Apostaten der Natur

Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985) is seen as one of the most prominent representatives of philosophical anthropology. With his theory of the eccentric positionality of man and the thesis of his basic inscrutability ( homo absconditus), he developed a concept which can throw light upon the bodily-natural and the spiritual-historical dimension. The experience of non-identity with oneself is of central importance for Plessner. As a result of the »real break« (Plessner) in human beings, experiences of freedom and power but also of ambivalence and fragmentary existence are newly permeated and illuminated. Ralf Meyer-Hansen reconstructs this concept as an anthropology of difference and shows that Plessner's anthropological criticism of religion not only presents a challenge to theology but that this concept also stimulates a new definition of faith and doubt, autonomy and theonomy, politics and religion.