Freedom and Nature in Kant's Politics

Dissertation, New School for Social Research (2001)
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Abstract

This work takes the conjunction of freedom and nature as the basis for understanding Kant's politics. The dissertation defends Kant's argument for the obligatory force of pure ideas and the legislative capacity of the subject in a nature and history that possesses its own formative processes. This conjunction of freedom and nature affirms the freedom of a rational being who is finite, and justifies the imposition of pure rational principles upon a civil law that is produced by historical, natural processes. The rights of historical beings rely on this subordination of power and external laws to laws of freedom. Kant's politics is a story of a transition from nature to freedom and not of an opposition between divergent realms and mutually exclusive principles. In the movement of human nature to its freedom, civil law becomes transmuted by rational principles into a system of rights. This dissertation charts this transition from nature to freedom in separate chapters on Kant's Critique of Judgment, his philosophy of history, and in his political philosophy. It is shown that his politics rests not simply on the determinative powers of pure reason but requires an allegiance of common understanding for the ends of reason. Ultimately, it is the movement of human nature towards its own humanity that is decisive for Kant's politics. ;By the very nature of its topic, this dissertation drew upon all three of Kant's critiques as well as his works on history, politics and anthropology. This dissertation also makes use of the contemporary ideas that dominated political debate such as those of Hobbes, Adam Smith, and Herder

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