The Higher Education Academy : Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies
Doi
Abstract
[Introduction]
In 1765, Kant issued an Advertisement for the four lecture courses
he would be delivering in the winter semester of 1765/66, on
Metaphysics, Logic, Ethics, and Physical Geography (Kant 1905).
Instead of merely outlining the course syllabuses, Kant prefaced the
document with what would nowadays be called a ‘statement of
teaching philosophy’. As far as I am aware, this is the only place where he explains his approach to teaching,2 and it is an approach
which (apart from the first point below) is remarkably consistent with
what professional educationalists consider to be best practice in the
21st century.
In view of the radical nature of Kant’s ideas, it is surprising
how little attention has been paid to them. John Ladd (1982)
summarises the Advertisement in a general account of Kant as a
teacher, derived largely from Vorländer’s biography. His main
purpose is to show that Kant’s approach to the teaching of philosophy
presupposes that philosophy is very different from other disciplines, in
that it fosters the independence of thought which is central both to the
concept of enlightenment and to the concept of the autonomy of the
will in ethics. Eugene Kelly (1989) provides a complete translation of
the Advertisement into English, and prefaces it with a few brief
remarks. Interestingly, Kelly is almost entirely negative about the
Advertisement. He says that if Kant had submitted it for publication in
the APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy (of which Kelly was
editor at the time), he would have rejected it, on the grounds that it
was too long-winded, it contained too much technical terminology and
it said too little about the content of his lectures. Its only saving grace,
according to Kelly, was that Kant showed a genuine concern for his
students.
The articles by Ladd and Kelly are the only two writings I
have been able to find which discuss Kant’s Advertisement in any
detail. In what follows, I shall give a much more sympathetic account
of Kant’s approach to teaching philosophy, and relate what he says to
current theories of good practice in university education
