«Chelovekoznaniye» (Knowledge of Man) of B. G. Ananiyev on the Background of Philosophic Anthropology

Abstract

Chelovekoznaniye of B. G. Ananiyev, «a plan of XXI psychology», belongs to that area of knowledge which borders and even intersects philosophy. It is the area of «psychological anthropology», the area of attempts to come to wider definitions of its object, and these are older than the «scientific» psychology itself, that counts down from W. Wundt. Traditionally it was philosophic anthropology that was concerned with the essence of «man and human society» and the idea of chelovekoznaniye essentially presupposed the orientation to the content of philosophic-anthropological reflexion. As B. G. Ananiyev relied only on the «dialectico-materialistic teaching» as a branch of philosophic thought grown from the German classical philosophy the philosophic-anthropological basis of his enterprise inevitably remained limited and narrowed on the background of both historical and modern forms of the world philosophic thought. The modern significance of this «plan of XXI psychology» could not be valued without investigating it on this background. The philosophic anthropology from the beginning of XX century has lived through many transformations. First of all, there was a galactic explosion: it has broken into an infinite number of anthropologies — political, cultural, social, pedagogical, religious. This process does not come to an end. The differentiation of philosophic-anthropological knowledge continues in the form of different approaches of the non-classical anthropology. The history of unsuccessful search of human nature and essence has shown that «the human is not given as nature but is made as project «. Human projects are molded, constructed, created. They are «man-made», created by means of cultural practices. The modern non-classical anthropology is interested in mass, socially significant trends, more than that, the trends which being followed do change radically the way of life of man, his identity. Being such «experiments on oneself» (transtrends) which lead to leaving the historical scene by man and , которые, по сути дела, направлены на уход человека с исторической сцены и replacing him with a close, but different being.