Helmuth Plessner (Author)
Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985) was a German philosopher and sociologist. From 1953-59, he was president of the German Sociological Association. Three of his many books have appeared in English, Political Anthropology (Northwestern, 2018), The Limits of Community (Humanity Books, 1999) and Laughing and Crying (Northwestern, 1970).
J. M. Bernstein (Introducer)
J. M. Bernstein is University Distinguished Professor in Philosophy at The New School for Social Research in New York City.
Millay Hyatt (Translator)
Millay Hyatt is a writer and translator based in Berlin. Her dissertation, "No-Where and Now-Here: Utopia and Politics from Hegel to Deleuze," received the University of Southern California's doctoral research prize.

Foreword from the Helmuth Plessner Society | vii
Translator's Preface and Acknowledgments | ix
Preface to the First Edition (1928) | xv
Preface to the Second Edition (1965) | xix
Introduction | xxxvii
J. M. Bernstein
1. Aim and Scope of the Study | 1
The Development of Intuitionist Lebensphilosophie in Opposition to
Experience, 3 ¿ Lebensphilosophie and the Theory of the Humanities, 11 ¿
Working Plan for the Foundation of a Philosophy of the Human, 22
2. The Cartesian Objection and the Nature of the Problem | 34
Extension vs. Interiority and the Problem of Appearance, 34 ¿
Appearance as Originating in Interiority, 38 ¿ The Prior Givenness
of Interiority and the Forward Displacement of Myself: The Proposition
of Immanence 41 ¿ Extension as Outer World; Interiority as Inner
World, 46 ¿ The Proposition of Representation and the Element
of Sensation, 51 ¿ The Inaccessibility of Other I's according to the
Principle of Sensualism, 55 ¿ The Need for a Revision of the Cartesian
Dichotomy in the Interest of a Science of Life, 58 ¿ A Methodological
Reformulation of the Opening Question, 64
3. The Thesis | 75
The Question, 75 ¿ The Dual Aspect in the Appearance of Ordinary
Perceptual Things, 76 ¿ Against the Misinterpretation of This Analysis:
A Closer Focus on the Subject Matter, 81 ¿ The Dual Aspect of Living
Perceptual Things: Köhler contra Driesch, 84 ¿ How Is Dual Aspectivity
Possible? The Nature of the Boundary, 93 ¿ The Task of a Theory of the
Essential Characteristics of the Organic, 99 ¿ Definitions of Life, 104 ¿
Nature and Object of a Theory of the Essential Characteristics of the
Organic, 110
4. The Modes of Being of Vitality | 115
Essential Characteristics Indicating Vitality, 115 ¿ The Positionality of
Living Being and Its Spacelikeness, 118 ¿ Living Being as Process
and Type; the Dynamic Character of the Living Form; the Individuality of the
Living Thing, 123 ¿ Living Process as Development, 129 ¿ The Curve of
Development: Aging and Death, 137 ¿ The Individual Living Thing as a
System, 144 ¿ The Self-Regulation of the Individual Living Thing
and the Harmonious Equipotentiality of Its Parts, 149 ¿ Individual Living Things
as Organized: The Dual Meaning of Organs, 154 ¿ The Temporality of
Living Being, 159 ¿ The Positional Union of Space and Time and the
Natural Place, 168
5. The Organizational Modes of Living Being: Plants and Animals | 172
The Circle of Life, 172 ¿ Assimilation-Dissimilation, 182 ¿
Adaptedness and Adaptation, 186 ¿ Reproduction, Heredity,
Selection, 196 ¿ The Open Form of Organization of the Plant, 202 ¿
The Closed Form of Organization of the Animal, 209
6. The Sphere of the Animal | 219
The Positionality of the Closed Form: Centrality and Frontality, 219 ¿
The Coordination of Stimulus and Response in the Case of an Inoperative
Subject (Decentralized Type of Organization), 227 ¿ The Coordination of
Stimulus and Response by a Subject (Centralized Type of Organization),
231 ¿ The Animal's Surrounding Field Organized into Complex Qualities and
Things, 242 ¿ Intelligence, 252 ¿ Memory, 257 ¿ Memory as the Unity of
Residue and Anticipation, 262
7. The Sphere of the Human | 267
The Positionality of the Excentric Form: "I" and Personhood, 267 ¿
Outer World, Inner World, Shared World, 272 ¿ The Fundamental Laws
of Anthropology: The Law of Natural Artificiality, 287 ¿ The Law of
Mediated Immediacy: Immanence and Expressivity, 298 ¿ The Law of
the Utopian Standpoint: Nullity and Transcendence, 316
Appendix | 323
Glossary | 337
Notes | 345
Index | 359

A modern classic, this powerful and sophisticated account of embodiment was first published in German in 1928 and now appears in English for the first time. With reference simultaneously to science, social theory, and philosophy, Plessner shows how life can be seen on its own terms to establish its own boundaries. Plessner's account of how the human establishes itself in relation to the nonhuman will invigorate a range of current conversations around the animal, posthumanism, the material turn, and the biology and sociology of cognition.