Kant’s Courses of Physical Geography

Abstract

In this article we will indicate that the fundamental proposition of the courses of physical Geography of Kant is: the man is a habitant of Earth. To validate this thesis, we will align the methodology utilized by Kant in the courses of Anthropology and physical Geography, in order to evidence the convergences and divergences of these courses. Besides that, we will compare the methodology employed by Kant in the natural History and in the physical Geography, because the distinction between these sciences will allow us to ratify the thesis here defended and to delimit the criteria of validity of the proposition indicated above. In Physische Geographie, Kant differentiates the propositions of those disciplines in the following way: the geographical propositions refer to the men as habitants of Earth, but investigate them without any historical perspective, in other words, investigate them in the present tense. Unlike this, the naturalists propositions investigate the human beings in a temporal successive line, in order to demonstrate what the nature did of them. That being said, the central issue of the natural history is to demonstrate that the different people possess a common origin and the central issue of the physical geography is to demonstrate in what way the habitat influences the civilizing, moralizing, political and religious process of the different people.