Kant and the Concept of Race

Download or read book Kant and the Concept of Race written by Jon M. Mikkelsen and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Late eighteenth-century writings on race by Kant and four of his contemporaries. Kant and the Concept of Race features translations of four texts by Immanuel Kant frequently designated his Racenschriften (race essays), in which he develops and defends an early theory of race. Also included are translations of essays by four of Kant’s contemporaries—E. A. W. Zimmermann, Georg Forster, Christoph Meiners, and Christoph Girtanner—which illustrate that Kant’s interest in the subject of race was part of a larger discussion about human “differences,” one that impacted the development of scientific fields ranging from natural history to physical anthropology to biology.