Kant's Race Theory, Forster's Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color

Author(s): Sally Hatch Gray

Source: The Eighteenth Century , WINTER 2012, Vol. 53, No. 4 (WINTER 2012), pp. 393-
412
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/23365038

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to The Eighteenth Century

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Kant's Race Theory, Forster's Counter,
and the Metaphysics of Color

Sally Hatch Gray

Mississippi State University

At a key moment in his 1777 travelogue A Voyage Round the World (Reise um
die Welt) describing his adventures aboard Captain Cook's second exploratory
journey into the Antarctic, the narrative of the young German naturalist, Georg
Forster (1754-94), takes on a decidedly more excited tone. In August 1773, he
and his traveling companions were enjoying the charms of the Society Islands,
when, during a banquet featuring traditional dancing, the atmosphere became
sexually charged. The sailors bribed the women with bits of meat to continue
making seemingly indiscreet dance movements, while the hosts treated the
British officers and Prussian naturalists to a peek into the dancers' dressing
room. Forster writes:

To complete our entertainment this day, the chief gave orders for performing an
other heeva, and we were admitted (behind the scenes) to see the ladies dressing
for that purpose. They obtained some strings of beads on this occasion, with which
we took it into our heads to improve upon their ornaments, much to their own
satisfaction. Among the spectators we observed several of the prettiest women of
this country; and one of them was remarkable for the whitest complexion we had
ever seen in all these islands. Her colour resembled that of white wax a little sul

lied, without having the least appearance of sickness, which that hue commonly
conveys; and her fine black eyes and hair contrasted so well with it, that she was
admired by us all.1

Forster 's excitement helps to relay the intense experience of a special event
which "perfects the joys of the day" as he writes in German, "Um die Freuden
dieses Tages vollkommen zu machen."1 In this moment, they have not only been
released from the physical hardship of months at sea aboard an eighteenth
century sailing vessel, but they are taken with "einstimmige Bewunderung" a kind
of "unanimous wonderment," beyond their immediate reality in their response

The Eighteenth Century, vol. 53, no. 4 Copyright © 2012 University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
394 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

to several of the greatest beauties of the land. Forster makes this ju

cerning beauty from the perspective of a naturalist forwarding a n
anthropology. Its universality gives this concept of beauty a kind o
even scientific, necessary status; it acts as evidence for Forster's w
ral history. In Forster 's account, beauty is immediately, universal
able, another factual observation accompanying such obvious char
as fair skin and dark hair. Forster 's perspective encompasses bot
objectivity as a naturalist and a kind of aesthetic sensitivity associa
appreciation of beauty in women as in art. As this scene depicts
universal beauty placed in the context of scientific discovery, it d
the integral connection between aesthetics and anthropology at t
tual foundation.

This interconnection between aesthetics and anthropology combines discus

sions concerning definitions of color with respect to early anthropological clas
sifications and concepts of the beautiful with respect to the female body.3 At
the same time, the rise in interest in colonialism during the enlightenment pe
riod also contributed to the emergent discussions surrounding a new category
under human "species" for "race" and the reinvention of meanings for gender.
Susanne Zantop discusses the connection of gender and race with respect to co
lonial fantasies in her 1997 book Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family and Nation
in Precolonial Germany. She writes,

Recent studies of British imperialism, such as those by McClintock and Young,

have shown, however, that sexuality plays a crucial role, if not the crucial role in
colonial fantasies. In fact, racial and sexual stereotypes intersect and overlap in the
colonialist imaginary, creating the peculiar dynamics of attraction and repulsion
within colonialist subjectivity identified by Bhabha and others.4

Forster 's Voyage serves as one influential text contributing to German colonial
fantasies as described by Zantop. In particular, Forster 's depiction of rapture
before a fair-skinned, female beauty combines language of skin color, beauty
and the sexual objectification of the female form, and places it in a pre-colonial
exotic setting. Clearly Voyage demonstrates the link between movements in
anthropology, aesthetics, and colonialism. Its language of gender definition in
combination with racial description is hardly unique.
Most notably, Forster's description of the voyeur's "einstimmige Bewunder
ung" mirrors Immanuel Kant's (1724-1804) characterization of aesthetic judg
ment in his well-received treatise on anthropology entitled Observations on the
Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen
und Erhabenen), published by the Berlin Academy in 1764. There Kant describes
the universal nature of perception of feminine beauty on the part of men. He
explains, "what applies to the somewhat finer taste, as I maintain, that that kind
of beauty, which we have named the pretty figure, is judged quite uniformly

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 395

by all men, and that the opinions about it are not so different as one gener
ally thinks."5 Feminine beauty will be judged seemingly identically or will be
"ziemlich gleichförmig beurteilt" by all men. Demonstrating the interconnections
between early aesthetics and anthropology, Kant uses his first articulation of a
universal judgment of the beautiful and the sublime, the subject of the Critique
of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), the foundational text for
modem aesthetics, in an anthropological context to distinguish among identi
fied groupings of peoples. He continues the thought quoted above with, "The
Circassian and Georgian women have always been held exceedingly pretty by
all the Europeans, who travel through their countries."6 He goes on to say that
some cultures such as the Persians, Turks, and Arabians sought to better them
selves through the slave trade of fair, whiter women. He then claims that the
Persians were successful in this, and that this proves that the taste for the beau
tiful, as for the sublime, does not differ significantly among men.
Forster's heeva scene can be fruitfully interpreted as a performance of aes
thetic judgment as presented in this early essay by Kant. This shared cultural
perspective evidences similar ideas regarding aesthetics—an emerging meta
physical philosophy concerning sensate knowledge and beauty—at least
through Kant's pre-critical period and before his Critique of the Power of Judg
ment, in two influential works of early anthropology, namely Forster's Voyage
around the World and Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sub
lime. This shared belief in the significance of fair skin for beauty in works which
combine aesthetics and anthropology entails an interjection of metaphysical
constructs into empirical science.
While Kant and Forster share a common understanding of the transcen
dence of beauty at this point, the resulting metaphysics influences their work
in a new empirical science of anthropology differently. This becomes apparent
when the two engage in a fierce debate over the scientific significance of skin
color in the 1780s. Forster, having had first-hand experience of different peo
ples, and believing that grouping people would have to include studies of cus
toms and language, itself a very complicated endeavor, took a position against
any theory of race based on skin color.7 Forster appeared to win the debate,
and seemed to have succeeded in muting Kant's future writings on the topic.
Yet, despite its lack of scientific merit, Kant's work on a definition of race based
solely on skin color was influential in his day. Indeed, this colonial fantasy, to
use Zantop's words, of human races based solely on skin color has been woven
into the western consciousness.

Although the concept of persistent categories of human "race" based on

skin color may be part of modern created reality, here the task at hand is to
imagine a world in which the idea itself is not only not assumed, but a world
in which it is held under intense scrutiny and sometimes, as we shall see here,
all-out attack. In his seminal work on the topic, Race: The History of an Idea in the
West (1996), Ivan Hannaford's ambitious outline from the ancient to the près

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
396 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ent demonstrates the lack of any real conscious idea of race, as we

it today, until after the Reformation. Hannaford attributes the inven
modern idea of race to a period from 1684 to 1815, when, he arg
writers dealt with this idea as an organizing principle.8 He marks t
as the publication of François Bernier's "Nouvelle division de la terr
ferent espèces ou races qui l'habitent" as a significant moment of a fir
categorize people according to empirical observations rather than s
as Christian versus heathen or human versus monster. Concurrent with efforts

such as that of Captain James Cook to map the globe, came efforts to document
all flora and fauna of the earth. As reports of peoples from the reaches of the
earth returned to a Europe hungry for fantasies of exotic places, attempts were
made to categorize and create a scientific understanding of the human race,
alongside that of all other species. Most famously, the work of naturalist Carl
Linnaeus (1707-78), an attempt to categorize all living things, formed the basis
of the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature and epitomizes the efforts of
the times.

While very useful and comprehensive, Hannaford's account omits any dis
cussion of Kant's significant writings on his own new delineation of race, and
argues that Johann Blumenbach (1752-40), whose work in the new field of an
thropology would have a lasting effect into the nineteenth century, influenced
Kant's ideas.9 As Robert Bernasconi shows in "Who Invented the concept of
Race" (2001), the relationship actually goes the other way around.10 Kant did
not get his idea of race based on skin color from Blumenbach; rather, Kant's
theory influenced Blumenbach's ideas on the subject. Blumenbach's career as a
famous anthropologist began in 1775 with his doctoral dissertation, De generis
humani varietate nativa (1776). In that work, Blumenbach relies on the Linnaean
classification term "varietatis" and maintains that no definite lines between

human varieties may be drawn.11 Kant's first essay on race "On the Different
Races of Man," ("Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen"), which drew defi
nite lines between groups and defined specifically the term "race" to be based
exclusively on skin color, was published earlier in 1775, before Blumenbach's
thesis was completed. Indeed, Blumenbach credits Kant for his race theory in
1779 and mirrors Kant's language in his Handbuch der Naturgeschichte.12 Ber
nasconi demonstrates that in "On the Different Races of Man" and with his

subsequent contributions on the subject, Kant made the first articulation which
fixed human races as distinct subcategories within a broader category of spe
cies. Bernier, for example, had used the term "race" in his classifications, but
did not distinguish it from "species." Before Kant, argues Bernasconi, no defi
nite concept for "race" as opposed to "variety" or "species" was established.13
If Kant played a pivotal role in substantiating a modern concept of race based
on skin color, this point is missing in much of the scholarship on the subject.
Unlike much of Kant's work, his race theory cannot be read as a step toward
the logical foundation for universal human rights, and scholars have grappled

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 397

with reconciling some of Kant's work in anthropology and his ethics.14 If one
studies Kant's transcendental philosophy apart from his anthropology, it is, in
deed, difficult to make sense of it. Given that Kant's categorical moral impera
tive is expressly universal, that is, all human beings should be treated as means
in themselves and not as a means to an end, scholars have argued that Kant's
race theory does not follow from his philosophy, that it is not part of it, that it
can be separated from it, and that it must be read in the context of his times.15
It would follow that Kant's race theory would not need to color discussions of
Kant's work in transcendental philosophy.
The following elucidation of Kant's race debate in the 1780s with Forster will
reveal two problems with this argument. First: if Kant's race theory is merely a
product of its times, where do Forster's effective scientific and moral arguments
against it come from? Given that Kant's own enlightenment-aged philosophy
seems to allow for the natural endowments of all human beings, it seems both
Kant's and Forster's positions are "products of their times" as they are also prod
ucts of these two thinkers. The second problem with an intentional omission of
Kant's race theory is that, as I will argue here, Kant developed his scientific the
ory and his idea of a teleological nature as presented in his Critique of the Power of
judgment, at least in part, in order to provide a unifying theoretical basis for his
race theory so that it could withstand the scrutiny of a nascent, markedly mod
ern, empirical scientific method based on deductive logic, such as that advanced
by Forster.16 Thus, as this discussion will show, an understanding of Kant's race
theory is integral to an understanding of his idea of nature and of humans in
nature as presented in the Critique of the Power of Judgment.
Kant's scientific theory of nature in this work wears a mask of universal
ity, under which lies a particular cultural perspective. This mask enables the
propagation of one particularly harmful myth of predetermined "race" as if it
were grounded in natural law. Indeed, although Kant's cosmopolitanism is rep
resentative of a particular European perspective, it has long been regarded as
universal, while embedded, inaccurate, and damaging identifications of other
non-Europeans who do not share this perspective have been understood as
unrelated. This attempt here to root out connections between Enlightenment
cosmopolitanism and a "scientific" race theory based on "natural law," which
had such a powerful, terrible influence in its day and beyond, is not an attempt
to marginalize Kant. As thinkers and students of the history of philosophy, I
suggest we consider instead the whole, unabridged Kant, take his constructs
apart, and use the perspective we gain from this investigation to question the
limitations of our own ideas.17

KANT'S THEORY OF RACE BASED ON SKIN COLOR

Kant lectured in the fields of physical geography and anthropology for

five years from 1772-97 at the University in Königsberg and publish

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
398 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

the Different Races of Man" to advertise his popular lectures on phys

raphy. His physical geography sought to study the earth, minerals, t
sphere, plant and animal life, and included human beings as among
formed by nature. Given that "man" was included in nature, it made s
physical geography included physical anthropology. Kant's physical
pology encompassed the study of physical attributes of human bein
ing facial characteristics, hair texture and color, and skin color, as we
study of cultural practices. Kant believed that both the physical attri
people and their cultural practices were closely related to their phy
roundings and geographical location. As Kant defined physical geogr
broad study of nature including humans in nature—the field included
of his understanding of anthropology, which concentrated on human
part of their natural world and as possessors of a free will. Physical ge
and anthropology were thus interrelated for him. Kant made a distin
tween physical anthropology—"what nature makes of the human bein
pragmatic anthropology-—"what he [the human being] as a free-acti
makes of himself, or can and should make of himself."18 While physic
pology covered the body, pragmatic anthropology dealt with moral ch
With these sciences, Kant wanted to construct a systematic understan
the human being's place in nature.
With "On the Different Races of Man," Kant gave the concept of
fined by skin color and geographic location new validity. This essay
strates a profound influence by Count George Louis Leclerc Buffon (1
whose forty-four volume work, Histoire naturelle, générale et particul
1804), encompassed minerals, birds, epochs, reptiles, fish, crustacean
human beings. In this work Buffon established a rule for defining s
groups capable of mating to produce fertile offspring. By this defini
human beings are of one species. Kant admired the principled natur
rule: either the offspring are fertile or they are not. He saw this sp
egory as real, as demonstrative of nature's true workings. He then c
new scientific classification for the idea of race, as opposed to varie
on Buffon's rule. At the beginning of his first essay on race, Kant
distinction between a "Schuleinteilung," a school category, and a "Na
teilung," a natural category, and what he will call a real category fo
derstanding. He writes,

The school classification [Schuleinteilung] works from classes [Klassen] base

similarities, the natural classification [die Natureinteilung], however, works
groups related by heredity [Stämme], which categorize the animals accordi
their relation due to procreation. The one creates a school system for the mem
the other a natural system for the understanding: the first has only the intent
categorize plants and animals under a title, the second has the intention to
nize them according to laws.19

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 399

For Kant, some classification systems, including those of Aristotle and Lin
naeus, are natural descriptions which establish mere "Schuleinteilungen" to aid
the memory. These are useful only in that they afford students of natural his
tory some order with which to study the myriad examples of nature's creations.
They aid in the learning process, but there is nothing necessary about these
categories. Presumably a scientist could use different characteristics to estab
lish different classifications which would serve the same purpose. One would
only have to observe or highlight certain physical characteristics to justify the
grouping. On the other hand, Kant believed it possible to create a fixed clas
sification, "a natural system for the understanding" encompassing necessary
laws, such as Buffon's law, which establish "Natureinteilungen," natural classi
fications. These "Natureinteilungen" are not changeable, rather they are defined
by "unausbleibliche Eigenschaften" or "inevitably inherited characteristics." Kant
believed that by defining these "Natureinteilungen" as opposed to "Schulein
teilungen," one could develop a "Natursystem," such that it would be possible
to categorize plants and animals according to natural laws. These natural laws
would then evidence the actual structure of nature.

Kant clarifies this distinction between classification according to law and

classification useful only for learning at the end of his second essay on race
called "Definition of a Concept of a Human Race" ["Bestimmung des Begriffs
einer Menschenrace" (1785)]. Here he introduces the concepts of "Nominalgat
tungen" and "Realgattungen" and distinguishes between "Naturgeschichte" and
"Naturbeschreibung" or between natural history and natural description. "Nomi
nalgattungen," literally categories in name only, are only descriptive. They are
the product of the decisions, criteria, and classification systems of the natural
describer, and the result of their establishment is natural description. None of
this is a science according to Kant. It is simply a way of organizing nature for
the memory "Realgattungen," literally "real" categories, are based on natural
law, such as Buffon's law. Kant writes,

Thus, animals whose differences are so great that their very existence depended
on the development of different characteristics could well belong to a "Nominal
gattung" (in order that they be classified according to their similarities), but never
to a "Realgattung," in which at least there must be a possibility that their heredity
extends back to one original pair. The discovery of the latter [Realgattung] is the
project of natural history [Naturgeschichte]; while the natural describer [Naturbesch
reiber] is satisfied with the former.20

The human species is a "Realgattung," and according to Kant, there are four
human races that are also "Realgattungen." Kant's idea here is that the process
of classifying all humans as being in the same category by recognizing traits
common to all of them, and, at the same time, ignoring those traits which seem
to differentiate them, such as skin color, does not constitute natural science

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
400 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

based on natural law. Kant would call this natural description. Accor
the law of nature, and in this case, the law of heredity, a natural his
Kant's view, must follow a principle and use a "Realgattung" or a real c
A scientist working from principle, according to Kant, will underst
there are distinct races.

In Kant's race theory, certain characteristics are necessarily passed down from
parent to offspring, and these are inevitable [unausbleibliche] characteristics. Thus,
a scientist can establish the category of "species" according to Buffon's law, and
this category is a "Realgattung." But a scientist can go further, according to Kant,
and establish another real category under species for race based on his idea of
necessarily inherited characteristics. It is important to understand here that Kant
viewed these necessarily inherited characteristics, like skin color, to be as observ
able and definable as the existence of fertility in the offspring, and he saw these
characteristics as genetically inevitable. Thus Kant argued that his "race" catego
ries could be established according to a natural law.
Kant espoused a theory of monogenesis, that is, that there was one original
pair of humans, or several sets of original, identical pairs, which produced
offspring. As the offspring migrated to other parts of the globe, their "Keime,"
or seeds, programmed their adaptation to a new geographical location and
produced characteristics which they would pass on indefinitely to their fu
ture offspring. Once having programmed the adaptation to a specific envi
ronment, Kant's "Keime" do not change again. Kant's theory allows for only
a limited number of possible variations in "Keime" which mark a limited
number of races. In other words, races are predetermined and fixed. In this
early essay, he allows for one original "Stamm Gattung" which gives birth
to four races. The races are marked by specific, distinguishable skin colors,
including white, red [Kupferrote], black, and olive-yellow. Thus, when Kant
describes animals, as quoted above, "whose differences are so great that their
very existence depended on the development of different characteristics," he
is referring to the effect of "Keime." The African's dark skin is a prime example
of Keime for Kant. He believed that the equator, full of jungles and swamps,
produced a great deal of "Phlogiston" which needed to be removed from the
blood. In pale Europeans, this happens through the lungs, but in this part of
the world, there is too much for the lungs to fully remove, and it needs to be
taken care of through the skin as well. Dark skin is dark because it actually
contains an agent for "dephlogistisieren," the removal of "Phlogiston," without
which an African would not be so well adapted to his environment.21 These
kinds of adaptations show, according to Kant, that all humans cannot, accord
ing to natural law, belong to the same "race."
Kant carefully distinguishes "necessarily inherited characteristics" which
enable the identification of a race from inherited characteristics which are vari

able, not necessarily inherited, and which signify only variety within a race.
In "On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy" ("Über den Gebrauch

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 401

teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie," 1788), Kant writes, "A var

hereditary peculiarity which does not lend itself to classification becaus
not inevitably reproduce itself." He gives blonde versus brunette hai
example of variety within a race. Skin color, on the other hand, is, in
view, necessarily inherited. He continues, "But that hereditary pecul
which can exist together with another peculiarity is either necessarily
tary, or it isn't. In the first case, it determines the character of a race; in th
case, it determines the character of a variety."22 Kant believed that, w
viduals of separate races procreate, the inevitably inherited characteri
demonstrated in the offspring he named "halbschlächtige Kinder oder Ble
(Mulatten)," or "children exhibiting the inevitably inherited character
both races."23 He goes on to explain that blondes and brunettes are not di
races, because a brunette child can come from a blond parent and not
the hair color of one parent at all.24 Indeed, a clearer understanding of
genetics would have to wait until the twentieth century, but it appeared
that skin color was a certainty whereas hair color was not. As a certaint
skin color marked, for Kant, a real category of nature designated thro
creation, and thus it marked a race.

FORSTER'S CHALLENGE TO KANT'S RACE THEORY

Georg Forster responded to Kant's "Determination of a Concept of

Race" in 1786 with his "Still More about the Human Races" ("Noch et
Menschenraßen"), which he published in the Teutsche Merkur. Unlike
most Europeans, Forster had encountered and studied a great varie
tural groups. Young Forster had accompanied his father, Johann R
Forster, who had been hired as naturalist aboard Cook's Resolution, o
cumnavigation of 1772-75. In their writings, the Forsters did not tre
as though it were empty, ready to be colonized, as Mary Louise Pratt
a great wealth of travel writers doing in her book, Imperial Eyes: T
ing and Transculturation (1992). Instead of erasing the agency and o
the existence of the inhabitants, the Forsters' accounts described the
detail, their customs and languages.25 The Forsters seemed especially
not only to the relative beauty of women, but also to their roles in s
even to injustices committed against them as evidenced by one poign
in which Georg Forster describes the tears and lamentations of youn
New Zealand as they are bartered for sex by their men-folk to Engl
for some trinkets.26 Young Georg Forster sees the depth in the peop
counter and does not wish to have his careful observations of them s
Reacting to both Kant's view of the scientific method and his theory
ral history, Forster argued against a defining role for skin color in an
theory of human races, rejecting Kant's premise that races could be d
all based on the data at hand. If they could be defined, Forster wrote

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
402 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

not be by skin color and geographical location alone. He gave an e

two individuals who belonged to different races, according to Kan
tion, but who had a similar skin color and who had a child of the
color. He thus presented empirical evidence which countered Kan
distinct skin color as one of the "inevitably inherited characteristi
tablished the different races. Forster believed that Kant's theory w
a mere theory, unsupported by empirical data. Kant refers to the i
South Pacific specifically in establishing his theory of race based on
information he received from travel literature predating Forster 's V
the World. Forster, having seen islanders of the South Seas himself, a
authority that skin color varies widely within that geographic reg
not constitute a clear classification system, much less any so essent
Kant proposed. Kant, he maintains, has been misled by inaccurate
Interestingly, Kant neglected to refer to Forster 's Voyage in "De
of a Concept of a Human Race." It is unlikely that Kant would no
Forster 's travel account, as he was an avid reader of travel literatu
it to support his work in physical geography. Furthermore, Forster
rative was extremely popular and made him famous in the Germ
lands. Instead, Kant referenced a travel narrative written by Briti
Philip Carteret, who sailed across the South Pacific and around the
1766 to 1769. Carteret spent less time exploring the South Pacific t
and covered much less territory. He described most of the island
as "black woolly headed Negroes" but some he described as "In
colour'd," as on the Mapia Islands, named by Carteret "Joseph
lands."27 Kant mentions the "Frevill Eiland" from Carteret's account,
he evidenced the "wahre gelb" color, or true yellow, one of the fou
deduced that most of the peoples living in the South Pacific are act
their skin colored by the sun and wind.28 Incidentally, Carteret did
Tahiti or the Society Islands, and he did not describe beautiful, f
women. Kant's idea that some of the people of the South Pacific
white did not, it seems, come from Carteret. It could, however, have
other unreferenced accounts, including Forster's narrative, espec
Forster's romantic depiction of the beautiful white skin found o
quoted above.
At other points along his journey Forster points out the relative beauty of
the women, and, in the end, he remarks that out of all the women they have
seen, European women are the most beautiful. This scale of beauty and cor
responding whiteness of skin creates a kind of accidental standard that coin
cides with "advancement" in society for Forster. Thus Forster's aesthetics here
demonstrate an unintended consequence, a scale by which a society may be
judged. Despite his documentation of this one fair-skinned woman, according
to Forster's Voyage not all of the inhabitants of the region had light skin, and
some were dark-skinned as Africans. Thus, Forster's account of the variety of

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 403

skin colors in the South Pacific, which not only included more islands than
Carteret's journal but contained much more detail as well, was simply not use
ful to Kant's theory. Forster, not surprisingly, disputed both Carteret's account
and Kant's interpretation of it in "Still More about the Human Races," pointing
out that Carteret only visited a few of the western islands of the South Pacific.
In the end, Forster argues that Kant's concepts of "Keime" ("seeds" or "germs")
and "inevitably inherited characteristics" are mere fantasy and that his result
ing concepts of natural history and the origin of life is unsupportable. Forster
accuses Kant, in short, of selecting data which better supports his theoretical
system rather than taking all the data available and realizing that it does not
actually show any clear definitions of race. Forster believes that Kant is not
using deductive reasoning, and his method, then, is no longer appropriately
empirical.
The crux of the issue between Forster and Kant was their differing concep
tions of scientific method. Forster adhered to a rigorous empirical process,
whereby any theory must arise out of an expanse of verifiable first-hand ac
counts, while Kant was interested in establishing principles whereby one could
discover natural laws. For Kant, humans occupied a special place in nature, that
of the only rational being. Thus, he believed that the existence of reason itself in
human beings as a part of nature necessitated that nature be understood as if it
were rational. While Forster surmised the existence of an unknowable, original
life force, or "Kraft," he did not believe that the data would ever reveal any
definite picture of human origin. Due to the limitations of perspective, Forster
called natural history "eine Wissenschaft für Götter," or "a science for Gods."29
Kant rejected this idea that the origins were absolutely unknowable. Science, as
Forster practiced it, was a science for Gods, but reason, for Kant, enabled us to
gain perspective that empirical experience alone denied us. Kant also rejected
the idea of an original force, calling it unnecessary metaphysical speculation.
He believed that, in theory, a scientist could begin to surmise the outlines of a
greater order within nature through the application of both empirical experi
ence and metaphysical theory. Kant believed that a study of humans would
reveal the outlines of greater order to nature, just as his Critique of Pure Reason
revealed the categories of the understanding. The organization of the human
mind became for him an analogy for understanding the organization of na
ture itself. Humans possess reason and categories of the understanding and are
creations of nature, thus nature must be understood as if it possessed a broad,
if unknowable, plan. Its plan should be understood as leading to a greater te
leological end, just as humans ought to progress into free, moral thinkers. For
Kant, the study of empirical data organized under the proper metaphysical
theory would allow the naturalist to ascertain evidence of this plan. The theory
was essential: natural history was to illuminate the connection between reason
and nature. Empirical data could then be used to establish the science from
within this framework.

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
404 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

In his answer to Forster, entitled "On the Use of Teleological P

in Philosophy," published in 1788 in the Teutsche Merkur, Kant cr
ster 's empiricism as incapable of reaching the basic assumptions
for natural science. Kant's critique of Forster and his definition o
ence focused on the "Nominalgattung" and "Realgattung" distinct
was working from the Linnaean classification system, using what
"Nominalgattungen," which could only describe, according to Kan
useful for comprehension, but which were not necessary or real. K
he had established a principle to interpret human characteristics a
son and empiricism provided the proof of permanent categories,
which would not change over time or with new empirical data. K
that by discovering laws and establishing "Realgattungen," a natur
could demonstrate the actual order of rational nature.

Forster, a stricter empiricist, rejected what he saw as Kant's theoretical leaps,

accusing him of presupposing a rational system and applying it to natural
history, rather than letting any theory follow deductively from an analysis of
physical evidence. Unless the philosopher is careful and "fest an der Anschauung
klebt," or "sticks close to the observation of objects in the world," Forster warns
in "Still More about the Human Races," he is in danger of building castles in the
air. He writes that in order to avoid "Einseitigkeit" or "one sidedness," "it must
be important to the philosopher, when he works from experience, that the facts,
from which consequences arise, are correctly understood, because without this
caution any valid deductions will be lost."30 Forster's basic argument is that
there is no actual empirical evidence to support the existence of Kant's "Realgat
tungen," and so the race theory that arises out of this false interpretation of the
empirical facts is not valid. It is delusion.

DEFINING A SCIENTIFIC METHOD TO INCLUDE METAPHYSICS

Clearly Forster's rejection of Kant's introduction of metaphysics int

science is more in line with modern scientific theory, while Kant's i
a separate origin for the human species and his race theory are rem
their opposition to it. Kant's ideas on race and the fixed nature of
are part of Kant's work as a whole. Emmanuel Eze and Christian M
bauer called attention to the damaging nature of Kant's race theory
critiques did not serve to change the prevailing view that Kant's rac
not embedded in, derivable from, or part of his transcendental phil
so have generally been dismissed by scholars.31
John H. Zammito and Friedrich Beiser have described how Kant's r
leads him to the concept of teleological principles in nature which
to his third Critique.32 Yet, they both argue that Kant's debate with F
race is much less significant than his argument with Herder over or
Beiser claims that were it not for the questions concerning the limit

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 405

science and the role of teleology, questions which inspired Kant's third Critique,
Beiser could, in fact, ignore Forster's essay.33 Beiser does not discuss the issue of
race. Zammito, on the other hand, discusses Kant's race theory briefly within the
context of his "preformation theory" and his idea of modified "epigenesis." That
is, Zammito stresses that Kant believed humans were all one species and were
preformed in nature, and he accounts for perceived differences among humans
with his idea that different races arose out of one of four pre-existing possibilities
written into human "Keime."34 In The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment, Zam
mito mentions Forster 's influence on Kant, but, interestingly, neglects to refer
to Forster's essay in his work more specifically focused on anthropology, Kant,
Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology.35 In the end, for both Zammito and Beiser, the
teleology and scientific theory matter, but the fact that these ideas came about for
Kant over a defense of his contested race theory does not.
My reading of this debate between Forster and Kant alongside their respec
tive work in aesthetics leads me to a different conclusion. While Kant's gen
eral goal in speculative philosophy, as presented in his first Critique, had to be
consistent with his race theory, Kant's third Critique was invested in defending
it from Forster's empirical attack. The third Critique describes a symbiotic rela
tionship between scientist and nature, such that the cause of the principles from
which a scientist works is the things in themselves. If things in themselves can
act as a cause of principles, then there is definitely more to nature than what can
be ascertained through mere empiricism.
After responding to Forster's attack with "On the use of Teleological Prin
ciples in Philosophy," Kant wrote the first introduction to his third Critique.
Here he divides philosophy, which he calls "the system of rational cognition
through concepts" into theoretical and practical philosophy.36 The theoretical is
the philosophy of nature and the practical is the philosophy of morals. The theo
retical is also empirical and the practical "can never contain anything other than
pure principles a priori."37 This is not new, but then Kant introduces a new con
cept: the theoretical practical in the philosophy of nature. Practical propositions
"consider freedom under laws," so how can these propositions concerning free
dom have a role to play in empirical science? Kant explains that there are some
practical propositions which "belong to the nature of things, only applied to
the way in which they can be generated by us in accordance with a principle,
i.e., their possibility is represented through a voluntary action (which belongs
among natural causes as well)."38 The possibility of these theoretical-practical
principles is represented by the scientist through a voluntary action, such as the
creation of a relation, for example. They must follow laws, but the natural scien
tist is responsible for making these representations, and there is some freedom
involved with this action. Kant writes,

In a word: all practical propositions that derive that which nature can contain from
the faculty of choice as a cause collectively belong to theoretical philosophy, as

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
406 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

cognition of nature; only those propositions which give the law to free
specifically distinguished from the former in virtue of their content. On
of the former that they constitute the practical part of a philosophy of n
the latter alone ground a special practical philosophy.39

In defining the difference between theoretical and practical philos

allows here that there is a practical part of a philosophy of nature,
scientist has some choice to create representations of nature, and this
as a cause. As defined above, practical propositions are purely a pr
tions, yet some a priori propositions are a part of a philosophy of
represent "the possibility of things in accordance with natural law
on to explain practical-theoretical propositions in his remark:

Now the possibility of things in accordance with natural laws is essentially

in its principles from that in accordance with laws of freedom. This dis
however, does not consist in the fact that in the latter case the cause is pla
will, but in the former case outside of the will, in the things themselves. F
if the will follows no other principles than those by means of which t
standing has insight into the possibility of the object in accordance wi
as mere laws of nature, then the proposition which contains the possibil
object through the causality of the faculty of choice may still be called
proposition, yet it is not at all distinct in principle from the theoretical pr
concerning the nature of things, but must rather derive its own content f
latter in order to exhibit the representation of an object in reality.40

Here Kant is concerned with practical propositions which are "no

tinct in principle from the theoretical propositions concerning th
things." The distinction is that with these practical propositions
science, the cause is placed, not in the will, but outside the will, in
in themselves." These propositions derive their content from th
things.
By making space for theoretical practical propositions in natural science,
propositions that are caused by the "things in themselves," that are not purely
empirical, but that contain a "practical" element, Kant makes a space for his
Realgattungen. His fixed categories of race based on unausbleibliche Eigenschaften
are not grounded in pure empirical evidence; rather, they come about through
the employment of practical propositions of natural science. These propositions
are caused by the things in themselves and are made by the scientist in ac
cordance to the laws of nature. In other words, here he is creating a scientific
theory capable of countering Forster 's empiricism.

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 407

AESTHETICS AND RACE

Kant could not adequately defend his race theory on a purely empiri
as Forster showed. The evidence did not support it. Convinced, thoug
was valid, he wrote the Critique of the Power of Judgment, at least in part
to create a teleological philosophy of science that would support it.
flecting power of judgment is not just about beauty, but also about n
the beginning of the second part, with the "Critique of the Teleologi
of Judgment" Kant describes the objective purposiveness of nature. T
and beauty of nature's creations cannot be explained through pure
instead, nature must be understood as if it were purposive. He argue
as a mere mechanism, could have formed itself in a thousand differ
without hitting precisely upon the unity in accordance with such a
that it is therefore only outside the concept of nature, not within it
could have even the least ground a priori for hoping to find such a prin
Empirical data will never give Forster all the tools he needs to do n
ence, because nature itself is not mere mechanism. Principles of met
must be employed and nature must be understood as if it were pur
Kant describes his idea of how we think of nature: "For in the necessi
which is purposive and so constituted as if it were intentionally arr
our use, but which nevertheless seems to pertain originally to the es
things, without any regard to our use, lies the ground for the great a
of nature, not outside of us so much as in our own reason."42 Thus, a
gues in his essays on race, a natural scientist must work from princip
principles will be supported empirically, but cannot be pure empiric
must also be grounded in reason and natural law. Nature, therefore,
fundamentally purposive, and rational principles are the only way
stand this fact.

In addition to being an impetus for the third Critique, Kant's race theory
plays a thematic role, as Kant integrates issues of color and natural history into
the aesthetics. In section 17, "On the Ideal of Beauty" (vom Ideale der Schönheit)
of his "Analytic of the Beautiful" (Analytik des Schönen), Kant introduces his
race forms. Here, in a rare passage in the text which deals with human beauty,
Kant describes his concept of a "normal idea" (Normalidee) which comes about,
not purely from a myriad of experience, but rather, in accordance with rules
for judging. It is an aesthetic idea which rests only in the individual doing the
judging. Kant explains,

The normal idea must take its elements for the figure of an animal of a particular
species from experience; but the greatest purposiveness in the construction of the
figure, which would be suitable as a universal standard for the aesthetic judging of
every individual of this species, the image which as it were intentionally grounded
the technique of nature, to which only the species as a whole but not any separate

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
408 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

individual is adequate, lies merely in the idea of the one who does th
which, however, with its proportions, can be represented fully in concr
aesthetic idea in a model image.43

The normal idea cannot be adequate for any one individual, but mu
the species as a whole. Kant's view of the separate origins for ea
consistent here with his division for the normal idea. The normal idea is an

aesthetic idea. It is subjective, and exists in the mind of the one doing the judg
ing. It is a universal idea as well: each member of the species will come to the
same normal idea. Kant then makes a further delineation for race. The concept
of beauty must be universal in Kant's view of it, but this normal idea cannot
be universal for all humans, rather "a Negro must necessarily have a different
normal idea of the beauty of a figure than a white, a Chinese person a different
idea from a European. It will be exactly the same with the model of a beautiful
horse or dog (of a certain breed [Race].)."44 The different races will come to their
own "Normalidee" not solely through the process of adding up experiences, but
through a "universal" subjective judgment. That is, an African's idea of human
beauty will be consistent with that of other Africans, but will not be the same
as a European's. Thus, it seems rather important to note that here "universal"
can also mean "European," and that, under consideration, this may not actually
present any contradiction for the work as a whole. After all, Kant, from his per
spective, was consistent. Kant's concept of race, including the idea of a separate
origin of the species, the "Keime" which generate the four specific color classes,
and the colors themselves, encompass the human element in this whole picture
of a teleological nature. His theory of a teleological nature, then, is a substan
tiation of the race theory, which is a goal of the work as a whole. Clearly the
subject of the debate between Forster and Kant, a definition of race, and the
conflicting notions of the role of empiricism in the formulation of such a defini
tion, is of primary concern to Kant's third Critique. Given this, Forster's essay
on race, as it presents an alternate view, deserves notice.
Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews, translators of the new Cambridge edition
of the Critique of the Power of Judgment, translate Kant's word "Race" as "breed"
in the quote above. This is understandable, and would be the best term were
it Herder or Forster or just about anyone else writing the text except Kant.
"Race", "breed," and "variety," were used interchangeably at the time, and the
word "race" has such a loaded meaning in our times. Yet, clearly this loaded
meaning has roots which must include Kant's new validation of a scientific
classification of race based on skin color. I believe here it is a mistake to change
Kant's German word "Race" to "breed," given the efforts Kant made in a series
of essays to define the term, carefully distinguishing it from the other two, and
given the efforts he made towards the creation of a scientific method which
would accommodate the category.

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 409

NOTES

I would like to thank Robert Bernasconi, Jonathan Hess, and anonymous referee
helpful comments on previous drafts. I am grateful for funding from a Mississip
University HARP grant.

1. Georg Forster, "Reise Um die Welt," Georg Forsters Werke: Sämtliche Schriften
bücher, Briefe II, AV II, 1-164; AV III, 1-455 (Berlin, 1974), AV II, 328-29; Forster, A
Round the World, I, ed. Nicholas Thomas and Oliver Berghof, asst. Jennifer New
nolulu, 2000), 221. Forster wrote the narrative originally in English, publishing it in
and then feverishly translated it, with some help from Rudolf Erich Raspe, into his
German by August of that same year. Forster was sensitive to the two different aud
and his language differs a bit from one text to the other.
2. Forster, AV II, 328.
3. For a general outline of the combined history of anthropology and aesthetics in
eighteenth century, see A. Owen Aldridge, "Primitivism in the Eighteenth Centur
tionary of the History of Ideas III (New York, 1973-74), 605. Aldridge discusses perce
of color with respect to aesthetics and race, mentioning most notably, Gotthold E
Lessing's depiction of the Hottentots in his 1766 work on aesthetics, Laokoon ode
die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie. See also Sander L. Gilman, "The Figure of the Bla
German Aesthetic Theory," Eighteenth-Century Studies 8 (1975): 373-96. See also E
Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Be
ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame, 1958). In 1757, Burke introduces ideas of the s
as distinct from the beautiful, and makes an essential connection between the colo
and fear. Immanuel Kant's 1764 essay on the sublime and the beautiful, "Observat
the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime," ("Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des S
und Erhabenen," Akademieausgabe von Kants Gesammelten Schriften II, [Berlin, 1902
56) connects the color white with moral goodness in a discussion of human classif
4. Susanne Zantop, Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family and Nation in Precoloni
many, 1770-1870 (Durham, 1997). See also Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, G
and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York, 1995); and Mary Louise Pratt, Im
Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York, 1992). For a discussion of the
logical connections between sex and race in the eighteenth and nineteenth centur
Ladelle McWhorter, "Sex, Race and Biopower: A Foucaultian Geneology," Hypatia 1
3 (Summer 2004): 38-62.
5. Kant, Beobachtungen, 237, translation mine.
6. Kant, Beobachtungen, 237, translation mine.
7. Forster demonstrated an extraordinary openness toward difference. For a
sion of this and his achievement in understanding modern deductive scientific
ing and what would resemble Karl Popper's theory of negation, see Dagmar Ba
"Eräugnis: Georg Forster on the Difficulties of Diversity," Impure Reason: Dialectic o
lightenment in Germany, ed. Daniel W. Wilson and Robert C. Holub (Detroit, 1993), 3
8. Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Washington, D.C.,
187.

9. Hannaford's references of Kant's ideas on race come from Mary J. Gregor's Eng
translation of his Anthropology from a Practical Perspective (Anthropologie in pragm
Hinsicht, [1798]). He does not refer to Kant's two essays specifically on his own ne
nition of race, "On the different Races of Men" ("Von den verschiedenen Racen d
schen," [1775]) and "Definition of Concept of a Human Race" ("Bestimmung des B
einer Menschenrace," [1785]), nor does he refer to Kant's answer to Forster written in
which began his creation of a scientific method to support his idea of race that
withstand Forster's attack, "On the Use of teleological Principles in Philosophy"
den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie" [1788]).

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 410 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

10. Robert Bernasconi, "Who I

lightenment Construction of Ra
11. Johann Blumenbach, On the
(London, 1865) (De generis human
12. Blumenbach, Handbuch der N
13. Bernasconi, "Who Invented
14. See Susan M. Shell, "Kant's
of Race, ed. Sara Eigen and Mark
as an Unfamiliar Source of Racis
L. Lott (Oxford, 2002), 145-66.
a constant threat that it will be
group retains its particularism,"
also Thomas E. Hill Jr. and Bern
(Oxford, 2001), 448-71. See also
'Races,'" Civilization and Oppres
Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, "The
ogy," Anthropology and the Germ
M. Faull (Lewisburg, 1995), 200-
15. See Hill Jr. and Boxill, "K
Thoughts on Race," The Philosop
ingeld argues that after 1792 an
and his idea of morally inferior
category. Thus, she argues that
more in line with his ethical vie
izing any significance to Kant's
in transcendental philosophy. M
scientific theory and his idea of
lished in 1790. My reading of his C
I want to prove that Kant was a r
ally read as a scientific theory cre
races based on skin color. Thus, it
Kant's universalism veils an em
more, "Antimonies of Race: Dive
4-5 (2008): 341-63. Larrimore ar
idea of race, the empirical confi
his critical project as a whole.
16. For a discussion of Kant's sc
biology of his day, see John Zamm
1992), 190.
17. This endeavor does not originate here, but is a continuation of work already un
derway. Bernasconi observes how scholarship has separated out Kant's race theory from
his transcendental philosophy, and he discusses the importance of understanding the
connections between universalism and racism in works by classical philosophers. He
writes that "studying how the classical works of the history of philosophy connect with
the institutional oppression of their time is the best preparation for questioning the limi
tations of our own thinking" ("Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Racism," [147]). Also,
Charles W. Mills writes "thus, the rethinking, purging, and deracializing of racial liber
alism should be a priority for us—and in fact the struggles of people of color for racial
equality over the past few hundred years can in large measure be most illuminatingly
seen as just such a project" ("Racial Liberalism," PMLA 123, no. 5 [2008]: 1380-97,1383).
18. Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans, and ed. by Robert B.
Louden (Cambridge, 2006), 3; "Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht," AA VII,
117-333,118.

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 GRAY—THE METAPHYSICS OF COLOR 411

19. Kant, "Von den Verschiedenen Racen der Menschen/' AA II, 427-44, 429, transla
tion mine.

20. Kant, "Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace," AA VIII, 89-106,102, trans
lation mine.

21. Kant, "Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace," 102-03.

22. Kant, "On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy," trans. Jon Mark Mik
kelsen, Race, ed. Bernasconi, (Oxford, 2001), 37-56,41; "Über den Gebrauch teleologischer
Prinzipien in der Philosophie," AA VIII, 157-184,165.
23. Kant, "Von den Verschiedenen Racen der Menschen," 430.
24. Kant, "Von den Verschiedenen Racen der Menschen," 430.
25. For a discussion of the singularity of Johann Forster's perspective and open
mindedness, see Harriet Guest, "Looking at Women: Forster's Observations in the South
Pacific," Observations Made during a Voyage round the World by Johann Reinhold Forster, ed.
Thomas, Guest, and Michael Dettelbach with a linguistics appendix by Karl H. Rensch
(Honolulu, 1996) XLI-LIV. See also Thomas, "Johann Reinhold Forster and his Obser
vations," Observations Made during a Voyage round the World by Johann Reinhold Forster,
xv-xxii. Johann Forster was very interested in studying language and its origins as a way
to decipher human migrations. For a discussion of Johann Forster's ideas in context see
John Gascoigne, Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1994), 160-65.
26. Forster, Voyage, 121; Reise, 186.
27. Helen Wallis, ed., Carteret's Voyage Round the World 1766-1769, vol. I (Cambridge,
1965), 172, 200.
28. Kant, "Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace," 92.
29. Forster, "Noch etwas über die Menschenraßen," AV VIII, 130-156,132.
30. Forster, "Noch etwas über die Menschenraßen," 132, translation mine.
31. Christian M. Neugebauer, "The Racism of Hegel and Kant," Sage Philosophy: Indig
enous Thinkers and Modern Debate of African Philosophy (Leiden, 1990). Neugebauer points
out some of Kant's more disturbing statements regarding the 'proper' whipping of Afri
can slaves. Eze argues that race is a transcendental category for Kant. Hill, Jr., and Boxill
defend Kant from this charge, and argue that Kant's racism may not be derived from his
transcendental philosophy ("Kant and Race").
32. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment, 200; Frederick Beiser, The Fate of
Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte, (Cambridge, 1987), 154.
33. Beiser, 154.
34. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant's Critique of Judgment, 200-201.
35. Zammito, Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology (Chicago, 2002).
36. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, ed. Paul Guyer, trans. Guyer and Eric Mat
thews (Cambridge, 2000), 3; Erste Einleitung in der Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA XX, 193-251,
195.

37. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 3; Erste Einleitung in der Kritik der Urteilskraft,
AA XX; 195.
38. Kant, Critique of the Poiver of Judgment, 4; Erste Einleitung in der Kritik der Urteilskraft,
AA XX, 196.
39. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 4; Erste Einleitung in der Kritik der Urteilskraft,
AAXX, 197.
40. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 5; Erste Einleitung in der Kritik der Urteilskraft,
AAXX, 197.
41. Kant, Critique of the Poiver of Judgment, 234; Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V, 165^186,
360.

42. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 236; Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V, 363-64.
43. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 118; Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V, 233.
44. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, 119; Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V, 234. Kant
writes, "Wenn nun auf ähnliche Art für diesen mittlem Mann der mittlere Kopf, für die

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
412 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

sen die mittlere Nase u. s. w. g

schönen Mannes in dem Lande,
daher ein Neger nothwendig u
malidee der Schönheit der Gestal
der Europäer. Mit dem Muster e
würde es eben so gehen."

This content downloaded from

71.167.18.22 on Sun, 09 May 2021 02:48:06 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms