The term ‘philosophical anthropology’ can refer to two philosophical phenomena: on the one hand, to a specific field of philosophy that examines the possibility of a concept of human nature, that is, the existence of an ontological specificity that characterises and unites human beings in relation to the rest of the world; on the other, a specific school of thought that developed in Germany between the 1920s and 1940s, in which the philosophical discourse on human nature takes on precise methodological and theoretical contours. In this article, I examine both philosophical phenomena, in their theoretical and normative premises, and I consider the problems and risks that have traditionally accompanied the concept of human nature to the extent of excluding it from philosophical and public discourse. Secondly, I argue that a concept of human nature suited to contemporary requirements and sensibilities is possible, and that John Dewey’s naturalism represents a fundamental starting point for a contemporary philosophical anthropology.