Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (German: ) is a non-fiction book by German philosopher Immanuel Kant. The work was developed from lecture notes for a number of successful classes taught by Kant from 1772 to 1796 at the Albertus Universität in then Königsberg, Germany. While nominally detailing the nature of anthropology as a field, it additionally discusses a variety of topics in terms of Kantian thought.
Origins and arguments
Background and composition
Kant's work distills the content that he taught in an annual course at the Albertus Universität in then Königsberg, Germany, a program which Kant set forth from 1772 until his retirement in 1796. The book came out in 1798 with the intent of exposing Kant's viewpoints on the then embryonic intellectual field of anthropology to a wider audience. Despite not being free, unlike other speaking engagements by Kant, the philosopher's classes on the topic had achieved widespread popular interest in contrast to previous attempts to spread his general ideas to the masses.
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View wound up being the last major work of Kant that was edited by the philosopher himself. The strain of his age and the state of his health had significantly affected his writing. Despite the meaning that he attached to the book, those factors meant that he found himself unable to do more much than arrange his lecture notes for publication.
Summing up Kant's views on ideals in the context of the book's composition, scholar Frederick P. Van De Pitte has written,
Methodology and views expressed
Within the work, Kant remarks that anthropology seeks to answer the fundamental question "what is the human being" and thus can be considered the academic discipline with the highest intellectual scope. A later reviewer commented about Kant's opinions that "[o]ne of the many lessons... is that at the empirical level of application, there is no sharp dividing line between morality and nature, since empirical psychology can function as empirical ethics for this purpose." In conclusion, according to the reviewer, "[h]uman beings in nature are acting, moral beings".
Exploring in multiple aspects the causes and effects of people's behavior, Kant spends many pages on topics such as the biological as well as psychological capacity for individuals to live through and comprehend experiences. For instance, the writing details Kant's views on the external senses as well as the particular nature of different mental states from drunkenness to sleep. He expands to discussions on social organization and interpersonal relations while inserting numerous comments about different types of people as well as various life events. Many of these relate to observations of humanity itself, generally speaking.
Specifically, Kant states that "a mind of slow apprehension is therefore not necessarily a weak mind" since "the one who is alert with abstractions is not always profound" but "is more often very superficial." He argues, "[t]he deceiver is really the fool." On determination and mental resolve, in addition, Kant asserts that "[t]hrough failures one becomes intelligent" and "the one who has trained himself in this subject so that he can make others wise through their own failures... [thus] has used his intelligence." Kant defends what he describes as the seeking of knowledge by even the uncertain layperson, the philosopher arguing "[i]gnorance is not stupidity."
The book additionally features detailed accounts by Kant of him applying his "categorical imperative" concept to various issues in real experience. For example, he writes about the contrast between striving idealism and personal vice, the philosopher writing,
On the subject of religion, he laments what he sees as unnecessary conflict in terms of cognitive purposes and the regular practice of devotion, Kant remarking,
Comparing and contrasting different human groups, Kant makes a variety of assertions about men and women as well as different ethnicities, nationalities, and races. For instance, he writes about the sexes, "[t]he woman wants to dominate, [and] the man wants to be dominated". The philosopher argues in depth that nature "made women mature early and had them demand gentle and polite treatment from men, so that they would find themselves imperceptibly fettered by a child due to their own magnanimity" and additionally "would find themselves brought, if not quite to morality itself, then at least to that which cloaks it, moral behavior". In Kant's eyes, ideal marriage exists in such a way that a woman acts like a monarch while a man acts like a cabinet minister.