Kant’s Shorter Writings: Critical Paths Outside the Critiques [1 ed.] 1443899305, 9781443899307

Table of contents :
I. Logics and Reality in Kant’s Transcendental Idealism
Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form, and the Foundations
of Transcendental Idealism .......................................................................... 2
Robert Hanna (Univ of Colorado at Boulden, USA)
The Logical, the Real and the Existence of God in The Only Possible
Argument (1763) ........................................................................................ 20
Jacinto Rivera de Rosales (UNED, Spain)
The Duisburg Nachlaß as a Key to Interpreting Salomon Maimon’s
Reading of the Transcendental Deduction of Categories .......................... 39
Alba Jiménez (UAM, Spain)
Awakening from His Dogmatic Slumber: David Hume and Immanuel
Kant’s Reception of Hume’s Sceptical Doubts in the Prolegomena
to Any Future Metaphysics ........................................................................ 55
Helke Panknin-Schappert (Univ. of Mainz, Germany)
The Combined Force of Sensory Impressions: Kant’s View
on the Benefits of Poetry to Philosophy .................................................... 68
Fernando M. F. Silva (CFUL, Portugal)
II. Moral Questions: Intelligible Temporality and Obligation
A Little Bit Evil? Reflections on Part One of Kant’s Religion .................. 84
Margit Ruffing (Univ. of Mainz, Germany)
Mysteries of Feeling versus Horizons of Reflection: On the “Supersensible
Substratum” of Experience and the (Public) Use of Reason ........ 96
Anselmo Aportone (Univ. of Tor Vergata, Italy)
“Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me”: On Kant’s
“Anthropological” Theodicy ................................................................... 116
Gualtiero Lorini (CFUL, Portugal)
The End of All Things and Kant’s Revolution in Disposition .................. 132
Giovanni Panno (Univ. of Tübingen, Germany)
Das Ende aller Dinge: The Duratio Noumenon and the Problem
of the Atemporality of Gesinnung ........................................................... 154
Francesca Fantasia (Univ. of Palermo, Italy)
Freedom and Obligation: The Moral Debate between Kant and Hegel
(1781-1807) ............................................................................................. 171
Antonino Falduto (Univ. of Halle, Germany)
High Doses of Hellebore ......................................................................... 180
Maria Borges (UFSC/CNPq, Brazil)
III. Teleology and Philosophy of History
On The Use of Teleological Principles in Biology .................................. 190
Renato Valois (UFRRJ, Brazil)
Kant and Soemmerring: A “Two Letters Correspondence” between
Transcendental Philosophy and Medicine ............................................... 200
Davide Poggi (Univ. of Verona, Italy)
Kant’s Über das Organ der Seele and the Limits of Physiology:
Arguments and Legacy ............................................................................ 214
Paolo Pecere (Univ. of Cassino and of Meridional Latius, Italy)
Freedom and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy of History ............................. 231
Julio Esteves (UFFRJ, Brazil)
Three Problems with the Theoretical Reading of the Idea of a Universal
History in Context of the Critique of Pure Reason .................................. 246
Joel T. Klein (UFRN, Brazil)
Kant’s “Historical Sign” as Sacrament: On the Distinction
between Revolution and Church .............................................................. 266
Francesco V. Tommasi (Univ. Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy)
Kant's Shorter Writings: Critical Paths Outside the Critiques
IV. Enlightenment and Public Realm
Argue but Obey? Questioning Kant’s Enlightenment ............................. 284
Robert Louden (Univ. of Southern Maine, USA)
Variations on the Possible: “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself
in Thinking?” ........................................................................................... 301
Ferdinando L. Marcolungo (Univ. Verona, Italy)
Political Issues in Kant’s Philosophy ...................................................... 313
Sandra Zakutna (Univ. of Prešov , Slovakia)
Enlightenment as a Philosophical Drama: Kant and Foucault
on the Political Field ................................................................................ 322
Jesús González Fisac (UCA, Spain)
The Philosopher’s Public Calling: Problems and Implications of Kant’s
Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual
Peace in Philosophy ................................................................................ 343
Alberto Pirni (Scuola Superiore di Sant’Anna, Italy)
The Critique as a Passage of the Reason from the State of Nature
to the State of Law ................................................................................... 357
Gaetano Chiurazzi (Univ. of Turin, Italy)
The Concept of Work in some of Kant’s Shorter Writings ..................... 372
Soledad García Ferrer (UCM, Spain)
V. Doctrine of Right and Cosmopolitanism
Politics, Urteilskraft and the Realization of Right: Kant’s Contextual
Perspective ............................................................................................... 386
Federica Trentani (UFSC, Brazil)
Right as a Sign of a Philosophical Chiliasm: Freedom and its Evolution
in Kant’s Opuscules ................................................................................. 398
Roberto R. Aramayo (IFS/CSIC, Spain)
The Duty to Leave the State of Nature and Non-Coercive Rights
in the Civil Condition .............................................................................. 410
Andrea Faggion (UEL, Brazil)
Synthetic a Priori Propositions of Right: Kant on Political Obligation ... 426
Macarena Marey (UBA/CONYCET, Argentina)
Kant’s Cosmopolitanism in Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte
in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784) .......................................................... 438
Gustavo Leyva (UFABC/UAM, Brazil/Mexico)
Passive Citizenship, Poverty and Peace: Kant’s Cosmopolitanism
in the Shorter Writings ............................................................................ 460
Nuria Sánchez Madrid (UCM, Spain)
Rethinking Kant’s Shorter Writings: Kant’s Philosophy of History
and Today’s Cosmopolitanism ................................................................ 473
Marita Rainsborough (Univ. of Hamburg, Germany

Citation preview

Kant’s Shorter Writings

Kant’s Shorter Writings: Critical Paths Outside the Critiques Edited by

Rafael V. Orden Jiménez, Robert Hanna, Robert Louden, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales and Nuria Sánchez Madrid

Kant’s Shorter Writings: Critical Paths Outside the Critiques Edited by Rafael V. Orden Jiménez, Robert Hanna, Robert Louden, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales and Nuria Sánchez Madrid This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Rafael V. Orden Jiménez, Robert Hanna, Robert Louden, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, Nuria Sánchez Madrid and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9930-5 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9930-7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Logics and Reality in Kant’s Transcendental Idealism Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form, and the Foundations of Transcendental Idealism .......................................................................... 2 Robert Hanna (Univ of Colorado at Boulden, USA) The Logical, the Real and the Existence of God in The Only Possible Argument (1763) ........................................................................................ 20 Jacinto Rivera de Rosales (UNED, Spain) The Duisburg Nachlaß as a Key to Interpreting Salomon Maimon’s Reading of the Transcendental Deduction of Categories .......................... 39 Alba Jiménez (UAM, Spain) Awakening from His Dogmatic Slumber: David Hume and Immanuel Kant’s Reception of Hume’s Sceptical Doubts in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics ........................................................................ 55 Helke Panknin-Schappert (Univ. of Mainz, Germany) The Combined Force of Sensory Impressions: Kant’s View on the Benefits of Poetry to Philosophy .................................................... 68 Fernando M. F. Silva (CFUL, Portugal) II. Moral Questions: Intelligible Temporality and Obligation A Little Bit Evil? Reflections on Part One of Kant’s Religion .................. 84 Margit Ruffing (Univ. of Mainz, Germany) Mysteries of Feeling versus Horizons of Reflection: On the “Supersensible Substratum” of Experience and the (Public) Use of Reason ........ 96 Anselmo Aportone (Univ. of Tor Vergata, Italy) “Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me”: On Kant’s “Anthropological” Theodicy ................................................................... 116 Gualtiero Lorini (CFUL, Portugal)

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Table of Contents

The End of All Things and Kant’s Revolution in Disposition .................. 132 Giovanni Panno (Univ. of Tübingen, Germany) Das Ende aller Dinge: The Duratio Noumenon and the Problem of the Atemporality of Gesinnung ........................................................... 154 Francesca Fantasia (Univ. of Palermo, Italy) Freedom and Obligation: The Moral Debate between Kant and Hegel (1781-1807) ............................................................................................. 171 Antonino Falduto (Univ. of Halle, Germany) High Doses of Hellebore ......................................................................... 180 Maria Borges (UFSC/CNPq, Brazil) III. Teleology and Philosophy of History On The Use of Teleological Principles in Biology .................................. 190 Renato Valois (UFRRJ, Brazil) Kant and Soemmerring: A “Two Letters Correspondence” between Transcendental Philosophy and Medicine ............................................... 200 Davide Poggi (Univ. of Verona, Italy) Kant’s Über das Organ der Seele and the Limits of Physiology: Arguments and Legacy ............................................................................ 214 Paolo Pecere (Univ. of Cassino and of Meridional Latius, Italy) Freedom and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy of History ............................. 231 Julio Esteves (UFFRJ, Brazil) Three Problems with the Theoretical Reading of the Idea of a Universal History in Context of the Critique of Pure Reason.................................. 246 Joel T. Klein (UFRN, Brazil) Kant’s “Historical Sign” as Sacrament: On the Distinction between Revolution and Church .............................................................. 266 Francesco V. Tommasi (Univ. Roma “La Sapienza”, Italy)

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IV. Enlightenment and Public Realm Argue but Obey? Questioning Kant’s Enlightenment ............................. 284 Robert Louden (Univ. of Southern Maine, USA) Variations on the Possible: “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” ........................................................................................... 301 Ferdinando L. Marcolungo (Univ. Verona, Italy) Political Issues in Kant’s Philosophy ...................................................... 313 Sandra Zakutna (Univ. of Prešov , Slovakia) Enlightenment as a Philosophical Drama: Kant and Foucault on the Political Field ................................................................................ 322 Jesús González Fisac (UCA, Spain) The Philosopher’s Public Calling: Problems and Implications of Kant’s Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy ................................................................................ 343 Alberto Pirni (Scuola Superiore di Sant’Anna, Italy) The Critique as a Passage of the Reason from the State of Nature to the State of Law ................................................................................... 357 Gaetano Chiurazzi (Univ. of Turin, Italy) The Concept of Work in some of Kant’s Shorter Writings ..................... 372 Soledad García Ferrer (UCM, Spain) V. Doctrine of Right and Cosmopolitanism Politics, Urteilskraft and the Realization of Right: Kant’s Contextual Perspective............................................................................................... 386 Federica Trentani (UFSC, Brazil) Right as a Sign of a Philosophical Chiliasm: Freedom and its Evolution in Kant’s Opuscules ................................................................................. 398 Roberto R. Aramayo (IFS/CSIC, Spain) The Duty to Leave the State of Nature and Non-Coercive Rights in the Civil Condition .............................................................................. 410 Andrea Faggion (UEL, Brazil)

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Table of Contents

Synthetic a Priori Propositions of Right: Kant on Political Obligation ... 426 Macarena Marey (UBA/CONYCET, Argentina) Kant’s Cosmopolitanism in Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784) .......................................................... 438 Gustavo Leyva (UFABC/UAM, Brazil/Mexico) Passive Citizenship, Poverty and Peace: Kant’s Cosmopolitanism in the Shorter Writings ............................................................................ 460 Nuria Sánchez Madrid (UCM, Spain) Rethinking Kant’s Shorter Writings: Kant’s Philosophy of History and Today’s Cosmopolitanism ................................................................ 473 Marita Rainsborough (Univ. of Hamburg, Germany)

I. LOGICS AND REALITY IN KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

DIRECTIONS IN SPACE, NON-CONCEPTUAL FORM, AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM ROBERT HANNA INDEPENDENT PHILOSOPHER/PUC-PR, BRAZIL

1. Introduction The central aim of this paper is to demonstrate an essential connection between Kant’s1 Non-Conceptualism and his transcendental idealism, by tracing this line of thinking in Kant’s work directly back to his pre-Critical essay of 1768, “Concerning the Ground of the Ultimate Differentiation of Directions in Space,” a.k.a. “Directions in Space.”

2. “Transcendental Idealism,” “Conceptualism,” “Non-Conceptualism,” “Kantian Conceptualism,” and “Kantian Non-Conceptualism” In a nutshell, Kant’s thesis of “transcendental idealism” says that the basic structure of the apparent or phenomenal world necessarily conforms to the pure or non-empirical (hence a priori) structure of human cognition, and not the converse (CPR B xvi-xviii). Or in other words, Kant is saying that the phenomenal world fundamentally conforms to the a priori structure of the human mind, and it is not the case that the human mind fundamentally conforms to the phenomenal world, or indeed to any non-apparent or noumenal world. And here is Kant’s primary argument for transcendental idealism. If the human mind fundamentally conformed to the world, whether phenomenal or noumenal, then since human knowledge of the world would be contingent on the existence and specific character of that world, then a priori human knowledge of the world would be impossible (C 10:130131). But a priori human knowledge of the phenomenal world, e.g., in

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mathematics, is already actual and therefore really possible. So the phenomenal world necessarily conforms to the a priori structure of the human mind. And in particular, the phenomenal world fundamentally conforms to our a priori representations of space and time, because that is the only acceptable philosophical explanation of the real possibility of mathematical knowledge (ID 2:398-406) (CPR A19-49/B33-73). So if Kant is correct, then he is saying that the world in which we live, move, and have our being (by which I mean the phenomenal natural and social world of our ordinary human existence) is fundamentally dependent on our minded nature, and not the converse. Correct or incorrect, transcendental idealism seems to me to be a deeply important philosophical thesis. For one thing, if transcendental idealism is true, then we cannot be inherently alienated from the world we are trying to know, as global epistemic sceptics claim, and human knowledge—not only a priori knowledge, but also a posteriori knowledge—is therefore really possible.2 In general, the thesis of “Conceptualism”3 says that the representational content of human cognition is essentially conceptual, and necessarily determined by our conceptual capacities. Strong Conceptualism says that our conceptual capacities are not only necessary but also sufficient for determining the content of human cognition, and weak Conceptualism says that our conceptual capacities are not alone sufficient but also require a contribution from some or another non-conceptual capacity (e.g., the capacity for sense perception) in order to determine the (ultimately conceptual) content of human cognition. Correspondingly, the thesis of (essentialist content) “Non-Conceptualism”4 says that at least some of the representational contents of human cognition are not essentially conceptual, and not necessarily determined by our conceptual capacities, and also that these contents, on the contrary, are essentially non-conceptual, and necessarily determined by our nonconceptual capacities (e.g., the capacity for sense perception). Although these distinctions might initially seem rather Scholastic or even trivial, the opposition between Conceptualism and (essentialist content) Non-Conceptualism is a philosophically important one. This is because what is at issue is nothing more and nothing less than the nature of the human mind. According to Conceptualism, human minds are basically

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Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form

intellectual in character, having nothing inherently to do with the embodied, sense-perceiving, affective, desiring, animal side of human nature. By contrast, according to (essentialist content) Non-Conceptualism, human minds are basically bound up with the embodied, sense-perceiving, affective, desiring, animal side of human nature, and are not basically intellectual in character: on the contrary, the intellectual capacities of the human being constitutively presuppose, and are thereby grounded on and built on top of, the non-intellectual capacities. Hence the philosophical debate about Conceptualism vs. Non-Conceptualism is really a debate about whether an intellectualist or a non-intellectualist conception of the human mind is the correct one. This has far-reaching implications not only for other parts of the philosophy of mind, but also for epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and even political philosophy, to the extent that it depends on ethics and philosophical anthropology. Although both Conceptualism and (essentialist content) Non-Conceptualism are competing theses/doctrines in contemporary philosophy of mind, their philosophical origins both go back to Kant.5 Hence it is possible to defend either Kantian Conceptualism or Kantian (essentialist content) NonConceptualism, as competing interpretations of Kant’s theory of human cognition in particular and of Kant’s philosophy of mind more generally. Now according to Kant, our conceptual capacities are located in the understanding or Verstand, whose operations yield concepts, judgements/propositions, and inferences, when those operations are also supplemented by our further intellectual capacities for apperception or self-consciousness, for judgement and belief, and for logical reason or inference. By contrast, according to Kant, our non-conceptual capacities are located in the sensibility or Sinnlichkeit, which contains both a non-intellectual sub-capacity for sense perception and also a non-intellectual sub-capacity for imagination, and whose operations yield material or formal intuitions, material images, and formal images or schemata. Human sensibility for Kant, it must also be noted, further contains non-intellectual sub-capacities for feeling, desiring, and sensible willing or “the power of choice” (Willkür). In other words, sensibility for Kant is as much non-cognitive or practical, as it is cognitive or theoretical. Since Kant believes that the understanding and the sensibility, as capacities, are essentially distinct from and irreducible to one another, and

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also that both are required for rational human cognition (and in the case of human practical reason, a.k.a. “the faculty of desire,” both are required for rational human action and agency), Kant is also a cognitive capacity dualist. But is Kant a Conceptualist or a Non-Conceptualist? Or in other words, is Kant a cognitive content dualist as well as a cognitive capacity dualist? Or in still other words, is Kant an intellectualist about the nature of the human mind, or a non-intellectualist? The intellectualist thesis of Kantian Conceptualism says that for Kant the representational content of human cognition is essentially conceptual, and necessarily determined by the understanding. And just as there are strong and weak versions of Conceptualism in general, so too there are strong and weak versions of Kantian Conceptualism.6 By contrast, the non-intellectualist thesis of Kantian (essentialist content) Non-Conceptualism says that for Kant at least some of the representational contents of human cognition are not essentially conceptual, and not necessarily determined by the understanding, and also that these contents, on the contrary, are essentially non-conceptual, and necessarily determined by our sensibility.7 The classical or standard line of Kant-interpretation in 20th century AngloAmerican philosophy simply took it as obvious that Kant is a Conceptualist and also an intellectualist. So the Non-Conceptualist interpretation of Kant is importantly revolutionary and unorthodox, and even if it were not correct (although I do think it is correct), nevertheless it has forced Conceptualist, intellectualist Kantians to re-think, re-argue, and re-work their previously unchallenged view.8 Now I can reformulate the main aim of this paper more precisely, in four sub-claims. What I want to claim is (i) that Kant is an (essentialist content) Non-Conceptualist, (ii) that there is a specifically non-intellectualist version of Kant’s transcendental idealism that depends inherently on the nature of human sensibility, (iii) that Kant’s (essentialist content) Non-Conceptualism is foundational for any philosophically defensible version of his transcendental idealism, and

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Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form

(iv) that this line of thinking in Kant can be traced directly back to his pre-Critical “Directions in Space” essay. Or in other words, what I want to claim is that Kant’s non-intellectualism about the human mind goes all the way down into his metaphysics; that it is defensibly arguable that the apparent world fundamentally conforms to human sensibility even if it does not fundamentally conform to the human understanding; and that the basic source of all this is Kant’s (initially preCritical but later also Critical) theory of space and how we represent it.

3. Directions in Space and the Essentially Non-Conceptual Form of Our Representation of It Kant’s “Directions in Space” essay contains an argument against the relational or Leibnizian view of space and in favour of the absolute or Newtonian view of space, but this merely scratches the surface of Kant’s argument. The relational theory of space says that the nature of space is necessarily determined by extrinsic relations between objects in space. By contrast, the absolute theory of space, as Kant understands it, says that the nature of space is necessarily determined by a single universal framework—a global space-frame—in which physical objects are inherently embedded or located as filling up and realising proper parts of the global space-frame, whose structure necessarily includes certain special intrinsic relational topological properties that allow for fundamental asymmetries, in addition to the familiar Euclidean relational topological properties and relations, which are symmetrical. According to Leibniz, who was a relationist about space, the objects standing in extrinsic relations are monads. So space is actually a “wellfounded phenomenon” for Leibniz, and strongly supervenient on the intrinsic non-relational properties of noumenal monads. Nevertheless, other relationists about space, including Kant himself in the Physical Monadology, hold that these objects are actually material point-sources of causal forces in real physical space. So the version of relationism that Kant was working with in “Directions in Space” is not an orthodox Leibnizian theory. According to Newton, who was an absolutist about space, the single universal framework in which physical objects are embedded is itself a

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noumenal entity. But Newton was unaware (as far as I know) of the idea that the structure of absolute space contains special asymmetry-allowing intrinsic relational topological properties. Hence the version of absolutism that Kant was working with in “Directions in Space” is also not an orthodox Newtonian theory. According to Kant in “Directions in Space,” space does indeed constitute a global frame for embedding or locating physical objects, like Newtonian space, but also and much more importantly it is an egocentricallycentered, orientable space with inherent structural asymmetries such as mirror-reflected incongruence or “handedness” in qualitatively identical objects (enantiomorphy), which Kant also calls “incongruent counterparts” (DDS 2:378-383). “Orientable spaces” are spaces with intrinsic directions, and “egocentric centering” means that the specific characteristics of an orientable space is fixed indexically and locally by conscious embodied perceivers who are themselves actually embedded or located within the total global space-frame. In “Directions in Space,” Kant discovered that structural asymmetries such as handedness can be detected and differentiated only by the essentially non-intellectual, non-conceptual outer sensibility of living, embodied, conscious, cognising subjects like us, who are actually embedded or located in such a global space, and therefore that there is a necessary isomorphism between the representational form of the outer sensibility of such subjects, the abstract structure of that global space, and the material structure of perceivable objects also embedded or located in that global space: Because of its three dimensions, physical space can be thought of as having three planes, which all intersect at right angles. Concerning the things which exist outside ourselves: it is only insofar as they stand in relation to ourselves that we have any cognition of them by means of the senses at all. It is, therefore, not surprising that the ultimate ground, on the basis of which we form our [representation] of directions in space, derives from the relation of these intersecting planes to our bodies. The plane upon which the length of our body stands vertically is called, with respect to ourselves, horizontal. This horizontal plane gives rise to the difference between the directions which we designate by the terms above and below. On this plane it is possible for two other planes to stand vertically and also to intersect each other at right angles, so that the length of the human body is thought of as lying along the axis of the intersection. One of these two vertical planes divides the body into two externally similar halves, and furnishes the ground of the difference between the right and left side. The

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Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form other vertical plane, which also stands perpendicularly on the horizontal plane, makes possible the [representation] of the side in front and the side behind. (DDS 2:379, emphasis added) Since the distinct feeling of the right and left side is of such great necessity for judging directions, nature has established an immediate connection between this feeling and the mechanical organization of the human body. (DDS 2:380, emphasis added)

In short, the apparent or phenomenal world must conform to the form of our embodied outer sensibility, that is, the apparent or phenomenal world must conform to the form of human outer intuition. Now for Kant the form of human outer sensibility or intuition is essentially non-conceptual for three reasons. First, Kant says explicitly in the Critique of Pure Reason that intuitions of outer sense or inner sense, which pick out appearances—the undetermined objects of empirical intuitions (CPR A20/B34)—are possible for us independently of the functions of our understanding, i.e., independently of our concepts: [S]ince an object can appear to us only by means of … pure forms of sensibility, i.e., be an object of empirical intuition, space and time are thus pure intuitions that contain a priori the conditions of the possibility of appearances, and the synthesis in them has objective validity. (CPR A89/B122) Objects can indeed appear to us without necessarily having to be related to functions of the understanding. (CPR A89/B122, emphasis added) Appearances can certainly be given in intuition without functions of the understanding. (CPR A90/B122, emphasis added) Appearances might very well be so constituted that the understanding would not find them in accordance with the conditions of its unity…. [and] in the series of appearances nothing would present itself that would yield a rule of synthesis and so correspond to the concept of cause and effect, so that this concept would be entirely empty, null, and meaningless. Appearances would none the less present objects to our intuition, since intuition by no means requires the functions of thought. (CPR A901/B122-3, emphasis added) That representation which can be given prior to all thinking is called intuition. (CPR B132)

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The manifold for intuition must already be given prior to the synthesis of the understanding and independently from it. (CPR B145, emphasis added)

Second, Kant explicitly claims in some pre-Critical writings and also Critical writings alike that at least non-human animals (e.g., oxen) and some non-rational human animals (e.g., ordinary human infants) are capable of sense perception and thus capable of inner and outer sensory intuition, but do not possess conceptual capacities.9 Third, and most importantly for our purposes, our pure or non-empirical representation of space picks out egocentrically-centered, orientable, asymmetric structural topological properties of space that cannot be represented by the understanding and concepts. This is shown by the “incongruent counterparts” argument, which, in a nutshell, says: (1) Incongruent counterparts like our right and left hands, by hypothesis, are such that they possess all their conceptuallyrepresentable qualities in common, yet they still are essentially different because they are incongruent. (2) This incongruence and the essential difference between our right and left hands is immediately and veridically represented by human cognisers, but only by means of our empirical intuition of real objects in physical space and also our pure sensory intuition of the structure of space, as necessarily conforming to the form of our outer sensibility or intuition. (3) Therefore our pure or non-empirical (hence a priori) representation of space is necessarily underdetermined by concepts.10 When the conclusion of the incongruent counterparts argument is conjoined with the first two reasons, then it follows that the form of our outer sensibility or intuition is essentially non-conceptual and also a priori. Therefore, in “Directions in Space,” at least implicitly, Kant is saying that the basic structure of the apparent or phenomenal world necessarily conforms to the essentially non-conceptual a priori form of human embodied outer sensibility or intuition. This line of argument is made even more explicit in, and furthermore is strongly supported by, Kant’s doctrine of the nature of space in the Inaugural Dissertation, “On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World” (1770), by his argument for the transcendental ideality of space in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783),

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Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form

and by his later discussion of geographical spatial orientation in “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” (1786): The [representation] of space is … a pure intuition, for it is a singular [representation], not one which has been compounded from sensations, although it is the fundamental form of all outer sensation. Indeed, this pure intuition can easily be seen in the axioms of geometry, and in any mental construction of postulates, even of problems. That space does not have more than three dimensions, that between two points there is only one straight line, that from a given point on a plane a circle can be described with a given straight line, etc.—none of these things can be derived from some universal concept of space; they can only be apprehended concretely, so to speak, in space itself. Which things in a given space lie in one direction and which things incline in the opposite direction cannot be described discursively nor reduced to characteristic marks of the understanding by any astuteness of the mind. Thus, between solid bodies which are similar and equal but incongruent, such as the left or right hands (insofar as they are conceived only according to their extension), or spherical triangles from two opposite hemispheres, there is a difference, in virtue of which it is impossible that the limits of their extension should coincide — and that, in spite of the fact that, in respect of everything which may be expressed by means of characteristic marks intelligible to the mind through speech, they could be substituted for one another. It is therefore clear that in these cases the difference, namely the incongruity, can only be apprehended by a certain pure intuition. (ID 2:403, emphasis added) What can be more similar to, and in parts more equal to, my hand or my ear than its image in a mirror? And yet I cannot put such a hand as is seen in the mirror in the place of its original; for if the one was a right hand, then the other in the mirror is a left, and the image of the right ear is a left one, which can never take the place of the former. Now there are no inner differences here that any understanding could merely think; and yet the differences are inner as far as the senses teach, for the left hand cannot, after all, be enclosed within the same boundaries as the right (they cannot be made congruent), despite all reciprocal quality and similarity; one hand’s glove cannot be used on the other. What then is the solution? These objects are surely not representations of things in themselves, and as the pure understanding would cognise them; rather, they are sensory intuitions, i.e., appearances, whose possibility rests on the relation of certain things, unknown in themselves, to something else, namely our sensibility. Now, space is the form of outer intuition of this sensibility, and the inner determination of space is possible only through the determination of the outer relation to the whole of space of which the space is only a part (the relation to outer sense); that is, the part is possible only through the whole, which never occurs with things in themselves as objects of the understanding alone, but does occur with mere appearances. We can

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therefore make the difference between similar and unequal but nonetheless incongruent things (e.g., oppositely spiralled snails) intelligible through no concept alone, but only through the relation to right-hand and left-hand, which refers immediately to intuition. (Pro 4:286) In the proper meaning of the word, to orient oneself means to use a given direction (when we divide the horizon into four of them) in order to find the others—literally, to find the sunrise. Now if I see the sun in the sky and know it is now midday, then I know how to find south, west, north and east. For this, however, I also need the feeling of a difference in my own subject, namely the difference between my right and left hands. I call this a feeling because these two sides outwardly display no [conceptual] characteristic difference in intuition. If I did not have this faculty of distinguishing without the need of any difference in the objects, between moving from left to right and moving in the opposite, then in describing a circle I would not know whether west was right or left of the southernmost point of the horizon, or whether I should complete the circle by moving north and east and thus back to south. Thus even with all the objective data of the sky, I orient myself geographically only through a subjective ground of differentiation. (OOT 8:135, emphasis added)

This way of reading “Directions in Space,” however, is confusingly concealed by the way that Kant formulates his main thesis in the essay: My purpose in this treatise is to see whether there is not to be found in the intuitive judgments about extension, such as are to be found in geometry, clear proof that: Absolute space, independently of the existence of all matter and as itself the ultimate foundation of the possibility of the compound character of matter, has a reality of its own. (DDS 2:378)

In other words, the notion of absolute space, as Kant is using it in “Directions in Space,” is ambiguous as between (i) a global space-frame with orientability, egocentric centering, and structural asymmetries, that fundamentally conforms to the essentially non-conceptual representational structure of human outer sensibility or intuition, and (ii) noumenal space, as in Newton. But by the time of the Inaugural Dissertation, however, and then later in the Transcendental Aesthetic and throughout the Critical period, it is perfectly clear that for Kant the global space-frame must be transcendentally ideal, and cannot be noumenal.

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4. The Essentially Non-Conceptual Form of Our Representation of Space and Transcendental Idealism for Sensibility So for all these reasons, I want to claim that the central argument in “Directions in Space” is almost certainly the major philosophical break though that Kant famously reports when he says in one of the Reflexionen that “the year ’69 gave me great light” (R 5037, 18:69). More precisely, what Kant had discovered between 1769 and 1772 is what I call transcendental idealism for sensibility. In 1772, Kant told Marcus Herz that if the human mind conformed to the world, whether phenomenal or noumenal, then a priori knowledge would be impossible (C 10:130131); but by 1770 Kant already also held that a priori knowledge of the phenomenal world is already actual and therefore really possible in mathematics, hence the phenomenal world must conform to the nonempirical sensible structure of the human mind, and more specifically must conform to our a priori representations of space and time, since that is what makes mathematics really possible (ID 2:398-406). More precisely, then, transcendental idealism for sensibility says that the apparent or phenomenal world fundamentally conforms to the essentially non-conceptual a priori forms of human sensibility, our representations of space and time. Kant worked out explicit proofs for transcendental idealism for sensibility in the Inaugural Dissertation and again in the Transcendental Aesthetic in the first Critique. The simplest version of the proof, provided in the Transcendental Aesthetic, goes like this: (1) Space and time are either (i) things in themselves, (ii) properties of/relations between things in themselves, or (iii) transcendentally ideal. (2) If space and time were either things in themselves or properties of/relations between things in themselves, then a priori mathematical knowledge would be impossible. (3) But mathematical knowledge is actual, via our pure intuitions of space and time, and therefore really possible.

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(4) Therefore, space and time are transcendentally ideal. (CPR A23/B37-38, A38-41/B55-58) There is, of course, much more that can and should be said about this highly controversial argument. What is most crucial for our purposes here, however, is that this version of transcendental idealism relies only on essentially non-conceptual content and the nature of human sensibility, and neither relies on concepts and the nature of human understanding, nor does it entail that the phenomenal world necessarily conforms to our concepts and the nature of human understanding.

5. Transcendental Idealism for the Understanding and the Gap in the B Deduction Indeed, after his major philosophical breakthrough between 1769 and 1772, it took Kant another fifteen to seventeen years to work out what he regarded as a fully cogent argument for what I call transcendental idealism for the understanding. More precisely, transcendental idealism for the understanding says that the apparent or phenomenal world necessarily conforms to the essentially conceptual a priori forms of human understanding, namely the pure concepts of the understanding, or Categories. Kant’s argument for this thesis is of course contained in the A (1781) edition and B (1787) edition versions of the Transcendental Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. But given what Kant says in the B Preface to the first Critique, we must take the B Deduction to be the definitive version of the argument. In turn, the explicit conclusion of the B Deduction is that the pure concepts of the understanding or Categories are necessarily applicable to “all objects of the senses in general,” that is, to all actual and possible appearances (CPR B150-161). It is also to be particularly noted that if the B Deduction is sound and transcendental idealism for the understanding is true, then at the very least, weak Kantian Conceptualism is true. But contrapositively, if Kantian NonConceptualism is true, then all forms of Kantian Conceptualism are false, transcendental idealism for the understanding is false, and the B Deduction is unsound.

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Moreover, there are strong Kantian Non-Conceptualist reasons for thinking that the Transcendental Deduction, in either version, but particularly the B Deduction, is unsound. Elsewhere, I have called the Kantian Non-Conceptualist argument for the unsoundness of the B Deduction “The Gap in the B Deduction.”11 The Gap argument, in a nutshell, goes like this. (1) If the B Deduction is sound, then the pure concepts of the understanding or Categories are necessarily applicable to all appearances. (2) But if Kantian Non-Conceptualism is true, then there are actually, and therefore also really possibly, at least some appearances, veridically cognised by empirical and pure intuition, that necessarily fall outside the Categories, which I call “essentially rogue objects.” The most obvious example of this would be a conscious but non-rational animal’s veridical intuition of the difference between the right and left sides of its body.12More precisely, incongruent counterparts, as cognised by animal perceivers without conceptual capacities, are essentially rogue objects. (3) Therefore, the B Deduction is unsound. Correspondingly, it also follows that transcendental idealism for the understanding is false: not all appearances necessarily conform to the Categories and concepts more generally; indeed, at least some appearances cannot conform to the Categories or to any concepts whatsoever.

6. Conclusion If what I have argued so far is sound, then (i) transcendental idealism for sensibility and transcendental idealism for the understanding are logically independent, (ii) transcendental idealism for sensibility—based in particular on Kant’s arguments in “Directions in Space” and more generally on his philosophical breakthrough between 1768 and 1772—is arguably true, and (iii) transcendental idealism for the understanding is arguably false. Correspondingly, then, the most important implication of the central argument in “Directions in Space” is that Kant’s Non-Conceptualism is foundational for any philosophically defensible version of his

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transcendental idealism, namely, transcendental idealism for sensibility. Hence it is impossible to put forward a philosophically defensible but also recognizably Critical-period Kantian metaphysics or theory of cognition without also being a Kantian Non-Conceptualist. This in turn implies, as I mentioned above, the philosophically important claims that Kant’s non-intellectualism about the human mind goes all the way down into his metaphysics; that it is defensibly arguable that the apparent world fundamentally conforms to human sensibility even if it does not fundamentally conform to the human understanding; and that the basic source of all this is Kant’s (initially pre-Critical but later also Critical) theory of space and how we represent it.

Notes 1 For convenience, throughout this essay I cite Kant’s works in parentheses. The citations include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works: Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preußischen (now Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1902). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only. Because the Akademie edition contains only the B edition of the first Critique, I have also consulted the following German composite edition: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ed. W. Weischedel, Immanuel Kant Werkausgabe III (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968). For references to Kant’s Reflexionen, i.e., entries in Kants handschriftlicher Nachlaß—which I abbreviate as ‘R’—I give the entry number in addition to the Akademie volume and page numbers. The translations from the Reflexionen are my own. I generally follow the standard English translations of Kant’s works, but have occasionally modified them where appropriate. Here is a list of the relevant abbreviations and English translations:

CPR DDS

ID

OOT

Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. “Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space”, trans. D. Walford and R. Meerbote, in Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy: 1755-1770. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992, pp. 365-372. “On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (Inaugural Dissertation)”, in Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy: 1755-1770, pp. 373-416. “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?”, trans. A. Wood, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 7-18.

16 C Pro 2

Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form Immanuel Kant: Correspondence, trans. A. Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. G. Hatfield. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004.

Hanna, Cognition, Content, and the A Priori, esp. chs. 3 and 6-8. See, e.g., Sellars, “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,”; Sellars, Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes; and McDowell, Mind and World. 4 See, e.g., Evans, Varieties of Reference. In the contemporary debate about Conceptualism vs. Non-Conceptualism, it is now standard to draw a distinction between state (or possession-theoretic) Non-Conceptualism and content NonConceptualism. State Non-Conceptualism says that there are mental states for which the subject of those states fails to possess concepts for the specification of those states. Content Non-Conceptualism, by contrast, says that some mental states have content that is of a different kind from that of conceptual content. In turn, essentialist content Non-Conceptualism says that the content of such states is of a categorically or essentially different kind from that of conceptual content. For a general survey of Non-Conceptualism, see Bermúdez and Cahen, “Nonconceptual Mental Content.” For the distinction between state and content NonConceptualism, see Heck, “Nonconceptual Content and the ‘Space of Reasons.” And for the distinction between non-essentialist and essentialist content NonConceptualism, see Hanna, “Kantian Non-Conceptualism”; Hanna, “Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual Content”; and Hanna, Cognition, Content, and the A Priori, ch. 2. 5 See, e.g., J. McDowell, Mind and World; and R. Hanna, “Kant and Nonconceptual Content.” 6 See, e.g., Wenzel, “Spielen nach Kant die Kategorien schon bei der Wahrnehmung eine Rolle?”; Ginsborg, “Empirical Concepts and the Content of Experience”; Ginsborg, “Was Kant a Nonconceptualist?”; McDowell, “Avoiding the Myth of the Given”; Grüne, Blinde Anschauung: Die Rolle von Begriffen in Kants Theorie sinnlicher Synthesis; Bowman, “A Conceptualist Reply to Hanna’s Kantian Non-Conceptualism”; Land, “Kantian Conceptualism”; Bauer, “A Peculiar Intuition: Kant’s Conceptualist Account of Perception”; Griffith, “Perception and the Categories: A Conceptualist Reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason”; Williams, “How Conceptually-Guided are Kantian Intuitions?”; McDowell, “The Myth of the Mind as Detached”; Pippin, “What is ‘Conceptual Activity’?”; and Golob, “Kant on Intentionality, Magnitude, and the Unity of Perception.” 7 See, e.g, Hanna, “Kantian Non-Conceptualism”; Hanna and Chadha, “NonConceptualism and the Problem of Perceptual Self-Knowledge”; Hanna, “Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual Content”; Laiho, Perception in Kant’s Model of Experience; and Tolley, “The Non-Conceptuality of the Content of Intuitions: A New Approach.” Weaker versions of Kantian NonConceptualism are defended by, e.g., Allais, “Non-Conceptual Content and the Representation of Space”; McLear, “Two Kinds of Unity in the Critique of Pure 3

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Reason”; Onof and Schulting, “Space as Form of Intuition and as Formal Intuition: On the Note to B160 in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason”; and Rohs, “Bezieht sich nach Kant die Anschauung mittelbar auf Gegenstände?” 8 See, e.g., McLear, “The Kantian (Non-)Conceptualism Debate.” 9 See, e.g., McLear, “Kant on Animal Consciousness.” 10 For more fully spelled out versions of this argument, see Hanna, “Kantian NonConceptualism”; and Hanna, “Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of Non-Conceptual Content.” 11 See Hanna, “Kant’s Non-Conceptualism, Rogue Objects, and the Gap in the B Deduction.” 12 There are also several more exciting but also less obvious examples, all of which have to do with the real possibility of human freedom. See Hanna, “Kant’s NonConceptualism, Rogue Objects, and the Gap in the B Deduction”; and Hanna, “Blind Intuitions, Essentially Rogue Objects, and Categorial Anarchy.”

Bibliography Allais, L., “Non-Conceptual Content and the Representation of Space,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47 (2009): 383-413. Bauer, N., “A Peculiar Intuition: Kant’s Conceptualist Account of Perception,” Inquiry, 55 (2012): 215-237. Bermúdez, J. and Cahen, A., “Nonconceptual Mental Content,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Bowman, B., “A Conceptualist Reply to Hanna’s Kantian NonConceptualism,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 19 (2011): 417-446. Evans, G., Varieties of Reference, Oxford: Clarendon/Oxford Univ. Press, 1982. Ginsborg, H., “Empirical Concepts and the Content of Experience,” European Journal of Philosophy, 14 (2006): 349-372. —. “Was Kant a Nonconceptualist?”, Philosophical Studies, 137 (2008): 65-77. Golob, S., “Kant on Intentionality, Magnitude, and the Unity of Perception,” European Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming. Griffith, A., “Perception and the Categories: A Conceptualist Reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,” European Journal of Philosophy, 20 (2012): 193-222. Grüne, S., Blinde Anschauung: Die Rolle von Begriffen in Kants Theorie sinnlicher Synthesis, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2009.

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Hanna, R., “Beyond the Myth of the Myth: A Kantian Theory of NonConceptual Content,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 19 (2011): 323-398. —. “Blind Intuitions, Essentially Rogue Objects, and Categorial Anarchy,” (Unpublished MS., summer 2014 version). Hanna, R., Cognition, Content, and the A Priori, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming. —. “Kant and Nonconceptual Content,” European Journal of Philosophy 13 (2005): 247-290. —. “Kantian Non-Conceptualism,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 137 (2008): 41-64. —. “Kant’s Non-Conceptualism, Rogue Objects, and the Gap in the B Deduction,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 19 (2011): 399-415. Hanna, R., and Chadha, M., “Non-Conceptualism and the Problem of Perceptual Self-Knowledge,” European Journal of Philosophy, 19 (2011): 184-223. Heck, R., “Nonconceptual Content and the ‘Space of Reasons’,” Philosophical Review 109 (2000): 483-523. Laiho, H., Perception in Kant’s Model of Experience, PhD dissertation, Turku: University of Turku, 2012. Land, T., “Kantian Conceptualism,” in G. Abel et al. (eds.), Rethinking Epistemology, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011, pp. 197-239. McDowell, J., Mind and World, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994. —. “Avoiding the Myth of the Given,” in J. McDowell, Having the World in View, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009, pp. 256272. —. “The Myth of the Mind as Detached,” in J. Schear (ed.), Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, London: Routledge, 2013, pp. 41-58. McLear, C., “Kant on Animal Consciousness,” Philosophers’ Imprint, 11 (2011): 1-16. —. “The Kantian (Non-) Conceptualism Debate,” Philosophy Compass 9 (2014): forthcoming. —. “Two Kinds of Unity in the Critique of Pure Reason,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, forthcoming. Onof, C. and Schulting, D., “Space as Form of Intuition and as Formal Intuition: On the Note to B160 in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,” Philosophical Review, forthcoming.

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Pippin, R., “What is ‘Conceptual Activity’?,” in J. Schear (ed.), Mind, Reason, and Being-in-the-World: The McDowell-Dreyfus Debate, London: Routledge, 2013, pp. 91-109. Rohs, P., “Bezieht sich nach Kant die Anschauung unmittelbar auf Gegenstände?,” Akten des IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, vol. II, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001. Sellars, W., “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,” in W. Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality, New York: Humanities Press, 1963, pp. 127-196. —. Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968. Tolley, C., “The Non-Conceptuality of the Content of Intuitions: A New Approach,” Kantian Review, 18 (2013): 107-136. Wenzel, C., “Spielen nach Kant die Kategorien schon bei der Wahrnehmung eine Rolle?”, Kant-Studien, 96 (2005): 407-426. Williams, J., “How Conceptually-Guided are Kantian Intuitions?”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 29 (2012): 57-78.

THE LOGICAL, THE REAL AND THE EXISTENCE OF GOD IN THE ONLY POSSIBLE ARGUMENT (1763) JACINTO RIVERA DE ROSALES UNED, SPAIN

1. Introduction An important distinction that Kant makes in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason is the contrast between formal or general logic and transcendental logic: General logic abstracts […] from all content of cognition, i.e. from any relation of it to the object, and considers only the logical form in the relation of cognitions to one another, i.e., the form of thinking in general. (CPR A55/B79)

The principle of this general logic is the law of non-contradiction. It is also “the supreme principle of all analytic judgements […] that they do not contradict themselves” (CPR A150/B189). This principle is the other side of the principle of identity. For the pre-critical Kant, the first was the principle of negative judgements, and the second was the principle of positive judgements: Because the form of each affirmation consists of representing something as the feature of a thing, i.e., as the same with the characteristics of a thing, each affirmative judgment is true if the predicate is identical with the subject. And since the form of each negative statement consists of representing something as opposing a thing, then a negative sentence is true, if the predicate contradicts the subject. (IC Ak 2:294)1

But transcendental logic is not abstracted from all content of cognition, it considers on the contrary the relations of the concepts with sensibility, the connection of the form of thought with the real object, in order to discover

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the a priori and universal forms of knowledge, thanks to which these objects are known and interpreted. We have to remember the Kantian distinction between thinking and cognising (Denken und Erkennen); the logic of mere thinking is formal and without explicit relation to the real, but for the foundation of objective cognition we must to resort to transcendental logic: In order to cognize an object, it is required that I am able to prove its possibility (either from its reality as attested by experience, or a priori, by means of reason). But I can think what I please, provided I do not only contradict myself; that is, provided my concept is a possible thought, although I may be unable to ensure the existence of a corresponding object to it in the sum of possibilities. However, something more is required before I can attribute objective validity to such a concept (real possibility, then the other possibility was merely logical). (CPR, B XXVI note)

Kant makes his first important steps towards this fundamental distinction in 1763 and 1764, moving away from his rationalist orientation, when he published three writings in which he established an increasingly clear differentiation between (analytic) logic and real, which would fall outside the logic, since transcendental logic had not yet been discovered by him. On the one hand, we find the relative position of “is”, the analysis of the predicates of a subject-concept in a statement, the divine intellect, the logical or formal possibility, the logical opposition and logical ground, the form of knowledge, all this ruled by formal principles of thought, the principle of identity and non-contradiction. And on the other hand, in complementary and necessary opposition, we find the absolute positing of “is” or existence, the divine will, real or material possibility, real opposition and the real foundation of causality, the material of cognition, where all of this is based on real or material data. In 1763 Kant published The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes), in which he affirmed that existence is not an analytic concept and it cannot be obtained from the formal analysis of a concept. Furthermore, besides the formal possibility, ruled by the principles of identity and non-contradiction, we must take into account real or material possibility. This material possibility is the first appearance of the transcendental method of thinking.

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The second publication was also in 1763 and entitled Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy (Versuch den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen). Here it is stated that formal logical opposition is neither identical to real opposition nor does it have the same result. And the third publication was Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (the Prize Essay) (Untersuchungen über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral) in 1764. Against Rationalism, Kant distinguishes mathematical method from philosophical method. The mathematician can build concepts for himself, but the philosopher has to go beyond concepts to data that are given to him, and cannot create a world from logically perfect definitions. To a philosopher of nature, those data will come from external experience, to metaphysics “through a safe internal experience, i.e., in an immediate and momentary consciousness” (IC Ak 2:286). Here Kant still does not discriminate transcendental apperception from the inner sense. I will limit myself here to the first publication, The Only Possible Argument.

2. Existence In The Only Possible Argument Kant analyses the concept of existence, in order to determine whether it could establish an absolutely necessary existence, namely the existence of God. Kant formulates here a concept of existence that basically remains fixed up to and into his Critical period, and is included in the Critique of Pure Reason, specifically in “The Postulates of Empirical Thought in General,”2 and is used to refute the ontological argument for the existence of God.3 The ontological argument intends to infer from the concept of God his existence by means of the analysis of the concept of God, i.e. to find his existence included in that concept itself, which would lead us to affirm his existence as necessary. Otherwise we would fall into contradiction, as if we had asserted a concept and refuted it at the same time, or else the concept of God would be contradictory in itself, and we would not know what it really means. Against this argument, Kant states that a concept and the predicate of real existence belong to two different orders. The concept of something, with its analytic predicates, or what might be called its logical essence, belongs

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to the realm of the possible, and of the thinkable. Existence, however, is in the order of the real, of that which stands outside the thought. Existence implies positing or affirming the thing in itself, and cannot be thought as an extension of and complement to possibility, as Wolff and Baumgarten claim4. Possibility and existence are complete in themselves and point to two different ways of being, hence, in order to be applied, they also require two correspondingly different conditions to be established. For this reason, in the Critique of Pure Reason possibility and existence are two distinct modal categories. In order to prove this thesis, Kant works out two arguments in The Only Possible Argument, without explicitly distinguishing between them. The first argument appeals to the different roles that the intellect and the will of God play in the creation of the world, in the Christian tradition and also in the philosophy of Leibniz. God’s omniscient understanding fully grasps the essence, the attributes, the predicates and the determinations of all possible worlds. Nothing escapes God’s understanding, hence everything is perfectly determined. All it then requires is that these worlds exist, which implies an act of divine will: the Fiat! The intellect of God exhausts the order of the essences, and of the possible, so it can determine, Leibniz asserts, the best of all possible worlds. Only the best world comes into existence, and becomes real, because God could not have wanted any other world but the best of all possible worlds. They are therefore two specifically different acts of God: the act of his intellect in surveying all possible worlds, and the act of his will in the creation of the actual world, the best possible world. If I represent God pronouncing over a possible world his almighty "Be!", he gives no new determination to the whole which is represented in his understanding, he adds no new predicate to it, but he posits the series of things (in which everything was posited only in relation to this whole) absolutely and unconditionally with all its predicates. (OPA Ak 2:74)5

In the same way Leibniz distinguishes, in opposition to Spinoza, the field of the possible, ruled by the logical principles of identity and noncontradiction, from the field of existence, ruled by the principle of sufficient reason: God, in view of all the possible worlds, creates the best of them, because only this could provide a sufficient reason for its creation. This argument has the plausibility of ordinary human experience in intentional action: in our conscious acts, we first think of the various possibilities we can and want to realise, and then we decide to perform one of them, the one that seems best. But it also has the critical drawback of

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appealing to something unknown and unknowable, completely outside of all possible human experience: God, his understanding, and his will. So Kant does not use this argument in his Critical period. The second argument is based on an analysis of the judgement. In a judgement we have the subject and the predicate, for example “diamond is hard”. In it, the subject (“diamond”) is asserted, posited (gesetzt), relatively or in relation (beziehungsweise) to a predicate (“hard”), through a copula (“is”), which connects two concepts and affirms one in relation with the other. But when we eliminate all predicates and say “the diamond is” i.e. “the diamond exists” we assert that something is no longer in relation to something else, and instead we posit something (diamond) absolutely, with its all possible predicates, in the sphere of reality. We see here therefore two different meanings of “being,” one relative, covering the order of predicates, via what we think through concepts, and another absolute, which indicates the existence of something, i.e. that something we have thought of with all its possible predicates, is in the realm of the real. Therefore, existence does not belong to the sphere of concepts, predicates, or essence; existence is not a concept, and cannot be found in or through a concept. Kant summarises this with this well-known sentence: “Existence is the absolute positing of a thing and that is why it differs from any predicate, which is as such always posited only relative to something else” (OPA Ak 2:73).6 This second argument is especially valuable and successful, because, firstly, it does not appeal to something unknown and unknowable, beyond any possible experience, as happens in the first argument. Secondly, it does not refer to sensory experience, which would give us only the contingent, empirical fact and not its necessity. But, thirdly, it is based on logic itself, with its a priori value, showing from its structure the different ways to represent or say “is.” We have to remember that the table of categories, of different ways of representing or saying objectivity, the being of objects, is obtained in the first Critique from the table of judgements, that is, from formal logic as ratio cognoscendi. The existence of an object of knowledge does not belong to the logical field, it is something non-logical, and is not obtained by analysing the concept. Reality does not contain more essence than does possibility, but instead is a different way of something being posited: possibility is posited only in thought, whereas existence is posited outside the thought: “the cognition of the existence of the object consists precisely in positing this

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existence in itself outside the thought” (CPR A639/B607). This is because the thought is an ideality and cannot contain reality. In this sense, existence includes possibility, but not the converse. Possibility lies in thinking, but on what is the affirmation of the existence of an object based? In the Critique of Pure Reason, the answer is clear: it is based on sensible intuition, hence on that which is given to the faculty of sensibility, or on what is connected with this through the Analogies of Experience. Therefore, God’s existence is theoretically indemonstrable. In The Only Possible Argument Kant refers also to existence as what is provided by sensible experience: For example, existence belongs to the narwhal [sea-unicorn], but not to the land-unicorn. This simply means: the representation of the narwhal is a concept of experience, that is, it is the representation of an existent thing. Therefore, one does not examine the concept of the subject in order to demonstrate the validity of the proposition about the existence of such a thing, because there is only predicates of possibility, but the origin (Ursprunge) of knowledge that I have of it. One says: “I’ve seen” or “I have heard about it from those who have seen it”. (OPA Ak 2:72-73)7

With this, Kant apparently rejects Leibnizian-Wolffian innatism, and he also notes for the first time one of the criteria that constitutes the difference between sensibility and understanding in the first Critique: the different origin (Ursprung) of each; the other criterion is the content (Inhalt): Therefore the Leibnitz-Wolffian philosophy has given an entirely erroneous point of view to all investigations about the nature and origin of our cognitions, inasmuch as it regards the distinction between the sensibility and the intellectual as merely logical, whereas it is obvious transcendental, and concerns not merely the form of clearness or obscurity, but the content (Inhalt) and origin (Ursprung) of both. (CPR A44/B61-62)

The origin and the content of sensibility and understanding are entirely different, and they are therefore two distinct sources of knowledge, each one irreducible, but both are necessary and complementary in order to produce an objective cognition (CPR A50/B74). But then, what about the existence of God? The question is of paramount importance, since the existence of God is the keystone in Rationalism for going from possibility to existence, from thought to external reality, as happens in Descartes.8 If that is not achieved, Rationalism is in serious

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danger of being trapped in pure thought without any reality, in pure phantasmagoria without external objectivity, without truth as adaequatio. In carrying out this enterprise, Kant deals with the analysis of another central concept for Wolff, that of “possibility.”

3. Possibility Parallel to the two meanings of “being”, as copula (relative positing) and as existence (absolute positing), there are also two approaches to inner possibility, one formal and logical, and the other material or real. The first is ruled by the principle of non-contradiction, which is the first logical ground: the contradictory is impossible because it is unthinkable. That which goes against the first law of thought is itself impossible, and unreal. Only that which remains self-identical can be real. Spinoza had said this in a positive way: the thinkable is possible and is or will be or has been real, that is, anything is possible or has existed or exists or will exist as a necessary expression of the substance, for nothing limits it and that is why all the potency of substance will be expressed in reality; the dynamics of reality or substance consequently creates all possible things. He therefore identifies the possible with reality. By contrast, Leibniz moved away from the metaphysical necessity of Spinoza, because he distinguishes God from the world, since, for Leibniz, God is not an immanent cause of the world, which is the opposite of what is stated by Spinoza. For Leibniz, God does not create all logically possible things, but only those things that belong to the best possible world, because only its existence can be willed by an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God. Reality and real possibility are determined not only by the principle of non-contradiction, but also by the principle of sufficient reason. Kant, for his part, distinguishes in The Only Possible Argument between logical possibility and reality as well, thanks to the double meaning of “being,” as we have seen. Formal logical self-consistency is only a negative criterion of reality, and therefore the fact that the concept of something is not contradictory is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for declaring it real. But now Kant goes a step further, also towards transcendental philosophy, and distinguishes two meanings of “possibility,” not with a metaphysical appeal to God and to the principle of sufficient reason as Leibniz, but instead through the structure of cognition, as in the transcendental method of thinking. What the Rationalists had

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neglected was the material or real side of the possibility of thinking. This idea remained in his Critical period and was explained by Kant, for instance in Progress in Metaphysics (Fortschritte der Methaphysik), in this way: The possibility of a thought or concept rests on the principle of noncontradiction, e.g., that of a thinking immaterial being (a spirit). The thing of which even the mere thought is impossible (i.e. the concept contradicts itself) is itself impossible. But the thing of which the concept is possible is not on that account a possible thing. The first possibility may be called logical, the second, real possibility; the proof of the latter is the proof of the objective reality of the concept, which we are entitled to demand at any time. But it can never be furnished otherwise than by presentation of the object corresponding to the concept; for otherwise it always remains a mere thought, of which, until it is displayed in an example, it always remains uncertain whether any object corresponds to it, or whether it be empty, i.e., whether it may serve in any way for knowledge. (Ak 20: 325-326)

This not merely formal, but instead objectively real possibility, for cognition, is described in “The Postulates of Empirical Thought” of the CPR with the formula: “whatever agrees with the formal conditions of experience (in accordance with intuition and concepts) is possible” (A218, B265). Concepts are therefore not enough for this transcendental possibility: it also requires sensibility. That is elaborated for the first time in The Only Possible Argument. We have seen before how the transcendental criterion of the origin (Ursprung) of cognition, or the origin of the elements of objective cognition, appears in The Only Possible Argument. Now, let us see how the transcendental criterion of the content (Inhalt) emerges as well. In every thought there is form and content, and this content is the data, or the material, i.e. that what is thought. The form has a principle, as we have seen, the principle of non-contradiction, that indicates what is possible or not and determines logical possibility. The contradictory is impossible. But if all material of thought, all content, is removed, thinking also disappears, because thinking is always thinking about something. As a consequence, when we take out real content, it erases any thought as well, and by eliminating the thought the thinkable is removed and therefore also the possible and thus the real too, because anything real must always be possible, since the impossible cannot be real.

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In other words, denying any existence outside the thought does not go directly counter to the principle of non-contradiction, i.e. against formal possibility, because existence, as we saw, is not a predicate included in the attributes or marks of a concept, and so nothingness is not logically or analytically contradictory: there could have been nothing rather than something. But by removing all data, everything material, the thought remains without object, without real support, without application and therefore it disappears because it is not a substance that could be without a world. And with the thought, the really thinkable also disappears and, says Kant, also the possible. Therefore, if it is stated that there is nothing, then no one can hold that something is possible: Accordingly, to say “nothing exists” means the same as to say “there is nothing whatever,” and it is obviously self-contradictory to add, in spite of this, “something is possible”. (OPA Ak 2:78)

The possible is also supported by given reality, and therefore that something exists is needed and is given, not because the contrary would work against the formal principle of non-contradiction, but also because that (and not only the principle of non-contradiction) eliminates the possible, and what removes the possible is impossible. But here it is not a question of an ontological thesis, in the sense that it is understood that from nothingness comes nothing. This is rather an epistemological or, if you will, even a transcendental thesis (the transcendental level appears here for the first time): without data (sensible data) there is neither thought, nor anything thinkable or possible. Even to affirm that nothing exists is materially (not formally) or transcendentally contradictory, because if nothing existed, it would be neither thought nor the assertion that nothing exists. According to the Critique of Pure Reason it would not be contradictory to say that instead of being there is nothingness, however it is transcendentally contradictory to say: “The world does not exist,” because in this case that proposition could not also be thought or said, because it is a condition of consciousness that the world is given (to sensibility). Therefore, possibility is not based only on the principle of noncontradiction, which is its formal logical ground. It would not even be enough to add the principle of sufficient reason. The possibility is based also on the extra-logical fact that something is given, and that would be its real or material ground. Reality precedes possibility as its material basis.

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And that material datum, like existence, cannot be produced by thought or found in formal logic alone, but must be given by experience: As long as you prove possibilities by the law of non-contradiction, you are depending upon that which is thinkable in the things and given to you in them, and you are only regarding the relation in accordance with this logical rule. But at the end, when you consider how it is given to you, the only thing to which you can appeal is an existence. (OPA Ak 2:81)

The thought shows itself in need of something real, because it does not discover in itself its own real basis, since it cannot account for all its content, and is led therefore to what exists outside of itself. Thought has a way of being that needs realities: it does not exist without something real being applied to it. It is lord and master in the field of relative positing, of the “is” as copula, and of the analysis of concepts. But this relative positing, which constitutes the formal possibility of that which we are thinking about, is finally referred unavoidably to absolute positing or existence as its real foundation. It is like a mechanism that is triggered if something is given to it. Thinking and its logical mechanism do not become operational if something real is not given to it. Logical form and real content are joined in thought. Existence no longer belongs to the logical order, for it is not discovered in the analysis of the formal possibility, but instead refers to something given. Thought cannot invent and discover the existence analytically, but—and that is what we have gained with the concept of material or real possibility—it refers to existence by virtue of its own nature as the material ground of its real possibility. Therefore, it is as unthinkable and impossible to eliminate the principle of non-contradiction as to delete (with the thought) all existence: the first is logical and formal impossibility, the second real or material impossibility. The negation of all content for the thought, that is, the negation of all reality, is as contradictory as the judgement which violates logical form by means of a contradiction. In consequence, the existence or reality of something given to thought, which is the real foundation of the thinkable and possible, is as necessary as the principle of contradiction. Contrary to what Descartes holds, there is no possibility of doubt about it, as was later shown in the “Refutation of Idealism” text inserted in the second edition of the first Critique (B274-279). If I now consider for a moment why that which contradicts itself should be absolutely nothing and impossible, I notice that through the cancellation of the law of contradiction, the ultimate logical ground of all that can be

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The Logical, the Real and the Existence of God thought, all possibility vanishes, and there is nothing left to think. The conclusion immediately follows that, when I cancel all existence whatever and the ultimate real ground of all that can be thought therewith disappears, all possibility likewise vanishes, and nothing any longer remains to be thought. (OPA Ak 2:82)

This idea had already been defended by Christian August Crusius (17151775), an opponent of Wolff’s rationalism. In his book Sketch of the Necessary Truths of Reason (Entwurf der nothwendigen VernunftWahrheiten, Leipzig, 1745) he argued that the formal criterion of truth provided us with mere relations and lost all the material content of being, for you cannot account for existence in terms of mere relations, but on the contrary it is based on an absolutely simple positing that is not referred to anything before. Consequently, you cannot, as does Wolff, start from possible concepts and from there determine the real, but rather you have to take the opposite approach, because the object’s possible existence does not follow from the non-contradiction of a concept: It deserves to be noted that, although the concept of possible contains less than in the concept of the real (Begriff des wirklichen), nevertheless the concept of the real, both according to nature and to our cognition, is earlier (eher) than the concept of the possible. First, I say it is earlier according to nature, because if nothing real would be, it would be also nothing possible, because all possibility of a not-yet-existing thing is a causal link between an existing and a not-yet-existing thing. Furthermore, also for our cognition is the concept of the real earlier than the concept of the possible, because our first concepts are existing things, namely sensations, thanks to which only we have to reach the concept of the possible. Yes, if you want to meditate now really with sharpness a priori, then is the concept of existence earlier than the concept of the possible9.

We see here the influence of Empiricism on Crusius: cognition starts with sensible inputs. In turn this Empiricist influence on Crusius also influenced Kant. Crusius distinguishes between ideal and real possibility as Kant does, but this real possibility is not thought of by Crusius in the same way: If you consider now a possible thing only insofar as it can be thought, that is, insofar as all what one puts in a concept can be connected together without contradiction, that I, ideal possibility or mere possibility inside the thought. But if one pays attention to the fact that you can take as known that also for the thought a thing exists really as a sufficient cause, which

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may come only at the moment of the action, that is called real possibility or possibility outside the thought10.

Real possibility is thought by Crusius through causality. It is the cause, actually the sufficient cause, which makes possible a thing as its effect. In this conception, Crusius follows Leibniz, who puts the principle of sufficient reason as the principle of the existences of finite things. And this principle of sufficient reason has three moments or applications: the cause is the sufficient reason for finite beings, the ground for statements, and the motivation for actions. Crusius therefore uses the concept of a real possibility as a physical or metaphysical principle, while Kant arrives at the concept of a real possibility by analysing the structure of cognition, which is nearer to the transcendental way, although he returns to the metaphysical sphere when he wants, starting from this, to demonstrate the existence of God.

4. The Existence of God So far, Kant’s argument is rather convincing and he recapitulates these ideas in the first Critique. More controversial is the next step, which clearly shows that Kant has not yet actually grasped the transcendental way of posing the question about reality. He now goes from cognitive (or transcendental) necessity to metaphysical necessity; but the first is after all conditional, and the second absolute. Kant attempts an effective demonstration of the existence of God by means of the following argument: because it is materially necessary for thinking and cognising the existence of something, Kant concludes that something has a necessary existence, and this something is called God, who is the indispensable basis of all other contingent existence. Kant thus guarantees metaphysically that something is given us materially to cognise. This argument is controversial because it goes from a generic something to a specific something, from the existence of something in general to the existence of something in particular, and from a necessity in thinking to another in being, without a careful distinction between these levels. Otherwise put, the argument moves from one kind of necessity to another, without any discrimination between them. He starts from an epistemological or transcendental necessity, which is ultimately conditional: if there is cognition and thought, then there must necessarily be something that exists. But it would not be logically contradictory that instead of something existing, nothing existed, since the existence is not placed in the order of concepts. Again, he starts from the conditional

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necessity of thinking and now he wants to conclude with the metaphysical and absolute necessity of a being, an in itself necessary existence as reality in itself. Kant’s proof concludes to the necessity of the existence of something in general, only because of the structure of thinking / cognition, and that requirement is what, in the Critique of Pure Reason, is captured by categories. The category of reality (Realität) says that something must be given in sensibility. The categories of substance and accident say that there must be permanence and change in the object. The category of actuality (Wirklichkeit) says that anything that exists must be given in sensibility and also in connection with other objects according to the laws of nature (under the Analogies of Experience). What is specifically problematic is to infer from that requirement of cognition, an external necessity for the existence as such, to the claim that therefore an intrinsically and internal necessary existence must be affirmed, an existence that furthermore is never given in sensibility, and of which therefore we have merely the concept, but which does not entail its reality. Kant certainly does not proceed here analytically from formal thinking to the existence of God, as the ontological argument does. He has opposed formal thinking and assertions of existence through his analysis of judgement. From the epistemological (or transcendental) need that something should be given to the cognition he goes to the metaphysical necessity of a necessary existence that would support this material need. But how we can infer from this concept of a necessary existence to the reality of this existence if it is not given to us? This inference can proceed only through the concept, like the ontological proof does. In the end, all proofs about the existence of God collapse into the ontological proof, as Kant points out in the first Critique11. From this, we see that in The Only Possible Argument Kant has not yet grasped the transcendental limits of objective knowledge. The analysis of the real still eludes him, and because he continues to identify the logical with the analytical, experience has not yet been analysed by him in terms of its form or synthetic a priori rules. In fact, Kant had already sketched a version of this proof for the existence of God, although not as well elaborated, eight years earlier, in the Nova dilucidatio (1755), specifically in its Proposition VII: if God is eliminated, not only all realities disappear but, by the same token, all possibilities disappear. Therefore, his existence is necessary, and even “precedes his own possibility and the possibility of all other things” (NE Ak 1:395). There Kant, following Crusius, had made his first distinction between the logical and the real dimensions, in that he distinguishes, on the one hand

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the ratio cognoscendi or logical ground, which tells us what one thing is, i.e. its consequent determining reason and veritatis ratio, and on the other hand the ratio essendi, which serves to pinpoint the cause or real foundation of something, which gives us the reason why one thing exists, i.e., its antecedent determining reason and ratio existentiae or ratio actualitatis. In The Only Possible Argument Kant reworks this proof of the existence of God, using this time the newly developed concepts of existence and material possibility. We have seen how he comes to the cognitive need to assert the real existence of something. From there Kant attempts to arrive at a necessary existence: All possibility presupposes something actual from, in and through which all thinkable is given. Accordingly, there is a certain reality, the cancellation of which would itself cancel all internal possibility whatever. But that, the cancellation of which eradicates all possibility, is absolutely necessary. Therefore, something exists absolutely necessary. (OPA Ak 2:83)12

In this paragraph all the strengths and weaknesses of Kant’s argument are presented and summarised. The first weakness lies in the transition from the need for the generic existence of something so that thinking and cognition can occur, to the need for something concrete, namely a necessary being whose existence would be absolutely necessary, which is not the same. Moreover, thought could depend on the ensemble of contingent existences—e.g., on the world as such as a whole. If particular existences are contingent, then the world as a whole (although never perceived as such) would be necessary because, if it is everything, then what can destroy it? This argument is rejected by Scholastic metaphysics in general, and by the Wolffian metaphysics in particular, in which Kant is at this point still immersed, because according to it an ensemble of contingent beings cannot be a necessary being, yet it requires this necessary being as foundation of its existence13. That is in fact the cosmological proof of God. But this need is already metaphysical, and Kant’s reflections about the existence and the material possibility are based on the demands of thought and cognition, demands that are properly transcendental and not metaphysical. And this is the second deficiency of the Kantian conclusion, as already noted: that Kant did not realise the transcendental and non-metaphysical nature of his argument. He does not infer from the pure concept, which would give us an analytical necessity from which existence cannot be obtained, since it is not in the order of

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predicates. But at the end of the day, Kant has nothing but a concept in his hands. He does not infer from an empirical fact that could not give us any necessity, because any fact, as such, is contingent. That is why in the second chapter of The Only Possible Argument Kant rejects any a posteriori proofs for the existence of God; and although he praises the teleological argument for God’s existence as a designer, obtained from the manifest order and harmony of things, that he endorsed in the Theory of Heaven (1755), here he declares the teleological argument to be metaphysically incomplete. Kant’s argument in The Only Possible Argument proceeds from the analysis of objective thought and its structure, as in the critical method of CPR, and notes that, in addition to formal requirements, there are also material requirements, i.e., that something real must be given to thinking. Thus the Kantian proof exceeds the contingency of an empirical fact, and expresses a transcendental demand. But the transcendental requirement is not absolute or unconditional, instead it is ultimately hypothetical: if there is a thought, then an existence as a datum is necessary. However, the hypothesis that there is no thought and nothing is not self-contradictory, simply because existence is not in the order of concepts. But the existence of thought is a fact for us. It is indeed transcendentally contradictory to think or say “there is nothing” or “there is no world,” because that statement denies its conditions of possibility: without a world, i.e., without something given, there would not be any thought or any statement. Nevertheless, it is not contradictory to say that there might not have been anything, because the action of thinking and knowing does not contain an absolute necessity in itself. Instead, it depends on the fact that there is a reality, so that the need from which Kant starts cannot provide a metaphysical and absolute necessity: it does not go that far. We must first prove the metaphysical and absolute necessity of thought. Kant’s thinkable (Denkliches) is not Wolff’s possibile. What it remains open in The Only Possible Argument is the question about the foundation of the given, the foundation of existence, as long as this question is not answered by the nature of thought itself. The content of thought does not come from the nature of thought itself. That is why Kant needs to resort to God as the ultimate real foundation of existence, while the principle of non-contradiction is the ultimate formal basis of thinking and this principle lies in the form of thinking. In the Critique of Pure Reason, God no longer plays that role, but the question remains. The ultimate foundation of the form of what is cognised (i.e., the object) is

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provided by the “I think,” i.e., by the original synthetic unity of apperception, and the material ground of existence is the thing-in-itself, a problematic concept. In The Only Possible Argument Kant has embarked on an impossible task: wanting to prove the existence of God, when existence is the absolute positing of something and cannot be posited through concepts, through logical proof alone, but instead it must be given directly (unmittelbar) in an empirical intuition, even for the existence of God, which, in turn, cannot be the case. The proposition “God is omnipotent” must remain true even for someone who does not acknowledge the existence of God. But his existence must belong directly (unmittelbar) to the manner in which his concept is posited, for his existence will not be found among the predicates themselves. (OPA Ak 2:74)

Herder, in his essay fragment, Inquiry into Being (Versuch über das Seyn), directly influenced by The Only Possible Argument of his teacher Kant, distinguishes between logical or formal possibility (according to the principle of non-contradiction) and real or material possibility as well (Ak 28:955-957). That is why, according to Herder, real being cannot be proved: Being here as a real concept is not identical to logical possibility, it is not a partial concept of the subject and therefore it is also not a predicate. It follows directly that any such existential sentence is indemonstrable, because to prove is precisely to find by analysis the identity of subject and predicate. […] No concept of experience allows one to prove a priori. (Ak 28:958)

Herder declares as indemonstrable any existence in general, therefore, and against Kant, the existence of God in particular. Existence is indemonstrable because it is not a predicate but instead something sensible, experiential, and directly unanalysable. It is not absolutely impossible that there was no material possibility, no existence—for only something contradictory in itself is absolutely impossible. Kant’s argument for the existence of God, though subtler than the Wolffian argument, does not ultimately go beyond Wolffian limits. “The being [is] indemonstrable. No existence of God is demonstrable” (Ak 28:959). Nevertheless, being, or existence (even the existence of God) is not uncertain for Herder, but on the contrary, it is an innate certainty, the most certain, the basis and the centre of all certainty.

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At the end of The Only Possible Argument, even Kant himself is not fully convinced of its metaphysical speculations: “It is absolutely necessary that one has convinced oneself that God exists; but is not so necessary to demonstrate it” (OPA Ak 2:163). For our conviction about the existence of God, Providence has already put a sufficient ground in our natural common understanding, in the use of sound reason (OPA Ak 2:65). No sound reasoner will fall into “the bottomless abyss of metaphysics,” which is “a dark ocean without shores or beacons” (OPA Ak 2:66), or in the words of the first Critique: a wide and stormy ocean, the real region of illusion, where some fogbank, many soon to be melted iceberg, seems to the mariner, on his voyage of discovery, a new country, and, while constantly deluding him with vain hopes, engages him in dangerous adventures, from which he can never desist, and which yet he never can bring to a termination. (A235236/B295)

This is a region of metaphysical speculation that Kant already enters only with fear and mistrust: There is a time when one in such a science as metaphysics is, dares to explain everything and demonstrate everything; and then, again, there are times when one ventures upon such undertakings only with fear and mistrust. (OPA Ak 2:66)

Fear and mistrust, first, for the new problems that he discovers, too difficult still for him (OPA Ak 2:67). And second, fear and mistrust about leaving the safe and maternal place of rationalism, on account of which he pays the high price of not realising the transcendental specificity of the new Critical way of thinking and is still set on making it serve old metaphysical schemes. He, the methodical Kant, will have to struggle and to despair further with these compromises (Dreams of a Spirit Seer, 1766), and receive the aid of his correspondence with Lambert, in order to achieve his “great light” of 1769 (Refl 5037, Ak 17:403). But nothing truly difficult is ever overcome at once, and again in the Dissertatio of 1770 the old metaphysics re-appears, although in a qualified form, in another attempt at reconciliation that would soon devolve into crisis, in the letter to Marcus Herz on 21 February 1772.

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Notes 1

See also FS Ak 2:60. CPR A225/B272-273. 3 CPR A592-602/B 620-630. 4 OPA Ak 2:76. 5 See also Refl. 3737, Ak 17:277. The scholastics distinguished between what God can do and what He has in fact done. For Peter Damian (1007-1072) God can do more things than He has actually decided to create. According to Peter Abelard (1079-1142) God, as maximum good, must want to create only the best, the best possible world (Leibniz). Also, Duns Scotus (1265-1308) distinguished between the absolute power of God considered in Himself (His understanding) and ordinata power, which is what his will decided to create. 6 See the preparations for this argument in the Refl 3706, Ak 17:240-243. In Metaphysik Herder Kant takes the argument and extends it: “In the question about the existence of God existence is not thought as a word in relation to the predicate, since the being is not a new predicate at all, but the absolute positing of all predicates, not a new reality, otherwise, if the existence would be a predicate, the existence [of a thing] would be equal to the existence of the other, for instance the existence of the horse and of the human beings” (Ak 28:128); so the mode of being would be the same. 7 “The most sensible concept”, “the first sensible concept”, “a complete concept of experience” called by Herder “being” as well in his Inquiry into Being, written at that time, in which Herder was a disciple of Kant and clearly influenced by The Only Possible Argument (Ak 27:953-954 and 960). 8 Mendelssohn in his work Treatise about the Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences (Abhandlung über die Evidenz in Methaphysischen Wissenschaften) which received the prize of the Berliner Academia in 1763, whereas Kant obtained only the second prize, followed Descartes on this point (Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften, II, 294-295). 9 Crusius, Christian August, Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten, wiefern sie den zufälligen entgegengesetzt werden, § 57, in Christian August Crusius, Die philosophischen Huptwerke II, 98. 10 O.c. § 56, S. 96. “Impossible it is that, for which a cause is neither present nor will be” (o.c. § 58, S. 99). 11 A607-609/B635-637; A625/B653. “Thus the physico-theological is based upon the cosmological, and this upon the ontological proof of existence of an unique proto-Entity as Supreme Being; and because, apart from these three ways there is no other open to speculative reason, then the ontological proof, which is based on the pure concepts of reason, is the only possible argument, if any proof of a proposition so far transcending the empirical use of the understanding is possible at all” (A630/B658). 12 “God contains the material ground of all possibility” (Refl 3815, Ak 17:302). 13 “The existence of contingent things is not absolutely but necessary only under the condition that God creates and conserves them” (Mendelssohn, o.c., II, 304). 2

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Bibliography Abaci, U., “Kant’s Theses on Existence”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 16.3 (2008): 559-593. Adams, R. M., “God, Possibility and Kant”, Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers, 17.4 (2000): 425-440. Arana Cañedo, J., Ciencia y Metafísica en el Kant precrítico, Sevilla, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, 1982. Crusius, Ch. A., Die philosophischen Hauptwerke II, Hildesheim, Olms, 1964. Forgie, J.W., “Kant and Existence: Critique of Pure Reason A 600/B 628”, Kant-Studien, 99.1 (2008): 1-12. González, A.L., “La noción de posibilidad en el Kant precrítico (I)”, Anuario Filosófico 14.2 (1981): 87-115. Kreimendahl, L., “Einleitung” in his edition of Immanuel Kant, Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes, Meiner, Hamburg, 2011, p. XI-CXLIV, with a large bibliography: p. CXLV-CLVII. Mendelssohn, M., Gesammelte Schriften, II, Stuttgart, Frommann Verlag, 1972. Nachtomy, O., “Leibniz and Kant on Possibility and Existence”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 20.5 (2012): 953-972. Schönfeld, M., The Philosophy of the Young Kant, Oxford, University Press, 2000. Serban, Cl-C., “L’idéal de la raison pure et la fracture du fonctionnement ontothéologique du possible dans la philosophie critique de Kant”, Kant-Studien, 104.2 (2013): 167-187. Soto, H.N., “La existencia como predicado del pensamiento”, Philosophica, 28 (2005): 229-245. Stang, N.F., “Kant’s Possibility Proof”, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 27.3 (2010): 275-299. Theis, R., La raison et son Dieu. Étude sur la théologie kantienne, Paris, Vrin, 2012. —. “Immanuel Kant: Der einzige mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes”, Kant-Studien, 106.1 (2015): 148155. Vilmer, J.B.., “De la possibilité à l’existence, Kant critique de Leibniz”, Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 47.2 (2008): 211-234.

THE DUISBURG NACHLAß AS A KEY TO INTERPRETING SALOMON MAIMON’S READING OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION OF CATEGORIES ALBA JIMÉNEZ UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE MADRID, SPAIN

1. Introduction The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how some of the considerations in Salomon Maimon’s Essay on Transcendental Philosophy may constitute a fruitful horizon of interpretation to unveil some key points in the exposition of Kant’s transcendental deduction of categories developed in the critical period. It also aims to show the importance of Maimon’s philosophical positions in the analysis of Kant’s thought, not only from its own contradictions, but also over its whole spectrum of possibilities. To make this key to interpretation visible, we shall consider the explanations provided in the reflections of the so-called Duisburg Nachlaȕ of 1775, interpreting it as a thread leading to the later exposition of the Transcendental Deduction in CPR¹, by questioning the objective validity of categories. The distinction established by Maimon between the legitimate use of categories (quid iuris) and their effective use (quid facti) discloses the following circle in the heart of Kantian demonstration: the objective reality of categories is proven on the basis of use enabled by experience, but simultaneously, the possibility of experience itself depends on the objective validity of categories.

2. The Relevance of Maimon’s Contribution for the Interpretation of the Kantian Critical Position In spite of the declarations Kant expressed later in correspondence with Reinhold, his favourable reception of the comments by Maimon is often

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mentioned. This is shown in the letter dated 26th May 1789 in which Kant responds to Marcus Herz who sends him the Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. In that letter, Kant describes Maimon’s observations as profound and perspicacious and admits that Maimon has understood the fundamental lines of his thought.² The first flank of Maimon’s critique lies in the concept of the thing in itself—understood as the cause of cognitive content—and the analysis of the heterogeneity between sensibility and understanding: the true theme of transcendental schematism reformulated by Maimon is represented in terms of the relation of the particular to the universal. We say ‘of the particular’, but we should add: if we assume that each phenomenon of nature is comprised of a series of determinations that are not entirely deducible from general concepts, although they must adapt to these. Time cannot be an adequate element for mediation between intuition and the concept, or the a priori and the a posteriori, and the solution Maimon proposes to overcome that lack of concordance is making the empirical moment of immediacy disappear by introducing notions of infinitesimal calculation. The quale, that ultimate residue that remains after suppressing all synthesis of awareness, is an infinitesimal, a limit concept that we may only approach asymptotically. Maimon refers to qualitative magnitudes by reference to a “fundament” that is defined as the reason for the possible differences between those qualia. Thus there is no longer an object that acts as external resistance to the subject’s capacity to represent, but rather, it is actual awareness that, in a logical act, takes that fragmentary reality as a sealed, integrated and meaningful whole. The general proposal by Maimon is especially interesting for several reasons. First, because Kant approved Maimon’s reading, as is proved by the correspondence exchanged with Marcus Herz, who, as mentioned, had sent him Maimon’s Versuch über die Transzendentahilosophie, written before the publication of CPJ. Second, because Maimon’s own conception of objectivity changed the notion of modification, not only based on construction (in a mathematical sense and also in terms of the difference between finite and infinite knowledge), but rather by taking time itself as the basis: what is objective is precisely that which does not change when the subject is modified. And third, by virtue of Maimon’s critique of the concept of the thing in itself, the grounds for division between subject and object is explained in terms of co-determination, that is, it is no longer located in the object itself, but rather in the actual constitutive relation between the subject and object. Maimon’s approach, therefore, amounts to a split from the concept of knowledge based on the notion of cause, a split that explains Kant’s criticism of Maimon’s naive realism and nontranscendental idealism, and also Maimon’s change in direction toward

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constructivism. In other words, the representation cannot refer to the thingin-itself as its cause, Maimon argued, if we bear in mind that the cause itself is a type of relation or logical connection that already presupposes the existence of consciousness of its own determinations and its way of ordering the representations. Maimon’s critique in fact goes much further, because he shrewdly points out that Kant cannot justify the objectivity of succession because that would require the causal category to be applied beforehand. Maimon’s proposal is also of crucial interest in reading Kant, insofar as it defines the subject as a complex of cognitive operations. This idea may provide support for a highly productive interpretation of cognitive powers within the context of Kantian theoretical philosophy, according to which the powers are not the reified instances proper, but rather the bases or seats of certain operations. According to this thesis, for example, imagination could be considered as understanding related to sensitivity; not as a static seat of schemata, as the actual schemata would really be understood as concepts that have become intuitional. Moreover, it is striking that in expounding an approach to the transcendental deduction of categories, Maimon formulates the issue by casting light on the following problem: namely, if the general question regarding the applicability of our categorical forms to the multiplicity of phenomena highlights the fact that the application of pure concepts, in the case of transcendental schematics, is aimed at nothing other than precisely general forms, pure forms a priori and related to an experience in general, then we are faced with the need to decide whether the result of that Anwendung has a constitutive or merely heuristic nature. Moreover, the problem of applicability is addressed in line with the matter of expounding abstract concepts or ideas. That is to say, the transcendental schema, in contrast with an image, is, precisely, not a specific image or exposition of the logical content of an abstract concept—which in itself appears to be impossible— but rather the rule that organises all possible constructions. Lastly, Maimon, (although his conclusions regarding the value of the transcendental deduction and schematism are open to criticism, as shall be seen later on) recovers an interesting sense of the schematising mediation-operation, by appealing to the Baconian root according to which schematism refers to a change in form: the transformation of an empirical form of knowledge into a purely intellectual form of knowledge.

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In addition, the approach taken by Maimonparadoxically, as we shall see, because he rejects the mediation role given by Kant to the transcendental determinations of time—appears to recognise the double sensible— intellectual condition of time. Within the universe of what is given, only knowledge that operates as a necessary condition for other knowledge is considered a priori by Maimon. Time is what is given a priori, but does not have a purely passive and material character in relation to intelligible pure forms of knowledge, but rather, simultaneously, is a condition for the possibility of knowing what is given and also is defined as an intelligible content, in a way that analogous to Kant’s characterisation of the schema in terms of a sensible concept.

3. Maimon’s Critique of Kant and the Problem of the Transcendental Deduction The distinction between empirical realism and transcendental idealism established by Kant in the CPR’s transcendental aesthetic, reveals the enigmatic nature of the critical proposal to preserve a transcendent element within things, as the source of affection for our sensibility. Space and time do not enjoy absolute reality, that is, they cannot be understood as properties of things-in-themselves, but rather they exist only through their relation to the formal conditions of our sensibility. However, in turn, that relational ready yields objective validity. This is precisely the point that Maimon does not accept, because he held that the affirmation of a fullydetermined reality as the basis for the different fragmentary representations of our consciousness is nothing but an illusion produced by the logical expectation according to which any conditioned series must reach its end. But by means of this critical point, Maimon introduced another key notion. The myriad relations presupposed as the object or terminus of the partial representations of consciousness are defined as a differential or limiting concept, which, in virtue of being unreachable, can only be approached asymptotically and gradually; however, because we need this to occur in order to establish, at least, a representation of things, the most we can do is to allow our consciousness construct it in a synthetic act. The concept of construction outlined here, and the considerations about mathematical method throughout Kant’s reflections, constitute a clear starting point for the problem formulated with regard to the transcendental deduction of the categories: the mathematical procedure consists precisely of an articulated series of rules that show us how to construct a specific

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figure, in which these rules actually coincide with the act of construction itself. However, if we wish to prove that the problem of applying categories cannot be solved within a strictly psychological setting, whereby the objective validity of the knowledge and its concepts would depend exclusively on the correctness of such cognitive operations, then it is necessary to admit that the reference to intuition is not exhausted by a series of empirical connections whose rules depend on the external integrity of the objects exhibited. It is in this sense that the appeal to constructive synthetic processes becomes necessary or, as expressed in the Duisburg reflections: “Alles, was als ein Gegenstand der Anschauung gedacht wird, steht unter einer Regel der Konstruktion”. In the reflections contained in the Duisburg Nachlaȕ, the issue that subsequently gave rise to the formulation of the transcendental deduction of the categories in the CPR became highly significant. The purpose of subject of the transcendental deduction is prove the objective validity of categories, thereby explaining the fact that concepts that do not originate from experience may nevertheless be legitimately applied to it. This is what Maimon called “the juridical question”: the question regarding the legitimacy of applying pure concepts of understanding to the purely sensory domain, i.e., the problem of the legitimacy of exporting the conditions of experience to experience itself, or of exporting the transcendental concepts to the experience in general, or of exporting the transcendental concepts to specific experiences. In addressing this problem, Maimon also identified the factual question that examines the de facto connection between the sensible and the intelligible, or between sensibility and spontaneity.³

4. The Analogy with the Demonstration of the Principle of the Anticipations of Perception To analyse this question, we shall now briefly consider the second principle of pure understanding, namely Anticipations of Perception, to attempt to prove the fundamental connection to the problem raised by Maimon regarding his critique of the transcendental deduction of the categories. The second mathematical principle guides the application of mathesis intensorum from the sensible schematisation of the pure concept of reality, compelling the subject’s attention to be focused not on the successive ‘nows’ but on the ‘this’ that emerges as lasting.4 On this

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occasion, as in the case of quantity, we only have one scheme for the triad of categories. Realität, equivalent to the realitas of the Scholastics, designates the quid that makes “this thing” an individual, determinate thing, regardless of its efficacious reality (Wirklichkeit). The positive determination of any thing is corresponded by a negation: being such a thing consists in not being another. But being such a thing also involves a limitation, in the sense that it must not have attributed to it any of the predicates that are assigned to other things. This logical game of exclusive predications is joined by sensible multiplicity, so that time appears to be filled out to a greater or lesser degree of intensity, thus expressing the content of time: Zeitinhalt. The objective validity of the Principle of the Anticipations is made selfevident by means of its formulation in the second edition of CPR: “Its principle is: In all appearances, the real, which is an object of the sensation, has intensive magnitude, i.e., a degree.”5 In the first version, the formulation is as follows: “The principle, which anticipates all perceptions, as such, runs thus: In all appearances the sensation, and the real, which corresponds to it in the object (realitas phaenomenon), has intensive magnitude, i.e., a degree.”6 In that change of phrasing in the B edition, we recognise the surreptitious introduction of the crucial factor, according to which it is no longer the “sensation” (Empfindung) that matters, but instead the real matter which “corresponds” (entspricht) to the sensation, as its object.7 The Latin term ‘reale’ to which the first quality category (Realität) refers alludes to the quidditas of a thing, to the material content of the experience or to its conditions of possibility. In this sense, it is distinguished from Wirklichkeit, a category of modality that refers to the efficacious reality or the existence of something (realitas) which the subsequent tradition also refers to by the term “reality.” This material or real possibility, as opposed to the formal time-space conditions and, naturally, also as opposed to the logical mode of possibility (Möglichkeit), refers to the constitution of things as entities, to their essential determinations—determinatio positiva et vera—, as Wolff had expressed it. In the determinatio vere negativa, the concept reflected, on the contrary, the absence of all sensory data, negation in the sense of privation. It is not, therefore, a matter of the existence of things in the world, but rather of the way in which the set of marks or predicates match the subject to which they are ascribed. In principle, the concept belongs to transcendental subjectivity and not to the things-inthemselves, although here realitas also has the meaning of Sachheit, or what the thing is. What is real does not correspond to the object in the

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strict sense of the word, but does—as we understand from the actual construction of the word (Gegen-stand)—to the stuff or matter facing a subject and affecting the subject’s ability to feel, sense, or sense-perceive: in short, to the intentum of the cognitive activity. This material element that affects our senses must be understood as the causal beginning of the experience, but not as its essence or principle. For the item of data with which an experience causally begins to even exist, it is necessary to assume certain transcendental principles that regulate the actual reception of that matter. Should we surreptitiously wish to turn that causal beginning into an essence or a principle, taking it as an aspect completely separate from the subject, we would no longer be dealing with phenomena, but rather with the thing-in-itself, unless we were to define the phenomenon precisely as the thing-in-itself-for-itself, which gives rise to a manifest contradiction. Still more difficult, if that is possible, than thinking of the matter-in-itself as something that exists (thinking of the thing-in-itself is already a self-contradiction), is to presuppose or postulate it—depending on whether we are taking a theoretical or a practical view—leaving aside the category of substance. From the bottom up, (i) the idea of appearance, and its manifold, or multiplicity, on a first level, as well as (ii) the idea of synoptic organisation of formal intuition on a second level, together with (iii) construction through the logical functions of judgements on a third level that presupposes the relation between permanence and what is changeable on a logical level, and (iv) schematism on a fourth level that is already the transcendental level, or, correlatively, (v) the Grundsätze on a fifth level, and lastly, (vi) the order of ideas on a sixth level at which a fixed and permanent point is also required—the a priori end of reason—that, even when inaccessible, is necessary so that history itself may conform to such a regulatory ideal or not, do not, collectively, appear to be able to turn into an adequate explanation, without resorting to a play on permanence and change or, without appealing to a temporal transcendental determination, in any of its three fundamental vectors: substantial-formal, causational-efficient or final. In that sense, one might perhaps have to continue to ask: is there, so to speak, a thing-in-itself funder each level?

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According to this exposition, it would appear that there are entities of diverse kinds. The first falls beyond possible experience, leaving us unable to justly apply a priori forms of sensitivity, while the second is liable to such application. Just as there is a field of what is thinkable, is there not a sensible field, a domain of objects that are subsumable under formal intuitions that are, nevertheless, unable to fit into the categorial scheme? Is there not an Anwendung for a priori forms of sensibility, as such, in spite of the fact that, specifically, the representation of time, seen above as transcendental determination, is presented as the actual condition for the application? The realitas phaenomenon is the primary content of the phenomenon, the set of properties that make a thing that specific thing and that, under a certain formal (spatiotemporal) construction is the condition of possibility of something efficaciously coming into existence.8 Also, in Hegelian terms, it is necessary to recognise that all determination involves a complex negation, having the same multiplicity as the number of predicates incompatible with what is positively determined. In any case, contrary to Scholastic philosophy, where reality and negation were horizontal and co-originative determinations, within the framework of Kantian explication the category of Realität plays a role with regard to negation and limitation that cannot be understood without presupposing the positive moment of reality.9 In Lectures on the Philosophical Doctrine of Religion Kant issues a clear pronouncement about this: “All negation amounts to a reality.”10 It is difficult to conceive or imagine a perception of degree = 0, that is, a total absence of content in the perception of a phenomenon. And if that entity-based content is a continuous quantum or quantum continuo, as Kant affirms, then the decrease in the degree of a specific phenomenon must in turn contain infinite gradations and intervals. It is here that the category of limitation intervenes.11 Each time we establish a degree for the sensation of reality, we are establishing a break in this infinite series of gradations, the fraction being representable by a rational number and thus quantifiable. This Grundsatz encompasses all three categories under the title of quality, guaranteeing their possible validity and applicability to experience. Furthermore, if Realität, as a category, imposes the formal conditions of experience that, therefore, necessarily precede empirical knowledge of objects, it is surprising that their immediate definition involves a reference to material content.12 The solution to this apparent contradiction, which is nevertheless present in all categories, but most especially in this case—as the measure of time ultimately considered is the “content” of time (Zeitinhalt)– will provide us

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the clue, as shall be seen below, to understand what is stated at the beginning of Anticipations of Perception. In the beginning of the Transcendental Doctrine of the Elements, Kant already offers a definition of sensation: “Die Wirkung eines Gegenstandes auf die Vorstellungsfähigkeit, so fern wir von dem selben affiziert werden, ist Empfindung.”13 In the Transcendental Dialectic, at the core of the “progression” (Stufenleiter), or hierarchy, of types of representations, drafted in order to place the meaning the term “idea”, in its proper context, “sensation” is defined as follows: The genus is “representation” (Vorstellung) in general. In turn, a representation may occur with “consciousness” (Bewusstsein), or without consciousness. In the former case it is a “perception” or perceptio, hence a representation with consciousness. Next, a sensation is “a perception that refers to the subject as a modification of its state,” hence a subjective perception. Finally, an “objective perception” is a “cognition” or cognitio.14 Likewise, in his Lectures on Metaphysics Kant defines sensation in the following terms: “a sensation is a representation that follows from the presence of a thing.”15 In the Progress, we read: “The matter of intuition is that which is empirical in perception, sensation, or impression, through which the intuition is not an a priori representation.”16 The matter of representation that corresponds to sensation, adds Kant, is the matter of the phenomenon. This matter, contrary to the form of the phenomenon, that is, to those organisational rules by virtue of which an empirical multiplicity is unified, is constituted a posteriori. How then can this a posteriori principle, related to sensation, “anticipate” experience? It goes without saying that the term “sensation” is used here in a transcendental sense. In spite of the veiled introduction of the principle of causality and the scientific character of a definition expressed in almost realistic terms, sensation is conceived as the result of the relationship between the subject of knowledge and a reality in relation to which, ultimately, there is always something causal that the capacity for spatiotemporal organisation and its categorial mechanism must presuppose: the given. The result of causal affection may thus be an impression or a sensation. Both expressions record the intensity of the effect of an affection in its possible degrees. Perhaps the expression “feeling” would be more adequate to express the double objectivesubjective nature of the term “sensation” or “Empfindung.” Empfindung must be understood as a sensory factor that informs us of the sensible qualities of things, but also as the modification that such sensible qualities cause in us: so one might say that “the fire in the stove is hot”, but “I get hot.”

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What is striking is the ambiguity or equivocation with which Kant describes what might or might not be the object of sensation. If we also compare this with other passages in CPR, in particular in the Transcendental Aesthetic, we note that we are affected by phenomena, but also by things (Dinge), hence we are affected by representations or alternatively, as suggested in the proof of the Anticipations, in agreement with its dynamicistic approach, by forces in relation to which sensations would be their representational effects. In fact, as the Amphiboly shows us “phenomenal substance” or substantia phaenomenon is knowable only as the result of the forces of attraction, repulsion and impenetrability, and “phenomenal reality” or realitas phaenomenon as the result of the relations of concordance and opposition in terms of driving forces.17 Another definition of realitas phaenomenon reads as follows: Realitas phaenomenon or noumenon. The former is what corresponds in appearance to perception (sensation) or the lack of perception. A noumenon is what posited in the object in itself. Empty sensible intuition would be a phenomenon without reality.18

Contrary to Leibnizian monads, that exclude all extrinsic relations from their constitution, the Kantian substance is nothing more and nothing less than a complex of relations. Affections cannot have an origin in the sensible thing (Sache, Ding) itself, inasmuch as the subject is already inserted within a network of causal relations. The resistance that opposes the activity of our cognitive capacities, whatever is dawider, also cannot be the thing in itself (Ding an sich) which, by definition, is that which is non-relational, and of which we can only speak in the problematic sense. Rather, these would be restrictions of a formal nature, such as the principle of non-contradiction; by contrast, there are also transcendental restrictions, such as those implicit in the application of the categories and forms of judgement, and actual physical restrictions such as attraction and repulsion by means of which the subject defines itself in the dynamic exchange established with such forces. In any case, the result of such an affection may be an impression (Eindruck) or a sensation. As we shall see below, the change introduced in the B edition version of the principle of the Anticipations of Perception, and specifically in replacing the strange turn of phrase in the A edition “the sensation, and the real, which corresponds to it in the object (realitas phaenomenon),” leads to diverse interpretations regarding the actual meaning of the crucial terms “the real,” “object,” or “phenomenal reality,” in the context of a principle that describes what must be anticipated in a perception by means of

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sensation. Phenomena thus have a double transcendental constitution: they are in accordance with the formal intuitions of space and time, and, in turn, provide the matter of the object in general. At the beginning of Transcendental Aesthetic an appearance or Erscheinung is defined as “the undetermined object of an empirical intuition”19 and in the Transcendental Doctrine of Judgement—on the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon—it is affirmed that “appearances, in sofar as they are they are objects thought according to the unity of the categories, are called phenomena.”20 The term “realitas phaenomenon,” on its part, points to the idea that the phenomenon is something that is always opposed to the subject, in the sense of its being an element that, in a certain way, refers back to the objective representational capacity of the subject but, in turn, constrains the subject as a condition of possibility. In any case, phenomenal reality or the realitas phaenomenon is opposed to the realitas noumenon that cannot, however, be an object of the senses, but only of the understanding.21 The Anticipations of Perception explains a highly singular fact, as we have just seen: how is it possible to anticipate, a priori, that which may only take place a posteriori? This problem, as I see it, taken from the interpretational horizon provided by the critical stance taken by Maimon, appears to be a problem that is analogous to the problem of the Transcendental Deduction of the categories, which seeks to explain how logical functions that do not arise from experience are simultaneously a condition of possibility of experience itself.

5. The Inversion of the Kantian Model: The Relationship between Sensibility and Spontaneity Maimon radically inverted the Kantian model of cognition, to the extent that he attempted to re-establish continuity, in the nature of finite things, between the elements separated by that Kantian model: sensibleintelligible, finite-infinite, and sensibility-understanding.22 The difference between the mathematical and the dynamic, indeed, reproduces the difference between ectypical understanding and archetypical understanding only from the immanent perspective that Maimon claimed for Kantian argumentation, while still adhering to the spirit of Kant’s Critical perspective. My view is that Maimon’s thesis could only be partially true, inasmuch as it already presupposes a certain reading of Kant’s philosophy, in line with Maimon’s own interpretation. In this sense, we might claim that Maimon appears to accept what has come to be called a “modal

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interpretation” of the Schematism, assuming a certain subordination of the Transcendental Deduction with regard to the doctrine of transcendental schematism. However, this modal interpretation also makes the Deduction subject to a certain static interpretation of the Schematism, considering the poles of the mediation to be irreconcilably split elements and the actual operation of the mediation as a tool that is external or foreign to the elements that constitute it. At this point, we may well ask what is the role of the double contrast established by Kant: first that of the immanent and the transcendental, and then second, within the actual subject, between sensibility and spontaneity? A possible answer would be: the same as had already been guaranteed in the Transcendental Aesthetic with the distinction between empirical reality and transcendental ideality. The distinction tells us that we cannot leave the region of phenomena, but once we are installed within it, it guarantees the objective validity of our knowledge. That is precisely what critique in the Kantian sense consists of. One cannot explain the immanent from the transcendental, as that would imply giving way to dogmatism. However, it appears to be impossible to deny that within the object that is given to sensible receptivity lies an unavoidable moment of transcendence. Therefore, the need to establish a double division between the immanent and the transcendental, or sensibility and spontaneity, within the subject in order to guarantee the objective validity of the knowledge and, in turn, to release oneself from dogmatism, involves an extra problem: that of justifying the interior dimension that accompanies transcendence. In other words, justifying the several immanent sensiblespontaneous, intuition-concept, etc., dyads must face a sort of renewed dogmatic threat: the belief in a sensible transcendental resistance beyond the cognitive capacities of the subject. In fact, as we have already seen within the framework of the proof of the Anticipations of Perception, this refers to a sensible resistance that even operates causally, despite Kant´s own claims in the letter to Marcus Herz of 1772 regarding this causal interpretation. What Maimon achieves is precisely (i) the avoidance of such an identification between transcendence and passivity and (ii) the implementation of the transition that Kant had made from the transcendent to the transcendental (if we compare, for example, the perspective of the Dissertatio with the CPR perspective) also within the second dyad (not that of the difference between ectypical and archetypical understanding, but rather, that of the already immanent difference between the sensitive and the intelligible). In this way, the given returns to being something that

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is enabled by consciousness, only this time it specifies that the given arises from a source that is unknown to us. In this way, the thesis propounded by Maimon affirming the impossibility of pure receptivity, would coincide with Kant’s claim in the Anticipations of Perception that a degree of intensity = 0 for a sensation is impossible. Consequently, infinite understanding would be something like a continuous movement of finite understanding toward the supersensible-infinite understanding is made finite in differentials as if it were a derivative and the finite understanding follows the return path, as if it were an integral. Alternatively, the thing-in-itself is a limit concept, but a limit in the special sense characterised by Deleuze, namely a limit based on the Kantian perception of the mathematical concept: as the thing toward which something tends. It must be pointed out, in any case, that Maimon, having denied any transcendent feature in the origin of sensible receptivity and also denying the possibility of accepting an autonomous principle for his own conception of sensibility, again resorts to defining the sensible subject’s passivity as unconscious self-understanding. Maimon appears not to recognise the function of the representation of time as a mediating, multipurpose transcendental determination that serves as a vehicle for the application of categories to formal intuitions.

6. Conclusion For all these reasons, and to conclude, I will add that paying attention to Kant’s transcendental conception of time in the Duisburg Nachlaȕ, as well as his actual-world conception of time in the philosophy of history (Beiser states precisely how, especially after the Wörterbuch and the Streifereien, infinite understanding is also given a regulatory nature in Maimon), would emphasise the element of transcendental deduction and the doctrine of schematism that Maimon appears not to take into account in the context of his critique of Kant.23 In these reflections, Kant anticipated the central argument of the Transcendental Deduction of CPR according to which the possibility of experience depends on the “manifold” contained in the a priori forms of intuition being unified under transcendental apperception according to the rules of synthesis provided by the categories. The condition both of empirical as well as rational knowledge is, respectively, apprehension in time (for empirical knowledge) or construction in time (for rational knowledge). The representation of time thus operates simultaneously

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as a condition for the sensation to be provided as something belonging to the subject, and as a subjective and objective condition for knowledge. Likewise, all forms of determinability of the object, namely positive perceptio, construction, disposition, and comprehension (according to whether it is sensation, intuition, phenomenon or concept) depend on time. Therefore, in the Duisburg Nachlass, the role of time is particularly salient as the multi-purpose vehicle for restoring the continuity between understanding and sensibility that Maimon believed had been irreparably lost. i

1

Notes

References to Kant’s works in the endnotes are given according to the abbreviations listed below. Pagination is as follows: to the volume and page number in the standard edition of Kant’s Works: Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited under the auspices of the Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1908-13). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787). Here is a list of the relevant abbreviations and English translations: CPR: Critique of Pure Reason; ID: On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (Inaugural Dissertation); Pro: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that will be able to come forward as Sciencie; C: Correspondance; ML: Lectures on Metaphysics; MNS: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science; P: What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?; R.: Reflections. 2 (C 11: 49). 3 “The question, Quid Juris? This question, because of its importance, deserves the attention of a Kant. If one spells it out the eay you yourself do, it becomes, How can something a priori be applied with certainty to something a posteriori? The answer or deduction that you give in your book is, as the answer of only a Kant can be, totally satisfying. But if one wishes to amplify the question, one asks, How can an a priori concept be applied to an intuition, even an a priori intuition? This question must await the master’s attention, if it is to be answered satisfactorily.... The question, Quid facti?ʊYou seem to have touched on this, but it is, I think, important to answer it fully, on account of the Humean skepticism” (C 11:16). 4 (Pro 4:307. 5 (CPR B207). 6 (CPR A166). 7 Cohen attributes the affirmation in the first formulation,that attributes an intensive magnitude to the actual sensation, to a psychology-based error. Cohen, H.: Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, Ferd. Dümmler’s Verlagsbuchhandlung. Harrwitz und Grossmann, 1871, Berlin, p. 553.

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8

“Now that in the empirical intuition that corresponds to the sensation is reality (realitas phaenomenon).” (CPR A168/B210). 9 See the definition of negation in: (MVo 28:411); (MVo 28:501); (MVo 28:1244). 10 (MoH 27:104). 11 In the exposition of the concept of matter provided in MNS, reality would be the filling of space as the result of a repelling force. Negation is due to breaching the impenetrability of bodies due to the force of attraction. In the third category, what is limited is the force of repulsion due to the attraction giving rise to a certain degree of filling space. (MNS 4:502). 12 “These grounds of the recognition of the manifold, so far as they concern merely the form of an experience in general are ... categories” (CPR A125). 13 (CPR A19/B33). 14 (CPR A320/B377). 15 (MH 28:59. 16 (P 20:266). 17 (CPR A265/B321). 18 (R 17:737). 19 (CPR A20/B35). 20 (CPR A249/B306). 21 In the Lectures on Metaphysics, he speaks of pleasure, pain, seeing and hearing as examples of realitates phaenomena (MD 28:634). 22 See, e.g.: Simont, J.: Essai sur la quantité, la qualité, la relation chez Kant, Hegel, Deleuze. Les “fleurs noires” de la logique philosophique. L’Harmattan, Paris, 1997, pp. 181-208. 23 See, e. g.: Beiser, F. C.: The Fate of Reason German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1987, pp. 293-295.

Bibliography Barker, M.: “The Proof Structure of Kant’s A-Deduction”, in KantStudien, 92 (3), 2001, pp. (259-282) Beiser, F.: The Fate of Reason. German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1987. Buzaglo, M.: Monism, Skepticism and Mathematics, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2002. Carl, W.: Der schweigende Kant, Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1989. De Vleeschauwer, H.J.: La déduction transcendantale dans l’oeuvre de Kant, vol. I: La déduction transcendantale avant la Critique de la Raison Pure, Garland, Paris, 1976. Chenet, F.-X.: Manuscrit de Duisbourg (1774-1775) – Choix de Réflexions des années 1772-1777, Vrin, Bibliothèque des Textes Philosophiques, Paris, 1988.

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Chipman, L.: “Kant’s Categories and their Schematism”, in Kant-Studien 63, 1972, 36-50. Ferrarin, A.: “Construction and Mathematical Schematism. Kant on the Exhibition of a Concept in Intuition”, in Kant-Studien, 86, (1995), 131174. Freudentahl, G.: Salomon Maimon: rational dogmatist, empirical eskeptik. Critical Assessments. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 2003. Häring, T.: Der Duisburg’sche Nachlaȕ und Kants Kritizismus um 1775, J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], Tübingen, 1910. Laywine, A.: “Kant´s metaphysical reflections in the Duisburg Nachlass”, in Kant-Studien, 97 (2006): 79-113. Katzoff, Ch.: Salomon Maimon’s Critique of Kant’s Theory of Consciousness, Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, Vittorio Klostermann, Bd. 35, H. 2 (Apr.-Jun., 1981), pp. 185-195. Maimon, S: Essay on transcendental Phylosophy, in Versuch über transcendentalphilosophie: mit einem Anhang über die symbolische Erkenntnis und Anmerkungen. 1790. Vol. 2 of Maimon, Gesammelte Werke, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965. ʊ. Streiferein in Gebiete der Philosophie. 1793. Vol. 4 of Maimon, GesammelteWerke, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1965. Monzel, A.: “Kants Lehre vom inneren Sinn und der Zeitbegriff im Duisburg’schen Nachlass”, Kant-Studien, 25, 1920, pp. 427-435. Rosefeldt, T.: Dinge an sich und sekundare Qualitaten, in J. Stolzenberg (ed.), Kant in der Gegenwart, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Nueva York, 2007, pp. 167-209. Sachta, P.: Die Theorie der Kausalität in Kants “Kritik der reinenVernunft”, Anton Hain-Meisenheim am Glan, Germany, 1975. Simont, J.: Essai sur la quantité, la qualité, la relation chez Kant, Hegel, Deleuze. Les “fleurs noires” de la logique philosophique, L’Harmattan, Paris, 1997. Wolfgang, C.: Der schweigende Kant: Die Entwurfe zu einer Deduktion der Kategorien von 1781, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, Dritte Folge Series 182, Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 1989. Zubersky, A.: Salomon Maimon und der kritische Idealismus, Leipzig, F. Meiner, 1925.

AWAKENING FROM HIS DOGMATIC SLUMBER: DAVID HUME AND IMMANUEL KANT’S RECEPTION OF HUME’S SCEPTICAL DOUBTS IN THE PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS HELKE PANKNIN-SCHAPPERT UNIVERSITY OF MAINZ, GERMANY

1. Introduction The relationship between the philosophers David Hume and Immanuel Kant is well known in the history of philosophy. Kant confesses in the Prolegomena: I freely admit that it was the remembrance of David Hume which, many years ago, first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the field of speculative philosophy a completely different direction (Pro 4:260).1

Everybody knows how Kant praises Hume. But what is the meaning of Kant’s “dogmatic slumber” and what is the point of his awakening to Critical consciousness? According to the current research literature, the relationship between the philosophy of Hume and Kant is as follows: Hume shows that the relation of cause and effect cannot be comprehended a priori by our understanding. We are not able to understand what the necessity—for example that bread feeds us and that the sun will rise tomorrow—means, but by repeated experience we obtain an inner knowledge or feeling of the objective validity of causality. Following this interpretation—maintained for example by Bernhard Thöle2—, Hume reduces the relation of cause and effect to psychological and subjective knowledge. The task of Kant should have been to refute this subjective knowledge in demonstrating the

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objective character of the relation of cause and effect. One hardly exaggerates in saying that the research literature adopts the position of Kant in order to interpret Hume. It is Kant himself who had fixed the roles, because he states that he wants to replace empirical and subjective knowledge by his theory of synthetical judgements a priori. However, I want to show that for Hume, the knowledge of the causal relation has no subjective validity—as Kant suggests in reading Hume. For Hume all ideas are copies of real impressions. This means that the relation of cause and effect cannot be a mere arbitrary invention of the subject, in the way Kant and the research literature interpret Hume. My aim here is to examine the character of the causal relation in the Enquiry concerning Human Understanding of Hume and to compare it with Kant’s position in the Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics.

2. Hume’s Sceptical Doubts Concerning the Operations of the Understanding What is the situation of philosophical thinking before Hume? Metaphysical thinking defined truth as the relationship between understanding and object. For Thomas Aquinas truth is an “adequatio rei et intellectus”3, an accordance of the object and the understanding. Human understanding has to be in accordance with the object. The form of the object affects the understanding in such a way that the difference between the two disappears. Knowledge and truth occur only when an accordance of human understanding and the object has occurred. David Hume, on the contrary, is sceptical of any rational cognition of the structure of the world. For Hume thinking is only a faithful mirror of real impressions. Everybody readily allows that there is a difference between the perception of real impressions and the perception of ideas. The perception of an impression is stronger and more vivid than the perception of an idea. Our ideas are copies of impressions which precede and of which we are conscious, when we reflect on them4. The understanding is not able to produce an idea of its own: instead it can only compose, transpose or augment the material it has gotten from experience. Hume wants either to trace back all abstract metaphysical ideas to their sensible origins or to reject them. For him, the objects of human understanding are either relations of ideas or matters of fact5. Concerning the relations of ideas, human understanding

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remains within itself and frames propositions about the structure of thinking. The relations of ideas are, for example, laws in geometry or algebra. These are a priori truths that are necessary and general, that we learn by intuition or demonstration, and that do not depend on any existence in universe. Matters of fact, on the contrary, relate to real things. When we frame propositions concerning real existence, human understanding refers to something outside of itself. We have an immediate knowledge of reality, but this knowledge is not a logical one. So Hume wants to analyse all the ideas of our understanding and especially the idea of causality. Even if we ignore reality, we assume in our ordinary life that the world is of an intelligible structure without really understanding it. We are sure that bread is really there and that it will feed us when we are hungry. Nevertheless, this certainty cannot be comprehended by human understanding. This is the reason why Hume wants to know where this certainty of common sense does come from. The evidence that bread feeds us and that the sun will rise tomorrow cannot be explained in a theoretical way by human understanding. Human understanding can only analyse what is given - for example the bread - and work out statistics about the past, but human understanding does not find a necessary law which could explain future existence. The knowledge of human beings remains in the sphere of mere possibility: we are not able to understand why bread feeds us, and why the sun will rise tomorrow. We now come to the main question of Hume: In which way is it possible that we can make logical propositions concerning future existence? In being certain that bread will nourish us tomorrow, or that the sun will rise tomorrow, we comprehend matters of fact in the way of relation of ideas. How is this knowledge of the laws of nature possible? Hume is aware of the fact that human understanding is not able to comprehend the structure of experience. Despite our ignorance concerning experience we assume that a causal relation between the facts of the past and those of the future is valid. For Hume the knowledge of causal relation is not a priori knowledge of the understanding. Through a thought experiment, Hume proves the incapacity of human reason to know the causal relation between the objects of nature. He distinguishes between the subjective perception of the succession of

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objects or events and the comprehension of the relation of causality. If we imagine ourselves to perceive an unknown object, we would be incapable of predicting its consequences. If we imagine that we have got more experience in the way that objects have become familiar, we suppose that we could discover effects by the “mere operation of our reason, without experience”6. Experience shows that there are identical objects that are constantly conjoined. We infer the existence of one object from the appearance of another without understanding why. But when many uniform instances appear, and the same object is always followed by the same event; we then begin to entertain the notion of cause and connexion. (Enquiry, p. 78)

Repeated experience appears in uniformity: objects show up in an identical way, so that we expect the same effects from same causes. Impressions and objects appear to be identical even before they are comprehended by our understanding. For Hume the transition from perception of the subjective succession to comprehension of the law of causality is evoked by experience itself. Having had more experiences, we are sure that today’s bread will nourish us in the way it did yesterday. We do assume that we understand the laws of nature, but in fact we do not know the secret powers by which one object produces another7. Hume shows that our knowledge of the causal relation does not stem from immediate external or internal experience. Custom or habit produces a propensity to repeat the same operation, without being forced by our reasoning. We have knowledge of a general law, but we do not know why. Hume characterises this knowledge as an instinct. “Instinct” does not mean that this knowledge is irrational, instead it means that this knowledge is non-rational: We learn it only by repeated experiences. Experience itself leads us to knowledge of the structure a priori of nature. For Hume, it is a wisdom of nature itself to assure by a mechanical tendency a knowledge that is necessary for our survival, independent of the operations of our understanding8. The instinct is an instinct which we learn by a pre-established harmony between the course of nature and the course of our ideas. Hume points out that the course of nature and the succession of our ideas have harmonised. This pre-established harmony is no longer a principle a priori, as in Leibniz’s metaphysical thinking, but rather it is an effect of nature itself. Even if the powers that determine

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nature, are unknown to us, our thought and our concepts have gone in the same direction as the works of nature. By means of the principle of custom, a correspondence between the course of nature and the succession of our ideas has been effected. This correspondence is necessary for the subsistence of our species9. For Hume, the principle of custom is not subjective and arbitrary as critics suppose,10 on the contrary, it is “a principle of human nature”11. Hume denotes by the word “custom" a principle of human nature, that we learn by its effects, but whose causes are unknown. Hume concedes that the principle of custom is a hypothesis of his philosophy. This hypothesis seems to be the only one which explains the reason why we draw a conclusion from several instances, which we do not draw from one instant. For Hume, human knowledge has no need of evidence a priori, which is atemporal and is neither a truth of theoretical thinking nor a truth of our direct perception of impressions. So Hume is not sceptical about the validity of the law of causality, but he is sceptical about its rational grounding and scope. The fact that we know that bread feeds us does not refer to anything external to reason, but instead only to an internal impression. More precisely, this knowledge is a function of the imagination: We then feel a new sentiment or impression, to wit, a customary connexion in the thought or imagination between one object and its usual attendant; and this sentiment is the original of that idea which we seek for. (Enquiry, p. 78)

We feel a new impression that is a connection in thought or imagination. Thinking or imagining projects a necessary connection between a present and an absent object. The imagination thus anticipates the future. Having had a certain experience, we are sure that bread will feed us. The imagination represents a thing that is not there. By means of the imagination, experience receives a new signification. Through an internal impression the sentiment feels the necessary unity of the past, the present and the future. What is the new in this internal impression? Through it, we have a knowledge which is no longer an abstract knowledge, but rather a knowledge that concerns our concrete existence in life. Sentiment and thinking, matters of fact and relation of ideas are no longer separated one from the other, but have the same signification: the intelligible meaning of our life. The necessary connection is a relation of ideas that is no longer

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separated from our existence—just as truth in mathematics—because it discovers for us the signification of our being here. Experience itself reveals an a priori signification that is the causal relation. This a priori signification is not a logical apriority; instead it is created by experience itself: it is the signification of our receptivity. Through our receptivity, and our pure intuition, we attain a knowledge of being12. Hume shows that the science of nature proceeds by means of structures that are founded on our temporal intuition. Our ideas and impressions are related in time in a way that cannot be explained. So the causal law is not of a merely subjective value, as critics object, but instead its objectivity is based on a knowledge of an impression of inner sense. This internal impression, which grounds the notion of the causal relation, is possible only through external impressions. The internal impression is not an impression of a direct sensation but rather it is produced by repeated experience. Repeated experience shows us an a priori signification: events are related in time. Even if we do not know the secret powers of nature, the succession of our ideas is analogous to the works of nature. We thus arrive at an analogical knowledge of reality itself, and we believe that bread will feed us. Hume characterises this knowledge that bread will feed us as a belief. For Hume the belief distinguishes itself from fiction by a sentiment or feeling connected with it, of something that does not depend on our will and which cannot be created voluntarily13. This non volitional sentiment illustrates the objective significance of the belief. The belief is a knowledge that is the effect of the pre-established harmony between our ideas and reality itself. It shows us in an inexplicable way the accordance of our knowledge and reality. The natural human mistake here consists in the fact of our transposing this knowledge, created by an internal sentiment of custom, to objects of external experience. We pretend to grasp the external objects by means of our internal sensation: “and as we feel a customary connexion between the ideas, we transfer that feeling to the objects; as nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation, which they occasion”14. We mistake the a priori signification of the temporal form of experience for the a priori structure of the particular object. For Hume the necessary form of experience is felt in an inexplicable way: we do not understand the necessary relation between objects. Repeated experience

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illustrates the intelligible structure of reality and confirms the value of our belief of the causal law. How did Hume succeed in awakening Kant from his dogmatic slumber?

3. Kant: The Objective Significance of Judgements of Experience Hume criticises the analytical method of metaphysics, which enabled the intellect to get in accordance with the object. For Hume, the intellect is not capable of understanding the intelligible structure of the world. He shows us that the question of truth precedes all questions of relation and of method. The problem of truth concerns cognition itself. Human cognition yields a knowledge that relates representations in time and anticipates the future without being based on an object of reason. For Hume, human cognition proceeds by means of a general and necessary knowledge, which is antecedent to the separation of relation of ideas and matters of fact, of abstract thinking and sensible intuition. Through inner sense, we gain an objective knowledge of reality that cannot be comprehended by understanding, because it concerns only the temporal form of our cognition. The philosophy of Hume demonstrates the temporal form of our knowledge. What is Kant’s answer to Hume? Kant agrees with Hume in denying that analytical thinking is the ground of causal relations. There are no longer things, or sensible impressions, that exist on their own and are the foundation of our thoughts: rather, human cognition realises itself when we connect or synthesise objects. Transcendental truth no longer refers to objects of experience: “I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects, in so far as this mode of knowledge is possible a priori. A system of such concepts might be entitled transcendental philosophy” (CPR 3:43 [1787])15. Kant criticises Hume for his assuming identical impressions to be the foundation of the ideas of our understanding. For Hume, identical impressions lead us to a knowledge of the resemblance of objects. The course of nature shows itself by means of a uniformity that determines us to conclude that the future will be the same as the past. For Kant, on the contrary, the impression is no longer a self-identical reality, which is external to our knowledge, instead the impression is already an appearance of our

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knowledge. It is no longer possible to separate our ideas from the impressions. How does Kantian transcendental reflection explain the conviction of the common sense that bread will feed us? Kant follows Hume in analysing experience in order to explain necessary judgements about causal relations. Like Hume, Kant distinguishes between perceptions of the succession of objects and judgements about causal relations. I quote a passage of the Prolegomena: Empirical judgments, so far as they have objective validity, are judgments of experience; but those which are only subjectively valid, I name mere judgments of perception. The latter require no pure concept of the understanding, but only the logical connection of perception in a thinking subject. But the former always require, besides the representation of the sensuous intuition, particular concepts originally begotten in the understanding, which produce the objective validity of the judgment of experience. (Pro 4:298)

All our judgements are at first merely judgements of perception and they have only a subjective validity. Kant gives us the following example: when the sun shines on the stone, it gets warm. This judgement of perception does not include a representation of necessity. The perceptions are related only by habit. The judgement of perception refers only to the mental state of the subject and not to a world shared in common by subjects. It merely includes two sensations presented to a subject and it has no objective validity, only a subjective validity. On the other hand, the judgement “the sun warms the stone,” connects the concept of a cause to the perception. The concept of warmth is related necessarily to the concept of the sunlight. How does the transformation of a judgement of perception into a judgement of experience take place? In the following passage, which has provoked many discussions, Kant describes this transformation: All our judgments are at first merely judgments of perception; they hold good only for us (i.e., for our subject), and we do not till afterwards give them a new reference (to an object), and desire that they shall always hold good for us and in the same way for everybody else; for when a judgment agrees with an object, all judgments concerning the same object must

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likewise agree among themselves, and thus the objective validity of the judgment of experience signifies nothing else than its necessary universality of application. (Pro 4:298)16

For Kant it is only after perceptual judging that we give judgements of perception a new reference to an object, and assert that this reference has a universal validity. The judgement of experience changes the signification of the perceptual reference to the object. By means of the judgement of experience, we subsume the intuition of the sun under the concept of cause and effect. We determine the perceptions in terms of the form of the judgement in general “and in this way [...] render the empirical judgment universally valid” (Pro 4:301[1783]/CE 53)17. The addition of a concept of the understanding transforms the mere subjective sensibility into an objective judgement. By the action of judging, the perception becomes experience, because the intuition is determined in terms of the form of the judgement. It is only by means of the judgement of experience that we have a concept of the object. We afterwards transform the judgements of subjective validity into a judgement of objective validity, and we “pronounce” that they have validity always and for everybody. I demand that “I and everybody else should always connect necessarily the same perceptions under the same circumstances” (Pro 4:299)18. For Kant, giving objective validity to a judgement is a demand of the will of the subject: “What experience teaches me under certain circumstances, it must always teach me and everybody; and its validity is not limited to the subject or to its state at a particular time. Hence I pronounce all such judgments to be objectively valid” (Pro 4:299)19. We have an obligation to give our judgements universal validity if we want to judge objects in an a priori manner20. The condition of thinking21 is the objectivation of our judgements of perception in judgements of experience. It is a condition of the possibility of experience that the content of our judgements is the same for everyone. Our perceptions have to be of an objective character in order to be able to understand each other as intelligible creatures. Kant shows us that an action of transcendental reflection makes possible the representation of the object. For Kant, it is a necessity of thinking, in order to frame synthetic judgements, to add sensible intuition to its logical connection of concepts in order to make it necessary and valid in a universal way. The principle of causality does not refer to an identical impression or to any reality outside the subject, rather the object is made possible by formal

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conditions of causal thinking. Kant characterises in the Prolegomena the speculative understanding as the faculty of the cognition of rules in abstracto of what common sense thinks in concreto. Kant follows Hume in showing that ordinary understanding uses the law of causality without being conscious of this fact. Ordinary understanding uses the rule in concreto. The rule in abstracto is nothing other than what ordinary understanding always thought. In assuming that bread will feed us, ordinary understanding proceeds by the maxim: “That everything which happens is determined by its cause” (Pro 4:369)22. Kant agrees with Hume in emphasising the necessity of experience for recognising the concept of causality. In the same way as Hume, Kant shows that the faculty for thinking is not able to draw forth from the concept of a thing the concept of something else whose existence is necessarily connected with the first thing. We have to consult experience in order to know the necessary connection. The causal relation is the a priori rule of objective empirical thinking. Kant explains the necessity of the law of causality in terms of the structure of time and space: our cognition realises itself by means of the structure of time and space. It has the character of appearance in time and space and not of things-in-themselves. Everything that happens is a manifestation of the concept of causality. Time and space do not exist by themselves, rather our pure intuition is realised as time and space. We do not know how things are in themselves, but instead only by means of the structure of our knowledge, which determines the structure of appearances. Let us return to Hume’s question: how do we know that bread feeds us? Hume rejects the thesis that we comprehend empirical data through the understanding. He shows that the causal relation, instead, concerns the temporal form of our knowledge, which cannot be verified by the particular object. For Hume, time is the form of external experience that is felt by means of inner sense. Kant follows Hume in rejecting the thesis that we rationally comprehend the causal character of experience. For Kant, on the contrary, the pure understanding expresses the categories. The category of causality is the a priori rule of action for the production of experience. For Kant, the principle of causality is the condition of the possibility of experience of succession in time. The successive manifold in intuition is already the manifestation of the causal synthesis of transcendental apperception. The proposition that “Everything which happens is determined by a cause” is a perspective of knowledge. Our causal knowledge no longer deals with objects but instead with our way of knowing. For Kant the external is already the manifestation of the internal. The fact of our assuming that bread feeds us shows that the manifold of

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intuition in objective experience is the manifestation of the formal unity of our consciousness, articulated in terms of the categories. The reality of the causal relation is an immanent structure of our knowledge.

4. Conclusion It is time to give to Hume a validity of his own and to stop looking at him through Kantian glasses. For Hume, the transition from the perception of impressions that follow each other, to the conception of causal necessity, is founded in wisdom of nature, an objective principle which determines our subjective thinking. Our subjective thinking follows a principle of reality which leads us to a knowledge that is analogical to the powers of nature. The relation of causality is of objective significance, but this objectivity is related to the temporal form of external experience. Knowledge is a perception of the inner sense and cannot be extended by reason in order to comprehend the objects of external experience. The great importance of Hume’s philosophy of causation consists in the fact that he has shown that our knowledge of the causal relation is a nonrational knowledge grounded on sentiment. The signification of the bread, that it feeds us, cannot be understood, but it is felt. Kant follows Hume in justifying the causal relation through the temporal character of our knowledge. Finally, it is thanks to Hume that Kant becomes aware of the incomprehensible character of time. For him, time is no longer a form of external experience, which is known by inner sense, as for Hume, but instead time is the formal condition of inner sense intuitions. For transcendental reflection, the pure form of intuition is the condition of our empirical reasoning. The law of causality is a fundamental expression of the spontaneity of our knowledge, which in turn realises itself in receptivity. For Kant and for Hume alike, our knowledge of the causal relation is not merely a passive perception of what goes on in experience. Both philosophers agree that the judgement of causality is based on an act of the mind. Nevertheless, the law of causality is not a proposition that concerns the existence of things. We are never able to know the future by means of knowing the presence; the sceptical doubts of Hume are not dissolved. We do not understand the particular laws of nature. The concept of causality is realised by means of the temporal character of experience. The concepts of cause and effect are formed a priori in order to understand experience. They refer to the possibility of experience, reality itself rests unknown to us. Kant does not refute what Hume has claimed, but instead he

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understands the law of causality in terms of its transcendental condition. The intelligible significance of the law of causality, which is the intelligible significance of our consciousness, is no longer a knowledge that is heteronomous, as for Hume. Instead, for Kant, it is the appearance of the autonomous spontaneity of reason.

Notes 1

Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, that Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science with Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania. Revised Edition. Cambridge/New York. Cambridge University Press 1997, p. 10. 2 Thöle, Bernhard: Die Analogien der Erfahrung. In: Immanuel Kant. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hrsg. von Georg Mohr und Marcus Willaschek (Klassiker Auslegen Bd. 17/18). Berlin 1998, 282 und Stegmüller, Wolfgang: Zur Frage der kausalen Notwendigkeit. Bemerkungen über Hume und Kant, in Hume und Kant. Hrsg. von Wolfgang Farr. Freiburg/München 1982, p. 137. Even Manfred Kühn is of the opinion that the causal relation of Hume is only subjective knowledge. He distinguishes the position of the Treatise and the Enquiry: “In der Untersuchung konnte es so aussehen, als beruhe die Kausalbeziehung, wenngleich selbst nicht objektiv, irgendwie auf den Gegenständen selbst. In dieser Passage (Treatise) behauptet Hume, die Kausalbeziehung sei gänzlich subjektiv” cf. Kühn, Manfred: Kant. Eine Biographie. München: Beck 2003, p. 234. Heiner Klemme is of the same opinion, cf. Klemme, Heiner: David Hume. Hamburg: Junius 2007, p. 52. 3 von Aquin, Thomas: Quaestiones disputatae de veritate. Lateinisch-Deutsch. Übersetzt und herausgegeben von A. Zimmermann. Hamburg: Meiner 1986, p. 9. 4 Hume, David: Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Reprinted from the 1777 edition with introduction and analytical index by L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford 1975, p. 19. 5 Hume: Enquiry, p. 25. 6 Hume: Enquiry, p. 28. 7 The question, “how are we able to know the laws of nature?,” is known as „Induktionsproblem“ in the research literature. Cf. Gadenne, Volker: Wissen wir etwas über die Zukunft? David Hume und das Induktionsproblem. In: Aufklärung und Kritik 1/2011, p. 184. For Hume, however, our knowledge of the causal relation is no induction of reason, but instead a knowledge grounded on inner sentiment. 8 Hume: Enquiry, p. 55. 9 Hume: Enquiry, p. 55. 10 Kühn reduces the causal relation to a subjective determination of the human mind insofar as it passes from one object to another. For Hume, things are more complicated: The determination is an effect of the resemblance of objects. So the activity is based on the character of objects. Kühn, op. cit., p. 234. 11 Hume: Enquiry, p. 43.

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12 Bernhard Rang criticises Hume because he is not able to explain that A is always followed by B. Repeated experience is not able to produce a belief in the law that A is always followed by B. Cf. Rang, Bernhard: Kants Antwort auf Hume. In: David Hume: Eine Untersuchung über den menschlichen Verstand. Hrsg. von Jens Kulenkampff. Klassiker Auslegen, Bd 8. Berlin 1997, p. 105. 13 Hume: Enquiry, p. 48. 14 Hume: Enquiry, p. 78. 15 Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. by Norman Kemp Smith. Macmillan Press London 1980, p.59. 16 Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 50. 17 Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 53. 18 Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 52. 19 Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 52. 20 Dörflinger, Bernd: Das Leben theoretischer Vernunft. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter 2000, p. 200. 21 Haag, Johannes: Erfahrung und Gegenstand, Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 2007, p. 229. 22 Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 50.

Bibliography Dörflinger, Bernd, Das Leben theoretischer Vernunft, Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2000. Gadenne, Volker, “Wissen wir etwas über die Zukunft? David Hume und das Induktionsproblem”, Aufklärung und Kritik 1 (2011): 184-197. Haag, Johannes, Erfahrung und Gegenstand, Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 2007. Kühn, Manfred, Kant. Eine Biographie, München: Beck, 2003. Rang, Bernhard: Kants Antwort auf Hume, in Jens Kulenkampff (ed.), David Hume: Eine Untersuchung über den menschlichen Verstand, Klassiker Auslegen, Bd 8. Berlin, 1997, pp. 95-114. Stegmüller, Wolfgang, “Zur Frage der kausalen Notwendigkeit. Bemerkungen über Hume und Kant”, Hume und Kant, Freiburg/ München: Wolfgang Farr, 1982, pp. 130-143. Thöle, Bernhard, Die Analogien der Erfahrung, in Georg Mohr und Marcus Willaschek (eds.), Immanuel Kant. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, (Klassiker Auslegen Bd. 17/18), Berlin, 1998, pp. 267-296.

THE COMBINED FORCE OF SENSORY IMPRESSIONS: KANT’S VIEW ON THE BENEFITS OF POETRY TO PHILOSOPHY FERNANDO M. F. SILVA CENTRE OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF LISBON, PORTUGAL

1. Introduction Amid the vast array of topics in the so-called “Kleine Schriften,” or at least amid those dealt with by Kant during his silent decade–one seems to draw our attention for a singular reason. I refer to the topic of poetical illusion1; this topic is captivating not so much because of what it might have contributed to the philosopher’s critical system, but because it is only natural that we wish to know what a great philosopher, and especially Kant, has written on a topic as apparently extraneous to philosophy as that of illusion in poetry. It is natural that we attempt to ascertain its position within the system of Kant’s philosophical thought. Now the topic of poetical illusion, precisely in its connection to philosophy, is indeed present in the aforementioned period. Kant passes several interesting judgements on it, and this, to be fair, in a text whose nature seems to foreshadow no discernible singularity or interest. I refer to the annotations on Johann Gottlieb Kreutzfeld’s2 disputation for the title of Professor in Poetry: a Latin discourse held by Professor Kant on the 28th of February 1777, and published in the Akademie-Ausgabe under the title “Entwurf zu einer Opponenten-Rede” (OR 15.2:903-935).3 Kant’s discourse specifically focuses on the second part of Kreutzfeld’s dissertation, which dealt with—and I quote Schmid, the German translator of the text—“the semblances of the senses as a […] source for poetical representations and descriptions”.4 Herein, while trying to expound the nature of poetical illusion, Kreutzfeld seeks to render manifest the triple relation between the senses, semblances (ludibria) and spirit (animus/Geist/mind): on the one hand, by establishing the role that each

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faculty of the spirit plays in creating the semblance; on the other hand, by ascertaining the role of semblances in forging the so-called poetical representations; and finally, by expanding the problem of poetical semblances to the sphere of the opposition between Poetry and Philosophy, with regard to which he exemplifies how convenient this semblance is to poets, who have a masterful command over it and are able to extract it directly from the senses, and therefore forge this illusion. Quite conversely, it can be harmful to philosophers, who know nothing of the senses and are thus bested by them.5 This, at least, is Kant’s vision of Kreutzfeld’s arguments; and if we have any knowledge of Kant’s work, we could promptly venture that none of the dimensions in this problem is indifferent to him, and that, above all, the general problem inherent to these three dimensions—that is, poetry’s ability to promote knowledge—is and would remain extremely dear to Kant, for it deals with the problem of the faculties of the spirit in the formation of representations, and, as seems to be the case, does not exclude the poetical illusion from being used to further divide Philosophy and Poetry. Hence, I would begin by saying–and Kant’s words do not prove me wrong–that the main problem of the “Opponenten-Rede” is a triple one: it encompasses, first of all, the senses and the semblances in general, as well as the different, more specific effects aroused by both of them (yes, for there are different kinds of semblances, as well as different effects); secondly, the relation established between these semblances and the faculties of the spirit, and the subsequent (and merely possible) effect that such a relation ascribes to the semblances themselves; and thirdly, and most important of all, the character these semblances assume in the human spirit, whether it is a beneficial, or a nefarious one–that is, whether they promote, or hinder knowledge–and the natural repercussions this has on both philosophy and poetry. This is, in few words, the field of analysis of this essay, which therefore aims to deal with the topic of poetical illusion in its mediation between the senses and truth. Here, I shall try to understand how Kant conceives the different effects of poetical illusion on the human spirit, how he explains them in their adaptation (or nonadaptation) to the latter, and the consequences he draws thereof to the progress or regression in the spirit’s knowledge of itself. If I succeed in doing so, I hope to be able to prove that according to Kant, not all semblances are equal, and that it is the Philosopher’s opinion that there is one kind of semblance which yields an ultimate and supreme benefit within the (apparently exclusive) malevolent semblance of the senses; this semblance is spontaneously referred to a singular disposition of those

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faculties in occasioning that very ultimate beneficial effect, and that, last but not the least, all this will enable a subsequent, peaceful coexistence between philosophy and poetry in the ephemeral realm of illusion. Contrary to what was expected, these are all reasons which seem to reveal an unsuspected singularity not only in Kant’s theme of poetical illusion, but also in the “Opponenten-Rede” itself, and which therefore are more than enough to justify the curiosity of all those who deem Kant as no more than the future philosopher of pure reason.

2. However, let us depart from this natural assumption. For given that Kant stands here in his most linear task as Professor of Philosophy, and Kreutzfeld in his equally obvious task as Professor of Poetry, it cannot be an absurdity to assume that in the dialogue, the first one would rise as the Paladin of the Graces, and the other one as the Paladin of the Muses, or even that Kant agrees with Kreutzfeld so as to prove that the illusions produced by poets and those conveyed by the senses are but one and the same, and yet, that he would do so only to better identify the essence of deception with the essence of poetry, thus glorifying Philosophy’s continuous quest for truth. But not only is this not the case, precisely the opposite is true, and this starting by Kreutzfeld, who, according to Kant “is eager to derive all the attractions and beauties of poetry from that impure source [of the deception of the senses]” (OR 15.2:909)6 and ending in Kant himself, who not only disagrees with the latter’s opinion, but will furthermore try to discern in poetical illusion the opposite effect. Now, because the theme seems to be as delicate, as it is dear to the Professor of Philosophy, he is most interested in addressing this problem, and this he does by prefacing the four general arguments of his discourse with a brief yet rich prelude specifically focused on the different kinds of semblances, and the different effects they arouse in the human spirit. It is around these different types of semblances that this essay shall revolve. Here, and under this very guise, Kant expounds the following dichotomy, which enlivens not only the remainder of the prelude and his discourse, but his own future considerations on the topic of poetical illusion. For, on the one hand–so he says–there is no doubt that the human spirit already possesses in itself a certain proclivity for vain semblances (vana ludibria), and this through the senses; and not only is it “easy” to deceive it, but it frequently lets itself be deceived gladly (Ibid.:905). But—so objects Kant against Kreutzfeld—this vain deception, this deceitful trickery has nothing

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to do with the illusion forged by poets, neither in its motives, nor in its effects over the human spirit. Hence, in accordance with this, and with regard to the causes of such semblances, Kant begins by evoking a specific metaphor, that of gold, according to which the first kind of semblance is carried out in one’s personal benefit by “mountebanks, demagogues, and not seldom even clerics” (Ibid.), who “trick the unsuspecting multitude for gain” (Ibid.)7, a skill which, the Philosopher adds, “is completely alien to the poet’s spirit” (Ibid.), for “the desire for gold hardly steals upon their hearts” (Ibid.)8, and thus greatly separates them from that lot. Shortly after, however, this metaphor is expanded into a much more relevant dimension, the one of these semblances’ effect over the spirit, which with regard to this is again differentiated, now definitively. Hence, as to the phenomenon of their semblance, the first one—that of the mere senses–should be called deception (Täuschung, Betrug); but the second one–the one of poets—should be called illusion (Schein, Illusion); and this, not because both do not consist of images, and more specifically in the art of deceiving or creating illusions through appearance, but because, according to Kant, deceiving is not the same as creating an illusion, and both must be differentiated. For deception, says Kant, is very much enrooted in the spirit’s natural propensity to be tricked, and therefore makes use of “fictis rerum” (vorgetäuschten Schein) (OR 15.2:903), “sensory deceptions” (Ibid.:906) which seek but a physical profit, and which may even satisfy the body, but not the spirit, which is why they are mere “vanitate et ludibrio” (Ibid.:907): “deceptive play” (Ibid.:03); whereas illusion, though enrooted in the propensity of deception, rather lends it a different direction, namely, that of a “playful semblance”, an “illusion” (Ibid.:907) created by poets with the very specific aim of enlivening the spirit: “There are semblances with which the mind plays but by which it is not deceived.”(Ibid.:906)9 And Kant promptly explains this distinction between game and the absence of game, yet again furthering the metaphorical field of a dissociation between deception and illusion: for deception, he reiterates, “bring[s] about error in unsuspecting minds” (Ibid.) and “deceive[s] the inexperienced and gullible by means of embellishment and deceit” (Ibid.:906-907); that is, such is its unique, and rather dishonorable purpose, and hence, it fades away as soon as it obtains success and is rewarded with its own benefit, which is why “semblance which deceives disappears as soon as its deceitfulness (…) [is] perceived” (Ibid.:907), as if it had never existed, which, Kant concludes, causes an

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unpleasant feeling of absence. In other words, a deceptive image—and here lies the core of the question—“displeases” (Ibid.), and this because, by possessing nothing playful or ludic in itself, by displaying nothing but its own vacuity, the image that deceives leaves behind but the void of tedium; it is wearisome, to the extent that such sensations evolve into outrage, spite and hatred10; and hence, with regard to truth, we could say that deception attempts to pass appearance off as truth, and thus deceives the spirit in a double manner, not only initially—for never does deception intend to achieve truth—but also ultimately, by parting him even further away from truth, and hence causing him displeasure. Now, precisely this was Kreutzfeld’s perspective—namely, that poets resort to this kind of deception in their semblances, and that the spirit derives pleasure from these semblances, but not so much from illusions— an opinion which Kant could not accept, for it directly contradicts the Philosopher’s view of the problem. For, quite conversely—Kant replies—the illusion of poets has nothing “unpraiseworthy” (OR 15.2:906) in it; it does not “bring gain” (Ibid.), and so, having none of these vile flaws, which greatly harm truth, it cannot but trudge a different path towards truth, and forge a better and healthier connection with it. In a word, the illusion must create a more unselfish, and yet much more important relation between the senses and truth: for through it, “the artificer does not want to bring about error in unsuspecting minds, but truth in the form of appearance” (Ibid.), and by doing so “allows the meager, sapless semblance of truth to come forth dipped in sensuous color” (Ibid.:907)11; and therefore, not only does it not try to pass itself off as truth, but rather promotes its discovery. And this, in a word, is the illusion of poets; for through it, the poet succeeds in using the senses not to disfigure or distort truth, but precisely to achieve a “veritas phaenomenon” (Ibid.): to adorn, to enhance it, and thus promote its more convenient discovery by the human spirit. And it is exactly here that the spirit enters, along with the senses, illusion and truth, a very singular game which, as we shall see, greatly ennobles all its participants; a game through which all are stimulated and enlivened, and wherein illusion, which plays a central part in it, which is the very reason of the game, does not disappear at all, but rather “remains” (Ibid.) as the link between spirit and truth: “it flatters the ear and moves and exhilarates the mind through [fictitious images] [fictis rerum]” (Ibid.:906)12. In a word, Kant says, unlike deception, illusion plays with the human spirit; and because it does so, illusion instils pleasure and delight in us (“Hence insofar as semblances

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deceive, they induce displeasure; insofar as they only play with us, they induce pleasure” Ibid.:908)13: for illusion is indeed the board whereupon this game takes place, and so, for Kant, it is as much progression as it is regression: it is not at all erroneous, and yet neither is it completely truthful, rather it lures the error while raising the veil over truth: that is, it “triggers delight because it does not deceive” (Ibid.); and the game is this very intermittency, in view of which the spirit is led to play with the illusion, and feels pleasure precisely because it is not being deceived, rather is fully aware of it, and thus remains in full composure. In a word, the game of illusion delights inasmuch as it only creates the semblance, but does not deceive; and it is this game that keeps the mind in pleasant motion, in a state of flux, as it were, in the border region between error and truth, and greatly flatters the mind which is aware of its sagacity in resisting the temptations of appearance (OR 15.2:907).14

But to sum up—and to resume both Professor Kant’s and his interlocutor Kreutzfeld’s points of view and the curiosity we placed upon their perspectives—what this all means is, therefore, a very fine irony: that, given Kreutzfeld’s unnatural position, Kant, the Professor of Philosophy and future critic of pure reason, sees himself in the position—and surely in the incumbency—of assuming a posture contrary to what would be expected, clearly separating illusion from the vile deceit of the senses, which misleads and falsely impersonates truth and is thus swallowed by its own tedium, and claiming for illusion a certain and very singular use of the semblance conveyed by the senses, which is put in service of the adorned error in its appearance of truth, and also the intermittence of the latter for the spirit, thus enabling an agreeable as well as delightful game between the three entities. In other words, quite unexpectedly, Kant assumes the traits—I would not say of a Paladin of Poetry, for it was not unknown to him that Poetry had no such need—but at least of someone who, in the noble and pleasurable game it occasions, acknowledges its noble and superior merits, far from those that come from a deceptive use of the senses, or even of words; someone who, therefore—and now decisively, against Kreutzfeld’s opinion—seems to discern in the illusion of poetry, and hence in Poetry, the possibility of being not an opponent, not a foe to Philosophy, but precisely a ground, an essence, a language akin to those of Philosophy, and which therefore would not be antagonistic towards it, rather could again be seen as its blood sister.

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In the following section, I shall try to justify these claims, as well as clarify Kant’s view of the aforementioned and rather pleasurable game of poetical illusion.

3. Were it our sole intention to approach the game between illusion, the senses, and the spirit, or even to inquire the new dimension of knowledge Kant discerns in the illusion of poets, no doubt we would find, amid the still unexplored abundance of this brief prelude and the four main arguments, not only the aforementioned distinction between deception and poetical illusion, but also the features of the game played by the poetical illusion. Yet in order to do so, I would like to depart from a different point of view. And if I am able do so, it is because the distinction between deception and illusion arises here, in Kant’s voice, not only by sheer coincidence or a mere academic formality, but because, by then, this was already one of the Philosopher’s theoretical concerns, and a problem that had grasped his attention not only in the “Opponenten-Rede”. For it is surely known to all that the theme of the deception of the senses, its possible causes and effects, had always been present in the Anthropology Lectures of the Professor; in fact, I would go so far as to say that all these lectures, which deal in part with the use, the dangers and the semblances of the senses, seem to indicate, to a greater or lesser extent, the same horizon of the prelude of the “Opponenten-Rede”. But there is one particular Lecture that seems to offer more than a mere stating of the question: interestingly enough, the one time Kant does not dedicate the theme a few pages, but a single—and rather brief—paragraph. Its title is, not at all coincidentally, “Von dem Betruge und dem Schein” (APi 25.2:745). I refer to the version of the year 1777/78 (Pillau)—that is, the same year as the “OpponentenRede”. Here Kant says, with words that could well have been included among the annotations to Kreutzfeld’s dissertation: There is a great difference between deception and illusion. Illusion is a semblance which does not deceive, rather delights; for many a semblance displeases, when it is discovered. Illusions are necessary because often we have to hide the worst [in things]. We may designate as such all illusions where there takes place a connection between the understanding and the semblance. (APi 25.2:745)15

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The passage is crystal clear, and dispels any doubts that might prevail as to the fact that there is a great difference between [the semblances] of deception and illusion. Indeed, Kant reiterates here that the deception of the senses is empty, it disappears, and in disappearing it arouses displeasure (“miȕfällt”) and deceives (“betrügt”), and hence occasions no game; and to this, he adduces that instead, the illusion of poets not only does not deceive, but endures; that is, it lingers in the spirit, and by doing so delights (“ergötzet”), and hence must be deemed ludic by nature. So, in a word, the deception of the senses has nothing to do with truth, it does not seek it, and therefore it vanishes and relinquishes the game, whereas poetical illusion more than everything craves truth, dressing it in newer, different colours in the eyes of the spirit (“because often we have to hide the worst [in things]” ibid.), and in doing so lingers in the game: all quite evident facts, for all these elements are well-known to us, they are obvious and therefore need no further proof. But if I am not mistaken, this passage from Pillau goes even further in explaining the aforementioned differentiation. For these conclusions are now joined by another fact: illusion encompasses “a connection between the understanding and the semblance” (Ibid.), whereas deception knows nothing of such a connection. That is illusion promotes some kind of relation between the understanding and the senses; and surely a quite singular one, for it is known that otherwise the understanding works as a filter, precisely retaining the facts, the images of the senses which are unfit to ascend to knowledge, that is, which can never contribute towards the search for truth. But that singular relation is possible, and it exists; and if it does, then there is a way of making the senses not entirely deceptive, which means that if not all, then at least some data of the senses may be admitted and accepted by the understanding; and lastly, if they are, then such a singular relation must be mediated and favoured by that which connects the senses and truth, by the illusion of poets, and denied by that which divides them, by deception. In a word, what this means is that maybe we are short of thinking a superior state, as well as further consequences of Kant’s distinction between deception and illusion, namely, a different relation between the latter and the faculties of the spirit, and ultimately between them and Philosophy and Poetry. For, if this is the case, then we should assume that if there is such a great hiatus between the senses and truth, and that hiatus is the very predisposition to play the game of approximation to truth, then maybe the understanding is to play a decisive role in this game that is their relation with the senses and

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with truth; and if so, then to Kant the presentiment of truth requires forging a singular relation between the spirit and the senses—for without it, without that game of a possible connection to the desired end—, truth remains inaccessible to the spirit. I shall now reconsider the question of deception and illusion in its possible relation with truth, more specifically with regard to the occurrence (or not) of the game of poetry. Bearing in mind Kant’s aforementioned position with this respect, I would say that only one of two scenarios may be deemed plausible: either one admits a violent, abusive and fierce use of the senses, and thereby tries to trick, to deceive the understanding, thus harming the spirit, which results in the displeasure of sensing nothing of the truth; or instead, the senses are somehow tamed, soothed, and therefore aggregated as part of a whole by the understanding, in such a way that they may cooperate with the faculties of the spirit so as to present the latter an adorned truth. In fact, Kant himself states this problem just before the first argument; either one “strengthens the dominance of the understanding over the lower tribes of the senses” (OR 15.2:909), or one gives in to “the untamed power of the senses, the little (…) power of reason” (Ibid.:910); and hence, in a word, either the senses overwhelm the understanding, or the understanding subdues the senses—just like in the most common question of knowledge. For, deep down, the problem of illusion is also ultimately a problem of knowledge; and so, here too we must ascertain which or how much knowledge not only the images of deception, but also the images of illusion display in the eyes of the understanding, and if they convey it (or not) to the spirit. Now, with respect to a hypothetical primacy of the senses over the aforementioned axis of the game, one would say that here, as in the case of a different primacy, the images of the senses have to be presented to the scrutinising eye of the understanding (which, as always, must appreciate the validity of these images, as well as pass a judgement on their utility), and such images are surely seductive or violent, if not nearly indomitable, for they seek to overpower the understanding; indeed, to Kant, the most violent of the latter, such as the illusions of superstition or fanaticism, are often irresistible, and do indeed pierce through the filter of the understanding, thus accessing the spirit and lodging in it, where they then burn secretively yet intensely. But the ones that matter to us, the so-called “common sensory deceptions” (OR 15.2:908)—like the optical illusion of

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a magic trick—those are bound to run into the wall of the understanding; for though the understanding may initially feel somewhat ensnared, though it may feel a quiver of attraction towards those sensory deceptions—for, after all, we are in the hypothetical domain of “the untamed power of the senses”, and the “little (…) power of reason” (Ibid.:910), however, the understanding ultimately “frees itself from them” (Ibid.:917): that is, it shuns them, it makes them disappear, for it detects the deceit in them and deems them unworthy of the human spirit – and by doing so, it generates the aforementioned vacuity that so displeases the spirit. And why is that? Because, by not piercing through the understanding, the image never really creates a healthy balance of the axis: it does not linger in the axis, and by not doing so, neither offers resistance nor gives in to the spirit, and as such, never really forges a link between the senses and truth, and these never really come to a dialogue: and that silence is the emptiness itself. That is, there is never really an illusion, just sheer semblance, and not only does the spirit make no real use of the image of the senses, but “the deception having vanished, the poet cannot flatter the mind by means of appearances insofar as the latter contain deception” (Ibid.), which provokes tedium and discomfort. The question is thus self-evident: what to do before such an “untamed power of the senses” (Ibid.:910)? Kant’s answer is swift, and once again unsuspectedly favourable to poetry: the solution, he says, consists not only of understanding the phenomenon of poetical illusion, which may “ensnare with trickery” (Ibid.) the very trickery of the senses, but also resorting to the “noble lie” (Ibid.) of “getting the mind accustomed to the charms of the higher disciplines and arts, in this way gradually freeing it from irrational desire as from an uncouth and wild master”16 (Ibid.), and, so we adduce, thus establishing “the dominance of the understanding over the lower tribes of the senses” (Ibid.:909). For, according to Kant, just as the images of the senses must be submitted to the judicious scrutiny of the understanding, so too must the illusion of the poet, which deep down is the same impression of the senses, but conformed to an illusion. And if so, what then does the illusion do to the data of the senses? That is, what does illusion do to deception, while presenting itself to the understanding? Sure enough, it incorporates in itself the image of the senses, thus making it its own; but in doing so, it so to say dissociates between what in the senses is purely rude, and what is purely human, and hence is in compliance with truth. In a word, the illusion cleanses the deception of what is thorny, rude and violent in it—and, to be precise, of what is more akin to its reality—

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and, quite sagaciously, appropriates only what is most essential in it, that which may enable the spirit to discern truth; for both illusion and the elegant arts to which it pertains soothe the senses and thereby ridicule their greedy longing and […] [they] bring […] about that those who have been attracted by its beauties and who have shed their crudity will all the more obey the lessons of wisdom. (OR 15.2:910)17

Now, what is the consequence of this subtle sagacity? That, in presenting itself to the understanding, the illusion still bears that which initially ensnared the understanding, that is, the possibility of sensing truth (a semblance, no doubt, but now a harmless one); but now, it does so free of that which would nonetheless force the understanding to reject it, and which prevented a connection to truth, thus creating the vacuum, thus generating displeasure, etc. For illusion is but “truth in the form of appearance”; that is, it still presents the error, but all this is “frustra”, in vain, for “it does not deceive” (Ibid.:908); it “do[es] not hunt intentionally for sensory deceptions but use[s] them only because the appearance which is to copy nature with perfect fidelity cannot make do without them” (Ibid.:918); which means that illusion “remains even when seen for what it is” (Ibid.:907). And so, upon recovering its composure and freeing himself from the enticement of the flight he saw himself in, the understanding does indeed recognise [“erkennt”] the illusion, but it does not harm it in the least or shun it, rather, upon perceiving this singularity of poetical illusion, upon beholding only that which entices him, and no longer that which maliciously deceived it—and because it recognises the error in this, but nonetheless cannot help being overwhelmed by the trait of truth in it—the understanding is left with no other choice but to accept the illusion, and grant it access to the human spirit. Such is the game between illusion and spirit, and such is the way the spirit is stimulated by illusion. But let it be noted: the fact that the understanding, the pendulum of the question of knowledge, opens the gates of the human spirit to such a singularly ludic manifestation of the senses, to such a rare and enthralling illusion, is all but a sad inevitability, nor is it the lesser of all evils; much on the contrary, for Kant, this is something that not only has to happen, but it also greatly favours the human spirit. For poetical illusion is never real but in its own illusion, and indeed it does not convey but “fictis rerum“ (Ibid.:903); but despite its ideality, the illusion renders the senses obedient to truth, and ultimately forges between truth and the spirit a closer link; which, in fact, means that it forges a superior connection not

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only with its own end, by attaining it, but also with the end of Philosophy, and this it does by “enchant[ing] it through the combined force of sensory impressions” (Ibid.:923). In all fairness, the explanation of such a phenomenon is not at all complex. For in his Lectures on Anthropology, Kant says that Poetry, unlike the philosophical instrument of memory, through which the spirit discovers [“entdeckt”] things which were previously known to it, but were forgotten—and that has nothing pleasurable about it—leads the spirit, and with it Philosophy, to invent [“erfinden”] new connections between things, connections which did not exist previously, and thus unleash a new quiver of life, and open up to a new and throbbing sphere of knowledge to which only Poetry may take the spirit through this game which either raises, or lets the veil fall over truth. And if it is so, then according to Kant what the poetical illusion truly does is, through such singular images, to enliven the spirit, which otherwise would be left to its venerable repose, and hence otherwise would confine itself to what it deems rational, that is, normal; and so, what the poetical illusion does is to promote a progression of knowledge through what is new, what is strange, that is, it stimulates the spirit by having the understanding grant passage to images which before were unknown, and hence forbidden to it, but with which the understanding now acknowledges an almost invisible, perhaps distant but certainly real connection; and that not only does not harm it, or deceive it, but greatly aids it and promotes a wider philosophical comprehension of the world. To sum up, the poetical illusion “moves and exhilarates the mind”; but especially, it places the spirit in a new disposition, for it “keeps the mind in pleasant motion”, through which it is shown new images of the senses with which it plays and through which it believes to discern—and does indeed discern—truth, despite knowing the error behind it all. And that very novelty, that very progress incited by poetical illusion—that reinvention of the novel—is something which Philosophy also lacks, which promotes it and thus forges between both fields of thinking and feeling an unbreakable bind, similar to the one which, in times forgotten, has once bound them, which is why it “should be praised even by the philosopher” (Ibid.:909).

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Notes 1

The theme of illusion or fiction in Kant has been received with unequal interest, depending on its focus being the Kant’s metaphysical, or aesthetic or poetical use of it—and that is reflected in the greater or lesser attention paid to it by present readers. Hence, with regard to the first use, I would underscore, among others, the work by Carchia, Gianni, Kant e la verità dell’apparenza, Torino: Ananke, 2006, cap. III: “Elogio dell’apparenza” (pp. 79-89); the essays by Pajuelo, Felix Duque, “L’illusione e la strategia della ragione”, Il Cannocchiale (Napoli), 1986, 1-2, pp. 97-112, or Piché, Claude, “Les fictions de la raison”, Philosophiques (Québec), 13, 1986, pp. 291-303, and that by Santos, Leonel Ribeiro dos, “As ficções da Razão. Hans Vaihinger ou o Kantismo como ficcionalismo”, in: idem, Ideia de uma Heurística Transcendental, Ensaios de Meta-Epistemologia Kantiana, Lisboa: Esfera do Caos, 2012, pp. 177-203. Yet with regard to the “Opponenten-Rede”, that is, the more specific aesthetic approach to illusion and its study as a central topic for Kant, only a few commendable exceptions are worth mentioning, amongst which I would highlight the very important essay—and respective Portuguese translation of the text—by Santos, Leonel Ribeiro dos, “Sobre a ilusão poética e a poética da ilusão” (to be published briefly in Nr. 2 of “Estudos Kantianos” (Centro de Estudos Kantianos Valerio Rohden, UNESP - Marília), an essay by Deuber-Mankowsky, Astrid, “Ästhetische Illusion alsBestandteil des Wissens. Zu Kants Opponentenrede”, in “Ästhetisierung”. Der Streit um das Ästhetische in Politik, Religion und Erkenntnis. Hrsg. v. Brombach, Ilka, Setton, Dirk u. Temesvári, Cornelia. Zürich 2010, pp. 67-83, or the brief introductory essays by other translators of this piece, such as Meerbote, Ralf, “Concerning Sensory Illusion and Poetic Fiction”, in Kant’s Latin Writings, New York, Peter Lang, 1992, pp. 161-168); Schmidt, Bernhard Adolf, “Eine bisher unbekannte lateinische Rede Kants über Sinnestäuschung und poetische Fiktion”, in “KantStudien“, Vol. 16 (1911), Berlin, Reuther & Reichard, pp. 5-7; Catena, Maria Teresa, Inganno e illusione. Un confronto accademico (pp. 65-102), or Meo, Oscar, in his book Kantiana minora vel rariora, Genova, Il Melangolo, 2000, pp. 113-132. 2 Johann Gottlieb Kreutzfeld, 1745-1784. Professor of Poetry. Manfred Kühn refers to him as follows: “During the seventies two of his younger colleagues seem to have been especially important to Kant, namely, Johann Gottlieb Kreutzfeld (...) and Karl Daniel Reusch (...). Lindner, professor of poetry, died in March of 1776. The person chosen to replace him was Kreutzfeld, also a good friend of Kraus and Hamann. (...) Kreutzfeld also was a student of Kant. (...) Kant maintained a somewhat close relationship with this student of his as well”, in Kühn, Manfred, Kant. A Biography, Cambridge University Press, 2001. Curiously enough—and despite Kühn’s omission—, Meerbote adds: “Johann Gottlieb Kreutzfeld, former student of Kant’s, was appointed professor of poetry at the University of Königsberg, a post which had earlier been offered to Kant but which he had declined on the grounds that he was not qualified to occupy it”, in Meerbote, Ralf,

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“Concerning Sensory Illusion and Poetic Fiction”, in Kant’s Latin Writings (1992), New York, Peter Lang, p. 161. 3 I shall henceforth refer to the title of the text in the Akademie version; for, since the original text consisted of mere annotations produced by Kant in the back and margins of his copy of Kreutzfeld’s dissertation, the text would never receive a proper title from its author. These annotations were discovered and transcribed by A. Warda, and published in the “Altpreussischen Monatsschrift” (Vol. 57, Nr. 4, pp. 662-670 (1910). The following year, in 1911, Bernhard Adolf Schmidt would translate the text into German under the title “Eine bisher unbekannte lateinische Rede Kants über Sinnestäuschung und poetische Fiktion”, in Kant-Studien, Vol. 16, pp. 5-21. Lastly, the text, also known as Reflection nr. 1526 (pp. 903-035), appears in the Akademie-Ausgabeas an “Appendix”, in Warda’s transcription, next to the second part of Kreutzfeld’s dissertation. 4 In B. A. Schmidt’s words: “[die] Sinnestäuschungen als eine [...] Quelle poetischer Vorstellungen und Erzählungen”, (K-S: XVI, 7). 5 From this point onwards— and since the aim of this text is not to reflect on Kreutzfeld, but rather on Kant—we shall entrust the great philosopher with the task of speaking on behalf of the Professor of Poetry—which indeed is the case in the annotations in question, wherein Kant gradually expounds the different points that compose his colleague’s thesis. Kant’s passages quoted within the text are extracted from Ralf Meerbote’s English translation; whenever necessary, these shall be complemented with Kant’s original in Latin, in footnote; the sole exception to this are the quotations from Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology, the translation of which is my own, and therefore my own responsibility. 6 “Nihilo tamen secius Dissertatio, qvam minibus volvo, omnes artis poëtica eveneres et lautitias ex illo fonte impure haurire gestit : mentisqve in vanaludibria propensam (adeo) indolem effingit, ut, qvomagis vanitate imaginum luditur, eo maiori gaudio pectus [ipsius] pertentari crederes.” 7 “Ab hoc autem artificio, quod auri sacra fames docuit circulatores, demagogos et haud raro etiam hierophantas, qvestus (nempe) causa [impr] incautae multitudini imponendi (...)”. 8 “Ab hoc autem artificio (...), poetarum ingenium maxime esse alienum libenter fateor, qvippe qvorum corda auri cupido vix incessere fertur (...).” 9 “Sunt autem qvaedam rerum species, qvibus mens ludit, non ab ipsis ludificatur.” 10 “Sic qvi e crumena ludere dicitur praestigiator, qvoniam me fraude circumvenire tentat, allicit primum, qvasi perspicaciae [sua] meae contra ipsius versutiam periculum facturum, [mox] detectam vero fraudem contemno, repetitam fastidio, [miratus] celatam autem adhuc incredulus odi, miratus qvidem, sed simul indignatus [sagi] me impostoris astutia victum esse.” (OR 15.2:907-908). 11 “Per qvas artifex non incautis propina terrorem; sed veritatem veste apparentiae indutam, qvae interiorem ipsius habitum non obfuscat, sed decorate moculis subiicit, qvae non fuco et praestigiis frustratur imperitos et credulos, sed sensuum luminibus adhibitis iei unam et ex uccam veritatis speciem coloribus sensuum perdusam in scenam perducit.” (OR 15.2:906-907) 12 “(...) qvod de mulce taures [mo] fictis rerum speciebus animum [dem] movet et exhilarat (...).”

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13 “Adeo Rerum apparentiae [non], qvatenus fallunt, [sed quatenus] taedio, qvatenus nobis tantum illudunt, voluptate afficiunt.” 14 “(...) sed illudens [nihilo] cum non si nisi veritas phaenomenon, perspecta re ipsa nihilo minus durat et simulanimum in erroris ac veritatis confiniis qvasi fluctuantem svaviter movet [et] sagacitatis que suae contra apparentiae seductiones conscium mire demulceter.” 15 “Es ist ein grosser Unterschied zwischen Betrug und Schein. Illusion ist ein Schein der nicht betrügt, sondern noch ergötzet; denn mancher Schein wenn er entdeckt ist missfällt er. Illusionen sind uns nöthig weil wir das Schlechtere oft verdecken müssen. Man kann alles das Illusionen nennen wo eine Verbindung zwischen dem Verstande und dem Scheine statt findet.“ (APi 25.2:745) 16 “Certe datur adhuc [certa] qvaedam fallendi ratio, qua ars poetica [inter ceteris] qvam plurimis aliis palmam praeripere videtur et propterea vel a Philosopho [meritisummis] laudibusextollenda est, qvippe promovens mentis in ignobile sensuum vulgus imperium legibusque sapientiae [tanto ob se] qvodammodo obseqvium parans. Tanta enim est sensuum vis indomita, rationis autem, rectae illius qvidem, at inmovendo debilis, impotentia, ut, qvos aperta vi aggredi non licet, dolo subruere consultius sit. Hoc vero fit elegantiorum tam literarum qvam artium delinimentis animum assvefaciendo et hoc pacto sensim a bruta cupidine tanqvam ab agresti et furioso domino liberando.” (OR 15.2:909-910). 17 “Cui consílio, qvod ideo iure qvodam suo piam fraudem vocare fas est, non parum inservit. Ars poëtica, qvae propterea etiam ad artes ingenuas et liberales, h. e. animi libertatem promoventes, numeratur, qvod sensus demulcendo hianti ipsorum expectationi illudit et lautitiis suis inescatos suaqve feritate exutos praeceptis sapientiae tanto magis obseqventes reddit.”

Bibliography Kant, Immanuel, Gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. von der KöniglichPreussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (AkademieAusgabe), Berlin: Georg Reimer. Kühn, Manfred, Kant. A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Meerbote, Ralf, Kant’s Latin Writings, New York: Peter Lang, 1992. Santos, Leonel Ribeiro, “As ficções da Razão. Hans Vaihinger ou o Kantismo como ficcionalismo”, in Idem, Ideia de uma Heurística Transcendental, Ensaios de Meta-Epistemologia Kantiana, Lisboa: Esfera do Caos, 2012. Santos, Leonel Ribeiro, “Sobre a ilusão poética e a poética da ilusão”, Estudos Kantianos, Marília, v. 2, n. 2 (2014): 291-234. Schmidt, Bernhard, “Eine bisher unbekannte lateinische Rede Kants über Sinnestäuschung und poetische Fiktion”, Kant-Studien, Vol. 16 (1911), Berlin: Reuther & Reichard.

II. MORAL QUESTIONS: INTELLIGIBLE TEMPORALITY AND OBLIGATION

A LITTLE BIT EVIL? REFLECTIONS ON PART ONE OF KANT’S RELIGION MARGIT RUFFING UNIVERSITY OF MAINZ, GERMANY

1. Introduction The first part of Kant’s major work on religion, titled “Concerning the indwelling of the evil principle alongside the good, or, Of radical evil in human nature” (“Von der Einwohnung des bösen Princips neben dem guten: oder über das radikale Böse in der menschlichen Natur”), was originally published as a self-standing article in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. Kant had originally intended also to publish the Religion’s other three parts as separate articles; the legal situation in Prussia, however, and in particular the intricate regulation of jurisdiction over censorship, led Kant to publish his contribution to Enlightenment thought on religion as a book rather than as separate pieces. The “Immediate Commission of Investigation” (Immediat-Examinationskommission), introduced in 1791 by the new minister of religion, Johann Christoph von Wöllner, functioned alongside but independently of the relatively liberal and enlightened church Superior Consistory (Oberkonsistorium) in Berlin, which to that point had been largely reluctant to carry out Wöllner’s censorship measures. The new Commission had jurisdiction over the censorship of all theological and moral texts published in Berlin, including books, journals and occasional writings. Although the Berlinische Monatsschrift had relocated its headquarters to Jena precisely for this reason, Kant was nonetheless willing to submit the first piece of his contribution to rational religion, the subject of which was the radical evil in human nature, to the censor. It would prove acceptable and be published in April 1792. The second piece, however, titled “Concerning the struggle of the good with the evil principle for dominion over the human being” (Von dem Kampf des guten Princips, mit dem bösen, um die Herrschaft über den Menschen), was rejected by the censors. As a result, Kant

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decided to combine the four originally planned essays into a single academic monograph, to be published by the University of Königsberg. This kind of specialist text was subject to censorship by the university only; the faculty of Theology would go on to perform a technical examination of the adequacy of Kant’s philosophical treatment of any material belonging to “biblical theology”. The Faculty had no objections, and so the Religion was published the year following the banning of the separate printing of Part Two. Those who are interested in the historical details of the text’s publication are advised to consult Wilhelm Dilthey’s “Streit Kants mit der Censur über das Recht freier Religionsforschung”. For our purposes here, this brief historic sketch will suffice.1

2. The first part of Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason can be called a “short piece”, in the sense of a self-standing publication, for reasons that go beyond the history of its publication. Even if the subsequent pieces had not been published (either as related articles or as parts of a single monograph), the significance of Kant’s short anthropological essay on the moral nature of human beings would not have been diminished. Because the text primarily concerns the incongruity between the moral capacities of human beings and everyday reality, this rigorous and pragmatic analysis has a unique place in Kantian thought. In terms of Kant’s other works, it is perhaps most comparable to Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View; unlike the Anthropology, however, the pragmatism associated with Part One of the Religion does not refer to the implementation of insights or recommendations through which the human being with character becomes a “world citizen”. Here, what is at stake is the innermost and therefore unfathomable foundation of moral character itself. Moreover, this text seeks to discover why human beings are not how they ought to (yet could) be. Kant’s conclusion will be that there is, in fact, no answer to this question. Apparently, we do not understand our innermost selves. This piece on radical evil in human nature is shaped by the tension between “ought” and “is.” Its focus is the moral-philosophical theory of the possibility of the good human being and the empirically observable absence of its realisation. Like any normative moral theory, the applicability of Kantian moral philosophy to real life was (and is) open to investigation (as every theorist who works on Kant’s theory of practical reason knows all too well). Kant’s response to this question consists in the

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fact that the realisation of what should be, i.e. the promotion of the highest good in the world, must be thought of as an “endless progress.” From this it follows that for every inhabitant of the earth, given the natural and relatively short-term nature of his life, this good can be realised only imperceptibly. Further remarks on this can be found in the Anthropology, in Perpetual Peace, and in Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Aim.2 Kant’s “short piece” explains our unfortunate situation in a way that is likely to prove surprising to the most rational among us and to those who take a real interest in the summum bonum: the human being is inherently evil, but she can fight this thanks to her predisposition to the good. With the aim of offering an assessment of Kant’s position, in what follows I shall elucidate and comment on the conditions that explain good and evil in human beings.

3. The comparison between Gesinnung and a tree or a root, and between human actions and fruit, both elucidates and corresponds to philosophical talk about the radicalism, the rootedness, of the evil in human nature. This metaphor is used to describe the often-discussed acquired (and “rooted”) “propensity” to evil, which Kant opposes to the innate, original predisposition to the good. This metaphorical characterisation of “propensity” may be necessary and helpful at the terminological level, but the biological imagery is less helpful when it comes to understanding what such a thing really might be.3Indeed, the attentive reader may have the impression that the concept of an acquired propensity to evil represents a concession to empirical moral theory—one, however, that does not entail abandoning the a priori validity of the moral law of reason. Thus the transcendental approach intensifies the question of how human beings, situated in the world, can make themselves good. As it turns out, a human being is good only on condition that she acts exclusively according to the categorical imperative, from respect for the moral law. But in truth, this is impossible. So the human being is bad—in fact, she is radically bad, to her innermost core. Being “a bit” bad must therefore be excluded in principle. And yet how are we to accept this? To be sure, we are not angels, but must it follow that we are “evil”? What does Kant mean when he describes the human being as “radically evil”? As I was sitting at my desk and working on this paper, children were riding bicycles on the street in front of my office. I overheard the following: “Look! I can ride with one hand!”—“But we shouldn’t do

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that!”—“But I just had to do it now! …” The sequence of the modal verbs can, should, and must in this dialogue captured my attention. These terms sound extremely Kantian, and the last exclamation in particular got me thinking. No one must ride a bike with one hand. The thought should have been something more like: “But I want to do it now” instead of “I just had to”. And this is precisely it, the radical evil. It begins with the fact that we (and other everyday people) do not stand up to our will and do not act with consciousness of being able to determine the will. Curiously, whenever our action does not correspond to what we should do, we consider it uncontrollable, a matter of external necessity. Without knowing it, the children expressed, in a compressed but completely philosophical way, the mental constitution of the human being, which Kant characterised as evil. The human being is naturally equipped with different abilities. She has possibilities, i.e. she not only must, but also can. Or, to put it in Kantian terms, she has the ability to choose freely, and she determines more or less consciously what she wants. This ability is so important because it concerns morality. It consists in attaining consciousness of this constitution, i.e. the development of a conception of oneself as a rational being. The human being then becomes aware of what should be—of the fact that, although her choice can correspond to her inclinations, it need not do so. That which is indeed to be taken seriously has consequences. It is the first step toward what Kant calls the selflegislation of the will: the laying down of one’s own rules and maxims, from subjectively justified principles (as Kant would say: the foundation of character, the precondition for moral action). What suggests itself much more forcefully, however, is the prospect of allowing the “must” of inclination to prevail, unaffected by practical reason: the must of having to ride a bike with one hand, of being unable to do anything but follow, wherever it takes one. Kant has this aspect of being humans squarely in sight when he speaks of “the indwelling of the evil principle alongside the good”, and the “radical evil in human nature”. As Kant sees it, the evil principle “resides” next to the good one; evil is positioned in human nature—it is not an attribute of it, and nor does it constitute it. By contrast, the titles of both of the two parts to follow—“Concerning the struggle of the good with the evil principle […]” (Von dem Kampf des guten Princips mit dem bösen [...]) and “Concerning the victory of the good over the evil principle […]” (Vom Sieg des guten Princips über das böse [...])—indicate the power of the good principle that allows the human being to free herself from the principle.

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Thus there are always two “principles”. Both of the determinations of human character are valid. This situation is described via war-related metaphors, which are incorporated into the religious terminology: the “moral well-intentioned” human being battles continuously with her inner objections; she must arm herself because she is always vulnerable; and so on (see especially the beginning of Part Three, Rel 6:127f.). In philosophical terms, and less metaphorically, this concerns the “restoration to its power of the original predisposition to the good” (Wiederherstellung der ursprünglichen Anlage zum Guten in ihre Kraft), which Kant describes in a “general remark” at the end of Part One. Most crucial is probably the phrase “to its power”, because the predisposition as such is not lost. To readopt the botanical metaphor of a “rooted” propensity, the predisposition is overgrown and covered with greenery; it is, we might say, merely “suspended”.

4. In the “predisposition to the good” (Anlage zum Guten), Kant differentiates between three “elements of the determination of the human being” (Elemente der Bestimmung des Menschen) (Rel 6:26; CE 74), which refers to the “faculty of desire” (Begehrungsvermögen)and to the “exercise of the power of choice” (Gebrauch der Willkür) (cf. Rel 6:28; CE 76): the predisposition “to the animality of the human being”, the predisposition “to the humanity in him”and the predisposition “to his personality” (Rel 6:26f.; CE 74). The first predisposition (to the animality of the human being) serves one’s self-preservation. The latter consists in “physical selflove”, “for which reason is required” (op. cit., 27; CE 75). But it makes a contribution to the advancement of the good in the world insofar as it renders it possible: without humanity, there would be neither reason nor morality in the world. The second predisposition is based on physical selflove. In addition, however, it involves the use of reason, whereby judging the situation and placing one’s own fortunes in “comparison with others” (Vergleichung mit anderen) is made possible (Ibid.). This is why Kant calls it “self-love which involves comparison” (vergleichende Selbstliebe). It has the natural function, as the form of a conscious rivalry, of being the “incentive to culture” (Triebfeder zur Cultur) (Ibid.); as such, it is well suited to advance the good. According to Kant, cultivation is an evolution of the human being and of humanity that precedes moralisation. In this respect, culture has as its aim a civil constitution (cf. Muthmaßlicher Anfang…, CBHH 8:116). More problematically, it is possible that “on these three can be grafted all sorts of vices”, “which, however, do not

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themselves issue from this predisposition as a root”, or “do not really issue from nature as their root” (auf sie allerlei Laster gepfropft […] die aber nicht aus jener Anlage, als Wurzel […], nicht aus der Natur, als ihrer Wurzel, von selbst entsprießen) (Rel 6:27; CE 75), which applies to both of the predispositions of self-love. Kant continues to use the botanical metaphor to explain the first predisposition to the good—the innate, bestial life-will of the human being—as a natural and necessary basic sensible configuration (compare the “Apologie für die Sinnlichkeit” in the Anthropology, A 7:143) in which Kant speaks about sensibility as a source of knowledge), which of itself makes the good possible. At this level, the vicious consists in there being “too much” or in a deviation fromnatural ends (Naturzweck) to the highest degree. Food promotes self-preservation, but too much of it (or eating in a way that is disproportionate to one’s energy expenditure) leads to gluttony. The sexual instinct serves to preserve the species. When abused, however, it leads to lust in the broadest sense. And the “social drive” (Trieb zur Gesellschaft) becomes a “wild lawlessness” (wilde Gesetzlosigkeit) if it is realised in a natural savagery. Located here, with the social, lies the starting point of the second predisposition, which is “to the humanity in him [man], as a living and at the same time rational being” (für die Menschheit [des Menschen], als eines lebenden und zugleich vernünftigen) (Rel 6:26; CE 74). Its positive property, the generation of culture (including a legal framework), works to prevent “wild lawlessness”. Indeed, this second predisposition, which concerns relationships and comparisons with others, leads immediately to an inclination that is intrinsically dangerous because it is, as such, the opposite of reason. In particular, this inclination restrains rather than promotes the good because it consists in gaining “worth in the opinion of other” (sich in der Meinung Anderer einen Werth zu verschaffen) (op. cit., 6:27; CE 75). Originally, according to Kant, it concerned ensuring the natural equality of members of the human species. In the interest of avoiding a situation in which some others become superior to one, each seeks to achieve superiority over others. This leads to jealousy and rivalry, from which point the “greatest” vices are easily within reach—vices which can be described as variants of “secret or open hostility to all whom we consider alien to us” (geheime[.] und offenbare[.] Feindseligkeiten gegen Alle, die wir als für uns fremde ansehen) (Ibid.). Kant calls these the “vices of culture”, a term that testifies to his remarkable farsightedness. It is not only on an individual basis that a consciousness determined by “selflove which involves comparison” prevents the good and, furthermore,

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strengthens human evil, manifested in envy, ingratitude, Schadenfreude and the like, but negative competition can also play out between cultures, leading to discrimination against entire communities. At the highest degree of malice, these vices deserve to be called “devilish”. Kant here indicates that there is an idea of a maximum of evil. It occurs when reason cannot be used appropriately and is instead used exclusively—indeed exploited—for purposes such as self-love and fighting against others. Used as such, it becomes an utter perversion of the “predisposition to humanity”. Such an attitude so fundamentally contradicts the determination of human beings as rational beings, capable of morality, that it transcends humanity (die Menschheit übersteigt), representing the most imaginable evil. Another transition takes effect, because the third predisposition to the good “to his personality, as a rational and at the same time responsible being” (für [die] Persönlichkeit [des Menschen], als eines vernünftigen, und zugleich der Zurechnung fähigen Wesens) (Rel 6:26; CE 74) has to be seen as a separate and distinct predisposition compared to the second, which itself involves reason. We can speak of the human capacity for morality only in relation to personality. To have reason does not necessarily mean to be able to use it in a Kantian way, i.e. to use it for grasping principles that are suitable for general legislation. Herein lies the freedom of choice that can be determined either by inclination or by the idea of law. Kant is compelled to include a footnote explaining the adoption of this third predisposition because it raises the question of the conditions under which the rational human being, qua rational, becomes a personality. Kant explains here that there is something inherent in reason that can be perceived through reason, recognised and acknowledged: this is reason’s awareness of its very own law, the “absolutely imperative moral law” ([das] moralische schlechthin gebietende Gesetz) (cf. Rel 6:26; CE 74, note). Why this is so cannot be explained (it is as inexplicable as the ultimate ground of freedom). In order to convince us that this is so, Kant argues empirically: Were this law not given to us from within, no amount of subtle reasoning on our part would produce it or win our power of choice over to it. Yet this law is the only law that makes us conscious of the independence of our power of choice from determination by all other incentives (of our freedom) and thereby also of the accountability for all our actions.4

We become aware of our freedom via the law given to us by reason; moreover, we become aware of the fact that our actions are expressions of an autonomous determination of our will and are therefore attributable to us. Put differently, we and our actions are the whole of what our

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personality represents. This is because our actions have their ultimate source in the disposition that determines our will. Indeed, the moral quality of an action cannot be judged independently of its underlying disposition, its motivating incentive, and thus the underlying disposition alone is crucial. What does this consciousness, which corresponds directly to the “predisposition to personality” look like? Kant defines the predisposition as “susceptibility to respect for the moral law” (Empfänglichkeit der Achtung für das moralische Gesetz) (Rel 6:27; CE 76). It is a receptivity that makes possible sensation, or perception, of the feeling of respect—the moral feeling—which belongs to reason and which can have the function of being sufficient to determine the will. Moreover, this is a description of the practical character of reason. (This aspect is worthy of its own investigation and cannot be explained further here.) In sum, it concerns receptivity to respect for the moral law, described by Kant as a natural, constitutional human capacity. It is primarily and necessarily one of the constituent elements of the human being, on which her moral character depends. In opposition to the two other predispositions that can contribute to the promotion of the good, the predisposition of practical and lawgiving reason does not allow itself be used inappropriately. It can either be used or not; it can be put into effect or suspended. We cannot avoid using the predispositions inside of us that are characterised by selflove. This happens naturally. When it comes to the use of practical reason, which makes the free will good, we must first determine ourselves. This is the essence of the causality of freedom: it must be set into action, and the effect takes place within or from freedom. From freedom, the human being can feel respect for the law that reason lays down for her, thus aiming at the promotion of the good, or—as is usually the case—finding principles that serve other purposes, either not respecting the law of reason or indeed deviating from it. This is evil, and it is radical. At this point, Kant introduces the “propensity to evil”. This denotes per definitionem the “subjective ground of the possibility of an inclination […], insofar as this possibility is contingent for humanity in general” (den subjectiven Grund der Möglichkeit einer Neigung […] sofern sie für die Menschheit überhaupt zufällig ist) (Rel 6:29; CE 76). A tendency (Hang) is an a priori condition for the possibility of developing inclinations (Neigungen) that does not arise from a predisposition with necessity (just as the tendency to compare ourselves to others arises from the predisposition to humanity). Unlike predispositions, however, tendencies are acquired. Insofar as inclination always presents us with the possibility of deviating from the moral law in the selection of maxims, we

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can speak of a tendency (Hang) to evil that lies in human nature—one that is in fact rooted in the human being and is thus radical. This tendency (Hang) is self-inflicted insofar as we are always free to reject maxims grounded in inclinations (Neigungen). This is potentially true of all of the maxims of the predisposition to humanity, and actually always true of a subgroup thereof: it is our inner comparative self-love, the inevitable being with others in the world, that rules over consciousness and leads us to allow ourselves to deviate from the moral law in the selection of our maxims despite our consciousness of it. In this regard, Kant notes at the beginning of Part Three of the Religion, which concerns the ideal of the ethical commonwealth, the human community under moral law: Envy, addiction to power, avarice, and the malignant inclinations associated with these, assail his nature, which on its own is undemanding, as soon as he is among human beings. Nor is it necessary to assume these are sunk into evil and are examples that lead him astray: it suffices that they are there, that they surround him, and that they are human beings, and they will mutually corrupt each other’s moral disposition and make one another evil.5

5. Conclusion According to Kant, it seems that the evil that is always rooted in the human being is not only present but dominant. This is confirmed by experience. Moral hybridity, or the coexistence of materially good and evil principles side-by-side, is not possible. Evil consists in disregard for the objectives and the capacity of practical reason, and it is put into effect via our mere living together with others, looming over our awareness of and feeling for the moral law. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the “Wiederherstellung der Anlage zum Guten in ihre Kraft” (Rel 6:48f.) is possible, in theory, via a revolution “in the mode of thought”, or “a revolution in the disposition of the human being” (op. cit., 6:47f.; CE 91): the conscious subordination of all maxims to the moral law. This is also practically possible through a constant “reformations of conduct” (Reformen des Verhaltens) (Ibid.), which sets the “establishment of a character” (op. cit., 6:48; CE 92) and the “change of heart” apart (cf. op. cit., 6:47; CE 91). Empirically, maxims opposed to the tendency toward vice can be practiced, and their selection can thus become a habit, the result of which is human moral progress (which, as mentioned above, occurs imperceptibly). Kant never tires of emphasising that we must cling to our legitimate hope for the moral progress of humanity in the world. If

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the human being cannot be “a little bit evil”, then she can at least be “a little bit good”, and can always become “a little bit better”. We are able neither to understand nor to prove this; it is a matter of faith, of subjective and objective commitment. Thus it is not surprising that Kant’s moral philosophy necessarily leads to religion, for at base it has the character of religious conviction. Although in many ways a “short piece”, this reflection on the radical evil in human nature points beyond itself, leading us outward, toward Kant’s “great” text on religion.6

Notes

Transl. by Lisa Frank and Carolyn Benson. Dilthey, W., “Der Streit Kants mit der Censur über das Recht freier Religionsforschung,” in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 3 (1980): pp. 418450. 2 Cf. A, 7:324, 333; Rel, Ak 6:136. 3 See Forschner, M., “Über die verschiedenen Bedeutungen des „Hangs zum Bösen”. In: Immanuel Kant. Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, ed. Otfried Höffe. Berlin 22011 [Klassiker auslegen Bd. 41], 71-90. 4 Rel, Ak 6:26; CE 74; note. (Wäre dieses Gesetz nicht in uns gegeben, wir würden es als ein solches durch keine Vernunft herausklügeln, oder der Willkür anschwatzen: und doch ist dieses Gesetz das einzige, was uns der Unabhängigkeit unsrer Willkür von der Bestimmung durch alle andern Triebfedern (unsrer Freiheit) und hiemit zugleich der Zurechnungsfähigkeit aller Handlungen bewußt macht.) 5 Rel, Ak 6:129, my emphasis. – (Der Neid, die Herrschsucht, die Habsucht und die damit verbundenen feindseligen Neigungen bestürmen alsbald seine [des Menschen] an sich genügsame Natur, wenn er unter Menschen ist, und es ist nicht einmal nöthig, daß diese schon als im Bösen versunken und als verleitende Beispiele vorausgesetzt werden; es ist genug, daß sie da sind, daß sie ihn umgeben, und daß sie Menschen sind, um einander wechselseitig in ihrer moralischen Anlage zu verderben und sich einander böse zu machen; Rel, Ak 6:93f., my emphasis.) 6 See also Kuhne, F., “Zum Verhältnis von Moral und Religion, ” in Kants Ethisches Gemeinwesen. Die Religionsschrift zwischen Vernunftkritik und praktischer Philosophie, M. Städtler et al. (ed.), Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2005, 111-119. 1

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Bibliography Primary Sources Kant, I., Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, in Religion and Rational Theology, transl. and ed. by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni, Cambridge/New York, 1996. [Rel Ak 6:1-202] —. A: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (CE Anthropology, History, and Education, 227-428; Ak 7: 117-333) —. CBHH: “Conjectural Beginning of Human History” (CE, Anthropology, History, and Education, 160-175; Ak 8:125-30) —. IUH: “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (CE Anthropology, History, and Education, 107-20; Ak 8:15-31) —. TPP: Toward Perpetual Peace (CE Practical Philosophy, 311–352; Ak 8:341-86)

Secondary Sources Dilthey, W., “Der Streit Kants mit der Censur über das Recht freier Religionsforschung,” in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 3 (1980): 418-450. Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. A Critical Guide, Gordon Michalson (ed.), Cambridge: CUP, 2014. Klemme, H. F., “Die Freiheit der Willkür und die Herrschaft des Bösen. Kants Lehre vom radikalen Bösen zwischen Moral, Religion und Recht,” in Aufklärung und Interpretation, H. Klemme/M. Pauen/W. Stark et al. (eds.), Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1999, pp. 125-151. Kuhne, F., “Zum Verhältnis von Moral und Religion,” in Kants „Ethisches Gemeinwesen“. Die Religionsschrift zwischen Vernunftkritik und praktischer Philosophie, M. Städtler et al. (ed.), Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2005, pp. 111-119. Immanuel Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, O. Höffe (ed.), Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 22011. [Klassiker auslegen Bd. 41] Horn, C.: “Die menschliche Gattungsnatur: Anlagen zum Guten und Hang zum Bösen,” in Immanuel Kant. Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, pp. 43-69. Forschner, M., “Über die verschiedenen Bedeutungen des Hangs zum Bösen”, in Immanuel Kant. Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, pp. 71-90.

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Rodríguez Duplá, L, “Kants Lehre vom radikal Bösen,” in Jahrbuch für Religionsphilosophie 6 (2007): 97-122. Rukgaber, M. S., “Irrationality and Self-Deception within Kant’s Grades of Evil,” in Kant-Studien 106 (2015): 234-258. Sirovátka, J., Das Sollen und das Böse in der Philosophie Immanuel Kants. Zum Zusammenhang zwischen kategorischem Imperativ und dem Hang zum Bösen, Hamburg: Meiner, 2015.

MYSTERIES OF FEELING VERSUS HORIZONS OF REFLECTION: ON THE “SUPER-SENSIBLE SUBSTRATUM” OF EXPERIENCE AND THE (PUBLIC) USE OF REASON ANSELMO APORTONE UNIV. OF ROME TOR VERGATA, ITALY

“Unwissenheit. Horizont der Erkenntnis” (16:170) (“Ignorance. Horizon of knowledge”)

1. The Scenario Our reflections start from Kant’s essay of 1796, On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy (Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie: RPT), a pamphlet directed against the idea of “mystical-Platonic” philosophy, based on inspiration and feeling, advocated by Johann Georg Schlosser and Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg. After this publication there followed the responses by Schlosser, a reply by Kant, and then sidings with the latter on the part of other weighty intellectuals. The debate, however, though it took place in the general context of renewed interest in the philosophy of Plato and of cautions against enthusiasm (Schwärmerei), concluded quite quickly and didn’t assume much prominence1. Kant wrote in an ironic and on the whole benevolent tone, quite removed from that of the polemic against Eberhard, as is evident already in the title of his second intervention in the debate, Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy (Verkündigung des nahen Abschlusses eines Traktakts zum ewigen Frieden in der Philosophie: PP). His adversaries were “dilettante philosophers” and didn’t represent a real philosophical challenge so much as a pretext to engage publicly with a “pedagogical” intent in order to stem an anti-Enlightenment tendency. Kant wanted, in

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particular, to avert the spread of a presumptuous manner of “playing the philosopher,” ignorant or heedless of the then-mature critique of reason, which might be dangerous for true philosophy and the free public use of reason. Kant writes: To censure such a claim did not strike me as superfluous at the present time, when adornment with the title of philosophy has become a matter of fashion, and the philosopher of vision (if we allow such a person) might— seeing how easy it is, by an audacious stroke, to attain without trouble to the summit of insight—be able unawares (since audacity is catching) to assemble a large following about him: which the police in the kingdom of the sciences cannot permit. (RPT 8:403-404)2

All in all, the debate with Schlosser cannot be described as epoch-making and for Kant it didn’t represent an occasion for rethinking or exploring theses or philosophical arguments. He himself portrayed his engagement in the debate more as an operation of policy than a philosophical-scientific contribution and explained the metaphor in the following piece: the health of reason, like that of the body, is an equilibrium that “is an incessant sickening and recovery” (“auf einer Haaresspitze schwebt”), and so philosophy must also act (therapeutically) as a medicine (materia medica), for the use of which we need dispensaries and doctors (though the latter are alone entitled to prescribe such use); in which connection the authorities must be vigilant to see that it is qualified physicians who profess to advise what philosophy should be studied, and not mere amateurs, who thereby practice quackery in an art of which they know not the first elements. (PP 8:414)

It is understandable that this piece shouldn’t have been given much attention in Kant studies; however, as far as its polemical-instructive scope goes, it discusses themes of great significance: philosophical method and its relation to mathematics, the concepts of knowledge and faith, the possibility of some kind of intellectual intuition, the relation between philosophy, enthusiasm and moral progress on the part of humanity or, in the more benevolent formulation of the last pages, between a “philosophical method” and an “aesthetic way of presenting” that “morally commanding reason” (RPT 8:405) which both contenders wished to serve. The leitmotif of these reflections is nothing less than the problem of knowledge of the super-sensible substratum of experience in both theoretical and practical terms, though—given the literary genre of the piece—this is not presented “scholastically” (RPT 8:390) and is more explicit only in the footnotes. We are dealing, then, with an occasional piece, rich in themes of historical

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and cultural interest, which adds little or nothing to the reasonings and demonstrations presented by Kant in his greatest works, but which— supposing that Kant here, in a context free from internal theoretical tensions, has presented concisely and in linear fashion basic features of his mature doctrine—might contribute to clarifying the Kantian concept of the super-sensible. Which would be no small matter, considering that the Critiques do not seem to present it unequivocally and that it deeply divides interpreters to this day.

2. Idealism and Enthusiasm At this point it may be worth underlining that the context of the piece in question is that instituted by the Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft: CPJ), with which Kant declares having completed “the system of the critique of pure reason”3. In the following sections some thematic correspondences will be pointed out which confirm this and repay analysis. According to my hypothesis, the treatment of the various themes should reflect the late Critical formulation of the question of the super-sensible and offer some indication of the perspective in which to collocate Kant’s thinking on the thing-in-itself.

2.1. Kant’s Motivations Kant’s disapproval of the pretensions of the “new Platonists” to being capable of employing “a higher feeling” (RPT 8:395) as a philosophical principle was certainly motivated by the objective and structural opposition of such an attitude to Enlightenment reason in general, and to Critical philosophy in particular, in that it was based on the formal consideration of the principles of our faculties, which not by coincidence was directly opposed and stigmatised.4 The dismissive habit of crying down the formal in our knowledge (which is yet the preeminent business of philosophy) as a pedantry, under the name of “a pattern-factory”, confirms this suspicion, namely that there is a secret intention, under the guise of philosophy to actually outlaw all philosophy, and as victor to play the superior over it. (RPT 8: 404)

In general, however, Kant was not much inclined towards literary controversies; the strong reaction to observations that at bottom applied to him only marginally5 may have had a further trigger: perhaps the worry that, in a cultural context characterised by the development of a Romanticidealist sensibility, a supposed philosophical principle tending to mysticism

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might be put into relation with or even mistaken for the kind of “feeling” he dealt with in the third Critique. After the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft: CPR) Kant didn’t want his idealism to be grouped in with that of Berkeley, and now perhaps he feared it might be overshadowed by becoming pooled with the new forms of philosophical fervour. In the Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant recognised that the feeling of pleasure and displeasure was one of the three fundamental faculties of the mind, together with the faculties of cognition and desire, and moreover he attributes to it the function of effecting—through the cognitive power of judgement, with which it is constitutively connected—“a transition from the pure faculty of cognition, i.e., from the domain of the concepts of nature, to the domain of the concept of freedom” (CPJ, Introduction, § III, 5:179). In this way, the feeling of pleasure and displeasure makes possible the combination of the results of the first two Critiques into a more structured and organic theoretical picture of the interests and uses of theoretical and practical reason, and so of the domain of each in the single territory of experience. Thus it might have seemed that Critical philosophy had somehow and finally to return to the shared and intuitive vision of man and reality found in “Menschensinn,”6 or in other words, to admit that its opponents, who had fought it in the name of common sense or tradition, were right. Among those many opponents was Schlosser, who—in a really rather generic manner—rebuked the philosophical schools “which now lead the discussion to divide the human being in two,” instead of orienting themselves in relation to “the whole human being, […] the human being, as it manifests on average,” as Schlosser’s Plato would have done.7 In any case, the concept of feeling in itself has slippery connotations. In the course of the elaboration of Kant’s Critical philosophy, it became distanced, on the level of Kantian principles, from its original meaning as sensible receptivity: differently from sensation, the feeling of pleasure cannot be part of knowledge, nor the source of morality; rather it regards the representation of the agreement of an object or of an action with the subjective conditions of life, i.e., with the faculty of the causality of a representation with respect to the reality of its object (or with respect to the determination of the powers of the subject to action in order to produce the object). (CPrR, Preface, AA 5:9, note)

The term “feeling” can, however, also evoke the idea of an inner voice, a particular form of representation in inner sense, independent of the sensible sources of ordinary representation. Even the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft: CPrR), after all, postulates a

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non-empirical feeling of respect for the moral law8, but briefly speaking this is clearly subsidiary to the latter and can’t admit of any confusion with regard to what the real ethical principle is: it is not an autonomous feeling but an effect of the autonomy of practical reason on the feeling of a rational being.9 The feeling of pleasure and displeasure, when not empirically conditioned, consists instead of a pure satisfaction, of which we can say at the very least that it corresponds in a not so manifestly subsidiary way to the (weaker and more subjective) form of autonomy of the power of judgement, which—let us remember—had just been raised a level, in connection with the mental faculty of the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, and recognised as one of the higher faculties of cognition. Kant now attributed to it a transcendental significance, or rather a subjective-regulatory a priori principle for reflection, constitutive of the experience of the beautiful: the pure form of finality. Thus, while this feeling too, which we can call aesthetic, is to be considered an effect of spontaneity on the receptive part of the mind (which is not caused, however, by the application of certain laws or rules but rather accompanies reflection on these) and not in itself a constitutive principle of knowledge or experience, it might seem that in the case of non-determining reflection on an object of the senses (or rather on its form and our corresponding representative state)10 the relation of cause and effect is oriented inversely: that is, the feeling precedes and determines judgement. If this were the case, then why should not an emotional knowledge of the ineffable, of the super-sensible objects of reason, be possible?11 Kant would seem to have had good reasons, then, for fearing that the many who hadn’t studied or understood the subtle analyses of the third Critique, the mainstay of the foundation of his philosophical system, might consider it as bordering on precisely that “principle of wishing to philosophise by influence of a higher feeling” (RPT 8:395) that represented the end of true philosophy. This complex and nuanced game of objective quarrels in theory and Weltanschauung, of polemics on the sidelines, but well within the view of the learned public, and of involuntary but potentially evocative terminological collusions (to give another example—like Kant, Schlosser in his defence of Plato is opposed to enthusiasm and the introverted and arid philosophy of the schools). All this might effectively damage the cause of Critical philosophy, and thus it seems sufficient to explain Kant’s intervention; it was a question of marking out the difference between his transcendental philosophy and the pseudo-philosophies of feeling, and so of defending the prerogatives of reason in writing philosophy and, from the theoretical point of view, of reiterating the limits of our cognitive faculties. The latter—against any claimed extra-rational or super-sensible

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inspiration of the supposedly healthy intellect, or of men of genius chosen “by the goddess Isis”—render direct and immediate knowledge of the super-sensible impossible, and any objective conception that we might make of it contradictory, binding anyone who wants to engage in philosophy, rather than “play the philosopher”, to the hard and modest work of Critically-founded conceptual understanding.

2.2. The Slippery Slope from the Purposiveness of Mathematical Objects to Intellectual Intuition In this context, the difference between the method of philosophy and that of mathematics is obviously relevant. To ignore or confuse the specific characteristics relating to each is not only harmful for the progress of knowledge, but can lead to the slippery slope towards enthusiasm, as the second section of the 1796 piece illustrates, starting from the case of the purposiveness to be found in mathematical constructs and the feeling that this elicits. Plato, no less a mathematician than he was a philosopher, admired among the properties of certain geometrical figures, e.g., the circle, a sort of purposiveness, i.e., a fitness to resolve a multiplicity of problems, or multiplicity in resolving one and the same problem (as in the theory of geometrical loci), from a principle, just as if the requirements for constructing certain quantitative concepts were laid down in them on purpose, although they can be grasped and demonstrated as necessary a priori. But purposiveness is thinkable only through relation of the object to an understanding, as its cause. (RPT 8: 391)

The correspondence with the CPJ is precise here, since these lines repropose in part the contents of § 62 of that work, in which Kant explains that such purposiveness in effect regards “all geometrical figures that are drawn in accordance with a principle”, that is constructed on the basis of a rule, one which “is evidently objective and intellectual, not, however, merely subjective and aesthetic” (CPJ 5:362) like that of the objects we judge to be beautiful. The reason for the admiration is not to be found in the convergence and harmony of the rules in themselves, but “in the necessity of that which is purposive and so constituted as if it were intentionally arranged for our use, but which nevertheless seems to pertain originally to the essence of things, without any regard to our use” (CPJ 5:363). For example, “in such a simple figure as the circle there lies the basis for the solution of a host of problems” which hadn’t been thought of at all with the single concept that determines the rule of its construction

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(CPJ 5:362). We understand, then, that Plato, himself a master of this science, was led by such an original constitution of things, in the discovery of which we can dispense with all experience, and by the mental capacity for drawing the harmony of things out of their super-sensible principle (to which pertain the properties of numbers, with which the mind plays in music), to the enthusiasm that elevated him beyond the concepts of experience to ideas, which seemed to him explicable only by means of an intellectual communion with the origin of all things. […] in which case it is surely excusable that through misunderstanding this admiration gradually rose to enthusiasm. (CPJ 5:363, 364)

What is the nature of this misapprehension? Purposiveness, Kant wrote in the 1796 piece, “is thinkable only through relation of the object to an understanding, as its cause” (RPT 8:391); without a previous critique to define its meaning in the logic of knowledge its use can easily generate misinterpretations. That the concept of finality unavoidably refers to the aforementioned relation between object and intellect doesn’t mean we must always set at the base of the representation of a certain purposiveness the real purpose of a mind (whether archetypal or ectypal), in other words that it is necessary to conjecture an actual teleology. This is not indispensable, and much less is it justified, when the purposiveness in question doesn’t concern our practical reason (in other words, it doesn’t derive from a determination of the will), or when it is presupposed in general as a transcendental principle in order to discover or understand the particular laws of nature12. Also in the case of an object of mathematics, its intellectual purposiveness “can nevertheless be conceived, as far as its possibility is concerned, as merely formal (not real), i.e., as purposiveness that is not grounded in a purpose, for which teleology would be necessary, but only in general” (CPJ 5:364), for example without presupposing super-sensible archetypes (Platonic ideas or intellectual intuitions). This is because it isn’t a question of something that exists outside me, independently of me, but a representation, an a priori intuition constructed by the intellect through a concept placed arbitrarily at the basis of a determination of space, or rather the result of the application of a principle of the intellect to the subjective form of the intuition. In a figure thus determined, we further find the basis of many rules, whose unity and purposiveness elicit admiration, since they are synthetic, that is, they aren’t already contained analytically in the concept of the object but require that it be given and determined in the intuition. The basis of their harmony and of the necessity with which this

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manifests itself, is actually the relation of reciprocal functionality between the a priori forms of the intellect and the forms of sensibility, in their transcendental ideality. But this relation—given its opaque and, from the point of view of justification, conclusive (last and regarding ‘border issues’)—can easily be ignored in favour of the search for a reason independent of the constitution of our ordinary representational faculty and so made possible only thanks to an external purpose and a supersensible basis13. But now since with our understanding, as a faculty of cognition through concepts, we are unable to extend our a priori knowledge beyond our concept (though this does actually happen in mathematics), Plato was obliged to assume that we men possess intuitions a priori, which would, however, have their first origin, not in our understanding, (RPT 8:391)

and to argue accordingly in his philosophy. Both in the KU and in the piece of 1796 Kant showed respect for Plato, crediting him in particular with a mode of important thinking, which he didn’t hesitate to put in direct relation with his own to offer a further flattering diagnosis of the misinterpretation of which Plato had fallen afoul: Before him there undoubtedly hovered, albeit obscurely, the question that has only lately achieved clear expression: “How are synthetic propositions possible a priori?” Could he have guessed at that time, what has only been discovered since, that there are indeed intuitions a priori, but not of the human understanding, since (under the name of space and time) they are actually sensuous; that all objects of sense are therefore perceived by us merely as appearances, and that even their forms, which we are able to determine a priori in mathematics, are not those of things-in-themselves, but only (subjective) forms of our sensibility, which are therefore valid for all objects of possible experience, but not a step beyond that; he would not then have looked for pure intuition (which he needed, to make synthetic a priori knowledge intelligible to himself) in the divine understanding and its archetypes of all things, as independent objects; or thereby have put the torch to enthusiasm. (RPT 8:391-392 note)

Kant repeatedly highlighted the difference between Plato and the platonising philosophers in the following pages and the piece’s most famous expression—“Plato the academic, therefore, […] became the father of all enthusiasm by way of philosophy”—is a simple historical attestation, made almost regretfully, as is evident if we also read the middle section of the sentence, which is usually not quoted: “though through no fault of his own (for he used his intellectual intuitions only backwards, to explain the possibility of a synthetic knowledge a priori, not forwards, to extend it

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through those Ideas that were legible in the divine understanding)” (RPT 8:398). Here Plato isn’t barred from the assembly of the true philosophers together with his declared disciples, but rather recruited as a predecessor, as the one who intuited the fundamental problem of the theory of knowledge and transcendental methodology14. It is particularly instructive, then, to establish the reason for which precisely Plato should have taken the false road of super-sensible principles: like Leibniz, like all preKantian philosophers, he makes a priori and intellectual coincide, not having discovered the pure forms of sensible intuition, and the transcendental ideality of space and time. And with this we have gone back, so to speak, to the origin of the system of the Critique, whose architectonic unity found confirmation in the fact that, as once more manifested here, the different transcendental principles presuppose each other reciprocally. The transcendental or, as Kant suggested in 1783, formal or simply critical idealist15 is not only the true realist as regards empirical objects16 but, by recognising the a priori form of sensibility, resists the dogmatic tendencies towards transcendental realism even in those domains in which the reflecting power of judgement must seek conformity to laws of the contingent properties of phenomena, and lets himself be guided by the analogy of the object of reflection with his own a priori principle of formal purposiveness. If the objects of possible experience are not thingsin-themselves, then their potential purposiveness too, like the other formal properties characterising them in general and in particular, will have to depend in the first place on the a priori form of the faculty of cognition and not immediately, as it might also seem, on a super-sensible basis. If we free ourselves of this misapprehension, we avoid the illusions of reason in general and teleological hypostatisations in particular, remaining firmly in the territory of experience without contradicting the possibility of a priori knowledge.17 In form resides the essence of the matter (forma dat esse rei, as the schoolmen said), so far as this is to be known by reason. If this matter be an object of the senses, then it is the form of things in intuition (as appearances), and even pure mathematics is nothing else but a form theory of pure intuition; just as metaphysics, qua pure philosophy, founds its knowledge at the highest level on forms of thought, under which every object (matter of knowledge) may thereafter be subsumed. Upon these forms depends the possibility of all synthetic knowledge a priori, which we cannot, of course, deny that we possess. But the transition to the supersensible, to which reason irresistibly drives us, and which it can accomplish only in a moral and practical respect, it can also effect solely

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through those (practical) laws which make as their principle, not the matter of free actions (their purpose), but only their form, the appropriateness of their maxims to the universality of a legislation as such. (RPT 8:404, italics added)

This passage summarises the essentials of the issue at hand. For now, let us set aside its ethical-practical aspect. As regards the theoretical sphere, there clearly emerge the affirmative circular dynamic of transcendental philosophy and the negative dynamic of misapprehension of the principles of knowledge, which is triggered when their use precedes or ignores the lesson of the Critique. As this suggests, the latter is based on the fundamental discovery of the ideality of the forms of intuition and the question of the possibility of an a priori synthetic knowledge. This discovery and this question produced transcendental logic and with it a systematic therapeutic treatment of the dialectical illusions of reason. But the Critical enterprise could not be considered finished until it included, as well as the possibility of experience in general according to the a priori forms of the intellect and sensibility, also the possibility of empirical experience as potentially being subsumed under the universal transcendental necessity of the principles of those faculties (thus the full objective value of the transcendental conditions with regard to the reality of objects). Alongside the critiques of the intellect and of reason must be added that of the power of judgement with the analysis of the principle of purposiveness and its various uses, which allows further therapeutic treatments—more circumscribed, but important—relating to the antinomy of taste and that of the principles of empirical research into the particular laws of nature. The “Dialectic of the Teleological Power of Judgment” makes clear that the concept of the objective purposiveness of nature does not have dogmatic content in and of itself, nor can it lead us towards the supersensible. Instead, it is simply a regulative principle of reason for the reflecting power of judgement, but—as we have seen—even the merely formal purposiveness of mathematical objects can lead to metaphysical misapprehensions, or rather to interpreting teleologically the purely formal harmony observable in the properties of geometrical figures and numbers, and as a result to postulating an intuitive access to the super-sensible basis of all things. This happens because the a priori of sensibility, and the fact that mathematical objects are representations, are denied, and so an attempt is made to account for that harmonious combination of properties with the means and method of philosophy, that is, through purely intellectual principles, which ends up overstepping the limits of the sphere in which their correct application is possible.

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But he who philosophizes upon a mathematical problem believes that here he has stumbled upon a mystery, and for that reason is seeing something transcendently great, where he is not seeing anything, and finds, in the very fact that he is brooding inwardly upon an idea, which he can neither make intelligible to himself, nor communicate to others, the true philosophy (philosophia arcani). (RPT 8:393)

These are the consequences which follow for those who have not sufficiently understood the question of a priori synthetic knowledge, which holds together the transcendental idealism of the principles of our faculty of cognition and the critique of the metaphysical use of the same, which, by promising an original and superior knowledge of the totality, of the noumena, of the harmony of beings, in reality leads only to methodological confusions and illusions harmful to true philosophy and reason itself. And finally, the most recent possessors of it [the secret knowledge] are those who have it within them, but are unfortunately incapable of uttering and disseminating it generally, by means of language (philosophus per inspirationem). Now if there were a knowledge of the super-sensible (alone a true mystery, from the theoretical viewpoint), which the human mind can nevertheless unravel from a practical point of view, it would still, as a power of knowledge through concepts, be far inferior to that which, as a power of intuition, might be perceived directly through the understanding. For by means of the former the discursive understanding must employ much labor on resolving and again compounding its concepts according to principles, and toil up many steps to make advances in knowledge, whereas an intellectual intuition would grasp and present the object immediately, and all at once. (RPT 8:389)

3. Modes of Knowledge and of Holding-to-be-True In substance, Kant effects a reductio of the fundamental types of knowledge. Either this depends on material that is independent of us and on the form of our faculties of cognition, and so has well-defined limits and proceeds from the parts towards the whole as regards the content and from the universal to the particular in the conceptual determination of the same, or things are not thus, and so we find ourselves faced with a type of consciousness mysterious to us, which we can only think, through the negation of the form of knowledge familiar to us. This is like an immediate awareness of the entirety, for which the relation between universal and particular isn’t contingent, and which leaves no space for the difference between thing and representation, real and possible, intuition

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and concept, and so presupposes an intellect radically different from ours. We are speaking of an intuiting intellect, the concept of which is made up of infinite judgements (included under the heading of quality), of the “a is not-b” kind, through which nothing determinate is actually thought. A limit concept, then, not demonstrable and which does not prove anything, but which serves as an illustration by contrast of direct analysis of our faculties of cognition. All this is for the most part implicit in the article of ’96, but it is presented at some length in §§ 76 and 77 of the CPJ; it is clear then that in the article Kant prescribed his own Critical conception and imposed a radical ultimatum on his opponent, who did not intend to reach a form of explicit fanaticism, regarding the claim of a superhuman faculty of knowledge18. He wanted rather to preserve a customary and indeterminate image of our intellect, which might permit hybridisations between the antinomous possibilities contemplated by Kant: emotional inspirations and/or indeterminate intuitions and/or speculative concepts of the supersensible—in short, representations that do not fully transcend the barrier that make the essence of the super-sensible mysterious, but let it be glimpsed, “intuited” or “felt” in the vague sense of those terms. Kant had allowed for forms of symbolic expression of the super-sensible, but in a communicative space structured by strict coordinates: the complete separation of the schematic and symbolic modes of representation, the precise determination of the meaning and validity of the inference by analogy, the restriction of the symbolic representation of the supersensible to its role of being an unconditioned premise of morality. The language envisaged by a Schlosser is instead simply elusive. Now the platonizing philosopher of feeling is inexhaustible in such pictorial utterances, which are supposed to make this divination intelligible; e.g., “to approach the goddess of wisdom so closely that one may hear the rustle of her robes”; and likewise in belauding the art of the pseudo-Plato, who “though unable to lift the veil of Isis, can yet make it so thin that one may divine the goddess beneath it.” How thin, we are not told; but presumably it is still thick enough for us to make what we please of the apparition, for otherwise it would be a seeing, which is certainly to be avoided. (RPT 8:399)

As for the possibility of intermediate modes of knowledge, in the footnotes we find presented once more, in roughly the same terms as in the final sections of the KU, the difference between the modes of holding-to-betrue, which leads once more to a denial of the consistency of a “theoretical faith” in the super-sensible, and nonetheless to a recognition of faith as

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having a moral significance in the practical dimension: acting “according to the ideal of this purpose [the highest good], as though such a worldgovernment were real” (RPT 8:397 note). In order to avoid the impression that this “as though” might indicate a merely fictional plane, let us remember that in the second part of the KU, after the careful thematisation and critical “double” limitation of teleological discourse, Kant even goes so far as to formulate a “moral proof of the existence of God,”19 while remaining clear that practical-moral faith does not presuppose a theoretical knowledge of the super-sensible, and that on the contrary such knowledge would pervert it. We can disregard the other correspondences; it now seems clear that this piece of 1796 constitutes a further example of the negative, or therapeutic and Enlightenment, use of the critique of reason in the 1790 configuration. Having arrived at its mature and complete formulation, the critique could safeguard, with strength and “largesse,” the limits of possible experience, within which a legitimate use of the a priori principles of our faculties is made, also contemplating, however, a broader and more indeterminate horizon of sense than that around the territories of experience which have a rational constitution of their own. Within the latter—which already surrounds a limitless territory—reason can exercise its constitutiveobjective functions, and establish and broaden its dominions. Within the former—which extends across the field of the absolute and, in a certain sense, frees us from the boundaries (but not the limits) of empirical experience—it is possible to think and reflect also on such things as cannot be objects of the senses, and on the tasks and purposes that reason sets for itself. To look into the sun (the super-sensible) without being blinded is not possible; but to see it adequately in reflection (of the reason that morally enlightens the soul), and even from a practical viewpoint, as the older Plato did, is perfectly feasible. By contrast, the new Platonists “certainly give us only a stage sun,” because they wish to deceive us by feelings (intimations), i.e., merely the subjective, which gives us no concept of the object, in order to buoy us up with the delusion of a knowledge of the objective, which borders on extravagance. (RPT 8:399)

The reference to the unconditioned corresponds to real—theoretical and practical—needs of reason; it must be made an object of reflection, and can be expressed through a cautious use of analogy. But it must not be misunderstood as a possibility of direct access to the super-sensible, which would lead us to confuse—to the detriment of both—the two different

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legislations of reason, based on irreducible principles relating to the concepts of nature and that of freedom. Setting Aristotle against the Plato who became the father of enthusiasm, Kant reminded those yearning for an emotional knowledge of the supersensible—“the philosophy of feeling, which leads us directly to the heart of the matter!” (RPT 8:395)—that philosophy is prosaic work through concepts, and that there is no knowledge of the super-sensible, since only “an intellectual intuition would grasp and present the object immediately, and all at once” (RPT 8:389), and for us this is really inconceivable. A superior “vision” of reality is not possible; if it were, it would not be communicable anyway, or even be philosophy—though, in the final analysis, “despotism over the reason of the people (and even over one’s own reason), by fettering it to a blind belief, is given out as philosophy” (RPT 8:394 note). If, instead, the intention of the partisans of feeling, of inspiration, of common sense, and of tradition is, as they declare, to make men “wise and honest” (RPT 8:405), then all that is needed is the moral law and the respect that it elicits in the mind when it is represented in its purity and unconditioned validity. It does not require metaphysical crutches or sublime visions and, as a practical imperative, it brings with it hope, rationally articulated in moral faith; in other words, a purely ethicalpractical determination of the concept of the super-sensible. A theoretical determination of this concept is impossible and would in any case only be harmful; Kant called it a “mystery” on numerous occasions, but actually there is only the illusion of something secret and inexplicable, the fruit of dreams or misapprehensions. The only real mystery is freedom. It [the secret] is given, not empirically (proposed to reason for solution), but apriori (as real insight within the bounds of our reason), and even extends the knowledge of reason up to the super-sensible, but only in a practical respect: not, say, by a feeling, which purports to be the basis of knowledge (the mystical), but by a clear cognition which acts upon feeling (the moral). (RPT 8:403)

The mystical impulse of the new Platonists must have appeared to Kant, then, not only as an example of enthusiasm, of misapprehension, and of deplorable disregard of the value and work of reason, but also as the most erroneous attempt at a response—based on having mistaken subjective principles of reflection for a super-sensible faculty of the somehow objective determination of ultimate reality—to legitimate demands of reason. Bringing such positions back to the limits of the two rational legislations of nature and freedom was the first step, then, in correctly

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reopening the discussion of the value and utility of, but also of the risks of aesthetic or teleological representations of, the super-sensible basis of experience.

Notes 1 Cf. Orrin F. Summerell, “Perspektiven der Schwärmerei um 1800,” in particular on the dispute between Schlosser and Kant pp. 157-164, and Rüdiger Bubner, “Platon—der Vater aller Schwärmerei.” 2 This is the pagination of Kants Gesammelte Schriften or Akademie Ausgabe (Vol. 8, p. 403), given alongside the English translation in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions. R. Bubner, “Platon—der Vater aller Schwärmerei,” p. 86, observes that Kant and Schlosser mistakenly reproach each other for Schwärmerei. 3 The expression recurs already in MNS, Preface, AA 4: 474, note, but still only with regard to a relation between parts and entirety internal to the CPR. In the CPrR, Preface, AA 5:8, he speaks instead of the difference between the system of criticism and that of science. It is only with the First Introduction of the CPJ (§ II, 20:205 and in the title of § XI, 20:241) that a Critical system made up of Kant’s three most important works is actually set out; in the published Introduction the expression doesn’t recur, but the concept is found in stronger form at the end of § III (5:179). 4 On Schlosser’s criticisms of Kant’s critical philosophy see the summary by R. Bubner, “Platon—der Vater aller Schwärmerei,” pp. 83-86. 5 It was a matter of comments of this tenor: “the newest German philosophy makes everything subjective and thus it overly narrows the boundaries to which humanity is subjected,” and “Plato goes too far in making everything objective”, J. G. Schlosser, Platos Briefe, p. 181, note. These were included in his translation of the epistles attributed to Plato. “On that occasion some sharp statements on the philosophical situation were formulated, statements which are undifferentiated and quite flat. They triggered a dispute, although in a book of 280 pages they comprise only the 10 pages of the preface, of which barely a page is about Kant,” R. Bubner, “Platon—der Vater aller Schwärmerei,” pp. 82-83. 6 “Menschensinn ist Vernunft, wie der Mensch sie hier auf die Erde in seiner Sphäre hat,” J. G. Schlosser, Schreiben an einem jungen Mann, der die kritische Philosophie studieren wollte, 1797 and 1798, on p. 11 of the first. See R. Bubner, “Platon—der Vater aller Schwärmerei,” pp. 84-85, which summarises this conception of the concrete reason of men living on the Earth through the notion of common sense and comments on it as an objection to the position of philosophy. 7 J. G. Schlosser, Platos Briefe, “Vorbericht der ersten Ausgabe,” pp. XXII and XXV. 8 “But since this law is still something in itself positive—namely the form of an intellectual causality, that is, of freedom—it is at the same time an object of respect inasmuch as, in opposition to its subjective antagonist, namely the

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inclinations in us, it weakens self-conceit; and inasmuch as it even strikes down self-conceit, that is, humiliates it, it is an object of the greatest respect and so too the ground of a positive feeling that is not of empirical origin and is cognised a priori. Consequently, respect for the moral law is a feeling that is produced by an intellectual ground, and this feeling is the only one that we can cognise completely a priori and the necessity of which we can have insight into,” CPrR, AA 5:73. The Critique of the Power of Judgment sets a second case of a priori feeling alongside this, but until the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) Kant thought that the recognition of a feeling might be misunderstood: “It could be objected that I only seek refuge, behind the word respect, in an obscure feeling, instead of distinctly resolving the question by means of a concept of reason. But though respect is a feeling, it is not one received by means of influence; it is, instead, a feeling self-wrought by means of a rational concept and therefore specifically different from all feelings of the first kind, which can be reduced to inclination or fear. What I cognize immediately as a law for me I cognize with respect, which signifies merely consciousness of the subordination of my will to a law without the mediation of other influences on my sense,” G 4:401 note. In the decade in which the three Critiques appeared, evidently care in separating pure principles and representations from those that were pathologically conditioned prevailed, and the risk of enthusiasm was seen above all in the tendency to extend the sphere of application of rational principles beyond the limits of sensible experience. In the 1790s, the criticism of the purity and separateness of principles took shape, criticism for which Schlosser too made himself spokesman, and a different enthusiasm based on supposedly non-discursive principles arrived centre-stage: in this light, the dispute between Schlosser and Kant marked an important cultural shift. With it, “in the debate on enthusiasm […] the philosophy of Plato is lastingly picked out as a central theme” (Summerell, “Perspektiven der Schwärmerei um 1800,” p. 157) and a rapid trend began which, from the vague and traditional characterisation of Plato as “father of all enthusiasm” (“Vater aller Schwärmerei”), led to his historical-philogical rediscovery, something that exercised a central influence on classical German philosophy. Cf. once more B. Mojsisch, O. F. Summerell (eds.), Platonismus im Idealismus and R. Bubner cited in note 1. 9 Cf. CPrR, Ch. III: “On the incentives of pure practical reason,” 5:75-76. 10 Cf. CPJ, 5:192, 296, 306. 11 In the Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy, 8:417-419, we find a brief exposition of how much Kant was disposed to grant to such theoretical presumption on the level of practical reason. 12 Cf. CPJ, Introduction: XXVIII, 5:180-81. 13 V. CPJ, 5:274-77 and cf. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, § 217: “‘How am I able to follow a rule?’” If this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my acting in this way in complying with the rule. Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: ‘This is simply what I do.’” 14 J. Derrida too remarked in D’un ton apocalyptique that Kant intended not only to accuse, but to excuse Plato for having lit the torch of enthusiasm, and in brackets wrote emphatically that the innocent Plato was the father of Kant, English

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translation in P. D. Fenves (ed.), Raising the Tone of Philosophy, pp. 117ff., esp. p. 135. 15 “I may therefore be permitted in the future, as has already been stated above, to call it formal, or better, critical idealism, in order to distinguish it from the dogmatic idealism of Berkeley and the sceptical idealism of Descartes,” Pro 4:375. This is a position reiterated in a footnote added to the second edition of the CPR: “I have also occasionally called it formal idealism, in order to distinguish it from material idealism, i.e., the common idealism that itself doubts or denies the existence of external things. In many cases it seems more advisable to employ this rather than the expression given above, in order to avoid all misinterpretation,” B519 note. 16 A brief but effective citation in this regard is from the Pro: “Formal idealism (elsewhere called transcendental idealism by me) actually destroys material or Cartesian idealism. For if space is nothing but a form of my sensibility, then it is, as a representation in me, just as real as I am myself, and the only question remaining concerns the empirical truth of the appearances in this space. If this is not the case, but rather space and the appearances in it are something existing outside us, then all the criteria of experience can never, outside our perception, prove the reality of these objects outside us,” 4:337. 17 “We can know no objects, either in us or as lying outside us, except insofar as we insert in ourselves the actus of cognition, according to certain laws. The spirit of man is Spinoza’s God (so far as the formal element of all sense-objects is concerned) and transcendental idealism is realism in an absolute sense,” OP 21:99. In the R 6316 (1790-1804) Kant reiterates “that the ideality of space and time, which is merely formal, does not contain real idealism, which maintains that no object at all outside of the representation is given in the perception of things in space, rather merely that to this object or these outer objects (which of these is the case remains undetermined) this form of space in itself, under which we intuit it or them, does not pertain, because it belongs merely to the subjective manner of our faculty of representation in perception, which can be inferred from the fact that space contains in itself nothing that could be the representation of a thing or of the relation of different things to one another in themselves, and, if it is considered as such a determination, as an ens imaginarium it is a non ens,” 18:622. 18 The declared polemical objective of the piece too, the supposed tone of superiority, is perceived by Kant in silhouette, so to speak, in that it is objectively implied by the presuppositions of a reasoning for inspiration and not so much in the letter of the expression, as R. Bubner rightly notes in the essay cited above. J. Derrida, D’un ton apocalyptique, opportunely calls attention to the primary meaning of the term ‘tone’, which has to do with tonal difference and Hölderlinian poetics of the “Wechsel der Töne.” 19 Cf. CPJ, §§ 87-91, 5:447-474.

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Bibliography Adams, Robert Merrihew, “Things in Themselves,” Philosophical and Phenomenological Research, 57 (1997): 801-825. Allais, Lucy, “Intrinsic Natures: A Critique of Langton on Kant”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 73 (2006): 143-169. —. “Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics: Kant’s Commitment to Things as They are in Themselves”, in D. H. Heidemann (ed.), Kant Yearbook 2: Metaphysics, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2010, pp. 131. Allison, Henry E., “The Non-Spatiality of Things in Themselves for Kant,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 14 (1976): 313-321. Allison, Henry, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. An Interpretation and Defense. Revised and Enlarged Edition, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Allison, Henry E., “Transcendental Realism, Empirical Realism and Transcendental Idealism,” Kantian Review, 11 (2006): 1-28. Ameriks, Karl, “Kantian Idealism Today”, History of Philosophy Quarterly, 9 (1992): 329-340. Bacin, S., A. Ferrarin, C. La Rocca, M. Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2013, Bd. II, Teil II: Ontologie und Metaphysik, pp. 529-819. Bird, Graham, The Revolutionary Kant. A Commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason, Chicago and La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 2006. Bubner, Rüdiger, “Platon—der Vater aller Schwärmerei. Zu Kants Aufsatz "Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie"”, in R. Bubner, Antike Themen und ihre moderne Verwandlung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992, pp. 80-93. Callanan, John, “Kant on Analogy”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 16 (2008): 742-772. Derrida, Jacques, D’un ton apocalyptique adopté naguère en philosophie, Paris: Editions Galilée, 1983. Fenves, Peter (ed.), Raising the Tone of Philosophy: Late Essays by Immanuel Kant, Transformative Critique by Jacques Derrida, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Follak, Andrea, Der Ausblick zur Idee: eine vergleichende Studie zur Platonischen Pädagogik bei Friedrich Schleiermacher, Paul Natorp and Werner Jaeger, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2005, Chap. V: “Wider die Geheimniskrämerei. Immanuel Kants Streit mit Johann Georg Schlosser”, pp. 151-62.

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Greenberg, Robert, “Necessity, Existence, and Transcendental Idealism”, Kantian Review, 11 (2006): 55-77. Guyer, Paul, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Kreienbrink, Ingegrete, “J. G. Schlossers Streit mit Kant”, in Albert Richard Schmitt (ed.), Festschrift für Detlev W. Schumann zum 70. Geburtstag, München, 1970, pp. 246-255. Kroon, Frederick, “The Semantic of ‘Things in Themselves’: A Deflationary Account”, The Philosophical Quarterly, 51 (2001): 165181. Langton, Rae, Kantian Humility. Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. —. “Kant’s Phenomena: Extrinsic or Relational Properties? A Reply to Allais”, Philosophy and Phenomenal Research, 73 (2006): 70-185. La Rocca, Claudio, Esistenza e giudizio. Linguaggio e ontologia in Kant, Pisa: ETS, 1999. Mechtenberg, Lydia, “Probleme der Aspektlehre. Zu Kants Unterscheidung zwischen Erscheinungen und Dingen an sich,” in V. Gerhardt, R.-P- Horstmann, R. Schumacher (eds.), Kant und die Berliner Aufklärung. Akten des IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001, Bd. 2, pp. 631-37. Mojsisch Burkhard, Summerell Orrin F. (eds.), Platonismus im Idealismus: Die platonische Tradition in der klassischen deutschen Philosophie, K. G. Saur, 2003. Prauss, Gerold, Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich, Bonn: Bouvier, 1974. Robinson, Hoke, “Two Perspectives on Kant’s Appearances and Things in Themselves”, Journal of the History of Philosophy 32 (1994): 411441. Rosefeldt, Tobias, “Dinge an sich und sekundäre Qualitäten”, in J. Stolzenberg (ed.), Kant in der Gegenwart, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2007, pp. 161-203. Schlosser, Johann G., Platos Briefe, nebst einer historischen Einleitung und Anmerkungen, Königsberg: F. Nikolovius, 1795. —. Schreiben an einem jungen Mann, der die kritische Philosophie studieren wollte, Lübeck/Leipzig, 1797 and 1798. Schulting, Dennis, Verburgt Jacco (eds.), Kant’s Idealism. New Interpretations of a Controversial Doctrine, Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer, 2011. Schumann, Detlev W., “Johann Georg Schlosser und seine Welt”, in J. G. Schlosser, Kleine Schriften, New York/London, 1972, pp. i-cxvii.

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Summerell, Orrin F., “Perspektiven der Schwärmerei um 1800. Anmerkungen zu einer Selbstinterpretation Schellings”, in B. Mojsisch, O. F. Summerell (eds.), Platonismus im Idealismus, pp. 139174. Willaschek, Marcus, “Phaenomena/Noumena und die Amphibolie der Reflexionsbegriffe,” in G. Mohr, M. Willaschek (eds.), Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1998, pp. 325-351. —. “Affektion und Kontingenz in Kants transzendentalem Idealismus”, in R. Schumacher (ed.), Idealismus als Theorie der Repräsentation?, Paderborn: Mentis, 2001, pp. 211-231. Zande, Johan van der, Bürger und Beamter: Johann Georg Schlosser, 1739-1799, Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1986.

“TILL I DIE I WILL NOT REMOVE MINE INTEGRITY FROM ME”: ON KANT’S “ANTHROPOLOGICAL” THEODICY GUALTIERO LORINI UNIVERSITY OF LISBON, PORTUGAL

1. Introduction: Between Criticism and Religion For several reasons, Kant’s writing On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy (1791) can be considered one of the principal turning points in the final years of Kant’s philosophical production. First, for its particular chronological position within the whole of Kant’s writings, second, for the themes it deals with, and third, for the way in which it links them to one another. The first aspect can be better understood if we consider the works which come soon afterwards, and which were considerably influenced by the proximity to this text: “The End of All Things” (1794), “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy” (1796), “Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy” (1796),1 and of course the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793). Nevertheless, we cannot forget what Kant had produced only one year before this writing, namely the Critique of the Power of Judgment, whose theses on teleology are here applied and developed in a singular way. This has led some scholars to argue that the Critical phase of Kant’s thought with regard to theodicy reaches here its greatest accomplishment.2 Despite the conciseness, the articulation of the Miscarriage allows Kant to embrace in a single overview some themes, which are unfortunately often considered as mutually independent within the Kant-Forschung. The fundamental theoretical structure of the writing is clearly exposed from the first lines: what in theodicy we call “the defending of God’s cause,” by trying to give reason to what seems to contrast to his wisdom, is in reality

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no more than the cause “of our presumptuous reason failing to recognize its limitations” (MPT 8:255). In the first note, Kant states that the only proof for God’s existence, which could be valid for reason, “can be none other than a moral proof” since we cannot deduce the existence of such a being neither from experience nor from the simple transcendental concept of this being (see: MPT 8:256). In the following note, he adds that it is our pure practical reason that determines the order of rank and the irreducibility of each of the three divine attributes—namely holiness, goodness and justice—to the other two. These attributes also represent the basis for Kant’s rejection of the pretended philosophical defences of God’s wisdom in the world (see: MPT 8:257). We cannot present here a systematic description of Kant’s articulated analysis and objections against any of these philosophical attempts. However, it can be useful to recall an image employed by Kant while analysing the second group of possible misleading defences of God’s wisdom. This image collects all these philosophical defence-trials under the formula Sunt superis sua iura, and consists in what follows: any reference to the unfathomable divine wisdom in order to justify “evil proper” as sin [das eigentliche Böse (Sünde)], “ill” as pain [Übel] and the “disproportion [Mißverhältniß] between crimes and penalties in the world” “cut the knot” but cannot untie it, “which is what theodicy claims to be capable of accomplishing” (MPT 8:260). It is worth noting that, among the mundane evils mentioned by Kant, there is no room for metaphysical evil, as simple imperfection or defect, which was placed by Leibniz on top of his classification of evil within the Theodicy.3 As we will see, this absence rests upon Kant’s belief about the nature of mundane evil and is only one of the many references to more or less contemporary positions, which nonetheless he decides not to mention explicitly. The limit of our reason in facing “the relationship in which any world as we may ever become acquainted with through experience stands with respect to the highest wisdom” is much more radical than the simple incapability of conceiving [auffassen], thinking [denken] or knowing [kennen] this relationship. Our reason is absolutely impotent [schlechterdings unvermögend] regarding this relationship. This kind of impotence comes from the incapacity of reason for achieving a concept of the unity in the agreement between artistic wisdom—of which only one year before Kant had recognised the premises in the teleological principle

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within natural science (see CPJ 5:417-419)—and moral wisdom—which reminds us of the wisdom practically treated, identified in the Critique of Practical Reason with “the fitness of the will for the highest good” (CPrR 5:130-131). But the idea of the possibility of realising the highest good in this world implies the union of two contradictory concepts, namely the creatural nature of the man, which imposes obedience towards the Creator, and the freedom of action required by imputability. This kind of synthesis is absolutely precluded to the human being, insofar as he is mortal, because it requires the knowledge of the supersensible world and of the way in which this grounds the sensible one. However, the most interesting feature here seems to be the explicit synonymy stated by Kant between supersensible and intelligible. This synonymy was already stated in the same terms in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, where the intelligible substratum of the sensible is defined as “something supersensible, the concept of which is only an idea and permits no genuine cognition.”4 It seems to be neither the mundus intelligibilis described in the Dissertation of 1770, which corresponded to a gnoseological need, nor the intelligibele Welt of the Grundlegung, which aimed at providing a positive determination of freedom. In 1791 the intelligible world is instead a sort of both foundational and regulative idea, as it had been already sketched within the KU. What needs to be made more precise here is that both the notions of Grund and Gesetz are not to be understood in the metaphysical sense meant by rational theology, which was traditionally adopted in order to assess the relationship between God and the world. The context in which Kant treats these notions is a renewed theodicy, in which no more room is left for classical metaphysics.5 That is why in the Miscarriage Kant ideally extends his treatment of freedom to a wider field, which is nonetheless very carefully delimited. He reaches this goal by explicitly focusing his attention on the moral and anthropological side of the problem. The human being is indeed the product of a freely acting cause and, at the same time, is a subject who can freely act. The link between the moral freedom of the human being and his unavoidably anthropological relationship with God represents a crucial common thread among the main themes of the criticism and reveals the Miscarriage to be a bridge between the 1780s-path and the more strictly moral, religious and anthropological reflections of the 1790s.6

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This can be even better appreciated if we take into account that by this thorny step Kant reveals a strong attention to and a deep sensibility about the great debate of his age. Kant’s refusal of the Leibnizian metaphysical evil that we have already mentioned, consists in the attribution of a positive reality to evil, which is totally imputable to the responsibility of the human being. This position should be read in the light of Kant’s criticism of the concept of Schwärmerei, a criticism that exactly in this period reaches its peak, even if Kant does not explicitly mention it in the Miscarriage. Kant conceives Schwärmerei in the strictly philosophical sense meant by Leibniz within the Nouveaux Essais by defining Enthusiasm, namely “the defect possessed by those who take to be an immediate revelation something which is not grounded in reason.”7 By identifying in the dogmatism of the Schwärmerei a dangerous drift for the Enlightenment, Kant aims to reject this dogmatism, as he had already struggled to do in “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” and will struggle with again in the essay “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy.” In the former essay, Kant takes into account the Mendelssohn-Jacobi controversy, and sketches a middle way between Mendelssohnian rationalism and the nihilistic results of the Jacobian fideism.8 In this sense, Kant tries to find an independent domain between these two alternatives. Indeed they are not to be thought of as contradictory, and do not require a necessary choice between one of them. Rather, the contrast between the two positions needs to be restated in terms of a reflection on the right orientation to be adopted while answering to a crucial question concerning our reason, namely its possibility of gaining any form of knowledge about God.9 Thus the contrast has to be neither overcome nor mended, but suspended, because the reason needs to recognise its impotence in order to step back and question itself about how it “is to be firm even though there is nothing in heaven or on earth from which it depends or on which it is based” (G 4:425), as Kant very effectively states in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. This tension not only troubles humanity, but is constitutive of humanity itself, and the character of Job, as it is described in the Miscarriage, seems to provide the best model for correctly representing it.

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2. Job’s Humanity in the Face of Evil: Doctrinal and Authentic Theodicy One of Kant’s main theses in the Miscarriage consists in the opposition between doctrinal and authentic theodicy. On the one hand, Job’s friends, representing the former, ground their arguments on God’s infallibility and pretend to find a causal relationship between God’s will and its experienceable mundane effects. On the other hand, Job expresses authentic theodicy insofar as he gives voice to that impotent reason, which renounces speculatively deducing a proof of God’s moral intention from the empirical data. Job does not even try to provide an a posteriori justification for the subject’s knowledge of God, because the moral intelligible principles, upon which this justification should rest, must necessarily be intelligible (in the supersensible meaning that Kant had clarified a few lines before). Thus here the reason through which “God then becomes himself the interpreter of his will as announced through creation” is “efficaciously [machthabend] practical” (MPT 8:264). The practical nature of reason, through which God can speak to the human being, is represented by morality, insofar as morality enables the human being to grasp his own freedom as positive ground of his autonomy. This autonomy is expressed by the independence of the determining ground [Betimmungsgrund]—that is the incentive [Triebfeder]—of his moral disposition [sittliche Gesinnung] from any sensible condition [sinnliche Bedingung] (CPrR 5:75). While facing his misfortunes Job reflects on himself and his past actions, without complaining about the disproportionality between his behaviour and his fate. Therefore, from the anthropological point of view, he is the clearest expression of the transition from an unsuccessful attempt to deduce the moral law speculatively (and so freedom), to the acknowledgment that the reality of freedom can only be practically claimed. In this respect, the Miscarriage can be read as one of the most accomplished developments of Kantian critique, since it not only rules out doctrinal theodicy, but also provides a meaningful insight toward a new possible perspective. Indeed, both the self-evident rationality of the categorical imperative and the analogical projection of a finality in the nature—as a work of God—can be understood only on the basis of the

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cognitive structure they exceed. In this sense, Job’s choice freely to remain faithful to his own integrity in the face of this transcendence implies a much deeper faith in the human being than in Jacobi’s “salto mortale,”10 but at the same time, it does not indulge in Mendelssohn’s rationalist speculations. Rather “[t]he faith […] which sprang in him for such a vexing resolution of his doubts could only arise in the soul of a man who, in the midst of his strongest doubts, could yet say (Job 27=5-6): Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me” (MPT 8:267). The domain of authentic theodicy seems therefore the most suitable context to show the rise of this kind of faith, which can be defined not only as rational but, as Kant will say in the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, reflective [reflectierend] (see: Rel 6:52). This can be better understood by considering what we have said about evil, which Kant claims not to be a mere imperfection, but the concrete result of a free choice of the human being. This conception is implicitly operating within the Miscarriage, because Kant’s Job represents the awareness that the human being has of his responsibility insofar as he has the free possibility to keep himself in equilibrium between a rationally speculative and so limited faith and the blind abandonment of mysticism. Job’s faith is de facto already the faith of the Religion within the Boundaries of the Mere Reason because, insofar as evil comes from the human being, then the human being can decide to keep himself firm in his adherence to a moral principle by universalising the maxim of his individual action. This rational faith is indeed a Fürwahrhalten, or holding-to-be-true, but as regards its practical necessity, it has the full character of certainty. The Fürwahrhalten is recalled by Kant at the end of the Miscarriage with respect to sincerity and even more directly in the essay “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy,” in which Kant explicitly refers to the distinction between belief [Glauben], opinion [Meinen] and knowledge [Wissen] that he had employed to introduce Fürwahrhalten in the third section of the Canon of Pure Reason (RPT 8:396; see also CPR A822/B850). Job’s rational reflective faith is expressed by this belief, which is strictly linked to Kant’s definition of orienting oneself in thinking as determining the matter according to a subjective principle “when objective principles of reason are insufficient for holding something to be true” (OOT 8:136, note 2). It is not by chance that in this essay Kant

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claims that when the reason goes beyond the limits of experience, it lacks the material for a determining judgement and the only thing it could determine is itself, so it moves from a theoretical to a practical order (see: OOT 8:136, 139). Thus, practical philosophy arises from the reflection of reason on itself and in this direction Marquard underlines the structural identity of reflective judgement and practical philosophy by claiming that the Critique of the Power of Judgment is a development of the typic of the pure practical judgement (see: CPrR 5:67-71), which in the third Critique is expressed through the process of symbolisation.11 As we have mentioned, this kind of rational faith corresponds to the project of a religion within the boundaries of mere reason, which does not import the idea of a religion deduced from mere reason, but the idea of a religion placed within these boundaries. Kant is essentially far from Fichte’s project of a “critic of all revelation.” Indeed, between this revelation and reason—as practical reason—lies an ineluctable anthropological distance.

3. Reason and Revelation: The Anthropological Mediation between Morals and Religion At the beginning of the final note of the Miscarriage Kant again uses the word Unvermögen in order to claim that the best expression of the authentic theodicy consists in admitting the “impotence of our reason, and our honesty in not distorting our thoughts in what we say, however pious our intention” (MPT 8:267). We cannot always know our declarations to be true because we could be mistaken by the objective evaluation of our logical judgements, but in any case we can stand by the truthfulness [Wahrhaftigkeit] of our declarations insofar as we base our evaluation about them on our conscience, which is subjective. Kant claims that if we neglect the only point of view to which we are unavoidably always connected, namely our conscience, we always lie, “since we pretend something else than what we are conscious of” (MPT 8:267-268). This could sound strange, because one could theoretically provide a right and coherent description of a state of things, even if one does not believe in what he describes. However, what Kant means becomes clear later on:

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The observation that there is such an impurity in the human heart is not new (for Job already made it); yet one is tempted to believe that attention to it is new to the teachers of morality and religion, one so seldom finds them making a sufficient use of it despite the difficulty associated with a purification of the dispositions in human beings even when they want to act according to duty. (MPT 8:268)

Kant aims here to underline the limit-relation between the individual call of conscience—which can be only moral—and religion—which in its classical meaning transcends the human faculties—. By virtue of this relation, the human being understands his only support in the world to be his finitude and with that his determination as a moral being. In this sense, the authentic theodicy speaks to the human being through his morality and in the same way rejects the transcendent pretences of the dogmatic theodicy.12 Despite his finite nature, the human being has the ability to be infallible insofar as he relies on the sincerity of his conscience: Moralists speak of an ‘erring conscience.’ But an erring conscience is an absurdity; and, if there were such a thing, then we could never be certain we have acted rightly, since even the judge in the last instance can still be in error. I can indeed err in the judgement in which I believe to be right, for this belongs to the understanding which alone judges objectively (rightly or wrongly); but in the judgement whether I in fact believe to be right (or merely pretend it) I absolutely cannot be mistaken, for this judgement—or rather this proposition—merely says that I judge the object in such-andsuch a way. (MPT 8:268)13

It is not by chance, in the discussion between Job and his friends about God’s wisdom, that the most relevant feature does not consist in the content of the arguments, but instead in the way in which they are posed: Job’s superiority lies in the fact that he “speaks as he thinks, and with the courage with which he, as well as every human being in his position, can well afford” (MPT 8:265).14 Of course, this puts the discussion on a strictly anthropological level, but does not imply that the human being is “alone” in this world. Thanks to his freedom, the human being is indeed the subject of an a priori legislation, which also embraces nature. Moreover, as intelligibly unconditioned, he is the highest end of this mundane hierarchy. By means of this position within the world, the human being discovers his moral destination and, insofar as he at least tries to accomplish the Highest Good, he establishes a causal (but free) relationship with the world, which reflects his moral dignity.

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The roots of this anthropological approach within Kant’s thought are very deep. Indeed, from the time of the lectures on anthropology in the early 70s, Kant deals with the object of anthropology by following an intuitiveanalytical method, which leads to a sharp primacy of the empiricalpsychological perspective over the pure rational one. As an example, we can take a passage of the Anthropologie Collins, in which Kant states that in the analysis of the I, “what many philosophers pass off as profound inferences are nothing but the immediate intuitions of our self” (AC 25:10). Moreover, in a course of the late 70s devoted to all the philosophical disciplines, called Philosophical Encyclopaedia, he explicitly states that the science focused on the empirical treatment of our thinking nature is called anthropology (see: Phil Enz 29:11). Thus, anthropology is concerned with the self-intuition of the I, which is at the same time defined as a thinking nature and as the object of a possible (self-)intuition. Accordingly, Kant is here defining the characteristics of a discipline, which will become the heart of authentic theodicy: this discipline consists in an anthropology that identifies in the finitude of the human being the roots of the distance between morals and faith, that is, between reason and revelation. Nevertheless, this finitude does not prevent the human being from aspiring to the universality disclosed by morality. At this point, one may ask what is the real nature of this anthropology, which on the one hand is strictly linked to morals and, on the other hand, cannot avoid being concerned with religion and so with faith. This can be only the “practical anthropology,” of which Kant speaks in the preface to the Groundwork (see: G 4:388), and even more the “moral anthropology” mentioned in the Metaphysics of Morals, which: Would deal only with the subjective conditions in human nature that hinder people or help them in fulfilling the laws of a metaphysics of morals. It would deal with the development, spreading, and strengthening of moral principles (in education in schools and in popular instruction […], and with other similar teachings and precepts based on experience. (MM 6:217)

Since morality is targeted to the an sich and not to the Erscheinung, while anthropology is focused on the phenomenal dimension, the latter can be considered as an extension of morality because it allows us to interpret the consequences of human actions as phenomena of freedom. That seems to be the sense in which the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View has often been identified as Kant’s attempt in providing for ethics the phenomenal matter, in which the self-determination of the human being

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through the choice of the moral law cannot be grounded, but can be recognised.15 Thus, this kind of anthropology marks the positive limits of morals, which determines itself starting from freedom as a Faktum of an essentially practical reason, as well as the negative limits of faith, which can speak only the “anthropomorphic” language of this morals. That is why morals can ground faith, but not vice versa, and in any case the faith grounded by morals will always be a reflective faith because God’s existence must be recognised here as a postulate of practical reason, and the Highest Good as an ideal toward which the human being has to tend, but which he cannot realise in his limited existence.16 On this basis the human being can reach a full consciousness of his condition and therefore perceive his freedom as well as, as a consequence, his morality. This freedom is the ground of any possibility, which must be entirely pursued in the sensible dimension without the expectation of a supersensible prize for virtue.

4. The Infinite Glare of Freedom in the Finitude of the Subject and the World On the basis of the foregoing, the rational scepticism of the Transcendental Dialectic can be seen as a condition for detecting the intrinsically moral nature of the subject, whose main character has to be recognised in the same autonomy claimed by Job as a guiding light in the face of incomprehensible divine decrees. That does not simply imply that Job’s theodicy is authentic, unlike that of his friends, but also that Job does not theorize the inability to understand divine action with a mundane logic. He merely accepts God’s decisions and remains faithful to God by virtue of a moral choice, on which his faith is grounded. Job’s behaviour could perhaps be better understood if it were defined as a premise for authentic theodicy, rather than as authentic theodicy itself. Of course, this would exceed the terms of Kant’s example, but would let us grasp very effectively that in Job the moral essence of the human being depends on his autonomy from mere faith (see: Rel 6:3). The incompatibility between the moral perspective of pure practical reason and the merely fideistic and eschatological perspective, trespassing in the mystic sphere, is well expressed in the Miscarriage, at the end of the refutation of the pretended philosophical defences of God’s wisdom. Here Kant shows that even the most radical trials expressing the incompatibility

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between human logic and divine wisdom are rooted at least in the will to conceive of the two dimensions as having something in common, whereas in reality this would be impossible. These dimensions are like two parallel lines in Euclidean space, which do not intersect even in infinity. This is clearly implied by the fact that “the presumption remains that the agreement of human fate with a divine justice, according to the concepts that we construe of the latter, is just as little to be expected there as here” (MPT 8:262), and that seems to be the most relevant point for Kant. Furthermore, this also seems to essentially characterise his polemic against the Schwärmerei and the mystics, a polemic in which Kant probably reveals his most authentically illuminist attitude, as the writing “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy” clearly exemplifies: The veiled goddess, before whom we both bow the knee, is the moral law within us in its inviolable majesty. We hearken to her voice, indeed, and also understand her command well enough; but on listening are in doubt whether it comes from man himself, out of the absolute authority of his own reason, or whether it proceeds from another being, whose nature is unknown to him, and which speaks to man through this his own reason. At bottom we should perhaps do better to desist from this inquiry altogether, since it is merely speculative, and since what we are (objectively) obliged to do remains always the same, whether we base it on the one principle or the other. (RPT 8:405)

It is not by chance that some examples of mystic drifts (like those of Bourignon, Pascal, and Haller) are recalled at the beginning of the Anthropologie, in close keeping with the polemic against Swedenborg in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics (see: A 7:133). The illusiveness of the alleged great treasure of theological science is revealed by the incapacity of the pretended mystical “internal experience” to reach the universality, and the consequent communicability that characterises the subject’s experience of the world, an experience that embraces also the ethical sphere. Kant puts the pretended infinity of mysticism opposite the objective universality of an experience, whose root is undeniably subjective, but in a transcendental sense. This subjectivity is indeed universal, endowed with a pure reason, which therefore practically determines a mundane order. Only in this mundane order, it is possible to ground a faith exceeding the same order, namely, a rational and thus reflective faith. This is the only kind of faith allowed by authentic theodicy. Accordingly, Kant’s exclusion of all

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philosophical trials in theodicy rests upon a methodological reflection, namely, the acknowledgment of an anthropological dimension that is totally released from metaphysics. This dimension is the only one in which morality can provide a balance to the human being, whereas the fideistic revelation merely exceeds the human faculties. Therefore, Job renounces cognising, as erkennen, but not the necessity of self-interrogation, nor, above all, the truth of the belief that determines the action.

Notes In this essay, Kant’s works are cited by means of an abbreviation of the English title, followed by volume and page number of the Akademie Ausgabe: I. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich-Preußische (now Deutsche) Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1900. For the translations of Kant’s passages, I follow, whenever possible, the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. CPR CPrR

CPJ MPT

G

OOT

Rel

OCS

RPT

Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. Critique of Practical Reason, trans. M. J. Gregor, in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 133-272. Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000. On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy, trans. G. di Giovanni, in Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 19-38. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. J. Gregor, in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 37-108. “What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” trans. A. Wood, in Immanuel Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 1-18. Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, trans. G. di Giovanni, in Immanuel Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 39-216. “On the Common Saying: That may be Correct in Theory, but It is of no Use in Practice”, trans. M. J. Gregor, in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 273-310. “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy”, trans. P. Heath in Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004, pp. 425-446.

128 MM

A

OP AC

MoC

MoM

1

On Kant’s “Anthropological” Theodicy The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. J. Gregor in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002, pp. 353-604. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View trans. R. B. Louden in Immanuel Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007, pp. 227-429. Opus Postumum, trans. E. Förster and M. Rosen, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993. Anthropologie Collins (1772-1773), trans. A. Wood, in Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Anthropology, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012, pp. 11-26. Moralphilosophie Collins (1784-1785), trans. P. Heath, in Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997, pp. 37-222. Moral Mrongovius [II] (1784-1785), trans. P. Heath, in Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997, pp. 223248.

All these writings, including Miscarriage, were first published in the Berlinische Monatsschrift. 2 See in particular: Schulte, “Zweckwidriges in der Erfahrung. Zur Genese des Mißlingens aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodizee bei Kant,” p. 373; Cavallar, “Kants Weg von der Theodizee zur Anthropodizee und retour. Verspätete Kritik an Odo Marquard,” pp. 91, 93, 97. Schulte and Cavallar disagree with O. Marquard’s interpretation, according to which in the period between 1781 and 1800 there was a “pause” in the treatment of the problem of theodicy, which would have been solved by the idealism elaborated by Kant and developed by Fichte and Schelling. These authors prefer to speak of a “new phase” rather than a “pause,” since in the writings on the earthquake of Lisbon and on optimism, Kant’s position was substantially still Leibnizian, despite the great debate raised even in the philosophical world by this disaster. See: Marquard, “Idealismus und Theodizee.” 3 Leibniz, Theodicy, VI, 114-115, 168, 406-407. 4 CPJ 5:344: “intelligibles Substrat (etwas Übersinnliches, wovon der Begriff nur Idee ist und keine eigentliche Erkenntniß zuläßt).” 5 On this point see: Schultz, “Die Korrektur des Weltbildes der Theodizee bei Leibniz durch Kant und Goethe und das moderne Denken,” p. 181 and Schönrich, ெZähmung des Bösen? Überlegungen zu Kant vor dem Hintergrund der Leibnizschen Theodizee,” p. 207. The authors maintain that through the fundamental limitation of human knowledge to the phenomenal realm Kant has “corrected” the ontological claims of traditional metaphysics and that, consequently, he laid the foundations for overcoming theodicy in the Leibnizian sense, which was grounded on traditional metaphysics. 6 See: Loades, “Kant’s Concern with Theodicy,” p. 373. The author points out the simultaneous drafting of the Miscarriage and the first book of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, which had to be approved by censorship, but whose coherence with the parts published later was claimed by Kant in the Preface

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(See Rel 6:11). Furthermore, in this Preface Kant reveals that he is still concerned with the themes of classical theodicy (See Rel 6:5-6). Loades’ conclusion is that in the essay on theodicy Kant is fully expressing what he had already begun to elaborate in his critical phase, namely a strong scepticism towards any attempt to evaluate God’s choices in this world. 7 See: Leibniz, New Essays, 5:485. 8 As it is well known, the controversy between Jacobi and Mendelssohn took place in the context of the so-called Pantheismusstreit. In 1785, this discussion focused on Lessing’s supposed Spinozism, thanks to both Jacobi’s Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn and Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden oder Vorlesungen über das Dasein Gottes. 9 See: OOT 8:133-147. For the references to Schwärmerei in RPT, see 8:391-392, 398, 405-406 (note 6). Schwärmerei, in a sense related to this debate, is also mentioned by Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment as “visionary rapture […] a delusion of being able to see something beyond all bounds of sensibility” (CPJ 5:275). A further definition of this concept can be found in the Religion: “The persuasion that we can distinguish the effects of grace from those of nature (virtue), or even to produce these effects in us, is enthusiasm [Schwärmerei] […] the delusion of wanting to bring this about by striving for a supposed contact with God is religious enthusiasm [religiöse Schwärmerei]” (Rel 6:174). In the Anthropology Kant claims that illusion “is either enthusiasm [Schwärmerei] or spiritualism [Geisterseherei], and both are deception of inner sense” (A 7:161). 10 On this expression, see: Jacobi, Über die Lehre des Spinoza, p. 26. Kant employs this expression in a metaphorical sense in different contexts, see: OCS 8:306; Rel 6:121; RPT 8: 398; OP 22:279, 512. 11 See: Marquard, ெKants Wende zur Ästhetik,” p. 370. 12 On this basis, Brachtendorf maintains that in the Miscarriage Kant actually does not abandon the idea of a philosophical foundation for theodicy. Rather, he thinks that Kant’s criticism against doctrinal theodicy and his concurrent defence of the authentic theodicy can be interpreted in terms of the dichotomy between “Physikotheologie” und “Moraltheologie (Ethikotheologie)” as it is presented in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (See: CPJ 5:436). In the Miscarriage— according to Brachtendorf— Kant does indeed reject the general idea of a theodicy based upon a “Physikotheologie”, and proposes a theodicy grounded on an “Ethikotheologie,” which can provide a practical comprehension of God’s wisdom as manifested in the world. This is possible only insofar as this kind of theodicy is in principle independent from human experience. See: Brachtendorf, ெKants Theodizee-Aufsatz – Die Bedingungen des Gelingens philosophischer Theodizee,” pp. 63-65, 78-80. 13 Stevens emphasizes the value of “sincerity” at this stage of Kant’s thought, as an inner disposition which the human being, as a moral subject, has to cultivate. The author highlights that, though Kant employs three different words for this concept, namely “Aufrichtigkeit” [Uprightness or Straightforwardness], “Redlichkeit” [Sincerity] and “Wahrhaftigkeit” [Truthfulness], each of them refers to a state of “inner honesty” rather than to the idea of “innocence,” to which the current

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meaning of “sincerity” seems to be linked. See: Stevens, “The Impact of Theodicy on Kant’s Conception of Moral Practice,” pp. 94, 107-108. 14 Meld Shell emphasises that Job’s courage consists in that he fears God without being afraid of him. This can be related to that “reverence” [Ehrfurcht] for the sublime (meant here as the voice of God within us), mentioned by Kant in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, as he differentiates it from a fear of God that does not imply esteeming him: “In this way alone does religion internally distinguish itself from superstition” (CPJ 5:264). See: Meld Shell, Kant and the Limits of Autonomy, p. 206. 15 Among the several passages in which Kant states that anthropology constitutes the empirical side of ethics, see: G 4: 388 (“practical anthropology”); G 4:412; MM 6:217 and MoM (II) 29:599 (“moral anthropology”); MM 6:385, 406; MoC 27:244; MoM (I) 27:1398. This feature is deeply developed and analysed by Louden, Kant’s Impure Ethics. From Rational Beings to Human Beings, in particular pp. 71-74. 16 On this point Lehner is very perspicuous, as he argues that, for Kant, what matters is not to rationalise pain and so rationalise the divine decrees, but rather to accept this pain as morally consistent. See: Lehner, Kants Vorsehungskonzept auf dem Hintergrund der deutschen Schulphilosophie und -theologie, p. 344.

Bibliography Brachtendorf, J., ெKants Theodizee-Aufsatz – Die Bedingungen des Gelingens philosophischer Theodizee,” Kant-Studien 93.1 (2002): 5783. Jacobi, F. H., Über die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn [1785], Hamburg: Meiner, 2000. Lehner, U., Kants Vorsehungskonzept auf dem Hintergrund der deutschen Schulphilosophie und -theologie, Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2007. Leibniz’ works are quoted according to the following edition: G. W. Leibniz, Die philosophischen Schriften, 7 voll., ed. by C. I. Gerhardt, Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung: 1875-1890, repr. HildesheimNew York: Olms, 1960-1961. The translation of the New Essays on Human Understanding is by P. Remnant and J. Bennet, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Loades, A., ெKant’s Concern with Theodicy,” Journal of Theological Studies 26 (1975): 361-376. Louden, R. B., Kant’s Impure Ethics. From Rational Beings to Human Beings, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Marquard, O., ெKants Wende zur Ästhetik,” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 16.3 (1962): 363-374. —. “Idealismus und Theodizee,” Philosophisches Jahrbuch 73 (1965): 3347, repr. in O. Marquard, Schwierigkeiten mit der Geschichtsphilosophie.

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Aufsätze, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973, Neuauflage 1982, pp. 52-65. Meld Shell, S., Kant and the Limits of Autonomy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009. Mendelssohn, M., Morgenstunden oder Vorlesungen über das Dasein Gottes [1785], Stuttgart: Reclam, 1979. Schönrich, G., ெZähmung des Bösen? Überlegungen zu Kant vor dem Hintergrund der Leibnizschen Theodizee,” Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 46.2 (1992): 205-223. Schulte, C., “Zweckwidriges in der Erfahrung. Zur Genese des Mißlingens aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodizee bei Kant,” KantStudien 82.4 (1991): 371-396. Schultz, W., “Die Korrektur des Weltbildes der Theodizee bei Leibniz durch Kant und Goethe und das Moderne Denken,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 9 (1967): 173200. Stevens, R. P., “The Impact of Theodicy on Kant’s Conception of Moral Practice,” Theoria 47.2 (1981): 93-108.

THE END OF ALL THINGS AND KANT’S REVOLUTION IN DISPOSITION1 GIOVANNI PANNO UNIVERSITY OF TÜBINGEN, GERMANY

Horribil.: Nobilissima Dea, Cortesissima Nimfa. Ochio del mondo. Durchleuchitgste unter allen Schönen; unter den fürtrefflichsten, übernatürlichste an Vollkommenheit, unüberwindlichste an Tugenden, euer unterthänigster Leibeiger Sclav’, der durch die Welt berühmete Capitain Horribilicribrifax von Donnerkeil...praesentiret, nebenst Verwündschung unsterblicher Glückseligkeit, seiner Keyserin bey angehendem Morgen seine zwar wenige, doch jederzeit bereitwilligste Dienste! Coelest.: Mein Herr Capitain, er muss uns so gewogen nicht seyn, wie er vorgibt, sintemahl er uns so bald den Tod wünscht. Horrib.: Den Tod? La morte? Io rimango pietrificato dalla meraviglia! Coelest.: Er verwünschte uns unsterbliche Glückseligkeit [...] selbige erlangen wir, wie ich weiss in dem ewigen Leben. Dazu aber können wir nicht eingehen, als durch den Tod. Andreas Gryphius, “Horribilicribrifax”.

1. Introduction Kant’s long quest to come to terms with the status of immaturity and tutelage [Unmündigkeit] in religious affairs begins with his An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? and seems to arrive at a conclusion in the last passage of the Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. There he considers the possibility of an invisible church as a philosophical response to a crystalised faith, in which the church as an institution is in danger of provoking a reverse end of all things. This solution will prefigure works written shortly after—works which seek to topple the tyranny of the letter and replace it by the movement of the spirit. One may think, for instance, of the fragment of the Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism [Ältestes Systemprogramm des Deutschen Idealismus] in which this revolutionary act is entrusted to a new ethics.2 One may also think of Novalis’ Christianity or Europe [Christenheit oder Europa] in

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which the author expounds that the still invisible paradigm of a new intellectual and spiritual movement might eventually arise in Europe.3 Such a development shows a cultural-intellectual connection, even when a direct reference to Kant cannot always be traced. The thesis I shall lay out in the following essay places Kant’s End of All Things [Das Ende aller Dinge] in a context where the notion of apocalypse is valorised to the extent of a political theology. In this respect, End of all Things could be considered a work that addresses the conceptual onset of the invisible church. The notion of the revolution in disposition [Revolution in der Gesinnung] plays an important role in End of all Things in a practical respect, even if it is not explicitly mentioned there; later, in the Religion, it even takes on political clout.4 We shall start our investigation with an analysis of Hogarth’s The Bathos that will serve to clarify the character of the End of all Things and its pars destruens. The pars construens of the End of All Things is based on two topoi: the dialectic between one’s disposition and its examination on the one hand and the worthiness of love [Liebenswürdigkeit] of Christianity on the other. I shall discuss the former by focusing on the deployment of the revolution in disposition and the latter by focusing on Kant’s call for an invisible church.

2. 2.1. Hogarth’s The Bathos and the (Non-Empirical) End An equally apposite title for William Hogarth’s The Bathos could have been Anticlimax, referring to the rhetorical figure that elicits a comical, grotesque effect by a sudden transition from an otherwise lofty style or topic to a banal or vulgar one. In his commentary on Kant’s work, Fabrizio Desideri has elaborated on this anticlimactic side of The Bathos in some detail by considering not only Hogarth’s picture itself but also taking into account his germane poetics and Kant’s End of All Things, as well as a poem by Haller with the title “Unvollkommenes Gedicht über die Ewigkeit”.5 Hogarth’s picture—an engraving with Tailpiece or The Bathos as its full title—is allegedly the last work the painter completed (in 1764), despite having turned to other engravings in the last month of his life. Desideri speculates that Kant had seen it in the 1791 issue of the Göttinger

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Taschenkalender where it had been published together with a commentary by G. C. Lichtenberg entitled Finis or The End of All Things. The following letter by Kant to Carl Friedrich Stäudlin, dating from December 4th, 1794, vindicates Desideri’s hypothesis6: I beg you most urgently to give my warmest thanks to your excellent Privy Councillor Lichtenberg, his clear head, upright way of thinking and unsurpassable humor can accomplish more in the struggle against the evil of a miserable religious tyranny than others accomplish with their rational arguments. Thank him for his kind and undeserved gift, Collection and Description of Hogarth’s Copper Engravings, but I forbid him to assume the cost of the remainder of the collection. (C 492, 8: 317)7

Hogarth’s picture proves to be helpful in understanding the vantage point from which Kant’s analyses of common representations of the apocalypse (e.g. Bengel’s pietistic one) tackles the theoretical problem of the end of time; as such, Hogarth’s picture visually embodies the framework within which Kant operates. The whole world, as W. Promies writes in his commentary on Lichtenberg’s and Hogarth’s work, seems to be executed “in effigie”.8 What else should happen? The putatively last human has been hanged and everything is paralysed in everlasting motionlessness. The picture is replete with symbolic intimations of the impending end. Hogarth himself died within only a month after completing it. Perhaps the abundance of famous motifs exhibited by the picture had something like an apotropaic function? The next thing I will tackle, shall be the end of all things, Hogarth is reported to have said amongst friends. The usual symbols, however, no longer serve as a memento mori or at least not exclusively: the broken hourglass and the scythe, a representation of the world on the shield engulfed in flames (some kind of an apokatastasis of the world?), a falling signboard of a bar, which prompts the spectator to think of Kant’s Perpetual Peace (Zum Ewigen Frieden), and especially a broken palette—all these highlight the traces of a limit that is not merely temporal, and it is at this point where the engraving calls for a comparison with Kant’s End of All Things. Not only is the latter a criticism of the usual symbolism of the end—insofar as Kant’s work did demythologise the traditional metaphors of the apocalypse9—but rather the depiction itself of the end of time is pilloried: how absurd would it be to believe in a smooth transition from the impoverished dimension of time experienced during our lives to the eternity that is awaiting us post mortem!

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Even though the horses of Helios’s chariot have already perished and the personified Time is already enunciating the word Finis, the remaining light is still too bright, and hence the moon (which perhaps bears Hogarth’s features) is forced to wait in the middle right margin of the portrait. All the symbols of destruction preserve traces of the events immediately before the ultimate end, when Chaos as a bailiff receives the heritage of Time from the three fates and all exit the scene of tragedy and comedy (exeunt omnes), and not a single sunray falls upon the naked, exhausted, but nonetheless muscular body of Time, nor does it fall upon the executed any longer. What we see is a kind of apoplexy, void of all future possibilities: the personified Time is still wearing the typical forelock of Kairos, but there isn’t anyone remaining who can catch it anymore. Indeed, Hogarth himself intended his Sublime Paintings to be something like a sublime apoplexy. Likewise, the usual representations of the apocalypse which Kant criticises in the End of All Things are sublime and terrible. They are not merely confined to the realm of aesthetic categories but point toward the practical.10

2.2. Apocalypse als ob Interpretations of the apocalypse and general outlooks on the course of history are closely interwoven. In any case, Kant’s discussion of the inconsistencies of end-of-time representations is a pretext to the ethical theme. What he is really interested in are the moral standards we demand of ourselves and their respective connection to the understanding of time. Which conceptions of time motivate men to act morally? Certainly, the prospect of an end of time is useful for the ethical common sense that could not accept an endless accumulation of pains and sanctions. What, if not the threat of a last judgement, upon which all sanctions would be meted out, could prevent the drama of the world from turning into a masquerade full of mutual deceit? However, even if the world well deserved fierce and numerous sanctions (or copious rewards), this policy would even contradict “our sense of the morality of a wise creator and ruler of the world” (CS 88, 8:308). In this respect, End of All Things could be seen as a counterpart to Kant’s work on history (and theodicy in particular), since there he studies the connection between a

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biological and moral evolution toward the idea of an end. Although there is an ultimate purpose in nature, namely man himself (CJ 310, 5:44), man in turn has a purpose that transcends the purely biological. Teleologically speaking, nature has her purpose outside herself, in an ultimate moral purpose.11 When the angel of the biblical apocalypse announces that “henceforth time shall be no longer!” (EAT 226, 8:333), the conceptual distinction between empirical time and the time of eternity is suspended; eternal time passes no longer qua motion. The core of the problem lies here at the threshold of what can still rationally be thought and what is only accessible in our imagination. We project everything that shall be fulfilled on Judgement Day onto a state in which being human and the historical cycle of nature no longer coincide. We would need, as it were, access to the timeless world beyond our sensory experiences. Qua sensuous beings, we tend to judge the value of our morality by the sum of empirical actions that now—after the end of time—can no longer be carried out. Consequently, we develop conceptions of the apocalypse that hint at an empirically inaccessible sphere—a sphere that forces us to a big and unsuccessful gnoseological leap (a metabasis eis allos ghenos). In trying to think the unthinkable, reason gets trapped in the hypostatisation of temporal understanding of that which lies beyond the limit of time (in the Kantian sense, i.e. illusory beliefs). Barring some obvious incongruities arising from a literal interpretation of John’s apocalyptic account, two possible ways out appear. According to the first, there is a continuous progression towards the final end [Endzweck] that persists indefinitely even after the apocalypse. According to the second solution, the individual achieves assimilation to God in a mystical, Eckhartian sense; thus, the individual is destroyed (EAT 223, 8:331). Both solutions fail, however, since only God possesses wisdom, i.e. “practical reason using means commensurate to the final end of all things” (EAT 228, 8:336). The analysis of these two options reveals important insights into the mechanism through which the notion of the apocalypse will, after all, regain practical relevancy. An infinite road of indefinite, continuous progress, even if it is a progress towards the ultimate end, will bring about not only an infinite sequence of goods, but also of evils that must be borne and overcome, and if reason attempts this with the principle of rest and immutability of the state of beings in the world, the result is equally unsatisfactory in respect of its theoretical use; on the contrary, it would fall into total thoughtlessness, and nothing would remain for it but to think as the final

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end an alteration, proceeding to infinity (in time) in a constant progression, in which the disposition (which is not a phenomenon, like the former, but something supersensible, hence not alterable with time) remains the same and is persisting. The rule for the practical use of reason in accord with this idea thus says no more than that we must take our maxims as if, in all alterations from good to better going into infinity, our moral condition, regarding its disposition (the homo Noumenon “whose change takes place in heaven”) were not subject to any temporal change at all. (EAT 226-7, 8:334)

This passage dichotomises the world into a sensuous/empirical and a transcendent sphere, as well as clear emphasising the character of disposition [Gesinnung]. The homo phaenomenon, who could allegedly improve itself—but only in the quantity of goods—is really subject to the character of disposition, which expresses a quality. Disposition [Gesinnung] reveals a quality neither amenable to nor accessible by empirical means (a means that would be restricted to the dimensions of empirical time). The common man expects an end, by whose rewards or punishments he will be able to gauge the merits or faults he deserved over the course of his life; otherwise, Creation would seem purposeless (EAT 221, 8:328-9). Kant replies that using the idea of an empirical (and de facto at the same transempirical!) end as a touchstone of one’s life is not only theoretically but also practically flawed, since it amounts to weighing a transcendent treasure with empirical scales. In other words, he rejects both solutions: the solution of the Unitarians, according to which all will be saved, as well as the solution of the Dualists, according to which only a few will be saved, and consequently receive their reward, while many will be damned, and consequently punished. Disposition is not subject to the temporal-empirical world. Nonetheless, different dispositions do affect empirical life differently. Of course, that would be irrelevant after the end of (empirical) time, but in the thought experiment of an end of time, the moral state of the homo noumenon does have some consequences. To actualise his moral nature, man should act in time—as if “eternity and concomitantly, the end of all things had arrived already” (EAT 228-9, 8:337), as if disposition did matter in principle. The text, which Kant describes as “at times pitiful, at times funny”,12 does not seem to offer a solution for this aporia of the end of time. The second part of the text—almost without any reference to the solution of indefinite, continuous progress—is devoted to the role of Christianity and, in particular, its worthiness of love. Between the two parts, the discourse of the Religionsschrift—according to which a revolution in disposition

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[Revolution in der Gesinnung] should happen—looks like an unwritten trait d’union. Indeed, also in End of All Things one can hear the reverberations of the idea of a moral disposition that does not respect the empirical, i.e. that does not rest on an external authority. Here the dialectic of legality vs. morality is elaborated in two ways: the first with a focus on the disposition of man, and the second with a focus on the relationship between the individual and individuals to the institutionalised church. In comparing this to the famous passage in Religion, to which we shall turn in a moment, it may come as a surprise that disposition here in End of All Things is described as “persistent” [beharrlich] and “always the same” [immer gleich]. Disposition contributes to one’s identity, being closely linked to one’s character, one’s way of thinking, and one’s personality. But why should one not want to (or be able) to change and overcome one’s own disposition, if it were evil? Indeed, the passage emphasises the difference between the way in which the performance of an action can change the agent and the origin of this change beyond the senses, which, as such, should be stable. A few lines later, the immutability of disposition is underscored again, but this time in the context of approximating the highest good (EAT 226-7, 8:334). Consequently, in both cases Kant may have assumed disposition to be immutable because it was already a good disposition. Of course, this is not always the case. Such a contradiction, which arises chiefly from the aporetic character of the notion of the end of all things, calls for an explanation in terms of the arguments of Religion. This will enable us to bridge the apparent gap between the first and the second part of the small work on the apocalypse.

3. The Revolution in Disposition However, that a human being should become not merely legally good, but morally good (pleasing to God i.e. virtuous according to the intelligible character [of virtue] (virtus noumenon) and thus in need of no other incentive to recognize a duty except the representation of duty itself - that, so long as the foundation of the maxims of the human being remains impure, cannot be effected through gradual reform but must rather be effected through a revolution in the disposition of the human being (a transition to the maxim of holiness of disposition). And so a new man” can come about only through a kind of rebirth, as it were a new creation (John, 3:5; compare with Genesis, 1:2) and a change of heart. But if a human being is corrupt in the very ground of his maxims, how can he possibly

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bring about this revolution by his own forces and become a good human being on his own? Yet duty commands that he be good, and duty commands nothing but what we can do. The only way to reconcile this is by saying that a revolution is necessary in the mode of thought “but a gradual reformation in the mode of sense” (which places obstacles in the way of the former), and [that both] must therefore be possible also to the human being. (R 91-92, 6:47)

The virtus noumenon points to overcoming mere legality as the result of the possession of a certain property, viz. one’s moral quality, which is equated with God’s delight [Wohlgefallen Gottes]. The passage in Religion does not yet discuss the means of bringing about a rebirth (which at the same time is a new birth) but only the reason for a rebirth—namely the corruption of the maxim. This immediately reveals that we are talking about freedom. It is necessary to be able to reverse one’s disposition totally; consequently, it must also be possible. Autonomy, which by definition no longer needs to rely on divine grace or any other heteronomous source, implies this. Understanding one’s duty is also supposed to entail that one’s own maxims are subjected to what duty demands, i.e. neither to please God nor to evade one’s punishment at Judgement Day—as is still the case in End of All Things. In this respect, the revolution in disposition clearly indicates the autonomy of the moral subject over all empirical determination, i.e. one’s ability to determine for oneself the right order of one’s motivation [Triebfeder]. Evil corresponds to choosing a perverted order.

3.1. The Mechanism of the Revolution A key concept in Kant’s practical philosophy is paradoxically that of the revolution—a concept that Kant more or less rejected in his writings on politics and philosophy of law. Even though Critical philosophy is a revolution in thinking that invites us to jettison all authoritarian, unexamined principles, Kant surprisingly argues against one’s right to resistance (pointing to the conditions of the original contract, MM 468, 6:326).13 A revolution, e.g. the French one, belongs to those events that are part of a natural process and it can have a beneficial effect (“after some revolutions and reformations one finally achieves what nature ultimately intended”. IHC 51, 8:28). Even if a revolution turns out to be successful in establishing a more just, lawful legal system, Kant seems to refuse it in other contexts.14 To do justice to the usual scientific categories, one would be inclined to conclude that for Kant a revolution is admissible only in the intellectual or practical sphere. Some pre-Critical comments on the

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reformation of schools would lend themselves to such a conclusion: But it is futile to expect this salvation of the human species from a gradual improvement of the schools. They must be transformed if something good is to come out of them because they are defective in their original organization, and even the teachers must acquire a new formation. Not a slow reform, but a swift revolution can bring this about. And for this nothing more is necessary than just one school which is established in a radically new way according to the genuine method, directed by enlightened men prompted not by greedy but by noble zeal, observed and judged during its progress toward perfection by the attentive eyes of experts in all countries, but also supported and aided by the united contribution of all philanthropists until it reaches completion. (EPhil 102, 2:448)

The opposition between reformation and revolution appears in the wellknown What is Enlightment?: Thus a public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may well bring about a falling off of personal despotism and of avaricious or tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform in one’s way of thinking. (WE 18, 8:36)

The revolution in one’s disposition and in one’s mode of thought (R 92, 6:47) permeates Kant’s philosophy as a constant vanishing point. This stretches from the early writings up to Pragmatic Anthropology and allows us to return to religion. The human being who is conscious of having character in his way of thinking does not have it by nature; he must always have acquired it. One may also assume that the grounding of character is like a kind of rebirth, a certain solemnity of making a vow to oneself; which makes the resolution and the moment when this transformation took place unforgettable to him, like the beginning of a new epoch. – Education, examples, and teaching generally cannot bring about this firmness and persistence in principles gradually, but only, as it were, by an explosion which happens one time as a result of weariness at the unstable condition of instinct. Perhaps there are only a few who have attempted this revolution before the age of thirty, and fewer still who have firmly established it before they are forty. Wanting to become a better human being in a fragmentary way is a futile endeavor, since one impression dies out while one works on another; the grounding of character, however, is absolute unity of the inner principle of conduct as such. (A 392, 7:295)

Transformation [Umwandlung], rebirth [Wiedergeburt], new epoch [neue

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Epoche] belong to the vocabulary of the new man [neuer Mensch] (and mysticism, which Kant likewise rejects!) after the revolution in disposition. Kant refers to one’s mode of thought [Denkungsart], which is interwoven with one’s disposition, but generally it is safe to say that one’s mentality is the operative actualisation of one’s disposition (almost its evaluation) and is therefore on the same level. The passage of Religion (R 91-92, 6:47) can be read in this way, where the radical degeneracy of one’s heart is (also) attributable to one’s thought-mentality, if the latter judges the absence of vice as a disposition in accordance with moral law. In any case, the contrast to Enlightenment is surprising. It may be explained, however, by recalling at whom Enlightenment is targeted: Reformation is recommended for the audience, while revolution is for the individual man15. In both cases, Kant uses the term mode of thought [Denkungsart], although other sections of the discussion clearly match those in Religion and can be understood as referring to disposition as well. In Anthropology, Kant does not merely present further disconnected associations with regard to the notion of the new birth—such as the references to Genesis 1,2 and Gospel of John 3, 5-6—rather its mechanism is analysed. Here Kant tries to expose the function of revolution in modes of thought. Awareness of one’s character, as a part of own’s mentality, and the truthfulness of one’s actions in relation to one’s principles constitute one’s moral conduct. This truthfulness to oneself is not bestowed on us by divine grace, rather one must acquire it oneself, choosing in turn the principles that are to underlie one’s actions. Why should one deliberately search for principles other than those to which one is naturally inclined? One’s moral transformation may be understood as a reaction to an unstable state. One’s instinct heralds: “I finally must decide for or against this principle now!,” thus ushering in a new epoch. A transition has taken place within the empirically non-accessible time. Nonetheless born-again, man must permanently examine the state of his own character.

3.2. The Judge Inside Us: The Duplication of One’s Self in One’s Conscience In Kant’s texts different motivations are found that may count as indirect objections to an examination of one’s own maxim: one’s disposition and mentality, the concept of personality or character in the Anthropologie. Conscience is characterised by a kind of duplication, in which the self is

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simultaneously the judge and the accused (MM 560, 6:440). This trial takes place in a time outside of continuous, empirical time—as a fictitious end of all things. At the same time, the conscience, that judge in us who is not to be bribed, will place before the eyes of each one the whole world of his earthly life and convince him himself of the justice of the verdict. (LDR 418, 28:167)

It is therefore one’s duty to sharpen one’s “awareness of this voice” (MM 530, 6:401). For it is able to examine not only the empirical but also the motivation of the empirical. Kant speaks of reason's ability to sit in judgement of itself—in a practical respect. Abraham may serve as an example. Kant’s position becomes clearer in comparison with Kierkegaard’s interpretation16. Kierkegaard sides with Abraham’s action by pointing out the suspension of the ethical at work in faith. According to Kant, Abraham’s action is an unambiguous renunciation of self-determination, i.e. an action in polar opposition to the exhortation of the Enlightenment to dare to be autonomous. In the practice-oriented terminology of the Metaphysics of Morals and of Religion, Abraham’s action was driven by a perverse motivation in his disposition. Abraham ought to have listened to his inner judge and examined the correct order of his motivation before giving credence to his external voice— even if that turned out to have been the voice of God.

4. The Criterion of Examination—Christ as a Timeless Archetype As a consequence, Abraham is evil because he followed the external form (the “letter”) to the extent that the maxim “according to whose quality all moral value of a person must be measured” [nach deren Güte aller moralischer Wert der Person geschätzt werden muss] could no longer stand up to the scrutiny of his conscience (R 79, 6:31). One’s own perfection and other people’s happiness are sacrificed on the altar of the putative voice of God. Obviously, Abraham’s action does not comply with the categorical imperative in any way: it does not conform to the moral law that should have been imprinted in the heart. Had Abraham acted in this regard, namely decided to spare his son’s life, he would have pleased God in the sense of the Religion. As a symbol for this ideal—one worthy to be pursued as a standard for gauging one’s own mentality—Kant chooses Christ. In this demythologised

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(like the symbols of the apocalypse) Christ, man finds a paradigm to guide him. Choosing Christ should not come as a surprise, for even God himself is secularised: a judge knowledgeable in all stirrings of the heart who can judge one’s disposition and life as a whole through pure intellectual contemplation [in seiner reinen Anschauung]. His role cannot have any causal influence on man’s disposition, however, but this passage epitomises a judge who, thanks to his boundless knowledge, always judges justly—or rather would judge, since man is the only person who should judge his own disposition. In this regard, God and the Son of God play a likewise strongly analogous role: if human disposition represents the totality of the sequence of one’s actions in an “approximation extended ad infinitum” (R 117, 6:78, Fn.), then Christ figures as a prototype, as an ideal for which one’s conscience should strive17. On the one hand, this ideal should be internalised; on the other hand, it has been imprinted in man since the beginning (immer schon) qua reason18. Functionally one should not imitate the prototype Christ; otherwise, one would imitate his individual actions and thus violate the timelessness of the paradigm by treating it as a mere external authority. Despite the uplifting value of the religious narrative, one should not seek in Christ, in his words and actions, the example—but the good exemplar. “A good example (exemplary conduct) should not serve as a model but only as a proof that it is really possible to act in conformity with duty [Beweise der Thunlichkeit des Pflichtmäßigen]” (MM 593, 6:480). The mechanism at work here, viz. the schematism of analogy, contributes crucially to the transformation of the allegedly external object of one’s admiration into an interior self. One recognises this self as that which has not yet been achieved but has always been present. One cannot gain objective knowledge from Christ, however; hence the analogy works at the level of an exemplar [Exempel] and not an example [Beispiel]. By the latter, one would fall into anthropocentrism—again, a dangerous imitation of the letter of Christ himself. By contrast, faith in this very same prototype according to its appearance (faith in the God-man) is not, as empirical (historical) faith, one and the same as the principle of a good life conduct (which must be totally rational); and it would therefore be something quite different to wish to start with such a faith* and derive a good life conduct from it. To this extent there would be a contradiction between the two propositions above. However, in the appearance of the God-man, the true object of the saving faith is not what in the God-man falls to the senses, or can be cognized

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The End of All Things and Kant’s Revolution in Disposition through experience, but the prototype lying in our reason which we put in him (since, from what can be gathered from his example, the God-man is found to conform to the prototype), and such a faith is all the same as the principle of a good life conduct. – Hence we do not have two principles here that differ in themselves, so that to start from the one or the other would be to enter on opposite paths, but only one and the same practical idea from which we proceed: once, so far as this idea represents the prototype as situated in God and proceeding from him; and again, so far as it represents it as situated in us; in both cases, however, so far as it represents the prototype as the standard measure (of our life conduct [...]). (R 149, 6:119)

Again the principle of one’s conduct of life enters the picture, vicariously for the revolution in disposition. This principle applies only where man in full possession of his reason finds the prototype of moral law—but not only that. In undergoing the revolution in disposition, man repeats and retrieves Christ’s gesture constitutive for morality, according to which had he brought about, through all this, an incalculably great moral good in the world, through a revolution in the human race. (R 106, 6:63)

5. The Invisible Church Without a Revolution? As early as 1775 Kant wrote to Lavater that he intended to extract the moral content from the Old Testament (C 152, 10:176)19. Christ, stripped of all historical characteristics, seen as the ultimate direction of one’s moral compass, is a natural consequence of this agenda20. His revolution, however, must also be affirmed by the individual in interiore homine, for also in religious affairs Kant remains averse to change brought about by external (also institutional) interventions. All this is not to be expected from an external revolution [...]The basis for the transition to the new order of things must lie in the principle of the pure religion of reason, as a revelation (though not an empirical one) permanently taking the place within all human beings, and this basis, once grasped after mature reflection, will be carried to effect, inasmuch as it is to be a human work, through gradual reform; for, as regards revolutions, which can shorten the advance of the reform, they are left up to Providence and cannot be introduced according to plan without damage to freedom. (R 152, 6:22)

Progress towards the Kingdom of God on Earth, in which the highest moral good is realised, can only be achieved gradually—if at all. This seems to coincide with the concept we elucidated above, but again note the

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difference between a change of sense [Sinneswandel], which only the individual can undergo, and a change of prevailing laws, which are morally irrelevant. Above all, external revolutions do not promote freedom that Christianity, however, demands in its purest form. Its worthiness of love consists in exactly that: its laws mediate “the feeling of freedom by the choice of an ultimate end” [Endzwecks]. Rewards and punishments are only warnings; they should not become the actual motivation of one’s actions, i.e. the task of one’s maxime of life [Lebensmaxime]. Christianity has, besides the greatest respect that the holiness of its laws irresistibly instills, something about it which is worthy of love. (Here I mean not the worthiness of love of the person who obtained it for us with great sacrifices, but that of the cause itself: namely, the moral constitution which he founded, for the former [worthiness] may be inferred only from the latter. (EAT 229-30, 8:339)

Christianity is thus demoted to a symbolic framework within which human beings operate and constitute their communality as those who help other to complete their own revolution in disposition. The End of All Things mentions some “sages” among the common people who, not as clerics but as fellow citizens, awaken an interest in pursuing the necessary “cultivation of their moral potential” [moralischen Anlage] (EAT 228, 8:336). This role is reminiscent of other groups of sages who in the course of the history of philosophy have more or less tried to “help” their fellow citizens. One may, for instance, think of the wise men in Solomon’s house featured in Bacon’s Nova Atlantis or even of the philosopher kings in Plato’s Politeia or the members of the nykterinos syllogos of the Nomoi. If one compares the abruptness of a change of mind to the metabolƝ of the captives in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave (Resp. 514a ff.), one is inclined to see a Kantian Platonism. Turning to the light (to the divine in full immediacy, to the epekeina tƝs ousias) takes place within a time that lies outside the continuous, empirical time, but impacts the latter simultaneously. There, the new man is he who liberates himself. Later the assimilation to God (homoiǀsis theǀ) forms the ontological core of the Nomoi. The extent to which Kant’s ideal of Christ resembles that assimilation to God cannot be discussed here. We leave it to the reader as a suggestion, pointing out, however, that the political-theological aspect in Kant’s writings has a different profile and is affected considerably by a conceptual, philosophical revolution.

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The mechanism of the Invisible Church is reminiscent of that which lies behind Fichte’s concept of the State. Kant’s Visible Church and Fichte’s State share their intended goal, namely to make themselves dispensable; thus, they are symbols pointing towards their own dissolution. In this regard, one could even speak of a chiliasm—a chiliasm, though, that lacks all mysticism. And so, between orthodoxy which has no soul and mysticism which kills reason, there is the teaching of the Bible, a faith which our reason can develop out of itself. This teaching is the true religious doctrine, based on the criticism of practical reason, that works with divine power on the hearts of all human beings toward their fundamental improvement and unites them in one universal (though invisible) church (CF 278, 7:59)

Even if the character of this church resembles that of a utopian design, Kant would strongly oppose equating the two. Dangerously close to idle reveries and illusory dreams, he rejects utopias and golden ages. It may well be doubted whether all moments of Kant’s argumentative line clearly distance themselves from these ideas. With his notion of a transition from the homophänomenon and the homo noumenon, Kant is dealing with a topos difficult to fathom without (creative) imagination—and indeed he resorts to the image of Christ. In a similar way, the ideal of an Invisible Church stands symbolically for the Kingdom of God. Although the revolution in disposition takes place in a duratio noumenon, Kant clearly outlines a theological-political position for the homo phaenomenon nonetheless.

6. Conclusion The mistaken apocalypse in the End of All Things may be read as the epitome of a frontier that must be understood in a non-literal way— beyond the letter.21 In this respect, the End of All Thingsis complementary to theReligionsschrift. Secondly, the clue “exposing a self-alienation”22 [Selbstentfremdung] betokens a Socratic-Delphic gnǀthi seauton: Only by that process can the revolution in disposition take place. The end of all things is therefore actually a postulate of practical reason that can be construed instrumentally as an aspect of turning to oneself. Rather than hell and paradise, man should expect and fear freedom or its loss, respectively, in a moral respect.

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I believe, however, that the End of All Things represents a different chiliasm. Read in combination with the Religionsschrift, the text reveals itself as a memento mori for church politics. At the same time, the thought of the apocalypse as a final judgement becomes redundant, so that the end the End of all Things has in mind need neither be feared nor be actively sought. The history of ideas is handed a different chiliasm, where the eternal gospel supersedes the historical one. A letter by Hölderlin to Hebbel from Nov. 9th1795 articulates the predominant perception and attitude of their days: You know, the spirits must reveal themselves wherever a living soul breathes, unify themselves with everything that needs not be expelled, so that this unification, this invisible church – now still quarrelling with itself – bears the big child of time, the day of all days that the man of my soul (an apostle, about whom his epigones of today understand as little as themselves) calls the future of the lord. I must stop, less I shall never stop.23

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Notes 1

I wish to thank Franz-Thyssen Stiftung for a Post-Doc fellowship (2007-8), which allowed me to work on Kant’s Philosophy of History and apocalypse. I also wish to thank Patrick Dürr for the translation, and Dirk Brantl and John Dorsch for the last revision. 2 C. Jamme, H. Schneider, „Mythologie der Vernunft. Hegels ältestes Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus“. 3 S. Novalis, “Schriften”, III, p. 512. 4 From the numerous literature on the political-philosophical dimension of the Religionsschrift, we mention, for instance, M. Städtler et a., “Kants ‘Ethisches Gemeinwesen’”; J. Barata-Moura, “O tratado teológico-político de Kant”, and J. DiCenso, “Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Commentary”. 5 Albrecht v. Haller, “Unvollkommenes Gedicht über die Ewigkeit”. C. F. Desideri, “Quartetto per la fine del tempo. Una costellazione kantiana”, pp. 15ff. and 77ff. Cf. A. Tagliapietra, “La fine di tutte le cose” for a similar analysis. 6 S. Desideri, „Quartetto”, p. 130. 7 I refer to Kant’s works through abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie” edition: Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1902 u. ff. I made some small changes to the Cambridge Series’ translation. 8 Cf. W. Promies, “Lichtenbergs Hogarth: die Kalender-Erklärungen von Georg Christoph Lichtenberg mit den Nachstichen von Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen zu den Kupferstic-Tafeln von William Hogarth”, pp. 197-198. 9 H. Holzhey, “‘Das Ende aller Dinge’ Immanuel Kant über apokalyptische Diskurse”, p. 27. 10 In this respect, the criticism in the End of All Things seeks to break free from the “crystalised difference between an apocalyptic religious discourse and the eschatological one of moral philosophy.” S. Holzhey, “‘Das Ende aller Dinge’”, p. 30. 11 Cf. G. Panno, “Crasi di scopo ultimo e scopo finale nell’annuncio di Das Ende aller Dinge”. 12 In a letter to Erich Biester (editor of the End of All Things) from April, 10, 1794 Kant writes: “The treatise, which I shall send you soon, will have the title ‘The end of all things’; it will be a read in part pitiful, in part lamentable.” (11:496). 13 Cf. also MM 146, 6:322. For the concept of revolution in Kant’s philosophy, especially in the context of science, cf. the important essay by Brandt, “Kants Revolutionen”. 14 “If, however, a more lawful constitution were attained by unlawful means, i.e. by a violent revolution resulting from a previous bad constitution, it would then no longer be permissible to lead the people back to the original one” (PP 118, 08:373). “Furthermore, if a revolution as succeeded and a new constitution has been established, the unlawfulness of its origin and success cannot free the subjects

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from the obligation to accommodate themselves as good citizens to the new order of things” (MM 147, 6:323). 15 The variation on the topic of Aufklärung adds further plausibility to this conjecture, which is suggested by the Anthropologie: “The most important revolution from within the human being is his exit ‘from his self-incurred immaturity’” (A333, 7:229). 16 I owe this valuable suggestion to Reinhold Aschenberg. 17 Cf. “Now it is our universal human duty to elevate ourselves to this ideal of moral perfection, i.e. to the prototype of moral disposition in its entire purity, and for this the very idea, which is presented to us by reason for emulation, can give us force” (R 102, 6:61). 18 E. Tredanaro, “Sul rapporto tra Io penso e soggetto pratico”. 19 “I distinguish between Christ’s teachings and what we know about it, and to get it out as clearly as possible I primarily try to extract the moral teachings from all stipulations of the New Testament. I am sure that this is the fundamental teaching of the gospel., the rest can only be auxiliary parts.” (Trans. P. D.) 20 S. H. Staeps, “Das Christusbild bei Kant”, p. 111ff.; M. Borghesi, “L’età dello spirito in Hegel. Dal Vangelo ‘storico’ al Vangelo ‘eterno’, p. 141 ff. 21 S. M. Caimi, “Apokalypse, Annährung an die Kantische Metaphysik”, p. 213. 22 Cf. E. Rudoph, “Politische Apokalyptik-apokalyptische Politik”, p. 127 ff. 23 F. Hölderlin, „Sämtliche Werke“, IV, 196, trans. P. Dürr.

Bibliography Translations Ant

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Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Trans. Robert B. Louden, in Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden, Immanuel Kant, Anthropology, History and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Immanuel Kant: Correspondence, trans. A. Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999. The conflict of the faculties (1798), trans. by Mary J. Gregor and Robert Anchor, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 233-327. Critic of the power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews, edited by P. Guyer. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 2000. On the common saying: “This may be true in theory, but it does not apply in practice”, transl. H. H. Reiss, in H. S. Reiss, Kant. Political writings. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. 1991, pp. 61-92.

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Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. The End of All Things, trans. A. Wood, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 217-231. Essays regarding the Philanthropinum, transl. Robert B. Louden, in Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden, Immanuel Kant, Anthropology, History and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 98-104. Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose, transl. H. H. Reiss, in H. S. Reiss, Kant. Political writings. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. 1991, pp. 41-52 Lectures on the philosophical doctrine of religion (1817), trans. Allen Wood, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 335-452. The metaphysics of morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor, in Mary J. Gregor, Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 353-603. What Does It Mean to Orientation Oneself in Thinking? trans. A. Wood, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 7-18. Immanuel Kant: Correspondence, trans. A. Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999. Perpetual peace: a philosophical sketch, transl. H. H. Reiss, in H. S. Reiss, Kant. Political writings. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. 1991, pp. 93-130. Religion within the boundaries of mere reason, transl. by George di Giovanni, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 39-215. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? trans. Mary J. Gregor, in Mary J. Gregor, Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 11-22

Other Sources Anglet, K., Messianität und Geschichte, Berlin: Akademie, 1995. Caimi, M., “Apokalypse, Annährung an die Kantische Metaphysik”, in H.

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Nagl-Docekal und R. Langthaler (eds.), Recht-Geschichte-Religion. Die Bedeutung Kants für die Gegenwart, Berlin: Akademie, 2004. Desideri, F. Quartetto per la fine del tempo. Una costellazione kantiana, Genova: Marietti, 1991. Gryphius, A. Horribilicrigrifax, Halle: Niemeyer, 1883. Haller, v., A. “Unvollkommenes Gedicht über die Ewigkeit”, in “Die Alpen”, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1965, pp. 75-59. Hitz, T., “Die Moral auf Theologie angewandt, ist die Religion. Kants Schrift Das Ende aller Dinge im Kontext seiner praktische Philosophie”, in J. Brokoff u. B. U. Schipper (Hg.), Apokalyptik in Antike und Aufklärung, Paderborn: Schöning, 2004, pp. 171-197. Hölderlin, F. Sämtliche Werke, hrsg. v. D. E. Sattler (Bremer A.). München: Luchterhand, 2004. Holzhey, H., ‘Das Ende aller Dinge’ Immanuel Kant über apokalyptische Diskurse”, in ibid. u. G. Kohler (Hg.), In Erwartung eines Endes, Zürich: Pano, 2001, pp. 21-35. Kant, I. Akademieausgabe, Berlin und Leipzig, 1900 u. ff. Kierkegaard, S. Furcht und Zittern, Reinbeck: Rororo 1961. Kulenkampff, J., “‘Das Ende aller Dinge’. Kants Verteidigung Gottes gegen den Wortlaut der Bibel”, in W. Sparn (Hg.), “Apokalyptik versus Chiliasmus”, Erlangen: Schmidt, 2000, pp. 9-37. Novalis, “Schriften”. Hrsg. v. P. Kluckhohn, R. Samuel, J. Mähl, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960 u. ff. Panno, G., “Crasi di scopo ultimo e scopo finale nell’annuncio di ‘Das Ende aller Dinge’”, Studi Kantiani 17 (2004): 47-64. Rudoph, E., “Politische Apokalyptik-apokalyptische Politik”, in H. Holzhey and G. Kohler, In Erwartung eines Endes: Apokalyptik und Geschichte, Zürich: Pano 2001, pp. 113-128. Tagliapietra, A., “La fine di tutte le cose”, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2006. Salmony, H. A., “Kants Schrift ‘Das Ende aller Dinge’”, Zürich: Evz Verlag, 1962. Wohlmuth, J., “Immanuel Kants ‘Das Ende aller Dinge’ und die Eschatologiekritik bei Emmanuelle Levinas als Herausforderung für die christliche Eschatologie”, in J. Brokoff/B.U. Schipper (ed.), Apokalyptik in Antike und Aufklärung, Paderborn 2004, pp. 197-217.

About philosophy of Religion, History and Revolution Barata-Moura, J., “O tratado teológico-político de Kant. No segundo centenário de ‘Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen

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Vernunft’”, in M. J. Carmo Ferreira & L. Ribeiro dos Santos (ed.), Religião. História e razão da Aufklärung ao Romantismo. Colóquio comemorativo dos 200 anos da publicação de “A religião nos limites da simples razão” de Immanuel Kant, Lisbon 1994, pp. 65-96. Bielefeldt, H., Kants Symbolik. Ein Schlüssel zur kritischen Freiheitsphilosophie, München: Alber 2001, now also Symbolic Representation in Kant’s Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2003. Borghesi, M., L’età dello spirito in Hegel. Dal Vangelo ‘storico’ al Vangelo ‘eterno, Roma: Studium, 1995. Brandt, R., “Kants Revolutionen”, Kant Studien 106 (2015): 3-35. DiCenso, J, Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Commentary, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Ehrsam, R., “La conscience morale comme voix. Une élucidation kantienne”, in S. Bacin et a. (eds.), Akten des XI. Internationalen KantKongresses, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, Bd. 3, 2013, pp. 135-146. Gressis, R. A., “The Relationship Between the Gesinnung and the Denkungsart”, in S. Bacin et a. (eds.), Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, Bd. 4, 2013, pp. 403412. Jacobs, N., “Kant’s Prototypical Theology. Trascendental Incarnation as a Rational Foundation for God-Talk”, in C. L. Firestone a. S. R. Palmquist (eds.), Kant and the New Philosophy of Religion, Indiana: Indiana U.P., 2006. Jamme, C., Schneider, H. (ed.), Mythologie der Vernunft. Hegels ältestes Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988. Knappik, F. u. Mayr, E., “Gewissen und Gewissenhaftigkeit beim späten Kant”, in S. Bacin et a. (eds.), Akten des XI. Internationalen KantKongresses, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, Bd. 3, 2013, pp. 299-342. Longuenesse, B., “Kant and Freud on ‘I’”, in S. Bacin et al. (eds.), Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2013, Bd. 1, pp. 299-320. Marina, J., “Transformation and personal identity in Kant”, Faith and Philosophy 17 (2000): 479-497. Promies, W. (ed.), Lichtenbergs Hogarth: die Kalender-Erklärungen von Georg Christoph Lichtenberg mit den Nachstichen von Ernst Ludwig Riepenhausen zu den Kupferstic-Tafeln von William Hogarth, München-Wien: Hanser, 1999. Städtler, M., Kants ‘Ethisches Gemeinwesen’. Die Religionsschrift zwischen Vernunftkritik und praktischer Philosophie, Berlin/New

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York: De Gruyter, 2005. Staeps, H., “Das Christusbild bei Kant”, Kant Studien 12 (1907): 104-116. Tomasi, F. V., “Tra male radicale e comunità morale cosmopolitica. La chiesa visibile come schema efficace in Kant”, in S. Bacin et a. (eds.), Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin: De Gruyter, Bd. 1, 2013, pp. 975-988. Tredanaro, E., “Sul rapporto tra Io penso e soggetto pratico”, in S. Bacin et a. (eds.), Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Berlin: De Gruyter, Bd. 1, 2013, pp. 457-469.

DAS ENDE ALLER DINGE: THE DURATIO NOUMENON AND THE PROBLEM OF THE ATEMPORALITY OF GESINNUNG FRANCESCA FANTASIA MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITÄT HALLE-WITTENBERG, GERMANY (DAAD FELLOW)

1. Introduction The idea of an end of all things is a thought which is “woven in a wondrous way into universal human reason” (EAT 8:329) 1 and is connected to the problem of the passage from Time to Eternity as well as to the theme of the last day of universal Judgement. The inquiry of Critical philosophy—which has here as its object human reason in both its selfrepresentation and in its expectation for the end of the world—shows how, ultimately, reason has an asymmetric relationship with the modes of time, just as Dauer has it with Zeit. Beneath the occasionally ironic tone characterising his argumentation, in Das Ende aller Dinge Kant offers some very clear thoughts on the meaning of the concept of eternity in its practical dimension, indicating how Ewigkeit should be conceived in relationship with our final human destination. At the centre of the inquiry lies the thought of the moment of the single individual’s death, that passage to another life, which is here thematised through the formula of a passage “from time to eternity”. The critique of the expressions of human reason and of philosophical-religious traditions which Kant produces here offers us the occasion to reflect on the relationship between time and eternity—and therefore between time and duration—in the practical dimension of free action, and to find in the duratio Noumenon the intelligible dimension in which moral progress is accomplished.

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With the notion of duratio Noumenon, or “noumenal duration”—strictly linked to that of eternity—introduced by Kant, almost in passing, in this 1794 text, two terms (Dauer and Noumenon) are placed in a tight reciprocal relation in order to indicate another magnitude than the Größe proper of time: what must be meant [with the term “eternity”] is an end of all time along with the person’s uninterrupted duration; but this duration [Fortdauer] (considering its existence as a magnitude) as a magnitude (noumenal duration) wholly incomparable with time. (EAT 8:327)

How to conceive of this duratio, and which relationship does it hold with temporal existence? How to attribute to man a form of existence incommensurable with time, that is to say, a duration which would be, so to speak, timeless? How is this duration ontologically specified vis-à-vis time? Through the ontological distinction between time and eternity I shall initially present (i) the Kantian arguments on the theoretical paradox of the idea of an end of all things, which leads Critical philosophy to inquire into, and offer legitimation for, the employment of this idea according to the practical interest of reason. Moving from the practical effect of the ideas of an end of time and of a Divine Judgement on human reason I will concentrate on the notion of Gesinnung, or “disposition,” and its central role in such a context. From a reading of a complex passage dealing with the timelessness of Gesinnung, I will then (ii) discuss the paradigm of a timeless disposition as compared with the temporality of phenomenal progress, a paradigm presented by Kant as allegedly well established and unproblematic. Examining moral progress in the relation between Gesinnung, duratio Noumenon, time and change, I will then proceed with a discussion of this paradigm, following two principal clues: the first will be (a) the reference to the infinite duration proper of personality, as it emerges from the postulate of the immortality of the soul; the second will be (b) the notion of change implicit in the idea of Revolution der Denkungsart.

2. The Relation between Time and Eternity: Specific Difference and Ontological Distinction In Das Ende aller Dinge Kant discusses the problem of the passage from the end of time to the beginning of eternity, clarifying the epistemological status of this idea. 2 On the one hand, if time and eternity were to be

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considered solely according to the uniforming measure of magnitude, time would result as implicated in eternity. For the subject, this would mean that sensible being would be implicated in the homo noumenon. The continued and infinite existence in which man finds itself in a (metatemporal) noumenal dimension would therefore have to be heterogeneous and out of sync with his sensible existence. On the other hand, if time and eternity were to be uniquely conceived from the point of view of their quality, the duration of eternity would indicate a pure dimension of an infinite duration without change, producing the contradictory representation of an angelic being capable, by standing in pure independence from time, of positively uttering its end. The gap presented by the passage between time and eternity has a logical character. The moment which marks the end of time and the ushering in of eternity, if thought within a unique temporal sequence, would have eternity participate in the succession of the series: in other words, it would temporalise it. Eternity can only be thought as an intelligible simple; understood as heterogeneous from the temporal series it would rather be its condition. At the same time, though, such heterogeneity, if radically interpreted, would make the very thought of such a passage impossible. In other words, if on the one hand two orders of magnitude (time and eternity)—the qualities of which are specifically different—would be made homogeneous along a continuum of a unique temporal succession, on the other hand a radical heterogeneity of the two terms would not make possible the thought of a transition between the two orders as a passage, but instead merely as a leap, opening a chasm between reason and imagination and depriving thought of any logical Grund.3 The concept of eternity cannot be deprived of duration as its specification, albeit with still no positive determination.4 From the ontological point of view eternity and time represent a “magnitude” and therefore “both” have a duration. In order to distinguish their magnitudes, it is first of all necessary to clarify the specificity of Ewigkeit.5 With eternity we have a limit-concept (Grenzbegriff) which defines the thought of time within the limits of its specifications. The thought of an end of time, and with it of duratio Noumenon, therefore, implicates the end of this very form of temporality. In this internal sense, time is the form of every kind of sensible intuition and the thought which delimits it is therefore a thought cut off from sensible intuition in general, without any corresponding sensible reference.6

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The Vorarbeiten of this essay are important for the distinction between eternity and time: here Kant writes that that which distinguishes the concept of eternity from that of time is not its magnitude (a finite or infinite duration) but rather its quality, its being positive or negative. From an understanding of eternity as duratio Noumenon we obtain the paradoxical concept of a “duration without time” from which, Kant writes, “only succession would fall” and “magnitude remains”: (Ak 23:151, my translation) eternity is thought of as a duration to which a time-specifying quality is denied. Duratio Noumenon would therefore indicate a “purely negative” concept (here is its epistemological status), which denies to time—qua pure form of intuition—its succession, that specific character which makes it the form of contingency. This is what the noumenal character of thought amounts to, its being “incomparable with time”: (EAT 8:328) yet, from another point of view, not in contradiction with it. From the practical point of view, the idea of eternity and of an end of time ought to be examined, by Critical philosophy, according to the moral interest which reasons harbours in its employment,7 according, that is, to the effect that the representation of a future eternity has on human consciousness. Here is the Grund that Critical philosophy attributes to such an idea: a limit concept for theoretical reason acquires, under the practical profile, reality and legitimacy.8 The Kantian interest, therefore, aims to safeguard, on the one hand, the demand for freedom (and therefore of human responsibility) and, on the other, the contingent landscape of actions as phenomena which take place in time. In other words, Kant is here examining the relationship between disposition (Gesinnung) and human action in the world; if ethically interpreted, the end of all things opens the perspective of a two-sided human nature, sensible and rational, as a human existence temporally conditioned and, at the same time, noumenal. The gap which is therefore created puts, on the one hand, the moment of the end of time (the eschaton) at the border with the Zeit—and therefore with the very form of intuition, bordering the theoretical use of reason—and on the other with the final end (the telos). This gap should be conceived—according to the practical interest of reason—as meta-temporal, as a passage which falls outside of the chain of sensible phenomena. The same problem is exposed, in this text, in the relation between the end of all things and the divine judgement relative to human behaviour. By admitting two heterogeneous principles, both overseen by the gaze of a

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universal Judge (as a reader of hearts), Kant comes to the thesis—already articulated in the Religion Within the Boundaries of Pure Reason— of the radical inscrutability of Gesinnung: the representation of divine Judgement at the end of time has the practical effect of emptying consciousness of any presumption of positive knowledge of the moral Self, which is a condition for free and responsible action. Against the background of the Kantian argument, the gap between noumenal Gesinnung and temporal action is put into question: if both were intuitable a perfect continuity between temporal and noumenal existence would be achieved. Rather, Kant puts judgement as other than the subject, at the border between these two dimensions. In both cases, the introduction of Gesinnung allows the Kantian argument to demonstrate the practical access to that which would be theoretically precluded: the duratio Noumenon indicates a “duration ... capable of no determination of its nature other than a moral one”. (EAT 8:327) It is relative to the disposition—to Gesinnung—that we find, at this point in the argument, the passage which I intend to examine. Kant writes: nothing would remain for [Reason] but to think as the final end an alteration, proceeding to infinity (in time) in a constant progression, in which the disposition [Gesinnung] (which is not a phenomenon, like the former, but something supersensible, hence not alterable with time) remains the same and is persisting. (EAT 8:334)

In this passage Kant resuscitates, in conjectural and hypothetical terms, the postulate of the immortality of the soul, this time, though, interpreted as a thought of an infinite temporal progress. Here it looks like the infinite progress of the moral subject is a phenomenon in time, while the Gesinnung, “which is not a phenomenon” like progress, would remain unchanged. 9 The argument seems therefore to present a picture of straightforward contradiction between the atemporality and the immutability of the moral Gesinnung,10 on the one hand, and the temporality of moral progress, understood as a thoroughly phenomenal progress, on the other. But didn’t the infinite duration of personality indicate, in the immortality of the soul, a moral progress wholly independent from the conditions of time? And is Gesinnung really thought in a purely atemporal plane, and therefore not subject to any kind of change? Or rather, doesn’t it suggest, in Kant, a form of becoming and a happening which can hardly be

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thinkable without the help of elements such as change, which suggest at least a certain structure of time? A paradigm of this kind appears dubious if we consider the change, the transformations and the developments that constitute moral progress, as Kant himself thematised and argued for in the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason and in the Religion Within the Boundaries of Pure Reason. The paradigm of a static non-temporality, characteristic of an unchanging Gesinnung, would then be incompatible with the dynamic character of the infinite duration (indicated as immortality of the soul) within which the formation of the maxims and the whole development of intelligible character take place. From the specific difference and the relationship between morality and holiness upon which the argument for the postulate rests—and therefore from the very foundation of moral progress—I will now show how the intelligible dimension of an infinite duration implies the dynamical character of Gesinnung. The thesis of an atemporal and static Gesinnung—moreover, and more radically yet—appears impossible to hold in light of the Kantian introduction, in the Religionsschrift, of the concept of change as a Revolution der Denkungsart, a revolution of the way of thinking.

3. Discussion of the Paradigm of the Atemporality of Gesinnung 3.1. The Infinite Duration of Personality: The Immortality of the Soul The Kantian argument for the immortality of the soul opens with the discussion of holiness, a notion that Kant describes as “complete adequacy of the will to the moral law ... a perfection of which no rational being in the world of sense is capable at any point of time in his existence.” (CPrR 5:121) Through this important reflection upon holiness, the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason reaches the meaning of morality itself from a different perspective than the Analytic did. In the Analytic, morality and holiness are presented in their specific difference, in relation to the moral law: “holiness of will is ... a practical idea that must necessarily serve as an archetype.” (CPrR 5:32) This ideal of holiness is unreachable, and yet, Kant writes, it is “the archetype that

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we ought to strive to approach and—in an uninterrupted but infinite progression—to become equal to.” (CPrR 5:83) It is within this Kantian notion of progress that the—infinite—operation of the relationship between virtue and holiness, between ought to be and being, is at play. On the one hand, virtue is a conflicted and repeated conformity to duty by a moral attitude “in the struggle,” while on the other holiness is a spontaneous and immediate conformity to the moral law, a “supposed possession of a complete purity of the will's attitudes.” (CPrR 5:85)11 It is therefore clear that holiness is not just a step (and not even the last step) in the infinite progression of the struggle of human virtue. In the framework of the relationship between holiness and morality in the Analytic, the two concepts run parallel, without presenting any particular connection. In the Dialectic, however, Kant’s interest is inquiring into the meaning of morality not a parte subjecti, from the standpoint of the determination of the will by pure practical reason, but rather a parte objecti, from the standpoint, that is, of the object of pure reason (the highest good), which determines the direction and the sense of rationally-determined will. The idea of moral progress here becomes the argumentative premise which leads to the postulate of immortality; the belief in the infinity of the duration of one’s existence is grounded on the human need to conceive the possibility of an infinite progress, aiming at the fulfilment of its goal in full accomplishment of moral duty: “[holiness] can be encountered only in a progression proceeding ad infinitum.” (CPrR 5:122) Within the finite human condition, something is searched for which could correspond to holiness, a kind of analogue of totality, yet one achievable by the moral subject. From the perspective of the ultimate goal of the moral struggle—this unreachable holiness—it is possible to specify the content, the what of pure practical will, precisely. Kant writes: “according to principles of pure practical reason it is necessary to assume! such a practical advance as the real object of our will.” (Ibid.) The immortality of the soul hence appears to be a necessary presupposition for practical reason to answer to the question of the effect of its determinations on the will, and in order to understand the instant of each determination as the part of a whole, as a portion of an entire infinite progress. The latter is possible “only on the presupposition of an existence and personality—of the same rational being—continuing ad infinitum.” (Ibid.) Only thus can we hope for “for a further uninterrupted continuation

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of this progress, however far his existence may extend, even beyond this life.” (CPrR 5:123) From the inadequacy of the finite duration of human life on Earth to the entire completion of the moral law, the subject has to represent to itself another duration of existence, an unendliche Dauer.12 From the standpoint of totality, introduced in the Dialectic, holiness, for finite rational beings, is to be contracted and organised in a progressively structured magnitude of time. Holiness is now translated into an infinite duration, hence a duratio Noumenon. In its actual accomplishment, holiness is thinkable not just as an archetype or model but, insofar as it is an endless continuity of human progress from disposition to disposition, it can be also understood as a temporal structure according to whose coordinates the subject can orientate its moral progression. Such a progression, while maintaining its independence from sensible conditions and while falling out of time, autonomously acquires its rhythm from other sources: in this vision, a future life is nothing but the prosecution of this progressive rhythm.13 Therefore the eternity to be assigned to personality is, for Kant, not to be thought as an infinite series of changes within phenomenal time, nor should it be seen as a simple period composed of stasis and endless repose, since it is here that the infinite progress of the unending exercise of moral determination is presupposed. 14 The continuity of the existence of personality is therefore never static, precisely because of the specific difference between—and the impossibility of equating—moral personality and holiness. Now, the gap between time and eternity which we find in The End of All Things presents the same structure I detected in the difference between morality and holiness expressed, in the Critique of Practical Reason, in the postulate of the immortality of the soul. The latter reflects the gap between the stage of moral progress in the moment of physical death and the effective achievement of holiness. Just as in that case, in the End of All Things there obtains, between time and eternity, a dialectic which forces us to think the contradiction of the passage from time to eternity as a contradiction of the binary telos/eschaton.

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Such a relationship between heterogeneous elements has to be thought only in its synthetic form, and for this reason can only be the object of a radical hope.15 Holiness is unreachable precisely because the link between disposition, on the one hand, and moral law with its accomplishment, on the other, is a synthetic link between two heterogeneous parts, that cannot be thought in a relation of continuity with time. The series of Zeit cannot constitute a bridge to noumenal existence, nor can it be its measure. There thus emerges a dynamic qualitative structure characteristic of moral betterment and progress, linked to duty and deriving from the practical interest of reason. Moral progress thus indicates a sui generis (because qualitative) kind of succession, and in this sense, not properly temporal. In terms used in the End of All Things, with the immortality of the soul eternity is thought as a “duration without time”, a duration free from the succession proper of Zeit. Duration is here interwoven with a special kind of consecutio, which establishes the particular order of succession of our moral resolutions, independently from the order of succession of empirical time. The fundamental criterion of such an order is the contextualisation, on the basis of their moral quality, of each single choice within a whole unity of character. Succession, therefore, is not established on the ground of a coplanar and linear locus of empirical “before” and “after”: this would rather be a quantitative temporal succession which, so to speak, would remain blind to the quality of the entire magnitude of the duratio Noumenon. With the infinite duration of personality (or duratio Noumenon) a Dauer is indexed, which can be ascribed to a dimension which is independent of the temporal conditions of the intelligible act. With it, however, an extension of time is presupposed in which change could be possible: that is to say, it implies (but determines no knowledge of) the thought of an order of time within which the changes constituting progress would be understood. That is to say, it is the growth of the moral self, of character as a way of thinking that constitutes the history of action. From these observations we can see how Kant seems to exclude the model of a permanent Gesinnung as an atemporal and immutable substratum, wherein changes are not intended as temporal, but rather in which the growth of the moral self, Gesinnung itself undergoes transformations, inversions and metamorphoses. The permanence of duratio, therefore, indicates the “establishment” of a dynamical order. In the span of the infinite duration of personality, Gesinnung is the active subject of progress, and, as such, subject in turn to

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change, interweaving this infinite duration with a peculiar progressive structure.16 Now, in order to understand its internal dynamic, we need to highlight how this structure needs another fundamental coordinate in order to be active, namely, the conceptual instrument of change introduced by the Kantian notion of Revolution der Denkungsart as presented in the Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. It is not sufficient, we will see, simply to postulate the possibility of an eternal progression: one must also indicate how such progression, and the Gesinnung along with it, could be valid and could count as achievement of holiness, as reaching its end.

3.2. Change in the Revolution der Denkungsart In the “General Remark” to the first part of the Religion, entitled Concerning the restoration to its power of the original predisposition to the good, Kant thematises the possibility of a passage from the predisposition towards evil to that towards good by answering to the biblical question of how could a bad tree produce good fruits17 and offers a consistent reformulation of the categorical imperative from an anthropological perspective. Here, the meaning of such restoration (Wiederherstellung) and the nature of the change implied by it are both presented. The definition of restoration in the oxymoronic expression “restoration of purity” implies two important aspects. On the one hand, if the purity of the law remains untouched, once that is restored the product will not be something ontologically different, and therefore the change will not be a transformation into something else. On the other, restoration indicates, under an anthropological perspective, the actualisation of a pure possibility already available under the transcendental perspective (in the natural predisposition). Thus emerges the outline of the tension between the atemporal purity of the law—allowed by the natural disposition towards the good, as constitutive quality of reason—and the becoming of what the law requires, accomplishing, in time, the purity of the end. Only in the infinite temporal unity of this process would the recognition of the complete restoration of purity be possible.

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The concept of a “revolution in the way of thinking” (Revolution der Denkungsart) is presented, by Kant, as a change of heart, a radical act, a complete assumption of noumenal virtue, a fundamental qualitative turn, functioning as condition of possibility for any “good” reform in time 18 (Reform der Sinnesart). From this anthropological perspective, it is clear how the commands of duty are continuously repeated: “we ought to be better human beings now. [Jetzt]” (Rel 6:50) It is only in the dimension of a present (Jetzt) extended in an infinite duration that the subject can, through the law, determine an absolutely new normative order of its acting; and show it through a new concrete formation of the maxim, which gives rise to an act of determination aimed at the good. In any determination of action, the totality of Gesinnung19 is in play, and the revolution in the way of thinking takes place in a dimension of actuality. In the inversion of the entire order of the causes—in the formation, that is, of maxims that would be in accordance with the moral law—the subject ought to operate a modification of its will, a fundamental change, a transformation of its nature. This revolution is therefore an activity of Gesinnung, of the subjective ground of the maxims: it denied the moral law in the old man and it is now oriented towards it in the new man. And yet man cannot have the assurance of the actuality of such change: “neither via immediate consciousness nor via the evidence of the life he has hitherto led, for the depths of his own heart (the subjective first ground of his maxims) are to him inscrutable.” (Rel 6:51) The gap between the finite future of man and the infinite future of the subject amounts to the tension between phenomenal betterment and the accomplished transparency of Gesinnung; between Sinnesart and Denkungsart, only the latter is condition of possibility for the former. The necessity of affirming the atemporal in the temporal, of producing and seeing produced the effects in conduct of a freely endorsed decision, shows how Sinnesart itself, our way of feeling, acquires meaning—reform after reform—in the direction of an approach to Denkungsart, our way of thinking. But the point of view of the positive act of establishing the purity of the maxims can be reached only through the via negationis of struggle and correction of errors. Man, in the struggle to express, through his conduct, the foundation of his maxims, begins every action from a zero point: he must, and therefore can, reiterate in each instant of its acting the

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operation of the inversion of the maxims and of decisions, in the certain possibility of reaching a moral end, albeit shrouded by constant opaqueness and uncertainty of its effect. This is the movement that weaves the fabric of duration, that dimension of intelligible time expressed by the duratio Noumenon.

4. Conclusion As it emerges from the concept of Revolution der Denkungsart, the practical act of each determination to act reintegrates the instant of its accomplishment, of a complete actuality of disposition (Gesinnung). Such comprehension of the ultimate instant (of complete accomplishment) in the present instant (of the determination of the will) shows how in acting independently from sensible conditions—therefore an acting possible through a negation and neutralisation of Zeit—the subject re-integrates in a certain way another time, in light of his practical spontaneity. To think one’s decision as a step in a progress towards an end allows the rational actor to make the present instant of his determination both the source and a part of a progressive time, projected towards the proper future of free acting.20 In the impossibility of representing to itself a concept of its own infinite duration, reason proposes temporal representations of supersensible duration through the formula of the infinite progress in time, as if man, in his continual striving towards his telos, could not help but think that intelligible duration also as progress. Imagination itself rebels against a life characterised by the reaching of the eschaton: as an instant that marks the end of all time, reaching the eschaton marks the end of thought itself.21 A finite rational being cannot but represent its changes as future, and embedded in a temporal progression. This representation, however, does not satisfy his reason: between the path of continuous changes and the representation of his final end there remains a structural rift: that between the future representation of the accomplishment of a regulative ideal, on the one hand, and the actual moral status, characterised by the unknowability and noumenal character of its own moral quality, on the other.22 As it has thus far emerged, the idea of a future life as a life outside time has a positive practical reality; without time, however, a future life cannot be understood as progress but only as a moral state of lack of change, and

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therefore as the veritable end of reflection and thought. Since no progress can be conceived in a state of quiescence, what remains for a sensible being to do, while facing its own autonomy, is to act so that all the changes and ethical developments in its power would happen in the present.23 Considered in itself, the notion of Dauer, or simple duratio, in its being Größe of time and also Größe of eternity, refers to both the temporal aspect of sensible human life and the eternal aspect of its being in itself. The first aspect concerns the extensive magnitude of temporal things, and it is the measure of science. The second concerns the intensive magnitude of the adhesion to the intention of the law, and it is measure of the amplitude of freedom. As referred to the rational sensible being, duration is a magnitude (finite or infinite) within which the changes of sensible forms and the progress of moral betterment (and its revolutions) answer to two different logics of succession, or better, to two times of a different nature. The first is the sensible time of intuition and of linear succession; and the second is a logical and not a sensible time, since the gap—and the passage—from homo phaenomenon to homo noumenon, from sensible to intelligible character, and from imagination to reason is a logical, and not a sensible one.

Notes 1 For convenience, in this essay I cite Kant’s works in parentheses. When citing from Kant’s work I will include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works: Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preussischen (now Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1902 and ff., here Ak). Here is a list of the relevant abbreviations and English translations:

EAT

CPJ CPrR

CPR

“The End of All Things”, trans. A. Wood and G. Di Giovanni, in Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001, pp. 217-232. Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000. Critique of Practical Reason., trans. M.J. Gregor and A.W. Wood, in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999, pp. 133-172. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997.

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Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, trans. A. Wood and G. Di Giovanni, in Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001, pp. 39-216.

For more on the topic, cf. Caimi, Apokalypse. Annäherung an die Kantische Metaphysik; Desideri, Il passaggio estetico. Saggi kantiani; Ibid., Quartetto per la fine del tempo; Ibid., Introduzione a: I. Kant, Questioni di confine. Saggi polemici (1786-1800); Holzhey, “Das Ende aller Dinge”. Immanuel Kant über apokalyptische Diskurse. 2 Cf. EAT 8:333. 3 Cf. CPJ 5:274-275. 4 Cf. CPR B349. 5 Cf. EAT 8:327. 6 The thought of an end of all things is the conceptual space where “the passage from finite to infinite time is the harbinger of the meaning of all that which its closure determines. If on the one hand time loses its quantitative measurability, at the border with its negation it must account for its quality.” Panno, “Crasi di scopo ultimo e scopo finale nell’annuncio di ‘Das Ende aller Dinge’”, my translation. On the thought of an end of all things as a genuine postulate of practical reason see Hitz, “Die Moral auf Theologie angewandt, ist die Religion.” 7 Cf. EAT 8:330. 8 Cf. EAT 8:334. On the practical significance of a timeless duration and on the supersensible as an eternal present in every moment in Kant see Salmony, Kants Schrift “Das Ende aller Dinge,” pp. 15-16 and 19-25. 9 Some difficulties notwithstanding, here Cunico sees a confirmation of the fact that the infinite duration of the postulate is to be understood as a phenomenal and sensible process. See Cunico, Il millennio del filosofo: chiliasmo e teleologia morale in Kant. 10 On the idea of an atemporal Gesinnung, cf. CPR A539–541/B567-569; A551557/B579-585. 11 Cf. also CPrR 5:81-82 and CPrR 5:84. 12 See Palmquist, The Idea of Immortality as an Imaginative Projection of an Indefinite Moral Future. 13 On the large literary tradition which problematises the question of sensibility and therefore of temporality as linked to the postulate, see the long commentary by Albrecht (Albrecht, Kants Antinomie der Praktischen Vernunft). The problem of a progressive time within the atemporal dimension of the noumenon is also approached by Gonnelli, through the paradoxical expression of “intelligible time.” See Gonnelli, Guida alla lettura della Crtitica della ragion pratica di Kant, pp. 172-174. 14 The postulate of the immortality of the soul therefore establishes a peculiar relation with the moral subject: it is a thought that compensates the uncertainty and the absence of any warranty towards the disposition which will move future determinations. All finite rational beings need to know themselves as immortal in order to be able to think themselves in relation to the progress of their mortal intentions, present and future, and in order to think the real possibility that future

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intentions will be better than the previous ones. On the theme of progress to the better in Kant see Löwisch, “Über den Fortschritt zum Besseren.” 15 As we read in Desideri: “its being is, uniquely, a being early [Voraus]: anticipating a presupposition. It comes early in the proper way of a radical hope for which the idea of an infinite progression is temporally translated in terms of a pure ‘in itself’. Of a pure regulative idea which lets us think the history of humankind as a progress … constituted by the asynchrony between civilisation …and morality, as well as by the progressive harmonisation of these two aspects.” [Desideri, “Introduzione”, in Kant, I., Questioni di confine. Saggi polemici (1786-1800), pp. VII-XLIV, my translation.] 16 In this sense, immortality is presented as that amount of time sufficient for the achievement of the complete realisation of the moral law. See Havet, Kant et le problème du temps, pp. 202-207, where the author acknowledges the Kantian argument for the immortality of the soul as a profound intuition of the temporality characterising human destiny. 17 See Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 284-285. 18 See Fischer, “Die Cardianlsätze der Metaphysik in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft”. 19 See Gressis, “The Relationship Between the Gesinnung and the Denkungsart” and Troeltsch, “Das Historische in Kants Religionsphilosophie.” 20 This inversion addresses the gaze of the intelligible subject towards a peculiar dimension of time, which he cannot anticipate with his knowledge grounded on temporal conditions. 21 See EAT 8:334. It is imagination, writes G. Panno, that turns “a border into a limit, making so that the man’s mediation is addressed to a different time than the present, rubbing the raw material of the already been with the subtle one of the yet to be.” Panno, “Crasi di scopo ultimo e scopo finale,” p. 53, my translation. 22 “Even assuming a person's moral-physical state here in life at its best—namely as a constant progression and approach to the highest good (marked out for him as a goal)—he still (even with a consciousness of the unalterability of his disposition) cannot combine it with the prospect of satisfaction in an eternally enduring alteration of his state (the moral as well as the physical). For the state in which he now is will always remain an ill compared with a better one which he always stands ready to enter; and the representation of an infinite progression toward the final end is nevertheless at the same time a prospect on an infinite series of ills which, even though they may be outweighed by a greater good, do not allow for the possibility of contentment; for he can think that only by supposing that the final end will at sometime be attained.” EAT 8:335. 23 This solution has been suggested by Perovich, “Immortality, Religion, and The End of All Things.”

Bibliography Albrecht, M., Kants Antinomie der Praktischen Vernunft, Hildesheim and New York: Olms Verlag, 1978.

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Barth, K., Die protestantische Theologie im 19. Jahrhundert, Zürich: TVZ, 1947. Bielefeldt, H., Kants Symbolik. Ein Schlüssel zur kritischen Freiheitsphilosophie, München: Alber, 2001 (Symbolic Representation in Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Caimi, M., “Apokalypse. Annäherung an die Kantische Metaphysik”, in H. N. Docekal–R. Langthaler (eds.), Recht - Geschichte - Religion: Die Bedeutung Kants für die Gegenwart, Berlin: Oldenbourg Akademieverlag, 2004, pp. 207-217. Cunico, G., Il millennio del filosofo: chiliasmo e teleologia morale in Kant, Pisa: ETS, 2001. Desideri, F., Il passaggio estetico. Saggi kantiani, Genova: Il Nuovo Melangolo, 2003. —. Quartetto per la fine del tempo, Genova: Marietti Editore, 2000. —. Introduzione a: I. Kant, Questioni di confine. Saggi polemici (17861800), Genova: Marietti, 1990, pp. VII-XLII. Fischer, N., “Die Cardianlsätze der Metaphysik in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Fünf Thesen zu Kant Revolution der Denkart gemäß den ersten Gedanken des Copernicus,” Theologie und Glaube, 89 (1999): 349-363. Gressis, R. A., “The Relationship Between the Gesinnung and the Denkungsart”, in S. Bacin–A. Ferrarin–C. La Rocca–M. Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Kant-Kongresses 2010, Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 403-412. Gonnelli, F., Guida alla lettura della Critica della ragion pratica di Kant, Bari: Laterza, 2006. Havet, J., Kant et le problème du temps, Paris: Gallimard, 1946. Hitz, T., “Die Moral auf Theologie angewandt ist die Religion. Kants Schrift Das Ende aller Dinge im Kontext seiner praktischen Philosophie”, in J. Brokoff–B. U. Schipper (eds.), Apokalyptik in Antike und Aufklärung, Paderborn: Schöning, 2004, pp. 171-197. Holzhey, H., “Das Ende aller Dinge. Immanuel Kant über apokalyptische Diskurse”, in H. Holzhey and G. Kohler, In Erwartung eines Ende, Zürig: Pano, 2001, pp. 21-35. Löwisch, D. J., “Über den Fortschritt zum Besseren. Kants Stellung zum Wertutopischen Denkens,” Vierteljahresschrift für wissenschaftliche Pädagogik, 51: 19-36. Mariña, J. (2000), “Transformation and personal identity in Kant,” Faith and Philosophy, 17 (2000): 479-497.

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Palmquist, S., “The Idea of Immortality as an Imaginative Projection of an Indefinite Moral Future”, in S. Bacin, A. Ferrarin, C. La Rocca, and M. Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Kant-Kongresses 2010, Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter, 2013, pp. 925-936. Panno, G., “Crasi di scopo ultimo e scopo finale nell’annuncio di Das Ende aller Dinge,” Studi Kantiani 17 (2004), pp. 47-64. Perovich, A., “Immortality, Religion, and The End of All Things,” in P. Rossi and M. Wreen (eds.), Kant’s Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991, pp. 165173. Salmony, H.A., Kants Schrift “Das Ende aller Dinge,” Zürich: Evz Verlag, 1962. Strobach, N., The Moment of Change. A Systematic History in the Philosophy of Space and Time, Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998. Troeltsch, E., “Das Historische in Kants Religionsphilosophie,” in KantStudien, 9 (1904): 21-154.

FREEDOM AND OBLIGATION: THE MORAL DEBATE BETWEEN KANT AND HEGEL (1781-1807) ANTONINO FALDUTO MARTIN-LUTHER-UNIVERSITÄT HALLE-WITTENBERG, GERMANY

1. Introduction In this paper, I deal with the concepts of freedom and obligation in the philosophical discussion between Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. 1 In this way, I aim to outline some aspects of the discussion in practical philosophy after the publication of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). By referring to some exemplary texts, I aim to show how the concept of obligation loses its central role in ethics after Hegel’s time. In particular, my aim is that of pointing to the close contact—at the beginning of the eighteenth century—between Hegel and the other philosophers at the University of Jena, who try to develop a deterministic account of Kant’s ethics. I start my analysis with some passages from Kant’s work that illustrate the idea of freedom as autonomy and the importance of obligation for the explication of this idea.2 Afterwards, I concentrate on some philosophers active at the University of Jena at the end of the 18th Century, who deal with Kant’s work and play an important role in the philosophical formation of the young Hegel. Among them, I focus in particular on Johann August Heinrich Ulrich. In doing so, my aim is to point to the fact that Hegel is well acquainted with Ulrich’s work. Hegel read Ulrich’s texts in Tubingen, where he studied, since he there attended the courses of Johann Friedrich Flatt, who was the first lecturer to teach Hegel the elements of Kant’s philosophy. Flatt delivered the first lecture at the University of Tubingen on empirical psychology in 1786. Among others, Hegel, Schelling, and Hölderlin attended this lecture. Afterwards, in 1790,

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Flatt delivered another “Kantian” lecture, this time on Kant’s moral philosophy, in which he explained Kant’s ethics based on Ulrich's Eleutheriologie. Afterwards, exactly at the starting point of German Idealism and during the deterministic reading of Kant’s moral philosophy initiated by Ulrich at the University of Jena, Hegel came to Jena and, in 1801, worked as Privatdozent at the University of Jena. I will close my paper with an analysis of some passages from Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820/1821), in order to describe the development of the idea of freedom and obligation in Hegel’s philosophy after 1807, i.e. after he left Jena. In this way, I refer once again to the concept of obligation, which no longer plays a central role in Hegel’s moral philosophy but remains relevant in the context of his philosophy of right.

2. Kant on Freedom and Determinism in the first Critique In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant does not clarify the relation between freedom and obligation and, consequently, we do not find the account of autonomy that we find in the Groundwork. The first adversaries and supporters of Kant’s philosophy concentrate, however, on the presentation of the concept of freedom that we find in the Antinomy Section of the first Critique, and which they use to support a deterministic or fatalistic interpretation of moral action. In the Antinomy-Section, there is no mention of the concept of obligation and its importance for the idea of freedom as autonomy. The first published work by Kant, in which we find this idea of autonomy, is the Groundwork. There we read, for instance: Morality is thus the relation of actions to the autonomy of the will, that is, to a possible giving of universal law through its maxims. An action that can coexist with the autonomy of the will is permitted; one that does not accord with it is forbidden. A will whose maxims necessarily harmonize with the laws of autonomy is a holy, absolutely good will. The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy being. The objective necessity of an action from obligation is called duty.3

The first interpreters at the University of Jena did not understand Kant’s idea of freedom as autonomy. They did not understand how Kant can speak of a concept of autonomy, according to which the moral law initiates another kind of causality, but which cannot be confused with the causality

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of nature. For these interpreters, causality always implies a recourse to the law of nature. This is why the Jena interpreters did not refer to this concept when the discussion surrounding a Kantian idea of freedom began there, even though the text of the Groundwork was already available at this time. Not only the critics of Kant’s philosophy, but also the ones defining themselves as advocates of Kant’s ideas, do not shed any light on this new causality, which descends from freedom and is embodied in the concept of autonomy. Nor do they mention Kant’s strong connection between the concepts of freedom and obligation. Ulrich, Schmid, but also, afterwards, Flatt in Tubingen, focused only on the first Critique and, in particular, on the idea of transcendental freedom, in order to elucidate a (supposed) Kantian moral idea of freedom, but which does not at all include the concept of autonomy.4 Among these philosophers, it was in particular Johann August Heinrich Ulrich who best illustrated this particular chapter in the history of the early (deceptive) reception of Kant’s moral philosophy. It is to this author that I will now dedicate my attention.

3. Ulrich’s Eleutheriologie Johann August Heinrich Ulrich (1746-1813) started his career in Jena as an exponent of the philosophy of Leibniz. Even though he took Kant’s philosophy into account and tried to reconcile both Leibnizian and Kantian thought in his Institutiones Logicae et Metaphysicae (1785), he ended up antagonising or even completely misunderstanding Kant’s philosophy both in his lectures and in his book Eleutheriologie oder über Freyheit und Nothwendigkeit (Jena 1788). In the Eleutheriologie, Ulrich interprets and corrects Kant's theory of freedom—or at least the theory of freedom he thinks he finds in the first Critique. In § 10 of the Eleutheriologie, Ulrich analyses Kant’s attempt to combine the freedom of human action with universal necessity (durchgängige Nothwendigkeit). There he notes: Kant is such a strict determinist in consideration of our decisions and actions, that in consideration of these he asserts such a decisive universal natural necessity like no other.5

Ulrich explains why he makes this statement on the basis of his general interpretation of Kant’s philosophy. He first asks himself,

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Freedom and Obligation: The Moral Debate between Kant and Hegel whether we might find in the intelligible character grounds for the determination of the intelligible faculty, which would not be anterior, in terms of time, but which would nonetheless be grounds. In this case, natural necessity would be understood in a different way.6

And this is the answer Ulrich gives to his own question: “the invariability of the intelligible character [Unveränderlichkeit des intelligibeln Charakters]” implies necessity, so that we are confronted with “necessity everywhere [Überall Nothwendigkeit]”,7 both in the world of the appearance and in the realm of human action. In Ulrich’s explanation, Kant’s idea of freedom is based on natural necessity and natural causality, since Ulrich does not account for any other coherent and acceptable philosophical position besides the ones arguing for either (1) an all-reaching and all-comprehensive natural necessity or (2) contingency. Ulrich’s Eleutheriologie was central for the reception of the “Kantian” concepts of freedom and obligation in the philosophical discussion of the last decade of the 18th Century in Germany. There is also evidence of Hegel’s acquaintance with Ulrich’s text during in the years Hegel spent as a student in Tubingen. 8 Johann Friedrich Flatt (1759-1821) used the Eleutheriologie just two years after its publication in support of his lectures. Ulrich, however, was already known at German universities before the publication of this text on moral philosophy. Among others, Flatt used Ulrich’s texts in Tubingen prior to 1788. In particular, Flatt taught Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at Tubingen, because he believed that Kant’s theoretical philosophy could open new possibilities for understanding biblical revelation.9 Flatt dealt with the topic of (empirical) psychology in 1786, on the occasion of a series of lectures attended by— among others—Hegel, Schelling and Hölderlin (and, in 1794, Hegel composed his first conceptions about psychology in Bern with the help of his notes on Flatt’s lectures).10 Moreover, Hegel attended Flatt’s course in the summer term of 1790, when Flatt also used Ulrich’s Eleutheriologie for his lectures, in which Kant’s theory of freedom is explained on the basis of a strict determinism.11 Kant did not remain silent and position himself clearly against determinism. We can reconstruct Kant’s position regarding Ulrich’s interpretation by referring to a review of the Eleutheriologie that appeared in 1788 in the Allgemeine Literaturzeitung. Even though Christian Jacob Kraus (17531826) is most likely the author of this review, it remains unclear whether

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he used some notes by Kant in composing the review.12 In this review, Ulrich’s deterministic ideas were harshly criticised. 13 In addition, new elements concerning the relation between freedom and obligation come into the fore and new light is shed on the concept of autonomy. Moral obligation is now inseparably joined to a causality, which is distinct from a natural one and which goes back to the concept of freedom. This is what Ulrich’s deterministic reading completely missed.14 Kraus’s review played an important role in the previously outlined discussion. Hegel read this review in Tubingen—thanks to Flatt—and remained (even after this episode) an attentive observer of the discussion.15 New actors constantly came into play in the moral philosophical discussion on freedom and virtually every interpreter presented himself as “the real Kantian,” such that in 1797 Kant aimed to define what he means by using the terms “freedom” and “autonomy”. In the general introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant gave the definitions of these terms and of the word “obligation”.16 Nonetheless, the debate remained very lively and, during the years of these discussions, Hegel arrived in Jena as a lecturer.

4. Ulrich and Hegel Hegel started working in Jena in 1801 as a Privatdozent. In particular, in 1802 Hegel personally interacted with Ulrich. Hegel aimed to teach not only Logic and Metaphysics, on the one hand, and Natural Law, on the other hand, as was required by his position. Since he was working on Fichte’s philosophy, Hegel also asked the faculty to be allowed to teach a further course. The professor responsible for organising teaching was Ulrich, whose notes are available, thanks to the so-called Rekurs. What happens that year is clear: Hegel’s lecture on Fichte’s theory of natural law did not take place. Ulrich was one of the most severe adversaries of Hegel’s extra course. In this way, Hegel interrupted his work on Fichte, the so-called System der Sittlichkeit, on which he was working in 1802.17 Hegel was thus not only very most familiar with the deterministic interpretation of Kant’s moral philosophy: he also personally knew the protagonists of this discussion in Jena personally. This is not sufficient to defend the thesis, according to which Hegel disapproves of Kant’s ethics only because of the erroneous reading of the Jena philosophers in Jena.

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Freedom and Obligation: The Moral Debate between Kant and Hegel

Still, Hegel firmly rejected Kant’s idea of duty, where obligation is strongly linked to freedom for the explanation of the concept of autonomy. Obligation, duty, and freedom, are neatly separated from one another, and moral obligation no longer plays an important role in Hegel’s idea of morality.18 However, the concept of obligation remains relevant from a juridical perspective: it is central in the context of Hegel’s philosophy of right, and this is true in later years as well. In the Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1820/1821), which are the most important source for Hegel’s thought on right, the concept of obligation is referred to several times, even in its Latin form (obligatio), and numerous references to Kant's Metaphysics of Morals are made. Nonetheless, obligation is central only insofar as Hegel is interested in the functioning of private right, and, precisely in this context, Kant plays a central role.19 In contrast to this, the Kantian conception of moral obligation and the strong relation between obligation and freedom for the explanation of the idea of autonomy are completely missing in Hegel’s philosophy.

Notes 1 A very early version of this paper will be published in German under the title: “Obligatio: Moralischer oder rechtlicher Natur? Kant und Hegel über den Begriff der Verbindlichkeit”, Hegel-Jahrbuch (Hegels Antwort auf Kant, Akten des XXX. Internationalen Hegel-Kongresses der Internationalen Hegel-Gesellschaft), forthcoming. I am also grateful to Michael Walschots, who provided me with the linguistic revision of my paper. 2 For convenience, throughout this essay I cite Kant’s works in parentheses. The citations include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works: Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich-Preussische (now Deutsche) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1900). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only. I generally follow the standard English translations of Kant’s works, but have occasionally modified them where appropriate. Here is a list of the relevant abbreviations and English translations:

CPR G

Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. M. Gregor., in M. Gregor, Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge

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MM

RSc

177

Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 41-108. The Metaphysic of Morals, trans. M. Gregor, in M. Gregor, Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 353-604. Review of Schulz’s Attempt at an Introduction to a Doctrine of Morals for all Human Beings Regardless of Different Religions”, trans. M. Gregor, in M. Gregor, Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 1-10.

3 See Kant, G, 4:439: “Moralität ist also das Verhältniß der Handlungen zur Autonomie des Willens, das ist zur möglichen allgemeinen Gesetzgebung durch die Maximen desselben. Die Handlung, die mit der Autonomie des Willens zusammen bestehen kann, ist erlaubt; die nicht damit stimmt, ist unerlaubt. Der Wille, dessen Maximen nothwendig mit den Gesetzen der Autonomie zusammenstimmen, ist ein heiliger, schlechterdings guter Wille. Die Abhängigkeit eines nicht schlechterdings guten Willens vom Princip der Autonomie (die moralische Nöthigung) ist Verbindlichkeit”. 4 See di Giovanni, Freedom and Religion in Kant and His Immediate Successors. The Vocation of Humankind, 1774-1800. 5 Ulrich, Eleutheriologie oder über Freyheit und Nothwendigkeit, p. 22-27, my translation (Kant ist […] ein so strenger Determinist in Ansehung unserer Entschließungen und Handlungen, er behauptet in Ansehung derselben eine so durchgängige entschiedene Naturnotwendigkeit, als nur irgend einer). 6 Ulrich, Eleutheriologie oder über Freyheit und Nothwendigkeit, p. 32, my translation, strongly changed by Michael Walschots. Original text: “ob nicht im intelligiblen Charakter selbst Gründe der Bestimmung des intelligiblen Vermögen sich finden, welche zwar der Zeit nach nicht vorhergiengen, aber doch Gründe wären, auf welchen Fall alsdann Naturnothwendigkeit ein andern Verstande statt finden würde”. 7 Ulrich, Eleutheriologie oder über Freyheit und Nothwendigkeit, p. 34. 8 See Brecht, “Die Anfänge der idealistischen Philosophie und die Rezeption Kants in Tübingen (1788-1795)”. 9 See Pältz, “Flatt, Johann Friedrich”. 10 See Hegel, “Ein Manuskript zur Psychologie und Transzendentalphilosophie (1794)”. 11 See Hegel, Frühe Schriften, pp. 645-646. 12 See Kant’s “Vorarbeiten” in Ak 23:79-81. On Kraus’ review see Vahinger, “Ein bisher unbekannter Aufsatz von Kant über die Freiheit”; and Stark, “Kant und Kraus. Eine übersehene Quelle zur Königsberger Aufklärung”. 13 Kant was already critical about this topic in his review of Schulz‫ތ‬Versuch einer Anleitung zur Sittenlehre für alle Menschen, ohne Unterschied der Religion, nebst einem Anhange von den Todesstrafen. Erster Theil. Berlin 1783 (see RSc 8:13). 14 See RSc 8:455-456. 15 See Nuzzo, “Metamorphosen der Freiheit in der Jenenser Kant-Rezeption (17851794)”.

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16 See MM 6:221-228. There, Kant in particular reacts to the definitions given by Karl Leonhard Reinhold in the second volume of the Letters on the Kantian Philosophy. See Meist, “Einleitung”. 17 On Hegel’s representation of Kant’s concept of duty, see the famous passage from the Lectures on the history of philosophy: “Die kalte Pflicht ist der letzte unverdaute Klotz im Magen, die Offenbarung gegeben, der Vernunft”. 18 On Hegel’s representation of Kant’s concept of duty, see the famous passage from the Lectures on the history of philosophy: “Die kalte Pflicht ist der letzte unverdaute Klotz im Magen, die Offenbarung gegeben, der Vernunft”. 19 See MM 6:260-291; and Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, § 40.

Bibliography Bondeli, M., Der Kantianismus des jungen Hegel: Die Kant-Aneignung und Kant-Überwindung Hegels auf seinem Weg zum philosophischen System, Hamburg: Meiner, 1997. Brecht, M., “Die Anfänge der idealistischen Philosophie und die Rezeption Kants in Tübingen (1788-1795)”, in H. Decker-Hauff et al. (eds.), Beiträge zur Geschichte der Universität Tübingen: 1477-1977, Tübingen: Attempto-Verl., 1977, pp. 381-428. di Giovanni, G., Freedom and Religion in Kant and His Immediate Successors. The Vocation of Humankind, 1774-1800, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2005. Hegel, G. W. F., “Ein Manuskript zur Psychologie und Transzendentalphilosophie (1794)”, in F. Nicolin – G. Schüler (eds.), Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 1: Frühe Schriften, Hamburg: Meiner, 1989, pp. 167-192. —. System der Sittlichkeit [Critik des Fichteschen Naturrechts], Hamburg: Meiner, 2002. —. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, in K. Grotsch – E. WeisserLohmann (eds.), Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 14,1: Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse, Hamburg: Meiner, 2009. —. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III, Band 20, in E. Moldenhauer – K. M. Michel (eds.), G.F.W. Hegel: Werke, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Kant, I., Practical philosophy, translated and edited by M. J. Gregor, with a general introduction by A. W. Wood, Cambridge-New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996. —. Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by P. Guyer and A. W. Wood, Cambridge-New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998. Klemme, H. F., “Freiheit oder Fatalismus? Kants positive und negative Deduktion der Idee der Freiheit in der Grundlegung (und seine Kritik an Christian Garves Antithetik von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit)”, in H.

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Puls (ed.), Kants Rechtfertigung des Sittengesetzes in Grundlegung III: Deduktion oder Faktum?, Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2014, pp. 61-103. Meist, K. R., “Einleitung”, in G. W. F. Hegel, System der Sittlichkeit [Critik des Fichteschen Naturrechts], Hamburg: Meiner, 2002, pp. IXXXIX. Nuzzo, A., “Metamorphosen der Freiheit in der Jenenser Kant-Rezeption (1785-1794)”, in Fr. Strack (ed.), Evolution des Geistes: Jena um 1800. Natur und Kunst, Philosophie und Wissenschaft im Spannungsfeld der Geschichte, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1994, pp. 484-518. Pältz, E. H., “Flatt, Johann Friedrich”, Neue Deutsche Biographie 5 (1961): 223-224. Reinhold, K. L., Briefe über die Kantische Philosophie, erster und zweiter Band, Leipzig: Göschen 1790/1792. English edition: Letters on the Kantian Philosophy, edited by K. Ameriks, translated by J. Hebbeler, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995 Schulz, J. H., Versuch einer Anleitung zur Sittenlehre für alle Menschen, ohne Unterschied der Religion, nebst einem Anhange von den Todesstrafen. Erster Theil. Berlin: Stahlbaum 1783. Siep, L., Praktische Philosophie im deutschen Idealismus, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1992. Stark, W., “Kant und Kraus. Eine übersehene Quelle zur Königsberger Aufklärung”, in R. Brandt and W. Stark (eds.), Neue Autographen und Dokumente zu Kants Leben, Schriften und Vorlesungen, Hamburg: Meiner, 1987, pp. 165-200. Ulrich, J.A.H., Eleutheriologie oder über Freyheit und Nothwendigkeit, Jena: Cröker, 1788. Vahinger, H., “Ein bisher unbekannter Aufsatz von Kant über die Freiheit”, Philosophische Monatshefte 16 (1880): 192-208.

HIGH DOSES OF HELLEBORE1 MARIA BORGES UFSC/CNPQ, BRAZIL

1. The Philosopher and the Medicine of the Body The lecture On Philosophers’ Medicine of the Body was given by Kant as Rector of the University of Konigsberg, on either October 10 1786 or October 4 1788. In this lecture, Kant explains how our mental states may influence our vital functions. This subject was also treated in a later text, called On the Power of the Mind to Master its morbid Feelings by Sheer Resolution that was published first by the medical journalist Christian Wilhelm Hufeland and later became the part III of the Conflict of faculties. Kant, as a philosopher-doctor, wanted to control the physiological aspects of the body. He claims, inverting the famous saying of Epicurus, that the doctor’s business is “to help the ailing mind by caring for the body,” while the philosopher’s business is “to assist the afflicted body by a mental regimen.”2 Kant’s discussion concerning the power of the mind over the body refers to the main physiological debate in the 18th century involves animists and mechanicists. Kant was aware of this discussion, and explains quite well the difference between the two schools as to whether the art of medicine should be practiced on man in the same way as on cattle: Those who pursue purely mechanical medicine, such as doctors trained in the school of Hoffman, maintain that it should be practised in the same way, in so far, to be sure, as the similar constitution of the body in either kind of living being allows. The followers of Stahl, who decide in favor of treating man differently, proclaim the remarkable force of the mind in curing diseases or bringing them to head. It is for the philosopher to turn his mind to the latter.3

Here Kant refers to two doctors who held the Chair of Medicine at Halle at different times: Georg Ernst Stahl (1660-1754) and Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742).4 Hoffman was a proponent of the mechanist view. His most

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important work is Medicina Rationalis Systematica, where he claims that the human body is like a hydraulic machine. A nervous fluid whose features are similar to Descartes’ spirit produces the activity of the body: it is an ether-like fluid, secreted by the brain and distributed through the body by the nerves and the blood. If the fluid is excessive there will be a spasm; if the fluid is not enough there will be atony. Hoffman divides diseases into spasmic and atonic and prescribes antispasmodics and sedatives for the first and stimulating remedies for the second.5 Stahl holds a different viewpoint. In Theoria medica Vera, he argues for the theory of animism. According to Ralph Major’s History of medicine: “disagreeing with Descartes, who distinguished sharply between the life of the soul and that of the body, Stahl taught the important role of the anima, the supreme life principle, which in health regulates all the functions of the body but which disappears at death.”6 Kant shows that he is aware of the medical debates of his time. Apart from the references to the Hoffmann and Stahl, he also cites John Brown in the Anthropology: Affects are generally morbid occurrences (symptoms) and may be divided (according to analogy with Brown’s system) into sthenic affects as to strength and asthenic affects as to weakness. Sthenic affects are of the exciting and frequently exhausting nature; asthenic affects are of a sedative nature which often prepare for relaxation.7

Many eighteenth centuries medical writers had recognised that the causes of diseases are excesses or irregularities in human activity. Boerhaave (1668-1701)—who, with Stahl and Hoffmann, dominated the medical scene of the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18thcentury— cited the case of a man who was ordered to carry letters to Utrecht. By excessive running, he forced the grosser parts of his fluids into the vessels, and rendered the obstruction incorrigible.8 According to Cumston, these three men “lived at the same time, but this is their only point in common, for their characters and geniuses were as distinctly different as were their doctrines. They may be characterised by saying that Stahl was a man of doctrines, Hoffmann a man of systems and Boerhaave an eclectic. Stahl was the chief of modern vitalism, Hoffman that of solidism, preparing the way for the school of irritability and spasms, while Boerhaave was the chief of the humoral school”.9 John Brown (1735-88) towards the end of the century, also thought that the same external powers of nature that produce life and health also produce sickness and death. He saw the decline of the organism in

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quantitative terms, as a loss of excitability, which decreases slowly in quantity everywhere in the body from childhood to old age. John Brown was a Scottish doctor who worked with William Cullen. Cullen (1710-1790) agrees with the mechanist Hoffman, in that life is a function of nervous energy. In Elementa Medicinae, Brown presents a system that is supposed to compete with Cullen’s, although it shares some features with Hoffmann’s. Brown explains his theory of life as derived from external and internal exciting powers. Life is nothing but a forced state; if the exciting powers are withdrawn, death necessarily follows. The cause of diseases is an increase or decrease of excitability. Sthenic diseases are caused by an excess of exciting powers; asthenic diseases by a loss of exciting powers. The sthenic diseases can be illustrated by the explanation of its symptoms: The increase of the force of the senses, of motions, of the intellectual faculty, and the passions, depends upon the increase of excitement in every one of their organs, by which, beside other effects, the motion of the blood through them is quickened.10

The symptoms of asthenic diseases, in contrast, show a lack of exciting powers: all the senses are dull, the motions, both voluntary and involuntary, are flow; the acuteness of genius is impaired; the sensibility and passions become languid. The following functions are all in a state of languor, as is discoverable from the annexed marks: The languor of the heart and arteries is discernible in the pulse; as is also that of the extreme vessels on the surface, from the paleness, the dryness of the skin, the shrinking of tumours, the drying up of the ulcers, and the manifest absence of sthenic diathesis, to produce any symptoms like these.11

Therapy consists in giving sedatives for sthenic diseases and stimulants for asthenic ones.12 Brown’s division of diseases parallels Hoffmann’s account of the spasmic/atonic states, although they disagree with each other on the ultimate cause of excitability. For Hoffman, the exciting agent is the nervous fluid, for Brown, it could be physical or mental. Both Hoffman and Brown share the idea that we have excited states. Even if, for Brown, mental forces can produce these states, one needs to interfere with sedatives or stimulants to correct states of excessive or deficient excitement. Excited states can be produced by the mind, but they have a physiological component, which calls for chemical intervention.

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2. Controlling of Affects and Passions by the Mind Kant was not only interested in healing his own precarious health, but also aimed at controlling imagination and affective states. Kant follows Brown in considering affects as physiological states of excitement or release. Laughing with emotion (a sthenic affect) is an example of the first; weeping with emotion (an asthenic affect) is an example of the second. Furthermore, many other affects are related to bodily functions: anger, if one can scold freely, is a way to aid digestion (A 7:261) and fear in battle could be related to acid indigestion.13 Since affects are physiological dependent states, the way to control these emotions should encompass some strategies of bodily control. As a general term, ‘emotions’ refers to a wide variety of states, which Kant calls affects, sympathy, moral feelings, and passions. In general, they all have intentional objects, which is to say, they are about something. Besides, they are also connected with physiological arousals, even if among affects there are some whose physiological arousals are stronger than others. This is the case of anger if compared with shyness. If it is possible to control shyness by habituation, Kant is not that optimist regarding affects whose physiological arousals are very strong. This is the case with anger, fear in battle, etc.

3. The Duty of Apathy In order to attain virtue, it is a duty to cultivate “moral apathy”. Apathy is essential for Kant’s notion of virtue, not in the stoic sense of hostility towards all inclinations, but at least in the sense of controlling strong affects that may oppose the fulfilment of duty: “To be subject to affect (Affekt) and passion (Leidenschaft) is probably always an illness of mind, because both affect and passion exclude the sovereignty of reason”14. Although Kant sometimes is ambiguous when he speaks of apathy, in the Doctrine of Virtue he argues for moral apathy, which is not freedom from moral feelings, but absence of affects. Kant’s account of apathy differs from the stoic one in the sense that, for the stoic, all feelings are harmful to morality, while Kant acknowledges that some feelings can be produced by reason and are subjective conditions of the receptiveness to the concept of duty (MM 6:399). These feelings are moral feelings, conscience, love of one’s neighbour and self-esteem. However, I would put them under the label of moral feelings, instead of affects.

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In the Religion, Kant claims that there are three levels of evil. Undoubtedly passion is worse than affect because it is related to the third degree of evil, while affect is related to the first one, called weakness of the will or frailty (fragilitas). Although affects are not that harmful, they are still puzzling, since we can decide what to do and which maxim to follow and fail to follow it, because that “which is an irresistible incentive objectively or ideally (in thesi), is subjectively (in hypothesi) the weaker (in comparison with inclination) whenever the maxim is to be followed”15. Were inclinations and affects under complete control, there would not be a first degree of evil, i.e., the weakness of the will. In Kant’s view, both passions and affects are diseases of the will. The only difference between them is that the former is a persistent perversion of reason while the latter is ephemeral. Although passion is the main problem for Kant, the uncontrollable outcome of at least a strong affect is also a problem, since it is responsible for the first degree of evil. The possibility to eradicate or moderate some strong affects is also dependent on temperament. Kant in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime analyses the concept of character in terms of four temperaments (phlegmatic, melancholic, choleric, and sanguine), while in later texts, such as the Doctrine of Virtue, he offers an idea of moral character that is related to virtue as fortitudo. However, the Kantian notion of virtue is different from the Aristotelian one. The first is the strength to fight against inclinations that oppose the accomplishment of moral law; the latter is the capacity of controlling emotions by habituation. Kant strongly denies that virtue can be attained through habituation. Kant did not deny the existence of a natural character in his later anthropological works, such as the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View where he explains the doctrine of the four temperaments.16 Then, for those who are not by nature endowed with a phlegmatic temperament, and are sometimes dominated by particular instances of outbursts of strong affects, the philosopher-doctor should try, first to minimise the intensity of affects, and second, when the first medicine does not work, use the direct intervention through a medical substance.

4. The Classification of Affects Kant, following Brown’s division in his classification of affects, also borrows their inertial physiological feature. Once affects are activated, we cannot have control over the process. Although the philosopher doctor

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aims at controlling the bodily components of affects, Kant acknowledges that some mental phenomena are beyond the control of the philosopher’s medicine and will need some physiological or chemical interventions. In many diseases of the mind, when imagination turns savage and the patient’s head resounds with great, unheard of things, or he is cast into the depths of depression and tormented by empty terrors, the mind has been dethroned and bleeding the patient is likely to produce better results than reasoning with him.17

When the mind is assaulted by strong affects like a profound sorrow or a strong fright, the possibility of controlling these emotions by the discipline of the mind should give room to physiological intervention. The same applies to strong affects like anger. In the Anthropology, for instance, Kant proposes to calm an angry man who enters a room shouting by making him sit and relax and does not propose a direct control of this affect by the will.18 In the example of the angry man, Kant seems to accept the inertial component of affects and the impossibility to control it by the intervention of the mind over the body. This example shows us something about the functioning of a strong affect in general: while we are taken by these strong feelings, we cannot do anything but wait for them to go away. Evidently, what Kant says about anger cannot be generalised to all affects. He presents a continuum of emotions, one that goes from the most strong and irrational affects, like anger, to those that are less passive and likely to be modulated directed by reason. This is also the case with moral feelings in general, including sympathy, moral courage, and enthusiasm for the moral law (A 7:254) For the stronger and incontrollable emotions, sometimes we have to use medicines and not the power of the mind. Controlling of strong emotions cannot be based on changing one’s beliefs, as in the ancient tradition of the Aristotelian cultivation or stoic extirpation. The attempt to control affects may encompass some intervention of the philosopher doctor over the body. Sometimes this is not enough, and other strategies are needed, such as relaxation and even the use of “medication, which will work directly on the mind, cheering it up or alleviating worries by suppressing or even stimulating affects.” And, in treating a madman, Kant advises to use “large doses of hellebore rather than to rely on the healing power of sound reason”.19

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Notes 1

This is modified version of the article “Physiology and the controlling of affects in Kant’s philosophy”, Kantian Review, 13 (2008): 46-66. 2 Kant, On Philosophers’ Medicine of the Body, Rektoratsrede, OPM 15:939. 3 OPM 15:943. 4 See Mary Gregor’s Introduction to “On Philosophers’ Medicine of the Body”, Kant’s Latin Writings, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1992, p. 189 5 See Ralph Major, A History of Medicine. Springfield: Charles Thomas Publisher, 1954, vol. II, 569, 570. 6 Ibid. 566 7 A 7:256. 8 See W.-F. Bynum & K. Porter, (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of the history of medicine, London: Routledge, 1993, p. 257. 9 See C.G. Cumston, The History of Medicine. London/ New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 327. 10 Joannis Brunonis, Elementa Medicinae, Edinbouri: Executebat Ioseph Galetius, Mediolani M, DCC, XCII, § CLIII 11 Joannis Brunonis, Elementa Medicinae, Edinbouri: Executebat Ioseph Galetius, Mediolani M, DCC, XCII, § CLXXVI. 12 According to Mary Gregor, the therapies of Scottish Physiologist John Brown “are said to have killed more people than the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars combined.” He also died from his favourite medicines, opium and whisky. See Rektoratsrede, introduction of Mary Gregor, in Kant’s Latin Writings, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1992, p. 191 13 A 7:256. 14 A 7:251. 15 Rel 6:29. 16 See A 7: 286-292. 17 OPM 15:943. 18 A 7: 252. 19 OPM 15:946. According to the Botanical site http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/h/helbla14.html “Hellebore is a flower (Helleborus) which was largely used for paralysis, gout and insanity. Medicinal Action and Uses—The drug possesses drastic purgative, emmenagogue and anthelmintic properties, but is violently narcotic. It was formerly much used in dropsy and amenorrhoea, and has proved of value in nervous disorders and hysteria. It is used in the form of a tincture, and must be administered with great care. According to Pliny, Black Hellebore was used as a purgative in mania by Melampus, a soothsayer and physician, 1,400 years before Christ, hence the name Melampodium applied to Hellebores. Spenser in the Shepheard's Calendar, 1579, alludes to the medicinal use of Melampode for animals. Parkinson, writing in 1641, tells us: ‘a piece of the root being drawne through a hole made in the eare of a beast troubled with cough or having taken any poisonous thing cureth it, if it be taken out the next day at the same houre.’ In an old French romance, the sorcerer,

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to make himself invisible when passing through the enemy’s camp, scatters powdered Hellebore in the air, as he goes. The following is from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy: Borage and hellebore fill two scenes, Sovereign plants to purge the veins Of melancholy, and cheer the heart Of those black fumes which make it smart.

Bibliography Beck, L. W., Kant’s Latin Writings, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1992. Brunonis, Joannis, Elementa Medicinae, Edinbouri: Executebat Ioseph Galetius, Mediolani M, DCC, XCII Bynum, W.-F., and K. Porter (eds)., Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine, London: Routledge, 1993. Cumston, C. G., The History of Medicine, London: Routledge, 1996. Gregor, Mary, “Introduction to ‘On Philosophers’ Medicine of the Body”, in Kant’s Latin Writings, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1992. Major, Ralph., A History of Medicine, vol. II, Springfield, IL: Charles Thomas Publisher, 1954.

III. TELEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

ON THE USE OF TELEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES IN BIOLOGY RENATO VALOIS CORDEIRO UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL RURAL DO RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

The Kantian philosophy makes a clear-cut distinction between constitutive and regulative rules. The concept of a regulative rule is associated with the principles of reason. While the principles of understanding are constitutive (i.e., the objects of the experience may only be determined insofar as they are expressed by using these principles), the principles of the reason have a regulative-critical use. This means that they do not determine any object and, in this regard, they are only meant to guide the systematisation of empirical knowledge which is fixed by the understanding. Thus, on the one hand, constitutive rules define the determining conditions of an activity. The principle of natural causality, for example, specifies a way of being of the objects of experience. On the other hand, regulative norms are limited to judging (beurteilen) objects already constituted—or otherwise determining the assessment standard of a given activity which may indeed be performed regardless of this assessment. To an attentive reader of the Critique of Pure Reason1 (1787) it is surprising to stumble upon the statement that the principle of mechanism has a merely regulative nature in the “Antinomy of Teleological Judgment” (CPJ 5:386-7) of the third Critique. As is known, the “Second Analogy” (CPR B233) demonstrated that the principle of (natural) causality is a transcendental principle; therefore, it has a constitutivecritical use in the field of the knowledge possible to man. Consequently, the introduction of the principle of mechanism as one of the positions of a conflict of the faculty of reflective judgement provides only two possible interpretative assumptions: either Kant is substantively changing the conceptual framework of his theoretical philosophy by making the principle of the “Second Analogy” a purely subjective rule, or he is referring to, within the context of an antinomy, a mechanicist principle different from that which had been demonstrated in the first Critique. Certain interpreters of Kant’s philosophy rely on texts prior to Critique of

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the Power of Judgment (1790) to support the second assumption.2 Regarding the reference to causal principles that could be interpreted as different from the principle of natural causality, one finds two remarkable examples: [a] mechanism means “material mechanism” (CPR B720-3) and [b] mechanism means “mechanism of nature”3 (CPrR 5:97). The concept [a] refers to the type of causality related to the interaction between bodies, understood as physical objects. This kind of causality represents, for example, that one described by the laws of classical mechanics, whose forms can be expressed in the law of inertia4 (MNS 4:543). The concept [b] refers to the type of causality that is assimilated in the Critique of Practical Reason to psychological explanation, whose causes are empirical5 (CPrR 5:97, R 5978, 18:413 and R 5995, 418-9). Nonetheless, although these distinctions are indeed correct, one must acknowledge that both concepts seem to cover the need for events in time according to natural laws. And, if so, such distinctions may serve as examples of particular laws, which would have as a form the transcendental principle of causality mentioned in CPR. But would it be equally the “thesis” of the antinomy only a sort of particular causal law, whose form could consist in the same transcendental principle? The concept of mechanism which underlies the “thesis” of the antinomy seeks to explain [in this case, to judge (beurteilen)] the possibility of the structures of the elements which are part of a specific class of phenomena, namely, biological objects. Such an explanatory principle resorts to the principle of the causal interaction of the elements which constitute the structure of the thing judged, where appropriate, in view of the explanation of the possibility of animate beings. Accordingly, it may also be argued, particularly if we rely on a controversial quote6 (CPJ 5:386) by Kant, whereby the mechanist principle of the antinomy is provided by understanding—that the “thesis” of the antinomy of the faculty of the power of judgement only makes use of the transcendental principle of natural causality for a particular claim, namely, to mechanically explain the particularities of bodies. Such doubt may also be supported on the basis of statements made within texts prior to CPJ, especially in its First Introduction (FI 20: 217-8, 219-21 and 232-37), where Kant seems to imply that the function of the principle represented therein would be merely to provide “physical-mechanical” explanations, as well as in two passages (CPR BXXVII-IX) of the preface to the CPR. But despite its apparent plausibility, it seems to me that this assumption is unfounded. As a consequence, I provide below arguments in order to show that the nature of the statement about mechanism in the antinomy is directly related to the

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transcendental form pointed to in the first moments of the CPJ. First, it is noteworthy that, if it is true that the position of the “thesis” can be assimilated in some way to the transcendental-constitutive principle of causality, this assumption does not explain why Kant could refer to it with the term maxim (CPJ 5:386-7). Second, and in support of this finding, to the mechanist principle of “thesis” is opposed a principle for the teleological explanation, which is besides also characterised as a regulative principle of the faculty of judgement, i.e. as a subjective maxim also.7 These two facts indicate that the “thesis” and “antithesis” can only have been built through different applications of the so-called principle of formal purposiveness of nature that had been deduced in the definitive introduction to the CPJ (CPJ 5:179, 181). As I see the problem, Kant’s appeal to the distinction between a mechanist principle and another one which is clearly final (purposive) for the judgement (Beurteilung) of internal peculiarities of a phenomenical class is connected to the same finding which underlies the CPJ: the insufficiency of the theory of the CPR with respect to the classification of natural phenomena. In a word, with respect to this case, based only on the results of the transcendental deduction of the categories of understanding, it is not possible to characterise (explain) what is a real whole (CPJ 5:407) present in nature. The problem is inextricably related to the discursive nature of our understanding, which necessarily implies the production of concepts and the connection thereof to intuitions in the act of judging. The contents of concepts and laws include component characteristics (Merkmale), which serve to abstractly express the sensible characteristics of what is intuited. But component characteristics are related in a rule by means of the categories. Among them there is the principle of natural causality, which is insufficient to explain certain features expressed in organic empirical structures, which cannot be sufficiently clarified by means of blind causal laws. The difficulty, therefore, lies in the fact that the categorical framework of our understanding is not sufficient in itself to structure empirical predicates capable of adequately explaining some of the internal peculiarities of such phenomena. Regarding the explanation of the way of being of organised living beings, it does not suffice the classification through concepts and particular laws. In this case, our finite understanding must also assume in the act of knowing the production of the idea of final causality—in Kant’s words, “we experience” the “connection of purposes in nature” as a principle “of causality according to ideas” (CPJ 5:180-1). The role of the regulative principle of formal purposiveness then consists

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of not only guiding the search of sensitive similarities between the objects of nature to extract general characteristics in view of producing empirical concepts. It also works as a motivation for the investigation of specificities of substances already classified (i.e., of the objects already determined conceptually) that can occasionally go far beyond the usual process of production of rules. In other words, the act of producing empirical concepts of organisms certainly also involves the reflective activity performed by the formal principle of systematicity [the concept of (formal) purposiveness] of nature in view of the origin of particular concepts in general (CPJ 5:390). But the same reflective-transcendental principle, originally used for the formation of particular rules, also needs to be applied to the adequate knowledge of certain sensitive characteristics which do not always fit in according to the objective predicates. In fact, the first application of the principle within the context of “Introduction (B)” refers only to the regulative use of the idea of finality so that we can conceive the possibility of interrelation of empirical data with our limited power of knowing. A second application, also of logical-systematic interest, would only happen within the context of the antinomy of teleological judgement and it refers to another regulative and complementary use to guide the explanation of the specificities of certain natural products individually. I stated above that the concept of (formal) purposiveness represents the most accurate terminology for what Kant refers to as an idea. Ideas are nothing but concepts through which reason strives to think the whole. Nevertheless, they can only have a lawful (critical) use in the sphere in question if they are stated as regulative principles of the faculty of judgement. In the case of the principles of this antinomy, it is exactly the characterisation of a real totality which both8 (“thesis” and “antithesis”) seek to provide (in different ways). They represent two regulative uses (or applications) of the idea (of end) stated in a formal principle. It is something natural for a discursive intellect that, while making an effort to think a totality as given (to us by means of sensibility), certain empirical evidences shown are proven to be unfit for an explanation through concepts obtained by empirical generalisation, i.e., by comparison and reflection. For it is impossible for the human mind to extract all the characteristics from what appears to us sensibly. Therefore, this idea serves within the scope as an alternative resource of mind for knowing something that cannot be described only by common (empirical) concepts. However, this does not mean that it is feasible to use an idea of reason to

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think objectively the characteristics of what in the biological phenomenon escapes the production of rules. Thus, if the antinomic statements provide principles to seek ways to characterise a real whole, and if they represent different uses of an idea of reason, they must contain merely subjective and different explanations, however similar and interrelated. Kant seems to acknowledge that the only way to associate two different explanatory manners by using a single transcendental principle is provided by the principle of purposiveness (CPJ 5:414). The justification therefore lies in the fact that, as a regulative and formal rule, it can be the unifying principle without which mechanism and teleology could never exist together in gazing upon nature [“sie sonst in der Naturbetrachtung nicht neben einander bestehen könnten” (CPJ 5:412)]. That is the reason why the two positions of the antinomy can only represent equally regulative maxims, merely guiding and derived from the same idea, which, although stated in a principle different from that, has the function of grounding them. That seems to be the only way to turn mechanist and teleological explanations into lawfully compatible (vereinbar9) ones in the critical philosophy. The assumption contained in the two parts of the alleged conflict is then precisely the following: the idea of purposiveness contains within itself the concept of an intelligent causation—i.e., since the general principle of the faculty of judgement orders one to think of nature as made possible by a creative (intuitive) intelligence (for example, CPJ 5:180-1), the two maxims (constructed to explain the production of material beings) require one to think of certain entities such as machines produced by this intelligence, either as mechanisms whose parts act outwardly one on another, or as functional systems—whose parts perform necessary functions for the subsistence of the whole. Based on what I stated above, it is clear that this supersensible concept contained in finalist explanations must necessarily remain indeterminate. That is why the concept of destination (or previous design), as a foundation for something that is empirically given, can only be conceived within the theoretical philosophy as a merely regulative concept for our knowledge. Broadly speaking, it is the indeterminate conception of a foundation that makes it possible to beurteilen nature according to empirical laws (CPJ 5:412). Therefore, the two uses (Gebräuche) of the principle of formal purposiveness in the “Dialectic of Teleological Judgment” (CPJ 5:385) can be described as follows. The mechanist regulative maxim is alleged as an a priori principle in order to describe the mode of being of causality operating in the internal structure of organic beings which explains it in terms of the causal

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interaction of its component parts—i.e., such position explains the whole through the (purposive) idea of an effect of the competing dynamic forces of the parts (CPJ 5:407), that is to say, of the competing forces of all possible material elements that make up the object. One can say that the specific difference of this mechanist principle that essentially distinguishes it from the principle of natural causality consists on the one hand in the fact that its reflexive form belongs to the faculty of judgement, and on the other hand in the relation subsisting between the parties and the whole already constituted by the categories of understanding. The principle of natural causality determines the form of the specific dynamic laws. It represents a constitutive rule with respect to experience to the extent to which it refers to a causal connection between phenomena (CPR B243-245 and B691-693). Therefore, the principle of the “Second Analogy” foresees nothing with respect to the determination of a related event that is not actually given. It only indicates that, from an already determined intuition, any state must necessarily follow in the temporal series. The so-called principle of mechanism within the context of the antinomy foresees a priori that, given a sensible form already determined conceptually, the connections between the material parts occupying different places of that body in a certain delimited space must be able to be explained according to the constitutive principle of natural causality. It serves in this case essentially, so to speak, to encourage the subject to seek as many mechanist explanations as possible in the act of knowledge of biological objects. But it is not only that. It also requires (as a purpose of the investigation) that we must, so to speak, always try to explain sufficiently the living being as if (als ob) this were a whole with its existence made possible only through the “(...) Wirkung der konkurrierenden bewegenden Kräften der Teile” (CPJ 5:407). This principle, therefore, does not determine the way of being of the connections between particular events in time, which remains a task of understanding. Ultimately, the regulative concept of mechanism represents only heuristically two things: (a) the explanation of the possibility of existence of something given in a limited10 space only as a consequence of its constitutive elements (therefore, regardless of external causes to the organic body) and (b) the subjective assurance that we have to be able to explain mechanistically the individual organic processes. The principle of the thesis also represents then an implicitly finalist principle. This quality is obscured by the statement of the antithesis in Kant’s theory, namely, teleological judgement. But what varies in each one is just the type of destination placed, which, at each time, applies in a different way the same idea contained in the formal finalist principle; in the case of thesis, the purpose

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put is the mechanical explanation of the whole, whereas in the case of the antithesis the design is the functional explanation of the parts thereof. Thus, both statements contain in themselves the thought of a previous concept, whose form is allegedly used by the faculty of judgement. Accordingly, on other hand, the antithesis represents a clearly finalist regulative maxim, whose principle is intended to describe the structure pertaining to the same type of phenomenal class, appealing, however, to an explanation of the whole which, in turn, boils down to an idea of a foundation or condition of the parties equally given a priori. Nonetheless, in general, i.e., both in applying the “thesis” and in applying the “antithesis”, the purpose displayed by organised beings is always imposed by the faculty of judgement as the product of an ‘architectural intellect’, i.e., of a cause of an intelligent world that operates according to purposes (CPJ 5:388-9). According to these statements, while the (undetermined) concept of the organism is produced to think the object as if it were produced from the concept (of the idea) of a purpose (i.e. to think certain objects as if they were, so to say, “programmed” by a rule a priori to have certain functions performed by each of its component organs), the (also undetermined) regulative principle of mechanism does something similar from a variant idea, serving to think the same object as if it were a machine in which the parts perform certain functions, whose particular dynamical laws that occur in their internal arrangement, however, can only be explained drawing upon the principle of natural causality. I then believe it is possible to adapt the ingenious interpretation of Fricke11 regarding aesthetic judgements about the beautiful to the Kantian theory developed in the “Dialectic”, in particular the two regulative principles of the antinomy. According to Fricke, in the aesthetic attitude one is not concerned with the classification of objects by means of component characteristics, but only the attempt to identify the characteristics shown by certain substances, which cannot only be accomplished by transcendental concepts and principles which support only the invariable objectuality of everything that may have an objective reality for us. This act seems to involve a (failed) attempt through the understanding to produce a concept that allows characterising what is the object in the entirety of its determinations, which at first is unattainable for a finite intellect. This search for understanding, encouraged by reason and performed by the power of reflective judgement, can never be achieved objectively and results in the production of indeterminate concepts (i.e., strictly speaking they classify

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nothing) which we always represent when we make a reflective judgement—e.g., mechanist and teleological finalist judgements. In this regard, the two positions seek to specify the operating manner of the structure of organisms, which are not describable only through selected characteristics while producing empirical concepts. A nondiscursive (intuitive) intellect, on the other hand, would not need, by definition, rules, whether they are represented by mechanical principles or by teleological principles in its process of knowledge. Thesis and antithesis, therefore, represent the application of a formal law produced not to determine, but to guide biological investigation. As a consequence, they can both perfectly perform complementary tasks. It is noteworthy that, even though they are generated by a single formal principle, the principle of mechanism seems to be placed by Kant in a hierarchically subordinate12 place related to the principle of real purposiveness. Applying two subjective maxims demonstrates that organisms as biological phenomena remain susceptible to mechanist explanations, since, of course, they are represented as objects, i.e. they are also subject to categories. In other words, mechanical causal explanation cannot be eliminated, and should be applied whenever possible (CPJ 5:387). Nevertheless, natural investigation through this maxim cannot rule out the possibility of resorting to an alternative principle when an appropriate occasion for its application suggests so (CPJ 5:388). Thus, teleological explanation is precisely required so that such objects can be conceived as organised—which suggests that explicitly finalist explanation holds a privileged place in the biological classification (CPJ 5:417-18). The maxim which translates the principle of the formal purposiveness of nature and can be seen as the accepted assumption in both parts of the conflict is precisely as follows: the idea of purpose contains within itself the concept of an intelligent causation, i.e., of a previous destination. However, it is interesting to note that my interpretation so far does not locate in the CPJ one of the necessary conditions for the existence of an antimony. In other words, I have not yet indicated if there are actually two contradictory and exclusive metaphysical principles and therefore if there is an authentic (and double) speculative use of the principle of formal purposiveness concerned. The reason for this has to do with one of the objectives of this paper, which is to demonstrate that the first step of the “representation” of the antinomy [“Vorstellung dieser Antinomie” (CPJ 5:386-7)] is not to present a metaphysical conflict, but to indicate the

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solution to a conflict that may be generated by speculative philosophy. Indeed, so far I have merely put forward the consequences which can be inferred from the “representation” of the conflict by way of an alleged “contradiction between maxims”. Some of the classic interpreters of the “Dialectic” claim that the maxims of the faculty of judgement may constitute a kind of antinomy.13 Such attempts, even though they are mistaken, are understandable, assuming that the aim of the interpreters was simply to point out an “antinomy”. Hence, strictly speaking, it is true that an antinomy can only be produced by the confrontation of speculative interpretations of the principle of a certain faculty; it is noteworthy that no conflict was presented until the first part of the Vorstellung. In other words, when introducing the antinomy framework of the faculty of teleological judgement with an alleged contradiction between regulative principles, Kant wanted mainly to emphasise the logical-systematic interest involved in the way we know—when it has to do with the knowledge of beings which cannot be sufficiently explained only with transcendental (objective/constitutive) concepts and principles. Therefore, nothing indicates that Kant has wanted to introduce a real antinomic conflict in reference to the distinction between the two maxims. This is why the alleged contradiction between thesis and antithesis can be referred by him as an “apparent” (CPJ 5:389) opposition. By introducing the “antinomy” Kant is in fact presenting the essence of the solution of a possible conflict by indicating only that the maxims of reflective judgement may be compatible as conditions of the possibility of knowledge, but not as conditions of the possibility of objective knowledge, whether it is critical or dogmatic. From this standpoint, both principles are perfectly unifiable because incompatibility under a purely logical perspective is irrelevant between maxims of theoretical philosophy. In short, although the relationship between his statements is actually contradictory from a logical standpoint, they remain compatible as transcendental regulative principles, which are the principles related to the knowledge of the world, but with a merely guiding function. i

Notes 1

For convenience, throughout this essay I cite Kant’s works in parentheses. The Critique of Pure Reason, the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Critique of the Power of Judgment, the “First Introduction” to the Critique of the Power of Judgment and Kant’s Reflexionen are respectively abbreviated as CPR, MNS, CPrR, CPJ, FI and R. The citations include the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie-Ausgabe”

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of Kant’s works. For references to Kant’s Reflexionen, I give the entry number in addition to the Akademie volume and page numbers. For references to the Critique of Pure Reason, I follow the practice of giving page numbers from the B (1787) edition. 2 For example, the excellent work of Peter McLaughlin. See McLaughlin (1989). 3 See, e.g., Allison (1991). 4 See, e.g., Allison (1991). 5 See, e.g., Allison (1991). 6 “(…) dass die Urteilskraft in ihrer Reflexion von zwei Maximen ausgeht, deren eine ihr der blosse Verstand a priori an die Hand gibt.” 7 Ibid. 8 In the sequence I try to show that the “thesis” also consists in a purposive principle. 9 Ibid. 10 See Allison (1991, footnote 9). 11 See Fricke (1990). 12 See Allison (1991). 13 See, e.g., Beck (1960, pages 190-192).

Bibliography Al-Azm, S. J., The origins of Kant’s arguments in the antinomies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. Allison, H., “Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment”, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXX, Supplement (1991): 25-42. Beck, L. W., A commentary on Kant’s critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Cordeiro, R. V., “A antinomia da faculdade de julgar teleológica”, Analytica, Rio de Janeiro, v. 14, n. 1 (2010): 139-171. Fricke, C., Kants Theorie des reinen Geschmacksurteils, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1990. Kant, I., Kants gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902. [Herausgegeben von der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften]. —. Werke. Darmstadt: WBD, 1999. Marc-Wogau, K, Vier Studien zu Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft, Uppsala: Lundequist, 1938. McLaughlin, P., Kants Kritik der teleologischen Urteilskraft, Berlin: Bouvier, 1989.

KANT AND SOEMMERRING: A “TWO LETTERS CORRESPONDENCE” BETWEEN TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY AND MEDICINE DAVIDE POGGI UNIV. OF VERONA, ITALY

1. Introduction As von Engelhardt (2003, pp. 256-257) points out, the relationship between Kant and medicine is far from accidental: this connection does not reveal itself only in the most famous collection of essays, entitled Der Streit der Fakultäten (1798), but also in a series of references to leading figures in the medico-scientific domain of his time and in several letters with some of them. The short correspondence between the philosopher of Königsberg and Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring (renowned anatomist as well as anthropologist, palaeontologist and inventor) had become part of this context: the dialogue began in 1795 when Soemmerring sent his work, Über das Organ der Seele, to the author of Kritik der reinen Vernunft (dedicating it to him) and ceased with a Kantian draft reply to the physician of Thorn dated 4 August 1800, after only two letters (for a total of two-and-a-half letters from Kant and three from Soemmerring). The first Kantian reply, dated 10 August 1795, clearly allows us to infer that, before the third part of the Streit, that is Von der Macht des Gemüths durch den bloßem Vorsatz seiner krankhaften Gefühle Meister zu sein (in response to Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland—professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Jena—and his work, Die Kunst das menschliche Leben zu verlängern, sent to Kant in 1796 and published in the following year in Jena), the relationship between philosophy and medicine was already under examination (besides, the first essay of the Streit, dedicated to the liaison between philosophy and theology, dates back to 1794 and, in the early 1790s, Kant had already dealt with the issue

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of commercium animae et corporis and of sedes animae in the lessons on rational psychology called K2: see MK2 28:753-762). However, contrary to what happens in the Streit, the topic of Kant’s Entwurf is not yet the relationship between political power, on the one hand and, on the other hand, university and the “architectonic” of the latter (namely, the structuring of the scientific community by means of mutual definition of a “juridical geography” based on epistemological statutes and on the areas of competence and responsibility which are distinctive of the “higher” disciplines—theology, law and medicine—and the “inferior” one— philosophy). The Entwurf mainly deals with the similarities and differences between the perspectives of a physician, Soemmerring, who was “the prime philosophical dissector of the visible in man” (C 12:30) and those of a philosopher, Kant, who dealt with “der Zergliederung des Unsichtbaren an demselben” (Ibid). In this regard, it is interesting to note that while this expression serves to show Kant’s disagreement with Soemmerring’s researches, it is also ultimately too similar to Locke’s “physiology of the human understanding”, from which the philosopher of Königsberg had distanced himself since the Preface of the first edition of the Critique (unless we consider the term das Unsichtbar—the invisible—in the broader sense, thus excluding both external and internal senses and that is precisely what the Kantian expression means). Now, the problem of the forum competens is not a historical introduction, but the theoretical starting point of the argument of the organ of the soul (since Kant omits the historical precedents of the discussion, although they are numerous: besides, it is a historical research more interesting for Soemmerring as a physician, than for the philosopher): Hence a response is sought over which two faculties could get into quarrel because of their jurisdiction (the forum competens), the medical faculty, in its anatomical-physiological division, with the philosophical faculty, in its psychological-metaphysical division. As happens with all coalition attempts unpleasantries arise between those who want to base everything on empirical principles and those who demand a priori grounds [...]– unpleasantries which rest solely on the conflict of the faculties regarding to which of them the question belongs, if an answer is sought from a university (as the institution encompassing all wisdom).–Whoever, in the present case, sides with the physician as a physiologist spoils things with the philosopher as a metaphysician; and vice versa, whoever pleases the latter offends the physiologist. (SOS 12:31)

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Thus, in the Streit Kant may adopt a more “detached” position (which allows him to discover some interesting epistemological analogies between philosophy and medicine, namely the “freedom of action and reflection” of both disciplines), whereas the urgency which animates the commentary on Soemmerring’s work is the aim to keep both domains intact and prevent any kind of interference from harming the sovereignty of each Fakultäten. Should the conciliation of the medical and philosophical perspectives be badly conducted, what mistake could we make?

2. The Thinking Subject between Internal Sense and External Sense Kant’s line of argument in the Entwurf refers back to reflections which, previously achieved in the context of psychology lessons at the University of Königsberg in the late 70s of the eighteenth century (see ML1 28:271273), were included in the first edition of the Kritik (1781), within the second psychological paralogism on the simplicity of the soul. Even after the removal of this section, they still appear in the second edition of the Kritik, at the end of the Anmerkung zur Antithesis of the Zweiter Widerstreit, although Kant drastically reduced their length. This reasoning is based on the fact that the only means whereby the subject knows himself as thinking subject is the data stream of the internal sense, while “matter” and “body” are known by means of the external sense. Therefore, there is an irreconcilable conflict between the sources of knowledge, on the one hand, and the corresponding a priori forms, on the other hand, namely time and space: In the transcendental aesthetic we have undeniably proved that bodies are mere appearances of our outer sense, and not things in themselves. In accord with this, we can rightfully say that our thinking subject is not corporeal, meaning that since it is represented as an object of our inner sense, insofar as it thinks it could not be an object of outer sense, i.e., it could not be an appearance in space. Now this is to say as much as that thinking beings, as such, can never come before us among outer appearances, or: we cannot intuit their thoughts, their consciousness, their desires, etc. externally; for all this belongs before inner sense. (CPR A357)

In the Kritik, this argument serves to remind that the assumption of the simplicity of the soul as a criterion of distinction and opposition to the matter (and, therefore, as a guarantee of soul’s safety from the fate of

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natural death by de-composition) has some value when it is considered as a feature of the thing-in-itself and not only a determination of the inner sense’s representations. As stated before, in the reply to Soemmerring, Kant uses the same line of reasoning: according to the philosopher of Königsberg, the problem of determining the sensorium commune, that is the centre of unification of every perception, is intrinsically linked to the problem of the location of the soul, or its seat, which is the real crux of the conflict of both medical and philosophical faculties. In the letter from 22 August 1795 (C 12:39), the physician of Thorn rightly emphasised that Kant made in fact an ignoratio elenchi, since, as the title of Soemmerring’s work indicates, the reflections achieved in Über das Organ der Seele do not concern the Sitz, the “seat” or “physical place” of the soul (an expression which always occurs in the texts that Soemmerring quoted), but the “organ” of the soul, as the medium uniens, that is the point of convergence of the twelve cranial nerves (nerves which had been the subject of Soemmerring’s juvenile studies and that he enumerates in § 8 and examines from the sixteenth to the twenty-sixth paragraph). According to Soemmerring, this organ is the aqua ventriculorum cerebri (Soemmerring 1999, § 28). Of course, Kant’s criticism against Soemmerring is not thoroughly accurate, but we can not deny (as pointed out by Pecere, for example: 2013, p. 2) that Soemmerring did not pay attention to the fact that, when he quotes various philosophical works, he produces, more or less openly, a drift from the medico-anatomical domain to the metaphysical. Thus, the treatise On the Organ of the Soul becomes, in the eyes of Kant, a dangerously hybrid and hybristic work. Indeed, in the paragraphs of Descartes’ Passiones Animae that Soemmerring quotes (§§ 31, 32 and 34), Descartes refers to a quaedam pars, sedes principalis or praecipua which is situated in medio cerebro (the pineal gland).1 Again, in the passages of Henricus Regius’ Philosophia Naturalis quoted by Soemmerring, the Author says that mens humana incorporea exerts its actions in solo sensorio communi, meaning a parva quaedam cerebri particula.2 In particular, the same applies to the passage of Albrecht von Haller’s Elementa physiologiae corporis humani (1762), which Kant refers to in the Entwurf).3 Therefore, I believe we can affirm that the physician of Thorn failed to control the tone of the discourses and, as stated in the passage of the Solution of the third antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason (a passage

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that Soemmerring paradoxically quotes), “the problem is really not physiological”, or at least it no longer is, “but transcendental” (CPR A535/B563), where the term “transcendental” means “transcendent”, “exceeding” the bounds of medical and anatomical researches. It is precisely in relation to the shift towards the problem of the seat or the location of the soul that Kant refers back to the reasoning of the Kritik, which was based on the conflict between the “sources” of both psychological and physiological knowledge, but he now changes its terms and purpose. In the second antinomy, Kant’s argument left the question of the distinction between soul and body centered on simplicity still open to discussion, thus creating a situation of undecidability. Indeed, Kant pointed out, who can ensure that what is phenomenologically given by means of the external sense (with the features of extension, decomposability, etc.) is not instead characterised, in itself and for itself, that is noumenally, by both “simplicity” and “inextension”, as well as the thinking subject as it is known by means of the internal sense? In this case, there would not be an absolute opposition, but only a relative one (secundum quid) and, furthermore, relative to something which can not be either verified or falsified. Now, in his commentary on Soemmerring’s work, Kant wants, instead, to give a radical (and strongly negative) response to all attempts to exceed the bounds of medical domain (whose researches are based on the external sense) towards the psychological-metaphysical one (the object of which is the soul insofar as it is perceived through the internal sense). The mathematical terminology used by Kant aims at clarifying even more and better the illegitimacy of the approach that probably represents Soemmerring’s immediate background: The actual task, as formulated by Haller [...] is not merely a physiological task but [...] is a task for metaphysics, yet one that is not only unsolvable for the latter but also in itself contradictory.–For if I am to render intuitive the location of my soul, i.e., of my absolute self, anywhere in space, I must perceive myself through the very same sense by which I also perceive the matter immediately surrounding me, just as it happens when I want to determine my place in the world as a human being, namely I must consider my body in relation to other bodies outside me.–But the soul can perceive itself only through the inner sense, while it perceives the body (whether internally or externally) only through outer senses, and consequently it can determine absolutely no location for itself, because for that it would have to make itself into an object of its own outer intuition and would have to place itself outside itself, which is self-contradictory. Thus the required

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resolution of the task regarding the seat of the soul, with which metaphysics is supposed to come up, leads to an impossible magnitude (¥ 2). (SOS 12:34-35)

On the contrary, if the physiologist tackles the problem of the interrelation between soul and body, formulating it in terms of “dynamic” presence of the soul, he then suggests to the metaphysician an issue that is not a contradiction in terms while being destined to remain “open” (as soon as we become aware of the gap between the phenomenal level and the noumenal one), as Kant wrote to Mendelssohn in the letter dated 8 April 1766 (see C 11:71-73). Thus, whoever wants to investigate the organ of the soul as the sensorium commune, as Soemmerring did, would no longer be a “malicious tempter” (this is the expression used by Kant in the incipit of the first of three drafts of Nachwort (see C 13:398), which invites the metaphysician to venture into a domain that is not within his jurisdiction. In his turn, the metaphysician would not be exposed to the mistake of applying the results of psychology to physiology (this is the case of Leibniz and, after him, of Maupertuis; even Kant, in the first draft of the Entwurf, avows that he had felt this temptation himself). “But this trap would not be without fault;” Kant says “Indeed, why does he behave in a dogmatic way when he wants to explain the relationship between the subject and the object of the external senses by means of the representation of the subject, which belongs to internal sense?” (Ibid). This does not only refer back to the considerations that we previously made, but also, in my view, to the mistake of the “internal and external” amphiboly (see CPR A265266/B321-322).

3. “Virtual Presence” and “Dynamic Organisation”: Kant’s Hypothesis on Sensorium Commune Now, we still need to analyse the meaning of “virtual presence” of the soul in the body, or “dynamic presence” (as Kant wrote at the end of the commentary to Soemmerring’s work), by means of which it seems possible to find an agreement between metaphysics on the one hand and anatomical and physiological researches on the other hand. As both Di Giandomenico (1998, pp. 186-191) and Pecere (2013, pp. 18-23) emphasise, this is a new chapter of a line of inquiry that Kant had already undertaken in his early works and of which the pre-critical essay Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (1766) was a

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decisive stage. The passage of Träume that I hereby quote is very interesting in relation to the considerations made by Kant in the Entwurf: Now, suppose that it has been proved that the human soul was a spirit [...], the next question to which we might then proceed would perhaps be the following: where is the place of this human soul in the world of bodies? My answer would run like this: The body, the alterations of which are my alterations – this body is my body; and the place of that body is at the same time my place. If one pursued the question further and asked: Where then is your place (that of the soul) in this body? then I should suspect there was a catch in the question. For it is easy to see that the question already presupposes something with which we are not acquainted through experience, though it may perhaps be based on imaginary inferences. The question presupposes, namely, that my thinking ‘I’ is in a place which is distinct from the places of the others parts of that body which belongs to my self. [...] I would therefore rely on ordinary experience and say, for the time being: Where I feel, it is there that I am. [...] Nor does any experience teach me to imprison my indivisible ‘I’ in a microscopically tiny region of the brain, either so as to operate from there the levers governing my bodymachinery. For that reason, I would insist on its strict refutation before I could be persuaded to dismiss as absurd what used to be said in the schools: My soul is wholly in my whole body, and wholly in each of its parts. (DSS 2:324-325)

Of course, in Kant’s commentary to Über das Organ der Seele, that is when the “critical period” is in a well-advanced stage, on the one hand, the use of the word/concept of Seele is more cautious and, on the other hand, the references, made by Kant in the above mentioned passage of the Träume, either to Aristotelian-Scholastic hylemorphism or to Locke’s theories (on identity and the relationship between subject, body and consciousness) disappear. Also the expression “virtual/dynamic presence” does not appear in the Dreams, while it appears in § 27 of the Dissertatio of 1770, when the philosopher says that the acceptance of the axiom “quicquid est, est alicubi et aliquando” (ID 2:413), without realising that it has a surreptitious nature, gives rise to researches about the corporeal seat of the soul. In this way, “sensitiva intellectualibus, ceu quadrata rotundis, improbe [miscentur]” (ID 2:414), whereas the presence of the immaterial element in the material/corporeal world is only “virtualis, non localis” (Ibid). However, Kant seems to refer to Träume, albeit indirectly, in the letter to Soemmerring: for example, when he examines the “subreption fault”— because of which most people believe that they feel the thought in their head (see SOS 12:32)—he refers, quite literally, to a footnote of Träume

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(see DSS 2:325). In the above-mentioned note, he wrote that if the argument that “we feel the thought in my head because in a strong application of the spirit nerves are tired” was true, then it would prove too much (since, when we feel some passions, there are many other parts of the body which are excited). Of course, differently from the Träume, in the commentary to Soemmerring’s work, together with the term/concept of Seele, Kant uses the expression Gemüt (animus), which is translated in English by Arnulf Zweig as “mind”: it is precisely for this reason that Kant wrote that “hence we are only concerned with the matter” (SOS 12:32). The concept of Gemüt is indeed on the border between physiological domain and conscious psychic life, since it is the subject’s aspect that concerns the reception of sensory impulses, the empirical consciousness that accompanies the affections and its unity (which is attested by the introspection). Therefore, the “mind” does not concern to the thinking subject “in itself”, das absolute Selbst and the “Einheit desselben a priori in der Zusammensetzung gegebener Vorstellungen (mit dem Verstande)” (Ibid, footnote), but the synthesis of reproduction in the imagination, namely the second kind of unification that Kant had carefully examined in the first edition of the Kritik (CPR A95-110). In the above-mentioned footnote, Kant writes: Rather we are concerned with the power of the imagination, to whose intuitions, as empirical representations (even in the absence of their objects), there can be assumed to correspond impressions in the brain (actually habits [habitus] of reproduction), which belong to a whole of inner self-intuition. (SOS 12:32)

This is a real return to the theses of 1781, because, in this new context (which is no more longer transcendental, but psycho-physiological), they no longer cause any concern of the charge of psychologism (for which Kant removed them from the second edition of the Kritik). The search for the anatomical location, where there is the confluence of both the nerve bundles and the sensory impulses they convey, therefore acquires a different value and a significance which is shareable by Kant (in the second letter to Soemmerring dated 17 September 1795, he says that there can be agreement between their approaches to the issue—see C 12:40—and, in the draft reply from 4 August 1800, he reaffirms that the hypothesis of the physician of Thorn was far from “absurd”—see C

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12:321): we can anatomically explain the imaginative-associative (not yet conceptual) synthesis, by resorting to the brain’s structure. Indeed, the substitution of the material organ by a liquid proposed by Soemmerring allows both to connect the affections of the nerves and to prevent their (con-)fusion, thus respecting the imaginative synthesis and the fact, attested by the introspection, that there is no confusion between psychological elementary data which generate one “complex memory” (the combination of different representations in one single memory is a synthesis does not involve any loss of their heterogeneity: see C 12:41). However, there is a problem to solve and in this regard Kant’s contribution does not only intend to keep the peaceful coexistence of both faculties, but also to support Soemmerring’s hypothesis by means of a thorough examination of its conditions of possibility. This is a reflection on something which concerns the “nature” of water as fluid and of the organ: an examination we can define “transcendental” in support of anatomical and therefore empirical researches. Thus, the question is: could any liquid be the organ of the soul, if it is not inwardly organised, meaning finalistically structured, if it is not composed of parts that are arranged in order to permit the exercise of the functions of the organ? What may only seem a mere recourse to the most recent theories on the caloric and on chemical decomposition of liquids (those of Lavoisier, for example)4 follows, in my view, a modus argumentandi which essentially characterises the Kritik and focuses on the distinction and the opposition between “mathematical” and “dynamic”. Kant does something that is somehow similar to what he had done in the Widerlegung of Mendelssohn’s theses on the simplicity of the soul: in the second edition of the Critique, by means of a reversal of perspective, that is, the shift from the extensive quantity to the intensive one (see CPR B414), the philosopher of Königsberg aims to create a paradoxical position (that elsewhere I have called a “mathematical antinomy of rational psychology”). Instead, in the reply to Soemmerring, Kant does not intend to create a contradiction (or at least, it is not his immediate and explicit purpose), but he only aims to change the epistemological model on which we must define the concept of organisation. After reflecting on the meaning of “fluid”, he writes: How would it be if, instead of the mechanical organization, based on the juxtaposition of the parts for the formation of a certain shape, I proposed a dynamical organization, based on chemical principles (just as the former

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organization is based on mathematical ones) and which is thus compatible with the fluidity of that matter? (SOS 12:33)

Therefore, within the context of the opposition to the concept of “mathematical”, in line with the Kritik, the adjective “dynamic” has a twofold meaning: firstly, the organisation is dynamic, since it concerns the existence of water in the brain cavities as fluid obtained by a chemical bond, so by a reciprocal action between “primitive substances”. This fluid decomposes itself (according to Kant’s hypothesis) by virtue of the nerves’ properties and then it recomposes itself (this chemical transformation process is the ground of Gemüt’s psychic process). Secondly, the fluid’s organisation of which we are talking about is dynamic because its structure is not rigid (in line with what Euler said), but in fieri, that is in an uninterrupted, continuous flow. However, the presence of the soul is also “dynamic” and, even in this case, it is possible to give a twofold interpretation, the first and most immediate of which is that this presence is dynamic because it is “exercised through the dynamic organization”. The second interpretative hypothesis concerns, on the contrary, the introduction of the presence of the soul in the context of the Kritik’s third antinomy, namely the dynamic antinomy regarding the possibility of a “free cause”: indeed, nothing prevents us from thinking that Kant meant to indirectly suggest to Soemmerring that the commercium between the soul (namely the thinking subject in his full complexity) and body is a question which can’t find a positive solution at the phenomenal level (since Gemüt is not “the whole subject”, but only its phenomenon: see CPR A492/B520), but only at the noumenal one.

4. Conclusion If one can find analogies between Soemmerring’s and Kant’s perspectives and, in general, between medicine and philosophy, this is not a result, as Kant said in Der Streit der Facultäten, of any compositio (meaning a consensual bilateral agreement) or of any subordination of one science to another, but rather it springs from the combination of two elements (a combination that, in the eyes of Soemmerring, must have seemed peculiar): the first element is the application in the medical and scientific domain of a logical-argumentative method which characterises the antinomies and is transversal to any discipline. Indeed, it is by virtue of Kant’s suggestion of a dynamic organisation that there is the realisation of what Soemmerring was seeking, that is, a point of contact between transcendental philosophy and medicine which might give “positive”

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results from the scientific point of view: without a different concept of organisation it would have been very difficult to understand how a fluid can be a medium uniens (apart from the empirical evidence of the anatomy). This is a suggestion that comes from transcendental philosophy both since it focuses on the conditions of possibility (and we have seen that the reflections on the dynamic organisation is part of this context) and since the pair (and the opposition) of the “mathematical” and “dynamic” concepts is central within Kantian criticism. Apart from that, however, we can affirm that Kant’s philosophy, in order to interact with medicine, must retake and revive the reflections about Gemüt and imaginative synthesis which he gave up in the second edition of the Kritik for being truly transcendental. In a certain sense, Kant must wear a Lockean mask in his reply to Soemmerring. The second element to be considered results from the critical nature of Kantian philosophy (an element that Soemmerring was not searching for): by virtue of the clear definition of the areas of competence of both medicine and metaphysics, the philosopher of Königsberg aims to prevent Soemmerring from mistaking (or prevent him from leading the metaphysician into making a mistake) as well as Swedenborg, that is the one who wanted to go beyond all possible experience and to understand what no one could grasp. This is the search for the seat of the soul. It is not without reason that the Entwurf ends with the quotation from Terence’s Eunuchus: “Nihilo more Agas, if operam quam, ut cum ratione insanias”.5 We can’t be, at the same time (simul), critical philosophers and physicians (although the two approaches can coexist in the same person): we must choose, case-by-case, one of the two perspectives to keep their concordia discors or discordia concors, meaning the right distance between two disciplines each of which aims to increase the knowledge of the human subject.

Notes  1

“Licet anima sit juncta toti corpori, in illo tamen est quaedam pars, in qua exercet suas functiones specialius, quam in caeteris omnibus” (Descartes, R., Passiones Animae, Amstelodami: apud Ludovicum & Danielem Elzevirios, 1664, I, 31, p. 15); “Concipiamus igitur, hic animam habere suam sedem principalem, quae est in medio cerebro” (ivi, I, 34, p. 17); “Glandula illa praecipua sedes animae” (Ibid).

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2

“Mens humana Substantia incorporea sive non extensa in solo Sensorio communi, quae est parva quaedam Cerebri particula (Glandula pinealis), actiones cogitativas immediate exercet” (Regius, H., Philosophia naturalis, Amstelodami: apud Ludovicum & Danielem Elzevirios, 1661, IV, 16, p. 365). 3 “In universum observamus non debere angustiorem animae sedem poni, quam sit conjuncta omnium nervorum origo: neque particulam aliquam pro ea sede offerri, nisi ad quam omnes nervos ducere possimus” (von Haller, A., Elementa physiologiae corporis humani, Lausannae: sumptibus Francisci Grasset, 1762, tomus IV, X, 8, § 25, p. 395). 4 Too recent, perhaps, as Soemmerring wrote in the letter dated 22 August 1795, where he said he had not taken into consideration these theories because they are not supported by sufficient proofs (AA 12: 39, n. 677). 5 Terence, Eunuch I, p. 17f.

Bibliography Descartes, R., Passiones Animae, Amstelodami: apud Ludovicum & Danielem Elzevirios, 1664. Di Giandomenico, M., “Kant, Soemmerring e il dibattito sulla sede dell’anima,” in Esposito, C. et al. (eds.), Verum et certum. Studi di Storiografia filosofica in onore di Ada Lamacchia, Bari: Levante Editori, 1998, pp. 167-191. Fabbrizi, C., Mente e corpo in Kant, Roma: Aracne, 2008. Hagner, M., “The Soul and the Brain between Anatomy and Naturphilosophie in the Early XIXth Century,” Medical History, 36 (1992): 1-33. von Haller, A., Elementa physiologiae corporis humani, Lausannae: sumptibus Francisci Grasset, 1762. Kant, I., Gesammelte Schriften, hrsg.: Bd. 1-22 Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften; Bd. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin; ab Bd. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1900ff. The citations include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works. The relevant abbreviations and English translations are: —. DSS “Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics.” Trans. D. Walford and R. Meerbote. In Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1992. Pp. 301-359. —. ID “On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (Inaugural Dissertation).” In Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy: 1755-1770. Pp. 373-416.

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—. CPR Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998. —. SOS “From Soemmering’s On the Organ of the Soul.” Trans. A. Zweig. In Immanuel Kant: Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007. Pp. 219-226. —. C Immanuel Kant: Correspondence. Trans. A. Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999. —. MK2 “Metaphysics K2.” Trans. K. Ameriks and S. Naragon. In Immanuel Kant: Lectures on Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997. Pp. 395-416. —. ML1 “Metaphysics ML1.” In Immanuel Kant: Lectures on Metaphysics. Pp. 42-106. Kremer-Marietti, A., “Kant et l’ouvrage de Soemmerring, De l’organe de l’âme,” in Agard, O. and Lartillot, F. (eds.), Kant: l’anthropologie et l’histoire, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011, pp. 127-138. Marino, L., “Soemmerring, Kant and the Organ of the Soul,” in Poggi, S. and Bossi, M. (eds.), Romanticism in Science. Science in Europe, 1790-1840, Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994, pp. 127-142. McLaughlin, P., “Soemmering und Kant: Über das Organ der Seele und den Streit der Fakultäten,” Soemmering-Forschungen, 1 (1985): 191201. Mendelssohn, M., Phaedon oder über die Unsterblichkeit der Seele in drey Gesprächen, Berlin-Stettin, bey Friedrich Nicolai, 17671; facs. reprod. in Mendelssohn, M., Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumausgabe. III.1, Schriften zur Philosophie und Ästhetik, bearb. F. Bamberger und L. Strauss, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1972, pp. 5128. Pecere, P., “The Brain and the I. Kant’s Separation of Philosophy and Medicine, in Über das Organ der Seele and his Early “Tendency” to connect Psychology and Physiology,” pp. 27, in Allocca, N. (ed.), Machine and Life. Epistemological Models and Moral Implications, Münster: Nodus Publikationen, forthcoming; the preprint version is online available on the site Academia.edu. Regius, H., Philosophia naturalis, Amstelodami: apud Ludovicum & Danielem Elzevirios, 1661. Soemmerring, S. Th., Über das Organ der Seele, nebst einen Schreiben von Imm. Kant, Königsberg: Friedrich Nicolovius, 1796; facs. reproduction in Soemmerring, S. Th., Werke, bd. IX, Basel: Schwabe, 1999. Sugiyama, T., “Sensorium commune bei Kant: Ein interdisziplinärer

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Dialog mit Soemmerring,” Aesthetics, 15 (2011): 27-39. Teruel, P.J., “Das Organ der Seele: Immanuel Kant y Samuel Thomas Sömmerring sobre el problema mente-cerebro,” Studi Kantiani, 21 (2008): 1-18. von Engelhardt, D., “Il dialogo tra medicina e filosofia in Kant nel contesto storico”, in Bertani, C. and Pranteda, M. A. (eds), Kant e il conflitto delle facoltà. Ermeneutica, progresso storico, medicina, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003, pp. 253-265. Wright, J. P. and Potter, P. (eds.), Psyche and Soma. Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

KANT’S ÜBER DAS ORGAN DER SEELE AND THE LIMITS OF PHYSIOLOGY: ARGUMENTS AND LEGACY PAOLO PECERE UNIV. DI CASSINO E DEL LAZIO MERIDIONALE, ITALY

1. Introduction Kant’s statement on Samuel Sömmering’s book Über das Organ der Seele (1796), published as an appendix to the latter, has been considered by Michael Hagner as a crucial episode for the end of the paradigm of the organ of the soul, characterised by the attempt to connect a Cartesian substance dualism with the empirical evidence provided by anatomy and physiology. According to Hagner “successive physiological research could only admit this loss and limit itself to what can be empirically established, or it could advance the claim of being itself philosophical, and overcome the Kantian separation”.1 The main alternatives, in nineteenth century Germany, would be an empiricist approach and metaphysical monism. While it is true that Kant’s criticism provided a crucial episode in the history of German physiology, both its originality with respect to the past and its legacy in the nineteenth century are not adequately described by this account. In § 2 of this paper I will provide a brief overview of Kant’s theses on the limits of the physiology of mental activities, and detect a original “nomological” argument supporting the claim that consciousness cannot be reduced to physiological properties (a claim which, with different arguments, had been already maintained by different German academic philosophers). In § 3 I will focus on some aspects of Kant’s quite intricate legacy in German physiology, showing that Kant’s original argument was eventually taken up by Helmholtz.

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2. Kant’s Arguments on the Separation of Medicine and Philosophy In his book Sömmering, drawing on his anatomical discoveries, presented a new hypothesis on the “seat of the soul” as located in the ventricular fluids and stated, in Kantian jargon, that the hypothesis belonged to a “trascendental physiology”, since the anatomical data were interpreted in the light of the claim that “a fluid can be animated”.2 In his reply Kant, on the one hand, accepted the offer to comment on Sömmering’s book as a philosopher “not wholly unfamiliar with natural science [Naturkunde]” (SOS 12:31) and devoted most of his text to an original development of Sömmering’s theory of ventricular fluids as the seat of the “sensorium commune”. On the other hand, he straightforwardly rejected the issue of the localisation of the soul, together with Sömmering’s superposition of philosophy and physiology. According to Kant the claim that the “soul” has a place in the brain is in general a “contradiction” (SOS 12:33) and therefore it has to be left aside in order to avoid an unfruitful conflict between the philosophical faculty, in its “philosophical-psychological division”, with the medical faculty in its “anatomical-physiological” division (SOS 12:31). Kant was already familiar with the problem before receiving Sömmering’s book. The distinction of (the metaphysical problem of) the organ of the soul from the (physiological problem of the) sensorium commune had been a standard teaching of his lectures and he had long excluded the metaphysical problem from the domain of scientific investigation.3 In this text Kant does not appear interested in criticising Sömmering’s metaphysics and his evident misreading of transcendental philosophy. Although he admits that he has been asked to evaluate Sömmering’s hypothesis about “a certain principle of vital force” (Ibid.) he does not question directly the metaphysical vitalism attached to this concept, probably because he does not want to draw Sömmering into the field of philosophy and raise old problems of his own philosophical itinerary.4 On the contrary Kant replies from the point of view of the former university rector with his “response” about the conflict of the faculties (Ibid.) and the proposal to leave the concept of the seat of the soul out of the physiological question. Actually, however, it is the concept of a seat of the soul that occasions the disagreement of the faculties concerning the common sensory organ and this concept therefore had better be left entirely out of the picture, which is all the more justified since the concept of the seat of the soul requires local

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Kant’s Über das Organ der Seele and the Limits of Physiology presence, which would ascribe to the thing that is only an object of the inner sense, and insofar only determinable according to temporal conditions, a spatial relation, thereby generating a contradiction. By contrast, a virtual presence, which belongs only for the understanding, and which just for that reason is not spatial, provides a concept that makes possible to treat the question posed (regarding the sensorium commune) as a merely physiological task. (Ibid.)

With this distinction of spatial and virtual presence Kant wants to separate the empirical domain of physiology, the “common sensory organ”, from the domain of philosophy, the activity of the understanding.5 Thereby he accepts the full legitimacy of the physiological problem about the “matter [Materie] that makes possible the unifying of all sensory representations in the mind [Gemüth]” (SOS 12:32). This problem had been presented more clearly in a letter to Sömmering (C 12:41, letter to Soemmering of 17 September 1795): [...] how to form a unified aggregate of sense representations in the mind, given their infinite diversity, or better, how to render that unity comprehensible by reference to the structure of the brain.

In other words, the problem concerned the possibility of connecting different and heterogeneous sensory representations in consciousness, thus preserving the single temporal ordering of experience: This problem can be solved only if there is some means of associating even heterogeneous but temporally ordered impressions: e.g., associating the visual representation of a garden with the sonic representation of a piece of music played in that garden, the taste of a meal enjoyed there, etc. These representations would disarrange themselves if the nerve-bundles were to affect each other by reciprocally coming into contact. But the water that is in the brain cavities can serve to mediate the influence of one nerve on another and, by the latter’s reaction, can serve to tie up in one consciousness the corresponding representation, without these impressions becoming confused–as little as the tones of a polyphonous concert transmitted through the air are confused with each other. (Ibid)

Regarding this problem of unification Kant appreciates Sömmering’s discovery of the anatomical connection between nerves and ventricular fluids. Nonetheless, given this empirical analysis of the problem, the simple conceptual distinction of virtual presence and spatial presence does not provide an argument against the possible identification of this fluid with the seat of the soul. The argument, as it is given in the above quoted passage, is rather this: to ask for a spatial determination of an “object of

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inner sense” generates a contradiction; hence the soul’s presence cannot be local, but only virtual, or “dynamical” (SOS 12:35). The soul can only be localised by means of its activity, but cannot be assigned an “immediate” presence in space (Ibid). By this argument the conflict of domains would be resolved by means of the simple distinction between inner and outer intuition: this is the way most scholars explicate the text, observing that Kant already used this argument against the localisation of the soul in the 1770 Dissertation. Kant would thus substitute an investigation grounded on substance dualism with an “epistemological” reasoning.6 But this reading does not match the context of Kant’s argument. Since Kant is making reference to two kinds of empirical intuition, it is not clear how this argument can relate to the separation of philosophy and medicine, as grounded on respectively pure and empirical principles, which is presented in the first paragraph of the text as the origin of the solution to the conflict about the seat of the soul. Hence a response is sought over which two faculties could get into quarrel because of their jurisdiction (the forum competens), the medical faculty, in its anatomical-physiological division, with the philosophical faculty, in its psychological-metaphysical division. As happens with all coalition attempts unpleasantries arise between those who want to base everything on empirical principles and those who demand a priori grounds […]– unpleasantries which rest solely on the conflict of the faculties regarding to which of them the question belongs [...]. (SOS 12:31)

Indeed Kant is aware of two different problems and, by spelling out a second time his solution in the final paragraph of the text, provides what I consider to be a second, more fundamental argument, followed— after dashes—by the repetition of first one: [A] The actual task, as formulated by Haller, is still not solved by this [hypothesis on ventricular fluids]. It is not merely a physiological task but it is supposed also to serve as a means of figuring out [vorstellig machen] the unity of consciousness of oneself (which belongs to the understanding) in the spatial relation of the soul to the organs of the brain (which belongs to the outer sense), hence the seat of the soul, as its local presence –which is a task for metaphysics, yet one that is not only unsolvable for the latter but also in itself contradictory. –[B] For if I am to render intuitive [anschaulich machen] the location of my soul, i.e., of my absolute self, anywhere in space, I must perceive myself through the very same sense by which I also perceive the matter immediately surrounding

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Kant’s Über das Organ der Seele and the Limits of Physiology me, just as it happens when I want to consider my place in the world as a human being, namely I must consider my body in relation to other bodies outside me.–But the soul can perceive itself only through the inner sense, while it perceives the body (whether internally or externally) only through outer senses, and consequently it can determine absolutely no location for itself, because for that it would have to make itself into an object of its own outer intuition and would have to place itself outside itself, which is selfcontradictory. Thus the required solution of the task regarding the seat of the soul, with which metaphysics is supposed to come up, leads to an impossible magnitude (¥-2). (SOS 12:34-35, my bold characters and capital letters in brackets)

According to Kant’s first argument (A), the “unity of consciousness of oneself” is different from an object of intuition, and the problem “as formulated by Haller”, which raises the contradiction, is produced first of all by the very attempt at “rendering intuitive” the former concept, which “belongs to the understanding”. A few lines before the quoted passage, Kant identifies this concept with that of the “soul” as the “absolute self” (SOS 12:34): this must be the thinking subject considered by abstracting from any “self-intuition”, i.e. the “I think” as “intelligence” (cf. CPR B158n). Indeed Kant also writes, in a footnote appended to a previous paragraph, that it is identical to “pure consciousness” (SOS 12:32n). This last expression suggests a connection to “a priori grounds”. The contradiction in the localisation task, indeed, is produced by the identification of “something which belongs to the understanding” with “something which belongs to the outer sense”—i.e. by the attempt to represent a condition of the intellectual functions by means of sensible intuition—and not by the identification of an object of inner and outer intuition—i.e. by the confusion of two kinds of intuition.7 In the second section (B) Kant argues that the location of the “soul” in this transcendental sense can only be determined by means of the perception of anybody’s own body and thus by spatial intuition. But—and here he traces a third dash—intuition of oneself only occurs by means of introspection. This reproduces, at a different level, the contradictory task, which is now the identification of an object of inner and outer intuition. Here is the argument already spelled out in the second paragraph of the text against localisation, which is now compared to an imaginary magnitude. On the whole, while the first argument raises a transcendental problem— the possibility of self-knowledge —the second one merely regards different forms of intuition: as such it would be inadequate to draw the limit between philosophy and medicine, and restrain physiologists from

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venturing into dogmatic metaphysics while working on the brain (as it commonly happened in the eighteenth century). This argument belongs to the older theoretical stage of the 1770 Dissertation, and could still be compatible with noumenal realism about the soul. Sömmering’s misunderstanding of his philosophy may have encouraged Kant to put forward an argument which could be more easily grasped in the context of a traditional dualistic metaphysics. But Kant also wants to clarify what he now thinks is the fundamental point, and hence, in the final paragraph of the text, he formulates the transcendental argument grounded on the concept of pure consciousness. But how is this transcendental limitation to be connected to the physiological investigation of mind? The explication of this point can be found in a very dense footnote: By mind [Gemüth] one means only the faculty of combining the given representations and effectuating the unity of empirical apperception (animus), not yet a substance (anima) according to its nature, which is entirely distinct from that matter and from which is abstracted here; by this way we gain that, with regard to the thinking subject, we must not cross over into metaphysics, which is concerned with the pure consciousness and with the latter's a priori unity in the synthesis of given representations (i.e. concerned with the understanding); rather we are concerned with the power of imagination, to whose intuitions, as empirical representations (even in the absence of their objects), there can be assumed to correspond impressions in the brain. (SOS 12:32n)

Here we have three different concepts—mind, soul as substance and pure consciousness—corresponding to three different cognitive investigations. The soul as anima is the metaphysical of immaterial substance, which is merely thought and cannot be the object of any empirical investigation. “Mind” (Gemüth) is the faculty “of combining the given representations and effectuating the unity of empirical apperception (animus)”. Since it produces unification this faculty must involve some sort of synthesis. As Kant first makes clear, this is the synthesis of imagination. Here is the particular synthetic process which—according to the quoted letter to Sömmering—can be rendered “comprehensible by reference to the structure of the brain”. A few lines before our footnote Kant mentions hypotheses of “having the traces in the brain of the impressions made on it, under the name of material ideas (Descartes), accompany the thoughts according to laws of association, which, even though they are very arbitrary hypotheses, at

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least do not require any seat of the soul” (SOS 12:32). The dismissive attitude of this comment does not exclude the empirical possibility to test similar hypotheses, provided one separates the “physiological task” from metaphysical concepts. Indeed, Kant takes as a positive result of Sömmering’s anatomical “discovery” that the ventricular water can perform the functions of the mind and therefore can be identified with the “organ of the soul”, which [...] on the hand, separates the nerve bundles that terminate there so that the sensations coming from different nerves are not mixed up, and which, on the other hand, effectuates a thoroughgoing community among them so as to prevent any of these sensations, received by the same mind, from being outside the mind (which would be a contradiction). (SOS 12:32-33)

The analogy with the mind’s power to combine and unify given representations is evident. As Kant puts it in the quoted letter to Sömmering, this water can connect [verknüpfen] representations in “one consciousness” (C 12:41). Hence the empirical synthesis of representations can be studied physiologically. Indeed, Kant normally discussed the constant connection of thought with bodily movements in his lectures on anthropology8 and in Der Streit der Fakultäten (1798) he would speak of the brain as the “seat of representations” (CF 7:106). Kant’s recognition of the possibility of a physiology of mind was not an original view. On the contrary, by connecting mental faculties to neurological correlates with the exclusion of pure intellect, Kant is following a modern tradition that, starting from Descartes, was developed by Boerhaave and Haller, and was eventually included in the framework of Wolffian empirical psychology.9 In particular Wolff himself had conceded to materialists that matter, conceived as a mechanism, can have representations by means of its movements, although these representations are unconscious, being the machine unable to compare these representations with itself, and therefore cannot be considered “thoughts”. And Knutzen, elaborating on this point, claimed that this impossibility depends on the unity of the soul, drawing from this an argument for immortality.10 Kant’s argument against the localisation of “pure consciousness” can be seen as departing from this background and drawing on original elements of transcendental philosophy. With the separation of the a priori functions of the synthesis of the understanding from the empirical synthesis of imagination (in mind) Kant clearly makes reference to critical philosophy,

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where the synthesis of imagination (both reproductive and productive) has been shown to be itself grounded on the intellectual functions (CPR B152). Following this reference we can identify the “unity of consciousness of oneself”, or the “absolute self” of this text with the transcendental condition of intellectual synthesis, which has been introduced in the first Critique as the “transcendental apperception”, or the “I think” that must accompany any representation (CPR A107/B132).11 In the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft we find a passage supporting this reading. In a Note to the theorem on the conservation of material substance Kant writes that the “prefix” I corresponds to something “of which, by this term, one has no concept of what it may be” (MNS 4:542-543). Contrary to what happens with material substance, there can be no intuitive “representation” (Darstellung) of the I, i.e. no intuition “in concreto” corresponding to it.12 Kant makes a reference to this point in draft H2 of Über das Organ der Seele, after expounding his hypothesis on the nervous ground of representations: This explanation is not meant as if I would want to pretend to gain some insight from this correspondence [Übereinstimmung] of the nervous system with the unity of the thinking faculty, since nobody understands anything of this schematism of thought and of the exhibition [Darstellung] of the unity of consciousness in the intuition in general. (DOS 12:412)

Kant’s I think has indeed “reality”, but no “objective reality”. It is also, as we read in the Nachschrift of an anthropology lecture, the “ground of all superior cognitive faculties” (AC 25:10). Its activity is characterised by means of the logical functions and the laws of pure understanding. This confirms our supposition that the “metaphysical-psychological” domain of philosophy, which is mentioned in Kant’s passage on the conflict of the faculties, is identical with the critical investigation of the a priori principles of the cognitive faculties. Indeed Kant writes in draft E2 (DOS 12:405): “what could unify both faculties would only be the Critique of pure reason, for which however there is no faculty”. We are now in the position to understand the puzzling examples of pure vs empirical law and religion. The missing piece, moral philosophy, is mentioned in the preface to the Tugendlehre (1797), were Kant laments that the moral imperative does not get “into the heads of those who are used to physiological explanations” (MM 6:378). We can conclude that Kant’s argument about the impossibility of localising pure consciousness and explaining its activity by the physiology of the brain can be applied to

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both theoretical and practical pure laws, as being both irreducible to empirical laws. In other words, they are grounded on the impossibility of reducing logical and practical normativity to empirical laws of nature: here is the thesis whose legacy I will highlight in the next section.

3. Kantianism and Physiology: Müller to Helmholtz Among the different direct and indirect lines of influence of Kantian philosophy in physiology I will follow the legacy of Kant’s argument in the physiological tradition of the University of Berlin, which eventually led to Helmholtz’s reassessment of Kant’s original attempt to determine the domains of philosophy and medicine. Writing a few years after Kant’s essay, Karl Rudolphi agrees with the latter’s conclusions about Sömmering’s ungrounded connection of empirical investigation and metaphysics, but does not enter into the details of Kant’s arguments. His main interest is to banish any metaphysical speculations from physiology: “the way of the connection between spirit and body [is] always obscure”.13 A stronger philosophical commitment characterises his student Johannes Müller. According to Müller, physiology needs a new philosophical foundation, which is exemplarily provided by his theory of the “essential energies belonging to the senses” in the Vergleichende Physiologie des Gesichtsinnes (1826, p. xv). The qualitative content of sensations is independent on the kind of stimuli and rather depends on an activity of the senses, which physical explanations of sensory processes (e.g. in Newton’s Opticks) cannot grasp (ivi, pp. xvi; 45). The background of this theory is a metaphysical vitalism of the sort excluded by Kant, which Müller develops taking inspiration from Goethe’s theory of colours and contemporary idealism: “The life of the soul cannot be explained by material modifications of the brain, and must rather be considered as an activity, by its essence totally independent on spatial relations”.14 In Müller’s anti-Newtonian and monistic perspective no trace of Kantian philosophy seems to be left. However, Müller’s account of perception also emphasises the role of logical operations. His investigation of the origin of the distinction between inner modifications and external causes ends with the conclusion that separating the sensation of one’s own body from the sensations of external bodies requires a “judgement”. Hence an intellectual act mediates the transition from the pure philosophical to the empirical domain of investigation.15

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But the rediscovery of a kind of Kantian argument regarding the irreducible role of intellectual activity is made by Müllers’ student Hermann von Helmholtz. Helmholtz wanted to separate Müller’s physiology of the senses from Goethe’s ungrounded theses on colour perception and from the philosophy of identity, and to connect it to Kant’s philosophy (where Kant’s teaching, in turn, was emendated by some elements of his doctrine of a priori knowledge).16 The first step is made in Über Goethes naturwissenschaftiche Arbeiten (1853), the second is spelled out in Über das Sehen in Menschen (1855): As the latter [Müller] has shown the influx of the particular activity of the organs in sense perceptions, so Kant has shown what in our representations derives from particular and specific laws of the thinking spirit.17

Helmholtz’s joint development of ideas of Kant and Müller in his physiology of the senses is rooted in his theory of scientific knowledge, which, in turn, answers the need to establish a distinction between principles of thought (logical and epistemological) and empirical principles. For example, in Über das Sehen the law of causality is considered “a law of thought, which is given before any experience” (Ibid.). Contrary to Kant, Helmholtz does not provide an a priori proof of this law, although he maintains that it has to be acknowledged as a necessary condition of experience. A second example is the intuition of space. Although Helmholtz denies that the geometrical properties of space can be determined a priori, he maintains that the general form of spatiality is a necessary condition of experience (lastly in Die Tatsachen der Wahrenhmung of 1877)18. On the whole, Helmholtz draws a separation of domains between a very limited set of fundamental concepts and principles of theoretical activity, which do not anticipate any detail of mathematical and physical properties of the world, and empirical investigations.19 The definitive systematic assessment of his physiology of sensation in the Handbuch der physiologischen Optick (1867) is coherent with this general perspective. Helmholtz originally develops the idea of an activity which forms the background of empirical intuition: besides the role of the senses, investigated by Müller, Helmholtz argues that this activity has to be identified with the role of laws and inferences in the elaboration of objective representations. The clarification of this point is located in Book III of the Handbuch, whose topic is perception (Wahrnehmung). This textual location is in itself revealing, since Wahrnehmung—in Kantian terminology—is sensation (Empfindung) accompanied by consciousness.

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Hence the three sections of Helmholtz’s book correspond to physical (light), physiological (sensation) and psychological (representation) elements of vision. The second one involves the activity of the organs investigated by Müller, while only the last one involves, in a Kantian sense, the activity of the “spirit” (Geist). According to Helmholtz this activity consists of “unconscious inferences”. A crucial example are the inferences made by the mind in order to localise objects in space starting from sensations and to form a geometry out of their mutual relations—something that, as we have seen, had already been conceived by Müller. A second example—this time distinctly nonMüllerian—is the perception of colour properties, which depends on a comparison among classes of colour properties and hence on a perceptual context. In general, according to Helmholtz, representations of external objects are “effects” of the interplay of the nature of the object and the “representing consciousness” (Handbuch, III, § 26, 442-443). The perceptions of external objects belong to the representations and representations are always acts of our psychical activity; hence perceptions can only take place because of psychical activity and the theory of perception belongs properly to the domain of psychology, especially because here the corresponding kinds of mental activities [Seelenthätigkeiten] have to be investigated and their laws have to be established. (ivi, 427) The psychical activities, that lead us to infer that there in front of us at a certain place there is certain object of a certain character, are generally not conscious activities, but unconscious ones. In their result they are equivalent to inferences, since we derive the representation of a cause of the observed effect on our senses. (ivi, 430)

The epistemological framework of this account is the theory of signs. According to this theory, representations are signs, used to work out an interpretation of phenomena, which have a practical validity and in this sense are true, but do not bear any similarity to the described objects. This theory is non-committal with regards to metaphysical hypotheses on reality in itself (which is, again, a conclusion it shares with Kantianism). All our human representations are [...] images of the objects, whose mode is essentially codependent on the nature of the representing consciousness and is conditioned by its properties. Therefore, in my opinion [...] our representations of things cannot be anything but symbols, naturally signs for things which we learn to use in order to regulate our movements and actions. (ivi, 443)

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There is no evidence that Helmholtz directly drew inspiration from Kant’s essay on Sömmering—after all, the issue of the organ of the soul was not anymore on the scientific agenda—and he may have been possibly elaborating on his knowledge of Kant’s Critiques and the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe, mediated by a number of successive thinkers. Nevertheless Helmholtz supports a conception of the role of a priori principles in physiology which reproduces and updates the fundamental points of Kant’s transcendental argument on the limits of physiological investigation. Moreover, his ideas are also connected to a similar separation of disciplinary domains. The analysis of perceptions, according to Helmholtz in the Handbuch, involves a “psychological part of the physiology of senses”, which draws some contents (but is to be separated) from “pure psychology”, whose essential goal is the establishment of the laws of thought (427).20 In a wider perspective, this systematic articulation corresponds to a “nomological” separation of philosophy (in its psychological section, which is rather an epistemology) and medicine (in its physiological section) which is quite similar to the one advocated seventy years before by Kant. This point is made clear in Helmholtz’s speech Das Denken in der Medizin (1877): Philosophy, if it gives up metaphysics, still possesses a wide and important field, the knowledge of mental and spiritual processes and their laws. Just as the anatomist, when he has reached the limits of microscopic vision, must try to gain an insight into the action of his optical instrument, in like manner every scientific enquirer must study minutely the chief instrument of his research–the human thought–as to its capabilities.21

4. Conclusions: Kantianism and Cognitive Neurosciences at the End of the Nineteenth Century In section 3 we saw how Helmholtz expanded Müller’s account of sensation in a general theory of representation and found epistemological reasons to go back to Kant’s approach about the role of mental activity as grounded on physiologically irreducible principles. This latter move, in turn, involved the separation of the principles of philosophy (identified with “pure psychology”) and medicine as grounded respectively on pure and empirical principles. This separation was independent on any metaphysical hypothesis, and hence excluded both materialism and the metaphysical monism advocated by Müller.

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Helmholtz’s theories played a crucial role for the further development of a Kantian tradition in both philosophy and physiology. Friedrich Lange, in his popular Geschichte des Materialismus, relied heavily on Helmholtz for his interpretation of the physiology of the senses as a form of “corrected Kantianism” as well as for his own account of contemporary neuroscientific attempts to localise mental functions.22 According to Lange, although simple functions (e.g. sensations) can be localised, complex functions (e.g. reasoning) involve a synthetic activity of the subject which we cannot physiologically explain: We may [...] refer the origin of the psychical image of the intuition which becomes conscious in the subject to a direct synthesis of the individual impressions, even if these are dispersed in the brain. How such synthesis is possible remains a riddle.23

In his posthumously published Logische Studien (1877) Lange would elaborate on this philosophical point: The synthesis is the only psychological fact, that cannot be reduced to physiology or to the mechanics of brain atoms and which must be added to every process in the brain and the nervous system in order for the mechanical fact to become a psychological one [...] The factual connection of the manifold in the sensation into the unity of a representation can well be a process whereby we, as subjects, first come to being.24

Lange’s text is an example of how, by Helmholtz’s mediation, the original Kantian strategy of defending the irreducibility of philosophy from materialistic reductionism was still well represented in the late nineteenth century.25 Parallel to this Kantian tradition, a different argumentative strategy grounded on the alleged impossibility of explaining the qualitative content of sensations by mechanical processes was followed by different scientists including Müller and Wundt and received a famous formulation in Emil Du Bois-Reymond’s speech, Über die Grenzen des Naturerkennens (1872). This latter strategy would eventually become dominant in twentieth century antireductionist philosophy of mind, where many aspects of the late nineteenth century German debate have been substantially replicated. Nevertheless, the original Kantian argumentative line was not lost, and continued to play a central role in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. But a historical assessment of this role exceeds the limits of this paper.25

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Notes The citations of Kant’s works include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard Akademie Ausgabe: Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preussischen (now Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften, de Gruyter, Berlin 1900 u. ff. Here follows a list of relevant abbreviations. Translations of Kant’s works are taken from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, which indicates the corresponding pages of the Akademie Ausgabe. AC Anthropology Collins (1772-73). C Correspondence CF The Conflict of the Faculties (1798). DOS Draft for ‘On the Organ of the Soul’ (1795) ID “On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World” (Inaugural Dissertation) (1770). CPR Critique of Pure Reason. For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only. MM The Metaphysics of Morals (1797). MNS Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (1786). SOS From Soemmering’s On the Organ of the Soul (1796). 1

Hagner, Homo cerebralis, p. 83. Sömmering, Über das Organ der Seele, pp. 37-38. 3 Sturm, Kant und die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, pp. 265-80. 4 In a preliminary draft Kant confesses that he had been “tempted” to admit a metaphysical “life force” in order to explain sensibility (DOS 12:398), but this passage does not appear in the published text. Confronting Sömmering’s animation of matter Kant was recollecting a problem of his past metaphysics which he had discovered in the 1760s. See Pecere, “Monadology, Materialism and Newtonian Forces”. 5 This conceptual distinction was first presented in the Inaugural Dissertation (ID 2, 414). There “virtual presence” was still related to “immaterial substances”; now it merely signifies the connection between the activity of human understanding and the body, which cannot be explicated by metaphysical concepts. 6 McLaughlin, “Soemmering und Kant”, pp. 197-198; Di Giandomenico, “Kant, Soemmering”, p. 186; Euler, “Die Suche”, pp. 472-473; Sturm, Kant und die Wissenschaften, pp. 272-273. 7 This point is correctly seen (but not developed into a full analysis of Kant’s arguments) by Siegert, “Das trübe Wasser”, p. 54: Soemmering looks for a “material correlate of a transcendental function, whose unity is a condition of possibility for consciousness to have objects as representative contents at all”. 8 See e.g. AC 25:145. For more references and a critical discussion see Sturm, Kant und die Wissenschaften, pp. 275-280. 2

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For an outline see Hatfield, “Remaking the Science of Mind”. For the relevant German context see Sturm, Kant und die Wissenschaften des Menschen cit., pp. 53-125. 10 C. Wolff, Vernünftige Gedancken, § 740. See C. Dyck, “Materialism”. 11 Note that transcendental apperception, being the ultimate condition of the any synthesis, is also a condition of the “empirical rule of association” of representations (CPR A112). This parallels the thesis, advanced against Sömmering, that the physiological analysis of association cannot concern the pure I. 12 The Darstellung (exhibitio) of concepts provides intuitions “in concreto” to the latter and thereby makes sure that they have “objective reality”. See MNS 4:478 and CPR B288-291 and the general assessment in Pecere, La filosofia della natura in Kant, pp. 185-202. 13 See Rudolphi, Anatomisch-physiologische Abhandlungen, 189. On Rudolphi and Kant see Hagner, Homo cerebralis, pp. 138-143. 14 Müller, Handbuch des Physiologie des Menschen, II, 516. 15 Müller, Handbuch, II, 355. Cf. Poggi, “Goethe, Müller”, 193-194. 16 See Lenoir, “The Eye as Mathematician”, 121-126 for an analysis of how Müller, Lotze and Herbart mediated Helmholtz’s rethinking of Kantian ideas in the theory of space. 17 Helmholtz, Vorträge und Reden, I, 396. 18 Helmholtz, Vorträge und Reden, II, 227-234. 19 For an account of Dznormativitydz in Helmholtz’s epistemology, with special regard to the theory of space, see Hatfield, The Natural and the Normative. 20 In this respect, Helmholtz agrees with his former assistant Wundt. 21 Helmholtz, Vorträge und Reden, II, 188 (tr. by D. Cahan in Helmholtz, Science and Culture, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995—with a modification). 22 Helmholtz’s influence is explicit and evident in many points of Lange’s text, e.g.: “[By studying of the mechanics of sensation] we learn that the sensations of colours, the ideas of the magnitude and movement of an object, nay, even the appearance of simple straight lines, are not determined invariably by the given object, but that the relation of sensations to one another determines the quality of each individual one, nay, that experience and habit influence not only the interpretation of sense impressions, but even the immediate phenomenon itself [...] To see and to infer are really one and the same” (Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, II, 410, 425). 23 ivi, II, p. 419 24 Lange, Logische Studien, 1877, p. 135-136 25 On the origin of major developments in contemporary philosophy of mind in the nineteenth century German debate see Tennant, “Mind, Mathematics”. For a historico-critical survey see Pecere, “La coscienza come problema scientifico”.

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Bibliography Di Giandomenico, M., “Kant, Soemmering e il dibattito sulla “sede dell’anima”, in C. Esposito, P. Ponzio et al. (a cura di), Verum et certum. Studi di storiografia filosofica in onore di Ada Lamachhia, Bari: Levante, 1998, pp. 167-191. Dyck, C., “Materialism in the Mainstream of Early German Philosophy”, forthcoming in a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy (eds. P. Springeborg, F. Wunderlich). Euler, W., “Die Suche nach dem “Seelenorgan”. Kants philosophische Analyse einer anatomischen Entdeckung Soemmerings”, Kant-Studien, 93 (2002): 453-480. Hagner, M., Homo cerebralis. Der Wandel vom Seelenorgan zum Gehirn, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2008. Hatfield, G., The Natural and the Normative. Theories of Spatial Perception from Kant to Helmholtz, Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. ––. “Remaking the Science of Mind: Psychology as a Natural Science”, in C. Fox, R. Porter, R. Wokler (eds.), Inventing Human Science, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 184-231. Helmholtz, H., Handbuch der physiologischen Optick, Leipzig: Voss, 1867 (I consulted the English translation by J. P. C. Southall, New York: Dover 1962). ––. Vorträge und Reden, Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1884, 2 Bände. Lange, F., Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, Band II. Geschichte des Materialismus seit Kant, Iserlohn: Baedeker, 1875 (Engl. trans. by E. C. Thomas, Kegan Paul: London, 1925). ––. Logische Studien, Iserlohn: Baedeker, 1877. Lenoir, T., “The Eye as Mathematician. Clinical Practice, Instrumentation and Helmholtz’s Construction of an Empiricist Theory of Vision”, in D. Cahan (ed.), Hermann von Helmholtz and the Foundations of Nineteenth Century Science, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, pp. 109-153. McLaughlin, P., “Soemmering und Kant. Über das Organ der Seele und den Streit der Fakultäten”, in Gunter Mann, Franz Dumont (eds.), Samuel Thomas Soemmering und die Gelehrten der Goethezeit,), Stuttgart-New York: Fischer, 1985, pp. 191-201. Müller, J., Zur vergleichenden Psychologie des Geischtsinnes des Menschen und der Thiere, Leipzig: Cnobloch, 1826.

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––. Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, Koblenz: Hölscher, 183440. Rudolphi, K.A., Anatomisch-physiologische Abhandlungen, Berlin: Realschulbuchhandlung, 1802. Pecere, P., La filosofia della natura in Kant, Bari: Edizioni di Pagina, 2009. ––. La coscienza come problema scientifico tra filosofia e neuroscienze, in P. Pecere (a cura di), Il libro della natura. II. Scienze e filosofia da Einstein alle neuroscienze contemporanee, Roma: Carocci, 2015, pp. 317-370. ––. “Monadology, Materialism and Newtonian Forces: the Turn in Kant’s Theory of Matter”, Quaestio. Yearbook for the History of Metaphysics, 16 (2016), in preparation. Poggi, S., “Goethe, Müller, Hering und das Problem der Empfindung, in M. Hagner, B. Wahrig-Schmidt, Johannes Müller und die Philosophie, Berlin: Akademie Verlag: 191-206. Siegert, B., “Das trübe Wasser der reinen Vernunft. Kantische Signaltechnik”, in Joseph Vogl (ed.), Poetologien des Wissens um 1800, München: Fink, 1999: 53-68. Sömmering, S.T., Über das Organ der Seele, Königsberg: Nicolovius, 1796. Sturm, T., Kant und die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, Paderborn: Mentis, 2009. Tennant, N., “Mind, Mathematics and the Ignorabimusstreit”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 15(4) 2007: 745-773. Wolff, C., Vernünftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt, der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, Frankurt-Leipzig: Hort, 17294.

FREEDOM AND NATURE IN KANT’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY JULIO ESTEVES UNIV. ESTADUAL DO NORTE FLUMINENSE/CNPQ, BRAZIL

1. Kant’s1 interpreters traditionally assume that he intends to reconcile freedom and nature by appealing to the general transcendental distinction appearances/things-in-themselves. Accordingly, although our actions as appearances in space and time must be considered as subject to the natural causal conditions prescribed by the Second Analogy, they can also be considered in relation to an intelligible causality, which would be exempt from the temporal conditions and, consequently, free. Since these different ways of considering human actions in relation to their causes would not be in competition, because they would never meet, it would be possible to accommodate freedom and nature in the explanation of every single human action without contradiction and conflict. In Bennett’s words: “That is the reconciling endeavour in a nutshell: the two sorts of causality cannot conflict because they cannot meet”.2 Due to limitations of space, I cannot fully explore the problems issuing from that widespread interpretation. But I would like to briefly point out that it does not square with some key passages from the Dialectic of the First Critique. In fact, in an often quoted passage Kant says that we blame an agent for a malicious lie, notwithstanding a bad upbringing, a bad company or the wickedness of a natural temper (CPR A554/B582), thereby assuming that it was exclusively up to the agent to have acted in this way, that he determined himself to tell the lie spontaneously and in a way completely exclusive of every causal natural determination. Further, Kant claims that our ordinary practices of accountability and responsibility of actions are all grounded in the assumption that reason can “have causality in relation to them”, i.e. that the causality of reason can make a difference in nature, “for perhaps everything that has happened in the

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course of nature, and on empirical grounds inevitably had to happen, nevertheless ought not to have happened”.3 Kant claims still more forcefully in another passage that practical freedom “presupposes that although something has not happened, it nevertheless ought to have happened, and its cause in appearance was thus not so determining that there is not a causality in our power of choice such that, independently of those natural causes and even opposed to their power and influence, it might (…) begin a series of occurrences entirely from itself”.4 The upshot of the matter is that Kant assumes that we can make counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals about the causality of reason in the sensible world. In fact, despite all antecedent empirical conditions and even in opposition to their power and influence, if reason in its causality had not determined so, then the agent would not have told the malicious lie. But the problem is that the principle of the Second Analogy also requires that we make such counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals about the same course of action. Accordingly, only if the antecedent empirical conditions had been different than they in fact were, the agent would not have told the malicious lie, the agent could have done otherwise. This means that Kant conceives freedom and nature in competition about the authorship of determinate series of events in the sensible world. This is also acknowledged by Bennett who then blames Kant for having failed in his attempt to reconcile nature and freedom.5 The freedom [Kant] postulates has to play certain roles in the description of the human condition. These, we shall find, require that freedom be driven out of its noumenal isolation into the empirical realm where it conflicts after all with determinism. (...) We find Kant quietly construing freedom as being in competition with natural causality. (…) On that reading, though, Kant’s determinism is betrayed, and there is no reconciliation.

However, what is meant by Bennett as a criticism represents Kant’s considered position, with the difference, first, that Kant did not fail in the endeavour of reconciling nature and freedom, because he has never wanted this, and, second, that Kant does not “betray” causal determinism, because he still holds firmly the causal principle from the theoretical point of view. In fact, on the one hand, when Kant considers the events in the sensible world, including the same putatively free actions, from the theoretical point of view, he maintains that they occurred in accordance with the law of nature, so that they could not have occurred otherwise. On the other hand, when Kant considers human actions from the practical

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point of view, he admits that freedom and reason have causality in relation to these actions, which allows them to be imputed to their agents. Having said that, I state what I take to be Kant’s intentions in regard to the relationship between nature and freedom. Kant does not want to reconcile them, because he conceives freedom and nature equally as principles that are in competition concerning the authorship of determinate series of events, i.e. human actions. Further, Kant is clearly a genuine incompatibilist.6 He assumes that the rational agent can begin a new series of occurrences entirely from itself and even in opposition to the power and influence of the empirical conditions. Obviously, Kant realises that such a freedom constitutes a breakdown in the guiding thread of the uniformity of the experience, as it is presented in the Second Analogy, whose validity he still accepts. Thus, Kant’s problem is to show how is it possible for him to maintain at the same time that it is true that everything in the sensible world happens without exception in accordance with laws of nature, and that it is also true that not everything in the same sensible world happens in accordance with laws of nature. In other words, Kant does recognise that nature and freedom, the principles of his theoretical and practical philosophy, are in an antinomical conflict because they contradict each other. Accordingly, he does not want to solve such contradiction. Instead, on the basis of the transcendental distinction, Kant wants rather to show that it is not self-contradictory to maintain that principles that are in contradiction are equally valid and true. In fact, as Kant says, I would not be able to say of one and the same thing, e.g., the human soul, that its will is free and yet that it is simultaneously subject to natural necessity, i.e. that it is not free, without falling into an obvious contradiction; because in both propositions I would have taken the soul in just the same meaning (…), and without prior critique, I could not have taken it otherwise.7

2. Although this may be the best that a philosopher can do concerning the problem of the relationship between freedom and nature, such a solution may seem unsatisfactory to many. In fact, Kant himself seems to have not been pleased with it. In fact, he returns to the issue in the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment. Thus, Kant observes that the First Critique had proved the possibility of considering the coexistence of both legislations, namely, the legislation of freedom and of nature, in the same subject without (self-contradiction), although they “are inevitably limited not to be

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sure in their legislation but still in their effects in the sensible world”.8 Kant is here just referring to the previously mentioned competition between natural and free causality regarding the authorship of certain effects in the sensible world. For, according to Kant, “although (…) the sensible cannot determine the supersensible in the subject, nevertheless the converse is possible (...), and is already contained in the concept of a causality through freedom, whose effect in accordance with its formal laws is to take place in the world”.9 Thus, again in contrast to interpreters who try to reconcile nature and freedom by confining the latter in a separate noumenal world where it would be unable to interfere with the first, Kant argues that the very concept of a free causality brings with it the possibility of such interference. In fact, as it is clear from another passage from the published Introduction to KU, since by formal laws of freedom Kant means the moral law, he claims that the interference is not merely possible but necessary. For, as Kant writes, although there is an incalculable gulf fixed between the domain of the concept of nature, as the sensible, and the domain of the concept of freedom, as the supersensible, so that from the former to the latter (…) no transition is possible, just as if there were so many different worlds, the first of which can have no influence on the second: yet the latter should have an influence on the former, namely the concept of freedom should make the end that is imposed by its laws real (wirklich) in the sensible world; and nature must consequently also be able to be conceived in such a way that the lawfulness of its form is at least in agreement with the possibility of the ends that are to be realized in it in accordance with the laws of freedom. 10

We find here a variant of the so-called problem of the compatibility between freedom and nature. According to Kant, the necessary possibility of freedom having an influence on nature brings with it the necessity of thinking the latter as somehow being compatible with the realisation of the ends prescribed by the laws of the former, namely, the moral law. However, unlike the Kant of the First Critique, he now thinks that this variant of the problem of the compatibility between freedom and nature cannot adequately be dealt with by appealing solely to the transcendental distinction appearances/things-in-themselves. Besides, it requires the introduction of a teleological principle, namely the principle of the purposiveness of nature (die Zweckmäßigkeit der Natur). The ends prescribed by the moral law are the ends intended by a morally good will. As Henry Allison observes, although Kant maintains that the goodness of a good will is not a function of what it actually accomplishes

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in the world, it remains the case that such a will strives to realise certain goals. These goals “include a lawful (rechtlich) condition, that is, a civil society under a republican constitution, a condition of perpetual peace between sates, and, (…) one’s own perfection and the happiness of others”.11 They include above all the duty to work for the advancement of the highest good on earth. For, according to Kant, the universal and punctual obedience to the moral law would result in a state of things that could be described as “a system of happiness proportionately combined with morality (…), since freedom, partly moved and partly restricted by moral laws, would itself be the cause of the general happiness, and rational beings, under the guidance of such principles, would themselves be the authors of their own enduring welfare and at the same time that of others”.12 The highest good on earth is the totalising concept encompassing all universally valid ends intended by morally finite rational beings, and it is a moral duty to strive to achieve it. However, it is in the Third Critique and in the writings on the philosophy of history and political philosophy, that Kant conceives the highest good or Endzweck undoubtedly in a secularised version and as an ideal to be pursued collectively. Obviously, Kant is clear that individuals are conceived as being able to be happy and virtuous in their earthly life, but he realises that this will be possible only to the extent that the species as a whole achieves a certain level of development. This is why the postulate of immortality of the individual soul appears in the Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim as the postulate of the immortality of the species: “[…] it is necessary once one assumes that a species of animals should have reason, and, as a class of rational beings who all die, while the species is immortal, should nevertheless attain to completeness in the development of their predispositions”.13 In the same vein, the postulate of the existence of God appears both in the Idea as in the Toward Perpetual Peace as providence (Vorsehung) acting immanently within nature and history, as “a higher cause directed to the objective final end of the human race and predetermining this course of the world”.14 That said, the problem that the principle of purposiveness of nature is called to account for in the context of practical philosophy can be formulated as follows. The realisation of the greatest possible good on earth depends not only on me, but also on the joint action of others in accordance with the moral law. Now the problem is that I have no hope that others, precisely because of their freedom, will behave in accordance

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with the moral law. But it is impossible for me to rationally strive to achieve an end, if I have absolutely no hope that I can achieve it. For, as Allen Wood explains, “according to Kant, when a person […] undertakes a certain kind of action in pursuit of an end, he presupposes, implies or commits himself to a belief that the end in question is at least possible of attainment”.15 Now, Kant appeals to the principle of purposiveness of nature as a practical, at least subjectively valid, guarantee, as a condition of possibility of rationally working for the advancement of the highest good on earth. However, it must be clear that Kant takes the principle of purposiveness of nature to be a principle of reflective judgement. Kant thinks that if we could not regard nature, and history, in this way, i.e. as somehow favouring the achievement of our final purpose, then our moral life would be pointless and moral agents would have ultimately no reason to act. In short, it is only an assumption that we ought and can reflect upon nature, and history, as if it favoured the achievement of the final purpose of creation, the concept of which includes all possible ends prescribed by morality.

3. It is well known that the Third Critique and Kantian writings on the philosophy of history and political philosophy have exerted a major influence on German idealism. In fact, it is not difficult to recognise the influence of these writings, for example, on Hegel’s famous phrase: “the real is rational and the rational is real.” Now, Kant introduces the principle of purposiveness of nature in his practical philosophy in accordance with two different strategies which I would describe by appealing to Hegel’s phrase and replacing “real” with “nature”. In sum, my thesis is that, to account for the guarantee of the possibility of achieving the final purpose of creation, Kant thought it necessary to rationalise nature and to naturalise reason. Moreover, Kant seems to have thought that the identification of reason with nature would make it possible to account for the problem of the compatibility of freedom and nature. In what follows, I will critically examine these different strategies, with respect to the solution of the problem of the compatibility of freedom and nature. Given that history for Kant is, first of all, an empirical science, like biology or psychology, governed by the laws of nature, the thesis that nature is rational manifests itself in his attempt to write a historical narrative in accordance with a priori principles, an idea that should serve “as a guiding thread for exhibiting an otherwise planless aggregate of

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human actions, at least in the large, as a system”.16 So Kant wants to show that, despite the empirically verifiable facts, the events within history are in complete conformity to a hidden rational plan. Accordingly, although I have no guarantee that others will freely decide to contribute to the achievement of that collective end prescribed by practical reason, I have some expectation that I will succeed in my actions, even against and despite their own free wills, because nature will cause men finally enter a “society in which freedom under external laws can be encountered combined in the greatest possible degree with irresistible power, i.e. a perfectly just civil constitution”, a “society universally administering right”, for “only in it can the highest aim of nature be attained” (IaG, AA 8, Fifth Proposition, emphasis in the original). And, although the institution of a perfect civil society among people does not constitute the highest good properly speaking, it is at least a condition of the possibility of achieving it. For, I am on the side of those interpreters who hold that Kant sees progress in history not merely as external progress, namely, as a movement from nature toward tangible “veneers” of morality, but as internal progress, i.e. as a positive development of the attitudes and dispositions of moral agents. And the complete development of such moral dispositions which ultimately will lead to the highest good on earth presupposes the moral improvement of the subjects through education. This is why, according to Kant, humanity is facing a problem that threatens to paralyze or even destroy the efforts of humanity in search of enlightenment (Aufklärung) and complete moral improvement. According to Kant, men exhibit two antagonistic tendencies or inclinations, which he characterises as an “unsociable sociability”. On the one hand, men have a propensity (Hang) to enter into society, since in such a condition they feel the development of their natural rational dispositions, which require training, learning etc., in short, things that are possible only within a society. On the other hand, each one has also a propensity to individualise, to obtain for himself a rank above his fellows, to excel over others in virtue of the selfish tendencies to power and greed, etc. Thus, men cannot live in isolation, but also cannot stand each other. The solution is to find a means to regulate the interaction between them, without eliminating the rivalry and antagonism. For this antagonism, and even war as its most dramatic expression, can be considered as the springboard for the development of rational predispositions; a state of Arcadian peace would only paralyze the creative forces in an unproductive lethargy. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that rivalry and antagonism remain among men; but the resulting conflicts should be solved not by means of

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war, but by a state body universally administering right. In fact, wars, or rather, the unceasing “process of armament for them” (IaG, AA 8:24) that leads to a state of peace which is nothing more than a temporary suspension of hostilities with a view to subsequent resumption of war annihilates all productive energies, since the war effort diverts vital resources for education and the evolution of thinking and acting of citizens, preventing the process of enlightenment. Now, some passages from Kant’s philosophy of history seem to indicate that the solution to the above mentioned problem should arise, so to speak, dialectically, from the same sources from which the problem arose. In other words, it is as if through the “cunning” of the very same unsociable sociability, the hidden providence in nature would cause men finally come together under a rightful commonwealth universally administering that inevitable and desirable antagonism. However, a careful reading of the texts shows that we should not expect too much from the providence in nature, with respect to the solution to the problem created by those opposing tendencies. Because, to begin with, to assume that a perfect civil body universally administering right between nations could be a state of things taking place simply by virtue of that “cunning” would be tantamount to conferring to the principle of purposiveness of nature the status of a constitutive principle, which Kant denies. Indeed, as we see already in the First Critique, Kant rejects a theoretical constitutive use of ideas like that of a supreme being or providence, instead of a merely regulative use of them, because the former leads us to the fallacy of the socalled “lazy reason” (ignava ratio) (CPR A689/B717). Analogously, to interpret the idea of providence in history as a constitutive principle would be to assume a kind of “lazy practical reason”: if it is the natural destiny of mankind to finally enter into a civil society universally administering right between nations, then that will happen, whether men strive for it or not. Besides, in his opuscules on political philosophy and philosophy of history Kant obviously intends to disseminate ideas such as freedom of speech and a treaty establishing a perpetual peace. Now, if he is assuming thereby that the problem created by the unsociable sociability could be solved independently of voluntary human intervention, then it would have been absolutely pointless to have the opuscules published in journals whose scope went far beyond the academic world. For if enlightenment along with its conditions of possibility were something that nature wants irresistibly, then it would be completely irrelevant to both statesmen as citizens to take contact with those ideas.

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However, that enlightenment and the corresponding development of all predispositions are not conceived by Kant as something to be expected simply from nature, is clear from certain crucial passages such as the following from the Idea: Now states are already in such an artificial relation to one another that no one of them can retard its internal culture without losing out in might and influence in relation to the others (…). Further, civil freedom cannot very well be infringed without feeling the disadvantage of it in all trades, especially in commerce, and thereby also the diminution of the powers of the state in its external relationships. (…) Hence the personal restrictions on the citizen’s doing and refraining are removed more and more (…) and thus gradually arises, accompanied by delusions and whim, enlightenment, as a great good that must raise humankind even out of the selfish aims of aggrandizement on the part of its rulers, if only the latter understand their own advantage (wenn sie nur ihren eigenen Vorteil verstehen).17

The last phrase is very similar to a famous passage from Toward Perpetual Peace, in which Kant examines the objection, according to which a republican constitution is so difficult that its establishment seems to be possible only to a state of angels. To such an objection Kant replies that the problem of establishing a republican constitution “is soluble even for a nation of devils (if only they have understanding) (wenn sie nur Verstand haben)”.18 The general sense of the passages above seems clear: the problem of establishment of a republican constitution within a single state and the broader problem of a perfect civil body universally administering right between nations can be solved, provided that human beings, namely, the subjects and the rulers, become aware of what is at least in their own prudential interest. So the solution to the above mentioned problems presupposes the voluntary activity of human beings governed, if not necessarily by pure practical reason, at least by empirical practical reason. Now, I am trying to show that, despite phrases such as “nature wills irresistibly that right should gain supremacy” or “nature itself does it, whether we will it or not (fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt)”,19 Kant does not mean that the problems created by the natural antagonism between men could eventually be solved by nature itself, not even by nature under the principle of purposiveness. Instead, they require the intervention of voluntary activity of human beings governed by prudential reason, in other words, the influence of freedom on nature. One could object that action in accordance to principles of an empirical practical reason does not seem to place men above nature. This is an important point, to which I will return below. Be that as it may, it is clear from many

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other passages from the Idea that it is “the greatest problem for the human species”, which is “to be solved by the human species”.20 So it is as if nature’s work were limited to posing a problem to us by means of that antagonism, for whose solution we have to work freely. And just because it presupposes the influence of freedom, it is the greatest, the most difficult and the latest to be solved problem for us. In fact, as Kant says in the Idea, “it requires correct concepts of the nature of a possible constitution, great experience practiced through many courses of life and beyond this a good will to accept it”.21 In sum, the solution to the problem requires the intervention of morality, of pure practical reason, represented in the Idea by the highest supreme authority which, being just in itself and a master of itself, and yet a human being, sets external limits to the freedom of its subjects, while it would be able to autonomously limit its own freedom. Thus, according to Kant, nature by itself at best makes available the means, namely, the mechanism of selfish inclinations, which creates a problem, for whose solution human beings must work freely. Of course, precisely because it must be a product of human freedom, the achievement of the highest good on earth cannot be anticipated as a prophecy (Weissagung) of an inevitable future for the human species. However, as such it suffices as a practical guarantee that the conditions of possibility of its attainment are given in the world, which makes rational our efforts to reach such a goal. However, if, on the one hand, it suffices as a practical guarantee of rationality in our actions aiming at the highest good, on the other hand, the problem of the compatibility of freedom and nature remains unsolved. In fact, in his philosophy of history Kant once more makes counterfactual and subjunctive conditionals about the causality of reason in nature. For he assumes that reason and freedom, instead of nature, must ultimately be the cause of determinate events and states of affairs in history. We turn now to what I call Kant’s naturalisation of reason. It is noteworthy that in the Third Critique Kant undertakes a review of some positions he had adopted a few years earlier, in the Groundwork. Kant now refuses to consider as belonging to a practical philosophy propositions which do not differ from theoretical propositions regarding their content, but only in the way in which they are presented (Vorstellungsart). According to the Third Critique, to count as belonging to practical philosophy properly speaking, a principle must represent the possibility of things and their determinations exclusively in accordance with concepts of freedom under laws. For Kant observes that most of the propositions

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usually referred to as practical are nothing but theoretical propositions which describe the nature of things, “only applied to the way in which they can be generated by us in accordance with a principle, i.e., their possibility is represented through a voluntary action (which belongs among natural causes as well)”.22 Now, Kant is claiming that the mere fact that a will acts in accordance with a principle whose content is a law of nature, or, in the language of the Groundwork, according to a hypothetical imperative of skill or of prudence, is a good reason to consider such a will as a part of nature as well. In the same vein we see Kant claiming in the published Introduction to the Third Critique that “the will, as a faculty of desire, is one of the many kinds of natural causes in the world, namely that which operates in accordance with concepts”.23 But, so far, Kant leaves indeterminate whether the concept that gives the rule to the causality of the will is a concept of nature or a concept of freedom, “a distinction that is essential”. In other words, according to Kant, the kind of concept or principle that determines the will is essential and decisive for the characterisation of the latter either as a natural cause among others or as a free cause. Now, this is in blatant contradiction with Kant’s conception of the will, as he had presented it in a famous passage from the Groundwork: Everything in nature works in accordance with laws. Only a rational being has the capacity to act in accordance with the representation of laws, that is, in accordance with principles, or has a will.24

Most interpreters have focused his reflections on the following question: according to exactly which laws or principles only a rational being or a will would be able to act? Pierre Laberge25 has argued that the laws or principles in question might be: (1) moral laws; (2) laws of nature; (3) objective principles; (4) subjective principles or maxims; and, finally, as he proposes: (5) objective and/or subjective principles. Now, I would like to point out to the following. It cannot be, at least immediately, the moral law. For, the key passage above opens the analytical argument which eventually leads to the formulae of the Categorical Imperative, in the Second Section of the Groundwork. So, it would be simply begging the question to characterise the will and rational agency as capacities to act in accordance with the moral law. Thus, at least at this point of the argument, laws of nature and/or maxims are the most logically suitable principles to characterise the causality of the will and rational agency in opposition to natural causality. Now, it is undisputed that Kant establishes an analytical relationship between the will and the ability to act according to maxims.

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But what about the laws of nature? Now, we have just seen that, according to the Kant of the Third Critique, when the will in its causality has as its principle a concept or law of nature, it must be considered as a natural cause. However, it is noteworthy that, although the interpreters usually focus their interest on the kind of laws or principles in question, in the passage from the Groundwork above, Kant himself emphasises the ability to act in accordance with the representation of laws or principles, as a specific characteristic of the causality of the will. In other words, no matter the kind of law or principle, in so far as the will in its causality acts in accordance with the representation thereof, it must be considered as something completely distinct from every other causal agent working in nature. So, according to the Kant of the Groundwork, the ability to act in accordance with the representation of laws or principles überhaupt is a characteristic that sufficiently distinguishes a will from every other causal agent in nature, and allows us to find the moral law analytically connected with it as its supreme principle. However, as we have seen, the Kant of the Third Critique does not hesitate to naturalise the causality of the will, in so far as it acts in accordance with laws of nature applied to the way things can be generated in the world, in other words, in accordance with technically practical imperatives. Why does he do this? Now, the goal pursued by Kant with the naturalisation of empirical practical reason is the same as he had with the rationalisation of nature, namely, to make conceivable in nature the possibility of certain ends prescribed by reason, ultimately, the possibility of the highest good in the world. Kant’s reasoning seems to be supported by the following teleological principle such as we find in the First Proposition of the Idea: “All natural predispositions of a creature are determined sometime to develop themselves completely and purposively.” Now, if reason is conceived as just a Naturanlage among others, then we can hope that it will be completely and purposively developed, which would ultimately lead to the final end, namely, the achievement of the highest good in history. In so far as he naturalises technically practical reason, Kant took a first step towards introducing the causality of reason in general into a more general causal theory that accounts for certain products of nature, more exactly, organisms. In sum, Kant inserts Zweckrationalität into the Zweckmässigkeit der Natur. This would allow him to interpret human action as just an appearance in the natural (biological and social) world, therefore as falling under concepts of a theoretical philosophy now

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enriched by the principle of reflective teleological judgement. For, when we reflect on certain products of nature, we realise that there is in them a considerable contingency, as a result of what is left unexplained in them by concepts of nature, i.e., by the mechanical principle of efficient causality. As Charles Nussbaum explains, “by means of this relocation of empirical practical reason in the culture of skill, Kant has succeeded in integrating one type of human purposeful action, namely, instrumental action, within the organic world: human culture is, after all, part of this world and arises out of it. […] But this is of the utmost significance for Kant’s theory of action because the reflective concept of purposiveness introduces an element of contingency into the natural world. […] [T]his element of contingency will enable Kant to make conceivable what had before seemed entirely inconceivable: the expression of the causality of the pure will in the natural world.”26 In short, the naturalisation of empirical practical reason is one of Kant’s strategies for solving a problem that plagued him since the First Critique, namely, the problem of the compatibility of nature and freedom, and the possibility of freedom making a difference in nature, since in the latter everything seems to be completely determined by mechanical efficient causality. By introducing the causality of reason in a teleologically interpreted nature, Kant can open up a space for a certain contingency in the events, which could be filled by the ends prescribed by reason, ultimately the very end of pure practical reason, the highest good on earth. But the naturalisation of reason fails as an attempt to show the compatibility of nature and freedom and the possibility of the latter having an influence on the former without contradiction. To begin with, in what concerns the role of contingency in history, it suffices to recall Kant’s scepticism in the Idea (Seventh Proposition) regarding the possibility that a lawful external relation between states could arise by chance, i.e., contingently, from an Epicurean concurrence of causes. So, in contradistinction to Nussbaum’s interpretation, Kant’s introduction of the principle of purposiveness in history was meant to avoid contingency and to guarantee some kind of necessity. Secondly, the role that the moral politician is called to play in Toward Perpetual Peace is completely at variance with Kant’s naturalisation of empirical practical reason. In fact, Kant begins by the observation that “if there were no freedom and no moral law based upon it and everything that happens or can happen is instead the mere mechanism of nature, then politics (as the art of making use of this mechanism for governing human beings) would be the whole of practical wisdom, and the concept of right would be an empty thought”.27

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Now, the moral politician is a state leader “who takes the principles of political prudence in such a way that they can coexist with morals”, in opposition to the political moralist, “who frames a morals to suit the statesman’s advantage”.28 So, the moral politician is someone who is capable of using principles of political prudence or Staatsklugheit in such a way that they can coexist with morals. The moral politician is willing to at times sacrifice state interests, even very important state interests, out of a sense of moral obligation. However, as we have just seen, the Kant of the Third Critique claims that the will acting in accordance with imperatives of skill and prudence must be considered as a natural cause among others. So, how could he at the same time claim that the moral politician who acts in accordance with principles of political prudence and is able to use the mechanism of the inclinations of his subjects is still under the moral law, the law of freedom? The attempt to show the compatibility between nature and freedom in Kant’s philosophy of history and political philosophy creates a logical inconsistency within his philosophy.

Notes 1

I use the following English translations: Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), ed. and transl. by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge 1998. For references to the First Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only. Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, transl. and ed. by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge 1996. [Includes the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (G) and Toward Perpetual Peace (TPP)]. Critique of Judgment (CPJ), ed. by Paul Guyer and transl. by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge 2000. Anthropology, History, and Education, transl. and ed. by G. Zoller, R. Louden, M. Gregor and P. Guyer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. [Includes the “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (IUH)]. Citations are to the volume and page of the German text of the Akademie Edition. 2 Bennett, Jonathan, Kant’s Dialectic, p. 193. 3 CPR A550/B578, emphasis in the original. 4 CPR A534/B562, emphasis in the original. 5 Bennett, Jonathan, Kant’s Dialectic. 195. See also Bennett (1974), pp. 200-1. 6 See in that regard my “Musste Kant Thesis und Antithesis der dritten Antinomie der ‘Kritik der reinen Vernunft’ vereinbaren?”. 7 CPR B XXVII, emphasis added to the occurrences of the word ‘I’. 8 CPJ 5:175. 9 CPJ 5:195. 10 CPJ 5:175-6, emphasis in the original.

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11 Allison, Henry, “The Gulf between Nature and Freedom and Freedom’s Guarantee of Perpetual Peace”, p. 40. 12 CPR A809/B837. 13 IUH 8:20. 14 TPP 8:361-2. 15 Wood, Allen, Kant’s Moral Religion, p. 21. 16 IUH 8:29; see also IUH, 8:17-8. 17 IUH 8:27-8. 18 TPP 8:366. 19 TPP 8:365 and 367, emphasis in the original. 20 IUH 8:22 and 23, emphasis in the original. 21 IUH 8:23. 22 CPJ 5:196. 23 CPJ 5:172. 24 G 4:412, emphasis in the original. 25 “La définition de la volonté comme faculté d’agir selon la représentation des lois”. In: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, ein kooperativer Kommentar, O. Höffe (ed.). Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 83-96. 26 Nussbaum, Charles, “Kant’s changing conception of the causality of the will”, p. 270. 27 TPP 8:372. 28 TPP 8:372.

Bibliography Allison, H., “The Gulf between Nature and Freedom and Freedom’s Guarantee of Perpetual Peace,” in Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress, vol. I, H. Robinson (ed.), Milwaukee, 1995. Bennett, J., Kant’s Dialectic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Esteves, J., “Musste Kant Thesis und Antithesis der dritten Antinomie der ‘Kritik der reinen Vernunft’ vereinbaren?”, Kant-Studien 95 (2004): 146-70. Laberge, P., “La définition de la volonté comme faculté d’agir selon la représentation des lois”, in O. Höffe (ed.), Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, ein kooperativer Kommentar, Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1989. Nussbaum, C., “Kant’s changing conception of the causality of the will”, International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XXXVI, no. 3, 143 (1996): 265-86. Wood, A., Kant’s Moral Religion, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970.

THREE PROBLEMS WITH THE THEORETICAL READING OF THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSAL HISTORY IN CONTEXT OF THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON JOEL THIAGO KLEIN FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF RIO GRANDE DO NORTE/ CNPQ, BRAZIL1

1. Introduction Kant’s essay Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim (hereafter “IUH”) 2 has essentially a propositional intention. It lacks extensive argumentation, the style is quasi propagandistic and, at times, even aphoristic. Moreover, several metaphors greatly extend the range of possible interpretations and it is, therefore, no wonder that there are so many contradictory readings. Given these characteristics, I believe that the best way to coherently interpret the philosophy of history presented in the essay is to take into account other theoretical and systematic elements developed elsewhere. Furthermore, in order to avoid idiosyncrasy, one must take into account the historical building of the of system, i.e., in order to maintain historical and systematic coherence, the arguments presented in this paper are restricted to Kant’s works published from 1781 to 1787, i.e., the texts dedicated to the philosophy of history which became legitimate from the theoretical background of the Critique of pure reason. However, when it would be enlightening, I will also briefly mention later works. It is a common opinion among Kant scholars that universal history is not grounded in a constitutive and mechanical theory of nature but is based, instead, on the regulative use of the ideas of pure reason. What remains under debate is how and to what extent the reflective capacity to judge or the regulative use of ideas in the philosophy of history is related either to the theoretical or to the practical use of reason. This paper defends the

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claim that Kant’s essay IUH cannot establish its legitimacy essentially in a theoretical interest of reason. As a result, the idea of universal history needs to find its validation in the field of action (as part of practical philosophy) rather than of cognition (as part of theoretical philosophy).

2. The Alleged Theoretical-Speculative Ground of Universal History There are important Kant scholars such as Kaulbach, Kleingeld, Rauscher, and Wood who defend a theoretical reading of Kant’s project of a universal history. Naturally, there are considerable differences, but all of them point out the theoretical grounding, dimensions and also use of Kant’s philosophy of history in IUH. According to Kaulbach, Kant tries to turn history into a science and, in order to do so, history “needs to be put under the universal laws of nature which have the validity of the probability calculation instead of the law of causality. Theoretical and probabilistic thinking put the act of writing history (Geschichtsschreibung) in the position of discovering certain regularity”. In this sense, “the philosophers of history reveal themselves as a theorists of the foundations of historiography (Historie)” (Kaulbach 1975, 65, translation is my own). Kleingeld defends a similar position. She argues that Kant’s concept of universal history in the IUH found its justification in the Appendix to the transcendental dialectic of the CPR, especially in the section called On the regulative use of the ideas of pure reason. The utility of the concept of universal history would function as an interconnected system organising historical data and should guide historians in their scientific research (cf. Kleingeld, 1995, 15-31; 110-16). She views the 1784 essay as answering the theoretical and speculative question about the systematic unity of historical appearances with the help of a practical and moral concept. According to Kleingeld, the IUH “concerns primarily philosophy of history in a ‘theoretical aim’” (Kleingeld 1995, 31, translation is my own). Rauscher casts doubt on the Kantian distinction between historiography (Historie) and universal history (Weltgeschichte) and suggests that both might be brought together into the same project. He states that propositions three to seven of the IUH are compatible with empirical and historical research, i.e. progress in history may be empirically discoverable. Accordingly to him this could possibly be inferred from passages like that

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of the eighth proposition that asserts that experience might reveal something about humanity’s history, from which we could infer the rest, as in analogy with the planets’ path across the sky. He suggests, therefore, that “it appears that instead of suggesting, as [Kant] did, that his work is not intended to ‘take the place of history as such whose composition is wholly empirical’ (8:30), Kant ought to have offered his reflections as a hypothesis within empirical history” (Rauscher 2001, 51). Finally and emphatically, Wood asserts that the starting point of the IUH is purely theoretical and there are not moral considerations of nature until the ninth proposition of the essay. Therefore “the right way to describe [Kant’s] approach is to say that he proceeds from considerations of theoretical reason, projecting the ‘idea’ (or a priori rational concept) of a purely theoretical program for making comprehensible sense of the accidental facts of human history”. And at the end of the text there is “a kind of convergence with our practical concerns, so as to unite our theoretical understanding of history with our moral-religious hopes as historical beings.” (Wood 2005, 111-12) Despite the differences among these interpreters, all of them agree that the IUH should be read as being largely or solely founded in a theoretical interest of reason and, therefore as having a theoretical-regulative character and use. In this case, stating that a project is based on a theoretical interest necessarily means that it has also some theoretical validity and use. This can only mean that universal history contributes in some way to the expansion of theoretical knowledge about the world. I do not see any other way in which universal history could contribute to the theoretical knowledge except by following in outline Kaulbach’s suggestion, namely that universal history should guide the process of research and systematisation of empirical history, so that the latter could be lead to the secure path of science. In this case it would be adopting a similar model that Kant uses to legitimise the structure of science of living beings. However, if it is possible to show that the project of a universal history serving as guiding thread for historiography contradicts basic aspects of the critical-transcendental system, then only two conclusions are possible: either Kant maintains a theoretical project of a universal history that is completely inconsistent with the rest of his system; or he did not defend such a position, therefore, universal history neither stands on a theoretical interest, nor has a theoretical perspective and a theoretical use. That is

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exactly the strategy that I adopt in this paper. I try to show that a theoretical-regulative reading of universal history would have led Kant to make systematical mistakes that would undermine his whole project. In the following I present what would be the three systematic errors that such a theoretical reading would commit, which I name according to the following titles: the ens rationis error, the perversa ratio error and the naturalisation of morality error. The first two errors affect fundamental principles of theoretical philosophy, while the third affects both principles of theoretical and practical philosophy. Before starting the arguments it is also important to note that I am not assuming the project of a universal history as being an objective description of reality. Kant uses at least in most cases throughout the text of IUH a careful manner of expression that indicates he is dealing with a possibility, which he seeks to defend. For this reason I insist on using the term “project of a universal history”. However, even though this project has a regulative function, but insofar as this is done from a theoretical-philosophical perspective, then there are some conditions which need to be respected in order to consider this a valid project. Assume a theoretical perspective means, in the context of critical-transcendental philosophy, to present how it stands on principles of pure reason and to show how it satisfies both rational conditions and conditions of empirical applicability. Otherwise it would not be a theoretical-regulative knowledge, but merely an opinion, such as the one that life exits on other planets. The possibility of life on other planets was an issue which Kant regarded as highly probable but which he did not spent time and effort to sustain, simply because it is not a philosophical question. Now, if the project of a universal history is more than a simple matter of opinion for theoretical use, then it must be a theoretical-regulative knowledge in which it is necessary to articulate and organise empirical-historical knowledge. However, in this case, it should respect the conditions of the critical-transcendental system, since Kant speaks of a universal history that has in a certain way a guiding thread a priori (See IUH 8:30).

2.1. The Ens Rationis Error The outlines of the argument are as follows: universal history is mainly focused on the future, however it is not a part of the theoretical-regulative procedure of the ideas of reason (i.e., a reflection for the purpose of assisting a systematic and interconnected use of understanding) to assume that a specific capacity (to act morally and create legal fair institutions)

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should be at some distant future developed perfectly in the human species. The perspective of a historical totality that focuses on the future to achieve a systematical meaning for the present and past experiences is, on the theoretical perspective of the ideas of reason, an ens rationis. That universal history becomes a system only with a projection to the future of the human species can be inferred from a number of passages of IUH and several other texts. In the second proposition Kant states that nature “needs an immense series of generations, each of which transmits its enlightenment to the next, in order finally to propel its germs in our species to that stage of development which is completely suited to its aim.” (IUH 8:19) In the third proposition he claims that the latest generations “should have the good fortune to dwell in the building on which a long series of their ancestors (to be sure, without this being their aim) had labored” (IUH 8:20). In the fourth proposition he writes that the process of enlightenment can “with time transform the rude natural predisposition to make moral distinctions into determinate practical principles and hence transform a pathologically compelled agreement to form a society finally into a moral whole” (IUH 8:21). In the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth propositions, Kant argues that the problems of a civil society universally administering right is a task that can only be well solved later in human history and after many attempts. In short, except for the first, all propositions of IUH make explicit reference and also acquire their meaning from a projection to the future of human history, i.e., to something that can and should happens.3 However, history as a totality that includes the present, the past and especially the future is not an object of the theoretical interest of pure reason (understood in the strict sense). In regard to an interconnected knowledge of appearances, merely the ideas that refer to an ascending totality are considered necessary for the derivation of a given conditioned, but not the contrary, i.e. the descending series (cf. CPR A331-2/B 388-9). In Kant’s words: (...) once a complete (and unconditioned) given conditions exists, then a concept of reason is no longer needed in respect of the progress of the series; for the understanding by itself makes every step downwards from the condition to the conditioned. In this way, the transcendental ideas serve only for ascending in the series of conditions to unconditioned, i.e., to the principles. But regarding descent to the conditioned, there is a very extensive logical use that our reason makes of the laws of understanding, but no a transcendental use and if we make ourselves an idea of absolute

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totality of such a synthesis (of a progressive one), e.g., an idea of a whole series of all future alterations in the world, then this is just a thing of thought (an ens rationis), which is thought up only arbitrarily, and not presupposed necessarily by reason. (CPR A336-7/B393-4) I SEPARATED THE CITATION FROM THE MAIN TEXT

Kant defines ens rationis as an “empty concept without object”, i.e., something that “may not be counted among the possibilities because it is a mere invention (although not self-contradictory)” (CPR A292/B348). Now, from those passages, it seems that the very necessity of explaining a historical appearance from some indefinite future perspective (as the complete development of all human dispositions presupposes) cannot constitute a part of the theoretical interest of pure reason. Knowing means determining the conditions and rules whereby an appearance is given in the intuition and for this aim the regulative use of the ideas of reason is needed to guide the search for an interconnected and systematic knowledge of causes, in a constantly ascending direction. After one has an interconnected knowledge of a given appearance, then the descending series, i.e., what could be the future consequences, can be broadly determined by understanding, but always in a limited form, i.e., never in reference to “an idea of absolute totality” of a progressive synthesis. One could say that this is a misguided criticism because the laws of nature in general, the a priori and the empirical ones, are valid not just for the past and the present, but also for the future (exempli gratia, law of gravity or the law of genetic inheritance). Once one knows some law, one can apply it to other situations, i.e., once one realises that the same conditions are given, then one can legitimately expect a very similar appearance to occur again. However, there is a difference between saying that a law holds true for the future and saying that it depends in its contented and meaning from the future. In the first case temporality is outside the concept of law, that is, the law has a timeless character. In the second case, the law is understood from its temporal character, namely the future determines the content of the law or, in case of the IUH, the progress to a future cosmopolitical order determines at the present the understanding of the conditions of the human species in history. Perhaps an example could be helpful. One could use the idea of a wise nature to shine light on some specific property of human behaviour or part of the human body. This means that one can use the notion of teleology to guide our understanding in the search for the causes of why something is the way it is. From this point of view, for example, one could assume in a

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teleological way that the appendix formerly had some function in the human body. However, once we find no function for the appendix in the human body, then in accordance with the teleological hypothesis it may be assumed for purposes of research that in the past that part of the human body had a function, but we cannot legitimately attribute some function to this organ in the future. However, this way of thinking is exactly what Kant adopts in the essay IUH, not in the sense of biological development of some physical feature, but in the sense of the development of an alleged moral disposition. He presupposes that the human being has a moral disposition that can either be used or not at the present moment but which will be used increasingly in the future. In the Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals he even accepts the hypothesis that until now no one has ever had a good will. The theoretical and systematic use of the ideas of reason comes to help understanding to grasp what an appearance is (finding the causes for given effects) and not to help interpret what it should be if it was conformed to moral ends. However, it is exactly in this sense that Kant asserts that he wants to “write a history in accordance with an idea of how the course of the world would have to go if it were to conform to certain rational ends” (IUH 8:29). Kant is not thinking about an idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim from a theoretical-regulative point of view, because theoretical pure reason in the strict sense has no theoretical interest and no transcendental concept that refers to a totality as a descending causal series.

2.2. The Perversa Ratio Error The outline of this argument is as follows: if Kant’s proposed universal history were to have a theoretical-regulative character and hence a theoretical perspective and use, then Kant could be held responsible for misuse of the regulative principles of reason. This error would be a certain kind of perverted reason mistake (perversa ratio), i.e., in which “one imposes ends on nature forcibly and dictatorially, instead of seeking for them reasonably on the path of physical investigation, so that teleology, which ought to serve only to supplement the unity of nature in accordance with universal laws, not only works to do away with it, but even deprives reason of its end” (CPR A692/B720). In other words, if Kant’s universal history were fundamentally theoretical, as Kaulbach, Kleingeld, Rauscher and Wood maintain, then Yovel would be right in holding that the IUH “seems to commit a major dogmatic error”. The reason would be, however, not because the Critique of pure reason “admits only of mechanistic principles in nature” (Yovel 1980, 154-5) but because Kant applies the

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theory of the regulative use of ideas in an incorrect way. I am not defending the claim that would be impossible to think of some kind of history from a theoretical-regulative use of the wise nature’s idea. What I am stating is that this project would be very different from that made by Kant in the essay of 1784. Both the end of universal history and how that end is ensured are presented as regulative principles, but in truth they stiffen and hinder the well-functioning of understanding instead of helping it. This means that the procedure employed in the IUH could not be qualified as a valid theoretical-regulative use of the idea of a wise nature; therefore, Kant could be accused of committing an art of perverted reason mistake. In proposing the theory of the regulative use of ideas, Kant has especially in mind the problem of finding some a priori legitimacy for the teleological procedure employed in empirical sciences of nature like biology,4 because, in contrast with pure physics, in which objects are the a priori laws of nature in general, the empirical sciences of nature need to consider the determination of empirical laws, a problem which still remains open in the transcendental deductions of the categories (CPR B165). Now, when one defends the claim that the central aim of the IUH is essentially theoretical or even partially theoretical, one attempts to transpose a theory born for a biological context into that of history. In this case, it is thought to be possible to simultaneously equate Kant’s efforts to ground the biological method and the search to ground a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim. In this sense, Kant would be seeking to lead historiography (Historie) away from being a planless aggregate of narratives of human agency, in the quest for a systematic and scientific method, similar to that of the other empirical sciences. There are strong inherent problems with this approach, however. One needs to suppose that Kant has completely eliminated two aspects from consideration that separate universal history from empirical sciences of nature, namely the capacity to set up experiments in order to refute hypotheses and the fact that universal history has to deal with the free will of humans (arbitrium liberum). The first aspect. In the second preface to the CPR, Kant suggests that the revolution in the way of thinking which led to the scientific revolution could be explained by an analogy, namely that men like Bacon, Galileo, Torricelli and Stahl set up experiments “in order to be instructed by nature not like a pupil, who has recited to him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the

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questions he puts to them.” (CPR B xiii) According to Kant’s theory of faculties, the judge mentioned above, who thought up the experiments and tested his hypotheses, refers to the control that the understanding should exert over reason, when the issue is theoretical knowledge. If the faculty of understanding cannot control the propositions derived from the idea of a wise nature, then, from a theoretical point of view, one makes an illegitimate use of that idea. If Kant’s goal in the IUH was essentially theoretical-regulative, then his procedure should have conformed to the requirements for using that idea of reason in the field of history and Kant should, therefore, worry about discussing other potential concepts of universal history and presenting and debating possible criteria of empirical confirmation or refutation. However, at no point in the IUH or in later text in the philosophy of history does he do so. The second aspect. Kant explicitly assumes in the third proposition of IUH that human beings are beings with free will. When Kant says that man should “not be guided by instinct or cared for and instructed by innate knowledge; rather he should produce everything out of himself”, or that he “participate in no other happiness or perfection than that which he has procured for himself free from instinct through his own reason” (IUH 8:19-20), Kant is saying that humans do not follow instinctive rules as bees and beavers do, rules which can be discovered and used for prediction. Thus, if one result of the third antinomy is that all human actions are, in principle, covered by the law of natural causality, Kant also recognises that, in fact, it is impossible to obtain complete knowledge of the rules of human behaviour. For universal history this means that human beings must be considered as free agents, something that cannot be reduced or restricted to theoretical knowledge. 5 In this sense it is noteworthy that scholars commonly attempt to establish a link between the theory of the theoretical-regulative use of the ideas of pure reason and the conception of teleology in IUH. However, they completely fail to point out that in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic Kant does not mention, either directly or indirectly, the possibility of employing this theory of the regulative use of ideas in the theoretical study of human social phenomena. Only once is the human being used as an example, but merely in a biological aspect of its body (cf. CPR A667/B695). In the CPR the idea of a wise creator of the universe and its derivative idea of a wisely organised nature works, in Kant’s view, as a transcendental hypothesis to guide the search for causal rules that underlie appearances and to expose the interconnections of empirical knowledge in a unified

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system. The heuristic method serves to provide “the greatest unity alongside the greatest extension” (CPR A644/B672) for the concepts of understanding, i.e., the idea of a teleological nature, as a focus imaginarius, has the purpose of maximally extending the dimensions of the given experiences, but without exceeding the limits of possible experience. However, one can hardly argue that Kant’s method in the IUH conforms to this heuristic procedure because the universal history, in the form it is proposed, does not take into consideration other criteria required by the theory of the regulative use of ideas, namely that the validity of the systematic unity constantly needs to be tested by the touchstone of the knowledge produced according to the rules of understanding. In other words, the truth of historical theses should be constantly tested against the base of empirical knowledge. According to Kant: The hypothetical use of reason is therefore directed at the systematic unity of understanding’s cognition, which, however, is the touchstone of truth of its rules. Conversely, systematic unity (as mere idea) is only a projected unity, which one must regard not as given in itself, but only as a problem; this unity, however, helps to find a principle of a manifold and particular uses of the understanding, thereby guiding it even in those cases that are not given and making it coherently connected. (CPR A647/B675)

Kant stresses the concept that the idea of a wise nature enables us to interpret humanity’s chaotic appearances as a history of the continuous development of natural human dispositions and therefore that “this idea should still serve us as a guiding thread for exhibiting an otherwise planless aggregate of human actions, at least in the large, as a system.” (IUH 8:29) However this essay widely neglects the touchstone of understanding, inasmuch as the propositions that make up the basis for universal history can in no way be refuted by experience, which in this specific case means the empirical knowledge of historiography. Particularly in the second, third and fourth propositions, the understanding becomes subservient to reason. There is, for example, a metaphysical omnipotence in the proposition of unsociable sociability, which inevitably leads the entire human species to only one goal that is a priori valid, namely the improvement of natural human dispositions. Rauscher believes that is possible to interpret unsociable sociability within the scope of an empirical science, because empirical social sciences work in terms of probability and deal, in some measure, with counterfactual cases. 6 Furthermore, he also notes that economics and other social

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sciences are currently using a certain model of teleology, although they avoid speaking of ‘progress’ (see Rauscher 2001, 50). Although Rauscher’s analysis of the use of the concept of teleology in contemporary science may be correct, I do not believe that is possible to disassociate, within Kant’s philosophy of history, the notions of teleology and unsociable sociability from the concept of progress. My point is not that Kantian philosophy of history may deal with some counterfactual examples, but that no counterfactual examples are capable of invalidating Kantian universal history. These are in my view two completely different positions. A theoretical-regulative interpretation of Kant’s universal history must deal with the fact that some of the propositions laid out in IUH are absolutely irrefutable. Thus, any event, even the worst catastrophes, such as world wars, could be interpreted as helping to fulfil, in a positive way, the purpose of nature, i.e., could be seen as morally developing the human species. Therefore, if Kant’s intention was a theoretical regulative use of the idea of a wise nature, then in my point of view the impossibility of refuting the theory of history means that Kant is postulating an a priori rule, which instead of helping would, in fact, immobilise and subjugate the activity of understanding. In Kant’s words: even if the existence of a highest intelligence were proved, we would, to be sure, be able to make that which is purposive in the arrangement and order of the world comprehensible in general, but would by no means be authorized to derive from it any particular arrangement and order, or boldly to infer one where it is not perceived, for it is a necessary rule of the speculative use of reason not to bypass natural causes and abandon that about which we could be instructed by experience in order to derive something that we know from something that entirely surpasses all our knowledge. (CPR A799/B827)

One could try to answer this criticism by asserting that the idea of a wise nature cannot be refuted, but neither can it be theoretically confirmed. In this sense, it would appear that Kant holds himself within the limits of the regulative use of ideas. This alleged answer could find support in the following passage: “For although an anatomist can be convicted of error when he relates some organ of an animal’s body to an end which, as one can clearly show, does not follow from it, it is nevertheless quite impossible to prove in anyone case that a natural arrangement, whatever it might be, has no end at all.” (CPR A688/B716) However, my point here is neither the confirmation nor the refutation of the idea of wise nature itself, but the possibility of refutation or confirmation of the propositions that

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constitute Kant’s project of a universal history, i.e., the theory developed by Kant in the nine propositions that are the application of the idea of a wise nature to the progress of human species as a pretended empirical knowledge. It would be possible to think of other forms of historical development that are still in conformity to the idea of a wise nature, though not one whose main interest was the moral development of human beings.7 Therefore, in the theoretical use of ideas, there must be a reciprocal control between reason and understanding. On the one hand, understanding must presuppose that everything in nature has an end, otherwise it could not achieve more than “spelling out appearances according to a synthetic unity in order to be able to read them as experience” (CPR B 370-1) and without achieving the systematic unity needed to qualify a science. On the other hand, understanding should evaluate and determine what said ends are. Without the control of understanding, reason would simply project ends onto nature and understanding would be at the mercy of the dogmatic despotism of reason. In other words, the theoretical interpretation of the IUH ascribes to Kant the most basic error that he tries to eliminate with the CPR.

2.3. The Naturalisation of Morality Kant cannot assume from a theoretical perspective that among the rational dispositions of human being one finds a moral disposition, because this presupposes the naturalisation of morality. However, without this assumption his argumentation cannot reach, unequivocally and sufficiently, the conclusion that we can hope that we will establish a just civil state. Now, because this is exactly the result that Kant arrives at the propositions and because he cannot sustain from a theoretical perspective that we have a moral disposition, then the theoretical-regulative interpretation must conclude that Kant unjustifiably naturalises morality. Now I move to the development of my argument. Throughout the IUH Kant presupposes the existence of a moral disposition that determines the direction of the whole argumentation. This moral foundation is not comprehended as anthropological and empirical customs, but clearly as an assumption about an ethical foundation of the dispositions. In order to make this clear I mention some passages where this point is textually indicated: in the fourth proposition Kant writes that “the foundation of a mode of thought which can with time transform the

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rude natural predisposition to make moral distinctions into determinate practical principles and hence transform a pathologically compelled agreement to form a society finally into a moral whole” (IUH 8:21). It should be noted that this is not merely a mode of acting, but the foundation of a mode of thought (Denkungsart). In the sixth proposition Kant states that the highest supreme authority ought to be just in itself, and this means that it must have a “good will” (IUH 8:23). In the seventh proposition, Kant asserts that Rousseau was not so wrong when he preferred the condition of savages, as long as one leaves out the stage of moralisation. This moral aspect should not be taken as referring merely to external behaviour since he emphasises that “everything good that is not grafted onto a morally good disposition, is nothing but mere semblance and glittering misery” (IUH 8:26), that is, Kant is not speaking just about good actions in general, but about good dispositions. The assumption of the existence of a moral disposition is already made in the second proposition. There the application of the teleological principle to the human condition leads to more complex situations than with other living beings. Considering our rational capacity, the natural dispositions of the human being “were to develop completely only in the species, but not in the individual.” (IUH 8:18) It is well known that Kant distinguishes three ways of using reason, namely the instrumental, which refers to the handling of things, the pragmatic, which deals with social behaviour; and the moral use of reason. These three uses correspond to three natural human dispositions: the technical, the pragmatic and the moral. Although Kant does not list said dispositions in the second proposition, he clearly mentions them in the seventh, namely, when he accepts Rousseau’s preference for the condition of savages, as long as humanity fails to complete the third step of development, moralisation (see IUH 8:26). Now arises the question: does the teleological point of view in the first proposition establish that nature’s intention is that human beings will develop by themselves the technical, pragmatic and moral dispositions? This does not seem to be the case. The teleological assumption cannot, in and for itself, identify said dispositions. The technical and pragmatic dispositions can be easily noticed by experience, but the existence of a moral disposition is something that can neither be identified through observation nor by a theoretical proof according to Kant’s philosophy.8 It is important to keep in mind that Kant published the IUH just sixth months before he publishes the Groundwork, a work that is concerned with “the search for and the establishment of the supreme principle of morality” (G

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4:392). Morality can neither be proved by observation nor established via some theoretical proof.9 From this does not follow that moral disposition is not to be seen as natural. In fact, if human beings can act morally, then this occurs because they are naturally capable of such. However, in an epistemological sense and for the use in cognition, the assumption of the reality of a moral disposition requires first a theoretical proof of the existence of human capacity for morality, which for Kant cannot be done. In the second proposition Kant assumes the existence of a moral disposition which cannot be established through purely theoretical arguments. This practical assumption implicitly determines the whole course of the argumentation. Without it, i.e., relying merely on a theoretical conception of teleology, Kant could not have assumed that the final goal of nature is the establishment of an internally and externally just civil society. The kernel of my argument is as follows: only on the assumed existence of a moral disposition which ascribes absolute worth to the human being, i.e., a value which is not just a means to another end but is an end in itself, Kant can sustain the fifth proposition, namely that nature intends that the human species itself will create “a society in which freedom under external laws can be encountered combined in the greatest possible degree with irresistible power, i.e., a perfectly just civil constitution, must be the supreme problem of nature for the human species” (IUH 8:22). Once the assumption of a moral disposition exists, human beings can be considered to have the same moral value. Without this assumption Kant could not claim that the best society for developing human natural dispositions is that in which everyone has the right to equal proportions of civil freedom, i.e., a society with a just constitution (in Kantian terms of the same amounts of freedom and, therefore, justice). The principle of unsociable sociability can explain the formation of tyrants and aristocratic states, but it cannot explain, at least unequivocally, the notion of a just state where there is individual freedom for everyone. Without that moral assumption, it would be possible to assert that the most appropriate civil constitution for the human species, which would most efficiently nurture physical and mental qualities, is a slave society or even some other fantastical model, such as those often found in science fiction. There are no theoretical guarantees that a “perfectly just civil constitution” is a better way in nature’s point of view to promote the development of natural human dispositions than other social models in which justice does not need to be considered. In other words, there is no definitive theoretical impediment to the position that inequality of rights and goods among individuals is the

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best way for nature to improve the performance and the development of human species. In order to guarantee an internally well-organised civil society, it is also necessary, according to Kant, that nations transcend the lawless condition of savages and enter into a federation “where every state, even the smallest, could expect its security and rights not from its own might, or its own juridical judgment, but only from this great federation of nations” (IUH 8:24). In this sense, it seems that a universal cosmopolitan condition, in the form of a federation of nations, implies the assumption of a moral ground, because only under these requirements would the “governors of our world” apply the money in public educational institutions without “hindering their own nation’s own weak and slow endeavours in this regard” (IUH 8:28). Only such a cosmopolitan federation of nations might do justice to the ideal of the Enlightenment. Here as well, Kant presupposes a moral argument, because a pragmatic or technical consideration could not posit that every state, even the smallest, might demand its security and rights from this great federation of nations. Why does Kant reject the possibility of a world state or a world empire? Why does he defend a universal cosmopolitan condition of nations? By observing history, it is clear that several of the greatest scientific, technological, political and architectural achievements were based on slavery or on colonial domination, therefore based on the submission of different people, or even during the periods of war. Why should the future progress of humankind be different? Now, were the development of the natural human dispositions restricted to the technical and pragmatic dispositions, there would not be any theoretical constraint (in a technical and pragmatic sense) against a worldly state of colonialism and domination. It is important to realise that in this worldly colonial state the dominant nation could be structured internally as a republic while in regard to the colonies, the state might be an empire. Legitimate citizens would, thus, enjoy freedom and political rights, whereas the people of the dominated state would be treated like second-class citizens or simply as slaves. Thus, it is possible to say that the future progress of humanity would and should be different only if one assumes that there is a pure practical reason which prescribes that each human being and each state must be considered as an end in itself, otherwise “the natural predispositions would have to be regarded for the most part as in vain and purposeless; which would remove all practical principles and thereby bring nature (...) under the suspicion that in the case of the human being alone it is a childish play.” (IUH 8:19)

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3. Conclusion If the arguments exposed under the titles of ens rationis, perversa ratio, and the naturalisation of morality are correct, then interpreting the whole or even a large part of IUH as having an essentially theoretical character means to attribute Kant the systematical mistakes that he himself has condemned. Proponents of theoretical reading always make reference to the fact that in the IUH’s Preface Kant seems to encourage a theoretical reading of his project. However, in my view those passages do not assume any positive role in determining the character of the project of universal history. The mention of the patterns that can be found in marriages and births does not serve to establish any proof of a certain course of history. What Kant really does is to take these examples just as an indication that nature is not playing a childish game in man’s case. Therefore, the tone in which Kant refers to progress in the Preface changes considerably in the text. In the eighth proposition, for example, Kant argues that experience reveals just ‘a little’ about the process of human history, therefore, “even the faint traces of its approach will be very important for us.” (IUH 8:28) Now, a faint sign or trace would be sufficient for a practical-regulative use of an idea, but cannot be sufficient for the theoretical-regulative use which aspires theoretical validity. In this sense, I think that the only function of IUH’s Preface is to encourage the reader to accept the possibility of thinking in terms of historical regularity and not sustain that from some patterns is possible to think and establish a determined historical curse. The claims set out in the Preface can be seen as a reflection on Kant’s aim to instigate and to attract the reader’s attention. It is well known, after all, that this essay was not directed merely at an academic audience. Even its role as popularisation is linked to its practical intention, i.e., to convince the readers and specially the kings of the reality of progress and to encourage their contributions to the same. Kant explicitly points out this practical aspect of the universal history as an influx from philosophy into the political praxis in the last lines of IUH.10 Thus the starting point of the project of a universal history is only the first proposition and it has a moral aim.11 The theoretical-regulative interpretation does not seem to agree with what Kant says in the essay CBHH either. In CBHH Kant is not proposing a philosophy of history different from that of the IUH, after all, both texts are combined in a theory that confronts the philosophy of history proposed

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by Herder and are temporally close to each other. In order to think the beginning of human history this essay engages the same historical propositions presented in IUH. Thus, in this text written two years after the IUH, Kant asserts that the conjectures regarding the beginning of human history “must always announce themselves as at most only a movement of the power of imagination, accompanying reason and indulged in for the recreation and health of the mind, but not for a serious business.” Moreover, he adds that these speculations “cannot compare themselves with that kind of history which is proposed and believed as an actual record about the same occurrence [and] whose test rests on grounds entirely different [as/als] mere philosophy of nature.” (CBHH 8:109, translation modified) Now it seems to be clear that the ground of universal history (as Weltgeschichte) is entirely different from the ground of historiography (as Historie) and one cannot be the foundation or the guiding thread of the other. If one belongs to the philosophy of nature, which is theoretical, the other must belongs to the philosophy of freedom, which is practical. Now, if the project of a universal history is not justified from a theoretical-regulative perspective, then the IUH would be Kant’s greatest dogmatic mistake (cf. Yovel 1980, 154-5), not, however, because Kant fails to provide a foundation to teleology in the CPR, as Yovel states, but because Kant does not legitimise practical teleology. In order to avoid this new version of Yovel’s criticism, it is necessary to search in the CPR for the concept of a practical teleology which could be the foundation for a universal history. However, the relation between universal history and its foundation on practical teleology will be a theme of another paper. I conclude with a brief remark: one could ask whether a similar criticism as an ens rationis might not be used in relation to the legitimacy of the practical interest and practical use of the idea of a universal history. This is not the case, because practical reason takes exactly the opposite direction from theoretical reason. While theoretical reason looks for the ascending series, practical reason focuses on the descending one. Instead of being useful in the search of causes, the practical idea itself is a moral archetype that works as a cause, i.e., “the ideas first make the experience (of the good) itself possible” (CPR A318/B375). “For whatever might be the highest degree of perfection at which humanity must stop, and however great a gulf must remain between the idea and its execution, no one can or should try to determine this, just because it is freedom that can go beyond every proposed boundary.” (CPR A317/B374) In other words, even

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though the obstacles in human nature may prevent us from realising the complete development of moral disposition, the moral idea of a republic must still be “the ground not merely of the primary plan of a state’s constitution but of all the laws too” (CPR A316/B373). In the same way, “[a] philosophical attempt to work out universal world history according to a plan of nature that aims at the perfect civil union of the human species, must be regarded as possible and even as furthering this aim of nature.” (IUH 8:29) In the CPrR, Kant points out even more clearly this difference between theoretical and practical reason, namely, while theoretical reason has to do with objects for the sake of cognising them, the practical reason, on the contrary, has to do “with its own ability to make them real (conformably with cognition of them), that is, with a will that is a causality inasmuch as reason contains its determining ground” (CPrR 5:89). This means that practical reason has precisely the opposite procedure and therefore takes an opposite path towards the determination of series from that which could be said of pure reason in its speculative use (see Kant, CPrR 5:16). Therefore, if, on the one hand, the future totality was nothing from the theoretical perspective of the ideas of reason, i.e., “a concept without an object, like the noumena, which cannot be counted among the possibilities although they must not on that ground be asserted to be impossible” (CPR A290/B347), then, on the other hand, from a practical perspective, reason can fill out content of that concept, making it valid and useful. Because the ens rationis is not a nihil privativum, i.e., a concept that is “opposed to possibility because even its concept cancels itself out” (CPR A292/B348), practical reason has the capacity to make that concept real, yet for the theoretical perspective it remains always nothing: an empty concept without object.

Notes 1

I am grateful for the suggestions and critics made in earlier versions of this paper by Alessandro Pinzani, Maria de Lourdes Alves Borges, Christian Hamm, Werner Euler, Cinara Nahra, Frederick Rauscher, Robert Louden and Rolf-Peter Horstmann. This work has received financial support from a grant of CAPES/DAAD (2010 and 2014) and from CNPq (477298/2013-3, 14/2013). 2 The citations include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the standard “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works: Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preussischen (now Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1902). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only. I follow

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the standard English translations of Kant’s works. Here is a list of the abbreviations and English translations: G

“Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals.”, trans. M. Gregor, in M. Gregor, Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 37-108. IUH “Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim”, trans. A. Wood, in G. Zöller, R. Louden, Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007, pp. 107-120. CPJ Critique of the power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002. CPR Critique of pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998. CPrR “Critique of practical reason”, trans. M. Gregor, in M. Gregor, Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 133-172. CBHH “Conjectural beginning of human history”, trans. A. Wood, in G. Zöller and R. Louden, Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2007. Pp. 160-175. OCS “On the common saying: that may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice”, transl. M. Gregor, In M. Gregor, Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 273-310. CF “The conflict of the faculties.” Trans. M. Gregor and R. Anchor, in. A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001, pp. 233-327. 3

This becomes even more explicit in CPJ 7:79. Actually the Biology is not yet constituted as an established science at the time of Kant and therefore he never used the term Biology. Anyway, it is clear that one of his main interest with the regulative use of ideas is to enable a systematical knowledge of living beings. 5 See, CF 7:83 and OCS 8:309-311. 6 See Rauscher 2001, 46-7. This position is also sustained by Kleingeld 2001, p. 208. 7 Kant himself considered this possibility in the Critique of the power of Judgment when he discusses the Linné’s suggestion. See: CPJ 5:427. 8 See for example the Anthropology’s lesson of Pillau (1777/1778): Kant, 25(2):838. 9 Considering that Kant establishes an analytical relationship between morality and freedom at the beginning of the third section of Groundwork, it is worth considering the following passage: G 4:459. 10 Kant, IUH 8:31. See also Menschenkunde (1781/1782): Kant, 25(2):1202-3. Regarding the propagandistic and practical intention of the universal history, the following reflections written between 1775-1776 are also illustrative: Refl 1436, 15:628; Refl 1438, 15:628; Refl 1440, 15:629; Refl 1441, 15:629. 4

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11

Guyer also doubts that the statements made in the preface of the IUH can have an argumentative function that is crucial for the design of the universal history. See Guyer 2000, pp. 372-3.

Bibliography Guyer, P., Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness, Cambridge: University Press, 2000. Kant, I., Gesammelte Schriften. Hrsg.: Bd. 1-22 Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ab Bd. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Berlin 1900 u. ff. Kaulbach, F., “Welchen Nutzen gibt Kant der Geschichtsphilosophie?”, Kant-Studien, 66 (1975): 65-84. Klein, J. T., “Sobre o significado e a legitimidade transcendental dos conceitos de precisão, interesse, esperança e crença na filosofia kantiana,” Veritas, 59 (2014): 143-173. —. “Die Weltgeschichte im Kontext der Kritik der Urteilskraft”, Kant-Studien, 104 (2013): 188-212. Kleingeld, P., Fortschritt und Vernunft: Zur Geschichtsphilosophie Kants, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1995. —. “Kant on the unity of theoretical and practical reason”, The Rewiew of Metaphysics, 52, (1998): 311-339. —. “Nature or providence? On the theoretical and practical importance of Kant’s philosophy of history”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 75 (2001): 201-219. Rauscher, F., “The nature of ‘wholly empirical’ history”, in R. P. Horstman, V. Gerhanrd, R. Schumacher (eds.), Kant und die Berliner Aufklärung. Akten des IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongress, v. 4, Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2001, pp. 44-51. Yovel, Y., Kant and the philosophy of history, Princeton: University Press, 1980. Wood, A. W., Kant, Malden: Blackwell, 2005.

KANT’S “HISTORICAL SIGN” AS SACRAMENT: ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN REVOLUTION AND CHURCH FRANCESCO VALERIO TOMMASI SAPIENZA UNIVERSITÀ DI ROMA, ITALY

1. Enthusiasm for the Revolution as a “Historical Sign” It is in the second part of Der Streit der Fakultäten that Kant uses the expression “historical sign” (Geschichtszeichen) for the first time.1 He employs this latter idea with specific reference to the French Revolution, doing so within the wider context of a discussion of the question of “whether the human race is progressing perpetually toward the better” (SF 7:79ff.).2 Kant took up this question of progress on several occasions, both in published works and in lectures.3 Prior to his discussion of it in The Conflict of the Faculties, his most important treatments of the topic were to be found in the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlichen Absicht (1784) and in the third part of the essay Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793). In the former of these two works Kant takes as his starting point the inscrutability of human freedom; he displays, however, a belief in the possibility of discovering a certain regularity in human actions if these actions are considered in a very broad perspective, such as that adopted by the science of statistics to arrive at its insights into natality and mortality rates. In the context of this work of Kant’s, the question seems to be posed at the level of a certain distinction between the “particular end” pursued by each individual and the universal “end pursued by Nature itself”. It seems, in fact, to be in this transition from the individual to the “general” (in the sense of the species as a whole) that it is possible to discover a regularity of the “natural” type. It is in this way that Kant places himself in a position to resolve the controversy that had blown up between Thomas Abbt and Moses Mendelssohn à propos of Johann Joachim Spalding’s essay Die Bestimmung des Menschen (said controversy forming the real basis and

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background for Kant’s essay of 1784, even if it is not explicitly cited in it). In the latter work of 1793, however, which is devoted to the theme of the relation between theory and practice, Kant’s engagement with the work of Mendelssohn—specifically with the latter’s philosophy of history as developed in his 1783 publication Jerusalem, a work composed in polemical opposition to the historical optimism of Lessing—is direct and explicit. In this latter work too, however, Kant’s critique of Mendelssohn’s position consists once again in a critique of the idea that progress can be something that bears on the individual alone as opposed to the whole human species. In other words, the question continues to turn, still in this work of 1793, on a distinction drawn between the individual plane and the collective one and thereby, on Norbert Hinske’s reading of the text, on a transition from anthropology to the philosophy of history.4 As Kant will emphasise once again in the Opus postumum, it is not individual human beings who progress but rather the species (die Gattung) (See OP 21:621).5 This attention paid to the “collective” aspect of the question appears to form the basis of the perspective adopted still in 1798, in the Streit. The question of human progress is framed, in this latter text, within the question of the “conflict” between the university faculty of Law and that of Philosophy; it is the former of these two, according to Kant, that concerns itself specifically with the civic plane, that is to say, with the human being qua member of society. But this late work also stresses with renewed energy, from its very first lines on, a second decisive axis of analysis: namely, the distinction between “nature” and “morality”. Kant declares in fact, first of all, that “if it is asked whether the human race at large is progressing perpetually toward the better, the important thing is not the natural history of human beings (whether new races may arise in the future) but rather his moral history.” Admittedly, the “history” at issue here is one which is defined as “natural after all”, inasmuch as it is not a matter of a “divinatory” historical narrative but rather of one founded on scientific explanations. The text takes care to emphasise, then, that the question that it deals with cannot be resolved by recourse to what Kant calls the “generic concept” (Gattungsbegriff) as applied to separate individuals (singulorum) but must rather take as its aim and object the “totality of human beings united socially on earth [...] (universorum)” (SF 7:79).6 It then goes on even to define “divinatory history”, qua possible representation of future human events, as a “history a priori”,7 the condition of possibility of which cannot exist except where the

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“prognosticator” of said events is one and the same with the agent who brings these events to realisation (See SF 7:79ff.).8 As regards the question of whether or not the human race is “progressing perpetually toward the better”, Kant distinguishes, in the Streit, between three possible positions: namely, “moral terrorism” (constant decline), “eudaemonism” (progress) and “abderitism” (immobility). But this question of progress is not to be resolved directly through experience: the free will enjoyed by human individuals and the mixture of goodness with evil that is present in their dispositions make it impossible to foresee their future actions. Only a “change in viewpoint”, which Kant describes in this text of 1798 in terms analogous to the famous “Copernican turn” of his Critiques and which would allow us to take up the standpoint of Providence—that is to say, to foresee and predict actions even when these are actions of the free human will—might possibly permit us to determine just what will be the future of the human race. But this “prophetic history of the human race”, Kant goes on in the following paragraph, must, even if it cannot be an issue resolved “immediately” (unmittelbar) by means of experience, “be connected, after all, to some experience” (See SF 7:84ff.)9 —which experience must in turn point to the constitution of the human race per se and to its constitutive capacity to be itself the cause of its own possible progress toward the better. That is to say that, whereas in the essay of 1784 Kant had still been seeking only “faint traces” apt to testify in favour of the idea of human progress, we find him conducting, in this text of 1798, a search for some actual proof of such progress, and doing so in a spirit more convinced of said search’s success (See IaG 8:27). Therefore, an occurrence must be sought which points to the existence of such a cause and to its effectiveness in the human race, undetermined with regard to time, and which would allow progress toward the better to be concluded as an inevitable consequence. This conclusion then could also be extended to the history of the past (that it has always been in progress) in such a way that that occurrence would have to be considered not itself as the cause (Ursache) of history but only as an intimation (hindeutend), a historical sign (signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognostikon), demonstrating the tendency of the human race viewed in its entirety. (SF, 7:84)10

In introducing here the idea of a “historical sign”, Kant is probably still responding to Mendelssohn’s argument to the effect that “the facts” themselves testify against the idea of historical progress.11 For all that, though, Kant is concerned from the very outset to emphasise that such a sign is not a “cause” but rather only an “intimation” of progress. What is

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to be retained and focused on here is not so much “momentous deeds or crimes committed by human beings” as Simply the mode of thinking of the spectators [...] which reveals itself publicly in this game of great revolutions and manifests such a universal yet disinterested sympathy [...] even at the risk that this partiality could become very disadvantageous [...] Owing to its universality, this mode of thinking demonstrates a character of the human race at large and all at once, and owing to its disinterestedness, a moral character of humanity, at least in its predisposition, which not only permits people to hope for progress toward the better but is already itself progress insofar as its capacity is sufficient for the present. (SF 7:84-5)12

Human beings show a sympathetic partiality for causes that are just; said sympathy is universal and disinterested—and develops along the two “axes” that we have distinguished above, namely the collective axis and the moral axis. There is evoked here, therefore, a “wishful participation that borders closely on enthusiasm, the very expression of which is fraught with danger” that “the revolution of a gifted people which we have seen unfolding in our day” has proven capable of generating, even despite the historical fact of this enthusiasm’s having resulted, ultimately, in developments that were far from felicitous and involved, indeed, atrocities of the worst kind (SF 7:85).13 Genuine enthusiasm always moves only toward what is ideal and indeed to what is purely moral, such as the concept of right, and it cannot be grafted onto self-interest. Monetary rewards will not elevate the adversaries of the Revolution to the zeal and grandeur of soul which the pure concept of right produced in the revolutionaries. (SF, 7:86)14

It is for this reason that Kant can say that “such a phenomenon in human history will not be forgotten” (SF 7:88).15 The allusion here to the theme of memory is significant: Kant does indeed define the “historical sign”— i.e. the revolutionary event qua track or intimation of progress—as “signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognostikon”; that is to say, he defines it in explicitly temporal terms.16

2. Kant and the Idea of the Sacrament As if to confirm the existence of a nexus of connections in Kant’s thought between the philosophy of history on the one hand and anthropology on the other, we find also in the text Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (specifically in paragraphs 38 and 39 thereof) a detailed description of a

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typology of signs very similar to that outlined in der Streit, above all in the key respect that it is a typology conceived in explicitly temporal terms. Kant’s discussion of the topic in the Anthropologie is situated in the chapter dealing with the imagination—a fact that is not without significance, given the close connection existing between this latter faculty and the category of time qua “a priori form of all inner sense”. Quite generally, it is precisely in temporal terms that Kant defines “the faculty of using signs (bezeichnen, facultas signatrix)”, namely as the “faculty of cognizing the present as the means for connecting the representation of the foreseen with that of the past” (A 7:191ss.).17 Kant’s discussion of the topic of designation in the Anthropologie, then, divides signs into the three groups: arbitrary, natural and miraculous. Whereas Kant accords only a cursory discussion to the third of these groups and concerns himself, with respect to the first, principally with the role of language and with its constitutive role in human thought, it is specifically in connection with the second group that Kant introduces that tripartite analysis in terms of “demonstration, rememoration and prognosis” which is also typical of the “sign of history” as discussed in der Streit. In the Anthropologie Kant cites as “signs of remembrance” those signs which are brought to light by archaeology, while his examples of “demonstrative” signs are drawn from medicine, or from instances of the self-expression of the body considered as manifestations of the state of the soul. The “prognostic” or “prophetic” signs, however, are defined by Kant as “the most interesting,” much in the way in which, a few pages earlier, he had defined the “faculty of foreseeing” as the most useful faculty (A 7:185).18 We must take note, moreover, of how here in the Anthropologie this tripartite division is introduced immediately after Kant’s discussion of the question of sacred signs and, in particular, after his critique of these signs as harbouring the potential to be transformed into “idols” (Kant taking up here the critique of Schwärmerei, or pseudo-mystical enthusiasm in religious matters, and reaffirming the need for Aufklärung, or rational enlightenment, in the religious sphere) (A 7:191ss.).19 It is probable that this positioning of the division of signs within the argument of the Anthropologie is not a matter of mere chance. It has already been noted elsewhere how that definition in terms of signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, and prognostikon which Kant applies to the “historical sign” exactly corresponds to the definition that Thomas Aquinas uses, in his Summa theologiae, for the Christian sacraments.20 Although Kant did not directly read Thomas Aquinas, Christian Wolff’s definition of signs in general is expressed in very similar temporal terms: “a sign is a being,

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from which one can derive the presence, the forthcoming or the past existence of another being” (“signum dicitur ens, ex quo alterius praesentia, vel adventus, vel praeteritio colligitur”).21 Other similar definitions can be found in many authors of seventeenth and eighteenth century German philosophy and theology. They all represent the heritage in the long duration of the old medieval definition of the sacrament, and some sort of continuity can be traced.22 The lexical field of reference, then, for Kant’s question as to the “historical sign” is above all else a formerly religious one. Where we take this important detail as our point of departure, we can perhaps profitably attempt to read Kant’s philosophical treatment of the “historical sign” in connection with his philosophical reflections on the topic of religion and in particular with those passages—proportionately few, admittedly, within the entirety of Kant’s work—in which he appears to make explicitly thematic the question of the Christian sacraments. The link between these two themes is certainly more than merely extrinsic. One might hazard the thesis, speaking first rather vaguely and generally, that for Kant the revolutionary event—or rather, as we have already specified, the enthusiasm awoken by the revolutionary event—constitutes a sort of “sacrament of history” or, in other words, a physical sign that evokes or recalls a reality that lies beyond that sphere of experience which is accessible to the senses. The fact that the public present at any sort of civic contestation will tend universally to take the side of that one of the two contesting parties who is in the right, even when this clashes with its own interests—this, Kant believes, is a proof of the original disposition of the human being, qua human being, toward what is morally right; and this disposition represents, in its turn, the cause of the “progress toward the better” of the human race in its entirety. Thus, just as the sacraments of the religious tradition are signs supposed to mediate supernatural reality, the “historical sign” makes visible also for its part something otherwise invisible, namely, the essential moral nature of the human being. But let us now look into this matter in a little more detail: Kant in fact barely makes mention of the sacraments in his work. He alludes to them in passing, in his Physical Geography, referring to the bread and wine supposedly administered as part of religious ritual by the Dalai Lama (See PG 9:404). And there is another brief reference to them in the first part of the Streit itself, where it is remarked that it is characteristic of the church faith of the so-called “orthodox” to hold such sacraments to be absolutely necessary (See SF 7:54). However, in the fourth of the General

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Annotations to the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason essay we find a more ample treatment of the “means of grace” in which the object that Kant refers to clearly is this traditional topic of theology. These Annotations to the Religion essay represent, in fact, parerga added to each of the four parts of the text and are devoted to the role played by the doctrines of historical religion. Kant writes: The oft-repeated solemn ritual of renewal, continuation and propagation of this church-community under the laws of equality (communion), which, after the example of the founder of such a church (and at the same time in memory of him) may well assume the form of a ritual communal partaking at the same table, has in it something great which expands people’s narrow, selfish and intolerant cast of mind, especially in religious matters, to the idea of a cosmopolitan moral community (weltbürgerliche moralische Gemeinschaft), and it is a good means of enlivening a community to the moral disposition of brotherly love which it represents. (RGV 6:199-200)23

Plainly referring to the Christian liturgy, Kant speaks of a ceremony useful to the “renewal, continuation and propagation” of the community: there is reiterated here, then, precisely that tripartite division along specifically temporal lines that we have seen also to be characteristic of the “sign of history”. Moreover, far from being considered a mere empty “wrapping” for some truth of reason, or a useless spectacle, the religious ceremony— as is plainly stated in the text—“has in it something great” and it is for this reason that it is looked upon by Kant as a “good means” for promoting and facilitating the establishment of the “cosmopolitan moral community”. As commentators often stress, there is no doubt that Kant’s idea of religion depends strongly on the Enlightenment: worship and rituals are considered by him to have no meaning or value in themselves. They are regarded by Kant as even morally negative if their existence is not justified with reference to the improvement of the morality.24 But, even if the most relevant, this is only one side of the Kantian description of religion. As the quoted passage shows, liturgy and sacraments are not completely rejected by Kant, but they are considered to have a useful, or even a necessary role. These topics are indeed connected with that of “theological chiliasm”, that is to say, with that of the destiny of the human race qua “ethical community”. This question is discussed in detail by Kant in the third part of the Religion essay where the individual dimension of the problem is abandoned and there is developed what amounts precisely to a “philosophical ecclesiology”: this transition from the individual into the collective sphere is described as decisive for the “victory of the good principle”. It is not, in fact, enough that each individual adheres for his or

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her own part, to the moral law; it is indispensable that there be fulfilled, as well, a duty that Kant defines as “of a special nature” because it consists in a duty of the human race toward itself: namely, that of establishing an ethical community. But as a necessary means to the realisation of such a community Kant evokes the visible Church. An ethical community is founded, in fact, not on the external conformity of actions to the law but rather on moral intentions; it can have at its head, then, only a “one who knows the heart”, that is to say, God. The community which visibly anticipates this ethical community, then, and visibly mediates its realisation, must be a community that is of a religious and not of a political nature. The concept evoked here is in fact that of “an ethical community and of a people of God under moral laws” (See RGV 6:98).25 but “the idea of a people of God cannot be realised (by human organisation) except in the form of a Church”. The Church is thus several times defined by Kant as a “vehicle” for the ethical community (See RGV 6:107, 118, 123).26 The liturgy, in other words, and thereby the sacraments, are not only, for Kant, a mere residue of the historical faith but prove in fact to be useful and even necessary for the establishment of the ethical community. Religious “representation” is certainly, at the cognitive level, only an imperfect analogy of a reality which is not, as such, susceptible of conceptualisation; and the faith of the Church must be submitted and tested by the “sieve” of pure moral faith. That is to say, the rites have no efficacy in themselves but only inasmuch as they serve a true moral end. Precisely with a view to such an end, however, they are practically useful: they constitute a vehicle, an efficacious means—indeed the only possible means—of achieving the goal of bringing into real existence the ethical community of mankind.27

3. Signs in Theory and Signs in Practice Between, then, the French Revolution (or rather the enthusiasm generated by this latter event) as a “sign of history” and the Visible Church as a “vehicle”, with its ceremony of a sacramental nature, there appears to exist, in Kant’s understanding of them, an analogy indeed, but also a decisive difference. This inasmuch as, whereas there seems to be attributable to the former an essentially cognitive character, the latter possesses a validity which is rather of a practical nature. The enthusiasm for the Revolution is an intimation which makes it possible to perceive that human nature that is not itself directly perceptible and thereby to foresee the general course of the events that are produced by said human nature.

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The Church, on the other hand, comes concretely and efficaciously to the aid of just this human nature in the establishment of the human ethical community as the final goal of history. That there existed, for Kant, a certain affinity between the Church and the Revolution is indirectly confirmed by that testimony which has come down to us that Kant saluted the events in France as a kind of revelation, using, in order to describe them, the evangelical language of the Nunc Dimittis from the Gospel of Luke.28 In the Religion essay, conversion is explicitly defined as a “revolution in the disposition of a human being” (Revolution in der Gesinnung) (See RGV 6:47),29 and many other passages testify to similar lexical analogies.30 The parallel, however, cannot be read as a simple “secularisation”, or a remainderless transposition into political terms, of a religious idea; on the contrary, Kant warns his readers that the achievement of the good principle cannot be expected to arise “from an external revolution, which produces its effect, very much dependent on fortuitous circumstances, in turbulence and violence” (RGV 6:121).31 It is no mere accident, then, that Kant insists on enthusiasm for the political event—that is to say, on a set of internal moral effects—rather than on the political event itself; nor is it an accident that he concentrates quite especially on the spectators—that is to say, on the intensely theoretical viewpoint of the subject who is not practically involved.32 In the 1793 essay on the Gemeinspruch, human history is compared to a theatrical spectacle which would be “unworthy” if the human race continued progressively to accumulate vices and would “turn into a farce” if it displayed no progress, repeating itself eternally after the same manner: “and even if the actors do not tire of it, because they are fools, the spectator does”—the spectator who is God, that is to say, but also the spectators who consist in other human beings.33 The Revolution is not a practically useful method for speeding up historical progress; the Church, however, is precisely that. Attention must also be paid to the fact that, in Der Streit, the question about progress is inserted within the context of a discussion about the conflict between the faculty of law as the “higher” faculty with the philosophical faculty as the “lower” one: that is to say, the question here at issue is the demonstration of the truth and legitimacy of the laws (See SF 7:25). This discussion has to be conducted in the philosophical faculty inasmuch as this latter is oriented not toward utility but rather toward truth (See SF 7:27-8). Kant also declares that the “idea of a constitution in

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harmony with the natural right of human beings” represents a Platonic Idea of a respublica noumenon, while a “civil society organised conformably to this ideal is the representation of it in agreement with the laws of freedom by means of an example in our experience (respublica phaenomenon)” (SF 7:91).34 For this reason, progress consists not so much in: A phenomenon [...] of revolution but [...] in the phenomenon of the evolution of a constitution in accordance with natural right which [...] leads to striving after a constitution that cannot be bellicose, that is to say, a republican constitution. (SF 7:87)35

The question is how far external, political constitutions are able progressively to adapt themselves to moral laws; that is to say, it is a question of the degree of accord and agreement, to adopt the terminology used in Zum ewigen Frieden, between politics as “the applied doctrine of law” and morality as “the theoretical doctrine of law”: obviously, there must not exist “any conflict” between these two; there does, however, persist a certain “gap” which is only to be filled up slowly and step by step.36 It is no mere chance that arguing in favour of a republican constitution, Kant says in this work that it could be applied also to a nation of devils, inasmuch they have an intellect, because it regards obedience to external law, and not morality, as paramount (See ZeF 8: 363). And it is not just casually that Kant affirms that philosophy must investigate whether the laws are not perhaps in need of improvement and suggests an affinity between this task of philosophy and that which it performs, vis-àvis theology, as the “handmaiden” of this latter (See ZeF 8:369). We encounter the same dynamic as regards the relation between historical faith and moral faith. But while the Church and religion are also an indispensable means to the end of morality, politics and the Revolution can only be an effect of the latter. Also in the Gemeinspruch essay—that is to say, in a text devoted precisely to the relation between theory and practice—Kant clearly and explicitly reiterates his conviction that it is impossible for human action to “accelerate” historical progress. This is a conviction which implies in turn that, in contrast to the actually performative function of religion and religious faith, events of a political nature can possess, in the end, only a cognitive character: If we now ask by what means this unending progress toward the better can be maintained and even accelerated, it is soon seen that this immeasurably

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In the course of events that leads to the final establishment of the ethical community “human beings” indeed “are not permitted [...] to remain idle in the undertaking” but the foundation of this community is “cannot be hoped for from human beings but only from God Himself” (RGV 6:100).38 For only from Nature, or rather from Providence (since supreme wisdom is required for the fulfilment of this end) can we expect an outcome that is directed to the whole and from it to the parts, whereas people in their schemes set out only from the parts and may well remain with them and may be able to reach the whole, as something too great for them, in their ideas but not in their influence, especially since, with their mutually adverse schemes, they would hardly unite for it by their own free resolution. (TP 8:310)39

The necessity that Providence play a role here emerges once again in Zum ewigen Frieden, where this latter idea is described as one that cannot be “cognised” but only “added in thought”, as something occurring within the works of Nature, “in order to make for ourselves a concept of their possibility by analogy with actions of human art”. The idea in question is one which is “indeed transcendent for theoretical purposes” but “for practical purposes [...] is [...] well founded as to its reality” (ZeF 8:362).40 Human beings cannot “force” the course of history in its progress toward the better; indeed, to actively pursue the aim of bringing about “the end of all things” represents a true form of “folly”. It is this insight that prompts Kant to write polemically, reaffirming the necessary role of Providence, also against any attempt by Christian authorities to actually impose Christianity. He defines such a “perversion” as the reign of the Antichrist (See EAD 8: 337).41 Such a forced imposition, indeed, would constitute a new and equally terrible reduction of religion to politics.

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Notes 1

Kant I., The Conflict of the Faculties, in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Religion and Rational Theology, Cambridge 2001, p. 301ff. All direct quotations from Kant are taken from the text of this English edition of his works (Cambridge Edition—from now on: CE); the Cambridge Edition has, however, in some cases been slightly revised. We always cite references (in parentheses in the text) to the corresponding passages in the so called AkademieAusgabe. I would like to express my thanks to Prof. Robert Louden for his precious suggestions and remarks and to Dr. Alex Reynolds for his help in producing the English version of the present text. 2 For the context of the Conflict of the Faculties’ composition see Brandt R., Zum “Streit der Fakultäten”. Regarding Kant’s political attitudes, particularly in respect of the French Revolution, there exists a large secondary literature rich in divergent evaluations and by no means uncoloured by the respective political ideologies of its authors: see, for example, Vorländer K., Kants Stellung zur französischen Revolution; Burg P., Kant und die französische Revolution; Henrich D., Kant über die Revolution; Tosel A., Kant révolutionnaire; Bobbio N., Kant e la rivoluzione francese; Holzey H., Ethischer Sozialismus. Zur politischen Philosophie des Neukantianismus; Meyer T., Kant und die Links-Kantianer. Liberale Tradition und soziale Demokratie; Ypi L., “On Revolution in Kant and Marx”. 3 See the passages quoted by Hinske N., in Le cose buone sono sempre tre. La riproposizione della domanda sul progresso nel Conflitto delle facoltà, especially pp. 191-192. 4 For a reconstruction of the historical and interpretative background to these two texts, see Hinske N., Das stillschweigende Gespräch. Prinzipien der Anthropologie und Geschitsphilosophie bei Mendelssohn und Kant. The connections linking philosophy of history and anthropology in Kant have been emphasised by various exegetes: Odo Marquard, for example, defines these, taking his cue from Kant, as “philosophies of the modern ‘life-world’ (Lebenswelt)” (See Marquard O., Zur Geschichte des Begriffs “Anthropologie” seit dem Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts). Dieter Langewiesche speaks of a “Kantian anthropology of history” inasmuch as historical experience here forms “the empirical basis for a theoretical philosophy of history” (See Langewiesche D., Über Geschichte a priori und die Machbarkeit von Geschichte als Fortschritt). 5 This contention is in fact already to be found in Kant’s review of Herder’s Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (See RezHer, AA 8:65). 6 Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 297. Giuliano Marini interprets this reference to the fact of even “prophetic” history’s being “natural” after all in the following sense: even “prophetic” history cannot exempt itself from taking into account the phenomenal effects of human actions, which are visible after all; see Marini G., Considerazioni su storia pronosticante ed entusiasmo (See in particular p. 217).

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7 Regarding this question of the difficulties in applying the a priori to history see, once again, Hinske N., Le cose buone sono sempre tre..., p. 206, n. 28. Reinhart Koselleck has also devoted much attention to this Kant’s idea of a “history a priori”; Koselleck sees in it a fundamental element of Kant’s attempt to conceive of history’s “accessibility” and “feasibility” for acting Humanity: see Koselleck R., Über die Verfügbarkeit der Geschichte. 8 Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 297ff. 9 Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 301ff. 10 Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 301ff. 11 Hinske N., in Le cose buone sono sempre tre..., p. 202ff. 12 See Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, pp. 301-302. See alsoMendelssohn M., Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum, in Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, p. 163. Irene Kajon has written of this text as one conveying a “negative philosophy of history” (See Kajon I., “Abderitismo del genereumano”: alcune riflessioni sulla filosofia della storia e metafisica di Moses Mendelssohn, p. 82). 13 See Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p 302. 14 See Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 303, translation revised. 15 See Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 304. 16 It is for this reason that we feel that it is not necessary to concur with Giuliano Marini (see Considerazioni su storia pronosticante…, pp. 215-6) in his view that the enthusiasm for the Revolution represents, for Kant, a sign exclusively of the “prognostic” type. It is certainly, indeed, the case that Kant is seeking something of this sort—seeking, that is to say, a sign that would permit a foreseeing of what lies in the future. This sign, however, can only be a sign of this sort inasmuch as it is apt “not to be forgotten” and, as Kant puts it, “has revealed” (See SF, AA 7:88) (Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 304), and thereby “demonstrated” the human race’s disposition toward the Good. 17 See Kant I., Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, CE (Anthropology. History and Education) 2007, p. 298. 18 See Kant I., Anthropology…, CE 2007, p. 291. 19 See Kant I., Anthropology…, CE 2007, p. 298. 20 See Thomas Aquinas, S. Th., III, q. 60 a. 3; see Schaeffler R., Kritik und Neubegründung der Religion bei Kant. Ein Versuch, einige klassische Texte neu zu lesen, particularly pp. 55-56; see also Pievatolo M. C. (ed.), Kant I., Sette scritti politici liberi, pp. 254 and 268. 21 See Wolff C., Philosophia prima sive Ontologia, § 952, p. 688. 22 See Meier-Oeser S., Die Spur des Zeichens, pp. 192-195 and 327-335. 23 Kant I., Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, CE 2001, pp. 213-214. 24 See, e.g., Dörflinger B., Offenbarung – nicht jedermanns Sache. Kants Kritik der historischen Religionen, and ibid., Kants Projekt der unsichtbaren Kirche als Aufgabe zukünftiger Aufklärung. 25 Kant I., Religion…, CE 2001, p. 133. 26 Drawing on the traditional doctrine of the sacraments but seeking to define it using the semiotic language developed by Kant, we have elsewhere defined the conception of the Church that is outlined here as an “efficacious scheme”: see

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Tommasi F.V., Tra male radicale e comunità morale cosmopolitica. La chiesa visibile come schema efficace in Kant. Our interpretation owes much to the reading of Kant’s text offered by Marco Maria Olivetti (See Introduzione to Kant I., La religione entro i limiti della sola ragione, Roma-Bari: Laterza 19801). 27 Generally speaking, certain of the terms with which Kant chooses to address this question are already to be discovered in texts which may have been possible sources for him: for example, the Grundriß der Moraltheologie by Johann Gottlieb Töllner, an adherent to the rationalistic or “neological” current in the German theology of the day, is cited in the Vorlesungsverzeichnisse of the University of Königsberg (See Oberhausen M. and Pozzo R., Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universität Königsberg (1720-1804), vol. 2, p. 775), and includes the argument that the external form of religious worship (Gottesdienst) is an obligation for the Christian but only insofar as it represents a “consequence” (Folge), a “means” (Mittel) and a “sign” (Zeichen) of internal worship. See Töllner J.G., Grundriß der Moraltheologie, pp. 82-83. 28 Cfr. Malter R. (ed.), Immanuel Kant in Rede und Gespräch, p. 348, no. 427. 29 Kant I., Religion…, CE 2001, p. 92. 30 Eric Weil (in Problèmes kantiens, p. 170, note 32) has stressed Kant’s use of the term “revolution” with reference to Christianity in the Religion essay, and Losurdo has underlined it especially acutely as a confirmation of the religious value that Kant attributes to the revolutionary event (See Losurdo D., Autocensura e compromesso nel pensiero politico di Kant, pp. 146-157). A very good analysis of Kant’s use of the term revolution, as well as of his positions towards the events in France and the legitimacy of revolution can be found in Krouglov A., Das Problem der Revolution in der deutschen Aufklärung. Kant und Tetens. 31 Kant I., Religion…, CE 2001, p. 152. 32 As has been noted, both Hannah Arendt (See Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy) and Jean-François Lyotard (See L’enthousiasme. La critique kantienne de l’histoire) have laid great emphasis on the contemplative character implicit in such themes as “the spectator” and “enthusiasm”, thereby linking these themes back to the theme of the aesthetic judgement. More recently, Birgit Recki (in Fortschritt als Postulat und die Lehre vom Geschichtszeichen) has linked the theme of “the spectator” to the “Copernican turn” in the various forms in which this latter is evoked by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason (B XVI), thereby thematising an opposition between the subjective and the objective which appears, to the present author, to miss the real point of the question here (See p. 242). 33 See Kant I., On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct In Theory… in CE (Practical Philosophy) 1999, p. 305. 34 Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 306. 35 Kant I., The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 304. 36 Or, in other words, accord and agreement between “natural law” and “positive law” (ZeF, AA 8:370ff. Kant I., Toward Perpetual Peace, CE 1999, p. 338ff.). Bertani emphasises the distinction between theory and practice as the fundamental axis that bears the whole argument of the second part of the Streit, although Bertani chooses to trace this latter back to a distinction between “actual political

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action” and “theory of politics” (See Bertani C., La natura conflittuale della ragion pratica. Sul significato sistematico del Conflitto delle facoltà). 37 Kant I., On the Common Saying…, CE 1999, p. 307. 38 Kant I., Religion…, CE 2001, p. 135. 39 Kant I., On the Common Saying…, CE 1999, p. 307. 40 Kant I., Toward Perpetual Peace, CE 1999, p. 333. While in the Streit we also find Kant arguing that: “Considering this infirmity of human nature as subject to the contingency of events [...] the hope for its progress is to be expected only on the condition of a wisdom from above (which bears the name of Providence if it is invisible to us” (See SF, AA 7:93 Kant, I. The Conflict…, CE 2001, p. 308). 41 Kant I., The End of All Things, in CE 2001, particularly for this reference to the role of Providence pp. 228-229.

Bibliography Arendt H., Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, Brighton: The Harvester Press, 1982. Bertani C., La natura conflittuale della ragion pratica. Sul significato sistematico del Conflitto delle facoltà in Bertani C. e Pranteda M.A., (eds.), Kant e il conflitto delle facoltà, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003, pp. 139-170. Bobbio N., Kant e la rivoluzione francese, in ibid., L’età dei diritti, Torino: Einaudi, 1990, pp. 143-155. Brandt R., Zum “Streit der Fakultäten”, in Brandt R. And Stark W. (eds.), Kant-Forschungen 1: Neue Autographen und Dokumente zu Kants Leben, Schriften und Vorlesungen, Hamburg: Meiner, 1987, pp. 31-78. Burg P., Kant und die französische Revolution, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1974. Dörflinger B., Kants Projekt der unsichtbaren Kirche als Aufgabe zukünftiger Aufklärung in Klemme H. F. (ed.), Kant und die Zukunft der europäischen Aufklärung, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009, pp. 165-180. —. Offenbarung – nicht jedermanns Sache. Kants Kritik der historischen Religionen, in Dörflinger B., Krieger G. and Scheuer M., Wozu Offenbarung? Philosophische und theologische Beiträge zur Begründung von Religion, Paderborn: Schöningh, 2005, pp. 141-164. Henrich D., Kant über die Revolution, in Z. Batscha (ed.), Materialien zu Kants Rechtsphilosophie, Frankfurt am M.: Suhrkamp, 1976, pp. 359365. Hinske N., Das stillschweigende Gespräch. Prinzipien der Anthropologie und Geschitsphilosophie bei Mendelssohn und Kant, in Albrecht M., Engel E. J. and Hinske N. (eds.), Moses Mendelssohn und die Kreise seiner Wirksamkeit, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1994, pp. 135-156.

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—. Le cose buone sono sempre tre. La riproposizione della domanda sul progresso nel Conflitto delle facoltà, in Bertani C. e Pranteda M. A., (eds.), Kant e il conflitto delle facoltà, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003, pp. 191-211. Holzey H., Ethischer Sozialismus. Zur politischen Philosophie des Neukantianismus, Frankfurt am M.: Suhrkamp, 1994. Kajon I., “Abderitismo del genere umano”: alcune riflessioni sulla filosofia della storia e metafisica di Moses Mendelssohn in Boccara N., Studi di etica, Roma: Edizioni dell’Ateneo, 1985, pp. 63-92. Koselleck R., Über die Verfügbarkeit der Geschichte (1977), in idem., Vergangene Zukunft. Zur Semantikgeschichtlicher Zeiten, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1979, pp. 349-375. Krouglov A., Das Problem der Revolution in der deutschen Aufklärung. Kant und Tetens, in Cataldi Madonna L. and Rumore P. (eds.), Kant und die Aufklärung, Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Olms, 2011, pp. 371-392. Langewiesche D., Über Geschichte a priori und die Machbarkeit von Geschichte als Fortschritt, in Höffe O. (ed.), Immanuel Kant. Schriften zur Geschichtsphilosophie, Berlin: Akademia Verlag, 2011, pp. 215227. Losurdo D., Autocensura e compromesso nel pensiero politico di Kant, Napoli: Biblipolis, 1983. Lyotard, J.-F., L’enthousiasme. La critique kantienne de l’histoire, Paris: Galilée, 1986. Malter R. (ed.), Immanuel Kant in Rede und Gespräch, Hamburg: Meiner, 1990. Marini G., Considerazioni su storia pronosticante ed entusiasmo, in Bertani C. e Pranteda M. A., (eds.), Kant e il conflitto delle facoltà, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003, pp. 213-219. Marquard O., Zur Geschichte des Begriffs “Anthropologie” seit dem Ende des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts, in Collegium Philosophicum. Studien J. Ritter zum 60. Geburtstag, Basel-Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1965, 209-239, reprinted in ibid., Schwierigkeiten mit der Geschichtsphilosophie, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1973, pp. 122-144. Meier-Oeser S., Die Spur des Zeichens, Berlin-New York: de Gruyter, 1997. Mendelssohn M., Jerusalem, oder über religiöse Macht und Judentum, in Gesammelte Schriften. Jubiläumsausgabe, vol. 8, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1983.

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Meyer T., Kant und die Links-Kantianer. Liberale Tradition und soziale Demokratie, in Gerhardt V. e Meyer T. (eds.), Kant im Streit der Fakultäten, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005, pp. 171-187. Oberhausen M. and Pozzo R., Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universität Königsberg (1720-1804), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommannholzboog, vol. 2, 1999. Olivetti, M.M., Introduzione to Kant I., La religione entro i limiti della sola ragione, Roma-Bari: Laterza 19801, pp. V-XLV. Pievatolo M. C. (ed.), Kant I., Sette scritti politici liberi, Florence: Florence University Press, 2011. Recki B., Fortschritt als Postulat und die Lehre vom Geschichtszeichen in Gerhardt V. and Meyer T. (eds.), Kant im Streit der Fakultäten, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005, pp. 229-247. Schaeffler R., Kritik und Neubegründung der Religion bei Kant. Ein Versuch, einige klassische Texte neu zu lesen, in Albert F., Religion und Gott im Denken der Neuzeit, Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000, pp. 39-63. Töllner J.G., Grundriß der Moraltheologie, Frankfurt a. d. Oder 1762. Tommasi F.V., Tra male radicale e comunità morale cosmopolitica. La chiesa visibile come schema efficace in Kant, in Bacin S., Ferrarin A., La Rocca C., Ruffing M. (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgelicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Kant Kongress 2010, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013, pp. 975-985. Tosel A., Kant révolutionnaire, Paris: PUF, 1988. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, IIIa, qq. 60-90, Romae: Ed. Leonina vol. XII, 1906. Vorländer K., Kants Stellung zur französischen Revolution, in Philosophische Abhandlungen. Hermann Cohen zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht, Berlin: Cassirer 1912, pp. 247-269. Weil, E., Problèmes kantiens, Paris: Vrin, 19702. Wolff C., Philosophia prima sive Ontologia, Frankfurt und Leipzig 1736. Ypi L., “On Revolution in Kant and Marx”, in Political Theory, 42, 2014, pp. 262-287.

IV. ENLIGHTENMENT AND PUBLIC REALM

ARGUE BUT OBEY? QUESTIONING KANT’S ENLIGHTENMENT ROBERT B. LOUDEN UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE, USA

Our age is the genuine age of criticism, to which everything must submit (Critique of Pure Reason A xi n.)

Kant’s short piece, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784), as Samuel Fleischacker notes in his recent book devoted to the essay, has by now achieved the status of “an emblem of the entire Enlightenment, an essay by which students are introduced to the entire intellectual world of the eighteenth century.”1 And yet his specific answer to the question, “What is Enlightenment?” is far from orthodox. For Kant does not identify enlightenment with progress, the growth of science, the overcoming of religion, the abolition of inequality, or any of the other standard characterisations of this intellectual movement. Nevertheless, his “strange”2 description of enlightenment—“the human being’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity [selbst verschuldeten Unmündigkeit]” (WIE 8:35)—is equally emblematic. For it has become “the quasi-official criterion of what it means to be modern… Enlightenment, Kant is saying, is analogous to the passage from the status of minor child to the status of adult. Enlightened modernity is the adulthood of the human race.”3 But in the present essay I wish to scrutinise this emblem, to question certain key aspects of Kant’s conception of enlightenment. In what follows I will focus primarily on some puzzling features in “what is probably the best-known element of the essay,”4 his distinction between the private and public use of reason. These features are puzzling not only because they are often inconsistent with claims Kant makes in other writings elsewhere (and sometimes even in What is Enlightenment?), but also because they frequently impede rather than advance the cause of enlightenment as he himself construes it. Although I believe that Kant’s core conception of enlightenment as intellectual independence is an ideal well worth

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defending,5 I will attempt to show that his private/public reason distinction is an inappropriate means toward this goal. Over the years, many scholars have commented on the oddness of Kant’s distinction,6 but what he means by it seems clear enough: By the public use of one’s reason I understand that use which someone makes of it as a scholar [als Gelehrter] before the entire public of the reading world [vor dem ganzen Publikum der Leserwelt]. What I call the private use of reason is that which someone makes of it in a certain civil post or office with which he is entrusted. (WIE 8:37)

In making this distinction, Kant is trying to balance the competing demands of public order and free speech. People engage in the private use of reason when they are at work or on the job and deliberate about how to most appropriately carry out their professional duties. They engage in the public use of reason when they are not on the job but choose in their free time to, say, write an article for a journal in which they challenge workplace rules or government policies. Kant further distinguishes these two uses of reason by means of three interrelated features. The first and most important is freedom. “The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone [der allein] can bring enlightenment among human beings” (WIE 8:37). He appears to defend complete and unrestricted freedom in the public sphere:7 no restrictions of any sort are to be placed on the right of scholars to criticise issues of public policy, law, religion, science, etc. in print. Freedom of the press is also declared to be the sole means of achieving enlightenment: “it alone” can bring enlightenment. Kant’s defence of absolute freedom of the press, along with the singular importance he places on it as the sole means of achieving enlightenment, is the most radical element of his essay. The private use of reason, on the other hand, is unfree. “The private use of one’s reason may… often be very narrowly restricted without this particularly hindering the progress of enlightenment” (WIE 8:37). Indeed, at the end of the essay he counterintuitively asserts that restrictions on the use of private reason will somehow provide a better space for public reason “to expand to its full capacity” (WIE 8:41). Only within the “hard shell” of restricted civic freedom can the human “propensity and calling to think freely” properly develop (WIE 8:41).8 On this view, freedom is not the opposite of coercion, but actually requires it.

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Second, the private use of reason is passive; the public, active. In the private use of reason one “must behave merely passively,” for here each job-holder functions as “part of the machine” (WIE 8:37). Each political regime is a big, complex machine, and in order for such machines to run smoothly each individual citizen must consistently perform his or her assigned role. On the other hand, when people engage in the public use of reason they are transformed into members of “an entire commonwealth, even of the society of citizens of the world [Weltbürgergesellschaft]” (WIE 8:37), and here they can and should actively engage in unrestricted criticism on any topic, without fear that this special society may fall apart as a result. Third, in the private use of reason absolute obedience to one’s employer as well as to the government is required, whereas when people engage in the public use of reason they are free to criticize anyone and everything as much as they like. Toward the end of the essay Kant summarizes this third difference between the two uses of reason in a maxim that he attributes to Frederick the Great: “Argue [räsoniert] as much as you want, and about what you want; only obey [nur gehorcht]!” (WIE 8:41; cf. 37). It is also worth drawing attention to Kant’s three examples of job-holders to further illustrate his private/public distinction: an officer (Offizier) in the military, a citizen (Bürger—a term which of course in Kant’s day had a much narrower reference than is the case in most contemporary societies), and a clergyman (Geistlicher).9 An officer, Kant holds, must obey all orders given to him by his superiors while on duty, but when off duty he is free to criticize “errors [Fehler] in the military service” before the reading public (WIE 8:37). Similarly, a citizen “cannot refuse to pay the taxes imposed on him,” but as a scholar he is free to “publicly express his thoughts about the inappropriateness or even injustice” (WIE 8:37-38) of these taxes. Lastly, a clergyman—and Kant discusses this particular civic role in much more detail than the other two10 —must deliver his sermons “in accordance with the creed of the church he serves,” but as a scholar he “has complete freedom” to argue before the readers of the world “about what is erroneous [über das Fehlerhafte]” in that creed (WIE 8:38). Hamann, in a letter to a friend composed shortly after What is Enlightenment? was first published, calls Kant’s distinction between the private and public uses of reason “comical.”11 I don’t find much to laugh at here, but I do find the distinction and its implications problematic on multiple grounds. In the next part of my essay I will articulate my objections in some detail.

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Acting against one’s conscience. Kant’s insistence on absolute obedience within the private sphere means that individuals may have to act against their own deeply held convictions when ordered to do so. For example, suppose a military officer is ordered by his superiors to slaughter noncombatant women and children during battle. According to Kant, “it would be very destructive [sehr verderblich] if an officer, receiving an order from his superiors, wanted while on duty to engage in subtle reasoning about its appropriateness or utility; he must [muß] obey” (WIE 8:37). Yet in his discussion of the clergy, he acknowledges that in cases where a clergyman is asked to preach precepts that contain something “contradictory to inner religion,” he “could not in conscience [mit Gewissen] hold his office; he would have to resign from it” (WIE 8:38). But isn’t our hypothetical military officer also being ordered to do something that is “contradictory to inner military”—viz., contradictory to any reasonable military code of behavior? And isn’t this a dilemma that confronts many job-holders—viz., workplace situations where they are ordered to do something blatantly immoral that violates their conscience? “Every human being, as a moral being, has a conscience within him originally” (MM 6:400), Kant reminds us in his Metaphysics of Morals. And when this voice speaks, each of us must adhere to the verdict issued by this “internal court in the human being” (MM 6:438), for it is “the law within us” (P 9:495). Granted, the line between legitimate and illegitimate orders both within the military and elsewhere is by no means an easy one to draw, and disobedience to an order on the battlefield sometimes comes with a heavy price. But the fact that Kant does not even raise the issue of unconscionable orders is itself a serious weakness in his position. With the sole exception of preachers who are not expected to advocate doctrines that are “contradictory to inner religion,” he (inconsistently) implies that all orders are legitimate, and this can’t be right. We should not be expected to carry out unconscionable demands—this is part of what living in a civilised society means. As Kant himself writes elsewhere: “when human beings command something that is evil in itself (directly opposed to the moral law), we may not, and ought not, obey them” (Rel 6:99 n.; cf. MM 6:371). Kant’s conservative position against the right to revolution has been the focus of much scholarly attention,12 but less often commented on is that the rigid view he defends in What is Enlightenment? also rules out any and all forms of nonviolent resistance to authority: conscientious objection,

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civil disobedience, protests, hunger strikes, etc. have no place. As Frederick Beiser notes, Kant viewed the channels of legitimate change from the narrow perspective of enlightened absolutism. He proscribed not only rebellion but also any form of civil disobedience. The officer, teacher, pastor, and civil servant have a duty to remain at their posts,… however much it violates their conscience.13

Even those who accept the basic premise that nonviolent strategies of change are to be preferred over violent ones will find Kant’s perspective too restrictive. Articles and books alone are not always effective agents of social and political change. Whistle-blowers. Is there even room for the milder practice of whistleblowing within Kant’s rigid private/public reason distinction? Here agents are not necessarily directly ordered by their employers to perform acts that violate their conscience, but they witness morally corrupt acts performed by others within their work organisation, and—knowing from past experience that their superiors will not correct the situation—decide to communicate their concern to outside parties. Suppose a junior officer in the military sees that fellow soldiers who are members of a religious minority are systematically discriminated against and decides to leak this information to the public. Granted, Kant would of course vigorously defend the soldier’s right to critique the military’s practice of systematic discrimination in an article written for public consumption. And providing this information to a journalist with the expectation that it would be publicised amounts to more or less the same thing. But qua whistle-blower, our officer would have no protection at work once he is revealed to be the source of the leak. He would in all likelihood be fired or severely reprimanded by his superiors for his whistle-blowing activity. Kant’s “one must obey” (WIE 8:37) doctrine strongly discourages employees from blowing the whistle on unjust workplace practices and implies that they are disloyal employees who have acted wrongly. Rather than encouraging employees to promote justice in the workplace, Kant instead advocates total obedience to one’s employer. So while his position allows for a kind of whistle-blowing, it certainly does not advocate it. Ironically, the phenomenon of whistle-blowing is itself often understood in a Kantian light. The whistle-blower is “the autonomous individual in the

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workplace”14 who has the courage to make use of his own understanding (see WIE 8:35), and his appearance signals an advance in the employeremployee relationship beyond its predecessor concept of the masterservant relationship. But the same Kant who declares in 1785 that the “principle of autonomy is the sole principle of morals” (G 4:440) discourages employees from exercising autonomy in the workplace in 1784. However, the interests of justice and enlightenment clearly are often advanced by whistle-blowing. In relying on essays and books as the sole vehicle of enlightenment and in his obsequious posture toward political authorities and employers, Kant is cutting off other legitimate paths to spreading the “spirit of freedom” (WIE 8:41). The inefficacy of philosophy. Suppose my beliefs about how to act in the private sphere have themselves been influenced by arguments published in the public sphere. E.g., perhaps as a citizen I am ordered by my government to pay additional taxes in support of a new war that my country is conducting. At first, I passively play my part as a cog in the governmental machine—I ask no questions and simply pay the oppressive new tax. But in my free time I study the issue, eventually publishing an article in the press in which I painstakingly present my arguments against the new war tax. At this point my own public use of reason has delivered “an absolute condemnation of war as a procedure for determining rights” (TPP 8:356), but my government doesn’t budge and continues down its militaristic path. The Kant of What is Enlightenment? tells me that in such circumstances I still must obey. But in requiring me to act against my own beliefs in this particular case Kant is also implying that philosophical argument is inefficacious and impotent.15 For all of the arguments that I and other scholars have constructed and presented before the public are not allowed to have any effect on my behaviour. I must keep on paying the war tax, even though I have argued in print before the reading world that to do so is wrong. Why would someone who views philosophy as that discipline “which alone has only inner worth, and which first gives a worth to all other cognitions” (LJ 9:24) defend such a position? Kant’s hope is that published critiques of unjust laws and policies will gradually persuade rulers and elected officials to rescind them—“a public achieves enlightenment only slowly [nur langsam]” (WIE 8:36). But even if one accepts this gradualist strategy (and some of my remarks below speak against doing so), it will not help those reflective individuals who have arrived at their beliefs by presenting arguments in print. Kant’s restrictive

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“one must obey” policy also has the unfortunate consequence of forcing people to deny that their beliefs and actions can be changed by rational argument. Obstinate government. Kant’s private/public reason distinction also rests on the presupposition that government is amenable to reason and willing to listen to rational argument. Rulers and politicians will read the published critiques of their policies, consider the arguments pro and con, and modify their beliefs accordingly. (And in electoral democracies— which of course were extremely rare in Kant’s day—enlightened citizens will try to vote them out of office if they don’t.) But what if the guardians are “themselves incapable [unfähig] of any enlightenment” (WIE 8:36)? Political change seldom occurs solely through rational debate alone, and depending on the specific circumstances of the regime under which individuals live, their exercise of the public use of reason, no matter how vigorous, may fall on deaf ears and be completely ineffective. Here too, in closing off all avenues of change except publication, Kant is being extremely unrealistic. Enlightenment does not occur solely through essays and books. Uninterested citizens. Another questionable assumption behind Kant’s distinction goes in the opposite direction—to citizens rather than their rulers. Kant assumes that all human beings have the “propensity and calling [Hang und Beruf] for free thinking” (WIE 8:41)—this is part of our nature, and any action that tries to block this propensity is “a crime against human nature” (WIE 8:39). Although I share Kant’s conviction that all people do possess this capacity, like other critics I also suspect that the propensity and calling can be dulled or thwarted, depending on the conditions under which people live. And in cases where the environment has deadened people’s vocation to think freely, Kant’s strategy for enlightenment will face yet another roadblock. What good will all the journal articles do if no one is reading them? Perhaps the most influential version of this dark scenario is Habermas’ theory of the structural transformation of the Enlightenment public sphere, according to which the optimistic scenario Kant describes in his essay—a world community of critical readers that stretches far beyond national boundaries whose participants actively express their views on all topics and engage in vigorous public debate—has gradually been “replaced by the pseudo-public or sham-private world of culture consumption,” a world in which “rational-critical debate had a tendency to be replaced by

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consumption.”16 Due to the distorting influence of advertising media and the Kulturindustrie in general,17 people have retreated into a private world of consumerism in which their propensity and calling for free thinking is numbed. One need not endorse all of the details of this theory in order to acknowledge the force of my “uninterested citizens” point. (I myself think Habermas and Adorno exaggerate the conservative influence of advertising and popular culture, and consumerism itself was already a powerful force during the Enlightenment.) But in my own earlier attempt to assess the legacy of the Enlightenment, I too remarked that the predicted moral transformation that was supposed to take place as a result of the free and active use of public reason is much slower and more uneven within the human species than [Kant and other] Enlightenment theorists assumed would be the case… At present… insufficient numbers of people are strongly committed to Enlightenment ideals such as peace, elimination of poverty, reduction of inequality, and an engaged civic culture to make clear progress in realizing these ideals.18

While I am less confident than Habermas and Adorno in assigning causes to this unfortunate development, I do agree that Kant’s assumption that all people in all circumstances desire enlightenment is unwarranted. And in cases where insufficient numbers of citizens have maintained their calling for free thinking, other strategies for enlightenment should be given a chance. Journal articles and books alone will not be enough. More than a machine? Again, Kant holds that in our private use of reason we are passive. In one’s private use of reason each individual is a “part of the machine” (WIE 8:37), and the smooth functioning of the governmental machine requires that everybody consistently does their job. If people start arguing and refuse to follow orders while on the job, the result is “very destructive,” “a scandal” (WIE 8:37)—the machine will break down, because the individual parts are behaving out of order. The “humans-as-cogs-in-a-machine” metaphor, reused later by Marx, Weber, Charlie Chaplin, and countless other social critics of modernity,19 is admittedly a bit stale at this point. But it is important to note that in the last sentence of his essay Kant also stresses that government “finds it to its advantage to treat the human being, who is now more than a machine [der nun mehr als Maschine ist], in accord with his dignity [Würde]” (WIE 8:42). Commentators often take Kant to be making an allusion to (and a

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repudiation of) La Mettries’s L’Homme machine [Man a Machine, 1747] here,20 and he probably is. But it is seldom noted that Kant’s final sentence also repudiates his earlier claim that each individual qua worker is merely “part of the machine.” If La Mettrie is wrong in proclaiming that “man is a machine”21—in part because, as Kant stresses later in the Groundwork, human beings as rational beings possess a dignity that mere things, including machines, lack (see G 4:434-35, 428)—then government acts wrongly in treating people as parts of a machine. Granted, at the end of the essay Kant is sketching what he hopes will be a gradual development of civic freedom, a slow emergence from the “hard shell” (WIE 8:42) of restrictions imposed on individuals by their governments. But his fundamental point about the dignity of human beings cannot be subject to this gradualism. For it is not just future human beings who possess a dignity “raised above all price” (G 4:434), but humans present and past as well. Scholars. As we have seen, for Kant the public use of reason involves writing and publishing—it is the use a person makes of reason “as a scholar before the entire public of the reading world” (WIE 8:37). And in principle, everyone is a scholar on Kant’s view, because as humans we all share “the propensity and calling for free thinking” (WIE 8:41). This is another radical claim of the essay. But what about professional scholars— those whose job in the private sphere includes the duty to write and publish? Included in this diverse group are not only college and university professors, whose three major professional duties are teaching, service, and scholarship, but also professional writers such as journalists and nonfiction authors. For these individuals, their private use of reason is, at least in part, their public use of reason, and vice versa. As a result, Kant’s private/public reason distinction is not applicable to professional scholars. But aren’t they the ones who produce most of the publications? How realistic is Kant’s assumption that amateurs will become published scholars—that enlisted soldiers will write and publish articles criticising their country’s military regulations in their spare time, that businessmen will write and publish essays criticising their government’s tax policies, etc.? Granted, some amateurs do publish, and it would be good if even more did—in part because, as Habermas laments, many professional scholars at present are mere “specialists who put their reason to use nonpublicly.”22 But most jobs unfortunately do not provide people with enough leisure (or what the ancient Greeks called scholƝ, from which the English “scholar” derives) to write and publish.

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Think for yourself? In the opening paragraph of his essay Kant identifies enlightenment with intellectual maturity and autonomy: “Have the courage to use your own understanding is… the motto of enlightenment” (WIE 8:35). Think for yourself. But how does advocating more publications (“everyone a scholar”) necessarily promote intellectual autonomy? Kant himself hints that he is aware of the problem in the second paragraph: “If I have a book that understands for me… I need not trouble myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay; others will readily undertake the irksome business for me” (WIE 8:35). An increase in the quantity of publications does not necessarily lead to more independent thinking. Reading others’ publications, as Kant himself acknowledges, is often a passive exercise— we buy the book and allow others to do our thinking for us. And in the process, as Kant notes elsewhere, we readers often become merely “a plaster cast of a living human being” (CPR A836/B864). But writing for publication, while generally more active than reading the works of others, is not necessarily an act of autonomy either—it depends very much on how one writes. One need not accept every aspect of Socrates’ critique of writing in the Phaedrus to acknowledge his point that those who put their faith in writing are trusting something “which is external and depends on signs that belong to others instead of trying to remember from the inside completely on their own… [T]hey will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing.”23 Reading and writing per se do not necessarily advance intellectual autonomy. Absolute freedom of the press? In endorsing the maxim, “argue as much as you want and about what you want” (WIE 8:41), Kant is usually read as advocating absolute freedom of the press.24 Kant is issuing “a call for full freedom of the press,”25 he is “uncompromising in his insistence that the public exercise of reason should never be restricted,”26 and he insists on “the illegitimacy of censorship to control”27 any activity in the public sphere. Kant’s primary justification for this position rests on the extreme importance he attaches to publication. He views print culture as the sole means of achieving enlightenment, and in order to maximise the chances of reaching this goal, no restrictions are to be placed on the means. In order to reach enlightenment, “nothing is required but freedom . . . namely, freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters… The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone [der allein] can bring about enlightenment among human beings” (WIE 8:36-37). On the surface, this indeed looks like a radical position—one echoed a short while later in the First Amendment to the US Constitution (1791):

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“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom… of the press.”28 But is Kant (not to mention the Founding Fathers) really advocating absolute freedom of the press? What about sedition, libel, obscenity, pornography, hate speech? Kant mentions none of these well-known exceptions to the doctrine of freedom of the press,29 but even though some of these words themselves are of relatively recent vintage it is hard to believe that he would not acknowledge their force. During the Enlightenment many authors issued calls for a loosening of censorship,30 but if one examines several of the German-language contributions to this important debate one sees embedded within them multiple acknowledgements of fundamental limits to freedom of the press. For example, Ernst Ferdinand Klein, in an essay published in the Berlinische Monatsschrift just a few months before Kant’s What is Enlightenment? writes: “Thus when Prussia’s ruler suppresses writings against the state, he refers only to those which attack [angreifen] the state itself, which betray it to its enemies, which loosen the subjects from their duty of obedience, and which give rise to civil unrest [bürgerliche Unruhe].”31 But given Kant’s position that citizens must always obey their governments and employees their employers, how could he also defend the right of scholars to publish works which loosen readers’ duty of obedience and give rise to civil unrest? This is not a consistent position. The easiest way to make it consistent is to assume that when he says the public use of reason must always be free he actually means—as he explicitly states later in his Theory and Practice essay (1792)—so long as this freedom is “kept within the limits of esteem and love for the constitution within which one lives” (OCS 8:304). Once we grant this assumption, Kant agrees with Klein. Another German contribution to Enlightenment arguments against censorship of the press is Carl Friedrich Bahrdt’s 1787 book, Über Pressfreyheit und deren Grenzen. While Bahrdt views freedom of the press as “a universal right of man,… above all the rights of princes,”32 he also acknowledges numerous restrictions on this right. One key restriction is that any publication which “harms the state, for example, whatever betrays its secrets to an enemy, provokes rebellion, destroys industry, population, supplies, and so forth, must be forbidden.”33 Two further restrictions are that “the writer may not send lies and slander into the world through his writing” and that “obscenities should not be tolerated from writers in any state.”34 Here too, it is difficult to imagine that Kant— given, for instance, his well-known position that lying is not consistent

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with the categorical imperative and his claim that “by a lie a human being throws away, and, as it were, annihilates his dignity as a human being (MM 6:429)—would not also acknowledge these common exceptions to freedom of the press. Either Kant did not literally mean to imply that there should be absolutely no restrictions placed on freedom of the press, or if he did, he was led to this mistaken view by the overemphasis that he placed on print culture as the sole means to enlightenment. A well-disciplined, large army. Finally, in the last paragraph of his essay Kant adds one more surprise. Frederick the Great can allow his subjects to argue as much as they want about whatever they want, but only because he has “a well-disciplined, large army as a guarantee of public peace.” However, a ruler of “a republic [Freistaat] may not dare” (WIE 8:41) to offer his citizens the same deal, for he lacks a well-disciplined, large army and here there is no guarantee of public peace.35 Citizens of a Freistaat are not to be trusted with the free use of their public reason because they might be tempted to disobey the government (or their employer) after reading a rousing philosophy essay, and there will be no well-disciplined, large army to force them back into obedience. Rather than encouraging scholars to “speak truth to power,” Kant seems instead to be arguing that they should only be allowed to publish freely within regimes where there is sufficient military power to keep citizens in line. But how is this supposed to work? The cosmopolitan society of readers knows no national boundaries. Unless Kant also endorses a “no foreign reading materials” law for all citizens of republics (and to do so would be inconsistent with his conception of the public sphere), what will prevent a citizen in a Freistaat from reading a publication written by a scholar who is a citizen of a regime with a well-disciplined, large army? Furthermore, Kant’s unexpected invocation of the military also implies that his much-vaunted free use of public reason is a less-than-universal vehicle of enlightenment. It is only an allowable means in those societies whose rulers have sufficiently strong armies at their disposal to keep citizens in line. So how then is enlightenment to be achieved within republics without armies? Earlier in the essay Kant insists that “for enlightenment,… nothing is required but freedom,… namely, freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters” (WIE 8:37). In relying solely on the free public use of reason to achieve enlightenment he has put all of his stones in one basket, but now he is saying that the basket isn’t appropriate for citizens in republics. And given his well-known preference for republican forms of government [“the civil constitution in every state

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shall be republican” (TPP 8:349)]—a preference shared by growing numbers of people—he seems in the end to have nothing to say about how to advance enlightenment within precisely those societies that have “the only constitution that accords with right, that of a pure republic [einer reinen Republik]” (MM 6:340).36 I believe that Kant is right in holding that “the maxim of always thinking for oneself is enlightenment,” and modern history has certainly confirmed his prediction that “to enlighten an age is very slow and arduous” (OOT 8:146n., 147n.) But as I have tried to show, part of the problem lies in the specific means Kant advocates for advancing the cause of enlightenment. Publications alone are not going to bring enlightenment, and requiring absolute obedience to one’s government and employer is itself inconsistent with autonomy and human dignity. “Argue but obey” is not good advice.37

Notes 1

Fleischacker, What is Enlightenment?, p. 12. See also Schmidt, “Review of Samuel Fleischacker, What is Enlightenment?” 2 Schmidt observes that “it is difficult for us—because his definition has become so familiar—to recognise how strange it was” (“What Enlightenment Was,” p. 88). 3 Green, “Modern Culture Comes of Age,” p. 291. 4 Fleischacker, What is Enlightenment?, p. 15. Cf. Schmidt, who notes that the distinction “has puzzled readers for the last two centuries” (“Introduction: What is Enlightenment?” p. 5). 5 This belief, though widely shared, is far from universal. E.g., Rüdiger Bittner argues that Kant’s “grand enlightenment gesture ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding!’ falls flat” and constitutes an example of “what enlightenment is not” (“What is Enlightenment?,” p. 348, 345). 6 E.g., Moses Mendelssohn, in an unpublished note on Kant’s essay, remarked that there is “simply something strange” in Kant’s distinction, rephrasing it as a contrast between “professional” and “extraprofessional” uses of reason (“Öffentlicher und Privatgebrauch der Vernunft,” pp. 227-28). More recently, Ian Hunter has called it an “anomalous use of the distinction between public and private opinion;” a “renaming of public and private” (“Kant’s Religion and Prussian Religious Policy,” p. 23). Perhaps the most common complaint is that Kant has inverted the traditional meanings of the two terms. As John Christian Laursen notes, Kant calls “public” the writing that scholars might do evenings and weekends as their “own private affair” (“The Subversive Kant,” p. 254), and as Susan Shell observes, he calls “private” “the discourse of the public official” (The Rights of Reason, p. 171). See also Schmidt (“What Enlightenment Was,” p. 94 n. 85), for similar remarks from Nathan Rotenstreich and Ronald Beiner.

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7 I challenge this common interpretation below, in “Absolute freedom of the press?” 8 Cf. O’Neill, “the Public Use of Reason,” p. 32; and Fleischaker, What is Enlightenment?, p. 16. 9 In his discussion of employment, Kant is sometimes read as referring only to workers who are employed by the government—“public sector” jobs. But his own examples of citizens and clergy seem to render the private/public sector distinction moot. I interpret his remarks as applicable to both public and private sector employment. 10 Why? In part because “liberation from superstition is called enlightenment” (CPJ 5:294), and religion is more entangled with superstition than other professions. Also, religious immaturity is “the most harmful as well as the most dishonorable” (WIE 8:41)—people tend to think less critically and independently about religion than other matters. However, one should not infer that Kant is a secularist who hopes that people will eventually overcome religion. Like many Enlightenment intellectuals, his goal is a more rational religion. For discussion of Enlightenment attitudes toward religion, see Louden, The World We Want, pp. 1526. For an alternative explanation of the prominence given to religious issues in Kant’s essay based on late eighteenth-century debates concerning the propriety of religious oaths, see Schmidt, “What Enlightenment Was,” pp. 95-98. 11 Hamann, Letter to Christian Jacob Kraus of December 18, 1784, p. 22. 12 See, e.g., Beck, “Kant and the Right to Revolution,” and Korsgaard, “Taking the Law into Our Own Hands.” 13 Beiser, “Kant’s Conservatism,” 53. Again, Kant does grant that there exist scenarios in which pastors have a right “to resign from” their positions (WIE 8:38). So Beiser is in error on this point. But Kant’s failure to extend this fundamental right to all workers signals a weakness in his position. 14 Hunt, “Whistle-Blowing,” p. 527. 15 Cf. Hamann’s complaint that “the public use of reason & freedom is nothing but a dessert, a sumptuous dessert. The private use is the daily bread” (Letter to Kraus, p. 22). We need our daily bread in order to survive, but we can go without dessert. 16 Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, pp. 160-161. For related discussion, see Louden, The World We Want, 165-68; and Fleischacker, What is Enlightenment? 140-42. 17 See Horkheimer and Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” in Horkheimer and Adorno. “Culture today,” they write, “is infecting everything with sameness,” and its hidden agenda is “obedience to the social hierarchy” (“The Culture Industry,” pp. 94, 103-104). Habermas was a student of Adorno’s, and this part of his theory of the deformation of the public sphere owes a debt to his teacher’s earlier work. 18 Louden, The World We Want, p. 10. 19 “Owing to the extensive use of machinery and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage to the machine” (Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, p. 49). In modern bureaucracies, “the performance of each worker is mathematically measured, each man becomes a little cog in the machine,

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and, aware of this, his one preoccupation is to become a bigger cog” (Meyer, Max Weber and German Politics, 126). See also Chaplin, Modern Times. 20 See, e.g., Bahr, Was ist Aufklärung? p. 59; Kant, Political Writings, p. 274 n. 7; and Schmidt, What is Enlightenment?, p. 64 n. 10. 21 La Mettrie, Man a Machine, p. 76. 22 Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, p. 175. 23 Plato, Complete Works, pp. 551-52 (= Phaedrus 275a-b). 24 However, later in the Conflict of the Faculties (1798) Kant retreats from this bold doctrine, arguing that only some scholars have a right to freedom of the press. “Clergymen, magistrates, and physicians… are not free to make public use of their learning as they see fit”—“the government must keep them under strict control” (CF 7:18). By contrast, “the philosophy faculty” (by which Kant means all professors in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) “must be conceived as free and subject only to laws given by reason, not by the government” (CF 7:27). For discussion, see Laursen, “The Subversive Kant,” pp. 259-61. 25 Laursen, “The Subversive Kant,” p. 257. 26 Schmidt, “Introduction: What is Enlightenment?,” p. 6. 27 Jones, “The Piratical Enlightenment,” p. 316. 28 The Constitution of the United States, p. 21. 29 In On the Wrongfulness of Unauthorized Publication of Books (1785) Kant argues that material published without the author’s consent is one exception to freedom of the press (WPB 8:79-87; see also MM 6:289). And as I note below in A well-disciplined, large army, his remarks about public safety hint at a second exception. 30 For general discussion of books and the press during the Enlightenment, see Munck, The Enlightenment, pp. 76-131. 31 Klein, “Ueber Denk- und Drukfreiheit,” p. 328. 32 Bahrdt, “On Freedom of the Press and Its Limits,” p. 100. 33 Bahrdt, “On Freedom of the Press,” p. 107. 34 Bahrdt, “On Freedom of the Press,” pp. 108, 111. 35 Elsewhere Kant does argue that republics are more peace-loving than nonrepublics, because in the former “the consent of the citizens . . . is required in order to decide whether there shall be war or not” (TPP 8:350). But nowhere does he define republics as regimes without armies. As Ted Humphrey notes, “what Kant says here about a Freistaat is inconsistent with what he says elsewhere about a Republic” (Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, p. 48 n. 12). 36 As Humphrey notes (Kant, Perpetual Peace, p. 48 n. 12), when Kant discusses republics he normally uses the term “Republik”—not “Freistaat.” 37 Muchas gracias to Nuria Sánchez Madrid and Jacinto Rivera de Rosales for their generous invitation to present my work at the V Coloquio Kant Multilateral in Madrid. I would also like to thank James Schmidt, Samuel Fleischacker, and Pablo Muchnik for helpful comments and criticisms of an earlier draft of this essay.

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Bibliography Bahr, Ehrhard (ed.), Was ist Aufklärung? Thesen und Definitionen, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1979. Bahrdt, Carl Friedrich, “On Freedom of the Press and Its Limits: For Consideration by Rulers, Censors, and Writers,” in Schmidt (1996), pp. 97-113. Beck, Lewis White, “Kant and the Right to Revolution,” in Selected Essays on Kant, Hoke Robinson (ed.), Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2002, pp. 73-84. Beiser, Frederick C., “Kant’s Conservatism,” in Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of German Political Thought, 1790-1800, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 53-56. Bittner, Rüdiger, “What is Enlightenment?” in Schmidt (1996), pp. 34558. Chaplin, Charles, Modern Times, 1936. Fleischacker, Samuel, What is Enlightenment? London: Routledge, 2013. Green, Garrett, “Modern Culture Comes of Age: Hamann versus Kant on the Root Metaphor of Enlightenment,” in Schmidt (1996), pp. 291-305. Habermas, Jürgen, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, Thomas Burger (trans.) with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence, Boston: The MIT Press, 1989. Hamann, Johan Georg, Letter to Christian Jacob Kraus of December 18, 1784, in Bahr (1979), pp. 17-22. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (ed.), Edmund Jephcott (trans), Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002, pp. 94-136. Hunt, Geoffrey, “Whistle-Blowing”, in Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, Ruth Chadwick (ed.), San Diego: Academic Press, 4 (1998): 525-35. Hunter, Ian, “Kant’s Religion and Prussian Religious Policy”, Modern Intellectual History 2 (2005): 1-27. Jones, Adrian, “The Piratical Enlightenment,” in This is Enlightenment, Siskin, Clifford and William Warner (eds.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010, pp. 301-20. Kant, Immanuel, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, Ted Humphrey (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983. —. Political Writings, Hans Reiss (ed.), H. B. Nisbet (trans.) 2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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Klein, Ernst Ferdinand, “Ueber Denk- und Drukfreiheit. An Fürsten, Minister, und Schriftsteller”, Berlinische Monatschrift 3 (1784): 312-30. Korsgaard, Christine, “Taking the Law into Our Own Hands: Kant and the Right to Revolution,” in ibid., The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 233-62. La Mettrie, Julien Offray de, Man a Machine and Man a Plant, Richard A. Watson and Maya Rybalka (trans.), Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994. Laursen, John Christian, “The Subversive Kant: The Vocabulary of ‘Public’ and ‘Publicity’,” in Schmidt (1996), pp. 253-69. Louden, Robert B., The World We Want: How and Why the Ideals of the Enlightenment Still Elude Us, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto. Phil Gasper (ed.), Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2005. Mendelssohn, Moses, “Öffentlicher und Privatgebrauch der Vernunft,” in Gesammelte Schriften Jubiläumsausgabe, Stuttgart-Bad Constatt: Fromman-Holzberg, 1981, 8: 225-29. Meyer, Jacob Peter, Max Weber and German Politics: A Study in Political Sociology, London: Faber & Faber Ltd., 1994. Munck, Thomas, The Enlightenment: A Comparative Social History 17211794, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. O’Neill, Onora, “The Public Use of Reason,” in Ibid., Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 28-50. Plato, Complete Works. John Cooper (ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. Schmidt, James, “What Enlightenment Was: How Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant Answered the Berlinische Monatsschrift.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 30, (1992): 77-101. —. (ed.), What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. —. “Introduction: What is Enlightenment? A Question, Its Context, and Some Consequences,” in Schmidt (1996), pp. 1-44. —. “Review of Samuel Fleischacker, What is Enlightenment?” Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2014) [accessed 2014.03.30]. Shell, Susan, The Rights of Reason: A Study of Kant’s Philosophy and Politics, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. The Constitution of the United States with Index and The Declaration of Independence, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986.

VARIATIONS ON THE POSSIBLE: “WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ORIENT ONESELF IN THINKING?” FERDINANDO LUIGI MARCOLUNGO UNIVERSITY OF VERONA, ITALY

1. A Text Far from Marginal The topic of the “possible” is important in order to understand the meaning of Kant’s criticism. The text “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” (1786) adds—to the distinctions which are proposed in the Beweis of 1763 (those between intrinsic and extrinsic possibility, on the one hand, and between logical and real possibility, on the other hand)—the theme of subjective possibility, on behalf of an intrinsic necessity of reason, which aims to overcome the boundaries of the phenomenal level. One year later, Kant then published the second edition of the Critique, in which, in the Postulates of Empirical Thinking in general, he added the Refutation of Idealism. The work which I intend to focus on appeared in October 1786 in the “Berlinische Monatsschrift” review and was decisive not only in the context of the transition between the two editions of the Critique and in the development towards the Critique of Practical Reason (which was published two years later), but also with regard to the role of the critical philosophy within the Enlightenment. The controversy between Mendelssohn and Jacobi had not calmed down with the death of the Jewish philosopher in January 1786. The charge of Spinozism was threatening to involve even Kant and the effective exercise of freedom was at risk due to the worsening of Frederick II’s health conditions (he disappeared in June of the same year).

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These are the reasons why Kant is then forced to intervene in October 1786 with the text “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” at the request of Erich Biester, director of “Berlinische Monatsschrift”, in order to stop the dangerous diffusion of Jacobi’s fideistic enthusiasm. Furthermore, Thomas Wizenmann has joined the above-mentioned controversy, with the “Critical Investigation of the Results of Jacobi’s and Mendelssohn’s Philosophy by a Volunteer”, in defence of the reasons of the historical faith against the claims of Enlightenment reason. These are the essential points of reference for understanding Kant’s work, which is certainly characterised as public intervention by some limits (indeed, it could not leave room for the thorough analyses which are required to clarify the polemic purpose of every passage). However, for those who closely know the development of Kant’s thought in those years, “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” does not fail to suggest some interesting reflections. I will not dwell upon the task of the Enlightenment that Kant strongly defended here. On this point see the final hint at the freedom of reason and the need to prevent it from being overwhelmed by an easy enthusiasm: “And so freedom in thinking finally destroys itself if it tries to proceed in independence of the laws of reason” (OOT 8:146/CERRT 18). And, in a footnote, he recalls the typical feature of the Enlightenment: one must “think for oneself” (this is the true meaning of Enlightenment) and be guided by a genuine critical attitude toward every single statement: “To make use of one’s own reason means no more than to ask oneself, whenever one is supposed to assume something, whether one could find it feasible to make the ground or the rule on which one assumes it into a universal principle for the use of reason” (OOT 8:146/CERRT 18). At the same time, in the present analysis, I also omit the polemic references that are scattered all over Kant’s text, references which are to be understood with regard to the various interlocutors. I rather focus on one of these topics, which is a main theme within Kant’s discourse, that is, the theme of the “possible”, trying to highlight the relationship between this work and the second edition of the Critique. I will therefore focus on the theoretical level, without examining the practical field, despite being aware of the importance of the latter in work of Kant, as well as in later ones: indeed, Kant’s practical discourse starts from the theoretical level.

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I will argue that the demand of reason to go beyond the experimental field acquires a theoretical value and does not stop at a purely negative role, as even Kant sometimes seems to suggest in marking his distance from Mendelssohn.

2. What Does “Orientation” Mean? The incipit of Kant’s work reminds us of the close relationship between the level of experience and a priori concepts, that is, “which are not otherwise derived from experience” (OOT 8:133/CERRT 7): “For how would we procure sense and significance for our concepts if we did not underpin them with some intuition (which ultimately must always be an example from some possible experience)?” (OOT 8:133/CERRT 7). This close link with the experience bring us to the core of the “possible”: on the one hand, Kant refuses to conceive the “possible” as the mere absence of contradiction, as Leibniz did; on the other hand, while drawing attention to the synthetic character that experience can only provide, he stressed the need for an a priori guarantee of our knowledge. The interlacement of these two levels brings us to the task of thought and of “general logic”; in this sense, it is possible to “extract from experience” a “heuristic method” that could provide us with “useful maxims” for philosophy: “It is in just such a way that general logic comes about; and many heuristic methods of thinking perhaps lie hidden in the experiential use of our understanding and reason; if we carefully extract these methods from that experience, they could well enrich philosophy with many useful maxims even in abstract thinking” (OOT 8:133/CERRT 7). In this passage, Kant uses some terms that have a precise meaning within the context of the critical framework and acquire an appropriate sense in the work that we are examining. They are terms that suggest a problem that goes beyond the purely subjective level within which we usually read this Kantian text. The “need of reason”, while being grounded on the subjective level of experience, is an element that can not be disregarded: it is an element that has a specific value, one which is not only moral but also theoretical. This specific option which the reason must take ownership of in the comparison between a priori knowledge and experience, becomes the guarantee of being able to expand our knowledge in the purely empirical

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field in an attempt to go beyond the boundaries of the experience. The only precaution needed is not to conceive this possibility as if it were a real demonstration such as the one that characterises the synthetic a priori level of scientific knowledge. Hence, the agreement and, at the same time, the disagreement with Mendelssohn’s theses: on the one hand, “it was in fact only reason—not any alleged sense of truth, not any transcendent intuition under the name of faith, on which tradition and revelation can be grafted without reason’s consent which Mendelssohn affirmed, staunchly and with justified zeal; it was only that genuine pure human reason which he found necessary and recommended as a means of orientation” (OOT 8:134/CERRT 8); on the other hand, we must reject the high “claims of reason’s speculative faculty, chiefly its commanding authority (through demonstration), obviously falls away, and what is left to it, insofar as it is speculative, is only the task of purifying the common concept of reason of its contradictions, and defending it against its own sophistical attacks on the maxims of healthy reason” (OOT 8:134/CERRT 8). The Kantian reference to the ability to orient oneself (namely the capacity to find the east and, thus, to divide the regions of the world into four distinct areas) is part of this context. In this process, which has become usual for us, there is a subjective aspect which is crucial: indeed, the pure objective vision is not enough to find the difference between the various regions of space: “For this, however, I also need the feeling of a difference in my own subject, namely, the difference between my right and left hands. I call this a feeling because these two sides outwardly display no designatable difference in intuition” (OOT 8:134-5/CERRT 8). Before continuing our reflections, I suggest that we focus on the meaning of the term “feeling”, which Kant used in the above-mentioned passage. I think we must avoid assuming the “feeling” as something that is merely subjective, in the romantic sense of the word. Here, as was still common in the Eighteenth century, the word “feeling” rather suggests a perception that needs the subject’s consciousness and is not limited to outward sense. In this sense, the term Gefühl was the German translation of Leibniz’s apperception, that is, something that goes beyond mere perception. Now, this ability of the subject to distinguish between his own right and left allows Kant to define a priori as “a

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difference in the position of the objects” (OOT 8:135/CERRT 8). Thus, on the basis of the “subjective ground of differentiation” (OOT 8:135/CERRT 9) it becomes possible for the subject to orient himself geographically. In the “impossible case” of a miraculous event where all remains the same, but what changes is the direction of movement of the stars, all would remain identical and we could not notice any “change” (Veränderung) without such a subjective basis of distinction. Starting from the geographical point of view, Kant then extends the concept to space in general: “In the dark I orient myself in a room that is familiar to me if I can take hold of even one single object whose position I remember” (OOT 8:135/CERRT 9). Once again, Kant emphasises that even in this case, it is a “subjective ground of differentiation” (OOT 8:135/CERRT 9) and he suggests the hypothesis that, for a joke, someone had moved the objects, holding their mutual position, while reversing them, setting on the right side what was before on the left side: Kant states that, even in this case, I can orient myself “through the mere feeling of a difference between my two sides, the right and left” (OOT 8:135/CERRT 9). The recall to the subjective reference is accompanied by the remark concerning the mathematical nature of such considerations, which concern precisely the ability to orient oneself in space. The reference to the distinction between “mathematical” and “dynamic”, according to the first Critique, is clear: this becomes manifest shortly afterwards, when we will pass from the ability to orient oneself in space, that is mathematically, to the attempt to extend one’s orientation in terms of “thinking in general, i.e. logically” (OOT 8:136/CERRT 9). Now, it is possible to formulate what Kant defines as a “conjecture” based on an analogy between the two levels: “By analogy, one can easily guess that it will be a concern of pure reason to guide its use when it wants to leave familiar objects (of experience) behind, extending itself beyond all the bounds of experience and finding no object of intuition at all, but merely space for intuition” (OOT 8:136/CERRT 9).

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3. The Objectivity of Space and the Refutation of Idealism Before focusing on what is implied in this discourse, which concerns the role of metaphysics in Kant’s thought, it will be useful to draw attention to the ability to orient oneself in space. My aim is to show that, even in this regard, the “subjective essence”, which Kant assigns to the distinction, is not merely “subjective” in the ordinary sense of the term. It is enough to remind ourselves Kant’s considerations regarding incongruent counterparts and the Refutation of Idealism included in the second edition of the Critique. As is well known, even since the pre-critical essay “Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation in Space” (DDS 2:375-83 [1768]/CETP 70:361-72), Kant pointed out that the impossibility of superimposing two specular figures depends on their orientation and he recalled the difference between the right hand and the left one. He used this “subjective” reference in order to emphasise the objectivity of space, as well as, in the second edition of the Critique, the a priori nature of space and then proved from a pure form which comes from the subject, and no longer from the object: “Now how can an outer intuition inhabit the mind that precedes the objects themselves, and in which the concept of the latter can be determined a priori? Obviously not otherwise than insofar as it has its seat merely in the subject, as its formal constitution for being affected by objects and thereby acquiring immediate representation, i.e., intuition” (CPR B41/CECPR 176). The need of a subjective reference becomes immediately manifest even in the Refutation of Idealism included in the second edition of the Critique: we need a permanent point of reference outside ourselves (in outside space) with regard to which we can determine the change (Wechsel) that characterises the phenomena of the internal sense, but such a reference is possible just because we are originally able to distinguish between the results of our imaginations and what is instead furnished by the external sense. This is the way whereby we can distinguish between reality, on the one hand, and representation of reality, on the other hand: the first element is objective, the second one is subjective. But let us examine Kant’s text: I am conscious of my existence as determined in time. All timedetermination presupposes something persistent in perception. This

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persistent thing, however, cannot be something in me, since my own existence in time can first be determined only through this persistent thing. Thus the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible only by means of the existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself. (CPR B275/CECPR 327)

In the formulation of the thesis, Kant states that “the mere, but empirically determined consciousness of my own existence proves the existence of objects in space outside me”. I would like to stress this passage, because here we are in a field which, in Kantian language, should be indicated as purely “mathematical”. The empirical conditions indicate that, in order to perceive any change (Wechsel), there must be something that is persistent. And this allows us to orient ourselves starting from the distinction between what is the result of our imagination, on the one hand, and what is suggested to us by experience, on the other hand. In the Preface to the second edition of the Critique, Kant then further specifies, with reference to the Refutation of Idealism, the objective character of the point of reference: “But this persisting element cannot be an intuition in me. For all the determining grounds of my existence that can be encountered in me are representations, and as such they themselves need something persisting distinct from them, in relation to which their change, and thus my existence in the time in which they change, can be determined” (CPR B XXXIX/CECPR 121). In the first consideration within the Refutation of Idealism, Kant underlines once again the basis for such a distinction: “Yet here it is proved that outer experience is really immediate” (CPR B276/CECPR 327); and in a footnote he adds: “But it is clear that in order for us even to imagine something as external, i.e., to exhibit it to sense in intuition, we must already have an outer sense, and by this means immediately distinguish the mere receptivity of an outer intuition from the spontaneity that characterises every imagining” (CPR B276-7/CECPR 327-8). Now, is not this reference to the outward experience based on a distinction, which cannot but be subjective, between the spontaneity of my imagining and outward intuition? Certainly we become able to realise such a distinction only by means of comparison among the empirical data, but these data do not include only the objective aspects (of the outward sense),

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but also the “subjective” ones (of the inner sense), which are both necessarily connected to each other.

4. Beyond the Boundaries of Experience When Kant moves from the ability of the subject to orient himself in a spatial sense, that is, mathematically, to the ability to orient himself in the domain of thought in general, he emphasises that in the examination of the analogy between the two levels we cannot forget that in this way reason aims to go beyond the boundaries of every possible experience: By analogy, one can easily guess that it will be a concern of pure reason to guide its use when it wants to leave familiar objects (of experience) behind, extending itself beyond all the bounds [Grenzen] of experience and finding no object of intuition at all, but merely space for intuition; for then it is no longer in a position to bring its judgments under a determinate maxim according to objective grounds of cognition, but solely to bring its judgments under a determinate maxim according to a subjective ground of differentiation in the determination of its own faculty of judgment. (OOT 8:136/CERRT 9-10)

This difficulty does not, however, eliminate the need to use a maxim, although our judgement cannot fulfil the conditions for a determinative judgement; we are driven to exceed the boundaries of experience by “the feeling of a need” that belongs to reason: “This subjective means still remaining is nothing other than reason’s feeling of its own need” (OOT 8:136/CERRT 10). Once again, in this task, the distinction between different kinds of possibility might help us. The limits (Schranken) of our knowledge prevent us from considering what exceeds every possible (sensitive) intuition as an object of our experience: “here there can be no intuition of objects or anything of the kind through which we can present a suitable object to our extended concepts and hence secure a real possibility for them” (OOT 8:136/CERRT 10). If the object cannot be provided by experience, so that we cannot verify its real possibility, then all that remains to do is to ascertain, from a negative point of view, that the criterion of logical possibility is respected, assuring that this claim to go beyond experience hides no contradiction: “there is nothing left for us to do except first to examine the concept with which we would venture to go beyond all possible experience to see if it is free of contradiction, and then at least to bring the relation of the object to objects of experience under

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pure concepts of the understanding—through which we still do not render it sensible, but we do at least think of something supersensible in a way which is serviceable to the experiential use of our reason” (OOT 8:1367/CERRT 10). However, the negative criterion of logical possibility does not exhaust the problem. Indeed, Kant states that we have not yet asserted anything: “Yet through this, namely through the mere concept, nothing is settled in respect of the existence of this object and its actual connection with the world (the sum total of all objects of possible experience)” (OOT 8:137/CERRT 10). However, this inability to assert the existence of a transcendent object as well as the other objects of experience does not exclude the fact that reason does not have the right to go beyond the boundaries (Grenzen) of experience itself. Kant shortly after observes: “But now there enters the right of reason’s need, as a subjective ground for presupposing and assuming something which reason may not presume to know through objective grounds; and consequently for orienting itself in thinking, solely through reason’s own need, in that immeasurable space of the supersensible, which for us is filled with dark night” (OOT 8:137/CERRT 10). I cannot thoroughly examine here Kant’s argument: I merely observe that Kant continuously and strongly distinguishes between, on the one hand, an invasion of the supra-sensible field (“Thus that is not a need at all, but merely impertinent inquisitiveness straying into empty dreaming to investigate them—or play with such figments of the brain”: OOT 8:137/CERRT 11) and, on the other hand, what is, on the contrary, a real “need” of reason, such as the case of reason’s feeling of “a need to take the concept of the unlimited as the ground of the concepts of all limited beings—hence of all other things” (OOT 8:137-8/CERRT 11). That is the Ideal which Kant described in the Transcendental Dialectic, now redeveloped in a positive direction, while not denying past considerations about the ontological proof. Here, in a footnote, Kant observes: “since this is the only way in which the principle of thoroughgoing determination makes it possible for our reason to distinguish between the possible and the actual—we find a subjective ground of necessity, i.e. a need in our reason itself to take the existence of a most real (highest) being as the ground of all possibility” (OOT 8:138/CERRT 11). And further he emphasises that such an assertion,

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which is always placed on a different level than that one of the objectivity of experience, however, is “of great importance” (OOT 8:138/CERRT 11). Finally, he asks: “For with what right will anyone prohibit reason—once it has, by his own admission, achieved success in this field—from going still farther in it? And where then is the boundary at which it must stop?” (OOT 8:138/CERRT 11).

5. Conclusions Taking up the thread of our remarks, I would now like to recall a few points that seem crucial for clarifying the contribution that What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? can provide us, in order to thoroughly understand both Kant’s thought and the room which can be left to metaphysics within Kantian critical philosophy. Placed just before the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s essay clearly indicates the positions then exposed in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), especially where it emphasises that the need of reason becomes unconditioned; as well as the statement of rational faith clearly announced in the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793). Concerning the task of metaphysics, as presented “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?”, it is important to stress the avowal of the need of reason to go beyond the boundaries of experience, because of the urgency to answer the questions that experience itself presents. In this sense, I think that here, more than elsewhere, the structure of the Kantian argument clearly appears. When he emphasises that it is matter of a “subjective ground of necessity” (OOT 8:138/CERRT 11) or “feeling of a need” (OOT 8:139/CERRT 12), we must overcome the reductive sense that this expression can assume, since it is always reason which is at work, and for purely theoretical reasons, in the attempt to give an explanation for what cannot be answered at the level of phenomena. When Kant distinguishes between the practical and theoretical levels, it seems clear that his aim is to highlight the unconditioned nature of the former and the conditioned nature of the latter: “but one sees very well that it is only conditioned, i.e. we must assume the existence of God if we want to judge about the first causes of everything contingent, chiefly in the order of ends which is actually present in the world” (OOT 8:139/CERRT

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12). Now, in my opinion, this “conditioned” character is not a limitation, but an essential feature of metaphysics, if by “conditioned” we mean reference to experience, which is the starting point of all our considerations. However, as Kant lucidly points out, we must carefully distinguish the limits (Schranken), within which we have to stay when we are working in terms of scientific knowledge, from the boundaries (Grenzen) of experience itself which indicate the common ground between the sensible and the supra-sensible, between the level of phenomena and reality in itself. Rejecting the Sceptical view, Kant takes up this distinction in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method, once again with reference to geographical field: “I cognize the limits (Schranken) of my actual knowledge of the earth at any time, but not the boundaries (Grenzen) of all possible description of the earth” (CPR A759/B787/CECPR 653). Even in this investigation, as Kant observes in a footnote of the text that we are examining, reason is still active cognitively: “Reason does not feel; it has insight into its lack and through the drive for cognition it effects the feeling of a need” (OOT 8:139/CERRT 12). When he then reminds us of the need for rational belief which “must also be taken as the ground of every other faith, and even of every revelation” (OOT 8:142/CERRT 14), he points out at the same time that such belief is “the signpost or compass by means of which the speculative thinker orients himself in his rational excursions into the field of supersensible objects; but a human being who has common but (morally) healthy reason can mark out his path, in both a theoretical and a practical respect, in a way which is fully in accord with the whole end of his vocation” (OOT 8:142/CERRT 14). It is especially in this defence of the task of reason that Kant gives us a strong appeal that goes beyond the controversy between Jacobi and Mendelssohn which motivated this work: thus, it takes a value which, at the present time, is still relevant, in an age which seems to exhaust itself in terms of scientific naturalism, forgetting every “ulteriority” and neglecting the need to find meaning, orientation (in Kantian terms) in our researches, as well as in our own lives. 1

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Bibliography Kant, Immanuel, “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” [OOT] [1786], Berlinische Monatsschrift (October 1786), pp. 304-30 [Ak 8:133-47], trans. A. Wood, in A. Wood and G. di Giovanni, Immanuel Kant: Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996, pp. 7-18. —. Critique of Pure Reason [CPR]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. —. Che cosa significa orientarsi nel pensiero, ed. by Franco Volpi, Milano: Adelphi, 19964; Che cosa significa orientarsi nel pensare, ed. by Andrea Gentile, Roma: Studium, 1996. Faggiotto, Pietro, Introduzione alla metafisica kantiana della analogia, Milano: Massimo, 1989. Fabris, Adriano, Kant e il problema del senso. Un percorso attraverso metafore, “Dialeghestai. Rivista telematica di filosofia”, 2 (2000): . Hanna, Robert, “The Inner and the Outer: Kant’s ‘Refutation’ Reconstructed”, Ratio 13 (2000): 146-174. Faggiotto, Pietro, Ricerche sulla filosofia kantiana, Padova: Il poligrafo, 2003. Hanna, Robert, Kant, Science, and Human Nature, Oxford: Clarendon/OUP, 2006, ch. 1, pp. 37-80. —. “Directions in Space, Non-Conceptual Form, and the Foundations of Transcendental Idealism”, see this volume, ch. 1.



POLITICAL ISSUES IN KANT’S PHILOSOPHY SANDRA ZÁKUTNÁ UNIVERSITY OF PREŠOV, SLOVAKIA

If we agree that Kant can be seen as a political philosopher, accepting that his political philosophy is inevitably connected with his philosophy of history, then the paper asks the question—can we speak only of Kant’s philosophy of history or can we also accept that he dealt with practical examples of philosophy of politics? In general, philosophy of politics studies the phenomenon of politics in a rather isolated way, deals with “political being” of societies, studies particular social groups fighting for power, the division of power and at the same time, analyses technologies of power, e.g. manipulation. A typical example of this discipline is Machiavelli’s Prince in which the author is part of the political life and suggests ways how to be the best ruler. He describes the mechanism of government, that is, how to make the state stronger, how to concentrate power, etc. The ruler does not have to concentrate on the question of whether politics is moral, cruel, or even against law. Jaspers, in his paper dealing with Kant’s writing Perpetual Peace, writes that while Kant assesses what is happening in everyday politics, what may be surprising for many, he is doing it unusually realistically.1 Kant is also seen as a political thinker, for whom, the most important part of politics is it’s a priori core, a principle derived from pure practical reason. In the work On the Common Saying: ұThis may be true in theory, but it does not apply in practiceҲ Kant says: Nowhere does practice so readily bypass all pure principles of reason and treat theory so presumptuously as in the question of what is needed for a good political constitution. The reason for this is that a legal constitution of long standing gradually makes the people accustomed to judging both their happiness and their rights in terms of the peaceful status quo. Conversely, it does not encourage them to value the existing state of affairs in the light of those concepts of happiness and right which reason provides. [...] Thus

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Political Issues in Kant’s Philosophy all constitutions which have lasted for a sufficiently long time, whatever their inadequacies and variations, produce the same result: the people remain content with what they have. If we therefore consider the welfare of the people, theory is not in fact valid, for everything depends upon practice derived from experience. (OCS 8:306)2

Kant also offers several characteristics and definitions of the term ‘politics’ which are, on the one hand, based on realistic description of everyday situations showing political techniques and practises, and on the other, describing politics in accordance with the morals. This paper aims to point out the differences between the two seemingly contrasting descriptions of politics, and see how Kant is or is not able to unite them. In the writings Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose and Perpetual Peace Kant claims that by approaching the idea of perpetual peace, everything should be subordinated to the idea of perfect constitution which will be able to last forever. Firstly, it is the evil that motivates mankind to move forward and secondly, the enlightenment that influences the government. In the state of enlightenment there is no need for war and states should realise that instead of permanent preparations for war, it is necessary to set laws which would guarantee secure cosmopolitan state for free and equal citizens. Previous political history was characterised by the frustration of human development caused by ceaseless deflecting from economic and human sources towards wars and preparations for them. Kant does not want to accept it and his philosophy offers challenges for the future by suggestions on how to approach the idea of perpetual peace, which is impossible to reach completely, but to which we can approximate in small steps. In his first definitive article of a perpetual peace he writes that “The Civil Constitution of Every State shall be Republican” (TPP 8:349) because a republican constitution is founded upon three principles: firstly, the principle of freedom for all members of a society (as men); secondly, the principle of the dependence of everyone upon a single common legislation (as subjects); and thirdly, the principle of legal equality for everyone (as citizens) (Ibid.). The Second Definitive Article of a Perpetual Peace says that “The Right of Nations shall he based on a Federation of Free States” because as individuals were able to group themselves into nation, each nation, for the sake of its own security, can and ought to demand of the others that they should enter along with it into a constitution, similar to the civil one, within which the rights of each could be secured (TPP 8:354). Based on peace contract, Kant introduces states that form an international

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state (civitas gentium) but then adds “[b]ut since this is not the will of the nations, according to their present conception of international right (so that they reject in hypothesi what is true in thesi), the positive idea of a world republic cannot be realized” (Ibid.). The last—third article—specifies the subject of universal hospitality and Kant says that “Cosmopolitan Right shall be limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality” (TPP 8:357). His definitive articles of perpetual peace show his vision on how to approach the idea of perpetual peace. This was Kant’s plan—he was looking for ideal scenario for the future or the highest good in history based on three interdependent principles of civil, interstate and cosmopolitan right. But the reality was very different from his idea... We can then ask whether it is possible to understand Kant as a philosopher who successfully deals with problems of real political practice, i.e. whether he studies politics in the way as philosophy of politics does, and if yes, how is it connected to his plan to approach the idea of perpetual peace when this idea is in conflict with political reality. In Perpetual Peace he directly describes empirical reality, i.e. political practices which should not be called true politics, but more appropriately “generally-known sophisms”. Maxims which are employed by someone whom Kant calls “the supposed practitioner” are described in this way: 1. Fac et excusa. Seize any favourable opportunity of arbitrarily expropriating a right which the state enjoys over its own or over a neighbouring people; the justification can be presented far more easily and elegantly and the use of violence can be glossed over far more readily after the fact than if one were to think out convincing reasons in advance and then wait for counter-arguments to be offered. This is particularly true of the first case, where the highest power in the state is also the legislative authority which must be obeyed without argument. Such audacity itself gives a certain appearance of inner conviction that the deed is right and just, and the god of success (bonus eventus) will then be the best of advocates. 2. Si fecisti, nega. If you have committed a crime, for instance, in order to lead your people to desperation and thence to rebellion, deny that the guilt is yours. Maintain instead that it arose from the intransigence of the subjects; or if you have seized control of a neighbouring people, say that the very nature of man is responsible, for if he does not anticipate others in resorting to violence, he may count on it that they will anticipate and overpower him. 3. Divide et impera. That is, if there are certain privileged persons among the people who have chosen you for their ruler merely as primus inter pares, make sure to disunite them among themselves and set them at odds

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All these maxims represent everyday political practice; no one can be surprised by the fact that they are being used, and no one can be taken in by them, because they have become everyday reality. Kant adds: “And as for the principles, the powers will feel no shame if they become publicly known, but only if they fail to succeed, for they are all agreed on the moral status of the maxims. They are left with political honour, on which they can always rely if they enlarge their power by whatever means they care to use” (TPP 8:375). It means: Politics is described here as sophistry. It is crystal clear that this type of behaviour is in conflict with the morals. These political practices are based on lies; the politician here is called by Kant as the man of practices (unfortunately, for him morality is pure theory). He refuses all human well-intentioned hopes and “[h]e bases his argument on the claim that we can tell in advance from human nature that man will never want to do what is necessary in order to attain the goal of eternal peace” (TPP 8:371). Kant adds that the problem cannot be solved if all individual men want to live in accordance with freedom and lawful constitution, but only if all men together desire to attain the goal represented by eternal peace in which civil society can exist as a single whole. It is also true that the legislator will not leave people to create a lawful constitution by their own common will because once he has the power in his own hands, or if a state has a power, he will not let people or other states to prescribe laws for him. Other examples of deceitful behaviour in politics can be used by Kant’s comparison of two types of people—a moral politician for whom the principles of political expediency can co-exist with morality and a political moralist who “fashions his morality to suit his own advantage as a statesman” (TPP 8:372). Political moralists, or despotising moralists or moralising politicians (men of practices) are described as politically smart people operating with political practices—it means tricks (instead of correct behaviour), to ensure their own private advantage. Kant writes: “They are just like lawyers (i.e. those for whom law is a profession, not a matter of legislation) who have found their way into politics” (TPP 8:373) “[a]nd they may boast that they know men (which is certainly to be expected, since they have to do with so many of them), although they do not know man and his potentialities, for this requires a higher

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anthropological vantage-point” (TPP 8:374). Then, when they want to apply it to state and international law they do it through chicanery and despotically formulated coercive laws—they do it mechanically “even in a sphere where the concepts of reason only allow for lawful coercion, in keeping with the principles of freedom, which alone makes possible a rightfully established political constitution. The supposed practitioner believes he can solve this problem empirically, ignoring the idea of reason...” (Ibid.). In this way—which is very common in politics—Kant’s idea of fulfilment of history and perpetual peace, naturally, cannot be achieved. Kant here has faced a problem to which he was led by Rousseau, which is the necessity to know man, emphasising anthropological groundwork of politics. Kant is a political thinker who focuses on the future which is represented by approaching the idea of perpetual peace, and at the same time, he presents a concept of philosophy based on law, duty and justice. The question of the morals and politics and their mutual relationship in Kant’s philosophy becomes a crucial question for his philosophy of history. He writes that the movement from the state of nature which is characterised by war towards the state of peace cannot be achieved without the notion of law and it must likewise be demonstrated that all the evil which stands in the way of perpetual peace results from the fact that the political moralist starts out from the very point at which the moral politician rightly stops; he thus makes his principles subordinate to his end (i.e. puts the cart before the horse), thereby defeating his own purpose of reconciling politics with morality. (TPP 8:376)

Thus, in political reality, morality is no principle for political moralist because he uses it only in the way how it suits him and it is for him more a burden than a tool to help in society. The political moralist can be imagined as a Kant’s opponent and Kant lets him speak very loudly in his writing. On the contrary, there is also a moral politician, for whom politics goes always hand in hand with morality and the most important moral task is to bring about perpetual peace, which is desirable not just as a physical good, but also as a state of affairs which must arise out of recognising one’s duty (Ibid.). One of the tasks of moral politician is to reform state and international law and he also should bear responsibility for his acts. True system of politics is, according to Kant, connected with the idea of public right and it can rely on morality because its rules should be also the

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basis of politics. Why? In case of morality, we know that its rules are good, and this cannot be told about politics. In politics, Kant illustrates it on the idea that the saying “‘Honesty is the best policy’ embodies a theory which is frequently contradicted by practice. Yet the equally theoretical proposition ‘Honesty is better than any policy’ infinitely transcends all objections, and it is indeed an indispensable condition of any policy whatsoever” (TPP 8:370). When we follow Kant’s argumentation, we see that in the relationship of what is and what ought to be, Kant always prefers what ought to be. He also asks how it is possible to achieve realisation of public right. He says that here is neither freedom nor any moral law based on freedom, but only a state in which everything that happens or can happen simply obeys the mechanical workings of nature, politics would mean the art of utilising nature for the government of men, and this would constitute the whole of practical wisdom; the concept of right would then be only an empty idea. But if we consider it absolutely necessary to couple the concept of right with politics, or even to make it a limiting condition of politics, it must be conceded that the two are compatible. (TPP 8:372)

This means that there should be no conflict between politics and the concept of right but the problem is in human nature, and the antagonism in the form of unsocial sociability well described in The Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose. If the legal duty should become a legal term, empirical politics may say something to the contrary to realisation of pure principles of right, [a] true system of politics cannot therefore take a single step without first paying tribute to morality. And although politics in itself is a difficult art, no art is required to combine it with morality. For as soon as the two come into conflict, morality can cut through the knot which politics cannot untie. The rights of man must be held sacred, however great a sacrifice the ruling power may have to make. There can be no half measures here; it is no use devising hybrid solutions such as a pragmatically conditioned right halfway between right and utility. For all politics must bend the knee before right, although politics may hope in return to arrive, however slowly, at a stage of lasting brilliance. (TPP 8:380)

Politics which as Kant mentions here is a continuous process of society in which priority of law is clear and becomes basis for political action. We can, again, illustrate it on the example of two types of politicians: political

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moralist and moral politician who are compared with principles of practical reason—material principle and formal principle. He describes material principle, i.e. its end, as an object of the will and connects it with political moralist and formal principle, i.e. the principle which rests on man’s freedom in his external relations and which states: “Act in such a way that you can wish your maxim to become a universal law (irrespective of what the end in view may be).” (TPP 8:377). The formal principle functions as a principle of moral politician “for whom it is a moral task, [...], to bring about perpetual peace, which is desirable not just as a physical good, but also as a state of affairs which must arise out of recognising one’s duty.” (Ibid.). The final end of man and history can be achieved by following the formal principle which can be guaranteed by practical reason and to achieve it, it means to achieve to the state of law. Law is determined by the will of all. “For example”, writes Kant “it is a principle of moral politics that a people should combine to form a state in accordance with freedom and equality as its sole concepts of right, and this principle is based not on expediency, but on duty” (TPP 8:378). Kant deals with another important term, “justice” and he quotes the proverbial saying: “let justice reign, even if all the rogues in the world must perish” (Ibid.) and continues in explaining that the state should have an internal constitution organised in accordance with pure principles of right, and also that it unite with other neighbouring or even distant states to arrive at a lawful settlement of their differences by forming something analogous to a universal state. This proposition simply means that whatever the physical consequences may be, the political maxims adopted must not be influenced by the prospect of any benefit or happiness which might accrue to the state if it followed them, i.e. by the end which each state takes as the object of its will (as the highest empirical principle of political wisdom); they should be influenced only by the pure concept of rightful duty, i.e. by an obligation whose principle is given a priori by pure reason. The world will certainly not come to an end if there are fewer bad men. Moral evil has by nature the inherent quality of being self-destructive and self-contradictory in its aims (especially in relations between persons of a like mind), so that it makes way for the moral principle of goodness, even if such progress is slow. (TPP 8:379)

In moral politics Kant presents his hope in progress. This progress is small, but at the same time, it represents a permanent improvement and the category of morality can be achieved through legal duty. In connection with duties he says that both aspects, philanthropy and respect for the rights of man, are obligatory. While philanthropy is only a conditional

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duty, the respect for the rights of man is an unconditional and absolutely imperative one (TPP 8:385). Then he is able to formulate a principle of public right in the following way: “All maxims which require publicity if they are not to fail in their purpose can be reconciled both with right and with politics” (TPP 8:386). Politics has many tasks, one of its most important is to remain in harmony with the aim of the public through making it satisfied with its condition and the maxims should be in harmony with public right—because “only within this right is it possible to unite the ends of everyone” (Ibid.). Kant in his political philosophy and description of political sophistry, which form part of philosophy of politics, represents a dynamic conception which he elaborates in the context of practical and topical problems of social and political life, and through the description of political practices he was able to name crucial problems of politics. For him, politics itself is techne, dependent on experience, and it becomes true politics only after it unites with moral behaviour. It means that when Kant describes empirical reality or formulates the abovementioned political practices, he mentions them as examples of political reality, not as assumptions on which real or true politics can be based. One of problems of these political practices is that they have to remain hidden, which necessarily means that in man, as a moral human being, there exists awareness of the morals. We can say that in Kant’s philosophy of history, via the philosophy of politics, Kant wants to distinguish what is really happening in politics and what should be happening in politics according to the law. That is why he is not looking for short-term peace solutions but some basic core which can lead to perpetual peace. He cannot agree with absence of the morals in the world of politics, he disagrees with politics that is clever but full of lies and cheating and cannot accept practices of so-called politicians. We know all of these Machiavellian practices, Kant knows the reality too, but the difference is that his aim was not to have a perfect ruler—as Machiavelli wanted—but he wanted to approach the idea of everlasting peace representing the highest good of human development.

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Notes 1

See Jaspers, “Kants ‘Zum ewigen Frieden’”. English translations of Kant’s works are cited from Kant, I.: Political Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), 2nd Edition, transl. by H. B. Nisbet, ed. H. S. Reiss, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 2

Bibliography Jaspers, K., “Kants ‘Zum ewigen Frieden’,” in K. Ziegler, (ed.), Wesen und Wirklichkeit des Menschen: Festschrift für Helmuth Plessner. Göttingen, 1957, pp. 131-152. Kant, I., Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe, edited by the Königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900 u. ff. —. Political Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), 2nd Edition, transl. by H. B. Nisbet, ed. H. S. Reiss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

ENLIGHTENMENT AS A PHILOSOPHICAL DRAMA: KANT AND FOUCAULT ON THE POLITICAL FIELD JESÚS GONZÁLEZ FISAC UNIV. OF CÁDIZ, SPAIN

1. Introduction In an interview, Lyotard pointed out that in Kant the intellectual plays an “even direct” role in the political field.1 Indeed, the two short pieces of 1784, WIE and IUH, contain direct references to government and rulers (Kant addresses Frederick II in WIE, and Frederick William II and his Minister Woellner in the Preface of CF). Note that this is not the obligatory courtesy with which authors address the Ruler in times of censorship and to secure the imprimatur of their texts. The topic of these writings is clearly political, i.e., how to govern individuals (or states); their tone is shameless. Furthermore, these writings do not formulate a request or a plea; they are rather a requirement, and their criticism is frank, almost offensive. Kant’s short piece, WIE,2 appears in Foucault’s work (1997a, 1997b, 1997c, 2000) linked to the role of the intellectual in the political field. One of the short writings devoted to WIE, “What is revolution?”, is an excerpt from the first lesson of Foucault’s The Government of Self and Others (a lecture given in 1982-3). This lecture, as well as the last three given at the Collège de France (2005, 2010, 2011) and other writings and conferences of these years, is devoted to parrhesy.3 Parrhesy is a particular form of speech, which is also addressed to power. The Foucauldian interest in the intellectual and in the political reality of philosophy has in the parrhesiast its last figure.

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We are interested in Foucault’s analysis of this concept. Parrhesy sheds a peculiar light on Kant’s texts about enlightenment, since, as Foucault has pointed out, enlightenment is a kind of modern parrhesy. The other issue we are going to deal with is whether the political field is occupied only by the intellectual or whether it also includes another subject. This has much to do with the staging of the enlightenment. Kant is not in favour of revolution. In OCS (1793), Kant states that the individual has no right to resist (8:299ff.). But this does not prevent the governed subjects from expressing their opinions about legislation, which is a right that still assists them. Kant, however, seems reluctant to share the political field with people, whose ability to govern is questioned repeatedly. The philosopher is the only valid interlocutor with Governments and rulers (see PP). From this point of view, the intellectual saturates the political field. However, in other texts Kant postulates a revolution in the mind of those who contemplate revolution (7:85). There is indeed a place for people, but only as spectators, not as actors. Foucault has the same problem. For Foucault the philosopher cannot be a privileged interlocutor in the political field and at the same time he cannot renounce his role of intellectual either. In the late Foucault the specialisation of the intellectual becomes less important, for the intellectual must have an active role, linked to the current issues. Foucault finds a relationship between philosophy and journalism, which is in the background of WIE (Foucault, 2000, p. 443). Note that the first work where Foucault refers to Kant’s WIE, “For an Ethic of Discomfort”, was written in 1979 shortly before the famous article about the Iranian Revolution “Useless to Revolt?”. In this article Foucault redefines the role of the intellectual, who should just inform the force of ideas, their explosive and violent manifestation. But this force, which is to be found in people, does not depend on the intellectual anymore.4

2. Ancient and Modern Parrhesy in Foucault: The Intellectual in the Political Field Foucault’s distinction between “‘universal’ intellectual” and “‘specific’ intellectual” (1980, p. 126) is well-known.5 It is needless to say that as long as we talk about the intellectual the word is taken in its political sense (p. 128). The ‘universal’ intellectual (the ‘universal’ is the ‘left’ intellectual) is the person who holds the truth and justice, becoming the “consciousness/conscience of us all” (p. 126). The point is that the

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intellectual is fully aware that he is the bearer of the universal, while people are only “inmediate, unreflected” bearers of it (this will have its importance when we examine Kant’s idea of people as political subjects). The specific intellectual, by contrast, is situated by his “own conditions of life or work”. This intellectual is a “savant or expert” (p. 127). Foucault claims that the difference between the two kinds of intellectual has to do with a difference in the connection between theory and practice as well as with a different interpretation of power. The model of ‘universal’ intellectual is a “jurist or notable”, who counter poses the ideals of justice and fairness to the abuses of power. The knowledge of the ‘specific’ intellectual concerns “powers which can either benefit or irrevocably destroy life” (p. 129). The first figure is understandable from a juridical conception of power, linked to rights. The second, however, can only be understood from a technical notion of power, linked to the practices of the government of men. Foucault revises this notion of the intellectual in the late seventies. The intellectual must fulfil a specific function, while remaining a moral figure. The moral condition of the intellectual must be understood literally, as a peculiar way of being or ethos. In The Courage of Truth Foucault distinguishes three functions of the intellectual. This distinction, which he takes from a cynical text, seems to be a repetition of the first classification. But instead of two, there are three categories of intellectuals (Foucault, 2011, p. 203-4). First, the category of those who “remain silent because they think the crowd cannot be convinced.” To the second category belong those who “keep their remarks for the classroom and their lectures for a select public and who refuse to confront the general public and address themselves to the city as such.” Finally, there is a third category, which the Cynics belong to, where “the function of philosophical teaching was not essentially to pass on knowledge but, especially and before all else, to give both an intellectual and moral training to the individuals one formed.”6 For Foucault the philosopher’s political status, “is not to be sought in his ideas, as if it could be deduced from them, but rather in his philosophy-as-life, in his philosophical life, his ethos.”7 According to Foucault the intervention of the philosopher in the political field is the proof of its reality. The role of the philosopher cannot be reduced to the expression of his thoughts; he must also act (Foucault, 2010, p. 218-9). Besides, life that can be considered as philosophical can not be separated from the political field. As Plato has paradigmatically pointed out, the ethos which is at stake here, the one which concerns the

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philosopher, is the ethos of the government of oneself (Republic 430e). But for a right understanding of self-government it must be considered as the government of others, not because there are always others who govern us, or even teach us to govern, but because this government is revealed in the distance that oneself maintains from oneself. Now the intervention of the philosopher in the political field is parrhesia or truth-telling. Parrhesy is basically “a political notion” (2010, p. 8). The issue of parrhesy is not the question of who holds power either, which is the question of dunasteia. The specific issue of parrhesy is how to govern the city, or politeia (p. 194-5). But the truth about the politeia is unspecific. The parrhesiast is not someone who says what should be done: “philosophy has to tell the truth in relation to politics, it does not say what politics truly have to do” (p. 288). The parrhesiast is not a nomotés, a legislator; he is not the ‘universal’ intellectual either. Moreover, this truth-telling is a peculiar way of the constitution of the subject by himself or subjectivation. The philosopher who tells the truth is always and simultaneously showing that he governs himself. But since this speech can offend power, the government of oneself implies that the subject is able to face the risk of addressing those who govern. In the parrhesiastic telling the subject is frank and shows himself with full transparency. Foucault expresses this peculiar transparency as the coincidence of belief and truth. The subject who tells the truth does not consider that he is telling a content from which he can keep a distance (in Kantian terms, this speech is not any of the modi of Fürwahrhalten, where there is a gap between the objective and the subjective; the parrhesiastic telling is rather an acroamatic evidence, as it were). Therefore, truthtelling lacks rhetorical ornament. Parrhesy is not conditioned by the topic “which might encode or hide it [the truth]” (parrhesiastic telling is authentic, etumos; see Foucault, 2011, p. 370ff.). In rhetorics the subject hides behind the ornament; the subject is alienated, as it were, since there is no “bond of belief between the person speaking and what he [states]” (2011, p. 13). In contrast, in parrhesy the very enunciation, the activity of the subject (his speech addressing power), is the only content. The real issue, the very essence of government, is the attitude and behaviour of those who venture to tell the truth to power; the issue of this speech is the freedom and the self-government of those who speak frankly. The government of ourselves, that is the very subject of politics.

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Foucault also speaks about “a dramatics of true discourse” to describe the way in which that peculiar ethos takes place (2010, p. 69). This is a dramatics, not only because there is a conflict (because of its agonistic character), but above all because the action, and the effect of the action, prevails in discourse. This particular condition of action, his performative status, is linked to two essential aspects of truth-telling. First, the action is effective, on the others and on oneself. Rhetoric is certainly a kind of specialisation in such dramatic effects. But while in rhetoric the effects are certainly pathetic, in parrhesiastic telling the very issue is the production of a free ethos (anyone becomes master of oneself). Second, Foucault has separated the parrhesiastic telling from speech acts, for the effect of truthtelling is unexpected and unconventional (p. 62). Anyway, the peculiar drama of parrhesy is somehow encoded. Parrhesy is a “pact” in which the subject binds himself to the truth of what he says. There are other dramatics and other dramas, like those of the prophet or of the scientist, who reveal and demonstrate the truth respectively, but the parrhesiast is the one who agrees with his words to the point that it is not possible to distinguish the person from his speech (the parrhesiastic subject is his own érgon). Now, parrhesy also has a fundamentally political sense. The parrhesiast also addresses the ruler. The pact says here: “if he wishes to govern properly, the one with power must accept that those who are weaker tell him the truth, even the unpleasant truth” (2010, p. 163). The sovereign “must act so that he opens up the space within ... truth-telling can be formulated and can appear, and in opening this freedom he undertakes not to punish [the one who has spoken] and deal ruthlessly with him” (p. 203). This pact however does not mean the disappearance of danger, as the parrhesiast takes the risk of breaking the relationship with the sovereign. Since the truth is not conventional at all, the relationship is always at risk. Finally, parrhesiastic action is also linked to the opportunity, the kairos. Although speech is not merely pathetic (otherwise, it would be just a technology, like rhetoric), there is indeed a parrhesiastic knowledge linked to the election of the moment. Kairos is “the particular conjucture, as it were, of an event” (2005, p. 86). The parrhesiast has to decide the occasion “according to the person to whom one speaks and the moment one speaks to him that parrhesia must inflect, not the content of the true discourse, but the form in which this discourse is delivered” (p. 384).

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But there is also a modern parrhesy. Foucault is interested in three figures of it, the figure of the “minister”, of the “critique” and of the revolutionary (2010, p. 70). The minister addresses the true discourse to the monarch “in the name of something called raison d’Etat.” The raison d’Etat is an unprecedented mode of government. The point is that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the raison d’Etat “acquired autonomy” (p. 180, note), so that the minister becomes politically relevant as a possible interlocutor for the intellectual. The parrhesiastic relationship with the Prince will not disappear but the addressed will be no longer, as in ancient parrhesy, the Prince’s soul and his education. Nonetheless Foucault does not develop this figure because he is interested in the figure of the critic, which shares with the figure of the revolutionary the fact of being a matter of attitude, an ethos. The figure of the critic appears in Foucault’s “What is Critique?” In Kant’s WIE we see that, although there is no reference to the ministers, the critical philosopher refers to the public servants who hold the knowledge of government. For Foucault the critic answers the specific question of how not to be governed like that. The critical philosopher does not only question power (this is just one of the figures which he has assumed historically); he also addresses the specific knowledges, such as pedadogy or economy, and their specific mode of government (1997a, p. 28). Thus, one of the essential figures of criticism is the one which is concerned with the raison d’Etat. Here the public which is addressed by the critical philosopher is a select public of civil servants. But Foucault distinguishes two readings of criticism. One was born from the suspicion and distrust of the modern knowledges of government and of their excesses. The other understands criticism as an analysis of the limits of knowledge as well as of its deviations. However, both readings, the one which has assumed the political legacy of Kantian criticism and the one which is limited to its hermeneutical legacy, have not attended to something essential, which Foucault traces back to the Aufklärung. Foucault refers to a “gap” between critique and enlightenment in which the latter is left behind and obscured by those readings of criticism. Critique has focused on the analysis of the effects of domination of knowledge (Frankfurt School) and has forgotten the genealogical perspective that places the excesses of power in the constitution of knowledge itself and not vice versa (knowledge is the very origin of those excesses and not merely a means to power). For Foucault enlightenment, as Kant himself had glimpsed, understands philosophy as something more

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than an analysis. The critical philosophy teaches us that philosophising is also an experience and a practice (p. 45ff.). But what kind of experience and attitude can be attributed to modern parrhesy? On the one hand, Foucault refers to the “individual experience” of the revolt, a kind of “fundamental anarchism,” which would have its origin in the procedures of counter-conduct of the Middle Ages and whose final figure would be the revolutionary (1997a, p. 73-4). The discourse of the revolutionary “takes the form of a critique of the existing society” (2011, p. 30). But the revolution is also a “way of life”. Specifically, the revolutionary life is “militantism”. This way of life interests Foucault because, as well as the figure of the dandy (which would be the aestheticmodern mode of militancy), it is a parrhesiastic “style of existence” (p. 184). The militant not only breaks with social conventions; he does it, as Cynics at their time, through a direct and visible practice. Cynics became a model of ancient parrhesy in Foucault’s analysis. Cynics play the role of the intellectual while showing an unmistakable and clear ethos, which Foucault also recognises in modern art (p. 187). But how do Cynics occupy the public sphere and what effects do they produce on it? The Cynical philosophy could be characterised as “popular” since “it was never accepted by the educated philosophical consensus and community” (p. 226-7). The conduct of the Cynics is only effective due to its scandalous nature, between repulsive and ridiculous (p. 231-2). However, there is also something genuine in the fact that the Cynics put in the center of philosophical reflection, not a content, but a way of life and a mode of behaving. The critical philosopher would also occupy this place.

3. Ancient and Modern Parrhesy in WIE The distinction between the three functions of the intellectual comprises the impasse which the intellectual is in. Kant is also in this impasse. The knowledges by which enlightenment is concerned are those that Foucault calls ‘governmental’. These knowledges are at one and the same time universal, for they consider the whole, omnes, and individualised, for they consider the individual, singulatim. Thus the philosopher moves between the restriction of the level of these specialised knowledges (in the hands of scholars) and the universality and indistinguishability of their scope (which reaches all individuals). As noted by some authors, this seems to lead the enterprise of the intellectuals towards so-called enlightened despotism. Kant’s solution, however, provides an intermediate position that does not renounce the pretension of achieving a moral transformation.

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The exit of minority postulates the acquisition of a kind of virtue or strength. This function of the intellectual, however, cannot be separated from the other two. Kant’s proposal includes simultaneously a reform of government and of the knowledges of government, where the intellectual shares something with the figure of the minister, and an assurance of the public space, where the figure of the critic (the ‘universal’ intellectual avant la lettre) stands out. The particular subjectivation which enlightenment postulates is a way of thinking, Denkungsart, which has left prejudice behind. On the one hand, enlightenment, as well as prejudice, is not linked with knowledge. What is at issue here is in some way unspecified knowledge, the knowledge of oneself (Refl 2076, 16:222-3). Enlightenment is the anthropological and civil dimension of criticism. But enlightenment also takes charge of governmental rationality. In WIE, we find the old knowledges about religion, medicine and war (note that the three are modes of government of people’s conduct), and the knowledges of the rising raison d’Etat (finance and legislation). In any case, Kant’s allusion to prejudice indicates that the way of thinking that must be overcome by enlightenment is the passive use of reason. Minority is the way of thinking in which the subject is subjected to prejudices and to those people who have inculcated them. In contrast, the ethos that seeks the critical philosopher in his interlocutor is the ethos of the government of the self. Thus courage is the specific basis for selfcontrol: it consists in overcoming the security of the flockless inertia of prejudices. As Kant says, danger is not in the very nature of prejudices, but in the consequences of its suppression. The abandonment of the guide of prejudices, the freedom to think otherwise, strays and disorients (prejudice is a king of blindness; cf. CPJ 5:295), and also causes insecurity. This insecurity is related to the fact that prejudices orient oneself not only in thought but also and above all in the practice of individuals. The government of oneself has to do not so much with the knowledge of who we are but with the knowledge of what we can and should make of ourselves. But this knowledge is something more, or something different. As Foucault has pointed out, it is also an ethos and thus enlightenment needs a particular mood, courage. Courage has a subjective-anthropological dimension. Note that cowardice is one of the affects of the passive state of mind instilled by tutors. The exit from minority, the goal of a courageous mind, must overcome a

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peculiar state of nature, laziness (8:35-6).8 Besides, since what is at issue is prejudice, whose primary source is imitation (BL 24:163), the ethos of enlightenment also implies a challenge to the authority which instils them with the help of passive dispositions for his own benefit. Anyway, courage is not blind and must be accompanied by reflection (Ref 16:741, A 7:256).9 But, we insist, what is at issue are not specific knowledges (or concepts) but a Denkungsart. Enlightenment concerns the official, the taxpayer and the clergyman as well as everyone with prejudices. The exit of minority is indeed a conversion of the mind, not a progressive accumulation of knowledge. We find the same non-specificity in respect of the topics. While in the case of scholars the topic of their discussions are doctrines and provisions (although these are not the goal of the intended reforms), the proposal of the philosopher is clearly non-specific. In WIE Kant points out expressly that the public use of reason is concerned with the topic of legislation. But the proposal of the philosopher is not directed to a particular law but to the mode of making laws, to the politeia, which Kant calls forma regiminis in PP. Kant assures the Prince that the proposed measure of permiting the freedom of press will only affect the legislation, Gesetzgebung, not the form of sovereignty, the dynasteia or Beherrschung (PP 8:352). Kant also soothes the Prince, who has “at hand a large, well-disciplined army” (WIE 8:41). Both non-specificities, the subjective and the topical one, are the two sides of self-government. Enlightenment postulates a new way of governing ourselves, whose horizon is the government of the state, including their forms of governamentality. This mode comprises the distinction between the freedom to think, which must always precede, and the freedom to act. Just as courage cannot exist without reflection, there cannot be a political action in the absence of knowledge and reasoning. Note that the distinction between thinking and acting (that is, as a citizen and not as a mere rational being) is the transcription of the further distinction between forma regiminis and forma imperii. What is at issue in WIE is the proposal of a republican mode of self-governing of reason and knowledge. In the CPR a republican government for the academic community was already postulated (in CPR, A851/B879, Kant speaks of a “wissenschaftliche Gemeinen Wesen”; see also CF 7:19). Here the background is the separation between executive and legislature powers. The State must allow the knowledges of government, including political knowledge, to organise

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themselves republicanly, for which the government must stop interfering executively in the affairs of the disciplines. The only action that the Prince can exercise on knowledge is actually an omission, a waiver of its executive power. The freedom of the pen which Kant demands for scholars and citizens is nothing but the non-intervention of power in knowledge and communication. Kant’s idea that free thinking is not an anarchic acting is in accordance to the very factuality of thought (free thinking only moves in an empty space of action, as pointed out in 8:40-1), but his insistence on it in WIE is rather a ruse to persuade, not to convince, the Prince. That is why Kant insists that enlightenment will not alter “public peace” in any way (8:41). This is the parrhesiastic pact that Kant proposes to the Prince: while allowing the public discussion about the knowledges of government, the political truth—which is republican—of his government will be demonstrated. But there is another condition, a positive one, apart from the one of the non-interference of the State: the public use of reason. The courage of enlightenment is at issue not only between the Prince and the philosopher; there must be communication and discussion among scholars. It is a policy of truth, as it were, which consists in the open conflict of reasons and arguments. Note that the truth at stake here is not that of the investigation of nature, the objective truth, that would be determined by the topic. Something else is at stake, the truth of reason itself, its interest in investigation and in truth. To start with, in WIE there is a legitimate interest in “the suitability or the utility” (8:37) of the provisions of governmental knowledges. Here truth is nothing but the interest of citizens in the benefits the state must report. But there is also another interest, the interest of reason to govern itself in knowledge, which is the same as saying, the interest of reason in governing knowledge. In this sense Kant will say in CF that the interest of the Faculty of Philosophy is only the truth, i.e., the suitability or utility for reason itself.

5. The Opportunity and Dramatics of Truth in WIE The dramatics of truth-telling has two conditions: opportunity and publicity. To be effective truth-telling must be opportune. First in respect to the State as a whole, whose non-intervention is required; second in respect of the issues of governance that should be discussed.

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WIE was published in the periodical Berlinische Monatschrift. Foucault has repeatedly stressed the uniqueness of WIE as a reflection on the present. This priority of the present moment belongs to the Kantian conception of history with which we cannot deal here. We just want to point out that the specificity of this question is the recognition of the present, which is the horizon of an interrogation that can only be answered by us (the whole question is “What are we now?”; see Foucault 2000, p. 443; 2010, p 11). Foucault has claimed that for Kant this question works as an operator that is not linked to a logic of the past, nor to a possible ongoing project either (in CF Kant dissociates the time of enlightenment from the three representations of human history which situate the present as part of a larger course; 7:81-3). Enlightenment is an event that should be treated as a favourable opportunity to reform the dominant way of thinking as well as the current way of governing and being governed. In enlightenment the present is the permanent opportunity. In 1784 enlightenment is already a Zeitalter (the Enlightenment), a matured time for the exit from minority. Kant attempts to link this age to the reign of Frederick, whom he addresses in this text. The reference to the idea of “tolerance” (8:40) situates this time of departure historically. The kairos that should know the parrhesiastes must not be linked to a technique. The technique is precisely the knowledge that could be applied at any time. Opportunity, on the contrary, is not available to the subject. In several places Kant refers to the idea that criticism is the result of a maturation process, Reife (CPR A747/B775, etc.), which, like reason and its dispositions, constitutes a sort of seed (loci varia). In parallel, enlightenment should be recognised as an event in the course of the “intention of nature”, Naturabsicht. The disposition, Anlage, of reason emerging in enlightenment is a “systematic structure” (the expression is in IUH 8:26, where Kant refers to Weltbau), i.e., a structure or form of orientation or purpose (remember how Kant defines a system in CPR A832/B860). This structural condition enables the understanding of a march of human affairs, one of whose emerging events is the enlightenment (8:28). Now, in order to avoid the confusion of this time of maturation with some kind of destiny, so that enlightenment does not lose its link with the present and it is still an activity and an ethos, the maturation of this disposition must be understood as a peculiar game of opposing forces and resistances, also implanted, and whose opposition or dialectic is permanent. Reason, like man taken as a whole, is controversial and antagonistic. This is the thesis which Kant presents in IUH and which should be understood

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in parallel with the exit postulated in WIE. Kant also proposed an exit, Ausgang, to the Prince which follows the logic of a course, Gang, of events and which the philosopher tries to show by all means as inevitable. This is especially evident in IUH where Kant, with a warning tone (the sovereigns will not try to stop the illustration, “if they know what’s good for them”), announces the progressive influence of the enlightenment on the “principles of government” (8:28). Kant’s proposal is that of a nonintervention: leaders must at least “not prevent” the efforts for enlightenment. In the text of WIE what is not at issue is anticipating the transformation but giving the instructions to get it. So, rather than a predictor text, WIE is a programmatic text which contains the announcement of enlightenment as well as the announcement of the method. Afterwards other texts of the same tone will come, but the intervention of the philosopher must always be regarded as an opportunity for the power to take charge of the situation. The occasion can not usurp the power of being a direct cause. It can only expose the relevance of the present historical moment for the demanded change. It is as if nature, the controversial nature that finds and overcomes resistances, had become history. This is the meaning of epigenesis (CPR B166-7): it is neither a pre-established rigid structure (to which experience would not accommodate), nor just a reaction modulated by the object of knowledge (which would give priority to experience). Now, opportunity has also a more pragmatic and opportunistic meaning. As Foucault reminds us, Plato, who had renounced participation in any political activity in Athens, finds an opportunity in Sicily (2010, p. 224). Certainly one of the reasons why Plato goes to Sicily is that the task of the Prince’s counsellor is simpler than that of any citizen before the assembly, since one has to convince just one person, whereas in a democracy one has to persuade the masses. Indeed, the purpose of Kant is to achieve a transformation of the state and of the way of governing it. In a way Kant also addresses the prince’s soul, but only with the intention of winning the trick of freedom in the public use of reason. The main difficulty of enlightenment remains in how to gain access to every man. In WIE Kant makes use of the ideal of humanity, as well as in IUH and afterwards in CF, but this use is a rhetorical sophistry rather than a real possibility (see below). There is still no clear idea of how to achieve enlightenment of the people. The only clear thing is the need of a public space, which will serve as a space of the transformation of the modes of

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government and of the middle officials. Because of that Kant addresses Frederick II with an undisguised rhetoric which clearly seeks pathetic effects: first adulation, afterwards menace. The idea of toleration is used in order to adulate, though Kant immediately criticises the Prince and ruins the compliment, telling the Prince that he is not above grammarians. Tranquillity is achieved while first reminding him that freedom is restricted to the public use of reason and that this freedom is trivial and should not worry Him; the other restriction, that of religious issues, also achieves such tranquillity (8:41), since matters of conscience, at least in appearance, have nothing to do with the public behaviour of individuals. Certainly both claims are tricky. Freedom in the public use of reason is described as “the most harmless form of all the things that may be called freedom” (8:36-7). The freedom of conscience is linked to the religious issues, but we know from OOT that this can only be hindered by an “external violence” (8:144-5), whose suppression is a requirement of freedom in the public use of reason. But this is only a preamble. The text progresses, if we may say so, from the minority of the mind to the majority of the State. Thus, WIE ends with the claim—actually a warning—of the possibility of a change in legislation, a change that in any case will be accompanied by a safeguard clause for the Prince and for his life, which will not be in danger; so, what is the idea of “public peace” but a trompe l’oeil of the peace and security of the Prince himself? With the successor, Frederick William II, the situation will be very different. The censorship of Rel in 1794 makes it impracticable to repeat texts such as those of 1784. The question is framed now in the dispute between the philosopher and the state but, and this is the key, with university, a public institution which the State makes use of to govern knowledges too, in the middle. There is a shift from the “philosophers”, who are individuals and can always be considered as bearers of selfish intentions and interests, to the “Faculties”, whose institutional status seems to remove any other interest rather than that of their own knowledges (cf. CF 7:28-9). (Similarly, Kant distinguished between the rulers and their “selfish” interests and the principles of government which concern the state and public interest; for this see IUH 8:28.) The two added parts in OCS, a text of 1793, respond to the censorship of the second part of Rel and anticipate the conflict of the Faculty of Philosophy with the Faculty of Law. But in WIE the issue has not been raised in these terms yet. Kant only proposes a tool for the free management of the knowledges of government.10

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The inclusion of the issue of the freedom of conscience helps to raise the problem of how to govern oneself. First because, in fact, as Foucault noted, pastoral power has been one of the fundamental modes of government of the West. Pastoral power has shaped that mode of being governed which is Unmündigkeit. Second because intolerance does not only affect single consciousness. Intolerance has an inalienable political significance. Consciousness is not an inner place, safe from the exercise of power; religious freedom, which is the contrary of intolerance, is a civil practice as well. Finally, the presence in WIE of the issue of the freedom of conscience is due to the exemplary character of the Church. The Church is a model or example of an institution that is linked not only to the government of men but also and especially to their destination (see CF 7:79ff.). Tolerance is thus the opportunity to question enlightenment, which is nothing more than how to govern us freely and rationally.

6. Publicity as the Stage of Enlightenment Publicity has two relevant properties. On the one hand, it is a criterion of the rationality of norms. On the other hand, it is a factual place where the discussion and the very exercise of reason happens. First, publicity is a condition of the rational—and not only the logical— possibility of the legal norm (PP 8:381). It works as a negative criterion and as a positive one as well. Negatively, publicity reveals the contradiction incurred by rule. The logical contradiction repugnant to understanding is irrepresentable (NM 2:171). But in this case the contradiction is not against the logical identity, the consistence of a concept, but against the final purposes of reason, i.e., against the identity and consistence of a rational being. A contradictory rule does not say “A is not-A”; it is more like “A will not-A”. Such a contradiction in terms of will and its purposes makes the rule rationally untenable. Positively, if publicity does not remove the rules (insofar as they are according to will and to reason), either the legal norms or the political provisions are consistent with moral rules (PP 8:386), so that the final purpose of those, the general happiness, is guaranteed. In WIE Kant anticipates the idea that a principle or rule that contravenes this purpose (general happiness or progress) cannot be publicly advocated. Kant says in this text that such a contravention would justify the rejection

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of “these resolutions” (8:39). Publicity is a meeting place of agreement and disagreement between different opinions. If publicity is a criterion it is because the agreement or disagreement reveal the universality of such expressions, setting a genuinely political—and not only logical— community, i.e., a community of interests. Thus publicity as a criterion of rationality leads us to its factual condition. One of the factual aspects of publicity is its emotional dimension. To fully understand the meaning of publicity as a political arena, it must be noted that publicity is a meeting place for emotions. As Kant says in the first Critique, “taking something to be true” is a fact of understanding. The objective validity of judgement, its touchstone, lies in “the possibility of communicating it and finding it to be valid for the reason of every human” (CPR A821/B848). However, any agreement or disagreement also implies an affection (this is the fundamental premise of CPJ). The communicative encounter enables a peculiar affective community. Those who recognise an agreement, either a logical or a political one, are also linked in the way of feeling. Kant refers to this fact when he speaks about moral maxims, whose publicity means that all members are “affected” or “tempered”, gesinnt (Preparatory Work on the Doctrine of Right 23:320). Similarly, in CF Kant notes that the spectacle of the revolution arouses a sense of community, a sympathy (7:85). This emotional dimension confirms the factuality of a communicative encounter and its genuinely political significance. Note that censorship, which is the impediment to this communication, is a “civil”, bürgerliche, constraint (8:144). The sensus communis, as well as its impediment, is factual. But the encounter of rational beings is factual in another sense. In a deeply logical way, if we may say so. The public use of reason consists in an “examination”, Prüfung (CF 7:32) or, as Kant has pointed out in other texts, it is a “free and public examination” (CPR A XI, note). The reasoning is offered to the “judgement”, Beurteilung, of the Publikum (8:37). The person who makes use of his reason publicly puts his thoughts at the disposal of others. As we have seen, Kant minimises rhetorically the danger of the freedom of thinking in order to preserve the tranquillity of the Prince (supra). But it is something else. When one expounds his own thoughts to the judgement of the other, one gains distance from his thoughts. Freedom here consists in the loss, even for a while, of the link to the judgement or doctrine that one is expounding (concerning suspensio judici see BL 24:163). When we expound our thoughts to others, somehow they are no longer ours and become available to anyone else. Note that

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prejudice is just the opposite, a judgement that we accept without examination and assume mechanically (in the same way that we carry a yoke). Thus, the basic social and psychological mechanism of prejudice is respect, which is a way of thinking which is not free, but servile (VL 24:869). A prejudiced mind can only keep with his thoughts a relationship of submission or subordination. Prejudice is something which is not recognised by the subject and which does not allow him to recognise his own capacity (the only strength of mind involved in prejudice is memory). The person who uses his own reason publicly exercises its freedom while expounding himself to the consideration of others and accepting the possibility that their judgements can be modified. One recognises, and this is also an exercise of freedom, that his reason can win and improve itself in the encounter with the judgements of others. If universality is the logical shape of rationality, sharing and communicating thoughts is its factual shape. The freedom of gaining distance from one’s own thoughts involves the virtue or force of prudence (the virtue of iudici suspensio); the freedom of expounding them involves courage. The conflict is thus linked to this freedom and to the openness of public speech.

7. The Scope of Enlightenment: Stage or Theater? The actors of the drama of enlightenment are scholars (to which the philosophers belong). The intellectual, at least in principle, seems not to take people into account to carry out reforms. But there are also spectators. Drama also needs a stage and a space for spectators as well. In WIE Kant refers to a world of readers, which are the viewers of this drama. But, as many scholars have pointed out, the world of readers is not the people. The drama of reasoning takes place before rational judges. This is a logical consequence of the purpose of enlightenment. The government of oneself and others means that one can interchange the roles of teacher and disciple (or of judge and defendant). According to this, the only true political subjects, which would coincide with the real—and not with the postulated—world of readers, are intellectuals. However, Kant says that people are interested in natural rights; they are not interested in the discussion between scholars (or between the philosopher and scholars; CF 7:29-30). Natural rights are the safeguard of the “natural ends” of people. These rights are accessible to everyone, since their origin is “in the common human understanding” (CF 7:89). In this

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sense we read in WIE that hindering enlightenment would contravene “the sacred rights of mankind” (8:39). But does this mean that mankind could be aware of that “detriment”? Scholars are on the stage and in the place of spectators. But, how broad is this place? Or in other words, is there any other role than “actor” and “spectator” in this drama? Note that there are many dramas which take place in publicity: first, between the philosopher and the Prince, or between the philosopher and scholars; second, between scholars themselves; there is also a third kind of drama between the philosopher and people; and, finally, people also take part somehow in a drama in which the ministers or the rulers in general also act. There is indeed a drama in which the philosopher acts as a parrhesiast who tells the truth to power. WIE is concerned by this kind of drama. The purpose is to get a free access to the public sphere, for the philosopher himself and for scholars too. In WIE the philosopher does not play a role in relation to the public use of reason between scholars, as if there was a natural law which would rule the discussion. However, in CF Kant introduces the role of the philosopher as judge in the conflict between scholars, either of the same Faculty or of different Faculties. Actually the conflict between the philosopher and the Prince is settled with a pact, which includes the conflict between scholars. The best and most accomplished formulation of this pact between the intellectual and the authority is in the “Secret Article Toward Perpetual Peace” (PP 8:368). The intellectual demands freedom. But not only freedom. As mentioned earlier, the philosopher proposes to the Prince a non-intervention pact. Either the philosopher or scholars must be allowed to speak publicly. Besides, the philosopher is the judge in the legitimate conflict between scholars. But our interest is more in the other two dramas in which people, precisely thanks to publicity, are implied. Let us examine these. We can say that people are a part of drama insofar as the Government itself is also exposed to publicity. This public exhibition of laws and provisions through their publication makes a community of subjects and rulers possible. Publicity opens the scope of potential spectators in unexpected ways. Note that people are somehow the true spectators of all these dramas, because they are of all the participants the most concerned in their endings. People do not attend the representations which take place

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in palaces, in ministries, or even in newspapers, but they are aware of the tone of such dramas, which they finally perceive in how they are governed. And this tone produces and becomes an ethos. It is important to note that there is not one type of ethos for guardians and scholars and another type for minors. The courageous attitude toward authority is parrhesiastic only when it is linked to the knowledge about how to be or not to be governed, which is an ethos and not a specific knowledge. The reform at stake concerns the way of thinking, the Denkungsart, and not knowledges. In CF Kant will link the attitude of encouragement to the knowledge of the moral law (7:85-6). As is wellknown, moral law is linked to a particular feeling, the feeling of respect, Achtung, which is not simply pathetic. The feeling of respect elevates the moral subject, who perceives himself as a person and not only as a natural being (see CPrR 5:73-4). And the most important issue is that everyone is capable of this feeling. The end of WIE, which carefully distinguishes the freedom to think from the freedom to act, has not only the purpose to deceive the Prince. It is also a programmatic proposal on how to achieve enlightenment. The causes of the inability to make use of the understanding point to an anthropologicalpolitical background (the minority). The exit of such inability needs the same background. Kant situates the Sinnesart in this point. Certainly the public use of reason will never be a sublime event, as the French Revolution has been (the news of which, by the way, reach the whole world), but it is a genuinely rational event, since what is contemplated is nothing more than thinking in freedom. People have a Sinnesart which is able to perceive such a way of being governed, precisely when their “sacred rights” are at stake.

8. Conclusion Enlightenment is a drama in several acts. One is the fight against censorship. Another, perhaps the leit motive of the whole work, is the fight against minority. But for these dramas to also be played in the heart of men, publicity must exist as a free and excessive space in which perhaps what is said is not noticed, although the tone and temper of the discussion will always be perceived. 1

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Notes  1

Lyotard, J.-F., “E se ci entusiasmassimo?”, interview with Omar Calabrese, Panorama, 1986, 2 November. 2 The titles of Kant’s works will be quoted following the standard CUP abbreviations. The quotations include the corresponding volume and page numbers in the “Academie” edition. The translations into English of Kant’s works—which I have occasionally modified—are the following: The Conflict of Faculties. Der Streit der Fakultäten, trans. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Abaris Books, 1979); Lectures on Logic, tr. J. M. Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); “An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’“, in What is Enlightenment?: eighteenth-century answers and twentieth-century questions, ed. and tr. J. Schmidt (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1996); The Metaphysics of Morals, tr. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Critique of Pure Reason, tr. Paul Guyer, Allen W. Wood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Critique of the Power of Judgment, tr. P. Guyer, E. Matthews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Toward Perpetual Peace, in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History, tr. David L. Colclasure (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006); On the Common Saying: This May Be True in Theory, but It Does Not Hold in Practice, in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History, tr. and ed. cit.; Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, tr. Robert B. Louden (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006); “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim”, tr. A. Wood, in Oksenberg, A., Schmidt, J. (eds.), Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 3 The terms “parrhesy”, “parrhesiast” and “parrhesiastic” will be used without italics. 4 See “Useless to Revolt?” in M. Foucault, 2000, p. 449-453. 5 For the role of the intellectual in Foucault see, e.g., M. Walzer, “The Politics of Michel Foucault”, in David Couzens Hoy (ed.), Foucault: A Critical Reader, Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1986, pp. 51-68; and F.-P. Adorno, “La tâche de l’intellectuel: la modèle socratique”, in Gros, Foucault. Le courage de la vérité, Paris: PUF, 2002, p. 35-62. 6 For the relationship between Cynism and Enligthenment (including an anaylis of Cynics in Foucault’s last course) see L. Shea, The Cynic Enlightenment. Diogenes in the Salon, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, p. 169ff. 7 Cf. “Politics and Ethics. An interview”, in P. Rabinow (ed.), The Foucautl Reader, New York: Panteon Books, 1983, p. 374. 8 For the dynamics of enlightenment and its relationship with prejudice see J. González, “The Paradoxes of Enlightenment”, Studia Kantiana, 18 (jun. 2015), p. 37-58. 9 For a complete analyisis of the kantian concept of “courage” see N. Tampio, Kantian Courage: Advancing the Enlightenment in Contemporary Political Theory (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), p. 31ff.

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10 The University is a place of encounter between the philosopher and the state. Since the knowledges of the higher Faculties are the means for the State to get the capacity to influence people (CF 7:19), the puzzling question for the University will be how to be governed by the State. At this issue the intervention of the intellectual becomes relevant but Kant is still far from what Lyotard has called “narrative of legitimation” of knowledge of German idealism (J.-F. Lyotard, 1984, p. 31ff.). According to Lyotard the legitimation is produced by the narration itself, speculatively. The Faculties legitimise themselves and their knowledge producing and extending these narrations. But the subject of this knowledge is neither the people nor the state but a sort of “metasubject” (p. 34). The University is a means which forms the moral and spiritual character of the nation. After his encounter with censorship, Kant could become suspicious of both the spirit of the nation and the uninterest of the state and, as we want to show, he would be probably closer to the analysis of governmentality rather than to those made from a speculative point of view.

Bibliography Foucault, M., “Truth and Power”, in Power/Knowledge. Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977, New York: Pantheon, 1980. —. “Iran: The Spirit of a World Without Spirit”, in Foucault, M., Politics, Philosophy, Culture. Interviews and other writings, 1977-1984, New York, NY: Routledge, 1988, pp. 211-224. —. “What is Critique?”, in M. Foucault, The Politics of Truth, New York: Semiotext(e) (1997a): 23-82. —. “What is Revolution?”, in M. Foucault, The Politics of Truth, ed. cit., 1997b, pp. 83-100. —. (1997c), “What is Enlightenment?”, in M. Foucault, The Politics of Truth, ed. cit., p. 101-134. —. “Life: Experience and Science”, in M. Foucault, Aesthetics, Method and Epistemology. Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, vol. II, New York: The New Press, 1998, pp. 465-478. —. “For an Ethic of Discomfort”, in M. Foucault, Power. Essential Works of Foucault, 1954-1984, vol. III, New York: The New Press, 2000, pp. 443-448. —. The Hermeneutics of the Subject. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-1982, London: Palgrave, 2005. —. The Government of Self and Others. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982-1983, London: Palgrave, 2010. —. The Courage of the Truth (The Government of Self and Others II). Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983-1984, London: Palgrave, 2011.

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Kant, I, Kants gesammelte Schriften, edited by the Koeniglichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 29 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900. Lyotard, J. F. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1984. —. Enthusiasm, Standord, CA: Standford University Press, 2009.

THE PHILOSOPHER’S PUBLIC CALLING: PROBLEMS AND IMPLICATIONS OF KANT’S PROCLAMATION OF THE IMMINENT CONCLUSION OF A TREATY OF PERPETUAL PEACE IN PHILOSOPHY ALBERTO PIRNI SCUOLA SUPERIORE SANT’ANNA – PISA, ITALY

1. Background and Perspective Despite its short length and the concomitant presence, in the same years, of other very important philosopher’s works1, the Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy, published in the Berlinische Monatsschrift (henceforth referred to as PP)2 in December 1796, remains Kant’s most sweeping attempt to articulate the public-spirited vocation of his philosophy and, more broadly, of any philosophy that seeks to take part in the transcendental turn through criticism. Further, Kant’s text also begs to be interpreted as a kind of understudied, in any case little known “litmus test” of an ideal philosophical treatise on “public ethics”. To follow up on the clues that Kant himself offered, “public ethics” might be defined as that part of the ethical discipline that tries to develop a critical-normative philosophy aimed at both the rational individual, that is the moral subject, and his/her intersubjective dimension (namely his political and civic engagement). It relates to questions of “public” importance, in other words to matters of “universal” and allencompassing relevance and anthropological scope. Thus, the treatise in question would be explicitly devoted to the philosopher’s vocation. This was something that Kant never managed to articulate – or perhaps even to conceptualise entirely—in the form of a finalised Critique, but whose

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outlines can be deduced a posteriori, by considering the thematic preferences that Kant bequeathed to the reader in the Announcement. In what follows, I will attempt to offer a dual interpretation. First, this will consist in specifying what is meant by a “public calling”, by situating the text of the Proclamation in its proper context, alongside the essays On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy (published in the same journal, in May 1796; henceforth: RPT)3 and On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy, which appeared in the Berlinische Blätter on 6th September 1797 (henceforth: SRL)4, shortly after our primary text of reference. Secondly, I will turn to the central theme of the entire PP and to what is simultaneously a sort of spiritual testament bequeathed by the elderly philosopher to his contemporaries: the elaboration of a particular model of perpetual peace that seems to go beyond and, at the same time, to encompass all earlier variations on this idea and the whole semantic field of reference that Kant constructed in the rest of his critical oeuvre.

2. The Main Theoretical Objective The three aforementioned writings, whose brevity conceals a wealth of references, both direct and indirect, to the whole Kantian opus, can be connected in two different ways. Firstly, they share a clearly critical perspective, often polemical in tone, not so much vis-à-vis any one theoretical approach or “tendency of the present age”, but rather in relation to specific interlocutors and their writings, which in most cases (and rather unusually for Kant) are explicitly singled out. Secondly, it is possible to bind the three texts with a “red string of destiny”, a string that Kant himself slowly unravelled, guiding it through its various segments towards the formulation of a single theoretical goal. It is worth looking, therefore, for the main “knots” strewn along this specific “string”, without forgetting the polemical bent of each opuscule. My search will be divided into two segments, the first dealing with the links between RPT and PP, the second addressing the “string” that runs from PP to RL.

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2.1. Between the Announcement and the “Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority” As we begin our discussion of the first diptych of texts, it is worth recalling an unusual coincidence, which to the best of my knowledge is unprecedented in the rest of Kant’s oeuvre, namely that both texts are addressed to the same polemical opponent: Johann Georg Schlosser, a Frankfurt lawyer and friend to Goethe and the Jacob brothers, with close links to the poet and translator Stolberg, who in turn was in contact with two of the leading philosophers of the time, Hamann and Herder. Schlosser can also be viewed as a sort of dilettantish, second-row exponent of the chaotic intellectual shift that fostered the greatest idealist and romantic luminaries of the age, both in Germany and beyond.5 In both essays (RPT and PP) it is easy to detect Kant’s purpose, namely to marginalise and repudiate any attempt to restore a way of doing philosophy that he deemed to be not only alien, but also inimical to his own trajectory. For better or for worse—and the history of philosophy stands as his witness—Kant thought he had developed a more solid and potentially more definitive foundation for the future of philosophical thought, which he hoped would spread into all other fields in his wake. Thus, unjustified irreverence was what he saw in any effort to reinstate a scholastic-rationalistic approach so as to access “ultimate” metaphysical truths—though it must be said that such efforts were becoming increasingly scarce in Kant’s Germany, in no small part thanks to the deep influence exerted by the Critique of Pure Reason. But Kant was also drawn to another philosophical current oriented towards the pursuit of gnoseological and metaphysical knowledge, a current which in that very period was trying to establish its own identity and idiom, flitting somewhat confusedly between a mysticism of Platonic ancestry, a broadly Spinozian intuitionism and a rationalistic spiritualism, and settling in the end for a theoretically coherent idealism, with Fichte as its leading exponent. For Kant this intellectual current represented a theoretical enemy that remained undefeated and was if anything in ascendancy; perhaps, it was this anxiety that guided the vis polemica, which permeates RPT and re-emerges to some extent in the final pages of PP. In RPT Kant addresses himself, therefore, to Schlosser, the author of a new translation and critical edition of Plato’s Letters.6 In a substantial

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series of comments attached to this edition, Schlosser outlined something approaching a philosophy of intellectual intuition, transforming it into a tool of immediate knowledge of things, “as they are in themselves”. Obviously, this type of theorisation was diametrically opposed to the critical turn and the transcendental framework that had dominated philosophical debate ever since the first Critique was published. As is well known, Kant had always opposed any form of “intellectual intuition” and his reaction was no different to what he called, with reference to Schlosser, “a presentiment of the over-perceptive”. This was a kind of fourth degree of “holding-to-be-true”, following on the three categories that Kantian logic had already defined: “knowing, believing and opining”. This degree, however: has nothing in common with logic; it does not have to be an intellectual process, but rather a presentiment of that which is not in fact an object of the senses [...] It is clear that here there is a certain hint of mysticism, a leap (a salto mortale) from concepts to the unthinkable, an ability to grasp that which no concept is able to reach [...]: in truth, however, this is no more than a disturbance of minds to the degree of mystical exaltation [Schwärmerei].7

This attitude was redolent of that “tone of superiority” which allowed its user to shirk the exhausting philosophical labour of dealing with concepts, deductions and everything else that the critical endeavour demands, while at the same time ‘living off a gnoseological rent’, so to speak, that is arrogating to oneself knowledge of the highest metaphysical questions (the soul, the world, God) through recourse to a “superior sentiment”,8 when these very questions—by virtue of their inability to exist as objects of any possible experience—remained out of bounds to the learner who bases his knowledge on the critique of reason. Kant lashes out at any desire to promulgate theories that cannot guarantee a real foundation for the knowledge that they presume to offer. Such theories constitute a cheap advertisement for a gnoseological approach that encourages one to believe individually—and what is worse, to espouse publicly—false knowledge, or knowledge that is not critically based. Philosophy is, above all, a critique of thought and, therefore, an intellectual labour endowed with its own professional ethics. This ethics privileges discursivity over intuition, that is the analysis of all knowledge starting with its a priori elements—as Aristotle did through his

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employment of categories—in opposition to the pretentious “tone” and claim of intuitive knowledge, that is oracular knowledge granted to the elect, which—in practice—proves to be conceptually rushed and lacking in rigour. Consequently, the danger that public philosophical debate might end up “polluted” by such knowledge has to be exposed and denounced to the public, the same “learned community” that was supposed to guide the Enlightenment of the present day and that Kant himself frequently invoked in his journal articles. As if to confirm that this would remain a constant worry for Kant, the same polemical and theoretical aim manifests itself in the final pages of PP, where the author turns once more to Schlosser, who in the meantime had replied to Kant’s original critique.9 For Schlosser the only thing that matters is, if possible, to clear the field of the Critique of Pure Reason. His counsel is like the reassurance offered to sheep by those good friends who suggest that they might live with them like brothers in eternal peace on condition that they send away their dogs. If the disciple heeds this counsel, he becomes a plaything in the hands of his master [...]. Then he [the master] can be sure that the disciple will allow himself to be sold the semblance of the truth [Wahrheitsschein] (verisimilitudo) in place of what is probable [Wahrscheinlichkeit] (probabilitas) and, in the case of judgements that can only spring absolutely a priori to reason, that he can be sold what is probable in place of certainty. (PP 8:419)

A reaffirmation of the indispensability of the critical endeavour to the future of all philosophy that aspires to stay true to its Greek etymon is, thus, the main objective that connects the two texts addressed to Schlosser and it is actually much more interesting (and rich) than the controversial occasions that aroused them.

2.2. Between the Announcement and the Writing on the “Right to Lie” As mentioned earlier, however, a no less significant fragment of that red string that ties Kant’s works together can be identified by synthetically comparing PP and SRL. SRL was published in the first edition of the Berlinische Blätter on 6 September 1797.10 It engages in a critical dialogue with Benjamin Constant’s Des reactions politiques (1796), which had been translated and published in German in March of the same year by K. Fr. Cramer, director

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of the journal “Frankereich im Jahr 1797. Aus den Briefen deutscher Männer in Paris”, with the title Von der politischen Gegenwirkungen. It is not possible to offer an analytical reconstruction of the many polemical passages that constitute this equally rich and stimulating text. The most one can do is recall the turning point in Constant’s argument, which upholds the possibility of inserting “intermediary principles” between the absolute and therefore abstract moral principle of saying the truth and the application of this principle in practice. According to this argument, praxis necessitates the “mediation” of political wisdom and an awareness of the possible consequences of a mechanical application of the “always tell the truth” maxim, which—although possessed of a principle that is in itself correct and just—could always cause far greater injustices and errors. Constant refers to the infelicitous period of the Terror in revolutionary France, citing Burke as his polemical reference. Though he refuses to take a position on the broader question at hand, Kant does apply himself to the “deconstruction” of the semantic and logical basis for one of Constant’s main affirmations, in which he criticises one of Kant’s arguments. Kant relates Constant’s position in the following terms: Telling the truth is thus a duty: but only towards those who have a right to the truth. No man, however, has the right to a truth that causes harm to others. (SRL 8:425)

Above all, Kant tells us, “the expression ‘to have a right to the truth’ is devoid of meaning”. Any individual being capable of reason can have no more than “the right to its own truthfulness (veracitas)”, namely the subjective ability to establish what it holds to be true, without fostering ambitions of objectively verifiable truth that might conceal a pretentious desire to transcend phenomenal experience and knowledge. In this, Kant very much reiterates the key message of PP. He goes further, however, affirming that: Truthfulness in statements that cannot be avoided is a formal duty that each man has towards everybody else; [...] ‘if I act in such a way that’ statements (declarationen) do not inspire confidence, and so that all rights based on agreements collapse and become invalid; this is an injustice committed against humanity in general. (SRL 8:426)

In order to underscore the public-spirited nature and goal of his argument, Kant takes aim not only and not so much at statements made in private, that is addressed by individual men to themselves (even though in § 9 of

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the Tugendlehre he would argue that lying is a violation of the duty to preserve one’s own dignity, which is in turn a perfect duty towards oneself), but above all at statements made in public, that is statements which involve the possibility that others might hear and, therefore, act in accordance with the lie, taking it to be true. The politics, that is, in Constant’s view, the wisdom that underlies his “intermediary principles” must, therefore, be harnessed to the duty of not impinging on the purity and unconditionality of that duty which constitutes the foundation for all possible social contracts. Thus, in his opposition to Benjamin Constant’s famous declaration that sincerity does not represent an unconditional duty when it risks compromising the life of another man, Kant tirelessly argues in favour of treating truthfulness as an unconditional juridical duty. Such a duty overlaps with the insuppressible duty to respect one’s own dignity as a rational being, but also as a sign of respect for humanity in general and, simultaneously, for the rules of coexistence upon which truthfulness itself depends. Just as in RPT, so here in PP we can see the clear symptoms of Kant’s theoretical anxiety. This is laid bare most visibly in the concluding words of the latter essay: Perhaps not everything that a man holds to be true is true (for he can err); but in all that he says he is obliged to be truthful (he must not deceive). [...] Should it be received welcomingly by philosophy as a doctrine of wisdom, the commandment: thou shalt not lie [Du sollst nicht lügen] (even if it is with the most pious intent) could not only produce perpetual peace in philosophy by itself, but also guarantee it for the entire future. (PP 8:422)

The yearning or, to put it properly, the categorical imperative to affirm the truth in public and for the public is, therefore, the final segment of our red string and the theoretical goal that unites SRL and PP, while connecting them also to RPT.

3. Towards a Perpetually Dynamic Peace To linger a little on those final words of the aforementioned passage, what did Kant mean by introducing the expression “perpetual peace in philosophy”, and therefore by recalling a clear analogy with the title of his more famous 1795 work? To understand fully the significance of this statement it is necessary, on the one hand, to acknowledge the assemblage

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of meanings that go with the word peace in Kant and, on the other, to retrace the thrust and structure of PP’s argument. The most striking feature of this text is the way it echoes Kant’s earlier and more famous work Perpetual Peace (henceforth: TPP) that had come out a year before and that was rereleased in 1796. From the very first “preliminary article” Kant takes care to provide a purely “negative” understanding of the concept of peace, equating it to “an end to all hostilities” (TPP 8:343). For a “positive” definition one has to turn to the first Critique, where Kant speaks about the “peace of a legal order, in which our disputes have to be conducted solely by the recognised means of legal action” (CPR B:779) or, alternatively, to Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, which presents the idea of a “persistent peace in the midst of the liveliest action and reaction of men” (A 7:331)11. Thus, the main quality that distinguishes the Kantian idea of peace is not that of endless stasis, but rather “a dynamic equilibrium of mutually opposing forces that nevertheless converge towards the same end-point”.12 It is a state of calm, based on solid foundations and indispensable to the process of holding the whole together. Nevertheless, it incorporates a constant amount of dynamism and energy lest it be transformed into a state of devitalised ossification that would leave no space for intellectual life, that is for the mutual engagement of rational beings who are and will forever remain free, i.e. intrinsically capable of innovations that will not necessarily prove compatible with other beings. In EF, however, Kant also undertakes to explore the positive dimensions of the idea of peace. He describes it “not [as] an empty idea, but rather [as] a task” that “is constantly getting closer to its end-point’, which is none other than “the highest political good”, as Kant will claim in the § 61 of the Metaphysik der Sitten (MS 6:355). This is the reform of every state along republican lines that, in turn, would lead to the creation of a confederation of all states, also in close concordance with the republican ideal. Alongside the highest political good, in Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, Kant contemplates “the highest ethical good”, namely a global pacification and universalistic reform of specific churches, destined to have lasting effects and to bring about “God’s kingdom on earth”, by which Kant meant “a community supported by the laws of virtue” that would become “the duty of the human race towards itself” (RGV 6:122-124).

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It is, therefore, possible to find in Kant’s work extensive treatment of the juridical, political, ethical and religious implications of the notion of perpetual peace. It also seems possible, however, to discern the makings of a more comprehensive idea of peace, which might involve not only elements of philosophical knowledge, but also the knowledge that makes philosophical wisdom possible in the first place: namely a gnoseometaphysical perspective. The latter type of knowledge is discussed more fully by Kant in his 1796 work PP. In truth, it cannot be considered an absolute novelty. Ever since the preface to the first edition and right up to the “Doctrine of Method” in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant had presented the field of metaphysics as “a battlefield’, simultaneously comparing criticism to a supreme “tribunal” for every dispute in this field. This tribunal-like quality was down to its dual capacity, on the one hand, to limit the gnostic pretensions of the over-perceptive and, on the other, to offer a credible response to those legitimate pretensions to knowledge that grow out of the process whereby sensibility leads to intellect and thereafter to the three ideas of reason, namely those structures that are capable of granting teleological unity to knowledge as a whole. PP definitely fits both processes, but it also contemplates a different and undoubtedly original argument of manifest anthropological origins. Kant starts by considering the nature of “life” when understood as “the immanent action of stimulating forces” that characterises humankind. Humankind’s nature in this case, however, is to be understood as ‘prior to universality”, that is prior to the extraction of man’s rational character as the quality that distinguishes him from all other animals. This character allows him to ratiocinate [vernünfteln], to philosophise, but also to argue in the most vehement terms up to the point of “waging open war, with [men] united in opposing masses (school against school, army against army)”. (PP 8:414) And yet this is basically a salutary characteristic, an impulse that enables man to lead an active life and “to distance himself from [...] the great misfortune of mouldering prematurely whilst still alive”. For this reason, man’s character should be preserved and its stabilisation in a permanently dynamic form, primarily thanks to and via philosophy, encouraged. This type of stabilisation cannot be achieved through dogmatism (“a pillow to fall asleep on”) or scepticism (“‘that’ lays aside every thought

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without using it”) or, perhaps more surprisingly, through moderatism, which fails to offer any principle of reason good enough to justify the certainty of knowledge, but instead gathers a disorderly variety of “too many good things”, which in the end prove so incoherent and inconclusive as to be “good for nothing”. In Kant’s opinion this perennially dynamic stabilisation can only be accomplished via critical philosophy: ‘a philosophy’ that does not originate in any attempt to construct or demolish systems or perhaps merely (as in the case of moderatism) to prop up a roof so as to find temporary shelter instead of a home. Rather, it originates in the investigation of the capabilities of human reason to accomplish conquests (for whatever reason these might be done) and that does not ratiocinate about nonsense ‘as’ when one talks of philosophemes that cannot be attested by any possible experience. (PP 8:416)

This is a philosophy that leaves the field open to the liberated power of human reason, but not before it is stably contained within the boundaries of solid gnoseological legitimacy. Rather tellingly, Kant informs us that this philosophy is a way of “remaining forever armed” (ibid.) against those who blur the distinction between phenomena and things-in-themselves by trying to dismantle or question those gnoseological boundaries. But it is also a philosophy that offers the prerogative of “keeping the powers of the subject forever mobile and alive [...] and thereby of promoting nature’s intention to revive him continuously and protect him from lethal sleep”. (Ibid.) It is only this way that philosophy can deliver that which it promises in name: “the pursuit of wisdom”, or the “reconciliation of the will with the final aim (the highest good)” (PP 8:418). Thus, the question of the highest good rises to the surface in PP as well. At this point such a concept acquires a more comprehensive meaning than all other earlier definitions, for it becomes the highest gnoseological good, a final aim that we must strive for through our thoughts and, if pursued, will surely provide us with reasons and motives, the theoretical tools and contents to legitimise both the highest political good—perpetual peace— and the highest ethical good—the community that embodies only laws of virtues. But this highest good is one that Kant only perceives with ease once its fulfilment is close, thanks to the critical turn that he had impressed upon the philosophy of his age and by which all theoretical objections had been

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nullified and the practical motives for the acceptance of his principles made clear. This pushes Kant to announce somewhat triumphantly the upcoming conclusion of a treatise of perpetual peace in philosophy twice in the space of just a few pages. (PP 8:419, 421) As we know with hindsight, this was a treatise that Kant never managed to write—or which perhaps he considered to be largely coterminous with the first Critique—but in this brief text Kant nevertheless reaffirmed the need for such a call-to-arms, reminding us of philosophy’s public duty, the need for it to confront every domain of human knowledge with rational criticism. If we take another glance at the three texts in question, we will see that this was not all. Besides the “provisional” warnings that Kant issues in the context of specific polemical encounters, the texts also provide an outline of two further possible “articles” that would define such a treatise. These gnoseological categorical imperatives, as it were, are as follows: -

seek truth through criticism alone (extrapolated from a comparison of RPT and PP) have the courage to uphold criticism in public (extrapolated from a comparison of PP and SRL).

Herein lies the most fundamental meaning of Kant’s peace: on the one hand, its permanent quality, the irreversibility of the changes wrought in philosophy by the transcendental turn. On the other, its inexhaustible dynamism, which ensures that perpetual peace in philosophy will never be synonymous with stasis, that is “death in the midst of life”, but rather with a solid critical base that is essential to the further development of a vigorous public debate which must be critical and, at the same time, fit for the “illuminating task” that Enlightenment reason demands of it.

Notes 1

I am referring to Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793), Zum ewigen Frieden (1795), Die Metaphysik der Sitten (1797), and to the Der Streit der Fakultäten and the Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, both published in 1798.

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2

Verkündigung des nahen Abschlusses eines Tractats zum ewigen Frieden in der Philosophie, AA 8:411-422. 3 Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie, AA 8:387406. 4 Über ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu lügen, AA 8:423-430. 5 From this point of view, it deserves to be remembered that Arturo Massolo, Kant’s important interpreter and, by the way, the first Italian translator of RPT, suggested that Kant’s polemical barbs in that writing were tacitly aimed precisely at Fichte. 6 Among several other writings and critical editions (also of some relevance for that time) of Platonic works, it should be recalled that Schlosser was the author of the work: Platos Briefe über die syrakusanische Staatsrevolution, nebst einer historischen Einleitung und Anerkennung von J. G. Schlosser”, Königsberg: Nikolovius 1795. This last work is the one against which Kant’s writing RPT is directed (but some of Kant’s points are also referred against other scholars which were participants to new growing intellectual groups, as Leopold Stolberg, poet and translator, as well as friend to Hamann and Jacobi). 7 RPT, 397-398 [60-62], my translation. It deserves to be recalled that the expression “salto mortale” (mortal leap) is inserted in Italian in the original text. It would be thus a sort of crypto reference to Jacobi, as confirmation of a wider polemical framework here taken into account by Kant. F. Desideri specifically argues this point in his Italian critical edition of the “polemical essays” by Kant (I. Kant, Questioni di confine. Saggi polemici (1786-1800), Genova: Marietti, 1990, p. 61). 8 RPT, 395 [59]. 9 Schlossel had published in the same months the work Schreiben an einer junger Mann, der die kritische Philosophie studieren wollte, Lübeck und Liepzig: Bohn 1797, which was explicitly devoted against Kant. PP is considered the further reply by Kant. 10 It deserves to be remembered that this journal was founded by Johann Erich Beister after the closing of the Berlinische Monatsschrift (the magazine in which Kant published most of his so-called “short writings”) in December 1796, in the same issue in which PP appeared. 11 In the synthetic reconstruction of the meanings of peace here I refer to the critical reconstruction proposed by G. Cunico in “Introduzione. Pace, guerra e conflitto in Kant”, in I. Kant, Guerra e pace. Politica, religiosa, filosofica. Scritti editi e inediti (1775-1798), Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004, pp. 9-32. 12 I. Kant, Guerra e pace, p. 25.

Bibliography A CPP

Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, Königsberg 1800, 7:117-333. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 4:1-252.

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Verkündigung des nahen Abschlusses eines Tractats zum ewigen Frieden in der Philosophie, 8:411-422. Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie, AA 8:387-406. Über ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu lügen, 8:423430. Zum ewigen Frieden, 8:341-386.

Kant, I., Anuncio de la próxima conclusión de un tratado de paz perpetua en la filosofía, Edición bilingue de R. Rovira, Encuentro, Madrid, 2004. —. “Sobre un presunto derecho de mentir por filantropía,” in Teoría y Práctica, Estudio preliminar de R. R. Aramayo, trad. de J. M. Perez Lopez, R. R. Aramayo, J. M. Palacios, Madrid: Tecnos, 20114, pp. 6168. —. “Annuncio della prossima stipulazione di un trattato per la pace perpetua in filosofia,” in Guerra e pace. Politica, religiosa, filosofica. Scritti editi e inediti (1775-1798), trad. it. e cura di G. Cunico, Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004, pp. 147-155. —. “Di un tono di distinzione assunto di recente in filosofia,” in Questioni di confine. Saggi polemici (1786-1800), trad. it. e cura di F. Desideri, Genova: Marietti, 1990, pp. 53-69. —. “Su un preteso diritto di mentire per amore degli uomini,” in Scritti di storia, politica e diritto, a cura di F. Gonnelli, Roma/Bari: Laterza 1995, pp. 219-214. —. “On a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy,” trans. P. Heath, in I. Kant, Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy After 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002, pp. 431-445. —. “Proclamation of the Imminent Conclusion of a Treaty of Perpetual Peace in Philosophy,” in I. Kant, Immanuel Kant: Theoretical Philosophy After 1781. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002, pp. 453-460. —. “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy,” in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. and ed. by M. J. Gregor, Intr. by A. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Caygill, H., A Kant Dictionary, Oxford: Blackwell 19962. Constant, B., “Von der politischen Gegenwirkungen,” Frankereich im Jahr 1797. Aus den Briefen deutscher Männer in Paris, II (1797). Cunico, G., “Introduzione. Pace, guerra e conflitto in Kant,” in I. Kant, Guerra e pace. Politica, religiosa, filosofica. Scritti editi e inediti

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(1775-1798), trad. it. e cura di G. Cunico, Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 2004, pp. 9-32. Desideri, F., “Introduzione,” in I. Kant, Questioni di confine. Saggi polemici (1786-1800), trad. it. e cura di F. Desideri, Genova: Marietti, 1990, pp. VII-XLII. Pirni, A., Kant filosofo della comunità, Pisa: ETS 2006. —. “Sul fondamento, ovvero il non-luogo della comunità politica / About the Ground – that is, about the no-place – of political community,” Logos. Anales del Seminario de Metafísica, 42 (2009): 37-70. —. “El círculo virtuoso de la Historia. Virtud y cosmopolitismo en Kant,” in F. Duque, V. Rocco (eds.), Filosofía del imperio, Editorial Abada, Madrid 2011, pp. 139-172. —. “Freedom of the Will in Communitarian Perspective,” in S. Bacin, A. Ferrarin, C. La Rocca, M. Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. XI. Internationaler Kant-Kongress / Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense. XI International Kant Congress / Kant e la filosofia in senso cosmopolitico. XI Congresso Kantiano Internazionale, 5 Bd., Berlin: De Gruyter 2013, Vol. III, pp. 509-520. —. “Hacia una Crítica de la razón armónica,” Con-Textos Kantianos – International Journal of Philosophy, 2 (2015): 20-31. Schlosser, J. G., Platos Briefe über die syrakusanische Staatsrevolution, nebst einer historischen Einleitung und Anerkennung von J. G. Schlosser”, Königsberg: Nikolovius, 1795.

THE CRITIQUE AS A PASSAGE OF REASON FROM THE STATE OF NATURE TO THE STATE OF LAW GAETANO CHIURAZZI UNIVERSITY OF TURIN, ITALY

1. A Political Path Inside the Critique The Critique of Pure Reason has generally focused the whole project of Kantian critique under an epistemological perspective, as if this were the main thread of Kantian philosophy.1 Consequently, Kant’s so-called minor writings have been often obscured by the first Kritik, to such an extent that they could even appear disconnected from the whole critical project. In this paper, I have set myself on the opposite operation: to show, rather, how Kant’s critical project, and especially the Critique of Pure Reason, if understood in the light of some minor writings, receives a different, not merely epistemological meaning. I refer more specifically to some political writings such as: Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective (1784), Conjectural Beginning of Human History (1785), and Toward Perpetual Peace (1795)2. The goal of this operation could be described not so much as a critical path outside the Critique, but as a political path inside the Critique. The aforementioned writings outline a political project that aims at putting an end to human conflict. The Fourth Proposition of the Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective states that it is the mutual antagonism among humans that compels them to enter into society, just in order to reduce as much as possible the violent consequences of their fights, so that “this antagonism ultimately becomes the cause of a law-governed organisation of society” and of the unsociable sociability of the human beings (IUH 8:20).3 A society governed by the law, that is, civil society, which universally administers right, is that in which the highest

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possible freedom for humans is achieved: in it, the freedom of each becomes consistent with that of all the others (IUH 8:22). Kant’s essay, Conjectural Beginning of Human History, explains in an even clearer way this tendency of human history as a passage from a savage condition, in which humans govern their relations uniquely through violence, to that in which, on the contrary, the law, the civil constitution prevails, so making possible the entrance into civilisation: But above all a civil constitution and public justice began to be instituted. Initially such justice was concerned only with the most violent acts, and the revenge for these was no longer, as in the savage condition, left to the individual, but rather to a lawful power that held the whole together. That is to say, it was left to a kind of government which itself was subject to no other use of force. (CBHH 8:119)

The emancipation from violence is the main feature of the civil constitution: nobody can any longer take the law into his own hand, but instead everyone submits himself to the law, thereby waiving the use of the force. Moreover, whereas the beginning of the history is described as a passage from the savage condition to civilisation, that is, to a lawful power, its goal is, according to Kant, the achievement of a perpetual peace, that is, the complete end of the conflict among humans. Peace is not a natural condition of the human society: it is a goal that must be pursued4, through the introduction of a constitution. The state of nature (status naturalis) is not a state of peace among human beings who live next to one another but a state of war (Zustand des Krieges), that is, if not always an outbreak of hostilities, then at least the constant threat of such hostilities. Hence the state of peace must be established. For refraining from hostilities does not guarantee the state of peace, and when one neighbor does not guarantee the peace of the other (which can occur only in a juridical condition), the other neighbor who called upon the first to do so can treat him as an enemy. (TPP 8:349)

In the footnote, Kant says that it is only in the absence of a law (statu injusto) that we come to treat the other as an enemy, but in a civil juridical condition the necessary reciprocal security is assured by means of authorities, which have power over everyone (TPP 8:349).5 It is then the mutual adherence to a legal overarching power that puts an end to war and introduces the civil state, where fights are no longer governed by violence but instead by an authority that assures the needed security, and then peace.

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It is clear enough at this point, even from this very schematic presentation of Kant’s political thought, that a particular teleological philosophy of history, according to which the end of the history is the achievement of morality, lies in the background of these considerations. Nevertheless, Kant’s writings on the philosophy of history, which constitute only a small part of his literary output, seem to have only marginal significance for his philosophy.6 On the contrary, I would like to propose that a very specific philosophy of history plays an important role, although implicit, even in the major writings of Kant, for instance, as we will see, in the A edition Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason, the work that seems to be quite distant from such ethical-political preoccupations. This framework, which entails at the same time a philosophy of history (as a history of the achievement of morality) and a political conception (for which the law is the sovereign instance putting an end to the internal struggles) is in my opinion the real background on which to place the whole Critical project, and which eventually permits us to understand it in a new light.

2. The State-of-Nature of Reason7 Although this has never attracted enough attention, a series of political metaphors occur in the Critique of the Pure Reason at crucial points in its argumentative course. As we will see, they are no doubt something more than mere rhetorical contrivances. By reading, for instance, the very incipit of the A or 1781 edition Preface, these metaphors sketch before our eyes a very surprising scenario: in few pages full of pathos, Kant sketches a sort of “philosophical-political history of reason”, which follows quite literally the path described in the minor political writings. The initial state of this history is the condition itself of metaphysics, “the battlefield of […] endless controversies” (CPR A VIII). Human reason has in fact the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason. (CPR A VII)

This situation, into which reason falls through no fault of its own, which even is innate to it, is for it source of perplexity and embarrassment. And how can reason bear this condition of endless conflict with itself, which risks destroying it, and surrendering all of rational human life to this condition of reflexive war?

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This picture is reinforced in the Chapter I of the “Transcendental Doctrine of Method”. In the Section II, titled “The Discipline of the Pure Reason with Regard to its Polemical Use,” the condition of metaphysics is presented, not as a sign of a progress of knowledge, but rather as a sign of the fact that, in this field, the reason remained “in the state of nature”, from which only the critique can redeem it: “Without this, reason is as it were in the state of nature, and it cannot make its assertions and claims valid or secure them except through war” (CPR A751/B779). The critique aims to put an end to these endless controversies, that is, to the exhausting state of contradiction in which the reason falls when penetrates into the uncertain regions of metaphysics. The first lines of the 1781 Preface, then, make manifest what should be a mere epistemological problem—the problem of the metaphysical knowledge and of its possibility and legitimacy—in a political light: it is a question of settling the controversies in which reason, when abandoned to itself, that is, in a pre-Critical condition, inevitably falls. The pre-Critical state is similar to the “state of nature,” that of the bellum omnium contra omnes, the war of all against all. The solution of this conflict requires the passage to a different political order of reason, towards which in its previous history, it has made several attempts, without coming, however, to a final solution. The first stage of this history, after the state of nature and endless conflict, is despotism, the realm of dogmatic metaphysics: “In the beginning, under the administration of the dogmatists, her rule was despotic” (CPR A IX). The despotism is a violent answer to violence. Since it retains this trace of the previous condition, it inevitably degenerates, according to Kant, into a lawless state, anarchy, which does nothing but rekindle the conflict and let the reason into the old barbarism plunge again: Yet because her legislation still retained traces of ancient barbarism, this rule gradually degenerated through internal wars into complete anarchy; and the skeptics, a kind of nomads who abhor all permanent cultivation of the soil, shattered civil unity from time to time. (CPR A IX)

Despotism and anarchy, dogmatism and scepticism, stability imposed through the force and nomadic instability: these are the political and epistemological alternatives, still inadequate, to the state of nature of reason. Kant remarks, however, that in the modern age “it even seemed as though an end would be put to all these controversies, and the lawfulness of all the competing claims would be completely decided, through a

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certain physiology of the human understanding (by the famous Locke)” (CPR A IX). Locke’s physiology of the understanding represents an attempt to settle the controversies of the state of nature by appealing again to nature. In fact, following a procedure that we could call “genealogical” avant la lettre, in Nietzsche’s sense, Locke has merely showed us the humble birth of the metaphysics, delegitimising its presumptuous regal pretention to appear, namely, as “the queen of all sciences” (CPR A VIII). Its origin, as he tried to demonstrate, should be traced back rather to the “rabble of common experience” (CPR A IX): its pretentions are groundless because they are illegitimate, devoid, we could say, of that nobility, of that distinction, to which metaphysic appeals in order to legitimise its sovereignty. Metaphysics would not have therefore any right to reign. Locke’s solution to the conflict of metaphysics is an “unmasking” operation, which completely dissolves its dignity. Moreover, by tracing the reason back to nature, the physiology of the understanding, as an antidote to the absolute and despotic power of dogmatic metaphysics, runs the risk of recreating a state in which no power is recognised, since all are equal. From that arises, according to Kant, that disconsolate indifferentism, “mother of chaos and night” (CPR A X), which by now we are used to, persuaded that we have already tried every path. The metaphor Kant uses here—that of the night—gives prominence by contrast to the new 18th century cultural climate, which remains in the background of his proposal: the Enlightenment. Even in the darkness of the more complete indifferentism, it is still possible, in fact, to make out the germs of a renewal (Umschaffung) and of an Enlightenment (Aufklärung), whereby the power of reason can be re-established, in the awareness that the problems that it poses can never be indifferent to human nature. We could even say that the establishment of such a power of judgement constitutes eo ipso the end of indifferentism, and of Lockean empiricism, because to judge means to make a difference, to discriminate. The sovereignty of reason, if necessary, derives precisely from its discriminative power, which raises it above the “rabble of common experience.” The operation of critique—to differentiate or distinguish—is therefore the characteristic sign of reason, which entails a detachment from nature and which corresponds on the political level to the establishment, not of a natural claim to sovereignty, but of a juridical claim.

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Locke’s epistemological empiricism actually is reflected as well in his political view, which, as G. Solari observed in his “Introduction” to the Italian translation of Kant’s political writings, could be defined as an “empirical liberalism”, whereas that of Kant would be a “juridical liberalism”, since it gives prominence to the juridical form of the State.8 It is exactly in this form, that of a juridical State, represented—as we will see—by the critique, that Kant intends then to defend the right of reason. The Critical philosophy is in fact the final state of the political history of reason, in which all its controversies are at last pacified and resolved. This solution presents not incidentally more than an analogy with the solution that the political revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries set out against the conflicts of the state of nature, on one hand, and absolute power, on the other.

3. The Legal State of Reason In a very significant page of the “Doctrine of Method”, read here in parallel with the A Preface, Kant describes explicitly the task of the first Critique as the establishment of a state of law, of a legislation grounded upon itself, able to put an end to the endless controversies of a merely dogmatic reason. The state of conflict is compared to the Hobbesian state of nature: And the endless controversies of a merely dogmatic reason finally make it necessary to seek peace in some sort of critique of this reason itself, and in a legislation grounded upon it; just as Hobbes asserted: the state of nature is a state of injustice and violence, and one must necessarily leave it in order to submit himself to the lawful coercion which alone limits our freedom in such a way that it can be consistent with the freedom of everyone else and thereby with the common good. (CPR A752/B780)

The critique is here cited as a necessary and final solution to the state of violence of the controversies of the reason: and just as Hobbes found in lawful coercion an exit from the state of nature, so the critique can succeed in its task only by establishing a similar legal state. The locution “legal state” (Rechtsstaat), or “state of law”, is subsequent to Kant, and was introduced into German jurisprudence near the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Century. The historical antecedents of this concept are traced however just to Kant, to its concept of a “constitutional state”, the state, namely, governed by law, whose goal is the defence of peace among the citizens. Here we will use the locution

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“legal state” not only in its technical meaning, but also in a wider generic meaning, suggested by some Kantian texts, that of “legal condition” (rechtlicher Zustand), a state of legality where right is affirmed and prevails over the state of nature. Expressions that corroborate this use can be found for instance in the Metaphysics of Morals (1797), where, in §44, Kant opposes explicitly the natürlicher Zustand to the rechtlicher Zustand: the entrance into the legal condition characterises the bürgerlicher Zustand, the civil state. The political solution to the self-conflict of reason also appears as the achievement, in the field of knowledge, of the solution set out in the Fifth Proposition of Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective, whose publication lies between the first and the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason: “The greatest problem of the human species to which nature compels it to seek a solution is the achievement of a civil society which administers right universally” (IUH 8: 22). As we have seen, according to Kant human beings enter into juridical organisations in order to overcome the state of nature that compelled by their own mutual antagonism. The birth of civil society coincides, then, with the establishment of the legal state, which establishes the supremacy of law over nature, that is, over violence. We can then conclude that the critique of pure reason, as a solution to the controversies of metaphysics, is what permits the passage of reason from the state of nature to the state of law. Thanks to this establishment, the controversies are not settled by means of violence, but instead through law: critique is, according to the very famous metaphor that Kant uses in the A Preface to the Critique, the “court of justice” of the reason (CPR A XI-XII). The age of criticism coincides, actually, with the age of the state of law, where peace is finally assured by appealing to a superior power, that of the due process of law: The critique, on the contrary, which derives all decisions from the groundrules of its own constitution, whose authority no one can doubt, grants us the peace of a state of law, in which we should not conduct our controversy except by due process. What brings the quarrel in the state of nature to an end is a victory, of which both sides boast, although for the most part there follows only an uncertain peace, arranged by an authority in the middle; but in the state of law it is the verdict, which, since it goes to the origin of the controversies themselves, must secure a perpetual peace. (CPR A751752/B779-780)

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This quotation supports very clearly and definitively the present reading of the Critique: the passage from the pre-Critical (dogmatic or sceptical) state of reason, battlefield of metaphysical controversies, to the Critical state of reason, corresponds, at the political level, to the passage from the barbarism to civil society. In it, the settlement of a quarrel no longer occurs through an act of force, through the victory of the one over the other—a precarious solution, which does not assure any durable peace—, but instead through a due process and a verdict.9

4. The Critique as a “Court of Justice” and the Separation of Powers We can see then that the real sign of a legal state, the genuine guarantee of the establishment of a civil peace, is the establishment of a judicial power—the critique of pure reason—that allows settling the controversies without recurring to violence, but instead through a judicious decision. As Kant highlights in a previous quotation of the “Doctrine of Method”, the critique of pure reason arrives at its decisions only on the basis of the fundamental rules of its own constitution, whose authority no one can doubt. Furthermore, it attains its goal only by going to the roots, to the very grounds, of the controversies, which is a very difficult and particular task. Only this way, however, it can assure a real peace. This particular task of the critique must be clearly grasped. Kant says that the critique, as instance of judgement, is the “court of justice” that assures the legitimacy and condemns the groundless pretentions of pure reason: “One can regard the critique of pure reason as the true court of justice for all controversies of pure reason” (CPR A751/B779). But he adds immediately that “the critique is not involved in these disputes, which pertain immediately to objects, but is rather set the task of determining and judging what is lawful in reason in general in accordance with the principles of its primary institution” (CPR A751/B779). This means that, as a “true court of justice”, the critique of pure reason is not like a normal court, where facts are ascertained, and verdicts given on the basis of proofs and factual evidence. Its task is not to go into the merit of a dispute, but rather to judge the legitimacy of a proposition. The critique of pure reason, which is not a critique of books and systems (CPR A13/B27), concerns primarily the power from which the different parties pretend to derive the validity of their claims. In order to make this distinction clearer, we can refer to a text in the A edition of the Critique,

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the “Paralogisms of Pure Reason”. In that context, Kant distinguishes dogmatic objections from critical objections: A dogmatic objection is one that is directed against a proposition, but a critical one is directed against its proof. The former requires an insight into the constitution of the nature of the object, in order to be able to assert the opposite of what the proposition claims about the object; it is itself dogmatic, therefore, and claims to have better acquaintance with the constitution of the object being talked about than its opposite has. The critical objection, because it leaves the proposition untouched in its worth or worthlessness, and impugns only the proof, does not at all need to have better acquaintance with the object or to pretend to better acquaintance with it; it shows only that the assertion is groundless, not that it is incorrect. (CPR A388)

In comparison with dogmatic objections, critical objections do not concern the content of a proposition, but its legitimacy. This means that at the level of the critique of pure reason we are not engaged in asserting whether a certain proposition is true or false; hence it is not a question of proofs, matters of fact, or evidence, but rather of the correctness or incorrectness of procedures, their adequacy or inadequacy to the law, that is, of legitimacy. Again, the critique does not judge about facts but about right procedures; it does not re-examine proofs but instead decides on the correct application of the law and on the full compliance to rules at the previous levels of a trial. In other words, it verifies only whether the procedural law has been correctly applied, in relation both to the acquisition and the evaluation of the proofs, and to the merits of the case. Its task is not to describe “what happened,” but instead to submit every proposition to the rule of law that assures the legitimacy of the propositions (or “sentences”) asserted at lower levels, in order to reduce and possibly eliminate all conflicts. We can then say that its role is more comparable to that of a “Court of Cassation” than to a simple court of justice. When he speaks about the juridical task of the critique, Kant normally uses the locution “Gerichtshof”, literally: “court of justice”. However, a passage of the “Transcendental Doctrine of Method” makes explicit that it is a question, not of a simple “Court of Cassation”, but of a Court of a higher level, which judges the legitimacy of the sentences of the lower level. In this passage, Kant writes: It is worrisome and depressing that there should be an antithetic of pure reason at all and that pure reason, though it represents the supreme court of

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The Critique as a Passage of Reason justice (den obersten Gerichtshof) for all disputes, should still come into conflict with itself”. (CPR A740/B768, emphasis added)

The oberster Gerichtshof is in the German law the High Court, which corresponds to the “Court of Cassation” or “Supreme Court of Cassation”. The function of this Court comes from the French Revolution’s “Tribunal de Cassation”, instituted with a decree on November 27th 1790, as a transformation of the Paris Parliament and of the King’s Council, through which the King used to reverse sentences of bailiffs and provosts. With the Revolution, the “Tribunal de Cassation” became the fundamental institution in defence of the separation of powers (and hence against the re-introduction of absolute power), specifically functioning as a guarantee of the autonomy of the judiciary.10 Its institution, therefore, answered to a need, not so much of judging, but much more of controlling the powers and the possibility their exceeding their reciprocal limits, a need that was fundamental in the principle of the separation of powers formulated by Montesquieu. Just as, in the liberal constitutions of the political revolutions of the 17th and 18th Centuries, so too in the case of reason, the legal state implies the limitation and separation of powers, following the principle Montesquieu stated in The Spirit of the Laws: political liberty is present only when power is not abused; it has however eternally been observed that any man who has power is led to abuse it; he continues until he finds limit. […] So that one cannot abuse power, power must check power by the arrangement of things”.11

This “arrangement of things” is a liberal constitution, such as that of England, in which the legislative, the executive, and the judicial power are strictly separate.12 Kant also asserts this separation-of-powers principle in §45 of the Metaphysics of Morals: Each and every state contains three powers (Gewalten), that is, it contains the general, unified will in the form of three persons (trias politica): the sovereign power (sovereignty) resides in the person of legislator, the executive power resides in the person of the ruler (in accordance with the law), and the judicial power (as conferring to each what is his by law) in the person of the judge (potestas legislatoria, rectoria et iudiciaria) […]. (MM 6:313)

Although the analogy could seem too schematic (which, in my opinion, does not invalidate the fact that the leading structural principle of the first

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Critique is the necessity of a separation-of-cognitive-powers), the three faculties of reason could be compared with the three powers of the state: the legislative power, the power of making laws, is a prerogative of the understanding; and the executive power, that is, of carrying them out, corresponds to sensibility, in the sense that only by means of sensibility can the laws be applied. Finally, the judicial power, that of judging the transgressors, and then of defining, affirming, and defending right, is the peculiar function of reason. In his task as “Supreme Court of Cassation,” the critique of pure reason carries out a transcendental function, a function, namely, that concerns not objects but conditions of their real possibility. A real possibility for Kant is nothing but a limitation of a cognitive power: every transcendental critique is therefore implicitly a critique of a cognitive power, whose limits it aims at defining, and conversely, every critique of a cognitive power is necessarily transcendental. As a true guarantee of the legal state, the critique of pure reason implies therefore the separation of cognitive powers, i.e. the mutual distinction and reciprocal limitation of the faculties of reason. The principle of the separation of cognitive powers is constitutively tied up with Critical reason. As well as the end of the state of war and the entrance into the reign of civilisation, the end of the controversies of metaphysics and the establishment of a Critical reason require that the different faculties do not exceed their own bounds: the price would be, otherwise, that endless war that is the dialectic of pure reason.

5. Conclusion This reading of the Critique of Pure Reason from the point of view of some of Kant’s minor writings, allows us to understand it in a very new perspective. It appears, first of all, very far from some interpretations that insist on its being an exclusively epistemological account, and even on its purely descriptive goal; and, secondly, it shows that the global framework of the Critical project cannot avoid taking into account the human being, and not only the question about his nature (“What is the human being?”, in which Kant summarises the three questions of the critique, “What can I know?”, “What ought I to do?”, “What may I hope?”, JL 9:25), but also the question about the concrete achievement of his communal life in society and in history.

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In this way the Critique of Pure Reason can be ultimately understood as a “focal point” in which, at a philosophical level, the two great cultural revolutions of the 17th and 18th Centuries concentrate: the political and the scientific-astronomical revolutions (the latter, the “Copernican revolution”, explicitly used by Kant, as is well known, as a model for his own transcendental revolution, in the B Preface of the first Critique at B XVI). From the former revolution, the political one, Kant took the idea that conflicts cannot be overcome either through violence or through the imposition of an absolute power, as was the case with the “despotic domination” of dogmatic metaphysics; instead, they should be overcome by an adherence to principles of our submission to the law and of the separation and reciprocal limitation of powers, through which the modern legal state has been constituted. Even metaphysics, the “queen” of all the sciences, is therefore subject to law. From the latter, the scientific-astronomical revolution, Kant took the idea of a method of experimental verification that is not grounded on description, i.e. on the empirical, but instead on an explication or argumentative procedure in search of conditions of real possibility, that is, again, of conditions of legitimacy for the grounding of propositions about objects. Both these proceedings, deriving from the revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, contribute to defining Kant’s entire Critical project as a true De revolutionibus of the new era. Its goal is not to give a description of the “natural fact” of reason (its “state of nature”), but instead to elaborate a new kind of metaphysics: not a merely descriptive metaphysics,13 but instead a revolutionary metaphysics, which arises from a need that is at the same time ethical and rational. What troubles Kant is the exigency of avoiding continual conflict among human beings and the endless state of self-contradiction within human reason. His proposal, the critique of pure reason, does not pretend to be an organon for building new alleged sciences (CPR B26)14: it is rather a way of establishing a juridical state of reason in the service of peace and civil communal life.

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Notes 1

Kant shares this project with Plato. However, even Plato’s philosophy loses a great part of its meaning, which is not reducible to the theory of ideas, if it is not placed against the background of Socrates’ vicissitudes, and the scandal of his death sentence, that is, against the background of the search for the “just state”. 2 I will cite Kant’s works in parentheses. The citations include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the “Akademie” edition of Kant’s works: Kantsgesammelte Schriften, edited by the Königlich Preußlischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: de Gruyter). For references to the first Critique, I follow the common practice of giving page numbers from the A (1781) and B (1787) German editions only. Here is a list of the abbreviations of the English translations: CBHH CPR IUH

JL

TPP 3

Conjectural Beginning of Human History, in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. Cit. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998. Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective, in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History, trans. by D. L. Colclasure. New Haven and London: Yale University Press 2006. Logic, trans. by R. S. Hartman and W. Schwarz. New York. Dover Publication 1988. MM Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Right, §§4362, in: Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. Cit. Toward Perpetual Peace, in Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. Cit.

On this point see A. Wood, “Kant’s Fourth Proposition: The Unsociable Sociability of Human Nature”, in Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide. Ed. by A. Oksenberg Rorty and J. Schmidt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009, pp. 112-128. 4 This makes clear that Kant’s conception of history is not empirical: he does not aim at describing how history actually occurs, but how it must proceed. “Fundamentally, then, Kant’s concept of history is a moral one” (H. Williams, Kant’s Political Philosophy. Oxford: Basic Blackwell 1983, p. 19). 5 Cf. J. G. Murphy, Kant: The Philosophy of Right. Macon (GA): Mercer University Press 1994, p. 108: “Through providing a binding social decision procedure for resolving conflict, the Rule of Law eliminates the resort to violence as a solution to social controversy. […] Violence is always wrong, but there is a certain excuse for resorting to it in a state of nature. When living under a fair procedure for resolving conflict, however, such an excuse is not present. For to adopt a social decision procedure is just to give up the privilege of deciding each case on its own perceived merits.”

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6

A. Wood, “Kant’s Philosophy of History,” in Kant I., Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. Ed. by Kleingeld P., tr. by Colclasure D. L., New Haven and London 2006, p. 243. 7 In the following, I take up some ideas that I explained in a broader way in G. Chiurazzi, “La ‘metafisica rivoluzionaria’ di Kant. La critica come stato di diritto della ragione.” In: Tropos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica, n. 1 (2012), pp. 171-188. 8 Cf. G. Solari, Introduzione to: I. Kant, Scritti politici e di filosofia della storia e del diritto. Italian translation of G. Solari and G. Vidari, Torino 1965, p. 11. 9 The model of Kant’s conception of due process is the procedural law of England during the eighteenth century. Cf. B. Sharon Byrd and J. Hruschka, Kant’s Doctrine of Right: A Commentary. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press 2010, p. 166. 10 Kant’s admiration of the French Revolution is well known. Despite its tragic fate in the Terror, it remains a lighthouse for humanity: what the revolution reveals and remains of it is the spirit that animated it, the enthusiasm that it aroused, which shows the possibility of an emancipation of humanity from the despotic power and the achievement of liberty and of a world of civil pacification. The Revolution is thus in itself an event that emanates from the moral disposition of humanity. Cf. I. Kant, Erneuerte Frage: ob das menschliche Geschlecht im beständigen Fortschreiten zum Bessere sei (SF, 7:85f.). 11 C.S. de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. by A. M. Cohler, B. C. Myller, H. S. Stone, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989, Book XI, Ch. 4, p. 155f. 12 Ibid. Book 11, Ch. 6, p. 156f. 13 See for instance P.F. Strawson, Individuals. An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (1969). London/New York: Routledge 2005; and ibid. The Bounds of Sense. An Essay on Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (1966). London/New York: Routledge 2006. 14 At most, the critique of pure reason is “a preparation, if possible, to an organon” (CPR B26).

Bibliography Chiurazzi, G., “La ‘metafisica rivoluzionaria’ di Kant. La critica come stato di diritto della ragione,” Tropos. Rivista di ermeneutica e critica filosofica, n. 1 (2012): 171-188. de Montesquieu, C. S., The Spirit of the Laws, ed. by A. M. Cohler, B. C. Myller, H. S. Stone, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Murphy, J .G., Kant: The Philosophy of Right. Macon (GA): Mercer University Press, 1994. Sharon Byrd, B., and Hruschka, J., Kant’s Doctrine of Right: A Commentary. Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

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Solari, G., Introduzione to: I. Kant, Scritti politici e di filosofia della storia e del diritto. Italian translation of G. Solari and G. Vidari, Torino, 1965. Strawson, P. F., Individuals. An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (1969). London/New York: Routledge 2005. —. The Bounds of Sense. An Essay on Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (1966). London/New York: Routledge, 2006. Williams, H., Kant’s Political Philosophy. Oxford: Basic Blackwell, 1983. Wood, A., “Kant’s Philosophy of History,” in Kant I., Toward Perpetual Peace and Other Writings on Politics, Peace, and History. Ed. by Kleingeld P., tr. by Colclasure D. L., New Haven and London 2006, pp. 243-262. —. “Kant’s Fourth Proposition: The Unsociable Sociability of Human Nature” in Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide. Ed. by A. Oksenberg Rorty and J. Schmidt, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009, pp. 112-128.

THE CONCEPT OF WORK IN SOME OF KANT’S SHORTER WRITINGS SOLEDAD GARCÍA FERRER COMPLUTENSE UNIVERSITY OF MADRID, SPAIN

1. Introduction We find ourselves dealing with a very varied collection of essays concerning manifold and different issues among which it is easy to get lost. The reader inevitably misses a driving thread that could help him to cross such a troubled field. In this paper we are going to suggest using the concept of work in order to orientate ourselves in these texts. It is a concept scarcely used by Kant in these writings (nor does it appear frequently in others), but, even if it has not been consciously developed, we think it can have a surprising efficiency in order to find a unified interpretation of them. We can provisionally define work as the transformation that man causes in nature in order to assimilate her und to use her for his own aims, but also as the transformation that nature produces at the same time in man in order to constitute him as himself. Understood in this wide sense, work is a practical action that modifies at the same time nature and agent.1 By making use of this concept as a guiding threat in Kant’s short writings we are not trying to propose a Marxian interpretation of his texts, even if, as a result of our interpretation, it might become possible to perform a Kantian interpretation of some Marxian texts, a task that evidently goes much beyond the aims and limits of the present investigation.2 In Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics we came across the word ‘work’ in a reproachful edge tinged and addressed to those who tried to save themselves the trouble of thinking by sheltering behind the mysterious tie that bounded them with the trans-world of spirits. The mystics like Swedenborg, in fact, had no need to work, since their oversensitive bounds gave them privileged information and spared them

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the annoying effort of synthesis. To them is addressed the sentence that closes that pre-critical little writing, inspired by Voltaire’s Candide: “Let us busy ourselves with our happiness, go to the garden and work!” The work Kant was speaking of was certainly the critical work, at that time still pending.3

2. The Concept of Work in Three of Kant’s Shorter Writings In On a recently prominent tone of superiority in philosophy we come across, thirty years later, the same reproach addressed to the same or similar people but this time tinged with a politicalʊclearly republicanʊ look characteristic of the texts written after the critical work carried out by Kant within this period of time and that will be useful in order to relate their issue with our concept of work. Mystics do not find themselves equal to the rest of men, but like aristocrats they despise work and defend their class privileges. This time Kant reproaches them for their arrogance, their distinguished tone, not through the youthful irony used in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, but from the republican ideal of equality. Kant attributes the philosophers per inspirationem’s attitude to indolence (Trägheit) and vanity (Eitelkeit). These two vices could explain a behaviour that appears only in philosophy and in no other kind of knowledge: that of those who, instead of demonstrate from below upwards by means of the Herculean work of self-knowledge (Arbeit des Selbsterkenntnisses), fly from above downwards in an easy apotheosis that does not want to give an account to anybody.4 The key is that these philosophers ignore or do not want to accept the lack in us of the capacity for having an intellectual intuition, the only one that would offer to us the object once and for all5 and could spare us the annoying work of synthesis. But, in fact, we do not have such a faculty, so we must really start working instead of consider ourselves superior for not having to do it. Kant distinguishes between those who try to spare themselves the work of thinking through the resource of a certain sentimental premonition (Ahnung) that somehow would make them come into a direct and secret contact with Isis and those who, prosaic and hard-working, research backwards, to the conditions of possibility, the a priori forms of knowledge. The first activity is poetic and rambles between feeling and pleasure, which undoubtedly is much more attractive than trying to earn oneself the possession of reason’s law by means of work (durch Arbeit).6

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It is the difference between philosophising (philosophieren) and playing the philosopher (den Philosophen machen),7 between a concrete part of Plato’s philosophy and Aristotle’s philosophy, claimed by Kant as work,8 between metaphysics and hyper-physics.9 The first attitude represents the death of philosophy and thereby can be called a salto mortale from the concept toward that what cannot be thought.10 It means to leave the work we must do for ourselves in favour of a poetic vision reserved to the initiated few and concealed to the people in general. Then, in fact, in addition to the reproaches we usually find in Kant against mystics, we can also read in this text, in a background that sometimes clearly emerges, a politic reproach. The presumed philosophers that put themselves on airs behave unforgivably because they put themselves above their colleagues and thus infringe their right of freedom and equality in reason.11 It seems, at first sight, that Kant is talking about an academic argument, but in fact, as we can see from the political concepts he uses, this is neither the only nor the most important matter at all, inasmuch as he calls the mystic an “aristocrat” and adds that, by the fact of appealing to a hypersensitive oracle, he is betting on a mechanical use of people and not on authentic philosophy.12 What is here at stake is the usurpation of the function the philosophy is claimed to play. This function is no other than to set reason to work within the limits and conditions in which it is qualified for doing it or to set heads to work in a not mechanical, but freeway. In order to set reason to work it is necessary to resign to the privileged, reserved to few intuitions and to devote oneself to the common search of knowledge on an equal level, not putting oneself above anyone. The possession of rational law must be earned rather than presumed to belong already to us. When reason put itself above or underneath others the only thing it achieves is despotism and slavery, and both of them are cases of a lazy reason.13 This disillusioned and brought down to earth egalitarian work, aware of itself and of its own limits, is a process that changes the object not less than the subject which initiates it. We have already seen how this happens by transforming the mystagogue into a philosopher, bringing him back from the spree to sober self-knowledge. And as for the transformation of the object through work, we have proof in all Kant’s critical work but, remaining in the text we are talking about ay present, we have an example in one of its footnotes: the modification of the concept of God or its substitution for a concept that must be produced by reason’s work. We can say it is no more than intellectual work and that its repercussions will never transcend a scholarly or bookish boundary. But that is precisely the

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purpose: the construction of this concept (and of the others as well) should not be left to any external authority, but be reserved only for intellectual work.14 Besides, if we join this example of work with the appeal to concepts with politically undeniable contentsʊlike equalityʊwe will have to agree it is not merely a philosophical argument, but it has or might have some relevant and far-reaching political repercussions, in the same way we are going to see next in another of Kant’s shorter writings. In An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? Kant defends freedom of thought and of communicating these thoughts without obstacles as a previous step toward freedom of action in the political sphere. What is the relation between this exhortation to think by oneself and work? In this essay there are few direct references to work and, on the contrary, many and very explicit allusions to political freedom. The idea is that it is very difficult if not almost impossible for one person through his own spirit’s work (durch eigene Bearbeitung ihres Geistes)15 to overcome the guardianship that binds him to minority, whereas for the public in general this process of liberation is something natural and unavoidable if only there are no special impediments: “People gradually work their way out of barbarism of their own accord if only one does not intentionally contrive to keep them in it”.16 Therefore, it is necessary to adopt a public, collective, historical perspective in order to understand the Enlightenment. And thus we can talk about an age of Enlightenment when the field is opened (das Feld geöffnet wird) to work in its direction in freedom (dahin frei zu bearbeiten),17 so that this openness of field is the only condition required for the Enlightenment’s work to advance. It seems anew, thus, that the main problem is to provide the conditions of possibility in order to develop a merely intellectual exchange of arguments among cultured people (Gelehrte). That the conditions of possibility are political conditions becomes clear throughout the text, but are we talking about a merely ideological work, a mere freedom of thought and press, or would such a process bring into play arms and legs and the subject’s whole corporeality? In order to answer this question, the dialectical relationship between freedom of thought and freedom of action in Kant must be addressed. At the end of this essay, indeed, Kant states that freedom of thought, the Enlightenment, acts little by little on the people’s way of feeling (Sinnesart des Volks) and enables them to engage in freedom of action. Here we meet the authentic subject and the true

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freedom: people’s freedom of action, which includes their corporeality and constitutes their dignity. To treat the people as children implies acting against them and downgrades them to a machine, that has no body. That is exactly what unenlightened government does and what also made the inspired philosophers we have already met in the last essay. Thus, summarising what this essay: An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? can tell us about the issue at stake, freedom of thought is an indispensable requirement for freedom of acting and the work it demands is a work that modifies at the same time the object and the subject who performs it, because it raises both of them from machines to human beings. The work we are talking about is, hence, the substance of worth and not merely a social game.18 It is an emancipating work, founded on freedom but that progressively by working upon itself, by generating more worth, takes by itself new liberties. It is a work upon itself not less than upon natureʊand upon one’s own nature: here the difference between nature and freedom is no longer significant at allʊnecessarily accomplished by the whole society and not by isolated individuals, an element that leads us backwards to the other condition of possibility that we have already analysed before: equality. Whereas in On a recently prominent tone of superiority in philosophy we rejected the mystagogue for being a despot who regards himself as more than others, now we reject the despot because he wants to keep people under the yoke of minority, without public voice. If we now complete one with the other the information from these two essays that should enable us to understand that Kant is introducing a philosophical work of political liberation and consequently of conquest of human dignity that includes the estimation of body materiality. No surprise if the enemy is the same we have also found in the other essay: the laziness (Faulheit) or indolence of a reason that does not want to take the trouble to think by itself, even if it is more than capable of doing so, is the perfect accomplice of those who want to preserve indefinitely the people in their minority, in political silence. It is, therefore, a guilty slavery, which agrees with the tutor in its own life imprisonment. The seventh proposition of Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View indicates the problem whose solution will prove to be humanity’s hardest work: the establishment of a League of Nations in which every State will find itself unified by the same bond of brotherhood. It is an even more difficult problem than that which is described as the most difficult one in the fifth proposition, considering that

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the Civil Constitution of each State depends on the foreign relations among them in such a way that only by establishing a League of Nations (Völkerbund or, as Kant says, foedus amphictyonum19) could a perfect Civil Society’s Constitution be guaranteed. It makes no sense to work on the second task if the first work has not been yet carried out, inasmuch as States would maintain among themselves hostile relations that “thereby constantly thwart the slow efforts to improve the minds (Denkungsart) of their citizens”20 and under these conditions to strive for a just Civil Constitution is completely useless.21 The way of thinking (Denkungsart or Gesinnung) necessary to the establishment of such a League of Nations is a moral one, subsequent and superior to the arts and sciences’ culture and to the moral civilisation, that consists in considering all human beings, whatever their origin, not only as equals, but also as moved by the same aim for whose achievement they must necessarily collaborate. This way of considering the other, neither as a potential enemy, nor only as equal, but as a companion in the same work, in fact as workmate, is brotherhood. It is a little delirious (schwärmerisch) and ridiculous22 but not less necessary idea, in the same way that it is also necessary to abandon the interstate violence and to establish a Civil Constitution. Now the problem is to go one step further and therefore, according to Kant, it becomes necessary a work toward citizens’ moral formation. It deals with a transformation in the way of thinking and acting of these citizens, who must abandon their selfish pendant, not only in relation with their closest neighboursʊthis was the difficult task the fifth principle spoke aboutʊbut also with the furthest ones. The work consists in the achievement of the broad-minded way of thinking23 or the universal point of view corresponding to the second maxim of sensus communis with which the Critique of Judgment dealt. Here we have, thus, the work we are morally indebted, that is to transform our way of thinking and of staying in the world. If we consider that in it the production of other things but not weapons and the occupation with other things but not wars are involved, we must agree we are in front of a work that concerns heads, arms and legs, hands and whole bodies, which, instead of being offered in sacrifice, are going to be treated with the due respect. Kant is talking about leaving a way of working and dedicating ourselves together to another. Brotherhood, the highest grade of the political synthesis, the cosmopolitan way of thinking, is the condition of possibility of this new way of working.

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3. Republicanism and Work: The Dispositions for Justice If we now join the results obtained from the analysis of the three essays these pages are dedicated toʊOn a recently prominent tone of superiority in philosophy, An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? and Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of Viewʊwe find the concept of work delineated inside the frame of the republican ideals of equality, freedom and brotherhood respectively.24 These three concepts determine its sense. But we also find that the work Kant is proposing is a republican one in the most profound sense of the word, that is to say a work directed to the achievement of republican ideals as political but first and foremost as knowing, cultural and moral ideals. That is why by mentioning them we are speaking about work: because what is proposed is that by our effort they come to constitute the fundamental form of our being-in-the-world. We have to consider them as the ontological matrixes of our worldliness. Only thought in this way and as a result of a work in its direction a republican policy could be bespoken and brought about. What I have just said could also be expressed as a transcendental research under the question: how a just world society would be possible? And then Kant would be exploring the conditions of possibility of political justice. Nevertheless, since this issue concerns human beings prompted by desires and considering aims, what must be enquired into is the work they have to propose and assume by themselves in order to achieve political justice. Because this is neither falling from the heavens nor can it be enforced: it must be the result and effect of the human action that is free and wants to reach happiness. The problem is, therefore, how to orientate this work by transforming at the same time both nature and actor in order to find political justice’s way such as it has been delineated by these three ideals or conditions of possibility. We have already said it: equality, freedom and brotherhood are not so much political ideals as both political and foremost ontological conditions of possibility. Therefore, there must be an ontological substrate or root upon which they are founded. And this ground according to Kant are the dispositions (Anlagen), understood as the previous equipment that forms our indispensable trousseau to get ready for the task, but also the fund or capital that can be put to work in order to obtain a profit. In Kant’s Shorter Writings this concept of disposition is not thematised, but it is frequently used and its meaning is presupposed.25 In order to understand this utilisation we would have to move back to other Kant’s texts in which dispositions are defined as those undetermining appeals that configure the

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human being’s character.26 The fact that indetermination is revealed as a common feature in all of them is an expression of freedom. The natural disposition (Naturanlage) in Kant is defined as the assemblage or building that constitutes a being. It is an orientated teleological structure that tends to the act, so that is must be considered as an active potency (Vermögen) or the power to reach it. The human character consists precisely in this availability of itself; in the use it can make of itself from the moment when it produces a device or a beautiful thing with its hands to the moment when it institutes a science or founds a city; a use and a availability that are not only a production of things or facts, but foremost a self-production, since the human being is always under construction and therefore all its actions have a medial character, they are neither quite active nor completely passive. From the multiple dispositions mentioned by Kant, probably the pragmatic and moral ones would be the most directly involved in the political issue. They could be named, therefore, dispositions for justice.27 What is at stake now is how these dispositions require a work in order to develop and to what extent this is a political work. We think that only this work can fill the gap opened between the dispositions and the aims of reason. We could ask ourselves whether the work we are talking about would be the human effort that produces a use value, a utensil, or that one that produces its exchange value. It is known that the difference lies according to Marx on that the second oneʊwhich produces the valueʊis a work reduced to a quantity of undistinguished work. The solidification or the jelly of this work is the ware or the commodity.28 It is a socially undifferentiated work, of spectral and not sensitive nature, useful for translating one into another wares’ value in market, where ones can be equivalent to others and be exchanged by them as long as all of them can be translated into undifferentiated work’s terms. This concept of undifferentiated work thought as the value’s substance is, according Marx, the basis of the economy, operates in it in every time, but is brought completely into light only in the time of absolute predominance of wares known as the world market. If we now try to disengage these Marxian expressions from their economic background and transfer them to the Kantian onto-political context we will found that the work we have been talking about has the social and the growing attributes appropriate to abstract work but lacks its reduction to quantity and its indifference. The dispositions’ development could not, obviously, be the crystallisation of an abstract and merely quantitative work, since each of them is different from the others, constituting all

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together a heterogeneous and dynamic structure that requires a similarly heterogeneous work. Besides, the product is not destined to a market: it is no ware, has no price, cannot be either sold or bought. Hence, the work that gives rise to it would be a qualitative, concrete, carefully differentiated and differentiating oneʊsince it constitutes our characterʊ, sensitive, embodied and producing a utensil being no other than ourselves. This work cannot be exchanged for any other one, cannot be part of any jelly and cannot be reduced to any quantity. The reading of these essays incites us to think how this work should be interpreted by using as background the Marxian suggestions. According to what we have seen above, the study of Kant’s Shorter Writings from the viewpoint of the concept of work throws fresh light on one of its key concepts: the enabling effect that appears in the ninth proposition of Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View.29 The Kantian critical work, opposed to mysticism and adherent to a worker raison, makes us discover the importance of the dispositions, which are an appeal to work. Hence, we discover the performative character of philosophical work, which encourages and promotes work as such. In front of the ignava ratio, these essays not only discover but also and above all propitiate a ratio laborans. And they make it by requesting those conditions under which only work can be performed, conditions that, therefore, from political ideals become conditions of possibility for the accomplishment of the ontological structure of the human being, since, as we have seen, the natural dispositions can only be worked or properly developed without privileges, without lords and in collaboration.

4. Conclusions Having examined three essays written after 1781, which means later than Kant’s critical work, we must recognise the importance of a scarcely investigated concept: the concept of work. Its relevance is not limited to intellectual or academic boundaries, but it widens its interest and significance toward the political arena. In this political field we have found, as was expected in Kant, the republican ideals of equality, freedom and brotherhood, which appear not only as praised and respected values, but also, and more importantly for our investigation, as the conditions of possibility of that work we were examining. When we talk about conditions, however, we are unavoidably referring to an ontological ground where these conditions settle. Indeed, the dispositions

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are in Kant the onto-political ground where these republican ideals settle and root. These dispositions, which configure our character, are destined to their accomplishment, but this could never be achieved outside the conditions we have spoken above. Among them and despite the fact they develop or spoil always together as a unified structure, the most important in the political issue is the moral one, as we have demonstrated in the analysis of the seventh proposition of the Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View. The work we have studied can be, therefore, understood as the effort to accomplish or to develop the dispositions that constitute us. Hence, what is at stake is a moral education of mankind in order to complete its being. By contrasting Kant’s work with Marx’s, we have delimited its figure as that matrix of value that never can be transmuted into a ware, that never can be sold in whatever market, but that always increases its value without losing its liberty and its dignity by being used in cosmopolitan society. This work must produce no other thing than us as free people by development of our own dispositions. The determinations of the political conditions required for its promotion as well as the indication of its ontological ground have undeniably the performative effect Kant spoke about. Thus the study of the concept of work gives us a guiding-thread to orientate our reading of many of Kant’s essays, allowing us to understand them in a unified form. And, at the same time, it gives us the trouble to understand how we could perform this work that we are obliged to carry out.

Notes 1

“Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material reactions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway” (Karl Marx: Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie I, Berlin, Dietz Verlag, 1984, p. 192). We consider here labour and work as similar. 2 For a brief history about the relationship between Kant’s philosophy and socialism, see Domenico Losurdo: Autocensura y compromiso en el pensamiento político de Kant, Madrid, Escolar y Mayo, 2010, pp. 11-35.

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About Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, illustrated by Dreams of Metaphysics and, more precisely, about its last sentence’s interpretation, see my “La felicidad y el trabajo (a propósito del final de Los Sueños de un visionario)”, published in https://emui.academia.edu/SoledadGarc%C3%ADaFerrer. 4 RPT 8:390 (p. 432 of the translation). About the importance of the concept of tone in Kant’s philosophy, see: Nuria Sánchez Madrid “Filosofia, tom e ilusão musical em Kant. Da vivificação sonora do ânimo à recepção do tom da razão” (Trans/Form/Ação [online] 2012, vol.35, n.1 [cited 2014-07-31], pp. 47-72). 5 Ibid. 8:389 (p. 431 of the translation). 6 Ibid. 8:393 (p. 434 of the translation). 7 Ibid. 8:394 (p. 435 of the translation, footnote) 8 Ibid. 8:393-394 (p. 434 of the translation). 9 Ibid. 8:399-401 (p. 440-441 of the translation, footnote). 10 Ibid. 8:397 (p. 438 of the translation). 11 Ibid. 8:394 (p. 435 of the translation). 12 Ibid. 8:404 (p. 444 of the translation, which says gentleman instead of aristocrat). 13 “This was the term applied by the old dialecticians to a sophistical argument, which ran thus: If it is your fate to die of this disease, you will die, whether you employ a physician or not. Cicero says that this mode of reasoning has received this appellation, because, if followed, it puts an end to the employment of reason in the affairs of life. For a similar reason, I have applied this designation to the sophistical argument of pure reason” (CRP B717). We are seeing in this paper how the ignava ratio Kant was referring in The Critique of pure reason has its opposite in a ratio laborans, that Kant introduces in some of his shorter writings. 14 RPT 8:399-401 (p. 440-441 of the translation, footnote). 15 WIE 8:36. 16 Ibid. 8:41. 17 Ibid. 8:40. 18 We take this expression, obviously, from Marx, but what we are trying is to untie it from its economic context and to apply it to Kant’s onto-political context. This will become clearer in the next section. 19 ǹȝijȚțIJȚȠȞȓĮ is a word derived from Įȝijȓ ‘both’ and țIJȓȗȦ ‘to build’, whose etymological meaning, hence, would be ‘allied foundation’ and is applied to the league originally established in the Demeter’s Temple in Antela, where representatives of twelve Greek peoples assembled with religious and political aims (vid. Ruipérez y Tovar: Historia de Grecia, Barcelona, Hora, 1983, p. 89). 20 IUH 8:26. 21 Ibid. 8:24. 22 “However fantastic this idea may seem—and it was laughed at as fantastical by the Abbé de St. Pierre and by Rousseau, perhaps because they believed it was too near to realization—the necessary outcome of the destitution to which each man is brought by his fellows is to force the states to the same decision (hard though it be for them) that savage man also was reluctantly forced to take, namely, to give up their brutish freedom and to seek quiet and security under a lawful constitution.”(Ibid. 8:24).

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23

CPJ 5:295. Or, maybe, equality, freedom, and self-sufficiency (Selbständigkeit), as Kant preferred to say in On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory, but It is of No Use in Practice. According to Domenico Losurdo (op. cit. pp. 162-171), the substitution of the last concept was due to the fear of censorship and only in Kant’s private notes would the triad of revolutionary concepts be preserved. However, we think that in the second part of this essay Kant is analysing the a priori principles of the constitution of a juridical state and, as for self-sufficiency, he is referring to the conditions a person must accomplish to become a citizen. Brotherhood (Brüderheit) should, thus, be located in the third part of the essay, in which he explains, in an argument quite close to IUH VII, using the same references to Rousseau and the Abbé of Saint Pierre, how a cosmopolitan society can and must be founded. 25 Already in the first proposition of IUH the development of the dispositions is alluded as the first premise necessary to explain the universal history: “All natural capacities (Naturanlagen) of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their natural end” (IUH 8:18). 26 For a general study of the dispositions in Kant see my essay La doctrina kantiana de la felicidad: la felicidad como ideal de la imaginación, http://eprints.ucm.es/12315/, pp. 89-109. 27 The locus where the term “work” more often appears is the pedagogical essays, since pedagogy is thought by Kant as the endeavour to develop the child’s dispositions. In these writings Kant pays particular attention to the moral disposition. However, in the essays we have here examined Kant’s interest moves towards the pragmatic disposition, which enables us for social life, for mundane treatment and for using others and also ourselves to achieve our own aims. Nevertheless, it is a mere question of accent, since the dispositions must be developed together and according to a harmonic structure. Besides, as we have already seen, the cosmopolitan viewpoint has to do mostly with the moral disposition. 28 Vid. Capital, Critique of Political Economy, I sec. 2. 29 “A philosophical attempt to work out a universal history according to a natural plan directed to achieving the civic union of the human race must be regarded as possible and, indeed, as contributing to this end of Nature” (IUH 8:29). 24

Bibliography Kant im Kontext II. © Karsten Worm – InfoSoftWare, 2003. Kant, Immanuel, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. —. “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View”, translated by Lewis White Beck, Immanuel Kant, On History, The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1963.

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—. “On a recently prominent tone of superiority in philosophy”, Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, Ed Henry Allison, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 429-445. Castillo, Monique, “Pluralisme culturel et solidarité cosmopolitique”, in La responsabilité des modernes, Paris: Éditions Kimé, 2007. Cubo Ugarte, Óscar, “Kant y Marx: el problema de las colonias”, in Daimon, Revista internacional de filosofía, suplemento 3(2010): 8796. Fenves, Peter D., A Peculiar Fate. Metaphysics and World-History in Kant, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991. Goldmann, Lucien, Introducción a la filosofía de Kant. Hombre, comunidad y mundo, Buenos Aires: Amorrortu, 19992. Heinrich, Michael, Crítica de la economía política: una introducción a El Capital de Marx, Madrid: Escolar y Mayo, 2008. Karatani, Kojin, Transcritique. On Kant and Marx, translated by SabuKoso, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. Losurdo, Domenico, Autocensura y compromiso en el pensamiento político de Kant, Madrid: Escolar y Mayo, 2010. Marx, Karl, Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie I, Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1984. McBay Merritt, Melissa, “Kant on Enlightened Moral Pedagogy” in The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 49(2011): 227-253. Negt, Oskar, Kant y Marx: un diálogo entre épocas, Madrid: Trotta, 2004. Philonenco, Alexis, La théorie kantienne de l’histoire, Paris: Vrin, 1986. Weil, Eric, Problèmes kantiens, Paris: Vrin, 1990.

V. DOCTRINE OF RIGHT AND COSMOPOLITANISM

POLITICS, URTEILSKRAFT AND THE REALISATION OF RIGHT: KANT’S CONTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE FEDERICA TRENTANI UFSC, BRAZIL / UNIVERSITY OF PADOVA, ITALY

1. Introduction In Kant’s practical philosophy, human history consists in the progressive realisation of freedom within the worldly sphere; this course is conceived by Kant as a process which is linked up with the progress of juridical and political institutions in the background of human actions: indeed, the first element that unfolds the history of freedom concerns the external conditions ensured by the State, which should comply with the model prescribed by pure practical reason. According to Kant, human history pertains thus to the gradual realisation of the project of practical reason through human actions; this means that human beings have to use as “means” all fields of the natural world which are relevant to human life, i.e. the social and anthropological frameworks in the background of our actions, as well as the psychological dispositions and the political institutions that currently exist in a given historical context.1 From this viewpoint, human history can be defined as a process aiming at the change of nature through Zivilisierung (a concept to which Kant ascribes a crucial role as regards the realisation of human ends).2 This process does not directly concern the morality of citizens, but it rather involves the legality of their actions: therefore, it does not regard an inner progress, but an achievement of human rationality in external actions which contribute to realise the ideal model presented in the Metaphysics of Morals. In the field of politics, moralisation should not be conceived as an inner problem of the individual, but as a progressive realisation of Right in the worldly sphere;3 in this regard, Kant underlines that:

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It is not the case that a good state constitution is to be expected from inner morality; on the contrary, the good moral education of a people is to be expected from a good state constitution. (TPP 8:366)

Politics plays a complex role within Kant’s philosophy: on the one hand, it seems to be subject to ethics and Right; on the other, Kant ascribes to politics a sort of primacy as regards the two above-mentioned spheres. Indeed, politics faces the task of leading human beings to their Bestimmung, i.e. a task which depends on the empirical realisation of Right; in regard to this, we should bear in mind that the Metaphysics of Morals is built on the relation between ethics and Right: as a result of the complementary character of these two spheres, Kant presents a system of progressive conditions for the realisation of the moral vocation of human beings.4 In other words, the laws of Right provide the conditions for a peaceful context of living and for freedom, namely the minimal requirements for the development of human dispositions.5 Kant claims that the political institutions in the background of our life play a primary role in the realisation of the human Bestimmung, i.e. a role that has to be distinguished from the one of ethics; within this perspective, politics should carry out those institutional reforms that concretely promote human progress. Politics can thus be defined as the moment of actual execution of an a priori determined model. This means that the normative principles of the Rechtslehre still require the intervention of politics, because they have to be translated into a concrete system of laws which are suitable for a given social context; therefore, the task of politics consists in the self-determination of a society, i.e. in the process through which a community determines and changes in itinere its own identity.6 In this regard, we should point out that politics cannot be conceived as a mere application of the Doctrine of Right, but it rather concerns the way in which we put into practice what the laws of Right prescribe;7 indeed, the “conversion” of the a priori principles of Right into positive laws should consider the concrete conditions in which the norms of pure practical reason have to be realised. The application of Right by means of politics is not immediate, but it rather implies an intrinsically reformist character: politics requires thus the “concurrence of conservatism and innovation”,8 namely “a continuous balancing between what can remain unchanged for the present and what has to be immediately changed”.9

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2. The Relation between Politics and Morals: The “Flexibility” of the Kantian Model Some scholars claim that Kant’s conception of politics is based on his moral theory;10 in regard to this, we should point out that Kant himself states that: True politics cannot take a step without having already paid homage to morals […]. One cannot compromise here and devise something intermediate, a pragmatically conditioned right (a cross between right and expediency); instead, all politics must bend its knee before right. (TPP 8:380)

Different readings (among which Pogge’s) conceive Kant’s political philosophy as a “freestanding” sphere, namely as a political theory that can be adopted irrespective of its relation with any morals, as well as with any religious or philosophical conception, etc.;11 within this debate, we should also mention the position of Rawls, who claims that Kant’s political philosophy cannot interact with the pluralism of our contemporary societies exactly because of its moral foundation. More precisely, according to Rawls the different individual conceptions of the good, which characterise the majority of our present-day societies, exclude a “comprehensive” conception of the common good based on the Kantian thought.12 Pogge thinks that Kant’s political philosophy does not necessarily depend on his moral theory; in other words, according to Pogge we can assume any metaphysical, anthropological or moral premise and we can at the same time adopt—despite this different background—Kant’s conception of politics: within this reading, the normative content of the Rechtslehre is conceived as compatible with moral perspectives which differ from the Kantian one.13 Even if it is true that Kant’s political philosophy can fit in with nonKantian moral perspectives, we should point out that Kant himself never wrote an explicit statement about such a contextual openness.14 However, it is important to underline that the Kantian political project is anything but “comprehensive” (as Rawls thinks): indeed, Kant’s political theory should be appreciated exactly because of its flexibility, i.e. because of its “adaptability” not only to different moral or religious conceptions, but also to different social and cultural contexts.

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In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant stresses that the sphere of politics should not be analysed through a mere ideal reasoning, irrespective of the possible connections between the normative model of pure practical reason and the concrete conditions of its realisation: Since the concept of right is a pure concept that still looks to practice (application to cases that come up in experience), a metaphysical system of right would also have to take account […] of the empirical variety of such cases, in order to make its division complete […]. But what is empirical cannot be divided completely, and if this is attempted (at least to approximate to it), empirical concepts cannot be brought into the system as integral parts of it, but can be used only as examples in remarks. (MM 6:205)

Although the following issue would require a careful analysis which goes beyond the limits of this paper, it is useful to remember that, in the Rechtslehre, Kant bases some of his arguments on factual matters (namely, not on an a priori reasoning); this sort of “slipping” toward empirical considerations could be interpreted as a consequence of the peculiar status of the sphere of politics, which necessarily requires us to examine the concrete aspects concerning the realisation of the norms of Right. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant shows indeed his consciousness about the core of the question: he knows that the construction of a political community governed by the normative principles of the Rechtslehre occurs within the contingency of given societies and cultures; the execution of this project (namely, the realisation of the prescriptions of pure practical reason in the worldly sphere) thus requires that we acquire an adequate pragmatic knowledge: in other words, politics requires that we extend our wealth of experiences and knowledge in order to sharpen our own capacity of judgement as regards its effectiveness in “grasping” reality.

3. Urteilskraft as Means of an Effective Politics According to Kant, politics constitutes a sort of bridge between the realm of freedom (represented by the normative principles of the Rechtslehre) and the realm of nature (here conceived as the context of the existing institutions within a given community): therefore, politics concerns the dynamic relation between these two spheres, i.e. a relation which can be correctly understood only if we take account of Urteilskraft.15 More precisely, Kant’s reflections aim to outline the very meaning of political action: indeed, Kant aims to identify the strategies for the realisation of

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what pure practical reason presents as an ideal model, which still has to be “adapted” to the contextual specificities of a human community. In Toward perpetual peace, Kant defines politics as an ausübende Rechtslehre,16 underlining thus that it consists in an intrinsically dynamic activity, namely in an activity that is open to interaction with context: on the one hand, the laws of Right provide indeed the universal principles which should shape the structure and ends of our institutions; on the other, politics faces the task of putting into practice what these principles prescribe, diverting thus our attention into the empirical consequences that can ensue from the concrete realisation of such an ideal model. From this viewpoint, we can thus say that politics does not provide definitive answers, but only provisional solutions which meet the needs of a given context of application; therefore, politics should reflect on how to translate the prescriptions of pure practical reason into contextual principles that fit a given social reality. According to Kant, political prudence should always aim to realise moral ends, namely long-term political projects which take into account the normative prescriptions of pure practical reason: in other words, a “good” politics has to manipulate the forces that regulate the context of its exercise, trying at the same time to shape the actual state of affairs on the basis of the model prescribed by reason through the norms of Right. Kant sets the task concerning the fulfilment of this project to the “moral politician, that is, one who takes the principles of political prudence in such a way that they can coexist with morals” (TPP 8:372). In order to obtain the change of the constitutions which are already juridical, but still not consistent with the prescriptions of Right, Kant suggests the strategy of a progressive reform;17 moreover, Kant shows a deep consciousness about the fact that hasty reforms can lead to counterproductive outcomes: A moral politician will make it his principle that, once defects that could not have been prevented are found within the constitution of a state […], it is a duty […] to be concerned about how they can be improved as soon as possible […]. [However], it would be absurd to require that those defects be altered at once and violently; but it can be required of the one in power that he at least take to heart the maxim that such an alteration is necessary, in order to keep constantly approaching the end of the best constitution in accordance with laws of right. (TPP 8:373)

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This idea also appears in a passage in which Kant stresses that the sphere of politics concerns contextual problems, i.e. problems which require first of all the capacity to “catch the right moment”: [Some laws] are laws that, taking into consideration the circumstances in which they are to be applied, subjectively widen his authorization (leges latae) and contain permissions, not to make exceptions to the rule of right, but to postpone putting these laws into effect, without however losing sight of the end. (TPP 8:347)

According to Kant’s conception of politics, we should develop a sort of “contextual sensibility” for identifying the historical and social conditions in which reforms can be effectively realised:18 indeed, without this capacity to analyse in depth the context of action, a politician could not change the existing institutions in a durable way. In order to summarise these considerations, I would say that morals itself suggests to the politician the use of prudence, provided that political prudence is linked up with moral ends;19 moreover, according to Kant, the core of the question lies in the fact that “we cannot realize the prescriptions of Right, if we are not fully conscious of the empirical conditions that can promote or hinder their carrying out”:20 within this perspective, the capacity of judgement is thus conceived as the means through which the norms of Right can be effectively realised “on the basis of a pragmatic and realistic attitude”.21 The moral politician should be able to “foresee”—as far as possible—the consequences of the different options among which he has to choose;22 from this viewpoint, politics requires both a complex set of knowledge and something like a special sensibility, which are anything but easy to develop, even if they are at the same time necessary in order to judge whether a reform fits a given context or not: For the solution of the problem of political prudence much knowledge of nature is required in order to make use of its mechanism for the end proposed, and jet all this is uncertain with respect to its result. (TPP 8:378)

The relation between knowledge and political action is outlined by Kant in a not fully clear way: on the one hand, the knowledge of the context is presented as a crucial element of political action, namely as an element without which it would not be possible to realise any effective reform of the existing institutions; on the other, this knowledge sometimes seems to play a marginal role because of its quasi-inaccessibility.23 In some passages, Kant claims indeed that political prudence will never be able to solve the problem of the realisation of perpetual peace; this impasse would

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depend on the fact that, for human beings, such a knowledge of the world remains unattainable, namely a knowledge of the worldly sphere which— as regards its range and depth—should be up to the political task prescribed by pure practical reason: Reason is not sufficiently enlightened to survey the series of predetermining causes that would allow it to predict confidently the happy or unhappy results of human actions in accordance with the mechanism of nature. (TPP 8:370)

However, this sort of “structural limit” of the human capacity to know and to foresee the dynamics of a given society does not seem to be compatible with the confidence in human cognitive faculties expressed by Kant in other passages. Even if the politician should understand in depth the reality in which he tries to fulfil the reforms of pure practical reason, such a knowledge is at the same time characterised by a complexity that goes beyond human cognitive faculties: therefore, it would seem quasiimpossible to acquire a clear overall view about the possible consequences of the above-mentioned reforms. Urteilskraft plays a crucial role in the realisation of Right: indeed, politics requires to use not only reason and understanding, but it also requires to use the capacity of judgement. Any political action implies thus the synergy of two cognitive spheres: the one concerning the analysis of the social dynamics which govern a given community; the other one regarding the sense and the implicit purposes of an historical course. The realisation of the project of pure practical reason always occurs within the contingency of given historical and cultural backgrounds and this means that we should be able to grasp, by means of the proper “sensibility”, all specificities which characterize a given context.24 It is interesting to underline that the reflektierende Urteilskraft plays an important role as regards the grasp of the dynamics governing the human sphere,25 which should thus be analysed not only by means of determining judgements, but also through judgements that outline the implicit purposiveness moving the esprit of a cultural community.26 On the one hand, through determining judgements, the various aspects of social reality are traced back to given concepts; on the other, reflective judgement constructs rules (namely, new laws) that mirror the peculiarities of the context in which the a priori norms of Right have to be applied.27 In the sphere of politics, the general principles to which we trace back the particular cannot be “automatically” derived from experience: rather, they

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are “produced” by the judging subject (i.e. the politician), who has to interpret a context that—without this interpretative process—would represent a merely chaotic set of habits, psychological attitudes, and social and cultural specificities of several sorts. Faced with the particular (which is constituted by this set of interpretative variables), we have thus to identify the rule that makes sense out of the context, trying at the same time to outline new laws which can interact at their best with the political reality of a given community. Therefore, the reflektierende Urteilskraft has to find a balance between the ideal model of Right and the institutional, social, economical and cultural reality we are facing: more precisely, this activity of adapting the universal principles of Right to the circumstances requires that we “think up the rule” which can connect the normative sphere of pure practical reason with the considered context.28 This way, the political function of reflective judgements can thus avoid any dogmatic application of the Rechtslehre that could even prove selfdefeating. Whereas in the sphere of ethics the context of action is often quite limited, in the field of politics we have to face an enormous amount of variables, namely cognitions and competences that are sometimes hard to define; this account becomes even more complex, if we consider that in the sphere of politics we should progressively sharpen the capacity of judgement, but yet without reaching a definitive fulfilment of the political training: indeed, this sharpening of the capacity of judgement is linked up with the idea that we find in itinere new occasions for reflection and thus new contextual goals. As a final remark, I would point out that Kant assigns to intellectuals not only the task of informing and guiding public opinion: indeed, the members of the intelligentsia also give voice to pure practical reason through a continuous watchfulness on the practice of public institutions; Kant thinks that the very political responsibility of citizens does not consist in philosophical reflection in general, but it rather consists in judging whether the practice of the rulers is compatible with the model prescribed by the a priori principles of Right: therefore, within a Kantian perspective, the “philosopher/politician” ought to denounce the injustice of institutions and the unfairness of the current state of affairs, aiming this way to influence the political practice of the present-day community.

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Notes 1

On this reading of Kant’s philosophy of history see Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History, pp. 138-139. 2 The transition form Kultivierung to Zivilisierung, i.e. the transition from the cultivation of one’s own individual abilities to the achievement of those cultural skills that fit the individual for society, represents a fundamental stage in order to carry out one’s own development as a human being; see A 7:323. In Über Pädagogik Kant defines the concept of civilisation as follows: “It must be seen that the human being becomes prudent also, well suited for human society, popular and influential. This requires a certain form of culture, which is called civilizing” (P 9:450). I’d like to point out that the process of civilisation always occurs within a given culture; this means that civilisation is a contextual phenomenon which fits different cultural circumstances. 3 In the Metaphysics of Morals, the German term Moral refers both to ethics and Right; on Kant’s use of the terms Moral, moralisch and Moralität see Langthaler, Kants Ethik als System der Zwecke. Perspektiven einer modifizierten Idee der moralischen Teleologie und Ethikoteleologie, pp. 66-67. Even if history aims at the moralisation of human beings, Kant seems to consider morality as something that still remains “too far” from the sphere of culture, which represents the fundamental means for the unfolding of pure practical reason within the world: “We are cultivated in a high degree by art and science. We are civilized, perhaps to the point of being overburdened, by all sorts of social decorum and propriety. But very much is still lacking before we can be held to be already moralized” (IUH 8:26). See also P 9: 451. In Kant’s late works, the external sphere of action acquires more and more relevance; on this point see CF 7:91. 4 About this reading which underlines that, in the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant is interested in the realisation of morals within the worldly sphere see Fonnesu, “Kants praktische Philosophie und die Verwirklichung der Moral”, pp. 53-59; Fonnesu, “La filosofia pratica di Kant e la realizzazione della morale”, pp. 51-56. Moreover, we should bear in mind that the telos of human history aims at the realisation of Right and culture, which constitute the worldly conditions of moral improvement: on this point see Mori, “Conoscenza e mondo storico in Kant”, pp. 281-282. About the twofold meaning (ethical and juridical) of the ends of pure practical reason see Kersting, Wohlgeordnete Freiheit. Immanuel Kants Rechts und Staatsphilosophie, pp. 112-133. 5 “The greatest problem for the human species […] is the achievement of a civil society universally administering right. […] A perfectly just civil constitution must be the supreme problem of nature for the human species, because only by means of its solution and execution can nature achieve its remaining aims for our species” (IUH 8:22). “The formal condition under which alone nature can attain this final aim is that constitution […] in which the abuse of reciprocally conflicting freedom is opposed by lawful power in a whole, which is called civil society; for only in this can the greatest development of the natural predispositions occur” (CPJ 5:432).

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On the concept of politics as Selbstbestimmung of a society see Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”. Eine Theorie der Politik, p. 224. 7 About this remark see Gerhardt, “Ausübende Rechtslehre. Kants Begriff der Politik”, p. 478. See also Pinzani, “Representation in Kant’s Political Theory”, p. 222. 8 Mori, La pace e la ragione. Kant e le relazioni internazionali: diritto, politica, storia, p. 192. 9 Ibid. 10 As regards the relation between politics and morals see Kersting, Wohlgeordnete Freiheit. Immanuel Kants Rechts und Staatsphilosophie, pp. 35-37, 42-50; Caranti, “Politica”, pp. 367-368. 11 On Kant’s political philosophy conceived as a “freestanding” theory see Pogge, “Is Kant’s Rechtslehre a ‘Comprehensive Liberalism’?”, p. 134. 12 About this interpretation see Rawls, Political Liberalism, p. 99. See also Flikschuh, Kant and Modern Political Philosophy, pp. 13-14. 13 On this point see Pogge, “Is Kant’s Rechtslehre a ‘Comprehensive Liberalism’?”, pp. 135, 149-150. 14 As regards this remark see Caranti, “Politica”, p. 371. 15 The reading of Kant’s political philosophy suggested by Arendt underlines exactly this point; see Arendt, “Freedom and Politics”. See also Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy. 16 “There can be no conflict of politics, as doctrine of right put into practice, with morals, as theoretical doctrine of right (hence no conflict of practice with theory)” (TPP 8: 370). On the concept of politics as ausübende Rechtslehre see Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”. Eine Theorie der Politik, pp. 156-157. 17 About this point see Mori, La pace e la ragione. Kant e le relazioni internazionali: diritto, politica, storia, pp. 197-198. 18 For this remark see Gerhardt, “Der Thronverzicht der Philosophie. Über das moderne Verhältnis zwischen Philosophie und Politik bei Kant”, pp. 182-183, 186. See also Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”. Eine Theorie der Politik, pp. 223-224; Knippenberg, “The Politics of Kant’s Philosophy”, p. 165. 19 “Politics says ‘Be ye wise as serpents’, morals add (as a limiting condition) ‘and guileless as doves’ […]” (TPP 8:370). 20 Mori, La pace e la ragione. Kant e le relazioni internazionali: diritto, politica, storia, p. 164. 21 Ibid. 22 On the relation between knowledge and political action see Ellis, Kant’s Politics. Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World, p. 142. 23 These ambiguities in Kant’s analysis of the relation between knowledge and political action are underlined by Caranti, “Politica”, pp. 379-380. 24 The idea that the politician should develop a sort of “sensibility” for the context is suggested by Gerhardt, Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”. Eine Theorie der Politik, p. 159. See also Gerhardt, “Ausübende Rechtslehre. Kants Begriff der Politik”, pp. 482-483.

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25 On the function of the reflektierende Urteilskraft within the sphere of ethics see Trentani, La teleologia della ragione pratica. Sviluppo umano e concretezza dell’esperienza morale in Kant, pp. 97-104. 26 The reflective judgement identifies the purposive concept in the background of the analysed object, providing this way the preconditions for translating an ideal representation into a practical concept: in this regard see Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, pp. 117-118. On the role of reflective judgements in the sphere of politics see Pleines, Praxis und Vernunft. Zum Begriff praktischer Urteilskraft, pp. 118, 142; Beiner, Political Judgment, pp. 31-71. 27 On this point see Caranti, “Politica”, pp. 385-386. 28 Kaufman argues that “reflective judgment constitutes a resource to address the discontinuity between general principles and practical determinations. Since the faculty of reflective judgment grounds judgments of moral salience, this faculty exhibits the significance (moral and political) of objects and relations in experience” (Kaufman, “Political Judgment”, chapter 6).

Bibliography Kant’s works are cited from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Arendt, H., “Freedom and Politics”, in A. Hunold (ed.), Freedom and Serfdom. An Anthology of Western Thought, Dordrecht: Reidel Publishing Company, 1961. —. Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Beiner, R., Political Judgment, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983. Caranti, L., “Politica”, in S. Besoli - C. La Rocca - R. Martinelli (a cura di), L’universo kantiano. Filosofia, scienze, sapere, Macerata: Quodlibet, 2010. Ellis, E., Kant’s Politics. Provisional Theory for an Uncertain World, New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 2005. Flikschuh, K., Kant and Modern Political Philosophy, Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Fonnesu, L., “Kants praktische Philosophie und die Verwirklichung der Moral”, in H. Nagl-Docekal - R. Langthaler (Hrsg.), Recht-GeschichteReligion. Die Bedeutung Kants für die Gegenwart, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2004. —. “La filosofia pratica di Kant e la realizzazione della morale”, in L. Fonnesu, Per una moralità concreta. Studi sulla filosofia classica tedesca, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010.

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Gerhardt, V., Immanuel Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”. Eine Theorie der Politik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995. —. “Ausübende Rechtslehre. Kants Begriff der Politik”, in G. Schönrich Y. Kato (Hrsg.), Kant in der Diskussion der Moderne, Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp, 1996. —. “Der Thronverzicht der Philosophie. Über das moderne Verhältnis zwischen Philosophie und Politik bei Kant”, in O. Höffe (Hrsg.), Immanuel Kant. Zum ewigen Frieden, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 2004. Kaufman, A., “Political Judgment”, in A. Kaufman, Welfare in the Kantian State, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Knippenberg, J.M., “The Politics of Kant’s Philosophy”, in R. Beiner - W. J. Booth (ed.), Kant and Political Philosophy. The Contemporary Legacy, New Haven-London: Yale University Press, 1993. Pinzani, A., “Representation in Kant’s Political Theory”, Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik, 16 (2008). Kersting, W., Wohlgeordnete Freiheit. Immanuel Kants Rechts und Staatsphilosophie, Berlin: De Gruyter, 1984. Langthaler, R., Kants Ethik als System der Zwecke. Perspektiven einer modifizierten Idee der moralischen Teleologie und Ethikoteleologie, Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991. Makkreel, R.A., Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Mori, M., “Conoscenza e mondo storico in Kant”, in L. Fonnesu (a cura di), Etica e mondo in Kant, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008. —. La pace e la ragione. Kant e le relazioni internazionali: diritto, politica, storia, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008. Pleines, J.E., Praxis und Vernunft. Zum Begriff praktischer Urteilskraft, Würzburg-Amsterdam: Königshausen und Neumann, 1983. Pogge, T., “Is Kant’s Rechtslehre a ‘Comprehensive Liberalism’?”, in M. Timmons (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Interpretative Essays, Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Rawls, J., Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Trentani, F., La teleologia della ragione pratica. Sviluppo umano e concretezza dell’esperienza morale in Kant, Trento: Pubblicazioni di Verifiche, 2012. Yovel, Y., Kant and the Philosophy of History, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.

RIGHT AS A SIGN OF A PHILOSOPHICAL CHILIASM: FREEDOM AND ITS EVOLUTION IN KANT’S OPUSCULES ROBERTO R. ARAMAYO IFS/CSIC, SPAIN

Since right involves a balance between action and reaction, which is a product of freedom, to that extent the only possible principle suitable to preserve a constant whole among obstinate beings is practical as well, so that theory is here at the same time practical in its maxims, although the execution is based on empirical attempts. (23:135)

1. Introduction For some years now, I have been dealing with the issue of the utopian modulation of reason, and the ensuing table of uchronic categories, in order to gain a thorough understanding of Criticism in general, and especially of the evolution of Kant’s conception of history.1 To begin with, Kant’s treatment of history is closely related to his teleological conception of the organism as a natural end, as is well known, and ultimately to the theoretical stance represented, in short, by the much admired ideas of Plato, as expressed in Reflection 445 (15:184): “[s]ome things can only be known from reason, not from experience, namely when one wants to know not how something is, but rather how it has to or ought to be. Hence the ideas of Plato”. It seems clear that in order to find one’s way around within the field of history it would suffice to follow the lead of ideals such as the Republican form of State government or the cosmopolitan union of peoples (attainable asymptotically2 in the contingency of history), thus escaping the mistake made by those who only dare to prophesy in the field of history because they are directly responsible for the facts they predict.3

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Far from a prophetical practice as short-sighted as it is bombastic, based on the identification of historical signs—which are true ontological centaurs insofar as they merge the features of experience with those features of freedom’s causality that drives the human species towards gradual perfection—Kant paves the only possible way forward in the field of historical hermeneutics, undoubtedly inspired from intelligible events of history. However, another of Kant’s reflections, number 1429, dated to the years 1773/75 (15:618) by Advices, chooses a much more immanent framework for providing a locus to historical progress: “One must wonder whether there is something systematic in the history of human actions. The answer is that one idea guides the whole history: the idea of right”. The combination of both claims cannot but arouse some perplexity, for right does not seem to be the work of a Providence, nor of a wise Nature underlying human actions; rather, it is a doctrine concerning the peaceful coexistence of human wills according to a universal law. A doctrine whose practical side points to politics—not in vain is it referred to as ausübende Rechtslehre—and whose theoretical principles cannot help but coincide with morality (TPP 8:370 [1795]). Reflection 8.077, a draft of The Conflict of the Faculties, helps to reduce that perplexity, for it binds together the ends proposed by right and the idea of a moral-practical reason that constitutes “the drift of progress towards the best of the human race” (19:611). As I have stated elsewhere, the consideration of conjoined texts such as these motivates the claim that “[t]he philosophical chiliasm has the advantage of being fostered by its own idea,”4 that is to say, by the hope in moral progress which entails a historical faith, considered as a duty by a lucid Kant scholar as É. Weil.5 Taking into account this problematic context, my goal in this article is to discover whether the vocabulary of the faith in a historical moral progress complements, in an inescapable fashion, the practical use of reason in the space opened by rational faith in the theoretical use of reason, employing a peculiar metaphor from the theatre, which, in the fashion of a historical tribunal provides solidity to the utopian horizon of perpetual peace. In the second place, I intend to determine whether the uchronic nature of that modulation of the products of reason is progressively filtered and refined within the Kantian Doctrine of Right, or whether that doctrine becomes rather the concrete consummation of a “hyper-secularised theodicy”, as I have labelled it in a previous text.6

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2. Hypotheses, Farce, and Historical Discernment The debate that Kant started with Moses Mendelssohn is of enormous relevance concerning the judgement that will be handed down by an overview of human actions throughout the generations. The key point of the disagreement between the two thinkers lies in their differing views on the historical object, which in Mendelssohn leads to refraining from the use of hypotheses while Kant is persuaded of their necessity in order to gain a minimum of “objectivity” about the facts to be evaluated.7While Mendelssohn grounds his historical Abderitism on love for experience rather than on love for the destiny of the human race, and advocates facing the facts without the aid of hypotheses or other such fictions, Kant makes use of a theatrical image to express the inconsistency that such a stance would imply for any human being, since this theoretical stance amputates the worries and demands that man harbours within his spirit and that cannot be relinquished, e.g. the love for his own species and the presupposition of a wise creator and ruler of the world. Let us see the relevant passage: To watch this tragedy for a while might be moving and instructive, but the curtain must eventually fall. For in the long run it turns into a farce; and even if the actors do not tire of it, because they are fools, the spectator does, when one or another act gives him sufficient grounds for gathering that the never-ending piece is forever the same. (OCS 8:308 [1793])

The issue that provokes the spectator’s rejection of the historical plot based on the accumulation of vices intermingled with virtues is the boredom caused by the monotony of the episodes. To this tedium, Kant opposes the firm “hope for better times”, which operates as an emotional or affective echo of an innate duty in the human being, namely the duty that prompts each member of a given generation to the representation of his own actions as connected with those proceeding from posterior generations (OCS 8:309) in an onward progress towards a horizon that is more in accordance with the principles of morality. The Kantian argument insists that the burden of proof lies with whoever wants to refute an anthropological claim like that mentioned above: I shall therefore be allowed to assume that, since the human race is constantly advancing with respect to culture (which is its natural end), it is also possible to conceive that it progresses towards what is better with respect to the moral end of its existence, so that this progress will indeed

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be interrupted from time to time, but will never be broken off. (OCS 8:308309)8

In Idea for a Universal History… the advance from a rhapsodic aggregate of human actions to a system is also attributed to the existence of an “erudite audience” (IUH 8:29, note) that testifies to the knowability of ancient history and knows its way around it thanks to the guidance of trustworthy principles. Kant subscribes entirely, as he admits here, to Hume’s claim that “Thucydides’s first page is the only beginning of real history that there is” (Ibid.). Thus, properly speaking, there would not be any historical data before the adoption of a narrative which is in harmony with the interests of reason, and from which individuals cannot alienate themselves without paying a high cost. Put in another way, the rational character of the human being does not admit of just any narratives about what happened, but rather demands to be guided by its own, native postulates: It does not matter how many doubts may be raised against my hopes from history, which, if they were probative, could move me to desist from a task so apparently futile; as long as these doubts cannot be made quite certain I cannot exchange the duty (as something liquidum) for the rule of prudence not to attempt the impracticable (as something illiquidum, since it is merely hypothetical); and however uncertain I may always be and remain as to whether something better is to be hoped for the human race, this cannot infringe upon the maxim, and hence upon its presupposition, necessary for practical purposes, that it is practicable. (OCS 8:309)

Kant states that the consciousness of the mere disposition to produce moral-historical progress is innate in us, with the result that Mendelssohn’s reluctance to appeal to it would be contrived. Be it as it may, it is worth noting that Kant appeals—at this point in the treatise—not so much to what is to be expected from human actions, but rather to what can force the human nature in us or, more precisely, the generic force represented by Providence, whose secret plan guarantees that a coherence can be found in the course of history: If we now ask by what means this unending progress toward the better can be maintained and even accelerated, it is soon seen that this immeasurably distant success will depend not so much upon what we do (for instance, on the education we give the younger generation) and by what methods we should proceed in order to bring it about, but instead upon what human nature will do in and with us to force us onto a track we would not readily take of our own accord. (OCS 8:310)

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It is enigmatic that, in the following lines, Kant appeals to impotence as a supplement to a good will which has not precisely shone out over the course of history: Kant situates at the height of disappointment the propitious moment in order that, e.g., the decision about the pros and cons of declaring war on another state would be in the hands of the leader, or rather, as should happen, it would be in the hands of the people, who suffer the inevitable damages and pay its costs. In the answer to Mendelssohn, a decisive role is played by the lesson taught by reciprocal violence between people and states throughout history and its universally destructive effects, as well as the coercion9 that brings the antagonism of human egoism into a certain harmony. These two elements determine an evolution that concerns, in parallel, both the so-called civilian destiny of human societies and the pacification of the relations among states, through the integration of every government within a cosmopolitan Constitution. This parallelism is discussed, with nuances, in Perpetual Peace10 and in The Metaphysics of Morals.11 However, Kant nuances the grounds for such assertions when he acknowledges that “[t]his is, however, only an opinion and a mere hypothesis which is uncertain, like all judgments that want to assign for an intended effect not entirely within our control the only natural cause adequate to it” (OCS 8:311, Cambridge translation with modifications).12 With this, Kant admits the contingency and subjective weight of the condition assumed with a view to something that is or ought to happen, as he highlights in the first Critique (CPR A633-634/B661-662). The hypotheses are defensive weapons, as the following passage of the same work expresses: Hypotheses are therefore allowed in the field of pure reason only as weapons of war, not for grounding a right but only for defending it. […] Now to your complete armament there also belong the hypotheses of pure reason, which, although they are merely leaden weapons (for they have not been steeled through any law of experience), are nevertheless just as efficient as those which any opponent might use against you. (CPR A777778/B805-806).

Therefore, it is an efficient instrument in a polemic context, but it lacks the force and the necessity bestowed on postulates.13 In the next section, I will attend more closely to the way in which theoretical hypotheses and juridical-practical postulates contribute to the task of grounding the practical objectivity of reason, with the aim of detecting in them the trail of the Kantian recourse to Providence and to Natura daedala rerum14 as a motor of faith in the progress of the human race towards the best.

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3. Logical-Juridical Consistency and the Ideas of Moral-Practical Reason A passage from an already classic work of Ernst Bloch provides us with the needed occasion to detect the sequence that links Providence and teleology (emphasised in Kant’s writings of the 80’s) with the coining of the juridical postulate within the Doctrine of Right of 1797. There we read: In his ethics and philosophy of right, Kant denies this empirical drive as methodologically impure; in its place he calls for a deduction of the principle of deduction itself, that is, the founding of the determining ground of natural law in an a priori principle. But this principle is not individual freedom (with empirical happiness as the goal); rather it is exclusively restricted or general freedom as the principle of any possible human coexistence. (Bloch, Natural Law and Human Dignity, trans. by Dennis J. Schmidt, Massachusetts, MIT Press, 1987, pp. 67-68)15

Thus, the idea of a contract and the republican model of state stray decisively from any interpretation in terms of the individual and his or her interests. Rather, it introduces, as a primary element in the discussion, the public interest of the civic union, in which subjects overcome their unilateralism and the provisional character of their juridical demands, submitting themselves in turn to an omni-lateral will, which is the only one with the capacity to incarnate the tutelage of distributive justice. Consequently, Kant’s severe criticism of paternalist regimes should not come as a shock. For these regimes give up the task of defence and protection of the civic union in favour of supplying the population with concrete and variable satisfactions aimed at attaining an amorphous happiness. It is worth paying heed to an important change in Kant’s discourse about methods for attaining a “perfectly just civil constitution”—according to the expression used in Idea for a Universal History… (IUH 8:22 [1784])—the pursuit of which Nature imposes on us as the most complex undertaking of our species, together with education. In fact, Providence is gradually overlapped by the rising prominence of a juridical perspective from which human actions are analysed. In this regard, the third section of Theory and Practice acknowledges that Providence is an appropriate supplement for the finite nature of human faculties. Thus it can be considered an expression not unbefitting the moral wishes and hopes of people (once aware of their inability) to expect the circumstances required for these from Providence which will provide an outcome for the end of humanity as a whole species, to reach its final

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Right as a Sign of a Philosophical Chiliasm destination by the free use of its powers as far as they extend, to which end the ends of human beings, considered separately, are directly opposed. (OCS 8:312)

But just two years later, in Perpetual Peace, with the same aim of attaining a guarantee for political-historical progress, Kant suggests replacing the term Providence by Nature, which, on the one hand, is more in accordance with a theory which does not want to risk mortgaging any of its pieces to religion and which, on the other hand, is more modest than the former, for it remains within the limits of possible experience. In this text, we read the following about the cause that warrants perpetual peace (the final end of Kantian right): we do not, strictly speaking recognize [it] in these artifices of nature or even so much as infer [it] from them, but instead (as in all relations of the form of things to ends in general) only can and must add it in thought, in order to make for ourselves a concept of their possibility by analogy with actions of human art. (TPP 8:362)

Furthermore, The Conflict of the Faculties further deepens the abandonment of that perspective that focuses on what Providence will do with us—fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt—, insofar as Kant here claims that what makes the revolutionary event one never to be forgotten is its revelation of a disposition and a capacity to attain the best within human nature, in other words, a potentiality of our acts that augurs “an integration of nature and freedom in the human race, according to principles intrinsic to right” (CF, 7:88 [1798]), whose temporal locus remains indeterminate. Any time is fitting for it to come about. Everything indicates that the vocabulary of Providence, quite abundant in the Kantian opuscules on political philosophy and philosophy of history, is progressively replaced by a recourse to the laws of nature as a sort of sensible schema or even a type (CPrR 5:43[1788]) of the law of right. With this, the chiliasm brought to light by a work contemporary to Idea...—namely the Groundwork—is brought about, articulated, by the fact that “[t]eleology considers nature as a kingdom of ends, morals consider a possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature” (G 4:436, note [1785]). In claiming, within the introduction to the Doctrine of Right, that the principle of right can be constructed in pure a priori intuition, using as a guide the law of equality of action and reaction that characterises the free movement of bodies (MM 6:232 [1797]), Kant is pointing out that the metaphorology stemming from the Stoic tradition is not indispensable anymore.16

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Indeed, the very rational foundation of right has already provided it with rational mechanisms which, even if they can be described in terms of mechanical operations—just like juridical obligation itself, or right understood as a “hindering of a hindrance of freedom” (MM 6:231)—a-re nonetheless traversed by intelligible forces, without which they would lack any legitimacy and would be reduced to mere discretionary acts of violence. One of the pieces that most forcefully reveals the internal rationality of Kantian right, and into which the entire teleological discourse in the ’80s opuscules on the philosophy of history withdraws, are the juridical postulates gathered in the Metaphysics of Morals. Concerning the postulate of public right, which turns the transition from a mere social state to a civil state into a genuine duty, a duty that every people that “in an inevitable situation of co-existence” must fulfil by itself, Kant underlines that “[t]he ground for this can be explicated analytically from the concept of right in external relations, in opposition to violence (violentia)” (MM 6:307). I share with Paul Guyer17 the impression, rebutted by K. Flikschuh,18 that the system of postulates of the Doctrine of Right is deductively articulated, and in this manner it traces the only legal path leading to an external use of freedom that can be universally consistent. The starting point is given by the universal principle of right, which dissociates juridical from moral obligation once and for all, moral obligation being dependent on the subject’s motivation from his or her maxim: [T]he universal law of right, so act externally that the free use of your choice can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law, is indeed a law that lays an obligation on me, but it does not at all expect, far less demand, that I myself should limit my freedom to those conditions just for the sake of this obligation; instead, reason says only that freedom is limited to those conditions in conformity with the idea of it and that it may also be in fact limited by others; and it says this as a postulate that is incapable of further proof. (MM 6:231)19

Now, the unfeasibility of providing a direct proof or justification for a thesis or formula does not exempt one from giving some deduction of it that legitimates the authority of the thesis or formula. Without this, says Kant, “all critique of the understanding would be lost” (CPR A233/B285286). In the case of juridical postulates, as happens with mathematical ones, the very construction of the universal principle of right through the law of reciprocal coercion proves the possibility of the concept of an

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external freedom submitted to universal laws,20 and thus complements, with the sobriety of an image drawn from physics, the poetic image— whose meaning affects a cultural rather than a juridical development—of the competition among the trees within the forest, whose unsociability is to the advantage of “a beautiful straight growth” (IUH 8:22). The ensemble of duties—claims Kant in the Introduction to the Metaphysics of Morals (MM 6:219 [1797])—belongs to ethics, although their lawgiving can be dual, namely internal and ethical or external and juridical. As is well known, the latter admits of pathological motives, different from the mere idea of duty, but its primary source is nonetheless morality understood as a counterpart of nature. Thus, right refers to laws of freedom, that—as we read in the Introduction—“in contrast to the laws of nature, are called moral laws” (MM 6:214). This genealogy is reasonable: as an enigmatic passage of the seventh principle of Idea for a Universal History… remarks: “everything good that is not grafted onto a morally good disposition, is nothing but mere semblance and glittering misery” (IUH 8:26). For this reason, it is not problematic to apply to a portion of moral legislation—specifically, the juridical—an interpretation of the postulated formula that would be akin to that granted to ethical lawmaking: Since there are practical laws that are absolutely necessary (the moral laws), then if these necessarily presuppose any existence as the condition of the possibility of their binding force, this existence has to be postulated, because the conditioned from which the inference to this determinate condition proceeds is itself cognized a priori as absolutely necessary. (CPR A633-634/B661-662)

Thus, right emerges as the indispensable piece of the longed-for chiliasm of philosophy, not at all chimerical; it also, however, emerges as the most immanent core of historical progress, which is expressed in the opuscules of the ’80s by recourse to the hidden plan of Nature or the mechanisms of harmony and opposition put in place by a wise Providence.21 This relentless juridical logic, which is equally in debt to ethical formalism and to Kant’s philosophy of history, is rather a logic of “our own rational constitution” (IUH 8:27), which prevents us from remaining indifferent to the fate of upcoming generations, and fosters the establishment of republican constitutions all over the earth as a promise of perpetual peace and of a thorough development of humanity’s full capacities, in the spirit expressed by principles seven and eight of Idea for a Universal History.

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Notes 1

See especially my “La filosofía kantiana de la historia. ¿Otra versión de la teología moral?” (1985), “La filosofía kantiana del derecho a la luz de sus relaciones con el formalismo ético y la filosofía ‘crítica’ de la historia” (1986), “La ‘revolución asintótica’ de la metafísica kantiana” (1986), “La filosofía kantiana de la historia: una encrucijada de su pensamiento moral y político” (1986) and “El “utopismo ucrónico” de la reflexión kantiana sobre la historia” (1987), collected in Roberto R. Aramayo, Crítica de la razón ucrónica, Tecnos, 1992, pp. 114-141 and pp. 157-248. 2 See Aramayo (1992: 200). 3 In The Conflict of the Faculties the possibility of elaborating an a priori history will be settled, “when and if the diviner himself makes and contrives the events which he predicts”, as happens with Jewish prophets and with politicians — presumably moralist politicians—who “[c]laim that human beings should be taken as they are, not as pedants ignorant of the world or good-natured visionaries fancy they ought to be. But as they are means actually: what we have made of them” (CF 7: 80 [1798]). Cf. my comments on this passage in Aramayo (1992: 216f.). 4 See Aramayo (1992: 248). 5 É. Weil, Problèmes kantiens, Paris, Vrin, 1970, p. 115. 6 Aramayo (1992: 198). 7 See the work of K. Flikschuh about this controversy in “Duty, Nature, Right: Kant’s Response to Mendelssohn in Theory and Practice III”, Journal of Moral Philosophy 4/2 (2007), pp. 223-241. See also the treatment of this controversy in R. Brandt, “The Guiding Idea of Kant’s Anthropology and the Vocation of the Human Being”, in B. Jacobs and P. Kain (eds.), Essays on Kant’s Anthropology, Cambridge U.P., 2003, pp. 95-102. 8 Cf. Flikschuh (2007: 229). 9 See IUH 4:22 [1784] and TPP, 8:361 [1795]; cf. also the commentary in Aramayo (1992: 180ff.). 10 See TPP 8:357: “In accordance with reason there is only one way that States in relation with one another can leave the lawless condition, which involves nothing but war; it is that, like individual human beings, they give up their savage (lawless) freedom, accommodating themselves to public coercive laws” (Cambridge translation, with minor modifications). 11 See MM 6:306-308 and 6:350-353 [1797]. 12 See Flikschuh (2007: 234). 13 I have dealt with both modes of holding as true in Kant in “Postulado/Hipótesis. Las dos facetas del Dios kantiano” (1986), in Aramayo (1992: 146): “The postulation of a teleological process that indicates a final end (namely that the species reaches its destiny asymptotically), allows humankind to act as if it were the only responsible agent for historical becoming. As we see, one and the same methodology is suitable for the investigation of organic nature and for writing philosophy of history. Only one thing is different: while the theory admits of mere hypotheses, praxis requires postulates or necessary hypotheses”. Cf. D. Lindstedt,

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“Kant: Progress in Universal History as a Postulate of Practical Reason”, in KantStudien 90 (1999), 147. 14 On the difference between both terms, I share the conclusions of P. Kleingeld, “Nature or Providence? On the Theoretical and Moral Importance of Kant’s Philosophy of History”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 75 (2001), p. 219: “[Kant] uses ‘Providence’ when he wishes to emphasize that the moral subject needs to postulate the existence of a moral author of the world as the precondition of the realizability of moral ends on the world. He chooses ‘Nature’ when examining the mechanisms by which nature supports the hoped-for-progress in history. The difference is a matter of emphasis: ‘Nature’ is the better term for highlighting that historical progress is supported by natural means, but ‘Providence’ is the more apt term for stressing that this order of nature must be regarded as caused by the highest wisdom”; cf. the coining of the term “existential prudence” as the key to understanding the Kantian reference to hope in his political writings, in K. Flikschuh, “Hope or Prudence? Practical Faith in Kant’s Political Thinking”, Stolzenberg, J. and Rush, F. (eds.), “Faith and Reason”. International Yearbook of German Idealism 7 (2009), see especially p. 111f. A position differing from the evolutionist reading of Kant's use of the terms Providence and Nature can be found in T. Patrone, “Teleology and the grounds of duties of juridical right”, in P. Formosa, A. Goldman and T. Patrone (eds.), Politics and Teleology in Kant, Cardiff, Univ. of Wales Press, 2014, p. 142: “[B]oth humankind and nature (or providence) are striving toward the same end, at least insofar as humankind is acting because of its duty of justice. But humankind and nature strive for this end for different reasons, as it were. Our striving is grounded on the commands of pure reason […], while nature’s pace toward perfect justice is due to its teleological unfolding of the full realization of our capacities”. 15 For considerations relating to this reading, cf. J. Dotti, “Observaciones sobre Kant y el liberalismo”, Araucaria 13 (2005), pp. 1-11. 16 See the analysis of this series of passages in Flikschuh (2007: 239-241). I do not share the theological reading of faith within Kant’s moral-historical progress, as defended by J. Hare, The Moral Gap. Kantian Ethics, Human Limits and God’s Assistance, Oxford U.P., 1996. 17 See P. Guyer, “Kant’s Deductions of the Principles of Right”, in M. Timmons (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Interpretative Essays, Oxford U.P., 2002, pp. 23-64. 18 See K. Flikschuh, “Kant’s indemonstrable postulate of right: a response to Paul Guyer”, Kantian Review 12/1 (2007), pp. 1-39. 19 See the remark of Guyer about this section of the Doctrine of Right (2002: 64): “This passage can also stand as one last reminder that Kant cannot mean postulates with regard to right to be principles that stand independently of any deduction. On the contrary, the postulate of public right proceeds from the postulate of private right, just as the postulate of private right has proceeded, by what turns out to be a complex deduction involving both moral and theoretical arguments, from the universal principle of right, which itself proceeds from the supreme moral principle of the absolute value of freedom in its external as well as its internal use”. 20 See P. Guyer’s comments on this point (2002: 35-37).

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21 Compare this remark with the following, contained in my previous work “El auténtico sujeto moral de la filosofía kantiana de la historia” (1989), in Aramayo (1992: 319): “[t]his supreme wisdom, alias Destiny, Nature or Providence, of which the Kantian philosopher of history is a spokesperson, has determined the final triumph of Justice, subduing his own will to that design. In the end, Kant’s most fervent desire was precisely that every lawgiver would comply with his or her own laws. In fact, this and no other is the keystone of his whole practical philosophy in its political aspect—so infused in this respect by Rousseau’s volonté générale—, as well as in his ethics, where the divine will itself leans on the Procrustean bed of morality”.

Bibliography Aramayo, R. R., Crítica de la razón ucrónica, Madrid: Tecnos, 1992. Brandt, R., “The Guiding Idea of Kant’s Anthropology and the Vocation of the Human Being”, in B. Jacobs and P. Kain (eds.), Essays on Kant’s Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2003, pp. 95-102. Dotti, J., “Observaciones sobre Kant y el liberalismo”, Araucaria 13 (2005): 1-11. Flikschuh, K., “Kant’s indemonstrable postulate of right: a response to Paul Guyer”, Kantian Review 12/1 (2007): 1-39. —. “Duty, Nature, Right: Kant’s Response to Mendelssohn in Theory and Practice III”, Journal of Moral Philosophy 4/2 (2007): 223-241. —. “Hope or Prudence? Practical Faith in Kant’s Political Thinking”, Stolzenberg, J. and Rush, F. (eds.), “Faith and Reason”. International Yearbook of German Idealism 7 (2009): 95-117. Guyer, P., “Kant’s Deductions of the Principles of Right”, in M. Timmons (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Interpretative Essays, Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2002, pp. 23-64. Hare, J., The Moral Gap. Kantian Ethics, Human Limits and God’s Assistance, Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1996. Kleingeld, P., “Nature or Providence? On the Theoretical and Moral Importance of Kant’s Philosophy of History”, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 75 (2001): 201-219. Lindstedt, D., “Kant: Progress in Universal History as a Postulate of Practical Reason”, in Kant-Studien 90 (1999): 129-147. Patrone, T., “Teleology and the grounds of duties of juridical right”, in P. Formosa, A. Goldman and T. Patrone (eds.), Politics and Teleology in Kant, Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 2014, pp. 128-144. Weil, E., Problèmes kantiens, Paris: Vrin, 1970.

THE DUTY TO LEAVE THE STATE OF NATURE AND NON-COERCIVE RIGHTS IN THE CIVIL CONDITION ANDREA FAGGION STATE UNIVERSITY OF LONDRINA/ STATE UNIVERSITY OF MARINGÁ, BRAZIL

1. Introduction In modern political philosophy, Kant holds a distinctive view of political authority. He is neither a voluntarist nor an absolutist.1 On the one hand, voluntarism may be defined as the position according to which all rights held by a political authority must be reducible to individual rights. In this view, political authority depends on the (actual or at least hypothetical) consent of the individuals who are subject to it. That is to say, individuals bear an executive right. Whenever they consent to an authority, they entrust that authority with the exercise of executive right on their behalf. On the other hand, absolutism may be defined as the converse position, according to which individual rights emanate from political authority. Absolutism is thus at odds with natural rights theory, 2 a position that seems to be implied by voluntarism. Kant is a natural rights theorist, provided that one understands natural rights as a priori or rational rights. In the first part of this paper, I intend to show that, according to Kant, individuals bear rights prior to entering into the civil condition. What is more, individuals do not abandon these rights when they transition to the civil condition. Indeed, they enter the civil condition in order to guarantee these rights. Kant is therefore not an absolutist, for individuals still bear natural rights in the civil condition. Nor is he a voluntarist, however, since for him there is one right that individuals never bear, and this is executive right. This is why, for Kant, individuals are not allowed to remain in the state of nature: rights must be put into effect, which is a task that only the political authority is morally

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permitted to undertake. Hence the distinctiveness of Kant’s position: individuals bear rights prior to the establishment of a sovereign in the civil condition, but these are non-coercive rights. After all, only the political authority can rightfully enforce a right. In the second part of this paper, I will examine Kant’s rationale for what he calls an “unconditional and first duty in any external relation of people in general” (OCS 8:289): the duty to leave the state of nature and subject oneself to political authority. I will claim that Kant provides good support for the moral necessity of public authority. With this said, I question whether he has proved that public authority must be the same as political authority—that is, an authority endowed with the right to a monopoly on executive right. In other words, I suggest that Kant cannot preclude the moral possibility of different agents enforcing rights in a single territory. Indeed, from within a Kantian framework of the sort sketched in the first part of this paper, the claim to a monopoly on rightful coercion might be morally problematic.

2. Natural Rights in the Civil Condition According to Kant, there is only one right that belongs to each individual by virtue of her humanity: the right to freedom (MM 6:238). The basis of such a right is neither divine nor biological. It rests on a Kantian moral conception of human beings as persons, or agents to be valued as ends in themselves. Any assessment of the foundation of this human right would thus involve delving deep into Kant’s moral philosophy, which is not our aim here. For the purposes of this paper, it is enough to clarify the concept of the freedom to which, for Kant, human beings have a right. Our right to freedom is grounded in our capacity of autonomy, but it does not make sense as a right to autonomy. In the Kantian sense, autonomy is an internal and positive type of freedom: a capacity of internal selflegislation in accordance with the categorical imperative.3 Therefore, it is meaningless to claim a right to such a capacity. The freedom that one can claim a right to is external and negative: it is “independence from being constrained by another’s choice” (MM 6:238). Naturally, a moral right that one is entitled to only by virtue of one’s humanity must imply reciprocity. Hence, one’s right to independence from being constrained by another’s choice holds if and only if one’s freedom “can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law” (MM 6:238). In other words, such a right is a right to non-aggressive freedom.4

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Based on our right to non-aggressive freedom, the authorisation to use coercion that is connected with right (considered as external legislation) takes the form of a hindrance to a hindrance to freedom. Kant bases his argument on the following first premise: “Resistance that counteracts the hindering of an effect promotes this effect and is consistent with it” (MM 6:231). The next step in the argument is a statement about coercion: “[C]oercion is a hindrance or resistance to freedom” (MM 6:231). Following from these premises, an authorisation to use coercion that is consistent with our right not to be coerced is an authorisation to use coercion against coercion. In Kant’s words, the conclusion is as follows: Therefore, if a certain use of freedom is itself a hindrance to freedom in accordance with universal laws (i.e., wrong), coercion that is opposed to this (as a hindering of a hindrance to freedom) is consistent with freedom in accordance with universal laws, that is, it is right. Hence there is connected with right by the principle of contradiction an authorization to coerce someone who infringes upon it. (MM 6:231)5

It is significant to my overall argument that Kant is able to deduce a rightful use of coercion without mentioning the nature of the agent who coerces. Political authority plays no role in this argument. Since the concept of “rightful coercion” is semantically independent of the concept of “political authority,” Kant needs to construct a separate argument in order to prove that only political authority can rightfully coerce. Be that as it may, we are not yet in a position to examine this argument. Before we do, we need to analyse Kant’s argument for external possession rights.6 It is possible that these are the rights that imply the necessity of political authority. After all, according to Kant, public coercive laws are laws “by which what belongs to each can be determined for him and secured against encroachment by any other” (OCS 8:289). Our innate right to freedom does not entail an innate right to possess some external object of choice.7 According to Kant, we acquire rights regarding the possession of external objects. Such an acquisition is original when it is not derived from a contract—that is, when the object is not transferred from a previous owner to a subsequent one. For Locke, as is well known, original acquisition is rightful when one’s labour is mixed with the object found in its raw condition. 8 Labour generates a relation between the human agent and the object of her choice: the object is owned because it receives something that is innately one’s own.9 Kant is an opponent of this theory of original acquisition.10

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According to Kant, it is essential to understand the relation of possession as a rightful relation among subjects, not as an empirical relation between a subject and an object. Moreover, labour—the empirical relation—does not account for the rightfulness of the possession: it is not what justifies the normative relation among subjects. Indeed, in order to understand external possession, one must keep in mind that empirical possession—the physical connection between my body and the object of my choice—is accidental to the relation, while rightful possession is not. Rightful possession is the core of external possession. First, let us consider the difference between empirical and rightful possession. On the one hand, we would not say that a thief has rightful possession of a watch that she happens to be holding. On the other hand, you are still the rightful possessor of your own watch even when you are not wearing it. Moreover, should you lend me your watch, I would not count as its rightful possessor, even though I could not be said to wrong you by wearing it. This is the point. Rightful possession is the right to decide what use, if any, should be made of the object.11 It amounts to the right to oblige anyone to refrain from using an object, provided the object is rightfully one’s own. This is the normative relation between subjects that I touched on above. External possession depends on rightful possession, since external possession is defined by Kant as one’s right not to be disturbed in one’s use of the object, even when one is not directly in contact with the object (MM 6:249). In order for one not to be disturbed in one’s use of the object (even when one is not in direct contact with it), there must be an authorisation to coerce any other to refrain from using it. But there is a problem here. We have seen that right only authorises the coercion of coercion. This being so, how is it possible for right to authorise the coercion of a choice C to refrain from using object X when C is physically holding X? After all, it appears that the only one undergoing coercion in such a situation is C. To sum up, Kant needs to justify the claim that one is wronged by C when C uses X without one’s consent, even though one is not in physical possession of X. Kant’s strategy, as I see it, rests on his definition of external possession. At base, Kant claims that if the coercion contained in external possession were not rightful, right would nullify all objects of choice from a practical

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point of view.12 The assumption here is that “[t]he subjective condition of any possible use is possession” (MM 6:245). If external possession is a condition of any possible use of an object of choice, and if the claim to a right to coerce contained in the concept of “external possession” (via the concept of “rightful possession”) were illegitimate, then the use of objects of choice would be impossible from the standpoint of right. This is a reductio ad absurdum13 that, according to Kant, “gives us an authorization […] to put all others under an obligation, which they would not otherwise have, to refrain from using certain objects of our choice because we have been the first to take them into our possession” (MM 6:247). It is remarkable again that Kant says explicitly that we are given an authorisation to put others under obligation. So far, there is no mention of political authority whatsoever. The right at issue here is not a right provided by any kind of authority. It is the right of the first agent to take the object. Indeed, the reason for this becomes clear when we analyse the premise according to which possession is a condition for the use of an object of choice. Kant never says that one needs to possess an object in order to use it.14 In fact, such a claim would be false. As in my example above, I can use something that belongs to another if she consents to my using it. The use of X is only impossible from the standpoint of right when nobody is entitled to determine the use of X. In such a situation, we would need to take physical hold of all the objects we intend to use as means to our ends. Otherwise, others would be allowed to employ those very means to their own ends as soon as we put the objects down. (And so the cycle would continue, with our waiting for those others to put the objects down and then taking them for our own purposes.) Importantly, it is the absence of a natural authority among human beings that grounds the claim that possession is a condition of use. Consider the above scenario, where one person continually disrupts others’ use of objects, and vice-versa. The presence of an authority could certainly prevent such a situation: like a giant library of sorts, the world would be such that decisions about which objects were to be used by whom, the purposes for which they were to be used, and the duration of their use, would be settled by an authority. Kant cannot accept the idea of such an authority, however, since our innate right to freedom involves “independence from being bound by others to

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more than one can in turn bind them; hence a human being’s quality of being his own master” (MM 6:238). Consequently, Kant solves the problem of the use of external objects by appealing to the right of the first possessor (original acquisition) rather than the idea of a natural distributive authority with the power to “lend” objects.15 Here, it is important to notice that “first possessor” is not merely a temporal concept. Indeed, in many conceivable and actual situations, it is impossible to know for sure whether you were the first to acquire an object. Suppose, for instance, that you arrive at a place that, although settled farmland a century ago, has now reverted to uninhabited jungle terrain. This fact about the past does not matter at all. What is relevant here is that the land is not owned by anyone now. Your acquisition of it still amounts to original acquisition because there is no owner to transfer the land to you.16 But how can I know this? What if the owner is just out hunting, for instance? According to Kant, where a subject leaves objects behind without also leaving a clear mark of possession, she is not their owner. At best, she is someone who wishes to be their owner. Crucially, however, “wishing” for an object is not sufficient for original acquisition. Original acquisition has three aspects (MM 6:259). The first is apprehension of an object that does not already belong to anyone (otherwise one would violate another’s possession rights). Apprehension is empirical possession. Although Kant does not make this point explicitly, empirical possession is relevant because one cannot acquire an object that is not an object of choice. Acquisition is always the acquisition of an object that I am physically capable of using. I cannot acquire the moon, for instance. The second aspect is directly relevant to the issue above: how can I know whether someone already owns the object in question? You cannot acquire an object until you have given some sign that you own it. Kant says it is up to the owner to give a sign of her choice to exclude everyone else from accessing the object. In terms of our above example, for instance, our hunter should have built a fence, or something of that nature.17 The third and final aspect of original acquisition is the most important, and it constitutes the normative component. This is the act of “giving an external law through which everyone is bound to agree with my choice” (MM 6:259). One might think that this final aspect of original acquisition

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is only possible in a civil condition. But this is not exactly what Kant says. Indeed, Kant claims that such an act is the act of a general will, but only “in idea” (MM 6:259; see also MM 6:264), which makes all the difference. It is not as if I must consult others, asking for empirical permission to acquire an unowned object. The juridical postulate lets me know that others must give me permission of this sort. Moreover, Kant also claims that “original acquisition can proceed only from a unilateral will” (MM 6:259). The rationale behind this last claim is that non-unilateral acquisition would depend on a contract; therefore, it would not be original. Thus, it is the other way around. Original acquisition does not depend on any contract, but even the social contract, whereby we leave the state of nature, depends on the possibility of original acquisition: “[I]f external objects were not even provisionally mine or yours in the state of nature, there would also be no duties of right with regard to them and therefore no command to leave the state of nature” (MM 6:313). With these points clarified, we can now turn to the role of political authority in possession rights.

3. The Role of Public Authority First, we need to understand why Kant claims that something can only be provisionally mine or yours in the absence of political authority. By making this point, Kant emphasises what I believe to be the core of his argument in favour of political authority: the reciprocity of rightful obligation. I am […] not under obligation to leave external objects belonging to others untouched unless everyone else provides me assurance that he will behave in accordance with the same principle with regard to what is mine. This assurance does not require a special act to establish a right, but is already contained in the concept of an obligation corresponding to an external right, since the universality, and with it the reciprocity, of obligation arises from a universal rule. (MM 6:256)

Certainly, the act of providing others with assurance that you will behave in accordance with your obligation to respect what is theirs cannot be a mere promise.18 You can rightfully coerce any other person to respect your possessions because you accept being under coercion to do the same regarding their possessions. At this point, we can say that a person can

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enforce her rights, since she does not deny that others ought equally to be able to enforce their own rights. But Kant does not accept such a simple solution. Why is this unacceptable to him? Kant says: “[A] unilateral will cannot serve as a coercive law for everyone with regard to possession that is external and therefore contingent, since that would infringe upon freedom in accordance with universal laws” (MM 6:256). We have already seen that our innate right to freedom implies a right to be our own masters. This being so, I am not under an obligation to respect my opponent’s authority to decide whether I am violating her rights. Consider, for instance, a situation in which we disagree about the clarity of a sign of acquisition. Our hunter thinks that her camp had been marked sufficiently clearly to indicate to me that the land already had an owner. I disagree with her. Why should I have to respect her authority, or she mine? From my point of view, I do not deny that she should be able to enforce her rights. Rather, I honestly believe that she does not have the right being claimed in this case. From her point of view, however, I am a thief. Kant’s solution is to claim both that I cannot put the hunter under obligation and that she cannot put me under obligation. Thus, both of us are under an obligation to leave such a state. 19 We should move to a society in which a political authority puts everybody equally and reciprocally under obligation, so that nobody else can enforce rights. It is up to a political authority to adjudicate on any dispute. Where there is adjudication, possession is not provisional anymore: it is peremptory. This is why Kant asserts that there is no peremptory possession in the state of nature: there is no authority to adjudicate in accordance with our innate right to freedom.20 The same rationale explains why our rights against the sovereign are only non-coercive rights. 21 Who can adjudicate a dispute between a subject and the sovereign? If all right is enforced through the sovereign, nobody can rightfully coerce the sovereign.22 But is Kant’s solution a coherent one, given his principles? Let us keep in mind that, even though our rights against the sovereign are non-coercive, we do indeed possess rights: When people are under a civil constitution, the statutory laws obtaining in this condition cannot infringe upon natural right [...] [A] civil constitution is just the rightful condition, by which what belongs to each is only

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This passage makes clear what we have seen regarding possession rights in original acquisition. Those rights themselves do not derive from the political authority, and they are genuine rights.23 Some interpreters might minimise the importance of provisional possession (rendering it almost nothing) in order to maximise the role of political authority. Usually, when property rights are determined without political authority, they also determine strict limits to political authority. In fact, some might say that they make the legitimacy of political authority altogether impossible. This being so, Kant might have a serious problem here. After all, Kant’s reason for not speaking about property rights outside the civil condition is that possession rights are not peremptory or conclusive in the absence of the civil condition.24 However, the content of those rights are the same in the state of nature and in a civil condition, rationally conceived. 25 As the passage above makes clear, political authority does not create rights (what belongs to whom); rather, it presupposes rights that it simply puts into effect. Keeping in mind that possession rights exist prior to political authority, we should examine again how political authority would alter the dispute in our hunter example. If it were true that the hunter gave a sign of her act of choice to exclude everyone else from the previously unowned land, my subsequent claim to the same piece of land would be mistaken. A political authority would not be able to change this by adjudicating otherwise.26 Moreover, if there were no means to decide the epistemic and empirical issue regarding the sufficiency of the signs provided by the hunter, a political authority would not be able to change this either. Thus, it seems to me that political authority would solve neither the juridical nor the epistemic problem, and would serve instead merely to put an end to the dispute for good (peremptorily). But (as Nozick would ask)27 if the hunter or I wanted peace, and not simply the enforcement of our view of right, why would we engage in this dispute in the first place? Now consider a different scenario, in which the hunter does in fact provide indubitable signs of her act of acquisition. Suppose, for instance, that she builds a wall, cultivates the soil, builds a house on the land, writes “do not trespass” on the wall, and so on. And suppose that, in fact, nobody challenges her claim to be the original owner. Instead, suppose that my

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claim against the hunter is that I need a part of her land. According to Kant’s theory of right, this claim would not be acceptable at all.28 My point here is that there are disputes in which it is possible objectively to determine who is making the rightful claim. Kant provides a priori juridical principles for a reason, after all. 29 However, where there is a political authority, there is nothing one can do if one’s rights are violated by that authority, short of (perhaps) writing a paper about it. There is no guarantee at all that this political authority will put a right into effect rather than merely making an injustice peremptory. In short, whenever we lack clarity on who (according to Kantian principles) the real aggressor is, adjudication can only put an end to the dispute (it cannot make things clearer). Even when we are actually clear (according to Kantian principles) on who the aggressor is, political authority might still pick the wrong side, rendering an injustice conclusive. This being so, why do I have a duty to accept political authority? If I am not an aggressor (nobody is even claiming that I am a thief) and I am not denying others the ability to enforce their rights too, why should I accept a situation in which my rightful possession might be denied to me for good? Importantly, I am not suggesting here that it would not be prudent for a non-aggressor to accept political authority. Rather, I am asking whether it is morally acceptable to oblige the non-aggressor to submit herself to a situation in which her rights can be violated and where there is nothing, beyond complaining, that she would be able to do about it. At this point, it is easy to see why so many interpreters are unwilling to admit the existence of something like “rightful possession” (according to objective principles) in the state of nature. Kant, however, is certainly willing to do so.

4. Final Remarks: Public Authority and Political Authority I have been talking of “political authority” deliberately. To be sure, in this context, Kant talks about a “public authority.” What is the difference? Political authority, as I understand it here, is an authority that claims a de jure monopoly on rightful coercion inside the limits of a certain territory and acts in accordance with such a claim. This means that a political authority forbids other agents to enforce justice as it itself would do in the same relevant circumstances. Consider, for instance, a situation where an

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agent A takes a holding X from a thief T and gives X back to the original owner by using the same means that a political authority would use. A political authority would punish A under the charge that A does not have an executive right, and not under the charge that T was innocent. This being so, A would be punished not for having violated an individual right, but for having violated an alleged state right. It seems beyond doubt that Kant defends the legitimacy of political authority.30 For him, public authority amounts to political authority. This is why I have been using both terms interchangeably. But must a public authority be a political authority? What if we define public authority as an authority that acts in accordance with the mere idea of a general will?31 Coercion in accordance with the idea of a general will would amount to the use of coercion against coercion. After all, it is impossible for everyone to want to be coerced, which means that everyone must want coercion to be prevented by the use of coercion, and nothing beyond that. My unilateral will might want to apply coercion in the case of any action that is unpleasant to me or contrary to my wishes and needs. But this would amount to private coercion. Coercion directed against coercion is always public coercion, and it is always coercion in accordance with a general will (in idea). If this definition makes sense from within a Kantian framework, we should not immediately equate political and public authority, as Kant seems to do. Indeed, if there were many agents in a single territory who engaged in coercion only against coercion, how might one of them rightfully coerce the others to stop? Such coercion would not amount to coercion against aggression; rather, it would constitute coercion against morally authorised coercion. Therefore, political authority would be private, rather than public, authority. This is why I do not see how we can allow an agent to coerce others to respect her monopoly unless we make all rights dependent on political authority. However, according to Kant, there actually are natural rights, and political authority is only the agent of enforcement. What is the benefit of political authority over merely public authority, as defined here? According to Kant, it seems to be the possibility of conclusive or peremptory adjudication. When we admit a multiplicity of rightful enforcement agents, they can disagree about the rightful verdict (even acting on good faith), such that the dispute goes on.32 Nevertheless, since a political authority is more powerful than a public authority as defined here, and since it lacks privileged epistemic access to the decision

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procedure (which is a priori),33 it can bring about peace, even though there is no guarantee of justice. To be certain, the idea of law without political authority—that is, the distinction between public and political authority—sounds perplexing and requires much development. With this noted, perhaps we should start by realising that many of the challenges implied by such an unusual conception are not solved by the mere adoption of political authority. For instance, in favour of the necessity of political authority, Kant says that a person “can quite well perceive within himself the inclination of human beings generally to lord it over others as their master (not to respect the superiority of the rights of others when they feel superior to them in strength or cunning)” (MS 6:307). But to the degree that this is so, should we not be especially afraid of any human being who has been endowed with political authority?

Notes 1

My reading of Kant’s political philosophy differs substantially from Helga Varden’s, but we can agree on this issue. See: Varden, “Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations,” pp. 1-45; Varden, “Kant’s Non-Absolutist Conception of Political Legitimacy,” pp. 331-351. 2 My understanding of natural rights follows the conception articulated by H. L. A. Hart. See: Hart, “Are There Any Natural Rights?” pp. 175-176. 3 Katrin Flikschuh has made interesting observations regarding the differences between the current conception of autonomy and the Kantian conception, mainly in political philosophy. See: “Personal Autonomy and Public Authority,” pp. 169189. 4 “But the concept of an external right as such proceeds entirely from the concept of freedom in the external relation of people to one another and has nothing at all to do with the end that all of them naturally have (their aim of happiness) and with the prescribing of means for attaining it; hence too the latter absolutely must not intrude in the laws of the former as their determining ground. Right is the limitation of the freedom of each to the condition of its harmony with the freedom of everyone insofar as this is possible in accordance with a universal law” (OCS 8:290). In the Groundwork, we are told that the “principle of humanity and of every rational nature as such, as an end in itself,” is “the supreme limiting condition of the freedom of actions of every human being” (G 4:430-431). As moral agents, we simultaneously possess the right not to be treated as mere means and the obligation to treat others as ends in themselves. 5 “If then my action or my condition generally can coexist with the freedom of everyone in accordance with a universal law, whoever hinders me in it does me wrong” (MM 6:231).

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In this paper, I restrict myself to rights to things; I am not dealing with rights to persons (domestic rights). 7 “[A]n object of my choice is that which I have the physical capacity to use as I please, that whose use lies within my power (potentid)” (MM 6:246). 8 “The labor of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labor with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property” (Locke, The Second Treatise, § 27). According to Locke, this principle holds provided that “there is enough, and as good, left in common for others” (Locke, The Second Treatise, § 27), a proviso that does not concern us here. 9 Locke’s theory has been the target of many objections, the most common of which is the following: “[W]hy isn’t mixing what I own with what I don’t own a way of losing what I own rather than a way of gaining what I don’t?” (Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 174). 10 See, for instance, MM 6:260. 11 “That is rightfully mine (meum iuris) with which I am so connected that another’s use of it without my consent would wrong me” (MM 6:245). 12 “[F]reedom would be depriving itself of the use of its choice with regard to an object of choice, by putting usable objects beyond any possibility of being used; in other words, it would annihilate them in a practical respect and make them into res nullius” (MM 6:250). 13 See Byrd, “Intelligible Possession of Object of Choice,” pp. 110, 114, and 119. Byrd’s reconstruction of Kant’s argument is the closest to mine that I have been able to find among Kant scholars. 14 This is why Kant is not establishing that “every human being has an innate right to a certain title of ownership, nor claiming that every human being has a right to at least own something” (Höffe, “Kant’s Innate Right as a Rational Criterion for Human Rights,” p. 91). 15 Kant says that the “possibility [of original acquisition] is […] an immediate consequence of the postulate of practical reason” (MM 6:263). In its turn, the postulate says that “[i]t is possible for me to have any external object of my choice as mine, that is, a maxim by which, if it were to become a law, an object of choice would in itself (objectively) have to belong to no one (res nullius) is contrary to rights” (MM 6:250). 16 “[T]hat acquisition is original which is not derived from what is another’s” (MM 6:258). 17 Note that it is not the labour involved in building the fence that legitimates your claim to the object. The fence (or other sign) is only a declaration to others of your intention. Otherwise, as my example shows, others can rightfully presume that the land has yet to be acquired. 18 See Varden, “Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations,” p. 8. 19 This means that Kant is not a voluntarist. 20 “If it must be possible, in terms of rights, to have an external object as one’s own, the subject must also be permitted to constrain everyone else with whom he comes into conflict about whether an external object is his or another’s to enter

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along with him into a civil constitution” (MM 6:256). “[The state of nature] would still be a state devoid of justice (status iustitia vacuous), in which when rights are in dispute (jus controversy), there would be no judge competent to render a verdict having rightful force” (MM 6:312). 21 “[E]ven if that power or its agent, the head of state, has gone so far as to violate the original contract and has thereby, according to the subject’s concept, forfeited the right to be legislator inasmuch as he has empowered the government to proceed quite violently (tyrannically), a subject is still not permitted any resistance by way of counteracting force” (OCS 8:300). 22 “[S]uppose that the people can so judge, and indeed contrary to the judgment of the actual head of state; who is to decide on which side the right is? Neither can make the decision as judge in its own suit. Hence there would have to be another head above the head of state, that would decide between him and the people; and this is self-contradictory” (OCS 8:300). 23 “[T]hat provisional acquisition is true acquisition” (MM 6:264). 24 Thus I disagree with Westphal, according to whom property rights include rights beyond those already included under rights of possession (see Westphal, “A Kantian Justification of Possession”, pp. 90-91). It seems to me that, according to Kant, they are the same rights, even though possession is provisional while property is peremptory. I was unable to find a passage in Kant’s work that justifies the inclusion of different rights under the concept “property.” 25 “If no acquisition were cognized as rightful even in a provisional way prior to entering the civil condition, the civil condition itself would be impossible. For in terms of their form, laws concerning what is mine or yours in the state of nature contain the same thing that they prescribe in the civil condition, insofar as the civil condition is thought of by pure rational concepts alone. The difference is only that the civil condition provides the conditions under which these laws are put into effect” (MM 6:313). 26 Recall, it “presupposes what belongs to someone (to whom it secures it)” (MM 6:257). 27 “Disagreements about what is to be enforced, argue the unreluctant archists, provide yet another reason (in addition to lack of factual knowledge) for the apparatus of the state […] People who prefer peace to the enforcement of their view of right will unite together in one state. But of course, if people genuinely do hold this preference, their protective agencies [or themselves] will not do battle either” (Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, pp. 141-142). 28 “The concept of right, insofar as it is related to an obligation corresponding to it (i.e., the moral concept of right), [...] does not signify the relation of one’s choice to the mere wish (hence also to the mere need) of the other, as in actions of beneficence of callousness, but only a relation to the other’s choice” (MM 6:230). 29 “Like the wooden head in Phaedrus’s fable, a merely empirical doctrine of right is a head that may be beautiful but unfortunately it has no brain” (MM 6:230). Remarkably, such a brain seems to be quite easy to use, rendering dispensable the strong body of a state: “[T]he legislator can indeed err in his appraisal of whether those measures are adopted prudently, but not when he asks himself whether the law also harmonizes with the principle of right; for there he has that idea of the

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original contract at hand as an infallible standard, and indeed has it a priori (and need not, as with the principle of happiness, wait for experience that would first have to teach him whether his means are suitable). For, provided it is not selfcontradictory that an entire people should agree to such a law, however bitter they might find it, the law is in conformity with right” (OCS 8:299). 30 “But whoever is subject to laws is a subject within a state and is thus subjected to coercive right equally with all the other members of the commonwealth; only one (physical or moral person), the head of state, by whom alone any rightful coercion can be exercised, is excepted” (OCS 8:291). 31 Or on the idea of original contract, as seen in endnote 29. 32 To be certain, libertarians claim that protective agencies acting on good faith would be interested in peaceful solutions. After all, war is a more expensive solution. But I do not want to rest my claim on this kind of consequentialist assumption. My point is exclusively moral. 33 For a defence of the privilege inherent in the condition of political authority, see Flikschuh. My view is different because I am not thinking about something like a collective project or a social plan. I am simply considering whether political authority has a privileged position in solving disputes regarding private rights. After all, I am opposing the claim according to which private right must lead to public right.

Bibliography Byrd, Sharon B., “Intelligible Possession of Objects of Choice,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 93-110. Flikschuh, Katrin, “Personal Autonomy and Public Authority,” in Oliver Sensen (ed.), Kant on Moral Autonomy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 169-189. Hart, H. L. A., “Are There Any Natural Rights?,” The Philosophical Review, 64.2 (1955): 175-191. Höffe, Otfried, “Kant’s Innate Right as a Rational Criterion for Human Rights,” in Lara Denis (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 71-92. Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysics of Morals, Mary J. Gregor (ed., trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. —. On the Common Saying, That May Be Correct in Theory, But Is of No Use in Practice, in Mary J. Gregor (ed., trans.), Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. —. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Mary J. Gregor and Jens Timmermann (eds., trans.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

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Locke, John, The Second Treatise: An Essay Concerning the True Original, Extent, and End of Civil Government, in Ian Shapiro (ed.), Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York: Basic Books, 1974. Varden, Helga, “Kant’s Non-Voluntarist Conception of Political Obligations: Why Justice is Impossible in the State of Nature,” Kantian Review, 13.2 (2008): 1-45. —. “Kant’s Non-Absolutist Conception of Political Legitimacy: How Public Right ‘Concludes’ Private Right in the ‘Doctrine of Right’,” Kant-Studien, 101 (2010): 331-351. Westphal, Kenneth R., “A Kantian Justification of Possession,” in Mark Timmons (ed.), Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 89-110.

SYNTHETIC A PRIORI PROPOSITIONS OF RIGHT: KANT ON POLITICAL OBLIGATION MACARENA MAREY UBA-CONICET, ARGENTINA

1. Introduction: Political Obligation as a Problem In this presentation, I shall study some aspects of Kant’s approach to a complex topic that lies at the core of modern political philosophy: That of political obligation.1 The specificity of juridical-political obligations,2 particularly concerning the difference between juridical-political obligations and ethical ones, is one of the fundamental themes within the realm of the modern political philosophies of the social contract, basically for the three following reasons. In the first place, (a) political obligation is a central topic of modern philosophy by virtue of the conceptual challenge it entails, namely, that of thinking the original political phenomenon of modernity, the state, for the first time in the history of philosophy with categories and modes of argumentation that were strictly juridical, in contrast to the deliberate subsumption of political philosophy under dogmatic theology, traditional metaphysics or ethics. This challenge was a double one, for the starting point of the incipient autonomisation of political reflexion, concomitant with its novel object of examination, was that of subjective natural rights. The difficulty this posed was how an absolutely valid and, at the same time, artificial (as opposed to ‘natural’) juridical normativity could be obtained from a minimum of natural, pre-juridical normativity. I think the task of giving coherence to the foundation of state’s sovereignty upon individual tituli and moral powers is a task whose success depends in great measure on each author’s ability to shape the notion that connects both these ends, i.e., the notion of political obligation. In the second place, because of this point of departure located in the realm of subjective rights, the notion of political obligation became a (b)

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problem, since it became necessary to explain how and whence it could be produced a juridical-political normativity that was no longer ‘natural’. Modern political philosophers had to answer the question ‘Why do I have to obey the state, rather than no one?’, before they turned to the specifics of political obligation. The most successful solution modern political philosophy found was the eminently Hobbesian argumentative strategy, which came with no small further shortcomings, of considering obligation as self-created: There is “no obligation on any man which ariseth not from some act of his own; for all men equally are by nature free” (Lev., Chap. 21, p. 268). Now, combined with the state’s absolute sovereignty, the idea that political obligations must rest on some voluntary action of the individual implied an inextricable connection between political obligation and the notion of consent, which, in turn, plays an important part in the modern understanding of juridical or civil freedom (“liberty of the subjects”, as Hobbes called it). In fact, Hobbes’s conception of political obligation as arisen only from “some act” does not necessarily mean that one will create the laws one will have to obey, nor that the obligated ones shall participate in the law-creation process. Far from this, the act Hobbes refers to is limited to assenting to norms already sanctioned by someone else.3 This connection between political obligation, freedom and consent, which prima facie Rousseau’s and Kant’s conceptions of political autonomy put in check, causes some conceptual inconsistencies, even in contemporary philosophy. Following Carole Pateman’s thesis in The Problem of Political Obligation, we can affirm that even though for modern political philosophy, individual consent was the touchstone for state legitimacy, in reality it is relegated to the moment of entering the juridical condition. With this, individual consent ends up being subsumed under a promise of political obedience, and, in contemporary theories of liberal democracy, reduced to a merely formal inclusion in deliberative institutions, and shrunk to the sporadic occasion of voting. The displacement that the modern concept of consent operates in the meaning of political obligation (that is, from self-obligation to mere assent) overshadows two analytical distinctions, to wit: (i) The difference between consenting to norms generated by others and being the co-author of those same norms that others and I will have to obey; and (ii) the difference between duties whose normative validity is not determined by the given consent of the ones obligated by it and obligations whose validity does depend on some act of the obligated.

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A third reason why the problem of political obligation is (c) central to political philosophy has to do with the strongly individualist-voluntarist dimension the justification of political obligation gained in the Modern Age, because this is the modern social contract’s conceptual germ. In effect, the act of contracting seems to be the paradigmatic way by which people can freely assume juridical-political obligations they would not have neither by nature nor before performing such act. The act of contracting becomes, thus, the act that generates obligations par excellence. As the origin of obligations, the contract can be understood as an objectivation of subjective self-obligation. As to Kant, in these three nuclei, he holds thesis and positions that, at least prima facie, contradict each other and that in some respects follow the path of the modern political-philosophical tradition, to abandon that road in some others. For this reason, to carry out a systematic study of the topic in question, we first have to sketch the topography of these discrepancies and tensions. To this task I will set myself here, with the main aim of proposing that Kant offered useful solutions to the problems inherent in the modern understanding of political obligation. In the next section, (2), I will analyse the way Kant addresses the elementary problem of how those obligations that we do not have by nature arise. To do this, I will focus on the double question: Why are propositions concerning acquired rights synthetic and what is that that makes them a priori? Now, although Kant puts the question for the possibility of generating juridical-political obligations at the centre of his reflection on the necessity of the state, the first of the juridical-political obligations, the exeundum,4 does not rely on the consent of those who are under it to be valid. Therefore, in the third part of this communication (3), I will conclude by trying to explain how we are to understand the coexistence, in Kant’s political philosophy, of juridical-political obligations that do not need consent to be valid, with obligations that do need it. I think the complexity of Kant’s conception of juridical-political obligations, far from causing systematic inconsistencies, allows him to prevent self-obligation from falling into mere assent to norms created by someone else, without our participation.

2. Synthetic a Priori Propositions of Right5 To study Kant’s treatment of the emergence of juridical obligations we do not have ‘by nature’, the most pertinent thing to do is to look into his

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approach to possession and acquisition; all in all, we are dealing with an obligation corresponding to acquired rights.6 This is the subject of the section “Private Right”.7 In the § 6 of this section, Kant specifies that its central questions, to wit, “How is it possible for something external to be mine or yours?” and “How is merely rightful (intelligible) possession possible?”, resolve themselves into the question “How is a synthetic a priori proposition of Right possible?” (MM 6:249). In my opinion, with this concatenation, Kant puts the question for the origin of juridical obligations expressly at the heart of his treatment of the estate of nature; that is, he considers this question to be that fundamental normative problem that only the state will be able to solve. Of course, this does not make Kant an original author, but a culminating theorist of political modernity. The original aspect of his approach is the objective rational-practical perspective he uses to address the problematic question of political obligation, and this in turn gives him a more thorough grasp of it. In effect (and this is the main thesis of this paper), Kant inverts the question. He does not ask which the rational subjective motivations are that could lead to self-obligation. Instead of this, he asks how one can justify the normative pretension that follows one’s acquisition, that is, one’s generation of someone else’s obligation not to use the acquired external object. The systematic significance of this approach of the question of juridical-political obligation is that it gives Kant a strong support to hold the two chief political thesis of the Doctrine of Right: the apriority of the general will and that the exit of the state of nature and the entrance in the state (and thus, the participation in the original contract) is not an act whose validity rests upon the prudentially motivated consent of individuals.8 In the first chapter of the section “Private Right”, entitled “How to Have Something External as One’s Own” (§§ 1-9), we can detect three key moments that build up this Kantian approach.9 (1) The line of argumentation Kant uses to analyse the problem of political obligation starts by defining what is “juridically mine” in MM 6:254, as that which “I am so connected that another’s use of it without my consent would wrong me”. What is problematic about this is that it is virtually impossible to demonstrate, in the state of nature, that condition “in which there is no distributive justice” (MM 6:306), a “state devoid of justice (status iustitia vacuus)” (MM 6:312), when it is the case of such a lesion,

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when another’s use of an external object is, indeed, a use of what is mine, without my consent. (2) Kant formulates conceptually this difficulty by using the distinction between analytical propositions of Right (concerning empirical possession) and synthetic propositions of Right (concerning intelligible possession). In § 6, Kant states that An a priori proposition of Right with regard to empirical possession is analytic, for it says nothing more than what follows from empirical possession in accordance with the principle of contradiction, namely that if I am holding a thing (and so physically connected with it), someone who affects it without my consent (e.g., snatches an apple from my hand) affects and diminishes what is internally mine (my freedom), so that his maxim is in direct contradiction with the axiom of Right. So the proposition about empirical possession in conformity with Right does not go beyond the right of a person with regard to himself. On the contrary, a proposition about the possibility of possessing a thing external to myself which puts aside any conditions of empirical possession in space and time (and hence, the presupposition of the possibility of a possessio noumenon), goes beyond those limiting conditions; and since it establishes a possession of something without holding it as necessary for the concept of something external that is mine or yours, it is synthetic. (MM 6:249-250, translation amended)

Kant had defined external innate freedom,10 under the title “There is only one innate right” (MM 6:237-238), as “independence from being constrained by another’s choice” (MM 6:237). An external action against it violates the principle of Right, which commands that our actions (or their maxims) should conform to everyone’s external freedom (MM 6: § C). As acting against the empirical possession of a person implies, analytically, exercising violence upon her body against her will, thus affecting her right as a person, I do not need to go beyond these two juridical principles already established in the “Introduction to the Doctrine of Right” to soundly justify the truth of my proposition about the lesion in question. When Kant states that a proposition about a lesion concerning the possession of an object without holding it is synthetic, he is saying that to prove that another’s use of what is mine affects my freedom and so violates at the same time the principle of Right, first I have to prove that an external object is, in fact, mine; I have to prove that the object is “connected” to my freedom.

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(3) So Kant asks next what I am doing when, in the state of nature, I declare that another person is acting against my freedom by means of a lesion to what is externally mine. This is exactly what it means to ask for the possibility of intellectual or noumenon possession. It is also a strong piece of evidence for the synthetic character of juridical propositions about it. Consistently, in the § 8, Kant poses the question: What does the idea of my intellectual possession implies for those who are in my vicinity? The answer appears soon: An obligation they would not have if it were not for my claim that a possible object of my choice is mine, namely the obligation of abstaining from using it without my consent.11 Now, if this mere pretention12is to generate a legitimate, valid obligation, if it is not to be a bare imposition by force, certain conditions must be observed. If not, such an imposition would violate the innate right to freedom as “independence from being constrained by another’s choice”, and would thereby violate the universal principle of Right, rendering my claim incompatible with the freedom of everyone according to universal laws. For this reason, Kant indicates that when I want to generate a juridical obligation for others, I must necessarily acknowledge “that I am reciprocally bound in relation to everyone else to refrain from using what is externally his; for the obligation here arises from a universal rule of external juridical relations” (MM 6:255, my translation). Kant emphasises next that the assurance that everyone will refrain from taking every other’s possession, which determines the validity of the obligation to refrain from using the external objects of others without their consent, “does not require a special juridical act, but is already contained in the concept of an external juridical obligation, in virtue of the universality, and with it the reciprocity, of the obligation that arises from a universal rule” (MM 6:256, translation amended). Two elements stand out in this Kantian analysis of the concept of a juridical obligation. On the one hand, the emphasis put on the externality of the juridical concept of obligation, that is, the delimitation of its jurisdiction to those conditions of the practical, external relations among men that he had established under the concept of Right (MM 6:230). On the other hand, the decisive normative role innate equality plays in ordering these relations. Kant had defined innate equality as “independence from being bound by others to more than one can in turn bind them” and included it in the concept of innate freedom, for it is “not really distinct from it (as if they were members of the division of some higher concept of a right)” (MM 6:237). I think Kant’s point in the section

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“Private Right” is that for a synthetic juridical proposition concerning intellectual possession to be a priori,13 the obligation it eo ipso entails has to satisfy this reciprocity criterion. This is why “a unilateral will cannot serve as a coercive law for everyone with regard to possession that is external and therefore contingent, since that would infringe upon freedom in accordance with universal laws” (MM 6:256)—and, we could add, because that would infringe upon innate equality, which is “not really distinct from freedom”. Now, the only way to guarantee the reciprocity of juridical obligations and the only way a universal guarantee for intellectual possession can exist, given the facts of vicinity and inevitable practical interaction Kant presupposes, is if the obligation to refrain from using what is other’s is established by an “omnilateral will” (to use the turn of phrase from § 14).14 Therefore, Kant continues, “it is only a will putting everyone under obligation, hence only a collective general (common) and powerful will, that can provide everyone this assurance” (MM 6:256). Since “the condition of being under a general external (i.e., public) lawgiving accompanied with power is the civil condition” and, consequently, “only in a civil condition can something external be mine or yours” (Ibid.), the corollary in the § 8 asserts the permissibility of constraining (nöthigen) everyone else to enter into a civil constitution. This permission is the counterpart of the universal and categorical duty of the exeundum.15 In this way, Kant bases the rational and moral necessity of the “state in the idea” (to use the turn of phrase in § 45) upon the solution to the problem of the genesis of juridical obligations, and this solution he finds within universal reciprocity, a normative criterion entailed by the simple concept of a juridical-political obligation.

3. Some Conclusions In this final section, I will refer to two consequences of what I have just analysed, which concern the way Kant’s conception of political obligation can offer solutions to the conceptual problems involved in the construction of it exclusively in individualist-voluntarist terms, as it became typical within the mainstream social contract tradition. In this regard, I think Kant’s understanding of juridical-political obligations has at least two main features: (A) It is virtuously complex and, because of this, does not fall into a complete equalisation of self-obligation and mere assent to norms created by others. Hence, (B) it gives place to a political notion of

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consent that does not entail a contractual promise of obedience, but that, on the contrary, implies participation in the general will. At the beginning of the paper, I mentioned that there are two analytical differences associated with the concept of political obligation, to wit: (i) A difference between assenting to norms created by others and being the coauthor of those norms; and (ii) a difference between duties whose normative validity is not determined by the given consent of the ones obligated by it and obligations whose validity does depend on some act of the obligated. Kant’s reflection on the topic allows us to trace distinctions between these two external types of juridical obligations. Kant holds two theses that, at least prima facie, contradict each other. He argues that (1) the exeundum, that is, the first juridical-political duty, being as it is a categorical duty, is the matter on an obligation16whose validity does not rest on consent. The exit of the state of nature is not an act left to the subjective motivation of individuals; on the contrary, it is an objective duty that even allows the use of coercion. At the same time, he holds that (2) juridical freedom is defined by reference to consent (for instance, in TPP 8:39517 and MM 6:31418). This poses the question: If the exeundum is a juridical duty whose normative value does not depend on any act of the ones under its obligation, does it not contradict juridical freedom, defined as “the attribute of obeying no other law than that to which he has given his consent” (MM 6:314)? Kant offers a powerful reason for a negative answer: Unless one wants to renounce to all concepts of Right, the first thing one is obligated to decide is the principle ‘one must leave the state of nature, in which each follows its own judgment, and unite oneself with all others (with which one cannot avoid interacting) in order to subject oneself to a public lawful external coercion’. (MM 6:312, translation amended)

The civil condition is, after all, the only condition in which juridical practical relations among equals (the matter of private Right)19 can be regulated by universal obligations and duties that respect the principle of Right, that is to say, obligations and duties whose institution satisfies the requirements of reciprocity enunciated in the definition of innate equality. The state is the only condition under which there can be juridical obligations as synthetic a priori propositions of Right strict sensu, and hence the categorical character of the exeundum, expressed in this passage with the contradictio in terminis “obligated to decide”.

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In his treatment of the great modern theme of juridical-political obligations, Kant concerns himself in the first place with horizontal obligations among equals. In his research within the realm of private Right, he discovers the apriority of the general will, the necessity of a omnilateral will “that is united not contingently but a priori and therefore necessarily, and because of this is the only will that is lawgiving” (MM 6: 263). By holding that the exeundum, the entrance to the state and to the original contract are not acts we could reduce to an individual-voluntarist conception of obligation, Kant adopts a view of political obligation as that normativity whose validity proceeds only from the (ideal) fact that it has been legislated by the general will, with the participation of every one of those who will be under those obligations. The complex Kantian concept of juridical obligation gives place to a conception of political obligation that is compatible with the general will’s political autonomy. Thus, Kant can sustain a modern conception of political obligation and at the same time avoid an individualist-voluntarist root that would condemn self-obligation to mere assent: The ones who obligate themselves are citizens who take part in the general will, whose unit is collective, not given by mere aggregation.

Notes 1

Throughout this essay, I cite Kant’s works in parentheses. Quotations include both an abbreviation of the English title and the corresponding volume and page numbers in the canonical “Akademie-Ausgabe”: Kant, I., Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin et al.: Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften et al., 1900 u. ff. I use the following abbreviations for Kant’s writings. I will quote Kant’s works with them, followed by the pagination of the AA: TTP Zum ewigen Frieden, volume 8, pp. 341-386. MM Die Metaphysik der Sitten, volume 6, pp. 205-493. I follow the English version: The Metaphysics of Morals, Introduction, translation and notes by Gregor, M., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; I will indicate it in the case I modify this translation. 2 In this paper, I unite these two differentiable types of obligation—juridical on the one side, political on the other—in one wider concept. For the specific aim I pursue here, the analytical distinction among them bears weight. 3 See, for instance, the famous passage of Chapter 21 of the Leviathan, pp. 262263: “Feare and Liberty are consistent; as when a man troweth his goods into the Sea for feare the ship should sink, he doth it neverthelesse very willingly, and may refuse to doe it if he will: It is therefore the action, of one that was free: so a man sometimes pays his debt, only for feare of Imprisonment, which because nobody hindred him from detaining, was the action of a man at liberty. And generally all

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actions which men doe in Commonwealths, for feare of the law, are actions, which the doers had liberty to omit.” 4 By “exeundum”, I will always mean the principle “one must leave the state of nature”. 5 By using “Right” (instead of “law”) for “Recht”, I follow M., Gregor, “Translator’s Note to the Text”, in Kant, Immanuel: The Metaphysics of Morals, p. x: “There is unfortunately no common English word that would translate Recht”. I will use “right” for “recht” in its adjectival use and for “Recht”, in the proper English meaning of the noun “right”—as a legal or moral claim. 6 This is, those rights that, as “(moral) capacities for putting others under obligations (i.e., as a lawful basis, titulum, for doing so)”, depend on the realisation of some juridical “act” to be valid, as Kant defines in the “General Division of Rights” (MM 6:237). 7 In my treatment of the general concept of “private Right”, I follow Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, especially pp. 37ff, and the English editor of this classic work, for I consider that Kant’s own treatment of the notion fits perfectly to Gierke’s description of it. Private Right does not amount to natural Right in the state of nature, although it can be present in this state, where, by definition, we cannot find public Right. “Public Right” is the counter-term of “private Right” and denotes “Right of the state” (“Staatsrecht” in German and in the division of the chapters in the Doctrine of Right). Private Right refers to rights and obligations concerning relations between persons; public Right contains the rights and obligations of the state, the form of sovereignty, the laws regarding the form of regimen, the constitution, etc. In this sense, “private Right in the state of nature” refers in the first place to juridical relations between persons when there is no public Right available. 8 This is why the already classic thesis of Kersting, Wohlgeordnete Freiheit, p. 347, is correct: Kant “nimmt von der für den staatsphilosophischen Kontraktualismus wesentlichen Entscheidung Abstand, die Verbindlichkeit staatlicher Anordnungen in der Selbstverpflichtung der Vertragspartner zu verankern. Dieser legitimationstheoretische Rekurs auf die sich selbst bindende individuelle Freiheit ist genau dann überflüssig, wenn ohnehin alle a priori hinsichtlich des äuȕeren Gebrauchs ihrer Freiheit auf die Bedingungen ihrer Übereinstimmung mit einem möglichen allgemeinen Gesetz verpflichtet sind, und jedermann gegen jeden das Recht hat, ihn zur Einhaltung dieser Bedingungen zu verpflichten”. 9 These moments are repeated and reaffirmed in the following chapter, “How to Acquire Something External”. 10 Kant clarifies that one can call innate right “what is internally mine or yours” in a juridical sense, which does not refer to any ethical sense of internal freedom: “What is innately mine or yours can also be called what is internally mine or yours (meum vel tuum internum); for what is externally mine or yours must always be acquired” (MM 6:237). 11 MM 6:255, translation amended: “When I declare (by word or deed), I will that something external is to be mine, I thereby declare that everyone else is under

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obligation to refrain from using that object of my choice, an obligation no one would have were it not for this juridical act of mine”. 12 We are talking about the “pretention” I have “when I declare (by word or deed), I will that something external is to be mine”, which implies that “I thereby declare that everyone else is under obligation to refrain from using that object of my choice”; it is a pretension, thus, of imposing to others “an obligation no one would have were it not for this juridical act of mine” (MM 6:255, translation amended). 13 And, thus, truly a rational juridical proposition in the proper meaning of it: “All propositions of Right are a priori propositions, since they are principles of reason (dictamina rationis)” (MM 6:249). 14 MM 6:263, § 14: “But the aforesaid will [i.e., the unilateral will] can justify an external acquisition only insofar as it is included in a will that is united a priori (i.e., only through the union of the choice of all who can come into practical relations with one another) and that commands absolutely. For a unilateral will (and a bilateral but still particular will is also unilateral) cannot put everyone under an obligation that is in itself contingent; this requires a will that is omnilateral, that is united not contingently but a priori and therefore necessarily, and because of this is the only will that is lawgiving. For only in accordance with this principle of the will is it possible for the free choice of each to accord with the freedom of all, and therefore possible for there to be any rights, and so too possible for any external object to be mine or yours.” 15 We can find this analysis in three moments of the first chapter of the “Private Right” section in the chapter “How to Acquire Something External”, above all in §§ 11, 15 y 17, in § 10, “General Principle of External Acquisition”, and the “Division of the Acquisition of Something External That Is Mine or Yours”. 16 Here I am referring to the definition of “duty” as “the matter of obligation” (MM 6:222). 17 In Zum ewigen Frieden, Kant goes as far as to say that “concerning my freedom, even in relation to those divine laws I can only recognize by mere reason, I am not under any obligation, except insofar as I have been able to give my consent to them” (TPP 8:350). 18 MM 6:314: “The members of such a society who are united for giving law (societas civilis), that is, the members of a state, are called citizens of a state (cives). In terms of rights, the attributes of a citizen, inseparable from his essence (as a citizen), are: lawful freedom, the attribute of obeying no other law than that to which he has given his consent; civil equality, that of not recognizing among the people any superior with the moral capacity to bind him as a matter of Right in a way that he could not in turn bind the other; and third, the attribute of civil independence, of owing his existence and preservation to his own rights and powers as a member of the commonwealth, not to the choice of another among the people. From his independence follows his civil personality, his attribute of not needing to be represented by another where rights are concerned”. 19 To this matter, i.e., to juridical relations among equals, refers Kant when he says that the condition of public Right “contains no further or other duties of men among themselves than can be conceived in the former state; the matter of private Right is the same in both. The laws of the condition of public Right, accordingly,

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have to do only with the rightful form of men’s association (constitution), in view of which these laws must necessarily be conceived as public” (MM 6:306).

Bibliography Baum, M., “Recht und Ethik in Kants praktischer Philosophie”, in Ribeiro dos Santos, L., (comp.), Kant: posteridade e actualidade, Lisbon: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, 2006, pp. 53-64. Gierke, O., Natural Law and the Theory of Society. 1500 to 1800, translation and edition Troeltsch, E., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958. Hobbes, T., Lev., Leviathan, edited by C. B. MacPherson, London: Penguin, 1968. Kant, I., Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin et al.: Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaftenet al., 1900ff: —. TTP, Zum ewigen Frieden, volume 8, pp. 341-386 —. MM, Die Metaphysik der Sitten, volume 6, pp. 205-493. (English version: The Metaphysics of Morals, Introduction, translation and notes by Mary Gregor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). Kersting, W., Wohlgeordnete Freiheit. Immanuel Kants Rechts –und Staatsphilosophie, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1984; second edition, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993. Pateman, C., The Problem of Political Obligation. A Critique of Liberal Theory, Berkeley: University of California Press, 979, second edition, 1985.

KANT AND COSMOPOLITANISM IN THE IDEE ZU EINER ALLGEMEINEN GESCHICHTE IN WELTBÜRGERLICHER ABSICHT (1784) GUSTAVO LEYVA UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA METROPOLITANA-IZTAPALAPA, MEXICO

1. Introduction In recent decades, the topic of cosmopolitanism has drawn the attention of researchers interested in Moral, Political, and Legal Philosophy, while awakening special interest in analyses related to this theme in the works of Immanuel Kant. 1 In this sense, some scholars have argued, correctly I would say, that Kant can be considered the cosmopolitan thinker par excellence. 2 In this essay, I propose to examine the topic of cosmopolitanism by focusing on one of the so-called Kleine Schriften of Kant’s philosophy that appeared between 1784—when his Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht was published—and 1795, the year that his programmatic text, Zum ewigen Frieden, was edited. 3 That period produced various writings in which the theme of cosmopolitanism appears; for example, on the horizon of Kant’s efforts to link moral philosophy to the philosophy of religion, law and history, as well as theoretical philosophy in its entirety. Among these we find Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784), Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793), Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793) and, of course, Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795). Kant would continue analysing cosmopolitanism up to 1798: I am thinking here, especially, of Metaphysik der Sitten (1797), Der Streit der Fakultäten (1798) and Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), where we might well

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consider that the final and definitive version of his cosmopolitan philosophy took shape.4 As I just mentioned, this article focuses, above all, on one of the Kleine Schriften: the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784), though it also refers occasionally—at times as a counterpoint, at others, as a sort of complement—to Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793) and Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795). My aim is to illustrate how Kant’s cosmopolitan philosophy emerged and was progressively sharpened. Three ideas are central to my reading of this Kantian text: the first, to emphasise that despite the undeniable importance given to the themes of cosmopolitanism and the Philosophy of Law in general, whether on the plane of the Right of a State [Staatsrecht], the Right of Nations [Völkerrecht], or even Cosmopolitan Right [Kosmopolitisches Recht], Law and the processes of juridification are, in Kant’s consideration in this text, seen not as ends in themselves but, rather, as vehicles for establishing the ultimate goal, which is none other than establishing what Kant calls in his Fourth Proposition of Idee the “moral whole [moralisches Ganze]” in the context of an unfinished “approximation [Annäherung]”, to use the expression employed by Kant himself in the Sixth Proposition of Idee (see IUH 8:23, Sixth Proposition) (section 2). The second idea is to demonstrate that the cosmopolitanism that Kant defends emerges and undergoes modifications and precisions in the aforementioned period that progressively develop while simultaneously, and gradually, delimiting a proposal that becomes increasingly solid and defensible5 (section 3). Finally, my third concern is to point out at least one of the problems and limits that a cosmopolitan proposal like Kant’s could posit in light of contemporary discussions (section 4).

2. As has been said, Kant’s cosmopolitan proposal is developed expressly in the period from 1784 to 1798. Thus, in Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784) the problem of cosmopolitanism appears thematised in the framework of a philosophy of history which, from that point on, would remain associated with Kant’s reflections on this topic. Thus, in the note that appears at the beginning of Idee, Kant indicates that a brief observation which appeared in Gothaischer Gelehrte Zeitung was what motivated him to clarify his ideas for the public; especially the comment that in the opinion of one of the

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journal’s editors seemed to be central; namely, that the ultimate goal of humanity consists in achieving the most perfect constitution of the State.6 This suggests that the central proposal of that brief work was, precisely, to clarify exactly in what the ultimate goal of history might consist, in what sense history could be understood in light of this ultimate goal, how this is linked to the idea of a perfect constitution on the juridical-political plane, and to what parameters such a constitution would have to conform. As the title of that essay indicates, Kant assigns a central place to the establishment of a cosmopolitan order in the course of history. Nonetheless, as Pauline Kleingeld has so keenly observed in this regard, Kant does not consider in that work either the perfect state order within a specific political community or an international federation as the ultimate goal of history in the strict sense7. This ultimate goal is not identified, then, with goals of an exclusively political or juridical character and is thus not a question only for the philosophy of law or political philosophy. The establishment of a legal order inside a State is seen by Kant rather as a means directed towards an ulterior goal in which the true ultimate goal resides. Thus it is that in the Fifth Proposition of this work Kant writes: The greatest problem for the human species, to which nature compels him, is the achievement of a civil society universally administering right. Since only in society, and indeed in that society which has the greatest freedom, hence one in which there is a thoroughgoing antagonism of its members and yet the most precise determination and security of the boundaries of this freedom so that the latter can coexist with the freedom of others – since only in it can the highest aim of nature be attained, namely, the development of all the predispositions in humanity […] therefore a society in which freedom under external laws can be encountered combined in the greatest possible degree, with irresistible power, i.e. a perfectly just civil constitution, must be the supreme problem of nature for the human species, because only by means of its solution and execution can nature achieve its remaining aims for our species. [Das größte Problem für die Menschengattung, zu dessen Auflösung die Natur ihn zwingt, ist die Erreichung einer allgemein das Recht verwaltenden bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Da nur in der Gesellschaft und zwar derjenigen, die die größte Freiheit, mithin einen durchgängigen Antagonism ihrer Glieder und doch die genauste Bestimmung und Sicherung der Grenzen dieser Freiheit hat, damit sie mit der Freiheit anderer bestehen könne, - da nur in ihr die höchste Absicht der Natur, nämlich die Entwickelung aller ihrer Anlagen, in der Menschheit erreicht werden kann [...]: so muß eine Gesellschaft, in welcher Freiheit unter äußeren Gesetzen im größtmöglichen Grade mit unwiderstehlicher Gewalt verbunden angetroffen wird, d.i. eine vollkommen gerechte bürgerliche Verfassung, die höchste Aufgabe der Natur für die Menschengattung

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sein,weil die Natur nur vermittelst der Auflösung und Vollziehung derselben ihre übrigen Absichten mit unserer Gattung erreichen kann]. (IUH 8:22, Fifth Proposition)8

Thus, as Kant himself would declare unequivocally in his commentaries on the Fourth and Seventh Propositions of the same work, establishing a juridical order based on principles of reason both inside a given State and on the inter-State plane is conceived as a function of the complete development of human dispositions [Entwickelung der Naturanlagen] for the use of reason and the unfolding of morality (see IUH 8:22, Fourth Proposition and 26 Seventh Proposition). As a result, in the Seventh Proposition of Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784) he states: We are cultivated [kultiviert] in a high degree by art and science. We are civilized [zivilisiert], perhaps to the point of being overburdened, by all sorts of social decorum and Propriety. But very much is still lacking before we can be held to be already moralized [moralisiert]. For the idea of morality still belongs to culture; but the use of this idea, which comes down only to a resemblance of morals [Sittenähnliche] in love of honor and in external propriety, constitutes only being civilized [Zivilisierung]. As long, however, as states apply all their powers to their vain and violent aims of expansion and thus ceaselessly constrain the slow endeavor of the inner formation of their citizens’ mode of thought [der inneren Bildung der Denkungsart ihrer Bürger], also withdrawing with this aim all support from it, nothing of this kind is to be expected, because it would require a long inner labor of every commonwealth for the education of its citizens [eine langere innere Bearbeitung jedes gemeinen Wesens zur Bildung seiner Bürger]. But everything good that is not grafted onto a morally good disposition [moralisch-gute Gesinnung], is nothing but mere semblance [Schein] and glittering misery. (IUH 8:26, Seventh Proposition)

This complete development of human dispositions to which Kant refers is thus related to diverse processes and orders that involve juridification9— on both the intra-State and inter-State planes—including, above all, moralisation. It is in this sense that in the Fourth Proposition Kant expressly affirms the following when referring to “unsociable sociability [ungesellige Geselligkeit]”: Thus happen the first true steps from crudity toward culture, which really consists in the social worth of the human being; thus all talents come bitby-bit to be developed, taste is formed, and even, through progress in enlightenment, a beginning is made toward the foundation of a mode of thought which can with time transform the rude natural predisposition to

442 Kant and Cosmopolitanism in the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte make moral distinctions into determinate practical principles and hence transform a pathologically compelled agreement to form a society finally into a moral whole. [Da geschehen nun die ersten wahren Schritte aus der Rohigkeit zur Cultur, die eigentlich in dem gesellschaftlichen Werth des Menschen besteht; da werden alle Talente nach und nach entwickelt, der Geschmack gebildet und selbst durch fortgesetzte Aufklärung der Anfang zur Gründung einer Denkungsart gemacht, welche die grobe Naturanlage zur sittlichen Unterscheidung mit der Zeit in bestimmte praktische Principien und so eine pathologisch-abgedrungene Zusammenstimmung zu einer Gesellschaft endlich in ein moralisches Ganze verwandeln kann]. (IUH 8:21, Fourth Proposition)

Therefore, the organisation of society under universally-linking principles expressed in the order of Law10 that guarantee the freedom of individuals is, for Kant, a first moment; what we might call that of the juridification on the national plane, for the development of human dispositions, which was specified in the Fifth Proposition of Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte: […]a society in which freedom under external laws can been countered combined in the greatest possible degree, with irresistible power, i.e. a perfectly just civil constitution, must be the supreme problem of nature for the human species […] so muß eine Gesellschaft, in welcher Freiheit unter äußeren Gesetzen im größtmöglichen Grade mit unwiderstehlicher Gewalt verbunden angetroffen wird, d.i. eine vollkommen gerechte bürgerliche Verfassung, die höchste Aufgabe der Natur für die Menschengattung sein]. (IUH 8:22, Fifth Proposition)

However, this first moment must be accompanied by a second moment: that of juridification on the international plane, which extends out from the restricted plane of a specific Nation-state towards an inter-State order that Kant calls “cosmopolitan [weltbürgerlich]”. This is expressed in the Seventh Proposition, where he introduces the “cosmopolitan” principle, pointing out that the problem with erecting the “perfectly just civil constitution [vollkomene bürgerliche Verfassung]” depends on the construction of an “exterior relation among States in conformity with laws [ein gesetzmäßiges äußeres Staatenverhältnis]”, without which it cannot be resolved (IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition). These two moments in the process of juridification—i.e., on the national and international planes, respectively—do not yet constitute for Kant, however, the ultimate goal of reason or a kind of ultimate goal of history. This process of juridification on two planes is considered, rather, as a kind of means that must enable, as a third moment, the complete development

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of the “natural predispositions [Naturanlagen]” for the use of reason to which Kant refers, as mentioned earlier, in the Fourth Proposition of Idee (see IUH 8:22, Fourth Proposition), and which would lead to the transformation of the political-legal order on the national and international planes into “a moral whole [ein moralischesGanze]” (see IUH 8:21, Fourth Proposition). It is precisely in this “moralisches Ganze” that we can locate, as a fourth moment, the ultimate goal of reason and of history. The transformation of the juridical-political order at the national and international levels in the direction of achieving a “moral whole” to which Kant refers here thus shows that the ultimate goal cannot be reduced exclusively to the ambit of the juridification operated by Law on both the national and international planes, but must be located, instead, in the introduction of this “moral whole” to which the Seventh Proposition remits. However, this in no way suggests that we can discard the central role that rational juridification performs in the context of this process. In effect, without this process of juridification—on both the national and international planes—Kant holds that two basic conditions for the development of the “natural predispositions” would be lacking and, with this, the possibility of introducing the “moral whole”: on the one hand, security and, on the other, freedom; the latter understood initially as freedom of thought and opinion to which Kant would refer years later in a passage from Über den Gemeinspruch as “freedom of the pen [Freiheit der Feder]” (OCS 8:304).

3. Towards the end of the Eighth Proposition of Idee, Kant characterises the situation that emerges from the relation that should exist among States in accordance with an order of Law on the international plane founded upon reason as the “cosmopolitan condition [weltbürgerlicher Zustand]” (see IUH 8:28, Eighth Proposition). Kant employs this term to refer to a situation in which foreign relations among States are regulated by laws that must be obeyed, but that require a higher-level institution than that of individual States, which he characterises as a “federation of nations [Völkerbund]” in which the smallest State would expect its security and rights to emanate not from its own power but, rather, from this “federation of nations [Foedus Amphyctyonum]”, from a “united might and from the decision in accordance with laws of its united will [von einer vereinigten Macht und von der Entscheidung nach Gesetzen des vereinigten Willens]” (IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition). A “federation of nations” thus constructed would be endowed with legislative, executive and juridical powers in a

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“united power [vereinigte Gewalt]” that would make it possible to establish equilibriums and counterweights among diverse States on an international scale, and thus bring about a “cosmopolitan condition of public state security [weltbürgerlichen Zustand der öffentlichen Staatssicherheit]” (IUH 8:26, Seventh Proposition) that, in turn, would permit the development of the “natural predispositions” of human beings by guaranteeing their security and freedom as both autonomous subjects and citizens and, together with this, the public use of their reason and performance of their autonomy (IUH 8:28, Eighth Proposition). This demonstrates, as Kleingeld has observed, that Kant’s response to the observation by the editor of Gothaischen Gelehrte Zeitung in the sense that one of his central ideas was that the ultimate goal of humanity consists in achieving the most perfect constitution of the State, is a highly-differentiated response. In effect, a detailed reading of Idee shows that Kant does not consider the ultimate goal of history to be the development and realisation of a juridical-legal order that conforms to principles of reason on the intra- and inter-State planes. Both the constitution that concurs with principles of Law based on the reason of the “national State” and the “Federation of Nations” are, without question, central, even crucial, objectives; however, they are also considered as means for achieving an ulterior goal, which is the development of the natural dispositions of human beings or, more specifically, their dispositions to exercise freedom and reason in the public space that, in turn, would lead to them to constitute themselves as, and perform as, moral agents and, in this way, enable the always unfinished installation of the “moral whole [moralisches Ganze]” to which Kant refers in the Sixth Proposition of Idee (see IUH 8:23, Sixth Proposition). In consequence, freedom seems to find itself exposed, according to Kant, to four threats in a society, and it is precisely these threats that must be counteracted by means of the juridification process; as follows: (a) First, Kant refers to the threat represented by the subject’s own lack of self-restraint and discipline over his own inclinations, without which he cannot be constituted as a free subject capable of acting morally; thus, in the Fifth Proposition of Idee he states that “[a]ll culture and art that adorn humanity, and the most beautiful social order, are the fruits of unsociability, through which it is necessitated by itself to discipline itself… [Alle Cultur und Kunst, welche die Menschheit ziert, die schönste gesellschaftliche Ordnung sind Früchte der Ungeselligkeit, die durch sich selbst genöthigt wird sich zu discipliniren …]”. (IUH 8:22, Fifth Proposition)

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(b) Second, freedom is exposed, as well, to the threat represented by the asocial tendencies that constitutively characterise what Kant has called— as noted above—the “unsociable sociability [ungesellige Geselligkeit]” of the genus human. Kant also refers to this threat in the context of the Fifth Proposition of Idee when he affirms that, in a society characterised by the antagonism of its members defined, precisely, by this “unsociable sociability”, it is necessary to determine and assure as precisely as possible the limits of the freedom of each member so that the freedom of each one can be made compatible, and co-exist, with the freedom of all others: […] only in society, and indeed in that society which has the greatest freedom, hence one in which there is a thoroughgoing antagonism of its members and yet the most precise determination and security of the boundaries of this freedom so that the latter can coexist with the freedom of others […] therefore a society in which freedom under external laws can be encountered combined in the greatest possible degree, with irresistible power; i.e. a perfectly just civil constitution, must be the supreme problem of nature for the human species… […nur in der Gesellschaft und zwar derjenigen, die die größte Freiheit, mithin einen durchgängigen Antagonism ihrer Glieder und doch die genauste Bestimmung und Sicherung der Grenzen dieser Freiheit hat, damit sie mit der Freiheit anderer bestehen könn[…] so muß eine Gesellschaft, in welcher Freiheit unter äußeren Gesetzen im größtmöglichen Grade mit unwiderstehlicher Gewalt verbunden angetroffen wird, d.i. eine vollkommen gerechte bürgerliche Verfassung, die höchste Aufgabe der Natur für die Menschengattung sein …]. (see IUH 8:22, Fifth Proposition)

(c) Third, freedom is threatened by despotic and authoritarian regimes. Kant does not expound on this third threat to any great extent in Idee, but would do so some years later in Über den Gemeinspruch (1793). There, in the second section of the work, II. Vom Verhältniß der Theorie zur Praxis im Staatsrecht. (Gegen Hobbes), is where he characterises the “civil condition [bürgerliche Zustand]”, considering it a “rightful condition [rechtlicher Zustand]” based on three fundamental principles; namely, first, the “freedom [Freiheit]” of each member integrated into a society regulated in accordance with Law; second, the “equality [Gleichheit]” of each subject that makes up that same society; and, third and finally, the “independence [Selbsttändigkeit]” of each member of a “commonwealth [gemeines Wesen]” as a “citizen [Bürger]” (see OCS 8:290). As Kant unequivocally affirms here, these principles cannot be understood as having been promulgated by a State in the same way as this promulgates its own laws. “These principles are not so much laws”, Kant observes,

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“given by a State already established as rather principles in accordance with which alone the establishment of a state is possible in conformity with pure rational principles of external human right [Diese Principien sind nicht sowohl Gesetze, die der schon errichtete Staatgiebt, sondern nach denen allein eine Staatserrichtung reinen Vernunftprincipien des äußeren Menschenrechts überhaupt gemäß möglich ist]” (OCS 8:290). Hence, they are principles that must be considered a priori as presuppositions for “the constitution of a commonwealth [Constitution eines gemeinen Wesens]” (Ibid.). The first of these three principles—i.e., the one that refers to the freedom of each human being as a member of the society—finds expression in Kant through the formula which holds that no one—not only no other individual, but also no isolated institution or even government—can exert coaction on any individual to impose upon him a certain, specific conception of happiness; but that each individual must search for his own happiness in the manner he deems adequate, respecting only the principle that his freedom must be able to co-exist with the freedom of every other subject in conformity with a possible universal law and, therefore, without violating the rights of others. This formula, according to Kant, holds not only for individuals, but also, as we have said, for institutions and “government [Regierung]” which, if it were to strive to impose on one or more of its citizens, or on all of them together, a certain vision of happiness, would thereby violate the principle of individual freedom and become a “paternalistic government [imperium paternale]”; a paternalism that would deny its citizens the exercise of their freedom and, with this, of their autonomy, thus opening the way towards “despotism [Despotismus]” which “[…] abrogates all the freedom of the subjects, who in that case have no rights at all [die alle Freiheit der Unterthanen, die alsdann gar keine Rechte haben, aufhebt]” (OCS 8:291). (d) It is to confront these three threats that Kant offers the path of juridification through Law, founded upon reason by installing “… a society in which freedom under external laws can be encountered combined in the greatest possible degree, with irresistible power; i.e. a perfectly just civil constitution …[eine Gesellschaft, in welcher Freiheit unter äußeren Gesetzen im größtmöglichen Grade mit unwiderstehlicher Gewalt verbunden angetroffen wird, d.i. eine vollkommen gerechte bürgerliche Verfassung]” (see IUH 8:22, Fifth Proposition). However, this juridification on, let us say, the national plane, must be complemented by a juridification on the international plane, for that is where a fourth threat to the freedom of citizens is found, especially for those who belong to weaker States. In reality, the freedom of those citizens in the face of the

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danger represented by an eventual interference, or outright invasion, by a stronger State cannot be guaranteed, nor could the freedom of citizens of a strong State be assured if it were dominated by an authoritarian or despotic government that attacked their freedom, security, or physical integrity. It is for this reason that a juridification on the plane of the relations that States maintain among themselves is also necessary, and will be achieved, according to Kant, through the construction of “…a lawful external relation between states [eingesetzmäßiges äußeres Staatenverhältnis]”, which finds its expression in the cosmopolitan principle elucidated in the Seventh Proposition of Idee (see IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition). Kant’s idea thus seems to be that juridification on the two planes mentioned above creates the conditions that enable and guarantee the development and exercise of the freedom of the press and of opinion and, with this, of autonomous thought, reasoning and public debate as instances of the legitimisation of knowledge, actions and institutions; all central elements that characterise, precisely, the unfolding and radicalisation of the process of Aufklärung, as Kant points out in his Eighth and Ninth Propositions of Idee (see IUH 8:28 and 30, Eighth and Ninth Propositions).11 Understood in these terms, the process of the development and defense of Aufklärung propitiates the autonomous thinking and acting that will allow individuals to perform not only as citizens within a specific national State, or even cosmopolitan order, but also to act as moral agents and so advance in the direction of the establishment of the “moral whole [moralisches Ganze]”, although in the course of human history this can never be achieved completely. At this point, however, it is necessary to clarify the meaning, character and function of this “federation of nations” in Idee. It does seem as though Kant posits a structural parallelism between the way in which individuals abandon the state of nature by integrating into a State, and the way in which diverse, specific States leave an analogous state of nature—only now on the international plane—to enter an inter-State federation. Thus, in the Seventh Proposition of Idee we read: The same unsociability that necessitated human beings to this is once again the cause of every commonwealth, in its external relation; i.e. as a state in reference to the states, standing in unbound freedom, and consequently of each having to expect from the other precisely the ills that pressured individual human beings and compelled them to enter into a lawful civil condition [Dieselbe Ungeselligkeit, welche die Menschen hiezunöthigte, ist wieder die Ursache, daß ein jedes gemeine Wesen in äußerem Verhältnisse,

448 Kant and Cosmopolitanism in the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte d.i. als ein Staat in Beziehung auf Staaten, in ungebundener Freiheit steht, und folglich einer von dem andern eben die Übel erwarten muß, die die einzelnen Menschen drückten und sie zwangen in einen gesetzmäßigen bürgerlichen Zustand zu treten]. (IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition)

In this “federation of nations [Völkerbund]”, each one of the member States, even the smallest, can expect to enjoy security and respect for its rights not in view of “its own might [von eigener Macht]”—i.e., the power it possesses individually—or its own juridical considerations and institutions, but “…only from this great federation of nations (Foedus Amphictyonum), from a united might and from the decision in accordance with laws of its united will [allein von diesem großen Völkerbunde (Foedus Amphictyonum), von einer vereinigten Macht und von der Entscheidung nach Gesetzen des vereinigten Willens]” (IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition). This “federation of nations” is conceived here in the form of the establishment of “a united might [von einer vereinigten Macht]” that guarantees the security and rights of each one of its member States and, in order to accomplish this, is endowed with a power of “…decision in accordance with laws of its united will [von der Entscheidung nach Gesetzen des vereinigten Willens]” (IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition). It is in this sense that Kleingeld also reminds us that, a few years earlier in his VorlesungenüberAnthropologie (AF 25), Kant had expressed his support for a federation among States with a “general senate of peoples [allgemeiner Völker Senat]” (AF 25:696) that would be capable of mediating all international conflicts, and whose decisions would be implemented through the “power of peoples” where individual States would be subject to a “civil power [bürgerliche Gewalt]” on the international plane (AF 25:676)12. Unfortunately, it is not completely clear whether the “federation [Bund]” of States to which Kant refers has the power to assure respect for its laws and to enforce its decisions and, if it does, to what point and how such a power might be exercised. Nor is Kant particularly forthcoming in terms of details regarding the institutions that must be contemplated in such a federation of States, or the organisation of its legislative apparatus, whether it would include voting by members, or how decisions would be taken regarding the application of sanctions to States that violate the international order, and what instances and measures would be available to the Federation to assure compliance with any such sanctions.13 Kant’s understanding of the “cosmopolitan condition [weltbürgerlicher Zustand]” (see IUH 8:28, Eighth Proposition) delineated in the Seventh and Eighth Propositions would undergo significant reformulations in the

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decade following publication of Idee, but one of them seems to me to be of particular importance: the one that addresses the link established between the juridical-political order on the intra-State plane and the guarantee of peace as an objective of the inter-State federation. In fact, the juridicalpolitical constitution of individual States in the form of Republics would be transformed, in his writings of the 90s, into a kind of guarantee for assuring peace in the international scenario (see Zum Ewigen Frieden. First Definitive Article for Perpetual Peace. The civil constitution in every state shall be republican [Erster Definitivartikel zum ewigen Frieden. Die bürgerliche Verfassung in jedem Staate soll republikanisch sein]). Kant bases his demand for a republican constitution on two foundations; first, for reasons understood in the ambit of the Right of a State [Staatsrecht], to the degree in which a constitution of this type is the only form of political organisation that concurs with the innate right to freedom of all human beings; and, second, for reasons derived from the Right of Nations [Völkerrecht], to the degree to which a republic fosters the establishment of an international juridical order. Kant characterises a republican constitution, first and foremost, “…on principles of the freedom of the members of a society (as individuals), second on principles of the dependence of all upon a single common legislation (as subjects), and third on the law of their equality (as citizens of a state) [Staatsbürger])”. (TPP 8:349-350). Therefore, the republican constitution is for Kant, “[…] the sole constitution that issues from the idea of the original contract, on which all rightful legislation of a people must be based [aus der Idee des ursprünglichenVertrags, aus der alle rechtliche Gestzgebung eines Volks gegründet sein muß]”. (TTP 8:350). As a result, the only way in which the state of nature can be overcome is by means of a juridical state that, likewise, accords with the innate right of all human beings to freedom. For Kant, this resides in the association of men under a universal legislating will to whose laws all are uniformly subjected while, by the same token, being considered as their authors. The freedom of man as a citizen in a republican State thus consists in the right to be subjected exclusively to laws that are susceptible of receiving universal recognition or, as Kant himself expressed it: […] my external (rightful) freedom is […] the warrant to obey no other external laws than those to which I could have given my consent [meine äußere (rechtliche) Freiheit […] ist die Befugniß, keinen äußeren Gesetzen zu gehorchen, als zu denen ich meine Beistimmung habe geben können]. (TPP 8:350, footnote)

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Analogously, the principle of juridical equality is understood as that relation of citizens among themselves in which no one individual can juridically oblige any other without simultaneously subjecting himself to the law of being reciprocally obliged in the same manner (see ibid.). Freedom and juridical equality are understood here only within the structure of an association of men—namely, the republic—under laws that are susceptible to universal recognition and which they consider as being of their authorship while simultaneously being binding upon them. The argument that Kant adduces to explain why a republican constitution is the only one that can lead to perpetual peace thus becomes understandable. In effect if, according to the characterisation of the principles of a republican constitution elucidated above, the agreement of the citizens is required to decide whether or not to declare, or participate in, a war, then it seems clear that those citizens—who would be the first to suffer the hardships of such a war—would be at the very least quite reticent—if not openly opposed to—becoming involved in conflagrations of this type (see ibid.). This argument does not seem to rest upon any pacifist conviction, nor does it appeal to moral convictions or a supposed sense of justice and international solidarity on the part of the citizens of a republican State. Rather, it resides in the rationality and self-interest shown by citizens; and it is in this sense that Kant pointed out that the […] problem of establishing a state, no matter how hard it may sound, is soluble even for a nation of devils (if only they have understanding) […]. (TPP 8:366)

for even a “nation of devils” would find it difficult to begin a war, since according to this understanding those very demons would be the ones who would directly suffer the hardships and deprivation, costs and excesses, of that war14 (see also Section III. Vom Verhältniß der Theorie zur Praxis im Völkerrecht. In allgemein philanthropischer, d.i. kosmopolitischer Absicht betrachtet. Gegen Moses Mendelssohn of Über den Gemeinspruch… in AA VIII 310-311 and Zum ewigen Frieden AA VIII 352). Therefore, maintaining international peace ceases to be an exclusive interest of States and their respective governors, but is assured as well by the interests of the citizenry itself. And this modifies, at least to a point, one of the theses expressed at the outset of the Seventh Proposition of Idee, which holds that the installation of a civil juridical-political order in a specific State was dependent on the construction of a relation among diverse States at the international level, and could not be resolved without this.15 Hence, in the nineties, for example, Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der

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Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793), Kant seems to defend the idea that international peace and order cannot be guaranteed until the diverse States have succeeded in constituting themselves as Republics in the sense indicated above (see TP, AA 8:311). But this idea would receive yet another reformulation in Zum ewigen Frieden (1795), where Kant sets out what appears to be his final position; namely, the installation of the Republican juridical-political order and maintenance of international peace to preserve a mutually-conditioning relation such that neither one of these two goals can be achieved without the other, and each one is a kind of catalyst that favours the installation and conservation of the other.16 This leads to the realisation of three movements that I consider important in Kant’s argumentation: first, the guarantee of maintaining peace is shifted into the interior of the Right of a State [Staatsrecht] to the degree in which the diverse States must be organised in such a way as to—and it is in this sense that we have already remitted to how the First Definitive Article turns to republicanism—assure that their citizens cannot give their consent to beginning or participating in a war; second, the positing of the demand that republican States form an association with other States, also republican in nature, without losing their sovereignty; that is, an association of free States that possess no power of coaction to impose their will—whether through police or military means—on any other specific State (for example, in the case in which the latter impedes or openly violates the exercise of the freedom of its citizens and the deployment of reasoning and public debate among them); and, third and finally, the Right of Nations [Völkerrecht] is now complemented by another Right: the Cosmopolitan Right [Weltbürgerrrecht] that accords the unity of all the inhabitants and peoples of the Earth. One important premise that justifies introducing this “Cosmopolitan Right” is the idea of the fluid relations that men establish among themselves on Earth and the reciprocal physical influence to which the inhabitants of the planet are subjected (see TPP 8:349). In accordance with this, all people—natural or juridical—who find themselves placed spatially next to others such that they cannot in any way avoid this spatial proximity (see ibid.) have the juridical obligation to enter into a common juridical order. This common juridical order is the Right of a State in the case of persons; the Right of Nations in the case of States; and, finally, the Cosmopolitan Right, …insofar as individuals and states, standing in the relation of externally affecting one another, are to be regarded as citizens of a universal state of mankind (ius cosmopoliticum) […so fern Menschen und Staaten, in

452 Kant and Cosmopolitanism in the Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte äußerem auf ein ander einfließendem Verhältniß stehend, als Bürger eines allgemeinen Menschenstaats anzusehen sind (ius cosmopoliticum)]. (TPP 8:349, footnote)

What makes this Cosmopolitan Right interesting is that the physical influence, the spatial confluence among men, is now extended to all of humanity, thus achieving a global dimension.

4. Finally, I would like to add some reflections on a specific point of the framework that could be understood as “Kantian cosmopolitanism”. As we have seen in this essay, in works like Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in welt bürgerlicher Absicht (1784) Kant sets out from a “strong” position that later—in Zum ewigen Frieden (1795) and Metaphysik der Sitten (1797)—would be modified towards a “weak” position. In fact, in 1784 Kant was a supporter of a “universal cosmopolitan condition (ein allgemeiner weltbürgerlicher Zustand)” (see IUH 8:28) that would emerge if the diverse national States were to constitute a federation similar to a commonwealth and subject themselves to common laws and a common authority to assure obedience to those laws. It is in this sense that Kant wrote of a […] great federation of nations (Foedus Amphictyonum), from a united might and from the decision in accordance with laws of its united will ([…] großen Völkerbunde (Foedus Amphictyonum), von einer vereinigten Macht und von der Entscheidung nach Gesetzen des vereinigten Willens[…]). (Ibid. 24)

Later, however, in Zum ewigen Frieden (1795) and Metaphysik der Sitten (1797), Kant held to a position which fosters the idea that States must subject themselves to common laws and unite in an association of States that promotes peace. Nonetheless, and this marks a decisive turn in his conception, he ceased to sustain the idea that this association must be endowed with a coercive power in order to assure obedience to these mutually-agreed upon laws and power and, when necessary, impose punishments on, or even intervene in, any member State that were to violate them. Kant now declares himself in favour of the idea that the diverse specific States must retain their independence and sovereignty, while demanding that all others comply only voluntarily with the laws mutually-agreed upon with the other States. Hence, the association that Kant advocates is of a more moral character, not endowed with any kind

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of coercive instrument. On occasion, Kant characterises this as a “permanent congress of states [permanenten Staatencongreß]” (MM 6:350) whose cohesion is not due to a juridical authority or legitimate sanctions but, rather, only to a kind of moral link that governments impose upon themselves but which is not juridically binding. The organisation thus delineated is, clearly, precarious and of limited scope: on the one hand, it is clearly capable of ordering in accordance with the principles of Law that exist at its foundations; but, on the other, and at the same time, it is bereft of coercive instruments that would allow it to apply the principles of Law and impose sanctions in conformity with it upon States, groups or institutions that violate that Law. This shift in Kant’s position was criticised initially, as is well-known, by Gentz, who five years after the publication of Friedensschrift pointed out in his text Über den ewigen Frieden17 that only one world State endowed with the power of coaction could satisfy the conditions that Kant imposed as necessary to overcome the state of nature at the world level. This same critique would reappear in the works of recent authors.18 Jürgen Habermas, for example, believed that he had found there a contradiction which is explained by the fact that Kant continued to sustain both the principle of the sovereignty of the Nationstate and the demand for the contractual overcoming of the state of nature among diverse States in the international domain.19And this is why Kant can do no more than ask specific States for a kind of self-linking, a commitment of only a moral character. In this sense, his model of the association among States lacks something that can not be absent from any State; namely, a co-active power that assures obedience to, and the application of, mutually-agreed upon laws and, where necessary, imposes sanctions—which could run from economic to military measures—on the States that violate those mutually-agreed upon orders and laws. Nor does Kant explain how to reverse—and if this would be possible based only on Law and, if so, how it would be done—the asymmetry in the order of international relations that has allowed stronger States to dominate— whether in economic, political, or even military terms—other, weaker ones. It is at this point that a cosmopolitan proposal would have to be interlaced with a reflection on the relations of inequality that characterise the international scene so as to be able to think within this of the possibility of justice and, with this, of a perpetual, though never totally concluded, march towards peace.

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Notes 1

Here I refer to the following texts and anthologies: Gerhardt, 1995; Höffe, 1995, 2001 and 2007; Kersting, 1995, Lutz-Bachmann/Bohman 1996 and 2002; Kleingeld, 1995, 2009, 1999 and 2012, and, of course, Habermas, 1996 and 2002, as well as Rawls, 1999. 2 See for example: Höffe, 1995 and Cheneval, 2002: 403. 3 Relevant texts in this regard include: Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784) Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung (1784) Recensionen von J. G. Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Theil 1. 2. (1785) Bestimmung des Begriffs der Menschenrace (1785) Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785) Mutmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte (1786) Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren? (1786) Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2, erweiterte und überarbeitete Auflage. (1787) Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie (1788) Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788) Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790) Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793) Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793) Das Ende aller Dinge (1794) Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795) 4

See Cheneval, 2002: 403f. On this point I follow the interpretation offered by Kleingeld, 2009. 6 See, in this regard, the editor’s “Introduction” in AA VIII: 468. 7 See Kleingeld, 2009: 171f. 8 Translations of Kant’s Works in this article are my own, but I have made use of the translations appeared in: Cambridge Edition of the Writings of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge University Press, 1992-). 9 Here I understand “juridification” in a broader sense, as the process through which diverse ambits of social interaction and relations, as well as a variety of social, political and economic institutions, become progressively regulated and limited through Law. 10 The topic of Law and related problems are crucial to Kant’s philosophy. As the reader will recall, the first text that contains the term “Law” was published in 1786 in Kant’s review of Gottlieb Hufeland’s text, Versuch über den Grundsatz des Naturrechts. However, as Höffe and Brandt, among others, remind us, it is on the basis of Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784) that Law begins to take on considerable meaning as the very progress of humanity is defined in terms of juridical concepts. Later, for almost an entire decade, themes 5

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related to the philosophy of Law disappear, only to reeappear in Religionsschrift (1793), and the treatise Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793), which devotes two-thirds of its content to the Philosophy of Law: II. Right of a State [Staatsrecht] and III. Right of Nations [Völkerrecht]. This was followed two years later by the text Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf. Nonetheless, neither Über den Gemeinspruch nor Zum ewigen Frieden contains what would constitute the most substantial part of Kant’s principle text on the philosophy of Law—the Rechtslehre, published in Metaphysik der Sitten (1797). On Kant’s Philosophy of Law, see Kersting, 1984. 11 It is important to recall in this regard that the essay Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (1784) was published only one month after Idee and in the same journal (Berlinische Monatsschrift). There, Kant emphasises the decisive role of free reasoning developed in the public sphere and the mode in which this enables the development of knowledge, the critique of errors, the fight against superstition, and the legitimisation of existing institutions: For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the least harmful of anything that could even be called freedom: namely, freedom to make public use of one’s reason in all matters [Zu dieser Aufklärung aber wird nichts erfordert als Freiheit; und zwar die unschädlichste unter allem, was nur Freiheit heißen mag, nämlich die: von seiner Vernunft in allen Stücken öffentlichen Gebrauch zu machen]. (WIE 8:36) 12 See Kleingeld, 2009: 178. 13 Whether this represents, as Kleingeld insinuates, an attempt to concur with Abbé de Saint Pierre’s sketch which, in Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe (Utrecht, 1713), proposed a permanent Senate and an international court of arbitration to settle conflicts between States supported by a binding international law, or because Idee was an attempt to present a philosophical understanding of history—not a treatise on philosophy or political science—is a question that I leave open for the moment (see Kleingeld, 2009: 179). 14 It is important to mention that here Kant is thinking only about wars of aggression, not wars of defence. 15 The passage in question says, textually: Seventh Proposition. The problem of establishing a perfect civil constitution is dependent on the problem of a lawful external relation between states and cannot be solved without the latter. [Das Problem der Errichtung einer vollkommnen bürgerlichen Verfassung ist von dem Problem eines gesetzmäßigen äußeren Staatenverhältnisses abhängig und kann ohne das letztere nicht aufgelöset werden]. (IUH 8:24, Seventh Proposition,) 16 See Kleingeld, 2009: 181. 17 See Friedrich Gentz, “Über den ewigen Frieden” (1800). 18 Initially by Habermas (1996), but also by Lutz-Bachmann (1996, 2002) and Kersting (2001), among others. 19 See Habermas, 1996: 294-297.

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Bibliography Anderson-Gold, Sharon, “Kantische Grundlagen des gegenwärtigen Kosmopolitismus”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie. Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung. 53. Jahrgang, Heft 1 (2005): 97-109. Benhabib, Seyla, “Die Krise des Nationalstaats und die Grenzen des Demos”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie. Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung. 53. Jahrgang, Heft 1 (2005): 83-95. Bialas, Volker und Häßler Hans-Jürgen (ed.), 200 Jahre Kants Entwurf “Zum ewigen Frieden”, Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1996. Brandt, Reinhard (1995): “Vom Weltbürgerrecht”, in Höffe, Otfried (ed.): Kant: Zum ewigen Frieden. Loc. cit., 1995, pp. 133-148. Brock, Gillian and Brighouse, Harry (Ed.), The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Cavallar, Georg, Kant and the theory and practice of international right, Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 1999. —. “Cosmopolis. Supranationales und kosmopolitisches Denken von Vitoria bis Smith”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie. Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung. 53. Jahrgang, Heft 1 (2005): 49-67. Cheneval, Francis, Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Bedeutung, Basel: Schwabe, 2002. Düsing, Klaus, “Das Problem des höchsten Guts in Kants praktischer Philosophie”, Kant-Studien 62 (1971): 5-42. Fichte, Gottlob (1796a): “Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf von Immanuel Kant”, in Philosophisches Journal, Bd. IV: 8192, 1796. In Fichtes Werke, herausgegeben von Immanuel Hermann Fichte, Bd. VIII, Vermischte Schriften und Aufsätze, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971, pp. 427-436. —. (1796a): “Grundlage des Naturrechts”, in Fichtes Werke, herausgegeben von Immanuel Hermann Fichte, Bd. III, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971, pp. 1-385. Forst, Rainer (2002): “Zu einer kritischen Theorie transnationales Gerechtigkeit”, in Reinold Schmücker und Ulrich Steinvorth (eds.), Gerechtigkeit und Politik. Philosophische Perspektiven, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2002, pp. 215-232. Gentz, Friedrich (1800): “Über den ewigen Frieden”, Historisches Journal (Berlin), 2. Jg., Bd. 3 (1800), pp. 710-790, Reprinted in Ewiger Friede:

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Friedensrüfe und Friedenspläne seit der Renaissance, ed. Kurt von Raumer, Freiburg: Karl Alber, 1953, pp. 461-497. Gerhardt, Volker, Immanuel Kants Entwurf ‘Zum ewigen Frieden’. Eine Theorie der Politik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995. Habermas, Jürgen, “Kants Idee des ewigen Friedens – aus dem historischen Abstand von 200 Jahren”, in Jürgen Habermas: Die Einbeziehung des Anderen: Studien zur politischen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996, pp. 192-236. —. “Die postnationale Konstellation und die Zukunft der Demokratie”, in Jürgen Habermas, Die postnationale Konstellation. Politische Essays, Suhrkamp. Frankfurt am Main, 1998, pp. 91-169. —. “Hat die Konstitutionalisierung des Völkerrrechts noch eine Chance?”, Jürgen Habermas, Der gespaltene Westen. Kleine politische Schriften X, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004, pp. 113-193. —. “Eine politische Verfassung für die pluralistische Weltgesellschaft?”, in Jürgen Habermas, Zwischen Naturalismus und Religion, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2005, pp. 324-365. —. “Kommunikative Rationalität und grenzüberschreitende Politik: eine Replik”, in P. Niesen and B. Herborth (eds.), Anarchie der kommunikativen Freiheit. Jürgen Habermas und die Theorie der internationalen Politik, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2007, pp. 406459. Held, David, Democracy and the global order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995. Höffe, Otfried (ed.), Kant: Zum ewigen Frieden, Klassiker Auslegen, vol. 1, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1995. —. Demokratie im Zeitalter der Globalisierung, München: Beck, 2002. —. “Königliche Völker” Zu Kants kosmopolitischer Rechts-und Friedenstheorie, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 2001. —. “Kants universaler Kosmopolitismus”, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie.Zweimonatsschrift der internationalen philosophischen Forschung, 55. Jahrgang, Heft 2 (2007): 179-191. Jones, Charles, Global Justice: Defending Cosmopolitanism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Kant, Immanuel: Gesammelte Schriften. Hrsg.: Bd. 1-22 Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ab Bd. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Edited by the Königlich Preußischen (now Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: G. Reimer [now de Gruyter], 1902).

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Kelsen, Hans, Das Problem der Souveranität und die Theorie des Völkerrrechts. Beitrag zu einer Reinen Rechtslehre, Tübingen: Mohr, 1920. Reprint, Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1981. Kersting, Wolfgang, “‘Die bürgerliche Verfassung in jedem Staate soll republikanisch sein’”, in Höffe, Otfried (ed.), Kant: Zum ewigen Frieden. Loc. cit., 1995, 87-108. —. “Kant y la Filosofía Política de las Relaciones Internacionales”, in Wolfgang Kersting, Filosofía Política del Contractualismo Moderno, México: UAM/Plaza y Valdés Instituto Goethe/DAAD, 2001, pp. 211244. Kleingeld, Pauline, Fortschritt und Vernunft: Zur Geschichtsphilosophie Kants. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1995. —. “Six Varieties of Cosmopolitanism in Late Eighteen Century Germany”, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 3 (1999): 505524. —. “Kant’s changing cosmopolitanism”, in Amélie Oksenberg Rorty & James Schmidt (eds.), Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. A Critical Guide, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009: pp. 171-186. —. Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Kodalle, Klaus-Michael (eds.), Der Vernunftfrieden: Kants Entwurf im Widerstreit.Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 1996. Lafont, Cristina, “Justicia Global en una sociedad mundial pluralista”. Ponencia presentada en el III Congreso Iberoamericano de Filosofía desarrollado del 1 al 5 de julio del 2008 en Medellín, Colombia 2008. Leyva, Gustavo, “Filosofía en sentido cosmopolita. Reflexiones sobre el cosmopolitismo en la filosofía con énfasis en la propuesta kantiana”. In: Gustavo Leyva/Dulce María Granja (Eds.), Cosmopolitismo, Globalización y Democracia, Barcelona/México: UAM - Anthropos Editorial, 2009, pp. 279-344. Lutz-Bachmann, Matthias and Bohman, James (eds.), Frieden durch Recht: Kants Friedensidee und das Problem einer neuen Weltordnung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996. —. Weltstaat oder Staatenwelt? Für und wider die Idee einer Weltrepublik, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2002. Mathiez, Albert, La révolution et les étrangers: Cosmopolitisme et défense nationale. Paris, La Renaissance du Livre, 1918. Merkel, Reinhard and Wittmann, Roland (eds.), Zum ewigen Frieden: Grunddlage, Aktualitat und Aussichten einer Idee von Immanuel Kant. Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1996.

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O’Brien, Karen, Narratives of Enlightenment: Cosmopolitan History from Voltaire to Gibbon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Pogge, Thomas, World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsabilities and Reforms. Cambridge: Polity Press-Blackwell Publishers, 2002. Rawls, John, The Law of Peoples, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999. Reath, Andrews, “Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant”, in Journal of the History of Philosophy 26 (1988): 593-619. Schlegel, Friedrich (1797), “Versuch über den Begriff des Republikanismus, veranlaßt durch die Kantische Schrift zum ewigen Frieden”, in Friedrich Schlegel, Dichtungen und Aufsätze, Wolfdietrich Rasch (ed.), München: Carl Hanser, 1984: 547-564. Schlereth Thomas J., The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought: Its Form and Function in the Ideas of Franklin, Hume, and Voltaire, 1694-1790, Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1977. Wolff, Christian (1749), Jus gentium method scientific pertractatum, Halle. Nachdruck: Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1972. —. (1750), Institutiones juris naturae et gentium (Halle: Rengeriana, 1750), Nachdruck: Hildesheim: Olms, 1969.

PASSIVE CITIZENSHIP, POVERTY AND PEACE: KANT’S COSMOPOLITANISM IN THE SHORTER WRITINGS* NURIA SÁNCHEZ MADRID UNIVERSITY COMPLUTENSE OF MADRID, SPAIN

1. Introduction This paper shall chiefly address the role of coercion in Kant’s juridical cosmopolitanism, which pretends to guarantee to every human being a free and peaceful movement around the earth with the main aim of engaging in trade. I will argue that what is usually regarded as a weak scope of Kant’s cosmopolitanism stems just from some inconsistencies that centrally concern his theory of state, which for example eludes tackling the basic material resources that individuals should have at disposal to drop out their civil passivity and to gain an active citizenship. Against the bulk of the appraisals devoted to this feature of Kant’s political philosophy and after assessing the point of Kant’s account of civil dependence, I shall claim first that there is no evidence in Kant’s Writings—focusing on his Shorter Writings—for supporting that the cosmopolitan right will amend social failures detected at the national or interstate level. Moreover, social relief of a state through a foreign transnational intervention breaks the frame of Kant’s theory of public right. Second, I will attempt to draw some conclusions about the consequences derived from the fifth preliminary article of Perpetual Peace, which states that no State may forcibly interfere in the constitution and government of another (TPP 8:346), for Kant’s foundation of the right of people—ius gentium. I shall end by suggesting that Kant’s political philosophy, despite the political wisdom that he attributes to the moral politician, seems to react more to some empirical social phenomena (French Revolution; colonialism of European potencies; indebtedness of States due to warfare campaigns; unsocial sociability etc.) than to boost the reform of social empiricity according to the tenets of reason. Thus, I deem that this “excessive tenderness for things

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of the world” (Hegel, Enz, § 48) strongly rules Kant’s appraisal of the social and political context and, therefore, this point should deserve, in my view, more attention than scholars usually devote to it.1

2. Passive Citizenship: A Flaw or a Caution of Kant’s Theory of Right? As is well known, Kant grounds the civil state on the principles a priori of freedom, equality and independence of each member of the civil community (OCS 8:290), which fix the political threshold of citizenship. However, taking part as co-legislators in the res publica is reserved for economically self-sufficient male individuals, the only ones that may be active citizens, whereas women, children and servants will belong to that status “when they attain civil independence that allows them to get engaged in public issues” (Vorarbeit zu Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis 23:135). Despite the universal scope of the postulate of public right that declares the constitution of the state a legal duty, Kant has no reluctance in distinguishing “active” and “passive citizens’2, as he does in the following excerpt of the Doctrine of Law: The only qualification for being a citizen is being fit to vote. But being fit to vote presupposes the independence of someone who, as one of the people, wants to be not just a part of the commonwealth but also a member of it, that is, a part of the commonwealth acting from his own choice in community with others. This quality of being independent, however, requires a distinction between active and passive citizens, though the concept of a passive citizen seems to contradict the concept of a citizen as such. - The following examples can serve to remove this difficulty: an apprentice in the service of a merchant or artisan; a domestic servant (as distinguished from a civil servant); a minor (naturaliter vel civiliter); all women and, in general, anyone whose preservation in existence (his being fed and protected) depends not on his management of his own business but on arrangements made by another (except the state). All these people lack civil personality and their existence is, as it were, only inherence. (MM 6:314)

Let us attempt to draw some consequences from this excerpt.3 It merely claims that some human beings act as co-legislators of a State, while others are prevented by their wretched livelihood conditions from being considered true members of the commonwealth, and hence from being fit to vote. Yet, there is no trace of condemnation of such a civil split in Kant’s account of the civil restrictions stemming from it, as such a

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situation could meet the content and goals of republican freedom. In the Common Saying, Kant defines an active citizen as his own master, for he has to serve no other than the commonwealth, and he adds that this condition will be met only when someone has “some property (and any art, craft, fine art, or science can be counted as property) that supports him” (OCS 8:295). Some Kant scholars usually try to read these passages —in a too charitable way, in my view—as a proof of Kant’s opposition to the possible abuse of the voting right of the poorer citizens4, since their choice would be easily kept down by social and economical forces. Kant seems thus to argue that human beings must wait to enjoy a better-off situation while being prepared to exercise their freedom, even if this would gainsay a famous note of the Religionsschrift in which he decidedly condemns that it would take time till all human beings get ready to use freedom (Rel 6:188).5 Some commentators6 turn down Kant’s distinction between active and passive citizens, since it violates the idea of the original equality before the law entailed by the innate right to freedom (MM 6:237). Yet, instead of condemning this distinction between human beings, Kant shows a clear reluctance regarding state’s interventionism in order to relieve the poverty or material scarcity of a part of society, at least till it does not trigger a social crisis. In this sense, Kant defends a classical liberal position, according to which the state should not intervene in the social sphere, since it is shaped by private transactions among free individuals. The state’s task should basically consist in providing legal conditions that allow individuals to rise by their forces above their situation of economic and political dependence. I suggest that Kant’s innate right to freedom, i.e. the citizen’s right to “independence from being constrained by another’s choice” (MM 6:237) leave the task of achieving this independence in the hands of individual subjects.7 The reason Kant gives for justifying the state’s intervention in case of a social and economic meltdown does not draw to some abstract idea of basic human rights or of civic equality goal, but rather to the concern not to break social stability down. A passage from the General Remark C of the Doctrine of Right focuses on the rationale of such “intervention”: The general will of the people has united itself into a society which is to maintain itself perpetually; and for this end it has submitted itself to the internal authority of the state in order to maintain those members of the society who are unable to maintain themselves. For reasons of state the government is therefore authorised to constrain the wealthy to provide the

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means of sustenance to those who are unable to provide for even their most necessary natural needs. (MM 6:326)

According to this excerpt, the state should take care only of the safety of the civitas as a whole, not of the social fate of individual citizens. Therefore, state is entitled to guarantee the survival of the collective civil body, expression of a united will, and hence individuals have a duty to participate in the state’s efforts to survive both as a whole—to defend the common territory in warfare—and as a group of individuals—wealthy citizens pay taxes to feed poor citizens. Kant’s state seems thus to harbour a mixture of republican and liberal goals, since it is committed to guarantee the safety of individuals, but it also views the citizenry just as a mere tool, which embodies the united will, whose scope and interests are more valuable than those of any individual choice. Usually scholars praise this remark from Kant’s theory of civil union as a genuine liberal tenet that prevents the republican state from falling into an imperium paternale, instead of setting up an imperium patrioticum (OCS 8:291), which would give open freedom to citizens for pursuing their happiness through their own choice. Yet, acknowledging that there is a short path from paternalism to despotism, it is arguable on what reasons Kant bases his rejection of an effective state control of economic dynamics. Even if Kant himself hints to the fact that the state has to amend situations of extreme poverty, when it seriously puts in danger the unity of the civil body8, he often supports that social inequality would not damage the legal equality of human beings, since poor or rich, woman or man, servant or sir are allegedly equal before he law (OCS 8:291), although the first ones do not belong as subjects to the civil body. As only the law might coerce legitimately, Kant seems to neglect the existence of a likewise violent social coercion that keeps a large number of people away from political activity. Thus, poverty will meet happiness, as long as that precarious situation “depends on” limitations of the agent’s own forces and capacities: [A human being] can be considered happy […] provided he is aware that, if he does not reach the same level as others, the fault lies only in himself ([his lack of] ability or earnest will) or circumstances for which he cannot blame any other, but not in the irresistible will of others who, as his fellow subjects in this condition, have no advantage over him as far as right is concerned. (OCS 8:293-294)

Passages like this confirm Kant’s acceptance of the fact that social intercourse brings about inequalities ushering into material dependence

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and subordination of some individuals towards others. Even if right will guarantee the abstract legal equality of worse-off people, it will not provide any shelter against the privation of the right to vote. Moreover, according to our philosopher, the ultimate causes of this fact should not be drawn to structural deficiencies, but just blamed to the lack of individual abilities to improve one’s own social status or, more enigmatically, to what Kant specifically calls “circumstances for which [a human being] cannot blame any other” (ibid). As the Doctrine of Law stresses, Kant is hopeful “that anyone can work his way up from [the] passive condition to an active one” (MM 6:315), but he never specifies the means to attain this goal nor does he hint to any anthropological tool—novels, theatre, etc.—to get acquainted with them. Kant’s formulation of lex permissiva could cast new light on his appraisal of social issues, but actually the permission to put off some prohibitions targets normally bequeathing of aristocratic privileges—as a possessio putativa, “not in conformity with rights” (TPP 8:348, footnote)—, rather than social inequalities. Actually, Kant never designs the last ones as “possessions in good faith”, acquired in absence of the rightful condition, to be removed “as soon as its nonconformity with rights were discovered” (ibid.) in the transition from the state of nature to the civil condition. I agree with those scholars arguing that the lex permissiva yields the outcome of Kant’s reflection on political wisdom, in the context of 1793 discussion with F. Gentz and A.W. Rehberg about the epistemological paradigm corresponding to politics. Yet, I do not grasp any hint in Kant’s writings allowing to shift to social inequality issues the admission of unjust public right situations “until everything has either of itself become ripe for a complete overthrow or has been made almost ripe by peaceful means” (TPP 8:373, footnote).9 In my view, Kant does not wed social differences with injustices that politics as “theory of right in exercise” ought to amend, but he rather considers them as the expected upshot of legitimate social competition. Thereby, the cosmopolitan right would not be intended to essentially change this situation, so that the dependence between the establishing of a “perfect civil constitution” and of “lawful external relations between the states” claimed by the seventh proposition of Idea for a Universal History… (IUH 8:24) will not entail that political justice ought to remove social injustice. I find quite insightful Varden’s rejoinder to Kleingeld’s claim—argued in Kant and Cosmopolitanism— that “the argument for poverty relief at the domestic level can be rephrased in terms of the ideal of the federal world republic”.10 Varden argues that “global poverty relief is not necessary to establish just relations between internally just states”11, highlighting that

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the formal principles of Kant’s theory of right do not coerce any state to provide economical assistance to another, since the union between each state and its citizenry should be compared with the immediate relation that each person has with its own body, for which he has to care unconditionally.12 What remains controversial in my view is whether the ontological basis—maintenance, perpetuity, integrity of a being—that guides Kant’s rationale for enhancing poverty’s public relief within a state could be applied, as Kleingeld endorses, to the “structurally similar” collective body of a federation of states.

3. May Right Entitle a State to Coerce Another for Cosmopolitan reasons? An Entangled Point in Kant’s Theory of Interstate Relations In this section I aim at shedding some light over an obscure passage of Perpetual Peace (TPP 8:357) that simultaneously encourages the different peoples of the world to submit to public laws and recognises the right of states to reject in hypothesi what is right in thesi, so that the “negative surrogate of a lasting and continually expanding league” (ibid.) would legitimately replace the “positive idea of a world republic.” This issue has been the target of a recent critical exchange between Pauline Kleingeld, Helga Varden and Alyssa R. Bernstein, which I would like to refer to in the next pages. I agree with Kleingeld’s claim that the aforementioned excerpt proves Kant’s rejection of any coercion for a state or regime joins the international rightful condition, so that the hypothesis of a loose league of states would mean the first step bringing to the final embodiment of the cosmopolitan vocation of the human species.13 Moreover, Kleingeld situates Kant’s position in clear contrast to the Jacobin figure of the revolutionary France, Anacharsis Cloots, who defended in his writings world-state cosmopolitanism, establishing “a republic of the united individuals of the world”14, as the best application of social contract theory. According to Cloots a republican world-state would be the unique formula to provide juridical protection to every human being and it would also guarantee to leave the state of nature at the international scale. According to Kleingeld, “Kant’s political cosmopolitanism […] constitutes an answer to Cloot’s challenge”.15 Indeed, several of Kant’s texts display what Katrin Flikschuh called “Kant’s sovereignty dilemma”16, i.e. the disanalogy between the situation of individuals before the establishment of the state and the international state of nature, so that coercion at the level of interstate relations would entail a paternalist conception of power, what would betray the tenets of republicanism. Thus,

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a voluntary federative league of states (MM 6: 350), in the wake of the Foedus Amphyctyonum of ancient Greeks, will reduce the warfare threat and hence progress continually to the achievement of perpetual peace and to the “cosmopolitan situation” [weltbürgerlicher Zustand], where all the dispositions of human being will completely develop. I claim that Kant held this pragmatic shift from thesis to hypothesis through his entire work, entails an appraisal completely contrary to that suggested by Byrd and Hruschka in their commentary of Kant’s Doctrine of Right. I shall consider the following excerpt: Kant says that states have a right in the state of nature to coerce their neighboring states to enter a juridical state of states. If their neighbors are not willing to enter a juridical state, the state can wage war to coerce the neighbors to do so. A war waged in order “to establish a state approaching a juridical state” (MM 6:344) must be permitted if and because the states are required to leave the state of nature and enter a juridical state.17

In my view, Kant keeps considering the federative association of states in the Doctrine of Right as a tool to avoid warfare that does not involve sovereign authority. Moreover, when he refers in § 55 of the Doctrine of Right to a war supposedly aiming at approaching free states to the rightful condition, immediately after he does tackle the fact that to wage war or simply to declare war against a foreign state or regime a rightful state ought to obtain first the assent of its people through their representatives (MM 6:345-346). It is true that Kant does acknowledge the right of republican states to defend what belongs to them from an “unjust enemy”, i.e. a state whose public expressed will would make peace impossible and that threatens its neighbours with a return to the state of nature (MM 6:349). Yet, the warfare union of free states against this threatening neighbour would not imply a right to divide, after defeating it, the foreign territory among themselves, making that state disappear, since each people could not lose “its original right to unite itself into a commonwealth” (MM 6:349). Such an association for the sake of the defence of the rule of law would have rather the right to force the enemy state to adopt a constitution unfavourable to war (ibid.), but it would not be authorised to transform the self-defence principle in a plea for conquest and colonise foreign territories. Basing on the preceding texts, I consider it excessive to support—as Alyssa R. Bernstein does—that, according to Kant’s treatment of permissible intervention of peacefully allied states against an unjust enemy “permissible means do not include seizing territory or resources but to include rescuing people from genocide and enabling them to establish a

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legitimate government”.18 Bernstein adduces to uphold her claim that Kant never uses the term “paternalism” outside the context of the relation between the ruler and the citizens, which is not, as discussed before, completely analogous to the relation among states.19 She also considers that to force a state to enter a juridical condition would cover also the assistance of countries where the human rights are systematically violated, downplaying in my view the scope of Kant’s fifth preliminary article for perpetual peace20, which forbids a state to interfere in the internal affairs of another. Kant puts as example in this context the internal stasis of a state, asserting that, even in the middle of the consequential anarchy, till the fight will not finish, any foreign interference will be considered “a violation of the rights of a people dependent upon no other and only struggling with its internal illness” (TPP 8:346). As P. Kleingeld stresses, Bernstein’s examples hint to barbarian regimes, where the mere force takes over suppressing freedom and law (A 7:330-331), a situation that Kant identifies with the state of nature. However, it would be quite arguable that a group of states could be entitled to intervene for emancipating a population from the despotic government of its ruler.21 Kant’s goal by admitting that a peaceful republican league of states declares war to an unjust enemy is to hinder the destructing force of a regime that, for example, violates systematically public contracts (MM 6:349), i.e. his point is self-defence against a neighbour state dismissive with the public sphere, not the spreading of republicanism around the world, as Cloots endorsed. Moreover, this self-defence argument, that could form an alliance of states, seems to be the rear view of the unavoidable side by side coexistence that triggers the submission of societies to a public civil authority (MM 6:307). Yet, that alliance shall not be entitled to become “a league for attacking others and adding to their own territory” (MM 6:349). In a nutshell, I do not track in the Doctrine of Right or in Perpetual Peace (see TPP 8:357) any evidence to uphold a warfare intervention for humanitarian reasons22. Moreover, the right to peace consists of the right to neutrality, “when there is a war in the vicinity”; the right to a guarantee of the validity of peace treaties and the right to form an alliance for common defence against an internal or external attack. Yet, common defence has not immediately to do with the relief of other countries’ deficiencies. Even if Kant decidedly regrets what he calls “the whole litany of troubles that oppress the human race” (TPP 8:359), which encompasses wars, famine, rebellions and treachery, he does not stop to highlight that war “produces more evil people than it destroys” (TPP 8:

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365). It is true that the habitants of a region of the earth have legitimacy to refuse the attempt to establish contact of a foreigner arrived at their shores, but it may occur “if this can be done without destroying him” (TPP 8:358), a remark that addresses neatly the case of refugees. Yet, it does not open up in Kant’s view a right to military intervention for humanitarian reasons, but only a right to every human being to be provisionally hosted in every region of the world. Bernstein considers that to coerce an unwilling state into the juridical condition would be a permissible deed for Kant, provided that the prudence of the moral politician will urge to take that step, which invites to take into account the contingencies of the context.23 Nevertheless, I consider this claim a slightly excessive pragmatic account that leads up to water down the core of Kant’s theory of international relations, contrary to any heteronomous action. It could naturally be supported as a Kant-inspired position, but not as a corollary of Kant’s tenets of interstate relations, where the autonomy of states seems to guide the political agenda.24

4. Conclusions My paper aims at shedding some light on the capacity of Kant’s political theory to turn around the social sphere and the international public space according to rational principles. There is no doubt that Kant was one of the most attentive thinkers of the Modernity to the contingencies of his political and social context, but it should also be noticed the blindness that he underwent with regard to phenomena as social inequality, political exclusion of women or the lack of political autonomy suffered by people in other continents, despite his clear critics against colonialism. In conclusion, I claim first that Kant’s confidence on the reforming power of a strong public sphere neglects the scope of deep social transformations that economic forces bring about, so that according to his method the empirical social order might easily go ahead completely oblivious of the goals of reason. Second, I suggest that the metaphysical ground of Kant’s doctrine of right and his theory of juridical obligation make it difficult to adopt also in this juridical context the perspective of the individual agent, for instance, regarding distributive justice issues. Moreover, individual agents properly interact at the social order, where they attempt to pursue happiness through their own natural and artificial sources, thus building up a biography of which they are the unique responsible agent. Once the state is established, a public authority turns up, providing a peremptory basis to the previously just provisional and unilateral propriety claims. Yet, at the public right level individuals submit their own interests to the common

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interest of the res publica—Kant’s postulate of public right rephrases Rousseau’s social contract formula—, which struggles for the sake of the whole civil body. Therefore, my third and final claim is that it is arguable whether Kant’s republicanism, which includes its civil independence commitment, does outshine the features of his political philosophy concerning the conditions of outer freedom and legal equality of human beings.25 I wonder whether the metaphysical basis supporting Kant’s theory of right shapes a platonic dream that on the one hand opens up majestic future purposes, hindering sometimes, on the other, the perception of essential features of the present social reality. In next following papers I shall endeavour to assess accurately the consequences stemming from this cleft for Kant’s actual interpretation. At any rate, the contempt that Kant accorded to most of his critics should not be disregarded, for it is likely that it harbours the mysterious clue of the past and ongoing heed paid to his thought: The critical philosophy’s turn must finally come to laugh last and so laugh best when it sees the systems of those who have talked big for such a long time collapse like houses of cards one after another and their adherents scatter, a fate they cannot avoid. (MM 6:209)

Notes *This chapter benefited from the academic support of the research projects Poetics of Selfhood: memory, imagination and narrativity (PTDC/MHC-FIL/4203/2012), granted by the FCT of the Government of Portugal and Retóricas del Clasicismo. Los puntos de vista (contextos, premisas, mentalidades) (FFI2013-41410-P) and Naturaleza humana y comunidad (III). ¿Actualidad del humanismo e inactualidad del hombre? (FFI2013-46815-P), granted both by the MINECO of the Government of Spain. An earlier version of this draft was discussed at the 5th Kant Multilateral Colloquium, held at the UCM and UNED in Madrid in September 2015. I specially thank Sarah Banks for her linguistic review of my paper. 1 An exception to this interpretative tendency is Reidar Maliks (2014). 2 See the useful account of this distinction in Beiner (2011: 211-214). 3 For a broader account about Kant’s theory of citizenship see A. Pinzani/N. Sánchez Madrid, “The state looks down. Some difficulties with Kant’s appraisal of citizenship”, paper presented and discussed at the Vth International CIK Workshop, held at the Centro de Investigaçôes Kantianas (CIK) of UFSC from 4th to 6th August 2014 in Florianópolis (Brazil). 4 See Luigi Caranti objection to the claim of Kersting about Kant’s bourgeois fear before the widening of the active citizenship (1992: 153) in the chapter, “Politica” in S. Besoli/C. La Rocca/R. Martinelli (eds.) (2010: 366-367). In my view, Kant seems to be more unconscious of the political consequences of economical and

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social inequality than a too bourgeois minded thinker to grasp the very universal essence of political agency. 5 The note refers to the case of the bondmen of a landed proprietor and to the fellowship of a church, but its scope can be extended to the political realm. If Kant would have considered the existence of wage labourers as unfair, he would have denounced it, but his work does not offer hints in this direction. 6 See I. Maus (1994). 7 H. Varden argues just the contrary these in her critical exchange with P. Kleingeld (2014: 259): “Each person’s innate right to freedom gives each citizen a right to independence from being so subjected to others, while being subject, instead, only to the laws of the state. This is why Kant insists that the guarantee regarding poverty relief is part of “the right of the state against the people”, and why it must be secured “by public taxation, not merely by voluntary contributions” (6: 236). See also Varden’s more tempered remark at p. 260: “Obviously, poverty relief, for Kant, only gives me a right to exist somewhere and to sufficient means for survival—from there I have to work myself out of my bad condition”. 8 See Sánchez Madrid (2014: 127-146). 9 See Hernández Marcos (1999: 365-380). 10 Kleingeld (2011: 146-147). 11 Varden (2014: 262). 12 Sánchez Madrid (2014: 133); cf. Varden, op. cit., p. 263, which uses the distinction analytic/synthetic to stress the lack of analogy between the protection of private propriety and the unconditional care of the citizens’ survival; cf. the analogy between the collective body formed by the civil commonwealth and by the commonwealth of republics in Kleingeld (2014: 281). See also Ripstein (2009: 288ss.). 13 See P. Kleingeld (2011: 43-44, 49 and 51). Cf. Kleingeld’s neat remarks on this issue in (2014: 274-275). 14 See P. Kleingeld (2011: 40). 15 See P. Kleingeld (2011: 44). Cf. for a similar approach I. Maus (2004: 81-97). K. K. Mikalsen argues for a more normative reading of the league of states, see (2011: 291-317) and the original defence of Kant’s idea of a cosmopolitan republic in J.A. Hirsch (2012: 492ss. and specially 499), even if I don’t see how make its conclusions compatible with the systematic framework of Kant’s right. 16 See K. Flikschuh (2010: 480-481); cf. Kant, MM 6:350 and TPP 8:355-358. 17 S. Byrd/J. Hruschka (2010: 195). 18 A. R. Bernstein (2014: 244). Bernstein holds in this article more tempered theses than in (2008: p. 93). 19 Bernstein (2014: 242). 20 Bernstein (2014: 245). 21 Kleingeld (2014: 276-277). 22 I appreciated T. Mertens remarks about this point, in (2007: 236-237): “[T]he concept of supreme emergency escapes by definition pre-given descriptions and conditions. To allow politicians to invoke such situations to violate the value of the integrity of political communities and of the human person is tantamount to giving them free rein. This is not to suggest that emergencies do not exist. […]

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Admittedly, cases of an immediate humanitarian catastrophe may occur where the temptation to rescue a threatened population by military means is almost irresistible. In such exceptional cases, however, the intervening force should invoke the necessity defense rather than the right to intervention.” 23 Bernstein (2014: 245-247). 24 I completely agree with Kleingeld’s critical remark to both Bernstein and Byrd/Hruschka (2014: 279): “I do not see Kant arguing that there is a right (albeit one that is subject to strict conditions) to wage war for the purpose of establishing a global international federation with coercive powers. Furthermore, if Kant defended such a right, it would be inexplicable why he argues that existing states do not have the right to bring ‘newly discovered’ territories—even those that are still in the state of nature—into the civil condition, nor a right to ‘use force’ to ‘establish a civil union with them’ (MM 6:353)”. 25 About Kant’s set up of republicanism it is worth reading R. Maliks (2009), especially pp. 439ss.

Bibliography Bernstein, A. Bernstein, “The Right of States, the Rule of Law, and Coercion: Reflections on Pauline Kleingeld’s Kant and Cosmopolitanism,” Kantian Review 19/2 (2014): 233-249. —. “Kant on Rights and Coercion in International Law: Implications for Humanitarian Military Intervention,” Jahrbuch für Recht und Ethik 16 (2008): 57-100. Beiner, R., “Paradoxes in Kant’s Account of Citizenship,” in Ch. Payne/L. Thorpe, Kant and the Concept of Community, Rochester: Rochester U.P., 2011, pp. 209-225. Byrd, S./Hruschka, J., Kant’s Doctrine of Right. A Commentary, Cambridge: CUP, 2010. Caranti, L., “Politica”, in S. Besoli/C. La Rocca/R. Martinelli (eds.), L’universo kantiano. Filosofia, scienze, saperi, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2010, pp. 367-389. Flikschuh, K., “Kant’s Sovereignty Dilemma,” The Journal of PoliticalPhilosophy 18/4 (2010): 469-493. Hernández Marcos, M., “Política y ley permisiva en Kant,” in J. Carvajal Cordón (ed.), Moral, Derecho y Política en I. Kant, Servicio de Publicaciones de la Univ. de Castilla La Mancha, 1999, pp. 365-380. Hirsch, J.-A., “Legalization of International Politics: On the (Im)Possibility of a Constitutionalization of International Law from a Kantian point of view,” Göttingen Journal of International Law 4/2 (2012): 479-518.

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Kersting, W., “Kant’s Concept of State,” in H. Williams (ed.), Essays in Kant’s Political Philosophy, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992, pp. 143-165. Kleingeld, P. Kant and Cosmopolitanism, Cambridge: CUP, 2011. —. “Patriotism, Peace and Poverty: Reply to Bernstein and Varden,” Kantian Review 19/2 (2014): 267-284. Maliks, R., “Prussian Polis: Kant’s democratic republicanism,” Philosophy Social Criticism 35/4 (2009): 427-445. Maus, I., Zur Aufklärung der Demokratietheorie. Rechts- und demokratietheoretische Überlegungen im Anschluss an Kant, Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1994. —. “Kant’s Reasons against a Global State: Popular Sovereignty as a Principle of International Law,” Filozofski Godisnuak 17 (2004): 8197. Mertens, T., “Kant’s Cosmopolitan Values and Supreme Emergencies,” Journal of Social Philosophy 38/2 (2007): 222-241. Mikalsen, K. K., “In defense of Kant’s league of states,” Law and Philosophy 30 (2011): 291-317. Sánchez Madrid, N., “Has social justice any legitimacy in Kant’s theory of right? The empirical conditions of the rightful State as a civil union,” Revista Trans/Form/Açâo 37/2 (2014): 127-146. Varden, H., “Patriotism, Poverty and Global Justice,” Kantian Review 19/2 (2014): 251-266.

RETHINKING KANT’S SHORTER WRITINGS: KANT’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY AND TODAY’S COSMOPOLITANISM MARITA RAINSBOROUGH UNIV. OF HAMBURG, GERMANY

1. Introduction Kant’s essay Toward Perpetual Peace and some of his other shorter writings are among the most important points of reference for today’s cosmopolitanism, which focuses on finding ethical and political answers to global challenges.1 Kant views the possibilities to achieve perpetual peace2 as lying in the historical process, within the scope of which nature delineates the development of faculties provided to the human race. He believes that the cosmopolitan task of humans is based, in particular, on their rationality, their moral condition, in world citizenship and in the concept of a federation of states. It is also linked to the project of enlightenment. He presupposes the parallelism of rationality and nature, which provides the grounds for optimism with regard to the achievability of cosmopolitan goals. Benhabib’s Another Cosmopolitanism; Appiah’s Partial Cosmopolitanism and Mignolo’s Critical Cosmopolitanism include some of the key contemporary concepts of cosmopolitanism.3 Each of these works engages with Kant in a different manner. While Benhabib wishes, in particular, to rescue Kant’s universalism and to expand his “right to world citizenship” in terms of its nature as a right to visit as well as to raise awareness of the particular in Kant’s work, Appiah is concerned with combining Kantian universalism with Mill’s liberalism.4 He detaches Kant’s philosophy from its basic premises; Appiah’s cosmopolitanism thus results, to all intents and purposes, in Kant “disappearing.” Mignolo takes up an even more radical position with his Critical or Decolonial Cosmopolitanism, which strongly criticises Kantian assumptions, linking his cosmopolitanism to modern oppression and violence within the scope of the project of

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colonisation, whereby he also expresses criticism of Kant’s definition of race. How is this process of criticism of, and disillusionment with, Kant’s project of cosmopolitanism expressed in contemporary cosmopolitanism? Is Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism still relevant today? This in turn causes us to pose the question, to quote Habermas, how must Kant’s “idea with regard to the current international situation be reformulated?”5 Habermas calls for a long “overdue revision of the Kantian concept,” which no longer meets current requirements;6 a “changed conceptualization of what we understand by ‘peace’”7 is required. What is the theoretical reasoning employed by current forms of cosmopolitanism within the scope of their critical dialogue with Kant? What function does the referencing of Kant fulfil in each case? What points for criticism and revisions derive from them? On the other hand, Lutz-Bachmann believes that the potential of Kant’s concept of perpetual peace and its “innovative power for international politics until the present day has not been exhausted.”8 Which aspects of the Kantian theory of peace can be viewed as capable of development when viewed from a contemporary perspective?

2. Kant’s Cosmopolitan Concept Kant’s essay Toward Perpetual Peace (8:341-86) is the central point of reference for cosmopolitan thought. Within the scope of the essay Kant develops both a theory of politics9 as well as also a theory of political action, whereby his concern is with issues of legitimacy and a definition of the political. In Kant’s work, the basis for the theory of politics is the theory of rights10—rationalism, natural law, human rights—interlinked with a personal claim to freedom and a will to implement reforms. The law of nations is supplemented by a right to world citizenship, which is conceived as a right to visit other nations. According to Volker Gerhardt “peace [is] the ‘foundation, the characteristic and the norm’ of the political”11 in Kant’s work. Wars have, in Kant’s view, lost their cultivating function: “War has historically outlived itself.”12 The colonisation of the entire planet is the geographical precondition for this development towards peace. In addition to this, the culture-endowing and moral achievements of war have become obsolete, in particular with regard to their motivational role for the creation of human communities as the impulse for nation-building. In this context Kant refers to the “race of devils” (TPP 8:366) which is unable to prevent peace: “Peace is thus attainable. Nature is not an obstacle to it. Most certainly not human nature.

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On the contrary: If human beings were only to put into action what nature has equipped them with, then it would be nature itself which guarantees peace.”13 Gerhardt continues Those rights whose development has previously been promoted by war are now so far developed that they can only be harmed by future wars. As a result states can, and must, also enter into legally compliant relationships with one another, regulating their external dealings in a peaceable manner.14

“Distress” forces the states to do so. A federation of states comprising those with republican constitutions becomes necessary. Kant believes that it would be unrealistic to expect a world republic to be established; it would also bring with it the risk of despotism. Republicanism makes politics the task of the citizen.15 Gerhardt writes in this regard “Politics is the self-determination of a ‘society of humans’ and the state is its organ.”16 This union for peace should not, however, be invested with any powers of its own.17 A republican form of organisation; global trade and a political transparency which requires publicity and can, in general, be viewed as global transparency, promote the trend towards peace which embodies an “intention of nature.” Habermas comments in this context, “In order to solve this problem Kant develops a philosophy of history with a cosmopolitan intent which is intended to make plausible the ‘unanimity of politics with morals’ which originates from a concealed ‘intention of nature’ and appears at first glance to be improbable.”18 The “epistemological link which subjects nature and history to the conditions of human knowledge and actions”19 identified by Kant is, according to Gerhardt, still not appreciated enough. According to Kant the reason why we may, in the final instance, be so confident in this expectation is that the epistemic conditions of our understanding of nature are, in their origins, linked to the constitutive conditions of our actions. We have absolutely no means of escaping nature, of which we, particularly in our reasonable desires, are part and which we imagine in the analogy of our desires. The inner expediency of the nature we imagine in accordance with our own expediency makes it impossible for culture to contradict it—assuming (and I specifically repeat it here) human beings remain beings which act upon the basis of their comprehension and are thus reasonable beings.20

The concept of nature is, in this context, cosmologically focused on the dynamic overall context which also references culture, includes order, expedience and beauty and may only be understood in the analogy of the

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“as if.” The cosmological and teleological concepts of nature are closely interlinked: “Kant thus places politics within the context of nature which is viewed as a large whole of a teleological nature.”21 Furthermore: Only a teleological view of nature provides the means required for a theoretical justification of the term history. This term not only presupposes an integrated model of life composed of the past, present and future, but also, of necessity, assumes continuity between natural events and human acts. >...@ We thus have the epistemological licence to suppose that there may be intersections between nature, history and the nature we desire.22

The result is the “embedding of politics in nature,”23 a concept developed by Kant and which, according to Gerhardt, has not yet been fully exhausted. Kant’s idea of a right to world citizenship—a right to visit other nations—represents a new paradigm capable of further development. “The right to world citizenship brings with it a legislative innovation: People are entitled to positive rights irrespective of their specific nationality.”24 It guarantees a guest the entitlement to assistance, protection and a temporary period of tolerance on the part of a foreign state. It is precisely in this aspect that we can identify a further element of the Kantian concept which is capable of further development. Kant’s literary fiction of a peace treaty is not a utopia but rather offers an explanation of the political, of the principles to be complied with and the specific concepts for action and/or a strategy for political action.25

3. Kant in Benhabib’s Cosmopolitanism For Benhabib cosmopolitanism is more than a regulative idea, it is a constitutive element of the socio-historical development of the human species. She conceives her theory as a specific utopia, in which practical implementation within the scope of which communication theory-based procedures based on the vision of world citizenship is envisaged. Human rights are already tangible results of this process. In her theory, Benhabib draws both on Kant’s egalitarian conception of cosmopolitanism and his focus on a universally conceived set of morals, which Benhabib believes should be linked to ethical particularism within the scope of a mediation process, as well as also his emphasis on rationality. In addition to this, she references Kant’s idea of autonomy and personal and collective selfdetermination, his fondness for the republican constitution of states and a federation of states. Expanding on Kant’s ideas, she demands a human right to democracy.26 In common with Kant, Benhabib is convinced of the necessity of legal and institutional preconditions as the fundamental basis

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for a global order of peace. In this context she applies Kant’s formal, ethical universalism27 procedurally in a communication theory-based context by demanding the implementation of universal discourse procedures. When doing so she foregoes any argumentation based on natural law. Universalism28 is a constitutive element of her theory, which, in the formal, communication theory-based and institutional sense, focuses on acting for the future. The argumentative procedures of “universal respect” and “egalitarian reciprocity” should be implemented in order to redefine universality.29 Universalism should, in this context, be understood as a goal to be aspired to. Working from Hannah Arendt’s right to rights Benhabib expands Kant’s right to visit, which forms the basis of world citizenship, to transform it into a right to belong and immigrate. Specific questions regarding its structuring are submitted to a process of democratic iteration.30 She points out that the aspect of just membership has been neglected in favour of just distribution, which is at the heart of political and philosophical debate. Her concept is built on the fundamental assumption of human rationality as the precondition for the dialogical turnaround of universalism; she views reason as being primarily interactive. The “expanded form of thought”31 aspired to in Kantian tradition should be taken into consideration along with the “generalised other” of the “specific other.” “Dialogical universalism” is characterised by a mediation strategy32 and is interpreted contextually. Where Kant located the transcendental preconditions in the human ability to comprehend, in particular in practical terms, Benhabib shifts the response to the question of the conditions required to make comprehension and morality possible to the ability to communicate and act in the rational sense by means of an understanding of the conditions and processes required for communication as the condition for universal negotiating processes of norms, rights, etc. in the global context. Within the scope of the discourse model it >...@ is argued that recognition of your right to have rights is the fundamental precondition for your initially achieving a state in which you accept or reject my claims to rights. My needs as an acting agent can only serve as a rationale for you if you can assume that your specific needs as an agent serve equally for me as the rationale to recognize your rights. And that means that you and I mutually recognize each other’s right to have rights.33

It is precisely here that her cosmopolitanism is vulnerable; its practicability, in particular with regard to willingness to cooperate, the structuring of processes, the competence to find solutions, depending on

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the willingness at various social levels and on a moral-normative focus of the participants in social, legal and political processes.

4. Appiah’s Partial Cosmopolitanism between Kant and Mill Cosmopolitanism as defined by Appiah means that everyone must be viewed as a “citizen of the cosmos” or “citizen of the world” and not first and foremost as part of a “community among communities.”34 According to Appiah our “shared citizenship” and “shared humanity” mean that we have obligations towards others which exceed the responsibilities inherent in close relationships. Appiah’s argument refers to Kant in three different contexts—the belief that universalism is significant for cosmopolitanism; by using Kant’s theory of world citizenship and by referencing humanity in terms of a common identity of all human beings, in particular in the moral sense, and by applying this in a new way. Appiah’s theory asserts that universal needs should be interlinked with respect for what is dissimilar, different and deviating. This is, argues Appiah, the inherent challenge for cosmopolitanism. When describing the current political situation Appiah has no wish to use the terms “globalisation” and “multiculturalism” but rather employs “universalism” as the central plank of his cosmopolitan theory. He calls his concept Partial Cosmopolitanism and, for him, it represents both an ideal and also an adventure. He dispenses with any metaphysical foundation, arguing for a pragmatic approach. His mistrust of supranational institutions causes him to call for the local application of general human rights, whereby he places individual over collective rights. On the basis of this he develops a Rooted Cosmopolitanism. Appiah’s referencing of Mill relates, in particular, to the latter’s emphasis on individuality and diversity as well as the responsibility of the state for the welfare of the individual.35 The development of a personal identity must, in this context, be viewed as an end in itself and not merely as a means to an end. In keeping with Mill Appiah assumes that individuality is not a contradiction to sociability, arguing that there is an interdependence between the self-creation of the individual and his social anchoring. Appiah’s focus on personal happiness or personal satisfaction contrasts with Kant’s theory of the worthiness of being happy, according to which ethical behaviour represents the precondition for the happiness hoped for. Appiah substitutes a concept of honour for Kant’s respect for the rule of law as a moral sentiment which motivates ethical behaviour. While

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Appiah’s concept may be able to skirt around the central areas of criticism as regards Kantian theory, such as its formal rigidness, neglect of the particular, natural law argument as the basis for the teleological viewpoint and neglect of socio-historical and geo-political relativities, his referencing of Mill brings new problems with it, in particular in the combination of utilitarian basic elements with universalism. Universalism is reduced to globally applicable minimal level of ethical consensus, whereby the hierarchy of values is negotiable. In the face of this temptation, I want to hold on to at least one important aspect of the objectivity of values: that there are some values that are, and should be, universal, just as there are lots of values that are, and must be, local. We can’t hope to reach a final consensus on how to rank and order such values.36

Similarly to Mignolo Appiah places value on “conversations across boundaries.”37 In contrast to him, however, he bases his arguments on the model of conversation understood in the broader sense of co-existence, which highlights different lifestyles and—taking up an idea of Mill— habits. Appiah focuses the aspect of identity, which is linked to morality; on the model of conversation, which creates new habits within the scope of people’s tangible engagement with one another, and on ideological identity offerings intended to mobilise people within the context of taking action to achieve common goals. His cosmopolitan project is closely related to the individual and his social anchoring.

5. Mignolo’s Postcolonial Criticism of Kant’s Cosmopolitan Concept The objective of Mignolo’s Critical Cosmopolitanism,38 which he also calls Decolonial Cosmopolitanism, is to liberate cosmopolitanism entirely from Kantian preconditions. He views Kant’s cosmopolitan project as being comparable to the project of Christianisation: “Kant’s cosmopolitanism was its secular version.”39 The cosmopolitan project is neither “a natural course of history”40 nor a purely legislative project. The overcoming of the nation-state is also viewed as being undesirable.41 Mignolo criticises the fact that the cosmopolitan world order displays “all the features of global imperial designs” and must be felt as being “dictated from above.”42 He prefers grassroots change. His partiality for communal forms of organisation and border thinking emphasise the plurality and heterogeneity of the global community, which should be understood as the

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alternative concept to globalisation,43 which according to him is, to a certain extent, based on cosmopolitan thought. For Mignolo Kant’s cosmopolitanism must be viewed in the context of the “project of the modern,” which in turn should be considered in the context of the West’s post/colonial intentions. Mignolo criticises hegemonial forms of knowledge, among which he includes Kant’s theory, which he wishes to fracture. By doing so he reduces Kant’s project to a specific form of knowledge. He in contrast demands a “reinscription of spirituality in socio-economic organization.”44 Mignolo’s cosmopolitanism thus wishes to explore in more detail categories of thought which are related to beliefs and lifestyles and imply respect for natural living conditions and, when doing so, to explode the traditional Western framework of thought. “It is first and foremost to re-inscribe in the present and toward the future categories of thought, ways of living and believing, the human respect for life that Westerners labelled ‘nature’ and which became detached from the ‘human and culture.’”45 He characterises his form of cosmopolitanism as transmodern: “De-colonial cosmopolitanism is, in a nutshell, transmodern cosmopolitanism.”46 Taking Mudimbe as his starting point, he references the term gnoseology, which has a wider remit than epistemology and thus does greater justice to the complexity of knowledge in its various forms. In addition to alternative forms of knowledge gnosis includes both doxa and also episteme. Mignolo calls for intellectual decolonisation and border thinking. He writes “Border gnoseology is a critical reflection on knowledge production from both the interior borders of the modern/colonial world system >...@ and the exterior borders.”47 The starting point for critical cosmopolitanism is the human being as anthropos, not as a member of the humanitas—a term which he links to exploitation—and the idea of the dialogue. “Dialog among civilizations in this view shall be based on cosmopolitan localisation under the universal belief that no human being and no country has the right to dominate another human being and to control other countries.”48 He continues “toward the horizon of pluri-versality as a universal project.”49 Cosmopolitan is thus reduced primarily to a general willingness to engage in dialogue, conceived as a “dialog among equals,” and a universally understood mutual respect for one another in a “multipolar world.”50 While Mignolo may emphasise the fundamental importance of institutional preconditions he does not provide any precise details concerning them: “But it will be absolutely necessary to have institutions created in the service of cosmopolitanism and dialogue of

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civilizations.”51 Elsewhere he writes “Institutions shall come second and be at the service of life.”52 While Mignolo’s concept of coloniality/modernity53 assumes a basic link between the phenomena of the modern and colonialism, Kant with his criticism of colonialism, which, based on his right of world citizens to hospitality, which should not be understood as a right of residence or to settle but rather at its core as a right to visit, believes in a fundamental separation of the terms and the possibility of overcoming colonialism in the modern. Mignolo also criticises Kant’s concept of race, seeing comparable prejudices in his essays Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? [What is Enlightenment?] (1784) and Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht [Idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan purpose] (1784) as indisputable. Mignolo’s criticism is primarily based on Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze’s argument that Kant54 was one of the founders of scientific racism, a proposition which even today is the subject of fierce discussion. In common with Hill and Boxill I take the position that Kant’s handling of the topic does not meet current scientific requirements, however his key concepts are not affected by his misjudgement with regard to the judgemental categorisation of the four races he identifies.55 The idea of a universal tribe, the concept of the human genus and of a human nature remain the cornerstones of his universalist mind-set. While it is thus undoubtedly correct that Kantian philosophy can be viewed as having a normative character, based on a specific image of humanity characterised by rationality and morality, this is, however, meant in an all-embracing manner and, despite all the difficulties in its implementation, such as for example with regard to the issue of gender56 discussed in the essay What is Enlightenment, is based on the belief in and possibility of development, applying to all human beings equally. In the aforementioned essay Kant reflects critically on power and hierarchy, demonstrating that Mignolo’s criticism of Kant is reductionist. Delanty also points out that Kant’s cosmopolitanism should not be dismissed as a Western concept and that the idea of cosmopolitanism most certainly has roots in a variety of cultures.57 Kant’s philosophy is far more than a justification doctrine for Western claims to power; on the contrary Kant clearly qualifies this theory. The relationship between humans and nature can, as has become clear, also certainly be re-conceived, using Kant as its starting point. Working from a scepticism concerning democracy and capitalism58 Mignolo’s cosmopolitanism is based on a paraphrasing and re-writing of history, a call for the recognition of the dignity of all human

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beings and an attempt to heal post/colonial wounds. The specific structuring of his Decolonial Cosmopolitanism remains open.

6. Conclusion Contemporary forms of cosmopolitanism are an expression of a “cosmopolitan paradigm shift,” as Chernilo terms the hype which he argues currently surrounds cosmopolitanism, which has become a “common term.” He expresses concern that it could become a “victim of its own success.”59 Both Appiah and also Benhabib and Mignolo lay claim to being able to meet the contemporary requirements made on cosmopolitanism. While Benhabib’s cosmopolitanism considers issues of political organisation on a global scale; the legal basis of this process; discourse processes and affiliation in particular, without neglecting particularism in the process, Appiah concentrates on the aspect of personal and collective identity—in the moral sense—and the negotiation of crossborder values to facilitate better co-existence. This comparison clearly demonstrates that Appiah’s Partial Cosmopolitanism has large gaps with regard to the creation of concrete political and legal structures in the global context. He references the process of implementation of human rights to date, offering no proposals of his own with the exception of the idea of a necessary localisation, while Benhabib focuses on creation of legal guidelines, presupposing the reasonableness of procedural negotiation processes in the sense of a discourse-ethical position which is oriented to the political-legal specification of the cosmopolitan project. She builds on Kant’s innovative paradigm of world citizenship, demanding a human right to democracy. She categorically rejects the concept of an epistemological link between nature and history within the context of natural law world view, not, however, the implicitly related aspect of a possible tallying of human actions with earthly conditions in the sense of possible progress as a specific utopia which is based on the expanded way of thinking which references relationships with others and human communications within the scope of procedure-regulating processes which she describes. It is thus Benhabib in particular who recognises, takes up and expands the potential of the Kantian concept of cosmopolitanism. Mignolo’s Critical Cosmopolitanism or Decolonial Cosmopolitanism represents the harshest criticism of Kant’s cosmopolitan concept by postulating that it has an ideological character and absolutely rejecting any

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referencing of Kant. As a result, however, his form of cosmopolitanism also loses its intellectual incisiveness and ability to penetrate certain cosmopolitan questions and disregards historical achievements, such as the republican and democratic principles. Political-institutional and legislative projects are, in particular, indispensable for the realisation of cosmopolitan ideals. Mignolo recognises clearly the economic and political implications, however attributes insufficient importance to these impulses in his counter-concept. The project of cosmopolitanism in its utopian dimension must be located in the context of power in order for it to be able to become a specific utopia for us all. It becomes apparent that Kant’s cosmopolitan thought cannot be thrown overboard without consequences—cosmopolitanism loses its intellectual incisiveness and ability to assert itself.

Notes 1

In this regard Delanty differentiates cosmopolitanism from concepts such as internationalism, globalisation and transnationalism. Cf. Delanty, G., “Introduction: the emerging field of cosmopolitan studies,” in G. Delanty (ed.): Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 3. Its primary focus lies on the expansion of the political in the sense of new spheres of activity and processes of democratisation; it should not be understood as a concept of mobility and transnational movement. It is also a “form of world-making”, e.g. in “modern world literature,” whereby use of the term ‘world’ differentiates it from the term ‘globe.’ Cosmopolitanism must be viewed as “an open-ended approach.” It should also not be dismissed as a Western concept but should rather be considered as based on a “diversity of cosmopolitan cultures.” Cosmopolitanism requires, however, as emphasised by Chernilo, “a certain degree of universalism.” (Ibid. pp. 3ff.) Delanty locates this in the context of postuniversalism: “it stands for a universalism that does not demand universal assent.” In Delanty, G., “The idea of critical cosmopolitanism,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 42. “By this is simply meant that statements of truth and justice, etc., are not absolute, immutable or derivable from an objective order of universal values, but nonetheless it is still possible to make judgements and evaluations.” He continues “universalism is best understood as differentiated.” Or also as “weak universalism.” (Ibid. pp. 42f.) In this context he refers to Putnam, Rorty, Habermas and Nussbaum. 2 Delanty writes “The two hundredth anniversary of Kant’s 1795 work Perpetual Peace in 1995 was an important movement revival of cosmopolitanism since this work was the defining text in modern cosmopolitan thought with the central notion of the principle of hospitality as the basis of a cosmopolitan political community.” (Ibid. p. 3) 3 Delanty argues for the establishment of cosmopolitan studies, which would bring together work being done on cosmopolitanism in various disciplines, such as e.g.

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anthropology and sociology. This demand reflects the significance assigned to cosmopolitanism today. He stresses that cosmopolitanism as a concept which had already been developed in antiquity would have a different focus and theoretical basis to global studies, which is linked to today’s globalisation movement, and cannot be viewed as merely a subdomain of the latter. A key difference is cosmopolitanism’s normative focus and its striving to attain an ideal in combination with its intellectual openness. Globalisation increases awareness of the necessity for cosmopolitanism with its quest for social justice; the fair organisation of societies and global challenges. (Cf. Delanty 2012, pp. 1ff.) He continues “The kinds of relationships in question are those between Self and Other and World. Self and Other relationships are worked out in the context of engagements with the wider context of the World.” (Ibid. p. 43) And this begins with “‘soft’ kinds of cosmopolitanism around curiosity/appreciation of other cultures.” (Ibid. p. 44) In terms of dispositions, it is characterised by “an orientation towards tolerance of diversity, recognition of interconnectedness and a general disposition of openness to others.” (Ibid. p. 44) 4 Cosmopolitanism has, according to Delanty, traditionally been closely linked to liberalism. They share norms such as freedom, tolerance, respect for the individual and the concept of equality. He states “Despite the turn to cultural context today and the recognition of a multiplicity of cosmopolitan projects, one should not conclude that liberalism and cosmopolitanism have entirely decoupled.” Delanty continues “The liberal legacy itself has been diverse and like cosmopolitanism it is open to different interpretations.” (Ibid. p. 7) 5 Habermas, J., “Kants Idee des ewigen Friedens: aus dem historischen Abstand von zweihundert Jahren,” in M. Lutz-Bachmann and J. Bohman (eds.), Frieden durch Recht: Kants Friedensidee und das Problem einer neuen Weltordnung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996, 7. This quote and all following originally German quotations have been translated into English by Alison Fry. 6 In this context Habermas cites e.g. the increase in ‘soft power,’ which robs subjects of their independence; structural changes in public life and the implementation of inter- and supranational institutions, declarations and policies. (Cf. ibid. pp. 15ff.) 7 Ibid. p. 18. 8 Lutz-Bachmann, M., “Kants Friedensidee und das rechtsphilosophische Konzept einer Weltrepublik,” in M. Lutz-Bachmann and J. Bohman (eds.), Frieden durch Recht: Kants Friedensidee und das Problem einer neuen Weltordnung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996, p. 25. 9 “Kant’s essay thus marks the transition from a conception of politics which was solely based on the internal conditions of a state to a political understanding which counted the economic, cultural and legal interdependency of states among the functional conditions for all political action.” In Gerhardt, V., Immanuel Kants Entwurf ‘Zum Ewigen Frieden’: eine Theorie der Politik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995, 232. 10 “The Pax Kantiana is based on rationalism and human rights and aims at a law of nations which includes all nations and enables the conflicts rights which naturally continue to be stemmed by means of contracts and controls and—where

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required—to be arbitrated by means of international cooperation und binding legal rulings.” (Ibid. 9f.) 11 Ibid. p. 7; Gerhardt quotes here from Sternberger, D., Begriff des Politischen: Der Friede als der Grund und das Merkmal und die Norm des Politischen, Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1961. 12 Gerhardt 1995, p. 20. 13 Ibid. 125. Gerhardt points out that man’s endowment with reason is not required for this but rather that “politics requires the whole person.” (Ibid. p. 125) Writing on the relationship between nature and culture in Kant’s work, Gerhardt notes “Because everything which humans discover in themselves has come into being, most of it presumably under their influence. Nature and culture are, at all events, indistinguishable when considering human behaviour.” (Ibid. p. 208) 14 Ibid. p. 19. 15 Ibid. p. 21. 16 Ibid. p. 52. 17 Gerhardt views this as a structural deficit in Kantian thinking. (Cf. ibid. p. 103) 18 Habermas 1996, p. 11. 19 Gerhardt 1995, pp. 111f. He continues “We want to know if we have the opportunity to actually achieve our self-defined aims. It is thus the interest in the successes of our actions and the resultant sense of reality which guides our attention to the natural conditions of our existence. >...@ We pay attention to the degree to which our purposes are at one with nature, discovering amazing conditions which we accept as if they were advance services on the part of nature which we cannot fail to view as anything but favourable for our practical goals.” (Ibid. p. 111) 20 Ibid. p. 119. 21 Ibid. p. 114. 22 Ibid. p. 115. “[T]his (critical) definition of history had already been developed by Kant in 1784 in his Idea. His concept is consistently defined by the supposition that there is a fundamental correspondence between natural occurrences and historical events; a correspondence which today attracts virtually no attention thanks to the humanistic focus of historical science.” (Ibid. p. 115) “The expedience of natural events thus runs seamlessly in to the purposive action of human beings since those carrying out the actions also assume the expedience of nature.” (Ibid. p. 118) He continues “Assuming that nature’s favourable state of equilibrium is preserved, human actions correspond to the context of life and their own actions compensate for nature’s deficits.” (Ibid. p. 118) 23 Ibid. p. 113. 24 Ibid. p. 106. 25 Kant makes specific proposals in this context concerning, for example, the rejection of the existence of standing armies or of war loans. He also demands a ban on intervention among nations and the renunciation of violence within states. In addition to this, in his sixth preliminary article he bars all acts which could destroy the mutual confidence between peoples. 26 Cf. Benhabib, S., “Gibt es ein Menschenrecht auf Demokratie? Jenseits von Interventionspolitik und Gleichgültigkeit,” in C. Broszies and H. Hahn (eds.),

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Globale Gerechtigkeit: Schlüsseltexte zur Debatte zwischen Partikularismus und Kosmopolitismus, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2010, p. 411. 27 When referring to Kant Chernilo talks of procedural universalism, the “proceduralisation of universalism” and of a “moral universalism”. Cf. Chernilo, D., “Cosmopolitanism and the question of universalism,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 48. 28 Chernilo comments on this “Whether we understand cosmopolitan developments as constitutive elements of our sociohistorical or institutional landscape, or we see them more as regulative ideas that are needed to defend certain principles that by definition will never be fully actualised, it is my contention that thinking in cosmopolitan terms compels us to favour a universalistic orientation.” (Ibid. p. 47) He continues “But this ultimately turns into forms of self-criticism, as the core of cosmopolitanism as an intellectual project lies in the redefinition and refinement, rather than the abandonment, of its universalistic orientation.” (Ibid. p. 47) He views universalism as “a key analytical presupposition rather than an externally imposed normative outcome of cosmopolitan approaches.” (Ibid. p. 47) This presupposes a “universalistic conception of humanity.” (Ibid. p. 48) The justification remained, however, problematic: “the justification of universalistic arguments will remain tentative and problematic.” (Ibid. p.49) 29 Cf. Benhabib, S., Selbst im Kontext: Kommunikative Ethik im Spannungsfeld von Feminismus, Kommunitarismus und Postmoderne, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995, pp. 40f. 30 “By democratic iterations I mean complex processes of public argument, deliberation and exchange through which universalistic rights claims are contested and contextualized, invoked and revoked, posited and opposed throughout legal and political institutions as well as in the associations of civil society.” In Benhabib, S., Gleichheit und Differenz: Die Würde des Menschen und die Souveränitätsansprüche der Völker im Spiegel der politischen Moderne, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013, p. 84. Iterations should, in this context, not be understood as mere repetitions. 31 Cf. ibid. p. 87. 32 Cf. Benhabib, S., Kosmopolitismus und Demokratie: eine Debatte, Frankfurt, New York: Campus Verlag, 2008, p. 25. 33 Benhabib 2010, p. 416. 34 Cf. Appiah, K. A., Cosmopolitanism. Ethics in a world of strangers, London, New York, Dublin et al.: Penguin Books, 2007b, XII. 35 “Consider this emphasis on the importance of diversity; his recognition of the irreducibly plural nature of human values; his insistence that the state has a role in promoting human flourishing, broadly construed; his effort to elaborate a notion of well-being that was at once individualist and (in ways that are sometimes overlooked) profoundly social. Finally, his robust ideal of individuality mobilizes, as we’ll see, the critical notions of autonomy and identity.” In Appiah, K. A., The Ethics of Identity, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007a, pp. 3f. 36 Appiah 2007b, XIX. 37 Cf. ibid. XIX.

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38 Mignolo’s Critical Cosmopolitanism—the term was originally coined by Rabinow (1986)—differs significantly from Delanty’s Critical Cosmopolitanism, which is based on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, viewing “Cosmopolitanism as critique.” (Delanty 2012, p. 41) Delanty emphasises the concept’s critical character. “This can be seen as a contrast to the claims of liberal cosmopolitanism and some other schools of cosmopolitan thought.” (Ibid. p. 38) Criticism is, in this context, a key component of his theory, whereby the focus is placed on emancipation, social change and moral implications within the scope of development. Key elements of this concept are openness, overcoming divisions, interaction, exchange, dialogue, transformation of the self and society and critical evaluation. “Taken together, these dimensions and characteristics of cosmopolitanism suggest a broad definition of cosmopolitanism as a condition of openness to the world and entailing self and societal transformation in light of the encounter with the Other. Central to such transformation is pluralization and the possibility of deliberation.” (Ibid. p. 41) He summarises “The term critical cosmopolitanism signals the critical and transformative nature of cosmopolitanism.” (Ibid. p. 41) The objective is “to find global solutions based on dialogue rather than on violence.” (Ibid. p. 43) In the case of Mignolo (2000) the term refers to a postcolonial critique, in particular of the concept’s eurocentrism. His criticism focuses on the hierarchical procedure from the top and the hegemonic claim of the cosmopolitan concept. Mignolo is, furthermore, concerned with an altered economy, an economy which serves people’s lives under the aspect of the “generation and regeneration of life.” He wishes to replace the principle of competition in the capitalistic economy, which leads to exploitation, with that of cooperation. See Mignolo, W. D., “De-colonial cosmopolitanism and dialogues among civilizations,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, p. 95. The task of the economy is to manage scarcity. (Cf. ibid. p. 94) 39 Ibid. p. 87. 40 Ibid. p. 87. 41 In his criticism of Kantian thought Mignolo, however, neglects its scepticism concerning a global state, for which reason Kant opts for a voluntary federation of states, whereby he indisputably assumes the sovereignty of the nation-state. 42 Ibid. p. 85. 43 The critical analysis should also include the process of globalisation, “the project of homogenizing the world under the will and desires of Western civilization.” (Ibid. p. 86) 44 Ibid. p. 87. 45 Ibid. p. 87. 46 Ibid. p. 90. 47 Mignolo, W. D., Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 11. 48 Mignolo 2012, p. 94. 49 Ibid. p. 95. 50 Ibid. p. 94.

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51

Ibid. p. 94. Ibid. p. 97. 53 Mignolo 2000, p. 22. For Mignolo ‘Modernity’ begins as early as the Renaissance and is closely interconnected with the colonialisation of the world. (Cf. Mignolo 2012, p. 95) Mignolo furthermore identifies two pillars of Western culture: the separation of human beings from nature, the foundation for control over the economy, and the separation of state from church, the foundation for control over power. The third pillar is formed by control over knowledge, which is linked to processes of subject constitution. It is in this context that he also understands the racial categorisations which give precedence to whites. (Cf. ibid. pp. 96f.) 54 Kant discusses the theory of race in three essays: “Of the Different Races of Human Beings” (ODR >1775@; CEAHE 82-97; 2:427-43), “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race” (HR >1785@; CEAHE 143-59; 8:89-106) and “On the use of teleological principles in philosophy” (ETP >1788@; CEAHE 192-218; 8:157-84). The four races (Whites, Negroes, Mongols, Indians), whose genesis he explains with pre-formed nuclei in natural structures whose development is also influenced by environmental factors, form a natural genus even if they are placed in a hierarchical order. The human genus overall has the task of executing the moral perfecting of the individual and achieving peaceful co-existence upon earth. 55 Cf. on this subject: Hill Jr., T. E. and Boxill, B., “Kant and Race,” in B. Boxill (ed.), Race and Racism, Oxford: University Press, 2000, pp. 448-471. 56 It thus discusses the custodians of the female gender whose interest lies in the perpetuation of the female gender’s lack of a voice. The concept of a universal human tribe, the human genus and a general human nature is based on the concept of race and gender. 57 Delanty 2012, pp. 3ff. 58 “It is really hypocrisy to fight to save capitalism and democracy when indeed capitalism and democracy have taken us to the world we are living in today and that developed countries and the media serving them have created and continue to endorse.” (Mignolo 2012, p. 97) 59 Chernilo 2012, p. 47. 52

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—. “Gibt es ein Menschenrecht auf Demokratie? Jenseits von Interventionspolitik und Gleichgültigkeit,” in C. Broszies and H. Hahn (eds.), Globale Gerechtigkeit: Schlüsseltexte zur Debatte zwischen Partikularismus und Kosmopolitismus, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2010, pp. 404-438. —. Gleichheit und Differenz: Die Würde des Menschen und die Souveränitätsansprüche der Völker im Spiegel der politischen Moderne, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Chernilo, D., “Cosmopolitanism and the question of universalism,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 47-59. Delanty, G., “Introduction: the emerging field of cosmopolitan studies,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 1-8. —. “The idea of critical cosmopolitanism,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 38-46. Gerhardt, V., Immanuel Kants Entwurf ‘Zum Ewigen Frieden’: eine Theorie der Politik, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995. Habermas, J., “Kants Idee des ewigen Friedens: aus dem historischen Abstand von zweihundert Jahren,” in M. Lutz-Bachmann and J. Bohman (eds.), Frieden durch Recht: Kants Friedensidee und das Problem einer neuen Weltordnung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996. Hill Jr., T. E. and Boxill, B., “Kant and Race,” in B. Boxill (ed.), Race and Racism, Oxford: University Press, 2000, pp. 448-471. Kant, I., Gesammelte Schriften. Publisher: Vol. 1-22 Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vol. 23 Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, from Vol. 24 Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Berlin 1900 u. ff. —. “Toward Perpetual Peace,” in M. J. Gregor (ed.), Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999, pp. 311-352. —. “Of the Different Races of Human Beings,” in G. Zöller and R. B. Louden (eds.), Immanuel Kant: Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, reprinted 2012, pp. 82-97. —. “Determination of the Concept of a Human Race,” in G. Zöller and R. B. Louden (eds.), Immanuel Kant: Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, reprinted 2012, pp. 143-159.

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—. “On the use of teleological principles in philosophy,” in G. Zöller and R. B. Louden (eds.), Immanuel Kant: Anthropology, History, and Education. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, reprinted 2012, pp. 192-218. Lutz-Bachmann, M., “Kants Friedensidee und das rechtsphilosophische Konzept einer Weltrepublik,” in M. Lutz-Bachmann and J. Bohman (eds.), Frieden durch Recht: Kants Friedensidee und das Problem einer neuen Weltordnung, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1996, pp. 25-44. Mignolo, W. D., Local Histories/Global Designs: Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000. —. “De-colonial cosmopolitanism and dialogues among civilizations,” in G. Delanty (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Cosmopolitan Studies, London, New York: Routledge, 2012, pp. 85-100. Sternberger, D., Begriff des Politischen: Der Friede als der Grund und das Merkmal und die Norm des Politischen, Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1961.