Kant began lecturing on Anthropology in the winter of 1772–1773. The earliest transcriptions of these lectures that have come down to us are the Collins text and the Parow text. Both are fairly extensive: Parow, at about 225 pages, is just a bit shorter than Collins. Like Collins, it is a compilation from notes taken by seven transcribers (Collins and Parow were contributors to both). Since both Collins and Parow are apparently accounts of the same lecture course, the differences between them may enable us to gauge the extent to which the contents of these transcriptions reflect the transcribers’ choices. Like Collins, Parow begins with an introductory and methodological section, but the Parow introduction makes more explicit the focus of attention on empirical psychology (in Baumgarten's sense of the term). It too follows the general account of human faculties – theoretical cognition, taste, and desire (though the Parow account focuses more exclusively on character).

The brief selections translated here are taken from the introduction and from the opening remarks about character near the end of the text.

This translation of the anthropology lecture that Kant delivered during the 1784/1785 winter semester is based on the so-called Mrongovius lecture in the Academy Edition (AA 25:1207–1429), prepared by Richard Brandt and Werner Stark (1997). Brandt and Stark edited the Academy Edition lecture on the basis of two transcripts: one written by Christoph Coelestin Mrongovius (1764–1855) (although occasionally there is handwriting by an anonymous writer), and another written by an unknown transcriber (hence called the “anonymous-Marienburg” transcript).

I have closely followed as much as possible the translation principles summarized in the General Editors’ Preface reprinted at the beginning of each volume of the The Cambridge Edition. Special care has been taken to reproduce the appearance of the Academy Edition, and particular attention has been given to using the terminology listed in the glossary of the present volume and other volumes in The Cambridge Edition. Since the Academy Edition lecture imitates the transcripts’ frequent omissions of commas, periods, quotation marks, etc., I have needed to add punctuation to make the text more readable or grammatically correct. These additions of punctuation are so frequent that I make note of them only when deemed relevant or significant. I have done so by using linguistic notes at the bottom of the page, where the Mrongovius transcript is abbreviated “Mro” and anonymous-Marienburg “Mar.” Important terms and words translated in a special fashion are indicated using linguistic footnotes.

The Menschenkunde transcription is unique among all of the anthropology transcriptions included in this volume in that it was not first published in 1997 as part of volume 25 of the Academy Edition of Kant's gesammelte Schriften. Rather, as Allen Wood notes in his General Introduction, it was first published in 1831, under the title Immanuel Kant's Menschenkunde oder philosophische Anthropologie. Nach handschriftlichen Vorlesungen herausgegeben von Fr. Ch. Starke (Leipzig: Die Expedition des europaischen Aufsehers, 1831). A new edition (neue Ausgabe) followed in 1838 (Quedlinburg und Leipzig: Verlag der Ernst'schen Buchhandlung, 1838). “Fr. Ch. [= Friedrich Christian] Starke,” the editor, was a pseudonym for Johann Adam Bergk. Bergk (1769–1834), who was born in Hainichen and died in Leipzig, was professor of philosophy and jurisprudence at the University of Leipzig, and also a prolific author, editor, translator, and publisher whose works appeared not only under his own name, but also under the pseudonym Fr. Ch. Starke, and at least two additional pseudonyms: Dr. Heinichen and Justus Freimund. Among Bergk's own works are a defense of the French revolution (Untersuchungen aus dem Natur-, Staats- und Volkserrechte, mit einer Kritik der neuesten Konstitution der franzosischen Republik [1796]), a treatise on punishment (Die philosophie des peinlichen rechtes [Meissen, 1802]), a monograph on critical reading (Die Kunst, Bucher zu lesen [Jena, 1799]), and two commentaries on Kant's Metaphysiscs of Morals (Briefe über Immanuel Kant's Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre, enthaltend Erläuterungen, Prüfung und Einwürfe [Leipzig, 1797], Reflexionen über I. Kant's Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Tugendlehre [Gera, 1798]).

This transcription, based on lectures given two years after the Friedländer text, is more fragmentary than Collins, Parow or Friedländer. Unlike the Collins and Parow texts, but like Friedländer manuscripts 399 and 400, it was apparently the work of a single transcriber. After an introduction of about five pages, it is explicitly organized around Baumgarten's paragraphs (§§ 527–655). It too follows the pattern of treating first the theoretical faculty, then taste and genius, followed by a discussion of the faculty of desire and human character.

The portions translated here include most of the introductory and methodological sections, selections from the discussions of the poetic faculty and genius, and selections from the discussion of desire and character, which discuss the human propensity to moral evil in a historical context. Also included here are selections that illustrate the racialist theories to which Kant subscribed, at least until the 1790s.