Eccentric positionality
Eccentric positionality is a term coined by Helmuth Plessner in philosophical anthropology . It describes the position of man in the world and his mutual relationship to his animate and inanimate environment. Plessner sees eccentric positionality as a fundamental characteristic of all people, it should not be confused with the special characteristic of eccentricity .
With the term positionality , Plessner expresses the fact that all living beings are placed in an environment , positioned. All living beings are determined by a limit to their environment, they are "limit-realizing beings". Inorganic bodies, on the other hand, have no relation to their environment. According to Plessner, a stone, for example, has no border, but only an edge at which it simply stops.
The eccentric positionality, on the other hand, distinguishes humans in contrast to animals . Animals are positioned centrally . In Plessner's words, they live “from their midst”. This means that animals have an inner drive, a center, but cannot relate to this center themselves. They merge into the “here and now”. On the other hand, people can enter into a relationship with themselves: animals "are" their body, people also "have" a body. Animals are absorbed in experience, people can also relate to their experience - experience themselves while experiencing.
Eccentric positionality describes the characteristic of people to be able to relate to their center, for which the person must be able to stand next to himself, as it were, without leaving himself. This requires a distance between the person and his experiencing center, which is expressed in the term eccentric positionality.
Plessner developed the concept of eccentric positionality as an alternative to concepts of the Cartesian-dualistic tradition. Descartes made a distinction between res cogitans on the one hand and res extensa on the other. This differentiation between body and mind, body and soul is not only expressed in the division between the natural and human sciences, but is also reflected in most social science disciplines in the form of the almost exclusive occupation with the social dimension of human beings.
literature
- Gugutzer, Robert (2002): Body, body and identity. A phenomenological-sociological investigation into personal identity . 1 edition, Wiesbaden: West German publishing house. ISBN 3-531-13719-0
- Plessner, Helmuth (2003): Conditio Humana. Collected Writings VIII .1. Edition, Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. ISBN 3-518-29231-5
- Plessner, Helmuth (1975): The stages of the organic and the human . Berlin / New York: de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-005985-1