Author : Robert B. Louden continues and deepens avenues of research first initiated in his highly acclaimed book, Kant's Impure Ethics. Social Science. Michael M. Author : Michael M. Political Science. How do they understand possibility? How do they limit possibility? James C. Author : James C. Gualtiero Lorini,Robert B.
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Read online or Download kant: anthropology from a pragmatic point of view cambridge texts in the history of philosophy PDF This site currently has over a thousand free books available for download in various formats of kant: anthropology from a pragmatic point of view cambridge texts in the history of philosophy best book Please click button to get kant: anthropology from a pragmatic point of view cambridge texts in the history of philosophy pdf new book Download Ebook kant: anthropology from a pragmatic point of view cambridge texts in the history of philosophy pdf free The purely scientific aspects of anthropology would, of course, be interesting in their own right to one trained in science as he had been.
Soon, however, his interest spread to all aspects of anthropology, and he ultimately decided that it should be ranked among other studies as a regular academic discipline. Yet, in this early period there is no reason to believe that Kant recognized the essential role that anthropology was to play in his own development.
It would be impossible in a brief outline to give an accurate account of the progress in Kant's thought prior to the writing of the great Critiques. And perhaps the traditional oversimplification of the history of philosophy in this period will serve well enough to indicate the character of this problem. The "rationalist" philosophers from Descartes forward had employed essentially a mathematical method, depending upon reason with its clear and distinct ideas for the true source and criterion of knowledge.
The "empiricists," on the other hand, maintained that reason was miscast in this role, and that while it could effectively compare and evaluate information, only experience could serve as the genuine source and criterion of knowledge.
It was Kant's virtue that he avoided both these extremes. Gradually he came to the awareness that metaphysics could not follow the method of pure mathematics. Mathematics has ideal entities as its objects, and the principle which it follows is that of ground and consequence.
Metaphysics, in contrast, has real, existing entities as its objects, and its principle is that of causality. Thus, while mathematics can proceed synthetically, moving from definitions by purely rational arguments to certain conclusions, metaphysics must proceed analytically in an attempt to clarify what is given indistinctly in experience.
Kant concludes, therefore, that "the true method of metaphysics is basically the same as that introduced by Newton into natural science and which had such useful consequences in that field.
It was Kant's special use of this method that saved him from falling into a simple empiricism. But while this procedure might avoid the errors of the extreme rationalist-empiricist dichotomy, it came accompanied with its own set of inherent difficulties. The traditional objects of metaphysics God, freedom and morality, and the immortality of the soul are not objects of experience in any ordinary sense of the term.
The adoption of this new method would seem to frustrate the very purpose of metaphysical investigation. Not just a new method, but a revised conception of the task of metaphysics was being formulated. With the mathematical method this had been thought to be assured by the principle of contradiction, and the rigorous process of logical argumentation from basic definitions.
But if metaphysics now was to begin in experience, where would it find the fixed principles in terms of which it could build with assurance? As Kant himself expressed it, the variations in taste and the different aspects of man give to the flow of experience an uncertain and delusive character.
Some of the most important works of Rousseau were published during this transitional period in Kant's life. The dignity of man and the essential importance of morality had not simply been preached to himit was a living fact in the home due to the extraordinary example of his parents. But for some years, during and after his university training, Kant was caught up in intellectual pursuits and the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake.
He thought for a while that such knowledge constituted the real worth of mankind, and despised the common people who know nothing. But then, as he said, "Rousseau set me right. I am learning to honor men, and I would regard myself as of much less use than the common laborer if I did not believe that this speculation can give a value to everything else to restore the rights of mankind.
In the announcement of Kant's lectures on ethics for we find the statement that he will set forth the method by which man must be studied, not in the varying forms in which his accidental circumstances have molded him, or in the distorted form in which even philosophers have almost always misconstrued him, but that which is enduring in human nature, and the proper place of man in creation. There he mentions explicitly that just as the theories of Newton had brought order, regularity, and great simplicity into our conception of the universe, so Rousseau had provided the key which would permit a neat and orderly philosophy of man.
From this time forward, Kant realized that man's rational capacity alone is not sufficient to constitute his dignity, and elevate him above the brutes. If reason only enables him to do for himself what instinct does for the animal, then it would indicate for man no higher aim or destiny than that of the brute, but only a different way of attaining the same end.
Because man can consider an array of possibilities, and which among them is the most desirable, he can strive to make himself and his world into a realization of his ideals.
This insight is simple and clearbut it opened enormous possibilities for the speculative mind of Kant. In the past, metaphysics had been mere speculation, full of chimerical insights which could only increase the amount of folly and error in the world. The moral dimension of man would serve as the most important element in the projected structure, but since reason is the essential condition for morality, its potential must be determined first.
The force of this latter consideration was so strong when it first struck Kant that he seems to have considered it to be the main and perhaps the only task of metaphysics. In his notes we find: "One might say that metaphysics is a science of delimiting human reason. This may be expressed differently by saying that the two branches of metaphysics, of physics and of morality, encompass the two aspects of man's nature, since he is a member of both the physical and the intelligible worlds.
And to set limits to, and define clearly, the kinds of experience he can have in these two spheres is at the same time to determine the full range of experience open to him, and thus the limits of reality with which he can and should be concerned. It may at first seem curious, but it is perfectly legitimate to assert that, with respect to a rational entity, to determine the full range of its possible experience is precisely to determine its "nature.
Natural theology and religion were to be based upon morality, and morality in turn was to be based upon the concept of the inherent dignity and worth of human nature. The importance of this commitment is clear when it is realized that such a philosophic scheme leaves nothing for metaphysics or pure philosophy except the analysis of the essential a priori aspects of that human nature on whichor in terms of whichthe rest of the system will be built.
And it is not surprising, therefore, that this is precisely what Kant's Critical Philosophy attempts to do.
It is often forgotten that Kant's critique of pure reason is not restricted to a critique of pure speculative reason. While that task is the purpose of the first Critique, the second and third Critiques continue to develop the critical analysis of man's pure cognitive faculties.
The intention of the Critique of Pure Reason is to establish the conditions which alone constitute experience as a unified, coherent awareness.
At the same time, consequently, it determines the limits of possible experience. But this is experience in the scientific sense of fact. The Critique of Practical Reason has as its primary purpose to establish that there is a pure practical reason,17 and the nature of the moral experience imposed on man by the moral law. These two works, therefore, set out the general nature of man as a rational being.
But his supersensuous nature consists in his existence according to laws which are independent of all empirical conditions, and these laws belong to the autonomy of pure reason. But precisely the fact that he can and does impose such values on himself constitutes the essential nature of morality. It forces man to postulate freedom as a fact of his own moral experienceand it is freedom which is the key to the true nature of man, and which Kant employs as "the keystone of the whole architecture of the system of pure reason and even of speculative reason.
One element of his nature is enmeshed in the causal necessity of a purely mechanical order of physical nature. The other is absolutely free and requires him to impose moral order on his world. Can he really bring both aspects of his nature into a unified and coherent pattern?
It was a recognition of this difficulty within his system that prompted Kant to write the Critique of Judgment, "as a means of combining the two parts of philosophy into a whole.
Teleology, or purposiveness, is seen as an interpretive principle by which reflective judgment supplements the constitutive role of the categories in organizing nature.
It is understood to reveal nothing new in the order of objective factbut only how a mind such as man's must interpret the world of nature with which it is confronted. And because nature is conceived in this way as not hostile to purposeful activity, and even fully comprehensible only when we assume it, we are encouraged to believe that we can effectively impose our own purposeful activity upon naturerealizing the ends which morality demands. Thus, it is a fact that our mind necessarily imposes a teleological interpretation on reality which serves as the ultimate principle of unity and integrity in the Kantian system.
Only in this way can mechanical causality and causality through freedom be conceived of as compatible, and man's physical and intelligible aspects be brought into harmony. But it would be wrong to think of Kant's system merely in terms of its neat logical structure.
In it we find revealed the principles according to which man can achieve aesthetic awareness; can grasp natural objects as organic wholes, rather than mere mechanical entities; and can comprehend the whole of nature as an organic, interrelated system.
Moreover, here Kant shows how man is able to grasp his own dichotomous nature and the two spheres in which he expresses that nature as a unified wholeand how he is able to impose conceptual unity on his own development within this integrated system, so as to project his fulfillment and destiny as a realistic goal. It is clear in this context, and in Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, that if Kant's method involves the investigation of the a priori principles of human nature, his purpose is to establish the destiny which these principles reveal, and to provide the prescription by which that destiny can be attained.
It must be acknowledged that much of what has been said here does not sound like the normal description of Kant's thought as it is encountered in a summary of the history of philosophy. But neither the spirit nor the letter of Kant's work is violated by this formulation. Several times in his correspondence Kant speaks of his Critique of Pure Reason as a propaedeutica necessary introductory measure which will pave the way for the proposed metaphysics of physics and of morals. In the first Critique itself, he mentions that in a system of philosophy there can be only one highest end; and other ends, while essential, must nonetheless be subordinated to that highest end as a means for its achievement.
The first Critique is clearly the means in this context, while the ultimate end "is no other than the whole vocation of man, and the philosophy which deals with it is entitled moral philosophy.
Thus the description which he offers here is precisely that of a philosophically ordered study of man and his place in realityor a philosophical anthropology. And when, in the same place, Kant describes his "pragmatic" anthropology as a study of what man can and should make of himself, how can we fail to recognize it as dealing with the "whole vocation of man"? All of Kant's philosophy is ordered to a single purpose: By means of an analysis of the essential principles of human nature, it discloses his proper destiny, and indicates how he must work toward its fulfillment.
If this is true, then Kant's Anthropology is a much more important work than has traditionally been recognized. It will involve a rough outline of his entire system, and serve as an excellent introduction to his complex thought.
Unfortunately the Anthropology was the last major work that was edited by Kant himself, and his age and the state of his health compelled him to do little more than correlate his lecture notes for publication.
The richness and intensity which the younger man had imparted to this material in the classroom was lost forever when he retired. And, of course, Kant himself acknowledged that the lectures were on a popular levelfull of examples and humorous elements to provide a light and varied fare. But these facts should not cause one to conclude, as some writers have, that the Anthropology is not worthy of serious attention. In this work we find clues of several kinds which help us to understand both Kant and his system more completely.
First, and of primarily historical interest, we find a great deal of information about Kant as a man. There is much evidence to confirm the comments of his biographers: concerning his great love for the classics, and his voracious reading of contemporary works in science and literatureeven the purely entertaining novels of the period, such as those of Fielding.
There are many expressions of personal taste, and evidence of a great deal of concern for correct form in matters of social intercourse. And finally, there is the combination of great shallowness and equal profundity in this extraordinary man. Nor can one fail to note the contrast between such views and the emphasis upon the correct use of man's reflective capacity, awareness of duty, and proper conduct toward our fellowman.
But Kant was a man of goodwill, and any failure on his part to live up to the moral ideal must be ascribed to a lack of experience which permitted his prejudices to remain undetected. From the philosophic standpoint, however, information about Kant as an individual is the least interesting aspect of the Anthropology.
Here it is more important to seek out definitions, comments and distinctions which will throw light on other aspects of Kant's work. And there are a good number of these. In the first portion of the work there are several interesting comments on the precise interrelation of the distinct cognitive faculties. The statements on affinity in section 31 are particularly helpful to one who has found this notion rather obscure in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason where it plays such an important role.
The distinction between propensity and inclination sections 73 and 80 helps one to understand more clearly certain of the more concrete aspects of Kant's moral theory.
The extended discussions of imagination and of genius cannot help but throw light on the inadequate treatment which these vital aspects of man receive in other contexts.
And the notion that the faculty of taste, in which the sensible and intelligible elements of cognition are conjoined, can serve as the ground for the external advancement of morality section 69 is surely one which will help the student of Kant to bring together some of the apparently loose ends in his system.
This last point, of course, brings us back to our primary point of emphasis. There can be no doubt that the most important philosophic impact of the Anthropology is in its ability to clarify for the student of Kant the precise purpose which his philosophic system is intended to fulfill, and the manner in which the parts of that structure are related.
It would not be surprising if the contemporary reader were to judge the anthropology of Kant a curious anthropology indeed. But that is only because the English-speaking world has too long restricted its consideration to a purely empirical anthropology.
Such an anthropology can, of course, only describe man as he has expressed his nature in the course of historical events. But this will only give us the various roles that man has played, the various masks that he has worn from time to time. We will still know nothing of his essential nature, and of what man ought to be. Kant's formulation, on the other hand, is a prescriptive, and even a creative anthropologyit emphasizes man's responsibility to become what he can be, that is, to fulfill his potential.
This prescription is based upon a combination of pure a priori principles, and an enormous amount of carefully considered empirical data.
And if it is incorrect in certain of its conclusions as any scientific work is likely to be in retrospect , it is by no means incorrect in its general conception of manor for that matter, of anthropology. Anthropology must be the study of what man is and has been, in order that he may more efficiently direct his energies toward fulfilling his potential in the future.
And Kant realized as clearly as we do today that there is no way to know where this development will end. In the Critique of Pure Reason he says: What the highest level might be at which humanity may have to come to rest, and how great a gulf may still be left between the idea [of human perfection] and its realization, are questions which no one can, or ought to answer. For the matter depends upon freedom; and it is in the very nature of freedom to pass beyond any and every specified limit.
Gradually, however, there has been an increase of interest in the area, and it now seems likely to take on major proportions. In a recent bibliography of works on Kant 27 there were more articles and books on anthropological topics than on any other theme in his work i.
Of course, very few of these works were in English, since little of Kant's anthropological thought had been translated, and there was apparently an unwillingness to work with it in the original.
But now that Kant's major anthropological work has been made available in English, one may hope to see a significant increase in enthusiasm for the task. Of course, a great deal of work remains to be done in this area. There are two large volumes of "anthropological notes" in the Akademie Edition of Kant's work.
Careful scholars have been making isolated references to these notes for years, but their significance is far from exhausted. And when the task of correlating and evaluating this material has been completed, there still remains the need for a detailed commentary on this aspect of Kant's work. There is a rather brief contribution to this cause by J.
But this is perhaps the only commentary available. Michel Foucault had planned a work which would relate the Anthropology to Kant's critical works,28 but unfortunately his interests in other areas of thought have forced him to cancel the project. Thus there is a surprising amount of work left to be done on the anthropological aspects of Kant's thought, and the present translation will be valuable indeed if it encourages its readers to contribute their energies to the task. The most important object of culture, to whom such knowledge and skill can be applied, is Man because he is his own ultimate purpose.
To recognize him, according to his species, as an earthly creature endowed with reason deserves to be called knowledge of the world, even though he is only one of all the creatures on earth.
A systematic doctrine containing our knowledge of man anthropology can either be given from a physiological or a pragmatic point of view. Physiological knowledge of man aims at the investigation of what Nature makes of man, whereas pragmatic knowledge of man aims at what man makes, can, or should make of himself as a freely acting being. He who ponders about natural phenomena, for example about the causes for the faculty of memory, can make sense in the Cartesian fashion of the traces of impressions which keep lingering in our brain; but, in doing so, he has to admit that he is a mere spectator in this game of his imagination and that he has to leave everything entirely to Nature, since he knows neither the cerebral nerves and filaments nor their operation when they carry out his intentions.
Such speculative theorizing is a sheer waste of time. It is not yet properly called pragmatic so long as it contains extended knowledge of the things in the world, such as animals, plants, and minerals in various lands and climates. It is properly pragmatic only when it incorporates knowledge of Man as a citizen of the world. Hence even knowledge of the races of man, which are regarded as products of the play of Nature, is not yet pragmatic, but only theoretical knowledge of the world.
Idiomatic expressions such as ''he knows the world" and "he knows his way about the world" 1 are widely separated in meaning. The first implies only the understanding of the game which he has witnessed, whereas the second implies actual participation in it. The anthropologist finds himself in a very unfavorable position for judging the so-called high society,2 the world of aristocrats, because the aristocrats are too close together among themselves and too distant from everybody else.
Travel is among the means of enlarging the scope of anthropology even if such knowledge is only acquired by reading books of travel.
Without such a program which presupposes knowledge of man , the anthropology of the citizen of the world will remain very limited. Universal knowledge will always precede local knowledge 3 as long as it is to be arranged and guided by philosophy, without which all acquired knowledge can provide nothing but fragmentary groping, and no science at all.
All responsible endeavors, however, to attain such a science encounter considerable difficulties inherent in human nature itself. A man who notices that he is being observed or scrutinized will either appear disturbed embarrassed , and will therefore not be able to behave as he really is, or else will conceal himself because he does not want to be known as he really is.
Also, if he wants to observe himself, he will reach a critical point with regard to his emotional state where, generally, no further concealment is possible; that is to say he is not consciously watching himself when impelling forces are in action, and that he is observing himself when the impelling forces are at rest.
Conditions of time and place, when lasting, result in habits which, it is said, constitute second nature, which makes man's judgment of himself more difficult. Therefore he is not sure what to think of himself and what he is to think of those with whom he comes into contact.
Consequently, any change of the condition into which man was placed by fate, or into which he, as adventurer, has placed himself makes it more difficult to raise anthropology to the rank of a formal science. Since the last two are not based upon experience and truth, but upon fiction, permitting the presentation of man as if in a dream through exaggeration of character and situation, they seem to teach nothing of the knowledge of man.
Exaggerated as these traits may be in degree, they must still conform to human nature. A pragmatic anthropology which has been systematically devised and which can be understood by the general reading public because of reference to examples which can be checked by every reader , has the advantage that the completeness of headings, under which observed human characteristics of practical consequence have been subsumed, offers many occasions and challenges to the [] reading public to study each particular characteristic in order to classify it accordingly.
Any study of a certain characteristic will attract the attention of specialists in the same area and, because of the unity of the design, they will be integrated into a comprehensive whole. Thus the development of a science which is beneficial to the human community will be furthered.
They were popular lectures attended by people from the general public. The present manual contains my lectures on anthropology. As to physical geography, however, it will not be possible, considering my age, to produce a manual from my manuscript which is hardly legible to anyone but myself. The fact that man is aware of an ego-concept raises him infinitely above all other creatures living on earth. Because of this, he is a person; and by virtue of this oneness of consciousness, he remains one and the same person despite all the vicissitudes which may befall him.
He is a being who, by reason of his preeminence and dignity, is wholly different from things, such as the irrational animals whom he can master and rule at will.
He enjoys this superiority even when he cannot yet give utterance to his ego, although it is already present in his thought, just as all languages must think it when they speak in the first person, even if the language lacks a specific word to refer to this ego-concept.
This faculty to think is understanding. It is noteworthy, however, that the child who already speaks fairly well begins to use the pronoun I rather late perhaps after a year , in the meantime speaking of himself in the third person "Carl wants to eat, go,. A light seems to dawn upon him when he begins speaking in the first person. From that day on he will never again revert to the third person.
At first the child merely felt himself, now he thinks himself. The explanation of this phenomenon might be rather difficult for the anthropologist. In this period, when his eyes [] begin to follow bright objects which are held before him, we have the crude beginnings of a process of broadening perceptions the apprehensions of sensory awareness into a recognition of objects of the senses, that is, of experience.
When the child tries to talk, his mangling of words makes him so lovable to mother and nurse, and makes both of them so well-disposed that they hug and kiss him continually. That the little creature is lovable in the period of the development of his human nature must be credited to his innocence and the candor of his still stumbling utterances which are free from guilt or deceit. Yet the child's charm must also be credited to the natural inclination of nurses to care for a creature that flatteringly submits itself completely to the will of someone else.
The child does so because he knows that a playtime, the best time of all, will be granted, and in this way the teacher, who now becomes a child again, enjoys once more the pleasures of childhood.
From the day that man begins to speak in the first person, he brings his beloved self to light wherever he can, and his egoism advances unrestrained. Egoism may be thought of as containing three presumptions: that of reason, that of taste, and that of practical interest, that is, it may be logical, aesthetic, or practical.
The logical egoist considers it unnecessary to test his judgment by the reason of others, as if he had no need of a touchstone criterium veritatis externum.
If this freedom [] is denied, we are deprived of an effective means of testing the correctness of our judgment, and we expose ourselves to error. It should not even be said that a mathematician is privileged to make judgments on his own authority, for if the perceived and verified agreement between the judgments of one geometer and those of all others who devote themselves with talent and industry to the same subject did not prevail, then even mathematics would not be free from having somewhere7 fallen into error.
There are also8 certain cases where we do not trust solely in the judgment of our own senses, where we find it necessary to inquire of other people if they seem9 to have had the same impression as ours, for example, whether the ringing of a bell was real or only in our ears.
And although, when philosophizing, we are not even permitted to appeal to the judgments of others for establishing our own as the jurists do in appealing to those well-versed in law , every writer who finds that no one agrees with his clearly expressed and important views is suspected by the public10 of being in error. Therefore, it is a risk to hold a view which conflicts with public opinion, even if it is deemed to be reasonable. Such a display of egoism is called paradoxical.
Preference for the paradoxical is logical obstinacy in which a man does not want to be an imitator of others, but rather prefers to appear as an unusual 11 human being.
Instead of accomplishing his purpose, such a man frequently succeeds only in being odd. But, because everyone must have and maintain his own intelligence Si omnes patres sic, at ego non sic.
Abailard ,12 the reproach of being paradoxical, when it is not based on vanity or the desire to be different, carries no bad connotations.
Opposite to the paradoxical is the commonplace, which sides with the general opinion. But with the commonplace there is as little safety, if not less, because it lulls the mind to sleep, whereas the paradox awakens the mind to attention and investigation, which often lead to discoveries.
The aesthetic egoist is satisfied with his own taste, even though others may dislike, criticize, or even ridicule his verse, his painting, or his music. He deprives himself of the progress toward improvement when he isolates himself [] and his own judgment; he applauds himself, and he seeks art's touchstone of beauty only in himself.
Finally, the moral egoist limits all purposes to himself; as a eudaemonist, he concentrates the highest motives of his will merely on profit and his own happiness, but not on the concept of duty.
Because every other person has a different concept of what he counts as happiness, it is exactly egoism which causes him to have no touchstone of a genuine concept of duty which13 truly must be a universally valid principle. All eudaemonists are consequently egoists. Egoism can only be contrasted with pluralism, which is a frame of mind in which the self, instead of being enwrapped in itself as if it were the whole world, understands and behaves itself as a mere citizen of the world.
The above is all that belongs to anthropology. If the question were only whether I, as a thinking being, have any reason to assume that beside my existence there exists a totality of other beings called the world with whom I am in relation, then it is not an anthropological but merely a metaphysical question.
Note On the Formality of Egoistic Language The language used by the head of state, when speaking of himself to the people, is nowadays in the plural We, King by the Grace of God. The question arises whether the meaning of this is not rather egoistic, that is, indicative of the speaker's own authority; the same meaning is expressed by the King of Spain when he refers to himself as Io, el Rey I, the King.
It appears to be a fact, however, that such formality in speaking about the highest authority was originally to indicate condescension We, the King and his Counsel, or Estates. But how does it happen that the reciprocal form of address, which was formerly expressed in the old classical languages by the familiar Thou 14 in the singular, should later be indicated by the formal You in the plural15 when spoken by various chiefly German peoples? For the sake of giving greater distinction to the person addressed, the German [] language uses two distinctive expressions, namely he and they16 as if it were not a form of address at all, but a story about someone17 absent, be it one person or more This has finally led, to complete the absurdity, to the use of such expressions as Your Grace, Right Honorable, Right Noble, High-and-Noble, in which the speaker, rather than pretending to humble himself before the person addressed, shows deference instead to the abstract quality of his station.
The effort to become conscious of one's sense impressions [ideas] is22 either the perception attentio or the abstraction abstractio of a sense impression of which I am conscious within myself.
Abstraction is not just a neglect and cessation of perception since that would be distraction [distractio] , but rather it is a considered act of the faculty of cognition; it is a sense impression of which I am inwardly conscious, keeping it separate from other sense impressions in my consciousness.
Therefore, one does not speak of abstracting separating something, but of abstracting from something, that is, abstracting a definition from the object of my sense impression, whereby the definition preserves the universality of a concept, and is thus taken into the understanding.
For a man to be able to make an abstraction from a sense impression, even when the sense impression forces itself on his senses, is proof of a far greater faculty than just paying attention, because it gives evidence of a freedom of the faculty of thought and sovereignty of the mind in having the condition of one's sense impressions under one's control animus sui compos.
In this respect the faculty of abstraction is much more difficult, but also more important than the faculty of perception when it encounters sense impressions. Many a suitor could make a good marriage if he could only shut his eyes to a wart [] on his sweetheart's face or to a gap where teeth are missing. But it is a peculiarly bad habit of our faculty of perception to observe too closely, even involuntarily, what is faulty in other people.
Likewise, it is bad manners to fix one's eyes on the spot where a button is missing from the coat of a man who is directly in front of us, or upon a missing-tooth gap, or to call attention to a habitual speech defect, or to make the other person feel uneasy by staring at him and thus ruining any possibility of personal relations with him. If the essentials are good, it is not only fair but wise to shut one's eyes to the shortcomings of others, as well as to our own good fortune. The capacity to abstract, however, is a power of mind 23 which can only be acquired by exercising it.
Noticing animadvertere oneself is not the same thing as observing observare oneself. Observation is a methodical compilation of perceptions which we have experienced. Such perceptions furnish material for the diary of an observer of the self25 and they may easily lead to wild imaginings and insanity.
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