On the problem of obscure representations in Kant’s anthropology: a historical-critical survey

The present dissertation is divided into three main sections. In the first, the history of the doctrine of obscure representations is reconstructed, starting with the Leibnizian critique of the Cartesian classification of the degrees of cognition, passing through the major representatives of the vast debate that arose within the Wolffian school. We will discuss, in particular, the positions of Kant’s “masters”, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier, and then focus on the figure of Johann Georg Sulzer. One of the central claims of this research is that Kant‘s engagement with Sulzer’s psychological treatises exerted a substantial influence on his thought – both in articulating a broader conception of the unconscious and in his interest in understanding the effects of obscure representations on the will. The second section, after discussing the Kantian conception of empirical psychology and its development in anthropology, focuses on the theoretical assumptions of the Kantian transformation of the field of the unconscious, with particular regard to the aforementioned influence of Sulzer. The third and final section is devoted to the discussion of dunklen Vorstellungen in anthropology. The main objective here is to highlight the Kantian theory of the development of dunklen reflections from the comparison with the Meierian concept of evolution/Auswickelung.