daniel omar perez kantian anthropology

8/14/2019 Daniel Omar Perez Kantian Anthropology

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Kantian Anthropologies[first version work in progress]

Daniel Omar Perez2008


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Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo 5 appears to uphold an intermediate position that with his anthropology, Kantgives us a type of Phenomenology(which would not be the Critique) of Pragmatic Reason.6 Aramayo does not putforward any clarification of what this could mean, but we can make use of nomenclature to speak of the group of studies that man makes of himself even as a free, rational being.

We can also single out the work of Allen Wood 7 who understands anthropology as a way of answering thequestion what is a human being? Based on Kantian texts, Wood affirms that the doctrine of empirical nature wouldinclude the type of anthropology whose method would be based on regulating principles of teleological judgment. In

turn, pragmatic anthropology (unlike the physiological study of human nature) would include moral anthropology andempirical psychology. The practical (moral) part of anthropology would be located in the second part of the course inthe section entitled Characteristics. The pragmatic part would be understood as a knowledge of the world (not merelyscholarly, but also cosmopolitan) related to a certain use, to a certain practice of prudence of actions, it would be adescription of tendencies, predispositions, and presumptions rooted in human nature. Woods work allows us to moveforward in a characterization of human nature; however, he does not develop any systematic relation between theresults of practical philosophy, as elaborated by Kant in Groundwork and in the second critique, by pragmaticanthropology that is not merely a relation of application.

Werner Stark, 8 for his part, writes anthropology and ethics must be separated, and yet, at the same time,neither can be thought independently of the other. 9 Although Stark emphasizes the duality of human nature in Kantand the irreconcilable nature of the noumenal and the phenomenal, he also shows his preoccupation for the transition

between them.

On the other hand, we find what we can tentatively call the moral-practical interpretation of anthropology inJeanine Grenberg 10, Robert Louden 11, Claudia Schmid t12, Maria de Lourdes Borges ,13 and Patrick Frierson. 14 All of these works mention the relation between Groundwork , the second critique, and anthropology, and they advanceseveral hypotheses about this relation.

In the realm of Kantian studies, a large part of the literature seeks to reconstruct a formalist Kant wherein anyspecific study on human beings should be left unconsidered in the functioning of moral law, or, at most, should serveas an example for a case evaluation. However, we find another, large part of Kantian literature which takes intoaccount moral sentiment and the specificities of human nature in order to understand the functioning of practicalreason in finite rational beings.

It is in this vein that, for example, Jeanine Grenberg (1999), after rejecting arguments that do not recognize theimportance of feelings (morals) in practical philosophy, argues that:

The metaphysical project of grounding objective moral laws would thus require anthropology for itsapplication to man (Gr. 412/79) Such application would include not only specifying universal rules so as to apply tohuman conditions, but also procure(ing) for (these universal rules) admittance to the will of man and influence over practice;(Gr 389/57, emphasis added) that is, it would include the project of explaining motivation to action.

5 Rodriguez Aramayo, Roberto Estudio Preliminar. Kant ante la razn pragmtica (una excursin por los bajos del deber ser)INKANT, I. Antropologa prctica. Madrid: Tecnos, 2004.6 Rodriguez Aramayo, Roberto Estudio Preliminar. Kant ante la razn pragmtica (una excursin por los bajos del deber ser)INKANT, I. Antropologa prctica. Madrid: Tecnos, 2004, p. IX.7 Wood, Allen Kant and the problem of human nature. IN Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain (eds.) Essays on Kants Anthropology.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 38-59. Also see Kants Ethical Thought . NY: Cambridge University Press,1999.8 See Stark, Werner Historical notes and interpretive about Kants lectures on anthropology. IN Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain

(eds.) Essays on Kants Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 15-37.9 Stark, Werner Historical notes and interpretive about Kants lectures on anthropology. IN Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain (eds.) Essays on Kants Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 25.10 Grenberg, J. Anthropology from a Metaphysical Point of View.Journal of the History of Philosophy, Jan 1999, 37, 1. AcademicResearch Library, 91-115.11 Louden, Robert Kants Impure Ethics.New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. See also The second part of moral: KantsMoral Anthropology and its relationship to his metaphysics of moral. Revista Kant e-prints, 2002ftp://logica.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/Louden.pdf ; there is a version in Portuguese in Revista etic@ Vol.1, n. 1, p. 27-46,

jun 2002. Also published as a book chapter IN Brian Jacobs and Patrick Kain (eds.) Essays on Kants Anthropology. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 60-84.12 Schmidt, Claudia M., The Anthropological dimension of Kants Metaphysical of Morals. Kant-Studien 96, pp. 66-84, 2005.13 Borges, Maria de Lourdes Psicologia emprica, antropologia e metafsica dos costumes em Kant . Revista Kant e-prints vol.2,n. 1, 2003, pp. 1-10. ftp://ftp.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/vol.2,n.1,2003.pdf 14

Frierson, Patrick Character ande vil in Kants Moral Anthropology. Journal of History of Philosophy; oct. 2006; 44, 4; pp 623-634. Tambm The moral importance of Politeness in Kants Anthropology. Kantian Review, vol 9, 2005, pp. 105-27. In this paper Frierson writes Kant provides an account of politeness that explains why it is morally important, how it works and how it can bemorally legitimate. Tambm Freedom and anthropology in Kants moral philosophy (freedom). New York, CambridgeUniversity Prees, 2003.

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Kants metaphysics of morals thus does not demand that we entirely ignore specifically human concerns. Itdoes, however, demand that the justification of the moral law and it validity for all rational beings remain independentof any merely anthropological concerns. () Anthropological concerns must, however, be taken into considerationwhen we seek to understand how the moral law has an influence on our actions, that is, how it motivates humanagents. 15

As a result, Grenbergs article seeks to justify a reading of moral sentiment as a motivational force, not merely acontingent one but as one essential to morality, and therefore it does not move forward the exploration of all the

possibilities that would seem to indicate the relationship between pure moral philosophy and anthropology, with thelatter occupying an important place for the understanding of Kants project in its totality.However, Robert Louden (2002) takes on the task of bringing out this interpretive modal of anthropology by

way of the moral messages of the lectures. He divides anthropology into moral anthropology and pragmaticanthropology. Moral anthropology is denominated by Louden as impure ethics and the study of it would be guided

by the application of the pure principles especially elaborated in the second critique and in another way in theGroundwork. According to Louden, the moral demands of rational beings as human beings can only be realized if andonly if we know the constitution of these beings as humans, that is, empirically. This knowledge therefore looks at the

practical interest of teaching didactically or coercively (by way of religious institutions, educational or juridical) for the realization of moral ends. However, in this context, the text of Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht , with agreater specificity on the knowledge of human groups and subgroups than it requires for the application of moral law(moral anthropology), would constitute a differentiated, and we could even say unnecessary, part.

Two questions appear based on this interpretation. The first is of a nominal character: what would be the benefitin calling the dominion of applicability of moral law impure ethics? If we understand anthropological knowledge toserve towards the realization of moral law as an imperative for finite rational beings, we would then not have, on theone hand, a pure ethics and, on the other hand, we would not have an impure ethics, but rather we would have onlyrational, moral-practical principles applied to a determined concrete domain. Certainly, Robert Louden appears to beemphatically contesting the formalist or purist interpretation of Kantian practical philosophy. However, thenomenclature impure ethics can create confusion in an ill-informed reader and would neither help him to clarifyKantian terms nor to progress in a radicalization of Kantian thinking. The second question is about the way tounderstand the difference between moral and pragmatic anthropology. Loudens interpretation reduces the secondquestion (pragmatic anthropology) to simple entertainment.

In fact, Kants anthropology courses seem to have been very popular and entertaining. At least these are thestudents comments. However, it does not seem proper to reduce them to a mere pastime. Louden makes a fairlyuseful characterization of Kantian anthropology, but he does reduce it to a simple art of prudence. 16 As a result, inaccordance with the Mrongovius manuscript, anthropology would be divided in scholastic anthropology and

pragmatic anthropology, the latter being guided by human prudence and not by the study of the causes of humannature. Mrongovius writes: "Anthropology is called pragmatic when it severes not for scholarship learning, but for

prudence", Die Anthropologie heit pragmatisch wenn sie nicht zur Gelehrsamkeit sondern zur Klugheit dient. 17This would bring us to thinking about the possibility of deriving, from anthropology, a type of ethics of virtue. Kantwas certainly influenced by Roman stoicism, as demonstrate, for example, in Valrio Rohdens work. 18 However, if we want to maintain a systematic unity in Kantian thinking, insofar as possible, then we need to understand prudenceas being linked to the realization of moral law and to some casuistry or entertainment. This linking with law can bethought of, on the one hand, in relation with the development of individual virtues, and, on the other hand, as anelaboration of reflections on history. In this latter case, anthropology would be a type of guide for the elaboration of other sciences with juridical-political ends.

As everyone knows, for Kant, history should be ruled by a cosmopolitan vision of the world, this conception of man is a demand of the very functioning of reason, but it is also constructed, in large part, starting fromanthropological knowledge. Thus, we should be able to articulate anthropology, history, and an ethics of virtue asresults of the realization of the moral law and not as heterogeneous fields where Kant would one moment be speakingof history, at another about anthropology, and at a third about ethics without any relation with the conclutions of theinvestigations of the second critique.

When Louden, based on Kants texts, characterizes anthropology as an empirical, cosmopolitan, and pragmaticscience, he shows that it deals with a type of knowledge based on observation and experience that has understandinghuman beings as citizens of the world as its objective but that does not go beyond utilitarian knowledge. Citing

15 Grenberg, J. Anthropology from a Metaphysical Point of View.Journal of the History of Philosophy, Jan 1999, 37,1. Academic

Research Library, p. 102.16 See Louden, Robert Revista Kant e-prints, 2002 ftp://logica.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/Louden.pdf pp.2-4.17 See Kant, I. Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Band 25.2, p. 1211.18 See Rohden, Valerio. A Crtica da razo prtica e o estoicismo. Revista Dois Pontos, num. 2, vol 2, pp. 157-173, Curitiba,2005.

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Platners manuscripts, Louden affirms that pragmatic anthropology has promoting the enlightenment of ordinary lifeas its objective. Louden writes: Pragmatic anthropology strengthens this insofar as the knowledge of human naturewe acquire from it enables us to use other human beings effectively for our purposes. 19 And farther along, we read:But there is another fundamental dimension of Kants anthropology distinct from all of the above, harder to locateand articulate, and (as a result) more controversial moral anthropology .20 Louden establishes a hierarchy among theanthropologies by placing one in a technical-practical environment and the other in a moral-practical one. That is,what a person does with himself as a free agent can be done either pragmatically or morally. This distinction is

correct if we understand the meaning of the term pragmatic as it was established in the years in which Groundwork and the second critique were elaborated. For Louden, Kants design to turn the pure principles of morality intosomething truly effective is the fundamental question to be taken into account when it comes to interpret hisanthropology lessons, as well as all other texts which have something to do with the theme. Psychology, geography,

biology, and politics would be of interest given that they allow us to know those elements which obstruct or contributeto the development of morality. Thus, we could say that mans knowledge is tightly linked to practices.

Cosmopolitanism, education, and non-statutory religion can only be thought of in this theory according to a practical interest, which is none other than the realization of moral law as an imperative for finite rational beings.

For this, the primary task of moral anthropology would be to encounter ways to accomplish morality in humanlife .21 What would the realization of moral law mean? Treating man as an end and not merely as a means. Still, if the Kantian project for human and social sciences were to be morally guided, 22 then we would have one of three

possibilities: either pragmatic anthropology would be merely utilitarian and totally idle and, yet, would not have a

systematic place, or the very marked division that Louden makes between pragmatic and moral anthropology wouldnot be entirely appropriate, or we should radicalize Loudens last affirmations so as to find a systematiccomprehension of anthropology that would include the pragmatic. Our way is chosen by this last option.

Claudia Schmidt (2005) maintains that the systematic order of practical philosophy would conform to threelevels of subordination that would allow us move on from pure morality (as in Grundlegung ) to human morality (as inMetaphysik der Sitten as the metaphysics of human morality) and from there to the specificity of groups andsubgroups (for moral anthropology, specifically the second part of Anthropologie). In this way we would be in a

position to encounter the specificity of the application of universal law in particular cases. In this sense, Schmidtwrites:

We may therefore distinguish between two senses of application in Kants account of the possible ways inwhich an a priori system of morality may be related to human nature. One is the a priori or constitutive application of the pure principles of morality to the human being, as an empirically given type of moral agent, in order to generate ana priori system of duties which are binding upon this type of agent. The other is what we may call the empirical or motivational application of the doctrines arising from this system of morality to any individual human will, in order toimprove the moral conduct of that individual. 23

Schmidt affirms that, on the one hand, the empirical or motivational application is studied by Louden invarious dimensions that he considers as practical anthropology. On the other hand, she seeks to show that theconstitutive application of the pure principles of morality in human beings is the Kantitan project of Metaphysik der Sitten and that this should take into consideration the specific empirical characteristics of the human species, the

particular nature of human beings and their purposes. 24 Not only this, but she also affirms that (empirical)anthropological presuppositions exist for the a priori formulation of principles of the doctrines of right and virtue. 25 Even so, Claudia Schmidt is very cautious and stays away from any interpretation that might affirm that the moral lawitself presupposes empirical anthropological characteristics. She concludes her work affirming that:

Kants project in the Metaphysicals of Moralsmay therefore be described as the a priori exposition of a systemof duties for human beings, proceeding from the pure principles of morality, in response to certain empiricalcharacteristics and circumstances of the human species: conditions which he presupposes in the Metaphysicals of Morals, but explicitly examines only in his anthropological writings, and especially in his Conjectural Beginning of Human History.26

Claudia Schmidt elaborates in this way a Kantian study plan for practical philosophy. She does not make anyreference to the Metaphysical Foundations of the Natural Science(1786); 27 however, we could trace a parallel withthat work created by Kant and extend the reflection.19 Louden, Robert Revista Kant e-prints, 2002 ftp://logica.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/Louden.pdf p. 4.20 Louden, Robert Revista Kant e-prints, 2002 ftp://logica.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/Louden.pdf p. 5.21 See Louden, Robert Revista Kant e-prints, 2002 ftp://logica.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/Louden.pdf p. 8.22 Louden, Robert Revista Kant e-prints, 2002 ftp://logica.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/Louden.pdf p. 12.23

Schmidt, Claudia M., The Anthropological dimension of Kants Metaphysical of Morals. Kant-Studien 96, 2005, pp. 72-3.24 Schmidt, Claudia M., The Anthropological dimension of Kants Metaphysical of Morals. Kant-Studien 96, 2005, p. 77.25 Schmidt, Claudia M., The Anthropological dimension of Kants Metaphysical of Morals. Kant-Studien 96, 2005, p. 78 ff.26 Schmidt, Claudia M., The Anthropological dimension of Kants Metaphysical of Morals. Kant-Studien 96, 2005, p. 84.27 Kant, I. Metaphysische Anfangsgrnde der Naturwissenschaft .

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As a result, if we agree with Loparics thesis, 28 where the commentator develops a systematic interpretation of transcendental philosophy conceiving of two metaphysics (one of nature, the other of morals) as an amplification of the legislation (theoretical and practical) by way of other a priori laws, we could then widen Claudia Schmidtsexplanation. Die Metaphysik der Sittenis to Grundlegung and Kritik praktische Vernunft what Metaphysische Anfangsgrnde der Naturwissenschaft is to Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In this way, we have the pure part of theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge and their corresponding empirical parts. This interpretation allows usto move forward with a constructivist comprehension of the objects of theoretical knowledge and with a

constitutivist comprehension of human nature or of man as an agent of the realization of moral law as an imperative.And it is in this sense that we could begin to think about the specificity of pragmatic Anthropology. If this isacceptable, we could then begin to find a place for pragmatic Anthropology within practical philosophy that is notsimply based on the emphasis of cases or entertainment.

Maria de Lourdes Borges is a supporter of the idea that, in Kant, empirical investigation of man cannot be incontradiction with moral philosophy. 29 However, according to her research, what is not clear in the Kantian system iswhat is really the compliment of a moral metaphysics, what the amplitude of a practical anthropology is. 30 As aresult, what Maria de Lourdes Borges signals is the problem of the reach and limit of an anthropology within the

bounds of Kantian practical philosophy. This is, certainly, the problem that must be initially resolved.As for Patrick Frierson, he published in 2006 a work that seeks to show the notion of character as an example of

Kantial moral anthropology. Although he makes a difference between Anthropologieand moral anthropology, he stillestablishes a systematic relation between the study of the anthropology of character and pure moral philosophy. This

study offers us a path to articulate pragmatic knowledge as the realization of law in a systematic way. That is,anthropological knowledge of character would be in direct relation with pure morality. Frierson writes:

I focus on one particular problem that arises in Kants discussion of character an apparent conflict betweenthe moral relevance of character and the possibility of evil character. By showing why there is an apparent conflict andwhy it is merely apparent, I show some of the ways in which a particular subjective condition in human nature canhelp, but not force, people to fulfill the laws of a metaphysics of morals. 31

Even though character is an example of moral anthropology, insofar as Kant presents it as a subjective conditionthat can help or obstruct the realization of moral law as an imperative for finite rational being ,32 his understanding can

be realized both within and outside of a human being. This is the work that Kant develops in Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht . As Frierson points out with certainty, character (good character) is not something with whicha human being is born; it is something that is cultivated, something that is acquired. It is for this reason that in order to cultivate good character that helps in the realization of moral law in mankind by way of republican institutions, botheducative and religious, we need to know (anthropologically) character in general. However, as Frierson indicates:Cultivating the subjective conditions studied by moral anthropology may promote morality, as in the case of character. But such cultivation is not identical to moral development, nor will it necessarilygive rise to fulfilling themoral law. 33 As a result, we can say that the anthropological study of subjective conditions of goodness in human

beings allows us to recreate a concept of human nature on which we can (but it does not necessarily need to be so)cultivate the realization of moral law.

Other commentators such as G. Felicitas Munzel, 34 David Sussman, 35 Batrice Longuenesse ,36 and Holly L.Wilson 37 (to only cite recent literature) also make important contributions to this theme with different perspectives, butthe route that I have followed up to here allows me to formulate the problem that I consider to be central to this article.

28 Loparic, Zeljko As duas metafsicas de Kant . Revista Kant e-prints vol.2, n. 5, 2003, pp. 1-10.

ftp://ftp.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/vol.2,n.5,2003.pdf 29 Borges, Maria de Lourdes Psicologia emprica, antropologia e metafsica dos costumes em Kant . Revista Kant e-prints vol.2,n. 1, 2003, p. 3. ftp://ftp.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/vol.2,n.1,2003.pdf 30 Borges, Maria de Lourdes Psicologia emprica, antropologia e metafsica dos costumes em Kant . Revista Kant e-prints vol.2,n. 1, 2003, p. 10. ftp://ftp.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/vol.2,n.1,2003.pdf 31 Frierson, Patrick Character ande vil in Kants Moral Anthropology. Journal of History of Philosophy; oct. 2006; 44, 4; p. 623.32 This had been announced since Foundation of the Metaphysics of Costumes(1785).33 Frierson, Patrick Character and evil in Kants Moral Anthropology. Journal of History of Philosophy; oct. 2006; 44, 4; p 631.The commentator, in a very intelligent way, also puts the problem of the difference between character in general and goodcharacter and the problem of the difference between free will and good will in parallel. This is linked to the problem of evil as theresult of a freely determined action (which could be morally judged) rather than one determined physiologically (which would

belong to the realm of the nature of science).34 Felicitas Munzel, G. Kants conception of moral character: The Critical Link of morality. Anthropology and reflective

judgment . Chigago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003.35 Sussman, David The Idea of Humanity: Anthropology and Anthroponomy in Kant's Ethics. NY: Routledge, 2003.36 Longuenesse, Batrice Kant on the Human Standpoint , Cambridge University Press, 2005.37 Wilson, Holly L. Kants Pragmatic Anthropology. Its Origin, meaning, and Critical Significance. NY: State Univeresity of NewYork Press, 2006.

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The Hypothesis of This Work In light of the results of the research evaluated above, we are in a position to affirm that Kants pragmatic

anthropology is not simply a pastime, it is not merely a course manual independent of Kants philosophy, and it is notunrelated to Kantian research. If we agree with these terms, then we should ask ourselves in what sense anthropologyis articulated in Kants philosophical domain.

If this is acceptable, then we can raise the following reading hypothesis: pragmatic anthropology is knowledgenot of what nature makes of man, but of what man makes of himself , with the intention of understanding the conditionsfor the effectuation of moral law within an individual and within the human species for the development of virtue andhistory. If we were to demonstrate the hypothesis of this work, we would be provided with the elements to: 1)understand the systematic unity of practical philosophy (morality being realized within right, virtue, history, religion,and education), and 2) think of the conditions for the possibility of a study of ourselves as effects of our own way of acting. However, in order to develop the demonstration for our works hypothesis, we would need to respond to thefollowing questions: 1) How would we define the space in which anthropology is possible?, 2) In what ways doanthropological knowledge of physical geography, psychological knowledge, and metaphysics differ with regards tohuman nature?, 3) When is anthropology pragmatic and when is it moral, and 4) How is it possible to formulate anunderstanding of something whose objective is the effect of the very way of acting of the subject of knowledge?

In some way, the responses to these questions reveal an apparent paradox. As a result, the study of humannature that aims towards the application of moral law in Kant is not without peculiarities. First, if we are dealing withempirical observations of human conduct and customs (as some commentators argue), we should take into accountthat empiricism in Kant is a construction and not the contestation of evidence. Second, this construction, which seeksto study what man makes of himself, takes into account experience as a manifestation of freedom. This takes us to theformulation of a paradox. If anthropology is not merely the physiological study of man that would be determined bythe principle of mechanical causality but rather the study of man as the effect of himself, then this brings about theunderstanding of the effect as an effect of a free causality. Thus, how can we affirm that the effect (visible in

perceptive experience) can have freedom as its cause (acceptable only in the noumenal realm)? But still. How can wecall studying this a science? This situation reveals that Maria de Lourdes preoccupation with the limits of anthropology and Starks with the boundary between Anthropology and morality are not idle, much to the contrary,this is precisely the point that needs to be considered if we want to understand anthropology as a study of theconstitution of ourselves as subjects of our own way of acting and as agents of the effectuation of law, as Grenberg,Louden, Schmidt and Frierson indicate from different perspectives.

The response to each one of these questions will imply: 1: defining historically-structurally the space opened up by Kantian philosophy for the development of studies of anthropology, from the first texts prior to the critique up tothe definitive writing of Anthropology in 1798; 2. differentiating the specificity of anthropology as pragmatic, in thestudy of human nature, from metaphysics as a rational science and from psychology and geography as empiricalsciences according to their objectives and methods; 3. delimiting the specificity of a pragmatic understanding of anthropology and establishing a relation with theoretical (empirical) knowledge and practical (moral) knowledge; 4.showing, from a basis in the analysis of examples used by Kant in Anthropology, procedures for giving meaning tothe concept of human nature and of man as a citizen of the world, as well as conditions of logical-semantic validity for

propositions formulated in the domain of a pragmatic anthropology. This last question will be decisive for organizing the field of knowledge in accordance with the type of propositions according to their logical structure andtheir semantic conditions of validity.

Responses to these Questions to Dissolve the Apparent Paradox and to Prove the Hypothesis

How should the space in which anthropology is possible be defined?If we start with Kants 1798 text, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht , we will find some preliminary elementsthat will allow us to elaborate the initial part of the response according to the value and type of knowledge with whichwe are dealing. Kant writes:

All cultural progress, by means of which the human being advances his education, has the goal of applying thisacquired knowledge and skill for the worlds use. But the most important object in the world to which he can applythem is the human being: because the human being is his own final end.- Therefore to know the human beingaccording to his species as an earthly being endowed with reason especially deserves to be called knowledge of theworld , even through he constitutes only one part of the creatures on the earth. 38

In this citation, we can see how Kant comes back to the notion of a human being, whose fundamentalcharacteristics were elaborated in the second and third critiques in 1788 and 1790, where he defines man literally likethe einiger letzter Zweck , and it is on this basis that he proposes a certain understanding: an understanding of man as a

38 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 3; AK 119.7


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final end . It is by this that, in accordance with Kant, this anthropology will be differentiated from any physiologicalknowledge.

According to Kant, a physiological knowledge of the human being concerns the investigation of what naturemakes of the human beings (...). 39 In this way, we would find the sciences and arts that understand man as a part of the objects of nature. A study of the organs or blood stream, an investigation into the marks that impressions leave inthe brain (Kant cites Descartes here) would be physiological knowledge. However, pragmatics is the investigation of what he (the man) as a free-acting makes of himself, or can and should make of himself 40 and contains knowledge of

the human being as a citizen of world.41

The space of an understanding of human nature as anthropologicalknowledge from the pragmatic point of view has a different beginning than an understanding of human nature as anobject of nature. I cite Kant: Therefore, even knowledge of the races of human beings as products belonging to the

play of nature is not yet counted as pragmatic knowledge of the world, but only as theoretical knowledge of theworld .42 In this passage, Kant shows that the difference between pragmatic knowledge and theoretical knowledge is,

basically, in the way the object is presented. This includes, on the one hand, empirical knowledge (geography, psychology, medicine, and any other physiological knowledge) and, on the other hand, a priori knowledge(mathematics and geometry). 43 We know that theoretical knowledge is an understanding of objects that are given or constructed by our senses. 44 Still, human nature or man understood as a citizen of the world or final end is definitivelynot an object of sensibility (as would be a table or the number 4). This signifies that the space occupied by the objectsof anthropology (from the pragmatic point of view) can not be the same space occupied by objects of theoreticalknowledge (empirical or a priori). It is in this way that we can affirm along with Kant that knowledge of the things of the world such as animals, plants, minerals, and races does not fit in anthropology from the pragmatic point of view.

It is also for this reason that the work methods of pragmatic anthropology are different. Kant advises that weread travel books, world histories, biographies, theater pieces, and novels. He also recommends social interactionwith people who live in cities and in the countryside as elements for the acquisition of anthropological knowledge. 45

Evidently, this is not the type of material of an empirical science which possesses concepts that refer to objects givenor constructed by the senses as may be the paradigmatic case of physics. He is dealing with another type of knowledge which, in order to make sense, does not refer directly to sensible objects, except that it requires a plan. Icite Kant:

Without such plan (which already presupposes knowledge of human beings) the citizen of the world remainsvery limited with regard to his anthropology. General knowledge always precedes local knowledge here, if the latter isto be ordered and directed through philosophy: in the absence of which all acquired knowledge can yield nothing morethan fragmentary groping around and no science. 46

Anthropology, understood as a study of human nature, requires a plan, and this plan is the plan of philosophywhich (curiously) already has knowledge of human nature. The plan was established starting from the response to thequestion about the possibility of a priori synthetic judgments in the three critiques, according to the division of thecognitive human device in different faculties (cognitivepleasure/displeasuresensual). This response is the

background without which we would have only a collection of pieces of knowledge and not a systematicunderstanding. This can be confirmed in an investigation which allows us to, from a chronological perspective,observe the emergence of the evolution of the theme of anthropology within the scope of Kants works from Beobachtungen ber das Gefhl des Schnen und Erhabenen(1764) to the 1798 texts. The change in these sevendifferent versions of the course lectures on anthropology carefully established by Brandt and Stark starting from withthe texts of Collins from 1772-73, Parow from 1772-73, Friedlnder from 1775-76, Pillau from 1777-78,Menschenkunde from 1781-82, Mrongovius from 1784-85, and Busolt from 1788-89 47 allow us to perceive, from astructural point of view, how the general system of anthropologic knowledge was articulated up until the 1798version. There is one notable difference in Mrongoviuss manuscript. It introduces a three-way division (whichappears timidly in Menschenkunde, but is not in Pillau) with respect to the division of the faculties. It should beremembered that the Mrongovius manuscript is from the year Kant was working on elaborating the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. In addition to this we can see in the works from the era prior to the critique, especially in39 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 3; AK 119.40 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 3; AK 119.41 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 4; AK 120.42 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 4; AK 120.43 We can find a didactic exposition of theoretical knowledge in the preface to Critique of the pure reason.44 I worked with the theory of the meaning of empirical and pure concepts in other published articles. See especially Kant e o problema da significao, 2002, Doctoral thesis from Unicamp-Brasil. This work lies in the line of interpretation known as

transcendental semantics that was initiated in Brazil by Zeljko Loparic. See A semntica transcendental de Kant . Campinas:Unicamp, 2000.45 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 4-5; AK 120-1.46 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 4; AK 120.47 See Kant, I. Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Band 25.1 and 25.2.

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Beobachtungen ber das Gefhl des Schnen und Erhabenenand in Versuch ber die Krankheiten des Kopfes (1764),the first approximation to an investigation of human nature with a large influence from British sensualism. We arehere dealing with a speculative work on empirical questions. However, in the 1780s and 1790s the change in thecontext of approaches is radical, investigations into human nature appear notably in works on practical philosophy:history, right, and ethics.

Kant developed his courses and changed their structure so as to change his philosophical project. InGrundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten(1785) Kant affirmed that ethics will have its empirical part () the

empirical part might be given the special name practical anthropology.48

Here the function of anthropology seems to be reduced to the evaluation of cases in which moral law is applicable. In this sense, Kant presents in Metaphysik der Sitten a theory of virtue in which we find the classification of (practical) ends that are also duties which obey the

particularities of human nature. However, anthropology is also the understanding of human nature in order to applythe law (both to favor the law and to be an obstacle to it). In Metaphysik der SittenKant affirms that moralmetaphysics has a counterpart, a moral anthropology, which would deal only with the subjective conditions inhuman nature that hinder people or help them in fulfilling the laws of a metaphysic of morals. It would deal with thedevelopment, spreading, and strengthening of morals principles .49 It is precisely this last point that is developed in Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht .

Being thus, in 1798, we can see that the distribution of themes responds clearly to the plan of the three critiquesand not to the development of an empirical science. But still, within the development of these themes, we can see thedistinction of anthropology in relation to psychology, metaphysics, and geography as well as the relationship between

pragmatic knowledge and practical philosophy such as we have mentioned above and will develop further in thefollowing pages.

In the beginning of Kants work, we can still say that the (1772) anthropology course was indeed a course aboutthe set of empirical understanding, merely technical or of a prudential order (derived from physical geography or from

psychology), but the interior of Kants philosophical project of 1798, that affirmation is no longer appropriate. If there existed some difference between all of the texts of the Anthropology course, that difference would be related tothe change of an aggregate into a system and finally to the establishment of Anthropology as a type of knowledge thatdoes not fit inside of empirical knowledge because its object, its method, and its propositional type do not satisfy theconditions of this domain.

How does anthropology, being pragmatic, differ from the study of human nature, geography, metaphysics, andpsychology?

If anthropology autonomously studies human nature, we should be able to delimit the epistemological differencewhat is established between it and physical geography, psychology, and metaphysics based on the definitionsestablished by Kant in his courses and in his published texts. The fragments of reflections can also be used to warrantsome explicit idea of the ideas on which they are founded, but they cannot serve to refute what Kant publicly putforth.

As Holly L. Wilson reminds us in her excellent work Kants Pragmatic Anthropology. Its Origin, Meaning,and Critical Significance(2006), for a long time, German literature fueled a debate originated by Dilthey and Adickesabout the place of anthropology in Kants body of work. On the one hand, partisans of Diltheys text (Breno, Erdman,and Gerland) maintained that anthropology was derived from geography. On the other hand, partisans of Adickessthesis affirmed that anthropology was derived from empirical psychology. 50 The discussions began with seven letters

between Dilthey and Adickes and were continued with articles, introductions, and books from the disciples of both. In

all this material historiographic tests and epistemological arguments are presented. In fact, it is possible to findhistorical documents and declarations from Kant himself affirming the two positions. On the one hand, theanthropology classes would have been derived from the physical geography classes that Kant regularly gave startingin 1755, but on the other hand, the content of the anthropology classes would have been supported in Baungartens

psychology. Wilson writes:The anthropology begins where physical geography ends, the different climates and environments, explored in

physical geography, explain the different kinds of human beings in the world, but the inner germs and natural predispositions, explored in anthropology, explain why the human being can adapt itself to the different climates andenvironments. 51

48 Kant, I. Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge University Press, p.; AK 4, 388.49 Kant, I. Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge University Press, p.; AK 6, 217.50

Wilson, Holly L. Kants Pragmatic Anthropology. Its Origin, meaning, and Critical Significance. NY: State Univeresity of NewYork Press, pp.17-18-19, 2006. Also on this theme, the following work can also be consulted: John Zammito Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology.Univ of Chicago Press, 2002, particularmente nas pp. 292 ff.51 Wilson, Holly L. Kants Pragmatic Anthropology. Its Origin, meaning, and Critical Significance. NY: State Univeresity of NewYork Press, p. 15, 2006.

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Thus, we could even understand anthropology as the result of the combination of geography with psychology,where knowledge can be classified as distinct styles of prudence and skill techniques based on which we could dealwith the world and construct our own destiny. Kant would have given these classes as an understanding of the world

based on which his students could discover their own lifestyles. Lastly, this is the spirit of anthropology for Holly L.Wilson who can be supported using Kants own words from a letter to Herz from late 1773. I cite Kant:

I am so directly concerned with observations themselves in ordinary life that from the very beginning throughto the end my listeners never a dry but rather an entertaining occupation since they always have the opportunity my

remarks with their own ordinary experience. I endeavor in my spare time to develop out of very pleasant corpus of observations a preliminary exercise in expertise, in cleverness, and even in wisdom for the academic youth which,together with physical geography, is to be distinguished from all other academic instruction and which can be calledknowledge of the world .52

As a result, in 1773, for Kant anthropology would deal with a type of knowledge of daily life, collectedobservations to complement academic learning. However, if we look to the route of Kants work, we can point outsome peculiarities that would help us to understand the specificity of Kantian anthropology as an autonomous andsystematic science.

The study of human nature from the point of view of natural history had more greatly emphasized what made aman as an embryo ( Keime) that can come to develop naturally. However, in anthropology, the preoccupation wasfundamentally about consequences and predispositions ( Anlagen). It is herein that the difference lies. While in thefirst case we can observe a natural (physiological) development that derived from changes and adaptations to the

environment, in the second case we can observe what man managed to make of himself during the course of theadaptations. We can say that in the first case we have natural causalities and ends and in the second case we have

practical interests and purposes. The texts Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen(1775-77), Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrasse(1785) and ber den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie(1788) areexamples of the first type of work. In these writings, we find the classification of the human species into races and theadaptation of the different races to different climates and geographies. On the other hand, in Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht we find the study of the development of determined predispositions for or against thefulfillment of the moral law. For example, as earlier as the first paragraphs of the second part of the cited book, wherehe brings up a persons character, we can observe the treatment that Kant gives to predispositions. I cite Kant.

From a pragmatic consideration, the universal, natural (not civil) doctrine of signs ( semiotica universalis) usesthe word character in two senses: because on the one hand it is said that a certain human beings has this or that(physical) character; on the other hand that he simply has a character (moral character), which can only be one, or nothing at all. The first is the distinguishing mark of the human being as a rational being endowed with freedom. Theman of principles, from whom one knows what to expect, not from his instinct, for example, but from his will, has acharacter. Therefore in the Characteristic one can, without tautology, divide what belongs to a human beings facultyof desire (what is practical) into what is characteristic in: a) his natural aptitude or natural predisposition, b) histemperament or sensibility, and c) his character purely and simply, or way of thinking. The first two predispositionsindicate what can be made of the human being; the last (moral) predisposition indicates what he is prepared to make of himself. 53

To these predispositions we can also add another classification where we find technical, pragmatic, and moral predispositions 54 when Kant refers to species. The indication and isolation of all these elements are important for anthropology if and only if we take into account a practical interest in the research like that which gives systematicunity. And it is this that we find in Kants own declaration, I cite:

The sum total of pragmatic anthropology, in respect to the vocation of human being and the Characteristic of his formation, is the following. The human being is destined by his reason to live in a society with human beings andis to cultivatehimself, to civilize himself, and to moralize himself by means of the arts and sciences. 55

This passage, which appears almost at the very end of the book, can be understood as a conclusion. In the endof his works, after having gone through all of human knowledge for the interior to the exterior of man, Kant declaresthe destiny of his object. But we can also understand the passage as something that declares what is at the base, whatserves as the background, what guides anthropologic knowledge from a pragmatic point of view. The cultivation of ones self for civilization and morality is the destiny of that man as a citizen of the world that Kant establishes as a

point of departure for the study of anthropology in a pragmatic sense. It is for this that the study of I in the first two paragraphs of the book is interesting to Kant because they allow him to present the different types of egoism and pluralism as the opposite of egoism. Kant says this much in the following passage: The opposite of egoism can only

52 Kant, I. AK Band X, 146.53 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 185; AK 286.54 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, pp. 226-230; AK 322-325.55 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, pp. 229-230; AK324-325.

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be pluralism, that is, the way of thinking in which one is not concerned with one self as the whole world, but rather regards and conducts one self as a mere citizen of the world. This much belongs to anthropology. 56

With this, Kant goes about shaping the conceptual field with which to answer the question what is man? Butthe elaboration of the question is made not simply in a theoretical direction. In other words, the answer for man thatKant seeks in Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht is not satisfied by the number of bones or by explaining thedifferent bodily tissues or by calculating the weight of intestinal flora. Here the question of man begins with the ideaof man as a final end, as a citizen of the world in order to find him again in his specificities by way of the collection

of material.For this reason, anthropology is also not a type of psychology or metaphyics or (merely) a part of psychologythat stems from Baumgartens metaphysics courses. As early as the beginning of the Parow version, the anthropologyclass from the winter semester of 1772-73, we find various pages in which Kant develops the limit of psychology andthe study of the soul. 57 Moreover, in Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781), more specifically in the paralogisms of purereason, we find a precise demarcation that does not leave room for speculation. In the early 1770s, Kant understood

psychology to be part of metaphysics, following Baungartens manual, but in 1781, he separated rational fromempirical psychology. Rational psychology would have as its object the logical I, whereas empirical psychologywould be based on the knowledge of objects in their internal sense. Empirical psychology would provisionally be partof metaphysics, but it should be autonomous in its development. Agreeing with Maria de Lourdes Borges, we can saythat:

What is refuted in the CRP, principally in the Paralogisms, is the substantiality of the soul and whataccompanies it: simplicity and uniqueness. Critical philosophy is the refutation of the tentative to know internallysensed objects by way of concepts (of substance, simplicity, etc.) not the attempt to know internally sensed objects byway of experience. The concept of transcendental I is contrary to the substantialized I of rational psychology, but it isnot incompatible as a study of the empirical I as an internally sensed object. 58

If we accept Maria de Lourdes Borges thesis, or at least, the demarcation between the realms of rational psychology and empirical psychology, then anthropology can not be reduced to either of the two. Certainly object andmethod are different. As Holly L. Wilson indicates very well:

Observation is indeed important to the methodology of pragmatic anthropology, but it is not observation of inner life alone, but also of the outer expressions of inner life. The Didactic of the Anthropologyrecognizes both theinner self and the exterior self, while the Characteristic concerns discerning the inner from the exterior. It is orientedto the world, society and the behavior of human beings, not to inner states and physiological characteristics .59

As a result, anthropology can not be reduced to empirical psychology because, among other things, its field of labor is still larger. Perhaps, although we will not develop the question here, psychology could be a part of anthropology as Allen Wood affirms. In Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht we find various moments in whichKant comes close to the considerations about the study of psychology and about its internally sensed objects, in thissense, it is very easy to argue that anthropology embraces more than it does without turning into a study of metaphysics. However, the difference would not just be in size; in the end of reflection 1502, Kant writes:

Pragmatic Anthropology should not be psychology: in order to research, whether the human being has a soul or what originates in the thinking and feeling principle in us (not in the body), also not the physiology of the doctor, inorder to explain the memory from the brain, but knowledge of human beings .60

Certainly, what is in play in anthropology is neither the soul, nor the body, nor even the I, but rather the citizenof the world. The question is to know how to relate the observations of anthropology (apparently empirical) with theconcept of the citizen of the world and with this compose valid knowledge. In order to develop this, we will answer the following question.

When is anthropology pragmatic and when is it moral?Brandt and Stark present a fairly detailed summary of the use of the word pragmatic in Kant, specifically in

relation with the beginning of its use with reference to anthropology. 61 The concept is also carefully followed inZammitos book. Both these studies reveal that the term pragmatic distances itself from the term physiological andapproximates itself to the term pedagogic. Zammito affirms that the emphatic sense of pragmatic in Kants revision

56 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, p. 18; AK 130.57 See Kant, I. AK Band XXV.1, pp. 243 ff.58 Borges, Maria de Lourdes Psicologia emprica, antropologia e metafsica dos costumes em Kant . Revista Kant e-prints vol.2,n. 1, 2003, p. 5. ftp://ftp.cle.unicamp.br/pub/kant-e-prints/vol.2,n.1,2003.pdf 59

Wilson, Holly L. Kants Pragmatic Anthropology. Its Origin, meaning, and Critical Significance. NY: State Univeresity of NewYork Press, p. 24, 2006.60 Kant, I. AK Band XV.1, p. 801.61 Brandt, Reinhardt & Stark, Werner Einleitung . IN Kants Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997, see especially pp.XIV ff.

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of his anthropology lectures was the repudiation of somatic/physiological considerations. 62 On the other hand, he issupported by two fragments of two of Kants reflections (3376 and 1482) to indicate the meaning of the term. In these

passages, Kant declares that the historical method 63 of teaching is pragmatic when it goes beyond mere academic(scholarly) use. Pragmatic appears when the use of an understanding of the world and of morality is possible, when itserves action and life. All of this can be seen clearly in the Friedlnder version of Prooemium ,64 from the winter semester of 1775.

Still, the term moral in anthropology appears, as Louden describes very well, in the form of moral

messages, and this can be seen in all of the versions of the course. These messages, read separately, contradict thosethat appear in the Morality courses, for example, in the Mrongovius and Powalski versions. And it is precisely thesemessages, in the middle of so many empirical observations, that stimulate Louden to speak of an impure ethics.The question is how to interpret these messages from a systematic point of view, and not just in isolation. Certainly,the meaning is not the same depending on the year and articulation.

Kant changed his philosophical project and along with it his conception of the place of morality with the criticalsystem. Until 1781, Kant understood morality to be an empirical problem, influenced as he certainly was byHutcheson. The explicit reference in 1763 in his text Untersuchung ber die Deutlichkeit der Grundstze der natrlichen Theologie und der Moral , associating Hutchesons name with moral sentiment and showing what thesolution to the problem of the principle of moralitys meaning to be, seems to have lasted quite a while. Kritik der reinen Vernunft itself has passages about freedom that are, at the least, curious and which contradict themselves inmore than one instance. Just to recall, Kant wrote in the first critique: Practical freedom can be proved through

experience (A 802/ B830). As we know, Kant is careful to separate physical causality from freedom. As such, it is alittle difficult to understand that experience can prove freedom. However, without wanting to enter in other problemsforeign to this work, we can say without a shadow of a doubt that from 1784 onwards, Kant established another relation with practical philosophy, this time based on the formulation of the categorical imperative and affirming thatthe laws of freedom have nothing to do with the laws of causality in experience. Be that as it may, this change can nothave not substantially affected Kants understanding of anthropology and of the moral messages of anthropology aswell as the place of anthropology within his new system. The division of the theoretical and practical realms allowedKant to resolve the problem of relating the two domains. I am not merely talking about the study of the explanation of the functioning of organisms and systems (which we can find systematically dealt with in the third critique), but alsoabout right, history, and anthropology. Said explicitly and without meandering: The practical character of anthropology and the moral messages must be able to be interpreted systematically within the new plan of philosophyand not as isolated elements where Kant would be here and there giving out advice on virtue.

As we have seen up to here, some commentators understand that we are dealing with a collection of empiricalobservations (more or less psychological or more or less physiological). Others understand it to be a series of adviceon prudence that we are dealing with. These interpretations can be sustained without doubt in the beginning of thecourse; perhaps we could go so far as the years of the formulation of the categorical imperative. But it is possible todoubt their certainty from the moment in which Kant proposes to explicitly include moral philosophy as part of transcendental philosophy, understanding this to be systematic. If transcendental philosophy offers me scheme tomake anthropological research not just an aggregate but indeed a system, then I should understand anthropologicalknowledge systematically and anthropology itself according to the scheme of transcendental philosophy.

The precepts of pragmatic anthropologyAs we have seen, in 1797 the object of anthropology was man, not in the physiological sense but as a citizen of

the world whose three part structure (determined in an a priori way by the response to the question of the possibilityof synthetic propositions in the three critiques) commands (organizes) the structure of the study that (for its objective)consists in knowing what man makes of himself . More specifically, it deals with knowing what man can and should make of himself , in that he is a rational finite being.

In other words, in order to begin an anthropological study of man (without his being a mere aggregate as he mayhave been in 1773), it is necessary to start with the following elements: a- man is a citizen of the world; b- man

possesses a three part structure of faculties or abilities ( Vermgen); c- man can act on himself provoking changes inthings beyond material conditions by obeying ideas; d- man can provoke changes in himself by acting out of duty(according to the categorical imperative) and becoming a citizen of the world.

62 John Zammito Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology.Univ of Chicago Press, 2002, p. 297.63 It is necessary to remember that Kant here understands as historical what we understand today as something similar toempirical.64 See Kant, I. AK Band XXV.1, pp. 469 ff.

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The plan for the development of the pragmatic anthropologists scienceKant thus has the concept of man as a citizen of the world as a three part structure from which it commands with

what material the concept that determines the subject of the proposition will be filled with meaning. Being thus,anthropological observations (which sometimes obey direct empirical observations but sometimes are indirectobservations or are taken from novels or theater pieces) are elaborated and are composed within previously established

plans. In Didactics, the three part structure commands the analysis of I, from mental and perceptive representations,from imagination, from understanding, from the feeling of pleasure, from affections, from passions, and from the

greatest good. In Characteristics, the characteristic traces of a person, of a people, of a race, and of the species arearticulated according to the final end, conceptually defined by the elements of the second and third critiques.

The material for the development of the pragmatic anthropologists scienceIt is in the schema presented above that we find the material with which Kant fills the concept of man as a

citizen of the world with meaning. This material is elaborated from: 1- analyses of day to day language, 2- analyses of observations of conduct, and 3- analyses of literary fragments, theater pieces, and travel books. I all address each of these three elements that I have just singled out with the intention of showing the modus operandiof an anthropologistin a pragmatic sense.

1- The analysis of day to day language is used, for example, to work with the notion of I . Among all of thethings that exist in the world, Kant tells us, there are some that have representations, but there is one that has therepresentation of I . This event makes this worldly thing entirely different from the others. The particularity is that I isa type of representation about which he have an understanding from language. We would not be more than Kantiansif we were to affirm that we know theI because we have language. We are dealing with a representation of understanding (according to the plan proposed by philosophy) that is more known through observations of day to daylanguage. These observations of language allow us to see the development of the individual until the acquisition of speech and the use that he makes of the representation I . If we remember here the third critique, we will see how thisis explained with the specification that Kant makes of man as that which can give himself ends. Thus, we can see thefunctioning of this representation as a unity that articulates other representations. The I allows us to know objects of experience, the ends proposed to oneself, and also egoism. This last thing is the aspect of interest for the pragmaticanthropologist.

According to Kant, three types of egoism are known by way of three types of judgments present in the use of day to day language. Thus, the logical egoist formulates judgments that do not need the test of other understandings,

the aesthetic egoist is satisfied with his own taste and is isolated by his own judgments, and the moral egoistformulates judgments wherein he limits all the ends to himself. Kant warns that the eudaimonist or practical egoist isnot guided by the concept of duty in the formulation of his maxims; this can be seen through the language and actionsof this individual. However, not only the practical egoist but the other two types of egoists also present problems for living in society and the development of individual abilities. This can be very well interpreted in relation with theprinciple of unsociable sociability of Kantian history first presented in the 1784 text of Idee zu einer allgemeinenGeschichte in weltbrgerlicher Absicht .

Egoism is also observed by Kant in public discourse. By a brief analysis of the pronouns in the speeches of members of the government (in the best style of Benveniste), the pragmatic anthropologist shows the moral egoism of the sovereign associated with a type of practice and political system: feudalism. The use of I the King or of Your Excellencyestablishes hierarchical relations in the social order that certainly do not benefit relations of equality under the law. As an analyzer of speech, the pragmatic anthropologist draws political conclusions.

Work on day to day language is still used to address perceptive representations. Through the analysis of how incurrent speech expressions senses are confused, senses command understanding, senses invent , Kant realizes adefense of perception. This allows the pragmatic anthropologist to cover some considerations about illusions andmoral permissiveness. Sensory illusions allow him to advance past error, disillusion, deception, and fascination.Moral permissiveness allows him to speak of moral appearances. Decorum, pudicitia, politessecreate in illusions theappearance of virtue. We could say that we are dealing with a reflections on political correctness. Kant comes to

ponder the appearance of pleasantness and to cite Aristotles famous phrase, My dear friends: there is no such thingsas a friend .65

On two occasions Kant also works on proverbs, a (supposedly) Russian one that speaks of the appearance of intelligence and seriousness through clothing and another (supposedly) German one along with a stoic phrase thatspeaks of alcoholic drinks, frankness, and decision making.

Proverbs are eminently illustrative, but they function as demonstrations of culture. We could also say that theyappear as signs within language of what man makes of himself and of specific characteristics of his way of acting.

65 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, pp. 42-43; AK 152.13


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In every case (the list that I presented here does not exhaust the work of the book) these analyses do nottransform Kant into an Oxford philosopher, it is left clear that we are not dealing with knowledge about empiricalexperiences such as the table is made of wood , but rather with expressions of language (fragments of speeches,

pronouns, popular sayings, proverbs). The pragmatic anthropologist acts as if we could know man as a subject of hisown way of acting through the analysis of expressions from day to day language. The pragmatic anthropologistknows what man makes of himself not through the study of cellular tissues or organs, but through languageexpressions.

2- Analyses about observation of conduct (which are collected without correction or editing) are realizedstarting from common knowledge, presupposed and more or less accepted by the community of individuals in whichthey participate. We have as cases: the neurotic who can not overlook a detail that he finds disagreeable and winds upspoiling a relationship; the self-observer who after collecting sufficient information winds up mentally disoriented or crazy (melancholy). With elements such as these, the pragmatic anthropologist moves forward the analysis of obscureand confused representations and attitudes which are derived from it such as originality, vulgarity, ignorance,

pedantry, and scientific senses. We even find all of the characterization and classification of things we can introduceto each one of our interlocutors. We also find one of Kants considerations that is (today) rather complicated,specifically: the case of the Jew, the woman, and the priest who can not drink without risking the loss of their dignity.Certainly, these archetypes or stereotypes of individuals acting in society are different from empirical knowledge.Would what we can say about a woman who drinks losing her dignitybe an empirical proposition? We couldunderstand these expressions as a manifestation of the vulgar prejudice of a macho person (position that Kant does not

lose the opportunity to demonstrate), but we can also take it to be that what is in play is the attempt to interpret thedifferent possibilities of the realization of morality and to question the relationship between morality andsegregationism or to reflect on moral values that are maintained outside of civil law. Lets look at Kants text:

Women, clergymen, and Jews normally do not get drunk, or at least they carefully avoid all appearance of it, because their civil status is weak and they need to be reserved (for which sobriety is required). For their external worthrests simply on others belief in their chastity, piety, and a separatist lawfulness. For, as concerns the last point, allseparatists, that is, those who submit not only to a public law of the land but also to a special one (of their own sect),are, as oddities and allegedly chosen people, particularly exposed to the attention of the community and the sting of criticism; thus they cannot slacken their attention to themselves, since drunkenness, which removes caution, is ascandal for them. 66

As we can see, the question here is neither the woman nor the Jew, rather it is the relation that day to day moralsestablish with the moral law. When an individual or a group of individuals demands for itself a situation that isdifferent from the rest of the community, this individual or group is subject to being judged differently by thecommunity. The appearance of morality weighs more and it is in this sense that the appearances of some virtuesshould be preserved and others should be modified. For example, it is more scandalous to recognize the use of drugsin the president of a country than in a painter, even though this drug use had occurred as a university student. The

pragmatic anthropologist is confronting the problem of the delicate difference between hypocrisy and politeness.And he does this by reconstructing fragments of culture. All the archetypes are drawn from common sense and fromliterature that are nothing other than products of culture generated by human beings themselves. Each case has less todo with an empirical statement than with a cultural construction.

3- Analyses and literary fragments, theater pieces, and travel books are spread throughout the entire book. Wecould make here a list of novelists, scientists, theologians, mystics, philosophers, and poets who contribute to the work of the pragmatic anthropologist to construct man as the object of his study. The list goes from William Shakespeareand Jonathan Swift to Milton, Lucretious or Horace; from Plato, Aristotle, and Tacitus to Locke, Hume, Voltaire,Pascal, or Rousseau. We also find Pico de la Mirandola, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope and many others. Thisshowing allows us to see the literary variety from which the pragmatic anthropologist can draw from. Like a truecultural analyst, Kant does not pass over its principal manifestations and transforms this into material for his work.On some occasions, Kant also takes note of the writers themselves as cultural personalities. This is the case of Swedenborg, a privileged target of Kants who represents derangement, mysticism, and fanaticism.

As we can see, more than empirical knowledge of man, as is defined in the first critique, we have appreciationsof what we can call products of culture. The pragmatic anthropologist constructs the concept of man starting from a

practical appreciation and from practical judgments of products of culture as expressions of language and types of conduct more or less recognized by the community of individuals and literature. With this operation, the pragmaticanthropologist shows how man is constructed in the external world, in his own effects, and according to the necessityof the functioning of reason itself. It is there that he consolidates the pragmatic character of anthropological research.

66 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, pp. 63-64; AK 171.14


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How is it possible to formulate knowledge of something whose object is an effect of the very way of acting of the subject of knowledge?

Kant systematically questions the possibility of synthetic propositions. This question is the one that makes thelabor of the transcendental philosopher systematic. Without summarizing, we can say that a philosopher istranscendental (in a Kantian sense) when he asks about the possibility (validity) of synthetic propositions in each case.Thus, Kant questioned the possibility of propositions such as the table is made of wood , (and developed the conditionsfor the possibility of the knowledge of objects of feelings); robbery is morally wrong (and developed the conditionsfor the possibility of practical knowledge); this rose is beautiful or this pyramid is sublime(and developed theconditions for the possibility of aesthetic judgment); this is mine(and developed the conditions for the possibility of right); humanity is progressing towards the better (and developed the conditions for the possibility of history).

Being thus, the fundamental proposition that guides and opens the possibility of pragmatic anthropologicalknowledge is that Man is a citizen of the world . It is from this proposition that we can say that there is anthropologicalknowledge that is neither simply physiological nor metaphysical. However, if we are not speaking of mere chimeras,it is necessary to know the conditions for the possibility (validity) of this type of a proposition. The Kantian question

par excellence is thus: What are the conditions for the possibility of being able to formulate the proposition that Manis a citizen of the world ? The response to this question should determine if it is a priori or a posteriori, if it isanalytical or synthetic and if it is valid or invalid. 67

A priori and synthetic propositional formWe can immediately affirm that we are not dealing with an a posteriori proposition, that it can be decided by

experience. The fact of whether man is or is not a citizen of the world is not corroborated by physical experience.The concept of citizen of the world is an eminently practical concept. Kant uses this concept several times in lettersand published texts. In 1766, in Trume enies Geistersehers, erlutert durch Trume der Metaphysik,in 1776, in thewriting about philanthropy, and in the critical period, in the text of Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte inweltbrgerlicher Absicht (1784), in ber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht fr die Praxis (1793), and in Metaphysik der Sitten(1796). This last case was practically at the same time of the finalwriting of the anthropology text.

We can doubt how to make use of the concept of citizen of the world (if in a theoretical or practical sense)during the pre-critical period, but starting with the text Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbrgerlicher Absicht , there can be no question that its meaning can only be practical. The concept of a citizen of the world is a

practical concept that is used in history, right, and (in our case) anthropology. We are now dealing with, in this area,what its specific meaning would be.What would a true citizen of the world be in a practical sense? Kant gives us an exact definition in the

doctrine of right 29 when he deals with the right of parents and the acquisition of children. Can we acquire childrenas objects? The answer is no. A child is a person, that is, a person endowed with freedom, and from this we can notmake a physical concept out of its production. The production of things and the concept of a person belong to totallydifferent areas of meaning. The act of procreation brings into the world a person without that persons consent, Kantsays, he is not merely a worldly being, but rather a citizen of the world. This citizen is born free, be he is also bornwith the right to be fed, protected, and educated so that he can develop pragmatically and morally.

If this is the practical (not physiological) birth of a citizen of the world, then the relation between the concept of human being and the concept of citizen of the world conforms to an a priori and synthetic proposition (I cannotanalytically derive a predicate from the subject). But there is still another question, specifically: how can I link an

empirical concept (human being) with a practical concept (citizen of the world) in a synthetic a priori proposition andthat can be said to be valid?

Pragmatic validation for the a priori , synthetic propositional form of anthropologyThe fact of having synthetic a priori propositions with empirical concepts is neither a problem nor anything new

in Kant. These types of propositions had been dealt with since 1786, in the text Metaphysische Anfangsgrnde der Naturwissenschaft . But we are confronted here with a peculiarity of the validation of the case. A theoretical proposition refers to objects that are given or constructed by the senses; a practical proposition refers to the moral lawthat is effected in the feelings of humiliation and respect; an aesthetic proposition refers to feelings of

67 Some commentators, among them Holly L. Wilson, argue in favor of a teleological interpretation of pragmatic anthropology.Wilson affirms, All of these examples are also examples of the use of teleological judgment. Descriptions that admit of

teleological characterization are included in pragmatic anthropology because this is what allows us to see the intersection of natureand the free will; To understand human destiny, in order to be recognized as pragmatic anthropology. See Kants Pragmatic Anthropology. Its Origin, meaning, and Critical Significance. NY: State University of New York Press, pp.29 and 31, 2006. Iwill not discuss these arguments here, I will merely limit myself to showing why anthropology is founded on the proposition thatMan is a citizen of the world, and what its possibilities are.

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pleasure/displeasure of the subject of aesthetic experience; but the question here is: what is the reference of a proposition of pragmatic anthropology?

The response to this question can be derived from the explanation made about the material of the pragmaticanthropologist. The propositions reference is constructed by signs of the products of culture arranged starting froman idea of reason that responds to a practical interest. This is what allows Kant to formulate the fundamental

proposition and all of the other propositions of anthropology. For this, each proposition that is formulated in openspace by the pragmatic anthropologist is not a mere counsel of prudence or a mere observation of a supposed

evidence.The pragmatic anthropologist shows the relation that man has the representation I, with his perceptions, withhis feelings, with his intellectual representations collecting signs that appear as products of culture. But still, Kantmakes explicit use of semiotics68 to characterize a person, people, sex, and species. That is, by way of a theory of signs, the pragmatic anthropologist arranges a study of human nature that allows him to speak of dispositions ascharacteristics, and of these elements of the exercise of his own freedom.

Said in few words: the reference of the proposition Man is a citizen of the world as the fundamental propositionof pragmatic anthropology is what qualifies all of the appreciations formulated in anthropological work; it is theconstruction of human nature starting from the reconstruction of fragments of culture as being the very product of mans way of acting.

Final considerations

In the different versions of the Anthropology courses, we find mention of the sources and of the utility of thediscipline. In the Menschenkunde version, we find something that interests us: The observation of modes of conductand of history are mentioned as sources (die Quellen) for Anthropology. And ever since Pillaus version, theusefulness of these sources has been marked by mans moral knowledge. Being thus, we can say that anthropologyfor Kant is just as separated from morality as it is from law and history. The attempt to delimit this science allows usto see how Kant did not cease to advance the work of transcendental philosophy by discovering new types of

propositions.Anthropological knowledge permits Kant to fill with meaning the concept of man as a citizen of the world in

order to be able to make use of this concept in the development of history, in the exercise of virtue, and in the exerciseof right. The question for human beings is not an arbitrary one; it is one that is necessary to transcendental

philosophy. What man is in his specificity is not something that could be irrelevant to Kants philosophy. But inKants anthropology, he goes farther than a mere speculative elaboration. Kant asks about the future of human nature.What can man make of himself? What type of human being are we in conditions of creation? What type of human

being can we hope to be according to the institutionalization of reason in politics, religion, and education? Thus, weare not dealing with an empirical study but rather with a work guided by a practical end.

Man just like all humanity is a creation of practical reason. The institutionalization of reason 69 did not justinvent governments, construct schools and universities. We ourselves were invented by the mechanisms of reason for the benefit of its own functioning and on the future of the mechanisms of reason depends our own future.

68 Kant, I. Anthropology of a Pragmatic point of view. Cambridge University Press, pp. 185; AK 285.69 Ver Frederick Rauscher The institutionalization of reason. Kantian Review, volume 9, pp. 95-104, 2005.

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