The Conflict of the Faculties (Der Streit der Fakultäten), part three

period treatise · 1798

type:period treatise

year:1798

citation:Kant, Immanuel. Der Streit der Fakultäten (The Conflict of the Faculties), 1798. The third part is Kant's open letter to Hufeland responding to his 1797 treatise Die Kunst, das menschliche Leben zu verlängern (later retitled Makrobiotik from the 1805 third edition); Hufeland first published the letter in his Journal der practischen Arzneykunde.

SUMMARY

Kant's 1798 work, the third and final part of which is an open letter addressed to Hufeland in response to his 1797 treatise Die Kunst, das menschliche Leben zu verlängern (the work later retitled Makrobiotik from the 1805 third edition). Hufeland had sent Kant a copy of the treatise; Kant replied approvingly and extended the macrobiotic project to the power of the mind to master morbid feelings by resolution, and Hufeland published the letter in his medical journal before it appeared as part three of The Conflict of the Faculties. Used in this case to document that the foremost philosopher of the age engaged with and endorsed Hufeland's longevity programme, which is part of how the doctrine accrued elite authority. The 1798 date and the Hufeland correspondence are documented in the separate Naragon biographical source (naragon-hufeland-biography); the original-language title is the work's standard title.

NOTES

The third part of Kant’s The Conflict of the Faculties (Der Streit der Fakultäten, 1798) is Kant’s open letter to Hufeland, written in response to his 1797 treatise Die Kunst, das menschliche Leben zu verlängern (later retitled Makrobiotik from the 1805 third edition). Hufeland had sent the philosopher a copy of the treatise; Kant answered approvingly and turned the macrobiotic theme toward a dietetics of the mind, arguing that resolution can master certain morbid feelings, and Hufeland published the letter in his Journal der practischen Arzneykunde before Kant collected it into The Conflict of the Faculties. The source is used in this case to document the elite intellectual reception of Hufeland’s programme: the leading philosopher of the period engaged with the longevity doctrine and lent it his name. The correspondence and the 1798 date are documented in the separate Naragon biographical source (naragon-hufeland-biography). This archive cites the work for the fact of Kant’s engagement, not for any medical claim; Kant’s own contribution (mental resolution over morbid feeling) is itself a mechanism-only proposition with no controlled-outcome support.