Człowiek a zwierzę – ujęcie Hansa-Eduarda Hengstenberga
Man and animal – the Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg’s approach

Summary/Abstract: The considerations contained in this article concern an issue that raises sharp controversy today, that is, the existence of a radical difference between man as a personal being and animals.This problem are presented basically in three dimensions: man’s openness to the world, his corporeality and spirit, stressing that the outstanding phenomenologist, just like Max Scheler and Josef Pieper, saw the sources of the decisive disproportion in man’s possession of the spirit (rational soul), self-awareness and the developed spirit by a man who is unique in his ability to objectivity, that is, to act completely free from a utilitarian attitude. Human corporeality is also distinguished by a special status because it is marked and transformed by objectivity, and therefore shows, unlike animals, a predisposition to material acts and notonly organic ones. Hengstenberg, therefore, unambiguously and convincingly showed a man as a person. An animal is only a living organism, endowed with a psycho-biological principle, that is, a sensual soul. The differences, similarities and, at the same time, a certain originality of Hengstenberg’s approach in comparison with other presentations in German philosophical anthropology of the 20th century were also indicated.

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