S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 1 S p r i n g 2 0 2 2 4 3 Jaroslava Vydrová 1 Introduction Religion, and the related experience of spiritual kind, are of natural interest of anthropologists. This is partly due to the forms and variations of religion in different cultures, but also due to the specificity of the human perspective that accompanies religious experience. In the following study, we will focus on the analysis of spirituality [1] within the framework of philosophical anthropology, which has been developed since the 1930s in Germany, specifically by Helmuth Plessner. The reason for the choice of such a thematization is twofold: first, it is due to Plessner’s conception of so-called “excentric positionality”. For this interesting figure or function of experience, human action and expressions offer a concrete, individual view of the structure of experience that considers its specificity and uniqueness. Related to this is the potential contemporary application of Plessner’s project, since the conditions of his philosophy are open and do not derive from ontological, ethical, theological, or cultural premises. Rather, they seek an appropriate – and attentive –approach to the human being in his or her experience and insight into the relevant configuration of experience. The second reason has to do with the fact that Plessner’s philosophy is currently experiencing a revival of interest, which can be traced in the developing discourse of Plessner studies, which is related to the translation of Plessner’s texts into English, as well as to the rich thematic scope of his philosophy. In general, philosophical anthropology relates to the work of its three main representatives – Max Scheler, Helmuth Plessner and Arnold Gehlen. However, the inspirational backgrounds as well as further elaborations of philosophical anthropology are richer: there is the philosophy of life, phenomenology, and the philosophy of biology, as well as intersections with related human and social disciplines. Philosophical anthropologists ask what man’s place in the world is, the human perspective, the view of man through his own eyes. In doing so, they consider both his biological imperfection and his agency in cultural evolution. In what sense? About the author Jaroslava Vydrová, PhD., teaches philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Trnava University and is Editor-in-Chief of the Ostium journal. She is also a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and a member of the Executive Board of Central and East European Society for Phenomenology. Her latest works deal with issues of intertwining of phenomenology and philosophical anthropology, human expressivity in particular. She is available at jaroslava. vydrova@truni.sk. ← ← Helmuth Plessner
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