The Relation Between Man and World
Human identity has traditionally been defined by way of juxtaposing man and world in a static and substantialist manner. This approach implies a false idealism in terms of ontology and creates a misleading sense of exclusivism in terms of anthropology. The relation between man and world can only be properly understood on the basis of transcendental realism, a position that acknowledges the interdependence of self-experience and world-experience in the sense of Realdialektik. Anthropology and ontology are indeed two sides of the same coin. Referring to discourses of phenomenology and transcendental philosophy, the paper analyzes the ontological dialectic of man and world, including the cosmological dimension, offers a critique of the traditional “anthropocentric” approach, and reflects on the civilizational impact of a comprehensive “ontological anthropology.”