The Kantian Revolution
Dr Christopher Meckstroth
2017-18
Immanuel Kant’s life and thought straddles the crucial dividing line between the
eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the revolutionary upheavals that would shape
philosophy and politics into the century following. His thought became foundational for an
entire generation of German thinkers coming up in the 1790s and struggling to make sense
of the radical cultural and political changes unleashed by the French Revolution. And Kant’s
original and powerful reflections on the nature of knowledge, freedom, morality, art and
politics have continued to set the agenda for theoretical debates that continue down to the
present day.
This paper approaches Kant by situating his thought in this period spanning the French
Revolution, reading his published works alongside those of notable contemporaries with
whom he engaged, as well as personal letters and student notes from Kant’s lectures. Other
figures covered include Mendelssohn, Hamann, Herder, Goethe, Fichte, Schlegel, and
Schleiermacher, all of whom were important in their own right and represent key points of
reference for making sense of the intellectual world in which Kant moved. The paper
considers two broad periods, that of the German Enlightenment context in which Kant first
developed his critical philosophy, and then the new world opened up by the French
Revolution, in which Kant’s ideas went on to inspire debates pointing in radical new
directions. The issues they treated were and remain among the most important in political
thought: the nature of freedom, the place and limits of reason in politics, the promise and
dangers of revolution, how to understand the past and its bearing on the present, and the
relation of politics to art and science. The course will appeal not only to students with
interests in political thought or philosophy, but also those interested in the history of
Enlightenment and its aftermath or the cultural history of Germany.
There is no prerequisite for the paper. Although it does make an excellent follow-up to
Part I Paper 20, no knowledge of any figures is presupposed and texts are nearly all different.
No background in philosophy is presumed and all reading is in English. (Students concurrently
taking Part II Paper 4 will not, however, also be able to answer questions on that exam on
topic A7, Kant, or B18, Culture and Aesthetic Politics in Germany.)
The course is taught through 16 weekly two-hour discussion seminars in Michaelmas and
Lent term, with revision and gobbet sessions organised in Easter. Each session will open with
a short lecture to provide context, situate the materials, and frame the discussion.
Michaelmas Term
List of sessions with primary texts
1. Background and Kant’s early lectures:
a. I. Kant, ‘M. Immanuel Kant’s announcement of the programme of his lectures
for the winter semester 1765-1766’ (1765), in Kant, Theoretical Philosophy
1755-1770 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 291-300
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b. G.W. Leibniz, ‘Principles of Nature and Grace’ (1714), in Leibniz, Philosophical
Texts, R.S. Woolhouse and R. Francks, eds (Oxford, 1998), pp. 258-266
c. G.W. Leibniz, ‘Felicity’ (c.1694-8), , in The Political Writings of Leibniz, P. Riley,
ed. (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 83-4
d. G.W. Leibniz, ‘Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice’ (1702-3), in
Political Writings, pp. 45-63
e. F. Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue
(1st ed. 1725), (Indianapolis, rev. ed. 2008), pp. 85-147, 177-198
f. Herder’s notes from Kant’s lectures on practical philosophy (c.1762-4), in
Kant, Lectures on Ethics (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 3-36
2. Mendelssohn & Lessing
a. M. Mendelssohn, Phädon, or On the Immortality of the Soul (1767) (New
York, 2007), part III and appendix, pp. 125-160
b. M. Mendelssohn, Jerusalem (1783) (Lebanon, NH, 1983), section I, pp. 33-73
c. G.E. Lessing, The Education of the Human Race (1778) in Lessing:
Philosophical and Theological Writings (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 217-240
d. Letter, Mendelssohn to Kant, 10 April, 1783, in Kant, Correspondence
(Cambridge, 1996), pp. 190-191
e. Letter, Kant to Moses Mendelsohn, 16 August, 1783, in Kant,
Correspondence, pp. 201-204
3. Hamann
a. J.G. Hamann, Socratic Memorabilia (1759), in G.G. Dickson, Johann Georg
Hamann’s Relational Metacriticism (New York, 1995), pp. 375-400
b. D. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, 1.4.7 (translated by Hamann into
German in 1771) (Oxford, 2007), pp. 171-8
c. Letter, Hamman to Kant, 27 July 1759, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 47-55
d. Letter, Hamman to Christian Jacob Kraus, 18 Dec 1784, in What Is
Enlightenment?: Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century
Questions, James Schmidt, ed. (Berkeley, CA, 1996), pp. 145-53
4. Toward critique
a. I. Kant, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics (1766),
in Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755-1770, pp. 305-359
b. I. Kant, Inaugural Dissertation (1770), in Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 17551770, pp. 376-416
c. Letter, Marcus Herz to Kant, 11 September 1770, in Kant, Correspondence,
pp. 109-111
d. Letter, Kant to Marcus Herz, 7 June 1771, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 126-8
e. Letter, Kant to Marcus Herz, 21 February 1772, in Kant, Correspondence, pp.
132-7
5. The Copernican revolution I
a. I. Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), in Kant, Theoretical
Philosophy after 1781 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 51-169
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6. The Copernican revolution II
a. I. Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 2nd ed. 1787) (Cambridge, 1998)
i. Prefaces to first and second editions, pp. 99-124
ii. Introduction to the second edition, pp. 136-152
iii. ‘The antinomy of pure reason’ (the Third Antinomy), pp. 459-60, 4679, 484-9, 511-514, 537-546
iv. ‘On the impossibility of a skeptical satisfaction of pure reason that is
divided against itself,’ 652-8
v. ‘The canon of pure reason,’ 672-84
vi. ‘The history of pure reason’, 702-4
7. Debates with Hamann and Herder
a. Hamann, ‘Metacritique of the Purism of Reason’ (1784), in Hamann: Writings
on Philosophy and Language (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 205-218
b. J.G. Herder, selections from Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind
(1784-91), in J.G. Herder on Social and Political Culture, F.M. Barnard, ed.,
(Cambridge, 1969), pp. 263-281, 302-326
c. Kant’s review of Herder’s Ideas, parts I & II (1785), in Kant, Anthropology,
History, and Education (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 121-140
8. The Pantheism Controversy
a. F.H. Jacobi, David Hume on Faith or Idealism and Realism: A Dialogue (1787),
in Jacobi, The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill (Montreal,
1994), pp. 253-338
b. M. Mendelssohn, ‘To the Friends of Lessing’ (1786), in Mendelssohn, Last
Works (Urbana, IL, 2012), pp. 141-176
c. I. Kant, ‘What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?’ (1786), in Kant,
Religion and Rational Theology (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 1-18
d. Letter, Mendelssohn to Kant, 16 October, 1785, in Kant, Correspondence, pp.
230-231
e. Letter, Kant to Marcus Herz, 7 April, 1786, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 251-2
f. Letter, J.E. Biester to Kant, 11 June, 1786, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 255259
Lent Term
9. Kant’s Moral Philosophy
a. I. Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1787), in Kant, Practical Philosophy
(Cambridge, 1996), pp. 139-194, 198-211, 228-231, 238-254, 269-270
b. C.C. Mrongovius’s notes from Kant’s lectures on Baumgarten’s practical
philosophy (1785), in Kant, Lectures on Ethics, pp. 225-248
10. Kant’s Political Philosophy
a. I. Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), in Kant, Practical Philosophy, pp.
365-397, 409-413, 416-418, 450-452, 455-492
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11. Kant’s Critique of Judgment
a. I. Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 6680, 89-101, 106-107, 121-124, 128-130, 134, 140-143, 162-166, 173-176, 184186, 242-249, 252-255, 258-271, 279-284
12. Goethe
a. J.W. Goethe, The Metamorphosis of Plants (1790) (Cambridge, MA, 2009), pp.
1-104
b. Letters between Goethe and Schiller concerning Kant’s philosophy [TBD]
13. Fichte
a. J.G. Fichte, The Vocation of Man (1800) (Indianapolis, 1987), pp. 27-123
b. F.H. Jacobi, ‘Open Letter to Fichte’ (1799), in Philosophy of German Idealism,
E. Behler, ed. (New York, 2003), pp. 119-141
c. Letter, Fichte to Kant, 18 August, 1791, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 381-382
d. Letter, Kant to Fichte, 2 February, 1792, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 402-403
e. Letter, Kant to J.H. Tieftrunk, 5 April, 1798, in Kant, Correspondence, pp. 544545
f. Kant, ‘Declaration Concerning Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre’, in Kant,
Correspondence, pp. 559-560
14. Schelling
a. F.W.J. Schelling, The System of Transcendental Idealism (1800)
(Charlottesville, VA, 1978), pp. 5-7, 15-33, 174, 194-212
b. F.W.J. Schelling, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797, 2nd ed. 1803)
(Cambridge, 1988), pp. 9-58, 130-135, 153-160, 272-273
c. Letters between Fichte and Schelling [TBD]
15. Schlegel & Novalis
a. F. Schlegel, ‘Athenaeum Fragments’, ‘Ideas’, ‘Philosophical Lectures on
Transcendental Philosophy’, ‘Philosophical Fragments from the Philosophical
Apprenticeship’, in The Early Political Writings of the German Romantics, F.C.
Beiser, ed. (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 113-168
b. F. Schlegel, The Philosophy of Life and Philosophy of language in a Course of
Lectures (New York, 1855), Lecture XIII, pp. 277-301
c. Novalis, ‘Miscellaneous Observations’, ‘Logological Fragments I’, ‘Faith and
Love or the King and Queen’, in Novalis: Philosophical Writings (Albany, NY,
1997), pp. 23-66, 85-100
16. Schleiermacher
a. Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799, rev.
eds. 1806, 1821, 1831) (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 18-54, 68-71, 75-80, 83-124
b. Schleiermacher, ‘General Hermeneutics’, in Schleiermacher, Hermeneutics
and Criticism (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 225-268
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Secondary works by topic
General
C. Clark, The Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 (London, 2007)
P. Guyer, Kant (Abingdon, 2006)
P. Guyer, The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy (Cambridge, 2016)
P. Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism (Cambridge, 2012)
*M. Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge, 2001)
R. Maliks, Kant’s Politics in Context (Oxford, 2014)
J.H. Zammito, Kant, Herder, and the Birth of Anthropology (Chicago, 2002), chaps 1-3 on the
early Kant
Lessing and Mendelssohn
*H.B. Nisbet, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: His Life, Works, and Thought (Oxford, 2013)
A. Arkush, Moses Mendelssohn and the Enlightenment (Albany, NY, 1994)
*M. Gottlieb, Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn’s Theological-Political Thought
(Oxford, 2011)
D. Sorkin, Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment (Berkeley, CA, 1996)
Hamann
O. Bayer, A Contemporary in Dissent: Johann Georg Hamann as a Radical Enlightener (Grand
Rapids, MI, 2012)
*F.C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA,
1987), chap. 1 (Hamann and Kant)
I. Berlin, The Magus of the North: J.G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism
(London, 1994)
*R.A. Sparling, Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project (Toronto, 2011)
Kant’s Copernican Revolution and The Critique of Pure Reason
H.E. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, rev. ed. (New
Haven, CT, 2004)
*E. Förster, ‘Kant’s “Revolution in the Mode of Thought”’ in Förster, The Twenty-Five Years
of Philosophy (Cambridge, MA, 2012), 17-40
P. Guyer, The Cambridge Companion to the Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge, 2010)
D. Henrich, ‘Sensation, Cognition, and the “Riddle of Metaphysics”’, in Henrich, From Kant to
Hegel: Lectures on German Idealism (Cambridge, MA, 2003)
P.F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” (Abingdon,
1966 and later reprints)
The Debate with Hamann and Herder
F.M. Barnard, Herder's Social and Political Thought. From Enlightenment to Nationalism
(Oxford, 1965).
*F.C. Beiser, The German Historicist Tradition (Oxford, 2011), chap 3
S. Sikka, Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference: Enlightened Relativism (Cambridge,
2011)
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The Pantheism Controversy
F.C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German
Political Thought 1790-1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1992), chap. 6 (Jacobi)
*F.C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA,
1987), chaps 2-4
*G. di Giovanni, ‘Introduction’ to F.H. Jacobi, The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel
Allwill (Montreal, 1994
Kant’s Moral Philosophy
C. Meckstroth, ‘Kant’s critique of morality’, in Meckstroth, The Struggle for Democracy:
Paradoxes of Progress and the Politics of Change (Oxford, 2015), pp. 80-113.
*A. Reath and J. Timmerman, eds, Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide
(Cambridge, 2010)
*A. Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge, 1999)
Kant’s Political Philosophy
F.C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German
Political Thought 1790-1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1992), chap 2
L. Denis, ed., Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide (Cambridge, 2010)
E. Ellis, Kant’s Politics (New Haven, 2005)
C. Meckstroth, ‘Kant on Politics,’ in Meckstroth, The Struggle for Democracy: Paradoxes of
Progress and the Politics of Change (Oxford, 2015), pp. 114-138
*A. Ripstein, Force and Freedom: Kant’s Legal and Political Philosophy (Cambridge MA,
2009)
*R. Tuck, ‘The Hobbesianism of Kant’, in Tuck, The Rights of War and Peace: Political
Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant, (Oxford, 1999), pp.
207-225.
The Critique of Judgment
*P. Guyer, Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD, 2003)
P. Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1997)
R. Makreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the
Critique of Judgment (Chicago, 1990)
J.H. Zammito, The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Chicago, 1992)
Fichte
*F.C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German
Political Thought 1790-1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1992), chap 3
I. Nakhimovsky, The Closed Commercial State: Perpetual Peace and Commercial Society
from Rousseau to Fichte (Princeton, NJ, 2011)
A.J. La Vopa, Fichte, The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762-1799 (Cambridge, 2001)
*T. Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism (Cambridge, 2002), chap.
5
*A. Wood, Fichte’s Ethical Thought (Oxford, 2016)
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Goethe
*R.J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe
(Chicago, 2002)
D. Steuer, ‘In Defence of Experience: Goethe’s Natural Investigations and Scientific Culture,’
in L. Sharpe, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Goethe (Cambridge, 2002), 160-178
Schelling
L. Ostaric, ed., Interpreting Schelling: Critical Essays (Cambridge, 2014)
*T. Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism (Cambridge, 2002), chap.
7
D.E. Snow, Schelling and the End of Idealism (Albany, NY, 1996)
Schlegel & Novalis
*F.C. Beiser, The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism
(Cambridge, MA, 2003)
F.C. Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German
Political Thought 1790-1800 (Cambridge, MA, 1992), chaps 8-11
M. Frank, The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism (Albany, NY, 2004)
D. Nassar, The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy
(Chicago, 2014), part two
*T. Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism (Cambridge, 2002), chap.
6
Schleiermacher
*A. Bowie, ‘The Philosophical Significance of Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics’, in J. Mariña,
ed., The Cambridge Companion to Schleiermacher (Cambridge, 2005)
*R. Crouter, Friedrich Schleiermacher: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism
(Cambridge, 2005)
M.N. Forster, ‘Schleiermacher’s Hermeneutics: Some Problems and Solutions’, The Harvard
Review of Philosophy 12, no. 1 (2005): 100-122.
M. Redeker, Schleiermacher: Life and Thought (Philadelphia, PA, 1973)
P. Ricouer, “Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics,” The Monist 60 (1977)
Sample Long Essay Questions
1. How did different authors in the late eighteenth century understand the challenge
posed by scepticism, and what sorts of solutions did they propose? Discuss Kant and
at least one other author.
2. How did different authors in the period understand the relationship between reason
and religious faith? Discuss any three authors.
3. Why did Kant call his philosophy ‘critical’?
4. Explain the importance of the notion of ‘organism’ for Kant and for Goethe.
5. How and why did Fichte and Schelling claim to continue a Kantian project beyond
Kant himself?
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6. What was more important to Kant, law or freedom?
7. Was Mendelssohn right to refer to Kant as “all-crushing”?
8. How did the French Revolution impact German philosophical discussions of the
1790s?
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