What is Philosophical about Kant’s Anthropology?

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is fundamentally about the sphere of civilization, and, with this, a particular kind of philosophical self-understanding. By civilization, Kant means to indicate the process by which human beings transform their inner natures based on pragmatic or prudential considerations born of our living together. Civilization is what we do to ourselves in order to get along with others with whom we share the earth. In the Anthropology, what we come to understand about ourselves is the possibility of transforming our inner natures based on our will.

Keywords:

• Kant
• anthropology
• civilization
• self-understanding

Notes

1. A brief list of scholars doing work in this area include: Felicitas Munzel, Holly Wilson, Patrick Frierson, Alix Cohen, John Zammito, and Robert Louden.

2. For scholars who take up questions in this second stream of work on the Anthropology, please see: Charles Mills, Tsenay Serequeberhan, Emmanuel Eze, Robert Bernasconi, Pauline Kleingeld, and Jon Mikkelson. The work of Jennifer Mensch moves across these two streams in developing Kant’s work out of its historical context in the philosophy of science.

3. This pragmatic disposition or prudential reasoning is not what is referred to in the title of the text. The analysis offered of our civilizing efforts, Kant believes, can itself be useful for us in our own attempts to go out into the world.