What could a History of Pure Reason be? Reflections on Philosophy’s Task Ahead

Kant’s reflections on the role of reason in the development of human intellectual activity is briefly encapsulated in the final chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason, yet, this particular chapter has not received much scholarly attention. This might be on account that even Kant notes its incomplete character, i.e. as “a place that is left open in the system and must be filled in the future.” (A852/B880) Although this image might give an impression of Kant as an optimist about being able to complete this task, the image that follows is much more sombre. Indeed, Kant, from a transcendental point of view, surveys only the ruins of what is left of reason’s great edifices. Kant’s self-understanding here must have realized something here of what Mendelssohn referred to as the ‘all-demolishing Kant’, and that much work remains. However, in what does this work consist in? One answer that presents itself, which seems misguided, is to merely take Kant’s sketch of reason’s progress through history as the guiding thread. While this certainly illuminates Kant’s schematic knowledge of the history of philosophy, it certainly does not present itself as a helpful way of categorizing reason’s progress to arrive at the form that it takes in the first Critique. Thankfully, Kant gives a short remark on reason’s infancy having been shaped “by studying first the cognition of God and the hope or indeed even the constitution of another world.” Understanding Kant’s focus on theology and morality as the “two incentives, or better, points of reference,” (A853/B881) here might hold the key to understanding what a history of pure reason is supposed to accomplish. I propose to read the history of pure reason not as primarily retrospective, but rather prospectively towards the attainment of highest good. This will be shown by comparing Kant’s somewhat cryptic reference to “cognition of God” in the history chapter to the essay “What is Enlightenment?” Kant’s focus there on enlightenment as “chiefly in matters of religion” holds the key to understanding that the history of reason is mainly a matter of understanding how it can become effective in political and historical terms. This will be further shown through an examination of the later texts “Idea for a universal history with cosmopolitan aim,” and especially the Conflict of the Faculties. In the latter, I want to compare how the notion of progress is understood both as rational, as well as prophetic, which can be contrasted with that proposition of the “History” essay that considers all of history as a plan to bring abou “an externally perfect state constitution …. Which can fully develop all predispositions of humanity.” (passim, 8:27) This will allow me to then show that the history of pure reason is mainly a matter of discovering that teleology which makes history more rational, and thus also a matter of making of making history and human relations more rational.