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    Published: 2020-03-31
    Vol. 56 No. 1 (2020)

    Between an absolute subject and an indefinite being. About anti-humanistic sources of contemporary culture

    Sylwester Warzyński
    Studia Philosophiae Christianae
    Section: Papers
    https://doi.org/10.21697/spch.2020.56.1.05

    Abstract

    This paper is an attempt to identify the sources of contemporary culture. The author argues that at its bottom we can find a form of antihuman thinking. Such thinking derives from the perspective of „the death of a man”, his indefinite being, but also from the perspective of the modern cogito, the absolutized subject who becomes a special kind of foundation, the ultimate subject of reality. In the first part of the paper, the author describes in detail the contemporary understanding of human being, according to which man as a thinking, cognizing, self-aware, and rational subject assigns himself the role of a modern sovereign, a Demiurge, the only legislator and architect of a new, truly human world. In accordance with the meaning of the word „subject”, man thus becomes the „ultimate foundation” of reality. In the second part of the paper, however, the author argues that the absolutization of the subject, which assigns him more and more powers, leads to his undermining and negation. Taking into account the views of philosophers such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, he shows that the negation of the Cartesian cogito, or the „death” of a specific vision of man as a subject, leads to the thought that man becomes an indefinite being. In the third part of the paper, the author explains that both modern and post-modern thinking are influenced by antihuman thinking, which in both cases results in an unrealistic view of human beings. The author speaks of the „antihumanism of Lord and master”, and „antihumanism of the loosened up” and argues that these are the bedrock of modern humanism.
    Lastly, the author shows that the understanding of the role of the subject during the last centuries was built on a very simple opposition - everything or nothing. Since it is not true that the subject is completely rational, transparent, and that he is an autonomous master of himself, he must disappear, he must be forgotten. Hence, the idea of „man’s death”. In this context, taking into account the intuition of the French philosopher Chantal Delsol, the author attempts to break out the aporia between a modern, absolute, and self-sufficient subject, and a postmodern subject that does not actually exist. The author expresses the need for a realistic view of man as the only way to establish a truly humanistic culture.

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    Received: 08/11/2019. Reviewed: 14/12/2019. Accepted: 11/01/2020

    Keywords:

    subject, man as a subject, „death of man”, modernity, postmodernity, antihumanism, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Delsol, realism

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    Citation rules

    Warzyński, S. (2020). Between an absolute subject and an indefinite being. About anti-humanistic sources of contemporary culture. Studia Philosophiae Christianae, 56(1), 103–134. https://doi.org/10.21697/spch.2020.56.1.05

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