Abstract

Kant often uses the term ‘world’ in compound nouns such as Weltkenntnis, Weltklugheit, Weltbürger, and Weltbegriff der Philosophie, among others. These concepts present a challenge to translators, and scholars tend to interpret them in isolation, ignoring their connections. Focusing on Kant’s novel project of a pragmatic anthropology, our case study reveals the distinct roles of the concepts of Weltkenntnis, Weltklugheit, Weltmann, and Weltbürger within the whole network and shows how the network and his anthropology mutually support each other. We further show how the meaning of especially one of these concepts, Weltweisheit, goes beyond the limits of Kant’s anthropology, thus shedding new light on the boundary Kant draws between this discipline and his ethical theory.