Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 203–207

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Studies in History and Philosophy of Science

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Discussion

What’s philosophical about Kant’s philosophy of the human sciences?

Thomas Sturm
Departament de Filosofia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici B, E-08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain

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1. Introduction anthropology as an empirical discipline (and, if I read him right,

An author whose book gets such careful consideration as mine
does in Katharina Kraus’s (2011) encompassing and detailed re-
view ought to be grateful, and indeed, I am. Naturally I feel hon-
ored by her overall positive assessment of my work. For the most
part, Kraus presents my arguments correctly. There are a few
points that I would put differently, and some where I think she
has misunderstood me.1 However, I shall focus on a topic of general
interest that probably haunts all who seriously explore Kant’s
anthropology and his related writings on medicine, psychology,
and history. It is this: To what extent is the philosophy that Kant in-
vests in his thought on the human sciences guided by central doc-
trines of his critical philosophy? More specifically, how is his
‘‘empirical’’ account of human thought and action, as developed both
in his anthropology lectures from 1772/73 to 1795/96 and in Anthro-
pology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), related to the Critique of
Pure Reason? Kraus thinks that I did not give sufficient attention to
that relation, and raises several specific worries in this regard. I shall
defend my view that I covered it sufficiently—and, furthermore, that
doing more might be damaging.
Above I used scare quotes for empirical because Kant did not so
much develop his account on the basis of observation and experi-
ment, but by reading and reflecting what others had already elab-
orated. He perused countless geographical, historical,
psychological, and medical works, extracting from them examples
for his claims about the strengths and weaknesses of the human
mind, the relation of motivation to action, cultural customs, the
development of human society, and so on. Yet he viewed his
even as potential science): Most of its claims are open to empirical
revision, and more than a few have been discarded. At the same
time, he took great philosophical care with his anthropology. But
what are the philosophical concepts, considerations, and conclu-
sions he used? Kraus raises four pertinent worries:
1. She finds chapter 3 of my book—on Kant’s concept of science—
‘‘the most philosophical’’ part (Kraus, 2011, p. 619), because
there I deal more than elsewhere with the conceptual tools pro-
vided by Kant’s critical philosophy.
2. Kraus suggests (ibid. pp. 621f.) that I should have considered
the option of Kant’s ‘‘transcendental psychology’’ for better
understanding the demarcation between metaphysics and
empirical psychology analyzed in chapter 4.
3. She regrets that throughout the book I neglect to connect Kant’s
philosophy of the human sciences to his transcendental ideal-
ism (ibid. pp. 622, 624). That doctrine, she suggests, also under-
lies his sharp distinction between empirical psychology and
metaphysics.
4. Finally, she finds that my discussion of freedom in chapter 8
fails to engage sufficiently with the relation between Kant’s
anthropology and his critical philosophy, which might provide
a meaningful interpretation of freedom with respect to the
anthropological project (ibid. p. 623).
I shall deal with each of these comments in turn. In conclusion, I
will also give a general reason for why Kant maintains (at times
considerable) distance between more specific contentions of his

E-mail address: tsturm@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de

1
For instance: ‘‘However, Kant did not know of the results of what later became psychophysics and so he did not realize that there is indeed a way of mathematizing
psychology in terms of objective scales of intensities.’’ (p. 621) Some examples in Kant’s anthropology lectures lead me to think that this is perhaps too strong a claim, especially
his references to musical acoustics (see Sturm, 2009, p. 244). These works from the 18th century on the measurement of tonal perception are nowadays also seen as beginnings of
a quantitative psychoacoustics (I am indebted here to discussions with the historian of science Julia Kursell).—Also, I would not call the idea ‘‘idea of man’’ as an ‘‘animal
rationabile’’, which as Kraus points out correctly plays a core role in Kant’s conception of anthropology, a ‘‘metaphysical idea’’, as she also does (Kraus, 2011, p. 623). It resembles
an idea of reason and so, within a scientific context, must possess a regulative function for the unification of our knowledge about human beings as agents, but I see no use of
speaking here any further of a ‘‘metaphysical idea’’.—Kraus also claims that I refer to the ‘‘principles of homogeneity, specification and continuity, i.e. the principles of the
systematic unity of cognition’’ provided by reason as being ‘‘necessary in order to justify the transcendental principle of causality’’ (Kraus, 2011, p. 620). I do not claim that the
regulative principles of reason are necessary to ‘‘justify’’ the principle of causality as presented in the first Critique. Instead, I think that the latter principle by itself does not
provide us with any concrete empirical causal laws, or any specific causal explanation, and that the search for empirical causal laws must be guided by the regulative principles of
reason. It is well known that Kant at best tries to argue that (a) all changes have causes and (b) all such causes require some law (or some set of laws). I agree here with Guyer
(1987).

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204 T. Sturm / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 203–207
critical philosophy and the philosophical considerations he puts
into his thought on the human sciences. To let the cat out of the
bag, Kant wants anthropology to become an autonomous science,
and the philosophical presuppositions antecedent to any such spe-
cial science must be, he believes, as free from foreign interests and
demands as possible.
2. The philosophical backbones of Kant’s anthropology project
Why, as Kraus claims, should chapter 3 be ‘‘the most philosoph-
ical one’’? Kraus fails to explain herself here, but there are two
obvious ways that such a claim might be taken. It might pinpoint
the methods used in studying the history of philosophy, that is, it
could indicate a contrast between genuinely philosophical argu-
ments and ‘‘mere’’ historical interpretation. Or it might pertain to
the very subject matter of the essay—e.g., the work of a past
author—and thus mean that chapter 3 discusses more of Kant’s
philosophy than the rest. I believe Kraus intends the latter, given
her emphasis on the fact that that chapter 3 deals most with spe-
cific doctrines of Kant’s critical philosophy. More specifically, she
emphasizes my discussion of the relevance of a priori representa-
tions (the pure forms of intuition, the concepts and principles of
the understanding, and the ideas of reason in their regulative
use) for empirical knowledge in general and the sciences in partic-
ular. Her verdict therefore implies that the other chapters are less
philosophical because they deal less with the related doctrines of
Kant’s critical philosophy.2 I find two things wrong with this: (i) I
reject the underlying assumption that Kant’s philosophical thought
on anthropology and related disciplines always had, or had to have,
such a close connection to critical philosophy. (ii) The other chapters
of my book are no less philosophical than chapter 3.
First, as the students’ manuscripts (in Kant, 1900ff., vol. XXV)
and Kant’s own reflections on anthropology (ibid., vol. XV) reveal,
much of Kant’s philosophical thinking that formed the anthropol-
ogy lectures occurred quite remotely from his critical philosophy.
This should not be surprising if one takes into account certain his-
torical facts that I point out in my analysis. He started to lecture on
anthropology in 1772/73, that is, at a time when his critical project
was only first taking shape. The two projects developed in parallel
throughout the 1770s, and several major steps in that development
had little if anything to do with one another. The idea of a critical
philosophy involved the question of how certain representations
can be a priori and yet refer to empirical objects, a task Kant did
not set himself before 1772. It also involved achieving clarity about
other issues, such as the role of apperception, the system of catego-
ries, the critique of dogmatic metaphysics, and so on, all subse-
quent developments of the 1770s (see Carl, 1989; Kitcher, 2011).
The development of the anthropological project, in contrast, was
driven by different motives: for instance, a shift from a purely the-
oretical toward a more (though not exclusively) practical concep-
tion of that discipline, something Kant began to work on around
1773 (X, 242).3 More specifically, as of the mid-1770s Kant spoke
of a ‘‘pragmatic’’ orientation. He did not elucidate his own preferred
understanding of this term fully until the mid-1780s, when he came
to identify one pragmatic perspective with the cosmopolitan point of
view on humanity (IV, 417 fn.; VII, 120). Below I will indicate further
shifts in Kant’s conception of anthropology, and in his philosophical
thinking about the human sciences more generally. For now my
claim is that fundamental assumptions implied respectively by the
critical and the anthropological projects are very different. To be fair,
the projects came close at other points, sometimes even leading to
2
Moreover, Kraus regrets that I sometimes do not go far enough in explaining Kant’s concept of science, as when I do not further explain the notion of each science requiring an
idea of reason (Kraus, 2011, p. 620). There may, indeed, be something interesting to be said here.
3
Citations from Kant refer to the volume and page number of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften (Kant, 1900ff.), except for the Critique of Pure Reason, which is cited after the first (A)
and second (B) editions of 1781 and 1787. Translations are mine.
related conclusions. This is obvious in Kant’s doctrine of the neces-
sary dependence of knowledge gained through the inner sense on
knowledge gained through the outer sense. For Kant’s anthropology,
the claim has methodological significance: contrary to psychologists
of his time (such as Johann Nicolas Tetens), Kant denied that empir-
ical research of the human mind should or could be pursued by
means of introspection alone. Within his critical philosophy, the
point became important for the way in which a priori concepts and
principles of the understanding could be given real meaning:
namely, first and foremost by referring to knowledge of publicly ob-
servable objects, their properties and relations (B292). Despite of
such points of convergence, the disparate foundations and directions
of the two projects cannot be overlooked.
But what is the backbone of Kant’s philosophy of the human sci-
ences, then, inasmuch as it does not involve the well-known a pri-
ori sources and tools from his critical theory of knowledge? First,
note that if the author under scrutiny were not Kant, we would
be more open about what counts as a philosophical assumption
or argument with respect to the human sciences. Any reader of
Hume, Rousseau, or Adam Smith knows what I mean. But because
Kant himself put so much emphasis on and pride in the a priori, we
find it hard to imagine that he might also have made different sorts
of contribution to the philosophy of science, including the human
sciences. Again, I do not doubt that Kant ultimately demanded of
all proper science that it depends on a specific a priori framework.
This would have to have been true of his anthropology as well, if its
subsequent development had actually been as fortunate as Kant
hoped it would (see Sturm, 2009, pp. 524f.). But because of the
early state that he himself saw his anthropology as being in, some-
thing more basic was needed first, namely, a reasonable definition
for that possible science (A834f./B862f.). (Most commentators on
Kant’s philosophy of science overlook the fact that he was often
interested in improving the definitions of disciplines, and that he
devised tools especially for that task.) Such a definition must be gi-
ven by determining the subject matter, method(s) and goal(s) of
the discipline in question. Moreover, a (potential or actual) sci-
ence’s definition must be given in such a way that one can at least
imagine how the discipline fits into a coherent and comprehensive
system of all scientific disciplines. At the same time, that definition
can initially only be preliminary. It may need refining in the course
of ongoing empirical research. New discoveries can lead to new in-
sights about the very subject matter—the concept of the object of
that science—but also to insight regarding the methods and goals
that are appropriate for that new science (see Sturm, 2009, pp.
162-181).
Thus, Kant’s philosophy of the human sciences does not merely
and not even primarily consist of the application of his critical the-
ory of the a priori to these disciplines. Rather, the very project of
such a philosophy itself requires a reflection on its proper defini-
tion, which is as such logically independent of the system of a priori
concepts and principles of knowledge (see e.g. A86f./B119). This is
what I call a reflection on the ‘‘external systematicity’’ of each sci-
ence. To it must be added the development of the ‘‘internal syste-
maticity’’ of each science, that is, the specific conceptual
framework that constitutes and guides inquiry. But again, this
comes in only later.
While Kraus notes some of these points, she does not seem to
grasp their full significance and force for my study. Kant realized
that all definitional components—the determination of subject
matter, the method, the goal, and the fitting into a comprehensive
system of the sciences—must be dealt with (if in a preliminary
 T. Sturm / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 203–207
way) when we start any new kind of scientific inquiry, and also if
we wish to avoid confusing one inquiry with another (B vii; IV,
265). Accordingly, he adapts each of the definitional components
in several stages throughout the years of his lectures on anthropol-
ogy, in such a way that that the conception of this discipline be-
comes successively more coherent and consistent. These
considerations, which I lay out in the other chapters of my book,
are complex and often closely related to one another. It is as if
making one move in one year of his lectures forced Kant to make
other moves in subsequent years. On closer examination, he exhib-
its breathtaking creativity in the process.
For instance, besides the points mentioned above, Kant com-
pares his approach to existing empirical psychologies, physiological
anthropologies, and the pragmatic histories of his time, which were
the closest competitors for an empirical scientific account of the hu-
man mind and behavior. He focuses frequently on the definitions
given for these approaches and disciplines. These discussions form
the background for his own definition of his kind of anthropology as
an empirical study of free action, which he also distinguishes from a
genuinely ethical theory of action. For instance, the discovery that
introspection, naively understood, is not an appropriate method
for psychology and/or anthropology, leads him to a search for
new methods; and these have to be appropriate to the subject mat-
ter, human action. Likewise, since action is the explanandum of the
science he envisages, he gives a new meaning and function to the
traditional architecture of the mind as consisting of several facul-
ties: Cognition, feeling, and desire are no longer simple distinct
departments of the mind which one might, say, discover through
introspection (as Tetens thought), and perhaps trace back to a more
basic, unified power (the Wolffian ‘‘power of representation’’). In-
stead, Kant argues that these faculties are basic and hence irreduc-
ible as well as complete and connected. It is here, by the way, that
the internal system of Kant’s anthropology has to do with a priori
concepts and considerations. These are, however, barely related to
what one might imagine when this terminology crops up (see
Sturm, 2009, pp. 386-394). What is perhaps even more striking
for those who cling to traditional notions of Kant is the fact that
some of his basic, but nonetheless empirical insights regarding facts
of human thought and action place constraints on the methods and
goals he views as appropriate for pragmatic anthropology. Thus, he
notes that human beings often pretend to have a better character or
better motives than they actually do. He also argues that human
conduct is often guided by rules that can be changed, either in
the course of historical changes in society or, occasionally, by indi-
viduals that actively reflect on the principles of their actions. Be-
cause of these facts, human nature is not as unalterable as that of
other natural beings. The anthropologist must do justice to these
facts. For instance, he must reflect on whether an empirical account
of human action can have the same law-likeness as explanations in
natural science (Kant says no), or whether physiological explana-
tions of the mind might be relevant for pragmatic anthropology
(again, Kant says no).
Such conclusions are not simply derived from observation; they
operate at a second-order level; and they involve very fundamental
issues about the various disciplines at stake. In these musings, Kant
does not mechanically apply his critical philosophy. Rather, he ac-
tively philosophizes about the sciences in question, about what
they are, what they pretend to be, and what they should be. I see
no reason for viewing these considerations and conclusions as less
philosophical than Kant’s critical assumptions and arguments.
3. Transcendental and empirical psychology
One important feature of Kant’s thought on the human sciences
is the sharp line he draws between empirical psychology and
205
metaphysics. As Kraus reports, one argument that plays a certain
role here is Kant’s claim that any empirical natural science must
have a rational counterpart—in the case of empirical psychology,
a rational psychology. In the first Critique of 1781 he famously ar-
gues that the latter discipline is pseudoscience. (More specifically,
this act of destruction is directed at ‘‘transcendent’’ rational psy-
chology. Until late in 1785 he still thinks an ‘‘immanent’’ rational
psychology, which would contain only those a priori concepts
and principles that are constitutive for empirical psychology, might
be possible. Not until the Preface to the Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science of 1786 does Kant claim that the prospects for the
an immanent rational psychology do not look good either; see
Sturm, 2009, pp. 194–196, 223–250.)
Now, Kraus thinks that one might also deal with Kant’s views
about the relation between metaphysics and empirical psychology
in a different manner. She makes two claims here, bringing into
play the idea, defended especially by Patricia Kitcher (1990,
2011), that Kant’s critical theory of knowledge requires a psycho-
logical theory of mental faculties and processes, a ‘‘transcendental
psychology’’. Kraus’s first claim regards the issue of a connection
between the two fields: ‘‘Sturm does not consider the possibility
of a transcendental psychology that Kant might have developed
in order to conceive a close relation between a transcendental ac-
count of cognition in metaphysics and a naturalistic account of the
mind in empirical psychology.’’ (Kraus, 2011, p. 621) Might a ‘‘tran-
scendental psychology’’ not provide the relevant a priori frame-
work for empirical psychology? Kraus’s second claim concerns
the distinction between empirical psychology and metaphysics.
She states that the ‘‘controversial debate about Kant’s transcenden-
tal psychology in recent years clearly suggests that understanding
Kant’s demarcation between metaphysics and empirical psychol-
ogy requires not only a review of his refutation of rational psychol-
ogy, but also a reference to his transcendental theory of inner
experience.’’ (ibid. p. 622) There are several problems with these
two claims.
First, insofar as the issue is that of a distinction between meta-
physics and empirical psychology, I do not know how this could
be understood better by bringing the idea of transcendental psy-
chology into play. As I argue in chapter 4 (Sturm, 2009, pp. 197–
202), the claim of the difference between empirical psychology
and metaphysics shows up in Kant’s very first lecture on anthro-
pology, given in 1772/73. He discusses it, presents an argument
for his distinction, and later sticks to it: Empirical psychology re-
quires empirical methods, while metaphysics consists of non-
empirical knowledge or knowledge ‘‘from pure concepts’’ alone.
Kant’s argument is clear enough. In contrast, as Kraus acknowl-
edges, the question of whether Kant also pursues a transcendental
psychology is a thorny one (cf. Carl, 1989, pp. 119–126; Hatfield,
1990, 1992; Kitcher, 1990). So, this route might lead to explaining
something less obscure by something that’s probably more ob-
scure. Of course, one might assume for the sake of argument that
Kant does have some sort of transcendental psychology. Then there
might be a link or bridge between empirical psychology and meta-
physics. But if that were true, one would certainly not understand
his distinction between the two disciplines any better than before.
Alternatively, if Kant does not have a transcendental psychology,
then the situation is hardly any better. In sum, as things stand, I
cannot see why one should take up the issue in the context of
explaining his distinction between metaphysics and empirical
psychology.
Second, insofar as transcendental psychology is invoked to build
a connection between empirical psychology and metaphysics, or to
replace discarded rational psychology, this idea has its limits too.
Empirical psychology as Kant discusses it is broader in scope than
a theory of cognition. It also deals with feeling and desire, for in-
stance. The same holds for Kant’s own anthropology. Transcendental
206 T. Sturm / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 203–207
psychology as Kitcher presents it is only concerned with cognition.
Moreover, even if we restrict ourselves to the empirical psychology
of cognition, the transcendental psychology we find in the Critique is
not devised to ground ‘‘merely’’ such a psychology. It is supposed to
explain knowledge überhaupt: all knowledge to be found inside and
outside of any special science (see also Hatfield, 1990, p. 98f.).
Third, I anticipated that readers might feel an urge to read
something about the debates over transcendental psychology in a
book that addresses, among other things, Kant’s views about
empirical psychology. So I took up the issue, if only briefly in a
footnote (Sturm, 2009, p. 44, fn. 31). This passage is cited but not
exploited by Kraus (2011, p. 622, fn. 25). In a nutshell, I agree with
Hatfield (1990) and Kitcher (1990, 2011) that one should not sim-
ply shrug off a (somewhat) psychologistic reading and reconstruc-
tion of Kant’s arguments in the Critique. Given historical changes in
the concept of psychology, we might find in Kant’s critical theory of
knowledge methods and claims nowadays being developed by cog-
nitive psychologists. But my analysis of Kant’s empirical account of
cognition and action disappoints the expectation that they might
support Kitcher’s cause. To be fair, there are parallels between
the cognitive architecture used in the first Critique and that used
in the anthropology lectures. Self-consciousness, the senses, the
faculties of imagination, understanding, judgment, and reason are
present here as well (see Schmidt, 2008). However, the anthropol-
ogy lectures do not deal with the tasks of transcendental philoso-
phy. They never address the ‘‘guiding thread’’ of the logical forms
of judgment, the deduction of the categories, or proofs for the prin-
ciples of the pure understanding. Nor do they take up what might
have been, from Kant’s point of view, a possible and related empir-
ical task, namely a ‘‘physiological derivation’’ of our factually hav-
ing the categories (A86/B119). This absence is particularly striking,
since Kant saw such an inquiry as a task for empirical accounts of
cognition—as something authors like Tetens had pursued (Carl,
1989, pp. 119–126).
Fourth and finally, Kraus characterizes transcendental psychol-
ogy as a ‘‘transcendental theory of inner experience’’. If that were a
characterization of transcendental psychology, then my project
would have fallen dead-born from the press (my apologies to Pope
and Hume). If Kant’s theory of knowledge presupposes a certain
psychology, then it better not be psychology based on ‘‘inner expe-
rience’’, given all of his qualms about that notion (Sturm, 2009, pp.
202–223). Kitcher certainly does not commit herself to that view,
either (Kitcher, 1990, pp. 11–29).
4. On how to ignore transcendental idealism
Turning to Kraus’ next worry, can we really interpret Kant’s phi-
losophy of the human sciences independently of an assumption as
crucial to his mature philosophical works as the thesis of transcen-
dental idealism? Kraus is perfectly right that I ignore that thesis.
She mentions it again in relation to Kant’s claim that empirical psy-
chology does not belong in metaphysics, claiming that I do not
‘‘recognise Kant’s transcendental idealism as an underlying pre-
supposition’’ for that demarcation (p. 622). Indeed, I do not.
The reason for this is not, as one might perhaps expect, a pref-
erence for what Strawson (1966, e.g. pp. 47, 72) has called an ‘‘aus-
tere interpretation’’. Nor did I banish transcendental idealism
because it is so notoriously difficult to agree on what the doctrine
really means. Kraus does not say whether she reads Kant in a
Strawsonian manner (things in themselves and appearances are
members of two ontologically distinct worlds), or like Henry Alli-
son (1983: things in themselves and appearances are the same
entities, but viewed from different perspectives, depending on
whether or not they are subject to conditions of knowledge), or
whether she prefers yet some other reading. Regardless, my reason
for circumventing transcendental idealism is related to the histor-
ical points already made. The argument for the demarcation be-
tween empirical psychology and metaphysics shows up as early
as 1772/73: Empirical psychology uses empirical methods, while
metaphysics requires knowledge ‘‘from pure concepts’’ alone.
Now, Kraus (2011, p. 622) refers to this argument, but then mis-
reads it as presupposing transcendental idealism: ‘‘since Kant re-
fines the distinction between these two kinds of cognition in the
Critique of Pure Reason by introducing the doctrines of transcenden-
tal idealism and of empirical realism, we have to assume that these
doctrines form the basis of his argument for a demarcation be-
tween metaphysics and empirical psychology.’’ We do not. Kraus
confuses two things here: a distinction between kinds of sources
of knowledge, and a distinction between candidates for the title
of an object of knowledge. The 1772/73 argument uses the former,
and can perfectly well do so. It does not say, or need to say, any-
thing whatsoever about whether the objects of knowledge are
appearances or things in themselves, let alone what the relation
between them is. Here an austere interpretation is not a question-
able way of imposing on Kant views one prefers oneself. Historical
standards alone demand it.
5. Freedom in Kant’s ethics and anthropology
My rejoinder to Kraus’ fourth worry is more conciliatory. She
writes: ‘‘According to Sturm, the idea of freedom that is at work
in pragmatic anthropology differs from Kant’s notion of transcen-
dental freedom, as well as from the notion of the moral freedom
of choice. Although this is a highly interesting suggestion, it would
be better to have a more extensive discussion of the underlying
philosophical considerations.’’ (Kraus, 2011, p. 623) I agree that
there is perhaps more work to be done here. But my focus was
more on the philosophy of science in Kant’s anthropological pro-
ject. Others have written about the relation between that project
and his ethics. Some, most notably Patrick Frierson (2003; for crit-
icism, see Sturm, 2004) have also dealt with freedom in Kant’s
anthropology. I deal with both topics in chapter 8. Among other
things, I argue for two related claims: (1) Kant has an ambitious
notion of the ‘‘prudence’’ that his pragmatic anthropology is sup-
posed to teach: prudence is not confined to egoistic self-interest
but covers a broader cosmopolitan point of view upon humanity.
(2) The widely held assumption that his pragmatic anthropology
is supposed to be some sort of empirical counterpart to, or even di-
rectly serving, his ethical theory, is misguided. The prudence
meant under (1) basically consists in realizing that other human
agents can rationally reflect and change their rules of conduct. As
rational agents, we are well advised to take this point into consid-
eration; moreover, it limits our ability to view rules of action as
‘‘technical’’ rules. All of this is about what it means, from Kant’s
point of view, to be a human rational agent. While these consider-
ations can be relevant for ethical considerations in general, they do
not support his specific ethical theory.
Concerning freedom, again, I freely admit (Sturm, 2009, p. 486)
that incorporating the concept of freedom into pragmatic anthro-
pology comes at a price. I do not know how to make sense of the
more dubious claims of Kant’s theory of freedom. For instance, I
do not see that one can save his claim that acting from a transcen-
dentally free cause is acting from an atemporal cause. Kant never
presents this assumption in his anthropology, but anyone wishing
to make coherent all the different texts in his corpus will quickly
stumble over this and related claims. I think that the valuable parts
of Kant’s theory of freedom are thoroughly compatibilist (in a more
subtle way than Hume’s), and that for this reason we do well to
take him seriously when he desires to give the notion of freedom
a place in his empirical account of human action. One might work
 T. Sturm / Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 203–207
more on these issues, however, and perhaps even show that the
gains of such an inquiry justify the undeniably high cognitive costs.
For the time being, I don’t see any such argument. But it might of
course be given, and then I stand prepared to concede defeat.
6. Conclusion
Kraus says that I ‘‘tackle certain philosophical issues in a cur-
sory way’’ (Kraus, 2011, p. 624), referring to the absence of tran-
scendental idealism as well as to what she perceives as my
overly brief treatments of Kant’s critical theory of knowledge. In
contrast, I think that Kant’s philosophical dealing with the human
sciences to a considerable extent follows its own path procedure
and purpose. There is a deeper reason for this, and I am grateful
to Kraus for provoking me to express my views about this perhaps
a bit more fully than I have done in the book.
Kant repeatedly demands that anthropology should become an
academic discipline of its own, freed for instance from metaphysics
(A848f./B876f.; XXV, 7f., 243). He similarly keeps a considerable
distance between his own ethics and his empirical, pragmatic
anthropology. Just as talk of categories of the pure understanding
does not arise, and talk of a pure apperception or transcendental
self-consciousness is briefly mentioned but also said to not prop-
erly belong to anthropology, so there is no mention of the categor-
ical imperative or how it might be applied to ordinary problems of
moral choice. Kant means it when he says that anthropology
should be independent, that is, built on its own philosophical foun-
dation and free from concerns of other sciences. True, if what Kant
says about the role of the A priori in natural science (IV, 473–476)
holds, he should make a similar demand on any anthropology that
aims to become a science. The exact specification of such an appli-
cation of the categories would be a speculative but nevertheless
interesting enterprise in Kant scholarship, its starting point being
the concept of a rational agent or action. ‘‘Application’’, by the
way, might perhaps not be the best word for this exercise. Given
how much Kant honors the autonomy of the sciences, it would
be more of an adjustment, a search for consistency between the
specific conceptual framework of anthropology and the critical sys-
4
Thanks to Katharina Kraus for various discussions, to Cynthia Klohr for linguistic assistance, and to Marina Frasca-Spada and Nick Jardine for several suggestions that helped
to improve the text. Completion of this essay was supported by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation, Reference number FFI 2008-01559/FISO.
207
tem of the categories. (Similarly, it has been shown that what Kant
does in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is not best
understood as a mindless application of the system of categories
to the concept of matter, but as a series of arguments in its own
right; see Watkins, 1998.)
I find this relative distance between the projects healthy. If
Kant’s anthropology were fully impregnated with his epistemolog-
ical or ethical theories, learning from it for current philosophical
questions about the human sciences might be hindered consider-
ably by these additional stumbling blocks. It would embroil one
in conflicts a new science should avoid. If you do not see it this
way, perhaps you may by now feel that Kant might have done
so, and that he therefore kept the distance he did.4
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