The article defines the potential and aspects of the philosophical and anthropological approach in modern urban studies. The theoretical basis is represented by the works of the modern researchers of philosophical anthropology and urban studies, as well as the studies aimed at finding thinking frameworks alternative to anthropocentrism. The scientific novelty of the research involves the review of the epistemological status of philosophical anthropology as the methodology of practically oriented thought. The conceptual analysis of the use of the anthropological approach (...) in socio-humanitarian knowledge is presented, its philosophical component is suggested. There have been reconstructed the urban anthropology methodological principles as an actual direction of urban research. The philosophical anthropology resource is the key to the further development of the city pragmatic analysis concerning the nonclassical approaches in socio-humanitarian knowledge. On the one hand, philosophical anthropology is presented as an independent discipline, and on the other, as a special focus or aspect of analysis. Thus the epistemological status of philosophical anthropology is clarified, and the possibility of its statements systematization and transforming the compendium into a method of modern practically oriented thought are defined. (shrink)