Kant y la cuestión de la "raza americana"

LERUSSI, NATALIA

Buenos Aires

Simposio; VIII International Symposium on Classical German Philosophy; 2022

Universidad Católica Argentina

There is agreement that in the Announcement of his Lectures on Physical Geography of 1775 Kant invents the first modern concept of "race". In the text Kant proposed a nomenclature of four original races: the “white race”, the “black race”, the “Hindustani”, and the “Hun or Mongolian race”. Here the “American race” is not considered a primary race, but a nascent one, a not fully developed derivation of the “Hunnic race”. Two years later Kant publishes the article again, although with some additions. Among the additions he included a new nomenclature of “races” - without, however, removing the previous one. In this new nomenclature the “American race” appears as an original race along with the other three, the “Hun race”, on the other hand, is not mentioned again. In the work I am going to speculate what could have been the reason or reasons for this change in the context of the debate on “races” in the second half of the 18th century and other Kantian sources.