Abstract
The goal of the present essay is to underscore that Kant’s anthropological reflection does not acquire its most accomplished value when it is forcefully placed within the architectural project of the critique, but rather when we question the way in which it can accompany the critical reflection. This possibility becomes almost a necessity in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Here, by virtue of reflecting judgment, Kant illustrates the agreement between reason, as the universal horizon of judgment, and the singularity of the subject, which conveys any judgment. In doing so, Kant deals with subjectivity according to a perspective that is significantly influenced by Baumgarten’s conception of the I, insofar as it differs from Wolff’s positions. Thus, in the first section of this paper, we will outline the extent to which Baumgarten’s treatment of the relationship between empirical and rational psychology marks a departure from the Wolffian one. In the second part, we will show how Baumgarten’s perspective influences Kant in the 1770s by analyzing Kant’s lectures on metaphysics and anthropology, the basis of which is represented precisely by Baumgarten’s Metaphysica. Then, we will focus on the most original elements of Kant’s anthropological reflection, and finally, we will propose some remarks, aiming at assessing the extent of Baumgarten’s presence in Kant’s anthropological framework.
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Notes
- 1.
In the quoted essay, Hinske provides a careful philological reconstruction of Baumgarten’s sometimes-silent presence in the development of Kant’s anthropology. In some passages, this analysis goes even beyond the Metaphysica.
- 2.
- 3.
See also Kant’s lectures on metaphysics of the critical period (e.g. V-Met/Volckmann, AA 28: 367). But already in the first lectures on anthropology of the early 1770s, we read: “Empirical psychology belongs to metaphysics just as little as empirical physics does” (V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 8; 2012: 15); and “One also sees how little this doctrine [empirical psychology] can constitute a part of metaphysics” (V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 243; 2012: 31).
- 4.
In his later thought, Kant will offer some even more explicit expressions of this relation between anthropology and empirical psychology. See e.g. V-Met-K2/Heinze, AA 28: 735, and FM, AA 20: 286.
- 5.
On the psychological consideration of the I in the broad sense, see V-Met/Heinze, AA 28: 259; 1997: 73: “When we consider the soul of a human being, we regard it not merely as intelligence, but rather when it stands in connection with the body as soul of a human being.” See also Refl 5461, AA 18: 189; 2005: 232: “I as the correlatum of all outer intuition am a human being. The outer intuition to which I relate all others in me is my body. Thus as a subject of outer intuitions I must have a body.”
- 6.
See also V-Anth/Pillau, AA 25: 737; 2012: 264: “The faculty of a creature of intuiting itself, and to refer everything in creation to oneself, is personality”.
- 7.
See also V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 246 and V-Anth/Fried, AA 25: 475–476.
- 8.
See V-Anth/Collins, 25: 10; 2012: 17: “The first thought that strikes us [uns aufstösst] when we observe ourselves expresses the I; it expresses the inspection [Beschauung] of oneself.” See also V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 244 and V-Anth/Fried, AA 25: 473.
- 9.
This observation is precisely the presupposition for anthropology to acquire a moral value, see: ZeF, AA 8: 374; 1999: 341, where Kant claims that to know “what can be made of him,” the human being needs “a higher standpoint of anthropological observation.” See also Battaglia (2012: 224).
- 10.
This is the same concept described in KU, AA 05: 213.
- 11.
On this point, see also Frierson (2003: 38–39).
- 12.
For a thorough discussion of the different meanings acquired by Kant’s concept of character, see Sturm (2009: 409–429).
- 13.
Jacobs and Kain (2003: 2–3) note that although Kant uses the section of Baumgarten’s Metaphysica devoted to empirical psychology as a reference text for his lectures on anthropology, he consciously breaks with the tradition of German anthropology that goes back up to the sixteenth century. For an example of Kant’s new conception of anthropology at the beginning of the 1770s, see Br, AA 10: 145–146.
- 14.
According to Louden (2000: 71), the basic subdivision into didactics and characteristics of both the lectures on anthropology and the published Anthropology depends on the fact that the didactics mainly comes from the part of the metaphysics lectures focused on Baumgarten’s empirical psychology, while the characteristics derives mostly from the Physical Geography as well as the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (defined as ‘proto-anthropological’ writings).
- 15.
See Heinz (2011) and Stark (2014: 11, n. 3): “The newly posed question of the origin of the three basic faculties (knowing, feeling and desiring) of the first part of the lectures foreshadows the questions of the Critiques, first published between 1781 and 1790. Pure reason is directed towards the true, practical reason investigates the good, and the Critique of the Power of Judgment contains a doctrine of taste or aesthetic as its first part—its interest is in the beautiful and the sublime. The last Critique in particular refers the matter to the 1764, entirely world-oriented Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime.”
- 16.
First in the transcript of Pillau, dated from 1777 to 1778: “The Characteristic. It serves to distinguish the characters [Charactère]. Character means nothing other than a general mark to distinguish people” (V-Anth/Pillau, AA 25: 814, my translation).
- 17.
In fact, at the beginning of the paragraph on character in the Collins lecture notes, we read that character consists in what “is peculiar to the higher capacities,” that is, in “a higher principle […] to make use of all the capacities and incentives, to sacrifice and to restrain sensations” (V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 227; 2012: 26). In a similar way, in the Anthropologie Parow character is defined as “the faculty [Vermögen] to make use of all these powers, faculties, talents” of the human mind [Gemüth]. Thus, “the character of human beings rests on the constitution of the higher power,” “to let [their] desires have free play or to hold them back” (V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 437; 2012: 35).
- 18.
The person who achieves the realization of the principle represented by the character can distinguish him/herself from other human beings. See: V-Anth/Collins, AA 25: 227; 2012: 26: “Characters are nothing other than that which is peculiar to the higher capacities;” V-Anth/Parow, AA 25: 437; 2012: 35: “The character refers to the complex of the body and consists in what is peculiar of the higher powers of the human mind.” This is deeply connected with the empirical side of the character, and shows that the essence of Kant’s original contribution to the definition of anthropological “knowledge” [Wissen] consists in the double determination of character. Indeed, this both empirical and rational—in the sense of the Denkungsart—nature of character allows us to understand, in which sense the Characteristic holds as a “doctrine of the method” for anthropology (see: V-Anth/Dohna, in Kowalewski 1924: 70, 75; Randnotiz zu Ant., AA 07: 159, in AA 07: 400, “Ergänzungen aus H.”), since it shows us all the potential applications of anthropology. For the link between the consideration of the Anthropological Characteristic as a doctrine of method of anthropology and the famous critical subdivision between the doctrine of elements and the doctrine of method, see also Schmidt (2007: 168–169).
- 19.
See also Ant, AA 07: 127; 2007: 239.
- 20.
See also V-PP/Powalski, AA 27: 194.
- 21.
See: GMS, AA 04: 453.
- 22.
Cf. also KU, AA 05: 277; 2000: 158: “As psychological remarks, these analyses of the phenomena of our mind are extremely fine, and provide rich materials for the favorite researches of empirical anthropology.”
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The author is grateful to Professor Holly Wilson for her careful linguistic revision of the text.
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Lorini, G. (2018). The Rules for Knowing the Human Being: Baumgarten’s Presence in 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_5
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