Chapter 9 - Kant’s Teleological Philosophy of History

Summary

In his writings on our philosophical representations of human history Kant offers both epistemic and moral justification for the use of teleological principles. Following his epistemic justification, in order to make human history intelligible to ourselves we must represent the individual events in human history under the Idea of “nature’s aim.” By the latter Kant understands the formation of civil society to be based on the principle of right within which the “ultimate end of nature,” the formation of culture and the cultivation of human sensibility that is amenable to the demands of morality, would be possible. Kant’s moral justification is comprised of two parts: a moral-psychological argument for strengthening moral Glaube and the argument that emphasizes the objective reality (albeit from a “practical point of view”) of our representation of human history as progressing. While the former argument reinforces our existing moral disposition, the latter reinforces reason’s unity.