Anthropological form as an implication of human phenomenon

Abstract

This article attempts to answer the question What is a man? on the basis of the philosophical-anthropological discourse. Since science prefers the objectified style of thinking, it sees a man as a biosocial creature. Contemporary analytical philosophy, claiming to be scientific, tries to explain human consciousness in terms of neurons. According to the author, strong scientific character cannot be considered as a claim to philosophical anthropology so long as the essence of man cannot be objectified. Is should be mentioned that something not exposed to objectification implies an assumption of human freedom. Accordingly, this assumption and a statement that the essence of human phenomenon lies within human consciousness are the initial conditions of anthropological discourse. Thus, author sets up a hypothesis: man is a creature that requires a form.

The author consecutively develops two main research hypotheses: 1) Man is a subjectivity in need of a form; 2) Anthropological form is the Absolute. For this purpose she divides concepts of consciousness and subjectivity, associating the first as an order and the second as a chaos. She also implements the idea of anthropological form, emphasizing its establishing function.

What is a form? If an initial anthropological element is a chaos of irreflective reactions, marks of subjectivity, finite infinity - because a man is immanent and at the same time transcendent towards the world, a form is infinity assembled as something finite. A form gives an opportunity to present infinity of conditions in a form of a single whole. It does not keep finiteness and ignorance for man, contrary to the opinion of Mamardashvili, but solves the problem of ignorance through infinite, absolute knowledge. A form is something that is capable of making a finite man to master infinity. It transforms anthropological element significantly. The result of this transformation is consciousness, which connects and structures primary and final states in terms of their potential, not actuality. It delivers the whole. Consciousness as a whole, world as a whole. And since a man has its limits, form can exist under a condition of multiplicity.

What makes this cohesion possible? The axial center, the primary prohibition, which creates hierarchy. It draws non-reflex reactions into a vortex of subjectivity, forming the profundity of consciousness. This primary center is fundamentally solitary, for only the absolute centre can give birth to a structure. At this point it is completely different from the structure as a whole. Like the «one» in Pythagorean theory, which stands out while being the condition of all other numbers. Absolute centre as a condition of structure is negative, has a sense of exclusion, introducing primary differentiation to the monotonicity of infinity. Foucault would say that it is the line of insuperable. This line of insuperable is something that causes man.

A form must not abolish chaos, but imbibe it like a drain box, saving its possibility and necessity, because without the chaos of freedom there is no human phenomenon. Here it is more appropriate to interpret it not in terms of «uncertainty» and «ignorance cells» (Mamardashvily), but by means of elasticity and maximum intimacy. The Christian tradition explains the connection between man and God using biblical images of manna from heaven and the robes of the Jews, who wandered in the desert for 40 years. Manna from heaven was singular, but could satisfy all the Jews and meet the unique needs of every single man. The Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years, yet their robes always fitted them. It is the same when it comes to connection with God. God is one, yet he is able to fulfill the intimate and unique movements of the human heart. This image delivers the understanding of maximum agility and universality of anthropological form, which does not imply the existence of idle anthropological space.

The universality of form means its application to everyone, as it is the outcome of multiplicity. The uniqueness of form means it provides anthropological multitude with general guidelines, thus creating the opportunity for understanding and co-existing.

Anthropological form doesn’t adjust the content, it creates one. It does not deal with quiddity, but it gives one. Like the skill in dancing gives us a marvel of dancing. The burst of rhythm and sound is not enough to give birth to a dance. A dance is something that requires the knowledge of patterns and rules to control the body. Only with the rules a burst trans-formes in an image. Just like that, subjectivity without a form is paralyzed, it is the languish of incomplete conditions. There is a fundamental difference between subjectivity and consciousness, much like the one between emotional impulse and artistic image, between heart trembling and poetry, between indignation and reflection, between a modern girl and a girl from Turgenev’s novel, between capricious desire and love, between nothing and something, because subjectivity is initially an interminable chain of conditions closed on themselves. A form opens up these conditions uniting them into a cohesive whole. It continues every move of the heart, reveals maximum of its power, provides it with a meaning. Actualization of a form taken in its entirety creates subjectivity as consciousness. Subjectivity thirsts for a form like an observer of a dance thirsts for dancing himself. Without a form subjectivity is doomed to particularity.

If a man is a creature, which needs a form, a question arises: what can this form be? What meets the requirements of universality, plasticity, uniqueness, centering and human freedom? The Absolut does, as only the Absolute is capable of imbibing the non-quantitative infinity of subjectivity and disclose the transcendent horizon. In this vein we can say that God is consciousness.

Philosophical anthropological formula «God is consciousness» does not mean the identity of God and consciousness. It means that consciousness for the first time and at its maximum presented itself as God. God as a total form knows more than a man actually knows. Sees more than man sees. The form as a potentiality of man, as a man, considered through the perspective of infinity and its own possibility. It is a horizon, which enables man to create something potentially given to him. From the anthropological perspective, God is like straightened human heart taken in the absolute. God is potentiality, which remains tight in a man but can be released. It is the result of self-establishment of consciousness.

In this article the author also dwells upon an analysis of Foucault’s and Deleuze’s conception of a man as a temporary form. He also mentions the subject of a child’s subjectivity and of attitude to the form in Russian culture.