Immanuel Kant's Political Philosophy

Immanuel Kant is conceived primarily as the founder of critical philosophy, the author of "Copernican turn" in metaphysics and epistemology. He is a leading rationalist of his age, the author of famous concept of the “thing in itself” (Ding an sich) and the critic of evidence for the God’s existence (God, soul and world are for Kant regulative ideas of pure human reason. Their source is only pure human reason (reinen Vernunft). Kant is also the author of famous moral principles as imperatives. Widely considered to Kant as one of the most outstanding representatives of the Enlightenment. A little outside the main themes of his philosophy situated his reflection about social and political life. However, beyond the well-known considerations of Kant on "the state of law", it remains an important explorer of the general principles of the human relationships, which form the basis of social and political relations. In the "Critique of Judgment" Kant carries twofold considerations: in the first part considerations relate to the issuing of human judgments details, which are strongly associated with communication and acceptance by other individuals (other people). The ruling principle here is so-called "sociability". In the second part of this book Kant poses the question of meaning of the human existence as a species, which translates to attempt to answer the question about the purpose of human life on the earth, and so sense of life and “being the man”. In this proposed text I would like to examine these issues and to describe the results reached by Immanuel Kant, but not only because I would like to refer his conception to the wider discussion on the most important also for us problems that generally belong to the area of political philosophy, it means, the problems of freedom, justice or human happiness.