Indian Institute of Technology Delhi

Fall Semester 2017

From : Himanshu Kumar

Entry No : 2014CH10102

Professor : Dr. Divya Dwivedi

HUL360 Assignment
Immanuel Kant Of the
Different Human Races
___

Literature Review

Origin of races acc. to Kant

Acc. to kant, all the human beings have evolved from a common origin, acc. to the conditions
they were exposed to. He explains this by the use of two terms i.e. seeds and
predispositions. Seeds are basically causes that account for a specific development of the
human body and do not depend on the conditions in which they are evolved. In a way, wecan
say seeds gave result to those characteristics which can be observed to be common in human
beings. On the other hand, there were some characteristics which were dependent on the
conditions, human beings were exposed to e.g. hot or cold surroundings, the causes of these
characteristics were called predispositions. So, the easily observable different physical
characteristics of human beings e.g. color : white and black or face texture are result of
evolution due to different conditionstheywereexposedtoandconcernedpredispositions.This
was the explanation given by Kant for existence and origin of different human races.

On the basis explained above, Kant divided the races into four fundamental categories :

1. The White race

2. The Negro race
3. The Hunrace (Kalmuck or Mongol)
4. The Hindustani race
The reasons for putting these races differently, are according to the conditions they were
exposed, which have evolved some special physical characteristics into them, e.g. the persons
which were exposed to arctic climates, had to be evolved in a smaller build, so that blood
circulation can take place fast and easily in cold conditions. Similarly, the negroes areevolved
in blackcolorduetothehumidheattheywereexposedto,whichwereessentialfortheirskinto
be oily andchemicalswhichwereimportanttotacklesuchconditionswhichgavetheskinblack
color. Similarly, he explained the different colors of native american peoples e.g.
red-brown(due to acidic air effects) or olive-brown(due to hot regions). Scientificexplanations
are also available for these effects of skin whichexplaindifferentcolorsintermsofchemicals,
thus we can say the explanation of Kant was scientifically evident.

Kant also talks about thatwhiteandnegroracesarebaseraces.Inaway,heissayingthatother

two races are basically variations of these two races, evolved in time, maybe due to
inter-breeding or migration and exposure to different conditions. Thus, the explanations for
different races can be summarized asfollows,assumingLinealrootgenusasWhiteofBrownish
color :

First Race Noble blond Northern Europe From humid cold

Second Race Copper red America From dry cold

Third Race Black Senegambia(West From humid heat

Africa)

Fourth Race Olive-yellow Asian-Indians From dry heat

This explanation by Kant of origin of different races was supported by many peoples but the
greatest difficulty it faced isaboutthediversityoftheseracesi.e.whysameraceisnotfoundin
similar conditions regions e.g. east-asian Indians or negroes are not to be found in hottest
climatic regions of America. To tackle these problems, Kant says a race once established
remains confined to its original region and is resistive to further changes once its
characteristics becomes pre-dominant. Some explanations were also provided acc. to
geographical locations where these races have been evolved e.g.hownegroracewascutoffby
the sea and thus evolved without mixing with other races.