The emergence of Christianity inverted a philosophical understanding of the problem of man - instead of being one of the elements of the universe, as was the case for antiquity, he began to occupy a specific place given to him by God himself. On the one hand, it was created by God for a special mission, on the other hand, it was separated from it due to the fall. Thus, the theological thought of the first centuries of our era represents the essence of man in a dualistic manner, split. The Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages was dominated by the doctrine that divine and human nature coincide in the image of Christ. Christ became a man, not ceasing to be God, and at the same time, each person, by virtue of communion with grace, draws near to Christ.
This unique place in Cosmos, between the vale of sorrow and God, became for the thinkers of the Renaissance the very “microcosm”, which, they believed, was directly related to the macrocosm (and pantheism and Christian mysticism coincided in this). Believing that no one and nothing can compare with a person, both Nikolai Kuzansky, Paracelsus, and Boehme stated that "macrocosm and microcosm are one essence." However, the new European rationalism in a different way raised the question of what the essence of man is. From the time of Descartes, the ability to think has been at the forefront of this definition, because rationalism sees all the specifics of human existence in the mind. If Descartes at the same time saw in the connection between the physical and spiritual components a certain psychophysical parallelism, then Leibniz considered them inseparable. Thanks to La Mettrie, the Age of Enlightenment gave us such an aphorism as “man-machine”, since the French philosopher believed that the soul is identical to consciousness, which responds to external and internal stimuli.
In the XVIII century, the problem "what is the essence of man, what is he, " became one of the main philosophical questions. For example, Kant proceeds from a dualistic understanding of rational being, relating to different "universes" - natural and moral necessity. He calls physiology everything that nature makes of man, and pragmatism - what this intelligent creature does or is able to make of itself. However, other representatives of classical German philosophy took the Renaissance view as an example (for example, Herder, Goethe, supporters of the "natural philosophy of romanticism"). Herder said that man is the first freedman of nature, because his feelings are not as regulated as in animals and can create culture, and Novalis even called history an applied anthropology.
In Hegel’s philosophy, the Spirit leaves nature from the moment a rational being appears. The essence of man according to Hegel is self-understanding of the Absolute Idea. At first, she realizes herself as subjective (anthropology, phenomenology, psychology); then - as objective (law, morality, state); and finally, as the absolute Spirit (art, religion and philosophy). With the creation of the latter, the history of the development of the Idea ends, and the spirit, as it were, returns to itself, according to the law of the negation of negation. In general, German philosophy of this period believes that people are subjects of spiritual activity, which creates a world of culture, carriers of a common ideal and rational principle.
Already Feuerbach, criticizing Hegel, understands man as a sensual-bodily being. Marxism, however, approaches the explanation of the natural and social in “homo sapiens” on the basis of the principle of dialectical materialistic monism, seeing in it a product and a subject of social and labor activity. The main thing is the social essence of man, since he represents the totality of all social relations, said Marx. The 19th century enriched anthropology with irrational concepts, highlighting essences and forces that lie outside of thinking (feelings, will, etc.). Priority in this area, Nietzsche considers the game of vitality and emotions, and not consciousness and reason. Kirkjegor sees the most basic thing in the act of will, where, in fact, the birth of man takes place, and thanks to which the natural being becomes a spiritual being.
The biosocial essence of man is not seen as a popular idea for the twentieth century, because thinkers of the modern era are primarily concerned with the problem of personality, in connection with which many areas of the philosophy of our time are called personalistic. According to them, human being cannot be reduced to any fundamental basis. Discarding both social and mechanistic approaches, existentialism and personalism separate the concepts of individuality (as part of nature and the social whole) and personality (unique spiritual self-determination) in different directions. The ideas of the “philosophy of life” (Dilthey) and phenomenology (Husserl) formed the basis of philosophical anthropology as a separate trend (Scheler, Plesner, Gehlen, “Rothakker culturology, etc.). Although the representatives of Freudianism and related schools are characterized by a naturalistic approach.
