Kant and the Possibility of Progress: From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties 9780812252828

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Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Kant and the Possibility of Progress

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved. Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

KANT and t he

POSSIBILIT Y OF PROGRESS From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties

Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

edited by

Paul T. Wilford and Samuel A. Stoner

U n i v e r s i t y of Pe n ns y lva n i a Pr e s s P h i l a de l p h i a

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2021 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-0-8122-5282-8

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

To Richard Velkley—teacher, mentor, friend

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved. Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Contents

Introduction. Modernity and Postmodernity: Our Temporal Orientation Samuel A. Stoner and Paul T. Wilford

1

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PART I. KANT ON PROGRESS Chapter 1. Kant on Individual Moral Progress Oliver Sensen

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Chapter 2. Should We Believe in Moral Progress? Kate Moran

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Chapter 3. Respect, Moral Progress, and Imperfect Duty Jens Timmermann

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Chapter 4. Loneliness and Ambiguity in Kant’s Philosophy of History Rachel Zuckert

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Chapter 5. Kant’s Organic Religion: God, Teleology, and Progress in the Third Critique Naomi Fisher

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Chapter 6. Realizing the Ethical Community: Kant’s Religion and the Reformation of Culture Samuel A. Stoner and Paul T. Wilford

94

Chapter 7. Kant as Soothsayer: The Problem of Progress and the “Sign” of History Susan Meld Shell

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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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Contents

PART II. PROGRESS AFTER KANT Chapter 8. History, Progress, and Autonomy: Kant, Herder, and After Karl Ameriks

137

Chapter 9. Language, Embodiment, and the Supersensuous in Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation Richard L. Velkley

153

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Chapter 10. Hegel on the Conceptual Form of Philosophical History Mark Alznauer

165

Chapter 11. Relocating the Highest Good: Kierkegaard on God, Virtue, and (This-Worldly) Happiness Ryan S. Kemp

185

Chapter 12. Kant and Benjamin on Hope, History, and the Task of Interpretation C. Allen Speight

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Chapter 13. The Curious Fate of the Idea of Progress Robert B. Pippin

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Notes

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List of Contributors

283

Index

287

Acknowledgments

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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Introduction

Modernity and Postmodernity Our Temporal Orientation

Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved.

Samuel A. Stoner and Paul T. Wilford

To be modern is to be up-to-date, to be with the times, to be in fashion or à la mode, as the French might say. Etymologically, “modernity” (from the Latin adverb modo, meaning just now or recently) is that state of being or condition of just-now-ness. Modernity is the age of the perennially new. Defned negatively in contrast to antiquity and the Middle Ages, the modern epoch is positively defned by continual and ceaseless change. If the age were to stop changing, if it were to reach some kind of stasis, modernity would cease to be. On occasion it is said that we live in a postmodern age, that we live in the age that is beyond being up-to-date. According to this hypothesis, we’re past living on the cusp of the future—not because the future has arrived, not because we’ve fnally caught up with ourselves, but because we no longer expect it to arrive. We no longer anticipate a future beyond and better than the present. Yet rather than a description of our situation, the declaration that we live in a postmodern age is often pronounced in moralistic tones, as if asserting the thesis with sufcient force would make it a reality. We have ostensibly become so disillusioned with the modern age and its wicked ways that we, like the Puritan settlers in America, can declare to the Old World: “Get behind me, Satan.” And yet, in our very rejection of modernity, we remain beholden to the deep-seated mode of thought that afrms the temporality implicit in modernity’s attempts at self-orientation by what is not-yet. We still take our bearings from the new, defned as the negation of the past, and we imagine

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a future full of possibility. Te as yet unsullied prospects of what is to come serve as the standard by which we judge the present—change is the measure, present reality the measured. Years after Jean-François Lyotard announced the collapse of all meta-narratives and the dawn of our postmodern condition, we still seem uncertain as to where (and when) we stand.1 We still seek to locate ourselves by some diachronic determination, asking ourselves whether we’re on the right side of history and wondering how posterity will judge our actions—how the future will judge the present; for the judgments of our descendants are altogether righteous. Our temporal orientation remains the source of the yardstick for our collective self-understanding.2 It turns out that it is remarkably difcult to attain critical distance on this temporal orientation to the world, on this chronological mode of selfunderstanding. Living in light of the future has become second nature to us. It is so deeply interwoven in our collective habits of thought, in our shared discourse of praise and blame, that evaluation and explanation of the present often take the form of appeals to the future without explicit awareness that they do so.3 Tis volume of essays is intended as a contribution to understanding this orientation. It wrestles with the peculiar fact that modernity, having banished teleology from the realm of nature, discovers that it must employ a modifed form of teleology in order to make sense of its philosophic, scientifc, and political project.4 Even as reductive materialism explains more and more of the external world, the inquiring agent’s own activity becomes more and more opaque to the inquirer herself.5 Te premise of this volume is that Kant recognizes this problem and that he responds to it in and through an investigation of the conditions for the possibility of progress. Kant’s critical philosophy is thematically concerned with uncovering the conditions for the possibility of human experience.6 Indeed, Kant’s philosophical project as a whole can be understood as an attempt to discover the grounds of the various deployments of reason’s faculties in order to justify reason in its various specifc activities, especially in its veridical and its normative judgments.7 Tis search for foundations must be undertaken because reason is subject to an intractable drive to transcend its limits—to imagine itself capable of leaving behind its conditions and rising above the delineated domain appropriate to its operation. In order to bring philosophy down from the heavens, Kant puts reason in the dock, convening a court to scrutinize reason and to demand of reason that it justify itself and its own activity. Kant’s famous “tribunal of reason” should be understood in both the objective and subjective senses: reason plays judge, jury, prosecutor, and defendant, asking

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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Introduction

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itself by what right it performs a particular activity. Te rights of reason turn out to be powers of reason. In reason’s case, might makes right. Tat is, reason is justifed in the performance of an operation if reason can perform such a feat. But determining whether reason is capable of performing a function requires more than pointing to one successful instance of a given rational act. Consider, for example, our capacity to perform mathematical operations: successfully demonstrating one of Euclid’s propositions is insufcient evidence to count as a deduction of the capacity or a justifcation of our trust in mathematical reasoning; for reason must prove that all of the operations it performs in the mathematical demonstration are indeed its own. Tat is, reason must identify the means or, more precisely, the faculties by which it performs the operation. Reason must uncover the conditions of the possibility of apodictic judgments in mathematics. When Kant describes the Critique of Pure Reason as an exercise in self-knowledge, it is a knowledge of what is possible for human reason and on what basis human reason actualizes its possibilities. As the Critique of Pure Reason demonstrates, this means that all knowledge claims about the objective world must have a touchstone in experience. Science must not trespass the boundaries of experience. However, the operations of reason are not limited to empirical judgments or the discursive operations of scientifc reasoning. Not all the works of reason have an objective referent or adequate representation. When reason operates in a domain where there is no analogue to the successful mathematical proof, reason is justifed in extending itself beyond the limits of experience only if it does not mistake its postulations for knowledge. Kant understands himself “to have succeeded in removing all those errors that have so far put reason into dissension with itself in its nonexperiential use.”8 Accordingly, reason is justifed in the construction of ideas or formation of conceptions of totality insofar as they are adequate to the task at hand and conducive to the fulfllment of reason’s vocation—the realization of a moral world. Te question that confronts us here is the question of the grounds on which reason’s progress toward its proper telos is possible. But identifying the a priori structures of reason that secure the possibility of progress is a far cry from demonstrating its inevitability or actuality. Kant formulates the decisive question in his reply to Moses Mendelssohn’s apprehensions over the potentially misanthropic efects of refection on the spectacle of human history. Kant asks whether there are “in human nature predispositions from which one can gather that the race will always progress toward what is better and that the evil of present and past times will disappear in the good of future times?”9

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Tis question points us to the third of the three questions that Kant believed exhausted critical philosophy: What may I hope for?10 Kant’s third question runs like a guiding thread throughout this book. One of the book’s premises is that we must understand Kant’s “philosophical revolution” in the broad context of early modern philosophy in order to grasp the conceptual and historical signifcance of this question for Kant’s political-cum-philosophical project and its subsequent ramifcations for German philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We believe that situating Kant in relation to his modern predecessors illuminates the problem motivating Kant’s transcendental idealism. Te central conceit of this volume is that the whole edifce of Kant’s critical philosophy is an attempt to respond to Rousseau’s critique of the deleterious efects of modernity while preserving the emancipatory aspirations of modern philosophy and the Baconian aim of ameliorating our condition. We can come to grips with the philosophic foundations of our concern with the possibility of progress only once we recognize that Kant’s critical project is an attempt to provide new foundations for the modern project.

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In what follows, frst we provide a synoptic account of the origins of modernity in the self-conscious attempt to master nature and sketch the contours of some of the central debates in modern philosophy from Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) to Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). We intend this account of the history of early modern philosophy to introduce the problems that Kant and his followers seek to resolve. Second, we attempt to illuminate the various interwoven strands of refection that run through the thirteen essays in this volume by clarifying some of the deepest questions and themes that underlie and motivate modern German philosophy.

Mastery of Nature: Machiavelli, Bacon, and Descartes Machiavelli announced to the world, “Truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lie the error and the blame.”11 It may seem bold to suggest that Machiavelli is the origin of modernity, but the principle of acquisition without limit is given

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a robust defense not only in Te Prince but also in Discourses on Livy. Machiavelli may gesture at a revival of ancient forms of civic republicanism, but it is a renaissance of an ancient order radically transformed. For at the heart of ancient political philosophy, in both its Greek and its Roman guises, was the idea of natural limits. Tough Ciceronian exhortations were more honored in the breach than in practice, it is nevertheless the case that there existed a general consensus among ancient philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to Cicero and the Stoics that limitless acquisition was in some sense unnatural.12 One ought rather to reform one’s desire and rein in the temptation to pleonexia that lurks in the heart of every man and that gives birth to the tyrannical soul.13 Accordingly, although they are often subtle, criticisms of empire or the goal of expansion are a constant refrain in ancient authors.14 In Machiavelli, however, what matters is success: if one is efective, one is justifed—or at least escapes censure. Nature does not provide a standard for one’s actions; nothing stands in judgment over one’s deeds save posterity. In Machiavelli’s language, the most heinous deeds cannot be called virtue because they may enable “one to acquire empire, but not glory.”15 Te outcome or the projected future result is the measure, and thus the bold prince brings the measure of his deeds into being with his deed. To liberate himself from the standards of nature and of religion, man must be his own judge, his own authority, his own source of value. Machiavelli, we must remember, was a teacher, and in distinguishing himself from Savonarola, he taught the true source of man’s troubles.16 With an adequate understanding of his place in the cosmos, man may make for himself a better dwelling—the key element of which is understanding our relation to fortuna, or at least postulating a new one.17 Opposed to those who have claimed “that worldly things are so governed by fortune and by God, that men cannot correct them with their prudence, indeed that they have no remedy at all; and on account of this . . . that one need not sweat much over things but let oneself be governed by chance,” Machiavelli ofers an alternative teaching. Even though on occasion he fnds himself “in some part inclined to their opinion,” he resists the temptation to think such enervating thoughts, declaring, “Nonetheless, so that our free will not be eliminated, I judge that it might be true that fortune is arbiter of half of our actions, but also that she leaves the other half, or close to it, for us to govern.”18 Machiavelli elaborates this teaching with a suggestive metaphor. Fortuna is like those violent rivers, which when in food are unstoppable and sweep everything before them, causing havoc and destruction. One ought therefore to relate to fortuna as do those industrious and prudent men who

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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in quiet times “provide for them with dikes and dams so that when they rise later, either they go by a canal or their impetus is neither so wanton nor so damaging.” Fortune proves to be powerful only where “virtue has not been put in order.” By planning ahead and anticipating the possibilities of fortuna, one limits her destructive potential. One should take one’s bearings from the future, be active in the present, and thus control the future. Prudence is prospective—wise princes ought to be directed at limiting the range of possibilities, circumscribing the indeterminacy of the not-yet. As the Romans taught, one must have regard not only “for present troubles but also for future ones,” and “avoid these with all [one’s] industry. . . . For time sweeps everything before it and can bring with it good as well as evil and evil as well as good.”19 Given the mercurial nature of fortuna, of time, and of nature herself, it is best to take matters into one’s own hands, to rely solely on one’s own arms.20 Tat is Machiavelli’s teaching. As Francis Bacon explicitly acknowledges, he is “much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.”21 Bacon’s transformative appropriation of Machiavelli’s teaching can be encapsulated in the idea that he took the metaphor literally: fortune was nature and nature could be controlled. However, humanity needed a new tool for this new relation to nature. As its title indicates, Bacon’s New Organon is intended to replace the old organon of Aristotelian logic, for “the entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of nature is badly put together and built up and like some magnifcent structure without any foundation.”22 As Oakeshott notes, the central feature of Bacon’s new epistemology is “the sovereignty of technique.”23 Tus, in accord with Machiavelli’s emphasis on efect, Bacon declares: “Human knowledge and human power meet in one, for where the cause is not known the efect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed, and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”24 Knowing is confrmed by ruling, by having the power “to command nature in action.”25 Bacon devises what he calls his new “machine” for “the beneft of the human race.”26 As with the prohibition on empire, classical philosophy’s teaching on the relation between artifce and nature, technē and phusis, is one of moderation—with nature providing a standard, measure, or guide.27 Hence Aristotle’s observation that art perfects nature (or at least ought to).28 However, the old form of the “commerce of the mind of man with the relation of things” yielded few tangible results. As Bacon reminds us, if a tree is known by its fruit, then the scholastic and Aristotelian approaches to nature, being “barren of works,” were worthless. Bacon

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summarizes his reasons for this new approach: “Tat the state of knowledge is not prosperous nor greatly advancing and that a way must be opened for the human understanding entirely diferent from any hitherto known and other helps provided in order that the mind may exercise over the nature of things the authority which properly belongs to it.”29 Te aim of establishing the authority of mind over nature is furthered by a transformation of theological virtues, whereby faith, hope, and love (charity) are redirected toward efecting change in this world. Hence, to “cultivate truth in charity” is, according to Bacon, to recognize that “the true ends of knowledge” are “for the beneft and use of life.”30 However, “by far the greatest obstacle to the progress of science . . . [is] that men despair and think things impossible.”31 Accordingly, Bacon must prepare “men’s minds” for belief in this new science. An integral component of such preparation is “to give hope”; “for without it the rest [of Bacon’s teaching] tends rather to make men sad (by giving them a worse and a meaner opinion of things as they are than they now have, and making them more fully to feel and know the unhappiness of their own condition) than to induce any alacrity or to whet their industry.”32 Tus, Bacon’s New Organon is not only a description of the method to be employed for mastering nature, but also an account of how the minds of men must be reoriented and rehabituated in order that the project be realized. Tat is, the mind’s authority over the nature of things can only come about if authority over other men’s minds is frst achieved. Only if mankind is appropriately oriented to the future, which requires being dissatisfed with the present but hopeful of improvement, can Bacon’s project succeed. Motivation to industry is spurred by the stick of the keenness of present ills and the carrot of imagined benefts; anticipation of the future has become the expectation of some beneft. Te creative energy previously squandered on imaginary republics can become efective by imagining an abundant future full of technical marvels. Bacon’s new method requires an ambitious dream and it is precisely this that Bacon describes in what has been called the frst work of science fction—Te New Atlantis.33 When Descartes provides a mathematical method for this new science, he concurs that the new method will make us masters and possessors of nature (tacitly displacing the former master, for whom we acted as steward). Such mastery will yield innumerable benefts, and Descartes presents an almost unimaginable wish list of goods, reminiscent of the garden of delights of Bacon’s New Atlantis. According to Descartes, if we substitute a “practical philosophy” for “the speculative philosophy taught in the schools,” we will be able to “make ourselves like masters and possessors of nature. Tis is desirable not

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only for the invention of an infnity of artifces that would enable us to enjoy, without any pain, the fruits of the earth and all the goods to be found there, but also and principally for the conservation of health, which is without doubt the primary good and the foundation of all other goods of this life.”34 Trough advancements in the arts and sciences, especially medicine, Descartes foresees an era in which “we could be spared an infnity of diseases, of the body as well as of the mind, and even also perhaps the enfeeblement of old age, if we had enough knowledge of their causes.”35 With Descartes’s invention of analytic geometry, Galileo’s claim that the book of nature is written in mathematics becomes plausible and the Baconian project is joined to mathematical physics.36 Te new science thereby takes a substantial step toward greater efcacy, for the quantitative proves to be the calculable and prediction becomes possible. Atomistic reductionism works in tandem with quantifcation to focus natural science on the mathematical—the eminently knowable proves to be eminently manipulable. Successful prediction becomes the measure of knowing, and the object of knowledge is no longer the form or the what of the being, but the process or how of the becoming.

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Te Liberal Appropriation: Locke and Montesquieu on Property and Commerce In Locke’s Second Treatise of Government we learn that the world is given to the industrious and rational, who contract among themselves to escape the state of nature—that natural condition, which, though far less harsh than Hobbes had supposed, is nevertheless sufciently inhospitable to provoke the development of those human faculties needed for the transformation of stepmotherly nature through labor into useful property directed to and justifed by the preservation of life.37 But how then to justify property beyond the simple bare necessities? How can self-preservation justify acquisition without limit? For this, further innovations of convention are required; for absent the invention of money, the products of labor are subject to spoilage—and such wastefulness is tantamount to the greatest of sins, profigacy. Tankfully, mankind discovers a means for preserving the acquisition of labor beyond current use. Money is our tool for hedging against the future—that realm of uncertainty over which fortuna once ruled so capriciously without regard for men and their interests. Locke’s innovations in political economy operate in tandem with a new teaching as to the proper role of philosophy in relation to the natural sciences.

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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Introduction

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Echoing Descartes’s prescription that philosophy become practical, Locke presents philosophy in the humble role of research assistant to the great natural scientists of his age—those “master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity;” but since “everyone must not hope to be a Boyle, or a Sydenham; and in an age that produces such masters, as the great Huygenius, and the incomparable Mr. Newton, . . . ’tis ambition enough to be employed as an under-laborer in clearing ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish, that lies in the way to knowledge; which certainly had been very much more advanced in the world, if the endeavors of ingenious and industrious men had not been much cumbered with the learned but frivolous use of uncouth, afected, or unintelligible terms.”38 Philosophy appears once again in the guise of a handmaiden––but not to theology and its pursuit of eternity. Rather, philosophy is the servant of the “masters” of the new science, especially the marvel of mathematical physics.39 Philosophy now justifes itself by contributing not to the project of saving men’s souls but to the project of ameliorating their condition and assuring that science can proceed along a smooth and clear path. Locke thus furthers in both political economy and natural philosophy the Baconian aim of assuring to the mind of man authority over “the nature of things” for the relief of man’s estate.40 According to Montesquieu, science and commerce, operating in tandem, appear to ofer mankind a means of escaping not only the deprivations of natural barbarism but the harsh cruelties of despotism. Commerce, which is materially motivated, proves to have spiritual consequences, for “the history of commerce is that of communication among peoples.”41 Such communication fosters reciprocal examination and self-refection on customs, mores, manners, habits, ideas, and virtues. Commerce thereby cures men of “destructive prejudices.” Like the very act of studying Montesquieu’s Te Spirit of the Laws, commerce exposes one’s own practices to the view of others, and enables one to become aware of one’s own prejudices, which Montesquieu defnes as “what makes us ignorant of ourselves.”42 Such awareness need not rise to the level of self-conscious critical evaluation to be efcacious. Rather, “Everywhere there are gentle mores, there is commerce, and everywhere there is commerce, there are gentle mores. . . . One can say that the laws of commerce perfect mores for the same reason that these same laws ruin mores. Commerce corrupts pure mores, and this was the subject of Plato’s complaints; it polishes and softens barbarous mores, as we see every day.”43 Trough this softening or corruption of mores, the diferences between nations become less acute, and

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a principal source of hostility loses its force. In diminishing prejudice and promoting mutual dependence, “the natural efect of commerce is to lead to peace.”44 Montesquieu thus identifes in commerce an analogue to what Bacon and Descartes expected from the spread of the new natural science. In fact, according to Montesquieu, one of the principle benefts of the sciences is that they “are very useful in that they cure peoples of destructive prejudices.”45 Yet commercial society, while it might make nations more docile and pacifc, is not without its drawbacks. As Montesquieu writes: “But, if the spirit of commerce unites nations, it does not unite individuals in the same way. We see in countries where one is afected only by the spirit of commerce, there is trafc in all human activities and all moral virtues; the smallest things, those required by humanity, are done or given for money.”46

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Rousseau’s Crisis and Kant’s Critique Within two years of the publication of Te Spirit of the Laws, Rousseau began his assault on that new human type which Locke and Montesquieu had sought to promote: the industrious and ambitious go-getter––the bourgeois. Rousseau’s term of abuse would prove to have staying power (despite Hegel’s best eforts); for Rousseau had discovered that with the advent of civil society modern man was living a divided existence—preoccupied with the economic activity of the marketplace, he had neglected the foundations of political life and failed to recognize the incompatibility of individual egoism and political cohesion.47 Modern European man lacked both the natural wholeness of the noble savage and the artifcial wholeness of true citizenship. Unable to identify with the common good of the whole, motivated by his private interests, he sought his satisfaction in that social realm defned by insidious comparison and thereby sufered the irony of living only for himself but always in the eyes of others—hence Rousseau’s assault on the supposed benefts of science and technology, industry and commerce. Rather than curing destructive prejudices, as Montesquieu had hoped, modern commercial society so exacerbates human vanity that, absent correction, mankind is destined to live forever outside of himself, variously ambitious and anxious, never content with his lot, and aficted by an ineliminable inquietude. Far from the sure path of progress toward the utopian future imagined in Bacon’s New Atlantis, man’s presumed authority over nature leads only to misery––all simplicity lost in

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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pseudosophistication, all depth sacrifced to superfcial concerns and feeting pleasures. Bacon’s dream had become Rousseau’s nightmare. Te natural goodness of man, so vividly revealed to Rousseau on his return journey to Paris from visiting his friend Diderot in the fortress at Vincennes, had been terribly distorted by the arts and sciences.48 In the prominent image of his Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men, the natural core of man had been covered over with historical accretions like the statue of Glaucus covered in barnacles.49 Any adequate response to the perceived ills of the present or the anticipated ills of the future required, therefore, scraping away the historical accretions and deformations of man’s original nature. Yet what Rousseau uncovered in his discourse on inequality is that man’s nature is indeed highly fexible, subject to an “infnite diversity of laws and mores,” as Montesquieu taught. Rousseau’s discovery of perfectibilité seemed only to confrm the central teaching of his predecessor, and yet in conjunction with the discovery of originary wholeness, it raised the question of whether the malleability of human nature could be directed to wholeness. Te image of prehistorical man, man before society, provided a standard for considering and evaluating the possible infections of perfectibilité. However, all the possible remedies to contemporary ills explored by Rousseau require the most artifcial means to achieve the desired end––whether the extraordinary pretense of Jean-Jacques as tutor acting in conjunction with the Savoyard Vicar’s natural theology that defends conscience (a modern version of scholastic synderesis) or the tremendous identifcation of part with whole envisioned in the Social Contract, supported by the very diferent theology of a civil religion. Given the incompatibility of these two remedies, one wonders what hope Rousseau really had for rectifying modernity’s self-undermining form of rationality. And yet his diagnosis was, as Richard Velkley has demonstrated, the origin of the problem governing German philosophy from Kant to Heidegger.50 Te tremendous importance of Rousseau for Kant is confrmed by a striking autobiographical note found in the margins to Kant’s own copy of his early work Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime: “I myself am a researcher by inclination. I feel the entire thirst for cognition and the eager restlessness to proceed further in it, as well as the satisfaction at every acquisition. Tere was a time when I believed that this alone could constitute the honor of mankind, and I despised the rabble who knows nothing. Rousseau has set me right. Tis blinding prejudice vanishes, I learn to honor human

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beings, and I would feel by far less useful than the common laborer if I did not believe that this consideration could impart a value to all others in order to establish the rights of humanity.”51 It appears that reading Rousseau provoked a radical change in Kant’s selfunderstanding, setting him upon a new philosophical path, guided by this intimation of the priority of the practical.52 Having undergone a kind of metanoia, Kant spent the latter half of the 1760s and the 1770s in relative silence as he rethought modernity’s presuppositions and postulations, addressing the twin critics of the modern project, Rousseau and Hume, and seeking to return to the roots of that project and make good on its original intention.53 On the one hand, Kant seeks to further a prominent line of early modern epistemological inquiry into subjectivity and the relation between the certainty of the mental and the truth of the world, that is, the movement from the epistemically privileged frst-person perspective to the third-person objective perspective.54 Te desire for clear and distinct ideas, for an indubitable foundation, for apodictic certainty, and for an Archimedean point remains. Concomitantly, he also continued a line of refection on the foundations of the state, the legitimacy of sovereignty, and the coherence of representation. Hence, like Hobbes, he believes no man is obligated to that which he has not obligated himself, and yet like Rousseau he worries that if reason is silent regarding ends, then man is bereft of the one thing needful. Long before Max Weber spoke of the disenchantment of the world (die Entzauberung der Welt), the problem that reason might be merely instrumental loomed large in the minds of the most thoughtful individuals. On the other hand, Kant self-consciously returns to the beginnings of this tradition and queries its most foundational assumption—namely, the independence of man from nature and from God. Kant’s discovery of rational autonomy as moral autonomy proves to be the key to refounding modernity. Kant suggests this interpretation of his project by quoting from Bacon’s Great Instauration as the epigram to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason: “Of our own person we will say nothing. But as to the subject matter with which we are concerned, we ask that men think of it not as an opinion but as a work; and consider it erected not for any sect of ours, or for our good pleasure, but as the foundation of human utility and dignity. Each individual equally, then, may refect on it himself . . . for his own part . . . in the common interest. Further, each may well hope from our instauration that it claims nothing infnite, and nothing beyond what is mortal; for in truth it prescribes only the end of infnite errors, and this is a legitimate end.”55

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Introduction

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After years of toiling away, Kant announced to the world a comprehensive overhaul of modern philosophy, transforming epistemology, metaphysics, theology, and morality, while laying the groundwork for a rethinking of our socioeconomic and political lives as well as our historical and aesthetic modes of self-understanding. Te ambition is stupendous and yet it is directed toward realizing the original intention of modernity. It is directed to assuring that reason can guide itself, independently of nature, tradition, or revelation. It proves the self-sufciency of reason for the proper tasks of reason, for “our reason’s natural vocation.”56 With adequate self-knowledge, reason need not be self-undermining. Its activity can be directed to salutary ends, toward universal happiness (allgemeine Glückseligkeit).57 As long as reason remains on the critical path, it need not fear falling back into the anarchic turmoil of past ages with their endless controversies and fruitless debates that inevitably lead from bellicose disagreement to skepticism and then eventually to apathetic indiference.58 If reason submits to a salutary discipline, metaphysics can avoid those pitfalls that have hitherto hindered its progress, and once again claim its rightful place as queen of the sciences. Yet this bold endeavor comes at a high price, and the Critique earned Kant the sobriquet “all-destroyer” (alles Zermalmender)—and not from a hostile critic, but from a fellow Aufklärer, Moses Mendelssohn.59 To say that Kant plays for the highest stakes is to put the point rather mildly. Te demure, staid professor of logic and metaphysics, who never left his native Königsberg, was to have a profound and lasting impact on European civilization.60 As we fnd ourselves questioning the legitimacy of modernity, the sovereignty of reason, and the value of autonomy, we would do well to return to the source of these ideas, not only because knowledge of origins is integral to self-knowledge, but because the arguments put forward by Kant for the coherence, desirability, and possibility of enlightenment—famously defned as “the courage to use one’s own reason”—remain unsurpassed in their depth and subtlety. Only in light of this difcult task can we really ask if our current malaise is the product of the pursuit of progress or a failure to understand ourselves and to act in accordance with what we once understood. *

*

*

Whereas Bacon had stressed the authority of the human mind over the natural world and Descartes had proclaimed man master and possessor of nature, Kant believed man’s successful dominion over nature rested on the

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Introduction

prospects of man’s capacity for self-rule. For Kant, the foremost question is whether human reason, having elevated itself above nature, could successfully govern itself, that is, whether it can guide its own activities toward a moral purpose. Self-rule would require not only the imposition of limits but the postulation of a highest end, a unifying project for man’s endeavors. As Kant soberly observed, however, “the human being is an animal which, when it lives among others of its species, has need of a master,” but there exists no source of authority higher than himself, no court of appeal other than his own reason.61 Having destroyed the false idols of the mind—that set of beliefs and practices that rendered man dependent on something other than himself—the question became whether man was up to the task of using his freedom wisely.62 In the terms of Kant’s “What Is Enlightenment?” essay, the question was whether mankind was sufciently mature not merely to use reason as a tool or instrument but to recognize reason as the source of normative authority. Was human reason up to the challenge of believing in itself, of having faith in itself? Could reason pronounce a moral law that would, like God’s commandments of old, proclaim itself without qualifcation? In other words, could reason construct from the crooked timber of humanity an orderly dwelling, a local habitation for the fnite rational being? Kant’s philosophical project is, like Bacon’s, concerned with transforming the world, but Kant’s insistence on the priority of the practical is an insistence on the primacy of morality—evident in man’s spontaneous capacity for selfdetermination and in man’s vocation to realize the kingdom of ends. While Kant aims to efect a broad philosophical-cultural transformation, self-rule must frst be possible on the level of the individual. For Kant, responsibility and therefore morality is ultimately located in the individual; there is no abstract progress, no moral improvement of the species without individual eforts at autonomy. As Kant, following Rousseau, observes, absent the genuine reformation of the human heart, all scientifc and material progress is but “glittering misery.”63 Although born of an awesome faith in reason’s capacity to improve the lot of humanity, modern philosophy nevertheless gives rise to deeply felt suspicions about reason’s ability to advance not only our scientifc comprehension and technological prowess, but also humanity’s moral, political, and religious condition. Tese suspicions are very much still with us today. In order to confront our contemporary situation lucidly, then, we must reconsider the foundational assumptions of Kant’s critical project, his grounding of morality in the spontaneous legislative capacity of reason, and his philosophical arguments

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for the possibility of universal historical progress. We must reexamine the origins of our belief in progress and undertake a recovery of the strongest arguments for the virtue of hope. Trough his systematic writings and his practical proposals, Kant exercised a tremendous infuence not only on philosophical inquiry in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also on political, cultural, and religious practices. Kant’s philosophical innovations amounted to a watershed moment in the history of thought. Based on its account of the priority of practical reason, Kant’s philosophy announced new imperatives and engendered new hopes. All subsequent German thinkers philosophized in the wake of his “Copernican Revolution” and his radically original account of human subjectivity. Although often contesting both his premises and conclusions, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel appropriated Kant’s most groundbreaking insights and sought to address the same fundamental questions motivating Kant’s philosophical project. Later in the nineteenth century, when fgures like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche sought to break with prevailing modes of thought, they found they had to wrestle with Kant’s legacy. Tis volume of essays is organized around two principal goals. First, it examines Kant’s understanding of moral, political, religious, and theoretical progress. Second, it investigates the reactions to Kant’s legacy over the course of the subsequent two centuries of German thought, especially in the work of J. G. Herder (1744–1803), J. G. Fichte (1762–1814), G. W. F. Hegel (1770– 1831), Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), and Martin Heidegger (1889–1976). Te essays in the frst part of the volume explore the many facets of Kant’s thinking about progress, while the essays in the second part each focus on one thinker who plays a crucial role in post-Kantian German philosophy. Te two-part structure of the volume refects the central thesis of the book: that Kant inaugurates a distinctive theoretical tradition that considers the meaning of human historicity central to political philosophy. Although infuenced by forerunners such as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781) and contemporaries such as Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786), Kant foregrounds the question of progress as never before. From Te Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 to Te Confict of the Faculties in 1798, progress holds an integral place within the framework of Kant’s systematic philosophy. After Kant, amid the tumult of the Napoleonic wars, the prospect of political progress became interwoven with a diverse array of philosophical questions, such as: What are the cultural conditions of human fourishing? What constitutes

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Introduction

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a nation? Is evil intrinsic to human freedom? And how has human reason developed over time? Before long, however, the very idea of progress became suspect, and thinkers began to wonder whether progress itself might not be a false idol, the source of troubles rather than the cure for civilization’s ills. Tis volume traces the arc of this tremendous change in order to shed light on our contemporary sociopolitical, spiritual, and philosophical situation. It aims to help us face three sets of questions: (1) Do we still believe in the possibility of progress? If we do, on what grounds? If we do not, why have we lost the hope for a better future that animated previous generations? (2) Is the belief in progress necessary for the maintenance of today’s liberal democratic order? Does a cosmopolitan vision of politics ultimately depend on a faith in humanity’s gradual, asymptotic realization of that lofty aim? (3) If we no longer believe in progress, can we dispense with hope without succumbing to despair? Wrestling with such questions is necessary if we are to proceed rationally as we seek to orient ourselves in the contemporary world and plot our path forward, into the future.

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

PART I

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Kant on Progress

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Chapter 1

Kant on Individual Moral Progress

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Oliver Sensen

Is it possible for a human being to become a morally better person by his or her own efort? We ordinarily believe that we can do this, and we frequently demand it of others. But once we think about it, it is difcult to see how this is possible. On the one hand, there is the problem of free will: how exactly can one act otherwise if one believes that nature, including one’s body, is causally predetermined and therefore predictable? On the other hand, there is the problem that we do not seem to be morally good already. Progress seems to be needed, but is it really possible? Immanuel Kant addresses these problems on a very fundamental level. In this essay, I shall analyze his discussion of the problem and his solution to it. In order to do so, I shall frst sketch the problem more fully, as Kant sees it. I shall then argue that Kant’s standard solution to the problem of free will—his discussion in the Tird Antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR)—does not really address our problem. Finally, I shall argue that Kant speaks to the problem of individual moral progress in the frst section of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Religion) before analyzing the answer he gives there. I conclude that Kant’s discussion of individual moral progress is mainly interested in a practical task—that we strive to become morally better—and that the answer to the theoretical question of how this is possible remains a mystery to human beings.

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Kant on Progress

Te Problem of Individual Moral Progress

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In Kant’s moral philosophy the problem of individual moral progress arises because he seems to hold two claims. On the one hand, he believes that human beings are not already morally good. Indeed, he suggests that we have reason to believe that all human beings are evil by nature: “‘Te human being is evil,’ cannot mean anything else than that he is conscious of the moral law and yet has incorporated into his maxim the (occasional) deviation from it. ‘He is evil by nature’ simply means . . . that, according to the cognition we have of the human being through experience, he cannot be judged otherwise.”1 If we have a tendency to deviate from the moral law but are also commanded to act according to it, then there is a need for individual moral progress. On the other hand, Kant repeatedly says that—in principle—we can predict human behavior: “If we could investigate all the appearances of his power of choice down to their basis, then there would be no human action that we could not predict with certainty.”2 In fact, Kant claims that we can predict an action “with as much certainty as a lunar or solar eclipse.”3 If all human beings are evil by nature and if their actions are causally predetermined in a way that one can in principle predict their behavior, then how can a human being ever make moral progress in such a way that she is responsible for the progress that she makes? It could be that all human beings by nature will become morally better persons, for example, that in maturing, they will gradually become better able to follow the moral law for its own sake. However, this does not seem to be something that an agent would be responsible for or anything that would be in her power. Is it possible for an individual to better herself?

Te Tird Antinomy: An Insufcient Solution One might think that Kant solves this problem in the resolution to CPR’s Tird Antinomy. Tere, Kant wants to argue that it is at least not contradictory to think that freedom and determinism are compatible and that they can hold for the one and “very same efect.”4 If the Tird Antinomy shows that freedom does not contradict the causal determinism of nature, then it seems that this would also explain how individual moral progress is conceivable. However, I shall argue that the Tird Antinomy does not attempt to show that moral progress is consistent with the idea of causal predeterminism and that Kant addresses a diferent problem in this section of CPR.

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Kant on Individual Moral Progress

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Whatever the solution to the problem of freedom and determinism in the Tird Antinomy is, it is important to emphasize that Kant never denies that the world as we experience it in space and time, including our bodies and brains, is causally predetermined: “Te correctness of the principle of the thoroughgoing connection of all occurrences in the world of sense according to invariable natural laws is already confrmed as a principle of the transcendental analytic and will sufer no violation.”5 Furthermore, as I have noted above, Kant also holds that our actions can in principle be predicted. But if our actions can be predicted, how can agents morally better themselves of their own accord? Te standard view is that Kant resolves the confict between freedom and determinism by arguing that the phenomenal realm of sense-experience is causally determined, while maintaining that rational agents are part of a diferent, noumenal realm in which they are free and can decide otherwise.6 However, this solution does not seem to work even as an interpretation of the Tird Antinomy. Tere are problems internal to the text itself that prevent this solution, as well as external problems concerning the solution’s plausibility. Te main internal problem is that—according to Kant—only the phenomenal and not the noumenal realm is in space and time. However, if the agent is supposed not to be part of the phenomenal world, but rather a noumenal entity, how could the agent decide otherwise? To decide otherwise seems to be a form of change, and change seems to presuppose time. But as we have seen, the noumenal realm cannot be temporal. Tus, a noumenal rational agent could not decide otherwise. But even if there is a way to explain how a nontemporal agent could change, there are at least two external problems that signifcantly raise the cost of adopting the standard interpretation, according to which the Tird Antinomy explains the possibility of individual moral progress. Te frst external problem is that any free action seems to change the past. If, for instance, my noumenal self freely decides to get up from the chair, the past would have to have been diferent. Tis is because—according to the initial stipulation—one could predict a behavior if one could know the agent deep down. Looking at all the sensible conditions, including the state of the body and one’s desires and beliefs, one should in principle be able to predict an agent’s action. If the prediction is that an hour from now, I will remain seated, but then the noumenal self decides to stand up, this action too would have to be predictable looking at the sensible conditions. A free decision of the noumenal self would seem to entail a change to the sensible conditions that led up to it. In this way,

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Kant on Progress

a free action seems to alter the past. Tis is a highly implausible claim, and it raises the cost of the interpretation of the Tird Antinomy as an account of the possibility of individual moral progress signifcantly. A second external problem is that the noumenal self is not something that is available in introspection. Our inner sense, to which refection and conscious deliberation belongs, is in time and is, therefore, causally determined. If a noumenal self is not in time, then it is not something that is available to our conscious refection. A free action would therefore feel as if it were being handed down from outside our awareness and conscious control. It is not clear that this is the kind of freedom we are after ordinarily, and this too would raise the cost of adopting an interpretation of the Tird Antinomy as an account of the possibility of individual moral progress. Given the internal and external problems that confront an interpretation of the Tird Antinomy as an attempt to explain how individual moral progress is possible, I believe that we should have a second look at whether Kant really seeks to ofer such an explanation. Te interpretation in question makes two assumptions, both of which are in tension with what Kant actually says. Te frst assumption is that Kant conceives of freedom as the ability to do otherwise, that is, as an independence from the causal determinants of nature that allows one to act diferently from those determinants. Te second assumption is that Kant sees the “noumenal self ” as the thing that makes freedom possible. I believe that we should change both assumptions. First of all, Kant does not defne freedom as the ability to do otherwise, but in the following way: “By freedom in the cosmological sense . . . I understand the faculty of beginning a state from itself, the causality of which does not in turn stand under another cause determining it in time according with the law of nature.”7 Tis is a “frst cause” or unmoved mover conception of freedom that is grounded in the idea of “a frst mover . . . i.e., a freely acting cause, which began this series of states frst and from itself.”8 Signifcantly, this defnition does not include the claim that one could act otherwise. It merely says that something, for example, the Big Bang, is the frst cause (of nature) without being caused itself (by anything in nature). But it does not include the claim that the Big Bang had a choice or could have acted otherwise. Tis is important because in CPR, Kant’s concern is whether human beings can be a frst cause. Second, Kant argues that it is an intelligible character and not a noumenal self that makes cosmological freedom possible. What does he mean by an intelligible character? Kant defnes a character as a law of causality: “But every

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Kant on Individual Moral Progress

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efective cause must have a character, i.e., a law of its causality, without which it would not be a cause at all.”9 He defnes “intelligible” in the following way: “I call intelligible that in an object of sense which is not itself appearance.”10 If one puts both defnitions together, then Kant’s conception of cosmological freedom seems to involve the claim that a human being can be an uncaused cause in virtue of having a law of causality that can be discerned in experience, but does not itself arise out of appearances. What kind of experience is that, and what more concretely is the intelligible character? Te intelligible character Kant has in mind here is the moral law: “Now that this reason has causality, or that we can at least represent something of the sort in it, is clear from the imperatives that we propose as rules to our powers of execution in everything practical.”11 Te moral law is precisely a law of causality that has efects in the sensible world without itself arising out of the sensible world. It is this law and its ground, pure reason, that are said to be outside time and unchanging: “Reason is not afected at all by that sensibility . . . it does not alter . . . in it no state precedes that determines the following one . . . is present to all the actions of human beings in all conditions of time, and is one and the same, but it is not itself in time, and never enters into any new state in which it previously was not.”12 Pure reason is the source of the moral law: “Reason does not give in to those grounds which are empirically given . . . but with complete spontaneity it makes its own order according to ideas.”13 Ultimately, then, the moral law explains how a human being can be a frst cause. If one does not give in to temptations, but follows what is morally required simply because it is required, then one can cause an action in the sensible world (e.g., not lying), without the cause of this action (the moral law) being itself caused by nature. Tis solution also explains how Kant can hold that one and the same action can be free, causally predetermined, and predictable at the same time. Te solution to the question of how one and the same action can be free and predictable is that an action that is based on an a priori law can be predicted, but is at the same time caused by something that does not arise out of the sensible realm (the a priori law). For, if I know you deep down and know that you will refuse a bribe for moral reasons, your action is caused by something outside of sensible desires, but still predictable. However, this solution to the problem of the relationship between freedom and determinism does not help us address the question of how individual moral progress is possible. Since Kant does not—in the frst instance—talk about the ability to act otherwise, the possibility of the freedom he argues for in CPR does not explain how individuals can better themselves. In CPR, Kant

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talks as if every action is causally predetermined and can be predicted. If, as the Religion argues, human beings are by nature evil, and if all of their actions can in principle be predicted, then it is still not clear how individual moral progress is possible. In order to address this issue, we must turn to Kant’s Religion.

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Kant’s Argument in the Religion In the Religion, Kant seems to introduce a new conception of freedom. He is no longer concerned with (cosmological) freedom of the will (Wille). Instead, he focuses on the freedom of choice (Willkür). In his mature works, Kant identifes the will with practical reason and characterizes practical reason as the faculty that prescribes the moral law to human beings.14 Further, Kant argues that the will is free if it is not itself causally determined by sensible nature, for example, inclinations, but brings forth the law autonomously, out of itself. Tough the will is prior to our consciousness, its law might be experienced in introspection as something akin to a bad or warning conscience.15 Unlike the will, choice is a process that is experienced in introspection. In the process of choice, our faculty “stands between its a priori principle, which is formal, and its a posteriori incentive, which is material, as at a crossroads.”16 Kant’s claim in the Religion is that human beings by nature have a tendency to subordinate the moral law to their inclinations.17 We are willing to act morally only for as long as we do not have to sacrifce too much of what we want. Moral progress consists in changing one’s basic maxim in order to subordinate the inclinations to the moral law. But given that Kant confrmed in CPR that one’s actions are causally predetermined and can be predicted, why should one think that it is possible for an individual to change one’s basic maxim? Kant’s answer to this question depends on a version of his famous claim that “Ought Implies Can.” Te moral law demands compliance, and Kant seems to argue that this demand implies that one is capable of following it: “For if the moral law commands that we ought to be better human beings now, it inescapably follows that we must be capable of being better human beings.”18 However, one can ask whether it is really true that an “Ought” implies “Can.” We all know situations when we felt that we should do something, for example, help people in need, when in fact we could not do so. Kant himself acknowledges this phenomenon as a conscience that is too strong.19 So, why should we think that “Ought Implies Can” is a valid principle? Does Kant think that it is?

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Kant seems to use the principle in two diferent applications, and this raises an additional question of which of these Kant has in mind when he discusses individual moral progress in the Religion. Te frst way that Kant utilizes the “Ought Implies Can” principle relies on a modus tollens argument: If I ought, then I can. I cannot. Terefore, I ought not.

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Kant’s general idea, here, is that a moral theory cannot require something of an individual that the individual cannot (physically) do: “People are always preaching about what ought to be done, and nobody thinks about whether it can be done. . . . Consideration of rules is useless if one cannot make man ready to follow them.”20 Tis is a requirement about what an ethical theory can demand of someone. If one (physically) cannot do something, then it cannot be commanded: “Tus a man, for example, has no obligation to stop hiccupping, for it is not in his power.”21 What is important to note, however, is that in this case, “Ought Implies Can” is not an axiom that is by itself plausible and in itself justifed. Rather, the principle is the conclusion of an intuitive thought: it is pointless to demand something that one cannot do. Te second way that Kant utilizes the “Ought Implies Can” principle relies on a modus ponens argument: If I ought, then I can. I (have a sense that I) ought. Terefore, (I have a sense that) I can. Kant uses this version of “Ought Implies Can” in the famous gallows example from the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR).22 Te point of the gallows example is to show that we can cognize freedom from the demands of the moral law. In order to show this, Kant presents a thought experiment in which no inclination speaks in favor of a moral action. In the example, a prince demands of you that you give false testimony against a man you know to be innocent. If you give false testimony, you will be rewarded, and you will earn favor with the prince. If you refuse to give false testimony, however, you will be punished and lose everything that is dear to you. In this example, no inclination speaks in favor of refusing to give false testimony. However, Kant believes that we are all aware that this action is morally wrong. Te accused

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Kant on Progress

is innocent, after all, and the accusations against him are unjust. Accordingly, one’s awareness of the moral demand itself makes one aware that one could refuse to give false testimony. And if freedom is understood as acting independently of one’s inclinations, the moral demand makes one aware that one could act freely: “He judges, therefore, that he can do something because he is aware that he ought to do it and cognizes freedom within him, which, without the moral law, would have remained unknown to him.”23 Te moral Ought gives one a sense that one can act accordingly. If this inference seems plausible, however, it is important to realize that here again, “Ought Implies Can” is not a self-evident axiom. To the contrary, Kant’s example indicates that the principle’s plausibility is grounded in a psychological sense. If I have no desire to act in a certain way but recognize that I ought to perform the action, then I have a psychological sense that I could act in this way. Tis is why “Ought Implies Can” is plausible in the context of the gallows example. But this does not justify the general validity of “Ought Implies Can” as an axiom that can be applied in all contexts. Accordingly, one must look at the specifc context of Kant’s use of this principle in the Religion in order to determine whether it is plausible. Kant’s use of “Ought Implies Can” in the Religion creates two problems for his views on individual moral progress. Te frst problem is that Kant’s use of “Ought Implies Can” in the Religion seems to be diferent from both of the plausible uses of this principle discussed above. Kant does not use the modus tollens argument because he does not want to establish the negative conclusion that we cannot become morally better people. Because Kant wants to establish the positive conclusion that it is possible for an individual to better himself, it seems clear the Religion’s use of “Ought Implies Can” seems to be derived from a modus ponens argument. However, it is important to emphasize that the argument Kant needs in the Religion is diferent from the one he employs in the gallows example. In the latter example, he was only concerned with a psychological sense that one can act otherwise, and in this context, it is not important whether one can, metaphysically, act diferently: “Its power of execution may be as it may.”24 However, in the Religion, Kant’s concern seems to be the deeper, metaphysical question of whether one can act diferently and become a better moral person, not just the psychological question of whether one believes this is possible. Te second problem is that Kant cannot simply use “Ought Implies Can” as an established axiom. I have argued that in the other contexts in which Kant uses “Ought Implies Can,” this principle is the conclusion of an inference from a plausible intuition and not a self-evident

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axiom. Further, if one believes in a causal predeterminism, a moral demand by itself would not show that one can act otherwise.25 Like a conscience that is too strong, the moral demand might be impossible to fulfll. Not surprisingly, Kant himself seems to be aware of these problems. If one looks carefully at his argument, Kant does not really seem to claim that “Ought Implies Can.” Instead, he seems to argue for a weaker claim that “Ought” only implies “hope that I can.” In his fnal refection on the matter in the Religion, Kant seems to think not that we know that we can become better human beings morally, but that we must hope that we can because the moral demand states that we should strive to be better: “Yet he must be able to hope that, by the exertion of his own power, he will attain to the road that leads in that direction, as indicated to him by a fundamentally improved disposition. For he ought to become a good human being.”26 Ultimately, then, Kant’s Religion does not seem to give up the view that our actions are causally predetermined or the view that one could, in principle, predict human actions if one knew the agent deep down. Tis explains why Kant suggests that we might need divine intervention in order to acquire a morally better disposition: “Granted that some supernatural cooperation is also needed.”27 In this way, Kant seems to acknowledge that we cannot imagine how an agent could change by her own eforts.

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Te Strength of Kant’s Argument Where does this leave us? How strong is Kant’s claim? I will argue that Kant puts forward a practical rather than a theoretical argument. What is important to Kant is that we do in fact strive to become better moral persons, and that we shape our will for future actions. In order to strive, the only thing that is needed is that it might be possible that one could become a better human being. On the one hand, one does not need to know how it is possible. In contemporary philosophy, one might call this approach a “cognitive closure” account.28 It might be forever inaccessible to us how an agent could act otherwise, but as long as there is a vague sense that it might be possible—maybe, as Kant thought, with the help of divine intervention—the agent does not have to regard his or her own efort as futile. On the other hand, it seems to me that Kant is less concerned with how individual moral progress comes about than he is with the moral progress we make. If Kant’s aim was to argue that human beings are not merely pushed around by the forces of nature, then he

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is less concerned with whether humans have the ability to do otherwise than he is with the possibility that there could be determination independently of sensible inclinations. As I have already argued, Kant explains this possibility in CPR, where an action caused by the moral law is free in this sense even if it can be predicted. Te fact that Kant refers to divine intervention as a necessary ingredient of becoming a better moral person is further evidence that Kant does not intend to establish that one could act otherwise all by oneself. What is important is only that one does act morally. Kant admits the frst point, that we have a cognitive closure regarding the cause of our actions, when he says that for our theoretical understanding the ultimate reason why we act remains “inscrutable.”29 On the assumption that human beings are by nature evil, one must have a change of heart in order to become a morally better person. We ought to change the maxim that subordinates the moral law to the inclinations. But whether such change is possible is inscrutable for our theoretical understanding. Further, it is impossible for us to understand how the mechanism of such a change could work. Every decision consists in the adoption of a maxim: “Freedom of the power of choice has the characteristic, entirely peculiar to it, that it cannot be determined to action through any incentive except in so far as the human being has incorporated it into his maxim.”30 But what happens in the moment we adopt such a maxim? Hume had argued that we can only imagine two possibilities: either the adoption of a new proposal is causally predetermined by a desire, or it is random.31 You carefully study the situation, you weigh the pros and cons. But what happens in the moment you put your foot down and decide? Was there a cause (e.g., fatigue, impatience, etc.) that made you stop deliberating, or was it just a random event? Kant agrees that this is a problem for our understanding of what goes on: “Tat the frst subjective ground of the adoption of moral maxims is inscrutable can be seen provisionally from this: Since the adoption is free, its ground (e.g., why I have adopted an evil maxim and not a good one instead) must not be sought in any incentive of nature, but always again in a maxim . . . without ever being able to come to the frst ground.”32 So, on one hand, we cannot imagine how we could have a change of heart; on the other, morality demands that this is possible: “But this subjective ground must, in turn, itself always be a deed of freedom (for otherwise the use or abuse of the human being’s power of choice with respect to the moral law could not be imputed to him . . .).”33 Kant’s solution can be read as a conceptual analysis of the conception of responsibility, or a search for the conditions of its possibility. If we want to hold someone responsible, we have to assume

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Kant on Individual Moral Progress

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that a change of heart is possible. In addition, the moral law commands that we do strive to become better morally. However, it is unintelligible how the mechanism of such a change would even work, and we do not know that it is possible. But because of the moral demand, we hope that it can be achieved. Te second point, and the conclusion we should draw from this, is that Kant does not want to argue that we can have theoretical knowledge of how moral progress is possible, but rather that the question of the possibility of individual moral progress only admits of a practical solution. Tere are different ways to understand what it could mean to ofer a practical solution. One way is to claim a practical solution ofers theoretical knowledge based on practical premises. An example would be if one could establish the existence of God because of the moral demand. Another way is to claim that practical knowledge refers to assumptions to which one is entitled “in order to act.”34 If one could know that a change of heart is impossible, then Kant would have to hold—in line with the modus tollens version of “Ought Implies Can”—that a change of heart could not be commanded. But if it is not ruled out completely that such a change could come about—even if it needs divine assistance— then we are justifed in pursuing morality. We are justifed in assuming this for practical purposes, that is, in order to act. Ultimately, Kant’s ethics is forward-looking. Te point is not that we need to fnd out whether we acted morally yesterday, but that we shape our will for future actions.35 As long as it is proven that it is not impossible—there might be divine intervention—we should strive to become morally better people.

Conclusion In Kant’s moral philosophy, it remains a mystery how there could be individual moral progress. Kant believes that human beings are by nature immoral, and that human behavior can, in principle, be predicted. I have argued that Kant’s main account of how freedom and determinism can hold for one and the same action in CPR’s Tird Antinomy does not solve the problem of individual moral progress. Kant turns to this problem in his Religion, but he does not solve the problem there either. He admits that the question remains inscrutable for theoretical reason, and what remains in the end is the command that we should strive to become better human beings.

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Chapter 2

Should We Believe in Moral Progress?

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Kate Moran

Often, when one encounters Kant’s remarks about moral striving and moral progress, one fnds pessimism intertwined with optimism. Observations about radical evil, natural competitiveness, and vainglory rest side by side with commitments to autonomy, moral reform, and the improving efects of moral education, to take just a few examples. Tat Kant should be both pessimistic and optimistic about the possibility of progress is perhaps not such a great surprise. It refects in certain respects the dual nature of humanity as such, a humanity that is simultaneously sensible and intellectual, susceptible to inclination and autonomous. My aim in this essay is to begin to untangle these strands of optimism and pessimism in order to achieve a clearer picture of Kant’s stance toward the possibility of moral progress, both in the individual and in the moral community. Te question is a large and difcult one, and I cannot pretend to settle every aspect of it defnitively in this space. Nevertheless, I hope to shed light on parts of the question by considering the doxastic attitudes appropriate to moral progress in Kant’s theory. What, on Kant’s view, can we know or believe about moral progress and the possibility of moral progress? And what should we believe about our own moral progress and the progress of others? To examine these questions, this essay proceeds as follows. In the frst section, I survey Kant’s account of the doxastic attitudes of knowledge and belief listed above. In the course of that discussion, it will be particularly important to attend to the diferent nonepistemic grounds for belief that Kant considers. Tese will reemerge in diferent ways in the remainder of the discussion. In the second

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section, I consider Kant’s stance toward progress and its possibility in one’s own case. In the third section, I consider Kant’s stance toward the progress of the moral community taken as a whole, and in the fourth section I consider what we can and ought to believe about moral progress when it comes to individual members of the moral community.

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Knowledge and Belief in Kant In order to address these issues, it will frst be important to detail the differences between the various forms of assent or “holding to be true” (fürwahrhalten) that Kant outlines in his published texts and lectures. Kant’s most discussed categorization of these various forms of assent appears in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), in the Canon of Pure Reason, but useful complementary discussions appear in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ) and in the lectures on logic.1 According to Kant, “having an opinion (meinen) is taking something to be true with the consciousness that it is subjectively as well as objectively insufcient.”2 Believing (glauben), Kant says, occurs when taking-to-be-true “is only subjectively sufcient and is at the same time held to be objectively insufcient.”3 Finally, Kant characterizes knowledge (wissen) as assent that is both subjectively and objectively sufcient.4 Naturally, this leads to a question about how Kant understands these notions of objective and subjective sufciency. Kant does not, to my knowledge, provide an explicit defnition of the frst, and he seems to be operating with two notions of the latter. When it comes to objective sufciency of knowledge, we may be tempted to think that this increases or diminishes with sufcient empirical evidence. Certainly, some things that Kant says point in this direction. Kant remarks that “matters of opinion” (characterized by subjective and objective insufciency) “are always objects of an at least intrinsically possible experiential cognition,” suggesting that were we to have more evidence, or the capacity to gather that evidence, opinion could be converted into knowledge.5 Andrew Chignell thus describes Kantian objective sufciency in terms of “sufcient objective grounds,” and claims that these “typically consist of perceptual, memorial, and introspective states, as well as other sufcient assents that we already hold.”6 But Kant’s insistence that objects of opinion should be objects of possible experience has less to do with his understanding of objective sufciency than it does with the fact that the notion of an opinion based on pure reason would

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be nonsensical. If something were to be cognized a priori, it would carry with it absolute necessity and “complete certainty,” thus ruling out the possibility of having insufcient objective or subjective grounds.7 So objective sufciency will depend either on sufcient experiential grounds or on pure reason, which, of course, yields “complete certainty.”8 (Presumably, these would be included in the “other sufcient assents” that Chignell mentions above.) As the Jäsche Logic puts it, knowledge or “holding to be true based on a ground of cognition that is objectively as well as subjectively sufcient . . . is either empirical or rational, accordingly as it is grounded either on experience—one’s own as well as that communicated by others—or on reason.”9 But recall that, for Kant, knowledge requires both objective and subjective sufciency. What does Kant have in mind when he refers to subjective sufciency? Here, I will follow Chignell in identifying two senses of subjective sufciency in Kant’s discussion. Te frst of these—associated with objective suffciency and thus knowledge—concerns our position relative to the objective grounds of knowledge and our ability to assent to a proposition from that position. In CPR and the lectures on logic, this type of subjective sufciency is often associated with whether or how much a person would be willing to wager or bet on the proposition’s being true. However, it is the second sense of subjective sufciency with which the bulk of our discussion here is concerned. Tis is the sense of subjective suffciency associated with belief (glauben). Belief is characterized by a lack of objective sufciency, so the subjective sufciency associated with it will not have to do with our evidential position or ability to cite objective grounds. Instead of an appeal to objective grounds, the subjective sufciency associated with belief appeals to grounds that Chignell calls “nonepistemic merits.” A nonepistemic merit is “a property of an assent that makes it valuable or desirable for a subject—given his or her needs, interests, and goals—but which does not do so by way of directly indicating that the assent is true.”10 Now, of course, not every nonepistemic merit is strong enough to yield subjective sufciency. Merely wanting something to be true, in other words, does not generate subjective sufciency.11 We should also note an important but easily overlooked point, namely that belief only becomes applicable in those cases in which knowledge is silent; that is, belief applies only in those cases in which we lack objective sufciency. Still, Kant thinks that “nonepistemic merits” do rise to the level of subjective sufciency in three kinds of cases.12 Te frst of these are instances of “practical belief,” in which a person needs to assent to a proposition in order

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to be able to act. Kant’s most famous example in this regard is that of a doctor who must make a diagnosis with insufcient evidence in order to treat a patient. Second, there are instances of so-called “doctrinal belief,” which Kant describes as an “analogue” of practical belief in the sphere of theoretical judgment. I set both aside here in order to examine the third case in which nonepistemic merits rise to the level of subjective sufciency, namely the case of moral belief or faith. Crucially, the subjective sufciency associated with moral belief stems from our awareness of duty, typically from the duty to pursue the highest good, defned as that state of afairs in which maximal virtue is paired with the most happiness consistent with such virtue.13 In this sense, moral belief is not quite like the belief that the doctor provisionally adopts in order to treat a patient. Rather, moral belief has to do with the fundamental presuppositions that we must take to be true in order to fulfll our moral duty at all. Kant is, in other words, ofering a kind of practical transcendental argument—moral belief is a condition of the possibility of the recognition of duty and our ability to act from a recognition of duty. As the Blomberg lecture notes put it, to suspend moral belief would be to “suspend and nullify all universal and necessary laws of the practical will.”14 In the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR), Kant similarly refers to the “[practical] impossibility” of acting from duty while simultaneously denying, or perhaps even doubting, the postulates.15 We should note that, as such, moral belief arises from a subjective and practical standpoint. We thus make a mistake if we allow ourselves to talk about the ends and conditions associated with moral belief as if these were theoretical entities. Te subjective sufciency associated with moral belief stems, as Kant puts it, from a “need, arising from reason”—specifcally, from a need arising from pure practical reason.16 In what follows, I shall aim to apply the preceding discussion of Kant’s account of knowledge and belief to the question of moral progress—both in one’s own case and in the case of others. Let us begin by examining what we might know or believe about moral progress in one’s own case.

Personal Progress Given what has already been said about how Kant understands knowledge— that is, as a holding-to-be-true that is both objectively and subjectively sufcient, it is striking that Kant explicitly asserts in the Preface to the CPrR that

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we have knowledge—albeit practical knowledge, via the moral law—of our own freedom. Indeed, it is the only one of the “ideas of speculative reason . . . which we know a priori.”17 Tat subjective sufciency should attach to our awareness of the moral law and freedom is not a great surprise. Since Kant’s view is that we, as rational and autonomous agents, give ourselves the moral law, we would seem to have very frm grounds for subjective sufciency in this regard. But why suggest that freedom and the moral law carry with them objective sufciency as well? Te answer has to do with the fact that the moral law that we give ourselves is objectively and necessarily valid. In other words, we are the authors of the moral law that applies necessarily and equally to all rational agents, and since the moral law and freedom mutually imply one another, the subjective and objective sufciency that applies to our awareness of duty under the moral law applies equally to freedom. As Kant elaborates in the Preface to the CPrR, “Te concept of freedom, insofar as its reality is proved by an apodictic law of practical reason, constitutes the keystone of the whole structure of a system of pure reason, even of speculative reason; and all other concepts (those of God and immortality), which as mere ideas remain without support in the latter, now attach themselves to this concept and with it and by means of it get stability and objective reality, that is, their possibility is proved by this: that freedom is real, for this idea reveals itself through the moral law.”18 Kant’s claim here that we can have practical knowledge of our own freedom by way of knowledge of our obligation under the moral law yields an important result when it comes to the discussion of progress. Specifcally, insofar as we recognize the bindingness of the moral law, we also have practical knowledge of our capacity for progress. Tis observation is no small part of Kant’s many moments of optimism—evident, for example, in Kant’s account of the promise of moral education and his refections on the possibility of a radical change of heart in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Religion)—all of which are rooted in the central Kantian commitment to autonomy and our knowledge of the ever-present possibility of moral progress. Unfortunately, retrospective knowledge regarding whether one has successfully made moral progress is impossible. Tis is true, in part, because in order to correctly gauge whether we had made moral progress, we would need to know our motives. But this, on Kant’s view, is impossible. Even if we successfully act according to the moral law, we can never be sure that we are acting—or acting completely—out of the motive of duty. As Kant remarks in the Doctrine of Virtue, “Te depths of the human heart are unfathomable.

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Who knows himself well enough to say, when he feels the incentive to fulfll his duty, whether it proceeds entirely from the representation of the law or whether there are not many other sensible impulses contributing to it that look to one’s advantage (or to avoiding what is detrimental) and that, in other circumstances, could just as well serve vice?”19 However, not only can we never be sure of our motives in performing an action that is in accord with what the moral law prescribes, but we also have a tendency to engage in moral self-deception. We do this by falsely diminishing the strictness of the moral law in our own minds—we have “a propensity to rationalize against those strict laws of duty and to cast doubt on their validity, or at least their purity and strictness and, where possible, to make them better suited to our wishes and inclinations.”20 Conversely, we have a tendency to deceive ourselves about having lived up to the demands of morality when in fact we have fallen short or could, at least, have done much more. Included in this tendency is the propensity to overrate our motives and the tendency to congratulate ourselves inappropriately—for example, for acts of benefcence that were easy to perform, or that may have only corrected an existing injustice.21 What is more, Kant seems at times to suggest that we can know that perfection is impossible for us in this life. So, for example, in the Doctrine of Virtue, he remarks that “[Moral perfection] consists subjectively in the purity (puritas moralis) of one’s disposition to duty, namely, in the law being by itself alone the incentive, even without the admixture of aims derived from sensibility, and in actions being done not only in conformity with duty but also from duty. . . . But a human being’s striving after this end always remains only a progress from one perfection to another.”22 Kant adds that the duty to strive toward moral perfection is “narrow and perfect in terms of its quality,” but “wide and imperfect in terms of its degree, because of the frailty (fragilitas) of human nature.”23 Te perpetual striving associated with the duty to work toward moral perfection would thus appear to be a simple function of our sensibility: the fact of inclination means both that we can never be assured of our progress because of the obscurity of our motives, and because the risk of “backsliding” is ever-present. Considered from the perspective of the sensible agent striving to be virtuous in time, one’s striving toward moral perfection is thus never complete. But Kant sometimes seems to be saying something more than just that there is always a danger of moral backsliding. At times, he suggests that moral perfection is impossible simply because we have a sensible nature. For example, in his argument for the postulate of the immortality of the soul in the CPrR,

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he says that “complete conformity of the will with the moral law is, however, holiness, a perfection of which no rational being of the sensible world is capable at any moment of his existence.”24 Te scope and strength of the assertion are puzzling. To be sure, knowledge or certainty of complete conformity of one’s will with the moral law at any moment is impossible. But why couldn’t human will be in complete conformity with the moral law at some point, even if only for a moment, even without being aware of it? Perhaps the answer has to do with Kant’s aims in this particular passage. In particular, in this section of CPrR, Kant is interested in providing an argument for the immortality of the soul. Roughly, his argument is that the moral law and the highest good require complete conformity of the will to the laws of morality. But, he argues, this is impossible for sensible agents at any moment in their existence. Tese two statements leave Kant with a practical antinomy that he resolves by postulating an afterlife and an immortal soul. We must, he argues, postulate such an eternal existence so that agents can strive for a perfection that is unattainable in this life. Still, even considered from the perspective of his argument regarding the postulate of immortality, the claim seems stronger than necessary. All Kant would seem to need to say is that no rational and sensible being is capable of achieving and sustaining moral perfection in this life, as long as she is sensible—something like the point about “backsliding” mentioned earlier. But even this more modest claim seems at times to be contradicted by Kant’s own statements, for example of the “change of heart” in the Religion, according to which thoroughgoing moral reform is actually possible.25 Much of the murkiness surrounding the question of moral reform and moral progress has to do with the phenomenal—and specifcally temporal— nature of human experience and moral striving. Te change of heart, if it does take place, takes place outside of time, while our experience of moral striving takes place in time.26 Ultimately, then, Kant is licensed only to say that while we know we are capable of moral progress, the structure of phenomenal experience makes it the case that we can never have knowledge of having made progress, since our own motives and the future are obscure to us. And, indeed, Kant says something much like this in the Religion, arguing that we can at least hope that we might make moral progress: “Assurance of this [transformation] cannot of course be attained by the human being naturally, neither via immediate consciousness nor via the evidence of the life he has hitherto led, for the depths of his own heart (the subjective frst ground of his maxims) are to him inscrutable. Yet he must be able to hope that, by the exertion of his own power,

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Should We Believe in Moral Progress?

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he will attain to the road that leads in that direction, as indicated to him by a fundamentally improved disposition.”27 And, indeed, “complete conformity of dispositions with the moral law” must be possible, since it is itself the “supreme condition” of the highest good, which Kant argues must be possible.28 But the preceding discussion still leaves us with an important and as yet unresolved question about the attitude that we should adopt with regard to our own moral progress as temporal, embodied beings. To review where we stand: On the one hand, we have practical knowledge of our own autonomy and thus have practical knowledge of a capacity for virtue and moral progress. On the other, we are all too well acquainted with our own sensible nature and the constant danger it poses with respect to virtue. Should we believe in the possibility of progress in our own case? And, if we think we have made individual moral progress, how should we evaluate the progress we seem to have made? Kant’s answer to the frst question is straightforward. We have practical knowledge of our own capacity for morality, and we should not allow empirical evidence regarding our sensible nature to undermine or cast doubt on this knowledge. Indeed, in the Vigilantius lectures on ethics, Kant reportedly remarks that it is nothing less than a duty to oneself to avoid this kind of thinking. To allow oneself to think that one is not capable of morality is what Kant calls “despondency,” and Kant counts despondency as nothing less than a violation of a duty to oneself, on par with lying and avarice.29 “Despondency. Mistrust of one’s powers is always unfounded; man has a capacity to keep himself independent of everything. Tis he must retain in the greatest of enterprises. . . . He has self-possession, and his existence does not, therefore, depend on others; so he must locate it in his own person, not in things outside him. Te despairing man is thus wholly forgetful that he is subject to a right of humanity.”30 Tat Kant should ofer such a stern warning against despondency is understandable. After all, on the Kantian account, any virtuous action requires its agent to will from the standpoint of an autonomous agent. Tis is one way to interpret Kantian assertions that we must “act under the idea of freedom”— these are not simply claims about how we are licensed to think of ourselves if we so choose, but rather assertions about the prerequisites of moral willing in any case.31 Interestingly, however, the duty to avoid despondency by no means translates into a claim that we ought to give ourselves the beneft of the doubt when it comes to assessing progress retrospectively. When it comes to what we should believe about our own moral progress, Kant’s advice is that we

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should treat evidence of past moral progress with a very healthy dose of skepticism. We should be hesitant to ascribe moral progress to ourselves because of the aforementioned tendency toward rationalizing. As Kant explains in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM),

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Reason issues its prescriptions unrelentingly, yet without promising anything to the inclinations, and hence, as it were, with reproach and disrespect for those claims, which are so vehement and yet seem so reasonable (and will not be eliminated by any command). But from this there arises a natural dialectic, i.e. a propensity to rationalize against those strict laws of duty, and to cast doubt on their validity, or at least their purity and strictness and, where possible, to make them better suited to our wishes and inclinations, i.e. fundamentally to corrupt them and deprive them of their entire dignity, something that in the end even common practical reason cannot endorse.32 Part of our tendency to cast doubt on the “strictness” and “purity” of the duty is a tendency to overrate our own virtue when we consider past action, for example to describe an action as virtuous when, in fact, it was done entirely or in part from self-interested motives. Te tendency to congratulate ourselves too readily for impure maxims is not simply an epistemic failure, on Kant’s view. Rather, it contributes to a dangerous tendency to think of oneself as efortlessly virtuous, which, in turn, makes it impossible to hold oneself to the strict standard of the moral law.33 It may at frst appear that Kant’s warning against despondency is in some sense at odds with his warning against self-congratulation, but in fact they are together part of a unifed story about our moral capacities and moral striving. In the frst, Kant’s warning is against resigning oneself to sensible resistance; in the latter, the warning is against pretending that one experiences no such sensible resistance whatsoever. In the Vigilantius lectures, Kant casts both tendencies as “defective dispositions” set against respect for the moral law. Te frst, despondency, is “the decision, arising from doubt as to man’s capacity for ever attaining to the moral law, whereby we give up all efort to approach it, and declare ourselves incapable of improving or elevating our worth”; the second, arrogance or self-conceit, is “the tendency to ascribe to ourselves, without proof, a worth, or a higher worth, that we do not possess.”34 So far, we have only been discussing what we can and should believe about our own moral progress, on the Kantian view. But the question regarding

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progress becomes more complex still when we consider other agents, taken either as a community or individually. In the sections that follow, I consider these questions, respectively. In what follows, I consider the attitudes that Kant takes to be appropriate, and even required, with respect to progress in the moral community. Tat discussion relies on a particular interpretation of Kant’s discussion of the highest good. Subsequently, I consider what attitudes are appropriate with respect to moral progress in individual members of the moral community. It will emerge that in both cases (i.e., in that of the moral community and that of individual agents), we have nonepistemic grounds to believe in the progress of others. However, the precise nature of these nonepistemic grounds difers between the two.

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Progress in the Moral Community Most of the discussion that follows regarding progress in the moral community centers on Kant’s notoriously difcult discussion of the highest good. It is important to note at the outset that I take Kant’s concept of the highest good to be describing a communal goal, achievable within the course of human history, rather than an object of individual moral striving, achievable, if at all, only in an afterlife. Understood in these terms, Kant’s discussion of the highest good can ofer a good deal of insight into the possibility of progress within the moral community.35 Let us begin with Kant’s argument that we have reason to believe (glauben) in the possibility of the highest good, where this is understood as the greatest degree of happiness that is consistent with the perfect virtue. For our purposes, I will focus primarily on virtue, and what we are licensed to believe about its possibility or actuality. Kant argues that it is a need of reason to believe in the possibility of the highest good (and thus the possibility of perfect virtue) because we have a duty to pursue the highest good.36 On its face, the argument is straightforward: duty commands us to adopt the highest good as our object, so we must suppose that it is possible (“represent it as possible”). But in order to understand the argument fully, we should examine Kant’s reasons for asserting that we have a duty to pursue the highest good. Kant’s introduction of the highest good as an object commanded by duty is not without its critics. Lewis White Beck accuses Kant of nothing less than abandoning the central notion of autonomy with the introduction of the duty to pursue an object that includes happiness.37 Nevertheless, I do not think that

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Kant introduces the duty to pursue this object ex nihilo. Instead, the highest good is an object directly connected to the duties outlined in GMM. Specifcally, the highest good describes—to use Kant’s terminology from CPR––the “moral world” that would come about if agents were fully virtuous. If, in other words, all agents made the use of their freedom consistent with the use of the freedom of others, and, importantly, adopted the ends of others as their own, the result would be the state of afairs described by the highest good. But Kant’s introduction of the highest good is not merely a repetition of the earlier specifcation of our duties. Instead, we can think of the highest good as adding material or content to the duties outlined in GMM. Kant’s claim, in other words, is that what we are doing when we act from duty is bringing about the highest good. Acting from duty and the pursuit of the highest good are in this sense inseparable. We cannot coherently will one without willing the other. Just as it is impossible to acknowledge the commands of morality without acknowledging one’s freedom, it is impossible to will morally without also willing the highest good. To be clear, the inseparability of the moral law and the highest good is not identical to the inseparability between freedom and the moral law. In the frst place, the moral law and the duty to pursue the highest good do not share the same relationship of ratio essendi and ratio cognoscendi that the moral law shares with freedom. As I have presented here, the highest good is simply a more fully specifed account of what is entailed by the duties outlined in GMM. Second, the highest good is a fully specifed account of these duties for sensible and rational beings, while the reciprocity between freedom and moral willing applies to all rational beings. Tese considerations suggest that we cannot use the claim to knowledge about the moral law to justify a claim to knowledge about the possibility of the highest good’s coming about. From our position as sensible and rational creatures, the best we can do is to look for nonepistemic grounds for a belief in this state of afairs. And our duty to pursue the highest good, including our understanding of the source of this duty, provides these, as Kant sees it. With respect to virtue, then, I think that the best interpretation of Kant’s arguments regarding highest good is that moral willing requires us to believe in the possibility of moral success, understood as the achievement of the highest good, realized over the course of human history in the moral community. Whatever the merits or demerits of the argument for belief in the possibility of progress, Kant does sometimes ofer a separate, more empirical type of “optimistic” argument regarding moral progress. An example of such an

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argument can be found in his discussion of reactions to the French Revolution in the Confict of the Faculties:

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Tere must be some experience in the human race which, as an event, points to the disposition and capacity of the human race to be the cause of its own advance toward the better, and (since this should be the act of a being endowed with freedom), toward the human race as being the author of this advance. . . . Tis occurrence [which demonstrates the moral tendency of the human race] consists neither in momentous deeds nor crimes committed by human beings. . . . No, nothing of the sort. It is 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 for the players on one side against those on the other, even at the risk that this partiality could become very disadvantageous for them if discovered. Owing to its universality, this mode of thinking demonstrates a character of the human race at large and all at once; owing to its disinterestedness, a moral character of humanity, at least in its predisposition, a character which not only permits people to hope for progress toward the better, but is already itself progress insofar as its capacity is sufcient for the present.38 According to this passage, it is not our duty to pursue or achieve some end that gives us license to believe in the possibility of progress. Rather, it seems we have something like empirical evidence of the possibility of progress because we can witness frsthand the sympathetic disposition of the “spectators” of the revolution for whom such partiality is already a risky stance. Partiality toward the revolutionaries where this constitutes a risk to those holding this view thus serves as a kind of verifcation of the moral motive in others. In this sense, we can see Kant’s remarks as a real-world example analogous to the “friend of humanity” in the frst section of GMM, whose actions we know to have moral worth only when he performs benefcent actions while “beclouded by grief.”39

Te Progress of Others Te example of the revolutionaries above brings us naturally to a question about what to believe or hope about the moral progress of individual members

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of the moral community. We have seen two types of argument that Kant ofers in favor of the moral progress at the level of humanity—the argument associated with the possibility of the highest good, and the argument associated with the “disinterested sympathy” for the participants in the French Revolution. Do either of these arguments translate into an argument about the moral progress of individuals? It seems doubtful. It is not at all obvious that any belief that we are licensed to have about moral progress as a result of our duty to pursue the highest good would necessarily extend to other individual moral agents. Indeed, a “this-worldly” reading of the highest good, according to which progress occurs over the course of history, would seem, if anything, to allow for repeated moral failure at the individual level. Nor is it clear that the conclusions that Kant reaches on the basis of his observations of the enthusiastic response to the French Revolution can extend to our beliefs about particular agents. Tere, Kant’s conclusions refer to a mode of thinking (Denkungsart) that “demonstrates a character of the human race at large.”40 Indeed, in the case of particular members of the moral community, it seems we are faced with something like the puzzle discussed in the frst-person case. On the one hand, if we assume that other agents are rational and similarly bound by the moral law, then we have a kind of practical knowledge that they are capable of moral progress—this, presumably, is what Kant means when he says that we must lend other rational beings the idea of freedom.41 On the other hand, Kant also acknowledges that we are constantly faced with examples of selfshness and a general disregard for duty. What should we believe about moral progress in others?42 In our own case, we have seen, Kant argues that we must hold fast to the judgment that we are capable of morality, but always be skeptical about moral progress. In the case of others, I think there is reason to think that Kant would recommend extending the beneft of the doubt regarding moral progress whenever possible, and this for the sake of morality itself. In order to see this, it is helpful to consider what Kant says about a human tendency toward misanthropy. In his discussions of misanthropy, Kant makes an important distinction between the type of misanthrope who shies away from mankind, and the type of misanthrope who harbors an actual hatred of mankind. Kant is primarily interested in the former, and calls this tendency misanthropy, or anthropophobia: Misanthropy is hatred of mankind, and takes two forms: aversion from men, and enmity towards them. In the frst case we are afraid of

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men, regarding them as our enemies; but the second is when a man is himself an enemy to others. Te aversive man shrinks from men out of temperament, he sees himself as no good to others, and thinks he is too unimportant for them; and since, for all that, he has a certain love of honour, he hides and runs away from people. Te enemy of mankind shuns his fellows on principle, thinking himself too good for them. Misanthropy arises, partly from dislike, and partly from ill-will. Te misanthrope from dislike thinks all men are bad; he fails to fnd in them what he was seeking; he does not hate them, and wishes some good to all, but simply does not like them. Such people are melancholy folk, who can form no conception of the human race. But the misanthrope from ill-will is he who does good to nobody, and pursues their harm instead.43 Anthropophobia is thus characterized by a kind of moral disappointment in humanity—the misanthrope “fails to fnd in [others] what he was seeking.” Tis disappointment in humanity can, presumably, extend to oneself, threatening a kind of despondency. Now, the misanthrope’s response to this moral disappointment is to withdraw from others. In CPJ, Kant describes the misanthrope as having a “tendency to withdraw from society, the fantastic wish for an isolated country seat, or even (in young people) the dream of happiness in being able to pass their life on an island unknown to the rest of the world with a small family, which the novelists or poets who write Robinsonades know so well how to exploit.”44 Interestingly, this tendency to withdraw from society appears to be a kind of protective mechanism. We want to like others, Kant thinks, but when we are faced with evidence of their selfshness, the best we can do is simply to retreat: “Falsehood, ingratitude, injustice, the childishness in ends that we ourselves hold to be important and great, in the pursuit of which people do every conceivable evil to each other, so contradict the idea of what they could be if they wanted to, and are so opposed to the lively wish to take a better view of them that, in order not to hate them, since one cannot love them, doing without all social joys seems to be only a small sacrifce.”45 Crucially, however, this sort of retreat is dangerous from the standpoint of morality. We might be able to abide by the requirements of strict duty in isolation, but this is not all there is to virtue. Adopting the ends of others as our own requires participation with them, and the misanthrope deprives himself of such participation when he withdraws from his community.46 In short, the misanthrope’s protective strategy of retreating from his moral community is

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the beginning of a vicious circle, since isolation has a tendency to undermine virtue and promote selfshness. It is no surprise, then, that Kant argues that moral agents ought to take serious measures to avoid encouraging misanthropy in one another. In the frst instance, of course, we should avoid “falsehood, ingratitude, injustice,” and the “childish ends” that inspire misanthropy in members of our moral community. But, more than this, Kant also thinks that we ought to make a kind of display of virtue. So, for example, in section 48 of the Doctrine of Virtue (“On the Virtues of Social Intercourse”), Kant argues that,

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It is a duty to oneself as well as to others not to isolate oneself (seperatistam agere) but to use one’s moral perfections in social intercourse (ofcium commercii, sociabilitas). While making oneself a fxed center of one’s principles, one ought to regard this circle drawn around one as also forming part of an all-inclusive circle of those who, in their dispositions, are citizens of the world—not exactly to promote as the end what is best for the world but only to cultivate what leads indirectly to this end: to cultivate a disposition of reciprocity—agreeableness, tolerance, mutual love and respect (afability and propriety, humanitas aesthetica et decorum) and so to associate the graces with virtue. To bring this about is itself a duty of virtue.47 So far, Kant’s advice pertains mainly to the ways agents ought to comport themselves in order not to encourage misanthropy in others. But I think there is a case to be made that Kant’s remarks on misanthropy suggest an indirect duty to apply a principle of charity to others whenever this is possible. First, it is clear that we must always assume that our fellow agents are capable of morality. In the Doctrine of Virtue, Kant argues that our duty of respect toward others grounds a principle of charity when it comes to others’ reasoning, “a duty not to censure his errors by calling them absurdities, poor judgment and so forth, but rather to suppose that his judgment must yet contain some truth and to seek this out.”48 Importantly for our purposes here, Kant remarks that we should apply a similar principle of charity to the moral failings of others. Our censure “must never break out into complete contempt and denial of any moral worth to a vicious human being; for on this supposition he could never be improved, and this is not consistent with the idea of a human being, who as such (as a moral being) can never lose entirely his predisposition to the good.”49 So even when we have evidence of another’s

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moral failings, we cannot censure him to the point that we lose sight of his capacity for morality. Beyond this, Kant at times suggests that we ought to interpret the actions of others charitably. Tis is particularly evident when it comes to cases of what we now call moral luck. Take, for example, the following remark from the early Kaehler/Collins lecture on ethics: “If, for example, an innocent country girl is free from all ordinary vices, that is because she has no opportunity for indulging in excess, and a husbandman who makes do with plain fare, and yet is content with it, is not content because he sees it as all the same to him, but because he does not lead a better life, and if he were given the opportunity of living better, he would also covet it.”50 Now, of course, Kant’s main point in this passage is to observe that we sometimes have a tendency to congratulate agents for things that are beyond their control—in this case, the country girl and husbandman simply do not have the “opportunity” to want more than they have. But the observation is also compatible with a corollary observation, namely that we sometimes judge people harshly for bad circumstantial luck. Tis is the sort of consideration Kant might suggest we keep in mind before allowing a harsh judgment of others to lead to misanthropy and species-wide disappointment. So, too, the duty to avoid isolating oneself that Kant mentions in the above-cited passage from the Doctrine of Virtue might also, in certain circumstances, translate into an indirect duty to avoid prejudging others, and to extend a charitable interpretation to their actions, when there is reasonable doubt about their motives. Tis leads to an interesting result, if correct. Whereas moral considerations regarding the dangers of overvaluation suggested a principle of skepticism in our own case, the threat of misanthropy and isolation might suggest the opposite principle when it comes to our moral valuations of others.

Conclusion In the preceding, I have argued that various types of moral considerations yield diferent results about what we can and ought to believe about our own moral progress and the moral progress of others. In our own case, we have grounds for practical knowledge of our own moral capacity. Further, we have moral grounds for not allowing this knowledge to be undermined by doubt with respect to sensibility. We have, as Kant describes it, a duty to

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avoid despondency. When it comes to how we should assess our own progress, however, we should be skeptical about any evidence that we have improved, since there is the danger that overvaluing ourselves in this respect will lead to arrogance and self-conceit. With respect to the moral community, we have nonepistemic (practical) grounds for believing in the highest good, as an object of moral willing. Interpretations of Kant’s theory of the highest good are various and contested, but as I interpret the argument, Kant thinks that we must believe in the (actuality of the) highest good, since this is the necessary result or object of a moral community’s virtue. Moral willing thus in a sense includes a belief in the highest good. And, of course, believing in the moral capacities of members of one’s moral community is a precondition of this. When it comes to individual members of our moral community, there is, alas, plenty of empirical evidence of moral failure. But Kant also recognizes that attending to the shortcomings of others will lead to misanthropy. In the frst instance, Kant argues, this gives us an indirect duty of sorts to make a show of virtue. But, I argue, the duty to avoid misanthropy and isolation might also provide us with an indirect duty to attend to cases of success (as with the French revolutionaries), or be generous in our assessments of others. We should be aware of the role that moral luck plays in our judgments of others, and give others the beneft of the doubt, for example.

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Chapter 3

Respect, Moral Progress, and Imperfect Duty Jens Timmermann

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Te Right and the Good Much of contemporary ethical theory revolves around the question of what makes a right action right. An action is, for instance, deemed to be right by virtue of its benefcial or intended efects, or by virtue of the fact that other agents can rationally agree to it. Kant’s approach to ethics is diferent. Whatever he has to say on the topic of right action is, as one might expect, part of the Doctrine of Right, the frst volume of his Metaphysics of Morals (MM). An action is right if it is compatible with the equal liberty of all. Ethics—as opposed to the philosophy of law––is about good and evil, not about right and wrong. Tis is borne out by the famous frst sentence of Kant’s frst book on the subject, the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GMM), which highlights the exceptional qualities of a good will: only a good will is good unconditionally and without restriction.1 Even happiness, the other main contender for the position of the supreme good, is condemned at times by impartial reason and can thus, on balance, be bad rather than good, for example, if it is happiness gained at the expense of the happiness of others.2 By contrast, a good will, Kant argues, can never be a bad thing.3 It is one of the core tasks of GMM to spell out the rational principle that makes the good will good. Tis rational principle is eventually revealed to be the imperative never to act except in such a way that one could also will that one’s maxim become a universal law, also known as the categorical imperative.4

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Moral goodness is thus determined by a formal law. But that does not make it depend on “rightness” in the way the word is commonly used. In Kant’s ethics, doing what is right is not good enough. Tis should not come as a surprise, since much of the central part of GMM’s frst section is devoted to the idea that action in mere outward conformity with duty is ethically worthless.5 To be morally good, an act that accords with duty must be done from duty or, what comes to the same thing, from respect for the moral law. So, there are right actions that are morally worthless. Moreover, Kant’s focus on goodness, rather than rightness, is not just a terminological feature of Kant’s ethical theory. Unlike “right,” “good” is scalar.6 As Kant himself puts it in a handwritten note dating from the late 1770s, “a good action could be better, but a right action could not be righter.”7 Good action, unlike right action, is an expression of the agent’s underlying attitude, the attitude to do what is moral for no reason other than that this is what the moral law commands. Tis takes us to the problem of moral progress in Kant’s ethical theory. As we might by now expect, moral progress does not consist in getting more and more actions “right,” in making more and more actions conform with duty, though that might be a welcome side efect.8 Rather, the word “progress” stands for the process through which an agent’s maxims refect an ever stronger commitment to the categorical imperative as the supreme principle of practical reason. But what does this mean in practice? And how is it to be achieved? How do we become better persons?

Moral Motivation and Moral Worth: Te Groundwork Account Let us approach these questions by taking a closer look at the familiar account of moral value in Section I of GMM. Kant is trying to shed light on the notion of an unconditionally good will, a notion he takes to be rooted in ordinary, everyday, prephilosophical moral consciousness. Tere are many things that are good for something, but instrumental considerations cannot provide conclusive reasons because it is the end that justifes an action, not its adequacy as a means. Te goodness of a means raises a practical problem by pushing back the question of justifcation; it is not the solution. Moreover, Kant is happy to concede that the good will is not the only thing we value for what it is in itself. Even though its goodness depends on the character of the happy person, happiness is also a noninstrumental or “fnal” good. But only the good will

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is intrinsically good without limitation because it is inconceivable that we should ever have reason to disapprove of it. In the course of Section I, Kant spells out what it means for a human being to have a good will. Other rational beings—most prominently God—might also possess a good will. But there is something characteristic about the way that fnite rational beings like us instantiate moral goodness because, unlike God, we can be tempted not to be good. In fact, the force that initially prompts us to think about action is inclination, that is, natural, sensuous desire for objects that promise pleasure. Sensibility has an “assignment” or “mandate” (Anfrage) for reason: to take care of our happiness in the best possible way.9 But to be morally good, we have to break away from prudential calculation and consider action from the point of view of impartial practical reason. Tat is why Kant emphasizes the need for a pure moral motive. Action must be done from duty, not merely in accordance with it. It must be done because the action itself is seen as morally necessary, not because it serves an ulterior purpose that is, in the fnal consequence, rooted in our needs as a fnite being. Te privileged motive of duty is respect for the moral law. Benefcent action motivated by sympathy can be amiable and useful, and it will certainly be welcomed by the benefciary, but it lacks moral value. It is not morally good. Te theory of action that underlies Kant’s motivational rigorism explains why he excludes motives other than pure moral interest. For one thing, all inclinations are commensurable because they are all assessed with a view to the pleasure they promise. Tere is the need for a standard common to all nonmoral desires because it is difcult to see how else rational decision should be possible. Whatever other admirable features the objects of inclination may possess, they are rendered irrelevant when there is the need to choose among them, and the only criterion that enables prudential choice is the quantity of pleasure.10 As Kant puts it in the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR), the only question is “how much and how great” the gratifcation is that they will “procure for the longest time.”11 If so, prescriptions based on inclination may or may not coincide with the demands of morality. Tey can yield no universal norms because any such command would need to be tailored to the constitution of the individual agent. If action based on inclination is to count as moral, there can be no principled distinction between what I want to do and what I ought to do. Tere can be no categorical—that is, motivationally unconditional—imperative. But there is also another reason, which relates to the inherent value of the good will: an action done to satisfy inclination is good only instrumentally, as a means to the desired end. Tis is why, in two

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important footnotes, Kant distinguishes (nonmoral) interest in the desired efect of an action from (moral) interest in the action itself.12 But if Kant gets his frst sentence of the frst section of GMM right, common human reason is committed to the idea that the good will is good in and of itself—this is possible only if the interest I act on is primarily an interest in the action and not in its efect, which is a secondary and derivative concern. Again, this interest in acting is purely a moral interest or respect for the moral law, the law that determines a morally good will, that is, that makes a morally good will good. It should be clear from this summary of Kant’s moral theory that he would have no time for philosophers who divorce the grounds on which an action is judged obligatory from the grounds on which we act when we act as reason bids. Tere can be no separation of reason and motive. In fact, Kant’s ethics renders such a split unnecessary. Why would one decide to act—or cultivate a disposition to act—on unreliable, indirect interest in an object when one has a reliable, robust, direct interest in the appropriate action at one’s disposal (not to mention the fact that such action would be instrumentally good only)? What is more, inclination will still be satisfed even if it is not causally efcacious, that is, even if one acts from duty and not from inclination. Tose who want to demote the moral motive of respect to a mere backup that sets in when other, nonmoral motives cannot be relied upon are having at least one thought too many. If this is, in rough outline, Kant’s moral psychology in GMM and CPrR, what about his later writings? Te works of the 1790s add important dimensions, but they do not represent a change of mind. It is clear that in the Doctrine of Virtue, the second part of MM, Kant pays more attention to the sensuous underpinnings of morally good actions. But the text contains ample evidence that the fundamental elements of his philosophy of action are still intact. He is still committed to the exalted value of moral action according to which good willing is impossible without a pure motive, a direct interest in the morally prescribed action. Te Doctrine of Virtue is replete with passages that display the motivational rigorism of the 1780s. We learn that without the elements of metaphysics, “no certainty or pureness—and indeed not even any moving force—can be expected in the Doctrine of Virtue.”13 A little later, Kant reafrms that we need to liberate ourselves, as far as we can, “from the infuence of any alien kind of incentive, other than that of duty.”14 And the second end that is at the same time our duty, the moral end of self-perfection, is characterized in very familiar terms—it is the duty of the human being “to elevate the cultivation of his will to the purest disposition of virtue, namely, when

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the law becomes at the same time the incentive to his actions that conform with duty, and to obey the law from duty; and that is inner morally practical perfection, which––since it is a feeling of the efect that the will legislating by itself exercises on the capacity to act accordingly—is moral feeling, as it were a special sense (sensus moralis).”15 It is in this vein that Kant describes the duty of self-scrutiny as the need to know oneself in accordance with one’s moral perfection, asking oneself the question whether one’s heart is “good or evil,” whether the “source” of one’s action is “pure or impure [lauter oder unlauter].”16 In the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Religion), he similarly attacks the impurity of the human heart, which consists in being dependent upon nonmoral incentives to do as duty bids.17 All of this will be very familiar to readers of GMM or CPrR.

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Te Source of Moral Progress Te purity of moral interest plays a defning role in Kant’s theory of moral education and self-improvement because progress is secured by means of strengthening the unique moral motive of respect for the law (direct rational interest in good action, rather than in its intended results). Tis is one of the central themes of the middle section of GMM. It marks the passage toward a pure moral philosophy, a metaphysics of morals, which will put an end to the confict between morality and inclination by subordinating the latter to the former, guarding the human will against corruption, and making room for moral improvement. Tis is done by emphasizing the pure foundations of moral motivation: “Tus everything that is empirical is not only quite unft to be added to the principle of morality, it is also most disadvantageous to the purity of morals themselves, in which the actual worth of a will absolutely good and elevated above any price consists precisely in this: that the principle of action is free from all infuences of contingent grounds, which only experience can furnish.”18 In other words, empirical infuences—any reference to what one is inclined to do or would like to do—must be banned from moral judgment and action alike.19 Mixing pure (moral) and impure (nonmoral) incentives might initially seem attractive, but it is ultimately harmful to the moral cause. Recommending an action on both pure and impure grounds destabilizes the human will because it blurs the distinction between the two, representing illegitimate concerns as legitimate. It suggests that inclination has a moral contribution to

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make; so, the moral cause will, in the eyes of the agent, be weakened where no inclination is available to prop it up. Kant is telling us that nonmoral considerations are a distraction from the only legitimate determining ground of morally good action. Tat is why a “completely isolated metaphysics of morals” is “a desideratum of the highest importance for the actual execution” of the prescriptions of morality.20 Te pure representation of the moral law, “mixed with no alien addition of empirical stimuli, has by the route of reason alone (which in this frst becomes aware that by itself it can also be practical) an infuence on the human heart so much more powerful than all other incentives* one can summon from the empirical feld, that reason, in the consciousness of its dignity, regards the latter with contempt, and little by little can master them.”21 Te asterisk in this passage marks the location of yet another highly instructive footnote, which contains Kant’s belated reply to a question he attributes to the Swiss philosopher and mathematician Johann Georg Sulzer (who had died in 1779, more than half a decade before Kant sat down to write the GMM in the summer of 1784). Sulzer’s question, as Kant understands it, is why “the doctrines of virtue, however convincing they are to reason, yet accomplish so little.”22 Te response is about as striking as it is late—and Kant is aware of this. Moral instruction has been inefective because to date ethical theory has never been sufciently pure. Moralists “try to do too well by getting hold of motives to moral goodness everywhere, to make their medicine ever so strong.”23 But this is counterproductive, as they thereby undermine the very value they seek to support. Principled rational action, Kant argues, “elevates the soul and stirs up the wish to be able to act like that too” if it is presented to pupils in the right way.24 Tis elevation is the source of an individual’s moral progress. Kant is committed to the idea that the moral law—in all its strictness and purity—can be uplifting and inspiring when it is represented appropriately. It is, after all, through acknowledging the authority of the moral law that we realize that we are independent of the mechanism of the natural world, that is, free. It is hardly surprising that Kant returns to this idea in the Doctrine of Method of CPrR, which contains the elements of Kant’s theory of moral education. He there emphasizes once again that the incentive of a morally good action must be grounded in the representation of the moral law of reason as unconditionally obligating. It is, however, still unclear, “and on the contrary must at frst glance seem to everyone quite unlikely, that even subjectively that presentation of pure virtue can have more power over the human mind and can provide a far stronger incentive to efect even that legality of actions, and

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to bring forth stronger resolutions to prefer the law from pure respect for it to every other consideration, than all allurements that result from the pretenses of enjoyment and generally from everything that may be counted as happiness, or even all threats of pain and ills can produce.”25 So, in what follows, he intends to show that, if suitably introduced, “the moving force of the pure representation of virtue . . . is the most powerful incentive to the good, and the only one when durability and punctiliousness of observing moral maxims is at issue.”26 As indicated in the response to Sulzer, this is done by presenting children with exemplary cases of people who made great sacrifces to do their duty. Like the case of Henry VIII and Lord Norris a little later,27 examples must be taken from history to preempt the objection that ideals of virtue are unrealistic. Tat something has been done—for example, that someone like Norris did, as a matter of fact, stand up to an autocratic ruler in the face of dire repercussions—is sufcient proof that it can be done. Add the assumption that as moral agents all human beings are essentially the same. (Kant is clearly committed to it, even though he rarely if ever makes it explicit.) So, if something has been done, that proves that you and I can do it too. Te learner will view such paradigmatic cases with respect for the normative authority and the marvelous motivational force of the moral law within. He will come to appreciate the special unconditional status of morality, which will in turn facilitate moral action.28 Again, Kant says more about the nonmoral conditions of moral agency in his later works, particularly in the Doctrine of Virtue. But the basic account of how to efect moral progress does not change. He retains his faith in the extraordinary motivational powers of pure reason. Te following passage—taken from his discussion of the “aesthetic preliminaries” in the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue—is representative of many others: “Now, there can be no duty to have moral feeling, or to acquire such a feeling, for any consciousness of obligation is founded on this feeling in order to become conscious of the necessitation that lies in the thought of duty. Rather, every human being (as a moral being) has it in him originally; and obligation can be only to cultivate it and to reinforce it, even by admiring its inscrutable source; and this happens by its being shown how, separated from any pathological stimulus and in its purity, it is aroused most intensely by merely rational representation.”29 A little later, Kant introduces the idea that sensibility will be reconditioned by virtuous action. If benefcent action from duty is often graced with success, we may eventually come to love the benefciary and do our duty gladly as a result.30 Even so, pure practical reason still takes precedence. It

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normatively determines what we ought to do, and it generates a pure incentive that we must act on and foster to progress further. It is immaterial whether it is called “respect,” “moral interest,” or “moral feeling.” Te fact that inclination will sooner or later fall into place is the efect, not the cause, of moral progress.

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Perfect and Imperfect Duty A critical but often neglected element of Kant’s ethical theory is his distinction between diferent types of duty. Te lack of attention is perhaps understandable. After all, many doubt that the distinction between perfect and imperfect duty is adequate, either because it does not seem to account for some kinds of duties (e.g., keeping promises, as opposed to not making false promises), or because they reject the strict lexical priority Kant wants perfect duty to enjoy.31 Also, Kant never really makes good on his promise in Section II of GMM to present a systematic classifcation of duty types in MM.32 And there are quasijuridical duties in the Doctrine of Virtue: duties of respect. What is more, the systematic status of perfect duties to one’s own self is unclear. In what follows, I shall adopt Bernd Ludwig’s thesis that they are (unenforceable) duties of right to humanity in one’s own person.33 Tis is suggested by the Vigilantius notes but not borne out by MM as published in two parts in 1797. Te simplifed distinction (strict–wide, juridical–ethical, etc.) will do for the purposes of this essay. We can, however, piece together Kant’s theory of perfect and imperfect duty from the various sources at our disposal; and much can be gleaned from this distinction for the topic of moral progress. Te one formal categorical imperative generates two types of duty, both of which can target either the agent or other human beings. (Tis is done in the manner familiar from Section II of GMM.) A morally dubious maxim, suggested by prudential deliberation, fails the categorical imperative’s universalization test either because a world in which it would hold as a universal law is unthinkable or because such a world is undesirable. According to the ever-popular second variant, an action is morally questionable because it involves treating oneself or others merely as a means or because it fails to display proper concern for oneself or for others, one and all ends in themselves.34 Te picture that emerges is this.35 Te categorical imperative generates two kinds of norms.36 Laws are norms of strict or perfect duty. Tey produce perfect token obligations, actual obligations that cannot be annulled or overridden, that is, these norms always give us sufcient reason to act in this or that way.37 Tat is why they deserve

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their honorifc title of “laws.” Rules are norms of wide or imperfect duty. Tey produce mere reasons or “grounds of obligation,” which turn into token obligations of imperfect duty only if not defeated by other, weightier moral concerns or by some other kind of impossibility (e.g., physical impossibility).38 When we judge them to be relevant they give us, at least initially, only pro tanto reasons to act in a certain manner. Te diference between the two types of obligation results from the way they emerge from the one categorical imperative. Laws of perfect duty are products of pure reason that result from the need to avoid a “contradiction in conception.” Tey are unconditional, precise, and clear. Consider GMM’s prohibition of promises one does not intend to keep. If I fnd myself in severe fnancial difculties, I will be tempted to borrow money and falsely to promise repayment if that is the only realistic way to obtain the sum of money I need. Tis may also be the tentative overall suggestion of prudential reason. But I realize the maxim I am about to enact is inconceivable as a universal law. It cannot apply to all agents—myself trivially included—at all times.39 So, I face an unconditional, nonnegotiable law not to make promises I do not intend to keep. Tis law, just by itself, constitutes a prohibition of false promising.40 As the action is characterized in descriptive terms, the prescription that follows is precise and direct. Tere are several such strict laws: not to murder, not to torture, not to make false promises, not to lie, and so forth. Tey can one and all be unrestricted because, as omissions, they are not supposed to confict with each other.41 Tey permit neither of latitude nor of casuistry as a result.42 It is immaterial what projects or purposes I wish to realize by violating perfect duty. It does not even matter how morally worthy my purposes are because strict duties set the limits within which obligations based on other duties can arise.43 It is tempting to dismiss such unrelenting standards, or to question Kant’s own classifcation of some duties as strict and of others as wide. But there can be little doubt that Kant was deeply committed to the idea.44 Rules of wide or imperfect duty obligate in a diferent and somewhat less straightforward manner. Te need to avoid a “contradiction in the will” urges us to adopt two morally good ends, our own perfection and the happiness of others, and to realize these ends whenever feasible and permissible. A “ground of obligation” emerges when we correctly subsume under an ethical rule the situation in which we fnd ourselves––when, for instance, there is someone who needs and deserves our help. If this “ground”—or “reason”—is undefeated, there arises a token obligation to act on it. Failure to respond to this kind of obligation does not make the agent vicious, or the action in question

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straightforwardly “wrong,” though the agent can perhaps be said to be less good or worthy than he ought to be.45 Te willingness to respond comes in degrees. It is an expression of greater or lesser virtue, defned in the Doctrine of Virtue and elsewhere as moral strength.46

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Te Revolution of the Heart Te kind of “rigorism” Kant embraces in the Religion—which denies the existence of a morally neutral state of character—is another signifcant piece in the puzzle of moral progress.47 His starting point is the assumption, familiar from GMM and CPrR, that there are only two forces that can determine the human will—or, rather, that human beings can allow to determine their actions: felicifc self-interest based on inclination, and the moral law. As is clear from the two diferent types of interest they produce, these two forces are radically diferent in kind.48 In morally relevant cases, then, we see ourselves exposed to two types of motivation: what, on balance, we would like to do (e.g., make a lying promise) and what we ought to do (not to lie). Now, Kant does not believe in isolated, one-of decisions. What we do when we decide to act is a matter of principle, that is, the result of adopting a maxim, or of afrming a maxim adopted at an earlier stage. However, the choice of any concrete maxim presupposes the—at least notionally—antecedent choice of a supreme maxim. Tis is where Kant resorts to what he himself is happy to call a “rigoristic mode of decision.”49 When it comes to our most basic attitude toward morality, there are only two options. We either subordinate what we ought to do to what we want to do or vice versa, that is, we are fundamentally committed either to pursue morality only within the limits set by self-interest or to pursue our own selfinterest within the stringent limits set by the moral law. Tere is no third option because we cannot but position ourselves vis-à-vis those two forces in any other way. We cannot remain neutral—that would paralyze the will. As human beings, we are made of fesh and blood as well as a pure intellect, so we cannot switch of or renounce one force or the other either (which would turn us into a nonrational animal or a Stoic sage).50 Now, Kant makes the troubling assumption that all of us get our priorities wrong at frst. We are constituted to the efect that we initially prioritize our own personal interest, based on the inevitable desire to be happy. We act as morality bids only if it can be done without any apparent sacrifce.51

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It is not, however, too difcult to see why that should be the case if we add one further crucial assumption: the temporal priority of inclination. Inclination is prior in at least two ways. First, it—obviously, manifestly, and at times infuriatingly—determines the actions of young children, who acquire the capacities of long-term deliberation and moral judgment only much later. Second, inclination has the “frst word,” as Kant puts it in CPrR in that it prompts us to act.52 In this respect too, reason comes second. Reason can only react to a maxim suggested by inclination, even though this reaction may amount to turning this maxim on its head.53 So, when we frst get a sense of our own freedom, it is the freedom to depart from the option immediately suggested by inclination. Reason subsequently also emancipates itself from prudential calculation. At some point, an agent will be prompted to make a principled choice between the familiar attractions of inclination—in its new, reason-guided, prudential guise—and the thoroughly unfamiliar, scary, and apparently costly option of pure practical reason. He will, for instance, face the command not to make the false promise that seems to provide the only escape route from a difcult personal situation. Putting the choice in those terms helps us understand why Kant thinks it well-nigh inevitable that we get our priorities wrong at frst.54 When faced with the choice between what is moral (and apparently disadvantageous) and what is immoral (though likely to be benefcial), we side with that to which we are accustomed, with what looks most promising—and that is not morality. Again, this is not a one-of decision, but the adoption of a general principle that determines action, a maxim. Tat maxim is in place once we have made that bad choice; and once in place, it will inform the choice of further maxims and concrete decisions. Our initial mistake can, of course, be undone if we successfully undergo what Kant calls a “revolution in one’s disposition” or a “change of heart.”55 If the account of the force of pure reason given above is correct, this is done by an act of will that is facilitated by representing duty in its purity and dignity in concrete, credible examples. Tis revolution is a realistic option only if we receive a good ethical education, along the lines of the three stages laid out in the Doctrines of Method of CPrR and the MM. It is done, if it is done, aided by the sustained vivid representation of the morally sublime. So, what happens if we manage to overturn the initial subordination of morality to self-interest and make moral commitment our top priority? Recall what was said above, that the laws of strict duty determine the will directly, without the need for a further end (such as self-perfection or the happiness of others).56 If so, it is difcult to see how anyone who has wholeheartedly

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embraced the rational primacy of duty will ever violate a perfect duty again.57 Tis ties in well with what we learn about culpability and merit in the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue. Once we are no longer wicked, we no longer—as a matter of principle, not by lucky coincidence—do things that wicked people do.58 On principle, we no longer steal, murder, cheat, or lie. However, if we cease to be wicked we are not thereby automatically virtuous (or, at any rate, virtuous to any signifcant degree). We will, for example, adopt the maxim of benefcence.59 Having that maxim is part of the revolution of the heart because an attitude of helpfulness—unlike any individual act of benefcence—is strictly obligatory. It is wrong to be indiferent to the needs of others, that is, it is wrong not to be a helpful person.60 But mere nonindiference leaves plenty of room for further progress. Te revolution of the heart itself is manifestly progress. But the primary sense of moral progress in the Dialectic of CPrR and in the Doctrine of Virtue (to name but the two most relevant works) appears to be the latter: virtue, ever-greater moral perfection.61

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Two Problems Solved: Obscurity and the Link between Maxims and Actions We are now in a position to tackle two well-known problems. First, the results of our investigation so far provide at least a partial answer to a question in moral epistemology that has been troubling Kantian ethicists for some time: the obscurity of our maxims. In GMM and elsewhere, Kant notoriously defends the view that we do not have privileged access to our own moral or immoral dispositions—let alone those of others. At the outset of Section II, Kant agrees with the complaints of those who say that “no reliable example can be cited of the disposition to act from pure duty,” and a little later he concedes that it is “absolutely impossible by means of experience to make out with complete certainty a single case in which the maxim of an action that otherwise conforms with duty did rest solely on moral grounds and on the representation of one’s duty.”62 If we do not know whether our actions are done from duty, how can we ever be confdent that our attempts to reverse the fundamental order of our incentives was successful? Now, if what was said above is right and morally reformed agents never lie, anyone who does is not a morally reformed character and must work harder to afect that revolution of incentives within his

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heart.63 It is true that we do not have direct access to our maxims, let alone to our most fundamental maxim. But our actions provide a clue to their underlying incentive structure. So, if someone resolves to be good and then ceases to lie even when lying appears to be in his interest, his attempt to change his basic priorities must have been graced with success and he has now embarked on his journey to ever-increasing moral goodness.64 Second, we now have a plausible answer to the question of whether one can act contrary to one’s own maxims. After all, in GMM Kant defnes maxims as the principles that determine the way we actually act.65 It is clear that we can violate objective principles, that is, imperatives. But can we violate our own subjective principles? I used to think the answer was no. But it follows from what we have said so far that this is a half-truth. It is a truth that holds true for strict duty only. Like other strict duties, the duty of veracity applies to the will directly. It does not rely on factors external to the will. So, anyone who has the maxim not to lie, period, will never lie, and adopting such a maxim of unconditional veracity is possible only once the decision always to subordinate self-interest to duty has taken root. However, maxims that contain the ends of imperfect duty are very diferent. We can be committed to the happiness of others and yet, for no good objective reason, fail to promote their happiness when the need to do so arises. Tat is precisely why, after the great reversal, we need to make further moral progress. It is not that our actions are not determined by any maxim when, due to a lack of virtue, we fail to help. Tere will be an inappropriately selfsh maxim that motivates our choice. But even if maxims confict, we are still acting contrary to a principle to which we are genuinely committed.

From Good to Better: Te Acquisition of Virtue So, fnally, what happens as we gradually become better persons? Progress does, no doubt, go hand in hand with strengthening respect for the law in the manner outlined above. But there is another aspect that is rarely discussed in the literature on the topic of moral progress, an aspect that takes us back to the distinction between diferent types of duty. Consider the following passage, which is taken from the introduction to the Doctrine of Virtue: “Te wider the duty—the more imperfect therefore a human being’s obligation to do the action—and the closer he nevertheless brings the maxim of observing it (in his disposition) to narrow duty (of right), the more perfect is his act of virtue.”66

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We must assume that this is an agent who already pays due attention to the restrictions of narrow or strict duty, an agent who is no longer evil but at the same time is not yet very good. So, the gist of the above quotation seems to be this: in the course of making further progress the agent takes to heart ethical matters that those who are less virtuous ignore.67 Tis does, of course, throw up another question, namely whether Kant recommends the ever-increasing seriousness with which to treat obligations of imperfect duty as a mental strategy or whether this seriousness is merely an expression of increasing moral strength. Tere is nothing in the text quoted above—or, as far as I can see, elsewhere—that provides a conclusive answer. It may be possible to settle the matter at the level of philosophical reconstruction; if so, it will have to remain a task for another occasion. For now let us note, however, that nothing that has been said so far counts against the assumption that we can use the stance we take toward less weighty obligations as a clue to how to become (even) better human beings.68 We can say to ourselves that this obligation is one that we would have ignored without too many qualms in the past, and we can tell ourselves that we ought to take more seriously another obligation we similarly were tempted to ignore at present. Te idea that wide duty needs to be restricted pays philosophical dividends, too. Tere is, for instance, a question about the role of conscience in observing imperfect duty. On the one hand, Kant seems to think that conscience is involved in all cases of duty in that abstract rules always need to be made relevant for individual moral selves, for individual agents, which is one of the functions of conscience.69 On the other hand, in the same discussion of conscience in his Religion, Kant indicates that conscience speaks up only when we do wrong, not when we fail to do good.70 Tis is also suggested by the metaphor of conscience as an internal court. We can accommodate easy rescue cases along the lines suggested above: not assisting someone in an emergency when one could easily do so is expressive of a complete lack of moral commitment to the welfare of others, and, as such, is a violation of duty, period (though not of the rights of the unfortunate person). If so, conscience is likely to speak up. But why not assume that conscience will increasingly guard cases of benefcence (and self-perfection) as we make moral progress, that is, as we increasingly assimilate imperfect duties to perfect ones? One way of making this point would be to say that we will be increasingly conscientious about obligations that spring from imperfect duties. A very good person will feel bad about—exceptionally, no doubt––not responding to obligations others may regard as trivial or supererogatory.

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Conclusion

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In Kant’s ethics, moral progress is a complicated phenomenon. We are confronted not only with Kant’s extraordinary faith in the motivational powers of pure reason, but also with a dual notion of progress, which consists frst in a fundamental change of priorities—privileging morality over self-interest— and then in an ever-closer approximation to a perfectionist ideal of virtue. But there are many things about it that ring true. It seems perfectly adequate to say that we all initially struggle against the same handicap, and that it is the hallmark of really good persons that they take seriously the kind of obligations that less virtuous individuals neglect. Kant’s theory of moral progress does, at the very least, deserve careful consideration.

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Chapter 4

Loneliness and Ambiguity in Kant’s Philosophy of History

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Rachel Zuckert

In a somewhat recent essay, Axel Honneth argues that Kant has three approaches in the philosophy of history: two that occupy him in his “ofcial” history writings—his 1784 essay, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (“Idea”), paragraphs 82–84 of his 1790 work, Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ), Section III of his 1793 essay, “On the Common Saying Tat What May Be True in Teory Does Not Apply in Practice” (“Teory and Practice”), and his 1795 essay, “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (“Perpetual Peace”)—and a third, an “unofcial” view, suggested in his 1785 essay, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (“Enlightenment”) and Part Two of his 1798 Confict of the Faculties, “A Renewed Attempt to Answer the Question, ‘Is the Human Race Continually Progressing?’” (“Renewed Attempt”).1 In this essay, I wish to develop Honneth’s proposal in a diferent direction: I shall suggest that the “ofcial” and “unofcial” Kantian philosophies of history are indeed distinct both in the conception of history presented and in their moral import. Contrary to Honneth, however, I shall argue that the unofcial view should not be seen as a replacement for the ofcial philosophy of history. Rather, the ofcial philosophy of history replies to one challenge that history presents to the Kantian moral subject and the unofcial philosophy of history to a second, complementary problem: the “ambiguity” and “loneliness” of my title, respectively. Tese two aspects of Kant’s philosophy of history thus correspond (mutatis mutandis) to two elements in his

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philosophy of religion: like the postulates, the ofcial philosophy of history provides a worldview meant to address concerns about the realization of moral ends, while, like the church, the unofcial philosophy of history responds to the moral agent’s need for community. I begin with a sketch of the ofcial view and then argue that it is akin to a postulate: it is a theoretical view, specifcally a regulative idea used to interpret the empirical facts of history, addressed to and justifed by the needs of moral agency. Next, I refne this account by arguing that the philosophy of history is specifcally aimed to address the problem of ambiguity. I conclude by arguing that Kant’s unofcial history writings may be seen as complementary to this ofcial view, as responding to a consequent problem: that of loneliness.

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Kant’s Ofcial Philosophy of History Kant frst presents the central points of his philosophy of history in “Idea,” on which I shall therefore concentrate. Kant begins the essay by noting that human historical actions may seem “confused,” and “irregular,” showing no overall pattern or intelligibility. He proposes that we may nonetheless make sense of history—see it as in conformity with “rule” or a “plan”—if we understand it as directed toward an end.2 Kant identifes this end as the development of human rational (and other) capacities to their fullest extent3—development that, as he describes it in the CPJ, includes “culture” (arts and sciences and crafts and engineering and so on).4 Tis end may be accomplished only by means of realizing two proximate ends, Kant argues: the institution of government or civil society and of a cosmopolitan federation of states. Without the peace brought about by such political institutions, war and other confict will prevent human beings from fully developing their capacities. Indeed, Kant claims, the central “problem” set by nature for human beings is how to achieve this “formal condition” for fulflling the kind’s natural purpose.5 Kant does not claim that human history constitutes direct, intentional progress toward any of these ends. Rather, he suggests that the engine of such development is a problematic aspect of human nature, “unsociable sociability.” Te human being wishes to live in society with others, but also “encounters in himself the unsociable property of willing to direct everything so as to get his own way, and hence expects resistance everywhere because he knows of himself that he is inclined . . . toward resistance against others.”6 Hence

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“antagonism . . . in society”—we cannot leave others alone, but cannot live peaceably with them either.7 Tis questionable tendency drives historical progress in two ways, Kant contends. On one side, it leads to striving for honor, wealth, and power, that is, for means of control over others. Tis striving also produces another, not directly intended result: in order to compete with others and gain honor and so forth, individuals exert and develop all human capacities.8 On the other side, this tendency of course leads to confict among individuals and war among nations, or the constant threat thereof. Te state—and then the federation—may, Kant suggests, be brought into being as the hard-won solution to this terrible situation, a solution to which humans will be driven, out of self-interest or fatigue, by the disastrous experiences of war.9 Tus, on Kant’s account, historical progress includes the full development of rational capacities and the establishment of morally good political institutions. As driven by unsociable sociability, however, such progress is not rationally intended. Rather, Kant proposes that it is directed by “nature’s purpose” of developing the capacities proper to an organic kind.10 Unlike the natural potentialities of other animals, human reason is not fully developed in each individual, but only in the species, over the course of history—a course driven and shaped, then, by this natural purpose.11

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Ofcial Philosophy of History as Postulate Tis conception of history, I shall now argue, has a status akin to that of the postulates of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, as discussed in the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR).12 Tese religious beliefs are, Kant argues, “certain theoretical positions” that are “inseparably connected” to “original a priori principles” of practical reason.13 Tat is, in brief: one should believe in God’s existence and the immortality of the soul in order to support one’s moral commitments. Like the postulates, I shall suggest, Kant’s ofcial view of history is a theoretical position—about how the world has been and will be—that human beings are permitted, but not required, to believe on theoretical grounds. However, as morally committed agents, subjects have reason to believe, or, better, to deploy regulatively, this view.14 I now elaborate the two aspects of this understanding of the philosophy of history as postulate-like— that is, a theoretical position, endorsed for moral reasons—while also noting its diferences from the postulates.

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Teoretical Status as Regulative Idea

Unlike the postulates, Kant’s account of history does not concern supersensible entities, but rather empirical facts: what has happened to the human race. Nonetheless, Kant is also here proposing a view at least in part developed a priori—it is philosophy of history, not empirical description or inductive generalization— that purports to describe how objects are. Tus, as in the case of the postulates, the theoretical status of this proposal is in question: what sort of a priori claims are these, and why is it permissible or justifable to make them? In the case of the postulates, Kant argues that human beings may formulate beliefs about supersensible entities like God precisely because (he claims) he has shown that we can have no knowledge about such objects, including no knowledge that those beliefs are false; they are matters of (mere) belief and hope.15 Claims about history are diferent because they may be (dis)confrmed empirically. But, as Pauline Kleingeld has persuasively argued,16 Kant’s account of history may be understood also to have a recognizable, and (as it were) equally tentative theoretical status: that of a regulative idea, an a priori framework that organizes and directs empirical investigation. As Kleingeld notes, Kant argues in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) that in order to acquire systematic scientifc knowledge, we need a priori ideas and principles to guide empirical investigation, to give us a sense of what we might be looking for, what kind of “shape” a science concerning a certain sort of object might have, and so forth. And, though Kant does not explicitly so describe his proposal concerning history, it seems to function in this way. As noted above, Kant opens “Idea” by stating that human actions appear chaotic, and so with a theoretical concern: can we attain systematic knowledge of human history? In line with his resolution to CPR’s Tird Antinomy, Kant responds frst by noting that, though human beings may be metaphysically free, in themselves, human actions occurring within experience may nonetheless be understood as causally determined.17 So, Kant claims, the project of fnding causal connections and patterns in human history is not ruled out.18 But this does not establish that there is an overall pattern to history: all actions might be explicable one by one, but history as a whole might still present us with no unity. And we cannot, just by observation, by collecting more and more events, come up with such an overall pattern. So if we wish to make comprehensive sense of history, we need a regulative “guiding thread,”19 namely the “idea” Kant provides in the essay of that title. As Kleingeld argues, Kant’s invocation of natural teleology supports this interpretation as well, for

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natural teleology itself is a regulative principle identifed in CPR (and has the closely related status of a principle of refective judgment in CPJ ). Tus, Kant’s claims do not amount to a conclusive doctrine concerning the nature of history, but rather articulate a regulative idea, according to which one may consider history, that could guide investigation of it. We do not know, we cannot prove, that history has the teleological shape that Kant proposes. He does suggest that there is some empirical evidence of historical progress, if one focuses attention on civil constitutions and their successive forms.20 But he never ofers decisive empirical or philosophical proof of such progress, and it is hard to see what that would be; we are far from attaining the ends Kant describes, and any progress toward these goals may not be permanent.21 Nor is it clear how one might show that unsociable sociability is the major driving force behind historical change. Still, this conception of history can guide investigation, serving as a framework into which we might try to ft events, so as to make sense of the chaos of history. Te regulative status of Kant’s ofcial view of history thus permits one to endorse it (so long as it is heuristically useful for empirical historical investigation). But (again similarly to the postulates) this does not mean that one should endorse this view. We may need some framework to guide historical investigation, in order to comprehend history as a whole, or even to think through historical facts without becoming overwhelmed by their complexity. But why should we settle on this one? One could argue that Kant’s proposal has the advantages of generality: because it concerns the general development of human faculties, it could include economic and intellectual developments, and so forth. Being teleological, it also has a narrative structure that lends diachronic unity to the range of historical events discussed. But, though Kant himself does not pose this question,22 it seems clear that his answer to it is again similar to that which he provides in the case of the postulates: it is theoretically permissible, but is to be endorsed—is of philosophical interest—not for theoretical, but for moral reasons.23 And it is to these that I now turn. Ofcial History and the Moral Point of View

Kant makes clear that his philosophy of history is addressed to morally and politically interested readers. Te full title of “Idea” specifes that Kant is writing from and to a “cosmopolitan” point of view, that is, that of someone committed to promoting perpetual peace among all the peoples of the earth.24

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At the close of the essay, he attributes such a “viewpoint” to inquirers in the future as well: they “will prize [historical documents] only from the viewpoint of what interests them, namely, what nations and governments have done to contribute to or to impair a cosmopolitan aim.”25 Tis practical “interest” dictates, frst, the subject matter of Kant’s narrative: his history tracks the state and then the federation of states (and/or peace), important moral-political ends. Tey are also, Kant notes, preconditions for accomplishing further moral goals; if states take the right form, allow free discussion, and stop focusing upon war, they will make possible “inner perfection” of citizens’ “mode of thought.” And this improvement—“enlightenment”—will in turn allow citizens to refne their understanding of practical principles, and so be more inclined to moral action.26 Te person of “cosmopolitan point of view,” to whom Kant’s account is addressed, is therefore also an “interested party” in a stronger sense. She does not merely select aspects of history on which to focus, in accord with her interests, as, for example, an art historian focuses on art in narrating history. Kant’s cosmopolitan addressee is also one who aims at, and wishes to believe in the possibility of, realizing certain moral-political goals. She is, in short, a moral agent. She approaches, and wishes to interpret, history as leading toward the ends she aims to bring about. Correspondingly (and remarkably), Kant’s history is predominantly a history of the future. He does narrate a sketchy account of Western history; he describes the past formation of civil society and the spread of human beings across the planet. But a great deal of his ofcial account concerns historical events that have not yet happened, notably the cosmopolitan political order.27 Indeed Kant appears to see his own philosophical project—again especially “Idea”—as itself practical, in the sense that it is addressed to agents, who act in accord with their ideas. Te idea of history, he claims, is a “chiliasm” that can be “promoted” by stating it explicitly: it is no mere sketch of how to judge things, but can direct rational action toward the ends it portrays.28 Kant’s idea of history thus focuses upon morally important subject matters, and addresses agents, looking toward future accomplishment of their goals. It is also philosophically justifed on moral grounds. As noted above, Kant adduces some (nondefnitive) empirical historical evidence to support it29 and makes an efort to render it plausible, given well-known facts about human nature. Still, the ultimate grounds for endorsing this view appear to be moral. It provides us, he writes, with a “consoling prospect into the future” and thereby a “justifcation of nature—or, better, of providence,” which is

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“no unimportant motive for choosing a particular viewpoint for considering the world.”30 If we do not see history as having this “natural purpose,” we will fnd human existence, perhaps even all of nature, “purposeless,” and thereby “cancel all practical principles.”31 But how so? Kant’s language of “cancelling” practical principles implies that the purposelessness of history would undermine the moral law, the preeminent practical principle—and therefore must be rejected, history reinterpreted. Such a claim would require signifcantly more explanation and defense than Kant provides, and I suggest that his view may instead be understood more moderately, again on parallel to his justifcation of belief in the postulates: as responding to the possibility of moral despair and the way in which it can undermine agents’ moral commitment. Kant’s argument for belief in the postulates runs broadly as follows: if the subject becomes convinced that her moral goals are impossible to realize, her commitment to moral action will be shaken. She will see morality as making ultimately pointless demands upon her, perhaps fulfllable one by one, but ultimately amounting to nothing; she may then succumb to moral despair.32 Tus, in order to sustain her commitment to moral ends, she needs to believe that such goals are realizable, and so should endorse a view of the world that can underwrite such a belief, if that view is possibly true (theoretically permissible). Te reasons for endorsing Kant’s view of history are apparently similar: a morally committed subject, he writes, has an “innate duty . . . so to infuence posterity that it becomes always better.”33 Terefore, she ought to presuppose that this is practicable “for practical purposes,” so long as she is not “quite certain” of its futility.34 In his philosophy of history, correspondingly, he aims to provide a credible account of how one might see historical progress as attainable. In particular, Kant’s account presents large-scale endeavors, like the formation of a federation of states, which require social cooperation over long periods of time, as attainable.35 Te account of history is meant to reassure the moral subject that “history is on her side” in the aim to produce or reform such institutions. Kant’s ofcial philosophy of history is, then, not only focused upon morally signifcant subject matter and oriented toward the morally envisioned future, but also justifed because it provides a consolatory vision of history that can combat the moral agent’s despair. And of course human history gives one ample reason for despair. Te need to counteract such despair, I suggest, identifes a further reason for selecting a particularly unifying regulative idea of

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this kind to guide the investigation of human history. Kant holds that unifed accounts of any domain of investigation accord with the aims of theoretical reason. But it is unclear that a single historical narrative is necessary for realizing (or approximating to) such an ideal. A system of laws of historical change (whether economic, political, sociological, etc.) might equally satisfy this demand—and so such an aspiration equally could guide historical investigation. For the moral agent, however, considering history as one large sweep, past to present to future, is important: a holistic vision can console, suggesting that the difculties of one’s time are a mere small part of something much larger; the agent can interpret evils of her time as a temporary dip in a generally “upward” trajectory. Such a vision could also suggest to the agent that she is part of a larger, collective, indeed species-wide enterprise, that her eforts will contribute to that project, that her moral purposes are part of a purposeful whole. Tis reference to a larger project to which the agent might contribute identifes, however, a difculty with what has been said so far. For Kant’s ofcial view does not portray any collective moral agency to which the individual moral agent might contribute. Rather, it portrays nonmoral (even evil) agency. As I now discuss, Kant’s philosophy of history cannot, then, be understood precisely on parallel to the postulates.

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Te Problem of Ambiguity As so far presented, Kant’s postulate-like philosophy of history seems subject to a near-contradiction between its content and its address or justifcation. Tat is, on one hand, Kant’s account of history portrays determinedly nonmoral agency. Te primary engine of historical change is unsociable sociability. It pushes human beings to leave aside their laziness, develop their capacities, and fght with one another to such devastating results that they then are “forced” to form states or the federation thereof.36 In “Idea,” Kant does allow that “as a rational creature” the human being wishes there to be a rightful law.37 Kant’s language of “wish” seems accurate, however, as such a desire is largely inert on his characterization of history.38 Individual historical agents, famously described by Kant as “crooked wood . . . from which nothing entirely straight can be fabricated,”39 instead unwittingly promote an end of nature’s, which, if they knew of it, “would matter little to them.”40 “Improvement in ways of thinking” and the good inclination of the heart that is supposed to result from such enlightenment are all placed at the hoped-for end of history, somewhere

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beyond, after, Kant’s readers. For now, history is driven not by moral agency, but by the mechanism of unsociable sociability—or, as we might now say, by money and power. Even the morally approvable progress made so far (as described in Kant’s account) is “legal,” in Kant’s terms: morally correct but done under compulsion, not for moral reasons. Achievement of such ends is, then, as it were merely epiphenomenally moral—morally approvable, but not brought about by moral agency proper. One may, of course, object to this vision of history on factual grounds; surely moral agents do sometimes bring about morally approvable change, for moral reasons, not merely under compulsion. But this view is also puzzling given Kant’s justifcation of it: it is supposed to be endorsed because it supports the moral agent’s commitment to realizing moral ends, to combat her moral despair. But how can a portrayal of history in which moral agency is absent be endorsed on the grounds that it supports moral agency?41 Here, in other words, Kant’s philosophy of history looks rather diferent from the postulates: belief in the postulates are supposed to allow the moral agent to take her own ends to be realizable by her or by others in concert with her (even if only by means, such as God’s mediating agency, that are not transparent, to say the least). By contrast, on Kant’s account of history, the moral agent’s ends are taken as not accomplished by her, but by others quite unlike her. Why, then, need she, as moral agent, endorse this view? In response to this difculty, I propose that Kant’s central target—the source of moral despair to be addressed—in the ofcial history writings is more specifc than suggested above (and than is often thought): the regressive history narrated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Second Discourse. Te character of Kant’s history—its focus on nonmoral agency—is dictated by his aspiration to respond to this worry. In “Idea,” Kant clearly identifes Rousseau as a major interlocutor. He writes that Rousseau’s preference for the savage over the “civilized” state might be justifed if we cannot view history as progressive.42 He aims to show that we can so view history, while recognizing the awful human characteristics Rousseau shows to be developed over the course of history, such as “spiteful competitive vanity [and] the insatiable desire to possess or . . . dominate.”43 Even these ugly human characteristics, Kant argues, may ultimately produce good outcomes (i.e., unsociable sociability may “compel” human beings to form states and federations thereof ).44 Kant is thus concerned to address a specifc obstacle to the realizability of the agent’s moral goals: the evil of other human beings.45 In particular,

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Rousseau’s account of history suggests that such evil will spread more widely, as the activity of reason (culture) develops. It thereby articulates a yet more specifc source for the Kantian moral agent’s despair or obstruction to moral commitment, which I will call “ambiguity.” Tat is, the Kantian moral agent must be committed to and endorse the spread and development of reason, the faculty responsible for articulating and refning moral principles, for directing moral action. On the other hand, Rousseau persuasively portrays the historical development of human natural capacities—particularly reason—as deleterious for both human morality and happiness. Tis ambiguity concerning the development of reason renders it difcult for a moral subject to endorse and pursue that end (in brief, culture): it is both required to promote the good and productive of great evil, by reason’s own lights. 46 Tis ambiguity again could prompt despair, indeed paralyzing inactivity, in the moral agent.47 Must morally motivated striving toward the development of human capacities always be accompanied by moral despair at that development? Must the moral agent always see human nature as fragmented, ambiguous, and in part repulsive? Can moral agents endorse and work for culture, the development of reason? In his ofcial philosophy of history, Kant aims to respond to such Rousseauian doubts: to reassure the moral agent that her own reason, her moral purposes, are not out of joint with the general trajectory of human development, not part of an inconsistent, confictual, ambiguous development.48 Te evils of development may ultimately lead to conditions that coincide with morally desirable ends insofar as prudence in response to unsociable sociability will generate the state and federation, both of which are morally endorsed ends. And moral agents may hope that someday the tendencies to evil within unsociable sociability will be turned to better purposes, to competition in the arts, sciences, or trade—healthy competition, we might say—that does not confict with moral purposes because redirected by rightful political institutions.49 Tis central target of Kant’s account explains its focus on nonmoral agency. For Kant’s task is to show that nonmoral agency can coincide with morally desirable ends, that the apparently confictual character of human rational development—that reason produces potential for great evil along with, and in confict with, its other product, namely the moral agent’s potential for acting to realize the morally good—could, ultimately, be resolved in a nonconfictual outcome, a morally approvable end brought about through nonmoral means.50 We may also, correspondingly, refne the justifcatory desiderata of this Kantian a priori account of history. As noted above, Kant’s philosophical task in developing his regulative idea of history is not to justify a belief that transcends

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experiential knowledge (as in the case of the postulates), but rather to construct an empirically plausible account that satisfes the moral agent’s desiderata. Such plausibility includes, we now see, emphatic recognition of the human folly and wickedness concomitant to the development of reason and “civilized society” portrayed by Rousseau. Even if one grants all of Rousseau’s “glistering misery” of civilization—Kant wishes to show—we may believe in the possibility of an ultimately coherent development of human capacities, including, and not at odds with, the capacity of practical reason and its purposes.

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Loneliness and Solidarity: Te Unofcial Philosophy of History Kant’s ofcial philosophy of history is therefore akin to a theodicy concerning human nature: the incipient, historically developed evil in human nature (unsociable sociability) and its confict with somehow accompanying moral rational development can be resolved, perhaps compensated for, by the political institutions it ultimately helps to bring about.51 Tis account may be criticized, correspondingly, on grounds similar to those held against many a theodicy: the argument that evil may somehow be made good by contributing to some ultimate good outcome seems dismissive concerning its victims and appears to absolve evildoers of blame, even to vindicate their behavior, as ultimately useful.52 In what remains of the essay, however, I wish to raise a somewhat different, consequent difculty: loneliness. By the problem of “loneliness,” I mean that the content of Kant’s ofcial philosophy of history is alienating, even disempowering, to its moral addressee. I have argued that this content— decidedly nonmoral agency—is necessary if the ofcial account is to address the problem of ambiguity: in order to pursue the development of reason, the moral agent needs reassurance that such development can ultimately be nonconfictual; specifcally that its potentially evil aspects can bring about morally approvable ends. It remains the case, however, that the moral agent—she who acts for, who strives to realize, moral ideals as such—is on this portrayal alone, utterly unlike the portrayed historical agents. She is rendered lonely, not part of any shared historical enterprise: a mere hopeful bystander, an alienated agent disempowered by the prospect of acting entirely alone, with no community, no true fellows. To commit fully and actively to moral agency, to combat such despairing alienation, she may need a sense that there are others

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who will collaborate with her not ultimately, not in the overall trajectory of history, but here and now. One might reply to this concern by characterizing the audience for Kant’s philosophy of history more narrowly: well-intentioned rulers. As noted above, Kant closes “Idea” by referring to the interests of future generations, which could be read as an appeal to rulers’ desire for fame: if they wish to be “prized” in the future, they should “contribute to . . . a cosmopolitan aim.”53 Hence perhaps the “loneliness” of the Kantian addressee: rulers are agents of political decision-making and change in a stronger, but also more isolated, sense than ordinary moral agents. For rulers, the fact that most agents—citizens—are not necessarily like them, collaborating in their ends and so forth, may seem largely irrelevant. Tey may be more concerned with producing morally good attitudes in their subjects—the future “enlightenment” at which Kant gestures—than in having their collaboration. Rulers are also agents who may take themselves to be—fear that they are—lonely in the way Kant’s audience is rendered. When acting on the international stage, they may well worry that they are alone in their moral intentions, that they are faced with other rulers who aim only to promote their own advantage. Rulers are, in other words, faced with an “assurance problem”: Within a state, each citizen can be assured that other citizens, regardless of how morally committed they are, will follow the laws and respect limits on their freedom, as he will do—because the state will enforce it—but, internationally, there is no overarching authority to assure such reciprocity. Instead, Kant argues, we may invoke history to solve this problem: even the self-interest and power-hunger of the well-intentioned rulers’ counterparts will (ultimately) bring them around to—they will ultimately be forced by the course of history into—the right course of action.54 For enlightened rulers, in other words, loneliness may be fne, so long as they are assured survival and compelled cooperation. Tis response—though correct as far as it goes, I think—leaves the ordinary moral agent disempowered and alienated in the face of Kant’s ofcial account of history. And I propose that here one can come to see why that account needs supplementation by the “unofcial” views put forth in “Enlightenment” and “Renewed Attempt,” to which Honneth calls attention. Te ofcial history writings speak to one set of concerns, namely, that much of history gives little reason to be optimistic about human nature and its propensity to do good. It may be encouraging in one way to think that some goals might be accomplished despite or even because of the bad intentions of many historical actors. But the unofcial history writings add to that

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encouragement by attempting to show—or, better, to hint—that there may also be moral solidarity. Te moral agent needs not just assurance that some goals may be brought about through forced compliance, but also hope that there may be collaborative action directed toward improvement—that historical moral agents may form a community, that they may be present and active together in history, that they are present, here and now. Te unofcial writings seem designed to provide this sense of solidarity, and to point to other sources of such reassurance.55 In “Enlightenment,” Kant issues a direct call upon the reader to act: to enlighten herself,56 to engage in public discussion to “reform” her “way of thinking.”57 Terein, Kant writes, she is connected to others, considering herself a “member of a whole commonwealth, even of a society of citizens of the world.”58 Likewise, famously, in “Renewed Attempt,” Kant identifes not the French Revolution, but spectators’ publicly expressed sympathy with it as a “sign” of historical progress (Geschichtszeichen).59 Kant’s choice of such an indirect, inefectual sign is probably informed by his well-known rejection of the right to revolution and consequent ambivalence about the French Revolution. But I suggest that he also wishes to emphasize solidarity, or, in his terms, the sympathetic “participation” (Teilnehmung) of many in the actions of a few.60 Such fellow feeling—an experience of moral community—is precisely what the lonely moral agent needs to believe in and needs to experience. Contra Honneth, then, I would argue that these writings should not be taken as an alternative Kantian philosophy of history, a replacement for his ofcial view. Tey do not, in particular, present (Honneth’s portrait of ) a fully optimistic progress brought about by well-intentioned trial and error, by collective political agency. Tis is a view precluded for Kant by Rousseau, I would contend. More generally, these writings provide no difering, global view of history as a whole. (Tey ofer no theoretical position about the nature of history to be postulated.) I suggest that this is so precisely because they are addressed to lonely historical agents, hoping to forge solidarity with one another, positioned at an historical time; precisely for this reason, these writings approach history quite diferently. I now expand a little on this suggestion. As Michel Foucault emphasizes,61 these two writings are notable because they are set emphatically in the present, treating particular historical events contemporary to Kant (the reign of Frederick II, the French Revolution). Tough both essays have a generally progressive cast, these present events are portrayed, moreover, as present, not as part of a “sweep” of historical narration. Tere is a general sense that enlightenment has been a continuing process

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of improvement in “Enlightenment,” but the essay’s main emphasis is on the present as working toward a future. His is not an enlightened age, Kant famously claims, but rather an “age of enlightenment,” of change, activity, striving.62 In “Renewed Attempt,” Kant takes up apparently the same question as that treated in the ofcial history—whether human history as a whole is progressive—and he suggests that his “sign” might be taken both to indicate past progress (as an efect thereof ) and, more strongly, as a “cause” that will bring about human improvement “inevitably.” Still, he describes it as only an “intimation” (hindeutend), and, in contrast to the thrust of his ofcial history writings, provides not even a sketchy account either of how it came about, or of how it might produce future moral “improvement.”63 Just as enlightenment is a current activity of public discussion, so the sympathy is a singled-out present moment, a moment of community that can temporarily alleviate loneliness and bring hope. Neither builds a narrative. Correspondingly, neither text gives much regulative guidance concerning how to investigate history. Tey speak, rather, from the position of an agent within history, in the present, together with other, present historical subjects. Tose others are not actors about whom one narrates, but subjects with whom one sympathizes, to whom one addresses one’s arguments in a communal project of reciprocal enlightenment. Indeed, Kant claims strongly in “Renewed Attempt” that “we are not capable of placing ourselves in [the] position” of external observer, when considering the acts of our fellows.64 For these reasons—their present-ness and their portrayed, as well as taken-up, second-person approach to historical others—the unofcial history writings are also signifcantly more tentative concerning the future than the ofcial view. Te sign of progress in “Renewed Attempt” is merely a sign, an indication of possibility with no determinate outcome. It will have efects because, Kant writes, it “will not be forgotten.” As itself an isolated, remarkable phenomenon, the “sign” will (somehow) “rouse” some future agents to (some sort of ) “repetition of new eforts of this kind,” at some point in a vista of “immeasurable time.”65 Similarly, in “Enlightenment,” Kant argues not only that churches or princes ought not to limit free discussion, but also that the participants in such discussion may not do so for “succeeding generations.” Claiming to put an end to discussion, to settle questions, prevents the “progress of humanity toward improvement,” indeed “violate[s] the sacred right of humanity.”66 Subjects must always be allowed to (re-)think for themselves, and all enlighten themselves not as single individuals but through argumentative, communal discussion.67 Such openness to revision, such vulnerability to

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questioning by others, is, I suggest, characteristic of the moral agent working in community with others, in the present looking to the future. It is the concomitant to solidarity, the price for alleviating loneliness. Kant’s ofcial and unofcial history writings are, I wish to suggest, complementary, two sides of the moral agent’s vision of history, responses to ambiguity on one hand and to loneliness on the other, attempts to understand the sweep of history from outside, and the present as present, from inside.68 In both, Kant provides optimistic visions of history, but ones that nonetheless take into account the substantial grounds for despair experienced by committed moral subjects who live in dark times.

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Chapter 5

Kant’s Organic Religion God, Teleology, and Progress in the Third Critique

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Naomi Fisher

In the Appendix to the Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ), Kant discusses the relationship between the moral argument for the existence of God and the teleological argument for the existence of God. Kant is often regarded by commentators as merely reiterating various arguments for the existence of God in these passages, asserting the primacy of the moral argument. However, a closer look at these passages in their context reveals that Kant is introducing a new argument for God’s existence, which draws on both practical and theoretical philosophy, an argument that has important implications for how Kant views religion and human history. Kant, in CPJ, dismisses the teleological argument for the existence of God as not establishing a theology.1 Tat is, any purposive object in nature requires only the assumption of an intelligent author, not necessarily a supremely intelligent or a morally perfect being. However, Kant argues, in order to regard nature as having a determinate systematic organization, we must regard nature’s fnal, unconditioned end as the human being acting freely under the moral law. Kant here draws on the moral self-consciousness of human beings in order to fulfll reason’s demand to see nature as a teleological system with an unconditioned end. Once this assumption is made, we can on this basis infer that the author of the world is also a supreme, morally perfect being; that is, it is God. Tis line of argument leads to a novel vision of humanity’s relation

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to God. According to this vision, the unity and teleological systematicity of nature is directly secured by the assumption of human freedom actively shaping nature for an end throughout history. In these sections, Kant draws together theoretical and practical philosophy, making room for a manifestation of the ideas of reason within nature, through the free action of humans acting with the moral law as their unconditioned end. In this essay, I will frst discuss the need to see nature as a purposive system and explain why theoretical philosophy on its own must fail to meet this need. Tis opens up the way for practical philosophy to provide a crucial premise in a teleological argument for the existence of God. I then argue that this crucial premise provides a vision for human history and religion, according to which we see the development of culture toward the fnal end as importantly analogous to organic development. We are to regard the teleology of human history not as artifactual, but as organic. In the fnal sections of the essay, I discuss two important implications of this view of religion and history: First, according to these assumptions, God creates nature at a distance from himself; he makes human beings, rather than himself, the rulers and shapers of nature. Second, by designating freedom as that which makes possible the teleological ordering of nature, Kant fulflls his promise, given in the Introduction to CPJ, to bridge the “incalculable gulf ” between nature and freedom and to provide a “transition” from nature to freedom, by which we can regard freedom as operative in the natural world.2 Freedom’s assumed operation within and ordering of nature makes possible the regulatively assumed, objective reality within nature of other ideas of reason, namely God and immortality. Kant draws, in an unorthodox way, on a Christian tradition of an incarnational theology, according to which religion progressively manifests and makes sensible the perfect nature of God.

Problematizing the Ultimate End of Nature: CPJ, §67 and §82 According to Kant, in order to regard nature as a purposive system, one needs to regard it as having some ultimate end to which all other ends are subordinated. However, at several points in CPJ, Kant argues that theoretical philosophy cannot provide such an end of nature on its own. He concludes that only a fnal, unconditioned end of creation will provide the necessary systematicity.

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Te ultimate end (letztes Zweck) of nature is distinguished from the fnal end (Endzweck) of creation in that the ultimate end of nature is regarded as internal to nature itself; the ultimate end of nature must be natural. A fnal end, in contrast, is unconditioned, and so cannot be, strictly speaking, natural: “A fnal end is that end which needs no other as the condition of its possibility.”3 Kant discusses the ultimate end of nature in §67 of the Analytic of Teleological Judgment as well as in §82 of the Appendix. In both of these sections, Kant recognizes the problematic aspects of asserting that some organism is the ultimate end of nature or even that we must suppose that some particular sensible thing is the ultimate end of nature: In both cases, it appears that human beings, considered as sensible, can be construed as useful for other objects in nature, as well as dependent upon and conditioned by them. Moreover, nature appears to be indiferent to human ends, and without prejudice it subjects human beings to disease and natural disasters. In §67, Kant considers and rejects the idea that we can, at this point in CPJ and through theoretical philosophy alone, consider human beings the ultimate end of nature. He states that to consider something an end of nature, we need “cognition of the fnal end (Endzweck) (Scopus) of nature . . . which far exceeds all our teleological cognition of nature; for the end of the existence of nature itself must be sought beyond nature.”4 He goes on to state that any end within nature is conditioned, and yet we seek an unconditioned condition to ground these ends.5 Kant is even more explicit about this problem in §82 of the Appendix. Here, he claims, “whatever could be an ultimate end (letzter Zweck) for nature could never, no matter with what conceivable determinations and properties it might be equipped, be, as a natural thing, a fnal end (Endzweck).”6 Again, this is due to the fact that all natural objects are conditioned. In both §67 and §82, Kant discusses at length the manner in which nature appears to be contrapurposive for human beings: through diseases, natural disasters, and so on. Te claim that human beings are the ultimate end of nature certainly cannot be an empirical thesis, which we would regulatively suppose through observation of the world, similarly to how we judge organisms to have purposes. While we are compelled to regard nature as a teleological system, without the resources of practical philosophy nature lacks any determinate systematic organization. All we can suppose is a system of mutually conditioned ends, without any focal point or hierarchy. We could regard this system as purposive for any natural end; on the basis of theoretical philosophy alone, there is no reason to designate human beings the apex of this hierarchy.

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Kant completes §67 without establishing what counts as an end of nature and merely asserts that we are compelled, when judging natural ends, to regard nature as a system of such ends.7 However, in §82, Kant is not satisfed with these conclusions, since without an ultimate end, “the aggregate of organized natural things on earth cannot be a system of ends.”8 In this case, reason’s demand for systematicity cannot be fully satisfed by theoretical philosophy alone. However, Kant has not given up, and directly following this quotation, he states that the unifability of the teleological and mechanical ways of understanding nature may be regarded as lying in the supersensible, “outside of as well as inside us. . . . [Reason] demands that these appearances themselves, together with their principles, be related to the supersensible substratum in order to fnd possible certain laws of their unity, which cannot be represented except by means of ends (of which reason too has ones that are supersensible).”9 Te systematic unity of nature is guaranteed by appeal to the supersensible. Specifcally, it is guaranteed by appeal to the supersensible “inside us,” which is freedom. Te laws of unity governing the appearances are made possible by representations of ends, and here Kant invokes reason’s supersensible ends, that is, the ends of freedom or the moral law. Kant is claiming that the teleological unity and systematicity of the natural world is made possible by an appeal to freedom. Directly following this passage, in §83, Kant explains how it is that we can assert that human beings are indeed the ultimate end of nature. Nature, through culture, prepares human beings to be a “fnal end” by developing their aptitude for setting ends in general.10 Te fnal moral end of freedom lies outside of nature and is required to justify the assertion that the human being is the ultimate end of nature. In sum: the end of nature is the capacity of the human being to set ends (their freedom)—but the end of freedom is morality, and it is only in asserting the latter that we can assert the former since an ultimate end nevertheless requires a connection to something unconditioned, even if it itself is conditioned. As Kant makes clear in the Introduction to CPJ, the power of judgment presupposes the conditions of the possibility of freedom in the human aptitude for setting ends.11 Practical reason then provides the connection of freedom to its fnal end, connecting all of nature to this unconditioned end and justifying the special place of human beings as nature’s ultimate end. To sum up: theoretical philosophy cannot, on its own, provide an ultimate end of nature, not even regulatively, for the refecting power of judgment. We are compelled to see nature as a purposive system. However, without one single ultimate end by which it is organized, we cannot form a determinate

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conception of that purposive system. Terefore, we must draw on practical philosophy to provide a fnal, unconditioned end for creation, for which human beings serve as a conduit, setting them apart as nature’s ultimate end. Te human being can thereby be considered the ultimate end of what theoretical reason compels us to regard as the purposive system of nature. Tis appeal to the moral ends of human beings as the ground for nature’s teleological unity is made more explicit in Kant’s later discussion of arguments for God’s existence. Kant claims that the teleological argument for the existence of God is only made convincing through the practical assumption that human beings are the fnal end of creation. I will now turn to discuss these arguments, as laid out in the Appendix, §§85–88.

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Arguments for the Existence of God: CPJ, §§85-88 In §85, Kant discusses the teleological argument for God’s existence, arguing that while the purposive form of an organism is sufcient to regard it as the product of an intelligent being, it does not establish that being as a supremely intelligent or wise, morally perfect being. He states, “physical teleology certainly drives us to seek a theology, but it cannot produce one.”12 Tis is because physical teleology alone cannot provide any reason to assume various crucial attributes of the creator: his singularity, supremacy, or, most importantly, his moral goodness. We can only suppose the creator of any individual organism to be intelligent, not necessarily supremely intelligent, wise, or good.13 Kant sums up §85 as follows: “Tus physicotheology, a misunderstood physical teleology, is usable only as a preparation (propaedeutic) for theology, and is adequate for this purpose only with the assistance of another principle, on which it can support itself.”14 Tis other principle that is required to supplement physical teleology is discussed and established in §86. Here, Kant argues for a moral teleology according to which we regard the fnal end of creation as “the human being under moral laws.”15 Kant claims that reason demands an unconditioned end for nature, which could not possibly be merely within it, since everything within nature is conditioned.16 We recognize the human being as this end, which we need to do in order to regard “the world as a whole interconnected in accordance with ends and as a system of fnal causes.”17 Tis conclusion makes possible a conception of the relationship between nature and its creator such that we can “determine the concept” of that creator, which physical

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teleology could not do alone. In other words, it is only by regarding the end of creation as moral and thereby unconditioned that one can assume God’s existence, rather than the existence of some merely highly intelligent artifcer. Tis moral teleology, however, does not directly result in the inference to a moral author of the world: “Now this is not yet the inference from moral teleology to a theology, i.e., to the existence of a moral author of the world, but only the inference to a fnal end of creation . . . a moral being as author of the world, i.e., a God, is a second inference.”18 Te mediate conclusion of the moral teleology is that nature is ordered by and for human freedom. Once we reach this conclusion, then we can make the further inference that nature has a moral author. Tere is a tendency in the secondary literature to regard the inference to the fnal end as resulting from, rather than producing, the inference to a supreme being.19 On such a view, we can assume from the teleological order of the world that God created the world, through an appeal to a kind of intelligent design–style argument. Because God’s reason for creating the world must be unconditioned, we can assume that the end of the world is unconditioned and that therefore it is the moral law or the human being under the moral law. However, by Kant’s own lights, such a line of argument cannot be successful. First, as is clear from the above discussion, a physical teleology cannot establish the existence of a supremely intelligent or good creator. If we cannot assume that the creator is God with his various attributes rather than a highly intelligent group of demons, for example, there is a problem with the fnal inference from a creator to an unconditioned end of that creator’s creation. A highly intelligent but not in any way supreme or moral being could create nature with some conditioned end, for example, for its own entertainment. Tis provides a unique end of nature, but it is conditioned. Te problem with this assumption is that we have no conception of the designer on the basis of which we could assume that the human being under the moral law is, indeed, the unique end of nature. Without an assumed end, we have no principle by which we can order nature as a system. So, we must frst arrive at that principle, at that assumed and determinate fnal, unconditioned end, in order to regard nature as a purposive system, and from there we can infer that nature is created by a morally perfect and supremely intelligent being. Tus, independent of any assumption about God, moral teleology establishes that nature is ordered by and for the human being under moral laws. And then, in order to “make comprehensible the kind of purposiveness related

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to the moral law,” we must also, given the constitution of our faculty of reason, appeal to an author of the world “who is at the same time a moral legislator.”20 Te crucial premise, which is missing from the physico-teleological argument, and which is provided by practical philosophy, is that there is a natural object with an unconditioned end, the human being. Tis allows us to specify the human being under the moral law as the fnal end of the world, and also thereby specify the human being as the ultimate end of nature, as the conduit to this fnal, unconditioned end. Tis premise thereby justifes the assumption of a moral order of creation, from which we can infer a moral author of the world. Tis new argument draws both upon the conclusions of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment, as well as upon the practical, moral self-consciousness of human beings. In the following section, I show that in light of these conclusions, one ought to regard God’s involvement in nature as indirect, according to Kant. God is not conceived as creating nature with some determinate plan or a predetermined history. Rather, we must assume that God created nature with ends to be provided by human freedom, while still assuming that human freedom is constituted by the moral law legislated by God. God’s creative activity should not be conceived on analogy with artifactual creation, but rather on analogy with organic creation, in that nature is given a kind of autonomy through human freedom. In other words, nature, like an organism, organizes itself according to some end, which is in the process of being realized. Tis self-organization takes place through the activity of human beings. Following this, I will discuss a problem that arises in considering freedom to be operative in the progress of nature: a seeming tension with Kant’s notion of progress through unsociable sociability. In the fnal sections of the essay, I will show that there are important implications of this view of nature for Kant’s conception of religion.

Types of Teleology and Creation as Organic In the Analytic of Teleological Power of Judgment (CPJ, §§62–68), Kant is careful to distinguish between artifacts, which have their teleological structure imposed externally by an artifcer, and organisms, whose teleological structure is internal—the organism “organizes itself.”21 An organism requires teleological judgment, but not because we regard it as an artifact. It is a natural end because it is not an artifact: “One says far too little about nature and its

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capacity in organized products if one calls this an analogue of art: for in that case one conceives of the artist (a rational being) outside of it. Rather, it organizes itself.”22 If we take Kant’s analogy between organisms and artifacts too seriously, we are in danger of missing this important diference between them. Artifacts are shaped by something outside of themselves: artifacts are made for a purpose, which is imposed through the direct manipulation of an artifcer. Organisms, on the other hand, are regarded as shaping themselves, albeit for an end, which, for Kant, is conceived as given by a designer. Both bear a purposive structure, but one is immediately imposed, and the other is assumed to be progressively realized through a self-guided process of development.23 Te assumption of a creator, which Kant asserts is necessary (§75), is not the assumption of a craftsman directly imposing an idea, but the assumption of the provision of a purpose according to which the organism objectively selfshapes. In other words, we must regard nature as if there are purposes and ends within it, giving rise to an additional kind of regularity or lawfulness, the source of which is mysterious to us. We therefore assume that these rules have their source in the mind of a designer. Tis designer does not build an organism like a craftsman builds a machine, but rather provides the purpose and rules according to which the organic beings originate and develop.24 If we consider the fnal end of the human being under the moral law to be the end given to nature by God in creation, we can see that this end is organic rather than artifactual. Unlike artifactual ends, which are immediately imposed, the end of the human being under the moral law is something realized progressively and imperfectly. Also, unlike artifactual ends but similar to organic ends, the end of the moral law in nature is realized not through the activity of some craftsperson, but through self-directed activity, namely, that of human beings. God does not intervene in nature, but creates it with ends to be realized through human activity. Te end provided to organisms is that of an organic purpose; the end provided to human beings in a practical sense is the moral law. Te progressive realization of this end in human history constitutes moral progress. Tis view is supported in Kant’s slightly earlier “Idea” essay, in which he draws an analogy between an organism and humanity considered historically. He states that humanity, like any organism, is to be regarded as developing its predispositions completely.25 Tis development is to be regarded as only reaching completion historically, and it is so far incomplete: although we are cultivated and civilized, we have yet to be moralized.26 While cultivation and

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civilization are ends to be met by humanity, they do not themselves constitute the fnal end since that is only achieved in moralization. Humanity is in this way like an immature organism, and it progresses morally not through external imposition but through an internal purposive development. Like an organism, then, nature is ordered for a fnal end: that of human beings under the moral law. Also like an organism, nature is progressively shaped by an end: the free activity of human beings. An organism is “cause and efect of itself,” meaning that (1) it generates other objects of its kind; (2) it sustains, perpetuates, and develops its form as an individual; and (3) its parts are reciprocally dependent on each other and on the whole.27 Te latter two characteristics can also be applied to the fnal end of the human being under the moral law in nature.28 Te human being acting under the moral law acts to secure the moral development of the world, which more fully manifests its end of the human being under the moral law. Tus, this end is self-perpetuating and self-developing. And in relation to reciprocal dependence: If we regard this end as the apex of the teleological structure of nature, we can regard all of creation as a system of reciprocally dependent ends, reliant upon the whole, which is directed at this fnal end and only possible in relation to it. Terefore, the organic ends of creation mutually depend upon each other, and this whole system makes these parts possible and is constituted by the parts: no organism can exist in isolation from other living things. We consider these parts as subordinate to and serving the purpose of the whole: the human being under the moral law.29 Tis interpretation of the fnal end of the world as organic accords with the arguments above regarding the existence of God, particularly in the order of inference. We must frst regard nature as a purposively ordered system, that is, as having some fnal and unconditioned end, independently of whether we see it as created by a moral or divine being. It is only consequent upon the specifcation of that moral, unconditioned end that there arises the need to assume a moral author of the world. Just as we consider an individual organism to organize itself according to its end, we regard the world as organizing itself through and for its end: that of the human being under the moral law. We can then ask about the source both of this world and the moral law. A moral legislator, we are compelled to assume, legislates this end and creates a world that, when set free, can progressively pursue and manifest this end through the free activity of human beings. Te progress of nature is therefore attributed not to God’s direct intervention, on analogy with artifactual creation, but rather is directly attributed

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to the free activity of human beings as the apex and end of creation. Creation is in its organic aspect autonomous, insofar as its teleological development has an internal source, rather than being externally imposed. One might worry, however, that Kant does not attribute progress to human beings acting according to the moral law, but instead primarily to human beings acting egoistically or antagonistically through unsociable sociability. I now turn to discuss this tension.

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Unsociable Sociability and Moral Progress Such a worry is based on an incomplete understanding of Kant’s notion of progress and history. Kant’s full idea of history includes much more than the kind of progress attained through unsociable sociability.30 In Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, Kant states that the destiny of the human being is to cultivate, civilize, and moralize himself.31 Unsociable sociability is operative in the achievement of cultivation and civilization.32 More specifcally, Kant states that, “All culture and art that adorn humanity, and the most beautiful social order, are the fruits of unsociability.”33 But culture, art, and social order do not constitute moral progress. Tis progress is therefore in no way guaranteed by unsocial sociability, which works to advance not morality, but peace through the development of culture and ultimately (by extension to relations among nations) of civilization. Moralization cannot be advanced through such means. Te compatibility of these two forms of progress—the pragmatic and the moral—can be demonstrated with an organic analogy once again. Te mechanical aspects of the organism—for example, the manner in which the circulatory system of an organism involves a system of valves operating according to pressure diferentials—certainly contribute to the overall functioning of the organism. Indeed, they are essential for the overall functioning of the organism. Even if unsociable sociability, as a general rule, which describes human behavior at a certain time in history, is a necessary stage of human development, this does not entail that there are not overarching ends that are compatible with that mechanical story. Just as the mechanism of nature are essential to the overall functioning of the organism, so the “mechanisms” of human society, here unsociable sociability, could be an essential element in the advancement of moralization. And so, while unsociable sociability and pragmatic considerations lead to the development of culture and civilization, these ultimately make possible a moral world, which advances beyond mere

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pragmatic considerations to moral ones, and we can see the moral activities of human beings as essential to historical progress at this stage. Kant draws such a distinction in the Anthropology, calling the improvement of culture and civilization “artifcial” and due to providence, while morality is the task of humanity.34 Providence, states Kant, “consists in bringing forth the good which the human being has not intended, but which continues to maintain itself once it is there, from evil.”35 Providence is this artifcial form of progress; Kant makes an analogy with organisms, stating that in the organism as well we see resilience to destruction. Tat the human species as a whole is so resilient to its own evil, such that even out of evil, better social orders are devised, is not something attributable to human freedom. Rather, we can attribute this to something like laws of nature or the laws of human action, just as we attribute the resilience of a particular organic species not to the foresight and creativity of the individual organisms, but to adaptive response mechanisms. Even though Kant allows that such resilience is not something for which we are responsible, human beings are responsible for the moral development of the species. Such development is not guaranteed by any mechanisms or laws of human social behavior. Nevertheless, we are entitled both to extrapolate from historical progress and to hope for the continuation of this progress to ward of despair: “As for the rest, the human species should and can itself be the creator of its good fortune; however, that it will do so cannot be inferred a priori from what is known to us about its natural predispositions, but only from experience and history, with expectation as well grounded as is necessary for us not to despair of its progress toward the better, but to promote its approach to this goal with all prudence and moral illumination.”36 Terefore, progress in its most important form, viz., moral progress, is not advanced by nature or by providence through nature. While these other forms of progress, which consist of improvement of culture and politics, are advanced in this way, moral progress is up to us.37 Tis view of history is further supported in the view of progress that Kant advances in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Religion). In this work, and consistent with the view I am advancing in this essay, religion is the primary vehicle for building a moral world through ethical communities.38 According to Kant, “the moral improvement of human beings . . . constitutes the true end of all religion of reason.”39 Te ethical communities of the religion of reason are contrasted with political communities, which are formed for pragmatic reasons and govern external actions rather than internal motivations. A juridical community or a political state could never serve as a true

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vehicle for moral progress, as it is concerned with externalities rather than the internal motivations that are the true marks of morality. Nevertheless, such political communities are prerequisites for the formation of ethical communities.40 Tis is in line with Kant’s view in the Anthropology, as discussed above: cultivation and civilization are necessary for moral progress, but they do not themselves constitute moral progress.41 To sum up so far: Given the constitution of our faculties, we must assume that nature has the unconditioned end of human freedom under the moral law, which is achieved developmentally through the self-shaping activity of human culture and politics. We must also assume that God’s creative activity is what creates nature and sets it free, through human freedom, to develop itself toward the realization of moral laws. Tis end is advanced specifcally through the ethical communities of a rational religion. What I have established thus far has two major implications for Kant’s view of religion and human history: First, Kant makes nature an autonomous domain given to human beings to shape. In other words, nature, while it may be God’s original creation, is given over to the control of human beings and shaped by human freedom toward the God-given end of moral perfection. It is an independent realm governed by humans, and only mediately by God as moral legislator. I discuss this implication below. Second, Kant, through this view of nature, is fulflling the promise he made in the Introduction to the third Critique to bridge the “incalculable gulf ” fxed between nature, as sensible, and freedom, as supersensible.42 By drawing the supersensible ideas of reason into nature through the free activity of human beings, Kant is developing an “incarnational” human history. In other words, two other ideas of reason, God and immortality, are made manifest or revealed in nature through freedom.

O Felix Culpa: Te Fall Sets the World Free Te frst implication is that nature is regarded as independent of God, under the rule and purview of human beings. Tis is primarily because human beings are the end of nature, organizing nature according to their own ends, whether good or evil. One crucial diference between artifactual and organic teleology is that an artifact is regarded as a complete manifestation of the intentions of its artifcer. An organism, on the other hand, “organizes itself ” and so, considered sensibly, is responsible for its own activity and development. Regarding

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nature as sensibly organic rather than artifactual puts God at a distance from the world, since it is organized by and for the human being under the moral law. Nature can therefore be regarded as an independent realm ruled by the human being. One diference between creation and an organism is that God is assumed, as creator, to be directly involved in the original organization of the natural world. God creates the world from nothing, creates human beings with their freedom and subjectivity. And so, at least in its original state, we must consider the world an artifact, since it is assumed to originate through God’s direct imposition of form. However, the wayward use of human freedom, which then gives rise to the self-organization of the world, can be conceived as a “fall” from an artifact—one which fully manifests the intentions of the artifcer—to an immature, developmental “organic” state in which human beings must work toward that manifestation of the moral law. Kant’s 1786 essay, “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” both satirizes the speculative history and scriptural interpretations of Herder and asserts his own “conjectural” version of events, which fts with his philosophical vision. Here Kant describes the movement of human beings from a natural, instinctual state to a condition of freedom. Te biblical departure from the garden or “the Fall” is a transition from animality to humanity, “from the guardianship of nature into the condition of freedom.”43 Tis transition is represented as a “fall” since “the history of nature begins from good, for that is the work of God; the history of freedom from evil, for it is the work of the human being.”44 According to the interpretation advanced above, there is in this movement an alteration of hierarchy: instead of being the work and responsibility of God, completely subordinate to the ends directly imposed by God, nature is now the work and responsibility of human beings and is under their rule. All purposive arrangements within nature are then subordinated to the purposes advanced by and through human freedom. Tis is supported by Kant’s assertion in this essay that with this transition, the human being comprehended that “he was the genuine end of nature.”45 Tus Kant’s view of God’s creation after “the Fall” is that the purposive order of nature is not immediately subordinated to some determinate end imposed by God himself, but rather must be regarded as subordinated to ends given by human freedom. We assume that God, through turning over the governance of nature to freedom, sets nature free, making possible the progress toward moral perfection through human action.46

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With this view, we see a reconciliation of the notion of God as direct creator of the world, on the one hand, with the freedom of human beings and of the world generally to not conform to the moral law or to God’s legislation, on the other. According to the tradition Kant is drawing on, the Fall is not just the advent of sin and evil in created nature, but also the advent of knowledge. With “the Fall,” Adam and Eve—representative of humanity generally— become more distant from God in terms of conforming to the law set for them by God, but become more like God in their freedom and knowledge. In the words of the serpent: “You shall become like God, knowing good and evil.”47 In the move from animality to humanity, human beings lose the perfection of their artifactual state, but they gain the power and knowledge to rule and shape the world around them according to their own freedom. Te moral law is still legislated for them by God as an ideal and end, and the world still bears traces of its ordering by God in nature. Tese traces may include elements of human nature, such as unsociable sociability, which unwittingly contribute to the progress toward the moral law. Nevertheless, the world of creation is now assumed to be directed not just for, but by human freedom, in progress toward the end of the human being under the moral law. One might be skeptical of this interpretation, as it relies upon considering human free action efcacious within nature, and so at once both sensible and free. To consider oneself sensible is, for Kant, to consider oneself determined, and so our sensible activities are rather shaped by nature, not to be regarded as shaping nature. Tis brings us to the second implication, which gets to the heart of Kant’s conclusions and purpose in CPJ: namely, that in the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment, Kant opens up a way to regard supersensible freedom as operative within the realm of nature, thus bridging what was previously an “incalculable gulf ” between nature and freedom, providing a transition from nature to freedom. We must regard human freedom as efcacious in the sensible world and as bringing about the realization of the moral law in nature, just as we must regard organisms as both sensible and end-directed in their activity.48

Freedom, God, and Immortality Made Manifest in Nature In CPJ, §91, Kant claims that we need to have cognition of supersensible ideas: both God and the immortality of the soul must “have their reality proven in experience; for only in this way can they make possible any cognition of an

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entirely supersensible being.”49 Here, Kant is reiterating his earlier claim that theoretical reason, through the teleological proof, does not provide a theology. We can know nothing about the creator without the practical assumption of the fnal, unconditioned end of nature. Teoretical reason thus fails to provide such cognition. But crucially, Kant asserts that, by means of practical reason, freedom provides “matter for the cognition” of God and immortality “by means of a determinate law of causality arising in it.”50 Kant is here asserting both the supersensible aspect of freedom alongside its “objective reality . . . in nature.”51 Tis may appear paradoxical, but, in light of the interpretation advanced above, it is no more paradoxical than the relationship of an organism to nature: it is conceived in terms of a supersensiblygiven purpose by which it is made intelligible and cognizable within nature. Just as we judge nature as if there are the efects of teleological organization within it, so too should we judge it while assuming the efects of the fnal end of nature, that of human freedom.52 Kant is going beyond his previous formulations of the relationship of nature to morality in his insistence that not only freedom, but God and immortality through freedom are assumed to be not only possible, but practically cognizable in nature.53 Trough its progress toward the moral law, humanity makes sensible the moral character of God and the immortal nature of the human soul. Kant here is appropriating a kind of incarnational theology by which humanity “makes fesh” God’s nature. Unlike a literal interpretation of incarnation according to which there was a perfect sensible manifestation of God’s nature in a historical person, here humanity as a whole approaches a perfect sensible manifestation of God through its moral progress. Kant sums up his conclusions in the following passage: “Among the three pure ideas of reason, God, freedom, and immortality, that of freedom is the only concept of the supersensible that proves its objective reality (by means of the causality that is thought in it) in nature, through its efect which is possible in the latter, and thereby makes possible the connection of the other two ideas to nature, as well as the connection of all three to each other in a religion.”54 Religion, conceived as the revelation of these three ideas of reason within nature, amounts to humanity’s progression toward the moral law. We assume that the fnal end of creation is freedom. Freedom, as “the foundational concept for all unconditionally practical laws,” makes the moral law, as God’s legislation, sensible within nature. Tis makes God’s character as moral legislator manifest and provides indirect cognition of God and his ultimate plan for humanity.55

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Practical reason, united with teleological judgment, thereby makes possible an understanding of nature that is inclusive of supersensible, practical ideas. Te idea of freedom “can extend reason beyond those boundaries within which every (theoretical) concept of nature had to remain restricted without hope.”56 Tis practical contribution of the fnal end of creation also resolves the difculty of theoretical philosophy in providing an ultimate end and ordering of the system of nature, thus providing objective and sensible reality to this concept of freedom as parallel to and partaking in the teleological assumptions that make possible our cognition of organic nature. Tis provides a means for the practical cognition of God and immortality within nature, and makes possible an incarnational view of human history and a view of religion as progress toward the supersensible telos of the moral law, legislated by God. As I discussed above, God’s creation is organic rather than artifactual, since it develops itself toward a supersensible end and is regarded as sensibly self-organizing. We can now say that Kant’s religion is organic, since religion is that purposive development toward the sensible manifestation of God, freedom, and immortality, through the free activity of human beings under the moral law. As the organism more thoroughly manifests its purpose as it develops, so creation, through religious development, becomes a more thorough manifestation of these ideas of reason.57

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Conclusion In the 1790s, Kant gives more direct and explicit attention to religion and the related topics of morality and politics. His views as expressed in CPJ in 1790 difer in important ways from his previously expressed views, for instance in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason.58 Most striking among these diferences is that Kant appears to regard the ideas of reason as cognizable within nature through human progress in religion, a view that is made possible by his theorizing about organisms and teleology. Te Religion and Kant’s other writings of the 1790s ought to be read as building on the framework of CPJ. According to the interpretation advocated here, there are several novel views advanced in CPJ, which culminate in a vision of human history conceived as organic religious development, progressively manifesting God, freedom, and immortality in nature.

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These new advances show Kant’s increasing concern to unite the disparate elements of his philosophy and to develop a more unified view of the human being as free and natural. In his own words, in this work he bridges “the incalculable gulf” fixed between nature and freedom, resulting in a reconceptualization of religion, and in doing so sets the stage for the next phase of his philosophical work.

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Chapter 6

Realizing the Ethical Community Kant’s Religion and the Reformation of Culture

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Samuel A. Stoner and Paul T. Wilford

Kant consistently maintains that reason enjoins human beings to create a moral world. Tus, he argues that humans are morally obligated not only to cultivate a good will in and for themselves, but also to transform the sociopolitical order they inhabit into a moral whole. Te gradual approximation of this ideal order—the realization of the highest good in the world—is essential to Kant’s understanding of progress. However, Kant recognizes that serious obstacles stand in the way of both individual and communal progress. Foremost among these is the challenge posed by radical evil. As Kant argues in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Religion), radical evil always already corrupts humanity’s practical projects. Yet, if the Religion suggests that there are intractable limits to human freedom, it also explores how these defciencies might be mitigated and our communal life improved. In particular, the Religion explores the possibility that exemplary teachers and moral reformers have advanced humanity’s self-understanding at propitious moments in human history, initiating novel ways of thinking that further the moral aims of reason. Tis essay argues that Kant understands himself as just such a world-historical reformer. We conclude that the Religion is an especially remarkable part of Kant’s oeuvre because Kant intends it to exercise a direct infuence on human history by reforming religious doctrines and

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institutions in order to help humanity overcome evil as it works to establish an ethical community on earth.

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Te Purposiveness of Reason In order to understand Kant’s approach to the problem of evil, it is helpful to begin with a brief overview of Kant’s critical account of reason as an essentially moral capacity characterized by its spontaneous, autonomous, and teleological activity. Tis conception of reason lays the groundwork both for Kant’s claim that humanity is obligated to progress toward a moral world and for his account of radical evil as the most substantial obstacle to such progress. Kant’s critical philosophy simultaneously appropriates and transforms modernity’s goal of promoting human freedom. Kant strives to live up to his own characterization of enlightenment by furthering humanity’s ability to emancipate itself from its “self-incurred immaturity.”1 Yet, even as he seeks to further the modern attempt to liberate reason from the constraints of tradition, the guidance of nature, and the authority of revealed religion, Kant rejects early modern accounts of freedom as the power to satisfy one’s appetites. Tis account entails that each individual’s idiosyncratic inclinations are the guiding principles of that individual’s life and that reason is merely an instrument whose sole purpose is to discover the most efcient means for realizing an end determined by the inclinations. Under the infuence of Rousseau, Kant argues that this early modern account of freedom and rationality is problematic for two reasons. Most generally, he fnds that his predecessors tend to assume that it is good to satisfy one’s desires without providing a convincing argument to justify this claim, thereby begging the crucial question of what constitutes the good life for a human being. In addition, Rousseau’s powerful criticisms of modern life alert Kant to the possibility that the unrestrained pursuit of knowledge, freedom, and happiness threatens to lead humanity into ever-deepening forms of ignorance, slavery, and misery. Ultimately, Kant’s confrontation with Rousseau leads him to see that early modern accounts of reason are self-undermining because instrumental reason’s apparently natural attempt to satisfy the desires promotes unprincipled and, therefore, unjust ways of thinking that lead to intractable theoretical problems and increasingly degraded forms of social life. In light of this problem, Kant seeks to provide a new foundation for modernity’s emancipatory project. Given that reason is the essence of the human being,

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Kant argues that genuine human freedom requires the liberation of reason from all principles external to reason itself, regardless of whether they are beyond the human (God or nature) or within the individual (feelings, desires, or passions). Accordingly, Kant concludes that reason must determine its own activity. Reason must, in other words, abandon all forms of heteronomy in order to secure its own autonomy. In this way, Kant arrives at a radically new account of reason’s essential character. Far from being a slave of the passions, Kant conceives of reason as a purposive capacity that is capable of determining itself by articulating the principles that ought to govern its own activity.2 Kant’s critical project is a sustained attempt to think through the premises and implications of his revolutionary conception of reason as autonomous and purposive. Tus, in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Kant characterizes reason as a spontaneous capacity that generates “ideas” that ground and guide reason’s own activity and claims that all rational activity is ultimately only “the efect of the practical purposiveness which pure reason imposes on us.”3 More specifcally, Kant argues that reason is “directed only to what is moral,” that “the highest ends” of reason are “those of morality,” that the ultimate task of morality is to establish a “moral world,” and that the attempt to further reason’s moral purposes is “the entire vocation of human beings.”4 Building on these conclusions, the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR) explicates the nature and signifcance of reason’s necessary concern with “the highest good,” that is, a world in which happiness is “distributed in exact proportion to morality.”5 Signifcantly, though, Kant does not simply claim that individuals can and should hope for the eventual realization of the highest good in the world; he argues that “it is a priori (morally) necessary to produce the highest good through the freedom of the will.”6 Kant reiterates the latter point in the Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ), when he claims that “freedom should make the end that is imposed on it by its laws real in the sensible world.”7 Indeed, Kant suggests that one of CPJ’s principal goals is to explore how it is possible to conceive of nature “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 accordance with the laws of freedom.”8 Over the course of his critical project, then, Kant not only emphasizes reason’s autonomous and purposive character; he goes much further, arguing that reason’s ultimate purpose is moral and that reason necessarily strives to realize its moral telos in the world. Kant’s three great Critiques are united theoretically by the attempt to account for human beings as a species determined by reason’s demand for moral progress and practically by the aim of furthering this moral progress.

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Kant’s Conception of Radical Evil If reason demands that human beings strive to realize the highest good, however, it does not follow that humanity can satisfy reason’s demand. Given that Kant’s critical philosophy is self-consciously devoted to determining both the power and the limits of human reason, it should come as no surprise that his accounts of reason’s ideal moral purposes are always accompanied by sober refections on the difculties that confront humanity’s attempt to actualize reason’s ideas. Te most substantial of these difculties appears in Part One of Kant’s Religion, where Kant claims to discover “a radical innate evil in human nature” that undermines all human eforts to make moral progress.9 With one bold stroke Kant appears to vitiate the freedom he had hitherto lauded as “the keystone of the whole structure of a system of pure reason” and to undermine the grounds for rational hope he so assiduously developed in his three great Critiques.10 In what follows, we explicate Kant’s doctrine of radical evil in order to explain why such evil threatens the very possibility of reason’s autonomy and a fortiori the possibility of progress. When approaching Kant’s discussion of radical evil, it is important to begin by emphasizing that radical evil does not refer to a rare but especially intense species of malevolence as opposed to other, more common but less harmful forms of immorality. To the contrary, it describes the way in which all particular forms of immorality, even the most trivial, grow out of a single, fundamental, corrupt tendency of human thought that always already decisively infuences one’s deliberations and choices. Indeed, Kant argues that radical evil is a manifestation of a basic “comportment of mind” (Gesinnung) toward moral evil.11 Further, Kant claims that one’s comportment of mind is itself always already determined by a logically prior, practical principle, which Kant calls a “supreme maxim.”12 In keeping with his account of the human being as both rational and sensual, Kant argues that a supreme maxim itself can take one of two forms, depending on whether the inclinations are subordinated to the authority of the moral law or the moral law is subordinated to our interest in satisfying our inclinations.13 In the former case, one’s supreme maxim would be good, and it would ground a moral comportment of mind. In the latter case, one’s supreme maxim would be evil, and it would ground an immoral comportment of mind. In the fnal analysis, Kant’s notion of radical evil describes a state of afairs in which “evil has corrupted the very highest maxim in us.”14 More specifcally, it describes a situation in which a person’s supreme maxim “reverses the moral order of his incentives” by making “the

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incentives of self-love and their inclinations the condition of compliance with the moral law.”15 If the Religion ofers an analysis of human practical reason that traces an individual’s moral character to her supreme maxim, however, it is vital to remember that one of the most fundamental premises of Kant’s critical philosophy is that reason is spontaneous, autonomous, and free. Accordingly, Kant cannot claim that the supreme maxim that determines a person’s character is an absolutely necessary feature of that person’s psychological constitution. Indeed, Kant emphasizes that freedom is a necessary condition of morality and that we are only ever morally responsible for that which we have freely chosen. Ultimately then, Kant argues that we must be responsible for the supreme maxim that determines our moral character. For, if we are not responsible for the basic principle that grounds and guides our deliberations, then we cannot be responsible for any particular choice we end up making. In order to preserve the possibility of moral responsibility, then, Kant concludes that one’s supreme maxim must be the result of a free choice that one has made. However, Kant also recognizes that the free choice that determines one’s supreme maxim must have a unique status. For, as we have seen, one’s supreme maxim is the ultimate subjective ground of one’s basic comportment of mind and is, therefore, the basic principle that determines all particular conscious choices. And, precisely because one’s supreme maxim always precedes and determines all particular conscious choices, it is impossible for any particular conscious choice to determine this maxim. Accordingly, Kant argues that the free choice that determines one’s supreme maxim must be diferent in kind from the particular choices that one consciously makes over the course of one’s life. Indeed, Kant concludes that one’s supreme maxim must be understood as the product of a single, decisive choice that precedes and grounds all conscious choices, namely, “an intelligible deed, cognizable through reason alone apart from any temporal condition.”16 For Kant, then, one is radically evil if and only if one has freely chosen a supreme maxim by means of an “intelligible deed” that precedes and governs all conscious activity by dictating that one subordinate reason’s moral law to one’s natural inclinations whenever one exercises one’s free power of choice. Despite his emphasis on freedom as the ground of practical reason and his claim that each of us produces the supreme maxim we happen to have by means of a deed of freedom, however, Kant also claims that we all end up choosing an evil maxim that subordinates the moral law to individual inclinations. Tus, Kant claims that radical evil is a necessary truth of the human

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condition, and he indicates that he is in possession of an a priori “formal proof ” of the universality of radical evil.17 All human beings, “even the best,” are tainted by evil.18

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Te Problem of Radical Evil With this account of radical evil in mind, it is worth pausing in order to emphasize the complexity of the account of practical reason that Kant develops in the Religion. On one hand, Kant suggests that we are morally responsible for each particular choice we make and, by implication, that we can and do exercise a fundamentally free power of choice whenever we make a decision. On the other, Kant argues that each particular choice we make is already determined by a more fundamental “supreme maxim,” which is, in turn, produced by a single, decisive “intelligible deed” of freedom. Accordingly, Kant indicates that freedom plays a double role in the economy of practical reason as both the creator of one’s moral character and as the means by which one executes one’s moral character in and through particular choices. And yet, it does not seem possible for freedom to fulfll both of these functions at once. For, if one’s supreme maxim always already grounds and guides all particular choices that one makes, then these choices cannot be as free as Kant’s account of moral responsibility requires. It would seem that we can be responsible for our character or for our choices, but not for both. Accordingly, Kant’s account of radical evil culminates in paradox. In order to secure the possibility of evil choices, Kant sees that he must emphasize each human being’s freedom to make a good or evil choice in every particular situation she confronts. At the same time, however, Kant’s account of humanity’s radically evil character entails that each of us necessarily has an evil supreme maxim that always already corrupts each choice we make. Te same considerations that lead Kant to claim that humans are essentially free to choose between good and evil ultimately lead him to deny that humans are capable of exercising this freedom on any particular occasion. Such aporia notwithstanding, the crucial point for the present essay is that Kant’s claim that radical evil is a universal and necessary feature of the human condition points beyond itself to a fundamental problem that confronts human reason, as such. As we saw above, Kant conceives of reason as a free, purposive, and moral capacity. Accordingly, Kant’s critical philosophy ofers an account of humanity as a species that is always already determined

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by reason’s demand for moral progress. But Kant’s Religion argues that radical evil always already corrupts human beings, rendering them incapable of making moral progress by means of their own, unaided eforts. Accordingly, the Religion’s analysis of the mode of practical reasoning characteristic of human beings would seem to uncover an incoherence inherent in human reason as such, which calls the very possibility of reason’s moral vocation into question.

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Radical Evil and the Possibility of Progress Kant recognizes the problem that radical evil poses to reason’s demand for progress, and he explicitly discusses this problem and its signifcance in the Religion. Indeed, Kant’s refections on radical evil ultimately lead him to reconceive the meaning of reason’s demand for moral progress, both for individual human beings and for the human race as a whole. On the level of the individual, Kant sees that each person must overcome radical evil in and for themselves in order to begin to fulfll reason’s moral demands. And yet, because radical evil originates in a single, decisive, intelligible deed of freedom that always already corrupts all particular conscious choices that an individual makes, Kant also recognizes that it is impossible for an individual to overcome radical evil through her own eforts. Radical evil is so problematic precisely because it appears to obviate human agency. If human reason necessarily constructs ideas of the highest good that it cannot begin to realize, the human condition appears to be farcical or tragic. In order to begin to make moral progress, Kant sees that each individual must somehow confront and overcome the pervasive infuence of radical evil. Signifcantly, though, Kant emphasizes that such self-overcoming requires an exercise of freedom that is as decisive and original as the intelligible deed that gives rise to radical evil in the frst place. In Kant’s words, any and all moral progress that an individual makes “must be efected through a revolution in the disposition of the human being” that is itself the result of “a single and unalterable decision” that “reverses the supreme ground of his maxims” and transforms him into a person who is, “by principle and attitude of mind, a subject receptive to the good.”19 Kant’s account of radical evil leads him to see that individual moral progress must begin with a revolutionary self-transformation, akin to conversion, in which an individual does away with his old character and creates a wholly new moral character for himself once and for all. Moral progress requires each individual to overcome radical evil through a radical

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act of self-transformation. One might say that Kant’s discovery of radical evil leads him to the realization that moral autonomy depends on a logically prior act of moral autopoesis. Signifcantly, though, Kant recognizes that the self-transformation required for moral progress constitutes only the frst step in an individual’s journey toward morality. Humans qua human are always characterized by their status as fnite rational beings who are simultaneously predisposed to reason’s moral law and receptive to the infuence of the natural inclinations. So, even if an individual has created a moral character in and for herself, she will nevertheless continue to feel the pull of her sensuous nature at every moment and will therefore continuously confront the temptation to abandon her commitment to the moral law in order to satisfy her natural desires. Even a “morally well-disposed human being” is constantly “exposed to the assaults of the evil principle.”20 Te most that an individual can accomplish, then, is a “freedom from the dominion of evil”—not an absolute freedom from evil as such. Even after having achieved a moral character, an individual must constantly battle “against the attacks of the evil principle” in order to continue to “assert his freedom” for the sake of the good.21 Accordingly, individual moral progress must have two stages: frst, a revolutionary self-transformation that establishes a moral character and second, a constant efort to maintain and exercise one’s moral character in the face of the constant temptation to abandon the moral law and return to one’s former evil condition. Even after an individual has transformed her supreme maxim, then, she remains engaged in a kind of spiritual warfare—a battle with the self for moral freedom. In this second stage, the individual’s relation to his community comes to the 22 fore. Kant emphasizes that the temptation to make choices in accordance with one’s inclinations rather than the moral law is exacerbated by the intersubjective nature of social and political life. Tus, Kant begins Part Tree of the Religion by ofering a Rousseauian indictment of the degrading infuence of society on human morality, which argues that social life causes humans to become preoccupied with reputation, honor, and power and that it ultimately enfames distinctively social passions, such as “envy, addiction to power, avarice, and the malignant inclinations associated with these.”23 Indeed, Kant claims that these powerful passions are a necessary consequence of social life and that they “assail” a person’s nature immediately, “as soon as he is among human beings.”24 Tis analysis of the problems inherent in human sociality illuminates both the negative consequences of radical evil and the difculties that confront humanity’s attempts to overcome radical evil through sociopolitical

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progress. On one hand, humanity’s radically evil character is the ground of society’s ills—were it not for the fact that humans tend to pursue their selfish desires with reckless abandon, the destructive social passions described above would not begin to assail human nature. On the other hand, however, humanity’s unsocial sociability exacerbates the problem of radical evil. Not only does social life foster antagonism and competition among human beings, it intensifes a fundamental confict that is always already taking place within each human being between reason’s predisposition to the good and the natural propensity to evil. Precisely by provoking especially destructive passions, social life intensifes the power of the passions and perpetuates humanity’s propensity to act in accordance with natural inclination rather than reason’s moral law. Tus, social life deepens the evil inherent in human reason, while simultaneously exacerbating the temptation to immorality that persistently plagues those who have indeed committed themselves to morality. Human sociability not only threatens to undermine the very possibility of progress; it also poses an abiding threat to whatever progress humans have managed to make. Even in its intensifed social manifestations, however, the problem of radical evil cannot silence reason’s demand for moral progress. Tus, immediately after considering the intractable problems that confront human sociality, Kant seeks to explain how humans might address these problems. As with individual moral progress, sociopolitical progress has a two-stage structure. First, it is necessary to overcome what Kant calls the “juridical state of nature,” in which each person acts as his own judge because no one acknowledges public laws that govern all in common.25 In such a state, self-interest reigns supreme, problematic social passions fourish, and social life is characterized by competition, antagonism, and confict that threaten to devolve into a Hobbesian war of all against all. Te frst stage of sociopolitical progress, then, is humanity’s successful departure from the juridical state of nature through the creation of a “juridico-civil (political) state” governed by a constitution that establishes “an efective public authority” that enforces coercive “public juridical laws” that limits the negative efects of self-interest and social passions.26 Even if it is successful in its attempt to counteract the problematic consequences of radical evil, however, the creation of a just political order is not sufcient to resolve the problem of radical evil as such. Political laws govern external actions by promising rewards and threatening punishments, but these “means of coercion” can never control human thinking and willing.27 As we have seen, human beings can only become moral through a revolutionary selftransformation. But, given that humans cannot discard their sensuous nature,

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the inclinations remain an enduring threat to morality—“the good principle, which resides in each human being, is incessantly attacked by the evil.”28 Such moral trials are compounded by social life in which each individual is assailed not only by his own inclinations but also by the possibility that others will succumb to their inclinations and promote an increasingly unjust social order. All political communities prove to be inherently defcient because they exacerbate a problem they cannot solve. At their best, political communities only ever secure a freedom from the harmful efects of evil actions and never a freedom for morality grounded in a consensus about the good. Tus, even a perfectly just political order does not produce a community whose members share “a common goal of goodness” grounded in “a principle which unites them.”29 If a just political order only resolves the problematic external manifestations of radical evil characteristic of a “juridical state of nature,” it nevertheless leaves humanity in an “ethical state of nature” characterized both by the continuing tension within each individual between the moral law and the natural inclinations and by the continued threat that this tension will manifest itself in public life.30 Justice is a necessary but insufcient condition for moral progress. Tus, radical evil gives rise to a political problem that does not admit of a political solution. In this way, Kant’s account of radical evil highlights the fundamental limits of politics. Ultimately, Kant sees that reason’s demand for moral, and not merely political, progress must take the form of a demand that humanity “endeavor to leave behind” the ethical state of nature “as soon as possible” by transforming humanity as a whole into an “ethical community” whose members have devoted themselves to the moral law and publicly acknowledge their common commitment to morality.31 However, Kant recognizes that “this highest moral good will not be brought about solely through the striving of one individual person for his own moral perfection but requires rather a union of such persons into a whole toward that very end, [that is,] toward a system of welldisposed human beings in which, and through the unity of which alone, the highest moral good can come to pass.”32 And yet, Kant also admits that we cannot know whether such a union of human beings is possible.33 In fact, Kant argues, reason’s demand that humanity transform itself into an ethical community “difers entirely” from all other moral duties. For, whereas moral duties typically only “concern what we know to reside within our power,” the duty to enter into an ethical community always depends on the cooperation of other human beings and therefore transcends the power of any individual.34 Ultimately, Kant concludes that the duty to establish an

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ethical community must be a unique form of duty—“a duty sui generis, not of human beings toward human beings but of the human race toward itself.”35 If the idea that humanity is duty-bound to found an ethical community on earth provides a concrete way to conceptualize the telos of reason’s demand for moral progress, it also serves as an expression of the fundamentally problematic character of this demand. Kant highlights the problem by emphasizing that the establishment of an ethical community in the world would require “more wisdom (of insight as well as of good disposition) than human beings can be thought capable of.”36 Moreover, Kant notes, “the moral goodness . . . which is aimed at through such an organization” must be “presupposed” in human beings in order to explain how humans bring about an ethical community.37 Yet, it is impossible to presuppose that human beings are morally good. Indeed, Kant argues that they are radically evil. Hence, Kant concludes that it is “nonsensical” to think that any human being or any group of human beings could ever bring about an ethical community. To summarize the results of the foregoing analysis, then, the problem of radical evil emerges on two levels of the Religion’s account of human morality. First, the problem of radical evil confronts each individual’s attempt to become a virtuous person. Second, the problem of radical evil confronts each individual’s attempt to contribute to humanity’s progress toward an ethical community. Te problem in both cases is that humanity’s radically evil character entails that all humans are always already corrupt and that no person is capable of making themselves or others moral through their own unaided eforts. Even if reason demands that all individuals transform themselves into moral persons in order to become members of a universal ethical community, such self-transformation seems impossible and reason’s demand for moral progress ultimately seems to be irrational. Tis argument appears to sound the death knell both for Kant’s moral theory and for his philosophical project. One might say that Kant’s refections on humanity’s radically evil character explore the abiding alienation of the human from its own proper essence as rational and moral, thereby representing human life as a Sisyphean endeavor in which each individual is obligated to do what is absolutely impossible for any individual to accomplish. It is tempting to conclude that Kant’s mature refections on the nature and possibility of moral progress highlight the absurdity of reason’s moral vocation. However, rather than abandoning reason for an irrational salto mortale that preserves morality by appealing to common sense, intuition, special revelation, or arational willfulness, Kant argues that reason is so essential to the

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human being and so authoritative for human life that it justly secures its own possibility by positing the reality of all necessary conditions of this possibility. One might say that this is the most fundamental proposition of Kant’s critical idealism: reason’s autonomy must be possible. In the context of Kant’s rational religion, the important point is that Kant indicates that reason responds to the problem of radical evil by postulating a powerful, wise, and moral God who supports human endeavors to make themselves moral and to transform humanity as a whole into an ethical community. In the fnal analysis, then, Kant’s mature account of moral progress highlights the decisive limits of humanity’s eforts to live up to its own rational character. In striking continuity with Kant’s critical work, the frst and last task of reason is self-knowledge, and yet greater self-knowledge comes with an awareness of the awful magnitude of the task of knowing oneself. By emphasizing that the problem of radical evil can only be resolved in and through a “rational faith” in the reality and efcacy of a God who guarantees that humans can realize reason’s demand for moral progress, Kant provides a philosophical anthropology for comprehending the moral drama of human beings’ perpetual struggle to realize their own essence as rational beings. In the fnal analysis, Kant indicates that moral reason without rational faith is an absurdity. Reason requires religion to justify its own possibility. Tis is the meaning of Kant’s claim in the Preface to the frst edition of the Religion that morality “inevitably leads to religion.”38 It is no accident that the question of the possibility of moral progress is the fundamental theme of Kant’s Religion.

Rational Religion and Moral Progress If rational religion resolves the problem of radical evil, however, it also gives rise to new difculties. For, as we have seen, the essence of rational religion is reason’s postulate of a moral God who ensures that humanity can realize reason’s moral telos. However, if God is ultimately responsible for human progress, then this would seem to negate human autonomy. Accordingly, the God of Kant’s rational religion threatens to rob humans of the ability to fulfll reason’s demand that each individual further humanity’s progress toward a moral world. If radical evil undermines the possibility of moral progress, rational religion seems to preserve this possibility at the cost of moral agency. Of course, Kant is well aware that his account of rational religion threatens to undermine human autonomy by encouraging a form of piety that

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emphasizes passive submission to external authority rather than autonomous action. Accordingly, he ofers sharp criticisms of passive piety throughout the Religion, continually reminding the reader that freedom is the essence of morality and that humans can only ever become moral through their own eforts. Nevertheless, Kant is acutely aware that moral endeavor does not occur in a vacuum and that the question of the conditions for moral agency cannot be divorced from the question of the possibility of real moral progress. Tis double view comes into focus in Kant’s account of how rational religion informs the nature and meaning of humanity’s attempt to transform itself into an ethical community in the opening paragraphs of Part Four of the Religion. Kant begins by identifying a basic condition of humanity’s progress toward an ethical community. Arguing that “in the world of the understanding something is already there when the causes, which alone can bring it to pass, have taken root generally,” Kant concludes that meaningful moral progress toward an ethical community is already underway when “the principles of its constitution begin to become public.”39 But a genuine ethical community can never arise from “an accidental agreement of all in a common good” that might arise when each individual obeys their own “private duty.”40 To the contrary, an ethical community can only arise through a collective and selfconscious efort of all human beings to bring about “universal agreement” about the nature and signifcance of the moral law.41 As we have seen, though, the existence of radical evil seems to obviate the possibility that humans might secure the requisite agreement through their own unaided eforts. Tus, Kant argues that an ethical community “can be undertaken by human beings only through religion” and concludes that an ethical community is only possible if “God himself is in the last instance the author of the constitution as founder.”42 In keeping with his general argumentative strategy in the Religion, then, Kant stresses the limits of humanity’s capacity to make meaningful moral progress on its own only to suggest that rational morality implies rational religion because of humanity’s inability to live up to reason’s moral vocation. Here, however, we confront the possibility that rational religion might undermine human agency. For, if humanity can only transform itself into an ethical community when God intervenes in human history in order to establish such a community, then it seems to follow that humanity is forever incapable of fulflling its sui generis duty to transform itself into an ethical community. Kant responds to this difculty by arguing that God’s role as founder does not preclude human responsibility for the ethical community. For the fact that God founds humanity’s ethical community does not imply that God

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is responsible for its preservation and propagation, nor does it entail that humans have no responsibility for their social and political situation. Even if it is the case that God is necessary in order to explain how the moral law frst becomes efcacious in the world, Kant argues that God can only establish an ethical community in and through the free cooperation of human beings. In fact, the very existence of an ethical community requires that human beings have freely chosen to make themselves moral and thereby made themselves worthy of being citizens of the community of God. Humans always remain responsible for the “organization,” if not the origination, of the ethical community.43 Kant describes such work on behalf of the community as “service” to the moral law. Accordingly, religious activity takes the form of promoting the progress of the species, and piety is reinterpreted as a teleological striving to further the idea of universal morality that has already become efcacious in the world.44

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Moral Reformers and Historical Progress If his concept of moral service explains how humans can pursue reason’s moral telos despite their inability to generate on their own an ethical community, Kant also realizes that the attempt to provide moral service on any given occasion confronts difculties of its own. On one hand, transcendental idealism institutes an incalculable gulf between nature and reason that creates a seemingly irresolvable dualism between reason’s moral demands and the sensible world in which these demands are to be realized. Even if it is not absolutely impossible for reason to infuence nature, it is clear that it cannot transform the world in a direct, unproblematic, or immediate manner.45 On the other hand, to the extent that humans can and do facilitate moral progress, they must confront the problematic infuence that radical evil has already exercised both on individual human beings and on human society. Tough he holds that individuals can and should make a single, decisive choice that efects an intellectual revolution in which they are transformed into moral persons, Kant also recognizes that customs, conventions, and manners are much less amenable to revolutionary transformation. Consequently, he concludes that humanity’s progress toward an ethical community can only occur as “gradual reform.”46 Accordingly, reason’s injunction that individuals realize their moral vocation by furthering humanity’s progress toward a moral world takes the concrete form of a demand that humans contribute to the gradual reform

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of the human race by serving morality and advancing the moral progress that is already underway. In this way, the question of reason’s moral vocation becomes the question of how individuals can contribute to the gradual moral reform of the human race. Kant suggests an answer to the latter question in a passage we have already examined from the beginning of Part Four of the Religion, where he claims that genuine moral progress is already under way when the moral law has not only taken root in individuals, but also emerges into a public space through these individuals. Since genuine moral progress requires a form of deliberate, self-conscious awareness about morality itself, moral progress can only occur when individual human beings not only act according to the moral law, but also self-consciously work to make it efcacious in the world as the principle of sociopolitical and ethico-religious change. Tus, it is possible to reformulate the question of the possibility of progress once again by asking how it is that individual human beings can publicize the moral law in order to make it efective in their own lives and in the lives of other human beings. How, in other words, can the moral law gain public recognition and become the guiding principle of humanity? In response to this question, Kant develops a striking account of how an individual human being might contribute to the moral transformation of the human race as a whole. Tis account centers on the fgure of Jesus of Nazareth. Tough Kant ofers several discussions of Jesus over the course of the Religion, he is especially fascinated by the possibility that Jesus is the founder of the only genuinely moral religion in human history, that is, Christianity. Characterizing him as the moral servant par excellence, Kant argues that Jesus is responsible for the formation of an empirical community that is self-consciously directed to the instantiation of reason’s ideals. Indeed, Kant portrays Jesus as a world-historical fgure who serves as the moral reformer whose words and deeds efect a transformation in human consciousness of the moral law. Christianity, for Kant, is the frst moment of communal self-awareness of humanity’s moral essence. Kant’s discussion of Jesus’s world historical signifcance occurs in the Second Division of Part Tree of the Religion, which ofers a “historical representation” of humanity’s moral progress. Developing the analogy he had previously drawn between the ethical community and a church constituted by a “people of God under ethical laws,” Kant’s moral history of the human race aims to describe humanity’s transition from “ecclesiastical faith”—marked by a passive submission to the authority of Scripture, tradition, and ceremony—to a

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genuinely rational faith committed to reason and morality.47 Signifcantly, this history is not intended to make a substantive contribution to the content of Kant’s account of moral progress. It is, instead, a concrete “representation” of the telos of moral progress—“a beautiful ideal of the moral world-epoch . . . one which we do not see directly in the manner of an empirical contemplation but have a glimpse of in the continuous advance and approximation toward the highest possible good on earth.”48 Tis beautiful ideal functions not only by clarifying the nature of the ethical community, but also by providing humans with “a symbolic representation” of the goal of moral willing “aimed merely at stimulating greater hope and courage and efort in achieving it.”49 Kant’s history of religion is a poetic rendering of the conceptual content he introduces at the beginning of Part Tree, which ofers readers a representation of the evolution of moral consciousness in historical time. Kant’s history begins with a criticism of Judaism as a merely “political faith,” whose essential purpose was to bolster the “purely political laws” of “a purely secular state.”50 However inadequate such an interpretation of Judaism might be, Kant’s purpose is to criticize the principle of piety that he identifes as governing the Jewish conception of law, God, and humanity—the principle of piety as passive submission to the authority of divinely sanctioned, coercive laws of circumscribed validity, applicable only to a particular people. Tis principle stands in stark contrast to Kant’s conception of the moral law, and Kant claims that the history of human morality can only begin with “a total abandonment of the Judaism in which it originated.”51 Indeed, Kant concludes that he “cannot begin the universal history” of human morality “anywhere but from the origin of Christianity,” which “grounded on an entirely new principle, efected a total revolution in doctrines of faith” and ultimately in the history of the human race.52 As the inaugural embodiment of rational religion, Christianity constitutes the frst empirical expression of reason’s moral law. Christianity’s subsequent development and spread represents the advent of rational morality as an efcacious, public force in the world. In light of the sharp distinction that Kant draws between Judaism as a legalistic and therefore parochial religion and Christianity as a form of universal, moral faith, it is highly signifcant that he traces the origin of Christianity to developments internal to Judaism. Kant argues that Judaism’s encounter with the pagan world resulted in a synthesis of Jewish faith and Greek wisdom that led to a simultaneous rationalization and universalization of Jewish theology, whose most important efect was to recast Judaism as “a religion valid for the world and not for one single people.”53 Although not yet a moral faith,

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universalized Judaism was a decisive step in that direction insofar as the idea of particularity is negated. Nevertheless, Kant argues that Christianity did not and could not have emerged through a gradual transformation of Judaism. It could only arise “suddenly,” since it constitutes a complete overturning of previous conceptions of the relation between morality and the divine. Accordingly, Kant claims that Christianity arose in a single moment, by means of a contingent event, namely the life and ministry of Jesus. Kant summarizes Jesus’s life work by suggesting that he was singlehandedly responsible for introducing a new principle at the very basis of human religion. Characterizing Jesus as “the teacher of the Gospel,” Kant claims that the essence of Jesus’s teaching is “that servile faith . . . is inherently null” and that “moral faith, which alone makes human beings holy . . . and proves its genuineness by a good life-conduct, is on the contrary the only one which sanctifes.”54 Exemplifying this teaching in his own life and “meritorious death,” Jesus performed a decisive act of service to morality by providing an enduring model upon which a new religion could be founded, one in which God is understood as essentially a moral legislator, concerned with internal motivations rather than external prescriptions, and the holy is understood as the pure moral will. Moreover, Kant emphasizes that Jesus understood his own moral teaching to constitute a legacy. Jesus understood that “the power of the memory of his merit, his teaching and example,” was so great that “he (as the ideal of a humanity well-pleasing to God) would still be with his disciples, even to the end of the world.”55 Te memory of a person past is the representation of an ideal. A true ideal, however, is atemporal and can therefore guide future generations. Stories of past deeds become prescriptive for the present. Te example of Jesus forms the core of the book that will propagate the moral ideal. Tus, the New Testament “represented” Jesus’s words and deeds in order that his teaching and example could serve as a model for all mankind.56 Trough scripture, Jesus’s moral teaching came to have a public infuence not only on a geographically or temporally circumscribed political community, but on the whole of humanity. Moreover, the force of this teaching is so great that it endured despite the depravations of institutionalized religion and the litany of morally reprehensible actions performed in the name of “so-called universal Christianity.”57 Te astringency of the contrast serves to highlight the efcacy of a single individual teacher. By distinguishing the founding moment of true faith, encapsulated in the moral teaching of one individual, from all subsequent historical accretions, Kant makes the origin of the history of true religion independent of that

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history. It is as though a pure, atemporal moment briefy appears in the world before being besmirched by all-too-human motives. Indeed, Kant accounts for the history of the church in these terms, for it is precisely because the “bad propensity in human nature . . . was subsequently made the foundation of a universal world-religion” that such turmoil beset the human race and still “tears it apart.”58 Yet if there is no moral or theological signifcance to this sad tale, it is because the truth of Jesus’s teaching exists independently of any tradition. Kant’s history of Christianity thus serves the purpose of undermining the need for a tradition as a source of verifcation. At best, tradition and custom provide a vehicle for the propagation of moral ideals, but these are accommodations to the frailty of man and the shortcomings of his reason. Kant concludes his representation of religious history by asserting that “the present” is the best period in all of church history because “the seed of the true religious faith [is] now being sown in Christianity.”59 According to Kant, the “teacher of the Gospel” had already discovered the basic truth that morality consists in a good will that contributes to the moral progress of the human race toward a genuinely ethical community. Jesus is, thus, a perennially timely prophet because his message is timeless, advocating a rational morality “perfectly valid for all human beings, at all times, and in all worlds”—as it was in the beginning, so it is now and ever shall be.60 For Kant, Jesus is not only a paradigm of moral righteousness but a model of how a teacher might carry out a fundamental and thoroughgoing critique of an existing ecclesiastical faith, demand that practitioners discard the external trappings of faith, and reform a church from within by encouraging its members to ascend from the historically contingent to the rationally necessary, from the customarily ethical to the universally moral. In a word, Jesus shows how a teacher can foster an environment in which individuals perform the moral metanoia that is the prerequisite of moral progress. If Jesus demonstrates that a single individual can indeed contribute to the moral reform of the entire human race, then one is led to wonder: “If it has happened before, why not again?”

Kant’s Religion and the Reformation of Culture Tis essay has sought to explain why Kant’s notion of radical evil poses a fundamental challenge to Kant’s account of reason as a free, purposive, and spontaneous moral capacity that categorically commands human beings to make moral progress, both as individuals and as a species. It has also sought to clarify

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why Kant thinks that rational religion constitutes the necessary response to radical evil. Kant maintains the thesis that “morality inevitably leads to religion,” yet this is now qualifed insofar as religion is not solely moral theology, but also a communal activity intended to counter the pernicious passions attendant upon our sociality.61 Moreover, it has highlighted that integral to Kant’s rational religion is an account of moral service in which humans work to realize reason’s demand for moral progress by propagating the moral law in order that it be efcacious in the world. Finally, we have examined Kant’s presentation of Jesus as exemplifying precisely this form of service. By the vivid presentation of man’s vocation, that is, the cultivation of the good principle, Jesus’s life constitutes a caesura in the history of morality. As the “light of the world,” Jesus is the frst to enlighten mankind about humanity’s true purpose, and the historical narrative of Jesus’s life represents the purity and independent validity of virtue in all its splendor. By way of conclusion we ofer a broader refection on the signifcance of the Religion for understanding Kant’s philosophical project—one characterized almost three decades before the publication of the Religion as an attempt to establish “the rights of humanity.”62 Kant’s philosophical ambition is both radical and comprehensive, aiming at nothing less than a revolution in our understanding of human reason. Te critical project constitutes the culmination of the history of philosophical rationalism, the moment when metaphysics is fnally set on the path to becoming a science.63 According to Kant’s own understanding, his most signifcant contribution to the history of Western philosophy is the discovery of reason’s moral essence and consequently reason’s demand that humanity fulfll its vocation by transforming itself and the world into a systematic, moral whole. Tis lies at the core of Kant’s characterization of the nature and signifcance of metaphysics in the Architectonic of Pure Reason in CPR as the mode of thinking and knowing that “relates everything to wisdom” by relating all other forms of rational activity to the “necessary and essential ends of humanity.”64 Following this claim to its ultimate conclusion, Kant claims that metaphysics is “the culmination of all culture of human reason,” directing rational inquiry toward its true purpose.65 Moreover, Kant reinterprets philosophy itself as “the science of the relation of all cognition to the essential ends of human reason.”66 And, when this “cosmopolitan concept” is “personifed and represented as an archetype,” Kant sees that the philosopher himself must be understood as “the legislator of human reason”—as “a teacher in the ideal” who uses all other modes of rational cognition “to advance the essential ends of human reason.”67 Tis teacher alone deserves

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the title of “the philosopher.”68 And, since the highest of the essential ends of human reason “is nothing other than the entire vocation of human beings, and the philosophy of it is called moral philosophy,” the ancients were correct in understanding “by the name of ‘philosopher’ frst and foremost the moralist.”69 In short, the philosopher is the teacher of true morality, which is the core of metaphysics and the culmination of all culture. Kant’s understanding of reason’s moral essence and the philosopher as a teacher of morality turns out to be a necessary condition of Kant’s account of Jesus as an exemplary moral servant. Precisely insofar as Kant is the frst thinker to understand reason’s moral nature, he is also the frst thinker who can recognize the true principle and ultimate signifcance of Jesus’s life and ministry. Kant’s description of Jesus as an exemplary moral servant responsible for introducing a “purifed” moral faith into human history reveals Jesus’s true world-historical signifcance as the moment when the a priori truth of human reason’s moral vocation was proclaimed to the world. For Kant, Jesus is the crucial moment in the history of pure reason. And yet, if Jesus enables mankind to progress toward the realization of our moral vocation by announcing that all human activity ought to be directed toward that highest end, Kant’s interpretation of Jesus’s mission is itself the act that makes Jesus’s mission properly moral. By disclosing the authentic core of Jesus’s teaching, Kant appropriates the vehicle of Christianity as a means for realizing reason’s moral law. In this way, Kant is performing an act of moral service akin to Jesus’s transformation of Judaism, thereby furthering Jesus’s aim of leading mankind toward the “victory of the good over the evil principle and the founding of a Kingdom of God on earth.”70 Tus, the Religion comes to light as a political document that aims to exercise a direct infuence on human history by performing precisely that action which the argument of the book describes as necessary for genuine moral progress. Indeed, the composition and publication of the book itself constitute an intervention in “the universal history of the Church” that Kant adumbrates. Trough the defense of rational religion, the critique of “ecclesiastical faith,” and the propagation of universally valid doctrines, Kant aims to help humanity overcome evil as it works to found the Kingdom of God on earth. In this way, Kant’s Religion self-consciously seeks to efect a transformation of our moral and spiritual culture that furthers humanity’s progress toward the realization of a moral world. Kant, we conclude, has the grandest of practical ambitions—he aims to become a moral reformer of the whole human race whose place in human history is rivaled only by Jesus.

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And yet, it is vital to emphasize that the ambition of Kant’s theologicalpolitical project is always tempered by his awareness of the problem that radical evil poses to all human eforts to realize reason’s moral vocation. Even as he envisions himself as a world-historical fgure whose work contributes to a comprehensive reformation of human culture, Kant does not pretend to divine wisdom and power. Rather, he combines the highest practical aspirations with a sober awareness of human fnitude, seeing himself simultaneously as an actor on the world stage, engaged in the project of transforming the human race, and as a humble servant to that which is truly holy—the moral law within each of us. As a teacher of true morality, Kant, like “the teacher of the Gospel” before him, announces to mankind the good news—true divinity abides in each of us.

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Chapter 7

Kant as Soothsayer The Problem of Progress and the “Sign” of History

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Susan Meld Shell

Part Two of Kant’s 1798 Confict of the Faculties (Confict), “A Renewed Attempt to Answer the Question, ‘Is the Human Race Continually Progressing?’” (“Renewed Attempt”), is not generally held in high regard.1 Te eminent intellectual historian John Zammito, for example, has dismissed the work as a “distinct failure,” achieving neither “theoretical clarity” nor the “systematic centrality” its topic ought to command.2 Even as sympathetic a reader as Pauline Kleingeld fnds the argument damagingly inconsistent.3 Nietzsche went so far as to claim that Kant’s afrmative conclusion on the basis of the French Revolution sufced to show that Kant was an “idiot.”4 If the checkered reception of Kant’s essay were not discouraging enough, the many preliminary drafts and fragments that he left behind indicate that Kant was initially of several minds as to its overall theme and purpose. Te history of its composition is no clearer, with dating estimates ranging from 1795 until just before the fnal version of Confict was submitted for publication in early 1798, though a draft was evidently submitted to another publisher (and rejected by the censor) in late 1797. In the view of both the original and later Cambridge editors, the work was mainly if not fully complete before Kant decided to include it in a book devoted to conficts within the academy, as an account of “the Confict between the Philosophic and the Legal Faculty.” And, as Mary J. Gregor notes,

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the work bears little apparent relation to its formal title, whose theme is not explicitly addressed until Section Eight.5 Still, much is to be gained, as I will argue, by putting doubt aside and treating “Renewed Attempt” as one would any carefully written Kantian text, albeit one arising out of and in response to a particular and very fuid historical moment, in which Kant was forced to confront not only his own immanent physical decline, but also increasing assaults, both intellectual and political, on the philosophic project to which he had devoted his public life. “Confict of the Faculties” was both the overall title of his work and the vehicle from which he launched his own pragmatic response as a “philosopher and free professor of law,” a subject of the Prussian state, and a world citizen.6 As such, it sheds instructive light, as it were in situ, on what Kant elsewhere calls the “application” of the principles of right or, alternatively, “the true politics.”7 Before turning directly to Part Two, it will be helpful to attend briefy to Kant’s characterization of his overall intention in Confict. In calling Kant an “idiot,” Nietzsche had in fact used Kant’s own characterization of “the people” as “idiotic” in the Introduction to Confict.8 To be sure, Kant’s own reference to the people’s idiocy (or public incompetence) was largely ironic, given the work’s overall strategy of empowering the “lower” faculty of philosophy, which “commands” no one, by renouncing any claim on its part to address the people “directly,” at least for the foreseeable future.9 Tat task is left to the “higher” faculties of Teology, Law, and Medicine, as legally appointed “censors” of the “technicians of learning” and other “business people” (Geschäftsleute), who serve the government as “instruments” or “tools” for securing “the strongest and most lasting infuence upon the people” by appealing to the interest in the respective promotion of their eternal, civil, and physical well-being.10 Te main interest and aim of the lower faculty, by way of contrast, is the discovery of truth, by which it makes itself useful to the higher faculties by controlling (controlliren) them without commanding them.11 In so doing, moreover, the lower faculty “prepares the way,” via “constant progress” (Fortschritt), “for the government to remove all restrictions that its choice has placed on freedom of public judgment,” so that the “people” whom the government can safely allow to speak freely in public will no longer be limited, as at present, to those of the academy “as a kind of public realm” (Publicum), but will instead extend to every member of the civic commonwealth.12 In short: the university’s ultimate aim is to (help) transform an “idiotic” people into one that is civilly competent such that they no longer approach the learned “as if they were soothsayers (Wahrsager) and magicians,” whose

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doctrines can magically satisfy the people’s wishes without their “doing anything” themselves.13 Kant here compares the university to a parliament writ small, with both a right wing (Law, Medicine, and Teology) committed to maintaining the norms and traditions absent which social institutions would dissolve, and a left wing (Arts and Sciences) devoted to challenging the former critically. Kant’s parliamentary metaphor asserts a tension between tradition and critique—like the hinge one end of which can move forward only if the other remains stif, as Kant also puts it. Te Introduction to Confict also likens the university to a living “factory” whose possibility (unlike that of the natural organic machines with which it is analogous) is humanly intelligible because its organizing idea is not located wholly in the supersensible (as with animals and other natural purposes) but resides rather in our own reason.14 Tat general scheme frames, in turn, his detailed presentation of the “confict” between the faculty of Philosophy and that of Law, a confict on whose “legality” hinges not only the self-organizing vitality of the university, but—ultimately—also that of the commonwealth at large. In “renewing” the question of progress Kant calls to mind a series of similar questions he had raised in earlier works, including, most recently, his 1793 essay, “On the Common Saying: Tat May Be Correct in Teory, but It Is of No Use in Practice” (“Teory and Practice”) and his 1795/7 essay, “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (“Perpetual Peace”). In “Teory and Practice,” Kant had “allowed [himself ] to assume” mankind’s “constant advancement” toward the (morally) better.15 While in “Perpetual Peace,” he had buttressed that assumption with “nature’s guarantee” working through the “mechanism” of human inclination—a guarantee not adequate “for prophesying (weissagen) [the] future (theoretically)” but sufcient “for practical purposes” in order to make it a “duty to work toward this (not merely chimerical) end.”16 In Confict, by way of contrast, in a section called “Soothsaying (Wahrsagende) History of Humanity,” Kant’s prediction seems to assume heightened theoretical force. As this section concludes: “Here, then, is a proposition that is not merely well-meaning and commendable for practical purposes but instead tenable (haltbar) for the most rigorous theory and despite all unbelievers: that the human race has always been in progression toward the better and will so go forward (fortgehen) henceforth.”17 In assessing the force and meaning of this passage, it is helpful to attend to the word “tenable.” Halten is lexically associated with Fürwahrhalten (assent; holding for true), an important term of art in Kant’s logical vocabulary, as Andrew Chignell has recently reminded us.18 To hold something for true describes a variety of attitudes, ranging

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from knowledge (Wissen) (either apodictic or empirical), to opinion, based on objective grounds that are also objectively contestable, to belief, based on grounds that are merely subjective and yet rationally sufcient (e.g., belief in God for moral purposes). What, then, might it mean for a proposition to be “tenable for the most rigorous theory”? Chignell suggests that a proposition may be assented to on theoretical grounds that are insufcient objectively but sufcient subjectively (e.g., the proposition that the world is organized in a parsimonious way). Such regulative theoretical principles or “theoretical beliefs,” as Chignell calls them, are necessary for scientifc inquiry. Might the proposition in question in Kant’s essay play a similar role, albeit one that is “constitutive” rather than merely “regulative”?19 Might the assent involved fall short, in other words, of “(theoretical) Weissagen” (which would indeed require a supernatural standpoint) and yet be strictly justifed theoretically? Tat this might be the case is suggested by the work that may well have prompted Kant’s essay, Friedrich Schlegel’s review of “Perpetual Peace,” which appeared in 1796 under the title “Te Concept of Republicanism.” In this generally favorable review, Schlegel objects to Kant’s reliance on the “guarantee” of “the great artist, nature.”20 As “ingenious” as that thought might be, Schlegel urged, “It is not enough to show the means of its possibility, the external occasions of fate that lead to the gradual realization of eternal peace. One awaits an answer to the question: whether the inner development of humanity leads to it?”21 Only “(actual) necessary laws of experience,” according to Schlegel, can provide a “guarantee of future result (Erfolge)”: “Te laws of political history, and the principles of political formation, are the only data from which we can show that “eternal peace is not an empty idea . . . from which we cannot prophesy (weissagen)—thetically and for all circumstances of time and place, but can perhaps determine beforehand theoretically (if only hypothetically) with certainty the future reality of peace and the manner of approximating it.”22 Kant was certainly aware of Schlegel’s essay, as is clear from a page from the Nachlass, one side of which lists its title, date, and place of publication, while the other deals with the problem of progress in knowledge more generally.23 And “Renewed Attempt” can be read as responding, as it were, point by point to Schlegel’s criticisms. What Schlegel seeks—namely, a “theory of political history”—cannot be had, according to Kant, on the basis of the “standpoint” that Schlegel wishes to adopt, namely, taking the “perfect constitution” as a “phenomenon of political experience.”24 Kant will assume a diferent standpoint, as we shall see: one that moves beyond the “mechanism of the inclinations” that underwrote his earlier “guarantee” to address what Schlegel

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calls “the inner development of humanity” without yielding on the essential distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal.25 In calling for experiential laws of history and principles of Bildung, Schlegel had advocated both revolution and majoritarianism as consistent with such laws. Kant’s predictive history will do neither. One textual indication that Kant had Schlegel’s review partly in mind is Kant’s use of “soothsaying” (wahrsagen) and “prophecy” (weissagen) as distinctive terms of art which are defned for the very frst time at beginning of Part Two: “What does one want to know (wissen) here? . . . One requires a fragment (Stücke) of the history of human beings and one, indeed, not from past but future time; therefore a predictive (vorhersagende) history, that, if not conducted in accordance with known natural laws (like eclipses of the sun and moon) is called soothsaying (wahrsagend) and yet natural; but if it can be acquired only through supernatural communication and widening of one’s view into future time is called divinatory (weissagend) (prophetic).”26 Whatever the infuence of the Schlegel review on Kant’s thinking—and any positive conclusion on this score remains somewhat uncertain27—Kant will characterize his own predictive account as wahrsagend, and hence as natural (as contrasted with supernatural).28 He thereby gives new meaning to the “(theoretical) Weissagen” that “Perpetual Peace” had declined to ofer. Although weissagen may exceed Kant’s powers, wahrsagen, which is strictly “natural” though “not conducted in accordance with known natural laws,” need not. At the same time, Kant is careful to distinguish such wahrsagen from the sort of “soothsaying (wahrsagen) and magic” toward which “the people,” in their passivity, are readily drawn: “Whoever meddles in soothsaying (Wahrsagen) (doing it without knowledge or honesty), of him it is said: he fortune-tells (er wahrsagert), from Pythia all the way to the gypsy woman.”29 Kant characterizes his own predictive account, then, neither as “weissagen,” here defned as supernatural divination or prophesy, nor as fortunetelling—the usual, and pejorative, meaning of “wahrsagen,” for example, as used by Luther, a meaning here reassigned to the newly invented, or at least uncommon, “wahrsagern.”30 Such a fragment of “moral history” is knowable, according to Kant, as a wahrsagend exhibition (Darstellung) of events to come that is possible a priori insofar as the Wahrsager “make[s] and stage[s]” the events that he announces in advance, as with rulers and religious leaders of the past and present, whose predictions, be they of decline or stasis, prove self-fulflling.31 Tat exhibition will necessarily difer, then, from two cases that a prediction might involve:

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namely, (1) constant recession (i.e., “moral terrorism”), which would “at a certain stage . . . destroy itself ”; and (2) “eternal wavering,” that goes nowhere [Stillstand] and thereby cancels out morality entirely (i.e., “abderitism”).32 And yet the third and fnal case—namely constant moral progress (chiliastic “eudaimonism”)—also “seems untenable” (unhaltbar), given the contradictions into which attempting to hold it true forces one:

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Tat the measure (Masse) of good and evil inherent in our predisposition remains ever the same and can neither augment nor diminish in the same individual may always be granted;—and how also should this quantum of pre-dispositional good let itself increase, given that it must happen through the freedom of the subject, who would thus need a greater fund (Fond) of good than he already has?—Te efect cannot rise above the power/means of the efecting cause, and similarly the quantum of good mixed with evil in a human being cannot rise above a certain measure in the latter over which it might work its way up and thus also be able to always progress toward the better. Hence eudaimonism with its sanguine hopes seems to be untenable (unhaltbar) and to promise little in favor of a prophetic (weissagenden) human history with respect to ever widening progress on the path of the good.33 Kant here leaves open the possibility of a chiliastic Wahrsagen that is more promising, while also indicating the paradox inherent in the very concept of moral progress.34 For on the one hand, in order for such improvement to be moral it must be the work of freedom; while on the other hand, the goodness of the result cannot exceed that already present in what Kant here calls the agent’s “fund” (Fonds)—the power or means inherent in its makeup.35 A eudaimonistic weissagen, as he here puts it, would thus demand something like a “new creation” in order to provide the additional means necessary for such an increase in moral efect.36 But this, in turn, would deprive the agent of responsibility for the improvement, which would, accordingly, no longer be a moral one. How to represent the constant moral progress of the human race remains a mystery.37 Kant does not call the abderitic alternative a “way of representing of human history (Vorstellungsart der Menschengeschichte)” at all, but instead a “hypothe[tical]” “pre-determination of [human] history” that is conceptually self-cancelling on its face: “Busy foolishness is the character of our species:

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quickly entering (einzutreten) upon the course of the good, but not persevering in it thereafter, but instead, in order not to be bound to a single end, if only that change (Abwechselung) might happen (geschähe), to reverse the plan of progress, build in order to be able to tear down, and impose on themselves hopeless efort.”38 Te abderitic hypothesis furnishes a narrative that would give us “no greater value in the eyes of reason” than that of other creatures who carry on the “play of exchange” (Spiel des Verkehrs) with their own species “at lesser cost and without expenditure of understanding.”39 Te value of what “happens” (geschähe) in the course of such “empty busi-ness” and “deedless” activity, as Kant here puts it, would add up to nothing, canceling in advance any positive sum of value to which a historical account (Geschichtserzählung) of human interaction might amount.40 In short, if both “ways of representing” moral history seem untenable—namely, constant recession or constant procession—the “abderitic” hypothesis is incompatible with moral history as such. It follows that this hypothesis cannot represent the “moral history” of humanity as a “whole”—as distinguished from a mere “natural history of human beings”—in any way at all.41 Nor can the problem/task of progress be resolved through experience directly (as Schlegel had demanded). However much progress might be observed experientially, one could never be sure, given human freedom, that “this very moment” is not the point of counterfexion “(punctum fexus contrarii)” (Umwendungspunkt) in which we start going backward, owing to the physical disposition of our species, only to be directed later in the opposite way. Such a history would therefore seem to require a providential standpoint that “lies above all human wisdom” and for which the Copernican hypothesis on which Kant had earlier relied is unavailing.42 Precisely because human actions are free, the natural laws whose coherence enable us to “see” our own actions with certitude do not indicate, and hence enable us to “foresee,” our own future actions as they do the future movements of the stars and planets (which likewise go backward, forward, or stand still seemingly at random), once we give up the “Tychonic entanglements” to which some, otherwise not unwise, still stubbornly cling.43 It follows that the “problem of progress cannot be directly resolved through experience,” whatever Schlegel and other critics might wish. And yet this solution must “be connected to some experience,” as Kant immediately adds, if it is to count as theoretical cognition.44 Should such an experience have a good, if limited, will as its only possible source, it would simultaneously be both a natural efect and a product of freedom. And if that good will were,

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in turn, “inalterable” (as any noumenal quality must be), one could indeed “predict progress with certainty,” for it would arise from the intelligible character of the human being as such.45 What is needed, then, is an event that would allow us to afrm, on the basis of some experience, the existence of such a will. In so doing, one would resolve the two difculties that made a chiliasm seem unpromising, namely, (1) that a moral efect cannot be greater than its cause, and (2) that results that do not come about through our free action count for nothing, morally speaking. Such an event would, accordingly, have to indicate, as Kant here puts it, a makeup and power of the human being to be both the (physical) cause and the (free) author (Urheber) of its own advance, though the efect, incalculably dependent on external circumstances, would be indeterminate with respect to time.46 Such an event would not itself be a “cause” of history (which would reduce history to a natural process) but would merely be “an historical sign (of remembrance, demonstration, and prognostication)” (Geschichtszeichen [signum rememorativum, demonstrativum, prognostikon]), one that indicated (as it must, if the problem of progress is to be resolved) the joint result of both natural cause and free author; and it would conceive of the human race not individually and enumeratively, as an “endless calculation,” but as it is in fact “encountered on earth,” that is, as divided “into nations and states.”47 In short, it would address the human race neither as a purely rational being nor a merely natural being but “pragmatically,” or “as an earthly being endowed with reason,” as Kant contemporaneously puts matters.48 Te event that proves to fll the bill does not consist in “important deeds or misdeeds (Taten oder Unthaten) directed by human beings,” by which “what was great among human beings is made small or what was small great.”49 It thus avoids the funereal cycle with which rememorative signs are usually associated.50 Instead, as Kant continues: it is merely the way of thinking (Denkungsart) of the spectators, which publicly betrays itself in the course of (bei) this play (Spiel) of great conversions (grosser Umwandlungen), and a so universal/general and yet unselfsh taking the part (Teilnehmung) of the players of one side against those of the other, even with the danger that this partiality (Parteilichkeit) could become very disadvantageous (nachgteilig) for them should it let itself become manifest (laut warden last)—but so is demonstrated (on account of universality) a character of the human race as a whole, and (on account of unselfshness) a moral

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character of the human race, at least in its predisposition (Anlage), that not only allows hope in progress toward the better but already is such progress insofar as the means/power thereto sufces for now.51

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Te spectators’ sympathy, involving as it does the danger of great disadvantage to themselves, manifests an unself-serving (uneigennützige) participation (Teilnehmung) that difers both from the aesthetic feeling of the sublime, which though universal is also necessarily accompanied by awareness of one’s own safety, and also from the sort of pathological compassion for which Kant typically uses the term “Mitleid”—a compassion, in other words, that is “unselfsh” without also being moral.52 Unlike either the feeling of the aesthetic sublime or that of pathological compassion, the participation in question is both universal and unselfsh, and as such “borders near” the enthusiasm felt by revolutionary partisans, without (quite) succumbing to it.53 It thus represents sublimity of a peculiar sort that calls to mind Kant’s reference elsewhere to the “most sublime idea that a human being can think of his determination/destination.”54 In short, their participation indicates a character that is unmistakably moral (given the danger that it courts) without itself constituting “action” (Handlung) that would as such be culpable, given the moral impossibility of revolution. It is thus especially important that Kant’s spectators, as he goes on to insist, rule out revolution not only for prudential reasons (as with both Gentz and Schlegel, albeit along diferent lines) but necessarily and in principle: Te revolution [Revolution] of a people rich in spirit (geistreich) that we have seen go forth in our times may succeed or miscarry; it may be so flled with misery and atrocities that no well-thinking human being, could he hope to undertake to execute it fortunately a second time, would ever resolve to make the experiment at such cost—this revolution, I say, yet fnds in the minds of all spectators (who are not themselves entangled in this play (Spiel)) a participation according to the wish (Teilnehmung dem Wünsche nach) that borders near enthusiasm (die nahe Enthusiasmus grenzt) and whose utterance is itself bound up with danger, and [this participation according to the wish] can thus have no other cause than a moral predisposition in the human race.55 Two further points bear mentioning here. First, Kant’s peculiar qualifcation on universality: only those spectators count, for his purposes here,

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who are not also “entangled in this game/play”—a phrase that recalls an earlier, and seemingly gratuitous, reference to those who remain “entangled” in a Tychonic cosmology.56 Tose spectators who cannot observe the play of revolution without engaging as partisans on either side would seem, in accordance with Kant’s earlier analogy, to be similarly deprived of cosmic insight. A second and related point turns on the wishfulness of the participation in question, which Kant explicitly distinguishes from any “resolution” to “cooperate” (mitwirken) in revolution, be it under the most favorable of political circumstances imaginable.57 In the Metaphysics of Morals (MM), published the previous year, Kant had explained the diference between wish (Wünch) and choice [to act] (Willkür), a distinction that conforms to what he there calls “the laws of desire.” Wishing, as distinguished from choosing, on that account, is desire without awareness of the power to bring about its object. Wishing, moreover, may come about either through pathological desire (in which case it results in idle longing) or from what Kant calls “a pure actus of the Wille.” Te impotence that renders the spectators’ participation merely wishful is of the latter kind: although spectators may possess the physical power to help bring about a just end through unjust means, they cannot do so morally. At the same time, that their sympathy remains merely wishful indicates that they possess the moral power to master the “censur[able]” enthusiasm to which the revolutionaries themselves give way. Tus this [moral cause], and participation in the good with afect, [i.e.,] enthusiasm—which, to be sure, because all afects as such deserve censure, is not entirely to be approved—yet give occasion, by virtue of this history, for this remark important for anthropology: true enthusiasm always only goes to the ideal and indeed to the purely moral, such as is the concept of right and cannot be grafted onto selfshness. Monetary rewards could not stretch the opponents of the revolutionaries to the zeal and greatness of soul which the mere concept of right brought about in the latter, and even the concept of honor of the old martial nobility (an analog of enthusiasm) vanished before the weapons of those who kept before their eyes the right of the people to which they belonged and who thought themselves its guardians; with what exaltation58 then the external, spectating public (Publicum) sympathized (sympathisirte) without the least intention of cooperating/co-efcacy (Mitwirkung).59

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Enthusiasm, as a mere afect, “shuts out the sovereignty of reason,” and is thus, in itself, a symptom of moral weakness.60 As Kant states in the Anthropology: “Te principle of apathy—namely that the wise are never in [a state of ] afect, not even one of compassion for the misfortune of one’s best friend, is an entirely correct and sublime moral principle of the Stoic school; for afect makes one (more or less) blind.—Tat nature has nevertheless implanted in us the predisposition thereto in order to lead the reigns provisionally, until reason has achieved the necessary strength; that is to say, in order to enliven us nature has afxed to the moral incentive a pathological (sensible) stimulus as a temporary surrogate of reason.”61 Afect, considered in itself, is thus “always imprudent,” “mak[ing] itself incapable of pursuing its own end,” and is therefore “unwise to let arise intentionally (vorzetzlich).”62 And yet Kant permits an exception, namely when it is a matter of “enlivening the will,” as in “spiritual and political speeches to the people.”63 For such enlivening is not merely an “efect,” as with afects generally, but a “cause” in which “reason still holds the reins”: “Reason, in representing the morally good through the connection of its ideas with intuitions (examples) that have been subjected to them (die ihnen untergelegt warden), can bring about an enlivening of the will (Willens) (in spiritual or political speeches to the people, or even solitarily to oneself ), and thus enliven the soul not as an efect but as a cause of an afect in regard to the good, by which this reason still always leads the reins, by which is efected an enthusiasm of good intention (Vorsatz), but that must properly be imputed to the faculty of desire rather than to afect as the stronger sensual feeling.”64 In the sole case of what Kant here calls “enthusiasm of good intention (Vorsatz),” enthusiasm not only “goes to the ideal,” but “must be properly imputed to the faculty of desire rather than to afect as the stronger sensual feeling.”65 Only then is it “wise” to let afect arise “intentionally” (vorzetlich), for example, “in spiritual and political speeches to the people.”66 Te in-activity of Kant’s revolutionary spectators, on this account, arises not from the pathological passivity that generally besets “the people,” who wish to enjoy “spiritual, civil, and corporeal well-being” without “doing anything themselves” (albeit with the marked exception of the French, who are if anything too spirited).67 Te spectators’ lack of action (Handlung) instead results from a positive Actus of the Wille that forbids the choice of revolution in this and every other circumstance. Unlike ordinary wishing, in other words, the wishful inaction of Kant’s spectators involves a natural weakness (their inability, given current circumstances, to achieve their republican end directly

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by active lawful means) that is not only morally innocuous; it also displays their susceptibility to an “idea” that cannot be thought “without enthusiasm,” but also their successful mastery of the Afect that stirs the revolutionary actors themselves to lawless violence. In wishing for the success of the revolutionaries’ morally mandated end, without adopting their morally forbidden means, Kant’s spectators manifest a moral “power” (i.e., to put the moral law before the moral end) greater than which none can be rationally conceived, and that precisely distinguishes the moral politician from his duplicitous political rival.68 Moreover, unlike ordinary actions (Handlungen), which as phenomena are always potentially deceptive, that wishful participation “makes loud” a way of thinking that is not only undisguisably moral, but that can only be aroused by reason itself. Tey manifest this power, however, only if the sign of history (Geschichtszeichen) is properly read.69 It is thus only with the publication of the present essay—long retarded by an unfriendly monarch70—that human reason signals that it has at last seized the reins, for now, over a natural susceptibility whose supersensible arousal has heretofore been “more or less blind.”71 In so doing, I would venture to suggest, Kant arouses, through his own lawful speech, a universally communicable enthusiasm of good intention that itself constitutes “progression toward the better” inasmuch “as the power or means sufces at the present.”72 Te future sufciency of this power and means is taken up thematically in Section Seven, entitled “Soothsaying (Wahrsagende) History of Humanity (Menschheit)”: Tere must be something moral in the grounding principles that reason presents before the eyes as pure, but also at the same time, owing to its great and epoch-making infuence, as something that is thereby the announced duty of the human soul, and that concerns the human race as a whole. . . . Now I claim to be able to predict to the human race, in accordance with the aspects and omens (Vorzeichen) of our days, and without a seer’s spirit (ohne Sehergeist), the attainment of this end, and at the same time a progression toward the better on mankind’s part that no longer becomes entirely backward going. For such a phenomenon in human history will nevermore be forgotten; because it has uncovered a predisposition (Anlage) and a power in human nature toward the better whose like no politician might have been able cleverly to extract from the previous

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course of things, and which alone unites nature and freedom in the human race in accordance with inner principles of right—an attainment, however, that with respect to time that phenomenon could promise only as indeterminate.73 Unlike the political moralist, who is merely “clever,” Kant “makes and stages” the future he foretells, not by freighting freedom with pointless burdens that that ensure an unhappy outcome, but by arousing a spirit-lifting enthusiasm “of good intention” that is morally contagious.74 Tat efort is supported by the sort of exemplary intuition of which the Anthropology had spoken75—one that captures synchronically, as it were, the republican idea’s progressive realization over time: namely, the “vanishing,” in a single moment, of the old martial concept of honor before the “weapons” of those who thought themselves “the guardians of the people,” and who were animated by the idea of a constitution that by its nature tends toward peace.76 As to the actual visual image that Kant may have there had in mind, one likely candidate is a copperplate engraving by the German artist Paul Jacob Laminit (1773–1831), representing the storming of the Bastille in July 1789. Tis widely circulating illustration (along with others much like it) is striking not only for the paucity of actual bloodshed, but also for the invisibility of the Bastille’s defenders, who are hidden by a cloud of smoke into which they have, so to speak, vanished. Te foregrounded guardians of the people, on the other hand, whose faces are for the most turned away from us, are visible, though not individually personalized, and prominently include (contrary to the documented facts) soldiers in regular uniform.77 And it contrasts strikingly with another formally similar popular engraving, diferently interpreted by each side of the revolutionary struggle, that calls to mind Kant’s at least equally theatrical description of the execution of Louis XVI in a work published one year earlier.78 Kant’s own “historical sign” places his audience at two removes from any happening that might literally be “seen,” moving from the actual scene of battle, to a struggle between concepts of honor, to a legal confict between the philosophic and legal faculties whose evolutionary outcome is here projected in advance as if through a literary magic lantern.79 Te supporting quotation from Virgil’s Aeneid, invoking the shield of Achilles, reinforces that projection upon the earthly sphere.80 Before that shield, on which is portrayed, with all the skill of Vulcan, the entire history of Rome, including, according to the original, “all future generations” and “the battles they were to fght,” the mortally rendered weapon of Aeneas’s war-like

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Figure 1. Paul Jacob Laminit, “The Storming of the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789,” undated, colored engraving. Photo credit: bpk Bildagentur, Art Resource, NY.

enemy shatters, just as “the concept of honor of the old martial nobility”—an “analog of enthusiasm”—“vanishes” before the weapons of those who “kept in view” the “purely moral” concept of right.81 Tat something like divine, or at least Archimedean, intervention is at work is suggested in an accompanying footnote, which touches on what Kant elsewhere calls the “true politics,” which aims at “satisfying the people.”82 Taking up the theme with which “Perpetual Peace” had ended, Kant draws attention in that footnote to the ultimate subterfuge of the political moralist: namely, a hypocritical reduction of right to ethics and a self-interested reason for rulers to avoid it.83 At the same time, Kant also moves beyond the self-serving inclinations on which he had earlier rested “nature’s guarantee,” to include, among the anthropological facts to be counted on, an afectual susceptibility to the infowing of a moral idea, a rightful freedom that is now awakened and will continue to exert steady pressure upon governments to recognize, at least in “spirit,” that “the right of human beings who are to obey must necessarily precede all regard for well-being.”84 Te accompanying exhibition succeeds, as earlier promised, in demonstrating a “tendency of the human race as a whole,” that is, considered not

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Figure 2. Georg Heinrich Sieveking, “Execution of Louis XVI,” 1793, copperplate engraving, public domain.

as an individually enumerated sum (Aufzählung), but as a moral account (Erzählung) concerning the human race as it is “encountered on the earth” and “as divided into peoples and states.”85 To one who has in view not only what happens to a single people but to its distribution to all peoples of the earth who are gradually able to participate in it, there “opens a prospect” onto “unforseeable (unabsehliche) time”—if there is not a second “natural revolution” that “so plays with/ruins things (mitspielen) as to bury the human race in order to let other creatures strut upon the stage.”86 Human history as a whole can only be exhibited negatively, through the juxtaposition of our inevitable natural destruction with our moral elevation as the end of creation. But that sublime image is unstable. Te end of creation would itself be subverted should rulers continue to treat members of their own species as mere “tools” of rulers’ intentions.87 Hence the need, in Section Eight, to take up a certain “difculty” concerning the publicizing of the maxims of public right necessary to sustain the ever-widening arousal of the republican spirit, given the ongoing drag of popular torpor. At the end of “Perpetual Peace,” Kant had left for “further elaboration on another occasion” a “transcendental principle of public right” that is also “afrmative,” namely, that “maxims that need publicity (in order not to fail in

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their end) harmonize with right and politics together” by making the public satisfed with their condition.88 Section Eight supplies the discussion he had earlier promised. In England, whose monarch is limited only in name, “the representation of the state of things . . . deceives the people” into no longer seeking the true constitution, consistent with right, because they believe there is an example already at hand.89 “Free professors of law” can and will defeat this popular illusion by removing the “highly transparent veil of secrecy” either directly (as in the present essay) or through the legal confict of the faculties, by which rulers are constrained, by a combination of “love of honor” and “well understood self-interest,” to govern “in a republican way,” that is, one that treats the people in accordance with principles that are consistent with the “spirit of the laws of freedom” and that a people of mature reason would prescribe for themselves.90 Such a policy of openness could not, indeed, succeed unless it were publicized, a consideration that provides the missing elaboration that Kant had earlier put of.91 Te ensuing phenomenal “proft” (Ertrag), as Kant puts it in Section Nine, recalls his earlier treatment, in Religion, of the biblical “Parable of the Talents.”92 Te human race gets moral credit not for its moral capital (Fonds), but for how well it invests it—not by burying its talents, like the foolish servant in the parable, but by placing it in the Weschelbank (in Luther’s words) where it draws interest. External, civil progress is the interest, drawn from the human race’s “exchanges with itself,” for which humanity can properly claim credit, and absent which human doings and nondoings would add up (as with the abderitean hypothesis) to less than nothing.93 In such a case, any moral history (Sittengeschichte) of the human race would yield nothing more than a selfcancelling account (Erzählung), leaving only the purely natural history that will inevitably end, as with any earthly species, in our physical annihilation.94 Tat the “coherence” of the “entire mechanism (Maschinenwesen) of education” for this end is to be expected from above rather than below is the announced burden of the tenth and fnal section.95 And yet, given that the rulers who must “efect” this education are themselves subject to all the “frailties of human nature,” hope in this regard must once again rely on supernatural wisdom or providence, leaving a human wisdom that is merely negative, eventually compelling rulers to entirely renounce ofensive war owing to some combination, here left unspecifed, of “love of honor,” on the one hand, and “well-understood self-interest,” on the other.96 Kant’s equivocal, not to say mordant, tone at this late moment in the argument has been duly noted by commentators, often with some disappointment.

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And the fnal joke about a dying man, pointing forward to Kant’s discussion, in Part Tree, of his own physical decline and accompanying philosophic “invalidity,” does not seem calculated, exactly, to raise the reader’s spirits, except perhaps by way of a certain melancholy humor.97 We are all dying, it seems, from “sheer/loud improvement” (lauter Besserung).98 Still Kant adds, in the fnal line, and after noting a heroic cure that saves the patient instead of killing him: “‘Sero Sapiunt Phryges.’99 But the woeful aftermath of the present war could compel the political soothsayer to the confession of an aforestanding turn [bevorstehenden Wendung] of the human race toward the better, that is already now in prospect.”100 Tat view calls to mind the “prospect” that Kant had earlier identifed with eudaimonistic weissagen, and whose representation seemed “untenable,” owing to the apparent necessity of a supernatural assistance that nullifed that prospect’s moral character.101 In its place Kant has experientially exhibited in advance events “to come,” albeit only by thereby arousing the active sympathy of others.102

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Concluding Remarks: Kant and the Sign of History Kant defnes the “faculty of using signs (Bezeichnungsvermögen) (Facultus signatrix)” in the Anthropology as “the faculty of cognizing the present as the means (Mittel) for connecting the representation of the foreseen with that of the past.”103 A sign, so understood, is critical to both language (which is made up of “artifcial” signs) and the experiential unity of consciousness, or what Kant calls “psychological personhood.”104 What the use of signs is for the individual, the use of a historical sign is for “the human race as a whole,” namely, a faculty of “cognizing the present” as “the means for connecting” the collective past and future.105 Te human race, whose predispositions develop fully only over time and in the species, can be represented as a whole, or in terms of an idea, only from within a narrative in which (unlike natural history) actions signify collectively, connecting my actions in the here and now with those of every other human actor, past and future. To the indefnite aggregate of actions that make up the natural history of the human race, Kant juxtaposes a historical account (Geschichtserzählung) concerning deeds whose yield no earthly cataclysm can nullify. Signs, as the Anthropology immediately notes, include symbols: “Te shapes (intuitions) of things, insofar as they merely serve as a means to the representation of concepts, are symbols. . . . Characters are not yet symbols,

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for they can be merely mediate (indirect) signs, which in themselves signify nothing. . . . Symbolic cognition must be opposed not to intuitive but to discursive cognition, in which the sign (character) accompanies the concept as its guardian (custos), in order to reproduce it from time to time/contingently (gelegentlich).”106 Whereas characters are “arbitrary” or “artful” signs, symbols are “means” for the understanding only indirectly and through an afnity not always subject to willful control, and hence especially common in the speech of “uncultivated peoples” and others with a “poverty of concepts” (including, as Kant elsewhere suggests, all the non-European races).107 Te history of philosophy thus begins with the transformation of a previously mainly symbolic language to one that is discursive and conceptual.108 Kant’s own reading of the “auguries” (Vorzeichen) involves a similar transformation from image to concept and from symbol to character, by making explicit the rational principles that guided, or ought to have guided, the “infectious spirit of freedom” that stirred the people of France “to an all shaking enthusiasm.”109 As he writes in the Anthropology, published the same year: “[Te French] have a vivacity that is insufciently harnessed by underlying principles, and the recklessness, to clear-sighted reason, not to permit to remain long certain forms that have proven themselves, just because they are old and too much praised; and an infectious spirit of freedom (Freiheitsgeist) that probably also pulls reason into play (Spiel) and efects an all-shaking enthusiasm in the relation of the people and the state.”110 A lengthy note—“important for anthropology”—that is attached to Section Six elucidates the principle that the revolutionary enthusiasts could and should have had in view: “Why has a ruler never dared to say freely out loud that he recognizes no right of the people against him, that they have the benevolence of a government solely to thank for the happiness it bestows on them . . . and that all right against him . . . is absurd and even punishable.—Te cause is that such a public declaration would arouse all subjects against him. . . . For a being endowed with freedom is not satisfed with the enjoyment of what makes life agreeable that comes to him from another . . . what matters is the principle by which one secures it.”111 Welfare, however, which concerns merely the matter of the will (Willens), has no principle. Hence: “A being endowed with freedom can and should, in consciousness of his superiority in this over irrational animals, in accordance with the formal principle of his Willkür, demand no other government for the people to which he belongs other than one in which they are co-legislative.”112 Tis right, “which has a holiness that is lifted above (erhaben) all price” in the eyes of reason, is, however, only an idea, whose execution

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is limited by the condition of the means harmonizing with morality.113 Tis conclusion not only defeats Schlegel’s two attempted corrections of Kant’s politics in a single stroke, ruling out both revolution and simple majoritarianism; it also exemplifes the “wise” enlivening of the spirit of freedom that Kant elsewhere associates with what he calls “enthusiasm of good intention.”114 Te predisposition to afects is a wise arrangement of nature, according to the Anthropology, as a provisional “surrogate” for moral incentives when reason is not yet strong enough to seize the reins.115 Reason, on the other hand, “can in representing the morally good by connecting its ideas with intuitions (examples) that have been made subject to it bring about an enlivening of the will (Wille) (in spiritual (geistlich) or political speeches to the people or even sometimes to oneself ) that is thus soul-enlivening not as an efect of afect but as its cause in regard to the good.”116 Kant’s historical sign marks just such a moment of collective emergence from nature’s tutelage, seizing control of a history that has heretofore proceeded more or less blindly and that it thereby renders legible for the frst time. Read against the backdrop of the Anthropology, Kant’s manner of writing in “Renewed Attempt” assumes new signifcance, exhibiting what CPJ labels “excellence of speech (Wohlredenkeit)” (or, alternatively, “eloquence and style”), as distinguished from a rhetoric that “knows how to move people like machines” to make judgments that are no longer free.117 Although the latter art can “sometimes be applied to aims that are legitimate . . . intrinsically,” as Kant goes on to note, it still “corrupts subjective maxims and dispositions,” even though it may result in lawful action and always smacks of the deceptive.118 True excellence of speech, on the other hand, is akin to poetry in its honesty and sincerity, and to music in its appropriation of the language of tone: “Each linguistic expression in its context has a tone appropriate to its meaning, one that signals (bezeichnet) more or less an afect of the speaker, and brings it about in turn in the listener, where it conversely arouses the idea which language expresses in that tone.”119 What music accomplishes for aesthetic ideas, through the universally understandable “language of sensations,” as a “language of afects,” excellence in speech accomplishes for ideas of reason.120 Understood in this light, Kant’s abrupt shifts of tone in the latter sections of his essay take on deeper resonance, signaling a return on the part of both speaker and listener, after sharing in a sympathy that rises to the point of “exaltation,” to a state of calm refection that is untinged by the moral “regret” to which a “paroxysm” of afect gives rise.121 For whereas afect generally makes refection (Überlegung)––that is, comparison of itself as a feeling “with the sum

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of all feelings (of pleasure and pain),”––impossible, exaltation is the immediate expression of a rational valuation that exceeds all price—an estimation, in other words, that transcends ordinary calculation and is consistent with that government of the mind that Kant calls composure (animus sui compos).122 Instead of undergoing moral self-censure, the reader is invited to enjoy what Kant elsewhere calls the “interesting sadness” that “may be included among the vigorous afects” because it “has its basis in moral ideas.”123 Such sadness is associated, in turn, with “signs of remembrance,” for example, “burial mounds and mausoleums,” and especially ruins that refect “the state of art in ancient states” and that serve as “speaking thought signs” for the exchange of all earthly things.124 Kant’s sign of historical remembrance, by way of contrast, calls to mind a thought: namely, “the Platonic ideal” that grounds “all state forms” and which therefore transcends all oracular poetic attempts (or “sortes Virgilianae”)—including Vulcan’s shield, on whose surface was fashioned the entire history of Rome.125 By incorporating spirit, and hence love of honor, which Kant elsewhere calls “the constant companion of virtue”—as distinguished from the “mania” for honor, which is opposed to reason—Kant’s “exhibition” of progress involves a communicable “attunement of the mind” that exceeds the natural “mechanism of the inclinations” on which his earlier “guarantee” had rested (and whose insignifcance, from the standpoint of men’s inner Bildung, Schlegel had protested).126 It does so, moreover, without succumbing to the “absurdity” of all prophecies that “foretell the inevitable fate of a people for which they are themselves still responsible.”127 Although there can be no “laws of history” for Kant, he can, by virtue of his own “eloquence and style,” “make and stage” the future he predicts, thereby displacing, both directly and through the legal confict of the faculties, the “academic soothsayers” who pretend to satisfy the people’s “wishes” without “them doing anything.”128 Tis progress, to be sure, is only negative, lifting the external freight that discourages an “idiotic” people from attempting the inner transformation to a “patriotic way of thinking” that they must accomplish for themselves.129 In so doing, Kant not only meets Schlegel’s demand for a “theoretical (if only hypothetical)” demonstration that eternal peace is not an “empty idea”; he also vindicates his own earlier claim, in “Perpetual Peace,” that the “true politics” cannot “take a step” (keinen Schritt thun)—cannot, in other words, advance (vorschreiten) beyond natural history—without frst paying homage to morality.130

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

PART II

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Progress after Kant

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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Chapter 8

History, Progress, and Autonomy Kant, Herder, and After Karl Ameriks

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One can never quite extirpate the efect of Jena and its infuence. —Countess Christine

Te linking of the notions of history and progress, especially in a secular context, became intense only in the eighteenth century. A complicating feature of this development within the German tradition—which was, of course, much infuenced by Rousseau before it blossomed in the work of Lessing, Kant, and others—is the pivotal role of another founding father of modern philosophy of history, Johann Gottfried Herder. Alongside his own peculiar brand of naturalistic religious optimism, he introduced the infuential anti-Whiggish notions of the “spirit of an age” (Zeitgeist) and the “spirit of a people” (Volksgeist), each of which needs to be understood frst of all in its own terms rather than through anachronistic, homogenizing, and progress-obsessed lenses. Herder insightfully connected these notions while also emphasizing the general philosophical signifcance of the perplexing phenomenon of change of taste, which is a paradigmatic kind of cultural change that is not easily understandable as progress.1 Ever since, history generally has been conceived in terms of a basic contrast between relatively nonlinear Herderian conceptions and the more linear and less diversity-oriented conceptions that dominated in

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and after the work of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Comte, Marx, and their innumerable allies.2 While this familiar contrast is understandable, a closer look immediately reveals a need for numerous qualifcations. Hence, before even beginning, in a second section, to focus on some later developments, I will sketch, in a frst section, a three-part reappraisal of the relationship between Herder and Kant: frst, a review of complexities in Kant’s and Herder’s own historical situation; second, a reassessment of the exaggerated contrast that is often made in discussions of their highly infuential views; and then, third, a reminder of some especially valuable ideas in Kant’s very last publication—ideas that point toward an implicit compromise with Herder and a foreshadowing of later movements. Te compromise is marked by a way of reading Kant as having a surprising appreciation for the cosmopolitan value of even little-known local identities and thus being, at the very end of his career, on the brink of a third and more promising basic view of history. Tis view, which can be schematized in terms of an ellipse or spiral, was developed in a variety of fruitful ways by Kant’s successors in German Early Romanticism and has become widely appreciated again in our own time. It invokes what is best in linear and nonlinear, as well as global and local, considerations of history in a way that, in a second and concluding section, I argue is most appropriate for understanding the notions of autonomy and progress in line with the distinctive late modern character of our own times.

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A Backward Glance Although Kant and Herder have often been taken to be archetypical heroes— or villains—representing something called “the German spirit” or “soul,” the fact is that they each represent a complex variety of identities. In a sense, neither of them can simply be called “German,” for Germany did not even exist as such in their era—and when it did come into being, the world had changed dramatically. In the Anglophone world, Kant is often taken to be arch-Prussian in a noncomplimentary sense, but in fact his relations with Prussian customs and authorities were often tense, and it is no accident that some of his best friends were connected more with Great Britain, Russia, or the Baltic peoples. In Kant’s time, his hometown of Königsberg was one of Germany’s largest and most internationally oriented cities, even though it was losing its position

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as the political center of Prussia. In our own time, it has long borne a Stalinist name and a peripheral status entirely outside of Germany. Because of Königsberg’s marginalized later situation, its local hero sufered the strange fate of not even having a local organization that can appropriately support his status as a world-class fgure in the way that Hegel and Goethe, for example, have been continuously celebrated by their compatriots. Te bizarre fact of the lack of a ftting institution honoring Kant within the German nation was accompanied by the much more tragic event of the eventual philosophical reversal, within his own homeland, of the nineteenth-century call for a turn “back to Kant.” A shocking eclipse of reason occurred when infuential extremists on both the right and the left overreacted to the crises of the turn of the century3 and the post-Versailles era, and then, by the 1930s, encouraged a widespread dismissal of Germany’s most promising perspective on history, autonomous identity, and democratic development in general. Tey thereby turned their backs on the greatest philosopher in their own heritage—an Enlightenment writer who ofered a path-breaking cosmopolitan view of history based on a respect for self-determination within a framework of free republics, and with an antichauvinist plan for an efective league of nations committed to seeking perpetual peace. Te sad irony of history is that the special value of Kant’s work was brought back to the center of attention in our time not by the most famous of twentieth-century German-speaking philosophers, such as Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Lukaçs, and Gadamer, but in large part through the eventual infuence of refugees and non-German writers—such as Cassirer, Arendt, Strawson, Sellars, Rawls, O’Neill, and Friedman—in the Allied countries that, twice, had to fght of millions of German invaders. Even though Kant’s background is much more cosmopolitan than is often realized, he was not an angel whose presumptions escaped the limits of his age and context. Looking back, current scholars continue to unearth disturbing layers of racism and anti-Semitism, including remarks that say, for example, that “Russians and Poles are not capable of any autonomy”4—and these layers refect as well on the work of later generations of scholars, who for decades gave little or no attention to the skeletons in Kant’s closets. Kant made many harsh statements like this, although sometimes they can be interpreted not as an indictment of particular individuals but as a mere repetition, as was the style then, of popular cultural stereotypes or a remark about a contemporary political situation—for example, the fact that for a time Poland went to the extreme of allowing countless nobles to have a veto on any government action, whereas the Russians and Turks went to the opposite extreme of dictatorial

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power. It should also be kept in mind that Kant’s negative characterizations of the intelligence and talents of non-Europeans are not direct moral critiques and thus are still compatible with his basic doctrine that all human beings are equal in original dignity. Kant distinguished moral worth and talents and then, along broadly Rousseauian lines, sharply criticized the extra vices of “advanced” culture. All the same, there are, of course, serious moral issues that arise concerning the indirect efects of Kant’s prejudiced characterizations of allegedly less culturally advanced groups. One surprising sign of the limitations in Kant’s cosmopolitanism—and one that is all the more striking because it is independent of issues such as racism, religion, and gender—is the fact that, right in the heart of his career in the mid-1780s and at the very time that he was most interested in political events and the idea of democratic and anticolonial government with a separation of church, state, and academy, he made no statement on the world-changing event of the writing of the U.S. Constitution and the numerous revolutionary state constitutions that replaced British imperial rule.5 Stories about a discussion Kant had when he frst met Joseph Green, an English businessman in Königsberg, used to be considered proof of Kant’s enthusiasm for the American Revolution, but it is now clear that the date of the discussion was in the mid-1760s and could not have concerned the revolution itself.6 In the 1790 Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ), Kant ofered a vague remark about a “recently undertaken fundamental transformation.”7 Some (e.g., Bancroft and Arendt) have assumed this referred to America, but Kant’s wording shows he was referring to France and the radically new “organization” of government that Sieyès had just proposed there. Kant was known for his support of the ideals of the French cause, despite his concerns about speaking technically of a “right” to revolution, for he believed that Louis XVI himself had given over sovereignty to the Estates-General. Te American struggle, in any case, was in a sense not a revolution, for it did not aim to take over control in London but simply to gain autonomy for the exploited and not properly represented American colonies—a change that would seem very much in line with Kant’s misgivings about colonialism. Other parties were, however, clearly expressing their reaction to the monumental changes overseas. At this very time, a signifcant revolt occurred in Amsterdam that was inspired by events in America and dominated by a party crying for “freedom”—a revolt that was eventually stifed by Prussian troops and met with no sign of protest from Kant. “Patriots” in the Dutch Republic went so far as to threaten to join a league of armed neutrality in order to

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trade with the American colonies in revolt. Even though Britain then declared war on the Dutch, the American Revolution was so popular in Holland that the United States was recognized by the Dutch States General in 1782. Large democratic military groups were formed by 1783 to challenge the oligarchy in Amsterdam, and these were eventually put down only with outside force by September 1787. On the excuse of an ofense of lèse-majesté to a traveling princess, Frederick II ofered the troops of Carl of Braunschweig to stife the democratic movement in Holland. At the same time, and unlike Kant, Prussian ofcials were showing an intense interest in the new American government, which was then represented in Amsterdam by no less than John Adams.8 Te Prussians were the frst, after independence, to sign an international treaty with the new United States, a recognition of the rights of civilians on the open seas.9 It is unlikely that Kant neglected mentioning, let alone praising, the bold American experiment out of a fear of censorship. It is striking that even in his private remarks there is no clear sign of direct sympathy with the United States as such, although he surely realized, from his British friends and the French press, that the American situation was a matter of constant discussion.10 Te last sentences of Kant’s famous essay on “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784) discuss the dangers of encouraging too much “civil freedom” at once and reveal a clue about his overall attitude, although they never specify what countries he really has in mind. Te essay warns about counterattacks that can arise from a too hasty public endorsement of change before the habit of “thinking freely” has been adequately developed, and for the meantime it praises the fact that in Prussia there is a “well-disciplined and numerous army to keep the public peace.”11 It should be noted, however, that in this essay Kant also expressed his theoretical independence by insisting that a “monarch’s authority rests on his unifcation of a people’s collective will,”12 and that it would be a “crime against human nature” to disrespect “the criterion of everything that can [presumably normatively] be agreed upon as law by a people.”13 He also went out of his way to make a positive reference to some of “the Dutch” for providing an example of enlightened church practices, and perhaps this was a subtle message that he was in general sympathy with some developments in Holland although he did not want to make a direct political statement, given the Prussian government’s involvement.14 It is striking, above all, that although Kant was renowned for his detailed lectures about the far reaches of the world, his remarks about Americans ignore the new country’s remarkable leaders and institutions and instead highlight

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what he calls savage Indians15 and lazy blacks16—characterizations that Kant took to be backed by the most advanced anthropological research of his time, although he also warned that so far such work has been a mere “risky attempt.”17 In retrospect, it is impossible to deny that, even though Kant was by no means a reactionary, his remarks are a reminder that he (like many later scholars) exhibited a strange and very noncosmopolitan blindness about distant peoples of his own ethnic background (“WASPs”), many of whom even shared his progressive principles. Given all these facts, it is not surprising that the work of Herder, Kant’s closest and most famous student, has long been favored by non-Kantians precisely because it appears to be a corrective to what they fnd lacking in Kant.18 Whereas Kant’s work has been taken to be abstract, ahistorical, and overly rationalist, Herder has been regarded as a prime inaugurator of a radically diferent view of history and identity, one that is open to the whole world and appealingly stresses the values of concreteness, feeling, contingency, and variety (see, e.g., interpretations by Charles Taylor, Michael Forster, and John Zammito). For a long time, Herder was even characterized, and then praised or castigated, as a “Counter-Enlightenment” fgure whose work served not merely to supplement Kant’s stress on rationality but also to encourage irrational religious and political sentiments. Tis reading, which goes back in large part to the work of the Riga expatriate Isaiah Berlin, has fortunately been sharply rejected by most recent specialists.19 Here, it only makes sense to invoke a distinction between antirationalism and irrationalism, and to praise Herder insofar as he was, on the whole, more open-minded and humanistic than Kant, although, of course, not entirely without some biases of his own that can lend themselves to misuse.20 While both Herder and Kant deserve credit for introducing a stress on the key term Humanität, it can be conceded that Herder belonged to the vanguard of a later generation that was generally more respectful of the actual variety of persons and societies throughout the world, and of the value of diference throughout history. One might suppose that the main divide between Kant and Herder is due to little more than a diference in their natural abilities and occupations. Herder was from the start at home in aesthetics, and he quickly made a name for himself through an impressive range of literary achievements—in creative as well as critical writing, and in translating and promoting local poetry, such as the folksongs of Riga’s Baltic natives and other relatively unknown peoples. Kant might seem to be the very opposite kind of scholar, an academic who

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was, after all, at frst most interested in the stunning revolution of modern physics and its metaphysical presuppositions. However, Kant had broader concerns that became evident once he was established in his early career, which began to fourish right in the early 1760s when he was “turned around” by reading Rousseau,21 and also was going out of his way to support Herder as a poor young student. As a highly popular lecturer, then, Kant was unique because of his creation of the academic feld of “geo-anthropology,” that is, a close account of the variety of human cultures and their relation to their local natural and historical context—an account that clearly was a huge infuence on Herder’s publications. Initially, Kant was even ofered a chair in poetics in view of the fact that he had become best known because of a popular essay on aesthetics (which was for a long time his best-selling volume) in which, in the fashionable style of that day, he ofered witty—but now quite embarrassing—sketches of contrasting temperaments and European national characters. In sum, Kant had a deep aesthetic and not merely rationalistic side, and Herder was not merely an aesthetic writer but was, not coincidentally, very concerned with nature, science, and rational development.22 Herder also was well known—and criticized by the likes of Schiller—for being much more direct than Kant in his rejection of aristocratic privilege. It is therefore very unfair to both Kant and Herder to characterize them, as is still often done (and as they later even came to do to each other) in terms of a contrast between a rigid unfeeling rationalism and a soft tendency to reactionary irrationalism. And yet, despite all the ways in which a fair reading of Kant and Herder must be attentive to their complex commonalities, there remains an undeniable methodological diference between their approaches in general, for Kant always had a special interest in seeking the universal and necessary even in the particular, whereas Herder loved to express and linger over the particular and contingent for its own sake. Te fnal task of this section is therefore to explain how, despite this contrast, there can be an appropriate way to positively combine the insights of Kant and Herder in relation to issues of history, progress, and properly autonomous identity. A striking document that bears right on this topic is Kant’s unusual fnal publication (1800), a very brief “Postscript of a Friend,” for a German-Lithuanian dictionary.23 Here, I will rely heavily on an excellent recent analysis by another Kant scholar with a Riga background: Susan Meld Shell.24 As Shell demonstrates, this concise and long-ignored piece is a carefully crafted

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culmination of Kant’s career-long agonizing over the issues of national character, friendship, and progress in a cosmopolitan context. It also bears—and this is my own extra claim—on his strained relationship with Herder, and in a way that reveals a bridge toward ideas about the relation of history and philosophy that distinguish an important new trend in the next generation. Very soon after Herder left Königsberg for Riga in 1764, Kant admonished him to pay more heed to the philosophical virtue of conceptual clarity and not to lose himself in vivid but vague metaphors. Kant repeated this plea in his three (!) 1785 writings on the frst volumes of Herder’s massive Ideas toward a Philosophy of History of Humanity (Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1784–1791)—a book that intentionally starts with a plural term in its title. Kant could not help but regard this work as a competitor to his own just published Idea of a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim (Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürglicher Absicht, 1784)— a brief tract that, by no accident, starts with a singular term in its title.25 Herder had also published even earlier works on history, and so his writings on the topic were widely known to have preceded that of his teacher—a fact that was perhaps an extra sore point between them. Herder took ofense at Kant’s comments, and he forever resented being reminded about the need to be more rigorous in a philosophical way. What began as an ideal teacherstudent relationship degenerated into a bitter misunderstanding, one that could never be overcome, in part because it did involve a genuine diference in methodologies. Kant—in line with what he himself called the “characteristic German mania for method”26—generally favored a systematic ahistorical presentation of necessary structures of reason, whereas Herder favored a narrative approach with a colorful presentation of a varied series of phenomena in a rich historical setting. Nonetheless, in his last work, the “Postscript,” Kant came to focus on the clearly Herderian theme of the importance of the preservation of minority languages. Troughout the eighteenth century in Kant’s hometown—which was also Herder’s student home—Lithuanian had been a regular part of the scene, with even a royally established Lithuanian seminar at the university. Königsberg’s Protestant Prussian-Lithuanian community included Kant’s billiard partners and closest early friends, C. F. Heilsberg (who, along with Daniel Jenisch, also contributed supportive statements to the dictionary) and J. H. Wöllmer. Kant was no doubt thinking back on these exemplary friendships when he agreed to contribute to the dictionary and to praise the Lithuanian “tone of equality and trusting openheartedness . . . willing to go along with all that

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is fair”—and, he added, with proper “pride,” “courage,” and “loyalty.”27 Elsewhere Kant remarked that Germans, in contrast, mainly lack “originality” and a “principled awareness of equality.”28 Tese were not at all casual terms for Kant. Moreover, Kant’s plea for supporting the Lithuanian language, even in the absence of a Lithuanian state, is rooted, as Shell notes, in a general argument for protecting the “peculiarity” of any “still unmixed language that is ancient and confned to a narrow region.”29 Kant’s broader hypothesis is that an ideal “enduring commonwealth” needs a combination of “highest culture” (found in dominant nations) and the “simplicity and originality” of more marginalized peoples that nonetheless have “a free nature that feels its own value.”30 (Tat Kant, unlike Herder, did not make a similar statement directly about Hebrew texts is, to say the least, quite unfortunate—although it is also striking that Kant did not appear concerned with the extinction of the Sambian or “Old Prussian” language that had its home right in the Königsberg area.) In other words, although Kant could not repair his personal relationship with Herder, he eventually saw the need indirectly to meet Herder’s thought at least halfway, and to make explicit that our identity needs to be not only expressed in the spirit of the universal principles of pure reason but also revivifed in the concrete letter of long-standing but threatened of-the-main-line languages and traditions. Tus, instead of having to choose sharply between preferring the universal or the particular, there is a way to see progress as resting on a mutually supportive relationship between them. Philosophers, and modern educational institutions in general—including dictionaries—bring archaic natural languages to explicit concepts, and these languages in turn add, at the very least, an original “measure of wit” to humanity in general.31 One can also see the more concrete treatment of history by Herder (and his many post-Kantian fans) as complementing rather than conficting with the frst Critique’s notion of regulative ideas of reason and the third Critique’s notion of refective judgment, for these each imply a signifcant role for the self-correction of human rationality over time.32 But Kant leaves these notions at the level of a general sketch, whereas his fellow idealists go on to fll in many more details of this process.

Later Developments Te key insights in Kant’s last work continue to have philosophical relevance. Tey are a reminder that even the most rational and universalist of outlooks

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can and should be combined with the concrete encouragement that is needed, from those who come from the greater powers, to preserve endangered instruments of identity and autonomous development on a relatively small scale. Precisely because of their vulnerable “peculiarity,” respect for these instruments serves a critical role in furthering the ideal of enriching truly enlightened and not simply homogeneous national identities. Tis is crucial not only for national contexts that—like most actual societies—involve a rich mix of diverse peoples, but also in the cosmopolitan context of promoting human self-determination on the whole through historical rehabilitations taking place on an international scale. I have argued elsewhere that an especially valuable version of a mixed and inclusive Kantian-Herderian approach to history and philosophy was developed in the “historical turn” initiated in the writings of Kant’s immediate successors. At frst, this approach was carried out in a highly abstract and systematic manner in narrative arguments in the Jena school, from Reinhold to Hegel, which incorporated a sequential critique of their immediate predecessors, along with a productive appreciation of foreign infuences such as the ancients, Locke (for Reinhold), and Spinoza (for Hegel).33 Te historical approach in Jena was also developed, however, in a more creative and openended way in the project of “progressive universal poesy,” a famous three-part phrase from a fragment (#116) in the jointly edited Athenaeum that captures much of what is best in the work of the geniuses of the Early Romantic era, such as Friedrich Schlegel, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Novalis, Schleiermacher, Hölderlin, and eventually, Schelling’s late period.34 Tis new style of writing, which continues in our own time, involves a complex philosophical approach that can be characterized as not only a historical turn but also an aesthetic, subjective, and interpretive turn—and at the same time an opponent of historicism, aestheticism, subjectivism, and relativism.35 All these writers recognized that philosophy’s task in late modernity is primarily a matter of building on what is properly rational and cosmopolitan in Enlightenment thought while also, like Herder, appreciating that the mathematical method of the exact sciences, as well as the simply additive methods in the empirical sciences, can no longer be imitated by philosophy or adequately complemented merely by an attempted transcendental grounding. Tis recognition defnes the break from classical, early modern to what, in a broad sense, can be called Romantic or late modern philosophy. Te latter, as a kind of progressive universal poetry, is a distinctive style of critical and historical writing

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that all at once relies, at least implicitly, on broad moral ideals—hence is “progressive” in content36—and on argument—hence is in principle “universal” in intent—while regularly expressing itself in any one of the large variety of relatively nonabstract styles that Germans call Dichtung—and so, in that broad sense, is also “poetic” in form. Tis kind of writing, in the aftermath of worries about the overly systematic pretensions of modern philosophy, naturally tends to be highly aesthetic, interpretive, and expressive of subjectivity, and at the same time it is respectful of rationality, although in a complex, ironic, and non-Cartesian style. Kant, of course, was not a literary fgure (although his shorter essays are impressive rhetorical accomplishments), but his writings can be taken to be positively linked, because of their role as a catalyst, to the Early Romantic conception of history and of philosophy’s task in late modernity, a conception that efectively combines the notions of progress and autonomy with a more open texture than in traditional linear approaches.37 Te best way to explain how philosophical writing in this ongoing era can be understood as a form of progressive universal poetry is not to attempt a Procrustean defnition but to be open to simply perceiving the stylistic family resemblances that connect the seemingly very diferent writings of Kant’s most interesting successors. Consider not only the Early Romantics already mentioned but also the many later major philosophers whose work is marked by an intensely historical orientation and the ofering of a creative new genealogy or archaeology that is meant to have a broad cultural impact: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kuhn, Foucault, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, and Alasdair MacIntyre. In the secondary literature, Ernst Behler, Manfred Frank, Jane Kneller, Elizabeth Brusslan, Frederick Beiser, Fred Rush, and others have already shown in detail how the frst Critical “symphilosophers”—Novalis and the young Friedrich Schlegel—very efectively used a medley of diverse genres to promote the Early Romantic philosophical program. In a sequence of recent essays, I have argued that in his thoroughly history-oriented poetry as well as in his deeply philosophical fction, essays, and letters, Hölderlin carried out this project in a surprisingly close adherence to the enlightened religious themes of Kant’s moral writings, and with a consideration of Germany’s historical and political relation to the ancients and the French that was even more sophisticated than that of contemporaries such as Schiller and Reinhold.38 Te Early Romantics were admittedly not aware of Kant’s Lithuanian Postscript, and they did not linger over the pure transcendental features of Critical

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theoretical philosophy. Tey did, however, energetically espouse the Enlightenment goals of Kant’s writings, and they were all deeply afected by CPJ. Tis work emphasizes the notion of genius, the need for a sequence of exemplary fgures to lead culture in general creatively forward, and the importance of using aesthetic ideas, precisely as Kant noted that Milton did, to help actualize, and not merely thematize, the practical goals of full autonomy.39 A close look at Kant’s work on religion reveals that he gave considerable thought—in a way that clearly had a direct efect on all the main Jena writers— to understanding our history as basically distinguished by a series of extraordinary fgures who were, all at once, aesthetic-moral-religious-philosophical leaders, revolutionaries whose long-term infuence continues to raise humanity step by step toward autonomous fulfllment.40 Kant explicitly stressed the epochal changes initiated by the outsiders Job, Jesus, and Rousseau, and no doubt he also thought that Milton, Luther, and the full efect of his own critical philosophy had special signifcance.41 Like Schelling, Hegel, and other later thinkers, Kant understood that Herder’s temporal notion of the “spirit of an age” has more importance than a merely spatial understanding of the notion of a “spirit of a people.” A multiplicity of peoples can be set out geographically without considerations of signifcant causal infuence, as in the early contrast of Europe and the Pacifc Islands, but insofar as a sequence of spirits of an age comes to our attention, this implies not a mere disconnected change of taste but the likelihood of an underlying causal connection and a succession of infuential exemplary fgures. Tis fact was appreciated toward the end of the eighteenth century when, instead of a mere notional contrasting of ancients and moderns, as if these are mere timeless models on isolated islands, there arose an appreciation for the complex fact of the simultaneous frst philosophy-busting revolution of modern science and the intense experience of a set of relevant historical contrasts made visible through Europe’s renewed confrontation, through Winckelmann and others, with the ancient world. In times of such dramatic change, the past becomes of great interest the more it is realized that it is quite diferent but still part of our own undeniable heritage.42 In place of a mere juxtaposing of an ancient and a merely modern sphere, there arose a process of generating a third world, a late modern world that understands itself as neither one of these pure types but as a successor incorporating the event of its reformation through an innovative engagement with its main, and even distant, predecessors. Tus, Hölderlin, like many other eighteenth-century writers, looked back to Milton,43 who looked back to Dante, who looked back to Virgil, who

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looked back to Homer. Somewhat similarly, Kant eventually looked beyond his immediate Wolfan surroundings to Leibniz (who is worthy of a “true apology”44), and way back to Augustine and Plato,45 to work out a new doctrine of “nature” and “grace.”46 Tis is why history can be philosophically schematized better as an ellipse or spiral, rather than either a mere line or circle, for it involves a complex circling back that is also a moving forward, onto an “eccentric,” retrospectively revolutionized, and higher path—what Kant also called, in a letter to Kästner (August 5, 1790), his own “roundabout route” (durch einen Umweg).47 Te Early Romantic development of the historical turn is in general more fexible and Herderian than the more systematic versions of post-Kantianism found in Fichte, Schelling, and especially Hegel, but it does not go so far as to fall back into a form of hyperfexible pragmatic holism.48 Te orthodox Hegelian version of the historical turn, even in successors such as Marx, holds to what can be called a rigid modular model of historical development in society and philosophy.49 It is “modular” in holding not only that we change as we develop signifcantly over time, but also that this change is not continuous but involves discrete stages defned by a relatively short list of interconnected but radically new frameworks. Moreover, this systematic model is “rigid” in that it claims not simply that a demarcation of stages of thought, of some kind or other, is helpful, but that very specifc necessary stages, corresponding to fundamental metaphysical or economic categories, can be identifed (e.g., prefeudal, feudal, capitalist, and socialist). Te Romantics are also attracted to the thought of a series of key stages—the ancient, medieval, modern, and later modern worlds—but for them the borders of these stages are highly permeable, with cross-currents of contingent infuence from faraway times and places, and with room for numerous signifcant transitions that are more like deep changes in taste that are compelling but are not demonstrable necessities. A fnal point about this conception is that it can be progressive without being Whiggish, for it can concede that it has sensed something lacking in itself and has turned to the past as something intrinsically valuable, with achievements that in some ways may be so good that they can never be duplicated. Tis conception also is not to be confused with the historicist notion, suggested in some of Herder’s writings (and their Gadamerian interpretation), that other works and ages are simply diferent. It is true, as Herder deserves credit for arguing, that Shakespeare should not be criticized just because he is not “classical” in style; but neither should we concede, for example, that ancient views of slavery are beyond criticism just because we are outsiders to

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that culture. Insofar as there is an underlying philosophical strand in the succession of civilizations, we can still claim that there are some later positions that are argumentative improvements on their predecessors. Tat is precisely why we are attached to these later, more complex notions, as when we now hold that humanity involves not only the favor of nature or supernature, in talent or perhaps grace, but above all some kind of basic equality of persons— and, eventually, in a concrete and not merely abstract, inward sense. Tese points can be used to characterize an attractively balanced and broadly Herderian position. Despite Herder’s own tendency at times to suggest backing of altogether from comparing cultures, or even to seem simultaneously to be endorsing cultural relativism and the presumption of some specifcally European ideas as universally valid standards,50 his main concern appears to be simply to warn his contemporaries against assuming that in all respects our own modern society is superior to cultures of other times and places. He properly stresses that weaknesses elsewhere that were in fact unavoidable can hardly be morally blamed, that condemnation of others is unfair without something close to a full contextual understanding of their situation (which modern critics rarely made the efort to achieve), that partial aspects of culture that are admittedly negative in themselves can nonetheless be an inescapable part of a valuable total social structure that corresponds in many ways to our own mixed situation, and that even very negative characteristics of a particular culture can have an indirect value in leading to improvements in other cultures and in giving the eventual course of humanity a progressive form. Kant could agree with all these points while at the same time stressing that, except as a regulative ideal, much more caution than Herder himself exhibited is called for in regard to claims of an actual teleological pattern in history on the whole. In addition to all these qualifcations, any late modern conception of history and progress has a shadow side to it for, precisely as post-Kantian, it comes with a sense of belatedness and of the limitations of any purely rationalist model. Philosophy in the late modern age has learned that in large part it is neither a deductive nor decisively empirical enterprise, let alone a clearly convincing transcendental “metaphysics as a science.”51 By induction, it should concede that, since it has repeatedly found ways—as Kant discovered when he read Rousseau and reconsidered Plato—in which it has needed to correct itself radically by means of returning to obscured notions in its own past, it is only sensible to leave room in its future for similar

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progressive reversals. Tis implies that autonomy in philosophy, culture, and life can consist not in fnding oneself totally independent by means of positing an Archimedean point (the “I”) from which a full system can be deduced. Instead, it can be a matter of realizing more and more how the corrections that we make are the ongoing, and in part backward-looking, self-corrections of embedded human rationality—in other words, the implications of what we have at frst neglectfully inherited, not created, and hence that, for all that we can foresee, we will never be able to construct, even in approximation, a unifed all-inclusive system. Tis kind of progression can be taken to be consistent, in a Schlegelian manner, with a variety of competing “research programs.” Tis need not be relativism, for even if this process does not (as in Kant’s language) converge toward a limit, there can be evident progress within each program, and the sophisticated development of competing rational outlooks can amount to a clear advance in human self-understanding as a whole. In this way, postKantian writing in a broadly Herderian style can also be distinguished from proposals of more anarchic positions, such as those suggested sometimes by Richard Rorty and Raymond Guess, who speak of “changing the subject” rather than of moving forward.52 Examples of this kind of fruitful multitrack development may still be found in numerous scientifc controversies as well as in philosophy, the humanities in general, and even the wayward evolution in our conception of political institutions. I conclude by citing a brief old story (a variation of La Fontaine’s “Te Golden Pitcher”) about philosophical indebtedness, alluded to by the young Kant, quite appropriately, in the context of his looking back at Leibniz’s denial of causal infuence. I spell it out here to indicate, poetically as it were, how the argumentative dynamics of history can function as part of philosophy itself. Te story is about a dying father who tells his sons that he has buried gold in the felds that are to be left to them. And the point is, the statement in this story, although not literally true, turns out to be metaphorically correct. Although the successors were at frst disappointed, their relentless digging in search of gold sufced to turn up the earth and thereby made the felds more fertile than ever before. In Kant’s own words: “If this science [of traditional philosophy] be thus [i.e., critically] cultivated, its soil will be found to be not so barren. Te objection of futile and obscure subtlety, raised against it by those who scorn it, will be refuted by an ample harvest of more remarkable knowledge.”53

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Chapter 9

Language, Embodiment, and the Supersensuous in Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation

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Richard L. Velkley

Te claims for practical universalism of the Enlightenment epoch, which attain a classic formulation in the moral and political writings of Kant, encounter criticisms and calls for modifcation from many quarters, even from their own proponents. Tus, numerous authors, Kant included, turn to aesthetic experience as a way to bring the abstract reason of pure morality (the realm of freedom) more into accord with the limits of our afective, sensible, and bodily nature. Te high point of this efort after Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (CPJ) is Schiller’s writings on aesthetic education. Another approach is found in Hegel’s rejection of the formalist subjectivity of Moralität (i.e., the Kantian categorical imperative) in favor of Sittlichkeit, the objectively realized requirements of familial and custom-based social life. In Herder one fnds a qualifcation of cosmopolitanism by an emphasis on particular languages and their indwelling poetic spirits.1 But perhaps no writing of the era of 1770–1820 expresses in a more fraught manner the attempt to reconcile ethical universalism and linguistically grounded particularism than Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation. Whether one regards this work with admiration or alarm, it cannot be denied that its paradoxical character exposes in exemplary fashion the tension it seeks to resolve.2

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I. Te Addresses was delivered publicly in Berlin in the winter of 1807–1808 during the occupation by Napoleon’s forces. Fichte was living there as an independent scholar but was soon to become professor and rector at the University of Berlin, which was founded in 1810. Te lectures were in fact little noted at the time although they were later closely associated with the Wars of Liberation and strivings for German national unity.3 Te Addresses has experienced markedly diferent receptions, both inside and outside Germany. Robert Adamson, Scottish historian of philosophy of the Victorian era, writes of Fichte’s “noble addresses to the German people. Even if we think that in these pure reason is sometimes overshadowed by patriotism, we cannot but recognize the immense practical value of what he [Fichte] recommended as the only true foundation for national prosperity.”4 Tese words were written, of course, before the First World War, in an era at home with the rhetoric of moral elevation. Over ffty years later, the American scholar G. A. Kelly makes this nuanced judgment: “Tus it can probably be said legitimately that Fichte is not a prophet of völkisch German nationalism. But with equal justice one could argue that the ambiguities raised here in conjunction with incredibly unyielding ethical claims have plowed deep furrows for the sowing of future dragon’s teeth.”5 Te recent general estimation of the Addresses is perhaps encapsulated in this statement of Canadian historian A. Richie, writing that Fichte “turned against the Enlightenment and against Kant and moved towards a Romantic view of German history and the German nation. For him Germans—the Urvolk—were morally superior to other races, not least because they had remained uncorrupted by other cultures, especially those of the Latin and Roman worlds.”6 Te mixed reception of the work refects its internal complexity. While Addresses expresses intense patriotic devotion to the German nation as a people, it regards that people as the vehicle for a universal moral mission. It ofers no plan of government but an idea of educational community for children. Te educational program is for all German children of all classes, and it is to be administered by an educational elite. It has both egalitarian and authoritarian features. Te Addresses does not call for the creation of a single state for all the Germans, nor does it suggest a military uprising against the French oppressors. To be sure, the speeches were delivered under conditions of French censorship. A. J. P. Taylor says that Fichte’s “lectures were a harmless gesture against the French, and French ofcers, connoisseurs of rhetoric, often formed

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the most admiring part of his audience.”7 Fichte had a reputation for Jacobin sympathies, it should be recalled, and he was no friend of the aristocraticmonarchical order in the German states, as the Addresses makes clear. Indeed, a major theme of the Addresses is that the German defeat by foreign arms was deserved insofar as the old regime had become thoroughly corrupt. Fichte never mentions the words “France” or “French,” and he avows that the foreign conquerors have striking virtues. Unfolding on a highly abstract plane, Fichte’s argument for the moral regeneration of the German nation describes the major opponent as a defect in the European spirit that goes well beyond Napoleon’s France. Te Addresses was never put under a French ban but after the restoration of the monarchy the Prussian authorities suppressed it.8 Insofar as the Addresses has the moral education of the human race as its ultimate theme, it belongs to a tradition of German works on this subject, including Lessing’s Te Education of the Human Race, Kant’s essays “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” and “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?,” as well as Schiller’s Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. At the same time, its focus on the primacy of the German people as the agent of moral progress is a “particularist” aspect that links it to other German writings of the Napoleonic era underlining the unique metaphysical depth of the Germans. An example is Schelling’s unpublished essay “On the Essence of German Science” (1807), wherein Schelling writes that what distinguishes the Germans is “their need to test the depths and explore the boundaries of individual existence, and ultimately to produce a reconciling, ‘redemptive’ comprehension of the apparently intractable contradictions between freedom and fate, individuality and community, fnite existence and absolute being.”9 Tough Fichte puts forward a related thesis and though he also seeks to actualize a reconciling vision, the glaring tensions in his Addresses are more evident than the achievement of redemptive unity. Tis is my theme in what follows.

II. Before proceeding with the Addresses, however, it is necessary to say something about the beginnings of Fichte’s philosophy in his encounter with Kant. Fichte’s relationship with Kant’s philosophy begins with a reading of Kant in 1790 that liberates Fichte from Spinozist determinism. Te experience is akin to a conversion: “I am living in a new world since I read the Kritik der

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praktischen Vernunft. Propositions that I believed were irrefutable have been refuted for me; things that I believed could never be proved have been proved to me.”10 He calls Kant’s account of practical reason “a blessing for an age in which morality has been destroyed down to its foundations.”11 In his Wissenschaftslehre of only a few years later, Fichte appropriates and transforms Kant’s doctrine of “the primacy of practical reason,” wherein the moral interests of reason constitute the true end and justifcation of philosophy. In Fichte’s version, the practical power is the innermost root of the I and freedom itself is a theoretical determining principle of our world. Accordingly, the Wissenschaftslehre as a whole can be described as an efort to demonstrate that reason could not be theoretical if it were not also practical and, at the same time, that reason could not be practical if it were not also theoretical. In a decisive respect, Fichte’s argument continues the transcendental approach of Kant, in which reason’s relations to the world are grounded in the structure of selfconsciousness, in an ego or I that relates to itself spontaneously in all acts of thinking and knowing. But again, Fichte’s absolute I is not only theoretical but also practical. As theoretical, the I fnds itself limited by the experience of a check (Anstoss) on its original activity, in response to which it posits the Not-I and the whole realm of objects, together with the transcendental rules for the cognitive grasp of this realm. Te experience of fnitude also sets in motion the practical activity of the I, as seeking to minimize the Not-I, wherein the I strives to abolish the diference between the I and the Not-I so as to uncover an all-encompassing I. Te I, in other words, seeks to replace its theoretical determinations with practical ones, in which what seems to be only given to the I from a theoretical perspective as object of cognition is reinterpreted as the result of a prior willing and doing of the I. Te complete reinterpretation of the world, moving from a fnite theoretical perspective to an infnite practical perspective, is an ideal, an unattainable goal of limitless striving that orients all the activities of reason.12 Kant, in a famous public statement of 1799, writes, “I hereby declare that I regard Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre as a totally indefensible system,” and goes on to deny that the spirit of Fichtean philosophy is “genuinely critical philosophy.”13 Kant claims that Fichte attempts to derive material or metaphysical conclusions from the pure theory of science, which properly concerns itself only with logic, by which Kant means transcendental logic as the necessary presupposition of all theoretical employment of reason. But it would also be possible to say that Fichte regards the pure theory of science as having a ground in pure practical reason as constitutive, a position that Kant needs to reject, as

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well. In the Addresses Fichte employs an account of practical-theoretical reason as constitutive, whereby he would ground the prospect for the education of the human race on the strict necessity of reason’s self-productive law. Tis has the promise of supplying Fichte with greater assurance of the success of education as a historical project, frst on the level of national education and then on the level of the human race, than is found in Kant’s hypothetical accounts of rational progress, which are grounded only in regulative or refective thinking about the approximate realization of ideas of reason by historical phenomena. For Kant, reason legislates over itself as pure will, supplying a motive, and guides itself by self-constructed ideas of ends, but it cannot, as it can for Fichte, also construct the world as a theoretical object in which such ideas must be realized.14 Te place of the particular nation or people (Volk) injects an element of paradox in Fichte’s scheme, since the particular people has a “depth” whose source is resistant to the universalization of its characteristics, while at the same time those characteristics are conceived by Fichte as the indispensable means for the education of the human race. Fichte tries to resolve the paradox with an account of language as the sensuous image of the supersensuous, whereby the German language has unique depth, due to its immediate relation to sensuous experience, even as it is ft to convey the ideas of clear knowledge, wholly independent of sense. Te project of universal education seems impossible to fulfll, unless the German language becomes the language of the species, and even then it would fail since this language can never be the frst language, with the full immediacy of originality, of the rest of the species. Tere is no way to universalize primordiality (Ursprünglichkeit). Tis difculty is related to other ambiguities: reason is rooted in a “dark force” while its essence is the attainment of clarity, and reason is freely creative while enforcing strict necessity.

III. Te frst address dramatically characterizes the present time as the collapse of one epoch and the dawn of another. Tis change is also described as the death of a false Self and the beginning of a new Self. Te old order was based on the principle of self-seeking in which government rested on the motives of fear and hope, and the individual was tied to the community through these weak bonds. Fichte speaks of “the enlightenment of understanding (Verstand), with its purely material calculations,” which, after it destroyed

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the religious motive of obedience, conceived such “substitutes and supplements of the moral sense as love of fame and national honor.” But these are only “illusory phantoms.”15 Te old system crumbled from internal decay and led to the German nation’s being ruled by an alien power. Fichte says that he will not raise the question of blame for these events—the fault lies in no individuals, including Napoleon—and the destruction must be welcomed as making possible a new order. Even so, Fichte pours contempt on the “alien words” of humanity, liberality and popularity. Exhorting the German audience without class distinction to a new task, Fichte speaks of the need to fashion “an entirely new Self ” and to create a new image of the world. Inspired by this image, the education of the nation is the sole means to preserve the existence of the nation. Tere is a fate worse, therefore, than rule by alien powers; yet worse is domination of the spirit by alien thought, leading to spiritual death. Te nation or people is not defned by political structures; it exists organically with ancient origins. Within the ancient character of the Germans there lies a root of moral excellence that provides the basis for the new order. Yet education for too long has been based on false principles, and has not reached the true roots of acting within a community. Te needed reform is not a small matter; it requires sacrifce and manly courage. In an unprecedented way, the Germans must be molded into a corporate body so as to form not individual Selves but a national Self. To afect this the true art of education (Kunst der Bildung) must be discovered. As the sequel shows, the practitioner of this art must inspire a love of the new world-image and have talents like those of a poetic genius.16 Te complete account of the new education must relate to the features of the present age as well as the peculiar qualities of the Germans. But Fichte turns now to the “inner remedy” that can be considered apart from space and time: he takes up an abstract refection on the mind, the will, and the grounds of motivation. Te older education relies on exhortation and external rewards and punishments; the new education will consider the pupil as self-active and fnding pleasure and inspiration in the exercise of the mental powers. One fnds in these remarks the legacy of Rousseau and Kant in their critique of external rewards and of the pupil’s experience of dependence on the wishes and commands of tutors. Te greater autonomy of the pupil results in a frmer, more settled disposition. Indeed, the right method of instruction, Fichte claims, efects an infallible shaping of the impulses, so that the will, given its right form, wills its object forever. Yet the source of this power of the will is a “mysterious and incalculable force” that has been placed under

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the direction of art. In sum, “the education proposed . . . is to be a reliable and deliberate art for fashioning in man a stable and infallible good will.”17 Te lawful character of this will is not to be confused with natural causality or determination by a natural disposition. Although the will as determined only by its intrinsic lawfulness sounds much like Kant’s good will, for Fichte it is compatible with motivation by love. Te love in question is a form of self-love: love of the self as capable of creative acts, especially the creation of images of a world that does not yet exist. One hears in this an echo of the form-drive in Schiller’s aesthetic education, which itself drew upon Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre. Te creative will takes pleasure in the image it has created, prior to its realization. Tus, Fichte asserts that the power to create the image is the starting point of the molding of the race (Geschlecht). Te created object is the manifestation of mental power, which Fichte distinguishes from free will, for it operates only according to its inner rules. Te rules of creation are not arbitrary; they are indeed the ground of experience and are productive of knowledge. Te pupil’s self-discovery of its creative mental power is the discovery that law is the sole basis for acting and knowing. By discovering its creative power, the mind learns to love lawfulness. Fichte says that the only way to inspire love of learning is to encourage the spontaneous activity of the pupil. Education, accordingly, must turn away from passive absorption of historical learning and reliance on memory. As the mind employs its powers it discovers their restrictions. Fichte gives the example of posing the problem to the pupil of enclosing a space with two straight lines. Te impossibility the child discovers is internal to the mind, not an external obstacle. Such insight belongs to the frst, most important knowledge, which is abstract, absolute, and universal. Whereas the old education focuses on learning an endless array of actual qualities in things, the new education uncovers the nature of the mind as an independent, original principle of things. Tis enjoyment of mental activity then prepares the way for moral training.

IV. Te love of learning based on the free activity of the mind leads to moral life, as the delight in the mere image of the world order that ought to exist gives way to a desire to actualize it. Te transition is made possible by the pupil’s belonging to a self-contained community of children separate from the community of adults. Te child is a co-legislator of this community, and becomes deeply

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attached to the community it has helped to create. Te image of the world that should exist can be found in the community in which the child lives. Te individual has a tendency to act just for itself, but it can become animated by a love of the ideal when that ideal represents the common striving of all. Tose who excel in their studies are expected to help others voluntarily without rewards and praise. Te motive for benefaction is a joyful feeling of power; the pupil grows stronger as it more actively assists the community. Fichte speaks of a “vital impulse” as the root of action from which all members of the community derive their strength. In further mental and moral development the pupil comes to regard itself as the member of a higher spiritual world. It has the insight that nothing truly exists but the spiritual life, and that all else is appearance. Te thoughts of the developing child turn to religion and God, but not to the common distortion of the idea of God as the object of fear and hope. Religion in the new era will not be used to buttress morality; it is only a kind of knowledge that clarifes the spiritual order, and accordingly there are no religious rites or institutions in the community of pupils. Te child is not taught about an afterlife but instructed to think of eternity as found in this life.18 Te underlying impulse creates the world as its spiritual product, by the translation of that impulse into ideas of conscious refection. Tere are two modes of this translation of impulse into two human types: those who are governed by dim feeling and lead lives of material self-seeking, and those who are governed by reason and stimulated by ideas. Again, the love of knowledge is a kind of self-love, the love of the power of knowing. In a manner recalling Spinoza, clear ideas are ideas of oneself, which ideas further one’s power and bring the increased pleasures of enhanced power. Te development of love, Fichte says, is the experience of the whole human being as indivisible (or as a monad). Clear knowledge is the frst and true foundation of life; it discloses how the individual, even as a monad, is a member of a moral order. Te world order is reason’s own product; it is not a given world but a world of the future resting on a priori principles. Te world to be is the true world; all else is shadow and phantom. Fichte describes the fundamental impulse also as intuitive knowledge that strives to attain a higher form. It produces various images in which it clothes itself; each image is overcome as a higher image replaces it. Te natural world is a lower image, fxed and given, compared to the creativity of spirit and the moral world it produces. When Fichte turns to the account of German characteristics, the contrast between nature and spirit reappears as the contrast between the fxed, dead mental culture of the Neo-Latin peoples and the creative, living mental culture of the Germans.

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At this point the grandest, most stirring educational project comes forward. Trough the art of education, whereby dim feeling is overcome and replaced by clear knowledge, the human race fashions itself by means of itself. Tis is the destiny of the human: in freedom to make itself what it is originally, to enter a new epoch of free and deliberate development. Te Germans occupy the pivotal position in this change. Tey have continuity with their past but will also overcome the past. Tey will usher the human race into a world that will seem strange at frst. Te existing education is silent about the supersensuous as it caters to the mostly unserious concerns of the higher classes. Te common people have always maintained some connection with the earnest tasks of moral life, but they also have sufered from corrupting ideas, notably the doctrine that the human is evil and has an unchangeable nature that instruction cannot much improve. Recent German philosophy has begun to preach sounder ideas but is mostly without efect. Tis philosophy is not yet at home in the age that still lacks sense organs for it. Fichte writes: “Te quickening breath of the spiritual world has not yet ceased to blow. It will take hold . . . of the dead bones of our national body, and join them together, that they may stand glorious in new and radiant life.”19

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V. Te Addresses next describes where that quickening breath, the living element in the German folk that can reanimate the dead bones, is to be found. It is the German language, which distinguishes the Germans from all other European peoples. Teir linguistic advantage relates directly to the special mission of this people as the educators of the new race of humans, which they frst exercised as the ancient Teutons (Germanen) who brought together the remnants of the Roman social order with the new religion from western Asia. Te linguistic advantage is based on a simple demographic fact: the Germans among the Teutons remained in the original dwelling places of the ancestral stock and developed the original language. Other Teutons wandered to lands where they adopted the languages of peoples they conquered, making new peoples with new languages. Te issue, it is clear, is not biological purity, for the Germans mingled with Slavs and Romans in the German lands, just as other Teutons intermarried with Gauls, Cantabrians, and so on, in other lands. But the Germans, unlike the other Teutons, did not adopt alien tongues.20 Tus the Germans are the only people of Europe who have a right to call themselves “the people.”

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Fichte refers to no linguistic feature of German (grammatical, syntactic, or phonetic) to support the claim of superiority. Nor does he vaunt some primal virtues of the frst German speakers as informing their linguistic habits or conventions. His account of the origin of language provides the clue to his position. Language is not based on arbitrary agreements, and instead there is a unitary source for all languages in the manner in which objects act on human beings, whereby ideas of objects are represented by sounds. Human nature, which is universal, speaks through language and announces itself to humans, and in principle “there is and can be but one single language.”21 However, this unity has never been a fact due to infuences of locality on the organs of speech, and to the order of the designation of objects by the order in which they were observed and designated. Fichte claims these deviations follow according to strict laws, and they defne a people: we give the name of People to humans whose organs of speech are infuenced by the same external conditions, who live together, and who develop their language in continuous communication with each other. A people does not express its knowledge; rather, its knowledge expresses itself out of the mouth of the people. Fichte also calls this primal knowledge the common power of nature, which speaks intelligibly to a people so long as they remain in uninterrupted communication with the same tongue. If, however, they interrupt that contact with the force of nature by adopting another tongue that represents another set of infuences and a diferent order of experiences, their mode of thinking as linguistically rooted is now shaped by foreign representations of experiences they have not had. Teir mental life is doomed to be derivative and unclear about its own sources in perception. Fichte has a complex statement on the process whereby the ideas of mental culture, which represent the supersensible, are indicated by speech, which employs sensuous representations. Here the extraordinary tensions that afict his entire project most clearly emerge. Te supersensuous must be distinguished from the sensuous so that thought can be repeated at will and not be confused with the sensuous. Communication is possible only if a Self as instrument of the supersensuous is distinguished from the same Self as instrument of the sensuous world. Te Self must divide itself so that soul is contrasted with the body. But the division must preserve unity, as well, for the primal experience of objects, or original nature, is the living ground of thought. Without sensuous immediacy as its origin, language would have no content. Fichte discloses a tension between original immediacy and communicability that endangers the universal educational mission of the Germans, as he conceives it, for the conveyance of German insights to other peoples

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can doubtfully preserve the immediacy of original perception. He describes a mechanism in language that seeks to overcome this difculty. Te sensual image of language is through analogy a pointer to its supersensuous counterpart. Te various objects of the supersensuous world have a relation to the instrument of supersensuous awareness, which is similar to the relation of sensuous objects to the instrument of sensuous awareness. Language cannot directly represent the supersensuous but its sensuous image provides a rule that sets the instrument of spiritual awareness into motion so that it can discover something analogous in the supersensuous. Te account strongly resembles Kant’s account of symbolic exhibition (or hypotyposis) of ideas of reason by means of analogy.22 It is striking that Fichte’s account of language would in Kant’s terms fall within the realm of aesthetic judging.

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VI. All of cognition for Fichte is in the end cognition of Ideas, the representations of the supersensuous, for the concern of both theory and practice for Fichte is the realization of the spirit’s activity. Fichte notes that the German language, following the Greek, has the term Idee for the supersensuous object of clear knowledge, using a sensuous image of what the bodily eye perceives to denote the object of the spiritual eye. But in a move that is as bizarre as it is revealing, Fichte adds that Idee conveys the same sensuous image as Gesicht (vision, sight, but also face) and then quotes from Luther’s translation of the Bible, Ihr werdet Gesichte sehen, ihr werdet Träume haben (“You shall see visions, you shall have dreams.”).23 In the same passage Fichte praises the Greeks for drawing their image of the supersensuous from the deliberate waking state, in contrast to other peoples who had gone to dreams to fnd an image for another world. Yet the quotation from Luther, who otherwise plays a large role in the Addresses as the leader of the frst European movement wherein the Germans instructed Europe about freedom, shows that the Germans are indebted to such peoples and not only to the Greeks. Indeed, does not the importance of the translated Bible for the Germans reveal that they as a people were deeply formed by a work that was not read in the original language? Was then their understanding of this work only derivative and inauthentic? Fichte proceeds to argue that the whole mental culture of Europeans who think and write in derivative or adopted languages is necessarily without life and spiritless. Philosophy is degraded to utility by their languages. Germans

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still possess in their language the creative root of thought that can break through the dead structures of modern European culture. Accordingly, they alone truly believe in freedom and the endless improvement of the human race. Yet this position sits oddly with an account of language as a natural force that shapes thought, and that would seem to mark a permanent distinction between the Germans and others, setting an impassable limit on human improvement. Fichte declares that the Germans are called on to regenerate the world at the same time as he says that he speaks with the voice of his ancestors. He proposes that this people will found an empire of spirit and reason that will end the rule of brute force. The paradoxical character of such an accomplishment suggests the need for the assistance of miracles. Fichte writes in this way about vast undertakings, in a passage expressing derision for Napoleon’s empire as falsely ambitious: “True greatness has always had this further characteristic: it is filled with awe and reverence in the face of dark and mysterious fate.”24 Might Fichte, filled with such awe and reverence, regard the project of spiritual empire not as destined to be achieved but as fragile, like the projects of the liberator from beyond the Rhine?

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Chapter 10

Hegel on the Conceptual Form of Philosophical History

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Mark Alznauer

Tere is a passage in Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (LPR) that summarizes his philosophical method in terms of a three-step procedure. Te three steps he identifes are not the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis once common in textbook renditions of Hegel’s dialectic, but rather the three moments of what he elsewhere describes as the self-determining concept. Te passage reads as follows: “Tis is the course taken in all science: frst the concept; then the determinacy of the concept—the reality, objectivity; and, fnally, the stage in which the original concept is an object to itself, is for itself, becomes objective to itself, is related to itself.”1 Tis is a succinct restatement of the speculative method that Hegel defends at the conclusion of both versions of his Science of Logic (SL).2 My intention in the following is to show how the speculative method, so understood, provides Hegel’s philosophical histories with their conceptual form. Tis is intended to do two things: to give us better understanding of the theoretical presuppositions of any strictly philosophical history and to help us see how the speculative method works in practice, where we can get a clearer sense of what these three steps actually involve. I should admit at the outset that there is a near universal consensus that this is the least promising application of Hegel’s speculative method. Te basic worry about the speculative approach to history is that whereas history must be inductive and empirical, the kind of history that Fichte and Hegel tried to write is hopelessly fawed by its adoption of a deductive and an a prioristic

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method. Criticisms like these often rest on an inadequate understanding of the specifc ambitions of Hegel’s version of philosophical history, one insufciently attentive to the ways his approach diverges from Fichte, for example.3 Much recent work on Hegel’s philosophy of history has attempted to remedy some of these misunderstandings, putting us on track to understand what he was actually up to, and showing that the project is not quite as implausible or problematically a prioristic as it has often appeared to its critics.4 But there is a real chance the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction, and that we now run the risk of overlooking the bold ambitions involved in Hegel’s scientifc approach to history, sometimes even to the point of losing any frm contrast between strictly philosophical history and the more inductive or analytic method of historiography that has become standard historical practice. In the following, I will be building on some of the insights of these more recent attempts to rehabilitate Hegel’s conception of history, particularly their attention to those features of Hegel’s project where he diverges from Fichte’s more unconditionally a priori approach to history, but with the further intention of clearly distinguishing Hegel’s procedure from that characteristic of ordinary histories by paying close attention to the kinds of concepts it employs. I do this not to complete the defense of the idea of philosophical history against common misunderstandings, but rather to lay the groundwork for more informed set of criticisms, criticisms that are based on a more precise and accurate conception of the project Hegel envisioned for himself in his writings on history.

What Is a Philosophical History? We can say, in a provisional way, that what distinguishes a philosophical history in Hegel’s sense from ordinary histories—including chronicles, genealogies, and so forth—is that it purports to identify a necessary development in some sphere of human activity, a kind of rational progress which begins at some point in historical time and then reaches a kind of culmination at some later point in time. Te crucial diference between Hegel’s version of philosophical history and the more ambitious versions it is often lumped in with, like Fichte’s, is that Hegel believes such a story is essentially retrospective and so bound to its own time.5 One of the chief challenges in reconstructing Hegel’s views on this matter concerns reconciling Hegel’s claims about the necessity of certain historical developments with his commitment to the

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essential retrospectivity of any philosophical treatment of those developments. Tis is an issue we will return to. But I want to begin by saying a few words about where histories of this sort can be found in Hegel’s collected works. Tis is important because my notion of this genre is in one respect narrower than might be expected and in another respect wider. It has been sometimes claimed that all of Hegel’s writings are implicitly historical, and this might suggest the concept of a philosophical history coextensive with that of Hegelian science as such. Te inspiration for this way of reading is Georg Lukács’s powerful interpretation of the Phenomenology of Spirit in Te Young Hegel, which argues that every stage of the Jena Phenomenology can be aligned with a specifc moment in historical time. But it is important to recognize that Hegel himself denies that the conceptual progressions that are characteristic of all of his philosophical writings always correspond to historical developments. He is insistent, for example, that the system of stages identifed in the Philosophy of Nature does not imply any temporal progression at all, so no stage of nature should be seen as evolving out of the last;6 and in the Introduction to the Elements of the Philosophy of Right (EPR), he warns his readers not to think that because family comes after Abstract Right and Morality in the scientifc development of right, that this implies it comes afterward in a temporal sense, which is in fact not the case.7 So although all philosophical sciences involve a progression through various supposedly necessary stages, in many if not most cases this progression is not to be understood as a temporal or historical sequence of any sort at all. Te most obvious and well-known philosophical history that Hegel provides us with is his philosophy of world history, which is briefy treated in the fnal pages of EPR and more extensively treated in his unpublished lectures on the topic, the Lectures on the Philosophy of World-History (LPWH). Given the popularity of these lectures, it is unsurprising that most scholarly attention on the genre has been lavished on this prominent and perhaps infamous example.8 But just as it would be a mistake to think that all of Hegel’s philosophical writings are implicitly historical, it would be a mistake to think the only true case of a philosophical history in Hegel is provided in his lectures on the philosophy of world history. In fact, if we turn to Hegel’s collected works, we fnd three further cases where Hegel himself explicitly and unambiguously places a conceptual progression in historical time.9 One such history is provided in the second part of his Lectures on the Philosophy of Fine Art (LPFA)—which ofers us a story about

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changing art forms or styles from the symbolic art of the Ancient Mesopotamian civilizations to the Romantic art of early nineteenth-century Europe.10 Another is provided in the second and third parts of his lectures on the philosophy of religion—which attempt to organize all world religions in a chronological hierarchy culminating in Christianity. A last example is provided in his lectures on the history of philosophy, lectures that recount the development of philosophy from the Greek Pre-Socratics to the German Idealists. In all four of these cases, Hegel attempts to retrospectively identify a necessary, conceptual progression within a specifc domain of human activity (politics, art, religion, or philosophy), a progression that takes place in the historical record broadly considered. Tere are two clear marks by which membership in this genre can be determined: frst, by Hegel’s explicit statements that the stages he is identifying constitute a temporal sequence, and second, by his use of proper names to illustrate the various stages in this progression.11 For example, in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy (LHP), Hegel distinguishes his history of philosophy from his SL by saying that only the former treats the development of thought “as it has taken place in time”12—which satisfes the frst criterion—and he goes on to specify that it starts with the Greeks in the sixth century before Christ and concludes with recent Germanic philosophy of the early nineteenth century—which satisfes the second. Similar remarks can be found in each of the three other cases I identifed. Tere are certainly important diferences between these four histories, differences that might make one question whether Hegel has a completely unifed conception of philosophical history. I will address some of these diferences as we proceed. But I hope to show that, despite these real and interesting diferences, all of Hegel’s philosophical histories are shaped by the same three-step structure identifed in the above passage, and that this provides us with a view of the basic conceptual form such histories must take if they are to count as genuinely philosophical, that is, as scientifc in the specifcally Hegelian sense.

“First the Concept” We can now turn to the frst step in the tripartite method. In any given science, Hegel says we start with the concept (Begrif) of that science. By speaking of the concept of something, Hegel means something like its essence (Wesen) or nature (Natur), two terms he often uses as rough equivalents of the concept. To provide the concept of a given science is to give something like a real

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defnition of the object of that science, an account of the thing that allows us to identify its essential properties.13 To some degree, this frst step is an intuitive one, for in order to write even an ordinary empirical history it is crucial that you have some idea of what you are talking about, of the subject matter or of your history. Any history of the automobile or of slavery, for example, presupposes some account of what counts as an automobile or who counts as a slave. Tis is important, among other reasons, because it enables you to fx the scope of your history, to ascertain what falls in it and what is irrelevant to it. And, indeed, if we turn to the four cases of philosophical history in Hegel, we see that the frst thing he does in each case is to defne the concept of the particular human practice or institution whose history is to be traced. Te lectures on the philosophy of fne art begin with an attempt to identify the concept of fne art,14 the lectures on the philosophy of religion start with the concept of religion,15 and lectures on the history of philosophy commence with an attempt to establish what philosophy is.16 His philosophy of world history might appear anomalous in this regard, since the object of this particularly history is not as obviously identifed in the very title of the lectures—unless, that is, we take this to be a history of history itself (which I think would be a mistake).17 But if we turn to the lectures themselves, we see that Hegel characterizes the state (Staat) as “the more narrowly determined object of world history,” and as one would expect given this, the introduction to the lectures prominently includes an attempt to identify the nature of the state.18 Although philosophical defnitions of the Hegelian sort are not intended to be immediately intelligible to the layperson, it perhaps is still useful to get some rough sense of what they look like.19 In LPWH, Hegel defnes the state as “the unity of the universal and subjective will such that the singular has raised itself to universality.”20 In his LPFA, he rather infamously defnes beauty as “the sensuous appearance of the idea (das sinnliche Scheinen der Idee),” and fne art as an “individual confguration of reality,” which is not only beautiful, but which is created for the purpose of being beautiful in this sense, and so “destined essentially to embody and reveal the idea.”21 In LPR, he argues that “[r]eligion, in accord with its general concept, is the consciousness of God as such, consciousness of absolute essence.”22 And fnally, throughout LHP he defnes philosophy as thinking of the absolute in the form of thought as opposed to sensuousness or representation. Tere are certain features that concepts like these share with ordinary empirical concepts. Most obviously, both philosophical concepts and ordinary

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empirical concepts are forms of generality, ways of characterizing what unites a number of particular individuals. Just as the empirical concept of a tree unites individual elms, maples, and catalpas, so the philosophical concept of religion is supposed to point us to what unites Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, what makes them all count as religions. But it is a central commitment of Hegel’s that philosophical concepts have several unique features that distinguish them from ordinary, empirical concepts.23 Indeed, he goes so far as to say that only philosophical concepts are genuinely or truly concepts, regarding empirical concepts as mere “abstract representations.”24 For my purpose in this essay, which is to determine the nature of Hegel’s methodology in his philosophical histories, the most important of these diferences concerns the question of how we arrive at philosophical concepts. (Some further diferences will emerge as we consider the second and third steps of the method, but this is a rich topic that I won’t even begin to exhaust here.) For Hegel, ordinary empirical concepts depend on the objects that fall under them in the sense that such concepts are derived from those objects. Hegel thinks we typically form ordinary defnitions by means of abstraction away from particular objects given in our experience.25 We might look at all things that we call trees, say some individual elms, maples, and catalpas, and we attempt to gather together what these individuals have in common into a single thought. Tis involves abstracting away from whatever is particular to each of species of tree (e.g., leaf structure), and from any accidents that pertain to the individual specimens of these species (e.g., the Dutch elm disease aficting this particular elm), in order to isolate those properties that belong to the genus “tree.” A defnition of the concept “tree” is simply a statement of those properties that we have observed in all trees. A philosophical concept, however, is not dependent on the objects that fall under it in this way; it precedes the shapes it takes in existence and is not derived from them.26 Indeed, he goes so far as to say that we do not form such concepts at all; the concepts are what is truly frst.27 One sign and consequence of this is that the defnitions for such concepts are not beholden to ordinary linguistic usage and so are not falsifed by apparent counterexamples. In his lectures on aesthetics, for example, he acknowledges that there are things widely accepted as artworks that do not ft his own defnition, but rather than revise his defnition in light of these apparent exceptions, he captures these problematic instances by utilizing categorizes like pre-art, or pseudo-art, or even anti-art.28 Similarly, with regard to the history of philosophy he admits

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at the outset that “[a] great deal that gets counted as philosophy we exclude; if we just went by the name, we would have to bring in much material that we nevertheless disregard.”29 Tis lack of accountability to ordinary linguistic usage is a feature that Hegelian defnitions share with stipulated defnitions. Indeed, we might think Hegel could just assert that he is interested in a sense of philosophy that excludes, say, what the English call natural philosophy, and leave it at that. But Hegel also denies that his defnitions are merely stipulated or posited (he associates this notion of defnition with the attempt to do philosophy in geometrical form). For philosophical concepts to have this kind of priority over their instantiations, he thinks they must have an independent derivation. If we are to derive, say, the concept of art in the proper manner, we cannot begin with existing artworks, or simply posit a defnition; rather we must “prove that art or the beautiful [is] a result of an antecedent which, considered according to its true concept, was such as to lead on with scientifc necessity to the concept of fne art.”30 Tis kind of derivation is something that cannot be fully accomplished in the introduction to his lectures, since every such proof starts with an antecedent concept that would itself have to be deduced. It is, as he puts it, “task of an encyclopedic development of the whole of philosophy and its particular disciplines.”31 Tat means in order to properly deduce the concept of the state, or art, or religion, or philosophy, we need to show that these spiritual activities or institutions are necessary for spirit, implied by its very concept, and that spirit is similarly necessary for nature to realize itself, and so on, all the way back to the very beginning of SL.32 It follows that in any particular philosophical history we must accept the concept of this history “lemmatically” or as a presupposition taken over from Hegelian science as a whole. Fortunately, Hegel does not just leave it at that. In each of his philosophical histories he ofers a supplemental deduction of the target concept, though one he himself clearly regards as distinctly inferior to a scientifc deduction. Tis is an argument that vindicates his own defnition by means of appealing to ideas “held by ordinary people,”33 or to “general preconceptions . . . among educated people,”34 or to “the familiar and commonplace assumptions of educated consciousness.”35 Indeed, a large part of the introductions to these histories involves showing how elements of his own concept of the object of that history are already anticipated by certain contemporary assumptions, and attempting to rescue the rational core of these contemporary assumptions from the deleterious prejudices that tend to accompany them. Tis supplemental derivation by means of the assumptions of his own modern culture

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is inferior to a truly scientifc one because although it can make his starting point “acceptable and plausible,” achieving “general consent,” it cannot prove it to be necessary—which is, of course, the gold standard for Hegelian science. Tis points to an issue we will need to return to, which is that Hegel expects to fnd a confrmation of his own scientifc concepts in the assumptions and preconceptions of educated individuals of his own age. As we will see, one of the things Hegel’s histories attempt to do is to vindicate this initial appeal to contemporary conceptions, showing that the process by which educated modern consciousness arrived at those opinions was itself somehow rational or necessary.

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“Ten the Determinacy of the Concept” Te second step in the speculative method, according to our guiding passage, involves a transition from the mere concept of something, its real defnition, to what Hegel calls the determinacy or particularity of the concept, and which he further glosses as the existence or objectivity of the concept. Tis is to move from the concept in general to certain particulars that fall under the concept but which add further content to the concept. Again, we see something akin to this step in many empirical histories. If you are writing the history of the automobile, after you defne what you mean by an automobile in general, you will turn to the historical record to see what particular kinds of automobiles have been produced and when. If you do, you might learn (assuming Wikipedia is a trustworthy guide to this) that the frst automobiles ever constructed had hydrogen-powered combustion engines, that these were eventually replaced with gasoline-powered engines, and that although research into electrical-powered automobiles goes back to the nineteenth century, these were not widely produced until the early twenty-frst century. So the second step in a history of the automobile will be a division of the genus automobile into the most important kinds of automobile, as determined by changes in some crucial feature of the automobile. Tese kinds will difer from the genus in that they have further determinacy, specifying something left unspecifed in the original defnition: here the nature of the engine. And, naturally, if this is to count as a history of the automobile and not just a typology, these kinds of cars will be ordered according to their appearance in time; each kind will be lined up with a certain period or epoch in the history of the automobile.

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It is not hard to discern the presence of this second step, the move from the concept in general to particular forms the concept takes in existence, in Hegel’s philosophical histories. In LPH, Hegel claims that the earliest states were forms of Eastern and Near Eastern despotism, which were then succeeded by the Greek city-states, the Roman empire, and, fnally, the nationstates that emerged in Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire. LPFA identifes three basic artistic styles (Kunstformen) that have emerged in the history of art—these are the symbolic, classical, and Romantic—and correlates these styles to the Oriental, Greco-Roman, and Christian epochs in history. LPR experiments with a variety of sequences, eventually settling (in the 1827 lectures) on four basic stages: the nature religions characteristic of the East, the religions of spiritual individuality (Greek and Jewish religions), the Roman religion of expediency, and, fnally, the consummate religion, Christianity. Lastly, LHP ofers what is perhaps the most truncated story: one with only two real stages, Greek and German, though these stages are separated by a transitional phase of scholastic thought and preceded by a phase of Oriental religious thought that comes very close to philosophy.36 Te variability in the number of stages these histories admit of, coupled with the evidence that Hegel continually reworked these stories, rearranging their order as he learned more about the periods in question, might lead one to think that even if the concepts of state, art, religion, and philosophy are fundamentally a priori, the shape these concepts take in actual history will be an irreducibly empirical matter. To complete this step, we must turn to the historical record and determine how many basic kinds of states, art forms, religions, or philosophy we actually fnd there, and in what order they happened to emerge. Indeed, Hegel seems to say just that. In LPH, for example, he insists that “we must be sure to take history as it is; in other words, we must proceed historically and empirically”;37 and in LHP, he says “we have to conduct ourselves historically, by taking up the shapes as they follow each other in time.”38 Statements like these have given rise to the idea that Hegel’s approach to history is, in the end, not that diferent from that of any other historian who is aware that we cannot help but bring our own conceptual framework into our study of history. But just as philosophical concepts difer from empirical concepts in their derivation, they also stand in a diferent relation to what they conceptualize, to the particulars that fall under them. Te most important diference is that when we apply an ordinary concept, Hegel thinks we are applying an abstract form to a material or content that has a separate origin from the concept:

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commonly, an origin in experience. But in philosophical cognition he says the concept gives itself its own content; it “derives its content or material essentially from within itself.”39 At frst glance, this looks fatly incompatible with Hegel’s assurances that he is going to proceed “historically and empirically,” for it suggests that he will be attempting to derive the necessity of actual historical states and so forth from their very concept. Tis is, to understate things a bit, not a promising method for historical research. But Hegel’s claim is subtler than this—though still bold enough, I think, to raise signifcant worries from a strictly empirical point of view. To see what Hegel does think we can derive from a mere concept we need to explicitly distinguish between the concept as genus or universal, the particular kinds or species that the genus can be divided into, and, fnally, the historically concrete instances of the concept. For example, in the second part of LPFA, which is the most straightforwardly historical component of his theory of art, the concept we begin with is the concept of artistic beauty or the aesthetic ideal überhaupt—this would be the genus (Gattung) or universal. Tree basic art forms or art styles that he discerns in history are described as the particular forms (besonderen Formen) of art or as the various species (Arten) of the artistic ideal. In this context, it is the given historical artworks that can be regarded as the instances of the concept; they are the bearers of these concepts that we meet with in ordinary experience. After distinguishing the ideal (as genus) from the art forms (as the species of this genus), Hegel goes on to make the following claim: “Yet if we speak of these artforms as diferent species of the ideal, we may not take ‘species’ (Arten) in the ordinary sense of the word as if here the particular forms came from without to the idea as their universal genus (allgemeine Gattung) and had become modifcations of it: on the contrary, ‘species’ should mean nothing here but the distinctive and therefore more concrete determinations of the idea of the beautiful and the ideal of art itself.”40 Here, it is clear that the concept gives itself content only in the sense of determining its own species (Arten)—these are the relevant “particulars” for the purposes of any philosophical history, not the instances of the concept. Hegel is very aware that this involves a completely nonstandard conception of what a species is, a more philosophical notion. We get a clearer sense of how he views the contrast between the ordinary or empirical sense of “species” and the philosophical sense in a similar passage from the 1831 lectures on religion, which use the same terminology. Tere he characterizes the concept of religion (as the genus) and the determinate religions (as the species), and then adds the following warning:

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From one point of view this relationship between genus (Gattung) and species (Arten) is entirely correct, as when we pass over from universals (Allgemeinen) to the particulars (Besonderen) in other sciences. But in that case the particular is understood only in an empirical manner; it is a matter of experience that this or that animal or this or that right exists. In philosophical science, it is not permissible to proceed in this fashion: the particular cannot just be added to the universal; on the contrary, the universal itself defnitely resolves itself into the particular. Te concept divides itself; it produces an original determination from out of itself.41 Te contrast Hegel is marking in this passage would appear to work something like this: when we are dealing with an empirical concept, like the concept of a parrot (his example from SL), we must simply learn from experience how many particular kinds of parrots exist, and there is no reason to think that any particular list will be fnal or exhaustive.42 In these cases, the particular is just “added” to the universal in the sense that the defnition of the species will include the genus or concept plus certain diferentia specifca that have been entirely provided by our experience of the instances of that concept. But in philosophical sciences, the division of the genus into species works diferently. Here we must show how the universal resolves itself into the particular. Tis means deriving the various species or kinds of religion from the genus or concept of religion without reference to anything outside of the concept, where that specifcally means anything only provided by experience. Only a pure derivation of this sort could ensure that the set of species or kinds we arrive at are both necessary and complete, a goal that, according to Hegel, is not reasonable to strive for in any nonphilosophical domain (mathematics possibly excluded), but which is essential in any truly scientifc treatment of any subject matter.43 Hegel’s aspiration to provide a pure derivation of the species of concepts like art and religion does not force him to deny what is at any rate obvious, which is both that we become frst acquainted with concepts like the state or art from our exposure to actual instances of such concepts, and that anything we know about actual instances of any of these concepts is irreducibly empirical.44 Everything we know about the Athenian polis, Oedipus Rex, or Aristotle’s metaphysics, as empirical individuals, we know only from the evidence provided by historical records and preserved material culture of Ancient Greece—and Hegel does not claim otherwise. And although Hegel thinks the

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speculative method can allow us to reconstruct the movement from genus (e.g., the concept of art) to the species (e.g., the classical art form) without incorporating anything irreducibly given, he never claims that the speculative method could make the further step from the various pure species of the concept (the classical art form) to the instances of the species (e.g., Sophoclean tragedy). When we have a given individual before us—say, an actual artwork or historical religion—the question of which species it falls under requires a careful empirical examination of the relevant evidence.45 To the degree that every philosophical history uses proper names—as it must in identifying which existing historical individuals exemplify the philosophically derived species of the concept—no philosophical history can be purely a priori. Tere are a number of profound logical difculties that must be surmounted if we are to arrive at an adequate understanding of Hegel’s theory of the concept as self-dividing in this sense; most obviously, the problem that it seems to involve what a Kantian would regard as an impossible combination of analytic and synthetic operations. But I will leave these concerns aside in order to say a few more things about what the relevant species (Arten) we are concerned within the histories are like, and about how they are to be diferentiated. What is characteristic of all spiritual activities and institutions, and certainly all such activities and institutions that have a history, is that they are essentially self-conscious. A state only exists in and through the consciousness of the particular individuals who comprise it, and it requires that those individuals are conscious of belonging to it as their own universal. Similarly, something only counts as art by being produced and regarded as art, as something to be enjoyed for the reason that it is unifed in a certain way, having a specifcally artistic form. Tis means that all spiritual activities admit of a distinction between what Hegel characterizes as the “in itself ” and the “for itself.” What makes something count as a state or an artwork at all is that it accords with the defnition of the state or of art that we have previously derived. Tis is what the state or art is “in itself ” or “for us.” But it follows, from the very nature of these spiritual activities or institutions, that they cannot have any determinate existence unless the individuals involved in them have some conception of what they are doing, of the nature and aim of the state or art or whatever. Tis self-conception is the “for itself.” Hegel’s contention, then, is that the various species of any spiritual activity or institution will involve fundamentally diferent conceptions of the concept of that spiritual activity or institution: diferent ways of understanding how individuals can be most fully unifed in a single political organization, or how the elements of the artwork can be completely

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united into a single whole, and so forth. In these cases, each species of a genus is constituted as what it is by virtue of a diferent way of conceiving the genus of which it is a species. Tis is true, I think, of all sciences that treat spiritual or mental phenomena, but Hegel’s philosophical histories add something unique to this, which is that the order of the species needs to be not only determined by the concept but also exemplifed in the same order by an empirically discernible temporal progression.46 So the frst species in such a series is both determined by the concept as frst and comes frst in historical time; and the next species in such a series is both the next in the conceptual development and the next to emerge in the record; and so forth.47 Individuals of diferent species can coexist temporally once they have come into existence (Eastern despotism can exist alongside the Roman Empire), but Hegel is committed to there being a necessary sequence in the historical appearance of each species, one that is necessary in the sense of corresponding to an order that can be independently derived from the concept or genus itself.48 It is true that you cannot know in advance that the history of the state or religion meets this requirement; you must look and see. And this makes Hegel’s philosophy of history more modest than that of Fichte, who confdently posited the existence of periods in history for which there was no evidence (e.g., the time of the Normalvolk), and who was happy to prophesy about stages that have yet to come. But if any history does meet this requirement, it does so by virtue of exemplifying a sequence of stages that can be rationally reconstructed without recourse to any historical material. It is worth emphasizing that even if the history of the state or art or religion proves to be necessary in this sense, this does not imply the development though these stages was metaphysically necessary, or simply fated to happen (an interpretation of Hegel that recent commentators have rightly objected to).49 But such a conception of philosophical history does imply that the stages we need to pass through in order to realize any given concept are settled in advance and by that concept, that is to say, there are no alternative paths available that would have arrived at the same destination. Further: just as an acorn might fail to develop into a tree, but if it does become a tree has done so because of the potentialities that were already present in the acorn, so also in Hegel’s histories. If we have successfully traversed these stages and arrived at the rational state or the consummate religion, we can rightly say we did so because of the concept of the state or the concept of religion, this notwithstanding the fact that there was no metaphysical guarantee that this would occur, no law of history that necessitated it.50

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“Finally, the Stage in Which the Original Concept Is an Object to Itself ” Tis points us to the importance of the third and fnal step in a Hegelian science: identifying “the stage in which the original concept is an object to itself, is for itself, becomes objective to itself, is related to itself.”51 With this, Hegel suggests that a philosophical history is more than a necessary sequence of species; it must be a necessary sequence of species that reaches its culmination or end by returning to the concept from which it began, thus completing a kind of circle. Unlike the other two steps, this third step has no obvious parallel in ordinary, empirical histories. But there is a version of this “return to the concept” that we fnd in certain subsets of such histories, namely afrmative genealogies, and which can serve us as a useful point of comparison. In any genealogy, we tell the history of a concept or of a practice that we have in a way that is intended to explain how we have come to regard that concept or practice as we currently do. Tis can be done in a way that undermines our commitment to that concept or practice, showing it to have origins incompatible in some way or other with the authority it seems to have. But such a story need not have this efect; it might reveal that there are good reasons why we have come to think or act the way we do now, and perhaps good reasons to continue so thinking and acting.52 A genealogy of this latter sort, an afrmative genealogy, would be guided from the start by a concept or practice we now have—this would determine what historical antecedents of that concept or practice we considered in our genealogy—and it would conclude by returning to and vindicating our current understanding of that concept or practice.53 So it would have something like a circular structure. Tis certainly captures an important aspect of Hegel’s ambition since each philosophical history he tells ends with a vindication of a specifcally modern version of the activities or institutions in question. In LPWH, he claims that the formation of the free nation-states of modern Europe constitutes the “fulfllment of the absolute fnal end (die Erfüllung des absoluten Endzwecks)” of world history; and the period corresponding to this achievement is described as the “last stage in history” (das letzt Stadium der Geschichte), or the “end of days” (das Ende der Tag).54 LPFA has a much more complex arc, but a certain culmination in the present can still be discerned. For he claims that the fnal end (Endzweck) of art is the sensuous presentation of the absolute,

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and that the Romantic art form, although it is not the most beautiful, is still the highest and deepest one; the only art form capable of representing the true absolute, which requires doing justice to the infnite inwardness of the human being.55 So the Romantic art form, though it marks a decline in certain respects, even the self-conscious dissolution of art as such, still signifes what he calls the “fnal stage of art [letzte Kunststufe].”56 LPR is more unapologetically and transparently triumphalist, treating Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, as the “absolute” (absolut) or “consummate” (vollendet) or “true” (wahr) religion. Te arrival of Christianity marks the “fnal stage of religion (letzten Stufe der Religion)” for Hegel because the constitutive end (Endzweck) of religion as such is unity with the divine, and it is only in Christianity that we arrive at a conception of the end of religion that allows us to fully achieve such unity.57 LHP strike a slightly more tentative tone, but reach a similar conclusion: which is that the “absolute goal” is for spirit to come to consciousness of its own concept and that with the philosophical standpoint of the present day, with its discovery of the absolute idea, the history of philosophy “seems to have reached its goal, when this absolute self-consciousness, which it had the work of representing, has ceased to be alien, and when spirit accordingly is realized as spirit.”58 All preceding philosophies and shapes, he says, are thus “contained in this fnal idea (in dieser letzten Idee), in this totality.”59 Tere is much controversy about how to interpret each and every one of these endings—controversy fueled by philosophical skepticism about the kind of closure they posit. Given these worries, there is an understandable tendency to interpret Hegel’s claims about the “end” of world history, art, religion, and philosophy in a defationary way, so that these stories still leave us with open horizons, with room for further progress in each domain. In such a context, the paradigm of afrmative genealogy might seem attractive, since it ofers us a model for how a history might go about ofering justifcation for some contemporary concepts or practices without being committed to any claim that these concepts or practices cannot be improved upon in decisive or fundamental ways in the future. Here the activity or practice that is to be vindicated would be the last stage of any of our histories only in the sense that it is the latest or most recent, and that stage would be vindicated only relative to whatever came before it and not in any absolute or unqualifed sense. Such a defationary interpretation of Hegel might seem further bolstered by Hegel’s claims about the necessary time-boundedness of philosophy, which I alluded to at the start of this essay, which would seem to undercut any claim

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that Hegel is speaking from a privileged historical standpoint, one that could issue a defnitive and ahistorical judgment on the superiority of contemporary conceptions of the state, or art, or so forth.60 But Hegel’s distinctive commitments about the nature of philosophical concepts carry over into this third and fnal step of philosophical history— and appreciating these commitments will show that Hegel’s ambitions go well beyond those involved in ofering a merely afrmative genealogy.61 We have just seen that the various species or kinds that any philosophical concept divides itself into are diferentiated according to their own self-conceptions of the concept itself, and we are now asking the question of how, or on what grounds, Hegel might go about vindicating the most recent shape or species in these histories. And on this point, Hegel is clear that the normative standard he is appealing to vindicate the most recent self-conception of the practice in question must be provided by the concept of that practice itself. Indeed, in the passages above, we have seen that Hegel consistently characterizes this standard as a fnal end (Endzweck), where this is an end or purpose derived from the very concept of the practice or institutions whose history is being traced, one that is internal to the concept, not external to it.62 Tis can seem surprising or even impossible since it would appear that any standard implied by the concept as genus must already be satisfed by all of its species, otherwise they would not count as full species of this genus in the frst place; we shouldn’t need to return to the original concept if we never left it in the frst place. But Hegel ofers us a formula for this fnal stage in a philosophical history that allows us to untangle this seeming contradiction. He claims that in the last stage of a necessary conceptual development is one in which “the original concept has become an object to itself.” To put this in the terms we have been using, this is the advent of a species of the concept in which the species itself has the same conception of the genus that ourselves started from, one that corresponds to its own concept. Te above passage from the 1827 lectures on the philosophy of religion makes this convergence quite explicit: “frst the concept of the conceptualizing science—the concept that we have. But at the end science itself grasps its concept, so that this concept is for itself.”63 So although all species accord with their concept in the sense that they embody all the necessary conditions for counting as particular forms of that genus, the fnal stage in any philosophical history will be a self-refexive species of the concept, one that not only embodies those conditions but which does so with full self-consciousness. Or in Hegel’s terminology, this is an existence of the concept not only “in itself ” or “for us” but also “for itself.” Tis is what it

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means to “return to the concept” in the domain of philosophical history, to realize a fnal purpose that is strictly internal to the concept. Now this is all still very abstract. To have a workable understanding of what this amounts to, we need to have some sense of what it looks like for a species of the state, religion, and so forth to become self-refexive in this sense, to overcome a lack of correspondence between what it is and what it takes itself to be. One example will have to sufce here.64 In the case of religion, something only counts as a species of religion at all if it involves some attempt to unite the fnite consciousness with the infnite consciousness of the divine, and this requires having some self-conception of both of these poles. But every imperfect species of religion conceives of these two poles in a fnite way, as two separate entities in a relationship between each other, and this makes it impossible for any genuine unity to be achievable. Te consummate or absolute species of religion is the shape of religion whose self-conception corresponds to the essence or concept of religion in the sense that it is the religion whose doctrines and practices are exactly what they need to be in order for this unity to be conceivable without contradiction. Tis requires, Hegel thinks, a conception of God as spirit, as realized only in the community that worships him, something we only get with Christianity. Te fnal stage of the history of religion has arrived when you have a religion whose particular self-conception (its own notions of the relationship between the human and the divine) allow the unity of God and humanity to be genuinely thinkable or comprehensible. To generalize, then, each imperfect species is imperfect because it has yet to realize an implicit contradiction between what it is attempting to do insofar as it is an existence of the genus at all, and its own self-conception about how this task can be accomplished. Te perfect species is the species that has overcome this contradiction, that can fnally comprehend what it means to realize this unity in the world. Tis is the species that realizes the fnal end contained in the genus. It should be clear now why this is necessarily more ambitious than a mere afrmative genealogy. For a philosophical history to be possible, we need to be able to show that the concept of the state or art not only determines a sequence of necessary species of the concept, but that this sequence realizes itself in a member which itself fnally corresponds to, or comprehends, the genus itself. Tis means that the last stage must be the fnal stage, not just the most recent stage, and that it is vindicated absolutely, in terms of its own concept, and not just relative to the other stages or to external ends we might have. Tis allows us to return to the question of why Hegel says philosophical history is necessarily “time-bound” or “essentially retrospective,” which might

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seem to stand in tension with any claim that the sequence of developmental stages in a given domain is determined in advance by the concept of that domain. If it is true that the concept of religion determines a sequence of necessary stages culminating in a normatively exemplary species, why can’t we know this in advance, prior to the actual unfolding of empirical history? Tere appear to be two interrelated reasons for this. Te frst is that the very concept we need to begin any particular philosophical history is only discovered at the end of that history and so is not available at earlier stages. Tough the concept of religion as such is quite distinct from Christianity, and admits multiple other embodiments, it is only in Christianity that this notion becomes generally available to consciousness, entering into our ordinary conceptions of what religion is for. Te second and more important reason is that the very notion of a philosophical history—the notion of a concept that divides itself up into a sequence of necessary stages, which culminate in a self-refexive species—is itself only available at the end of the history of philosophy. Te history of philosophy, for Hegel, is nothing other than a sequence of conceptions of what philosophy is, that is, of conceptually necessary knowledge. But only modern philosophy has a self-conception of philosophy that corresponds to its own concept, which makes conceptual necessity truly thinkable. Hegel claims that this “absolute standpoint” was frst achieved with Schellingean idealism, when the “idea” was for the frst time clearly recognized as “the principle of all knowledge and existence.”65 If philosophical history is nothing other than a history structured according to what Hegel here calls the idea—the notion of a self-diferentiating concept—then a philosophical history is only possible at the last stage of philosophy, for it is only at the end of philosophy that we could even conceive of a concept giving itself its own existence in a historical domain. Tis means that Hegel’s commitment to the essential retrospectivity of all philosophy, far from being in any tension with his account of the pure self-determination of the concept, is actually directly entailed by it.

Tree Forms of Skepticism about Philosophical History Hegel claims that the only thought philosophy brings to history is the idea of reason. We have now seen that this is presupposing quite a lot. By presupposing the idea of reason, Hegel is committing philosophical history to having a certain kind of conceptual form: a three-part structure that he only fully defends in his logic. Tis is a movement that begins with the pure concept of

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the domain being treated, proceeds through a development of various necessary species or kinds of the concept, which are arranged in a sequence that corresponds with their temporal appearance in empirical history, and culminates with a perfect or ideal species, one that “returns to the concept” in the sense that it is a species whose self-conception corresponds to its own genus. In the preceding, I have tried to show that all of Hegel’s philosophical histories do, in fact, have just this form. I want to conclude by identifying three diferent ways one could object to philosophical history as a genre (assuming that I have correctly characterized its logical infrastructure). Te least serious charge you could make is to claim that, although the idea of a philosophical history is defensible, Hegel failed to execute it correctly. Tis kind of failure could be explained by a variety of factors: the inadequacy of existing scholarship of his time, prejudices that kept Hegel from utilizing the existing sources in a fair and objective manner (something quite likely in the case of his statements on non-Western cultures),66 or perhaps unjustifed side-commitments (like his strange claim that no people could ever be world historical twice).67 Tere are many examples of this kind of criticism that are undoubtedly valid, but I do not think any apologist for the Hegelian system needs to worry much about criticism of this type. Charges like these are relatively superfcial because they can be fxed without any signifcant revisions to Hegel’s philosophy.68 A more damaging criticism would be to claim that the speculative method should never have been applied to history in the frst place. At its most sweeping, this could be a claim that Hegel was mistaken to think that his method could tell us anything about the kinds of things we should expect to fnd in the domains of nature and spirit; in other words, he was mistaken to extend his system from SL to the Realphilosophie.69 A more targeted form of this criticism would object not to the use of this method in the philosophies of nature or spirit as such, but only to its specifc application to the messy details of human history. Tere are certainly good reasons to be worried about this second type of criticism. Even if we concede Hegel was right to think that he could construct a necessary hierarchical typology of various states or art forms or religions or whatever, it is not clear why we should expect this to correspond to any neat historical sequence.70 And even if a given concept could be seen to require certain specifc stages for its development, we might worry that these stages will necessarily be so abstractly defned that they could accommodate almost any historical facts.71 Tese charges concern a potential overextension of the speculative method. Such charges are certainly more serious than the

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previous sort, but they do leave us with some room to do surgery on the Hegelian system: to rescue what is salvageable and excise what is not. Te last and most pressing kind of objection one could make would be to the speculative method itself, to the very notion of a self-determining concept. Tis is, surely, where any non-Hegelian is likely to think that the trouble lies, right at the very heart of the Hegelian system. Any pure logical system of categories of the sort that SL purports to be clearly depends on the necessity of the self-determining concept—what he calls “the absolute idea”—otherwise there would be nothing to generate the sequence of thought-determinations that it surveys, and no way to know whether the sequence is necessary or complete.72 But one might think that Hegel never successfully establishes the viability of such a notion, though he clearly presupposes its intelligibility in each of his philosophical histories.73 If we disagree at this deep a level, then our problem with Hegel’s histories is not that they wrongly construe history as a meaningful process, or mistakenly posit that some particular history has reached a fnal stage. Our problem is that Hegel has failed to provide us with a meaningful sense in which any historical process could be rational, or could possibly have a fnal stage. Tis is, I think, the deepest and most important objection to Hegel’s notion of a philosophical history.

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Chapter 11

Relocating the Highest Good Kierkegaard on God, Virtue, and (This-Worldly) Happiness

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Ryan S. Kemp

Schopenhauer, that paragon of earthly joy, reminds us that of Kant’s many achievements perhaps his most impressive was “[purging] ethics of all eudaemonism.”1 Now, to be fair to Kant, this claim needs a little nuance and, in this spirit, Schopenhauer is quick to add (with no little disappointment) that Kant’s “great purge” occurs “more in appearance than in reality, for he still leaves a mysterious connection between virtue and supreme happiness in his doctrine of the highest good.”2 Te highest good, the scandalous doctrine that, as far as Kant’s contemporaries were concerned, was added to the critical philosophy in order to temper the frst Critique’s deicidal sting.3 Tough the ancients were wrong to posit an analytic connection between virtue and happiness, Kant argues that we have every right to hope that a life committed to virtue is rewarded with sensible satisfaction. As students of Kant we know some rather serious metaphysical baggage accompanies this hope: we need God and (depending on which Critique you read) an eternity of moral progress to see it to completion. With the introduction of these commitments, Kant can credibly claim that happiness plays an ineliminable role in his practical system, though for many of his critics these commitments end up being a bit too heady.4 As far as critics go, Hegel stands out as someone who thinks Kant’s doctrine of the highest good is not quite heady enough. Hegel’s criticism of

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Moralität, especially as it pertains to the rational postulates, can—like many Hegelian criticisms—be framed in terms of “unhappiness.”5 Insofar as Kant leaves a person hoping for something they ought properly to know, an essential feature of the moral consciousness is placed irredeemably beyond her: she is left rationally unsatisfed. Tis concern about rational restlessness is a worry that Hegel comes by honestly. In a striking passage from the Prolegomena, Kant himself criticizes philosophers for losing “sight of the positive harm that results if reason is deprived of the most important vistas.”6 While Kant has Hume in mind, Hegel fips the accusation back onto Kant who, by his lights, forfeits the original goal of philosophy: rational certainty concerning the traditional questions of metaphysics. In view of Kant’s failure, Hegel sets out to restore philosophy to its traditional glory and—quite importantly—happiness to humankind. In this respect, the Phenomenology of Spirit can be framed as an attempt to relocate—both spatially and temporally—the highest good. Tough the harmony of virtue and happiness still requires God (although of an altogether diferent sort), it does not require an eternity of individual moral progress. Te Kingdom of Heaven is already upon us. Now, the fgure I would like to focus on in this chapter may seem an altogether awkward ft for a conversation on happiness. Te existentialists, maybe even especially Kierkegaard, the so-called Melancholy Dane, seem to locate (some might say confate) anxiety and authenticity. To be a good human being is to be embroiled in constant psychic turmoil. Tis basic story has led some commentators to explicitly connect Kierkegaard’s notion of faith with Hegel’s “unhappy unconsciousness.”7 In this chapter I hope to go some way toward dispelling this view. I will argue that Kierkegaard thinks a life guided by the virtue of faith is the happiest of all lives, and not just because it permits a person to hope for a future state of eternal bliss. In fact, I will argue that though Kierkegaard does sometimes associate fnite poise with eternal blessedness, he has the resources—and occasionally the inclination—to defend faith’s nonderivative happiness, its ability to promote a joyful relationship to fnitude no matter what expectations a person harbors about her eternal fate.8 Furthermore, I take it that Kierkegaard’s account is motivated, in no small part, by both Hegelian criticisms of Kant (the above mentioned Sollen-kritik) and the perceived failure of Hegel’s own account. Tis makes Kierkegaard’s project especially ambitious: he is interested in the normative fulfllment of the Hegelian system without all the metaphysical extravagances; he wants to explore how a relationship with a God not so diferent from Kant’s can promote happiness not so diferent from Hegel’s. Because this happiness depends

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on both hope in the existence of God and personal virtue (of a sort), it seems appropriate to see Kierkegaard as engaged in an attempt to rethink the highest good. My task is to outline how this goes and say a bit about its plausibility. My account will focus primarily on Kierkegaard’s early text Either/Or (E/O). I contend that it contains two components that relate directly to our topic. Tere is a negative component designed to challenge the basic philosophical claim of Hegel’s project (that all paths rationally lead to Sittlichkeit) and a positive component that sketches a replacement account (I locate this in E/O’s concluding document, the so-called “Parson’s sermon”). Te latter is of special interest as it looks to explain what in subsequent works, for example, Fear and Trembling (FT), Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms seem to merely assert: namely, that the person of faith embraces and celebrates fnitude in a way that Hegel’s merely ethical person cannot. Depending on how you look at it, either as a response to Hegelian criticisms or an anticipation of Nietzschean ones, Kierkegaard is keenly interested in this-worldly faith.9, 10 Before I get into the details of this account, however, I need to address a recent treatment of this issue that suggests my thesis is a nonstarter. I’ll begin there.

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Otherworldly Happiness While Kant’s account of the highest good has long been a topic of scholarly interest, Kierkegaard’s account has been surprisingly underexplored. In his recent book Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good, Roe Fremstedal goes some way toward remedying this. He argues that, like Kant, Kierkegaard posits an afterlife (“Te Kingdom of Heaven”), where the virtuous fnally attain unending and unalloyed happiness. Kierkegaard, who is also wary of some eudemonistic accounts, is intent to distinguish this heavenly happiness from mere sensual (i.e., sense-based) pleasure. Since the highest good “can [be] defned only by the mode in which it is acquired,” the happiness of heaven is understood and experienced through the lens of virtue.11 It is, as one commentator puts it, “the intrinsically satisfed state of the person who fulflls his moral duty.”12 Clearly, this account of the highest good is not this-worldly: it is a strictly post–mortal coil afair. Fremstedal ofers three reasons that explain why, for Kierkegaard, this must be so: “First, morality represents a transcendent idea, since it is a never-ending task to be virtuous. Second, since virtue does not lead to happiness in this world without exception, the highest good must transcend

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this world. Finally, a unifcation of all virtuous agents in the history of mankind is impossible within history.”13 As I have already mentioned (and will address in more detail below), this attempt to reserve happiness for heaven lies in tension with the account of faith we receive in texts like FT. Tere, Johannes de silentio goes out of his way to describe faith as expecting blessedness in this life.14 He tells us that this is an important factor that distinguishes authentic from counterfeit faith. In full recognition of this tension, Fremstedal hypothesizes that Kierkegaard develops “two senses of the highest good,” a weak and a strong version. He writes, “Te highest good in the weak sense is the happiness of this life made possible by Christian religiousness through anticipation of the highest good in the strong sense, something that involves everlasting bliss and salvation in the afterlife.”15 If Fremstedal is right, the weak sense of happiness is grounded in mere expectation of the stronger version, something like: I’m happy now because I know I will be really happy later. Tis way of putting things is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, Kierkegaard occasionally argues that faith gives rise to happiness that does not depend on an expectation of an afterlife. While I have no interest in denying that Kierkegaard sometimes describes faithful happiness in terms similar to what Fremstedal attributes to him (i.e., characterizes this-worldly happiness as derivative),16 there are other passages where he charts a diferent course (see below). Second, there is something a bit of in the language of weaker and stronger accounts of the highest good. Naturally, there is only one highest good. While it may make sense to speak of weaker and stronger notions of happiness, the highest good is a state of complete happiness; there can be just one such state. If Kierkegaard thinks the happiness of heaven is fuller than the happiness of earth, then the highest good is a strictly heavenly phenomenon. While this semantic point is straightforward enough, it may seem to put me in an awkward position. If (as Fremstedal thinks) Kierkegaard reserves the real goods for the afterlife, and further (as I think), it makes little sense to talk of weaker and stronger accounts of the highest good, then how can someone plausibly argue (as I apparently plan to) that Kierkegaard ofers a this-worldly account? Te best way to resolve this issue is to make a Kierkegaardian move: it’s to remind ourselves that we are here, in the context of a historical discussion of the highest good, interested in an account of human happiness. Not the happiness of hamsters, angels, or walking sticks,17 but human beings, the feshy, sometimes rational creatures that exist in time and are only ever striving

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toward virtue. For Kierkegaard, and others in the existentialist tradition, this state of never being in a static state is a necessary feature of human “existence.” Humans are beings in process. Now, recall Fremstedal’s three reasons for supposing, for Kierkegaard, the highest good is transcendent. Te frst consideration is that virtue cannot be achieved in this life; in this life we only ever approximate it and are thus worthy of, at best, partial happiness. Tis sounds like textbook Kierkegaard. Te part that is more difcult to square with the spirit of Kierkegaard’s philosophy is what comes next, namely, positing a state of perfected virtue and happiness that is also, in some meaningful sense, human. On this picture it looks as if the very conditions necessary for the achievement of perfect virtue and happiness are precisely the conditions in which one’s humanity has been annulled. While it may make sense to call such a state “happy,” it is not immediately clear that Kierkegaard, given what he says about existence elsewhere, can easily defend this as a human condition. In this case, “human” must be a homonym. Now this too may seem like an awkward point for me to make. Since I am willing to admit that Kierkegaard sometimes speaks of complete happiness in terms of heavenly happiness, aren’t I also committed to saying that a transcendent account of the highest good is squarely “Kierkegaardian”? Isn’t anything that Kierkegaard says, eo ipso, Kierkegaardian? Well, yes and no. I think this is one place where Kierkegaard is divided. On the one hand, he wants to acknowledge the theological tradition that Christian happiness is perfected only in the full presence of God: happiness as beatifc vision. At the same time, he wants to defend an account of faith and happiness that takes seriously the human condition in all its spatial-temporal-epistemic limitations. Tese two inclinations help explain the existence of what appears to be two distinct accounts of the highest good. While I won’t deny that Kierkegaard’s Christianity inclines him to give a kind of priority to beatifc “happiness,” I want to maintain that—given the above tension—we have decent reason to think that he would also embrace the idea that the highest human good is something that can be experienced this side of heaven without any recourse to it. So instead of attributing two versions of the highest human good to him, I think it makes more sense to speak of two accounts for two diferent types of beings: one for existing individuals (i.e., humans), and one for beings who are no longer meaningfully engaged in the process of becoming (we can call these “humans”). Tis essay is, for better or worse, strictly concerned with Kierkegaard’s account of human happiness.18 With all this said, we can now begin our analysis of that account.

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Either/Or’s Negative Project Before I get into Kierkegaard’s development of what makes faith happy, I want to say something about what I have called the “negative component” of E/O, Kierkegaard’s reasons for thinking that Hegel’s project is untenable. While I won’t have time to develop this argument in full, it is important to introduce because it changes the terms of the debate.19 If, generally speaking, Hegel’s notion of happiness is conditioned upon what we might call “strong rational satisfaction,” then Kierkegaard’s account of happiness is a nonstarter. Kierkegaard’s account, as we will see, fouts the autonomy tradition by arguing that happiness is precisely an upshot of heteronomy.20 Kierkegaard’s move in this direction is motivated by, among other things, a deep-seated conviction that rational autonomy, especially of the Hegelian sort, is a fction. E/O is designed to expose this pretense by showing that, pace Hegel, not all forms of consciousness proceed matter of factly down the Hegelian way (or up the ladder depending on which metaphor you fancy). In this part of the essay, I briefy outline how I think E/O makes this case. E/O showcases two distinct approaches to life: an “aesthetic” life arranged around pleasure of various kinds, and an “ethical” life arranged around social and ethical goods. Te aesthetic life is developed, primarily, through the papers of a character referred to as “A.” Some of A’s papers are performative: they show us how such a person acts, especially at the opera and on date night. Others are theoretical; they explain—in a more abstract way—the basic methods and tactics of such a life. Te ethical life, in contrast, is developed through two letters written by a certain “Judge William.” Judge William, by most accounts, is a kind of bourgeois Hegelian who, in his own friendly and fatherly way, develops the associated arguments against aestheticism. Tese arguments showcase an explicitly transcendental method that purports to show how an aesthete like A has, by his own lights, good reason to adopt an ethical life. It is important for the Judge that these arguments can, at least in principle, be seen as persuasive. A key methodological assumption of both the Judge’s letters and a text like the Phenomenology of Spirit is that every normative position (or form of consciousness) fnds itself both depicted and implicated therein. Michael Forster calls this the “epistemological function” of Hegel’s method: “Hegel constructs [a] dialectical ‘ladder’ in such a way that, having run through and discredited all non-Hegelian viewpoints, it eventually reaches the stable, self-consistent viewpoint of the Hegelian system.”21 Judge

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William attempts to provide such a ladder by showing A that both his conception of love and his conception of freedom lead naturally to the Judge’s own conceptions. Te larger interpretive tradition has tended to see Judge William’s arguments as successful. Many commentators think that the Judge both correctly describes A’s plight and sketches a plausible argument for why a person of his character should reform.22 In this respect, I think the tradition is mistaken. To the contrary, E/O is designed to reveal that there is no rational path from aestheticism to the ethical. Not only does the title and problematic of the book—that we are presented with a genuine “either/or”—cut against the traditional reading, the Judge’s arguments simply do not hit their intended target. Tough, elsewhere, I have ofered a more careful analysis of how A is equipped to avoid William’s specifc entreaties,23 here—for reasons of space, interest, and importance—I limit myself to pointing out how two traditional accusations against A are, respectively, mistaken and misunderstood. To begin with, A’s normative assumptions are consistent and his practical goals achievable. Unlike less sophisticated aesthetes who depend on the continual availability of new experiences, A has developed the ability to manufacture his own experiences: he lives entirely within his imagination. In his essay “Crop Rotation,” he likens his more intensive and refective approach to playing “shuttlecock” [Fjæderbold] with existence, a game—unlike its close relative badminton—where players vie to keep a birdie continually in the air.24 With this comparison A advertises a method of enjoyment that purports to triumph over aestheticism’s supply problem, dependence on the terrestrial. A well-trained imagination allows one to achieve self-sufciency by creatively reconceiving immediate experience. Tis theoretical doctrine gets played out in the coda of Part I, “Te Seducer’s Diary,” where we see the master aesthete Johannes more concerned to collect scintillating tidbits for his scrapbook than to engage in any real-life seduction. As A forewarns, we have no good reason to expect that these romantic mementos bear a reliable resemblance to the experiences that ostensibly inspire them. In addition to A’s self-sufciency, there is no reason to think, as some commentators do,25 that A’s admission of melancholy and sorrow indicate a readiness to reform. Take the following passage from the “Diapsalmata.” A writes: “My sorrow is my baronial castle, which lies like an eagle’s nest high up on the mountain peak among the clouds. No one can take it by storm. From it I swoop down into actuality and snatch my prey, but I do not stay down there.

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I bring my booty home, and this booty is a picture I weave into the tapestries of my castle. Everything I have experienced I have immersed in a baptism of oblivion unto an eternity of recollection.”26 Here, A reveals that sorrow and melancholy can be—for the adept aesthete—especially interesting. Not only can A weave beautiful tapestries out of them, he regards these tapestries as further fortifcation against actuality. He, like Dostoevsky’s Underground Man, is a kind of emotional alchemist: he converts what most of us consider base experiences into aesthetic gold. Tis imaginative gift showcases the full extent of A’s self-sufciency. Symptoms we typically associate with normative bankruptcy are, for A, merely fodder for his success.27 Tough this sketch of A’s ingenuity is just that, a sketch, I hope it at least makes clear how a more thoroughgoing account might proceed. Tis possibility is important to acknowledge because it prompts a new analysis of happiness. Once Kierkegaard shows that the rungs of the Hegelian ladder are spaced so far apart that one has to leap (or perhaps be carried)28 from one to the next, he can better motivate interest in normative accounts that fall short of Hegel’s standard. Measured against Hegel, and in light of his failure, the question now becomes something like: Of all “unhappy” lives, which is the happiest? Kierkegaard, rather than seeing faith as a kind of consolation prize, the best of the worst, thinks that a person can only come to live happily once she recognizes that she precisely does not exercise strong autonomous control over it. In this respect, Either/Or’s negative project makes important room for a positive one, and it is to this that I now turn.

Happiness in Fear and Trembling In 1843, just a few months after the publication of E/O, Kierkegaard published a quaint little book titled Fear and Trembling. We know from his journals that he harbored high hopes for it; of all his works this would be the one to preserve his name for the ages. Tough the critical attention FT has since received altogether justifes Kierkegaard’s suspicions, the book’s popularity belies its complexity. It’s a difcult book. Among the many difculties the text presents, a main one is discerning the essential diferences between its motley cast of characters: the ethical person, the tragic hero, the knight of infnite resignation, and the knight of faith. I am especially interested in the diference between the last two: the infnitely resigned person and the person of faith. In

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an efort to get a grip on their diferences, I want to begin by refecting on a comparison that de silentio (a knight of infnite resignation) makes between himself and a faithful person. He writes: “My joy [Glæde] is not the joy of faith, and by comparison with that, it is unhappy [ulykkelig]. I do not trouble God with my little troubles, details do not concern me; I gaze only at my love and keep its virgin fame pure and clear.”29 Tis passage is important because it both signals de silentio’s recognition of something like Hegel’s basic accusation against Christianity (that it is ulykkelig), and announces, rather ambitiously, that genuine faith isn’t subject to this critique. Faith eludes Hegel’s criticism by doing precisely what Hegel thinks it cannot: investing fnitude with deep signifcance. In this regard, de silentio reminds us that Abraham had faith “that he would be blessed here in the world.”30 Te person of infnite resignation, on the other hand, refuses to believe that there can be normative satisfaction this side of eternity. She (i) sees through Judge William’s claim that ethics provides such satisfaction, (ii) keenly experiences the pain associated with this realization, and fnally (iii) seeks protection from this pain in an otherworldly hope that it might someday be resolved. In essence, she guards herself from future disappointment by assuming that life is nothing but disappointment. While I think I can parrot back FT’s basic position on this issue—that the essential diference between faith and resignation is an expectation of receiving the world back again—I have less confdence that I understand how this works in practice. Tis becomes especially vexing when we take seriously a claim that Kierkegaard makes in a contemporaneous discourse, “Te Expectancy of Faith.” Tere he writes that the person of faith, though she expects to be blessed in this life, never expects to be blessed in any particular way. She trusts that this life will be happy, while resisting the temptation to expect that it will be happy in any concrete fashion.31 On the face of it, this attitude appears all too similar to the attitude we just diagnosed as infnite resignation. Te person of faith seems to steel herself against disappointment by refusing to expect that particular things in life will go her way. She avoids unhappiness by living with an open (and extended) hand.32 Having now seen both the weighty expectations Kierkegaard places on this attitude he calls faith, and an initial obstacle to understanding how it meets those expectations, I propose we go back to E/O and carefully consider its closing pages, the so-called “Parson’s sermon” or “Ultimatum.” I think that the Parson can help us understand why Kierkegaard thinks the person of faith, precisely because of her open hands, is suited to embrace fnitude.33

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Happiness in the Parson’s Sermon Te Parson’s sermon is the one document in Part II of E/O that is not written by Judge William. Te Judge sends a copy of the sermon to A, claiming that its author “has grasped what I have said and what I would like to have said to you; he has expressed it better than I am able to.”34 Commentators have been struck by the irony of this admission, since the content of the Parson’s sermon seems, to the contrary, to lie in deep tension with the Judge’s position. Te Parson’s thesis is that human beings are inextricably guilty before the practical law and that, depending on how one relates to this fact, this can be an edifying realization. On my analysis, the Parson’s sermon is valuable because it catalogues the attitudes one might adopt once she realizes that Hegel’s eschatological vision—a harmonious and happy resolution between self and world—is unrealizable. Among the attitudes he considers is the disposition that de silentio calls faith: “a joy in which you win victory over yourself . . . a demonstration that your love is happy.”35 Te sermon begins precisely where a discussion of the highest good should, a refection on the fact that there are good people and bad things happen to them at least as often as they happen to bad people. Tere are, of course, several moves one can make to address this situation, and we have already seen two of them. Kant begins by accepting both claims and then goes on to posit an afterlife where the good receive their reward. Hegel, on the other hand, posits an imminent state—one this side of eternity—where virtue and happiness nonaccidentally coincide.36 Te Parson begins, as I have already hinted, with a straightforward rejection of Hegel’s account. Tough this becomes apparent in a couple of ways, the most important is his matter-of-fact assumption that all human relationships will, at one time or another, become unhappy: as he puts it, one person will inevitably fnd himself in the wrong before the other. Tis claim is important because, in both the Judge’s letters and Hegel’s philosophy more generally, marriage is advanced as a symbol for the larger ethical order. Marriage is the place where the apparently essential diferences between a self and her world are harmonized. Against Hegel, the Parson assumes that relationships never admit of this kind of fnal harmony.37 Judge William and Hegel aside, the Parson does not seem to think that his audience needs too much help understanding that the world and our moral expectations are at irreparable odds. While on this point Kant seems to concur, the Parson has taken at least one Hegelian lesson to heart that prevents him

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from embracing a Kantian account. As you will recall from your introductory course: Kant thinks the bindingness of the moral law is contingent upon all agents seeing themselves represented in it. We might call this modern ethics’ “internalist condition” and perhaps see Kant (or Rousseau) as inaugurating it. To this end, Kant claims that all human beings—even the most hardened scoundrels—are capable, quite unproblematically, of seeing the moral law as refecting their essential selves. Tis essential self is identifed with the rational self, which, in turn, is identical from person to person. Hegel is deeply uncomfortable with this view because he does not think it properly satisfes the internalist condition: he worries, rightly it seems to me, that there won’t be many agents, aside from perhaps Kant, who see themselves refected in the formal account of agency ofered in, say, the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Tis leads Hegel to modify the project. Toward this end, he writes an existential guidebook that is prepared to lead idiosyncratic human reasoners to a place where they can discover that there is, in fact, one common human reason that they all take part in. Hegel thinks that ethics’ internalist condition can only be satisfed once a proper phenomenology of spirit has been given. All this may help explain why the Parson, especially if he has been carefully reading Part I of E/O, can be neither a Hegelian nor a Kantian about the highest good. Hegel’s failure to ofer a proper phenomenology of spirit marks the failure of modern ethics more generally.38 Tis means that when the Parson considers how to respond to the problem of why bad things happen to good people, he does not automatically assume we have been given a proper account of the facts on the ground. Among the disputed facts is that a person can know what is practically demanded of her and therefore make an accurate judgment about her, or anyone else’s, goodness. Against the modern tradition, the Parson suspects that ought does not imply can, that normative guilt—the realization that one is in the wrong—is actually a constitutive feature of the human experience. While, on the face of it, this might seem like an especially depressing admission, the Parson thinks that it needn’t be. Heteronomy can go in one of two directions, toward an unhappy resignation or a joyful faith. To see how this works, I want to look more closely at an important passage from the sermon, a passage addressed to someone who has experienced disappointed love. Te passage begins: “You loved a person, you wished that you might always be in the wrong in relation to him.”39 First, by a wish “to be in the wrong in relation to [the other],” I take the Parson to be referring to a desire to take on another person’s guilt. Tis desire is, of course, not a hallmark of just any

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kind of love. Te Parson calls it “infnite” and, in doing so, invites us to associate it with the kind of love that Kierkegaard elsewhere calls “neighbor love.” Neighbor love [Kjærlighed] is given even when it stands to ofer no beneft to the person who extends it; it is essentially self-sacrifcing and, in this respect, exists in stark contrast to what Kierkegaard calls pagan or erotic love [Elskov] which demands both that its afection be reciprocated and that the beloved be, in some relevant sense, worthy. Only neighbor love desires, when a wrong is committed against it, to take on the pain the wrong causes the other. Te passage continues: “—but, alas, he was faithless to you, and however reluctant that it should be so, however much it pained you, you proved to be in the right in relation to him, and wrong in loving him so deeply. And yet your soul demanded you to love that way; only in that could you fnd rest and peace and happiness.”40 Here we have the problematic of the ethical stage spelled out in terms of love. Love, in its highest manifestation, desires to always be in the wrong before another person. But, in relationship to another human being, it will always be the case, sometime or other, that the beloved is undeniably in the wrong. Tis leads to an uncomfortable tension in a person: she can only love the beloved insofar as she mischaracterizes her, sees her as innocent. Te Parson goes on to say that upon being rebufed by this tension a person’s soul turns “away from the fnite to the infnite.”41 Tis is the juncture we are interested in. Tis move from the fnite to the infnite is precisely the place where Kierkegaard thinks the unhappy lover can choose either resignation or faith. Te person who chooses infnite resignation acknowledges that while infnite love is what is commanded of her, it can never be satisfed. Because of this she forfeits the possibility of an actual relationship with the beloved and resigns herself to unhappy love. Tis marks a change in focus from the fnite consummation of love to a devotion to its mere idea. In FT, we receive an instructive example of this in the story of a young man who falls in love with a princess. When the young man is forced to confront the reality that he cannot be united with his “princess,” de silentio tells us: “He becomes very quiet, he dismisses [the messengers of sorrow], he becomes solitary, and then he undertakes the movement.”42 De silentio continues: “Te knight, however, makes this impossibility [that of being united with the princess in actuality] possible by expressing it spiritually, but he expresses it spiritually by renouncing it. . . . He is no longer fnitely concerned about what the princess does, and precisely

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this proves that he has made the movement infnitely.”43 Tis passage explains one way in which a person might turn away from the fnite and toward the infnite. Te young lad, having resigned the princess, is nevertheless committed to the ideal of loving her, an ideal that he acknowledges is impossible to satisfy.44 As the Parson would put it, the young lad is in the wrong before the infnite. Te Parson doesn’t mince words in his evaluation of the young lad’s plight: it is painful. Tough there was some prospect of being made happy when one entertained the possibility of being in the wrong before the beloved, being in the wrong before the practical law—that is, his love transfgured into an ideal—threatens merely to discourage. At the same time, however, the Parson does not foreclose the possibility that a person might still relate happily to the infnite. Continuing with the passage we have been developing, the Parson writes: “Ten your soul turned away from the fnite to the infnite; there it found its object; there your love became happy. I will love God, you said; he gives everything to the one who loves. He fulflls my highest, my only wish—that in relation to him I must always be in the wrong.”45 Tese lines clarify the important diference between infnite resignation’s and faith’s respective relationships to the infnite. A person arrives at infnite resignation after being forced to acknowledge—through life’s disappointments—that one is always in the wrong; faith, on the other hand, experiences the reality of being in the wrong as upbuilding because it wants to be in the wrong before the infnite, and it wants this precisely because it relates to the infnite, not as an abstract ideal, but a person who can give and receive love. As you will recall, this attitude of love, and the concomitant desire to be in the wrong before the object of such love, was unsatisfed when directed toward another human being. Te Parson thinks this is resolved in the case of loving a personal God because now one can credibly believe that he is always in the wrong. He continues: “Never will any alarming doubt ever tear me away from [God]; never will the thought terrify me that I could prove to be in the right in relation to him—in relation to God I am always in the wrong.”46 *

* *

Let’s step back and evaluate where things stand. Te Parson has argued that the only relationship in which a person can plausibly satisfy his love is the God relationship. He arrives here by, frst, assuming that love desires to always be in

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the wrong with respect to the beloved and, second, that one cannot plausibly maintain such a relationship with a fnite beloved. If we further assume, as the Parson suggests, that deep happiness and love are intimately connected, then love of the divine stands to make a person happy in a way that love of a fnite person cannot. Understood in this way, however, it isn’t yet clear that the kind of happiness we have been interested in all along, namely, a kind that relates to the fnite world, has been defended. In order to do the latter, the Parson would have to tell us more about the relationship between loving God and loving the world. More specifcally, how does loving God in the way he describes allow a person to relate happily to fnitude in a way that FT assumes? Te Parson’s answer to this question has already been hinted at. Recall his earlier claim that God “gives everything to the one who loves [him].” It is here, I think, that we have the key to faith’s happiness: it alone is able to relate to fnitude as a gift, something that is given as opposed to something earned, deserved, or owned. In what remains of this section I want to very quickly think through what the Parson might mean by this. First, the claim that God “gives everything to the one who loves [him]” does not mean that God gives a person whatever she wants. Te Parson is not advocating a prosperity gospel. Second, and relatedly, the claim that God “gives everything to the one who loves [him]” does not exclude the possibility that certain currently possessed goods can be lost: loved ones, personal health, and livelihood are all radically contingent. It is precisely in the face of such contingency and loss, however, that Kierkegaard thinks faith comes into its own. Where the ethical person experiences loss as an efrontery to his worldly ownership, and the infnitely resigned person (since she has given up on the world) experiences nothing at all, the person of faith feels the pain of loss without also experiencing it as radically destabilizing. You ask such a person whether a recent loss, say of a loved one, has engendered anger or bitterness; she fips the question and answers that she hasn’t lost anything; to the contrary, she was given that person to love for a time. It is this ability to see the world as brimming with things given as opposed to things taken that leads the author of FT to describe faith as a disposition that leads to fnite happiness. Counterintuitively, a person must frst loosen her grip on the world before she can fully embrace it. Having now sketched the basic outlines of Kierkegaard’s account of the highest good, I want to conclude by considering two objections: frst, the suspicion that this disposition of gratitude is in some sense weak or perhaps

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delusional; second, whether belief in a transcendent God is a necessary part of developing such a disposition of gratitude. I take it that these are signifcant challenges, both because they draw Kierkegaard’s account into question and because the larger issue is of deep human importance. While I will suggest ways in which these challenges might be met, a full account would require much more attention than I can muster here.

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Some Concluding Toughts Te frst worry: is the kind of gratitude recommended by Kierkegaard perverse? As I see it, there are at least two reasons to think it might be. First, it looks as if it may sometimes function as a way to ignore or silence the sufering of others. In this regard, consider my mother-in-law, Rachel, who is currently dying of ALS. Imagine that on one of Rachel’s particularly bad days she begins to question the fairness of her plight, that God has picked her out to sufer, frst, the loss of her faculties and, fnally, to die prematurely and painfully. Imagine now that I say to her on such a day, “Rachel, you should just be grateful you were given a chance to have a life at all. God has given you so much that wasn’t owed to you; your life has been marked by intense blessing.” When I say this to Rachel, don’t I speak out of turn? Aren’t I saying something that does more harm than good? Absolutely! I’m being a real ass. But, importantly, I do not think this counts against the point Kierkegaard is trying to make. Kierkegaard’s claim is more modest: namely, that if Rachel were to adopt such an attitude, it would allow her to view her circumstances diferently. Bracketing how I should respond to Rachel in such moments, Kierkegaard’s intuition that gratitude can rescue someone from despair seems obviously right. I know this because this is the actual attitude that Rachel adopts on most days. It is also my experience of Rachel’s response that alerts me to a second worry about this kind of gratitude: namely, that it can appear delusional or weak. Te frst time I heard Rachel confess postdiagnosis gratitude for her life, I was convinced she had latched onto a pitiful delusion. Instead of allowing her faith to be challenged, she doubled down: “God has blessed me with so much,” she reminded us again and again. Since my initial reaction to Rachel’s expression of gratitude, I have come to seriously reconsider my judgment. What would it mean for a person to be mistaken or unjustifed in their suspicion

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that they have much to be grateful for? While a person can believe in all sorts of things that seem delusional, when can we—those evaluating from the outside—say that her sense of gratefulness, her sense that life has been good and beautiful and worthwhile, is misguided? Is there an objective state of afairs that determines when such an emotion is apt? Even if there is, can we reliably know when it has been satisfed? I’m doubtful. Assuming gratitude like Rachel’s is not unjustifed, there is still the further question of whether it requires theistic belief. Must there be, as Kierkegaard seems to think, a personal God to anchor the account? Nietzsche, Kierkegaard’s nineteenth-century contemporary, did not seem to think so. At the beginning of Ecce Home, Nietzsche writes, “How could I not be grateful to my whole life?”47 Te larger context of the passage makes it clear that he is especially grateful for his creative work, and since the latter is, in some sense, what constitutes his life, we might say that Nietzsche is grateful to his life for his life.48 Te idea that he regards his creative works (i.e., his life) as a gift comes out strongly in a later passage where he discusses the genesis of Tus Spoke Zarathustra. He describes the process as one of receiving a revelation, a visitation from the divine that “takes place as if in a storm of feelings of freedom, of unrestricted activity, of power, of divinity.”49 It is the product of such moments that causes Nietzsche to efervesce with gratitude. Tough he, of course, rejects the idea that these are literally gifts from God, it is striking that this is how he chooses to frame the experience. Tere are some important questions raised here. First, the very semantics of gratitude may not require us to direct it only toward agents. It may be possible to regard something as a gift without also associating it with an agent that does the gifting. While, if true, this threatens to undermine Kierkegaard’s account, Nietzsche’s second point complements it: a life marked by deep gratitude (the acknowledgment of grace) is also one of deep joy. It is here, in the nature and possibility of such an attitude, that Kierkegaard distinguishes himself from the two historical cases we began our analysis with: Kant and Hegel. Unlike Kant, who regards happiness as realizable (if at all) only in an afterlife, Kierkegaard seems to think that the person who truly embraces the self-denial of Christian love can, even now, receive the world in joy. While Hegel too thinks that fnite satisfaction is within human reach, we have now seen that in Kierkegaard’s case the source is entirely distinct. Unlike Hegel, who grounds his account in a progressive social history, Kierkegaard looks to a particular individual disposition that bears no essential relation to

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a historical or social context. Finally, the nature of this disposition, involving a marked sense of personal indebtedness, further distinguishes Kierkegaard from his German precursors. Unlike the larger autonomy tradition, Kierkegaard thinks it is only when a person opens herself to a view of life that downplays rational and practical control that genuine happiness can take root.

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Chapter 12

Kant and Benjamin on Hope, History, and the Task of Interpretation

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C. Allen Speight

In an exploration of twentieth-century fgures relevant for a construal of Kantian notions of history and the possibility of progress, it may seem surprising to consider the work of Walter Benjamin. In the contemporary academy, after all, Benjamin’s work is discussed more frequently by literary and cultural theorists than by Anglophone philosophers in the Kantian tradition. But Benjamin’s philosophical engagement with Kant—and particularly its relevance for some of the darker questions raised by the historical events of the twentieth century—is a topic that deserves more attention. Benjamin had considered a dissertation on Kant’s philosophy of history, and a number of recent studies, including Richard Eldridge’s Images of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom and the Human Subject and Eli Friedlander’s Walter Benjamin: A Philosophical Portrait, have begun to explore the depth of philosophical connections between Kant and Benjamin. Tis chapter will examine three central issues that Benjamin develops in a way that can be read as crucial meditations on— and signifcant reconstruals of—key Kantian concerns: (1) a consideration of history in terms of the “infnite task” of ongoing interpretation and revision (a notion that Benjamin drew in part from the early German Romantics’ reading of Kant), (2) a reconsideration of the meaning of hope not in terms of future-oriented progressivism but in terms of its connection to “those who are essentially hopeless” (a topic of particular interest, given recent work by philosophers making use of the Kantian notion of hope such as Andrew Chignell

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and Jonathan Lear) and an understanding of historical time not in terms of continuous succession, which Benjamin called “homogeneous” time, but, rather, in terms that are open to what Eldridge has called “abrupt revelations of meanings that are not already grasped”;1 and (3) a refection on the modes of narrative interpretation that, drawing on these reconstruals of the collective and temporal aspects of hope together, proves especially helpful in exploring the reconceived notion of hope that emerges (one that led Benjamin to write about the role of hope in the works of such diverse authors as Goethe, Proust, Kafka, and Nikolai Leskov). Te Benjaminian notion of hope that emerges from his engagement with such works is one that is, in some ways like Lear’s recent explorations of the “radicality” of hope, attuned particularly to refection on the experiences of failure, interruption, and loss—the elements of what is “unprepared-for” in human life.

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History, Kant, and the Romantics in Early Benjamin Benjamin’s early studies as a PhD student had involved, among other things, the opportunity to listen to lectures by Hermann Cohen, and it is clear that a range of questions with a Kantian provenance emerge in Benjamin’s letterwriting and refections from this period. Te possibility of writing a dissertation on Kant was in fact something that the young doctoral student considered as he went back and forth about possible topics. Benjamin’s letters to Gershom Scholem in this period (the last half of 1917 and early part of 1918) reveal both a strong interest in Kant as well as a concern about how the larger intellectual interests that he associated with Kantian philosophy and its successors—especially history and religion, and the importance both of those topics have for the early German Romantics—would be involved in his dissertation-writing. In this connection, it is particularly noteworthy that Benjamin seems to waver between writing a dissertation on the early German Romantics (the thesis topic that ultimately won out) and a Kant dissertation. Initially he rejects the possibility of a thesis on Kant in favor of something on the Romantics, but one particular line of thought in Kant then comes back into the picture in connection with the philosophy of history: in December 1917, he writes to Scholem that he had been considering as a dissertation topic “the concept of the ‘eternal task’ [der Begrif der unendlichen Aufgabe] in Kant.”2 In the letter’s margin at this point, he asks Scholem, “What do you think?” and then in the main text responds to something Scholem had said in his earlier letter: “Under

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certain circumstances it is necessary to be a completely independent thinker when it comes to your own thought, above all when ultimate questions are at issue. In any case, there are certain questions, like those related to the philosophy of history, that are central for us, but about which we can learn something decisive from Kant only after we have posed them anew for ourselves.”3 As Benjamin writes to Scholem:

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Although I still have no proof for this, it is my frm belief that, in keeping with the spirit of philosophy and thus of doctrine [Lehre] to which it belongs (that is, if it does not perhaps constitute doctrine in its entirety), there will never be any question of the Kantian system’s being shaken and toppled. Rather, the question is much more one of the system’s being set in granite and universally developed. Te most profound typology of conceiving doctrine has thus far always become clear to me in Kant’s words and ideas. And no matter how great the number of Kantian minutiae that may have to fade away, his system’s typology can only be compared with Plato’s. Only in the spirit of Kant and Plato and, I believe, by means of the revision and further development of Kant, can philosophy become doctrine or, at least, be incorporated in it . . . what is essential in Kant’s thought must be preserved. . . . But this is my conviction: anyone who does not sense in Kant the struggle to conceive doctrine itself and who therefore does not comprehend him with the utmost reverence, looking on even the least letter as a tradendum to be transmitted (however much it is necessary to recast him afterwards) knows nothing of philosophy.4 By February 1918, however, Benjamin appears to have put behind him the prospect of writing on Kant and history: “It is virtually impossible to gain any access to the philosophy of history using Kant’s historical writings as a point of departure. It would be diferent if the point of departure were his ethics; even that is possible only within limits and Kant himself did not travel this path. To convince yourself of this, read Ideas [sic] for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View.”5 Whatever we might make of Benjamin’s assessment here (he is certainly neither the frst nor the last reader of Kant to express dissatisfaction with the Idea), the shift to ethics represents an important moment for understanding the development of his views on the Kantian topics we will consider—in particular the range of issues that Eldridge has neatly called in his study of Kant

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and Benjamin the “moral image of the world.”6 Likewise, the appeal Benjamin makes to the connection between Romanticism and Kant is highly relevant for the particular infection of interest that Benjamin will continue to have in Kantianism: “In one sense, whose profundity would frst have to be made clear, romanticism seeks to accomplish for religion what Kant accomplished for theoretical subjects: to reveal its form. But does religion have a form? In any case, under history early romanticism imagined something analogous to this.”7 Te “core” (Zentrum) of Early Romanticism, in Benjamin’s view, was precisely “religion and history”: the “infnite profundity and beauty” of early German Romanticism “in comparison to all late romanticism derives from the fact that the early romantics did not appeal to religious and historical facts for the intimate bond between these two spheres, but rather tried to produce in their own thought and life the higher sphere in which both spheres had to coincide.”8 Benjamin’s appeal to the Early Romantics’ project of a reconstrual of religion that would be rooted in thought and (practical) life rather than an appeal to “religious and historical facts” emphasizes a key debt for both the Romantics and Benjamin to Kant (as well, of course, to a longer tradition going back to Lessing). But the Romantics not only made that concern with reconceiving religion somehow more urgent but also linked the project among other things to the new claims being made by contemporaries about the high status of art and the relation of both religion and art to philosophy in a way that was noticed and appropriated by less evidently Romantic thinkers like Hegel.9

“Hope in the Past,” Hope for a People: Te Social and Retrospective Concerns of Benjamin’s Notion of Hope It is clear that the third of Kant’s three great motivating questions for the critical project as a whole as outlined at the end of the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR)—“for what may I hope [Was darf ich hofen]?”—was one that crucially infuenced the development of Benjamin’s thought.10 As I will argue, however, there are two important ways in which Benjamin intentionally transforms the notion of hope in comparison with Kant’s: (1) the general perspective in which hope is discussed shifts from a personal to a collective consideration (i.e., from formulations grammatically in the frst-person singular to formulations in the frst-person plural); and (2) temporally, the focus of hope shifts from being future-oriented to being characterizable in important ways in terms of the concern the present has with the past. As a consequence of both of these

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shifts, the exploration of hope becomes in important ways a narratively structured task of interpretation—one that particularly draws Benjamin to authors like Goethe, Kafka and Proust, and which has signifcant consequences for Benjamin’s ultimate views of history and temporality, which I will take up in the following section. Te frst two points—concerning the shift toward the collective and the past in Benjamin’s interpretation of the notion of hope—are nicely captured in Eli Friedlander’s suggestion that, for Benjamin, “One must not ask what may I hope for [along the lines of the Kantian formulation] but rather whose hope I keep alive in the present”:11

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Strange as it may sound, for Benjamin, the redemptive or messianic hope is not a matter of what the present conceives as occurring in the future. . . . If the idea of immortality is internal to the constitution of the object of hope, then we can again recognize how for Benjamin hope is for the past: ‘the hope of redemption that we nourish for all the dead . . . is the sole justifcation for the faith in immortality, which must never be kindled from one’s own existence. . . . Only for the sake of the hopeless have we been given hope.’. . . Hope is for the past, hope for those who are essentially hopeless, for those who themselves cannot hope any more. It is hope to be fulflled by the transformation of the present.12 Te shift to a collective consideration of hope may initially seem unKantian in moving away from the perspective of the individual moral agent in the depths of his striving, but there is important Kantian warrant for such a move. In this context, it is important frst to notice, as Andrew Chignell has argued, that Kant’s consideration of the notion of Hofnung is to be distinguished from matters of rational belief (Glaube), however he may (wittingly or not) confate the two.13 In the case of the famous postulates connected with the moral proof of the CPrR—God and immortality—the issue, according to Chignell, is properly speaking one of objects of belief and hence of moral philosophy rather than objects of the philosophy of religion. By contrast, the objects that are specifcally objects of hope in Religion include, among other things, what Kant calls “alleged outer experiences” (miracles); the role of divine assistance or grace (whether one’s individual actions connect more broadly to projects that are furthered) and—perhaps most importantly for the connection to Benjamin—the construction of a truly ethical society.14

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But whether one looks to the consideration of the objects of Glaube in CPrR or the objects of hope in the Religion, it is important to notice that Kant’s language of hope, despite being framed in frst-person terms, is nonetheless connected to the larger importance of collective concerns—above all, the summum bonum.15 With respect to the temporality of hope, however, the confation that Chignell has pointed out seems more problematic. As Chignell argues, the ancient (pre–New Testament) Greek notion of elpis is ambiguous between the notions of “hope” and “expectation”: hope “takes an object that the subject regards as possible but not certain,” whereas expectation “involves the estimation that the state is more probable than not (and may even be certain)”—an ambiguity similar to the shifts between Glaube and Hofnung in some versions of Kant’s practical proof.16 By contrast, if Benjamin’s concern is (in Friedlander’s rendering of it) one of “hope for the past, hope for those who are essentially hopeless, for those who themselves cannot hope any more,” then the particular kind of claim that Benjamin makes about hope would not seem to share the confusion implicit in the Greek notion of elpis or in Kant’s shifts between Hofnung and Glaube.17 Te shift involves not just the doxastic concern, however, but also an important afective one: for Benjamin, relation to the future should be construed not in terms of desire but rather in terms of a kind of guilt. We are guilty toward each moment of what is to come—or take the more terrifying afect that Benjamin associates with hope in the Teses on the Philosophy of History: “Only that historian has the gift of kindling sparks of hope in the past who is thoroughly imbued with this idea: even the dead will not be safe from the enemy if he wins. And this enemy has not ceased to win.”18 More broadly, however, Benjamin sees a need to rethink the structure of temporality as it relates to the question of history and the philosophical assumptions usually made about it. Benjamin can be taken, of course, as an opponent of a certain notion of historical progress. As Friedlander puts it: “Future progress is no solution to the sufering of past generations. On that matter Benjamin quotes Lotze, whom he considers ‘a critic of the concept of progress’: ‘To hold that the claims of particular times and individual men may be scorned and all their misfortunes disregarded if only mankind would improve overall is, though suggested by noble feelings, merely enthusiastic thoughtlessness. . . . Nothing is progress which does not mean an increase of happiness and perfection for those very souls which had sufered in a previous imperfect state.’”19

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But Benjamin’s philosophical interest extends to some more fundamental assumptions underlying the notion of progress.20 While the concern of history is often taken to be a causal one—or at the very least a question of the relationship between two temporal events—Benjamin ofers a critique of “homogeneous” time in favor, as Richard Eldridge has put it, of an openness to “abrupt revelations of meanings that are not already grasped,” along with the potential (one has to say) of violence that might be inherent in that—quite unlike the temporality implicit in a notion of asymptotic progress. In a famous phrase that borrows from Friedrich Schlegel’s notion of the historian as a “backwardsfacing prophet,” Benjamin described the “angel of history” in connection with a storm which “irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.”21 To the extent that history still has a narrative function, the historian in the deepest sense is not concerned with causal explanation between two specifc moments but with the import of all/one. Unlike many contemporary views of narrative, where the causal connection between such moments is the predominant explanatory concern, Benjamin seems to be suggesting that there might be a narrative mode that is not focused primarily on the task of retrospective explanation but rather one that has what he would call a more constellationary function: it’s not (in his image) the connection among individual rosary beads on a necklace, as it is imagined in the homogenous view of time, that is of narrative concern here, but rather the singular moment in which one’s understanding of narrative task might suddenly change in light of a constellationary connection between “now” and “then.”22 Making sense of the consequences of Benjamin’s reconceived notions of history, temporality, and the hope appropriate for fnite beings living within history is something that requires an exploration on a number of diferent fronts. Te early Benjamin looked especially to literary forms of narrative to think through the problem of hope, and the following section will examine Benjamin’s engagements with several key fgures and texts in this regard.

Benjamin and the Narrativity of Hope Benjamin’s emphasis on a sense of hope’s collectivity and its relevance for a new relation to the past are signifcant alterations that lead, I argue, to the narrative and interpretive work that Benjamin understood as important in thinking about the notion of hope in a number of his early critical essays.23

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An appeal to narrative in this context is not surprising, given that socially infected and retrospective concerns often prompt narrative accounts.24 In fact, Benjamin explicitly defended the importance of a distinctively narrative art—theorizing, in particular, a distinctive “narrator’s stance” required for what he calls the “completion of meaning” of an event by author and critic— as well as particular narrative subgenres (e.g., the fairy tale) that ofer a critical mode of examining restrictive circumstances and the falsehoods that may keep these obscure. In any event, Benjamin’s own refections about hope seem to be particularly connected with a reading of several literary narrative sources. Benjamin’s essays on Kafka, Proust, and Leskov all are an important part of his refections on the topic of hope, and the often-quoted remark of his cited above by Friedlander—that “only for the sake of the hopeless have we been given hope”—is the concluding sentence of his extended discussion of hope in Goethe’s novel Elective Afnities. In what follows, we frst look at the literary narrative perspectives that Benjamin draws on in his refection on the concept of hope, particularly at the extended context that surrounds the famous sentence at the end of the Elective Afnities essay. We then suggest a comparison of Benjamin’s perspective on this topic with Jonathan Lear’s Radical Hope, which ofers a helpful counterpart with which to explore issues that bear an interesting resonance (if also important diferences) with those Benjamin examines. It should be said at the outset that the notion of narrative hope that emerges from Benjamin’s accounts of Kafka, Proust, and Leskov is above all not one that privileges coherence or reconciliation at the expense of resistance, loss, or failure: Benjamin’s notion of narrative embraces the interruptive and disruptive, and it takes as its orientation toward hope a dialectical stance that sees hope’s connection with disenchantment. As Eldridge describes Benjamin’s view: “Fragmentary, modernist, prompt interruption or intervention must supplant extended literary artistry and grand narratives of coming-intomeaningfulness, grand narratives that are one and all otiose.”25 Benjamin draws important considerations for his treatment of memory and the past from Proust. As Friedlander suggests, Benjamin sees that memory cannot in any way ofer “a return that leaves the past intact and allows one to reinhabit what is longed for.”26 Accordingly, Szondi and Mendelsohn argue that “unlike Proust, Benjamin does not want to free himself from temporality; he does not wish to see things in their ahistorical essence. He strives instead for historical experience and knowledge. Nevertheless, he is sent back into the past, a past, however, which is open, not completed, and which promises the future.”27

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Benjamin’s essay on Kafka—whom he wryly credits with seeing that while there may be an “infnite amount of hope,” it is just not a form of hope that is available for us28—frames an issue that we will see returns in the longer treatment of Goethe: the overcoming of what he calls the “indeterminacy” of the world of myth—those forces that are beyond human control. A weapon that Kafka ofers against such powers (and, as we will see, in a diferent way, Leskov does too) is what Benjamin calls “fairy tales for dialecticians”: “Reason and cunning have inserted tricks into myths; their forces cease to be invincible. Fairy tales are the traditional stories about victory over these forces [of myth], and fairy tales for dialecticians are what Kafka wrote when he went to work on legends. He inserted little tricks into them; then he used them as proof ‘that inadequate, even childish measures may also serve to rescue one.’”29 Benjamin’s extended account of Goethe’s appeal to the notion of hope in the context of his wrestling with mythic powers is one that involves a fairly complicated set of critical stakes and strategies of interpretation with respect to larger issues such as artistic creativity, the relation between the human and the divine, and the conditions for poetic expression. Perhaps the best place to begin is with the essay’s fnal words—“Only for the sake of the hopeless ones have we been given hope”—which form the concluding sentence of a commentary on the remarkable epitaph originally penned by Stefan George for a memorial tablet for the Beethoven House in Bonn and which Benjamin uses also as the epigram for the concluding section of his essay.30 We can get an insight into the context for this culminating quotation by noting frst that one of Benjamin’s critical interests in the essay is the putting aside of certain George-inspired readings of the “divine” nature of the creative poet that were often associated with appeals to Goethe—as well as views that insist on reading Goethe’s life itself in tragic, larger-than-life terms. Te poet’s human struggle, as Benjamin presents it, is one against chaotic and consuming powers in nature, and the central fgures of the novel—a married couple whose lives are interrupted by the arrival of a young woman to whom the husband is drawn—are of interest particularly because of the potential disaster involved in their temptation toward leaving aside the conventional structures and expectations of married life. It is true that—for both Goethe and Benjamin—the interest in these fctional characters is connected with a particularly intense personal experience of love in their own lives, but Benjamin insists that what is important about Goethe’s novel is not the theme of marriage (although he does begin his essay on the novel with a quotation of Kant’s famous defnition of marriage in the Metaphysics of Morals): instead,

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the most important concern of the novel, he holds, is the perspective it ofers on those “mythic forces” of nature, whose power over human beings and their lives is one of the deepest motivations in his philosophy of history. In addition to the George quote—against which Benjamin is critically working—the two other key images that are central to his reading are Goethe’s own direct appeals to the notion of hope: a crucial moment toward the novel’s end when Goethe describes the embracing lovers whose fates are now sealed (“Hope shot across the sky above their heads like a falling star”) and, (in the background that Benjamin sees as decisive for the shape of the novel) Goethe’s own poem “Urworte. Orphisch,” in which hope is the last of fve “primal words”—daimon, chance, love, and necessity are the frst four. In Goethe’s novel, Benjamin sees the possibility of hope as bound up with the perspectival stance of the narrator (on the two lovers whose deaths end the novel), and with the question of the proper memorializing of those like the fctional couple (or for that matter, given his critical stance on George, of fgures like Beethoven or Goethe). Benjamin follows Goethe’s imagery at the end of the novel to emphasize the importance not only of the role of hope itself but also of the larger collective sense of it that we have seen he had in mind in his encounter with Kant’s postulate of immortality: Tat most paradoxical, most feeting hope fnally emerges from the semblance of reconciliation, just as, at twilight, as the sun is extinguished, rises the evening star which outlasts the night. Its glimmer, of course, is imparted by Venus. And upon the slightest such glimmer all hope rests; even the richest hope comes only from it. Tus, at the end, hope justifes the semblance of reconciliation, and Plato’s tenet that it is absurd to desire the semblance of the good sufers its one exception. For one is permitted to desire the semblance of reconciliation—indeed, it must be desired: it alone is the house of the most extreme hope. . . . Elpis remains the last of the primal words: the certainty of blessing that . . . corresponds to the hope of redemption that we nourish for all the dead. Tis hope is the sole justifcation of the faith in immortality, which must never be kindled from one’s own existence.31 As the concluding sentence of his essay emphasizes, Benjamin is particularly interested in narrative’s ability to allow the narrator—Goethe himself or, as Friedlander suggests, Benjamin as critic—to sustain a sense of hope that is

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not available to the fgures in the action of the narrative themselves: “In the symbol of the star, the hope that Goethe had to conceive for the lovers had once appeared to him. Tey are unaware of it, of course, and it could not be said any more clearly that the last hope is never such to him who cherishes it but is the last only to those for whom it is cherished. With this comes to light the innermost basis for the ‘narrator’s stance.’ It is he alone who, in the feeling of hope, can fulfll the meaning of the event.”32 In addition to this connection between collective hope and narrator’s stance, Benjamin opens up another important element of the narrative exploration of hope in Goethe’s novel in his analysis of this scene in terms of the novel’s overall rhythm. Here Benjamin draws on a remarkable Hölderlinian concept that appears in Hölderlin’s Anmerkungen zum Ödipus33—the notion of the “caesura” of a work—to which Benjamin links the notion of the “expressionless” [das Ausdruckslose]: a moment in which “every expression simultaneously comes to a standstill, in order to give free rein to an expressionless power inside all artistic media.” Te expressionless—“something beyond the poet,” which “interrupts the language of poetry,” is, says Benjamin, “the critical violence which, while unable to separate semblance from essence in art, prevents them from mingling. . . . Only the expressionless completes the work, by shattering it into a thing of shards, into a fragment of the true world, into the torso of a symbol.”34 Te interruptive moment that Benjamin appropriates from Hölderlin’s notion of poetic caesura opens up a range of important questions about the conditions of poetic language and the relation for Benjamin between beauty and semblance that cannot be pursued more fully here. But the connection that Benjamin sees between the moment of hope envisionable in Goethe’s narrative context and the notion of “completion” possible for an artistic work as a shattered torso is worth emphasizing, since Benjamin’s conception of hope is one that goes hand-in-hand with a notion of disenchantment, as his account of the narrative abilities of the fgure of “Te Storyteller” makes clear. In comparison with Benjamin’s essays on Proust, Kafka, and Goethe, there has been a good deal less exploration of his treatment of the narrative context of hope in his remarkable essay “Te Storyteller,” which is framed as an appreciation of the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov. Tis essay is an important part of Benjamin’s narrative account of hope, in particular, because of its focus on notions of interruption and the dialectical link between hope and disenchantment [Entzauberung].

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Just as Benjamin praised what he termed Kafka’s “fairy tales for dialecticians,” so he saw in Leskov’s stories a possibility of freedom from tired notions and implicit hierarchies. Benjamin’s suggestion is that we enter the fairy tale context of a story like this as a mode of disenchantment rather than the reverse: “Te fairy tale tells us of the earliest arrangements that mankind made to shake of the nightmare which the myth had placed upon its chest.”35 Te fgure of the fool shows “how mankind can ‘act dumb’ toward the myth,” while the fgure of the youngest brother can show us “how one’s chances increase as the mythical world is left behind.”36 Benjamin espies in the recurring tropes and stock characters of fairy tales teachings of enduring emancipatory potential—above all that “the wisest thing . . . is to meet the forces of the mythical world with cunning and with high spirits.”37 Te “liberating magic” of the fairy tale points to the possibility of “nature’s complicity with liberated man”—a complicity mature men experience when happy but which the child frst meets “in fairy tales, and [that] makes him happy.”38 Te fairy tale thus teaches a fundamental truth about humanity’s freedom, our relation to nature, and the conditions for the possibility of happiness. And according to Benjamin, Leskov’s stories evince the same spirit—one strikingly theological: Few storytellers have displayed so profound a kinship with the spirit of the fairy tale as did Leskov. Tis involves tendencies that were promoted by the dogmas of the Greek Orthodox Church. As is well known, Origen’s speculation about apokatastasis—the entry of all souls into Paradise—which was rejected by the Roman Church plays a signifcant part in these dogmas. Leskov was very much infuenced by Origen and planned to translate his work On First Principles. In keeping with Russian folk belief he interpreted the Resurrection less as a transfguration [Verklärung] than as a disenchantment [Entzauberung], in a sense akin to the fairy tale. Such an interpretation of Origen is at the bottom of [Leskov’s story] “Te Enchanted Pilgrim.”39 Te interpretive ability Benjamin associates with prophecy as Leskov explores it depends on a close connection between hope and disenchantment as related terms, which must be considered together. Tis ofers a useful commentary on the (quite un-Kantian) way he talks about the notion of revolutionary action. Te fnal Leskov story mentioned in the essay is “Te Alexandrite”: a stone that is green at “birth” (or when frst mined in natural daylight) but

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which turns red in artifcial light.40 Leskov is drawn to the independent character that the inanimate world itself has, and the stone is a striking symbol for the reign of Czar Alexander II, which began with great public hope in the freeing of the serfs but ended with assassination at the hands of anarchists (an act that ironically brought on the reactionary reign of his son Alexander III). Benjamin’s refections on hope in the context of the literary narratives we have explored bear interesting comparison to other recent work on hope involving an appeal to narrative—Jonathan’s Lear’s account of radical hope. Lear’s portrayal of the Crow chief Plenty-Coups as a fgure able to lead his people into a world radically diferent from what they have traditionally experienced—the world of settled life on a reservation, as opposed to life on the open plains—is sketched with remarkable consideration for the imaginative gifts Plenty-Coups draws upon. Tese gifts are narratively inscribed in recounted dream-experiences that become part of the oral lore of the tribe, in Plenty-Coups’s vision that there will be a time when the bufalo are all gone, and in Plenty-Coups’s attentiveness to voices of (secularly construable) prophecy that ofer some form of hope. (Te dreaming Plenty-Coups has his attention drawn to the small chickadee, which is said to have unique survival abilities on the plains because of its ability to listen: the chickadee “never intrudes, never speaks in strange company, and yet never misses a chance to learn from others. He gains successes and avoids failures by learning how others succeeded or failed, and without great trouble to himself.”)41 Despite the evident diferences in their accounts of hope, there are important connections to be drawn between Benjamin’s and Lear’s explorations. Both are interested in examining a notion of hope that emerges from a specifc religious context (as Lear emphasizes, the interpretation of Plenty-Coups’s dream visions are open at once to theological and secular interpretation), and both want to examine the possibilities for collective life that emerge from this context. In fact, one might draw a direct connection between Plenty-Coups and the “wise storyteller” or righteous person Benjamin identifes in Leskov—one who has counsel that reaches back to a wisdom that connects to the whole life of his tribe in a way that could illuminate the very diferent orientation of the world it faces in the future. Plenty-Coups’s gifts, after all, are not just for dreaming but also for searching interpretation, for the ability to take dream or fairy tale elements and use them to query the larger legendary assumptions about how life—“life as we have known it”—must supposedly go on.42 Both Benjamin and Lear are especially concerned with experiences of interruption that seem to shake the very foundations of language. Lear is

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drawn to Plenty-Coups’s remarkable language about “nothing” happening to the Crow after the move to the reservation, and Benjamin’s Teses on the Philosophy of History ofer a resonance with this in the notion of the “absence of happening.” Just as Benjamin, with these interruptive experiences in mind, wants to decouple the immediate connection usually drawn between hope and the future, Lear talks about Plenty-Coups in terms of his ability for “radical anticipation,” something that is explicitly distinguished from the ability for future prediction.43 Lear describes Plenty-Coups’s hope as radical because it is “directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is,” one that “anticipates a good for which those who have the hope as yet lack the appropriate concepts with which to understand it.”44 While Lear has a pragmatic and future-oriented interest in how PlentyCoups ofers hope for something new in the world of his tribe, the mode of guidance is through exemplary human beings like those in Benjamin’s reading of Leskov. Lear is emphasizing Plenty-Coups’s story as “a traditional way of going forward,” one that refects a certain steadfastness over character and over time; Benjamin’s vision has a more interruptive tenor in many places (although the Leskov essay ofers something closer to this form of hope).45 But while Lear may be focused on the futural signifcance of “radical hope” whereas Benjamin is construing the notion of hope as a relation to the past, both are urging a certain openness toward the unprepared-for (in both cases this is quite diferent from the Kantian fusing of expectation with hope).46 While Benjamin was drawn deeply to a consideration of the third of the great Kantian critical questions, the notion of hope that he developed ofered a reconstrual both with respect to hope’s importance for collective and not merely personal reasons and with respect to a revised sense of the temporality implicit in hope—one concerned especially with the present’s relation to past fgures for whom one may hope and with a diferent understanding of how one can understand history. Both of these elements in Benjamin’s sense of hope lie behind the appeals he makes to the narrative and non-narrative modes with which he explored the concept, leading to a more interruptive and fragmentary sense of the context in which hope is experienced. Te result, when we consider Benjamin in light of the tradition of refections on hope, history, and progress that have emerged in the two centuries following Kant, is one that has resonances with other parts of that tradition but also diverges from it in key ways. As we have seen in his attack on the “homogeneous” notion of time, Benjamin moved away from the universalizing assumptions he found implicit in Kant’s notion of progress (assumptions

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that infuenced, in his view, many later perspectives from Hegel to Weimar liberalism) and instead toward a distinctive, messianically infuenced sense of time where interruption and immanent connection between the “now” and a moment of the past can be newly and revolutionarily seized. And while Benjamin found collective implications in Kant’s formulation of hope, the distinctive concern with “hope for the hopeless” that he develops is one that holds diferent narrative potentials than those associated with many projects of “grand narrative” in history. Te notion of hope to be taken from Benjamin’s development of these aspects of the Kantian tradition is one that looks curiously backward rather than forward—and with mordant awareness of the loss and sufering that must be weighed for any possibility of redemption.

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Chapter 13

The Curious Fate of the Idea of Progress

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Robert B. Pippin

Te question of civilizational progress obviously depends on what measure one chooses to assess such progress. If that measure is technological and scientifc, and the benefts provided by such advances, then an assertion of genuine progress seems undeniable. An increased mastery of nature has not only demonstrated a far deeper understanding of the natural world than even ffty years ago; it has also meant longer life spans, reduced infant mortality, public health benefts, higher standards of living, and so forth. All of this comes with costs like pollution, global warming, a more impersonal, even dehumanizing technifcation of medical care, horrifc weaponry, and there have been philosophers who have argued that even this greater technical power does not mean real progress according to some common measure, but a paradigm shift in the measure itself, or that the organization and implementation of technology is already “ideological,” never “neutral,” and hardly unproblematically progressive. But a far more contentious question involves a more ethical or normative measure; something like, in the most general sense possible, are human beings living now more recognizably as human beings ought to live? Tis question is immediately doubly complicated because it raises the issue both of whether our understanding of how human beings ought to live has itself progressed, come closer to the truth (and if so according to some nonhistorical standard? or in an internally developing, self-measuring way?), as well as whether we actually live in a way more adequate to that better understanding. For several centuries now, these sorts of questions were brought to bear on the question of European modernity, that revolutionary change in the organization of

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everyday life and in our self-understanding that began with the new science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Tis question was reanimated in the 1980s by the emergence of so-called postmodernism, but a skeptical or hostile view of modernity was a feature of the much diferently motivated European Counter-Enlightenment (which, thanks to Isaiah Berlin, we associate with the likes of de Maistre and Hamann and even Rousseau and Romanticism in general), and again in the emergence of a kind of fn de siècle cultural pessimism in the arts as well as in philosophy. In this context, my question in the present essay is what might be philosophically signifcant in the emergence in the two most infuential late modern thinkers, Nietzsche and Heidegger, of a denial that the essential dynamic of European modernization is progressive in any of the senses noted before, especially when such denials, like theirs, are not reactionary protests of the traditional European right, often religious in origin and tied to the landed aristocracy. But three scene-setting contexts need to be summarized at the outset. First, by “modernity” I refer to those social and intellectual characteristics that have now become so standard as to be clichés: the supreme cognitive authority of the new natural science; the privatization of religious belief and the ideal of tolerance for diferent confessions; greater and greater urbanization; government limited to the protection of basic entitlements or rights; a market economy with private ownership of capital and a widespread system of wage labor; the nation state; liberal-democratic public institutions; the nuclear family; and eventually as a result of these changes, some centuries later, the unacceptability of slavery and gender-based division of labor. Second, to cite another cliché, I am in agreement with those who argue that the question of whether European modernization should be counted as ethical progress is intimately tied to a Christian worldview. Te idea is: it was thanks to Christianity, and its doctrine of the Incarnation, that the notion that there could be an event or events in world history after which everything in human life is diferent from and better than everything that preceded it, it was thanks to this idea that the notion of a revolutionary and progressive alteration in how human beings understood themselves at the deepest level got a grip on the Western imagination and was especially crucial to the world-historical signifcance of such events as the French Revolution. And third, there is the decisive change from a progressive to a declensionist narrative in later modernity. I mean to refer to that culture of melancholy, profound skepticism, and intense self-criticism that became ofcial high culture and the dominant academic one in the European West in the latter half

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of the nineteenth century, and, it appeared, now repeats itself in new forms, forms eventually hostile, paradoxically, even to the ideas of high culture, criticism, skepticism, or enlightenment on which such enterprises seemed to depend. Tat is, some aspect of this sort of mood (the experience of modernization as a kind of spiritual failure, of modernity as loss) has been quite prominent in much European high culture of even the eighteenth, and then the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Tere are familiar examples: Faust’s failed bargain (or the “failure of science” and especially scientifc power and knowledge, “for life”); Hölderlin’s elegiac sense of modernity’s profound loss; Hegel’s claim in his early essay Belief and Knowledge1 that the religion of modern times is “God is dead”; Balzac’s, Stendhal’s, Flaubert’s pictures of our new but not at all better bourgeois, competitive, phony, conformist, low-minded world, constant prey to romantic fantasies of recovery and restoration; Henry James’s international theme and its ever fading (dying) traditional Europe, its acquisitive, money-obsessed, new-age Americans; Proust on the passing of (and exposure of ) the Guermantes’s world for the Verdurins’; Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor speculations; Joyce’s and Eliot’s ironic use of ancient myth; Rilke’s elegiac metaphysics of absence; Husserl on the “crisis” of the European sciences; Heidegger on the forgetting of Being; and the nightmare worlds of Beckett and Kafka, dominated by mere pretensions to genuineness and enlightenment. Tat this repetitive cycle continues uninterruptedly is clear enough in the trendy notion of antihumanism inaugurated by Foucault, and now reemergent in some infuential schools of Continental political theory. Tere is also a common historical narrative behind such contempt for the material marks of signifcant progress. Te fact that the basic world view of the early Enlightenment—secular, materialist, rational in a new modern sense of rationality—as a collective form of self-understanding and civilization, could not efectively support or sustain a vibrant, healthy common culture, that it instead fostered a culture of “possessive individualism,” selfshness, consumerism, and low-mindedness, emerged frst most dramatically in Rousseau’s Discourse on the Moral Efects of the Arts and Sciences in 1750, and soon became a staple of the Romantic complaint against secular modernization.2 But the attempt in efect to reanimate the modern project with an ideal capable of inspiring passionate allegiance, sacrifce, and selfess commitment, the ideal of each individual being, as Kant noted, of infnite or immeasurable worth, and this because each was free, in the sense of rationally autonomous, proved itself available for too many incompatible realizations, and the hope that over historical time such realizations would converge into a common shared culture

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Hegel called “ethical life” or Sittlichkeit, eventually seemed wildly optimistic and inconsistent with what emerged as a consensus in the West about the radical plurality of human goods. It is all of this, this understanding of the discourse about modernity and progress, and this sort of still very controversial historical narrative that brings us to the most decisive and thoughtful break in the understanding of so-called bourgeois modernity as progressive: the thought of Nietzsche and of Heidegger.

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I. Tere is a common phenomenon that links both Nietzsche and Heidegger in any discussion like this. It is a word invented by Jacobi to describe what he saw as the arrogance of modern German philosophy—their presumption of the absolute authority of reason and so to a wholly self-authorizing or self-grounding reason—and then elevated to world-historical signifcance by Nietzsche—“nihilism.” (Nietzsche’s supertelegraphic defnition in several places is “Nothing is true; everything is allowed.”)3 Tis notion lends itself to being interpreted as a historical event, an episode in late modern Western culture. Tat event is taken to be a widespread collapse of confdence in what Nietzsche calls our “highest values,” especially religious and moral values, at least among the educated classes in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Tese highest values have, according to Nietzsche, somehow “devalued themselves” and have left us with literally nothing, the nihil, to rely on. Heidegger, however, in his infuential series of lectures on Nietzsche in the 1930s, correctly noted that Nietzsche himself did not treat the phenomenon of nihilism as a mere historical event.4 Te phrase “the highest values devalue themselves” already indicates that. Te highest values of the European Enlightenment (which for both Nietzsche and Heidegger begins with Plato), the values we often think serve as the measure of cultural progress, and that are invoked by those who claim that real progress in this tradition has in fact occurred, are now unavailable and this for an odd reason: they have undermined themselves. Devaluation does not just happen. Heidegger elaborates: In Nietzsche’s view nihilism is not a Weltanschauung that occurs at some time and place or another; it is rather the basic character of what happens in Occidental history (Grundcharakter des Geschehens in der

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abendländlichen Geschichte). Nihilism is at work (am Werk) even—and especially—there where it is not advocated as doctrine or demand, there where ostensibly its opposite prevails. Nihilism means that the uppermost values devalue themselves. Tis means that whatever realities and laws set the standard in Christendom, in morality since Hellenistic times, and in philosophy since Plato, lose their binding force (verbindliche Kraft), and for Nietzsche that always means creative (schöpferische) force.5

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As the passage indicates, there is an event (a loss of “binding force”), but it is not a contingent moment, like the moral disintegration that a plague or disaster can cause, as in Tucydides. Indeed, the “event” or the fate of Western history as a whole is itself at issue. (Clearly, the scope and ambition of this claim are mind-boggling.) Tat sort of event character is captured in its magnitude by the famous phrase announced in Te Gay Science, “God is dead,” which Heidegger summarizes in an unusual way: “Te Christian God has lost his power (Macht) over beings (über das Seiende) and over the destiny (Bestimmung) of man.” He puts it this way: “Christian God” also stands for the “transcendent” (Übersinnliche) in general in its various meanings—for “ideals” and “norms,” “principles” and “rules,” “ends” and “values,” which are set “above” beings, in order to give being as a whole a purpose, an order, and—as it is succinctly expressed—“meaning” (Sinn). [For our purposes this is the crucial term.] Nihilism is that historical process whereby the dominance of the “transcendent” becomes null and void, so that all being loses its worth and meaning. Nihilism is the history of beings (die Geschichte des Seienden), through which the death of the Christian God comes slowly but inexorably to light.6 On the other hand, Nietzsche and Heidegger do not treat the crisis of nihilism as primarily an intellectual crisis, a problem of credible belief (although it is clearly also that). Tere has been no devastating argument or philosophical critique that has provoked such cultural collapse. Te situation is not described as analogous to a scientifc crisis—for example, the result of anomalies, experimental inconsistencies, efective refutations, and arguments that generate skepticism about and fnally rejection of a scientifc claim. In Nietzsche’s case, he often treats the phenomenon of nihilism not as a crisis

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of belief or will, but as some sort of pathology of human desire: either a collapse of desire altogether (in indiference or boredom, a lack of concern with what might be worth wanting), or a growing self-deceit about what it is we really desire, or a self-abasing reduction in the ambition of what is wanted. A frequent image here is of “bows” that have lost their “tension,” as in, from Zarathustra, “Alas, the time approaches when man will no longer launch the arrow of his longing beyond the human, and the string of his bow will have forgotten how to whir,”7 and the striking claim from Te Gay Science that “neediness is needed (Not ist nötig)!”8 Tat is, we now fnd nothing truly needful, nothing important worth wanting, worth sacrifcing for. What I want to suggest—and at this level of abstraction and thin philosophical air, it can only be a suggestion—is that there is a crucial element in this shift from a largely progressive to a declensionist narrative that is obscured by the notion that the highest values have devalued themselves, or even that God is dead. Tat element is the fact that there has been a change in the terms of assessment for both Nietzsche and Heidegger, and that when this assumption of a diferent measure is acknowledged, the question of why it has become such a pressing concern becomes a vital one. We can see this shift best by attending to what Heidegger goes on to say in the Nietzsche lectures, when he says that the highest values have lost their “binding force,” and that being loses worth and “meaning.” In Heidegger and in general, meaningfulness (in the sense of what he calls Bedeutsamkeit) is not sustained by beliefs about what is or should be meaningful. (Meaning, in a sense we need to consider more closely, is either found, or present, or experienced, or not.) A crisis in “meaning” is thus relatively independent of, deeper than, and presupposed by arguments, evidence, and so forth. Or, one should add immediately, deeper and diferent from any crisis in “value.” A practice that had made sense, an institution that had made sense, comes to seem senseless, something that can happen without a critique or an attack. It can even happen suddenly and mysteriously. And Heidegger had already said something striking about Nietzsche on nihilism that is relevant to this point. It slides by unremarked on, but it is immediately paradoxical. He had claimed that, far from being a matter of what can be believed or not, “Nihilism is at work even—and especially—there where it is not advocated as doctrine or demand, there where ostensibly its opposite prevails.”9 Nihilism is thus the sort of phenomenon that can appear, can be “at work,” even if unnoticed. But how can people sufer unknowingly from the devaluation to the point of meaninglessness of their highest values?

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To understand what Heidegger is getting at in his discussion of Nietzsche, we have to go a bit further into the Heideggerian weeds. Te fact that Heidegger summarizes the highest values that he lists as, most comprehensively, what “gives meaning” introduces the fundamental question of his entire career, since the lectures make clear that he wants to interpret Nietzsche as addressing (if incompletely) the most fundamental question of meaning, “the meaning of Being.” (Although Heidegger will turn against his own formulations about the meaning of Being, I note that he is still using such formulations as late as 1940.) Nevertheless, it remains quite controversial that Heidegger’s famous Seinsfrage, question of Being, is a meaning question, a question about the meaning of being. But in the lectures he leaves little doubt that this is the fundamental question. Consider this dispositive passage from the frst lectures in 1936–1937, “Te Will to Power as Art.” It addresses two of the questions just posed. Te expression “will to power” designates the basic character of beings; any being which is, insofar as it is, is will to power. Te expression stipulates the character that beings have as beings. But that is not at all an answer to the frst question of philosophy, its proper question; rather, it answers only the fnal preliminary question. For anyone who at the end of Western philosophy can and must still question philosophically, the decisive question is no longer merely “What basic character do beings manifest?” or “How may the Being of beings be characterized?” but “What is this ‘Being’ itself?” Te decisive question is that of “the meaning of Being” (Es ist die Frage nach dem Sinn des Seins), not merely that of the Being of beings. “Meaning” (Sinn) is thereby clearly delineated conceptually as that from which and on the grounds of which Being in general can become manifest as such and can come into truth.10 Although Heidegger had already, by 1929, begun to move away from the phenomenological approach of Being and Time (1927), and had pretty much rejected it by 1933, this sort of formulation about meaning as the central issue does not change. In Being and Time, Heidegger had proposed, as a preliminary way into the meaning of Being simpliciter, a phenomenological investigation of ordinary meaningfulness in our worldly dealings and in our self-relation, where “phenomenological” roughly means what it is like for us, for a human being—which Heidegger calls “Dasein”—to be out and about

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“understandingly” in the everyday world. “Meaningfulness” in that sense just means the unproblematic, immediate, unthematic intelligibility of what we deal with in our ongoing tasks and projects. Tis kind of intelligibility is just “familiarity” of the unrefective sort. Heidegger’s main opponent in such an account is a kind of representationalism, which holds that such familiarity is a result of the having of representations or beliefs about objects, representations that bestow meaning by our conscious attentiveness to what things are for, how they are used, what successful use consists in, and so forth. Tis view is, Heidegger claims, phenomenologically false and ultimately creates an unnecessary and unsolvable skepticism about the relation between representations and the world. By contrast, meaningfulness, familiarity, the unproblematic intelligibility of entities in the world, is a matter of our engaged, unthematic, skillful coping; of competence or know-how, correctly using the hammer, not “following” a representation of how it is to be used. Dasein is always already “in-the-world,” and does not originally or primordially represent objects in the world as objects of conscious intending. Dasein’s intelligibility to itself is a diferent matter, but also not a matter of representation. Dasein is the only being for whom the meaning of its being is “at issue.” Wolves don’t have to determine what it means to be a wolf or how to live a meaningful wolf life; they just are wolves. But the meaning of the being of Dasein is “to be,” possibility, a distinct modality of being Heidegger calls “existence.” (Tere is no fact of the matter or of nature that will settle what it is to be Dasein, always uniquely my Dasein. Nietzsche has a similar thought, that the human is the permanently “not yet fnished animal.”) At his most extreme in making this point, Heidegger even claims that Dasein is the “null basis of a nullity.” Tis opens onto quite a complicated set of issues, but the problem in this context is the Heideggerian “meaning of meaning,” for this is what is at the heart of the declensionist narrative we are interested in. Heidegger is aware that the question of the meaning of Being, the meaning of Dasein’s being, or the meaning of encountered beings, has a dual signifcance. Tere is “Bedeutsamkeit,” and there is “the Being of words and language,” and the claim is that the possibility of the latter is founded on the former. Tere is, that is, the linguistic notion of meaning, and the question is “What does the word ‘Being’ or the concept of Being mean, signify?” Or “What do we mean by ‘Dasein’?” When the question is “Do you understand what a hammer is?” it could be taken to mean “Do you understand what the word ‘hammer’ means?” But there is also a much broader notion of meaning, something like the “meaningfulness” that Heidegger designates as

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Bedeutsamkeit, translated above by “signifcance.” Questions about meaning in this sense would be “What did it mean that she didn’t show up for Tanksgiving dinner?” or “What is the meaning of this!?” or a claim like “I didn’t understand the meaning of that activity.” Or “After that, I found going to church meaningless.” Tis practical sense often refers to the goal or very “point” of some saying or doing. In this sense, understanding what objects around me mean is understanding how they ft into some structure of signifcance. Tey have a point within some more general purpose or end, itself intelligible in the light of higher-order goals. And so, I understand the meaning of the lectern, the classroom, the building, the university, my way to school, by being able to navigate unproblematically, and even for the most part unthinkingly, in such a familiar world. If, instead of a lectern, I one day stepped up to a child’s wading pool in the front of the class, I would not understand what its presence would mean, what to do. As noted, in the quotation above Heidegger says that the Being of words and language, what it is to be signifying language, signifcant speech, is “founded” on signifcance, meaningfulness in this practical sense, and that is a much more controversial claim. In the simplest example, the point he is making is relevant when we say in a certain context that we do not understand what someone meant by saying what she did, do not know how to respond to some speech act. Te context can indicate that we do not mean that we do not understand the literal or lexical meaning of what she said; we do not understand what she meant by saying what she said. We might say: we cannot see what the point was of her saying that then. It is in this context that we can say that we have to understand such an issue within the broader scope of the problem of practical meaningfulness or Bedeutsamkeit, the structure of implicit, presupposed purposiveness that is a necessary condition for this familiarity, the primordial level of everyday signifcance that Heidegger is investigating. Tat is the context in which the notion of a “point” to any linguistic usage is relevant; or, let us say, the context of “mattering.” Literal meaning would not be isolatable from this sort of context, goes the claim; language would be said to occur always already in a practical context like this, often not prominent (say, in science textbooks or lectures) but always presupposed (textbooks and lectures have their point), often quite prominent (in cases of confusion or misunderstanding). Everything we do, including speaking to or writing for each other, must be understood to occur in this purposive context, the context of mattering, revealing by what we do and say, and what we do not do and say, what matters and what does not, and thereby what makes sense and what does not.

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At this point we go a long way toward understanding the deeper point in Heidegger’s whole project if we simply note, with this material before us, that what has come to “matter” to us is not in any signifcant sense ever “up to us.” Tere may well be many things that we wish did not matter to us, that we know in some sense are insignifcant. But they do matter. We may never avow such concerns and never act on them, but they have come to matter; they are what matters to us despite ourselves. We also can suspect that what we avow and do may actually matter to us for reasons other than the reasoned-out reasons we think we are acting on. And there may be many activities or ideals or goals that we convince ourselves ought to matter to us a great deal, and we may act to achieve some, but we can do so without such issues ever really mattering to us. (Something else is mattering, perhaps, like our reputation.) Tis is something Heidegger calls the “thrownness” of human existence (Geworfenheit), and it is a point of perhaps the deepest afnity with Nietzsche’s own skepticism about our ordinary sense of the scope of conscious control and direction. But since we cannot simply decide what matters on the basis of some refection on what ought to matter, how do we explain, at the individual or social or even civilizational level, what has come to matter? With this in mind, we can appreciate the radicality of Heidegger’s basic early claim, the innovation responsible for the tremendous infuence of Being and Time over the rest of the century. Such practical teleology is not a specifc domain of intelligibility (just the way things “fall into” their unthematic and familiar places as we carry out a task, or don’t and obtrude as mere “present-at-hand” objects). Tat sort of familiarity and that aspect of our being-in-the-world is, rather, “fundamental,” is the horizon for all possible meaningfulness, in the original, prediscursive, unthematized sense suggested by Heidegger. Everything else, representational sense, for example, is derivative. (To say everything at once, this is one way, a pretty good way, of understanding “psychology,” as Nietzsche understands it, to be “frst philosophy.”) If we understand Nietzsche’s diagnosis of nihilism in these terms, then we can see that his view is in practice very like what the early Heidegger was suggesting: an interpretive account of basic mattering, where such mattering is itself treated as condition of sense, signifcance, meaning. Tis would be Nietzsche’s “interrogation of the meaning of Being.” He calls these sources of mattering “highest values,” but that can misleadingly suggest that individuals bestow value in intentional acts of valuation. His practice suggests rather that what actually matters in a practice or institution is often hidden, requiring the same sort of interpretive work to get at that is called for in

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understanding complex political struggles or ambitious novels or plays. (Te value language is as misleading as inferring from his skepticism about conscious determination of these values that they are determined by forces like “drives” or “instincts” “behind our backs.” Te way “what really matters” in doing something requires interpretive work need not be the opening to an appeal to causal accounts, about which Nietzsche expresses great skepticism. Tey can be hidden, unavailable, and determinative even if still “inside” the psychological or existential.) So, for example, according to Nietzsche, after Socrates (and all that he embodies and represents), “knowing the truth” had come very much to matter—matter too much for our own good, Nietzsche wants to say; too much was expected of it. It mattered above all, as if nothing could matter unless we could know why it ought to matter, as if this were how anything could really matter. With the impossibility of ever providing such grounds, mattering looked as contingent and arbitrary as taste. Given the Christian and Platonic expectations, that result had to look like nihilism.

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II. Tis puts us in a position to return to our questions about the measure of any putative progress, any putative progress in understanding such a measure, and whether there has been anything to measure, any progress. For example, if the fundamental human question is: what is the best human life, we might, somewhat paradoxically, think there has been progress in the “realization” of such a quest by our having come to understand in modernity that there is no common measure to any of the various answers to this question. Or, in the terms just introduced, we might have come to understand that possible lives can come to matter to some in a way unintelligible to others, or even that the question itself has ceased to matter to almost everyone. On the other hand, if we take our bearings from the fnitude of human life, and the fact that individual pursuits of interests inevitably confict, we might take the fundamental question to be what form of human life moderates such conficts so as to allow each to satisfy as many interests as possible, consistent with a like satisfaction for others, where such moderation requires a centralized monopoly of coercive force to ensure such a fairness. Te fundamental question would then be the question of justice, understood in its modern sense as legitimacy. But the fundamental question introduced by Nietzsche and Heidegger is a

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wholly new Basic Question, let us call it: What makes for a meaningful life? It is not as if these other questions do not bear on the question of progress. But the considerations we have been discussing suggest that they all propose something unexamined—that they have come to matter—and they open up the unsettling possibility that they could cease to matter; and simply and collectively cease to matter. From what we have seen of Nietzsche on the highest values devaluing themselves and Heidegger on the implications of forgetting the question of the meaning of being, they both seem to be suggesting that they have ceased to matter, even and especially when their mattering is insisted on most ardently. Tere are several weighty questions like this in modern philosophy that do not seem to have analogues in premodern thought and art, and I would like to spend some time now setting out a context of such historicality so that we might return to this “measure” we have discovered in Nietzsche and Heidegger, meaning, Sinn. One such historical phenomenon is the question of self-deceit. Te ancient world and Pauline and Augustinian Christianity paid plenty of attention to knowing the better and doing the worse, akrasia, or weakness of the will. I know what the right thing to do is, or what God wants me to do, and I want to do this, but I fnd in some moment that I am more drawn at that moment to some pleasure I know is wrong to indulge in, and I give in. But there do not appear to be discussions or representations of something like knowing the good, but successfully being able to convince oneself that one did not know it. Tis phenomenon is such a feature of the nineteenth-century novel that we think it must be a perennial problem but, in my view at least, it is not. And the presence of this realization changes everything. Te same thing could be said about what we seem required to call a virtue—authenticity—and it is linked with the self-deceit phenomenon. (I say “required to call a virtue” because a fascination with genuinely authentic characters can also be morally problematic. Interest in authenticity can also mean interest in, admiration for, gamblers, outlaws, social misfts, eccentric loners, and so forth.) Hypocrisy, of course, is a perennial human vice. It is representing oneself in public, adopting a public role, when one secretly knows that one is not committed to what one avows, would never actually do what one represents oneself as bound to do. But it is a diferent thing entirely to portray oneself honestly and straightforwardly but also feel that the role one has adopted and keeps genuine faith with, is nevertheless itself phony, requiring of oneself a kind of conduct one may dutifully perform, even while feeling that such a role and that sort of conduct is foreign to who one thinks one is, that

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such a role has been imposed on one; even, perhaps, that every available way of living in an age does not allow one, anyone, the free space to be who one really is. Tis is a condition that may well also be compounded by self-deceit; one knows that one is not able to, not allowed to, represent oneself as who one is, but can manage, over even a lifetime, to hide that somehow from oneself. And this concern also seems historically indexed. Tere is, for example, hypocrisy aplenty in Jane Austen novels, and so inauthenticity in that sense, but not the kind of sufering from social constraints that requires such a level of conformism that actual self-expression is always either very dangerous or impossible. Tere is, of course, a trace of such a realization in the roles women in the novels feel they are arbitrarily required to play, but they are also heroines of such wit and deftness that they always seem to succeed in bending such conventions to their will. As Lionel Trilling puts this whole situation: “Te hypocrite-villain, the conscious dissembler, has become marginal, even alien, to the modern imagination of the moral life. Te situation in which a person systematically misrepresents himself in order to practice upon the good faith of another does not readily command our interest, scarcely our credence. Te deception we best understand and most willingly give our attention to is that which a person works upon himself.”11 I introduce Trilling because according to him, this issue of authenticity is only properly understood as a late modern and reactive phenomenon. Trilling begins by suggesting that sincerity, understood as the avoidance of hypocrisy or the direct congruence between one’s avowed and one’s actual feelings, became signifcant only late in the sixteenth century and this for the frst time. He points out that it would be out of place if one were to ask it of Abraham or Achilles or Beowulf. He goes on to suggest that this was a singular modern virtue for over four hundred years, and that it often required some signifcant struggle to keep faith with sincerity, and more and more difcult struggle ever later in Western history. Tis was because, while there was increasing social mobility from the sixteenth century on, for a very long time, rank and blood were still all-important, meaning that one major mode of advancement had to be dissembling. But by the standards of the day, dissembling, like hypocritical fattery, was dishonorable, and that meant it had to be condemned in the name of sincerity. But, in what is clearly a kind of Hegelian dialectic, the more sincerity needed to be praised as a virtue, the more suspicious its expression became (that is, just as it became part of a social strategy). Tis came to some sort of dialectical crisis in Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew, where dissembling was openly praised; honest or sincere dissembling in other words. Tis then cast

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a shadow on sincerity as a virtue. Once it became publicly acknowledged as a virtue or even as signifcant, it became suspicious, a strategic means. Tis was compounded after Rousseau began to convince people that your expression of what you took yourself to be feeling, even if heartfelt on your part, was nevertheless the expression of what, as we would put it today, you had been socialized to feel, that our social dependence had grown so profound that even your most intimate feelings were artifcial, served the purposes of those who had cultivated them. So it came to pass that genuine self-expression could only be reliable in extremis, in actions that are deeply self-damaging, fouting conventional morality as merely conventional, actions in situations so extreme that they require wholly unprecedented creativity and boldness. In Heidegger, it requires an acknowledgment of one’s mortality so deep and thoroughgoing as to put out of play all everyday or conventional concerns, and in Nietzsche it seems to require something he ominously calls the will to power. And of course, with all this valorization of authenticity, it too threatens to be, now often is, a pose, a role to play. But these examples were meant to set out a context for what we have identifed as the major issue in the declensionist or antiprogressive narratives of Nietzsche and Heidegger. In fact, all of the above could be said to contribute to a loss of meaning, a failure of what had mattered to matter any longer, and all of them suggest a deep interconnection between an issue like mattering or meaning, and the altered social world in which it rises to prominence. Such a connection will provide us, I want to suggest in conclusion, with a possible alternative to Heidegger on the forgetting of being or Nietzsche on a selfdevaluation of value. For, as we have seen, many of these historically indexed questions about ourselves arise in a much-altered social world, and what has altered has never been addressed and discussed with such insight as Rousseau’s. To be clear: the claim here is that it is as unlikely that the threat of nihilism descends from the forgetting of the question of the meaning of being, or the self-devaluation of the highest values, or from any philosophical issue, as it is that attention to this altered social situation can only be a matter of social history, not philosophy. Rousseau’s picture of the modern world in which alienation, self-deceit, phoniness, and conformism all seem to be required for any commodious survival, is well known. In such a world, honor has been replaced by selfshness, warriors by courtiers, and fatterers, courageous actions by speeches, noble deeds by vain chatter. Te state or the homeland has been instrumentalized as

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a regulator of our attempts to make money, and this produces a false form of equality—equal competitors in the marketplace. Rousseau’s diagnosis of why this situation has come to pass is just as direct. It is famously captured by his remarks in the Second Discourse that modern “sociable man” lives “always outside himself, is capable of living only in the opinions of others, and so to speak derives the sentiment of his own existence only from their judgment.” Tis situation prompts the equally famous critique: “Forever asking others what we want, without ever daring to ask it of ourselves . . . we have nothing more than a deceiving and frivolous exterior.”12 We badly need to understand others to whom we are, because of this ever-greater division of labor and social dependence, vulnerable. We fear being misunderstood, or often we fear being truly understood, requiring the public and staged or partially staged personae so much a part of daily life. Rousseau seemed to think that simply being subject to such dependence produced the conformism and inauthenticity he saw emerging as a chief characteristic of modern societies, but it is just as much the case that there is a reaction against such a state of social being that is just as tempting and the implications of which are just as pernicious: a false sense of, or assertion of, individual autonomy, a self-deceived insistence on self-sufciency. Just what it is about the formation and structure of modern industrialized, bureaucratically managed societies and some increasing likelihood of and anxiety about theatrical public personae is a vast and complicated topic. It takes in everything from the conditions of modern labor, the nature of the bourgeois family, the changing role of women, the infuence of advertising and mass media, social media, and much else. But in a very general sense, some link between increasing social dependence (something that, for Rousseau, begins with the division of labor) and a growing fear of untrustworthy, theatricalized public personae, either in submission to this dependence or in self-deceived insistence on independence, is easy enough to see. We are conscious of this dependence and know that we must take some care, sometimes great care, about how we are perceived, if we are to achieve any of our ends, and that we must depend on others, knowing that they are also taking such care. Since each of us knows this about the other, part of taking such care involves assessing the genuineness of the self-representations of others, such that aspects of our own self-representation will already refect such an assessment. In ever more complicated networks of dependence, much of what we accept as fact, as reality, especially the large swath of reality that we cannot see or experience ourselves, is, unavoidably,

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a matter of testimony from others, others with whom we are sometimes in competition, and many others who, we know, have their own agendas and frailties. Tis is what gives us the endlessly complicated “world” of Laclos’s Les liaisons dangereuses, Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew, Chapter 4 of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and its famous struggle for recognition between opposed self-consciousnesses, and the novels of Henry James and Marcel Proust. Tis historical situation, an ever more complex web of dependencies ever more in tension with the ideals of independence that justify a free market and liberal democracy, is what produces such pressure for dissemblance, self-deceit, and a persistent threat of the theatrical, not the authentic. Such a self-dissatisfaction can also tempt one toward a rigoristic moralism as if in compensation, or a cynicism that must eventually admit to itself the nihilism diagnosed by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Te suggestion is that once we attend more closely to the altered social world within which historically specifc reaction formations emerge, we begin to see such phenomena not as directly descended from a philosophical crisis but as predictable given the conficting requirements of the form of social and economic life emerging and developing since the sixteenth century. Such a Hegelian response to the declensionist narratives that have so infuenced the collective mood of late modernity would also hold out some hope that the unstable dynamic between dependence and independence in such a life form could be reconceived as complementary rather than as contraries and realized as such. And that would surely count as “progress.”

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Notes

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Introduction 1. J. F. Lyotard, Te Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 2. Tis paragraph is indebted to several sources, as is the remainder of the introduction: H.  Arendt, Te Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 248–325; H. Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 2006), 41–90; E. Brann, “Te Roots of Modernity,” in Te Past-Present: Selected Writings of Eva Brann, ed. P. Kraus (Annapolis: St. John’s College Press, 1997), 143–51; H. Blumenberg, Te Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. R. M. Wallace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1966), 27–36; E. Cassirer, Te Philosophy of the Enlightenment, trans. F. C. A. Koelln and J. P. Pettegrove (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 197–233; M. Foucault, “What Is Critique?” in What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers to Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. J. Schmidt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 382–98; J. Habermas, “Modernity versus Postmodernity,” New German Critique 22 (1981): 3–14; J. Habermas, Te Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures, trans. F. Lawrence (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1990), 1–22; P. Hazard, European Tought in the Eighteenth Century: From Montesquieu to Lessing, trans. J. L. May (New York: Meridian Books, 1967), 437–68; R. Kennington, “Blumenberg and the Legitimacy of the Modern Age,” in Te Ambiguous Legacy of the Enlightenment, ed. W. A. Rusher (Lanham: University Press of America, 1995), 22–37; R.  Kennington, On Modern Origins, ed. P. Kraus and F. Hunt (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004), 57–78, 123–44, 251–70; J. Klein, Lectures and Essays, ed. R. B. Williamson and E. Zuckerman (Annapolis: St. John’s Press, 1985), 53–64; J. Robertson, Te Case for the Enlightenment: Scotland and Naples 1680–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 1–51, 377–405; S. Rosen, Te Ancients and the Moderns: Rethinking Modernity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 1–21. 3. For contrast, consider the concept of Yeridat ha-dorot (“Te decline of the generations”) in the tradition of Orthodox Judaism and rabbinical studies, or the words of Athena (as Mentor) to Telemachus in the Odyssey: “Few sons are the equals of their fathers; / most fall short, all too few surpass them.” Homer, Odyssey, trans. R. Fagels (New York: Penguin, 1997), Book II, Lines 309– 10; cf. Hesiod, Works and Days, trans. A. E. Stallings (New York: Penguin, 2018), Lines 109–200. 4. Cf. R. Kennington, “Final Causality and Modern Natural Right,” unpublished lecture delivered at Harvard, 1988. 5. For a conceptually lucid and historically informed introduction to this problem see R. F. Hassing, “Modern Natural Science and the Intelligibility of Human Experience,” in Final Causality in Nature and Human Afairs, ed. R. F. Hassing (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997), 211–55.

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6. Cf. D. Henrich, “Kant’s Notion of a Deduction and the Methodological Background of the First Critique,” in Kant’s Transcendental Deductions, ed. E. Förster (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 29–46. 7. Cf. H. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 4, 11, for an interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism as “metaepistemological” and a discussion of “epistemic conditions” or “the conditions of the possibility of representing objects” which denote “a propensity or mechanism of the mind, which governs belief or belief acquisition.” Such conditions are “objectivating conditions” since they delineate what things can and “cannot count as objects for us” and Kant’s transcendental idealism “specifes these conditions by means of an analysis of the discursive nature of human cognition” (Allison, Transcendental Idealism, 12). 8. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth CPR), trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Axii. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 9. I. Kant, “On the Common Saying Tat What May Be True in Teory Does Not Apply in Practice” (henceforth “Teory and Practice”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:307. 10. Kant, CPR, A805/B833. Cf. Kant’s account of the three critical questions in I. Kant, Lectures on Logic, trans. J. M. Young (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 9:25: “Te feld of philosophy in this cosmopolitan sense can be brought down to the following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope? 4. What is man? Metaphysics answers the frst question, morals the second, religion the third, and anthropology the fourth. Fundamentally, however, we could reckon all of this as anthropology, because the frst three questions relate to the last one. Te Philosopher must thus be able to determine: 1. the sources of human knowledge, 2. the extent of the possible and proftable use of all knowledge, and fnally 3. the limits of reason. Te last is the most necessary but also the hardest.” See also Kant’s letter of May 4, 1793 to C. F. Staudlin in I. Kant, Correspondence, trans. and ed. Arnulf Zweig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 11:429–30. For a helpful introduction to the integral role of the third critical question in the unity of reason, see S. Neiman, Te Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 145–84. On the epistemic status of hope (distinct from both knowledge [Wissen] and rational belief [Vernunftglaube]), its relation to diferent forms of possibility (empirical, formal, logical, and real), and its place within Kant’s system, see A. Chignell, “Rational Hope, Possibility and Divine Action,” in Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: A Critical Guide, ed. G. Michalson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 98–117. 11. N. Machiavelli, Te Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfeld (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 14–15. 12. See, for example, Aristotle, Politics, 1256b27–b40 and 1323a34–1323b10. Consider Aristotle’s condemnation of lending at interest as “the most contrary to nature” (Politics, 1258b1–8). Cf. T. Aquinas, Summa Teologica, ii.2.78. For an account of the connection between Machiavelli’s expansionist republicanism and economic growth see I. Hont, “Free Trade and the Economic Limits to National Politics: Neo-Machiavellian Political Economy Reconsidered,” in Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005), 185–66. See also P. Manent, Metamorphoses of the City: On the Western Dynamic, trans. M. LePain (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013), 204–9.

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13. See Plato’s account of pleonexia and the tyrannical soul in Te Republic; cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1129a30–1130a28, 1167b9–12, 1168b15–23. For a helpful discussion of the contrasting ancient and modern views of pleonexia, see M. Lane, “From Greed to Glory: Ancient to Modern Ethics––and Back Again?” in Eco-Republic: What the Ancients Can Teach Us about Ethics, Virtue, and Sustainable Living (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 32–41, 113–16, 118–24. Cf. A. O. Hirschman, Te Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013). 14. Aristotle, Politics, 1265a20–27, 1325al–15 and b15–31. Cf. Plato’s Menexenus in Empire and the End of Politics, trans. S. Collins and D. Staufer (Newbury: Focus Publishing, 1999). Te most amusing of such criticisms is made by Aristophanes in the Acharnians, the Lysistrata, and the Birds. Te most sustained of such criticisms is Tucydides. See C. Orwin, Te Humanity of Tucydides (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 196–206. 15. Machiavelli, Te Prince, 35. Machiavelli appears to generalize this claim about the motivation driving human action, asserting, “for one sees that in the things that lead men to the end that each has before him, that is, glories and riches, they proceed variously” (Machiavelli, Te Prince, 99). Tough the means may difer, there are only two possible ends one might pursue— glories or riches. Tese are in principle limitless: one would always wish to have more of such goods. 16. Machiavelli, Te Prince, 24, 49. 17. Machiavelli does not attempt to prove that only half our actions are subject to fortune; rather it is for the sake of liberating human beings that he puts forward this doctrine, which he is careful to put in the optative. 18. Machiavelli, Te Prince, 98. Te epistemology of Machiavelli as the teacher of “the efectual truth” should be applied to this statement (Machiavelli, Te Prince, 61). Te truth of the statement depends on men believing it: if men believe it to be true, then it is true and fortune is less powerful than she would otherwise be. It is a provocation to change the relation between man and fortuna in the future. If the future turns out a certain way, Machiavelli will be proved correct; the future provides the measure for judging the truth of the proposition. In short, the whole conception of truth has changed, because a truth claim is no longer an atemporal claim. 19. Machiavelli, Te Prince, 12–13. 20. Cf. Machiavelli, Te Prince, 55–57. 21. F. Bacon, “Advancement of Learning and Division of the Sciences,” in Selected Philosophical Works, ed. R. M. Sargent (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999), II.xxi.9. 22. F. Bacon, “Te Great Instauration,” in Selected Philosophic Works, ed. R. M. Sargent (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999), 66. 23. M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991), 21. 24. Bacon, “Te Great Instauration,” 90. 25. Bacon, “Te Great Instauration,” 77. 26. Bacon, “Te Great Instauration,” 68, 67. 27. See Aristotle’s criticism of Hippodamus for an indication of Aristotle’s concern that technical innovation, even though it may be advantageous, will have destabilizing political consequences (Aristotle, Politics, 1268a7–8 and 1268b23f.). 28. Aristotle, Physics, 199a15f. Nevertheless, compare Aristotle’s remark in Mechanical Problems, 847a12–22. Tere is already a suspicion about man’s capacity for mechanism in Greek poetry: see, for example, the Ode to Man from Sophocles’s Antigone––note that man is deinoteron and the employer of mēchanoi.

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Notes to Pages 7–9

29. Bacon, “Te Great Instauration,” 68. Cf. Machiavelli, Prince, 22–24, 100. 30. Bacon, “Te Great Instauration,” 74–75. 31. F. Bacon, “Te New Organon,” in Selected Philosophic Works, ed. R. M. Sargent (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999), 126–27. Consider that despair is among the greatest of Christian sins (see Aquinas, Summa Teologica, ii.2.4). 32. Bacon, “Te New Organon,” 126–27. 33. For an account of Bacon’s political thought, see R. K. Faulkner, Francis Bacon and the Project of Progress (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefeld, 1993), 201–82. 34. R. Descartes, Discourse on Method, trans. R. Kennington, ed. P. Kraus and F. Hunt (Newbury: Focus, 2007), 49. 35. Descartes, Discourse on Method, 49. 36. Cf. Descartes’s letter of 1641 to Mersenne about Meditations on First Philosophy: there are several “things that I want people mainly to notice. But I included many other things besides; and I may tell you, between ourselves, that these six meditations contain all the foundations of my physics. But please do not tell people, for that might make it harder for supporters of Aristotle to approve them. I hope that readers will gradually get used to my principles, and recognize their truth, before they notice that they destroy the principles of Aristotle.” R. Descartes, Philosophic Writings of Descartes Vol. 3: Te Correspondence, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothof, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 172–73. 37. Tis Lockean vision, like Hobbes’s, seeks to minimize the role of glory in political afairs. Tough less overt than Hobbes’s all-out assault on vainglory as the stupidest of the passions, Locke is forever reminding his reader that he has a stomach and that he’s hungry: the appetitive part of the soul is the locus of the true interest of the whole. 38. J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 9–10. Note also Locke’s description of the motivation for undertaking his work: “It was necessary to examine our own abilities, and see, what objects our understandings were, or were not ftted to deal with” (Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 7). Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan, iv.21, v.5–20. See also, Richard Velkley’s discussion of the “anarchy of words” in “Te Fate of Human Action: Te Agency of Reason in Modern Philosophy,” Review of Metaphysics 72 (2019): 731–38. 39. Newton’s Principia was published in 1687 and established the foundations for the application of calculus to both the celestial motion of planets and the mundane trajectory of cannon balls. In ofering a solution to the age-old problem of squaring the circle, Newton and Leibniz transform our understanding of the cosmos. Compare the frst eleven lemmas and their corollaries as well as the Scholium in I. Newton, Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, ed. B. Cohen, A. Whitman, and J. Budenz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016), 431–43 with Archimedes, “Measurement of a Circle,” in Te Works of Archimedes, ed. T. Heath (New York: Dover Books, 2002), 91–98. For a magisterial survey of the importance of Newton for modern European philosophy see A. Koyré, “Te Signifcance of the Newtonian Synthesis,” in Newtonian Studies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), 3–24. 40. In both the material realm and the intellectual realm, man’s right is predicated on his labor. Appropriation and adaptation of the given entails transforming what was relatively useless into something useful. As opposed to the presumed natural receptivity of the mind to the world, human understanding in fact consists in the active deconstruction and reconstruction of the given. Tis orientation of the mind is evident in Locke’s deployment of one of the most basic epistemic distinctions, namely, that between primary and secondary qualities. Te

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world as experienced is a world of secondary qualities—these are frst for us. Primary qualities require abstraction from the given and the postulation of something more fundamental, which accounts for our experience. Yet having discovered these, we uncover that which is susceptible to manipulation, i.e., causes operate at the level of primary qualities to produce efects at the level of secondary qualities. 41. C. L. Montesquieu, Te Spirit of the Laws, ed. and trans. A. M. Cohler, B. C. Miller, and H. S. Stone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), Book 21, Ch. 5. 42. Montesquieu, Te Spirit of the Laws, Preface. 43. Montesquieu, Te Spirit of the Laws, Book 20, Ch. 1. 44. Montesquieu, Te Spirit of the Laws, Book 20, Ch. 1; Book 20, Ch. 2. Yet Montesquieu does recognize a trade-of here: the virtue of ancient republics requires identifcation of one’s good with the good of the whole, and since self-renunciation is always a very painful thing, a powerful and coherent set of customs, mores, and laws (undergirded by a civil religion) was necessary for its maintenance. Te problem animates the discussion about the relative merits of an open versus a closed society, which intersects with the contentious debates surrounding international rivalry and commerce. See I. Nakhimovsky, Te Closed Commercial State: Perpetual Peace and Commercial Society from Rousseau to Fichte (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); I. Hont, Jealousy of Trade, 1–156; cf. I. Hont, “Political Economy: Nationalism, Emulation, and War,” in Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith, ed. B. Kapossy and M. Sonenscher (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015), 111–32. 45. Montesquieu, “Discourse on the motives that ought to encourage us to the sciences,” as quoted in D. Schaub, “Montesquieu, Commerce, and Science,” in Mastery of Nature: Promises and Prospects, ed. S. Y. Minkov and B. L. Trout (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), 73. Tis paragraph as well as other parts of this introduction are indebted to Schaub’s outstanding essay. 46. Montesquieu, Te Spirit of the Laws, Book 20, Ch. 2. Cf. Book 19, Ch. 8: “As one allows one’s spirit to become frivolous, one constantly increases the branches of commerce.” Cf. his description of the English character; note especially the themes of competition and envy (ibid., Book 11, Ch. 6; Book 19, Ch. 27). See also, I. Hont, “Te Early Enlightenment Debate on Commerce and Luxury,” in Te Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Tought, ed. M. Goldie and R. Wolker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 377–418. 47. Anterior to the novel problems generated by life in modern commercial society is the problem of the division between political authority and religious authority. See J. J. Rousseau, Of the Social Contract in Te Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. V. Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 145–47. 48. J. J. Rousseau, “Letter to Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes on 12 January 1762,” in Te Confessions and the Correspondence, trans. C. Kelly, ed. C. Kelly, R. D. Masters, and P. G. Stillman (Hanover: Dartmouth College Press, 1995), 575–76. 49. J. J. Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men or Second Discourse, in Te Discourses and Other Early Political Writings, ed. V. Gourevitch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 50. R. L. Velkley, Being after Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). 51. I. Kant, “Remarks in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime,” in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings, ed. P. Frierson and P. Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 96.

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52. S. M. Shell and R. L. Velkley, “Rousseau and Kant: Rousseau’s Kantian Legacy,” in Tinking with Rousseau: From Machiavelli to Schmitt, ed. H. Rosenblatt and P. Schweigert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 192–210. 53. While the epistemic problem is certainly important (as the 1773 Hertz letter makes clear), we contend that the Rousseauean critique of modernity as essentially alienating and dehumanizing was foremost in Kant’s mind, spurring Kant to rethink the foundations not only of epistemology, for the sake of addressing das Erkenntnisproblem, but of all rational activity as such. As Kant stresses in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method in CPR, philosophy is the ultimate legislator for human reason, determining the proper ends of all the sciences and all practicalmoral activity (CPR, A707/B735–A753/B781, A795/B823–A/B884). See R. L. Velkley, Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral Foundation of Kant’s Critical Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); cf. A. Ferrarin, Te Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 25–103. 54. Te difculty in this movement and its relevance for both theoretical and practical reason is neatly captured in a diferent idiom in T. Nagel, Te View from Nowhere (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 3–12. 55. Kant, CPR, Bii. 56. Kant, CPR, Axiii. 57. Kant, CPR, A851/B879. 58. Kant, CPR, Aviii–xiii; A855/B883. 59. See M. Mendelssohn, Morning Hours, in Last Works, trans. B. Rosenstock (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012), 3–6. Cf. H. Heine, On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, ed. and trans. T. Pinkard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 78–90. 60. Contemporaries compared the philosophic revolution inaugurated by Kant to the political revolution occurring in France. See D. Henrich, “Te French Revolution and Classical German Philosophy: Toward a Determination of Teir Relation,” in Aesthetic Judgement and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 85–99. 61. I. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (henceforth “Idea”), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:23. Note in the elaboration of the problem Kant’s modifcation of the political dilemma arising from the discrepancy between one’s own individual will and the general will as diagnosed by Rousseau in Te Social Contract: “Tus, he needs a master, who breaks his stubborn will (eigenen Willen) and necessitates him to obey a universally valid will with which everyone can be free. But where will he get this master? Nowhere else but from the human species. But then this master is exactly as much an animal who has need of a master. Try as he may, therefore, there is no seeing how he can procure a supreme power (Gewalt) for public right that is itself just, whether he seeks it in a single person or in a society of many who are selected for it” (Kant, “Idea,” 8:23). However, even as Kant acknowledges the intractable nature of the ancient political problem of who could have the right to rule, he is setting up his ingenious and very modern response: we need not solve the political problem so long as we are resolved to make progress toward its solution—the intention and direction of our eforts sufces to secure our true end, namely, morality. Autonomy does not consist in achievement of the end but in willing that end, even if the attainment of the end is in principle impossible. In Kant’s famous image: “Tis problem is therefore the most difcult of all; indeed, its perfect solution is even impossible; out of such crooked wood as the human being is made, nothing entirely straight can be fabricated.” And thus, even though the key to a truly just political order is that “the highest

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supreme authority . . . ought to be just in itself and yet a human being,” it is not necessary to solve the political problem; for “only the approximation to this idea is laid upon us by nature” (Kant, “Idea,” 8:23). As Kant elaborates in the accompanying footnote, “the role of the human being is thus very artifcial” and thus confronts us with the peculiar spectacle that “this commission of nature” is fulflled only by the artifce of history, for no member of humanity can “fully attain his vocation in his lifetime . . . only the species can hope for this” (Kant, “Idea,” 8:23). We see in this passage three crucial features of Kant’s account: (1) the indispensable role of progress toward an idea, (2) the importance of hope in the comportment of the moral agent, and (3) the importance of the individual moral agent identifying with the progress of the human species in the fulfllment of humanity’s vocation. 62. Cf. Bacon, New Organon, 95–109. 63. See Kant, “Idea,” 8:26; cf. I. Kant, “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:120; and I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:431–32.

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Chapter 1 1. I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:32. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 2. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth CPR), trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A549f/B577f. 3. Kant, CPR, A549f/B577; I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5:99. 4. Kant, CPR, A536/B564. 5. Kant, CPR, A536/B564. 6. On the standard view, see A. Wood, “Kant’s Compatibilism,” in Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. A. W. Wood (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 79–101; A. Wood, Kantian Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 135–41; and D. Pereboom, “Kant on Transcendental Freedom,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 73 (2006): 537–67. For metaphysically less ambitious alternatives, see C. Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 159–87; and H. Allison, Kant’s Teory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 7. Kant, CPR, A533/B561. 8. Kant, CPR, B478, A451/B479. 9. Kant, CPR, A539/B567. 10. Kant, CPR, A538/B566. 11. Kant, CPR, A547/B575. 12. Kant, CPR, A555f/B583f. 13. Kant, CPR, A548/B576. 14. Cf. I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth GMM), ed. M. Gregor and J. Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4:412.

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Notes to Pages 24–32

15. Cf. Kant, GMM, 4:422. 16. Kant, GMM, 4:400. 17. Kant’s concept of “radical evil” is a description of this tendency. See Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford’s essay in this volume for a more detailed discussion of Kant’s conception of radical evil and his signifcance for the question of the nature and possibility of moral progress. 18. Kant, Religion, 6:50. 19. Cf. I. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, ed. J. B. Schneewind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 27:356. 20. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27:244. 21. Kant, Lectures on Ethics, 27:261. 22. Cf. Kant, CPrR, 5:30. 23. Kant, CPrR, 5:30. 24. Kant, CPrR, 5:45f. 25. Cf. Kant, GMM, 4:456. 26. Kant, Religion, 6:51. 27. Kant, Religion, 6:44, cf. 6:50. 28. Cf. C. McGinn, Problems in Philosophy: Te Limits of Inquiry (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 1993). 29. Kant, Religion, 6:21n. 30. Kant, Religion, 6:23. 31. Cf. D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 2.3.2. 32. Kant, Religion, 6.21n.; Kant, GMM, 4:463. 33. Kant, Religion, 6:21. 34. Kant, CPJ, 5:467. 35. Cf. Kant, GMM, 4:406–8.

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Chapter 2 1. See, for example, I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth CPR), trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A822/B850; and I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (henceforth CPJ), trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:467–68. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften (henceforth KgS), Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 2. Kant, CPR, A822/B850. 3. Kant, CPR, A822/B850. 4. Kant, CPR, A822/B850. 5. Kant, CPJ, 5:674. 6. A. Chignell, “Belief in Kant,” Philosophical Review 116 (2007): 327. 7. Kant, CPR, A822/B850–A823/B851. 8. Kant, CPR, A822/B850–A823/B851. 9. Kant, KgS, 9:70–71. 10. Chignell, “Belief in Kant,” 334.

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11. Cf. I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5:143n. 12. Chignell, “Belief in Kant,” 337–57. 13. Kant, CPrR, 5:108. 14. Kant, KgS, 24:149. 15. Kant, CPrR, 5:143. 16. Kant, CPrR, 5:142. 17. Kant, CPrR, 5:4, Kant’s emphasis. 18. Kant, CPrR, 5:4. 19. I. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth MM), in Practical Philosophy, trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:447. 20. I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth GMM), ed. M. Gregor and J. Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4:403. 21. Kant, CPrR, 5:155n. 22. Kant, MM, 6:466, emphasis added. 23. Kant, MM, 6:466. 24. Kant, CPrR, 5:122, emphasis added. 25. I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:47. 26. See Oliver Sensen’s discussion of this problem in the present volume. 27. Kant, Religion, 6:51. 28. Kant, CPrR, 5:122. 29. Kant, KgS, 27:605–7. 30. Kant, KgS, 27:606. 31. Kant, GMM, 4:448. 32. Kant, GMM, 4:405. 33. See K. Moran, “Delusions of Virtue: Kant on Self-Conceit,” Kantian Review 19 (2014): 419–47; and L. Papish, Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). 34. Kant, KgS, 27:610–11. 35. See Naomi Fisher’s treatment of Kant’s account of historical progress in CPJ and Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford’s discussion of Kant’s account of human progress in the Religion for other helpful explorations of this possibility. 36. Kant, CPrR, 5:119; 5:142. 37. Lewis White Beck, A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). 38. I. Kant, Te Confict of the Faculties (henceforth Confict), trans. M. J. Gregor (New York: Abaris Books, 1979), 7:85. 39. Kant, GMM, 4:398. See Susan Shell’s detailed treatment of Kant’s account of the French Revolution and the signifcance of the ostensibly new Denkungsart evinced by the disinterested spectators in the present volume. 40. Kant, Confict, 7:85. 41. Kant, GMS, 4:448. 42. See Rachel Zuckert’s essay in the present volume for an alternative approach to this question, which serves as a useful complement to the approach pursued in what follows.

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Notes to Pages 43–50 43. Kant, KgS, 27:431–32. 44. Kant, CPJ, 5:275–76. 45. Kant, CPJ, 5:275–76. 46. Kant, MM, 6:456–58. 47. Kant, MM, 6:473. 48. Kant, MM, 6:463. 49. Kant, MM, 6:463–64. 50. Kant, KgS, 27:249.

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Chapter 3 1. Cf. I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth GMM), ed. M. Gregor and J. Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4:393. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–). 2. Note that it is rational approval that makes something good or bad, i.e., that makes it possess objective practical value, which comes from within the subject and cannot be deduced from mind-independent facts. 3. In Kant’s strict philosophical sense, goodness is always objective and agent-neutral. Unlike the pleasant, the good is conceptual and subject to the approval of impartial reason. Te locus classicus is in I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5:58. 4. Kant, GMM, 4:402. See also Kant, GMM, 4:437–39, where the good will is characterized in terms of the basic formulation of the categorical imperative and the new variant formulations introduced in Section II of the GMM. 5. In the context of ethics, pfichtmäßig is the word that comes closest in meaning to our modern “right.” Words like recht or richtig do not feature prominently in GMM or CPrR. 6. Note that it does not even make sense to speak of a “right” person, agent, or human being. 7. Kant, Refexionen, 7036. 8. I shall use the more established term “moral progress.” But it would be more accurate to speak about “ethical” progress, since both the philosophy of law and ethics are covered by the more general term “moral philosophy.” Kant’s own terminology is inconsistent. He frequently sets the “legality” (Legalität) of actions against their “morality” (Moralität), e.g., Kant, CPrR, 5:71. 9. See Kant, CPrR, 5:61. 10. See A. Reath, “Hedonism, Heteronomy, and Kant’s Principle of Happiness,” in A. Reath, Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Teory: Selected Essays (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), 33–66, for an attempt to soften the apparent hedonism of the CPrR; as well as B. Herman, “Rethinking Kant’s Hedonism,” in B. Herman, Moral Literacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008), 176–202, for a defense of a more traditional account against Reath’s criticisms. 11. Kant, CPrR, 5:23. 12. See Kant, GMM, 4:413–14n, 4:459–60n. See J. Timmermann, “Acting from Duty: Inclination, Reason and Moral Worth,” in Kant’s “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals”: A Critical Guide, ed. J. Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 45–62, for a detailed discussion of these two notes and the mistaken belief that the moral motive is needed

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solely as a backup for cases in which inclination-based motives might fail to produce the right (e.g., benefcent) act. 13. I. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth MM), in Practical Philosophy, trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:376. 14. Kant, MM, 6:383. 15. Kant, MM, 6:387. 16. Kant, MM, 6:441. 17. I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:29–30. 18. Kant, GMM, 4:410–11. 19. We have already seen that, for very good reasons, Kant wants judgment to have a decisive role in determining moral action. It is not sufcient that an action be—accidentally—in outward conformity with moral standards. A morally good action must be triggered by a judgment of moral appropriateness. 20. Kant, GMM, 4:410. 21. Kant, GMM, 4:410–11. 22. Kant, GMM, 4:411n. 23. Kant, GMM, 4:411n. 24. Kant, GMM, 4:411n. 25. Kant, CPrR, 5:151–52. 26. Kant, CPrR, 5:152–53. 27. Kant, CPrR, 5:155–56. 28. Consider, in this context, Oliver Sensen’s discussion in this volume of Kant’s understanding of the claim that “ought implies can.” 29. Kant, MM, 6:399–400. 30. Cf. Kant, MM, 4:402. 31. Te prime example is Kant’s uncompromising condemnation of lying in his 1797 essay on the topic. See, e.g., H. J. Paton, “An Alleged Right to Lie: A Problem in Kantian Ethics,” Kant-Studien 45 (1954): 190–203; and C. M. Korsgaard, “Te Right to Lie: Kant on Dealing with Evil,” Philosophy and Public Afairs 15 (1986): 325–49. 32. See Kant, GMM, 4:421n. 33. See B. Ludwig, “Die Einteilungen der Metaphysik der Sitten im Allgemeinen und die der Tugendlehre im Besonderen,” in Kant’s “Tugendlehre”: A Comprehensive Commentary, eds. A. Trampota, O. Sensen, and J. Timmermann (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 59–84. 34. Depending on context, Kant draws this type of distinction in several diferent ways. He contrasts, e.g., “perfect” or “strict” with “imperfect” or “wide” duties, “necessary” or “essential” duties with “contingent” or “nonessential” duties, “owed” duties with “meritorious” duties, or juridical duties of “right” with ethical duties of “virtue.” 35. See J. Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas? Moral Confict in Kant’s Ethical Teory,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 95 (2013): 36–64, for an extensive discussion of how midlevel moral norms generate distinct types of obligation. 36. I shall adopt Kant’s occasional restrictive use of the word “law.” 37. As Kant argues in his 1797 essay on lying, truthfulness is not to be limited by considerations of expediency, i.e., by means-ends reasoning. 38. Kant, MM, 6:224.

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39. Te highly contentious details of Kant’s theory of practical contradiction need not concern us here. For a recent account see J. Timmermann, “A Tale of Two Conficts: On Pauline Kleingeld’s New Reading of the Formula of Universal Law,” Kant-Studien 109 (2018): 581–96. 40. Tis duty is not to be confused with the duty to keep (or not to break) promises already made, which requires a separate argument. 41. Tat, at any rate, was Kant’s view, and that of many of his contemporaries. 42. For a careful discussion of casuistry and casuistical questions see R. Schüssler, “Kant und die Kasuistik: Fragen zur Tugendlehre,” Kant-Studien 103 (2012): 70–95. 43. Kant’s distinction between general “duties” (Pfichten) and particular, all-thingsconsidered “obligations” (Verbindlichkeiten) to do something is incredibly helpful here. Owing to my duty (type) to be helpful I have an obligation (token) to call a doctor when I see that someone has been badly injured. See Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas?” 44. Tis directly afects the sphere of right. Kant wants juridical duties to be paradigms of clarity. 45. Te agent is vicious only if he ignores the need to help on principle (because he lacks the maxim of benefcence or—which once the question has arisen comes to the same thing—has a maxim of nonbenefcence or indiference). See Kant, MM, 6:390, and M. Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). 46. Note, however, that even in the latter case, the primary target of moral action is the action itself, not the end to which it commits us. It is because we see that assistance is morally required that—in very practical terms—we want the other person to be better of, so we call an ambulance. Not vice versa. Te moral law is frst. Te end is our duty because the moral law bids us adopt it. 47. See Kant, Religion, 6:23. 48. See above for a discussion of the distinction between interest in the object and interest in acting itself. 49. Kant, Religion, 6:23. 50. Similarly, we are forced to make a choice between two contradictory maxims, to adopt the one or the other, if the categorical imperative yields the result that the maxim one was initially inclined to act on is illegitimate. As we have to act one way or the other, we cannot retreat or reserve judgment. Tat is why, in Kant’s fourth illustration of the categorical imperative, deciding not to adopt the maxim of benefcence is tantamount to adopting a maxim of nonbenefcence or indiference. 51. See Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford’s essay in this volume for a detailed analysis of the puzzling implications of Kant’s account of radical evil. 52. Kant, CPrR, 5:146. 53. Tat is why Kant’s formalism is not empty. Reason has to work with the input provided by felicifc calculation. 54. It cannot be wholly inevitable; if it were, it would not be a free choice, which it has to be. In the fnal consequence, this act—though extremely likely—cannot be adequately explained. 55. Kant, Religion, 6:47. 56. Tat is to say, the principal end of moral action is the action itself. 57. Barring, perhaps, another radical reversal, i.e., a return to an evil disposition, under extreme continuous pressure––a possibility that Kant (unlike the Stoics) cannot dismiss out of hand. What may seem to count against the reading proposed here is Kant’s notion of “frailty,” which seems to allow for lapses favoring inclination even though “the good (the law)” has been incorporated into the agent’s maxim. If the above account is correct, these lapses would have to be confned to the realm of imperfect duty, of doing good.

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39. Te highly contentious details of Kant’s theory of practical contradiction need not concern us here. For a recent account see J. Timmermann, “A Tale of Two Conficts: On Pauline Kleingeld’s New Reading of the Formula of Universal Law,” Kant-Studien 109 (2018): 581–96. 40. Tis duty is not to be confused with the duty to keep (or not to break) promises already made, which requires a separate argument. 41. Tat, at any rate, was Kant’s view, and that of many of his contemporaries. 42. For a careful discussion of casuistry and casuistical questions see R. Schüssler, “Kant und die Kasuistik: Fragen zur Tugendlehre,” Kant-Studien 103 (2012): 70–95. 43. Kant’s distinction between general “duties” (Pfichten) and particular, all-thingsconsidered “obligations” (Verbindlichkeiten) to do something is incredibly helpful here. Owing to my duty (type) to be helpful I have an obligation (token) to call a doctor when I see that someone has been badly injured. See Timmermann, “Kantian Dilemmas?” 44. Tis directly afects the sphere of right. Kant wants juridical duties to be paradigms of clarity. 45. Te agent is vicious only if he ignores the need to help on principle (because he lacks the maxim of benefcence or—which once the question has arisen comes to the same thing—has a maxim of nonbenefcence or indiference). See Kant, MM, 6:390, and M. Baron, Kantian Ethics Almost without Apology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). 46. Note, however, that even in the latter case, the primary target of moral action is the action itself, not the end to which it commits us. It is because we see that assistance is morally required that—in very practical terms—we want the other person to be better of, so we call an ambulance. Not vice versa. Te moral law is frst. Te end is our duty because the moral law bids us adopt it. 47. See Kant, Religion, 6:23. 48. See above for a discussion of the distinction between interest in the object and interest in acting itself. 49. Kant, Religion, 6:23. 50. Similarly, we are forced to make a choice between two contradictory maxims, to adopt the one or the other, if the categorical imperative yields the result that the maxim one was initially inclined to act on is illegitimate. As we have to act one way or the other, we cannot retreat or reserve judgment. Tat is why, in Kant’s fourth illustration of the categorical imperative, deciding not to adopt the maxim of benefcence is tantamount to adopting a maxim of nonbenefcence or indiference. 51. See Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford’s essay in this volume for a detailed analysis of the puzzling implications of Kant’s account of radical evil. 52. Kant, CPrR, 5:146. 53. Tat is why Kant’s formalism is not empty. Reason has to work with the input provided by felicifc calculation. 54. It cannot be wholly inevitable; if it were, it would not be a free choice, which it has to be. In the fnal consequence, this act—though extremely likely—cannot be adequately explained. 55. Kant, Religion, 6:47. 56. Tat is to say, the principal end of moral action is the action itself. 57. Barring, perhaps, another radical reversal, i.e., a return to an evil disposition, under extreme continuous pressure––a possibility that Kant (unlike the Stoics) cannot dismiss out of hand. What may seem to count against the reading proposed here is Kant’s notion of “frailty,” which seems to allow for lapses favoring inclination even though “the good (the law)” has been incorporated into the agent’s maxim. If the above account is correct, these lapses would have to be confned to the realm of imperfect duty, of doing good.

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58. Kant, MM, 6:390. 59. Benefcence—adopting the happiness of other human beings as one’s own end—is used as a mere illustration. Benefcence must not only be curtailed by perfect duty, but also balanced by a similarly virtuous commitment to our own perfection. In other words, I do not wish to suggest that a virtuous person is someone who simply maximizes the happiness of others. 60. I exclude the option of malice. Kant suggests that we arrive at the maxim of benefcence by reacting against our natural selfshness, which makes us inclined to count the interests of others for nothing. But the categorical imperative will teach someone who is inclined to harm others—and in this sense is not indiferent to their well-being—much the same lesson, namely that there is a command of pure reason to adopt and foster an attitude of helpfulness. 61. I shall turn to the question of how moral progress is brought about in the next and fnal section. 62. Kant, GMM, 4:406–7. 63. A similar story can be told, mutatis mutandis, about cases of easy rescue: a minimally virtuous agent would respond appropriately and come to the aid of others. 64. Tere are two reasons why the duty of veracity is a particularly good example. First of all, lying is relatively widespread. It thus makes a much better touchstone of moral reform than, e.g., murder or theft. Second, the agent is in a privileged position to say whether or not he has lied, particularly since Kant’s defnition of lying is subjectivist (see 8:426). We lie when we say what we do not believe to be true (or believe to be false); and we hold many mistaken beliefs. Objective falsity is not required either for an untruthful statement to count as a lie or for such a statement to be morally reprehensible. It is therefore not uncommon for a lie to express a truth; and in this case (among others) the addressee or observer will fail to detect it. 65. See Kant, GMM, 4:400n, 4:420–21n. 66. Kant, MM, 6:390. 67. A little later in the introduction Kant says that the moral progress one has made can be measured against the size of the obstacles that are overcome (Kant, MM, 6:405). 68. Tis is not to suggest that there are obligations that are not obligatory. Rather, a less weighty obligation is one that results from a ground of obligation that is easily vanquished by other, weightier grounds, such as—to remain within the realm of benefcence—cases of easy rescue. 69. See Kant, Religion, 6:186. 70. Kant, Religion, 6:186. See J. Timmermann, “Quod dubitas, ne feceris. Kant on using Conscience as a guide,” Studi Kantiani 29 (2016): 163–67.

Chapter 4 I thank students in seminars on eighteenth-century philosophy of history for good discussions, with particular thanks to Carlos Pereira di Salvo and Taylor Rogers. For insightful comments on earlier drafts of this essay, I am grateful to Kyla Ebels-Duggan, Sam Filby, Naomi Fisher, Katalin Makkai, and Jeremy Schwartz, and to audiences at the American Philosophical Association Central Division meeting (Kansas City, 2017), the Afterlife of Phenomenology workshop at Northwestern University, and at the Kant and the Possibility of Progress conference at Boston College. 1. A. Honneth, “Te Irreducibility of Progress: Kant’s Account of the Relationship between Morality and History,” Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Teory 8 (2007): 1–17. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften,

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Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 2. I. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (henceforth “Idea”), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:17–18. 3. Kant, “Idea,” 8:19. 4. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (henceforth CPJ), trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:430–32. Kant contrasts this “culture of skill” with the “culture of discipline” (self-control), and seems to deem the latter more important. I omit it, however, as less relevant to the response to Rousseau on which I focus (see Section III). On “discipline,” see K. Sweet, “Kant and the Culture of Discipline: Rethinking the Nature of Nature,” Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (2010): 121–38. See Naomi Fisher’s essay in this volume for a more detailed treatment of CPJ’s signifcance for Kant’s philosophy of history. 5. Here I combine language from Kant, “Idea,” 8:22–23 and Kant, CPJ, 5:432. 6. Kant, “Idea,” 8:20–21. 7. Kant, “Idea,” 8:20. 8. Kant, “Idea,” 8:21. 9. Kant occasionally notes that economic interests and practices can also promote international peace. See, for example, Kant, “Idea,” 8:27–28; and I. Kant, “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (henceforth “Perpetual Peace”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:368. 10. Kant, “Idea,” 8:18, emphasis added. Te relation of this claim to Kant’s philosophy of biology is nicely discussed in P. Kleingeld, “Kant on Historiography and the Use of Regulative Ideas,” Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science 39 (2008): 523–28; and K. Ameriks, “Te Purposive Development of Human Capacities,” in Kant’s Idea for a University History with a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide, ed. A. O. Rorty and J. Schmidt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 46–67. 11. Kant, “Idea,” 8:19. 12. I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5:122–46. 13. Kant, CPrR, 5:120, emphasis added. 14. Here, I largely concur with D. Lindstedt, “Kant: Progress in Universal History as a Postulate of Practical Reason,” Kant Studien 90 (1999): 129–47, though following P. Kleingeld, “Nature or Providence? On the Teoretical and Moral Importance of Kant’s Philosophy of History,” American Philosophical Quarterly 75 (2001): 201–19 (contra Lindstedt), I hold that there is no contradiction between taking the idea of history to be regulative (theoretically) and endorsed for moral reasons. I take it that something like regulative status is necessary to license moral endorsement of this idea (just as the in-principle unknowability of God licenses faith); otherwise, it would be theoretically ruled out. 15. Tis is Kant’s famous claim that his transcendental idealism “makes room for faith.” See I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth CPR), trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Bxxx. 16. Kleingeld, “Nature or Providence?” See also Kleingeld, “Kant on Historiography.” Here, one might note Kant’s diferences from his successors: his a priori claims about history are tentative and heuristic and are not meant to identify some sort of metaphysical historical necessity. 17. See Oliver Sensen’s discussion of this point in this volume.

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18. Kant, “Idea,” 8:17. 19. Kant, “Idea,” 8:18, 29–30. 20. Kant, “Idea,” 8:30. 21. As Kant discusses in I. Kant, “A Renewed Attempt to Answer the Question, ‘Is the Human Race Continually Progressing?’” (henceforth “Renewed Attempt”), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 22. To my knowledge, Kant raises this question neither about history, nor in general terms, i.e., how one might select regulative principles for particular contexts of investigation. 23. One might then select other regulative ideas to guide other, local empirical historical investigations. Honneth suggests a diferent theoretical reason for selecting this idea: it allows us to form a unifed philosophical account of human nature—to bridge the “great chasm” between nature and freedom, in Kant’s terms (Kant, CPJ, 5:195; see Honneth, “Te Irreducibility of Progress,” 4f.). And Kant’s account of history could be interpreted as a naturalistic account of how the human rational capacity develops to the point that it can formulate moral principles and so act accordingly. But I would contend that Kant’s dominant interest in providing such a unifying account is again moral; theoretically, the Tird Antinomy sufces to reconcile theoretical and moral claims concerning nature and freedom, but on moral grounds, we need to conceive of nature as transformable in accord with morality. 24. See also the title of Section III of I. Kant, “On the Common Saying Tat What May Be True in Teory Does Not Apply in Practice” (henceforth “Teory and Practice”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 25. Kant, “Idea,” 8:31, translation modifed. 26. Kant, “Idea,” 8:19–21, 28. 27. See Kant, “Idea,” 8:30. Here one might contrast Kant with Hegel: Hegel focuses on similar political topics, but aims to understand how we have become what we are, not to determine what we may hope to achieve in the future. 28. Kant, “Idea,” 8:27. Kant’s account is thus opposed both in content and in intended practical import to pessimistic characterizations of history and politics. Such views, he writes, aim to justify “unjust constraint” of the people, and thereby create a people who are “stubborn and inclined to revolt,” i.e., who ft the pessimist’s negative “prophecy” (Kant, “Renewed Attempt,” 7:80). See also Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:378: “such a pernicious theory itself produces the trouble it predicts.” 29. Kleingeld emphasizes this discussion to support her view of the idea as regulative for empirical investigation. See Kleingeld, “Nature or Providence?” 208–9. 30. Kant, “Idea,” 8:30, emphases altered. 31. Kant, “Idea,” 8:25; Kant, “Idea,” 8:19, my translation (“cancel” for “aufheben”). 32. I cannot discuss the complications of these arguments. For an excellent treatment, see Chapter 1 of A. W. Wood, Kant’s Moral Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1970). See also K. Ebels-Duggan, “Te Right and the Good, and the Treat of Despair: Kantian Ethics and the Need for Hope in God,” Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Religion 7 (2016): 81–109. 33. Kant, “Teory and Practice,” 8:309. 34. Kant, “Teory and Practice,” 8:309. Kant claims that the burden of proof lies on anyone who claims that progress is not possible. Lindstedt, “Progress in Universal History,” also notes that Kant aims not to prove that his view is correct, but only to remove doubts and so to provide a story that might be correct, is plausible enough to be believed. 35. Tis common view is endorsed, for example, in L. Krasnof, “Te Fact of Politics: History and Teleology in Kant,” European Journal of Philosophy 2 (1994): 25.

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36. Kant, “Idea,” 8:17. See also Kant, “Idea,” 8:22, 24, 26–28. 37. Kant, “Idea,” 8:23. 38. See Kant’s discussion of “wish” (inefectual desire) in his frst, unpublished Introduction to CPJ (20:230–31n). 39. Kant, “Idea,” 8:23. 40. Kant, “Idea,” 8:17. 41. Krasnof, “Te Fact of Politics,” 19, raises a similar worry: if prudential rationality in response to confict brings about just political institutions, then our “moral task” is rendered “beside the point.” Tough I am largely sympathetic to this argument, I think that Krasnof’s criticism confuses the content of the ofcial history (that unsociable agents will bring about the state) with the status of that history (he takes it as making claims to objective necessity about that outcome, not as a subjectively necessary assumption for moral agency). Tus the tension I note is occluded: the ofcial history is addressed to the moral agent—has subjectively necessary status—but does not portray any moral agency. 42. Kant, “Idea,” 8:26. 43. Kant, “Idea,” 8:21. See also Kant, “Idea,” 8:17–18, 24. 44. Kant occasionally suggests a diferent mechanism for progress, or at least nonregression, namely that evil is “self-destructive” so that good will win out historically (e.g., Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:376). Tis view seems, however, to be in tension with Kant’s moral psychology, according to which evil is always a live possibility, not somehow self-eliminating. 45. See Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford’s essay in this volume for a discussion of Kant’s account of radical evil and its relation to Kant’s philosophy of history as presented in “Idea.” 46. Kant’s essay, “Conjectural Beginnings of Human History,” is also concerned with this ambiguity concerning reason, I think, though in the context of philosophical anthropology (and, like the Second Discourse, a retelling of the biblical story of the Fall), rather than philosophy of history. Tough I believe that Rousseau is also confronted by such ambiguity, one could read him (unlike Kant) as unambiguously rejecting reason, culture, or human development. 47. Tere is potential here for a greater moral skepticism than either Rousseau or Kant contemplates: if we cannot trust the development of our capacities (reason), then we perhaps ought not to trust the deliverances of practical reason, i.e., the moral law. I think that this line of argument exits the Rousseauian framework—because one of the standards according to which development is called into question is morality (another is happiness); Kant’s version of the Rousseauian challenge is yet more emphatically posed from the point of view of morality (taken as correct). For Kant, there would be no despair to counter if one were unsure of one’s moral commitments. For a diferent, thoughtful discussion of the specter of moral skepticism in Kant’s philosophy of history, however, see P. Kleingeld, “Kant, History, and the Idea of Moral Development,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 16 (1999): 59–80. 48. Kant describes this problem in stronger terms: one may come to think that human natural capacities or their directedness toward their own development are globally mistaken or “purposeless” (Kant, “Idea,” 8:19). I am suggesting that such purposelessness is best understood as a confict of purpose and its undoing. 49. Kant represents the potentially unproblematic functioning of unsociable sociability within proper political arrangements in a lovely image of trees growing straight because constrained by one another (Kant, “Idea,” 8:22). 50. It is sometimes suggested (e.g., perhaps in E. Fackenheim, “Kant’s Concept of History,” Kant Studien 48 (1956–1957): 381–98) that Kant’s history must treat people as nonmoral, as compelled, precisely because it aims to produce an empirical, causal account of phenomenal,

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human action. Tough empirical representation of moral action is difcult to understand on the Kantian picture, I think this mistakes Kant’s reasons for focusing on evil; it is not only because only evil shows up empirically (many things show up empirically and evil is not necessarily the most prevalent), but because such evil is the challenge Kant takes up. 51. Kant intimates the theodicy-like character of his account in Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:380. 52. Kant worries that his account treats earlier generations as mere instruments to later societal perfection (Kant, “Idea,” 8:26), a worry that has deep resonance for a moral theorist who prohibits treating anyone as mere means. 53. Kant, “Idea,” 8:31, quoted more fully above. See also the Appendix to Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:370f. 54. See Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:356. Tanks to Carlos Pereira di Salvo for this way of framing this point. 55. Tese writings therefore correspond not to the postulates in Kant’s philosophy of religion, but to his argument that churches provide needed moral community for agents (in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason). 56. I. Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (henceforth “Enlightenment”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:35. 57. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:36. 58. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:37. 59. Kant, “Renewed Attempt,” 7:84. See Susan Shell’s detailed analysis of Kant’s understanding of the moral signifcance of the French Revolution in this volume. 60. Kant, “Renewed Attempt,” 7:85. 61. M. Foucault, “Te Art of Telling the Truth,” trans. A. Sheridan, in Critique and Power: Recasting the Foucault-Habermas Debate, ed. M. Kelly (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), 139–48. 62. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:40. 63. Tese descriptions of the “sign” are from Kant, “Renewed Attempt,” 7:84. Again, see Shell’s essay in this volume for further discussion of this point. 64. Kant, “Renewed Attempt,” 7:83. 65. Kant, “Renewed Attempt,” 7:88, 89. Kant does use “beweisen” (“prove,” in the section title at 7:85) and “sichern” (“assure,” at 7:86) concerning what the sign shows. But the strength of this language seems to be undercut by Kant’s subsequent admission that such proof establishes “within time” only something “indefnite” and “contingent” (7:88). 66. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:39. 67. See Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:36. I am grateful to Sam Filby for this point. 68. In “Renewed Attempt,” Kant alludes elliptically to the “ofcial” philosophy of history at 7:91, as additional to the “prognosticatory” account he is ofering.

Chapter 5 Many thanks to those who gave helpful comments on this essay. Tis includes the editors of this volume, Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford; Kevin Mager; the referees for this volume; and participants at the Midwest Study Group of the North American Kant Society, particularly Jake Browning, Des Hogan, Samuel Kahn, Katharina Kraus, Olga Lenczewska, Samantha Matherne, and James Messina, among others.

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1. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (henceforth CPJ), trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:437. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 2. Kant, CPJ, 5:176; 5:195–96. 3. Kant, CPJ, 5:434; cf. 5:426. See O. Höfe, “Der Mensch als Endzweck (§82–§84)” in Immanuel Kant: Kritik der Urteilskraft, ed. O. Höfe (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008), 294, who describes the diference as follows: “ein Endzweck ist ein „letzter Zweck plus x”, also ein Superlativ,” implying that a fnal end could also be an ultimate end, but an ultimate end is not necessarily a fnal end. Tis interpretation is consistent with my argument in this section: nature cannot have a merely ultimate end, it must have a fnal end, and this fnal end, as unconditioned, must be moral. 4. Kant, CPJ, 5:378. 5. See E. Watkins, “Nature in General as a System of Ends,” in Kant’s Teory of Biology, ed. I. Goy and E. Watkins (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), for a detailed discussion of the ways in which reason seeks an unconditioned condition for this system of ends. I concur with Watkins in this regard, but it is premature to regard this entire argument as presented in §67. I argue below that Kant concludes in the Appendix that theoretical reason is unable to provide an ultimate or fnal end of nature, and thus we are unable to regard nature as a purposive system without smuggling in the assumption, justifed practically, of a moral, fnal end of creation. A full discussion of these issues regarding the ultimate end of nature, especially in relation to the Antinomy of Teleological Judgment, is in N. Fisher, “Organisms and the Form of Freedom in Kant’s Tird Critique,” European Journal of Philosophy 27 (2019): 55–74. 6. Kant, CPJ, 5:426. 7. Indeed, he explicitly limits himself to these modest conclusions: “In this section [§67] we have meant to say nothing except that once we have discovered in nature a capacity for bringing forth products that can only be conceived by us in accordance with the concept of fnal causes, we may go further and also judge to belong to a system of ends even those things” (Kant, CPJ, 5:380). 8. Kant, CPJ, 5:428. 9. Kant, CPJ, 5:429, emphasis added. 10. Kant, CPJ, 5:431. 11. Kant, CPJ, 5:196–97. 12. Kant, CPJ, 5:440. 13. Tus Kant states: “If nature does not nor ever can tell us anything about the fnal aim . . . no teleological principle sufcient for cognizing all the ends together in a single system as well as for forming a concept of the supreme intelligence, as the cause of such a nature [is possible]” (Kant, CPJ, 5:440–41). 14. Kant, CPJ, 5:442. 15. Kant, CPJ, 5:445. 16. Kant, CPJ, 5:443. 17. Kant, CPJ, 5:444. 18. Kant, CPJ, 5:455. 19. Paul Guyer, for instance, claims that we frst make the inference to an intelligent designer, and then we must assume that this designer had some motive or goal in mind. See P. Guyer, “Freedom, Happiness, and Nature: Kant’s Moral Teleology (CPJ §§83–84, 86–87),” in Kant’s Teory of Biology, ed. I. Goy and E. Watkins (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 223–24; cf. P. Guyer, Kant’s System of Nature and Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 318.

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20. Kant, CPJ, 5:455. 21. Kant, CPJ, 5:374. 22. Kant, CPJ, 5:374. 23. See, for example, Kant, CPJ, 5:424. Kant is clear that it is unacceptable to assume that God directly intervenes in nature through preformationist or occasionalist assumptions. Instead, we assume God empowers organisms to form themselves, which is why Kant is supportive of Blumenbach’s epigenetic thesis. 24. See R. Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 119–25, for a helpful discussion on this issue. Te type of judgment peculiar to an organism is purposiveness without a purpose, in the sense that the conceptual cause is not within nature. Kant sometimes refers to God’s creative intelligence as “artistic.” See, for example, I. Kant, “On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials at Teodicy” (hereafter “Teodicy”), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:263. However, Kant’s theory of artistic production should be kept in mind in order to ward of simplistic interpretations of Kant’s perspective involving a kind of watchmaker-God argument from design. See I. Goy, “Kant’s Teory of Biology and the Argument from Design,” in Kant’s Teory of Biology, ed. I. Goy and E. Watkins (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 203–13. 25. I. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (henceforth “Idea”), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:18–20. 26. Kant, “Idea,” 8:26. 27. Kant, CPJ, 5:370–71. 28. One parallel between God’s creation and the frst characteristic, that of reproduction, is that God, in creating nature as independent, creates also an image or manifestation of himself, which increases in perfection as nature “matures.” While this cannot be applied to the world— the world does not generate other worlds like itself—God, in creating nature, is creating an image of himself that develops progressively into a manifestation of himself. Tus there is an element to creation that is more parental than artifactual, insofar as creation is not immediately manipulated by God at this current stage, but has an internal teleological development that is aimed at manifesting the likeness of its creator. 29. See T. Khurana, “Life and Autonomy: Forms of Self-Determination in Kant and Hegel,” in Te Freedom of Life: Hegelian Perspectives (Berlin: August Verlag, 2013), 160–69, for a compelling account of freedom as analogous to the lawful self-organization of organisms. While Khurana’s discussion operates on the individual level, it is instructive to consider the ways in which human freedom can be purposive in the same sense as an organism, in that the will, like an organism, is bound by laws that emerge from its own nature and expresses its true nature insofar as it accords with those laws. 30. See Rachel Zuckert’s essay in this volume for a helpful discussion of this point. 31. I. Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (henceforth Anthropology), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 7:327–29. 32. See Kant, “Idea,” 8:20–22. 33. Kant, “Idea,” 8:22. 34. “In a civil constitution, which is the highest degree of artifcial improvement of the human species’ good predisposition to the fnal end of its destiny, animality still manifests itself earlier and, at bottom, more powerfully than pure humanity” (Kant, Anthropology, 7:327). 35. Kant, Anthropology, 7:328.

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Notes to Pages 87–91

36. Kant, Anthropology, 7:328–29. 37. One might wonder how such providence exists in nature, if, as I have stated above, nature is set free and is not an artifact. See below for a clarifcation of this view, according to which nature is originally artifact and traces of providence remain even after it is, so to speak, “set free” under the purview of human freedom. 38. See Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford’s essay in this volume for a detailed discussion of the Religion’s contribution to Kant’s thinking on progress. 39. I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:112. 40. Kant, Religion, 6:94. 41. It may be the case that Kant gradually adopted this view of historical progress in the 1780s. It is not advanced in his 1784 “Idea” essay, although it is entirely compatible with it. It coheres well with Kant’s 1786 essay, “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” as discussed below. In any case, Kant has this view in CPJ and is committed to it throughout the 1790s. 42. Kant, CPJ, 5:175–76. 43. I. Kant, “Conjectural Beginning of Human History” (henceforth “Conjectural Beginning”), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:115. 44. Kant, “Conjectural Beginning,” 8:115. 45. Kant, “Conjectural Beginning,” 8:114. 46. Te extent to which grace or divine intervention is involved in this process is something Kant leaves open. Te possibilities and assumptions he is arguing for here do not preclude divine grace and intermittent involvement in human history, but neither do they require it. See F. Beiser, “Moral Faith and the Highest Good,” in Te Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, ed. P. Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 603; cf. Kant, Religion, 6:100–101. 47. Genesis 3:5. 48. See Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology, 370–82, for a discussion of this transition from nature to freedom that ofers several explanations of Kant’s claims at CPJ, 5:175–76 and 5:195–96. Without discounting the other explanations she ofers, I here focus and expand upon her suggestion that we reconceive nature as ordered by a benefcent God toward the realization of morality. Tis discussion is meant to address the worry that we are nevertheless overwhelmed by evil and despair, by highlighting the efcacy of human freedom in nature, as both responsible for evil and efective in overcoming it. 49. Kant, CPJ, 5:473. 50. Kant, CPJ, 5:474. 51. Kant, CPJ, 5:474. 52. Both ends also make possible the intelligibility of their efects. We assume a teleological ordering subordinated to human freedom, and this allows us to competently judge the efects of teleology as well as the efects of human action. 53. One should attend particularly to the diferences between the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR) and CPJ: In the former, freedom and the ends of morality are regarded as possible, and the fnal end of the highest good also as possible these postulates of practical reason have objective practical reality, but Kant is careful to distinguish this practical reality from the empirical reality of nature. In CPJ, we see Kant assert that the ideas of reason are cognizable in nature,

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through freedom. Tis is made possible by the joint operation of practical and theoretical philosophy, according to which practical reason’s provision of a fnal end gives practical content to freedom within a theorietically-determined nature. 54. Kant, CPJ, 5:474. 55. Cf. S. Zimmerman, “Kant on Moral Arguments: What Does the Objectivity of a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason Consist In?” in Te Highest Good in Kant’s Philosophy, ed. T. Höwing (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015), for a thorough discussion of the objective reality of the practical postulates, particularly in CPrR, and for an alternative interpretation of these passages in the Appendix. 56. Kant, CPJ, 5:474. 57. Kant uses organic metaphors in the Religion when discussing the gradual development of a purely religious faith from the ecclesiastical faiths. Te trappings of ecclesiastical religions must be gradually set aside as the “integuments within which the embryo is frst formed into a human being.” Tese elements of ecclesiastical faith become “bit by bit dispensable,” and become a fetter when the “human being enters upon his adolescence” (Kant, Religion, 6:121). 58. See the essays by Oliver Sensen and Kate Moran in this volume for helpful discussions of Kant’s thinking on the relationship between morality, religion, and the question of the nature and possibility of moral progress in the frst and second Critiques.

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Chapter 6 1. I. Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (henceforth “Enlightenment”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:35. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 2. Tis reconstruction of Kant’s engagement with Rousseau’s critique of early modern philosophy is informed by R. L. Velkley, Freedom and the End of Reason (University of Chicago Press, 1989). 3. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth CPR), trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A317/B374–A320/B377; Kant, CPR, A817/B845. 4. Kant, CPR, A801/B829; A816/B818; A808/B836; A840/B868. 5. I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5:108. 6. Kant, CPrR, 5:113. 7. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (henceforth CPJ), trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:176. 8. Kant, CPJ, 5:176. 9. I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:32. 10. Kant, CPrR, 5:3. 11. Kant, Religion, 6:25. For the problems that confront the attempt to translate Gesinnung into English, see G. F. Munzel, Kant’s Conception of Moral Character (Chicago: University of

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Notes to Pages 97–101

Chicago Press, 1989), xv–xviii. We have followed Munzel’s suggestion that Gesinnung is best translated as “comportment of mind.” 12. Kant, Religion, 6:31. 13. Kant, Religion, 6:36. 14. Kant, Religion, 6:32. 15. Kant, Religion, 6:36. 16. Kant, Religion, 6:31. 17. Kant, Religion, 6:32; cf. Kant, Religion, 6:30, 6:25–26, and especially 6:39n. 18. Kant, Religion, 6:30. It is worth noting, at this point, that there is an ongoing debate about how to understand Kant’s concept of radical evil. On one hand, H. Allison, Kant’s Teory of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 152–57; H. Allison, “On the Very Idea of a Propensity to Evil,” Journal of Value Inquiry 36 (2002): 337–49; S. R. Grimm, “Kant’s Argument for Radical Evil,” European Journal of Philosophy 10 (2002): 160–77; S. Morgan, “Te Missing Formal Proof of Humanity’s Radical Evil in Kant’s Religion,” Philosophical Review 114 (2005): 63–114; S. R. Palmquist, “Kant’s Quasi-Transcendental Argument for a Necessary and Universal Evil Propensity in Human Nature,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 46 (2008): 261–97; and L. Papish, Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 129–43 emphasize those passages in the Religion that indicate that radical evil is a universal and necessary human characteristic and that Kant’s claims about radical evil stand in need of an a priori or transcendental proof. On the other hand, A. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Tought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 286–89; R. Louden, Kant’s Human Being: Essays on His Teory of Human Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 107–20; and L. Pasternack, Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (London: Routledge, 2014), 107–8 argue that Kant does not mean to claim that all humans are, in fact, radically evil, but only that radical evil is pervasive among human beings. According to these scholars, Kant neither can nor should ofer an a priori, transcendental proof of radical evil because he need only rely on historical evidence and empirical observation. Without attempting to settle this debate, we note that we take seriously Kant’s claims that radical evil is not only pervasive but not necessarily characteristic of humans qua fnite, rational beings. What follows is an attempt to explore whether and how Kant can make sense of reason’s demand for human progress in light of the universality of radical evil. 19. Kant, Religion, 6:47–48. 20. Kant, Religion, 6:93. 21. Kant, Religion, 6:93. 22. For a helpful discussion of the social dimensions of the Religion, see P. J. Rossi, Te Social Authority of Reason (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005). See Rachel Zuckert’s essay in this volume for the claim that Kant’s philosophy of history requires an account of moral community in order to make morality meaningful to human beings. 23. Kant, Religion, 6:94. 24. Kant, Religion, 6:94. Tese claims go far beyond Kant’s account of unsocial sociability in “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (“Idea”). “Idea” investigates the possibility that the antagonism and confict borne of competition ultimately contribute to humanity’s progressive realization of just political constitutions and peaceful international relations. Accordingly, Kant concludes his account of human history in “Idea” on an optimistic note, suggesting that human history gives us reason to hope that humanity will make gradual but meaningful progress toward a moral world. Kant’s harsh criticism of social life as a crucible of moral evil in the Religion seems to indicate a recognition on Kant’s part that he had not

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sufciently appreciated the nature and problem of evil in 1784. See Rachel Zuckert’s essay in this volume for a more detailed treatment of the relationship between “Idea,” Kant’s philosophy of history, and Kant’s understanding of the nature and possibility of moral progress. 25. Kant, Religion, 6:95. 26. Kant, Religion, 6:95. 27. Kant, Religion, 6:95–96. 28. Kant, Religion, 6:97. 29. Kant, Religion, 6:97. 30. Kant, Religion, 6:97; cf. CPR A751/B779–A752/B780. 31. Kant, Religion, 6:96–97. 32. Kant, Religion, 6:97–98. 33. Kant, Religion, 6:98. 34. Kant, Religion, 6:98. 35. Kant, Religion, 6:97. It is worth noting that the present analysis suggests that Kant’s recognition of the distinctive character of reason’s demand for moral progress ultimately calls the adequacy of the principle that “ought implies can” into question. See Oliver Sensen’s essay in this volume for a similar suggestion. 36. Kant, Religion, 6:152. 37. Kant, Religion, 6:152. 38. Kant, Religion, 6:6. 39. Kant, Religion, 6:151. 40. Kant, Religion, 6:151. 41. Kant, Religion, 6:151. 42. Kant, Religion, 6:151–52. 43. Kant, Religion, 6:152. 44. Kant, Religion, 6:152–53. 45. See Oliver Sensen’s discussion of this problem in this volume. 46. Kant, Religion, 6:122. See also Susan Shell’s account of Kant’s status as a “counterrevolutionary” thinker in this volume. 47. Kant, Religion, 6:124. 48. Kant, Religion, 6:135–36. 49. Kant, Religion, 6:134. Tis seems to be a concrete application of Kant’s account of symbolism in Kant, CPJ, 5:351f. Kant’s history of religion might therefore be understood as his attempt to synthesize philosophical reason and poetic genius. 50. Kant, Religion, 6:125. Note that Kant is appropriating a distinctively modern interpretation of Judaism whose roots stretch back to Spinoza. See Y. Yovel, “Spinoza and Kant: Critique of Religion and Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Spinoza and Other Heretics, Volume 2: Te Adventures of Immanence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 3–26. Cf. E. Fackenheim, Encounters between Judaism and Modern Philosophy: A Preface to Future Jewish Tought (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 3–26. 51. Kant, Religion, 6:127. 52. Kant, Religion, 6:127. 53. Kant, Religion, 6:128. 54. Kant, Religion, 6:128. 55. Kant, Religion, 6:128–29. 56. Kant, Religion, 6:129. 57. Kant, Religion, 6:131.

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58. Kant, Religion, 6:131. 59. Kant, Religion, 6:131. 60. Kant, Religion, 6:66. 61. Kant, Religion, 6:6; 6:93–94. 62. I. Kant, “Remarks in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime,” in I. Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings, ed. P. Frierson and P. Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 20:44. 63. Kant, CPR, A855/B883. 64. Kant, CPR, A850/B878. 65. Kant, CPR, A850/B878. 66. Kant, CPR, A839/B867. 67. Kant, CPR, A839/B867. 68. Kant, CPR, A839/B867. 69. Kant, CPR, A840/B868. 70. Kant, Religion, 6:93.

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Chapter 7 1. Major exceptions include P. Fenves, A Peculiar Fate: Metaphysics and World-History in Kant (Cornell University Press 1991), who devotes a lengthy chapter to “Renewed Question”; and R. Brandt, Universität zwischen Selbst-und Fremdbestimmung (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2003), who ofers an important study of the Confict of the Faculties that includes a detailed examination of Section Two. 2. J. Zammito, “A Test of Two Titles: A Renewed Attempt to Answer the Question: ‘Is the Human Race Continually Improving?’” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 39 (2008): 535–45. 3. P. Kleingeld, Fortschritt und Vernunft: Zur Geschichtsphilosophie Kants (Würzburg: Könighausen & Neumann, 1995), 67–86. 4. Tus Nietzsche: “Kant became an idiot. . . . Didn’t Kant see in the French Revolution the transition from the inorganic form of the state to the organic? Didn’t he ask himself if there was a single event that could not be explained except on the basis of a moral predisposition in humanity, so that with it, ‘the tendency of humanity toward the good’ could be proven once and forever? Kant’s answer: ‘Tat is the revolution’” (F. Nietzsche, Antichrist, Ch. 11, translation mine). 5. See M. J. Gregor, “Translator’s Introduction,” in I. Kant, Te Confict of the Faculties, trans. M. J. Gregor (New York: Abaris Books, 1979), xxiii. 6. On the need for such an “anthropological standpoint,” see I. Kant, “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (henceforth “Perpetual Peace”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:374. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften (henceforth KgS), Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. I have occasionally modifed referenced translations for accuracy and consistency. 7. I. Kant, “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy,” in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:429; Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:380.

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8. I. Kant, Te Confict of the Faculties (henceforth Confict), trans. M. J. Gregor (New York: Abaris Books, 1979), 7:18. 9. Kant, Confict, 7:20. 10. Kant, Confict, 7:18, 7:21. 11. Kant, Confict, 7:28, 7:20. Kant seems to have in mind an older meaning of “controlliren” (from the French by way of Latin: contra + rotulus, and similar to the English term “comptroller”). Tat usage derives from a combination of the term “compte” (account) and the copy scroll (hence, “counter roll”) by which accounts were checked for accuracy. Te lower faculty, which “commands no one” (Kant, Confict, 7:20), does not exercise “control” in the now current sense, but merely “checks” the other faculties for truthfulness. 12. Kant, Confict, 7:35; Kant, Confict, 7:34, cf. 7:19. 13. Kant, Confict, 7:30. 14. See Naomi Fisher’s essay in this volume for an account of Kant’s analysis of organism and its relation to his understanding of human history. 15. I. Kant, “On the Common Saying: Tat May Be Correct in Teory, but It Is of No Use in Practice” (henceforth “Teory and Practice”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:307–10. 16. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:368. 17. Kant, Confict, 6:88–89. 18. A. Chignell, “Belief in Kant,” Philosophical Review, 116 (2007): 323–60. 19. For a suggestion along these lines, see I. Kant, Opus Postumum, trans. E. Förster and M. Rosen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 22:621–22. 20. F. Schlegel, Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie 1795–1805, ed. A. Arndt and J. Zovko (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2007), 12–29. 21. Schlegel, Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie 1795–1805, 12–29. 22. Schlegel, Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie 1795–1805, 12–29. 23. Kant, KgS, 18:665–66. 24. Schlegel, Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie 1795–1805, 12–29. 25. Schlegel, Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie 1795–1805, 12–29. 26. Kant, Confict, 7:79. 27. Te connection with Schlegel was already suggested by Klaus Reich in I. Kant, Streit der Facultäten, ed. K. Reich (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1959), 12; and although P. Kleingeld, Fortschritt und Vernunft, 68n., describes any such connection as “speculative,” Andreas Art and Jure Zovko, in their Introduction to Schlegel’s Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie, take it as a given (Schlegel, Schriften zur Kritischen Philosophie 1795–1805, xii). See also Brandt, Universität zwischen Selbstund Fremdbestimmung, 37–39. 28. Kant, Confict, 7:87–88. 29. Kant, Confict, 7:30; Kant, Confict, 7:79n. 30. Luther’s Bible (1522/34) consistently uses weissagen to mean “prophecy” (and for the most part true prophecy), and wahrsagen to designate necromancy, fortune-telling, and similar dubious practices. See, for example, 1 Chronicles 10:13. According to Friedrich Kluge, until the 16th century, wahrsagen and weissagen both interchangeably meant “prophecy” (implying direct communication with God) and took on fxed distinctive meanings (the former mainly pejorative) only in more recent times. See F. Kluge, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 21 (Berlin: Aufage, 1975), 832, 850; W. Pfeifer, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, Band M–Z, 2 (Berlin: Aufage, 1993), 1552. In introducing “wahrsagern” Kant might thus be said to beat Luther at his own verbal game.

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31. Kant, Confict, 7:80. 32. Kant, Confict, 7:81; I. Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth GMM), ed. M. Gregor and J. Timmermann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 4:411. Kant’s threefold “division of the concept of what one would know” corresponds to Kant’s earlier a priori division of religious sects, in Part One, of those who “think that the supersensible must also be supernatural” (Kant, Confict, 7:49, 54) into the Pietists and the Moravians (Kant, Confict, 7:55–56), followed by the Jews, “who have long had . . . a church without religion” (Kant, Confict, 7:53). 33. Kant, Confict, 7:81–82. 34. Eudaimonism is an odd term for the sort of progress at issue given its standard meaning in Kant’s other writings. Its specifc sense here would seem to be progress by virtue of a “good spirit” (eu + daimon), rather than our own eforts. Cf., in this regard, Kant’s more favorable reference to what he calls “philosophic chiliasm” in I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:33–34. Kant’s alternative progressive option, on this reading, is chiliastic without being “eudaimonistic” in the sense of relying on supernatural forces. 35. Kant, Confict, 7:82. 36. Kant, Religion, 6:75–76. 37. Tat the “task” or “problem” (Kant, Confict, 7:83) here to be resolved is, in the frst instance, a conceptual one is suggested by an earlier title recorded in Loses Blatt Krakau: “Erneuerte Frage: Ob das menschliches Geschlecht im beständigen Fortschreiten zum Besseren begrifen sey?” (emphasis added). Te issue on this earlier account is whether a constantly progressing history of the human race can be conceived at all, or, as he had asked earlier, in I. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” (henceforth “Idea”)—in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)—What “concept [are we] to make of our species,” given the absence of a history in accordance with a natural plan? (Kant, “Idea,” 8:18). 38. Kant, Confict, 7:82. 39. Kant, Confict, 7:82. 40. Te “Spiel” in question would therefore appear to the eyes of reason to be a mere “Possenspeil” [farce]. Compare, in this regard, I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), where Kant characterizes rational beings who lack moral capacity as “marionettes” or “spiritual autonomata” (Kant, CPrR, 5:97, 101). For later iterations of the same theme, see I. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals (henceforth MM), in Practical Philosophy, trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:230, 418. (I am indebted to Alex Reuger for drawing my attention to these passages.) Te metaphor is here especially apt, given Kant’s more general allusion in this section to Christopher Wieland’s popular satirical novel History of the Abderites (1773–79), one chapter of which builds on the traditional story (also alluded to by Hobbes) of the ancient Abderites’ infatuation with the theater, a state of collective madness that led each of them to permanently assume the persona of the characters they had been observing as members of the audience. (Tat Abdera was also the birthplace of Democritus is also suggestive, given Kant’s later cosmological references.) 41. Kant, Confict, 7:79. 42. Kant, Confict, 7:83. Kant may have in mind both Schlegel (on the left) and August Rehburg (on the right), the latter of whom had responded critically to “Teory and Practice,”

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which was itself a veiled critique of Burke. See also Brandt, Universität zwischen Selbst-und Fremdbestimmung, 124–25. By seeking a merely empirical standpoint and thus failing to properly understand the relation between theory and practice, both Rehburg and Schlegel had implicitly rejected Kant’s own earlier “Copernican” turn. For a persuasive argument that both “Teory and Practice” and “Perpetual Peace” were directed responses to Rehburg and Friedrich Gentz, respectively, see J. Green, Burke’s German Readers at the End of the Enlightenment, 1790–1815 (unpublished dissertation, Cambridge University, 2017). 43. See Oliver Sensen’s essay in this volume for an alternative account of Kant’s understanding of the laws of nature and their signifcance for his understanding of individual moral progress. Brandt suggests that “unwise” here refers to empiricist critics of “Teory and Practice” like Rehburg. Te celestial theory of Tycho Brahe (1546–1601) sought to reconcile the heliocentric fndings of Galileo with the traditional Aristotelian and Ptolemaic insistence on a geocentric cosmos. (According to the Tychonic model, the planets revolve around the sun, which in turn revolves around the earth. As with his even more famous student Kepler, who abandoned the geocentric model entirely, the stars remain fxed. It remained for Copernicus to establish a heliocentric model in which the stars also move.) Brahe also authored works on astrology, alchemy, and medicine, as well as establishing what some have called the frst European research institute (on the Danish island of Hven) for the purpose of gathering scientifc data. He moved partway toward installing the new, Copernican vision but balked at decentering the earth. 44. Kant, Confict, 7:83–84. 45. Kant, Confict, 7:84. 46. Cf. Kant, GMM, 4:40. 47. Kant, Confict, 7:84. 48. I. Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (henceforth Anthropology), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, eds. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 7:119. 49. Kant, Confict, 7:85. 50. Kant, Anthropology, 7:193. 51. Kant, Confict, 7:85. 52. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (henceforth CPJ), trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:261; Kant, CPrR, 5:85. 53. Kant, Confict, 7:85. I here difer slightly with the very fne discussion of the moral sublime in R. Clewis, Te Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 54. See Kant, KgS, Refection 8077, 19:609: “to think of oneself as a cosmopolitan member in accordance with civil justice is the most sublime idea that a human being can think of his determination”; see also Brandt, Universität zwischen Selbst-und Fremdbestimmung, 129. 55. Kant, Confict, 7:85. 56. Kant, Confict, 7:83. 57. Kant, Confict, 7:85, 7:87. Indeed Kant goes so far, in an accompanying note, as to exonerate such spectators from harboring a “secret wish” to see their own monarchical constitution changed, even by peaceful means, given their people’s extended place in Europe and related need to preserve itself among powerful neighbors, a qualifcation that further shrinks the circle of spectators pertinent to Kant’s argument to those sharing his own views as to the relatively greater military strength of monarchies and related vulnerability of a Prussia that republicanized prematurely (Kant, Confict, 7:86n.).

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58. “Exaltation” is a term that Kant rarely uses in his published work, and only here in a positive sense. Cf. I. Kant, “On a Newly Arisen Superior Tone in Philosophy,” in Raising the Tone of Philosophy: Late Essays by Immanuel Kant, Transformative Critique by Jacques Derrida, ed. P. Fenves (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 8:398, 404, where Kant notes both the false spiritual “exaltation” of Plato and the equally misguided Lucretian “exaltation” of man over religion. Kant may be playing on the traditional astrological meaning of “exaltation” as a state of planetary ascent, relative to its zodiacal sign, that afords it a rising infuence on human afairs. (A state of maximum infuence is traditionally called “rulership.”) In so doing, Kant would be directly, if ironically, responding to the central obstacle, earlier cited, to organizing the university in accordance with a rational plan: namely, the people’s preference for academic “soothsayers and magicians” who promise to satisfy their wishes without their having to do anything themselves (Kant, Confict, 7:30). Ptolemy’s major astrological work (the Tetrabiblos) was for over a thousand years the standard “scientifc” work of astronomically based prediction of earthly events and had ongoing, if disreputable, infuence among “astrologers” in Kant’s time (as in our own). Ptolemy presents his astrology as a naturally based science whose genuine if uncertain predictive powers resemble those of medicine, the topic of Part Tree of Kant’s essay. In addition to the Tetrabiblos, and his famous work on astronomy proper (the Almagest), Ptolemy (100–170 CE) was also the author of important works on geography, harmony, and optics. 59. Kant, Confict, 7:86–87. “Mitwirken” is used the MM in characterizing the specifc contribution of “active citizens” who cooperate in “organizing” the state’s positive laws (as distinguished from the passive citizens who are not “members” of the state but merely “parts”). 60. Kant, Anthropology, 7:251. See also, Kant, Anthropology, 7:252–53: although afects, unlike passions, are “honest and open (ehrlich und ofen),” they also make us “(more or less) blind.” To be subject to afects is “probably always an illness of the mind.” 61. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253. 62. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253. 63. Kant, Anthropology, 7:254. 64. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253–54. 65. Kant, Confict, 7:88. 66. Kant, Anthropology, 7:254. 67. Kant, Confict, 7:30; Kant, Anthropology, 7:313–14. 68. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:376. 69. Kant, Confict, 7:84. 70. Cf. Kant, Opus Postumum, 22:622–23. 71. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253. 72. Kant, Confict, 7:85. 73. Kant, Confict, 7:87–88. 74. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:370; Kant, Confict, 7:80, 7:85. Cf. Kant, Confict, 7:112 and Something on the Infuence of the Moon on the Weather (Kant, KgS, 8:323). For more on the connection between medical and moral “infuence,” see Fenves, A Peculiar Fate, 143–45. On contagion and contagious sympathy, see Kant’s letter to Hufeland of March 15, 1797 (Kant, KgS, 12:148–49); cf. Kant, MM, 6:457; Kant, Anthropology, 7:253. 75. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253–54. 76. Kant, Confict, 7:86–87, 7:96.

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77. As such, the image bears interesting comparison not only with a similarly popular illustration of the beheading of Louis XVI that circulated among sympathizers and opponents alike (albeit with very diferent captions), but also, given the Bastille’s historic status as a symbol of despotic absolutism, with the well-known frontispiece to Hobbes’s Leviathan. 78. Cf. Kant, MM, 6:320–22n. 79. Kant elsewhere compares the mind (Gemüth) to an optical box (optischen Kasten) or magic lantern. Like the latter, Gemüth is the seat of images (like that of the future) which lack (present) reality. (Cf. Kant, KgS, 25:481, 501). 80. Cf. Kant, Confict, 7:84. 81. Virgil, Aeneid, 8.626–31, 7.86. 82. Kant, Confict, 7:87n. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 23.459; Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:386; Kant, KgS, 23:346. 83. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:385; Kant, Confict, 7:87n. 84. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:366; Kant, Confict, 7:85; Kant, Confict, 7:87. 85. Kant, Confict, 7:79, 7:84. 86. Kant, Confict, 7:89. 87. Kant, Confict, 7:89. 88. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:386. 89. Kant, Confict, 7:90. In an unpublished draft, Kant locates the “genuine distinguishing characteristic of a state that can boast the freedom of its people” in the diference between the constitution of France under the Directorate (which can declare war only with the people’s public acquiescence) and that of England, which places no formal limit on its monarch’s war making other than the power of the purse, controlled by a majority that is always easy to corrupt—so little, one might be tempted to add, does Schlegel’s majoritarian remedy sufce (Kant, KgS, 19:607; cf. Kant, KgS, 23:460). 90. Kant, Confict, 7:91–92. 91. On this point, see also his reference to the “true politics” in an unpublished draft for MM (Kant, KgS, 23:346). Kant’s new attack on English duplicity may refect political developments occurring after the publication of “Perpetual Peace.” See his reference in the same unpublished draft to events that postdate the establishment of the French Directorate in 1795 (Kant, KgS, 19:606–7). 92. Kant, Religion, 6:52. For a fuller discussion, see S. M. Shell, Kant and the Limits of Autonomy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009). 93. Kant, Confict, 7:82. 94. Kant, Confict, 7:79, 7:89. 95. Kant, Confict, 7:92. 96. Kant, Confict, 7:92. 97. Kant, Confict, 7:93–94. 98. Kant, Confict, 7:93. 99. “Te Phrygians (Trojans) become wise too late.” 100. Kant, Confict, 7:94. 101. Kant, Confict, 7:79, 7:82. 102. Kant, Confict, 7:79. Tat this was indeed Kant’s intention is supported by an unpublished draft: “for this (and to arouse such sympathy universally) the spectator must have in mind (vorschweben) a true or at least well-meaning interest in the entire human race” (Kant, KgS, 19:604). 103. Kant, Anthropology, 7:191.

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104. Kant, MM, 6:223. 105. Kant, Anthropology, 7:191. 106. Kant, Anthropology, 7:191. 107. Kant, Anthropology, 7:191–92. Cf. Kant, KgS, 9:27–28; Kant, KgS, 24:698. 108. Kant, Anthropology, 7:191–92. 109. Kant, Anthropology, 7:314. 110. Kant, Anthropology, 7:313–14. 111. Kant, Confict, 7:86–87n. 112. Kant, Confict, 7:86–87n. In a parallel passage in an unpublished draft, Kant associates the unwillingness of paternalistic rulers to publicize their maxim with an “Archimedean” intervention in human history from the noumenal world (Kant, KgS, 23:459–60). 113. Kant, Confict, 7:86–87n. 114. Kant, Confict, 7:86–87n. 115. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253. 116. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253–4. 117. Kant, CPJ, 5:327. 118. Kant, CPJ, 5:327. 119. Kant, Anthropology, 7:252; CPJ, 5:327–28. 120. Kant, CPJ, 5:328. 121. Kant, Anthropology, 7:253. 122. Kant, Anthropology, 7:252. 123. Kant, CPJ, 5:276. 124. Kant, Anthropology, 7:193. 125. Kant, Confict, 7:91. 126. Kant, Anthropology, 7:257; Kant, Anthropology, 7:272; Kant, CPJ, 5:276. 127. Kant, Anthropology, 7:188. 128. Kant, Confict, 7:30. 129. Kant, Confict, 7:90. 130. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 8:380.

Chapter 8 I am indebted to audiences at Boston College and Simon Fraser University for feedback on this project and owe special thanks to Patrick Frierson, John McGreevy, Michael Morris, Fred Rush, Sally Sedgwick, Susan Shell, Allen Speight, Sam Stoner, and Clinton Tolley, as well as to an anonymous reviewer’s comments. For the original impetus for work on this topic, I am especially indebted to Elvira Simfa and her colleagues at the University of Riga for an invitation to a meeting on international issues. Note to epigraph: T. Fontane, No Way Back, trans. H. Rorrison and H. Chambers (New York: Penguin 2013), 129. Te German original, in Unwiederbringlich, is “Das Jenasche mit seinen Einfüssen ist nie ganz wieder zu tilgen.” Te term wieder in this passage repeats a key portion of the novel’s title, and this is a giveaway that the remark is meant by Fontane to have a central signifcance. Te novel as a whole displays a confict of competing traditions—the old Halle pietism that the countess is locked into and the new liberalism of the spirit of Jena, which infects other characters in the book in a naïve way. Te novel can be read as suggesting, more

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generally, that in fact there is no way back (nie ganz) after Jena (i.e., modernity), but a less dogmatic—and also less naïve—reaction to this fact needs to be developed. 1. See K. Gjesdal, Herder’s Hermeneutics: History, Poetry, Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 73–101; cf. K. Ameriks, “On Herder’s Hermeneutics,” SGIR Review 1 (2018): 1–12. 2. See the classic discussion of the latter tradition in K. Löwith, Meaning in History: Te Teological Implications of the Philosophy of History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949). 3. For a vivid sketch of the confused mood of the era, see F. Illies, 1913: Te Year before the Storm, trans. S. Whiteside and J. Lee Searle (New York: Melville House, 2013). 4. Tis claim appears in a marginal note in I. Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (henceforth Anthropology), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 7:315. All citations of Kant refer to the volume and page number of I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), except for citations of the Critique of Pure Reason, which refer to the page numbers of the A and B editions of that work. 5. Te extensive immediate impact of this event throughout Germany is amply documented in J. Hatfeld and E. Hochbaum, “Te Infuence of the American Revolution upon German Literature,” Americana Germanica, ed. M. D. Learned (London: Macmillan, 1899–1900), 345: “Te progress of the war was watched with great interest, and even suspense, in Germany, and its events became known there with surprising promptness and accuracy.” See also H. Dippel, Germany and the American Revolution 1770–1800, trans. B. A. Uhlendorf (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977); D. Armitage, Te Declaration of Independence: A Global History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); and J. Israel, Te Expanding Blaze: How the American Revolution Ignited the World, 1775–1848 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). Unlike Kant, leading German writers such as Christoph Martin Wieland, Georg Forster, and Johann Benjamin Erhard went out of their way to champion the Americans. 6. See M. Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 154– 55. For more arguments that, contrary to what has often been asserted, there is a lack of direct evidence of Kant’s view specifcally on the events and principles of the American Revolution (a silence that by itself signifes a signifcant shortcoming in his own attitude), see K. Ameriks, “Kant and Dignity: Missed Connections with the United States,” Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress, forthcoming. 7. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (henceforth CPJ), trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:375n. 8. On the enthusiasm for democracy that the American Revolution generated at that time throughout Europe, see the remarks by John Adams as described in P. Smith, John Adams, vol. 1, 1735–1784 (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 503f. See also S. Schama, Patriots and Liberators—Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813 (New York: Knopf, 1977), 60f., 127. 9. Te Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States of America, September 10, 1785, was negotiated by Tomas Jeferson as ambassador in France and signed by George Washington and Frederick II. See H. Adams, Prussian-American Relations, 1775–1871 (Press of Western Reserve University, 1960). Te ultimate aim of Prussian policy was to lessen the power of England, not to help the United States as such. 10. See H. Commager, Te Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment (New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1977).

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11. I. Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?” (henceforth “Enlightenment”), in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:41. 12. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:40. 13. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:39. 14. Kant, “Enlightenment,” 8:38. 15. See I. Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime and Other Writings, ed. P. Frierson and P. Guyer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 2:438; and I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:33. 16. See I. Kant, “Review of J. G. Herder’s Ideas for the Philosophy of History of Humanity,” in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:62; and I. Kant, Physical Geography, trans. O. R., in I. Kant, Natural Science, ed. E. Watkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 9:316. 17. Kant, Anthropology, 7:312. On Kant’s late and more liberal comments on race, see P. Kleingeld, “Kant’s Second Toughts on Race,” Philosophical Quarterly 57 (2007): 573–92; and P. Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: Te Philosophical Ideal of World Citizenship (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). See also L. Allais, “Kant’s Racism,” Philosophical Papers 45 (2016): 1–36. For further references on related issues, see G. Cavallar, Kant’s Embedded Cosmopolitanism: History, Philosophy, and Education for World Citizens (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015); D. Huseyinzadegan, Kant’s Nonideal Teory of Politics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2019); and K. Ameriks, “Te Fate of Dignity: How Words Matter,” in Kant’s Conception of Dignity, ed. Y. Kato and G. Schönrich (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2020), 263–84. 18. On Herder’s interest in the American cause, see J. Wall, “Te American Revolution and German Literature,” Modern Language Notes 16 (1961): 163–76. 19. See R. Norton, “Te Myth of the Counter-Enlightenment,” Journal of the History of Ideas 68 (2007): 635–58; and R. Norton, “Isaiah Berlin’s ‘Expressionism,’ or: ‘Ha! Du bist das Blökende!,’” Journal of the History of Ideas 69 (2008): 339–47. 20. Tus, without apologies for German aggression, Hans-Georg Gadamer shamelessly invoked Herder’s notion of Volk while lecturing in occupied France. See Gjesdal, Herder’s Hermeneutics, 5. 21. See K. Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 22. See the judicious overviews by D. Dahlstrom, “Te Aesthetic Holism of Hamann, Herder, and Schiller,” in Te Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, 2nd ed., ed. K. Ameriks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 106–27; and A. W. Wood, “Kant and Herder: Teir Enlightenment Faith,” in Metaphysics and the Good: Temes from the Philosophy of Robert Merrihew Adams, ed. S. Newlands and L. Jorgensen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 313–42. 23. I. Kant, “Postscript to Christian Gottleib Mielke’s Lithuanian-German and GermanLithuanian Dictionary” (henceforth “Postscript”), in I. Kant, Anthropology, History, and Education, ed. G. Zöller and R. Louden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8:445. 24. S. M. Shell, “Nachschrift eines Freundes: Kant on Language, Friendship, and the Concept of a People,” Kantian Review 15 (2010): 88–117. In quoting from the “Postscript,” I cite passages that are also discussed by Shell. 25. See Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path, 221–37. See also R. Zuckert, “History, Biology, and Philosophical Anthropology in Kant and Herder,” Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism 8 (2010): 38–59.

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26. Kant, Anthropology, 7:319. 27. Kant, “Postscript,” 8:445. 28. Kant, Anthropology, 7:318. 29. Kant, “Postscript,” 8:445. 30. Kant, CPJ, 5:356. 31. Tese are Jenisch’s terms; see Shell, “Nachschrift eines Freundes,” 92, 108. 32. See Naomi Fisher’s essay in this volume for an account of the third Critique’s contribution to Kant’s thinking on human history. 33. See K. Ameriks, Kant and the Historical Turn: Philosophy as Critical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Reinhold was himself literally a foreigner, a feeing Austrian with a priestly Catholic background. He arrived as a converted Protestant radical in Weimar but kept with him the appreciation for clear writing that he had learned in Vienna. 34. F. Schlegel, “Athenaeum Fragments,” in Teory as Practice: A Critical Anthology of Early German Romantic Writings, ed. J. Schulte-Sasse (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 320. See K. Ameriks, “History, Idealism, and Schelling,” in Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism 10 (2012): 123–42; K. Ameriks, “History, Succession, and German Romanticism,” in Te Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on German Romantic Philosophy, ed. D. Nassar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 47–67; K. Ameriks, “Te Historical Turn and Late Modernity,” in Hegel on Philosophy in History, ed. R. Zuckert and J. Kreines (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 139–56; and K. Ameriks, “Hölderlin’s Path: On Sustaining Romanticism, from Kant to Nietzsche,” in ‘Brill’s Companion to German Romantic Philosophy, ed. E. M. Brusslan and J. Norman (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 259–78. 35. See also R. Bubner, Innovations of Idealism, trans. N. Walker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 186, for a discussion of an “aesthetic turn with regard to the problem of modernity” (2003); cf. R. Rorty, Philosophy as Poetry (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016). 36. Te explicitly moral meaning of this progress is flled out by Schlegel in his review of Kant’s essay on perpetual peace. See F. Schlegel, “Versuch über den Republikanismus” (1796), in Kritische Schriften und Fragmente [1794–1797], ed. E. Behler and H. Eichner (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1988), 52. 37. Tis is not to say that Kant himself already made the historical turn, in the sense of using a philosophical methodology that incorporates the kind of detailed historical procedure favored by later writers, but only that his work played a crucial occasioning role. 38. See Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path, chap. 13–15, Ameriks, “Hölderlin’s Path”; and K. Ameriks, Kantian Subjects: Critical Philosophy and Late Modernity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 39. On the relevance of Milton, see Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path, 22–23. 40. See the essay by Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford in this volume for a more detailed discussion of this point. 41. On Kant’s multistage history of our development, see Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path, 260–77. Kant does not completely subscribe to Lutheran orthodoxy, but it is striking how much he was infuenced by two of the three main changes that Luther made in returning to, but also departing from, Augustine: a stress on an “invisible church” and a rejection of the idea that baptism removes radical evil. Kant moves toward late modernity in his rejection of Luther’s third innovation, an insistence on absolute certainty of grace in the peace of conscience. See R. Rex, Te Making of Martin Luther (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 23, 179.

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42. Te relevant contrast here is not space as opposed to time, but mere space (i.e., isolated and history-deaf provincialism) as opposed to the developed web of cultural space-time. 43. Milton was everywhere in mid-eighteenth-century continental literature. Even if there is no direct proof of infuence on Hölderlin, there are deep similarities and numerous indirect infuences through Herder and Klopstock. See M. Hamburger, Contraries: Studies in German Literature (Boston: E. P. Dutton, 1970), 43–65. 44. I. Kant, On a Discovery Whereby Any New Critique of Pure Reason Is to Be Made Superfuous by an Older One, trans. H.  E.  Allison, in I. Kant, Teoretical Philosophy after 1781, ed. H. E. Allison and P. Heath (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 8:250. 45. On the turn to Plato by Kant and others in this era, see Bubner, Innovations of Idealism, chap. 1; M. Franz, Tübinger Platonismus. Die gemeinsamen philosophischen Anfangsgründe von Hölderlin, Schelling und Hegel (Tübingen: Francke, 2012); and L. Ostaric, “Absolute Freedom and Creative Agency in Early Schelling,” Philosophisches Jahrbuch 119 (2012): 69–93. 46. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A820/B841. 47. I. Kant, Correspondence, trans. A.  Zweig (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 11:186. See Ameriks, Kant’s Elliptical Path. 48. In K. Ameriks, “Beyond the Living and the Dead: On Post-Kantian Philosophy as Historical Appropriation,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 40 (2019): 33–61, I contrast my conception of the philosophies of the historical turn with the pragmatic reading of Hegel ofered by Robert Brandom. 49. See Mark Alznauer’s essay in this volume for a helpful analysis of Hegel’s philosophy of history. 50. See, e.g., K. Mertel, “Historicism and Critique in Herder’s Another Philosophy of History: Some Hermeneutic Refections,” European Journal of Philosophy 24 (2014): 397–416. 51. For a contemporary argument that even science as metaphysics is not convergent, see A. Chakravartty, Scientifc Ontology: Integrating Naturalized Metaphysics and Voluntarist Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 52. See R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); and R. Geuss, Changing the Subject: Philosophy from Socrates to Adorno (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017). 53. I. Kant, Toughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces and Assessment of the Demonstrations Tat Leibniz and Other Scholars of Mechanics Have Made Use of in this Controversial Subject, together with Some Prefatory Considerations Pertaining to the Force of Bodies in General, trans. J. B. Edwards and M. Schönfeld, in I. Kant, Natural Science, ed. E. Watkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 1:146.

Chapter 9 1. For a helpful discussion of Herder’s philosophy of history, especially in relation to Kant, see Karl Ameriks’s essay in this volume. 2. See R. Velkley, Being after Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 112–13, where I characterize Fichte’s place in the philosophic movement of Idealism in the following terms: “In a manner that is much beholden to Rousseau, the leading Idealists [from Kant to Hegel] reinterpreted the modern self and subjectivity in terms of the dialectical striving of an antinomic reason to arrive at unity with itself. Struggling on a

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path of the manifold forms of alienation that make up human history, the self strives after a satisfactory recognition of its own essence in the complete realization of its free activity. Tus reason can be seen as dynamic and erotic; but in this modern version of eros, the striving of reason does not culminate in contemplation of a supersensible world of ideas or of the divine intellect, but in ultimate self-legislation or self-intuition that realizes a self-projected ideal. . . . Fichte’s revision of critical philosophy is animated by the desire to overcome that dichotomy [of theoretical and practical reason in Kant]. His account of the productive self-intuition of reason, uniting practical and theoretical philosophy, becomes the starting point for the later Idealist systems that seek greater unity, integration, wholeness, and concreteness than Kant provides.” 3. D. Breazeale and T. Rockmore, eds., Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation Reconsidered (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2016); D. James, Fichte’s Social and Political Philosophy: Property and Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); G. Kelly, “Introduction,” in J. G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, ed. G. A. Kelly (New York: Harper & Row, 1968); L. Krieger, Te German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957); M. Levinger, Enlightened Nationalism: Te Transformation of Prussian Political Culture 1806–1848 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); F. Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State, trans. R. Kimber (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970); G. Moore, “Introduction,” in Fichte: Addresses to the German Nation, ed. G. Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); I. Nakhimovsky, Te Closed Commercial State: Perpetual Peace and Commercial Society from Rousseau to Fichte (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); A. Richie, Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin (New York: Carroll and Graf, 1998); A. Taylor, Te Course of German History (New York: Routledge, 2001); J. Toews, Becoming Historical: Cultural Reformation and Public Memory in Early Nineteenth-Century Berlin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); and A. Wood, Fichte’s Ethical Tought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016). Translations of Fichte’s text are from J. G. Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, in Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s sämmtliche Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte, Vol. VII (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1965). 4. R. Adamson, “Fichte, Johann Gottlieb,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910). 5. Kelly, “Introduction,” xxxii. 6. Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, 107–8. 7. Taylor, Te Course of German History, 44. 8. Richie, Faust’s Metropolis, 116; Moore, “Introduction,” xxxii–xxxvi. 9. Toews, Becoming Historical, 2. 10. J. G. Fichte, Briefwechsel 1775–1793, ed. Reinhard Lauth and Hans Jacob, J. G. FichteGesamtausgabe III (Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag, 1991), 167–68. 11. Fichte, Briefwechsel 1775–1793, 167–68. 12. See G. Zöller, “German Realism: Te Self-Limitation of Idealist Tinking in Fichte, Schelling and Schopenhauer,” in Te Cambridge Companion to German Idealism, ed. K. Ameriks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 203–4. 13. I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Akademie Ausgabe (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), 7:370–71. 14. Starting with the “Discipline of Pure Reason” in the Critique of Pure Reason and in several writings after 1781 Kant states that the end and justifcation of philosophy is the realization of moral ideas in the natural realm, such that freedom and nature together form a teleological system. Such a conception is from a theoretical standpoint regulative and not “constitutive” knowledge, although from a practical standpoint the moral ends have objective reality. In terms of historical progress, the realization can be only hypothetical and not demonstratively

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necessary. See, for example, I. Kant, “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” in I. Kant, Practical Philosophy, trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 8:361–62. 15. Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, First Address, 272–73. 16. Te need of the scholar-educator to have the powers of a creative artist in order to fulfll the higher mission of Bildung is a major theme of the 1805 lectures, Über das Wesen des Gelehrten. 17. Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, Second Address, 283. 18. For the Kantian roots of this approach to religion, see Samuel Stoner and Paul Wilford’s essay in this volume. 19. Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, Tird Address, 311. 20. Fichte claims that the Scandinavian Teutons who remained in their ancestral home and kept their original language must also be considered “indisputably German” for that reason! 21. Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, Fourth Address, 315. 22. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 5:352: In symbolic exhibition judgment performs a double function: it applies the mere rule by which it refects on a sensible intuition to an entirely diferent object, of which the former is the symbol. See the essay of K. Pillow, “Jupiter’s Eagle and the Despot’s Hand Mill: Two Views of Metaphor in Kant,” in Te Linguistic Dimension of Kant’s Tought: Historical and Critical Essays, ed. F. Schalow and R. Velkley (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2014). 23. Acts of the Apostles, 2:17; Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, Fourth Address, 317. 24. Fichte, Reden an die Deutsche Nation, Tirteenth Address, 479.

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Chapter 10 Tis chapter has benefted from feedback from several audiences for which I want to express my gratitude. I also want to personally thank Eliza Starbuck Little, Sally Sedgwick, Giulia Battistoni, Jon Burmeister, José Torralba, Terry Pinkard, and Andreja Novakovic for their valuable comments. 1. G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (henceforth LPR), 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 3:249, translation modifed. 2. In G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline. Part I: Science of Logic (henceforth EL), trans. K. Brinkmann and D. Dahlstrom (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991), §§238, 239, 242, Hegel articulates these three steps as (i) the beginning (Anfang), which is “the concept in itself,” (ii) the progression (Fortgang), which is “the frst moment posited in its determinacy,” and (iii) the end (Ende), “where the diferentiated is posited as what it is in the concept.” Hegel’s discussion of the speculative method at the end of the logic is usually interpreted as an explicit articulation of the procedure implicitly followed by the logic as a whole, but it is also an articulation and defense of the method that Hegel will go on to apply to the domains of nature and spirit in the rest of his system. 3. See Richard Velkley’s essay in this volume for an insightful analysis of the tensions characteristic of Fichte’s understanding of history and historical progress. 4. For examples of such work, see E. M. Dale, Hegel, the End of History, and the Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); S. Sedgwick, “Philosophy of History,” in Te Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century, ed. M. Forster and K. Gjesdal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); and T. Pinkard, Does History Make Sense?: Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017).

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5. See, for example, G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy (henceforth LHP), trans. E. S. Haldane (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 67; G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of the Philosophy of Right (henceforth EPR), trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Preface. 6. G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind (henceforth PM), trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), §249, Z. 7. Hegel, EPR, §32R. 8. For a helpful survey of the vast literature on Hegel’s philosophy of world history, see G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction (henceforth LPWH), trans. H. B. Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 234–42. Hegel’s other philosophical histories are only now starting to gain more attention in the Anglophone literature. Tis has been helped by the publication of better critical editions of Hegel’s lectures, which have been recently translated into English and published by Oxford. Te Editorial Introductions to these volumes by Peter Hodgson and Robert F. Brown are a particularly valuable resource in assimilating this material, as they show, in painstaking detail, how the shape of these histories evolved over the course of Hegel’s teaching career. 9. Tis is not intended to be a particularly novel or idiosyncratic grouping on my part. Hegel himself often refers to them as a group (see, e.g., Hegel, EPR, 341; Hegel, LHP, 46). On the relation between these four cases, see C. Taylor, Hegel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 510; and the useful discussion in A. Peperzak, Modern Freedom (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001), 599–603. 10. Te third part of the lectures on fne art, which treats the individual arts (architecture, sculpture, music, painting, poetry), also has an explicitly historical dimension, as each of the arts is said to follow its own necessary historical development, one that takes place in partial independence from the development of the three canonical art forms discussed in the second part. I am leaving this case out both for the sake of economy, and because it has certain special features that make it asymmetrical with the other cases. 11. Only the former of these two conditions is met, for example, by the Jena Phenomenology of Spirit, which famously avoids the use of proper names (as pointed out in G. Kelly, “Notes on Hegel’s ‘Lordship and Bondage,’” in Te Phenomenology of Spirit Reader: Critical and Interpretive Essays, ed. Jon Stewart (Albany: State University of New York, 1998), 178. 12. Hegel, LHP, 55, emphasis added. 13. For a helpful discussion of Hegel’s modifcations to the traditional concept of real defnition, see B. Bowman, Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 175–83. 14. See G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Aesthetics (henceforth HA), trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), I:22: “After these preliminary remarks, we now come closer to our proper subject, the philosophy of the beauty of art, and, since we are undertaking to treat it scientifcally, we have to make a beginning with its concept.” 15. See Hegel, LPR, 141: “Te more precise division of our treatment is as follows. Te frst topic is the concept of religion itself in general; the second is the necessary or determinate religion, religion in its determinateness; the third is religion in its infnitude, the absolute religion as existing.” 16. See Hegel, LHP, 207: “Te aforementioned circumstances makes it even more necessary than for the other sciences that the history of philosophy be preceded by an introduction frmly establishing the object whose history is to be set forth.” 17. Dale argues that there is an important disanalogy between the philosophy of history and the more particular histories Hegel ofers, like the history of art (Dale, Hegel, the End of

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History, and the Future). Tis disanalogy is rooted in the fact that while art, e.g., is a form of spirit, and thus could conceivably be end in the sense of being superseded by some other form of spirit, history is the realm of spirit as such and thus could not conceivably be surpassed in this way. Focus on the role the state plays in the philosophy of history, however, restores the analogy, for the state is clearly a form of spirit in Dale’s sense. 18. Quoted in J. McCarney, Hegel on History (London: Routledge, 2000), 153. McCarney ofers a useful account of the central role that the state plays in Hegel’s Philosophy of History in the pages following this quotation. Te centrality of the state for world history is more unmistakable in the truncated version of the philosophy of history provided in EPR, where it is placed at the conclusion of Hegel’s treatment of the state. It is also explicitly reafrmed in Hegel, LHP, 270–71. 19. Hegel says philosophy has “absolutely nothing at all to do with merely correct defnitions and even less with merely plausible ones, i.e., defnitions whose correctness is immediately evident to the representing consciousness” (Hegel, EL, §99 A). 20. Hegel, LPWH, 177, 181. 21. Hegel, HA, I:73, 111. A. Gethmann-Siefert, in Philosophie der Kunst oder Ästhetik. Nach Hegel. Im Sommer 1826. Mitschrift Friedrich Carl Hermann Victor von Kehler, ed. A. GethmannSiefert and B. Collenberg-Plotnikov (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2004), has forcefully argued that this particular formulation of the concept of beauty was an imposition of Hotho’s, but she admits similar formulations can be found in the other student transcripts. Resolving this particular issue is not important for my purposes here, but it is perhaps worth noting that Gethmann-Siefert uses this as evidence for her claim that Hotho imposes his own ideas about the speculative method onto material that was originally delivered in a much more disorganized and unsystematic form. 22. Hegel, LPR, III:250. 23. Hegel’s most detailed treatment of these diferences is in the “Doctrine of the Concept”—the third part of his Science of Logic. I should note that the distinction I am drawing here between empirical and philosophical concepts is not the same as the distinction at the center of Robert Brandom’s provocative re-reading of Hegel, which rests on a distinction between what he calls ordinary, determinate concepts and logical, philosophical meta-concepts. See, for example, R. Brandom, “Some Pragmatist Temes in Hegel’s Idealism: Negotiation and Administration in Hegel’s Account of the Structure and Content of Conceptual Norms,” in Tales of the Mighty Dead (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). Brandom’s distinction is intended to map onto the diference between the concepts identifed in Hegel’s Logic, on the one hand, and those deployed both in the Realphilosophie and in ordinary usage, on the other; but the distinction I am marking is between those philosophical concepts deployed in the Realphilosophie (e.g., nature, spirit, the state, art) and those concepts that are empirical in the sense that can only be derived through abstraction from experience (concepts like red, tree, automobile, etc.). I agree with Brandom that the concepts in the Science of Logic are best understood as meta-concepts, but I think their job is not to make explicit what is implicitly involved in the use of ordinary empirical concepts (like red), but to make explicit what is implicitly involved in the use of the specifc kinds of concepts deployed in the Realphilosophie (concepts like life, spirit, or art). Tis means I will be drawing on the “Doctrine of the Concept” as if it were a teaching about the nature of philosophical concepts in particular, not a teaching about ordinary, ground-level empirical concepts, as Brandom claims. I cannot defend these assumptions here. For a more detailed critique of Brandom’s reading of Hegel on this point, see A. de Laurentiis, “Not Hegel’s Tales: Applied Concepts, Negotiated Truths, and the Reciprocity of Un-Equals in Conceptual Pragmatism,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 33 (2007): 83–98.

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24. For example, in EL, Hegel says: “What are also called concepts and, to be sure, determinate concepts, e.g. human being, house, animal, and so forth, are simple determinations and abstract representations,—abstractions that, taking only the factor of universality from the concept while omitting the particularity and individuality, are thus not developed in themselves and accordingly abstract precisely from the concept” (§164 R). He also calls these so-called concepts “abstract universals” or mere “universal representations.” For a discussion of the differences between abstract representations and genuine concepts, see R. Stern, “Hegel, British Idealism, and the Curious Case of the Concrete Universal,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 15 (2007): 126–34. 25. I say typically here because Hegel also considers the possibility of beginning a scientifc inquiry by stipulating a nominal defnition. Tis procedure is characteristic of what Hegel calls the “synthetic method” (see Hegel, EL, §§228–229). For a discussion of Hegel’s criticisms of this method, which is characteristic of the mos geometricus, see Bowman, Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute Negativity, 158–200. 26. For a diferent view of the role of the logic in Hegel’s philosophy of world-history, according to which pure concepts are abstracted from empirical sensory impressions, and the logic is abstracted from history, see C. Butler, Te Dialectical Method: A Treatise Hegel Never Wrote (Humanity Books, 2012), 143–49. 27. Hegel, EL, §163 A2. Hegel’s discussion of Locke’s rival account of the origin of concepts is perhaps helpful in characterizing the kind of priority he is claiming for such concepts. Hegel thinks Locke is right that, in experience, we start with concrete sensations and only later arrive at universals, but Kant was right to criticize Locke for thinking that the empirical individual is the source of these universal conceptions (rather than the understanding). See Hegel, LHP, 299–300; G. W. F. Hegel, Werke. Teorie-Werksausgabe, 21 vols., ed. E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1969–79), 20:209–10. 28. For these categories, see B. Rutter, Hegel on the Modern Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 23. See also S. Houlgate, “Hegel, Danto and the End of Art,” in Te Impact of Idealism: Te Legacy of Post-Kantian German Tought, Volume III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 264–92, which shows, in some detail, how Hegel’s approach to the concept of art frmly separates his project from Danto’s otherwise similar project. Te diference is that whereas Danto seeks a defnition of the essence of art that is so abstract that it cannot be falsifed by any empirical counterexample, Hegel is seeking a defnition that is independent of empirical confrmation or falsifcation and thus can be used to disqualify some things we might take to be art as genuine works of art. 29. Hegel, LHP, 69, 241. 30. Hegel, HA, I:24. 31. Hegel, HA, I:25. 32. Tis necessity should be understood not in a transcendental sense but in a teleological sense: that is, these activities or capacities are not necessary for the mere existence of spirit, rather they must come into existence if spirit is to realize its own constitutive end, which is to come to know itself truly as spirit. Tis marks an important diference between what Hegel calls the “formal a priori” characteristic of Kantian philosophy (which he criticizes) and his own notion of a pure or a priori development (which notoriously introduces movement into logic). For a further discussion of this distinction, see M. Alznauer, “Rival Versions of Objective Spirit,” Hegel Bulletin 37 (2016). 33. Hegel, HA, I:25. 34. Hegel, LPR, I:161.

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35. Hegel, LHP, 46. 36. Hegel, LHP, 103. 37. Hegel, LPWH, 29. 38. Hegel, LHP, 6:221. 39. Hegel, LPWH, 26. 40. Hegel, HA, I:299. 41. Hegel, LPR, II:513–14, translation modifed; G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion (henceforth VPR), ed. W. Jaeschk (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1985), 2:411. Cf. Hegel, LHP, 258–59. 42. G. W. F. Hegel, Te Science of Logic (henceforth SL), trans. G. di Giovanni (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 716; Hegel, Werke, 12:218. 43. Hegel, SL, 536; Hegel, Werke, 12:39. 44. Tere is a recurring question in the literature as to whether, according to Hegel, there is any knowledge of sensuous individuals at all. I take it that Hegel’s position on this is the same as Plato’s—we can have correct opinion (doxa or Meinung) about sensuous individuals but no scientifc knowledge (episteme or Wissenschaft) in the strict sense. Truly scientifc knowledge, for both Plato and Hegel, is restricted to the essences or concepts of things. For a recent defense of this reading of Plato, see W. Schwab, “Understanding Episteme in Plato’s Republic,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 51 (2016): 41–84; for a defense of this way of reading Hegel, see W. deVries, “Hegel on Reference and Knowledge,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 26 (1988): esp. 305–7. 45. See, e.g., Hegel, LPWH, 138: “Te question of whether this or that particular characteristic actually constitutes the distinctive principle of a nation is one which can only be approached empirically and demonstrated by historical means,” and his more particular claim at Hegel, LHP, 3:7: “In order to being about the conclusion that this is the historical idea of Christianity, we should have to enter upon a historical disquisition; but because we cannot deal with this here, we must accept it as a historical axiom.” 46. Te independence of the logical progression from the historical one is indicated by Hegel’s admissions that they can, in fact, diverge from each other in some particular cases. For example, Hegel, LHP, I:302: “Tough the development of philosophy in history must correspond to the development of logical philosophy, there will still be passages in it which are absent in historical development.” 47. For example, Hegel, HA, II:630: “Wenn daher hier in dem Kreise der besonderen Künste zuerst von der Baukunst gehandelt wird, so muß dies nicht nur den Sinn haben, daß sich die Architektur als diejenige Kunst hinstelle, welche sich durch die Begrifsbestimmung als die zuerst zu betrachtende ergebe, sondern es muß sich ebensosehr zeigen, daß sie auch als die der Existenz nach erste Kunst abzuhandeln sei.” Tis necessity of the temporal order taken by these stages is denied by T.  Pinkard, “Hegel’s Philosophy of History as the Metaphysics of Agency,” in Te Oxford Handbook of Hegel, ed. D. Moyar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 537. 48. For example, in his 1824 lectures on the philosophy of religion he says: “Terefore the religions, in the way they have followed one another in history, are not determined externally but instead by the concept itself ” (Hegel, LPR, I:146). 49. Pinkard says there is “no discernibly good argument” for “metaphysical/causal necessity” in Hegel’s writings on history (Pinkard, Does History Make Sense?, 140); S. Sedgwick, “Innere versus äußere Zweckmäßigkeit in Hegels Philosophie der Geschichte,” Hegel-Studien 51 (2015): 13, rejects “fatalism” on similar grounds. 50. Tis claim is, I think, a natural application of Hegel’s conceptual realism to these historical domains. For a discussion of the kind of causation Hegel is committed to, see F. Knappik,

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Im Reich der Freiheit, Hegels Teorie autonomer Vernunft (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 356f. For general skepticism about the usefulness of the seed/tree metaphor see S. Sedgwick, “Reason and History: Kant versus Hegel,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association (2010): 45–59, esp. pp. 53–54; and Pinkard, Does History Make Sense? For a helpful discussion of the diference between mechanical and teleological causation in the philosophy of history, see Sedgwick, “Innere versus äußere Zweckmäßigkeit in Hegels Philosophie der Geschichte.” 51. Hegel, LPR, 3:249. 52. C. Koopman, Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 99, identifes a third, mixed possibility: “problematizing genealogy.” See also the discussion of these three types in A. Allen, “Adorno, Foucault, and the End of Progress,” in Critical Teory in Critical Times, ed. P. Deutscher and C. Lafont (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), 183–206. 53. On the idea of a “vindicatory” or “afrmative” genealogy, see B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 35–38; and H. Joas, Te Sacredness of the Person, trans. A. Skinner (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2013), 97–139. 54. See G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte (henceforth VPW), ed. K. Griesheim, Vorlesungen, vol. 12 (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1996), 438; Hegel, Werke, 2:414, 522. Whether Hegel actually endorses the “end of history” thesis is an enormously controversial issue, and certainly the issue cannot be resolved simply by racking up quotations on one side or the other. I agree with McCarney, Hegel on History, that the deciding issue concerns whether Hegel’s own method commits him to positing such an end, and that his method does indeed commit him to such an end. I think further corroborating evidence for this can be found in the three other histories, which all also conclude with a fnal stage that is characterized as the defnitive realization of the fnal end or goal of the development recounted. For a challenge to McCarney’s reading, though, see T. Brooks, Hegel’s Political Philosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), 149 f. 55. See Hegel, HA, I:55, 70, 79–81; Hegel, Werke, 13:182, 100, 114–16. On the various senses in which one can speak of an end to art, see Houlgate, “Hegel, Danto and the End of Art.” 56. Hegel, HA, I:518; Hegel, Werke, 14:138. Hegel’s history of art forms is unique in that it culminates with a form or shape of the target concept that involves an insight into its own inadequacy to realize the vocation or fnal end implied by its concept. Sebastian Gardner has recently argued, plausibly enough, that the strangeness of this feature of Hegel’s theory of art is best understood as a part of Hegel’s polemic against philosophical Romanticism. See S. Gardner, “Art’s Loss of Vocation: Hegel and Philosophical Romanticism,” in Te Art of Hegel’s Aesthetics, ed. P. A. Kottman (Wilhelm Fink, 2018), 331–64. But this is certainly the most problematic of the four cases for my interpretation. 57. Hegel, LPR, III:262–68; Hegel, VPR, 5:189–93. 58. Hegel, LHP, I:289; Hegel, LHP, III:551–52. 59. Hegel, LHP, 204; G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie (henceforth VGP), ed. P. Garniron and W. Jaeschke (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1994), 1:108. E. Förster, Te Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy, trans. B. Bowman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), shows that this thought goes all the way back to Hegel’s frst lectures on the history of philosophy in 1806. 60. Tis is emphasized by Sedgwick, “Innere versus äußere Zweckmäßigkeit in Hegels Philosophie der Geschichte,” 8–10. 61. In case it does not go without saying, there is no plausible interpretation of any of these endings that implies that the corresponding practice will necessarily end in the sense of

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ceasing to exist. Nor is there any question that individual instances of such practices can still be improved, reaching greater perfection. Te real issue between the traditional and defationary readings concerns whether Hegel’s scientifc method commits him to positing both the possibility of a complete or perfect species of the genus and that this possibility has been realized in our own time. 62. See, e.g., G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Art: Te Hotho Transcript of the 1823 Berlin Lectures (henceforth LPA), trans. R. F. Brown (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 209: “We intend to consider the ultimate purpose not as something external but instead as a determination in-and-for-itself, within the object itself.” For an illuminating discussion of the various senses in which a purpose counts as external with specifc reference to Hegel’s philosophy of world history see Sedgwick, “Innere versus äußere Zweckmäßigkeit in Hegels Philosophie der Geschichte.” Ultimately, Sedgwick argues that the internal purpose Hegel appeals to in the philosophy of history must be a normative principle derived from our nature as spiritual beings. I would add to this that the relevant “inner purposes” can be broken up into smaller denominations than this. Although the philosophy of spirit is guided by a single overarching end derived from our nature as spiritual beings (Hegel, PM, §387 Remark), which is the aim of knowing ourselves, each of the particular histories derives its own particular Endzweck from its own grounding concept (e.g., from the concept of the state, the concept of religion, etc.). To use a Hegelian metaphor, these are epicycles within the overall circle of the philosophy of spirit as such, each necessary to realize the fnal end of spirit as such, which is to know itself as spirit. 63. Hegel, LPR, III:249. 64. Hegel, LPR, III:250–51. 65. Hegel, HA, I:63; Hegel, Werke, 13:91. Leo Strauss often remarks that Hegelian historicism is superior to other forms of historicism because it is aware of the need to posit an “absolute moment” of this sort. See, e.g., L. Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1953), 29. Strauss’s argument is developed in a more comprehensive manner in C. Page, Philosophical Historicism and the Betrayal of First Philosophy (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1995), esp. 157–202. 66. See R. Bernasconi, “Hegel at the Court of the Ashanti,” in Hegel after Derrida, ed. S. Barnett (New York: Routledge, 1998), 41–63. 67. See Peperzak, Modern Freedom. 68. Te issue is perhaps not quite as simple as this. If Hegel’s higher-level theoretical commitments (like the nature/spirit divide or the notion of progress) are driven by his prejudices—his racism or Eurocentrism—then defects of this sort might seem to give you reason to question the very conceptual structure of Hegel’s theory (see Bernasconi, “Hegel at the Court of the Ashanti”). For a discussion of this possibility, and how it might be rendered compatible with an attempt to recover what is still insightful in Hegel’s thought, see R. Zambrana, “Hegel, History, and Race,” in Te Oxford Handbook of Hegel, ed. D. Moyar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 69. R. Pippin, Hegel’s Idealism: Te Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 259–60. Pippin goes on to suggest that there is another, more defensible way of reading the Realphilosophie, namely as a “consideration of the particular ways in which necessary constraints placed by a subject on itself, pure Notions, determine the form . . . such investigations could take in various contexts” (Pippin, Hegel’s Idealism, 259). 70. T. A. Lewis, Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).

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71. Taylor, Hegel. 72. Tis characterization of the Logic as a necessary sequence of pure thought-determinations, while traditional, is not uncontroversial. For a recent defense of this conception of the Logic against existing alternatives—like S. Sedgwick, Hegel’s Critique of Kant: From Dichotomy to Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) and J. Burbidge, “Hegel’s Logic as Metaphysics,” Hegel Bulletin 35 (2014): 100–15—see A. Werner, Hegel’s Speculative Method (unpublished doctoral dissertation, 2017). 73. See, e.g., Hegel, LPWH, 138–39.

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Chapter 11 Tis essay benefted from the suggestions of many generous readers, including the volume’s editors and an anonymous reviewer. In this respect, I am particularly grateful to Antony Aumann and Michael Morgan. 1. A. Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, trans. E. F. J. Payne (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1965), 49. 2. Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, 49. 3. See, for example, H. Heine, Religion and Philosophy in Germany, trans. J. Snodgrass (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986), 119. 4. See Kate Moran’s essay in this volume for a detailed analysis of these issues. 5. Tat is, a form of self-consciousness that exists in explicit contradiction with itself. In G. W. F. Hegel, Te Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), §206, in a discussion of the “Unhappy Consciousness,” Hegel describes the Christian in these terms as “a doubled, only contradictory creature.” Tere is no question that Kierkegaard, in texts like Fear and Trembling and Works of Love, is responding directly to these accusations, and most especially that of otherworldliness. 6. I. Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, with Sections from the Critique of Practical Reason, ed. Gary Hatfeld (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 4:258. 7. See, for example, T. Rockmore, Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 3. 8. In a recent treatment of Kierkegaard’s account of the highest good, Roe Fremstedal argues that Kierkegaard associates happiness with a state achieved only in the afterlife: eternal blessedness in the Kingdom of Heaven. In response to passages (e.g., in Fear and Trembling) where Kierkegaard seems to suggest the opposite (namely, that faith expects blessedness and happiness in this life), Fremstedal posits that Kierkegaard develops “two senses of the highest good,” a weak and strong thesis. “Te highest good in the weak sense is the happiness of this life made possible by Christian religiousness through anticipation of the highest good in the strong sense, something that involves everlasting bliss and salvation in the afterlife.” See R. Fremstedal, Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good: Virtue, Happiness, and the Kingdom of God (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 110. I address Fremstedal’s account later in this essay. 9. I understand and thoroughly appreciate the importance of keeping Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms straight. In this essay, any time I attribute a claim from a pseudonymous text to Kierkegaard, I take myself to have good reason to do so. See R. Kemp, “In Defense of a Straightforward Reading of Fear and Trembling,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook (2017), 49–70, for my defense of this move in the case of Fear and Trembling.

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Notes to Pages 187–191

10. Tis fact has not gone unappreciated. M. Hägglund, Tis Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom (New York: Pantheon Books, 2019), 30, claims that no religious thinker pursues the question of how faith draws a person into engagement with this life more “profoundly” than Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling. Since, however, Hägglund ultimately sees Kierkegaard’s project as a failure, this essay serves, in efect, as a response. 11. S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientifc Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (henceforth CUP), trans. H. V. Hong and E. A. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 426. 12. C. S. Evans, Kierkegaard’s Fragments and Postscript: Te Religious Philosophy of Johannes Climacus (New York: Humanity, 1999), 147. 13. Fremstedal, Kierkegaard and Kant, 111. Fremstedal thinks all of these considerations apply just as well to Kant and cites R. Wimmer, Kants kritische Religionsphilosophie (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990), in confrmation of this list. 14. In R. Kemp, “Johannes de Silentio: Religious Poet or Faithless Aesthete?” in Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms, ed. K. Nun and J. Stewart (New York: Routledge, 2015), 143–58, I argue that Johannes de silentio, even though he does not have faith, might nonetheless be a reliable commentator on faith. 15. Fremstedal, Kierkegaard and Kant, 110. 16. Tere are also places (e.g., in Practice in Christianity) where he seems to insist that a genuinely Christian life includes nothing but sufering and pain. In a forthcoming paper, Michael Morgan and I argue that, in texts like Works of Love, Kierkegaard associates the self-denial of Christian love with deep and lasting (this-worldly) joy. Te person who gives all, receives all. 17. Kierkegaard, CUP, 196. 18. If this strikes you as too bold an interpretive move, then allow me to recommend a slightly less adventurous approach to the material you are about to consider. Even if you think I am wrong to suppose that Kierkegaard actually favors a this-worldly account of the highest good, you can at least admit that—whatever he actually holds—some of his texts provide the resources for charting one. 19. I develop this account more fully in R. Kemp, “A, the Aesthete: Aestheticism and the Limits of Philosophy,” in Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms, ed. K. Nun and J. Stewart (New York: Routledge, 2015). 20. Granted, Kierkegaard also thinks that one must take responsibility for shaping oneself into the kind of person whose life is governed by the idea that life is a divine gift. In this sense, there is no question that there is a kind of autonomy present in his account. 21. M. Forster, “Hegel’s Dialectical Method,” in Te Cambridge Companion to Hegel, ed. F. Beiser (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 137. 22. For a small sampling of such work see especially J. J. Davenport, “Te Meaning of Kierkegaard’s Choice between the Aesthetic and the Ethical: A Response to MacIntyre,” in Kierkegaard after MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom, Narrative, and Virtue, ed. J. J. Davenport and A.  Rudd (New York: Open Court, 2001), 75–113; J. J. Davenport, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Morality: From Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (New York: Routledge, 2012); A. Rudd, Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); A. Rudd, “Reason in Ethics: MacIntyre and Kierkegaard,” in Kierkegaard after MacIntyre: Essays on Freedom, Narrative, and Virtue, ed. J. J. Davenport and A. Rudd (New York: Open Court, 2001), 131–49; A. Rudd, “Reason in Ethics Revisited: Either/Or, ‘Criterionless Choice’ and Narrative Unity,” Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook (2008): 178–99; A. Rudd, Self, Value, and Narrative: A Kierkegaardian Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

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23. See, for example, Kemp, “A, the Aesthete.” 24. S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part One (henceforth E/O1), trans. H. V. Hong and E. A. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 294. 25. See, for example, R. Compaijen, Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, Williams, and the Internal Point of View (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 286. 26. Kierkegaard, E/O1, 42. 27. In a forthcoming paper in the Review of Metaphysics (“Kierkegaard on the Transformative Signifcance of Depression”), I make an extended case for this claim. 28. Tis is the biggest diference between MacIntyre’s reading of Either/Or and my own. In A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), MacIntyre argues that Either/Or is designed to show that aesthetes become ethical by means of a criterionless choice. In R. Kemp, “Te Role of Imagination in Kierkegaard’s Account of Ethical Transformation,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 100 (2018): 202–31, I argue that it shows that aesthetes must be changed through external intervention. Tey need something like “grace.” 29. S. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (henceforth FT), trans. H. V. Hong and E. A. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 34. 30. Kierkegaard, FT, 36. 31. S. Kierkegaard, “Te Expectancy of Faith,” in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. H. V. Hong and E. A. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 27. 32. I explore this question with Michael Mullaney in R. Kemp and M. Mullaney, “Kierkegaard on the (Un)happiness of Faith,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (2018): 475–97. My thoughts on this issue have been so thoroughly informed by these discussions (both in and out of print) that he would, if our discipline’s publishing norms were a bit diferent, be properly identifed as a co-author of this paper. Tanks, Michael. 33. S. Krishek, “Te Enactment of Love by Faith: On Kierkegaard’s Distinction between Love and Works,” Faith and Philosophy 27 (2010): 3–21, has recently argued for a similar conclusion. My main disagreement with Krishek has less to do with her very sensible and general suggestion that we understand Kierkegaard’s account of neighbor love in light of Fear and Trembling’s account of faith, than the very specifc conclusions she draws from this interaction. In short, I think she misunderstands what the person of faith regains when she receives the world back again. 34. S. Kierkegaard, Either/Or: Part Two (henceforth E/O2), trans. H. V. Hong and E. A. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 338. 35. Kierkegaard, E/O2, 351. 36. While it should be pointed out that Hegel’s versions of both of these things—virtue and happiness—are slightly diferent from Kant’s, it seems clear that he would have invited this analysis. 37. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that a single case of failed marriage is sufcient to invalidate Hegel. I am saying that marriage is an important symbol in these debates; it represents ethical harmony. 38. By “modern ethics” I have in mind what Bernard Williams calls “the peculiar institution.” See B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 174–96. For a similar analysis, see also R. Geuss, “Outside Ethics,” European Journal of Philosophy 11 (2003): 29–53. 39. Kierkegaard, E/O2, 350. 40. Kierkegaard, E/O2, 350. 41. Kierkegaard, E/O2, 350. 42. Kierkegaard, FT, 42.

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Notes to Pages 197–205

43. Kierkegaard, FT, 44. 44. Tis refects my somewhat idiosyncratic reading of the Fear and Trembling passage in question. I break with commentators like J. Lippitt, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling (New York: Routledge, 2003) and Krishek, “Te Enactment of Love by Faith,” who see the move from the ethical stage to infnite resignation as a move from a life oriented around social goods to a life oriented around love of God. On my reading, the infnitely resigned person transfgures the social-ethical goods that formerly guide his life into eternal ideals; he worships the princess in the mode of just such an ideal. Importantly, his “love” is not directed toward an agent who could, among other things, reciprocate his afection. Te latter is the hallmark of genuine faith. 45. Kierkegaard, E/O2, 351. 46. Kierkegaard, E/O2, 351. 47. F. Nietzsche, Ecce Home, in Te Antichrist, Ecce Homo, and Twilight of the Idols, ed. A. Ridley and J. Norman, trans. J. Norman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 74. 48. I am indebted to Jordan Rodgers for this idea. He explores this more fully in “A Modern Polytheism? Nietzsche and James,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 34 (2020): 69–96. 49. Nietzsche, Ecce Home, 127.

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Chapter 12 1. R. Eldridge, Images of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom and the Human Subject (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 105. 2. Letter of December 7, 1917; Te Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, ed. Gershom Scholem and Teodor W. Adorno, trans. M. R. and E. M. Jacobson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 103–4; W. Benjamin, Briefe, ed. Gershom Scholem and Teodor W. Adorno (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1966), I.159. 3. Te Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, I.159. 4. Te Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, Briefe, 97/150. For further discussion of Benjamin’s notion of Kantian Lehre, see Eldridge, who notes the resonances of the word in this passage—both in the sense of a “guiding statement” and of “teachings or living thought” as in the Hebrew Torah: Benjamin, he suggests, “puts forward an image of Kant as engaged in an efort to bring morally signifcant truth to living presence in words that are bound up with life, and the suggestion is that we would do well to take this efort as a model for serious thinking” (Eldridge, Images of History, 109). P. Lacoue-Labarthe, “Introduction to Walter Benjamin’s Te Concept of Art Criticism in German Romanticism,” Studies in Romanticism 31 (1992): 421–32, suggests that for Benjamin in this period Kant in efect “becomes the general name for the project of philosophy itself.” 5. Te Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, Letter of February 1, 1918. 6. Eldridge adopts this formulation from D. Henrich, Aesthetic Judgment and the Moral Image of the World: Studies in Kant (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). 7. Te Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, Letter of June 1917. 8. Te Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, Letter of June 1917. 9. One might think here, for example, both of the Rede über die Mythologie that forms part of Friedrich Schlegel’s Gespräch über die Poesie as well as the link between art and religion that is such a distinctive part of the “Religion” chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. For a direct comparison of these two texts, see A. Speight, “Art, Imagination and the Interpretation of the

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Age,” in Te Imagination in German Idealism and Romanticism, ed. G. Gentry and K. Pollok (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 225–40. 10. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth CPR), trans. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A806/B833. See Kate Moran’s essay in this volume for a more detailed analysis of the relationship between Kant’s moral philosophy and his account of progress. Te heading for this section is taken from P. Szondi and H. Mendelsohn, “Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin,” Critical Inquiry 4 (1978): 491–506. See below for a more detailed discussion of this essay. 11. E. Friedlander, Walter Benjamin: A Philosophical Portrait (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), 194. 12. Friedlander, Walter Benjamin, 194. 13. A. Chignell, “Rational Hope, Possibility and Divine Action,” in G. Michalson, ed., Critical Guide to Kant’s “Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). On the confation issue, see also A. Chignell, “Expectation and Hope in the Anthropocene” (unpublished) and the discussion below. 14. I. Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (henceforth Religion), in I. Kant, Religion and Rational Teology, trans. A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:53. See the essay by Sam Stoner and Paul Wilford in this volume for a more detailed discussion of Kant’s treatment of the ethical community in the Religion. 15. In his discussion of the postulate of immortality, Kant claims that the individual agent “may hope for a further unbroken continuance” of his life—however long that may be, and “even beyond this life” in the “endlessness of his duration (which God alone can survey)” that can be “perfectly adequate to his will (without indulgence or excuse, which do not harmonize with justice).” See I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (henceforth CPrR), trans. M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 5:107–13. 16. A. Chignell, “Rational Hope, Moral Order and the Revolution of the Will,” in Divine Order, Human Order, and the Order of Nature, ed. E. Watkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 17. One should not, of course, confuse the temporal and modal issues here: there could be a confusion regarding doxastic claims that are not futural, but the confation seems especially worrisome when one considers it with respect to the future. 18. W. Benjamin, Teses on the Philosophy of History, in W. Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Refections, trans. Harry Zohn, ed. Hannah Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), 255. 19. Friedlander, Walter Benjamin, 195–96. 20. “Te concept of the historical progress of mankind cannot be sundered from the concept of its progression through a homogeneous, empty time. A critique of the concept of such a progression must be the basis of any criticism of the concept of progress itself ” (Benjamin, Teses on the Philosophy of History, XIII). 21. Benjamin, Teses on the Philosophy of History, IX. 22. “Historicism contents itself with establishing a causal connection between various moments in history. But no fact that is a cause is for that reason very historical. It became historical posthumously, as it were through events that may be separated from it by thousands of years. A historian who takes this as his point of departure stops telling the sequence of events like the beads of a rosary. Instead, he grasps the constellation, which his own era has formed with a defnite earlier one. Tus he establishes a conception of the present as the ‘time of the now’ which is shot through with chips of Messianic time” (Benjamin, Teses on the Philosophy of History, XVIIIA).

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Notes to Pages 208–215

23. I will leave aside for the moment the way in which the concerns with the collective and with the past are taken up in the diferent context of Benjamin’s later non-narrative work (particularly, e.g., the Arcades project). But A. Ross, Walter Benjamin’s Concept of the Image (New York: Routledge, 2016), has argued with respect to Benjamin’s notion of the dialectical image, that it is important to look for the continuities across Benjamin’s work in this regard. 24. See A. Speight, “Te Narrative Shape of Agency: Tree Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives,” in Narrative, Philosophy and Life, ed. A. Speight (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014); A. Speight, “Hegel on Narrativity and Agency,” in Hegel on Action, ed. A. Laitinen and C. Sandis (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), 232–43; and P. Goldie, Te Mess Inside: Narrative, Emotion and the Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 25. Eldridge, Images of History, 160. But this does not mean that “the construction of life is no longer productively possible”: Benjamin characterizes his own writing in terms of a “punctual intervention in a machine that is already running” (“one applies a little [oil] to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know [in the material-social machine]”). 26. Friedlander, Walter Benjamin, 199. 27. Szondi and Mendelsohn, “Hope in the Past,” 499. 28. Benjamin, Illuminations, 116. 29. Benjamin, Illuminations, 117–18. 30. George’s poem reads: “Before you wage the battle of your star, / I sing of strife and gains on higher stars. / Before you know the bodies on this star, / I shape you dreams among eternal stars.” Benjamin’s comment on these lines precedes the fnal quotation about hope for the sake of the hopeless: “Te phrase ‘Before you know the bodies’ appears destined for a sublime irony. Tose lovers never seize the body. What does it matter if they never gathered strength for battle?” See W. Benjamin, Selected Writings, ed. B. Marcus and M. W. Jennings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 356. 31. Benjamin, Selected Writings, 355. 32. Benjamin, Selected Writings, 355. 33. Benjamin quotes Hölderlin’s lines about this caesura as follows: “Te tragic transport is actually empty, and the least restrained. Tereby, in the rhythmic sequence of the representations wherein the transport presents itself, there becomes necessary what in poetic meter is called caesura, the pure word, the counter-rhythmic rupture—namely, in order to meet the onrushing change of representations at the highest point, in such a manner that not the change of representations but the representation itself very soon appears” (Benjamin, Selected Writings, 340–41). 34. Benjamin, Selected Writings, 340. 35. Benjamin, Illuminations, 102. 36. Benjamin, Illuminations, 102. 37. Benjamin, Illuminations, 102. Benjamin underscores this twofold orientation, suggesting that “the fairy tale polarizes Mut, courage, dividing it dialectically into Untermut, that is, cunning and Übermut, high spirits.” 38. Benjamin, Illuminations, 102. 39. Benjamin, Illuminations, 103. 40. Benjamin, Illuminations, 107. 41. J. Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 69. 42. Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, 154. 43. Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, 78.

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44. Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, 103. 45. Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, 154. 46. Lear, Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation, 154; Benjamin, Illuminations, 255.

Chapter 13

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1. G. W. F. Hegel, Faith and Knowledge, trans. W. Cerf and H. S. Harris (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977). 2. J. J. Rousseau, Te Basic Political Writings, trans. D. A. Cross (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2012). 3. See, for example, F. Nietzsche, Tus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. A. Caro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 221; and F. Nietzsche, Te Genealogy of Morals, trans. C. Diethe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 111. 4. R. Pippin, “Heidegger on Nietzsche on Nihilism,” in R. Pippin, Interanimations: Receiving Modern German Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 5. M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 1, trans. D. F. Krell (New York: HarperOne, 1991), 261; M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Bd. I (Pfullingen: Neske, 1961), 35. 6. M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 4, trans. D. F. Krell (New York: HarperOne, 1991), 4; M. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Bd. II (Pfullingen: Neske, 1961), 33. 7. Nietzsche, Tus Spoke Zarathustra, 9. 8. F. Nietzsche, Te Gay Science, trans. J. Naukhof (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 64. 9. Pippin, “Heidegger on Nietzsche on Nihilism.” 10. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Vol. 1, 18; Heidegger, Nietzsche, Bd. I, 26. 11. L. Trilling, Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), 16. 12. J. J. Rousseau, Te First and Second Discourse, trans. Victor Gourevitch (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 199.

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Copyright © 2021. University of Pennsylvania Press. All rights reserved. Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Contributors

Mark Alznauer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. He is the author of Hegel’s Teory of Responsibility (Cambridge University Press, 2015). Karl Ameriks is McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. He has written numerous books on Kant and German Idealism, including, most recently, Kant’s Elliptical Path (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Kantian Subjects (Oxford University Press, 2020).

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Naomi Fisher is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago. Her articles have appeared in the European Journal of Philosophy, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Ergo, and the Southern Journal of Philosophy. Ryan S. Kemp is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. His articles have appeared in the European Journal of Philosophy, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, and History of Philosophy Quarterly. Kate Moran is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University and chair of the Eastern Study Group of the North American Kant Society. She is the author of Community and Progress in Kant’s Moral Philosophy (Catholic University of America Press, 2012) and the editor of Kant on Freedom and Spontaneity (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Robert B. Pippin is Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor in the Committee on Social Tought, the Department of Philosophy, and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of numerous books on German Idealism, the history of modern philosophy, and the philosophy of art, including, most recently, Hegel’s Realm of Shadows: Logic as Metaphysics in

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284

Contributors

Te Science of Logic (University of Chicago Press, 2019) and Filmed Tought (University of Chicago Press, 2019). Oliver Sensen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University and vice president of the North American Kant Society. He is the author of Kant on Human Dignity (De Gruyter, 2011) and the editor of several volumes on Kant’s practical philosophy, including Kant’s Lectures on Ethics, A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2015) and Te Emergence of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Susan Meld Shell is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. She has written and edited several books on Kant’s political philosophy, including, most recently, Kant and the Limits of Autonomy (Harvard University Press, 2009) and Kant’s Observations and Remarks: A Critical Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2012). C. Allen Speight is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. He is the author of Te Philosophy of Hegel (McGill-Queen’s, 2008) and Hegel, Literature and the Problem of Agency (Cambridge University Press, 2001), as well as co-editor and translator of Hegel’s Heidelberg Writings (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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Samuel A. Stoner is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Assumption University. His articles have appeared in the Review of Metaphysics, Philosophy and Rhetoric, the Kant Yearbook, and the Journal of the History of Philosophy. Jens Timmermann is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary (Cambridge University Press, 2010), the co-translator of the German-English edition of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and the co-editor of Te Cambridge History of Moral Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Richard L. Velkley is Celia Scott Whetherhead Professor of Philosophy at Tulane University. He has written and edited a number of books on topics in the history of modern philosophy, including, most recently, Heidegger, Strauss, and the Premises of Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 2011) and Te

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Contributors

285

Linguistic Dimension of Kant’s Tought: Historical and Critical Essays (Northwestern University Press, 2014). Paul T. Wilford is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His articles and reviews have appeared in the Review of Metaphysics, the Review of Politics, the Kantian Review, and Pli: Te Warwick Journal of Philosophy.

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Rachel Zuckert is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University and president of the North American Kant Society. She is the author of Kant on Beauty and Biology (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and Herder’s Naturalist Aesthetics (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and co-editor of Hegel on Philosophy in History (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

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Index

Abraham, 229; Kierkegaard’s account of, 193 Achilles, 127, 229 Adams, John, 141, 263n8 Adamson, Robert, 154, 267n4 afect, 124–28, 133–34, 207, 260n60 America, United States of, 1, 140–42, 219, 263nn5–9, 264n18; Kant’s views on, 141  anthropology, 105, 124, 128, 234n10, 256n6; Kant’s “geo-anthropology,” 143 antinomy, 36, 250n5, 266n2; Kant’s Tird Antinomy, 19–24, 29, 65, 247n23 Aquinas, Tomas, 234n12, 236n31 Arendt, Hannah, 139–40, 233n2 Aristophanes, 235n14 Aristotle, 5–6, 175, 234n12, 235nn13–14, 235nn27–28; and Brahe, 259n43; and Descartes, 236n36 art, 6, 67, 84, 86, 133, 159, 168–83, 205, 209, 212, 228, 269n10, 269n14, 269n17, 270n23, 271n28, 273n56, 278n9; artifcial, 10–11, 87, 131, 214, 230, 239n61, 251n34; of education, 158, 161 Athena, 233n3 Athenaeum, 146 Augustine, 149, 228; Luther’s return to, 265n41 Austen, Jane, 229 autonomy, 12–14, 24, 30, 34, 37, 39, 83, 103, 105–6, 138–40, 146–48, 151, 158, 201, 231, 238n6; in Kierkegaard, 190, 192, 201, 276n20; moral autonomy, 12, 101; rational autonomy, 12, 96–98, 105, 190, 219; and teleology, 86, 88, 95 Bacon, Francis, 4, 6–14, 236nn29–33; Great Instauration, 12; New Atlantis, 7, 10; New Organon, 6–7 Balzac, Honoré de, 219 

Bastille, 127–28, 260n77 Batavian Revolution, 140–41 beautiful, the, 169, 171, 174, 179, 200; beautiful ideal, 109; beauty, 169, 174, 205, 212, 269n14, 270n21 Beck, Lewis White, 39, 241n37 Beckett, Samuel, 219 Behler, Ernst, 147 Beiser, Frederick, 147, 252n46 Benjamin, Walter, 15, 202–16 Beowulf, 229 Berlin, Isaiah, 142, 218 Bildung: in Schlegel, 119, 134; in Fichte, 158, 267n16  Brahe, Tycho, 121, 259n43 Brandom, Robert, 266n48, 270n23 Carl of Braunschweig, 141 Cassirer, Ernst, 139, 233n2  categorical imperative, 47–49, 54–55, 153, 242n4, 244n50, 245n60 Chignell, Andrew, 31–32, 117–18, 202, 206–7, 234n10, 240n6, 240n10, 241n12, 257n18, 279n13, 279n16 Christianity, 78, 108–13, 193, 218, 221, 227–28, 236n31; Hegel on, 168, 173, 179, 181–82, 272n45, 275n5; Kierkegaard on, 188–89, 200, 276n16; and nihilism, 221 Cicero, 5 civilization, 13, 16, 150, 217, 219, 226; in Kant, 84–88; and Rousseau, 70, 72 colonialism, 139–41 Comte, Auguste, 138 constitution: political, 66, 102, 106, 127, 130, 140, 251n34, 254n24, 261n89; republican, 5, 118, 125, 127, 129, 130, 259n27 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 259n43; Kant’s “Copernican turn,” 15, 121, 258n42

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288 cosmopolitanism, 16, 64, 66–67, 73, 138–42, 144, 146, 153, 234n10, 259n54; and teleology, 112 culture, 63, 78, 80, 86–88, 94, 111–14, 143, 145, 151, 154, 171, 175, 183, 218–20, 246n4; in Fichte, 160, 162–64; in Herder, 148–50; in Rousseau, 71, 140, 248n46

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Dante, 148 Danto, Arthur, 271n28 Descartes, René, 7–10, 13, 147, 236nn34–36 despair, 37, 199, 252n48; and Christianity, 236n31; despondency, 37–38, 43, 46; and hope, 7, 16, 76, 87; melancholy, 43, 131, 186, 191–92, 218; moral, 68–72, 248n47 determinism, 19–24, 27–29, 65; and Spinozism, 155 Diderot, Denis, 11; Rameau’s Nephew, 229, 232 dignity, 12, 57, 140; and duty, 38, 52, 57 disposition, 27, 35, 37, 41, 58, 121, 158–59, 194, 198–200 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 192, 219 duty, 33–51, 53, 68, 117, 126, 187, 245n64; and dignity, 38, 52, 57; and the “ethical community,” 103–4, 106; perfect and imperfect, 54–60, 243n34; and obligation, 244n43 education, 51, 130, 145, 171–72; aesthetic education, 153, 155, 159; art of, 158, 161; in Fichte’s Addresses, 154–62; moral education, 30, 34, 51–52, 57 Eldridge, Richard, 202–4, 208–9, 278n1, 278n4, 280n25 Eliot, T. S., 219 Enlightenment, the, 75, 139, 146, 153, 219–20; the “Counter-Enlightenment,” 142, 154, 218; and cosmopolitanism, 146 ethical community, 95, 103–11  Faust, 219 feeling, 125, 133–34, 142, 160, 200, 207, 229–30; aesthetic feeling, 123; of hope, 212; moral feeling, 51, 53–54 Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas, 138 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 15, 138, 149, 154–64, 266n2, 268n20; and Hegel, 165–66, 177  Flaubert, Gustave, 219 Fontane, Teodor, 262; Irretrievable, 137

Index Forster, Michael, 142, 190, 276n21 Foucault, Michel, 74, 147, 219, 233n2, 249n61 Frank, Manfred, 147 Frederick II, 74, 141, 263n9 freedom, 14, 16, 25–26, 37, 40–42, 51, 57, 94–103, 106–7, 111, 120–22, 127–30, 132–33, 144, 155–57, 161, 163–64, 191, 212–13, 219, 229, 238n61, 247n23, 251n26, 252n48 266n2; and determinism, 20–23, 29, 65; free choice, 24, 28, 98–99, 107, 124, 132, 244n54; free will, 5, 19, 24, 96, 159; and the moral law, 28–29, 34, 52, 77–78, 80, 83, 88, 92; political, 67, 73, 75, 116, 139–41, 178, 232, 261n89; realm of, 153; and teleology, 78, 80, 82–86, 88–92, 252n52, 252n53, 267n14 Fremstedal, Roe, 187–89, 275n8 French Revolution, 41, 46, 140, 218, 238n60; Kant’s reaction to, 41–42, 74, 125, 132, 140; Nietzsche’s on Kant’s reaction to, 115–16, 256n4; Jacobins, 155 Friedlander, Eli, 202, 206–7, 209, 211 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 139; and Herder, 149, 260n20 Galileo, 8, 259n43 Gentz, Friedrich von, 123, 258n42 George, Stefan, 210–11, 280n30 God, 5, 12, 14, 29, 34, 49, 64–65, 70, 77–93, 105–13, 160, 169, 181, 185–89, 197–200, 206, 219, 221–22, 228, 251n24, 251n28, 252n48, 277n44 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 139; Benjamin on, 203, 206, 209–12 Green, Joseph, 140 Guess, Raymond, 151 Hamann, Johann Georg, 218 happiness, 13, 42, 47–48, 53, 71, 95–96, 132, 207, 213, 248n47; and duty, 55, 57, 59, 245n59; in Kierkegaard, 185–201, 275n8; and virtue, 33, 39, 185–87, 194; unhappiness, 7, 186, 193 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 10, 138–39, 148–49, 165–87, 205, 216, 229, 266n2, 268n1, 274n73, 277n36, 277n37; Belief and Knowledge, 219; criticism of Locke, 271n27; Elements of Philosophy of Right, 167, 269n18; and Fichte, 165–66, 177;

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Index and Kant, 15, 146, 149, 153, 185–86, 176, 247n27, 271n32, 277n36; and Kierkegaard, 187, 190–95, 200, 275n5; Lectures on History of Philosophy, 168, 170–71, 173, 179, 272nn45–46, 269n16; Lectures on Philosophy of Fine Art, 167–69, 173–74, 178–79, 269n10; Lectures on Philosophy of History, 173, 269n18; Lectures on Philosophy of Religion, 165, 169, 173–75, 179, 180–81, 269n15, 272n48; Lectures on Philosophy of World History, 167, 169, 178, 268n8, 272n45; Phenomenology of Spirit, 167, 186, 190, 232, 269n11, 278n9; Philosophy of Nature, 167; Realphilosophie, 183, 270n23, 274n69; Science of Logic, 165, 168, 171, 175, 183–84, 268n2, 269n19; on Sittlichkeit, 153, 187, 220, 229 Heidegger, Martin, 11, 15, 147, 218–28, 230–32; Lectures on Nietzsche, 220–32; Being and Time, 223 Henry VIII, 53 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 15, 89, 137–38, 142–46, 148–51, 153; and Milton, 265n43 heteronomy, 96, 190, 195 highest good, 33, 36–40, 42, 46, 52, 94, 96–97, 100, 103, 109; diferent treatments in CPrR and CPJ, 252n53; Kierkegaard’s account of, 185–201, 275n8, 276n18 history, 2–4, 13, 15, 53, 77–78, 99, 106, 114, 118–22, 124–34, 200; ahistorical perspective, 142, 144, 180, 209; and Christianity, 91–92, 107–13; Hegel’s philosophy of, 165–85; historicism 146, 274n65, 279n22; historiography, 167; Kant’s philosophy of, 62–76; and moral progress, 39–42, 83–84, 86–89; and Rousseau, 11 Hobbes, Tomas, 8, 12, 102, 236nn37–38, 258n40; Leviathan frontispiece, 260n77 Hodgson, Peter, 268n8 Hölderlin, Friedrich, 146–48, 219; Benjamin on, 212, 280n33 holiness, 36, 132; holy, 110, 114 Homer, 149; Odyssey, 233n3 Honneth, Axel, 62, 73–74, 247n23 hope, 4, 7, 11–12, 15–16, 65, 69, 72, 74, 92, 96–97, 109, 120, 130, 157, 166, 185–87, 193, 202–3, 205–16, 219, 232, 234n10, 239n61, 247n27, 277n15, 280n30; and moral progress, 27, 29, 36, 41, 71, 74, 87, 121, 123, 254n24

289 Hume, David, 28; Kant’s reading of, 12, 186 Husserl, Edmund, 219 idea(s), 12, 34, 43–44, 84, 107, 110, 117–18, 123, 126–28, 131–34, 148, 157, 187, 196, 206–7, 239n61, 259n54, 266n2; in Fichte, 160–63; of freedom, 37, 42, 91; German Idealism, 168, 266n2; in Hegel, 169, 171, 174, 179, 182–84, 272n45; idealism, 105; of reason, 3, 23, 34, 78, 88, 91–92, 96–97, 100, 125, 133, 145, 157, 163, 182, 252n53; regulative idea(s), 63, 65–69, 71, 145, 150, 246n14, 247n23, 247n28; Schelling’s idealism, 182; transcendental idealism, 4, 107, 234n7, 246n15 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 220 James, Henry, 219, 232 Jena, 137, 146, 148, 262; Jena edition of G. W. F. Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, 167, 269n11 Jenisch, Daniel, 144–45, 264n31 Jesus, 108–13, 148; Kant’s relation to, 112–13 Job, 148 Judaism, 109–10, 113, 173, 233n3, 255n50, 257n32; Spinoza’s interpretation of, 255n49; Torah and other Hebrew texts, 145, 278n4 justice, 33, 43–44, 103, 227, 259n59 Kafka, Franz, 219; Benjamin on, 203, 209–10, 212–13 Kant, Immanuel: “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” 14, 62, 73–75, 141, 154–55; Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, 86–88, 127, 131–33; “On the Common Saying: Tat May be Correct in Teory, but It Is of No Use in Practice,” 62, 117, 258n42, 259n43; Confict of the Faculties, 15, 41, 62, 73–75, 115–19, 247n28; “Conjectural Beginning of Human History,” 89, 248n46, 252n42; Critique of the Power of Judgement, 31, 43, 62–63, 77–83, 88, 90–92, 96, 133, 140, 145, 148, 153, 246n4, 252n53; Critique of Practical Reason, 25–26, 33–37, 49–52, 56–58, 64, 92, 96, 205–7, 242n3, 252n53; Critique of Pure Reason, 3, 12–13, 15, 20–24, 31, 65–66, 92, 145, 185, 267n14; Doctrine of Virtue, 34–35, 44–45, 50, 52–54, 56, 58–59;

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Kant, Immanuel (continued ) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 38, 40–41, 47–48, 50–52, 54–56, 58–59, 195, 242n4; “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim,” 62, 70–72, 144, 151, 155, 204, 238n61, 254n24; Lectures on Ethics, 37–38, 45, 54; Lectures on Logic, 31–33; Metaphysics of Morals, 34, 37, 47, 50, 53–59, 124, 210; “Postscript of a Friend,” 143–45; Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 19, 24–27, 29, 34, 36, 51, 56, 60, 87, 92, 94, 97–113, 130, 206–7, 253n57, 254n18, 254n24, 255n49, 258n34; “Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” 62, 117–19, 129, 134, 246n9, 247n28, 248n44, 249n51, 256n6, 265n36 Kepler, Johannes, 259n43 Kierkegaard, Søren, 15, 185–201, 275n5, 275nn8–10, 276n16, 276n18, 276n20, 277n33, 277n44; Either/Or, 187, 190–98; “Te Expectancy of Faith,” 193; Fear and Trembling, 187–88, 192–93, 196–98 kingdom of ends, 14 Kleingeld, Pauline, 65, 115, 247n28 Kneller, Jane, 147 Königsberg, 13, 138–39, 140, 144–45 Kuhn, Tomas, 147 Laclos, Pierre Choderlos de, 232 La Fontaine, Jean de, 151 Laminit, Paul Jacob, 127–28 language, 131–33, 157, 212, 214–15, 224–26; and national culture, 145, 157, 161–64, 268n20 Lear, Jonathan, 203, 209, 214–15 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 149, 151; and Newton, 236n39 Leskov, Nikolai, 203, 209–15 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 15, 137, 205; Te Education of the Human Race, 155 liberal democracy, 16, 218, 232; and the European liberal tradition, 8–10; Jena liberalism, 262n; Weimar liberalism, 216 Locke, John, 8–10, 236n40; Hegel’s criticism of, 271n27; and Hobbes, 236n37; Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 236n38; Second Treatise of Government, 8 Louis XVI, 140; depiction of the execution of, 127, 129, 260n77 love, 7, 43–44, 53, 159–60, 191, 193–200, 210–11, 276n16, 277n33, 277n44; charity,

Index 7, 44; eros, 266n2; love of honor, 130, 134, 158; self-love, 98, 159–60 Lucretius, 259n58 Lukács, György, 139; Te Young Hegel, 167 Luther, Martin, 130, 148; Kant’s view of, 265n41; translation of the Bible, 119, 163, 257n30 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 4–6, 235nn15–20 MacIntyre, Alasdair, 147, 276n28 Maistre, Joseph de, 218 Marx, Karl, 138, 149 maxim, 20, 24, 28, 36, 38, 47–48, 53–59, 133, 262n112; of benefcence, 244n45, 244n50, 245n60; of public right, 129; supreme maxim, 56, 98–101 McCarney, Joe, 269n18, 273n54 Mendelssohn, Moses, 3, 13, 15, 238n59 Millán, Elizabeth, 147 Milton, John, 148 misanthropy, 3, 42–46 modernity, 1–16, 95, 137, 143–50, 172, 178, 182, 195, 209, 217–20, 227–32, 238n53, 238n61, 255n50, 262n, 266n2, 277n38; early modernity, 4, 12, 95, 146; late modernity, 138, 146–50, 218, 220, 229, 232, 265n41; modern European culture, 10, 164, 171, 178, 217–19; post-modernity, 1–2, 218 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis, 237n41–46; Spirit of the Laws, 9–10 moral law, 20, 23–29, 38, 48–53, 55, 59, 97, 106–9, 112, 195, 244n46; and freedom, 52; and hope, 27, 29; and natural inclinations, 49–51, 56–57, 98, 101–3, 134 moral world, 3, 40, 86–87, 94–96, 105, 107, 113, 160 Napoleon, 155, 158; Napoleonic Wars, 15, 154, 164 nation, 67, 86, 122, 143–46, 173, 178, 218, 277n45; internationalism, 73, 138, 146, 254n24; German nationalism, 138, 154–55, 157–58, 161; League of Nations, 139 nature, 2, 12–14, 22–23, 52, 64, 95–96, 107, 117, 122, 125, 127–29, 133, 143, 145, 149–50, 159–60, 164, 210–11, 213, 224, 239n61, 247n23, 251n24, 251n28, 252n48; in Hegel, 167–68, 171, 183, 268n2, 274n68; human nature, 10–11, 20, 24, 28, 29–30, 35–37, 49, 63, 67, 71–73, 90, 97, 101–3,

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

Index 111, 113, 126, 141, 234n7, 236n40, 245n60, 247n23, 248n48; law of nature, 22, 87, 259n43; “mastery of nature,” 4–8, 13, 217; natural history, 121, 130–31, 134; natural inclinations, 49–51, 56–57, 98, 101–3, 134; natural laws, 21, 119, 121; natural science, 8–11, 218, 260n58; nature of reason, 13, 38, 95–96, 126, 153, 161–62; state of nature, 8, 101–2; supernatural, 24, 118–19, 131, 150, 257n32; and teleology, 63–66, 68–69, 77–86, 91–93, 250n3–13, 258n37, 267n14 Newton, Isaac, 9; Principia, 236n39 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 15, 115–16, 147, 187, 200, 218, 220–24, 226–30, 232; Ecce Homo, 200; Te Gay Science, 221–22; Tus Spoke Zarathustra, 200, 222 nihilism, 220–22, 226, 232 noumena, 21–22, 119, 122, 262n112 Novalis, 146–47

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O’Neill, Onora, 139 organism, 79, 81, 83–92, 251n24, 251n29 “ought implies can,” 24–29, 195, 255n35 Paul (the Apostle), 228 peace, 63–67, 86, 118–19, 127, 134, 139 perfection, 35–36, 51, 55, 67, 90, 207, 245n59, 251n28, 273n61; moral perfection, 35–36, 51, 58, 88–89, 103; self-perfection, 50, 57, 60; societal perfection, 249n52 phenomena, 21, 36, 119, 126, 130, 144, 248n50 Pippin, Robert, 274n69 Plato, 5, 9, 134, 149–50, 204, 211, 220–21, 227, 235nn13–14, 259n58, 265n45; and Hegel, 272n44 Plenty-Coups (Crow Nation Chief ), 214–15 predisposition, 3, 41, 44, 84, 87, 102, 120, 123, 125–26, 131, 133, 251n34, 256n4 Pre-Socratics, 168 Proust, Marcel, 219, 232; Benjamin on, 203, 206, 209, 212 Ptolemy, 259n43 radical evil, 30, 94–95, 97–107, 111–12, 114, 240n17, 254n18, 265n41 Rawls, John, 139 reason, 2–6, 12–16, 29, 38–39, 47, 50, 57, 69, 71–72, 87–88, 92, 117, 121–22, 126, 130–34, 139, 153, 166, 186, 195, 210, 226, 234n10, 238n53, 242n3, 244n53, 248n46, 255n49, 258n40, 266n2; and moral progress, 52,

291 94, 96–114, 258n18, 254n24, 255n35; practical reason, 24, 33–34, 38, 47, 49, 53, 64, 72, 80, 91, 98–99, 156–57, 248n47, 252n53, 266n2; pure reason, 23, 31–32, 53, 55, 57, 61, 145, 154, 245n60; rational faith, 87, 105, 109, 111, 113, 206; speculative reason, 34; sovereignty or authority of, 125, 164, 220; and teleology, 72, 78, 80–83, 96, 104, 112–13, 250n5; theoretical reason, 90–91, 156–57, 247n23, 250n5, 252n53, 266n2 refective judgement, 66, 145 Rehburg, August, 248n42, 259n43 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, 146–47, 264n33 relativism, 146, 150–51 respect, 38, 44, 48–61, 142, 147 revolution, 41, 119, 123–33, 140–43, 213; American Revolution, 140–41, 263nn5–6, 263n8; in disposition, 100–102, 107; in doctrines of faith, 109; French Revolution, 41–42, 46, 74, 115–16, 125, 132, 140, 155, 218, 238n60, 256n4; of the heart, 28, 29, 34, 36, 56–58; in human selfunderstanding, 217–18; philosophical revolution, 4, 15; scientifc revolution, 148 Riga, 142–44 right, 59–60, 69, 71, 116, 124, 127–30, 161, 185, 236n40, 242n5, 244n44; in Hegel, 167, 175; of humanity, 12, 37, 54, 75, 112, 128; and Kant’s ethics, 47–48, 243n34; political rights, 74, 129–30, 132, 140–41, 218, 238n61; of reason, 3 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 219 Romanticism, 146, 154, 218–19; and art, 168, 173, 179; early German Romanticism, 138, 146–47, 149, 202–3, 205; Hegel on romantic art, 179, 273n56 Rorty, Richard, 151 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 4, 10–12, 14, 70–72, 74, 95, 101, 137, 140, 143, 148, 150, 158, 195, 218–19, 230, 238n53, 248n46–47, 266n2; Emile, 11; First Discourse, 219; Second Discourse, 11, 70, 231; On the Social Contract, 11, 238n61 Rush, Fred, 147 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 15, 146–49, 182; “On the Essence of German Science” 154 Schiller, Friedrich, 147; criticism of Herder, 143; Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, 153, 155, 159

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292 Schlegel, August Wilhelm, 146 Schlegel, Friedrich, 146–47, 151, 208, 257n27, 258n42, 278n9; and Hegel, 278n9; review of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace,” 118–19, 121, 123, 133–34, 261n89, 265n36 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 146 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 185 Sedgwick, Sally, 274n62 Sellars, Wilfrid, 139 sensibility, 23, 35, 45, 49, 53, Shakespeare, William, 149 Shell, Susan Meld, 143, 145 Sieyès, Emmanuel Joseph, 140 Socrates, 227 Sophocles, 174–75; Antigone, 235n28; Oedipus Rex, 175 Spinoza, Baruch, 146, 160; and determinism, 154; interpretation of Judaism, 255n49 Stendhal, 219 Stoicism, 5, 56, 125, 244n57 Strawson, Peter Frederick, 139 sublime, the, 123, 129, 259n54; morally sublime, 57, 259n53 Sulzer, Johann Georg, 52–53

theodicy, 72, 249n51 Tucydides, 221, 235n14 Trilling, Lionel, 229 unsociable sociability, 64, 66, 69–72, 83, 86f, 90, 248n49; and radical evil, 102; and theodicy, 72 Velkley, Richard, 11, 236n38, 253n2, 266n2 Virgil, 134, 148; Aeneid, 127 virtue, 5–7, 9–10, 15, 33, 37–40, 43–44, 46–47, 50, 52–53, 56, 58–61, 112, 134, 144, 155, 162, 162, 228–30, 237, 243n34, 258n34; and happiness, 185–89, 194, 277n36 Weber, Max, 12 Whig history, 137, 149 will, 24, 27, 29, 33, 37, 55–57, 59, 63, 102, 104, 124–25, 132–33, 156–59, 169, 228–29, 251n29, 276n15; general will, 141, 238n61; good will, 47–51, 94, 111, 121–22, 159, 242n4; and morality, 36, 40, 46, 109–10; “will to power,” 223, 230 Williams, Bernard, 147 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 148 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 139 Wolf, Christian, 149 World War I, 154; Treaty of Versailles, 139 Zammito, John, 115, 142

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Taylor, Charles, 142, 147, 269n9 technology, 10, 14, 217 teleology, 2, 65–66, 107, 109, 150, 226, 251n28, 252n52, 267n14; in Hegel, 271n32; in Kant, 77–86, 87–92, 96, 112; and reason, 95–96, 104

Index

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.

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Acknowledgments

Tis volume was born of our perplexity about the tension between autonomy and teleology in Kant’s philosophy. It aims to explore a set of questions that we frst formulated almost a decade ago, when as graduate students at Tulane University, we began studying Kant’s historical, political, and theological writings with Richard Velkley, who gave us so much and to whom we dedicate this volume. Velkley taught us not only how to read the great drama of German philosophy from Kant to Heidegger, but, more importantly, he taught us by example how philosophical inquiry is born of wonder, animated by aporeia, and sustained by nature’s grace. Te material work on this project has been generously supported by our respective institutions. It began as a two-day conference in February 2018 made possible by a grant from the Institute for Liberal Arts at Boston College. Te success of the conference was due in no small part to the encouragement and practical assistance provided by the political science department at Boston College. In particular, Susan Shell enthusiastically discussed ideas, topics, and themes while also ofering useful practical advice. In addition, the friendly reception of our plan for the conference by senior colleagues in the feld made the process much easier. We are especially grateful to our keynote speakers, Karl Ameriks and Robert Pippin. Te discussants at the conference contributed to the lively exchange of ideas, and we would like to thank Jon Burmeister, Wiebke Deimling, and Alexander Duf for their thoughtful comments. For practical assistance during the conference and subsequent discussion of the conference’s theme, we would like to thank Nicholas Anderson, Heather P. Wilford, and Jonathan Yudelman. For editorial assistance and help with the index, we are grateful to Nathan Davis and Eryn Gammonley. Finally, we would like to thank Shirley Gee for her invaluable guidance and tireless help. Oliver Sensen was characteristically encouraging and sober in his advice about the multifaceted role an editor plays in putting together a coherent and unifed volume. His experience and judgment were a useful touchstone

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294

Acknowledgments

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throughout the process. Beginning with a graduate seminar on Kant’s practical philosophy at Tulane, Oliver has challenged us to think more clearly and precisely, supported our research interests, and, perhaps most importantly, consistently reminded us that one just has to keep plugging away, even when one’s task is daunting. Transforming the interesting ideas discussed during the conference into a book required frst fnding a sympathetic editor willing to take a risk on a somewhat unusual approach to the history of German philosophy. We are immensely grateful to Damon Linker for his recognition of the value of this volume’s approach to the question of progress, for his enthusiastic endorsement in the early stages of our editorial work, and for his patient shepherding of the project to completion. He has been a model editor. Further material support for publication of this volume was provided by the Provost’s Ofce at Assumption University and the Ofce of the Dean of the Arts and Sciences at Boston College. Tis support is deeply appreciated, and we both count ourselves fortunate to enjoy institutions that prize careful scholarship. Paul T. Wilford would like to thank the James Madison Program at Princeton University for a 2019–2020 fellowship that enabled him to fnish working on the project, and Samuel A. Stoner would like to thank Assumption University for a summer research grant that supported his editorial work. Finally, both of us want to express our deep gratitude for the continued love, support, and encouragement of our families and friends.

Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.