12.Philosophers in the Public Square:
A Religious Resolution
of Kant’s Conflict of the Faculties
Prof.
Stephen Palmquist, D.Phil. (Oxon)
Department
of Religion and Philosophy
Hong Kong
Baptist University
(stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
With an Appendix
co-authored by Richard W. Mapplebeckpalmer
1. On
Retreat With Kant: Concord and Conflict in Philosophical Practice
In opposition
to the common belief that philosophy is a discipline belonging solely in the
university, where it can be safely insulated from influencing or
beinginfluenced by the way ordinary people live their lives, a movement has
arisen over the past decade or so, commonly known as “Philosophical Practice.”
Some trace its early organization back to 1992, when several French
philosophers and friends casually met one Sunday morning in a Paris café to
discuss an issue of mutual concern. A journalist, overhearing them planning a
follow-up meeting and mistakenly thinking it would be open tothe general
public, announced it in the local press, and the first “Café Philo” was born.
Soon the popularity of the weekly gatherings that began cropping up in cafés
all over Paris and throughout France came to the attention of philosophers
elsewhere, who had already been interested in practical ways of luring
philosophy out of the Academy and back into the public square (where it began,
in pre-Platonic Athens). Contacts were made between counselors who were already
using philosophical ideas and methods to assist clients in overcoming personal
problems, consultants who had already been hired by big businesses to assist
them in thinking philosophically about various corporate problems, and teachers
who were already interested in minimizing current social problems by
introducing “philosophy for children” into primary and secondary school
curricula. Starting in 1995,annual conferences began to be held, where
philosophers engaged in these and other non-academic activities could share
their ideas and encourage others to regard philosophy as more than just an
academic discipline.
Soon after attending the
Third International Conference on Philosophical Practice, in July of 1997,
Ibegan exploring various ways of involving myself in philosophical activities
outside the university. At that conference, I read a paper pointing out that the psychologist Carl
Jung was strongly influenced by Kant and arguing that certain Kantian ideas
could also serve as useful counseling tools. In addition to experimenting with
this possibility myself in some volunteer counseling I did over the next few
years, I started the Hong Kong Philosophy Café in 1999—an
organization that has now grown to five semi-independent branches with a
mailing list of over 400 interested participants. Meanwhile, in 1998 I had acquired
aten-acre parcel of forest nestled in the backwoods of Mendocino County,
about150 miles north of San Francisco, with the idea of setting up a
philosophical retreat center—an idea that developed out of discussions I had
with various participants attending the 1997 conference. In January of 2001 the
first CIPHER retreat took place in a newly completed
house that had been built on the property.
For a Kant
scholar accustomed to working in a university setting, these new exploits have
been both exciting and challenging. They have forced me to think deeply about
whether (and if so, how) Kant’s ideas can be useful to ordinary laypersons. As
a result, I have come to a new understanding of the false limitations
philosophers put upon themselves when they buy into the assumption that
philosophy should be tucked safely away in the inner recesses of the Academy.
With the idea of testing the applicability and interest Kant’s ideas might have
to the general public, I facilitated a one-day retreat in December of 2001,
intended as a way of coming to terms with the September 11thtragedy
and the resulting war in Afghanistan that was then unfolding. Four local
residents, all ordinary working people none of whom had previous exposureto
Kant, met with me for four intense, two-hour sessions of reading and discussion
based on Kant’s essay, Perpetual Peace. The success of the event was
evidentnot only from the numerous insights that arose during our discussions,
but alsofrom the concord wefive experienced, and came to hope for the
world at large, as a result ofconsidering Kant’s explanation of why war happens
and his vision of theway political relations could some day do without it.
The success
ofthat event (and other retreats) motivated me to plan a second retreat on
Kant,this time offering scholars an opportunity to reflect in a non-academic
settingon a text where Kant appears to be less optimistic about the possibility
(oreven the desirability) of concord: The Conflict of the Faculties.
Since the focus of my recent researchon Kant had been in the area of the
religious and theological implications ofhis philosophy, and since I was
already involved in the project of co-editingthe present collection of essays,
a retreat discussing how Kant’s Conflict offers important guidelines
forinterpreting his philosophy of religion seemed like a good idea. Four of
thefive participants in the retreat, held in mid-July of 2002,
subsequentlysubmitted essays for this volume. As it turned out, however, our
discussionsfocused as much on Kant’s conception of what a philosopher should
be, andon how the philosophy facultyof a university should relate to the
rest of the university and (especially) tothe general public, as on the
specific details of Kant’s philosophy ofreligion—if not more so.
In the
secondsection of this essay, I shall provide a report on the discussions held
at theJuly 2002 CIPHER retreat, entitled “Rethinking Kant’s Philosophy
ofReligion.” This report will not identify the participants who
expressedspecific ideas, for in most cases the insights were mutual,
arisingspontaneously as a result of the concord that developed between us
through theprolonged attention we were able to give, as a small group of new
friendsphilosophizing together in a relaxed and non-combative setting, to
Kant’stext. In §3 I shall then take a step back from the focus on Kant as
atopic discussed at philosophical retreats and summarize my overall strategy
forinterpreting Kant, explaining how and why it provides a strong basis
forinterpreting his philosophy of religion in an affirmative way. In §4 Iargue
that one of the best non-academic professions for a Kantian philosopherto enter
would be that of a pastor. The essay then concludes with an
Appendix,co-authored by a pastor-philosopher who actually implements many of
the ideaspresented here.
2.Kant
on the Philosopher’s Responsibility to the General Public
In his
lastpublished work on religion, Part I of The Conflict of the Faculties (1798),
Kant provides numerous helpfulclarifications of his previously published views
on religion. He bases many ofhis arguments on a theory of the fundamental
difference between theresponsibilities philosophers and theologians have in
their respectiverelationships to the government on one hand and to the general
public on theother. In this respect, the main difference between philosophers
andtheologians, he argues, is that the latter are charged with the task
oftraining one of the three “businessmen of the faculties” (i.e., pastors),
whereas philosophers have no suchresponsibility to train public servants.
Kant’stheory
of the difference between philosophers and theologians raises two
fundamentalquestions for anyone interested in promoting a harmonious relationship
betweenthe disciplines of theology (and/or religion) and philosophy: (1)
Dophilosophers have anyproper role as public servants, or are they
necessarily confined to theuniversity, where they serve merely as critics of
the other three faculties?and (2) Would it be possible and/or desirable for a
pastor, who presumably mustdon the cloak of the theology faculty, also to be a
practicing philosopher inKant’s sense (i.e., one whose allegiance is to
“barereason”)? Exploring how Kant answers the first question in Conflict
will be the purpose of this section.After §3 outlines Kant’s general
understanding of the relationshipphilosophy has to the higher faculty of
theology and to the public practice ofreligion, we will be prepared to answer
the second question in §4.
Before
lookingat Kant’s views on the philosopher’s responsibility to the public,we
must address the issue Kant raises in the Preface of Conflict, regarding
his own readiness to complywith the deceased king’s demand that he remain silent
on matters relatingto religion. As is well known, the censor for the highly
conservative kingobjected to the theology in Kant’s 1793 book, Religion
within theBounds of Bare Reason,and ordered Kant to stop writing on
religious matters. In his response Kant didnot accept the charges; rather, he
claimed his approach was designed to defendand promote the Christian religion. Nevertheless, he agreed not only to
stopwriting on religion, but even to stop speaking in public on any
religiousmatter as long as he remained the king’s servant. Fortunately,
the king died before Kantdid, and Kant argued that this freed him from his
promise to remain silent.Kant was therefore able in good conscience to publish this important last
work,containing his most mature reflections on religion and theology. Was
Kantjustified (when judged by the principles of his own philosophy) in taking
this“easy way out” in his conflict with the government? Kant’s theoryof the
distinctive role of philosophers seems partially designed to exoneratehim from
any charge of cowardice: he was merely following his duty as theking’s loyal
servant. However, as we shall see, this strategy does notsucceed, when properly
understood.
At theretreat,
we discerned four distinctive tiers or levels in Kant’s accountof the
philosopher’s role. The first and most general level is thatoccupied by the
general public. By “public” Kant means anythingoutside both the university and
the government that is potentially a concernfor everyone—that is, anything that
is open for discussion by all.Indeed, Kant’s term, öffentlich
(“public”), has “open” (öffen) as its root meaning. Universityprofessors
and students, like government officials, function as members of thepublic when
they go about their daily lives. But when they carry out theirofficial duties
within the Academy, members of the higher faculties function astrainers of
“public servants” and are therefore answerable to thegovernment.
The
secondlevel is occupied by these public servants themselves—in Kant’sscheme,
the three types of “businessmen of the faculties” (pastors,lawyers, and
doctors)—or for that matter, by any professional whose areaof expertise places
him or her in a direct relationship with members of thegeneral public. Since
the role of good government is to care for the generalwell-being of the people,
Kant argues that the government has a proper duty toexercise a certain degree
of control over these professionals. Laws andguidelines are quite rightly
instituted for the protection of the publicagainst charlatans or incompetent
practitioners. Kant states at one point thatin general, “people want to be led,
that is … they want to be duped”(CF 31). Since most people are
susceptible tobeing deceived, the government’s job should be to protect the
generalpublic as much as possible from being harmed. The more
philosophicallyenlightened the general public becomes, the less strict these
governmentcontrols will need to be.
In Conflict
Kant connects the three higher facultiesto the three principle desires of
ordinary people: “being happy after death, having their possessions
guaranteed by public laws …, and
finally, … looking forward to … health and a long life.” Thephilosopher’s
message to the people ought to be that, in order for thesewishes to be
fulfilled, one should “live righteously, commit no injustice, and, by being moderate in his pleasures and patient in
hisillnesses, rely primarily on the self-help of nature.” Unwilling toaccept
such strict demands, unenlightened people look to clergy, lawyers,
andphysicians for miraculous help, forgetting they have “been a scoundrel
all [their] life, ... broken the law, ... and
abused [their] physical powers” (CF 30). Since these motives are hardly
ideal,they need to be regulated by any government that has the people’s bestinterests
in mind. Giving the philosophy faculty freedom to criticizeeverything proposed
by these educators of the professions is the best means of“governing” or
“patrolling” (controlliren) the higher faculties (28).
The thirdlevel
is made up of what Kant called the “higher faculties”(theology, law, and
medicine)—or what we today would simply call“the academic community,” excluding
the philosophy faculty (and itsintellectual offspring that form departments of
their own nowadays). These faculties are distinctivebecause
they trainthe professionals who then go out and “lead” the members of
thepublic who, for one reason or another, do not wish (or are not able) to
thinkfor themselves on matters of faith, justice, and health. Kant argues,
famously(or infamously), that the government has both a right and a
responsibility tokeep a watchful eye on any academics whose main function is to
train publicservants. For if these academics are out of line, they may lead
theprofessionals astray, and this, in turn, could have a directly
detrimentaleffect on the general public.
The
philosophyfaculty, by contrast, occupies its own distinct, fourth level
precisely becauseit does not train any professionals who relate directly to the
public. Instead,the academic philosopher’s main task is to engage in creative
conflict with members of the higher faculties. Assuch, Kant claimed the
writings and speech of philosophers ought not to be ofany concern to the
government. (This means the censorship he had reluctantlycooperated with for
the past four years had been inappropriate. Kant hadwillingly obeyed an unjust
law.) During our discussion of these ideas at theretreat, I suddenly realized
that Kant’s four-tier theory includes onefeature that is often overlooked,
mainly because Kant himself does not emphasise
it—though he does hint at it. Thatfeature is that these tiers can be arranged
either in a straight line, likelevels or stories of a building, or in a circle.
If Kant had in mind the latterarrangement, then, contrary to first impressions,
the philosophy faculty hasboth the right and the responsibility to engage in
direct, uninhibited contactwith the general public.What gives philosophers
this right is that in their engagement with the public,philosophers do not
claim some special, “higher” knowledge; rather,they appeal to one and the same
faculty, “publicly” using the same“cold reason” (kalter Vernunft öffentlich)
that all human beings use when thinking(CF 33).
This can
beconfirmed by proposing an alternative way of picturing the relationshipsbetween
the various “tiers” mentioned above, suggested byKant’s practice of referring
to philosophy as the “lower”faculty in relation to the “higher” faculties that
trainprofessionals. The “highness” of theology, law, and medicine,connotes a
royal calling, a direct link to the “high officials” ofgovernment. The
“lowness” of philosophy, by contrast, connotes adirect link with the general
public. There are no professional philosophers. Rather, the
philosopher’s job isto convey to the general public the views being promoted by
the higherfaculties (as sanctioned by whatever is “politically correct” atthe
time) in a way that will enable those who are willing to think forthemselves to
make up their minds in an informed yet impartial manner. That is,the academic philosopher
is (or should be) like the general public’s spy, strategically
positioned at the heartof the university in order to collect information and
serve as thepublic’s most reliable informant.
The problem
isthat academic philosophers nowadays do tend to regard themselves as
forming a distinct profession(aside from being professional teachers).
As a result, they often pay allegiance to universityadministrators in a manner
not unlike the way Kant thought the members of thehigher faculties ought
properly to pay allegiance to the government, at leastin their public
pronouncements. (Kant thought all academics, whether in thehigher or lower
faculties, should be free to say whatever they wish, as long asthey are
speaking only to each other, not to the general public.) The verycomponent of
the university that ought to be its independent voice ofconscience is all too
often just a safe haven for half-witted thinkers to makea comfortable living.
If philosophy teachers view themselves as public servantsemployed by the
government to produce other professionals like themselves, thenthey are
actually seeing themselves as members of what Kant called the“higher faculties”
and would thereby be subject to governmentcontrol in Kant’s scheme.
Kant’sargument
boils down to this: in those cases where a government employsphilosophers, as
when they teach in a publicly funded university, they areserving a function not
unlike the “loyal opposition” in aconstitutional monarchy such as England. Good
government depends on thepresence of an opposing voice that is given total
freedom to say what it deemsbest for each situation; and the same is true for
professional education. Thephilosopher, in Kant’s scheme, is the proper person
to serve this role,because philosophers answer only to the voice of reason.
Academic philosopherswho work in state-sponsored or private institutions are indirectly
performingpublic service through the influence their research and teaching have
onmembers of the higher faculties; nevertheless, they are not bound by the
samerestrictions as those who perform direct public service, because of
the special position they occupyas the “lower faculty.” This applies as much to
philosophers whowork within the confines of a university as it does to those
who step outsidethe university and attempt to reason in a “free and open”
manner,unencumbered by thefetters of grades and other limitations of the
university context.Philosophical practitioners must be careful not to place
themselves in“high places,” where their appeal to reason could be compromised
byofficial (e.g., governmental or organizational) intervention.
In light
ofthis interpretation of Kant’s position, Kant’s personal choice toabide by the
will of the censor surely does not merit moral condemnation. Thatis, he was not
doing anything that contradicted his own teachings on moralgoodness. However,
his decision is also not worthy of praise. For it lacked thevery courage that
Kant himself thought should be the hallmark of the truephilosopher, the courage
to stand up to officials (whether they be governmentor university based) and
openly challenge rulings that are in error.Apparently, he thought that in his
case such a struggle would not be worth theeffort. Perhaps he excused himself
on the grounds of old age, reasoning that hecould simply write what he wished
to write on the topic and arrange to have itpublished posthumously, if he were
to die before the king. Kant’scompliance, therefore, is nothing to be overly
concerned about; but it isdefinitely nothing to hold up as an example for
others to follow, especially sinceit fails to implement his own ideals
regarding the philosopher’sresponsibilities to the general public. Although
Kant in his old age failed toexhibit the moral courage of Socrates, he cannot
be accused of going to theopposite extreme and selling his soul to the devil in
the manner of Faust.
3.The
Perspectival Interpretation as a Basis for Interpreting Kant’s Conflict
In addition
todiscussing Kant’s views on the relationship between philosophers and thegeneral
public, participants at the July 2002 CIPHER retreat addressed avariety of more
specific issues regarding the proper interpretation ofKant’s philosophy of
religion, in light of the interpretive guidelinesprovided in Conflict.Rather
than reporting on those details here, however, I shall now take a stepback and
look at the overall structure of Kant’s philosophical System inhopes of
revealing its suitability to serve as a foundation for an affirmativeapproach
to theology and religion.
Theorganization
of Conflict,like that of most books Kant wrote after 1780, is determined
by Kant’sdeep belief that philosophy is at its best when it follows
an“architectonic” approach. By this he meant philosophers shouldseek
to construct their arguments in an orderly way determined by reasonitself,
rather than following the merely random approach of collectinginformation from
the “aggregate” we find in experience.Kant’s interpreters, especially those who
adopt the traditionalinterpretation, have almost universally rejected
this“art of constructing systems” as ludicrous, to the extent that
anyportion of Kant’s System that an interpreter fails to understand tends tobe
cast aside on the grounds that it was supposedly “only necessarybecause of the
artificial requirements of Kant’s architectonic.”
The first
andforemost aim of my work on Kant has been to demonstrate how mistaken this
apriori rejection of architectonic reasoning is—at least, for anyinterpreter
whose first aim is to understand Kant on his own terms. Withoutadopting the
writer’s assumptions, an interpreter cannot hope tounderstand what the writer
meant to convey, especially with a thinker as deepand complex as Kant. In this
section I shall summarize how this trend can becountered by adopting precisely
the opposite assumption regarding the relationshipbetween Kant’s architectonic
and the various conundrums in his mainphilosophical writings: where apparent
contradictions or incoherencies arise, Iattempt to discern how a clearerarticulation
of the architectonic can resolve the problem. This method enablesus to see
concord in the otherwise apparentlyconfusing
labyrinth of Kant’s System, and so also, as we shall seeat the end of this
section, in the disparate loose ends of the Conflict text.
Mostinterpreters
would agree that the most fundamental presupposition ofKant’s entire
philosophical System is the “Copernican”hypothesis: the claim that “we can know
a priori of things only what we ourselves putinto them” (CPR Bxviii).Yet
very few are aware that this hypothesis is part and parcel in Kant’smind of the
assumption that philosophy must be architectonic. If philosophersmust view
objects of knowledge as conforming to the forms of thought imposed onobjects by
the knowing subject, and if these thought forms are by nature logical,
then the resulting philosophicalknowledge will obviously be expressed according
to logically ordered patterns,artistically arranged around an idea of the
whole—i.e., they will displaywhat Kant calls “architectonic unity.” This
establishes what I callthe overarching “Copernican Perspective” in Kant’s
System, aPerspective that informs each Critique at the deepest level. Interpreters who fail to recognize
thatKant presents this hypothesis not as “the final solution,” but as aperspective
that canbe extraordinarily useful for philosophers to adopt, invariably neglect
theimportant fact that Kant does not regard it as exclusive; in particular,
Kant expects non-philosophical (e.g., scientific)knowledge to involve
adopting the opposite Perspective, where the aggregate isgiven a position of
priority instead. This perspectival openness should be keptin mind when we
consider in §4 how Kantian philosophers can enter aprofession usually reserved
for theologically-trained professionals.
Kant’sself-chosen
name for his System was “Transcendental Philosophy,” so the Copernican
(genuinelyphilosophical) Perspective is also called the
“TranscendentalPerspective.” But this “idea of thewhole,” otherwise known as reason’sattempt to
discern its own nature and limits, manifests itself in threedistinct subject
areas or “standpoints:” when we apply our minds tosearch for the ultimate
limits of empirical (e.g., scientific) knowledge, weare adopting the
“theoretical standpoint,” where space, time, andthe 12 categories define the limit
of what we can know. Beyond this limit, the human
mindnaturally produces certain ideas—the three archetypal examples being
God,freedom, and immortality—that must by their very nature remainunknowable.
Despite being unknowable, Kant insists there are good, “heuristic”(or
hypothetical) reasons for treating them (even in our theoretical reasoning)as
if they relate to something real.
Kant’sreputation
as a philosopher whose primary impetus in theology is negative comesmainly from
his utter rejection of the traditional arguments for God’sexistence in the Critique
of Pure Reason—viewed by manyinterpreters as the proper
starting point of Kant’s philosophy ofreligion. Yet Kant’s own understanding wasthat to
make such arguments the starting point of theology is to adopt asophistical
approach that could never provide the proper foundations for aliving religious
faith. By proving the impossibility of all possible forms of theoretical
argument,he believed he was guaranteeing, once and for all, that the
atheist’sposition can never be proved as theoretically valid. For Kant, the negations of
thetheoretical standpoint on their own provide no foundation whatsoever
fortheology or religion, but only prepare the ground for constructing a
genuinely affirmativefoundation: no atheist can ever claim a religious person
is being irrational bybelieving in God, since the question of God’s existence
cannot be settledfrom this standpoint.
Although
Kantcriticizes “practical reason” after having criticized theoretical
reason, heregards this new standpoint, based as it is on freedom as the
“onefact” of reason, as having primacy over the theoretical. In the secondCritique,
Kant’sfirst purpose is to establish what makes an act morally good. This
cannot, heargues, be determined by anything external to a human person,
including theoutcome of the action. Rather, it must be determined by the
conformity of theperson’s freely chosen motivating maxim(s) to the “moral
law”that lies in the heart of every human person. Having explained how moralityworks,
however, he goes on to consider why we should be moral, even though
acting morally in thisimperfect world does not always produce the happiness we
think it should. HereKant offers the first clear and explicit theological
affirmation in what Iregard as his “theocentric” philosophy: anyone who believes trying to be
morallygood is a rational approach to life is, by that very fact, acting as
if God exists. In order for their beliefsto be consistent with their
actions, such persons ought therefore to believe inGod.
Kant’sthird
standpoint is often regarded as an afterthought by interpreters, yet
Kanthimself portrays it as constituting the crowning phase of his entire
System: inthe Critique of JudgmentKant argues that the opposite
standpoints of nature (our causally-determined,theoretical knowledge) and
freedom (our self-determined, practical action) are synthesized by
various forms of existentialjudgment. Most of his attention is given to
examining how our judgments ofbeauty, sublimity, and natural purposiveness
succeed in combining elements ofboth the theoretical and the practical
standpoints, thereby demonstrating thatnature and freedom are, in fact, united
in a greater whole in the context ofreal human experiences. In a lengthy
Appendix, Kant explains in considerabledetail how this provides the foundation
for a “moral theology,”whereby God can be viewed not just as a deistic
watchmaker, but as a livingGod, who can beencountered—albeit,
symbolically—in just such forms of humanexperience as are examined earlier in
the book.
That
theaffirmative aspects of Kant’s theology do not end here can beunambiguously
discerned by any open-minded reader of two of Kant’s late works, Religionwithin
the Bounds of Bare Reasonand Opus Postumum.The former is adequately
discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, above, and inthoroughgoing detail throughout Kant’s
Critical Religion, so I shall not venture to give anaccount
of the details here. The one point I shall make is that Religion is
probably the book that bestexemplifies Kant’s application of his twelve-fold
architectonic (asdetermined by the table of categories in the first Critique)
to the detailed organization of a wholebook’s arguments. In particular, the
four main “perspectives”governing the argument-flow within each Critique
(i.e., the transcendental, logical,empirical, and hypothetical) are clearly
implied by the very titles of the fourbooks of Religion:radical evil
establishes the transcendental conditions for religion; personalredemption adds
the logical means of countering those limits to create meaning;social
redemption through church structures gives religion real empirical powerto
combat evil; and correctly distinguishing between true and false ways ofserving
God puts believers in the proper hypothetical frame of mind for beinggood.
In the
processof working out this philosophical defense of the rational conditions for
thepossibility of religion, Kant develops and applies a new and profoundly
reformingtheological hermeneutic, whereby all doctrines and rituals must be
interpretedas moral symbols, either directly or indirectly, in order to be
meaningful. When the richness of
Kant’saccomplishment is fully recognized in this way, the claim of
traditionalinterpreters, that he was actually attempting to do away with
religion byreducing it to nothing but morality, becomes almost unbelievably
ludicrous. Instead, we see Kant as
insistingmorality must be raisedto the level of religion in order to
become a feasible human endeavor at all.That is, without embracing religion at
whatever level we find ourselves in ourmoral development, the gargantuan task
of obeying the moral law would have tobe given up as a lost cause.
Probably
themost frequent criticism of Kant’s philosophy of religion—and thisapplies not
only to the adherents of the traditional interpretation, but evento many who
properly recognize the religious and theological affirmations Kantdefended
throughout his writings—is that his philosophy leaves no roomwhatsoever for religious
experience. Firestone’s reference to my methodof
interpretation as the “religious” approach is apt, inasmuch as I deny this
almostuniversally accepted claim. In Chapter II of KCR, I argue
thatSwedenborg’s writings served as the most profound catalyst forKant’s
development of the all-important Copernican Perspective, as wellas for quite a
few of the revolutionary theories present in the first Critique yet
mysteriously absent in Kant’swritings prior to 1764. I demonstrate that Kant’s
way of dealing withSwedenborg followed the Critical approach that had been his
natural way ofphilosophizing from the beginning: rather than rejecting
Swedenborg’smystical claims outright, Kant argues that there may have been
something realand even significant happening to Swedenborg, but that his
attempt to draw knowledge from those experiences is illegitimate.On this
basis, I claim the entire Critical System was Kant’s attempt towork out the
details of this “Critical” (theoretically limited, yetopen to practical
significance) view of what mystical experience entails.
Part Four
ofKCR develops and defends this claim in three ways. First, I demonstrate
bycollecting passages from throughout Kant’s works not only that he himselfhad
experiences that could properly be called “mystical,” but thathe gave public
witness to them in his writings. Second, I argue thatKant’s Opus Postumumwas
meant to fill a “gap” in the architectonic of his System byaccomplishing a
double synthesis: on the one hand, to unite the MetaphysicalFoundations of
Natural Science(the third book developing Kant’s theoretical standpoint)
with theopposing work, Metaphysics of Morals (the third book developing
Kant’s practicalstandpoint), and on the other, to unite the two opposing books
in Kant’s“judicial” standpoint (namely, Critique of Judgment and Religion)
by giving them both a metaphysicalexpression. This “universal metaphysics”
therefore had to deal witha wide spectrum of subjects; but I have demonstrated
that Kant’sapproach, whether he is dealing with the mysterious ether that the
science ofhis day believed underlies all natural phenomena or with the
categoricalimperative that our morality imposes on us, was existential.
That is, his primary attention was onour immediate experience,and how
that gives rise, at a secondary level, to all the machinations ofCritical
philosophy. This, and not some wild theory that Kant was a“mystic” in any
traditional or fanatical sense of the word, is allI mean by claiming that
Kant’s entire philosophical System leads to anexistential heart that can best
be called a “Critical mysticism.”
Keeping inmind
this perspectival interpretation of Kant’s philosophy and itsaffirmative
religious and theological implications, let us now return to the Conflict
text to see what new light can be shedon Kant’s intentions therein. First and
most obviously, the overall,threefold division of the book can now be seen as a
direct reflection ofKant’s architectonic distinction between the three main
standpoints ofphilosophy: theologians tend to overstep the boundaries of the
theoreticalstandpoint in order to establish knowledge of God; lawyers tend to
overstep theboundaries of the practical standpoint in order to determine what
is legallyright; and doctors tend to overstep the boundaries of the judicial
standpointin order to judge the cause of diseases and the best path back to
health. Thatis, these three “higher faculties” of the university are a
directreflection of the three rational standpoints philosophers must Critique
whenthey adopt the Copernican/Transcendental hypothesis. The latter, therefore,corresponds
directly to the lowerfaculty of the university. Its job in Kant’s System
is to“govern” (controlliren)the standpoints in exactly the same manner
that the philosopher’s job inthe university is to govern the pronouncements of
those working in and for theother faculties. This lower faculty ought (and
need) not be put under anygovernmental controls, because the government should
be concerned only withthose who adopt the Perspective of the general
public—what I call theEmpirical Perspective, making use of reason without first
having subjected itto Critique. The higher faculties can be restricted by
government regulationsbecause they all adopt this fundamentally
non-philosophical Perspective. Theymust adopt this Perspective, if they are to
train the professionals who will beworking directly with the general public.
This brings
usback to the question whether the philosopher has any legitimate reason to
comeinto direct contact with the general public in Kant’s scheme. Thediagrams
shown below each relate Kant’sPerspective-plus-three-standpoints System to the
higher-lower facultiesdistinction in Conflict,but in two radically
different ways. Figure 1 could be called “thephilosopher’s academic role in an
unenlightened society;” for inany context where the general (non-academic)
public really does simply want tobe duped, the philosopher’s only hope is to
begin by trying to influencethe “dupers” themselves, so they will minimize the
irrationalelements in their teachings and leadings.
INSERTFIGURE
1 NEAR HERE
Figure2,
by contrast, could be called “the philosopher’s public role inan enlightened
society,” for in any context where a significant portionof the public has
become sufficiently self-examining (i.e., Critical) to beable to adopt the
Copernican Perspective on their own, the philosopher has notonly a right but a
duty to step out into the public square and encourage themto do so. This, as I
see it, is what has been happening for the past decade inthe Philosophical
Practice movement mentioned in §1 above.
INSERTFIGURE
2 NEAR HERE
Finally, wecan
now see the precise way this overview of Kant’s System assists us
ininterpreting the diverse views on theology and religion portrayed in Conflict.
Kant’s understanding of thenecessary conflict between philosophy and theology
relates primarily (if notexclusively) to academictheology, viewed as a
training ground for pastors, because of its de-moralizingtendency to cater to
the inclinations of the unenlightened public. Kant sees nonecessary conflict,
but rather a great deal of potential concord, between philosophy and religion,
provided the latter is conceived in aproperly enlightened manner. Indeed,
Kant’s willingness to affirm boththeology and religion is in exact proportion
to the extent of enlightenmentthat can be expected from the general public: he
remains sharply critical ofany theology and religious practice that caters to
those who (whetherconsciously or unconsciously) still want to be
“duped;” yet he becomes not onlyaffirmative but filled with a profound hope in
a future universal concord whenreferring to any theology and religion that
caters to enlightened members ofthe general public. A philosopher boldly taking
an active role in the realm ofpublic religion could therefore make a
significant impact. In the next sectionI shall explore the potential for
practicing philosophy in a concord-orientedmanner in a religious context.
4. The Kantian Pastor: Two Models
forPhilosophical Practice in Religion
Given the factthat
theologians and philosophers often share a wide range of commonintellectual
interests, I am amazed that nobody (to my knowledge) in thePhilosophical
Practice movement has given attention to the possibility ofpracticing
philosophy in a specifically religious context. As I argued in§1, philosophy
itself, not only by its nature as the “lower”(foundational) faculty of the
university, but also by its appeal to a faculty(power) of the mind that is
common to all human persons, cannot be a“profession” in its own right. The more philosophers around the
worldcome to recognize that teaching is not the only profession philosophers
canhave without giving up their status as philosophers, the more enlightened
thegeneral public will become. If religion is indeed the central focus ofKant’s
entire philosophical System (see note 21, above), an obviousalternative
profession for Kantians would be the pastoral ministry. With thispossibility in
mind, our final question is: how, if at all, is it possible forKantian philosophers
to become pastors?
Beforeoffering
some suggestions as to how best to answer this question, I shallintroduce one
further distinction, operating in Religion as well as in Conflict,
between what we can call“ideal” religion and “real” religion. The former
wouldconsist of a group of people that fulfills all the requirements of
Kant’s“pure moral faith” by meeting together under a simple common beliefin a
mysterious divine assistance, dispensing with all the historical
trappingsinvolved in defending specific religious dogmas and/or requiring
members toparticipate in certain religious rituals in order to become
well-pleasing toGod. This is the form of religion Kant devotes most attention to
describing,yet he readily admits that it is, at this stage of human
development, littlemore than a hope we can hold and attempt to approach in our
own imperfect ways. Real human beings, as he
repeatedlystates, remain creatures of sensibility, influenced by our
inclinations; aslong as this is true, most people will settle for something
less than idealreligion. One of the drawbacks of the traditional interpretation
is that itfails to acknowledge the realistic, pragmatic strain in Kant’s
writing onreligion, where he allows for many forms of belief and practice that
fall shortof the ideal, provided they prompt people to move in the right
direction.
With
thisdistinction in mind, we can likewise distinguish between two ways a
philosophercan play an active, positive role in a religious community. The
first is tojoin and support a religious group that conforms as closely as
possible toKant’s ideal.Kant recognized that such examples can exist,
for he includes an extendedreference to one such group as an Appendix to Conflict—notinsignificantly
for my interpretation, a group that was known by the name“mystics.” One of the best examples of such
areligious organization nowadays is The Religious Society of Friends
(Quakers).Their guiding principles are surprisingly close to Kant’s ideal: no belief is required in any
historicalor doctrinal claims that would then be regarded as necessary for
salvation; allofficially sanctioned beliefs focus on enhancing the moral life
of the members;in place of the rituals many religious believers regard as
sanctioned by andtherefore pleasing to God in and of themselves, Quakers merely
sit in silentworship, allowing the spiritual influence of their corporate
gathering toempower them to live better (and usually this means, more
self-examined) lives.The tradition is so close to Kant’s ideal (see e.g.,
Kant’sdefinition of “religious illusion” in R 170) that, somewhat
ironically,there is no special roleleft for the philosopher to perform.
The philosopher who attends can encouragethe group to follow a more rational,
enlightened course in any corporateactions that are taken, but he or she can
have no “professionalposition” in the group, because such positions simply do
not exist. Forthis tradition strictly interprets Jesus’ admonition, that the leaders
inhis Kingdom of ideal religion must not “lord it over” each other, to mean no professional leadership
(nopaid pastor) should be employed.
The
secondoption for a Kantian who wishes to make a difference in the religious
world bybringing philosophy into the public square does involve the
potential for taking up aprofessional role: one who feels called to exercise a
positive, e nlighteninginfluence on ordinary church-goers (most of whom will,
as Kant observed,“want to be led”) could become a pastor or priest. Preferably,
theKantian philosopher-pastor should be free of any and all restraints
imposed by hierarchicallyorganized denominations. The most suitable church will
therefore beindependent, otherwise the freedom necessary to appeal first and
foremost tothe common reason of those who attend could be compromised by the
need to obeythe official statutes established by the denomination’s
theologians.Nevertheless, this ideal is not the only possibility.
Philosophicalpractitioners could become, for example, Catholic priests or
Baptist ministers,provided they are willing to live with the conflict (inner
and outer) that islikely to result from adopting the standpoints of both the
philosophical(Kantian) theologian and the biblical (denominational) theologian.
That is, theconflict between philosophy and theology experienced in the Academy
(see§2, above) is likely to be mirrored in the Kantian pastor’s own mindand/or
in his or her relationship with the church hierarchy. Since Kantbelieved such
conflict is healthy,it should not prevent a Kantian from being a good
pastor.
Kant
providesnumerous guidelines for how such a pastor can live and work in a church
withoutinadvertently frustrating the philosophical goal of bringing
enlightenment tothe general public. Below I outline four basic guidelines for
Kantianphilosopher-pastors, based on a correlation between the topics of the
fourstages in Kant’s system of rational religion and the four“principles of the
invisible church” specified in Book III. That these guidelines are likely toplace
the philosopher-pastor in a position of conflict with certain types
oftheologians will be evident to anyone familiar with the range of
Christiantheologies in circulation today. Yet in my experience, they are
largely consistent with the doubts many thinking laypersonsexpress about
the very theologies their denomination tells them they are supposed to
accept.
1. Avoid
anyinterpretation of a doctrine or a ritual that would tend to lead people
tobelieve they are not responsible for their own moral evil. As a
corollary,discourage the people’s tendency to project their own evil on to
others,especially the members of other religious traditions, for in doing so
theycontradict the first principle of the true church, universality.
2. Encourage
abasic trust in divine assistance, but not in such a way that the participant
isled to believe that God has done or will do everything, without any
activeparticipation on the part of the people. Although the latter
interpretation ofgrace may be more attractive, it contradicts the second
principle of the truechurch, purity of moral motivation.
3.
Emphasizethe supreme importance of love, both toward other members of your
ownchurch, in order to establish a healthy moral community, and toward members
ofother traditions or no religious tradition at all, in order to maintain
goodrelations with the wider community. No other religious law can surpass
this one, not even a belief in thesupreme importance of one’s own scripture or
tradition, for this wouldcontradict the third principle of the true church, freedom
of relation.
4. Use
thebeliefs and rituals in your tradition only as tools for promoting the
goal stated in (3), neverallowing them to be treated as ends in themselves. For
to do the latter wouldbe to base the community’s religious life on statutes and
habits that areby their very nature changeable, and this would contradict the
fourth principleof the true church, the unchangeableness of the constitution.
If
aphilosopher-pastor employed in a hierarchical church is ever asked by
churchofficials (or the denomination’s theologians) to subordinate any of
theabove principles to a prudent maxim that has been handed down by tradition,
heor she will be faced with an inner conflict. The pastor as philosopher
should boldly stand up to the“higher” authority and defend the principle, but as
theologian, should simply obey. While the Kantiancould remain silent at
this point (R 185-190), he or she must not pretend tobelieve anything that
positively contradicts these basic rational principles.For to acquiesce in this
way is to give up all the benefits that may arise out ofa creative conflict withtheology.
The likelihood of and even the need for such a conflict is unlikelyever to pass
away as long as the philosopher’s Transcendental Perspectiveand the
theologian’s Empirical Perspective are seen as anything butcomplementary and
mutually supporting opposites. The fact that an authoritativetheologian or
church official may not see the conflict in such a positive lightshould not
prevent the philosopher from speaking out in the name of freedom,risking
excommunication if necessary in order to “speak the truth inlove.”
Congregationsthat
gather together around such essentially Kantian principles are likely tobe
relatively small, especially if they attempt to practice the ideal of
aleaderless religious community. For as much as we would like to believe we
areliving in an “enlightened” age, we are only (at best) a littlefurther along
than was the Europe of Kant’s day. Political events sinceSeptember 11, 2001,
show how far we still have to go before Kant’s visionof a “kingdom of ends”
(his rational, moral interpretation ofJesus’ “kingdom of heaven”) becomes a
widely acceptedreality. Until such a time as philosophers are willing to take a
more activerole in public discourse, and above all in the nurturing of people’s
religiousdispositions through direct participation in church leadership, on
bothprofessional and non-professional levels, those religious leaders who have
nophilosophical training are likely to attract the largest crowds—and toresist
philosophy’s creative influence on religion.
Appendix: A Pastor’s Reflectionson
Kantian Principles for Church Government
Kant described
religiousservice as the celebration and nurture of a universal and ethical commonwealthunder
the guidance of God. In R 131-132 he states:
… if the seed of thetrue
religious faith, as it is now being publicly sown in Christendom, thoughonly by
a few, is allowed more and more to grow unhindered, we may look for acontinuous
approximation to that church, eternally uniting all men, whichconstitutes the
visible representation of an invisible kingdom of God on earth.For Reason
has freed itself,in matters which by their nature ought to be moral and
soul-improving, fromthe weight of a faithforever dependent upon the
arbitrary will of the expositors, and has among truereverers of religion …
universally laid down the followingprinciples….
Here, as throughout Religion, Kant
treats his vision as a realisticplan, applicable to real church congregations.
In this Appendix aphilosophically-minded pastor of a traditional congregation—
Grace NorthChurch, in Berkeley, California—reflects on how Kant’s principlesfor
true religion actually workin one particular community of faith.
According to Kant, freedomlies
at the foundation of human morality. Yet we each compromise our freedom
byallowing our choices to be governed by “weighty” inclinationsinstead of by
the lightnessof the moral law. As a result, we lose our balance andfall
into the depths of sin, or what Kant called “radical evil”.The Bible uses
metaphors such as slavery to describe the heavy burden weexperience as a
result. True religion, as a walk in the lightness of being,restores our
freedom. Unlike a slave community, a true Church, in Kant’sview, comprises
members who are free to choose the maxims that govern their owndecisions (e.g.,
R 179).
Just as our present path(what
we ought to bedoing) always lies midway between the horizons of our past
(what is, or has been) and future (what we hope will be), so also
Kant sawmorality’s immediate vertical intersection of our path as being
what either balances us orthrows us askew. When applying Kant’s insights to our
own congregationsand religious practice, we should remember that Kant’s vision
of peopleliving in a free moral community requires us to shave away centuries
ofdistortion that have obscured the purity of Jesus’ vision of the Kingdomof
Heaven. All too much of the Gospel tradition’s long history is thetale of how
congregations have been seduced by empires and other power structures
tobecome the very thing Jesus came to free us from. Like all true Protestants, Kant
wasprimarily a Critical Catholic. He protested against all that would
makethe catholic (“universal”) community less than catholic. Theprophetically
Protestant contention is that local religious communities,together with their
clergy, have been hijacked: hierarchical governments havemonopolized the
councils of the people that properly belong to each localneighborhood. They
have made themselves deaf to the protests of those they havehijacked.
In
the midstof these conflicting voices, Kant quietly tells us how free our life
in theSpirit could really be. True religion, unlike sects, does not disconnect
usfrom our fellow humans: religio “reconnects” souls to one
another, kata holou, “according tothe whole.”
In Religion Kant tells the perennial four-fold story of thesoul’s
encounter with the one who, guiding his path, overcomes theimpassable
mountains by the lightness of being. While we are still mired in thedark
heaviness of evil, we discover to our amazement the archetype in our
soul of a newand better order for human living. It resides already in our heart
like a seedwaiting for spring. As this inner power and focus for our will comes
alive inour soul, we find ourselves turning toward it for enlightenment; it
motivatesus to live freelywith others in “an association of human beings
merely under the laws ofvirtue” (R 95).
National
anddenominational laws are necessarily coercive. But the community we seek
canonly be established without coercion. It is what Kant called, in
contrast toall other societies, “an ethical commonwealth.” “Woe,”he wrote, “to
the legislator who wishes to establish through force a polity directed
to ethicalends!” Only
in a community ofsouls freely dedicated to the freedom and welfare of all
their neighbors, can aneffective religious standpoint be established, let alone
begin to operate. Oncewe come together in such a non-coercive
yetethical fellowship the end of this sequence of experience, according to
Kant,is the harvest of a free, joyous and outgoing service to the world
by everymember of this truly free congregation.
As we have learnt to
rejoicein the light that shines in the darkness of our own soul; so we now, in
friendship with a community of free souls, go forthto shine in the darkness
of the world. Building such a network of congregationsis a universal duty (R
89), “a duty which is sui generis, not of men toward men, but of the
humanrace toward itself.” As a prophetic minister of universal
religion,preparing our various denominational traditions to undergo a complete
baptism,Kant has led us “bare” (blossen) to the font of grace. Within
thecatholic boundaries of bare reason, we may refresh our will to build
acommonwealth that runs counter to the oppressions of society.
To
conveyKant’s principles of church government to those who attend Grace North Church,I
use virginityas
a metaphor for spiritual integrity (or oneness). It denotes the soul and
those communities of souls whohave learnt to resist the weight of evil and
submit only to what sets themfree. Chastity is then understood asthe
political virtue of guarding the freedom and oneness of a virgin
communitythrough an emphasis on the purity ofeach person’s
responsibility and moral agency. The biblical prophets usedthese metaphors to
inspire a self-enslaved people to work for liberty in acontext where the upper
classes of thebody politic had silenced the critical voices of the lower
classes. Likewise, the preachers in the ecclesiasticalestablishment of Kant’s
day were hardly listening to and nurturing thevoices of a free people; perhaps
this is why he argued for the necessity of atrue church, yet chose not to
attend a “visible church” himself.
InReligion,Kant
allowed no substitute for the uncoerced coming together of
morallymotivated souls in a freely covenanted commitment to work together for
theKingdom of Heaven:
“AChurch … as the union of many, requires a public covenant.” In the Congregationaltradition
of Grace North Church the obligation that ties us together is notCredal, but Covenantal. Inorder to be unchangeable,its
free agreement must be grounded not in theological belief but in an act of commitment. The stories of Israel andJesus
are about fidelity to covenants undertaken freely, not submission to
anideology. Unlike most Christian traditions that are based on the
globalideology of a theological creed, the Congregational tradition of
ecclesiasticalpolity has a philosophical (practically rational) grounding in localobligation.
In both Jesus and Kant we findthis same emphasis on agreement as acting
together for a purpose: to prepare for the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.
A religious covenant is anact
of will whereby the covenanting parties agree to submit their will to thewill
of God. Such covenants lay
noideology upon the local community. They simply bind us to start together
fromwhere we find ourselves in our local situation. Cults cast an illusion
ofglobal salvation that tends to devalue the local. They globalize by
de-localazing.They offer “knowledge” in a way that excludes the
life-givingunknown. Covenants, however, localize without needing to
de-globalize. Theyrecognize that the hard labor of building an ethical commonwealth
cannot butinvolve a quest for justice, and justice requires honoring the global
(theuniversal and unchangeable aspects of the Gospel) as well as the local
(thepurity and freedom of the congregation).
The Kingdom of Heaven
cannotbe achieved by violence or coercion. The way to it can only be
governedpeaceably. The nature of both the way and the end is therefore to
gatherfriends. If a congregation be not governed by a spirit of friendship, it
cannotbe religious. A local community of grace is a gathering of friends united
bytheir mutual commitment to God. Although covenants are not creeds, they
radiatefaith and rich sets of beliefs that can be shared by all rational
people. Aslocal, they can be entered into by folk of any theological
disposition. Byrefusing to submit to external coercion and choosing to fulfill
our obligationsas if they were divine commands, we enter a moral order of
friendship where thefree bond of love between the covenanted parties becomes
the model for allhuman cooperation.
Incontrast
to the coercive ways of human monarchies, the “royalpriesthood” of a pure
community professes only to submit to the king whois crucified. For his Spirit
speaks to us not of monopoly and tyranny, but offriendship and creativity.
There is no coercion among friends. Like a truemonarch, the pastor therefore
represents the royal priestliness of every soul.Celibacy is the political
virtue that governs the attitude of those entrustedwith presiding over the
people as they make their decisions. In a free andmoral community every voice
must be cherished and heard. But whoever heads thecommunity must refrain from
making decisions. He or she must be politicallycelibate. Without political
celibacy, genuine priesthood is compromised and collapsesinto a monopoly. The
whole community is both sovereign and priestly. The onlyvalid governing role
for the pastor is to enhance the priestliness andsovereignty of each soul, both
within their community and beyond. Therefore theby-laws of GNC make clear that
although every parishioner has a vote in theQuarterly Parish Meeting, those in
the roles of the Lay Moderator or the clergymay not vote. They are required to
be celibate—a total reframing of thecatholic practice of celibacy.
All communities are at risk of
beinghijacked by those who want to monopolize power. But “this
all-surpassingpower is from God and not from us.” If we are serious about paving the wayto
implement a transformation of religion according to Kant’s vision,then
political celibacy (of the lay head of the congregation and the clergy) isthe
only way to preserve the freedom needed for every voice to be heard. Kantsaw
how the coercive ecclesiastical and monarchic governments of his dayoppressed
the lightness of being inherent in a natural, rational, and universalreligion.
If the purity of the congregation (its virginity) is respected by thelistening
and learning of a celibate clergy that guarantees that every voice isgiven due
hearing and consideration—then a Copernican Revolution willtake place in the
local practice of church government. The clergy will revolvearound the laity,
not vice versa. Such a transformation of the ecclesiasticalscene, with power
rising from the local level and radiating abroad in anon-coercive way, is in
strict accordance with Kant’s vision. It quietlyfloods the top-down structures
that dominate us, submerging them in the risingtide of a global ethical
commonwealth. We, in our Kantian congregation inBerkeley, all refugees from
hierarchical denominations, can testify that thispolity not only works but generates
a most extraordinary experience of thatlightness of being that religious people
call grace.
