In times of societal upheaval, when the self-understanding of humanity is shaken, the question "What is man?" is more relevant than ever. The answer to this question determines what we make of the world we live in and of ourselves. Against this backdrop, Ferdinand Fellmann reexamines the anthropological question: Rather than inquiring about the essence of man, he connects to Thomas Nagel's famous question ("What is it like to be a human?"). The key concept that Fellmann rediscovers and places at the center of his reflections is "sense of life." He links both sides of life experience, the objective and the subjective. Previous philosophical definitions of humanity have always set individual traits as absolute: For Aristotle and Descartes, man is characterized by reason and thought.