Symposium 2012 on the topic: The Anthropological Turn

Organizers:

The Philosophical Society of Zurich and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Zurich (Prof. Dr Hans-Johann Glock)

Keynote Speakers:

• Judith Burkart (Universität Zürich)
• Julien Deonna (Université de Genève)
• Hans Sluga (University of California at Berkeley)
• Gianfranco Soldati (Université de Fribourg)
• Martin Meyer (Universität Zürich)
• Markus Wild (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin)

In the German-speaking world, the term philosophical anthropology is used primarily to refer to the school founded by Scheler. However, over the past ten years, philosophy has witnessed a much broader and internationally oriented anthropological turn.

This development has been shaped both by developments within philosophy itself — for example, the rise of the philosophy of mind — and by empirical disciplines such as evolutionary theory, neuroscience, behavioural research, and artificial intelligence. Certain abilities that were once considered exclusively human are now also attributed to animals, computers, or robots.

This has led to a general crisis in humanity’s self-understanding. Moreover, considering that new medical technologies allow many parts of the human body to be replaced by prostheses or implants, the question of what constitutes the truly human has become even more pressing.

The new debate addresses classical themes such as anthropological constants and anthropological or human–animal differences, as well as novel challenges such as the idea of the transhuman or posthuman. It also concerns methodological issues, including the relationship between philosophical and empirical anthropology and the status of anthropology within philosophy.

The symposium aims to examine these and other questions from as many methodological and disciplinary perspectives as possible.