Kant’s Anthropology
Holly L. Wilson·
Louisiana State University in Alexandria, USA
Review
of Louden, Robert, Kant’s Anthropology, Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2021, pp. 1-53, 9781108742283.
Robert Louden’s short 53-page book is an excellent introduction
to Kant’s thinking on anthropology. It covers
the origin, structure and key features, some contested issues, and the importance
of the anthropology as a kind of philosophy that humanizes us. The book contains many significant quotes
from Kant that help the reader grasp that anthropology was an important way Kant
was doing philosophy. Louden gives a cursory
overview of the origin of Kant’s work on anthropology in the lectures he gave
at Konigsberg University. These lectures
were very popular, and Kant came to think of anthropology as a kind of popular
philosophy that appealed to the interests of everyone. The lecture transcriptions from his students
and his announcement of lectures indicated that he considered his anthropology
lectures and physical geography lectures to be Weltkenntnis (Cosmopolitan
philosophy) which is meant for enlightenment for life and not just for the university.
Louden has championed the interpretation of the anthropology
lectures and Kant’s book, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View,
as containing a moral anthropology which provides the second empirical half of
Kant’s moral philosophy. He gives some
examples of how Kant deals with “human only” norms that would not apply to just
a rational being but only to the human being because its nature is both
intelligible and sensible. Kant scholars
such as Brandt and Stark (Brandt and Stark, 1997, pp. xlvi-vii, xlvi), as well
as Zammito (Zammito, 2002, p. 301) deny that Kant ever produced this empirical moral
anthropology so this is one of the contested points of scholarly interpretation.
In support of his thesis, Loudon
provides an example of the distinction between affects and passions in the Anthropology
from a Pragmatic Point of View. Understanding
the way the human being is, can be key to knowing how to apply the moral norms
of the moral law to human beings. Human
norms apply only to human beings because of their nature as sensible and
intelligible.
The second contested scholarly issue is whether Kant provided
the transcendental anthropology he mentions in Reflection 903 (Kant, 15: p.
395) and whether Kant provided a theory of human nature. Loudon summarizes the various positions that
argue that Kant did not provide an answer to the question he posed: “What is
the human being?” Louden believes nonetheless
that there is a wealth of information regarding human nature in the
anthropology lectures and the book, but Kant does not appear to have reduced
all philosophy to the question of “What is the human being” as Kant suggests in
a series of questions about the whole of philosophy. Some authors attempt to identify
transcendental anthropology with the various critiques, the Critique of Pure
Reason, the Critique of Practical Reason, and even the Critique
of Judgment, but none succeeds conclusively in showing that this is what
Kant meant by transcendental anthropology.
Transcendental anthropology cannot also be identical with the pragmatic
anthropology, since the anthropology is not apriori, but empirical.
Finally, Louden addresses the question of the significance
of the type of philosophy Kant was doing in his lectures and in the Anthropology
from a Pragmatic Point of View, that he published in 1798. Although some authors like Schleiermacher
reviewed the published book as a “collection of trivialities” it does appear
that Kant believed it was an important type of philosophy. Louden evaluates the sexism and racism in the
book and also in the writings surrounding his work on anthropology. There are very serious weaknesses in some of Kant’s
empirical observations. Louden covers
the attempt by Kant scholars to explain that Kant developed away from his racist
beliefs about non-Europeans over time, but Louden does not think these attempts
have shown that Kant did overcome his racist prejudices even though he clearly
objected to colonialism. Kant’s views of
women are also “riddled” with sexist prejudices.
One might wonder at this point if there is any value
to the Kantian approach to anthropology.
Louden has an affirmative response.
Pragmatic anthropology, nonetheless, as a type of philosophy can provide
the “true eye” to what would otherwise be “cyclopic” philosophy. Kant distinguishes philosophy done in a style
of scholastic philosophy and another style done as Weltkenntnis. Cosmopolitan philosophy has the value of
supplying the second eye to scholastic philosophy giving it its dignity and
inner worth. How does it do this? It is applying philosophy to the human being.
This short book gives a great introduction to the scholarship
out there on Kant’s anthropology with some exceptions. Louden does not cover the proposal by Wilson
(Wilson, 2006: pp. 61-92) that Kant does have a theory of human nature in his
theory of the four natural predispositions.
These predispositions are teleological and characterize human nature in a
way that preserves human freedom and the possibility of moral action.
Bibliography
Brandt,
Reinhard and Werner Stark (1997). “Einleitung,”
in Vorlesungen über Anthropologie, ed.
Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
Berlin: De Gruyter, vii-cli (= vol. 25 of Kant’s gesammelte Schriften).
Wilson, Holly
L. (2006). Kant’s Pragmatic Anthropology:
Its Origin, Meaning, and Critical Significance. Albany, NY:
State University of New York Press.
Zammito, John H.
(2002). Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
