In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Anthropology, History, and Education
  • Jeanine M. Grenberg
Immanuel Kant . Anthropology, History, and Education. The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden, editors. Translated by Mary Gregor, Paul Guyer, et al.Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xvi + 597. Cloth, $150.00.

We are told in the introduction to this volume that what holds together such an apparently diverse collection of essays under a single rubric is the theme of "human nature." And this is fair enough: themes ranging from Kant's reflections on physiology, to his investigation of the vexed notion of what it is that constitutes a race, to his reflections on philosophy of history, to his lectures on pedagogy all fit reasonably enough under the rubric of "human nature." All point us, that is, toward a clearer understanding of how Kant would have answered the question, "What is a human being?" Yet this straight-laced, somewhat mundane description of this volume's contents belies the quirky, unexpected, and downright strange reflections that can be found therein. Perhaps those familiar with Kant's famous dinner parties would have expected him to say that "[b]odily motions prescribed by a doctor who is not a philosopher weaken the invalid's body, unless they are seasoned with some social amusement and affect the body favorably" (187). But who (presumably besides the translators and editors of these essays) would have expected Kant to recommend that "[i]n treating a deranged person, it is better to use large doses of hellebore than to rely on the healing power of sound reason" (185)?

It must be admitted that these examples of Kant's thought are taken from the marginal notes he made to himself on the original manuscript of "On the Philosophers' Medicine of the Body." That we are able to read these notes as easily as the text itself is evidence of the care and thoroughness with which Zöller and Louden have approached their task as editors and translators of this volume. What is revealed in its pages is, if you will, the real Kant, the Kant nobody has known since his death more than 200 years ago. Most non-historically minded philosophers take either the Critique of Pure Reasonor the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Moralsas the work that really defines Kant as a person: austere, restrained, lonely, suspicious of emotion, prone to presenting apparently incomprehensible and baffling arguments. Even Kant scholars can be tempted to limit themselves to the accepted canon of texts that have formed the heart of Kant interpretation. But none of the standard texts reveal the man himself. Or, to the extent they do, they seem to confirm only the Kant that we contemporary philosophers imagine, not who he really was, or how he engaged with students and contemporaries such as Herder, Jakob, or Mendelssohn. [End Page 474]

But if you devote time to this volume of essays, you will indeed encounter the man himself. This is not only because, in reading the essays, one learns of the broad range of ideas that were of concern to late eighteenth-century intellectuals and upon which Kant exercised his mind; beyond that, carefully crafted introductions to each of the essays place each of them squarely in their historical context. These introductions are crucial for appreciating the essays in the volume. Without them, the reader would, perhaps, be deeply perplexed about why Kant spent so much time considering the psychopathology of a goat prophet (64), or why he was fascinated by the bodily causes of mental illness (182). Instead, the introductions thrust us imaginatively into Kant's own intellectual world, providing insight into the debates that inspired his writing. The reader benefits immensely from the scholarly and philological wisdom of the editors and translators. They help make anyone persistent enough to devote their time to these essays a more historically informed reader of all of Kant's texts than they were previously.

Who, then, will use this compilation of essays? One might worry that topics as arcane as those considered in this volume would draw only the most avid of historians. But, largely because of...

pdf

Share