Exploring the Core Identity of Philosophical Anthropology through the Works of Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner, and Arnold Gehlen Joachim Fischer Abstract: “Philosophical Anthropology,” which is reconstructed here, does not deal with anthropology as a philosophical subdiscipline but rather as a particular philosophical approach within twentieth-cen- tury German philosophy, connected with thinkers such as Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner and Arnold Gehlen. This paper attempts a more precise description of the core identity of Philosophical Anthropology as a paradigm, observes the diferences between the authors within the paradigm, and diferentiates the paradigm as a whole from other twentieth-century philosophical approaches, such as transcendental phi- losophy, evolutionary theory or naturalism, existentialism, and hermeneutic philosophy. In determining the human being as “excentric positionality,” Philosophical Anthropology arrives at unique categorical intertwinings between the biological, social and cultural sciences. The initial state of afairs can be summarized as follows: from the late 1920s onwards various texts have cropped up under the heading of “philosophical anthropology.” Max Scheler’s Man’s Place in Nature (1928), 1 Helmuth Plessner’s Man and the Stages of the Organic (1928), 2 and – with a slightly later publica- tion date – Arnold Gehlen’s Man: His Nature and Place in the World (1940), 3 are commonly attributed to this phenomenon in the history of philosophy. That “philosophical anthropology” exists is clear, but what distinguishes a text as following a speci ically philosophical-anthropological argument? 4 Though 1 M. Scheler, Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos, Darmstadt: Reichl, 1928; [Man’s Place in Nature, trans. H. Meyerhof, Boston: Beacon Press, 1961]. 2 H. Plessner, Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie (1928), Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1975. 3 A. Gehlen, Der Mensch. Seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt, in K.-S. Rehberg (ed.), Arnold- Gehlen-Gesamtausgabe, Textkritische Edition unter Einbeziehung des gesamten Textes der 1. Aulage von 1940, vol. 3, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1950/1993; [Man: His Nature and Place in the World, trans. C. McMillan and K. Pillemer, New York: Columbia University Press, 1988]. 4 In what follows it is important to keep in mind the diferentiation between “philosophical anthropology” as a subdiscipline and “Philosophical Anthropology” as a paradigm. Two distinct things have emerged since 1928: on the one hand, a new subdiscipline of philosophical Iris, ISSN 2036-3257, I, 1 April 2009, p. 153-170 © Firenze University Press