The article discusses the thesis of the fundamental impossibility of personal development within the framework of the idea of progress that appeared in the early modern period. This is due to the fact that any development is always considered as a qualitative change, as a transition from the structure of one quality to the structure of another, higher quality. The idea of progress does not imply this possibility in the development of personality initially, since, being a secularised version of the Christian notion of irreversible and linear human development from the “earthly city” to the “city of God”, it simply cancels the last transcendental or qualitatively more advanced level and limits the being only within the framework of the “earthly city”. Here, in full accordance with the worldview of anthropocentrism, a person appropriates the value of the Absolute or the Universe, an independent, self-suffi cient and self-contained Universe, of a complete whole, all possible attributes of which are always actualised. Consequently, an individual in these conditions is simply not able to change his/her essence, to turn into another, higher quality, and the individual’s only purpose is to satisfy his/her selfi sh interests and needs. But this has nothing to do with development and becomes a goal that is not achievable, because a person will never be able to satisfy all his/her needs. This is confi rmed by the entire history of the existence of personality, who not only did not become more perfect, but also caused today’s acute anthropological crisis that threatens to turn into a full-scale anthropological catastrophe in the very near future.
Key words: idea of progress, personality, development, substance, Absolute, tran-
scendental ideal, theocentrism, anthropocentrism, anthropological crisis.
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