The question of the Bildung or education of humanity, in particular the Enlightenment goal of human perfectibility, is germane to all the anthropology lectures, but it is especially apropos in the case of the Friedländer lectures to situate them historically in relation to the education reform movements of the long eighteenth century. The lectures date from the time of Kant's most active involvement with and support for an institution of education, the Philanthropin (founded in 1774 in Dessau). Its program of education (based on Lockean, Rousseauian, and Enlightenment principles) and the writings of its founder, Johann Bernhard Basedow, inspired the major educational reform movement of his day, Philanthropinismus. In his first set of lectures on pedagogy (also from this period, 1776/77) Kant used Basedow's Methodenbuch as the basis for his course. Together with his reading over a decade earlier of Rousseau's Émile, Or On Education (with its critique of Locke's educational program laid down in Some Thoughts Concerning Education), his interest in the moral weeklies (the English Spectator, for example, is referenced in the Friedläender lectures), his correspondence with the education reformers and of course his own experience both as student and teacher, Kant had first-hand knowledge of and engagement in the education reform issues.

Kant began lecturing on Anthropology in the winter of 1772–1773. The earliest transcriptions of these lectures that have come down to us are the Collins text and the Parow text. Both are evidently lectures on Baumgarten's empirical psychology; and both texts are fairly extensive: Collins is nearly 240 printed pages. It is a compilation from notes taken by seven transcribers. After a brief “Prolegomena” and introductory “Treatise,” it begins by treating the human understanding, or faculty of theoretical cognition, followed by discussions of special talents and diseases of the mind, then passes on to a treatment of the faculty of taste, and ends with a discussion of the faculty of desire, including a treatment of affects and passions, and of human character.

The selections translated here include the opening Prolegomena and Treatise, which discuss the aims and method of anthropology, a selection from Kant's discussion of taste, and a very brief excerpt presenting Kant's conception of character, as it appears in his earliest lectures.

INTRODUCTION

One must distinguish two kinds of study: there are brooding sciences, which are of no utility to the human being, and there were formerly philosophers called scholastics, whose entire science consisted of surpassing each other in shrewdness; their art was science for the school, but one could not obtain any enlightenment for common life from it. One of them may be a great man, but only for the school and without the world having utility from his knowledge. A second kind of study consists not merely in gaining esteem for oneself from members of the school but also in extending knowledge beyond the school and trying to expand one's knowledge toward universal utility: this is study for the world. A science is scholastic when it is in accordance with the standards of the school and of the professions. This is a perfection not to be despised; for all sciences must be scholastic at the beginning, later they can also become popular in order to be accepted and made use of by mere admirers. Initially science should give satisfaction to the student of the craft, and then afterward we will see how it can best be grasped by common people. He who makes a scholastic use of his knowledge is a pedant, he knows how to describe his concepts merely with the technical expressions of the school and speaks merely in scholarly phrases of expression. He makes a use merely of scholastic cognitions in the world, but here one must understand simply how to apply one's knowledge popularly, so that others also understand us, not merely professional scholars. One laughs when pedants display their knowledge so inappropriately that they make a scholastic use of it in the world, for nothing is more laughable than when one shows no power of discrimination (judicium discretivum) and does not see what is fitting for the circumstances. Thus the pedant, who in other respects can be a man of merit, often gives us occasion to laugh. It is therefore necessary that we learn to make a popular use of our knowledge acquired in universities, so that we know, in our dealings with human beings, how to educate them or make ourselves be liked by them. We should 25:854be concerned not with the school but rather with the world; we must therefore study the world.

Within a few years of the publication of his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was recognized by his contemporaries as one of the seminal philosophers of modern times – indeed as one of the great philosophers of all time. This renown soon spread beyond German-speaking lands, and translations of Kant's work into English were published even before 1800. Since then, interpretations of Kant's views have come and gone and loyalty to his positions has waxed and waned, but his importance has not diminished. Generations of scholars have devoted their efforts to producing reliable translations of Kant into English as well as into other languages.

There are four main reasons for the present edition of Kant's writings:

1. Completeness. Although most of the works published in Kant's lifetime have been translated before, the most important ones more than once, only fragments of Kant's many important unpublished works have ever been translated. These include the Opus postumum, Kant's unfinished magnum opus on the transition from philosophy to physics; transcriptions of his classroom lectures; his correspondence; and his marginalia and other notes. One aim of this edition is to make a comprehensive sampling of these materials available in English for the first time.

2. Availability. Many English translations of Kant's works, especially those that have not individually played a large role in the subsequent development of philosophy, have long been inaccessible or out of print. Many of them, however, are crucial for the understanding of Kant's philosophical development, and the absence of some from English-language bibliographies may be responsible for erroneous or blinkered traditional interpretations of his doctrines by English-speaking philosophers.

3. Organization. Another aim of the present edition is to make all Kant's published work, both major and minor, available in comprehensive volumes organized both chronologically and topically so as to facilitate the serious study of his philosophy by English-speaking readers.

4. Consistency of translation. Although many of Kant's major works have been translated by the most distinguished scholars of their day, some of these translations are now dated, and there is considerable terminological disparity among them. Our aim has been to enlist some of the most accomplished Kant scholars and translators to produce new translations, freeing readers from both the philosophical and literary preconceptions of previous generations and allowing them to approach texts, as far as possible, with the same directness as present-day readers of the German or Latin originals.

This is both the latest and the briefest of the lecture transcriptions published in Volume 25 of the Akademie Ausgabe, comprising about 100 printed pages in that edition. It was apparently the work of a single transcriber. This text is fragmentary, and omits the organizing divisions found in Friedländer, Menschenkunde and Mrongovius. But it seems to follow the same general pattern as the other lecture transcriptions, both early and late, covering first the theoretical faculty, then the faculty of taste, and finally the faculty of desire.

The selections here are from the introductory remarks about methodology, self-consciousness and obscure (or unconscious) representations, and also from Kant's first mention of the three maxims of thinking, presented in several of his later published works: the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, and the Jäsche Logic.

FIRST CHAPTER INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY

There are two ways to study: in school and in the world. In school one studies scholastic cognitions, which belong to scholars by profession; but in social intercourse with the world one studies popular cognitions, which belong to the whole world. –

Now whoever wants to apply scholastic cognitions, which one uses only in the school and in scholarly writings, for use in the world without seeing whether or not they hold interest, is a pedant, namely, a pedant with regard to the subject matter; but if he actually has a great deal of knowledge and merely does not know how to make his knowledge understandable except in methodical form, then he is a pedant with regard to the manner.

The word “pedant” originally comes from Latin, for in Italy one called the domestic tutors magistri pedanei.The Italian word pedanto came from this, as one left off the magistrio and changed pedanei into pedanto; hence today theGerman word Pedant.These people were supposedly not to be received outside of their study rooms; they thus applied only their school knowledge when they were in social intercourse and therefore gave people the occasion to call a person who did not know how to conduct himself with human beings a “pedant.” A pedant can make only a scholastic use of his knowledge because he does not know how to apply it any better and does not know any other use for it.

Immanuel Kant is best known to us as a systematic metaphysician who defended the a priori status of both the principle of morality and the fundamental principles of a science of nature. It may therefore come as a surprise to learn that as a university teacher, Kant's most frequently offered and most popular courses had to do with empirical materials to which he had difficulty giving any systematic form. These were lectures on what Kant called the two kinds of “world-cognitions” (Welterkenntnisse): physical geography and anthropology (VPG 9:157, ApH 7:122n, RM 2:443). Both deal with the environment in which human beings live and act, the former with the outer, natural environment, the latter with both the constitution of the human soul and the social and historical environment in which human beings, both individually and collectively, shape their own nature as rational creatures. Both of these empirical sciences were new in Kant's time, and he could even claim to share in their invention.

Kant began his academic career as a natural scientist, whose special interest in geology and earth sciences is clear from his early treatise Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755). In this work he proposed the earliest version of the nebular hypothesis of the origins of the solar system (though the hypothesis became well known only after its later and more mathematically sophisticated presentation by La Place). For most of the previous decade, Kant had been writing treatises on physics, astronomy, and geology, discussing such subjects as earthquakes and questions of meteorology. He began lecturing on physical geography in 1756, offering the same course on a more or less regular basis during the summer semester. His interest in anthropology, or at least one side of it, appears to have grown out of this, insofar as Kant sought to “display the inclinations of human beings as they grow out of the particular region in which they live” (Ak 2:9). It was for this reason that Wilhelm Dilthey argued that Kant's interest in anthropology should be fundamentally understood as arising out of his interest in physical anthropology – focusing, however, not on the natural environment as such but on human beings’ activities in it.

PROLEGOMENA

The science of the human being (anthropology) has a similarity to the physiology of outer sense, insofar as in both the grounds of cognition are drawn from observation and experience. Nothing indeed appears to be more interesting for the human being than this science, and yet none is more neglected than precisely this one. The blame for this probably lies in the difficulty of undertaking this species of observation, as also in the odd illusion that one believes himself to know that with which he is accustomed to dealing. For in some sciences important parts have thereby been withdrawn from consideration, because one did not consider them worthy of it. One cause might be that one conjectures he would not find much to rejoice at if he were to undertake the difficult descent into Hell toward the knowledge of himself.

But why has no connected science of human beings been made out of the great stock of observations made by English authors? It appears to come from this: one has considered the science of human beings as a dependent part of metaphysics, and has therefore applied only as much attention to it as the larger parts of metaphysics permitted. This mistake has perhaps arisen out of the error that in metaphysics one must take everything out of himself, so that one has regarded all parts of metaphysics as consequences of the doctrine of the soul. But metaphysics has nothing to do with experiential cognitions. Empirical psychology belongs to metaphysics just as little as empirical physics does. – If we regard the knowledge of human beings as a special science, then many advantages arise from this; since 1) for love of it one need not learn the whole of metaphysics. 2) before a science comes into order and regularity of disposition, it must be pursued in academies alone; this is the only means of bringing a science to a certain height; but this cannot take place if the science is not precisely separated. One does not retain anything from books for which one has no pigeonholes, as it were, in one's understanding. The disposition is therefore in a science the most excellent thing; if one has this from the natural cognition of human beings, then one would collect inestimable reflections and observations from novels and periodicals, from all writings and from all one's dealings.

1. BERKELEY TO AN ILLUSTRIOUS ASSEMBLY

TCD ms 888/2, fols. 244–53. Additional drafts present in TCD ms 4309, fol. 13 and BL Add. ms 39305.

10 January 1705/6

by Mr. Berkeley Jan: 10, 1705/6

Mr. President and Gentlemen,

There is one of the rarities of this kingdom which though I judge considerable enough to take place among the rest, yet so it is I neither find it described nor so much as mentioned by those who are curious in enquiries of this nature. I mean the cave of Dunmore. Wherefore having had the curiosity to see it, in defect of a better I present you with my own account of this wonderful place so far as I shall be able to copy it from what I remember either to have seen my self or heard from others.

This rarity is distant four miles from Kilkenny & two from Dunmore his Grace the Duke of Ormond's country house whence it has its name. Its mouth or entrance is situated in a rising ground and affords a very dismal prospect being both wide & deep & all its sides rocky & precipitious save one which is a slope, part whereof is fashioned into a path & in some places into steps by the frequent descents of those who out of curiosity visit this stupendous cave. This as well as the rest of the sides is overrun with elder and other shrubs which add to the horrour of the place & make it a suitable habitation for ravens, screechowls & such like feral birds that dwell in the cavities of the rocks.

At the foot of this descent by an opening which resembles a wide arched gate we entered into a vast cavern the bottom whereof is always slabby by reason of the continual distillation of rock water. Here we bad farewell to day-light plunging into a more than Cimmerian darkness that fills the hollows of this subterranean dungeon into whose more retired apartments we were admitted by two passages out of this first cavern; for having by candlelight spy’d out our way towards the left hand & not without some difficulty clambered over a ruinous heap of huge unwieldy stones, we saw a farther entrance into the rock but at some distance from the ground;