Introduction

In the light of a heightened sense of contingency and vulnerability, a pronounced uncertainty has set in since the late twentieth century about human nature and, hence, the image of the human being. This has been fuelled further by the recognition of the inherent ambiguity of these concepts. Awareness of the precariousness of our assumptions about what human beings are like has not only affected intellectuals, prompting philosophers and social scientists to embark on a searching interrogation, but has also penetrated into the policymaking and the public domain. While philosophers and social scientists may still be able, during the process of reflection, to maintain a sense of the difficulty and even impossibility of finding something to take the place of these problematic assumptions, the reaction of many who feel the need for a more secure foundation is to fix on a particular interpretation. The sources of such interpretations are diverse, and as a result we are witnesses to a proliferation of polarization and conflict at a variety of levels in contemporary society – between science and religion, secularists and believers, North and South, winners and losers of globalization, the West and Islamism, and so forth.

Under these conditions, the old question of philosophical anthropology has made a strong reappearance. This event is accompanied by the urgent demand to come to a better understanding of its core problematic and how the latter could possibly relate to the contemporary situation, particularly to the polarization and conflicts of our time. Answering this call is what I propose to undertake in the following paragraphs.