Portmann’s View on Anthropological Difference
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F62690094%3A18460%2F21%3A50018366" target="_blank" >RIV/62690094:18460/21:50018366 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67810-4_7" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67810-4_7</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67810-4_7" target="_blank" >10.1007/978-3-030-67810-4_7</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Portmann’s View on Anthropological Difference
Original language description
The most influential of Portmann’s concepts up to the present is his characterization of early human ontogeny as secondarily altricial. This finding is coupled with the thesis of a social womb: human children are born prematurely in comparison with other primates, and they find a second womb in a social environment nurturing their healthy development. In Portmann’s view, the interconnection of these phenomena forms a basis for the specific position of humans with regards to other forms of life. It is during the first year of extra-uterine life when a specifically human form is acquired in basic charts: it is a triad of an upright posture, linguistic utterances, and rational thought that together constitutes the core of anthropological difference. Although Portmann’s position has strong ties to the tradition of philosophical anthropology (H. Plessner, A. Gehlen; humans as beings “open to the world”; critical stance towards Darwinian reductionism), his ambition was to put together the basis for an even more basal and comprehensive account of human beings, which would unite biological, social, cultural, and philosophical aspects. Even though his programme of basal anthropology did not succeed in its original scope, Portmann’s concept of a social womb remains a source for valuable insights into the specificity of processes in human history and a point of departure for any comparisons between the social lives of humans and animal species.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/GA19-11571S" target="_blank" >GA19-11571S: Adolf Portmann: a pioneer of the eidetic and semiotic approach in the philosophy of the life sciences</a><br>
Continuities
P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)
Others
Publication year
2021
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
Adolf Portmann: A Thinker of Self-Expressive Life
ISBN
978-3-030-67809-8
Number of pages of the result
24
Pages from-to
119-142
Number of pages of the book
273
Publisher name
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Place of publication
Cham
UT code for WoS chapter
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