The Institution of Life in Gehlen and Merleau‑Ponty: Searching for the Common Ground for the Anthropological Difference

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15510%2F18%3A73592467" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15510/18:73592467 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10746-018-9469-5" target="_blank" >https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10746-018-9469-5</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10746-018-9469-5" target="_blank" >10.1007/s10746-018-9469-5</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Institution of Life in Gehlen and Merleau‑Ponty: Searching for the Common Ground for the Anthropological Difference

Original language description

The goal of our article is to review the widespread anthropological figure, according to which we can achieve a better understanding of humans by contrasting them with animals. This originally Herderian approach was elaborated by Arnold Gehlen, who characterized humans as “deficient beings” who become complete through culture. According to Gehlen, humans, who are insufficiently equipped by instincts, indirectly stabilize their existence by creating institutions, i.e., complexes of habitual actions. On the other hand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty shows that corporeal relationship to the world is already indirect because it is based on preestablished and readjusted “standards” or “norms” of interaction with the environment. Merleau-Ponty then calls these norms “institutions” and views culture as readjustment of institutions which operate already on the level of corporeal existence. The anthropological figure of confronting humans and animals thus cannot produce, as in Gehlen, a contrast between an allegedly “direct” relationship to the world in animals and a supposedly “indirect” relationship to the world in humans. The Herderian approach can be meaningfully retained only if interpreted as an invitation to confront the norms of indirect interaction with the world in animals and in people, that is, if viewed as a comparison of their respective institutions.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA16-19311S" target="_blank" >GA16-19311S: Models of bodily experience in the theoretical foundations of experiential education and its kinanthropological context</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2018

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Human Studies

ISSN

0163-8548

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

2018 (41)

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

24

Pages from-to

371-394

UT code for WoS article

000443560500002

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85047960827