Kant's pragmatic anthropology: an investigation into what the human being can make of themselves

O’Rourke, Shannon Michael (2015) Kant's pragmatic anthropology: an investigation into what the human being can make of themselves. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to articulate the tension between reading Kant's Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view as either intrinsic or extrinsic to his critical work. Kant characterizes the opposition of physical and pragmatic anthropology, respectively, as the difference between "what nature makes of the human being", and what "he as a free-acting being makes of himself, or can and should make of himself."¹ In his Logic, he lays out his four questions: 1) What can I know? [Was kann ich wissen?] 2) What should I do? [Was soll ich tun?] 3) What may I hope for? [Was darf ich hoffen?] 4) What is the human being? [Was ist der Mensch?] Kant tells us the first is addressed by metaphysics, the second by morals, the third by religion, and the fourth by pragmatic anthropology, however, he adds at the end of this section in the Logic, that "Foundationally, all of these questions come to anthropology, becasue the first three questions must define it."² Kant's anthropological works, both the published work of 1798 and the lecture notes, enables a vantage point with the potential to determine how the anthropology fits into his corpus and future it enables the possibility of evaluating whether it places plays the pivotal role, Kant purports it does, in uniting his philosophical system and in the attainment of Science, because it is through anthropology that science is reached.³ ¹Immanuel Kant, Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, trans. Robert B. Louden and Manfred Kuehn (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 7:119. ²Immanuel Kant, Kant's gesammelte schriften, 29 vols., Deutsche Akademie Der Wissenschaften Zu Berlin (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902), 9:25. ³Immanuel Kant, Kant's Gesammelte Schriften Abt. 4, Vorlesungen; Bd. 2. Vorlesungen Ueber Anthropologie. (Berlin: Reimer,1997), 25:1435.

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