Кантовский сборник (Oct 2016)
Knowing humanity without knowing the human being: The structure of polemic in Kant’s political argumentation
Abstract
Kant’s treatises on political problems form a loosely structured text corpus. However, due to its passionate polemic, it can be rewritten in the form of dialogues. The most dramatic instalment is the authoritative treatise Toward Perpetual Peace, which is full of memorable phrases that used to excite the very first readers. Kant’s opponents are both concrete authors — either living or dead contemporaries (Garve, Mendesohn, Frederick the Great) — and generalised characters representing entire classes. The two opposing parties are Kant and his favourite philosophers (Saint-Pierre and Rousseau) against the ‘government’ and ‘lawyers’. Kant’s philosophy of law, which is believed to rest on a metaphysical foundation, is constructed using a minimum of anthropological premises, which is often viewed as a virtue. However, Kant’s political teaching is closely connected with moral anthropology, which is considered as another virtue. Justifying their actions with empirical observations, politicians violate legal rules. Thus, they are subject to the same propensities that they find so frightening in the population. The philosopher, although agreeing with the grim opinion of human nature, tries to dissuade politicians and instil moderate optimism in them. The article collates and systemises politicians’ and lawyers’ ideas of humans, the world, and politics. According to Kant’s philosophy of law, the model of an ideal society can be pictured as a mechanism. However, his philosophy of history and politics claims the opposite, inclining towards organicism. The methodological framework for argumentation analysis is V. Bryushinkin’s ‘cognitive approach’. The author identifies the historical and ideational sources of decision-making criteria, which Kant assigns to his opponents. The article summarises relevant findings reported by H. Williams, G. Cavallar, R. Brandt, and others.
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