Anthropology and the Formation of Humanities and Social Sciences; A Study from Philosophical Anthropology to Social Theories

Document Type : Original Article

Author

University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

10.22081/phlq.2025.77880

Abstract

This article investigates the foundational role of philosophical anthropology in shaping social, legal, and political theories across both Islamic and Western intellectual traditions. It argues that any theory in human sciences is necessarily rooted in an underlying conception of the human being. Drawing upon Aristotle’s fourfold causality-efficient, final, material, and formal causes-the article demonstrates that philosophical anthropology is not merely a background assumption but the structural core of theory formation. The study has hired an analytical and intellectual method, systematically examining the internal logic of philosophical texts and ideas to identify how anthropological premises inform broader theoretical architectures.Through a comparative case study of Abu Nasr al-Farabi and Karl Marx, the article illustrates how divergent anthropologies—metaphysical and teleological in the former, materialist and historical in the latter—give rise to distinct visions of society and governance. Al-Farabi’s conception of the rational soul and hierarchical faculties grounds his model of the virtuous city (Utopia) , while Marx’s notion of the human as a laboring, self-transforming species-being underlies his critique of capitalism and vision of emancipation. Despite methodological and cultural differences, both thinkers reveal that social and political systems are ultimately constructed upon philosophical understandings of human nature. By centering  philosophical anthropology at the middle of interdisciplinary inquiry, the article calls for a renewed focus on the human essence as the necessary starting point for reforming or generating coherent knowledge systems in the humanities and social sciences.

Keywords

References

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Journal of Philosophy of Law
Volume 4, Issue 1
May 2025
Pages 104-83

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  • Receive Date: 22 July 2025
  • Accept Date: 22 July 2025

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