[close] Fall semester 1772/73 at Konigsberg's Albertus Univ. Immanuel Kant, prof. of logic & metaphysics, began lectures on anthropology, which he continued until 1776, shortly before his retirement. His lecture notes & papers were first published in 1798, eight years after the publication of the Critique of Judgment, the third of his famous Critiques. This edition of the Anthropology translates the Gegesammelte Schriften, Vol. 7, edited by Oswald Külpe.
Kant describes the Anthropology as a systematic doctrine of the knowledge of humankind. He doesn't distinguish between the academic discipline of anthropology as understood today & the philosophical. His lectures stressed the pragmatic approach to the subject because he hoped to establish pragmatic anthropology as a regular academic discipline. He differentiates physiological knowledge of the human species, the investigation of "what Nature makes of man", from pragmatic, "what man as a free being makes of himself, what he can make of himself & what he ought to make of himself." He believed that anthropology teaches the knowledge of humankind & familiarizes us with what is pragmatic, not speculative, in relation to humanity. He shows us as world citizens within a cosmic context.
Summarizing this edition of the Anthropology, Library Journal concludes: "Kant's allusions to such issues as sensation, imagination, judgment, aesthetic taste, emotion, passion, moral character & the character of the human species in regard to the ideal of a cosmopolitan society make this work an important resource for English readers who seek to grasp the connections among Kant's metaphysics of nature, metaphysics of morals & political theory. The notes of the editor & translator, which incorporate material from Ernst Cassirer's edition & from Kant's marginalia in the original manuscript, shed considerable light on the text." [close]