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John H. Zammito. Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. ? + 576. Cloth, $68.00. Paper, $29.00.
Zammito's book continues two recent trends in the study of eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury German philosophy, viz., the reassessment both of Kant's pre-Critical thought and of his contemporaries. Zammito situates Kant's later pre-Critical work within the "popular philosophy" tradition, especially those elements of the tradition that could be broadly construed as anthropological in focus. If Zammito is correct, during the late 17605 Kant was a popular philosopher of a sort whose influence was greater than generally recognized. In this light, he reexamines Kant's influence on Johann Herder as well as Herder's reception of Kant. The terminus of the study is the emergence of anthropology as a discipline and the roles that Kant and Herder played therein.
Zammito's interpretation of this period (roughly, 1762 to 1773) marshals a vast array of material (notes and a bibliography number nearly 200 pages), which sheds light on both the intellectual climate of the time and Kant's and Herder's place within the same. Beginning with a useful survey of the Aufklarung during the 17608, Zammito focuses on the growth of "popular philosophy" (which opposed the "school philosophy"...