This collection of essays is the first comprehensive volume dedicated to Kant's lectures on anthropology and their philosophical importance.

The first comprehensive examination in English of Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.

The only English translation of recently edited transcriptions of Kant's lectures on anthropology, given between 1772 and 1789.

Although they were not written by Kant himself, the transcripts of his lectures constitute an important source for philosophical research today. Some of the contributions presented in this volume discuss the authenticity and significance of these transcripts, for example the status of Kant's lectures on logic and anthropology, while others shed light on the historical formation of specific writings, for instance the texts on the philosophy of religion. The contributions provide new insights into Kant's philosophy, that, if looking at Kant's published writings alone, we would not be able to gain. In a number of cases, a critical analysis of Kant's lectures gives us a better understanding of his published works. Thus his lectures on metaphysics shed new light on his Critique of Pure Reason, while the lecture on natural law is a valuable source for the understanding of his published legal writings.

This important collection of more than twenty original essays by prominent Kant scholars covers the multiple aspects of Kant’s teaching in relation to his published works. With the Academy edition’s continuing publication of Kant’s lectures, the role of his lecturing activity has been drawing more and more deserved attention. Several of Kant’s lectures on metaphysics, logic, ethics, anthropology, theology, and pedagogy have been translated into English, and important studies have appeared in many languages. But why study the lectures? When they are read in light of Kant’s published writings, the lectures offer a new perspective of Kant’s philosophical development, clarify points in the published texts, consider topics there unexamined, and depict the intellectual background in richer detail. And the lectures are often more accessible to readers than the published works. This book discusses all areas of Kant's lecturing activity. Some essays even analyze in detail the content of Kant's courses and the role of textbooks written by key authors such as Baumgarten, helping us understand Kant’s thought in its intellectual and historical contexts. Contributors: Huaping Lu-Adler; Henny Blomme ; Robert Clewis; Alix Cohen; Corey Dyck; Faustino Fabbianelli; Norbert Fischer; Courtney Fugate; Paul Guyer; Robert Louden; Antonio Moretto; Steve Naragon; Christian Onof; Stephen Palmquist; Riccardo Pozzo; Frederick Rauscher; Dennis Schulting; Oliver Sensen; Susan Shell; Werner Stark; John Zammito; Günter Zöller

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The second part of Kant's ethics was described by Kant as applied moral philosophy or ethics applied to the human being. Kant's Impure Ethics critically examines this second part and assesses its value and nature in great detail.

Currently fashionable among critics of enlightenment thought is the charge that Kant's ethics fails to provide an adequate account of character and its formation in moral and political life. G. Felicitas Munzel challenges this reading of Kant's thought, claiming not only that Kant has a very rich notion of moral character, but also that it is a conception of systematic importance for his thought, linking the formal moral with the critical, aesthetic, anthropological, and biological aspects of his philosophy. The first book to focus on character formation in Kant's moral philosophy, it builds on important recent work on Kant's aesthetics and anthropology, and brings these to bear on moral issues. Munzel traces Kant's multifaceted definition of character through the broad range of his writings, and then explores the structure of character, its actual exercise in the world, and its cultivation. An outstanding work of original textual analysis and interpretation, Kant's Conception of Moral Character is a major contribution to Kant studies and moral philosophy in general.

Kant's lectures on anthropology capture him at the height of his intellectual power. They are immensely important for advancing our understanding of Kant's conception of anthropology, its development, and the notoriously difficult relationship between it and the critical philosophy. This 2003 collection of essays by some of the leading commentators on Kant offers a systematic account of the philosophical importance of this material that should nevertheless prove of interest to historians of ideas and political theorists. There are two broad approaches adopted: a number of the essays consider the systematic relations of the anthropology to critical philosophy, especially speculative knowledge and ethics. Other essays focus on the anthropology as a major source for the clarification of both the content and development of Kant's work. The volume also serves as an interpretative complement to the translation of the lectures in the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant.

This volume offers a translation of Kant's pioneering contribution to the discipline of anthropology.