Kant &The Human Subject

Brian Morris compares the ways Kant’s question “What is the human being?” has been answered by philosophers and anthropologists.

- Brian Morris

According to many recent texts, anthropology is the study of ‘what it means to be human’. This was Immanuel Kant’s definition of anthropology, and Kant (1724-1804) was one of the founding ancestors of the discipline, along with Rousseau, Herder, and Ferguson.

Drawing on the insights of both the Enlightenment and romanticism, anthropology has since its birth had a ‘dual heritage’ (Maurice Bloch) combining humanism and naturalism. In terms of method, it combines scientific explanations of social and cultural phenomena with hermeneutics or biosemiotics. Yet although certain people write of some great divide or schism within anthropology, it has always had, in spite of its diversity, a certain unity of vision and purpose. It employs a universal perspective that places humans firmly within nature. Anthropology has therefore always placed itself at the interface between the humanities and the natural sciences, especially evolutionary biology. In many ways it is an inter-discipline, held together by placing an emphasis on ethnographic studies, which involve a close experiential encounter with a particular way of life or culture. Both Karl Popper and Mario Bunge described anthropology as the key social science, for it is unique among the human sciences in putting an emphasis on cultural differences (Herder). This means it can offer a cultural critique of much of Western culture and philosophy, while at the same time emphasizing our shared humanity (Kant), thus enlarging our sense of moral community.