KANT'S THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE.

摘要

In the introduction to the Logic, Immanuel Kant admended his original list of three famous questions (What can I know?, What should I do?, What may I hope?) with a fourth, "What is man?" In addition, he contends that the first three questions are grounded on the fourth.;Thus, it is necessary to exhibit how his moral, political and social thought, as well as the philosophy of history, are related to human nature. Or in other words, in order to understand Kant's philosophical system it is necessary to answer the fourth question.;While 20th Century philosophical commentary has focused on the original three questions, the fourth has been ignored. Yet, it was Kant himself who continually maintained that it was not possible to completely understand the first three questions without understanding the fourth. Consequently, in an effort to exhibit his theory of human nature it is necessary to re-interpret the traditional Kantian conceptual scheme. Besides the foundational role that the theory of human nature performs, it is also a unique theory in its own rights. Kant's theory of human nature is not an empirical theory. Rather, it is a synthetic a priori condition that is necessary in order for human existence to have meaning or purpose.