2024-04-22 10:38:31
Immanuel Kant, one of the most important philosophers of the Enlightenment, was born on April 22nd 300 years ago. Today his work is more relevant than ever – but it is often twisted into the opposite.
Kaliningrad.
Next to the Königsberg Cathedral in what is now Russia’s Kaliningrad, the first guests enjoy the spring sun with a glass of Kant wine. Construction work on the beach promenade of the island enclosed by the Pregel River, which was once called Kneiphof and is now known as Kant Island, is in full swing. The work is expected to be completed by summer. Bicycle paths and a jogging track are being created.
For the 300th anniversary of the birth of the famous philosopher, “we are trying to make the island as comfortable as possible for people,” says the director of the Kant Museum, Grigory Chuziyev. The museum itself is scheduled to reopen in time for its birthday on April 22nd – with a concert in the cathedral.
Khuziyev is in charge of the entire complex. Kant’s grave adorns the back wall of Königsberg Cathedral – which is still the city’s landmark today. The church, which dates back to the Gothic period, is the only significant historical building that survived the bombing of the Second World War and the subsequent wave of demolitions during Soviet times in the old town of the former Königsberg.
“The Soviet leadership tried to destroy as much as possible objects of what they called Prussian militarism, but Kant’s grave saved the cathedral walls,” says Chuziyev. Since the communists saw the scholar as a forerunner of Marxism-Leninism, they would not have touched the church.
Kant (1724-1804) is the most famous German philosopher of the Enlightenment. A side effect of this popularity is that his writings are used by many political movements to justify their own ideology.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently named Kant one of his favorite thinkers alongside the religious philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, who was born in what is now Ukraine. It’s worth reading Kant and trying to understand him, Putin said – of all things during a conversation with the families of Russian military personnel who died in Ukraine.
It is doubtful whether the enlightener would have liked Putin’s interpretation of his call: “Have the courage to use your own understanding.” The Kremlin chief used the saying to justify the war of aggression against Ukraine that he had ordered. For Russia, using one’s own reason means being guided by its national interests. “We are trying to do that,” Putin said.
Kant’s traces in the Charter of the United Nations
“No state should violently interfere in the constitution and government of another state,” wrote Kant in one of his most famous works, “On Eternal Peace,” in 1795. The work has left its mark on international law, for example in the formulation of the Charter of the United Nations.
But Putin ignored this when he gave the order to invade the neighboring country a good two years ago. With the massacre in Butscha and the ongoing shelling of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, the Russian military has also violated other principles of warfare demanded by Kant, which do not make trust in a future peace impossible, but at least make it more difficult.
The German philosopher also saw republicanism, i.e. a freely ordered society, as the best protection against the outbreak of future wars. This is one of the reasons why he had to fear problems with Prussian censorship when it was published. Another parallel to the present time: the restriction of freedom and the legal persecution of dissidents has reached frightening proportions in warring Russia.
First tutor, then professor of metaphysics
Kant was already a well-known man when it was published. His “Critique of Pure Reason” a good two decades earlier, which is considered a revolution in thought, in a certain respect also granted him some protection from the censorship authorities. Of course, fame and scientific recognition came late in life for the man born in Königsberg in 1724.
After his studies, he initially had to make ends meet as a private tutor – including several years with a pastor in the small town of Judtschen – today Wesjolowka – around 100 kilometers from Königsberg. The branch built there by the Kant Museum in 2018 in the former pastor’s house is a reminder of the time and the philosopher. This year a guest house was added for seminars by young scientists and artists.
Kant received a professorship – for logic and metaphysics – in 1770, at the age of 46. Before that, he taught for a long time as a private lecturer, including logic, metaphysics, moral philosophy, theology, mathematics, physics, geography, anthropology, pedagogy and natural law.
Kant in the German Basic Law
Financial insecurity during his youth may have been one of the factors why Kant never married, suspects Valentin Balanowski, senior research associate at the Faculty of Philosophy at Kant University in Kaliningrad. For the anniversary, he is writing a book to explain the philosophy of the theorist, who is sometimes considered difficult to understand, in simple terms.
Balanowski is particularly enthusiastic about Kant’s epistemology, but also his comments on ethics. The human dignity formulated by Kant has found its way into the German Basic Law.
Of course, it was Kant’s moral philosophy that recently caused a scandal. The Kaliningrad governor Anton Alikhanov provoked people with the thesis that Kant paved the way for the moral relativism of the West and was therefore, to a certain extent, to blame for the war in Ukraine. Russia, in contrast, holds on to eternal values.
“Hands off our Kant”
But there was resistance to this interpretation in the region. Kaliningrad’s social networks said “Hands off our Kant.” The local patriotism with the appropriation of the German may also have something to do with the fact that the worldly wise man spent his entire life – with the exception of his years as a private tutor – in Königsberg. He even stayed there during the four years (1758-1762) when Königsberg was occupied by Russian troops during the Seven Years’ War.
“He is undoubtedly the greatest son of our city,” says Chuziyev, explaining Kant’s importance for Kaliningrad residents today. For him personally, he is the pioneer of the rule of law. He leaves uncommented on the fact that this is being undermined again in Russia. (dpa)
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