The Kantian Subject

This book presents a critical reconsideration of the Kantian cognitive and practical subject. Special attention is devoted to highlighting the complex relation between subjectivity as it is presented in the three critiques and the way in which it is construed in other writings, in particular the Anthropology. While for Kant our cognitive apparatus and the structure of our will are common to all humans, the anthropological subject reveals degrees of variation, depending on a myriad of external circumstances that pose a challenge to the unity of Kant’s account and await theoretical solutions.

The chapters collected in the volume delve into how the different shapes of human nature are not unrelated. They explore how and why different ‘Kantian subjects’ are closely connected at their core, if not entirely unified. The notions of personality, humanity, and citizenship will serve as leading threads for the reconstruction of this possible underlying unity.

An engaging read that promises to deepen our understanding of human nature, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, politics, psychology, social anthropology, ethics, and epistemology.

Fernando M.F. Silva is a postdoctoral fellow and member of the Centre for Philosophy at the University of Lisbon. He completed his PhD in 2016, on Novalis’s critique of identity. He is the co-editor of the journal Estudos Kantianos and the co-coordinator of the Study Nucleus Kant and German Idealism, CFUL. His areas of research interest include Kantian Aesthetics and Anthropology, German Idealism and Romanticism, in authors such as Fichte, Novalis, or Holderlin. His publications include the forthcoming volume ‘The Poem of the Understanding Is Philosophy’: Novalis and the Art of Self-Critique, in Mimesis Verlag, Germany.

Luigi Caranti is Professor of Political Philosophy at the Universita di Catania. He focuses on Kant, human rights, peace studies, and contemporary political theory with a special emphasis on distributive justice. Among his recent publications: The Kantian Federation (2022) and Kant’s Political Legacy: Human Rights, Peace, Progress (2017).