Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose

by Immanuel Kant

Whatever concept one may hold from a metaphysical point of view concerning the freedom of the will, certainly its appearances, which are human actions, like every other natural event are determined by universal laws. However obscure their causes, history, which is concerned with narrating these appearances, permits us to hope that if we attend to the play of freedom of the human will in the large, we may be able to discern a regular movement in it, & that what seems chaotically complex in the single individual may be seen from the human standpoint to be a steady & progressive tho slow evolution of its original endowment. Since the free will has obvious influence upon marriages, births & deaths, they seem to be subject to no rule by which the number of them could be reckoned in advance.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, History, School, Nonfiction, Classics, 18th Century

17 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1784

About the author

Immanuel 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.

Reviews

[André Carreira · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Do yourselves a favour: do not read what is written between parenthesis, it's too extense and argumentative and I really should not entertain such ramblings in a book review website.]

I Kant believe how boring this was. It is rather ironical that the philosopher which professed himself to have operated the "philosophical Copernican revolution" should then go about affirming that Nature's highest purpose is the sharpening of Mankind to its highest degree of perfection. If Kant is right (which I highly doubt since there need not be a specific Reason that orders reality according to its purposes --we can always think of another way in which the World could operate. I mean, who wouldn't enjoy living in a world where trees could move about and rustle against people's windows during the night? It would only be scary the first few times. We could also have no thumbs, except we would probably be extinct by now. But I am missing the point. We can always assume a purpose in Nature which excludes all other possible purposes, but only if God exists. This God would then order our actions by His purpose; but, in our daily lives, the categorical imperative is not the master of our actions. This leads to the chaos and irregularity and folly that we directly observe in every other human being; if we lived as narrators do, we might observe it in our own actions. God, why am I writing this? The sun shines outside these walls where I am stuck, reading Kant. What a waste. I think I'll just hover through the rest of this damned article and go for a walk.), I really believe we should let Nature run its "course", unimpeded by the folly of any one particular man. But then again, that particular man's folly must have been the design of Nature. It seems Kant fell back on the design of Nature when he realised that man is not a moral machine.

[Christopher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before Kaldor, before Hegel, there was Kant, quite possibly the most ghastly (on politics anyway) philosopher of all time. But this, being one of his more shorter and accessible (though also cringeworthy) works is a good place to get some incling into his thought-if for some reason you should want to. Though the sensation is somewhat akin to sitting in front of a foul betrilby'd gentlesir wearing a child sized backpack covered in anime characters and Ron Paul 2012 buttons who breathes cheetos into your face while ranting about the powers of his reason and intellect.


There is a very big reason I tell people to study history *before* philosophy. There are many books, contemporary and old I could point to to back up my point-and this is one of them.

Isn't it funny how the philosophies most prone to constant appeals to some ideal of reason are the ones which most resemble dogmatic monotheistic religions?

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detta är bland de vidrigaste ideologiska böcker jag har läst, och jag har läst många. Vad Kant säger är att den mänskliga historien kan förstås som en marsch mot en ideal federal universalsstat, under en gudalikt moralisk perfekt ledare som kan vidmakthålla lagar och mänsklig frihet i kraft av sin övermänskliga moral. Trots sådan makt skulle en sådan individ vara ickekorrumperad, eftersom vi på något sätt lär moralisk ryggrad av andras erfarenheter.

Även om vi bortser från det skrämmande i tanken att vi kunde använda andras erfarenheter för att nå vad som primärt är känslomässig mognad, vilket förtar möjligheten att omskapa oss själva (att välja bort andras erfarenheter, som när barnet till en alkoholist väljer att inte upprepa samma mönster) eftersom vi då är en del av ett gemensamt väsen, så resulterar Kants idé i infantilisering. Som bäst finns ett moraliskt imperativ att bortse från egen utveckling för att främja världens, som värst ett tvång av båda. Begäran av dem innebär att du strider mot det kategoriska imperativet - att inte behandla andra som enbart medel; användandet av dem mot dig själv strider mot idén om pliktkänslan som emotiv, eftersom du därigenom åsidosätter egen pliktupplevelse för andras. Men som sagt, låt oss bortse från detta:

Vad Kant börjar med är att konstatera att civilisation är en funktion av konflikt och smärtan som upplevs, och dör i det ögonblick fullödig säkerhet och konfliktlöshet finns. Jag är inte säker på att det är en korrekt beskrivning, men eftersom vi här utvärderar Kants tanke, så låtsas vi att den är det. Vad han fortsätter med är att konstatera att civiliserade samhällen överlever genom att inte tygla denna "antisociabilitet" allt för mycket, eftersom konflikterna bidrar till utveckling. Återigen, vi låter Kants tanke stå oemotsagd. Samtidigt vill Kant skapa en världsfederation; och tycks tänka att en sådan inte skulle, enligt hans egen modell, bidra till tänkandets och civilisationens undergång.

Kant kritiserade ofta tänkare som föregår sin empiri med teori. Detta gjordes eftersom teorin då förvrider det man ser av verkligheten. I detta verk, och Evig Fred, gör han samma sak. Han är medveten om det, och förklarar att han snarare avser det som ett teleologiskt projekt, men det skulle i så fall innebära att mänsklighetens öde är sin egen undergång, i något slags evig cykel där perioder med Gudakonungar avlöses av samhällsfall, anarki, konfliktbyggd civilisation, federation och nya Gudakonungar. Om man har en åtminstone vagt positiv föreställning om människans frammåtskridande blir Kants filosofi därmed mörk, och vi vet av hans sätt att skriva, att Kant trodde på mänskligheten. Därmed är det osannolikt att en teleologisk tolkning, i alla fall om den görs på det sätt jag beskriver, är vad Kant tänkte sig.

Jag skulle mena att denna bok är fantastisk, i att den beskriver på bästa möjliga sätt en vansinnestanke. Om Kants premisser och argumentation håller, kan inte hans mål vara det mål som är eftersträvansvärt.

[Emile de Falleur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bonne mise en page

[Isaac Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Kant at his most teleological. Idk if Hegel was influenced by this essay specifically, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was.

Does history serve a purpose? If so, what? What’s the nature of historical change? What’s the meaning of the course of history – if we can get an answer to that question, we might even get the answer to the meaning of life.

Kant espouses his view that history DOES serve a purpose, and a philosophical mind may be able to see it. The human mind is strange – everything in the world is subject to natural laws, but the mind thinks it is above those laws: we think we have the agency to shape history in our favour. But EVEN IF that is the case – let’s assume that at the micro (individual) level, humans have free will – it doesn’t immediately follow that we have free will at the macro level (at the ‘species’ level)! And this is the question that Kant urged me to ponder. As Kant puts it – is it rational to assume that the order of nature is purposive in its parts, but purposeless as a whole?

老子said it best – 道常无为而无不为. No one planned the mountains, advanced organisms, the emergence of consciousness from physical processes, crystals, language – the most jaw-droppingly beautiful features of the universe. Yet they emerge. They just happen. Over time, slowly. What guides that process of spontaneous order? As Kant says, if history examines the free exercise of the human will on a LARGE SCALE, it will be able to discover a REGULAR PROGRESSION among freely willed actions. (I’m think I’m gonna leave the question of whether an ultimately regular progression on the large scale, means that the small scale decisions were even freely willed in the first place, untouched for now.)

I have never studied teleology seriously yet, but day after day of boring, soul-crushing data entry work can push you to different philosophical heights. One day I started telling my (relatively) new colleague Bryan about Aristotle’s 4 causes, focusing on the final cause. Aristotle’s metaphysics is interesting in its own right – basically, any object needs to have 4 causes that makes it that object, or else you wouldn’t even be able to perceive it. The material cause of my chair is the wood, the formal cause is its 4 legs and seat, the efficient cause is the carpenter, and its final cause is its ability to be sat on. Focusing on the final cause now – without the ultimate ability to be sat on, we wouldn’t even be able to perceive the chair metaphysically: that is, to project the idea of ‘chair’ to this collection of atoms. So, all things need a final cause – a purpose – for it to even be a ‘thing’ in existence, a concept that’s able to be perceived by a conscious mind. Or else, it’d just be a random collection of atoms.

The big question is – what’s the final cause for a human being?

Even cringe young girls who’ve never held a real job before in their lives, speak about the importance of having purpose in life.

But is it even possible to define a universal final cause for a human? Is it in the realm of the ‘unspeakable’ – as Wittgenstein would conceive of the unspeakable? If different people decide different final causes for themselves, is that valid (see Plato’s criticism of defining virtue differently for different people)? But if I, a human, cannot determine a final cause for myself, then do I even continue to exist as Isaac Chan – a space-time worm with identity? Or should I decide that my final cause in life is to do data entry – that is what I was trained to do, what God put me on his good green earth to do. All the events in my life have led to this final cause, and that makes me human – all those hours of proverbially splitting my brain apart, trying to make econometrics surrender to me its secrets?

Kant gives me some good ideas on where to start.

He makes 9 propositions about what he thinks is the ultimate purpose of human history. They collectively cover a lot of ground and naturally, I relate more to and agree more with some propositions than others.

Firstly, I’ve gained much insight from Kant’s 1st proposition, that ‘all the natural capacities of a creature are destined sooner or later to be developed completely and in conformity with their end.’ Although Kant proposes this doctrine with a different idea than I have in mind, I still see this proposition as very important. Kant observes that if we abandon this basic principle (of teleology), then we are ‘faced not with a law-governed nature, but with an aimless random process, and the dismal reign of chance replaces the guiding principle of reason.’ Basically, if we don’t accept this principle, then human history is random and meaningless! Why use our reason anyway? There’d be no point in doing philosophy then.

But I interpret this 1st proposition as – nature is efficient. What is NOT efficient will be eliminated by evolution. Much like how water and electricity always find the path of least resistance, the organs we possess are the most efficient organs possible to breathe, digest, pump our blood, etc. So, to think you have the intellectual ability to centrally plan an economy, to regulate complex markets, is to assume you have greater insight than thousands of years of spontaneous order. Even if we see no other purpose in humanity, what’s interesting to note is that the course of history has evolved to yield what may be the most efficient societal institutions possible. E.g., the emergence of money, instead of using the barter system.

Kant’s 2nd and 3rd propositions also give me much solace. Kant claims in his 2nd proposition that ‘in man, those natural capacities which are directed towards the use of his reason are such that they could be fully developed only in the species, but not in the individual’. Kant basically says that since reason needs trial and error, practice and instruction, time to develop, and long phases of enlightenment – then the ultimate purpose (or fruits) of reason isn’t supposed to be grasped by the individual, but by the species. Bachelier in the turn of the 20th century for example, never expected his speculative models of Brownian motion to now be the intellectual roots of Black-Scholes and EMH, and so, pretty much directly powering a trillion-dollar industry today.

And so Kant gives some strikingly practical yet profound advice – since nature’s original intention is for reason to be fully developed only in the species, thus this degree of development must be the goal of man’s aspirations, or else **his natural capacities would necessarily appear by and large to be purposeless and wasted**. Using the Bachelier example, if he didn’t see his work as a small stepping stone towards ultimate enlightenment of the SPECIES, and not just him as an individual, then ofc he would die thinking he was a failure.

Blending this with the 3rd proposition, which basically observes that earlier generations labour for the sake of the later ones, yields a practical guide for life and work. It seems clear to me now that I’m in a good, meaningful position – I have obviously feasted on the fruits of my forefathers my whole life. (If it weren’t for the foresight and courage of my ancestors, I’d be living under authoritarian rule in China; if it weren’t for the pragmatism of my parents, they’d never have garnered the financial means to place all their kids in top universities.) Now the time has come to finally stop feasting ungratefully and start labouring for the future generations of the family. If I stop expecting all work to yield rich fruits of enlightenment for the individual, but instead for the species – and if I can see a place for myself as a small bridge of reason in this cold and indifferent yet grand and benign march of human history, then I can find meaning in my work and life. As Kant so poetically puts it – (if seen thru this lens) we are ‘a class of rational beings who are mortal as individuals but immortal as a species’.

A final point that’s worth thinking about is Kant’s hopes for perpetual peace (as part of his vision of a cosmopolitan human purpose) through international cooperation, an idea he fully sketches out in his book ‘Perpetual Peace’.

In short, I interpret what he argues in this essay is that society is almost like the necessary evil for mankind. It’s the only way to reconcile man’s 2 conflicting desires – to 1) be around other people, and 2) be alone. Man has to live in society to flourish (e.g. endogenous economic growth, positive knowledge spillovers, or Krugman’s geographic increasing returns to scale), but at the same time we want our own space. And Kant theorizes that our culture may just be our construct, to enforce this social union. Since human nature is a tribal nature, many evils will always persist, e.g. nationalism and racism. Thus, Kant claims that the problem of establishing a perfect civil constitution is subordinate to the problem of a law-governed external relationship with other states. The same unsociability which forces men to construct a society, is the same force that gives rise to the concept of nations. But perhaps contrary to Hobbes, to my understanding Kant argues against a world government because that easily leads to tyranny.

But anyway, a full inquiry into Kant’s political philosophy and international insights will have to wait until ‘Perpetual Peace’.

[Max Emmanuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fenomenal. Para muchos, algunas de las propuestas realizadas por el genio prusiano Immanuel Kant podrían sonar plausiblemente utópicas, pero no se debe dejar de lado la innegable influencia de su trabajo en la filosofía de la historia de los siglos XIX, XX e incluso, la actual.

[Makayla MacGregor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Kant's philosophy to be more optimistic than other ideologies, which was rather nice to read, especially after Leviathan. His concept of a purpose in nature is, as he says, quite comforting, and also fascinating to think about.

[LowlyLuke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will discuss both “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose” and “Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History” because I read both of these over a month ago at the time of writing this, so I don’t fully remember which essay contains which points. But they both are deeply intertwined in content and are similar in quality, so it’s ok.

“Conjectures on the Beginning of Human History” functions in a similar way to Rousseau’s “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.” Both are inventing a (admittedly false) history to try and gain a deeper understanding of the present. However, Kant and Rousseau differ greatly on their vision of humanity. Kant seems to be a vastly more hopeful thinker than Rousseau. Kant establishes reason as the source of our freedom. This freedom starts off as evil because of our human imperfection, as Kant will argue it is the source of all oppression and vice, similar to Rousseau. Where Kant differs with Rousseau’s “Second Discourse” is that Kant views freedom as inevitably leading to a perfected human state, opposed to just causing a fall to property and moral inequality. This end state may be inevitable, but Kant says we still must act and move towards self-improvement. This can be compared to another Kant essay “What Is Enlightenment” to understand how Kant views self-improvement to be united with his concept of enlightenment.

While, similar to Rousseau’s “Second Discourse,” I don’t love the baseless conjecturing on the flow of human history (for the same reasons I stated in my review of that text), this essay felt much less reliant on the conjecturing. While a large amount of the first part of Rousseau’s essay felt reliant on the conjecturing, almost none of Kant’s essay does. Even when he is performing a Biblical exegesis in association with his conjecturing, he is still staying on the central point about how human reason produces freedom. Also I honestly just think Kant is much more interesting writer. His exploration of human reason and freedom, in addition to his various critiques of ideas like utopia and happiness as an end, are incredibly fascinating and insightful. I do disagree with some of his ideas, but this text was interesting overall.

From this establishment of the importance of freedom and reason, Kant’s other essay, “Idea for a Universal History,” brings about a conclusion to his thoughts, bringing his analysis of the past to the future. Kant asserts that all of humanity is directed on a path guided by the natural teleology. He argues that because of humanity’s supremacy within the animal kingdom, due to our reason, we are defined as nature’s final purpose. However, we have our own final purpose, which the natural teleology guides us towards. This teleology ultimately means humanity is inescapably headed on a path from worse to better.

While Kant clearly believes in providence (and uses the language of providence), the natural teleology isn’t necessarily rooted in a reasonable spirit guiding humanity. Instead it is rooted in our natural characteristics and the contradictions that develop as a result. We were given certain characteristics (like our capacity of reason), and through the natural contradictions of these characteristics (primarily our “unsocial sociability”) we create a better world through improved reasoning on how to overcome these contradictions.

I do disagree with his complete faith in the inevitable forward pursuit of human freedom (because I think groups of bad actors have the potential to end it all before we reach that end), but his faith is infectious. We are at a point in history where it feels like civilization is beginning to crumble, and these writings provide a counterbalance to that cynicism. I am hopeful that we are continuously moving forward through the enhancement of our understanding. Moreover, I also disagree about the specifics of Kant’s understanding of unsocial sociability. While it seems compelling that there is some contradiction like unsocial sociability that makes up human interaction and development, I’m not entirely convinced that it is based in a selfish drive. Or at the very least, I want to say that I don’t believe selfishness has to be the base of this enlightenment creating contradiction.

However, despite these issues, both of the essays are fantastic.

[Jon Norimann · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" is a short work by Kant trying to lay foundations for discovering universal trends in history. Although Kant sets up a consistent framework allowing the existence and discovery of such universal trends he fails to prove this existence and potential for discovery is the only possible outcome.

Kant ends up having created a primer for those attempting to reveal the long lines of history but not much more. Describing the actual Universal History is left to others and 200 years later no such history still exists. The Universal History my just not be for real but its still a fun read as an inside and short view of Kants thinking process.

[c]

Even though we "wiser" moderns of the 21st century would reject this book as juvenile, especially in its use of teleology and grand narratives for history, it is still worth reading for the problem it approaches. Kant deals with the problem of how we can actualize reason and freedom concretely in civic society and how (in Kant's view) this necessarily leads to the establishment of a universal civic society and a league of nations whose course works out through history given the natural limits of a single human being.

The first problem is the problem of actualizing reason. Reason "acknowledges no limits on its projects", i.e. it is enlightening, and requires "instruction" in the sense of trial and error to achieve its ends. However, these ends cannot actualize themselves within a single human being as "[n]ature has set only a short period for his life." Thus, reason has to work itself out through successive generations, i.e. throughout history. (I'd like to note that Kant just seems to blatantly state that reason cannot be actualized in a single human being and only in the human race as if it is something self-evident. The Greeks would reject this, for instance.) In other words, nature, by giving human beings a finite life, determines how reason comes to be actualized, and it does this not merely through human finitude.

Kant then introduces man's "unsocial sociability", as a way to discuss how this nature allows reason can be properly actualized. Humans associate themselves with each other as it allows them to fully develop their natural capacities, but also has that "unsocial characteristic of wishing to have everything go according to his own wish". This introduces us to the second problem of actualizing freedom in civil society. This is the problem of how someone can actualize their freedom in a way that is consistent with the freedom of others, for left to themself and their "boundless" and "wild freedom", they invariably find themself impinging upon the freedom of others. Kant's solution to this is a "perfect civic constitution" wherein individuals willingly subject themselves to laws that they themselves have impose, "law[s] which limits the freedom of all". However, establishment of this civic society is dependent upon their external relations with other states and thus necessitates the establishment of a "league of nations". (Again, the Greeks would reject this.) If we recall the iterative character of reason, this league of nations would be achieved through error, "barbarous devastation". One ought to look at the bloody wars of the previous century and the subsequent establishment of IGOs (the League of Nations and then the United Nations) to see this in action.

Perhaps the biggest puzzle for me is how Nature can, in some sense, will this. As Kant writes, all of this occurs through "Nature's secret plan". Kant addresses the problem of how we come to know this "secret plan" by bringing up the "Epicurean" view, or the view of modern science. Modern science, in rejecting any form of teleology in nature, denies that we can know this "secret plan". Kant, as clever as he is, accepts this but shows us that it only holds on an amoral, scientific basis. He only admits that it is "possible", a can and not a must. However, that's about the most he says on this topic. Being a more cursory work, investigation into his other works are required.

[Avesta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Kant whilst listening to PTV and BMTH really got me in the feels and in seriously deep thought...

Jeez - Kant delves into some seriously captivating philosophy that has me inspired and still in serious thought. Propositions like that of 6 blew my mind, truly.

There goes my preference for Locke over Kant - I can't wait to read Critique of Pure Reason!

Will read this again for when I write my own similar treatise.

[louwize]

traduction anglaise plus facile à lire que la française ?
je noterai quand on aura fini le cours dessus hihi

[Henrique Valle]

dialética do esclarecimento antes do Termidor e do nazismo

[Carly Amendolare · Rating 3 out of 5]

he thinks mother nature has a master plan for the human race

[Jacob Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

[First Read: Read little of Kant previously but learned him in various classes]

I found this essay particularly interesting in light of recent events that cast doubt on the notion of a cosmopolitan future and eternal progress. In recent months, I have certainly witnessed how easily even the rational can be turned into authoritarinism and also seen statistics that cause one to question the notion of societal rationality in the first place. It would not be ridiculous to reject Kant's premises outright.

However, it can also be viewed as a source of optimism that what we are heading towards is only a local minimum of global authoritarianism, and we will come through to the other side as a world more ready to face issues that challenge us all. While his personal philosophy exists outside/before the threat of climate change and the entrapments of capitalism, it does remind me that there we are able to approach the world that we want, it is only a matter of trusting societal rationality over time. However, that is made of smaller moments that we must be a part of now.

In terms of structure, while the prose can be a bit challenging, the structure of numbered theses makes it a fairly easy argument to follow. It definitely was a good introduction to Kant and has me looking forward to learning more of his philosophy. It also was a good reminder that the bits and pieces of what you learn about a philosopher through pop-philospohy are often out of context and betray the elements that have invited hundreds of thousands of scholarly hours.

Also, regarding the universal history part, I see hope in using AI (I know, cringe) as a philosophical partner to develop this, as it in itself can be viewed as a web of semantic meaning resulting from our written history. At the very least, having a semi-intelligent agent capable of synthesizing massive amounts of text catalyzes a development towards developing this universal history in a way that could not be done before.

[Theo Milos · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finner denna essä tämligen svår att förstå genomgripande. Enligt mig otroligt långa meningar, upp till 7-8 rader, med mycket utfyllnader och parenteser. Det finns dock intressanta filosofiska idéer och konstateranden.

Han resonerar kring människan, Naturen och civilisation. Filosofen förespråkar frihet, upplystheten och därmed också förnuftet. Kant kommer exempelvis till slutsatsen att människan behöver en ledare eftersom människan är ett djur. Problemet blir att ledaren i sin tur behöver en ledare, och bestämt från sitt eget släkte. I en civilisation är alltid någon högre upp än någon annan, som i en evig hierarki.

Kant hävdar att man kan förstå mänsklig historia som en marsch mot en federal universell världsunion, med en gudalik ledare som är moraliskt perfekt och kan därav vidmakthålla och upprätthålla lagar och mänsklig frihet.

Människan är ett djur som, så länge han bor tillsammans med andra av sitt eget släkte, är i behov av en ledare. Han missbrukar nämligen oundvikligen sin frihet i relation till sina jämlikar; och trots att han i egenskap av förnuftig skapelse önskar att det funnes en lag som sätter gränser för allas frihet, förleds han, av sina självcentrerade, animaliska tendenser, att så ofta han vågar göra undantag till sin egen fördel. Därför behöver han en ledare som kontrollerar hans vilja och tvingar honom att underkasta sig en universell vilja som måhända kan trygga möjligheten till universell frihet.

Om medborgaren hindras från att eftersträva sina intressen på det sätt som denne själv finner mest tillfredsställande, givet att det kan samexistera med andras frihet, då kommer den livliga handeln i allmänhet att stelna, och i samband med detta återigen också resurserna i dess helhet.

[Irinicd]

Lectura para la universidad (al fin lo hemos terminado).
En estos escritos, Kant nos muestra su Filosofía de la Historia, destacando esos 9 principios sobre una historia universal en clave cosmopolita. Esta es una visión de la historia, y de la humanidad, bastante optimista en un progreso, en un futuro en el que, debido a que el objetivo de la Naturaleza conseguirá constituirse, alcanzaremos un "estado cosmopolita universal en cuyo seno se desarrollen todas las disposiciones originarias de la especie humana". Aunque no comparta esta idea de progreso, tan propia de la Ilustración, me ha parecido una obra interesante y clave para entender el desarrollo de la Filosofía de la Historia. Puede resultar aburrida en las primeras lecturas, pero, al desglosar los principios en mayor profundidad, puedes hallar ideas y reflexiones relevantes.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it for a college class. My rating regards ease of reading alone, not so much his ideas. I’ll leave the arguing to someone (and somewhere) else. Anyways, it was a cool idea from Kant, and one of his (if you can even call him this) more “approachable” works. The idea of human history as a progression of conflicting communities, where such conflict eventually cancels out and leads to historical progress, as well as looking at history in a repetitive way, is groundbreaking; for the Enlightenment, at least. Does it have holes? Obviously. Do I agree with all of it? Hell no. But I think it’s the beginning of an important conversation on a more current issue of living in a globalized world—one that western thinkers like Kant finally started addressing in the eighteenth century.

[Sofi Lupiañez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kant desarrolla nueve principios sobre la teleología de la Naturaleza, y entiende que su punto culmine es un Estado Cosmopolita universal regido por una constitución civil perfectamente justa para que nadie se abuse de su libertad (ni súbditos ni mandatarios).
No comparto su idea sobre el hilo conductor de la historia por parte de la naturaleza.

[Pierre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lecture de ce texte (1784) richissime par impulsion académique. Ayant tout un cours sur la philosophie de l’histoire kantienne, je découvre avec bonheur ses idées relatives à la téléologie du progrès. Bref, j’ai la flemme de résumé mdrrrr mais c’est vraiment bien quand on a l’explication derrière.

[Lluna · Rating 3 out of 5]

obv no tot el que va fer kant és comparable a les crítiques, sobretot a la del judici, però aquest opuscle està prou bé per començar a llegir l'autor (això segons el Jacobo, però jo discrepo: no és tan fàcil d'entendre i l'únic que se li pot rescatar és la idea embrionària d'unes nacions unides)

[مساعد · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب متواضع في شرح فكرة كانط

[LeaAnne]

I'm too dumb, I'll re read it

[Cecilie Birkshøj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hva

[Emma G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je l'ai lue pour le lycée, c'est vraiment pas facile à lire mais je comprends pourquoi c'est un classique de la philosophie. Mais ça demande vraiment beaucoup de concentration :')

[xza.rain · Rating 5 out of 5]

« la Révolution est le symbole inoubliable de l’accord de la nature et de la liberté en l’homme, elle est ainsi l’Événement par excellence. »

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intéressant mais pfffft j'ai mal à la tête.

[liza · Rating 2 out of 5]

qlqn peut lui apprendre à écrire des phrases + concises svp, faut arrêter de vouloir se prendre pour proust. c’était vraiment pour m’achever

[Menora Glazema · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik vind dat schoolboeken op goodreads mogen, mensen die dat niet vinden zijn haters

[voiduser · Rating 3 out of 5]

immanuel cunt