Dr. Dr. Çetin TAN, Editor, Amelie L. CHICO, Editor
2025
The question of what it means to be human has persisted as one of the most enduring inquiries of philosophy, anthropology, and education. From Max Scheler’s and Takiyettin Mengüşoğlu’s efforts to redefine humanity through philosophical anthropology, to Karl Jaspers’s insistence on communication as the ground of authentic existence, the search for the human essence continues to inform contemporary intellectual life. In the twentieth century, these inquiries became increasingly urgent as humanity faced new challenges brought by science, technology, and modern social structures—yet the central problem of the “human” remained timeless. This volume seeks to carry forward that intellectual trajectory by bringing together studies that examine humanity not only from philosophical but also from psychological, educational, and applied perspectives. The first set of contributions revisits the foundations of philosophical anthropology, analyzing Scheler’s ontological distinction between the psycho-vital and the spiritual, alongside Mengüşoğlu’s ontology-based critique that insists on the integrity of concrete human existence. In doing so, they highlight both the promise and the limits of anthropological theories in capturing the essence of humanity.
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