The Epistemological Bases of the Concept of Man

Abstract

In this chapter we submit to analysis the subject-object relations leading to the formulation of the concept of man. The definition of this concept — which we hold to be the nucleus of political thought -follows through basic modes of perceiving, apprehending and comprehending external reality. We shall attempt to trace differences obtaining in concepts of man formulated by different individuals to the knowing process itself, or more precisely, to the intellectual approach of the knowing mind to the known object. An ontological analysis of political thought presupposes as a consequence an epistemological argument (or at least the clarification of the epistemological premisses) no less than any other thesis dealing with the analysis or evaluation of any aspect of reality.