Today marks three hundred years since the birth of Immanuel Kant, the philosophical genius of the Prussian Enlightenment. Author of works such as the famous Critique of Pure Reason, he is today synonymous with anti-dogmatic thought. His great aspiration was not to teach philosophy, but for his disciples to learn to reason for themselves. Three words summarize this concern to seek the truth without the ties of tradition: “Dare to think.” In this way, the philosopher contributed to laying the intellectual foundations of political modernity.
Norbert Bilbeny, professor at the University of Barcelona, reveals this often misinterpreted figure in The Kant Whirlwind (Ariel), a title that tells us that its protagonist has nothing to do with that cold character that we usually imagine. Bilbeny is a thinker with extensive experience as a teacher, visiting professor at American universities such as Berkeley, Harvard, Toronto or Mexico. Among his extensive bibliography, titles such as The Revolution in Ethics, Anagrama Essay Award in 1987, and Moral Baroque stand out. Past and present of great loneliness (Anagrama, 2022).
Some critics think that, when we study a writer, his life does not matter, but only what is written in his books. Should we also apply this to philosophers or not?
It is impossible to separate work and life. In part, one is explained by the other. However, the life and circumstances of an author, even a philosopher, with all his abstract world, should only serve to help us “explain” his work. But not to “understand” and value, in any case, what she tells us. The work itself is enough for us. I think it is the most scientific and honest. With the genius Kant, the same.
Kant is one of the great rationalist philosophers. Do we know if he agreed with the cult of the “goddess Reason” that the French Revolution established?
Kant agreed with the French Revolution, although not with the execution of Louis XVI. But there are no comments from him regarding the enthronement of the goddess Reason by the revolutionaries. Knowing Kant's texts and letters, as well as his personal disposition, everything leads one to think that, even if he had knowledge of this exaltation, he would not have shared it. Her reason is a critical and strictly human reason. He was refractory to any cult.
When he reflects on morality, he looks for precepts of universal validity. Would you currently be an enemy of multiculturalism?
Kant's rationalism includes all rational beings. He does not rule out even those that could be rational, even if they were not human in nature. It is a universalist rationalism to this extreme. This prevents it from being identified with relativism and with a differentialist type of multiculturalism: all cultures as different and with nothing in common. For Kant, what is common is reason, and in human beings, their dignity. Therefore, a multiculturalism that saves these two pillars would be possible. Today we call it interculturality.
The German philosopher reflected in depth on the notion of duty. But did he say anything about what happens when our various obligations collide with each other? He spoke, for example, of duty to our country and duty to our children. What if duty to our children contradicts loyalty to our country?
The collision of duties is resolved by choosing the one that involves the least contradictions, and, in any case, the one that most respects human dignity. If that is not fulfilled in an alleged duty towards a child, then it is no longer a duty. The same with the country. By the way, Kant had no children and it cannot be said that he was a patriot either. He upholds the duties of respect for others, of hospitality and of advancing, in a cosmopolitan sense, towards a world federation of nations.
For Kant, duty must be fulfilled without exceptions. Are we to understand that he would not have approved conscientious objection?
The doctrines of conscientious objection, from Thoreau to Rawls and Habermas, contemporary thinkers, have a clear Kantian moral trunk: exceptions to the fulfillment of duty can only be justified by moral reason and conscience. It is ethics that establishes duty and its fulfillment. Outside of ethics, there are no unconditional duties.
If in legal law the action itself counts, not the subjective motivation of the individual, should we understand that Kant had not foreseen situations such as involuntary manslaughter?
There are no involuntary homicides. Nor the one committed in self-defense, due to pressure from others or by mistake. All human acts are voluntary, it is another matter whether they are of good will or not. The former fit with a rational will (that guided by the “categorical imperative”). The others, no, since they have been moved above all by interests, passions or prejudices. Kant calls it “pathological will.” As long as the human being has understanding and will, there are no involuntary crimes or misdemeanors.
Regarding the execution of Louis XVI, Kant said that it could only be understood by the fear that the monarch would take revenge on the revolutionaries. Does this mean that in German thought there is also room for emotions, not only for reason?
Kant's most popular classes were Anthropology and Physical Geography. The man Kant is almost as interesting as his thinking. He was human, sociable, and concerned about being understood. However, he has so far mastered the trope of the cold, methodical intellectual. In my book I try, based on data, to correct this rigorous version of the philosopher.
If Kant had not had a deep feeling towards his neighbor and the value of the person, he would not have spent so much ink and voice in his thousands of hours of class defending human dignity as the only absolute value. He does not despise or ignore emotion: he puts it second, after reason. Even ethics is based on a feeling: that of deeply respecting the moral law. Two things filled him with admiration: “The starry sky above me and the moral law in me.”
The proposal of a world government that ensures peace seems very modern to us. But how did Kant expect to achieve something like this? Did he descend from abstract speculation to the realm of concrete politics?
Yes, it proposes a universal federation as a formula to achieve world peace. This is a more effective solution than treaties and wars. It admits the role of diplomacy and even proposes protocols in the event of war. But the end is peace, and this is only sustained by morality and a republican policy. He does not believe in political moralists, but in moral politicians. In passing, he denounces economic colonialism and wars of extermination.
His book Perpetual Peace uses historical examples and insists on the role of pragmatic politics, as long as the end does not justify the means. He has Stoic resonances: Marcus Aurelius, especially. If you are a good citizen, you are closer to being a citizen of the world.
In his book he indicates that his protagonist was not as religious as people usually think. Because?
Kant's family religion was Pietism, a branch of Lutheran Protestantism that advocated the austere life of the believer and the sincerity of faith. He was always in the background of her life and his writings. Furthermore, Kant added his criticism of holiness, of clerics, of liturgical practices and prayer, and of any kind of ecclesial statute. For him, religion is based on moral reason and personal faith. The law of the believer is the moral law. Morality allows us to assume that a supreme being will reward our virtue; but it is just an assumption, a “postulate”, he will say. Kant's God is already that of the deism of the Age of Enlightenment, but with the background of morality and secondly of the Gospels.
However, his philosophy does not profess any religion. The name of Jesus Christ appears very few times. In Catholic seminaries Kant was condemned as an atheist; At university, he refuted it. He himself suffered censorship from the Prussian government, which prohibited him from continuing to publish on religion.
According to Kant, philosophy without foundation leads us to commit all kinds of foolishness. Is that the problem we have today, that people do not stop to reflect on why they do things? How valid is your message: “Dare to think”?
This message is a translation of the Sapere aude of Horace's poetry and has its roots in Socrates and Greek philosophy. It is about thinking for yourself and not under the command or influence of another. Autonomy must prevail over heteronomy or dependence on a power foreign to reason itself. The priority is not to learn philosophy, but to learn to philosophize. Thinking is an individual task, but always using critical reason, which is necessarily public reason. Hence the commitment, but also the benefits, of everyone thinking for themselves. Surely, governments and countries would function better. A morality founded on critical reason and moral autonomy would make politics unnecessary.
There is an anarchist ferment in Kant's moral rationalism and republicanism. If each person fulfills his or her moral and civic duty, politics would become the administration of things, instead of the administration of people.
Reasoning is not the same as rationalizing, in the sense of self-justifying. What would Kant have said about the perversions of reason?
Well, he said it all: reason can also be perverted. Firstly, stopping using it and falling asleep (remember Goya's engraving The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters). The second, using it wrong. Regarding the level of knowledge and reflection, reason should not be dogmatic, but neither should it be rational or speculative; hence Kant's greatest book, the Critique of Pure Reason. Regarding the level of morality, reason loses its direction if it allows itself to be dominated by the senses or, on the contrary, by mere ability. Without discarding the reason that transforms into pure scruple, as sometimes happens with guilt, or obsessively turns into intolerance. Kant, so current, three centuries later.
