Kant: Philosophy of History

Kant's Elliptical Path explores the main stages and key concepts in the development of Kant's Critical philosophy, from the early 1760s to the 1790s.

Demonstrates the systematic connection between Kant's ethics and his philosophy of history.

This dissertation focuses on the relation between Kant's philosophy of history and his ethics. It has been claimed that Kant's writings on history contradict his ethics and have no systematic value for his philosophy. Therefore, Kant's writings on history cannot be taken seriously. This objection can be summarized as follows. Kant's philosophy of history implies a notion of moral progress. Earlier generations stand in a means-ends relation to later generations. This contradicts the concept of the absolute value of the individual (...) which is held to be central to Kant's ethics. A historical view of the development of moral life qualifies the moral freedom of the individual. This contradicts Kant's view of the spontaneity of freedom and the distinction between the realms of freedom and nature. ;I wish to maintain that the proposed tension between Kant's philosophy of history and ethics rests upon an inadequate interpretation of Kant's ethics resulting from the neglect of his writings on the character of evil and its relation to the human will. Kant's concept of evil in his Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone is not a concept derived from experience and ascribable in its primary sense to the individual. Radical evil is a species character of man as man and opens up a temporal horizon for the development of freedom. Virtue is always a task and a project for the human being, a self-creating, self-perfecting process. Evil is an anthropological-ethical notion. History is linked to ethics by way of a pragmatic cultural anthropology. Therefore, I conclude that Kant's philosophy of history has systematic value for his thought as a whole and deserves to be taken seriously. (shrink)

The present volume brings Arendt's notes for these lectures together with other of her texts on the topic of judging and provides important clues to the likely direction of Arendt's thinking in this area.

The paper focuses on the Enlightenment as an important object of the German tradition of philosophical-cultural researches and debates. It starts with an analysis of Kant’s model of Aufklärung, underlining its social dimension. In Hegel’s conception of the Enlightenment, the problem is approached critically and included in the process of the phenomenological-philosophical-historical development of mind. Hegel, unlike Kant, is historicizing, and thus narrowing the term of the enlightenment itself. In conclusion the author asks the question: Is it reasonable to see (...) the real nature of the Enlightenment only in its fighting against mistakes, superstitions and prejudices? (shrink)

The paper deals with the impact of Hume’s philosophy on Kant’s philosophy of history. By comparing the views of the two philosophers the author comes to the conclusion that on some places Kant in his works on his own philosophy of history makes use of Hume’s argumentation concerning the connections between the cultivation of humans, production and trade, and the origins of political freedom, as well as the rise of the society controlled by justice and law. The author sees the (...) two thinkers as very close one to another not only in the understanding of the epistemological question, but also in contemplating the history. (shrink)

The paper examnies Kant's philosophy of history as an organic part of his philosophical heritage. One of Kant's "small writing" Idea of an Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View is seen as the essential work of his filosophy of history, which discloses Kant's scientific and theoretical attitude, aiming at the constitution od the basic model of his conception of the philosophy od history. The argument is designed to show, that Kant's philosopy of history is not a static conception (...) and that we can dicsern a sort of internal dynamics inside it, related to his consi_derations of the present condition of humankind and resulting in the formulating of apriori prnciples of freedom, equality and autonomy as the foundations of Kant's legal state. (shrink)

Is there an epistemological and/or practical basis for an ethic of history at the close of the twentieth century? This dissertation focuses upon selected works within the tradition of Western metaphysics that have allowed such a question to become both recognizable and problematic today. ;The problematic aspects of such a question become readily apparent. For it gives rise to the idea of a world-history---of a teleological historical process---which is all but unanimously considered to be of contemporary relevance only as a (...) reminder of why the present defines itself as a "postmodern" age. ;Furthermore, the concept of an ethic of history evokes the thought of the Kantian moral law which Georg Lukacs described as early as 1914 as a depleted source of illumination that no longer serves as "the map of all possible paths." ;But along with the philosophy of history as conceived by Herder, Hegel and Marx, the present has inherited a critique of that tradition whose origins lie in the Kantian system. Chapter 1 explores how Kant presents an ethic of history that is in fact deprived of the kind of objective or empirically verifiable measure capable of providing something like a road map for human action. For Kant the task of enforcing an unwritten and unrepresentable law is therefore conferred upon the human imagination. ;Chapter 2 then focuses upon how Kant's critique of reason regulates the necessary yet potentially boundless and debilitating power of the imagination by instituting a theological supplement to the moral law. The very phrase "theological supplement" indicates that an unorthodox theological concept has thereby been introduced in order to establish and valorize a limit to the capacities of the human will. ;Can such a limit be represented "atheologically"? This is the question underlying chapters 3 and 4. In chapter 3 Friedrich Schiller's program for an "aesthetic education" is interpreted as a supplement to the moral law that ends up by all but displacing it. Chapter 4, in turn, argues that Friedrich Nietzsche's attempt to displace the moral law succeeds in revitalizing it. (shrink)

This study pursues Kant's philosophy of history in the systematic context of his philosophy as a whole. Men's temporal or historical deeds may be assessed, Kant suggests, by timeless moral measures. These noumenal measures are archetypes or ideals, which display a completeness that renders them true wholes. This wholeness defines a maximum of perfection. Men must seek this maximum by imitating such archetypes. They and their ectypal counterparts are for Kant the true aims of human history. ;Such moral mimesis requires, (...) however, a prior recognition of these authentic goals. This recognition, I claim, may be evoked by a provocative range of analogies. They may elicit the recollection of these true aims. Analogies invite one to bring to light from within and for oneself such essential goals. ;I suggest that the relation among these aims too must be recalled and articulated. This is the architectonic task of human reason. As such, it is a cosmopolitan rather than merely scholastic task, for it concerns essential ends, which every man's reason rightly upholds. ;These communal aims are a true republic, a perpetual peace among such states, a universal commonwealth of virtue, and a final end higher than all the rest. The architectonic ordering of these ends depends upon such an ultimate telos, a supreme and perfect good. While all these lesser goods can be pursued as historical aims, this telos is timeless, and so beyond the bounds of history. ;The recognition and pursuit of this highest good Kant calls wisdom. I conclude by exploring its cosmopolitan nature, and why it is allied to a timeless telos. A love of such wisdom, I suggest, reconciles reason's speculative, practical and architectonic interests. Kant's philosophy of history, when so construed, thus truly becomes philosophia. (shrink)

Kant's famous essay Beantwortung der Frage. Was ist Aufklärung? has developed into the representative text of philosophical Enlightenment in the course of the past two hundred years. Yet most interpretations tend to assign a univocal meaning to Kant's text that is incompatible with its apparent polysemy. While taking the latter into account, this article wishes to closely investigate Kant's essay and offer a plausible interpretation if its meaning. On the basis of this reading, it becomes apparent that we should understand (...) Kant's historical-philosophical interpretation of the Enlightenment in a normative sense. As a result, the emphasis in the text shifts from a historical-philosophical promise of a totally "Enlightened Age" to a precarious, risky "Age of Enlightenment" which Kant claims to live in. There is ample textual evidence that Kant, who was aware of the risky nature of the moment, wanted to intervene with this essay by cherishing the hope for a possibility of a bit more actual Enlightenment. (shrink)

A review of Ulrich Lehner's recent book on Kant's philosophy of history. -/- .

The aim of this paper is to argue that Kant's philosophy of biology has crucial implications for our understanding of his philosophy of history, and that overlooking these implications leads to a fundamental misconstruction of his views. More precisely, I will show that Kant's philosophy of history is modelled on his philosophy of biology due to the fact that the development of the human species shares a number of peculiar features with the functioning of organisms, these features entailing important methodological (...) characteristics. From this main claim will follow three further claims: (1) Kant's teleological view of history is not simply based on ethical considerations that have to do with the moral progress of the human species; rather, it stems from his conception of teleology as developed in his philosophy of biology. (2) Kant's philosophy of history allows for the practice of scientific history. In this sense, Kant's view of history is not merely teleological but involves a mechanical (and thus empirical) element. (3) Just as teleology is useful for furthering mechanical accounts of biological phenomena, teleological history is useful for scientific history. (shrink)

Timothy M. Costelloe - Kant and the Culture of Enlightenment - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 667-668 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Timothy M. Costelloe The College of William and Mary Katerina Deligiorgi. Kant and the Culture of Enlightenment. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 2005. Pp. xi + 248. Cloth, $70.00. At a time when our attention is overwhelmed by the practical manifestations of power in pursuit of personal, (...) political, and economic gain, it is timely to read a book urging the spirit of the Enlightenment as a palliative for contemporary ills. In Katerina Deligiorgi's recent study, Kant is the spectre haunting the halls of the Enlightenment project, reminding the living that it is a "culture" shaped by the "social ideal" of rational enquiry, self-criticism, and public debate ... (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how concern with agency, expressed in the idea that history is the doing of agents, shapes both Kant’s and Hegel’s conceptions of history and, by extension, the roles they accord philosophical historiography.

This work takes the conjunction of freedom and nature as the basis for understanding Kant's politics. The dissertation defends Kant's argument for the obligatory force of pure ideas and the legislative capacity of the subject in a nature and history that possesses its own formative processes. This conjunction of freedom and nature affirms the freedom of a rational being who is finite, and justifies the imposition of pure rational principles upon a civil law that is produced by historical, natural processes. (...) The rights of historical beings rely on this subordination of power and external laws to laws of freedom. Kant's politics is a story of a transition from nature to freedom and not of an opposition between divergent realms and mutually exclusive principles. In the movement of human nature to its freedom, civil law becomes transmuted by rational principles into a system of rights. This dissertation charts this transition from nature to freedom in separate chapters on Kant's Critique of Judgment, his philosophy of history, and in his political philosophy. It is shown that his politics rests not simply on the determinative powers of pure reason but requires an allegiance of common understanding for the ends of reason. Ultimately, it is the movement of human nature towards its own humanity that is decisive for Kant's politics. ;By the very nature of its topic, this dissertation drew upon all three of Kant's critiques as well as his works on history, politics and anthropology. This dissertation also makes use of the contemporary ideas that dominated political debate such as those of Hobbes, Adam Smith, and Herder. (shrink)

Antagonism in human relations has been recognised since the beginning of Western history and has beenacknowledged as its driving and progressive force. But how exactly do contest, competition, and warcontribute to the historical progress of humankind? Coming from the position that there are timeless truthsin human history and that there is a human nature, in this paper I examine Kant’s notion of unsocialsociability from his Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose and how this notion relatesto human progress. (...) I explain the Kantian notion of the dynamics of history, his ‘unsocial sociability’, andcritique its problematic relation to his telos of nature: the formation of a universal civil union in perpetualpeace. In order to address this problem of dynamic-telos disparity I go back to the beginnings of Westernhistory, the ancient Greeks, with Nietzsche as a guiding mind. Focusing on his essay Homer onCompetition and also his book, The Birth of Tragedy I examine his uncovering of Greek ‘truth’ in relationto the division of Being in a primordial strife into beings of two opposing forms, the Apollonian andDionysian. I consider how these dual impulses were channelled, according to Nietzsche, into constructivesocial competitions and characterised the development and flourishing of Greek culture. I argue thatNietzsche’s view of human development and progress, via a republic of geniuses, overcomes the Kantiandisparity between the dynamic of history and nature’s end. (shrink)

This study of Kant's thought concentrates on those of his works in which the theme of world-history intersects with the fundamental metaphysical concerns out of which the three critiques were written: the constitution of a world we can know, transcendental freedom and the interrelation among the basic human faculties. Kant's earliest presentation of world-history in the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte is considered in relation to his revised presentation of classical metaphysics in the Nova dilucidatio in order to bring out how the former (...) treatise, as it touches on the nature of man and the end of the world, radicalizes and exceeds the Leibnizian presuppositions of the latter; the grounding of both man and the world can no longer simply be comprehended by the principle of reason in its classical formulation. In the second chapter Kant's "Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher Absicht" is similarly brought into conjunction with the first Critique and in particular with the renovation of Leibnizian metaphysics in the Canon of Pure Reason; a consideration of world-history from a cosmopolitan Absicht is shown to prepare the way for the posting of absolute freedom on which morality rests. The third and final chapter turns to the section of the Streit der Fakultaten devoted to the question of progress towards the best world. Kant's attempt to found a philosophical mode of augury is shown to rest on the thesis of absolute freedom and to lead to the disclosure of a world-history sign whose decisive moment is an extraordinary affect that corresponds to the singular feeling in which such freedom manifests itself. The difficulty of disclosing the past, securing the constancy of progress and thus discovering a truly world-history sign is finally brought into relation to the Platonic provenance of metaphysics and brought back to a peculiar anamnesis that depends upon both transcendence and transgression . Only on the condition that there is uprightness can progress take place and only on the basis of an unforgettable affect can it be secured. (shrink)

It is dealt with the methodological parallels between Kant's concept of a history of nature (i.e., his distinction between "Naturgeschichte" and "Naturbeschreibung") and the distinction between "Geognosie" and "Oryktognosie" by the German mineralogist A G Werner (1749-1817). By relating those parallels to the introduction of Kant's "Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science", the paper shows some scarcely considered scientific roots of his epistemology.

Theoretical Laws and Normative Rules: Kant and Bolzano's Views on Logic'"1" Anita Von Duhn, Genf Does logic instruct us how to think correctly? ...

In this paper, I argue that Kant’s philosophy of history underwent a significant change between his 1784 Idea for a Universal History and his 1790 Third Critique. My proposal is that in between these two texts Kant decisively revised his conception of the sources of historical, i. e. cultural and political, progress: In 1784, he conceived of historical progress as primarily accomplished through social antagonism among human beings, whereas beginning in 1790, he elevates ethical cooperation into a second, significant source (...) of progress. Between 1784 and the 1790s, in other words, Kant re-conceived the collaboration between moral agents as a driving force of history and of the progressing cultivation of humankind. In this paper I offer evidence for this change and suggest reasons why it might have occurred. (shrink)

Since the fall of the former Soviet Union, and following geographical and technological changes in the global economy, theorists in Europe as well as the United States have lamented the confusion and emotional disengagement of many groups formerly identified with the left. This paper addresses the Kantian origins of the idea that 'revolution', however defined (or deferred), is the only plausible image for effective historical engagement capable of motivating spectators to action. Drawing on Foucault's inquiries into conditions for the possibility (...) of 'heroizing' the present, I examine two frameworks for understanding the ontological impact of historical models for 'eventfulness', those offered by Heidegger and Bergson. I then explore their implication for debates between Foucauldian theorists over the technological and bodily bases required to recognize the optimistic moral significance Kant attributed to revolution in practices characterizing the 'new capitalism'. Key Words: Bergson • Foucault • Heidegger • historiography • Kant • revolution. (shrink)

In the last thirty years of his life Kant was preoccupied with the question of whether or not the "signs of progress" could be elicited from the vale of tears of the historical process. In what follows I am interested in the question of what kind of meaning Kant's historico-philosophical hypothesis of progress can have for us today. In order to provide an answer to this question, I make a distinction between system-conforming and system-bursting, or unorthodox, versions of historical progress. (...) This distinction is made in order to show that only system-bursting versions of progress can prompt us to confer contemporary meaning on Kant's philosophy of history as a learning process that is conflict ridden and without illusions. (shrink)