Pragmatic Anthropology Research Articles

Знание и субъективация: прагматическая антропология Канта в прочтении Фуко

The article outlines a hypothesis about the influence of Foucault’s interpretation of Kant’s “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view” on actual research of models of the subject based on scientific knowledge. Such models in­clude cerebral, genetic, immune subjects, etc., studied by a group of approaches in the history and sociology of science, as well as in philosophy. In the introduc­tion, a brief overview of the concept of the cerebral subject is given, the main properties of this type of subject models are derived, which differ from tradi­tional philosophical subjects, closed in the immanence of philosophical thinking. The subjects thematized in this group of approaches are multiple, partial and sit­uational (depending on the situation, an individual can adopt different models), changeable (circulating, they can mutate from practice to practice), historical and performative (they are embodied in practices). The approaches themselves are anti-essentialist in nature, since they imply a critical attitude towards the natural­ization of subjects carried out by sciences and non-scientific institutions. Their predecessor was Foucault’s thematization of human in “The Order of Things” and in the commentary to Kant’s pragmatic anthropology. It is shown that Fou­cault’s ideas can be traced in the discussed approaches to the study of subjectiva­tion based on scientific experience

Kant’s Fantasy

Abstract Throughout his lectures and published writings on anthropology, Kant describes a form of unintentional, unstructured, obscure, and pleasurable imaginative mental activity, which he calls fantasy (Phantasie), where we ‘take pleasure in letting our mind wander about in obscurity’ (LA 25:480). In the context of his pragmatic anthropology, Kant is concerned not only to describe this form of mental activity as a fact of human psychology, but more importantly, to criticize and discourage it. But must we share Kant’s negative evaluation? Could fantasy play a positive role in some kinds of experience? In this paper I first reconstruct Kant’s conception of fantasy, and then consider what role fantasy might play in aesthetic experience. Precisely because of his anxieties about fantasy, Kant is careful to distinguish between the lawless freedom of the imagination in fantasy and the ‘free lawfulness’ of the imagination in aesthetic judgment. Departing from Kant, and with help from Susan Sontag, I argue that certain aesthetic objects, especially certain works of modernist art, positively invite fantasy, making fantasy part of proper aesthetic appreciation. I conclude by suggesting that while fantasy can indeed play a positive role in aesthetic appreciation, there is still reason to regard fantasy as ‘normatively ambiguous’.

Travelling without changing places:

Our assumption is that the remarks made by Kant about the “utility” of travel in the preface of the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View fall within the context of modern travel theories, which find their point of completion at the end of the Eighteenth century. According to common sense, travelling abroad has indeed become the privileged means of any anthropological project; nevertheless, Kant regards this practice useless for his own work: this paradox is here taken literally and analyzed. Showing that travels cannot be considered as a necessary “experience” for a pragmatic anthropology, Kant devises a paradoxical “a priori” travelling method. Hence, we both challenge the standard internalist interpretation, arguing in particular that this preface has to be enlightened by the reading of Rousseau’s travel theory, and aim at showing that the historically situated question of travels gives a key to understand Kant’s critical system.

Between duty and contingency. On some figures of the humanistic tradition in Kant

One must distinguish between the Enlightenment concept and the humanistic concept of humanity. The former indicates a universal deontological ideal; the latter a selective set of personal and social virtues. Kant is a champion of Enlightenment but inherits various aspects of the humanistic tradition that began at the end of the fourteenth century. This tradition, which largely coincides with the so-calledHofliteratur, eclectically combines elements of ancient and Christian ethics and adds a strong pedagogical, aesthetic and socio-political trait to outline a secular morality of self-government. After briefly presenting the Enlightenment “humanist family”, the article examines some figures of the humanistic tradition present in Kantian ethics: theWeltbürger, self-improvement andhumanitas. Through them I show the substantial role of education, taste and social interplay. They converge in the sphere of pragmatic anthropology, the moment morals become involved in the dramatic theatre of the world with its dialectic and rhetoric of appearance. Here the ethics of the imperative intersect with ethics as prudence and the art of living. Rational freedom intersects with the contingency of reality and the inscrutability of the psyche. Morality becomes more impure, but also richer and more suited to take up the challenge of being human.

“Here (...) Practical Anthropology becomes pure art”: Kant on the distinction between Empirical Psychology and Pragmatic Anthropology

Among the many stages of Kant’s problem of a reciprocal collocation of the human knowledges, Encyclopedism, quite unsurprisingly, is one of the most relevant; and yet, quite surprisingly, it is Anthropology which plays here one of the lead parts, insofar as the complex ascertainment of its definition, its position, its task proves to be of irrefutable importance towards solving the greater problem at hand. The question arises as the association – or dissociation – between Empirical Psychology and Pragmatic Anthropology, and their inclusion in, or exclusion from, their greater or lesser relation with Metaphysics; a problem which, to the careless eye, seems to have been promoted by Kant himself. Here, opinions diverge as to the nature of the relation between the two sciences, from their total inter-dependence to their complete separation. We, in turn, propose a different approach. Our objective is to reenact Kant’s fundamental scheme of human knowledges, as presented not only in the only extant Lecture on Encyclopedism, but in various others dimensions of Kant’s academic activity; and here, to propose a contrasting analysis between Empirical Psychology and Pragmatic Anthropology; one, however, based not on the assumption of their consonance or dissonance through their characteristics, rather on their respective position and scope amid the field of human knowledges. As such, it is our intention to consider Kant’s Lectures in their interconnection, namely, in their apparently dubious simultaneous collocation of an Empirical Psychology as Anthropology; and, based on their specific position in the scheme of human knowledges, and what this position entails in terms of their scope and task, to ascertain to what extent Empirical Psychology is indeed Anthropology, and from what extent Empirical Psychology is no longer Anthropology – not, at least, Pragmatic Anthropology. In other words, we shall labor towards defining a dividing line in Kant’s scheme of human knowledges; one which for Kant represents a third dimension of knowledge and stands between rational and empirical, Metaphysics and the historical sciences; that line, in our view, being that of a cosmopolitical prism. Keywords: Kant, encyclopedism, anthropology, empirical psychology, cosmopolitanism.

“A Superior Anthropological Perspective.” On Kant’s Anthropo-cosmological Conception of Ideal

The topic of the ideal, that is, the topic of the possible or impossible human attainment of the absolute is ascribed divergent treatments throughout Kant’s work. Namely, it is either promptly accepted as possible by the critical Kant, and seen as something attainable by a means other than an infinite approximation (which would indeed imply a violation of autonomy, but denies the genuineness of the ideal), or it is rejected as impossible by the non-critical Kant, that is, it is seen as something attainable only through an infinite approximation (which would involve an unconditional acceptance of heteronomy, but safeguards the authenticity of an aspiration to the ideal). Yet, the topic of the ideal receives a new, if not conciliatory, at least mutually explanatory approach in Kant’s Anthropology. Here – such is our proposition – Kant proposes a terminus medius between both conceptions of ideal, insofar as he is led to ponder on the mutual benefits of an autonomic possibility and an heteronomic impossibility of an infinite progression in thought; something which Kant proposes under the form of an almost-infinite, or an almost perennial, yet finite duration, to be endured until the attainment of an almost unreachable, yet indeed reachable practical ideal. A terminus medius which, we hope to prove, is none other than that at the root of Kant’s proposition of Pragmatic Anthropology as a mediating science in Kant’s fundamental scheme of human knowledges, and which therefore may be ultimately seen as the embodiment of Kant’s anthropo-cosmological, or indeed cosmopolitical dimension of thought, as expressed in Kant’s political and/or historical writings.

Reckoning With Kant on Race*

This essay develops Kant’s theory of reform to theorize racial justice reform. I assess the function of Kant’s philosophy of race as part of his nonideal theory of justice, which offers a racist pragmatic anthropology that uses the concept of race to determine the practical effectiveness of legislative reason. His philosophy of race defends a teleological account of the natural history of the human species to fulfill the requirements of justice and assumes that certain racial groups have failed to develop their innate capacity for legislative reason. I show that we need an alternative Kantian nonideal theory of justice that demonstrates how legislative reason actualizes practical freedom. Rather than appeal to anthropology, I expand Kant’s model of public reason to advance racial justice reform under the conditions of partial compliance to the requirements of justice in a profoundly nonideal republic such as the U.S. I then showcase the promise—and limits—of the a priori ideals of citizenship and publicity for racial justice reform and introduce the new ideal of interracial civic fellowship to guide the public use of reason in nonideal circumstances.

Lusophone Studies: A Cumulative Area Bibliography, 2017–19

Portuguese Studies vol. 36 no. 1 (2020), 67–95© Modern Humanities Research Association 2020 Lusophone Studies: A Cumulative Area Bibliography, 2017–19 Emilce Rees King’s College, London The following pages list publications and doctoral theses relating to the Portuguese-speaking world which were published from late 2017 to mid-2019 in English. Some MA theses have been included and some 2016 publications. Online academic databases have been used, namely the Copac(r) library catalogue, WorldCat(r), the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database and the British Library EThOS for theses produced by UK Higher Education. The Copac(r) library catalogue contains the merged online catalogues of major University, Specialist, and National Libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. ABIL (Association of Portuguese and Irish Lusitanists) list members are also thanked for their contribution. WorldCat(r) is a global catalogue with over 2 billion items available from libraries around the world. I. Publications 1.1 Anthropology, Ethnography and Folklore 1.2 Arts, Architecture and Music 1.3 Bibliographies, Directories and Guides 1.4 Environment 1.5 History, Politics and Social Science 1.6 Language 1.7 Literature 1.8 Religion II. Theses 2.1 African Topics 2.2 Asian Topics 2.3 Brazilian Topics 2.4 Portuguese Topics Bibliography 68 I. Publications 1.1 Anthropology, Ethnography and Folklore ANDERSON, Warwick, Ricardo ROQUE & Ricardo VENTURA SANTOS (eds), Luso-Tropicalism and its Discontents: The Making and Unmaking of Racial Exceptionalism (New York: Berghahn Books, 2019), 346 pages. BALL, Christopher Gordon, Exchanging Words: Language, Ritual, and Relationality in Brazil’s Xingu Indigenous Park (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press/SAR Press, 2018), xiii, 274 pages. BEACH, Dennis, Carl BAGLEY & Sofia MARQUES DA SILVA, The Wiley Handbook of Ethnography of Education (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018), xvii, 574 pages. COSTA, Luiz, The Owners of Kinship: Asymmetrical Relations in Indigenous Amazonia (Chicago, IL: HAU Books, 2017), 304 pages. COSTA VARGAS, João Helion, The Denial of Antiblackness: Multiracial Redemption and Black Suffering (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018), 352 pages. DA-GLORIA, Pedro, Walter A. NEVES & Mark HUBBE (eds), Archaeological and Paleontological Research in Lagoa Santa: The Quest for the First Americans (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017), xvi, 401 pages. DE LA TORRE, Oscar, The People of the River: Nature and Identity in Black Amazonia, 1835–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 242 pages. GONZÁLEZ VARELA, Sérgio Armando, Capoeira, Mobility, and Tourism: Preserving an Afro-Brazilian Tradition in a Globalized World (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019), 184 pages. KUTESKO, Elizabeth, Fashioning Brazil: Globalization and the Representation of Brazilian Dress in ‘National Geographic’ (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019), xv, 197 pages. MITCHELL, Gladys L., The Politics of Blackness: Racial Identity and Political Behavior in Contemporary Brazil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), xvi, 266 pages. MURPHY, Timothy Eugene, Queerly Cosmopolitan: Bohemia and Belonging in a Brazilian Middle-of-Nowhere City (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), xiv, 157 pages. OLIVEIRA-MONTE, Emanuelle K. F., Barack Obama is Brazilian: (Re)Signifying Race Relations in Contemporary Brazil (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 226 pages. PASCHEL, Tianna S., Becoming Black Political Subjects: Movements and EthnoRacial Rights in Colombia and Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 328 pages. SHULIST, Sarah, Transforming Indigeneity: Urbanization and Language Revitalization in the Brazilian Amazon (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), xiv, 241 pages. VARELA, Sérgio González, Power in Practice: The Pragmatic Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian Capoeira (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017), 182 pages. Bibliography 69 1.2 Arts, Architecture and Music ALLEN, Alice Louisa, Shifting Horizons: Urban Space and Social Difference in Contemporary Brazilian Documentary and Photography (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), 284 pages. ANTUNES, Joana, Maria de Lurdes CRAVEIRO & Carla Alexandra GONÇALVES, The Centre as Margin: Eccentric Perspectives on Art (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, 2019), xxxii, 330 pages. BABAIE, Sussan & Melanie GIBSON, The Mercantile Effect: Art and Exchange in the Islamicate World during the 17th and 18th Centuries (London: Gingko Library, 2017), 143 pages. BAMFORD, Heather, Cultures of the Fragment: Uses of the Iberian Manuscript, 1100–1600 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018), xi, 257 pages. BAYMAN, Louis & Natália PINAZZA, Journeys on Screen: Theory, Ethics, Aesthetics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), xii, 304 pages. BENNETT, Andy & Paula GUERRA, DIY Cultures and...

Cosmopolitanism in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View: Regulative Ideas and Empirical Evidence

With this paper I analyze Kant’s account of the human vocation to cosmopolitanism discussed in the last section of the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (7:321-333) and show how Kant’s notion of cosmopolitanism requires the cooperation of pure reason and pragmatic anthropology. My main thesis is that pure reason provides regulative ideas, thereby maintaining a foundational role, and pragmatic anthropology provides empirical evidence, thereby reinforcing the theoretical and practical status of reason’s ideas. In developing my analysis, I argue that Kant reframes the question ‘What is the human being?’ in a non-essential way, foregrounds a moral practical concern, and assigns freedom an unprecedented role. Finally, I relate my analysis to two questions frequently discussed in Kant scholarship, namely the problem of whether the Anthropology has only a pragmatic or also a moral scope and the problem of the relation between the Anthropology and Kant’s critical system.

On anthropology and psychosomatics in neurology

Neurology is fundamental discipline for anthropological sciences – medicine, psychology upto biophysics/-chemistry. Future needs creation of an integrative neurology considering holistic&multidimensional the human. Psychosomatics is essential for neurology. During Opening-Ceremony of 18th-World-Congress-Psychosomatic-Medicine (ICPM-2005-Kobe) were present their majesties Emperor and Empress of Japan, Prime&Ministers for Science-Education-others&prominent-scientists. Emperor AKIHITO honoured congress by strategical ideas, “total symptoms of mind&body, seeking ways of holistic care … it is extremely important for patients … my hope contributes … the progress of medical science and people's happiness in the entire world”. Model for an integrative neurology related to integral-anthropology based on physiological and pragmatic anthropology from Immanuel KANT considers different “human-areas” of human (“Integrationsebenen”), related to psychosomatic (Thure von UEXKÜLL) and somatopsychic theories (Yujiro IKEMI) is necessary. Foundation of International Academy for Neurology by WFN, EMINS via network of clinics from selected countries, similar to European-Acad-Neurology/EAN-2015-Berlin, but enlarged scientific-organizatory principles such as common personnel (similar to UNO-employees), honorary-permanent & directors (fixed-term), professors (meritocratic principle), possibility for whole life working could help for creation of integrative neurology supporting UNO-Agenda21 for better health-education-ecology-economy on global level.

Kant's anthropological study of memory

The aim of this article is to shed light on Kant’s anthropological theory of memory. I shall contrast physiological studies of memory against Kant’s own study. I suggest some ideas about the relation between memory and time, as long as memory has the power to store and reproduce the temporal configuration of our representations. Moreover, I deal with the problem of personal identity and I suggest that memory contributes to the possibility of this identity from a pragmatic point of view. Finally, I hold that Kant’s pragmatic anthropology does not only provide a description of memory for the human being’s self-knowledge but also for the human being’s self-perfection . Thus, such description discloses not only what the human being is but also what this can become , insofar as it is capable of perfecting itself.

Des Herrn Professors Kants Paradoxon des Comoedianten

Abstract The purpose of this study is to show the importance of theatre and theatrical theory in Kant’s philosophical thought by reconstructing his relationship to the dramatic arts and how they shaped his thinking - that is, how he developed a theory of acting which is central to understanding not only his conception of society but also the role played by pragmatic anthropology in his critical system. Indeed, one can say that his theory of the art of acting leaves nothing to be desired in comparison with Diderot’s philosophical program as expressed in the “Paradox of the Actor”, which is considered one of the most important texts on acting in the history of aesthetics.

Hjernen i Immanuel Kants senværk og Cathrine Malabous samtidskritik

In his late work Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), Immanuel Kant depicts the internal processes in the brain as something that cannot have the interest of a pragmatic anthropology. His profound teleology of nature does not bind the idea of man’s selfperfection to the nature of the brain. In her work Que faire de notre cerveau? (What Should We Do With Our Brain?) from 2004, Catherine Malabou argues that this question of what we should do with our brain needs a self-conscious and political answer. We can and should try to regain control of the processes that mold the cerebral constitution of man. This article discusses the arguments behind the two opposite ʻpositions’ in practical philosophy in a broader philosophical anthropological perspective. What are the limits of Kant’s approach to the brain and does Malabou’s normative project find its take-off in voluntarism?

The Natural, the Pragmatic and the Moral in Kant’s Anthropology: The Case of Temperaments

This paper explores the interconnections between the normative and the descriptive dimensions of Kant’s anthropology. It suggests that, far from being independent of each other or even excluding each other, as is often presupposed, the normative standpoint necessitates the explanatory one. To support this claim, I discuss the case of human temperaments and show in what sense a necessary component of pragmatic anthropology consists in the naturalistic study of human nature – what Kant calls “what nature makes of the human being.”1

The ambiguity of norms. Steps towards a new pragmatic anthropology

L’articolo intende mostrare la rilevanza della questione della normativita rispetto alla costruzione di una nuova antropologia pragmatica che possa attingere ad elementi condivisi dal classico, dalla filosofia di Wittgenstein e dal neo-pragmatismo. In particolare, si discute la possibilita e le eventuali modalita in cui il loro comune progetto di accantonare il fondazionalismo moderno consenta di delineare un’immagine dell’essere umano che eviti le strettoie della metafisica tradizionale senza tuttavia cedere ad una visuale scettica delle norme epistemiche e valoriali. Pertanto verra data specifica attenzione al pragmatismo linguistico di Rorty, proprio in quanto esso consente di affrontare alcune questioni cruciali per un’antropologia filosofica di orientamento pragmatista e wittgensteiniano

The Origins and Principles of Kant's Pragmatic Anthropology

This article examines Kant’s pragmatic anthropology as a specific model of perceiving a human, his nature which German philosopher started to elaborate in the beginning of 1770s. This issue found its reflections in the new course of university lectures on pragmatic anthropology that Kant read before his retirement in 1796. Basic ideas of this academic course Kant has presented in his treatise “Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View” (1798) which highlights a new model of studying human nature. Based on the thorough analysis of this particular tractate and on the materials for the lectures, as well as Kant’s notes, the research on conceptual differences between pragmatic anthropology model and other human studies that German philosopher developed in his transcendental philosophy, as well as in metaphysic and naturalistic subjects, which he also taught in University of Königsberg, can be conducted. Theoretical backgrounds that enabled genesis of pragmatic view on a human are a part of this investigation. On this connection, a special attention is paid to the role of physical geography, its conceptual language in the genesis of pragmatic view on a human. It was physical geography, which Kant taught long before a new model of anthropology, which has led to a gradual metaphysical interpretation of Kant's view on a human, his soul and freedom. Conceptual matter of pragmatic anthropology model, its connection to perceiving a human as an active subject who with his own efforts constitutes his own nature, which, in its turn, is the part of the nature, is studied. Basic concepts of Kant’s anthropology are analyzed in this regard; their dissimilarities to empirical and moral dimensions with the help of which German philosopher is trying to answer the question: “What a human is?” are deliberated on. However, the answer to this question is fundamentally differing from the answers offered by Kant's pragmatic anthropology. Anthropological ideas of the German philosopher have essentially affected its pedagogical doctrine.

Nietzsche’s Late Pragmatic Anthropology

The aim of this paper is to shed light on Nietzsche ’s late investigation of the Western human being, with particular reference to Twilight of the Idols . I shall argue that this investigation can be seen as a “pragmatic anthropology,” according to the meaning that Kant gave to this notion in 1798. Although the paper focuses on Nietzsche’s thought, an analysis of Kant’s anthropology and the comparison between and Nietzsche’s late views of the human being, will show both their differences and similarities on the topic.

Foucault e a Filosofia

Michel Foucault was a persistent, although sui generis, reader of Kant, and that is the appropriation that we will analyse. We will Start by the extensive introduction that he has made for his translation of Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, where he shows the failure of the kantian pragmatic anthropology. We will proceed with the study of the kantian criticism in Les Mots et les Choses, which set the conditions to the transition of the Classic to the Modem episteme, allowing nevertheless, and simultaneously, the creation of a new metaphysics out of the representations and forming a philosophy obsessed by man, by means of reducing his field of knowledge to the “empiricisms” of life, of language and of work. Nietzsche will come in his help by offering, with the “disappearance of man”, the promise of the renaissance of philosophy. Finally, in a third part, we will reflect on the way Foucault commits himself more directly to the Kantian reception, by enlarging and renewing it through the importance he gave to the “diagnosis of actuality” and to the “ontology of ourselves”, instead o f the “analytics of truth”, as well as to the axiology of revolution. This was already present in the texts he wrote in the 80’s about Was ist Aufklärung? and Der Streit der Facultäten, there defining much of his own condition as a public and private thinker.

Historico-Cultural Anthropology as the Centre of the Sciences of Culture

According to Kant the human being depends on what he must and may be. The human being is nothing by and of himself and must make himself into who he is and turn himself into who he must become, whilst in so doing he frequently hurls himself against his very own limits. The study and categorization of these relationships and interconnections constitute, for Kant, the duty of pragmatic anthropology. In contrast to physiological anthropology, which examines the biological conditions of human existence, pragmatic anthropology studies the field of human action and human freedom. If we wish to discharge of this duty properly, it is first of all necessary to resolve one question: What is it that we understand, today, by anthropology? What meaning does this term have for the humanities, for the sciences of cultures, for cultural studies? As I see it, anthropology today can only be developed within the framework of the historical and philosophical study of culture, that is to say as historico-cultural anthropology. Anthropology must be guided by a careful reflection of the manner in which it may be conducted after the death of God (Nietzsche), that is to say in the wake of the disappearance of universal anthropology, and after the death of man (Foucault), in the sense of that abstract and European masculine being which served as the template for conceptualizing the individual.

О нравоцентричности трансцендентальной антропологии Канта, или О роли морали в природе человека

This article proves that the philosophical system of Kant is a system of transcendental anthropology, which acts a method in Kants pragmatic anthropology. The essence of transcendental anthropology is the metaphysics of morals. This role of morals manifests itself in the primacy of practical reason over the theoretical one. The humanity owes its development and existence to the practical reason. In Kants system, morality is the essence of humanity.