. The empirical consideration of man misses his creative essence, considering him as a thing among things. Apriorism, on the other hand, absolutizes subjectivity (consciousness, mind, spirit). The task is to overcome these limited points of view and put in their place a living creative historicity.

E. Rothacker, like M. Scheler, G. Plesner and A. Gehlen, compares man with an animal, but characterizes him, based on transcendental sensuality and spirituality, as a creator of culture and as its creation. Specific cultures are interpreted by Rothhacker as certain lifestyles: a person from birth finds himself in a certain life situation, which determines the possibilities of his emotional worldview and the way he works. It is seen as a reaction to environmental circumstances. The reality that surrounds a person is mysterious and irrational, from this reality a person forms his worlds. But his formative activity is always given not raw material, but that which, in turn, has already experienced the influence of other people.

Rothhacker shares the general position of philosophical anthropology that a person is dominated by his instincts, that he distances himself from the outside world and himself, but does not share the position that a person does not have an "environment". There is a certain “cultural threshold” that allows only what matters within the individual's own lifestyle to pass through. In other words, a wide world opens before a person, but he narrows it down to a certain “environment” thanks to his activity. Each person, entering into life, grows into the environment that has developed before him, but can also get out of it or even destroy it.

Thus, Rothhacker emphasizes the practical nature of the cultural way of life, which he interprets as an existentially interested experience of reality. In his definitions of reality and the world, the philosopher proceeds from the fact that reality is an alien and mysterious objective reality that a person has to use. The world is something that is experienced by a person and has significance for him within a certain lifestyle.

1904-1976) - German philosopher and sociologist, one of the classics of philosophical anthropology. In 1925-1926 he attended lectures by M. Scheler and N. Hartmann in Cologne. In 1927 he defended his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of H. Driesch. Since 1930 - assistant to H. Freier at the Sociological Institute of the University of Leipzig. In May 1933 he joined the NSDAP, took the chair in Frankfurt am Main (previously it was headed by Tillich -). From 1938 - in Koenigsberg. From 1940 he headed the Institute of Psychology in Vienna. Since 1944 - on the Eastern Front, wounded in 1945. After the war, he was removed from the post of director, but was soon elected a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1962-1969 - professor of sociology at the Higher Technical School in Aachen.

The main program work is "Man. His nature and position in the world" (1940). During the life of the author, it was published 12 times (substantially revised twice). Other works: "Real and Invalid Spirit" (1931); "The Theory of Free Will" (1932); "State and Philosophy" (1935); "Primitive Man and Late Culture" (1954); "Soul in the technical era" (1957); "Pictures of the Time. Toward the Sociology and Aesthetics of Modern Painting" (1960); "Moral and hypermoral" (1969), etc.

Two stages can be traced in G.'s work: 1) until the mid-1930s (philosophy of life, neo-Fichteanism, the influence of Freyer and N. Hartmann); 2) since the mid-1930s - the philosophical and anthropological period, in which two sub-periods can be distinguished - the boundary of which lies in the mid-1950s. Initially, G. offered [along with H. Plesner - an eccentric version] a variant (activity version) of the anthropobiological "turn" of philosophical anthropology. During this sub-period, the influence of A. Portman (especially his works on biology) was great. Later, G.'s reorientation to the sociological, including the cultural-sociological "reading" of philosophical anthropology was noticeable, the classic of which was his student, H. Shelsky. G. - the author of the concept of "pluralistic ethics", which he specifically developed in the last years of his life. During these years, G. - one of the leading ideologists of neoconservatism in Germany.

G. designed philosophical anthropology as a holistic knowledge of man, bringing together the data of individual sciences at a "non-speculative" level. ("... It is necessary to bracket any theory that is consciously or through an oversight oriented metaphysically, because its existence or non-existence, along with the facts, not only does not change anything in them, but also never gives rise to new specific questions in relation to them. In this case any theory is metaphysical which tendentiously or, as is generally the case, naively groups such abstractions as "soul", "will", "spirit", etc..)

The second initial theoretical and methodological setting G. - emphasized anti-reductionism. Man must be explained from within himself, from a sphere immanent to him. Such a study is quite possible "if one does not associate oneself with the existing explanations of man, but firmly clings to the question: what exactly does this need for the interpretation of man mean?" Rejecting the idea of ​​Aristotle's "ladder of beings", which was widely used in philosophical anthropology (Scheler, especially Plesner), G. emphasized another set of ideas widespread in her discourses, dating back to Herder and Nietzsche, and specially biologically substantiated by Portman - a set of ideas about man as "insufficient" being. He sets, according to P., the fundamental difference between man and any other living beings (nature did not define man as an animal, but predetermined him to "human"). Man is "non-specialized", unlike other animals, he is deprived of full-fledged "instincts", does not have his own special ecological niche, and thus initially cannot be in harmony with nature. He has no predestination for a certain type of life in a certain special environment. At the same time, he is always integral, and can only be understood in his integrity, systemicity (in this respect, human spirituality is the realized possibility of the very vital nature of man, and not Scheler's "spirit" outside of it). Because of this, according to G., a person is always problematic, open to the world, active (by necessity), always characterized by an excess of internal “urges”. He is forced to bear the overwhelming burden of responsibility for his own survival and self-determination in the world (to cope with himself). A person is always "overloaded", cannot simultaneously realize his intentions, "interfering" with each other. As a result, the phenomenon of the inevitable distancing of a person in relation to himself arises. He is forced, according to G., to be constantly aimed at changing both himself and his environment, i.e. he cannot simply "live", but is forced to "lead life", inventing mechanisms that allow him to "unload" it from excessive overstrain. "Unloading" (methodologically, G. formulates this in the "principle of unloading") is carried out in the active self-realization of a person, in action, as removing the dualism of soul and body, subject and object (more precisely, action precedes any distinctions of this kind), releasing him from "captivity " cash situations, replacing more and more direct interactions with symbolic ones. In parallel, a person is pushed to a constant "reinterpretation of himself" through language. The symbolic self-interpretation of actions sets the vector of movement from the situation of "excess of motives", imposes restrictions on needs (desires) and constitutes "fields" ("zones") of interests. ("... By action one must understand a prudent, planning change in reality, and the totality of facts changed in this way or newly created facts, together with the means necessary for this - both "means of representation" and "material means" - should be called culture. )

According to G., acting, people: 1) produce a culture (the world of symbolic meanings), which cannot be “conceived” from human nature (“... where the animal thinks of the world around it, a person has the sphere of culture ... "); 2) correlate their actions with the actions of others, cooperate with them, generating a variety of human communities; 3) create social institutions that regulate interactions and stabilize their results. Institutions are a kind of "substitutes" for "instincts" that automate human life. They provide stable interests of people, forming "habits" and enriching "motives", introducing regularity and predictability into human behavior (through "reasonable expediency" and "intersubjective coherence"). The progressive rationalization of institutions finds its adequate embodiment in the phenomena of technology and in the increasing reliance on its own internal order, which universalizes private social orders to global power claims. Each "private order" presents and stylizes various dispositional systems, constituted through the activities of people (already by nature, a person is designed and adapted for cultural forms of existence). Hence the impossibility, according to G., of "monoethics" and the thesis of "ethical pluralism."

G. identifies four independent ethos represented in modern types of society: 1) the desire for reciprocity (based not on coercion, but on verbal communications that support the equivalence of exchange and a system of mutual rewards and impose restrictions on undesirable behavior; these are mutual recognition relationships); 2) psychological virtues (the desire for well-being, the need for protection and care, a sense of duty, compassion, "an affirming sense of life"); 3) generic morality, supporting the "group feeling", "humanitarianism" ("humanitarianism" - a normative orientation towards the life of a person as a species); 4) institutional ethos (supporting hierarchies and reducing opportunities for individual choice of actions). Due to the institutional ethos, the aggressive impulses of individuals and groups are neutralized, a compromise acceptable to society is achieved (including through the support of the first and second ethos). Aggression, according to G., is always a “breakthrough” in critical situations into the culturally ordered social life of “instinctivity” (here G. largely follows Lorentz). From a neoconservative position G. compares the third and fourth ethos, competing with each other. His main criticism concerns "levelling equality" implicitly present in "generic morality" and leading to "mass eudemonism" (although G. sees the danger of the absorption of the individual by institutions). From his point of view, the current situation is still more characterized by the "disintegration" and "crisis" of institutions, leading to hypertrophy of the individual, supplemented by the power of "humanitarianism." Thus, the value of "responsibility" in society is "eroded", replaced by endless "discourses of justification". (Responsibility, according to G., is the need to follow the norms of the institution, which is inevitable and necessary in sociocultural life, since the obligations imposed by the institution are anthropologically justified.) Narrowing the field of responsibility proportionally expands the field of fear and uncertainty. All this is a consequence of the growth of "arbitrary freedom of subjectivity" (at the expense of "freedom within institutional limits"), fixing the global crisis of industrial society.

(1904-1976) - German philosopher and sociologist, one of the classics of philosophical anthropology. In 1925-1926 he attended lectures by M. Scheler and N. Hartmann in Cologne. In 1927 he defended his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of H. Driesch. Since 1930 - assistant to H. Freier at the Sociological Institute of the University of Leipzig. In May 1933 he joined the NSDAP, took the chair in Frankfurt am Main (previously it was headed by Tillich -). Since 1938 - in Königsberg. From 1940 he headed the Institute of Psychology in Vienna. Since 1944 - on the Eastern Front, wounded in 1945. After the war, he was removed from the post of director, but was soon elected a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1962-1969 - professor of sociology at the Higher Technical School in Aachen. The main program work is "Man. His nature and position in the world" (1940). During the life of the author, it was published 12 times (substantially revised twice). Other works: "Real and Invalid Spirit" (1931); "The Theory of Free Will" (1932); "State and Philosophy" (1935); "Primitive Man and Late Culture" (1954); "Soul in the technical era" (1957); "Pictures of the Time. Toward the Sociology and Aesthetics of Modern Painting" (1960); "Moral and hypermoral" (1969), etc. In the work of G. two stages can be traced: 1) until the mid-1930s (philosophy of life, neo-Fichteanism, the influence of Fryer and N. Hartmann); 2) since the mid-1930s - the philosophical and anthropological period, in which two sub-periods can be distinguished - the boundary of which lies in the mid-1950s. Initially, G. offered [along with H. Plesner - an eccentric version] a variant (activity version) of the anthropobiological "turn" of philosophical anthropology. During this sub-period, the influence of A. Portman (especially his works on biology) was great. Later, G.'s reorientation to the sociological, including the cultural-sociological "reading" of philosophical anthropology was noticeable, the classic of which was his student, H. Shelsky. G. - the author of the concept of "pluralistic ethics", which he specifically developed in the last years of his life. During these years, G. - one of the leading ideologists of neoconservatism in Germany. G. designed philosophical anthropology as a holistic knowledge of man, bringing together the data of individual sciences at a "non-speculative" level. ("... It is necessary to bracket any theory that is consciously or through an oversight oriented metaphysically, because its existence or non-existence, along with the facts, not only does not change anything in them, but also never gives rise to new specific questions in relation to them. In this case any theory is metaphysical which tendentiously or, as is generally the case, naively groups such abstractions as "soul", "will", "spirit", etc. ".) The second initial theoretical and methodological setting of G. is emphasized anti-reductionism. A person must be explained from himself, from a sphere immanent to him. Such a study is quite possible, "if you do not associate yourself with the existing explanations of a person, but firmly adhere to the question: what actually does this need for the interpretation of man mean?" Rejecting the idea of ​​Aristotle's "ladder of beings", which was widely used in philosophical anthropology (Scheler, especially Plesner), G. emphasized another set of ideas widespread in her discourses, dating back to Herder and Nietzsche, and specifically biologically justified by Portman - a set of ideas about man as an "insufficient" creature. According to P., it sets the fundamental difference between man and any other living beings (nature did not define man as an animal, but predetermined him to be "human"). Man is "non-specialized" in contrast from other animals, it is deprived of full-fledged "instincts", does not have its own special ecological niche, and thus initially cannot be in harmony with nature. He has no predestination for a certain type of life in a certain special environment. At the same time, he is always integral, and can only be understood in his integrity, systemicity (in this respect, human spirituality is the realized possibility of the very vital nature of man, and not Scheler's "spirit" outside of it). Because of this, according to G., a person is always problematic, open to the world, active (by necessity), always characterized by an excess of internal “urges”. He is forced to bear the overwhelming burden of responsibility for his own survival and self-determination in the world (to cope with himself). A person is always "overloaded", cannot simultaneously realize his intentions, "interfering" with each other. As a result, the phenomenon of the inevitable distancing of a person in relation to himself arises. He is forced, according to G., to be constantly aimed at changing both himself and his environment, i.e. he cannot simply “live”, but is forced to “lead a life”, inventing mechanisms that allow him to “unload” it from excessive overstrain. "Unloading" (methodologically, G. formulates this in the "principle of unloading") is carried out in the active self-realization of a person, in action, as removing the dualism of soul and body, subject and object (more precisely, action precedes any distinctions of this kind), releasing him from "captivity " cash situations, replacing more and more direct interactions with symbolic ones. In parallel, a person is pushed to a constant "reinterpretation of himself" through language. The symbolic self-interpretation of actions sets the vector of movement from the situation of "excess of motives", imposes restrictions on needs (desires) and constitutes "fields" ("zones") of interests. ("... By action one must understand a prudent, planning change in reality, and the totality of facts changed in this way or newly created facts, together with the means necessary for this - both "means of representation" and "material means" - should be called culture. ) According to G., acting, people: 1) produce a culture (the world of symbolic meanings), which cannot be “conceived” from human nature (“... where the animal thinks of the world around it, a person has the sphere of culture .. ."); 2) correlate their actions with the actions of others, cooperate with them, generating a variety of human communities; 3) create social institutions that regulate interactions and stabilize their results. Institutions are a kind of "substitutes" for "instincts" that automate human life. They provide stable interests of people, forming "habits" and enriching "motives", introducing regularity and predictability into human behavior (through "reasonable expediency" and "intersubjective coherence"). The progressive rationalization of institutions finds its adequate embodiment in the phenomena of technology and in the increasing reliance on its own internal order, which universalizes private social orders to global power claims. Each "private order" presents and stylizes various dispositional systems, constituted through the activities of people (already by nature, a person is designed and adapted for cultural forms of existence). Hence the impossibility, according to G., of "monoethics" and the thesis of "ethical pluralism". G. identifies four independent ethos represented in modern types of society: 1) the desire for reciprocity (based not on coercion, but on verbal communications that support the equivalence of exchange and a system of mutual rewards and impose restrictions on undesirable behavior; these are mutual recognition relationships); 2) psychological virtues (the desire for well-being, the need for protection and care, a sense of duty, compassion, "an affirming sense of life"); 3) generic morality, supporting the "group feeling", "humanitarianism" ("humanitarianism" - a normative orientation towards the life of a person as a species); 4) institutional ethos (supporting hierarchies and reducing opportunities for individual choice of actions). Due to the institutional ethos, the aggressive impulses of individuals and groups are neutralized, a compromise acceptable to society is achieved (including through the support of the first and second ethos). Aggression, according to G., is always a “breakthrough” in critical situations into the culturally ordered social life of “instinctivity” (here G. largely follows Lorentz). From a neoconservative position G. compares the third and fourth ethos, competing with each other. His main criticism concerns "levelling equality" implicitly present in "generic morality" and leading to "mass eudemonism" (although G. sees the danger of the absorption of the individual by institutions). From his point of view, the current situation is still more characterized by the "disintegration" and "crisis" of institutions, leading to hypertrophy of the individual, supplemented by the power of "humanitarianism." Thus, the value of "responsibility" in society is "eroded", replaced by endless "discourses of justification". (Responsibility, according to G., is the need to follow the norms of the institution, which is inevitable and necessary in sociocultural life, since the obligations imposed by the institution are anthropologically justified.) Narrowing the field of responsibility proportionally expands the field of fear and uncertainty. All this is a consequence of the growth of "arbitrary freedom of subjectivity" (at the expense of "freedom within institutional limits"), fixing the global crisis of industrial society. V.L. Abushenko

GELEN, ARNOLD(Gehlen, Arnold) (1904-1976) - German philosopher and sociologist, one of the leading representatives of philosophical anthropology. Born January 29, 1904 in Leipzig. He taught philosophy and sociology in Leipzig, Koenigsberg, Vienna, Speyer, Aachen. Gehlen's main philosophical work is the book Human. His nature and position in the world (Dermensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt, 1940). Criticizing the speculativeness of previous teachings about man, Gehlen emphasized the empirical nature of his research: philosophical anthropology should put forward only such hypotheses that can be verified by comparison with facts, and they are given only by specific sciences about man. The hypotheses of such philosophical anthropology differ from the hypotheses of specific sciences in a more general way, since they synthesize the data of many scientific disciplines involved in certain aspects of human reality. The possibility of such a science is the only metaphysical premise that is not discussed further. Two consequences follow from it: 1) there is a unity of the human race, above all racial, national, tribal, etc.; 2) there is an integral unity of the human individual. The first consequence, according to Gehlen, is easily confirmed by the experience of a number of sciences, while the second clashes with the long tradition of the dualistic vision of man. There is no point in arguing with metaphysical dualism, since it is impossible at the level of scientific concepts. But there is also an empirical-methodological dualism, which speaks of the existence of at least two methods and two groups of human sciences (“understanding” and “explanation”, nomothetic and idiographic sciences, etc.) Gehlen believes that with his teaching he overcomes and this kind of dualism, since in his teaching he uses exclusively "psychophysically neutral" concepts. Chief among them is the concept of action (Handlung): in action, the "external" "internal", "physical" and "mental", "bodily" and "spiritual" coincide. Man is defined by Gehlen as an "acting being", i.e. "so physically arranged that it can only survive by acting." Gehlen defines his approach as "anthropo-biological": human nature already at the level of morphology is fundamentally different from the organization of all other animals. “The biological consideration of man is not that we compare his physical nature with that of a chimpanzee, but in answering the question: how can a creature different from any other animal survive.” Biology helps us understand the conditions of human existence and a different principle of organization than animals. It is a special biological form that makes intellect, labor, language and other human properties necessary.

The task of philosophical anthropology is a rigorous description of this organization, which is a system and not a set of individual characteristics, some of which are arbitrarily chosen as the cause of others. Gehlen generally denies the possibility of applying the concepts of "cause" and "effect" to a person outside of laboratory experiments that decompose behavior into stimuli and reactions. A holistic reality is characterized by functional interconnections of all elements of the system. Morphological, psychological and socio-cultural aspects of human existence are considered by Gehlen as subsystems or various aspects of a single whole.

This integrity of human nature is determined primarily through its biological insufficiency. Using Herder's expression, Gehlen speaks of man as an "insufficient being" (Mangelwesen), differing from all mammals already at the level of morphology and physiology. Following the Dutch anatomist L. Bolk, who compared the human embryo with the embryos of other animals, Gehlen writes about the "underdevelopment", archaism, slow development of human organs. Man is born with organs that remain at the level of the monkey embryo. There is no specialization of organs, they are not adapted to perform the vital functions of attack or defense - a person has neither claws, nor fast legs, nor a hairline that can protect from the cold, nor the acuteness of the feelings of other mammals. If he lived only with this “equipment” among the most dangerous predators, he would have disappeared from the face of the Earth long ago. Therefore, Gehlen rejects that version of Darwinism, which sees in man the result of natural selection. The lengthened period of childhood or the non-specialization of the organs can by no means be considered advantageous acquisitions from the point of view of the "struggle for existence", since they make it more vulnerable. In human ontogeny, we find not a further development and improvement of what was in the great apes, but a different line of development, with many organs and functions being simplified from a purely biological point of view, returning to earlier stages. The mental apparatus of man does not meet the requirements of natural selection either: it is devoid of instinctive reactions that contribute to the adaptation of animals to the environment. Man has no environment (Umwelt), no automatic adaptation to it, and this, at first, gives us a purely negative definition of man as an "insufficient being." But it is precisely this lack that requires the replacement of instincts and specialized organs by intellect and a hand capable of instrumental activity. A long childhood involves upbringing, socialization, the transfer of skills and abilities by tradition, and not by biological means. In other words, this "insufficiency" presupposes society and culture. The “second nature” of a person turns out to be a system of instrumental activity and communication, and this is culture; "The world of culture is the human world." Without it, a person does not have the slightest chance to survive, and therefore there is no “natural person” - he is initially a social being, and any society presupposes a language, its own technique, forms of communication, cooperation, etc. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk about "environment" in relation to a person, because he lives in the world of culture, which mediates his adaptation to almost any earthly environment, regardless of climate or biogeocenosis.

The reduction of instincts leads to the fact that human behavior is determined to a minimum extent by innate reaction patterns. Between drives and actions there is a "hiatus" (hiatus), in which there is a proper human relationship to the world. He reacts not to stimuli, but to objects of reality, to which his inner world also belongs. The animal is a closed system, and it does not have an "inner" world, since there is no "external" world - in man, both of them are conditions for each other. Gehlen uses Novalis' expression "inner outer world" (innere Aussenwelt) to refer to what is usually called "soul". The attitude to time and space is changing: the animal lives in the "here and now", while a person is open both to what lies beyond the horizon of his vision and to the future, i.e. to what doesn't exist yet. Gehlen develops his own theory of drives, which he always speaks of in the plural (Antriebe). A person has only “remnants of instincts”, but there is not a single instinct that would determine this or that behavior. Almost automatic actions can also be caused by non-biologically determined needs and interests. All drives crystallize in the process of upbringing and previous activity, and none of them is "purely" natural - they are all given to us in communication with other people and in a situation that always includes both the "outer" and "inner" world. . Not only does a person live in the world, but the world also penetrates into a person, and this is always the world of culture. Since the instinctive regulation of behavior has disappeared from us, an “excess” of excitation appears. Energy, which was previously directed by instincts, is now directed to conquer the world with the mind and hands of man. Man appears in Gehlen as Prometheus, capable of creating his own world, but this is only the reverse side of his “insufficiency”. Moreover, human existence is always “risky”, “unsafe”: having lost his instincts, a person must constantly coordinate changes in external and internal states, and an excess of stimuli leads to a chaos of impressions. Some of them need to be contained and suppressed for the sake of others. The stability of thinking and activity is possible only due to the "unloading" of consciousness from excessive impressions, the selection of incoming data. An animal is naturally harmonious, a person must create harmony himself and overcome the threat of chaos, he is a task for himself.

The ordering of experience is achieved both through language and conceptual thinking, and with the help of social institutions. As soon as they weaken, and human behavior becomes primitive, he begins to follow immediate stimuli and impressions. Theories that portray man as a being subject to instincts reflect not the eternal nature of man, but the current situation of the collapse of the traditional institutions of the family, religion, property, morality, etc. Different groups of needs autonomize and come into conflict with others, taking possession of a person's consciousness as a kind of blind attraction. A person has no innate "checks and balances", he does not know the limit in the manifestation of his aspirations. In a society where institutions are collapsing, "atomic aggressiveness" immediately declares itself, acquiring the character of "the struggle of all against all." It does not exist in the animal world and we attribute to animals those features that characterize a person of a certain era.

Institutions give stability to our psyche, and even mental health depends on the strength of institutions - they protect us from ourselves. They are necessary already in order for a person to have an identity: “A person does not know who and what he is, and therefore he cannot realize himself directly, he must mediate himself through institutions” ( Moral and Hypermoral. Eine Pluralistische Ethik. Athenaum, F.a.M. – Bonn, 1969). The human personality itself is defined by Gehlen as "an institution in the singular." Culture is “natural” for a person, and its crisis leads to the primitivization of behavior and to barbarism, which are direct consequences of the rejection of tradition, the collapse of the system of norms and rules. Gehlen developed these ideas in a number of works - First Man and Late Culture, Morality and hypermorality, Soul in the tech age and others. Institutions appear in them as the "grammar and syntax" of social life, which give stability to both individual and social life. Pre-industrial societies had stability, because in them tradition permeated all areas of life. They also had something beyond question, and this created the basis for mutual agreement. In an industrial society, the isolated system of instrumental action begins to destroy the tradition. Modern culture, already at the intellectual level, bombards a person with a multitude of incoherent data that he does not have time to process, and thus making a meaningful decision is difficult. Release from the burden of heavy physical labor (“by the sweat of one’s brow”) leads to the fact that a person has nowhere to put the released energy, and the consumer society does not know higher goals and is “freed” from prohibitions and norms. The result is the "terrifying naturalness" of man, the primitivization of his appearance. The man of the modern world requires asceticism (“not as a sacrifitium, but as a disciplina”), since he is forced to education, discipline and self-discipline by the very conditions of his existence. He is brought up by others, he belongs to the culture with its prohibitions, he forms himself. And this means that he needs to restrain one attraction for the sake of another, to control his behavior, which is impossible without stable institutions. Today they are in crisis, and therefore “law is becoming extensible, art is becoming nervous, religion is sentimental”, and “buffoons, dilettantes and irresponsible intellectuals” with reckless madness will destroy the remnants of this foundation ( Einblicke, Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 7.). In the sociological works of Gehlen, the problems of industrial society are developed; he put forward the concept of "post-history", which had a significant impact on the discussions of the 1980-1990s. In Gehlen's political journalism, a "sociology of intellectuals" is developing, directed primarily against the Frankfurt School. In the 1960s, Gehlen became the leading exponent of German technocratic neo-conservatism.

Compositions: Gesamtausgabe, bd. 1-10 Frankfurt am Main, 1978

Alexey Rutkevich

Biography

Gehlen's main influences were Hans Driesch, Nikolai Hartmann and, in particular, Max Scheler. He belonged to the Leipzig School of Sociology.

Key Ideas

Anthropology

The main work of Gehlen, devoted to the issues of philosophical anthropology - "Man, his nature and position in the world" (1940). Continuing the tradition of Scheler and Plesner, Gehlen is at the same time more radical. He seeks to break completely with the metaphysical tradition. This reflects the influence exerted on Gehlen by American pragmatism.

Gehlen's approach is largely biological. Describing a person with the help of Herder's metaphor of "a flawed person", Gehlen asks himself the question: how can such a being as a person be able to survive? According to Gehlen, a person (unlike an animal) cannot survive in the natural environment, his instincts are reduced. It is overloaded with information overload ("overload").

From this insufficiency, Gehlen seeks to derive all the phenomena of human existence. "Excessive load" calls for the need for "psychological unloading". This task is performed by ensuring, according to Gehlen, human survival. Institutions are a substitute for reduced instincts.

Man is an active being, actively shaping his environment. In this activity, a person creates culture as a means of his own survival.

Sociology

Gehlen held conservative views. His sociological project is based on his understanding of man as flawed and active at the same time. Since human instincts are reduced, his activity is determined not by instincts, but by society. All human inclinations are formed socially in the process of education, and are not purely natural.

A variety of motives and needs are added to the remnants of human instincts. Man is able to create his own world. This ability is the flip side of insufficiency. Experience is ordered in a person with the help of language and with the help of social institutions.

Social institutions give stability to the human psyche. They are necessary to give a person a certain identity and perform the function of "mental relief". Man cannot realize himself directly. He must always mediate his activity by institutions. Therefore, it is impossible to speak of a "natural" person, existing separately from culture.

According to Gehlen, social institutions operated most effectively in an archaic society. They performed all their functions of compensating for the insufficiency of human nature. However, in modern times, human subjectivity comes to the fore. A person lives in a state of chronic reflection, is in a situation of choice. He is constantly trying to form his identity, while earlier this identity was initially set.

Aesthetics

One of Gehlen's later works, Pictures of Time, is devoted to contemporary art. Contemporary art for Gehlen is an example of human subjectivation. Artists create a language that is incomprehensible to an inexperienced viewer. Art becomes extremely rational and reflective. It is fundamentally fragmentary, is in the process of becoming and is not rooted in tradition.

Ethics

Gehlen's work "Moral and hypermorality" is devoted to ethics. In it, Gehlen criticizes the ethics of "humanitarianism", the ethics of accepting other cultures (multiculturalism). Such an ethic for Gehlen means the Europeans are losing their own identity. Intellectuals who preach this kind of ethic "demand unlimited freedom for themselves and equality for everyone else".

Selected writings

• Valid and invalid spirit, 1931
• free will theory, 1932
• State and philosophy, 1932
• Human. His nature and position in the world (Dermensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt), 1940
• Primitive Man and Late Culture (Urmensch und Spätkultur. Philosophische Ergebnisse und Aussagen), 1956
• The Soul in the Tech Age (Die Seele im technischen Zeitalter), 1957
• Pictures of time. On the sociology and aesthetics of modern painting, 1960
• Morality and hypermorality (Moral and Hypermoral. Eine pluralistische Ethik), 1969

Editions of essays

• Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 1-10 Frankfurt am Main, 1978

Publications in Russian

Links

Categories:

• Personalities in alphabetical order
• January 29
• Born in 1904
• Born in Leipzig
• Deceased January 30
• Deceased in 1976
• Deceased in Hamburg
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• Philosophers of Germany
• Sociologists in Germany
• Philosophical anthropology
• Members of the NSDAP

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See what "Gehlen, Arnold" is in other dictionaries:

- (Gehlen) (1904 1976), German philosopher. One of the founders of philosophical anthropology as a special philosophical discipline ("Man. His nature and position in the world", 1940). * * * GELEN Arnold GELEN (Gehlen) Arnold (1904 76), German philosopher ... encyclopedic Dictionary

GELEN (Arnold)- German philosopher (Leipzig, 1904 Hamburg, 1976). In "The Theory of Free Will" he carries out a strict reflexive thought based on Fichte, then in the essay "Man, his nature and his place in the universe" (1940) the social anthropology of the functionalist ... Philosophical Dictionary

German philosopher and sociologist, one of the classics of philosophical anthropology. In 1925 1926 he attended lectures by Scheler and N. Hartmann in Cologne. In 1927 he defended his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of H. Driesch. Since 1930, H. Fryer's assistant at the Sociological ... ...

- (German Gehlen; Greek Ἕλενος; Dutch Geleen): Gehlen is a character of ancient Greek mythology Gehlen, Arnold (1904 1976) German philosopher and sociologist Gehlen, Reinhard (1902 1979) Major General of the Wehrmacht, founder of the Organization ... ... Wikipedia

- (Gelen) Arnold (1904 1976) German. philosopher and sociologist. He studied philosophy in Leipzig and Cologne, a student of G. Driesch. Since 1934 prof. in Leipzig, from 1938 in Cologne, from 1940 in Vienna. Since 1942 prof. sociology at the Higher School of Management Science, since 1962 at the Higher ... ... Encyclopedia of cultural studies

- (Gehlen) Arnold (1904 1976) German. philosopher, one of the founders of philosophical anthropology. Main works: “Man. His nature and his position in the world" (1944); "Anthropological Research" (1964), "The Soul in the Technical Age" (1964), etc. In ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (Gehlen) Arnold (January 29, 1904, Leipzig 01/30/1976, Hamburg) German philosopher and sociologist, one of the founders of philosophical anthropology as a special discipline. Disciple X. Drisha. He was influenced by Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, N. Hartmann, phenomenology, etc ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

- (1904 76) German philosopher, one of the founders of philosophical anthropology as a special philosophical discipline (Man. His nature and position in the world, 1940) ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Gehlen) Arnold (1904 1976) German philosopher and sociologist, one of the classics of philosophical anthropology. In 1925 1926 he attended lectures by Scheler and N. Hartmann in Cologne. In 1927 he defended his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of H. Driesch. Since 1930 assistant ... ... History of Philosophy: Encyclopedia

- (Gehlen) Arnold (1904 1976) German philosopher, one of the founders of philosophical anthropology. University professor in Leipzig (since 1934), Cologne (1938 1940), Vienna (1940 1942), Speyre (since 1947), professor at the Higher Technical School in Aachen (since 1962) ... The latest philosophical dictionary