New anthology on early modern anthropologies

The old question of what man is was re-posed in many ways by Humanism, the Reformation, the Renaissance and Scholasticism, although the historical references to Antiquity and the Middle Ages remained formative. In school philosophy, the human being was viewed in its entirety of body and soul. On the one hand, this strengthened the physiological view and on the other hand made the question of the connection between the two urgent. In theology, man became the crystallisation point of denominational debates between Catholics, Protestants and dissidents. How man stands in relation to God, i.e. under what anthropological conditions the salvation event is realised, became the determining question and separated the denominations from each other. The medicine of the Renaissance, on the other hand, which on the one hand newly received the Greek authorities and on the other hand elevated empiricism to a principle, placed the anatomy of man at the beginning of its activity. In jurisprudence, finally, but also in theology, the question of the legal status of all human beings, even in colonised areas, became increasingly urgent with the colonisation of the world. The consequence of all these developments was a strong differentiation of the image of man compared to the Middle Ages.

In order to do justice to the diversity of these anthropologies, the ten contributions in the anthology offer inter- or transdisciplinary approaches from philosophy, theology, medicine, jurisprudence, history of science and literature. The volume is the result of the conference of the same name, which took place from 16 to 18 March 2016 at the Gotha Research Library of the University of Erfurt. It could be realised thanks to the generous financial support of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.