Reason in Hume’s ‘Science of Man’ versus Kant’s ‘Pragmatic Anthropology’

Abstract: Comparisons of Hume’s and Kant’s theories of practical reason usually focus on their function for ethical theorizing: Can reason determine which practical goals we ought to realize from a moral point of view? Famously, Kant claims that it can, whereas Hume denies it, ascribing to reason a merely instrumental function. In this talk, I focus on the functions of Hume’s and Kant’s accounts of practical reason for the empirical human sciences. I first address some mostly insignificant similarities between their views (part I) and then turn to significant dissimilarities (part II). In the latter part, I show how Kant’s account is superior to Hume’s instrumentalism in three ways: (1) for purposes of empirical action-explanation, Kant’s account of hypothetical imperatives more fine-grained than Hume’s instrumentalism; (2) the specific concept of pragmatic reason presents a better understanding of how descriptive and normative aspects of action are connected from the agent’s points of view; and (3) pragmatic reason helps to show how the human sciences are related to idea(l)s of human progress, such as cosmopolitanism.

Zoom link: https://uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/j/94186474563

Meeting ID: 941 8647 4563

Passcode: 048247