Rationality as pragmatic worldly prudence: Kant’s anthropology and the modern social sciences
History of Philosophy
Final Report Abstract
This project investigated the extent to which contemporary social sciences can draw on Immanuel Kant’s perspective—particularly his conceptualization of pragmatic reason—and how this framework might enrich current theoretical discourse. Focusing on two core disciplines, political science and sociology, the project pursued an interdisciplinary inquiry into the relevance and applicability of Kantian thought within these fields. The central aim was to evaluate how Kant’s anthropological account of pragmatic rationality could be made fruitful for contemporary debates in sociology and political science, and to explore the potential contributions of his philosophical anthropology to the further development of these disciplines. This overarching goal was pursued through three interconnected research phases. The first phase elucidated the social and political dimensions embedded in Kant’s anthropology and determined their theoretical significance from the standpoint of modern social science. The second phase examined the historical reception of Kant’s ideas in sociology and political science— primarily through the lens of anthropological inquiry—to trace the presence, influence, or marginalization of his core concepts throughout the evolution of these disciplines. The third phase turned to the contemporary relevance and potential of Kant’s anthropology, with a focus on his notion of pragmatic reason and its connection to key Kantian assumptions, including the concept of ‘unsocial sociability,’ the human capacity for self-development, and the interrelations among self-consciousness, the development of reason, education, social interaction, and societal structures. Within this context, the project also addressed the possibility of a Kantian contribution to bridging sociological and political theory, as well as to the empirical investigation of rationality in social and political contexts. By linking Kant’s anthropological and social-scientific reflections with both their reception history and their potential future applications, the project built a bridge between philosophical analysis and empirical social science. The philosophical-historical and intellectual-historical inquiries undertaken in the first two phases laid the critical groundwork for engaging with current theoretical debates in political science and sociology. In collaboration with scholars from leading research institutions in Europe and the United States, the project fostered a rare interdisciplinary dialogue—connecting German-language and Anglo-American traditions of Kant scholarship with both empirical and theoretical approaches in the social sciences.
Link to the final report
https://philpapers.org/rec/SALDQA
Publications
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Kant's pragmatic use of reason from a sociological point of view: Third way or methodological impasse?. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 94, 1-7.
Zhavoronkov, Alexey
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Kant's conception of race and modern political science. Con-Textos Kantianos. International Journal of Philosophy(20), 63-71.
Salikov, Alexey.
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Anthropological Foundations of Kant’s and Sen’s Models of Social Rationality. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 26(3), 344-363.
Salikov, Alexey & Zhavoronkov, Alexey
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Between ‘citizen of the world’ and ‘patriot’: Kant’s Pragmatic Cosmopolitanism vs. John S. Mill’s Political Utilitarianism. Con-Textos Kantianos. International Journal of Philosophy(21), 93-99.
Salikov, Alexey
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Editorial Introduction: Pragmatic Reason in Kant’s Anthropology and in the Modern Social Sciences. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 55(4), 283-286.
Sturm, Thomas; Salikov, Alexey & Zhavoronkov, Alexey
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Kant’s Anthropological Pragmatism and the Anthropological Foundations of Jürgen Habermas’s Theory of Deliberative Democracy. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 55(4), 348-364.
Salikov, Alexey
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Kant’s anthropology and theoretical debates in the social sciences. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 55(4), 2025
Alexey Salikov, Thomas Sturm & Alexey Zhavoronkov (Hg.)
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Kant’s Anthropology in the Debates on Anthropological Deficits of Contemporary Sociology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 55(4), 385-405.
Zhavoronkov, Alexey
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World-Concepts in Kant’s Anthropology: Their Meaning, Relations, and Roles. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 107(3), 503-533.
Salikov, Alexey; Sturm, Thomas & Zhavoronkov, Alexey
