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Elucidations of the Sources of Kant’s Anthropology

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Knowledge, Morals and Practice in Kant’s Anthropology

Abstract

The narrow question of the genesis (Entstehung) of Kant’s anthropology lecture has been captivating German scholarship on his anthropology for more than a century. Sides have been taken and disputes have arisen, but a final determination has yet to be reached. Partly this is so, because Kant did not tell us why he began to teach anthropology, and partly this is so, because there is so much ambiguity in the sources. An argument can be made for any number of reasons for the inception of his anthropology lectures. I made a strong case for the inception of the anthropology lectures in Kant’s physical geography lectures (Wilson 2007: 8-26). In this paper, I will make an argument for the varied sources that influenced Kant in the development of the anthropology lecture. There is not just one source but several sources that influenced Kant. He was influenced by his physical geography lectures, his own precritical writings, his metaphysics lecture, Baumgarten, and finally also by the Thomasius school’s Klugheitslehre (theory of prudence). All of these sources can be found in the earliest writings and student notes we have from Kant. It can be established that all of these sources influenced the lectures as they developed over time and even the book that he published in 1798.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    EACG, AA 2: 4. Kant writes: “since then [the first lecture] I have enlarged my plan considerably.” He increased his sources including more travelogues.

  2. 2.

    V-PG, AA 26: 90. This is the Holstein text that stems from 1757–1759.

  3. 3.

    V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 232–233. Kant follows Montesquieu and Buffon. See Leclerc (1997: 22, 27).

  4. 4.

    Werner Stark makes an argument for the establishment of the anthropology lectures from a change in Kant’s course on moral philosophy. See Stark (2003: 23).

  5. 5.

    Brandt (1994: 14–33). See also Brandt (1999: 49). Norbert Hinske also argues that Kant’s pragmatic anthropology originated in the psychologia empirica of the eighteenth century. See Hinske (1986: 27). Also Hinske (1966: 413).

  6. 6.

    Brandt and Stark (1997: x).

  7. 7.

    As a subtitle to his Seelenlehre, Eschenbach uses the Latin anthropologiae. See Eschenbach (1757: 145). Kant had this book in his library. See Warda (1922: 48).

  8. 8.

    Refl 1502a, in AA 15: 800 stems from the 1770s—“The latter [pragmatic anthropology] examines what a human being is only far enough to draw out rules concerning what he can make of himself or how he can use others. [It is] not psychology, which is a scholastic discipline”.

  9. 9.

    Kant tells us that his work on national character was influenced by Hume’s Of National Characters. V-Anth/Collins AA 25: 232. Montesquieu also influenced Kant, see GSE, AA 02: 247, 253; 2011: 54.

  10. 10.

    Kant goes well beyond Sulzer’s distinction between philosophy of the school and philosophy of the world, but there may be some influence from him on Kant. He also speaks of Weltklugheit in relation to philosophy of the world and says it is learned in experience and in conversation with the world. See Sulzer (1759: 185–188).

  11. 11.

    The idea of ‘pragmatic’ can be found in incipient form in his letter to Herz, where Kant notes that his observations are about ‘common life.’ He is also concerned with all that is ‘practical.’ See Herz, AA 10: 145; 1999: 141. In Reflection 1482, Kant writes: “A knowledge claim is pragmatic if it is capable of general use in society” AA 15: 659.

  12. 12.

    Kant distinguishes between Weltklugheit (worldly prudence) and Privatklugheit (private prudence) but it is clear that he means something different than Budde.

  13. 13.

    Budde defines the Weltgelahrtheit (Worldly learnedness) as “a thorough and true cognition of divine and temporal happiness.” He defines Schulgelahrtheit (School learnedness) as “everything of which the teacher tends to use to achieve this cognition/ to increase/to teach others/to propagate/to protect truth and defend against enemies of truth” in para. IV. This represents already a turning toward the world even though he values scholastic learnedness as well.

  14. 14.

    Rüdiger explains what Klugheit is: “For this reason one who desires Staatsklugheit nowadays must interest himself in the art of using the human will: such happens not only with the idea of utility, but also of honor and desire, and thus according to the main three affects, which then also includes that one has learned to recognize oneself and others well through this art. If one understands this art well, thus the universal rules of awakening the wills of other human beings and putting them to sleep is very easy, [but] the application of this requires a prudent and skilled man,” p. 155.

  15. 15.

    Kant argues that “all sciences have some practical part, consisting of problems [which suppose] that some end is possible for us and of imperatives of as to how it can be attained…Whether the end is rational and good is not at all the question here, but only what one must do in order to attain it.” GMS, AA 04: 415; 1996: 68.

  16. 16.

    What actually differentiates the imperatives of skill from the imperatives of prudence are the ends toward which they aim. Prudence is always aiming at the end of happiness. For many theories of prudence, the means can be anything, but, for Kant, the means are other people.

  17. 17.

    “Erklärung wegen der v. Hippelchen Autorschaft” in AA 13: 538.

  18. 18.

    Elsewhere in the Metaphysics from Baumgarten, he distinguishes between wisdom and prudence: “WISDOM in particular is the perspicuous perception of ends, and PRUDENCE is the perspicuous perception of means” (Baumgarten 2014: §882). This definition is enlightening and may have helped Kant think through the difference between wisdom and prudence.

  19. 19.

    Quoted in Brandt and Stark (1997: xxxix).

  20. 20.

    Kant mentions the word Klugheitslehre one time in his letter to Garve, AA 10: 487.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Louisiana State University at Alexandria, Alexandria, LA, USA

    Holly L. Wilson

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  1. Holly L. Wilson
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Gualtiero Lorini

  2. University of Southern Maine, Portland, ME, USA

    Robert B. Louden

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Wilson, H.L. (2018). Elucidations of the Sources of Kant’s Anthropology. In: Lorini, G., Louden, R. (eds) Knowledge, Morals and Practice in Kant’s Anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98726-2_2

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