A presença da psicologia empírica na antropologia pragmática de Immanuel Kant

Abstract

Many ideas of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) about psychology are still understood, generally, in a very incomplete way or with distortions and misinterpretations in the specialized secondary literature, but mainly in textbooks about history of psychology. A major problem encountered is that there is no consideration or just a superficial examination of the relationship between empirical psychology and pragmatic anthropology. Because of this, there are still many interpretative problems that remain without a proper solution. One of them is the lack of clarity regarding a statement made by Kant in his work of 1781, concerning the relationship between empirical psychology and anthropology. This study aims to better understand this statement and, moreover, through the detailed examination of the relationship between these two fields, to present more fully Kant’s conceptions about psychology. The general thesis defended is that this relationship needs to be considered and examined in depth for the adequate understanding of what Kant really meant in his work of 1781 and the range of his conceptions concerning psychology.