Escaping the Anthropological Circle: Kant and Hegel on Madness and Habit

Abstract

Michel Foucault considers the Kantian critical approach to anthropology to end up in a circle, which is only to be surpassed in a direction which has come to be known as posthuman. But there are other ways in which to approach anthropology, which suggest a way out of the circle, or a different way of understanding it. By comparing and contrasting Kant and Hegel on the notions of madness and habit, we find spread out before us a map that might lead us towards the possible future of philosophy itself.