Abstract
This article examines Kant’s discussion of the division between reason and unreason in his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. On the one hand, Kant says that there is a normative, clear, and definite division between reason and unreason. On the other hand, Kant offers three arguments showing that we cannot draw such a division. First, we cannot explain the normative grounds for the division. Second, both reason and unreason are present in everyone to varying degrees in different ways. Third, Kant invalidates the division as such by characterizing what should be more incomprehensible than an extreme case of unreason as also being a rational way of life.
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Notes
Kant (1798/2006) says that madness can be examined from a “medical” viewpoint (by “physicians and physiologists”) as well as from a “philosophical” viewpoint (p. 108). Kant, as a philosopher, discusses madness from a philosophical viewpoint, offering a normative view on unreason. But Kant also says that madness is an inescapably “hereditary” phenomenon (p. 111). This view and Kant’s normative view on unreason do not fit together. In any case I focus on Kant’s remarks on unreason without going into his tentative discussion of madness.
What counts as a legitimate account (or sensus communis) varies in time and place. Kant thus suggests that unreason is basically a social and cultural phenomenon.
Concerning the famous example of “quus,” a variant of Wittgenstein’s example of “add 2,” Kripke (1982) says that if we can ever find quus-like behavior, that will be in “extreme cases of uneducability or insanity” (p. 96).
Cf. Kant’s view (1902) in a note for the Anthropology: “Between insanity and healthy [understanding] sense there is no clear division, for hypochondria fills out the middle” (vol. XV, p. 218, Reflection 503; the translation is taken from Shell 1996, p. 264). In the Anthropology Kant (2006) states that hypochondria, called also “melancholia,” “can very well lead to it [madness]” (pp. 96, 106, 107). David-Ménard (2000) argues that Kant thinks that “we all have imaginary and slightly delirious worlds” and that “the sanest of our ideas are infiltrated by an imaginary world” (pp. 85, 86). That is, each person cannot make sense of reality including his/her behavior without involving at all thoughts that, although imaginary and idiosyncratic, have an irresistible sense of reality for him/her.
In his several works Kant speaks of rational inhabitants on some other planet and expresses his belief in their existence (see Crowe 1986, pp. 47–55).
Jaspers (1977) diagnoses Swedenborg with schizophrenia. I go into neither whether Swedenborg was in fact seriously mentally ill nor how schizophrenia is to be defined.
The Anthropology is divided into two parts. Part one is subtitled “On the way of cognizing the interior as well as the exterior of the human being,” and part two, “On the way of cognizing the interior of the human being from the exterior” (Kant 1798/2006, p. V).
This means that we must (try to) treat them according to the categorical imperative. Speaking of “various rational beings” and also referring to the human being and other rational beings separately, Kant (1785/1996) insists that the categorical imperative applies to “all rational beings” (pp. 76–83). One reason for Kant’s reference to “various rational beings” is his belief that there are rational inhabitants on other planets (see Crowe 1986, p. 54). I do not go into how we could at all meaningfully apply the categorical imperative to the rational beings at issue.
The issues tackled by Kant that are presented in this article do not seem to have lost their importance today. Let me mention some examples. There is a significant amount of literature on the problem of rule-following. See for instance Brandom (1994), Kripke (1982), and Wright (2001). Brandom treats especially the issues of regress and circularity with respect to rules. Donald Davidson comes to conclusions not unlike Kant’s position presented here. See for example Davidson (2006). Nagel (1974) contains an argument not unlike Kant’s view on how we could at all understand rational beings on another planet. Derrida (1980) and Foucault (2006) discuss issues associated with the relation between reason and unreason. As part of his attempt to make us reflect on our form of life, Wittgenstein (1968) devises the same thought experiment: “Imagine people who could only think aloud” (§331).
Sass (1992) also argues that too much introspection, or “hyperreflexivity” in his terminology, is a notable characteristic of those diagnosed especially with schizophrenia and related illnesses.
Guyer (2006) can be said to represent an overview of current Kantian scholarship. Louden (2000) examines extensively Kant’s anthropological writings. Deligiorgi (2002) and O’Neill (1992) deal with Kant’s conception of reason. None of these pieces of work discusses Kant’s treatment of the division between reason and unreason.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Andrew Domondon as well as the anonymous reviewers for Human Studies for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This work was partially supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research #20730107 from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan.
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Saji, M. On the Division Between Reason and Unreason in Kant. Hum Stud 32, 201–223 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-009-9119-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-009-9119-z