On Three Philosophical Reactions to the Crisis of Humanism

The article reveals the essence of three philosophical strategies of modern philosophy concerning the reactions to the crisis of humanism. The author distinguishes, on the one hand, the Western philosophical tradition and, on the other, the Russian one, which proceed from a different understanding of man. The amplitude of Western European philosophy is set by humanism and posthumanism, that is, on the one hand, the understanding of man as the center of a world and a being whose exceptional dignity is reason, as well as the ability to be the measure of all things, and on the other hand, recognition of the ontological equality between human and nonhuman. The article shows that both lines of thought have a common source, and posthumanism is not opposed to humanism but, on the contrary, is its hyperbolized version. "Humanization" within the framework of posthumanism is not denied but extends to the entire extrahuman sphere. Thus, the person, according to this point of view, is deprived of a privileged ontological status. Simultaneously, the article highlights the dual nature of the declared anti humanistic movement in Western thought. Some authors are inclined to a new formulation of the question of man, while others are inclined to overcome the question of man in philosophy. Understanding of man in the Russian philosophical tradition is beyond logic; it is the struggle of anti-anthropocentrism with anthropocentrism. The criticism of humanism in this case is based on the idea of man in the perspective of the idea of God-humanity. Man is understood not as a pretender to the center of the world but as one whose metaphysical constitution is set by God. If the idea of ontological equality of man and the world turns out to be the mainstream of modern Western philosophy, then modern Russian thought is characterized by the philosophy of inequality and the understanding of man as different from the world.