The Generic Essence of Man: toward a Methodology of Analysis

The article considers methodological problems arising in the analysis of the generic essence of man. The author considers man as a substantive system, the essential properties of which are determined by the way of self-purpose existence in the environment, which is the activity of the social subject. The author identifies three dimensions of human essence — generic, historical and personal, considers the relationship and relationship between these taxonomic projections of anthropic reality. The article emphasizes the multidimensionality of man, existing in substantially different worlds, and elucidates the correlation and connection between the social and biological components of human life. The author links the fundamental ethological difference between the objects of living nature and man to the specifics of informational mechanisms of behavior, the presence of human abstract-logical, verbal-conceptual thinking, which changes the basic parameters of the human way of life ((including the mode of instrumental adaptation to the environment). The article criticizes the position of biological reductionism, which denies a qualitative difference between informational orientation of humans and highly developed animals. The point of view that reduces human thinking to the neural activity of the brain and denies the existence of free will in humans — the ability to motivational expertise and the free choice of behavioral reactions to non-alternative drives is criticized. The author considers the impact of biological factors on the procedures of goal setting and goal realization, which (factors) affect human behavior, but do not predetermine it.