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On History
1986, First Edition, Sixteenth Printing, Paperback, 154 pages
185 pages, Paperback
First published January 11, 1963
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About the author
Immanuel Kant
3,033 books4,365 followersImmanuel Kant was an 18th-century philosopher from Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He's regarded as one of the most influential thinkers of modern Europe & of the late Enlightenment. His most important work is The Critique of Pure Reason, an investigation of reason itself. It encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics & epistemology, & highlights his own contribution to these areas. Other main works of his maturity are The Critique of Practical Reason, which is about ethics, & The Critique of Judgment, about esthetics & teleology.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested that metaphysics can be reformed thru epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources & limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He asked if an object can be known to have certain properties prior to the experience of that object. He concluded that all objects that the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. Therefore if the mind can think only in terms of causality–which he concluded that it does–then we can know prior to experiencing them that all objects we experience must either be a cause or an effect. However, it follows from this that it's possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, & so the principle of causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside experience: hence we cannot know, for example, whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. So the grand questions of speculative metaphysics are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind. Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists & the rationalists. The empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired thru experience alone, but the rationalists maintained that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason. Kant’s thought was very influential in Germany during his lifetime, moving philosophy beyond the debate between the rationalists & empiricists. The philosophers Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer saw themselves as correcting and expanding Kant's system, thus bringing about various forms of German Idealism. Kant continues to be a major influence on philosophy to this day, influencing both Analytic and Continental philosophy.
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October 11, 2024
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher who is perhaps the founder of "modern" philosophy, with his focus on epistemology (theory of knowledge).
This collection includes the essays "What is Enlightenment?"; "Ideas for a Universal History"; reviews of Herder's "Ideas for a Philosophy of History of Mankind"; "Perpetual Peace"; "Is the Human Race Constantly Progressing?" and more.
He begins the essay "What is Enlightenment?" with the statement, "Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction of another. Self-incurred is its cause when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it... `Have courage to use your own reason!'---that is the motto of enlightenment." (Pg. 3)
In his "Universal History," he states, "The history of mankind can be seen, in the large, as the realization of Nature's secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end." (Pg. 21)
He suggests, "This enlightenment... must step by step ascend the throne and influence the principles of government. Although... our world leaders at present have no money left over for public education and for anything that concerns what is best in the world, they will still find it to their own interest at least not to hinder the weak and the slow, independent efforts of their peoples in this work." (Pg. 23)
He adds, "It is strange and apparently silly to wish to write a history in accordance with an Idea of how the course of the world must be if it is to lead to certain rational ends. It seems that with such an Idea only a romance could be written." (Pg. 24)
In his essay, "Conjectural Beginning of Human History," he says, "It is surely permissible to insert here and there conjectures into the progression of an historical account, in order to fill gaps in the record. For what precedes the gaps... and what follows them... give a fairly reliable clue to the discovery of the intermediate causes, which are to make the transition intelligible. But to ORIGINATE an historical account from conjectures alone would seem to be not much better than to draft a novel. Indeed, this could not be called a conjectural history but rather a mere piece of fiction." (Pg. 53)
In his essay, "The End of All Things," he comments, "Christianity has something worthy of love... about it, beside the deepest respect which the sanctity of its laws irresistible inspires... If now, in order to perfect it, we add some further authority to Christianity (be it divine even), let the intention behind it be ever so well-meaning and its purpose ever so genuinely good, still its worthiness of love has vanished; for it is a contradiction to command someone not just to do something but also to do it willingly." (Pg. 81-82)
In his essay "Perpetual Peace," he proposes, "Peoples, as states, like individuals, may be judged to injure one another merely by their coexistence in the state of nature... Each of them may and should for the sake of its own security demand that others enter with it into a constitution similar to the civil constitution, for under such a constitution each can be secure in his right. This would be a league of nations, but it would not have to be a state consisting of nations." (Pg. 98)
He adds in a supplement to this essay, "I do not mean that the state should give the principles of philosophers any preference over the decisions of lawyers (the representatives of state power); I only ask that they be given a hearing... That kings should philosophize or philosophers become kings is not to be expected. Nor is it to be wished, since the possession of power inevitably corrupts the untrammeled judgment of reason. But kings... should not suffer the class of philosophers to disappear or to be silent, but should let them speak openly. This is indispensable in the enlightenment of the business of government, and, since the class of philosophers is by nature incapable of plotting and lobbying, it is above suspicion of being made up of propagandists." (Pg. 115-116)
This is an excellent selection of Kant's essays, and will be of great interest to anyone studying Kant's ideas.
This collection includes the essays "What is Enlightenment?"; "Ideas for a Universal History"; reviews of Herder's "Ideas for a Philosophy of History of Mankind"; "Perpetual Peace"; "Is the Human Race Constantly Progressing?" and more.
He begins the essay "What is Enlightenment?" with the statement, "Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction of another. Self-incurred is its cause when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it... `Have courage to use your own reason!'---that is the motto of enlightenment." (Pg. 3)
In his "Universal History," he states, "The history of mankind can be seen, in the large, as the realization of Nature's secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end." (Pg. 21)
He suggests, "This enlightenment... must step by step ascend the throne and influence the principles of government. Although... our world leaders at present have no money left over for public education and for anything that concerns what is best in the world, they will still find it to their own interest at least not to hinder the weak and the slow, independent efforts of their peoples in this work." (Pg. 23)
He adds, "It is strange and apparently silly to wish to write a history in accordance with an Idea of how the course of the world must be if it is to lead to certain rational ends. It seems that with such an Idea only a romance could be written." (Pg. 24)
In his essay, "Conjectural Beginning of Human History," he says, "It is surely permissible to insert here and there conjectures into the progression of an historical account, in order to fill gaps in the record. For what precedes the gaps... and what follows them... give a fairly reliable clue to the discovery of the intermediate causes, which are to make the transition intelligible. But to ORIGINATE an historical account from conjectures alone would seem to be not much better than to draft a novel. Indeed, this could not be called a conjectural history but rather a mere piece of fiction." (Pg. 53)
In his essay, "The End of All Things," he comments, "Christianity has something worthy of love... about it, beside the deepest respect which the sanctity of its laws irresistible inspires... If now, in order to perfect it, we add some further authority to Christianity (be it divine even), let the intention behind it be ever so well-meaning and its purpose ever so genuinely good, still its worthiness of love has vanished; for it is a contradiction to command someone not just to do something but also to do it willingly." (Pg. 81-82)
In his essay "Perpetual Peace," he proposes, "Peoples, as states, like individuals, may be judged to injure one another merely by their coexistence in the state of nature... Each of them may and should for the sake of its own security demand that others enter with it into a constitution similar to the civil constitution, for under such a constitution each can be secure in his right. This would be a league of nations, but it would not have to be a state consisting of nations." (Pg. 98)
He adds in a supplement to this essay, "I do not mean that the state should give the principles of philosophers any preference over the decisions of lawyers (the representatives of state power); I only ask that they be given a hearing... That kings should philosophize or philosophers become kings is not to be expected. Nor is it to be wished, since the possession of power inevitably corrupts the untrammeled judgment of reason. But kings... should not suffer the class of philosophers to disappear or to be silent, but should let them speak openly. This is indispensable in the enlightenment of the business of government, and, since the class of philosophers is by nature incapable of plotting and lobbying, it is above suspicion of being made up of propagandists." (Pg. 115-116)
This is an excellent selection of Kant's essays, and will be of great interest to anyone studying Kant's ideas.
May 6, 2019
"For in the face of the omnipotence of nature, or rather its supreme first cause which is inaccessible to us, the human being is, in his turn, but a trifle. But for the sovereigns of his own species also to consider and treat him as such, whether by burdening him as an animal, regarding him as a mere tool of their designs, or exposing him in their conflicts with one another in order to have him massacred - that is no trifle, but a subversion of the ultimate purpose of creation itself." (148)
only-read-part-of-it
November 12, 2019Teaching an essay from this in the spring.
If you're interested in Kant's belief in extraterrestrials, there is a lot here.
If you're interested in Kant's belief in extraterrestrials, there is a lot here.
June 26, 2024
“But this wish for a return to an age of simplicity and innocence is futile. The foregoing presentation of man's original state teaches us that, because he could not be satisfied with it, man could not remain in this state, much less be inclined ever to return to it; that therefore he must, after all, ascribe his present troublesome condition to himself and his own choice.
An exposition of his history such as the above, then, is useful for man, and conducive to his instruction and improvement. It teaches him that he must not blame the evils which oppress him on Providence, nor attribute his own offense to an original sin committed by his first parents. (For free actions can in no aspects be hereditary.) Such an exposition teaches man that, under like circumstances, he would act exactly like his first parents, that is, abuse reason in the very first use of reason, the advice of nature to the contrary notwithstanding.
Hence he must recognize what they have done as his own act, and thus blame only himself for the evils which spring from the abuse of reason. Once the blame for moral evils is correctly laid where it belongs, the strictly physical evils will hardly add up, in the ledger of merit and guilt, to a balance which is in our favor.
This, then, is the lesson taught by a philosophical attempt to write the most ancient part of human history: contentment with Providence, and with the course of human affairs, considered as a whole. For this course is not a decline from good to evil, but rather a gradual development from the worse to the better; and nature itself has given the vocation to everyone to contribute as much to this progress as may be within his power.”
An exposition of his history such as the above, then, is useful for man, and conducive to his instruction and improvement. It teaches him that he must not blame the evils which oppress him on Providence, nor attribute his own offense to an original sin committed by his first parents. (For free actions can in no aspects be hereditary.) Such an exposition teaches man that, under like circumstances, he would act exactly like his first parents, that is, abuse reason in the very first use of reason, the advice of nature to the contrary notwithstanding.
Hence he must recognize what they have done as his own act, and thus blame only himself for the evils which spring from the abuse of reason. Once the blame for moral evils is correctly laid where it belongs, the strictly physical evils will hardly add up, in the ledger of merit and guilt, to a balance which is in our favor.
This, then, is the lesson taught by a philosophical attempt to write the most ancient part of human history: contentment with Providence, and with the course of human affairs, considered as a whole. For this course is not a decline from good to evil, but rather a gradual development from the worse to the better; and nature itself has given the vocation to everyone to contribute as much to this progress as may be within his power.”
February 28, 2019
Cette traduction est littéralement illisible, siestes sur livre après relecture de la même phrase 3 fois garanties
March 1, 2022
Sapere aude! History brings us to each present, but in each future we are on our own.
April 6, 2023
read this when I was in the psych ward. seemed like the appropriate place to be reading it tbh anyway I love philosophy
October 31, 2013
These essays should primarily interest persons interested in peace studies, the evolution of western political thought and the history of the Enlightenment. Much of Kant's thinking about globalism, world government, international law, democracy and civil liberties seems rather old hat now, but was relatively novel and controversial when he wrote.
February 11, 2016
You're less anal than Nietzsche aren't you?
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September 23, 2010Kant: On History (The library of liberal arts) by Lewis White Beck (1963)
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews