Introduction to Kant's Anthropology

This introduction and commentary to Kant''s least discussed work, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, is the dissertation that Michel Foucault presented in 1961 as his doctoral thesis. It has remained unpublished, in any language, until now.

In his exegesis and critical interpretation of Kant''s Anthropology, Foucault raises the question of the relation between psychology and anthropology, and how they are affected by time. Though a Kantian “critique of the anthropological slumber,” Foucault warns against the dangers of treating psychology as a new metaphysics, explores the possibilities of studying man empirically, and reflects on the nature of time, art and technique, self-perception, and language. Extending Kant''s suggestion that any empirical knowledge of man is i