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- [00:01]
Professor Markus Wilichek
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- [01:22]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:27]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of New Books Network. This is your host, Mozahjeezadeh from Critical Theory Channel. Today I'm honored to be speaking with Professor Markus Wilichek about his most recent book that was published by Harvard University Press. The book is called Kant A revolution in thinking. Dr. Markus Wilichek is professor of Philosophy at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Markus, welcome to New Books Network.
- [01:54]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes. Hi Mutisa. Thanks for having me.
- [01:57]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Before we start to talk about the book, can you just very briefly introduce yourself and tell us about your field of expertise and more importantly, why you decided to write this book.
- [02:08]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Well, I mean, as you already mentioned, I'm a professor of modern philosophy in Frankfurt, Germany, and I mainly work on Immanuel Kant's philosophy, but also have worked on topics in current metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. Actually, currently I'm working on a book on death. Not on Kant, but on one's own relationship to one's own future non existence. But mainly in the last decades I have worked on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant because I think he's clearly the most interesting and most important thinker of the modern period. Kant was born in 1724, so his 300th birthday was last year. In 2024. And on that occasion I thought that it would be good to have an overview of Kant's thoughts and the importance of his thinking for us today. And so I started to write this book basically in 2022, 2023, and it was published in German in late 2023 and then came out in English this year.
- [03:34]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Right, yeah. You kind of answered my next question as well, which was how is this book different from. But maybe you could expand on that because you have said you've tried to provide an overview, accounts, thinking, and there are lots of books on Emmanuel, lots of different books. I mean popular books or academic books. Your book is called A Revolution in Thinking. So I'm keen to know what do you mean by revolution? Why do you think it still matters today? And how is it different from other books that other people might be able to find? Neumanny of Kant.
- [04:16]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, thank you. I mean, let me start with the last point. I think the book is different in some ways. So first of all, it's meant to be a popular book on Kant, so it's meant to be accessible to non experts. So it's not an academic contribution. And in order for Kant's thought, who is famous for being complicated and a deep thinker and writing in a very complicated, long winded way, in order to make his thinking accessible to a broader audience, I do not start with, as most introductions to Kant do, with his what is called theoretical philosophy, so his metaphysics and epistemology, which in many ways are the foundations of his thinking, but rather with his thoughts in political philosophy, for instance, on what he calls perpetual peace, on education, on enlightenment, on ethics, which I think are much more easily accessible and only work my way from there into the depths of Kant's metaphysical and epistemological thoughts. But you also ask why the book is called A Revolution in Thinking. And that has the background in the fact that Kant himself likens what he is doing in philosophy to the Copernican revolution. And so at the center of Kant's thoughts is the idea that in order to understand how we humans relate to reality, we have to take into account our specifically human standpoint and the way it defines our picture of the world. And that is what Kant calls the revolution in our way of thinking. And revolution literally means something like turnaround or upheaval. So it means you really change the way in which you think the relationship goes between thinking and reality at the center of Kant's philosophy.
- [06:37]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
And I must add to what you just said. I've done a few podcasts on I think three podcasts on Immanuel Kant over the past three or four years. And I think before the interview, I did tell you that I'm not really an expert in philosophy, but I read philosophy and read these books to learn about new topics. And I must say that I did find this book really accessible compared to the others that I had read, and despite the fact that it is a Harvard University Press. But it is quite accessible to the uninitiated. And you've beautifully been able to bring together, I mean, explain complex ideas which we'll explore throughout this interview as well. I'd like to go back to this idea of revolution again. In your book, you describe three major revolutions in Immanuel Kant's life and thought. And one of them is the personal revolution, philosophical, the other one political. And I understand that going through all of them could take a long time. But very briefly, if you could tell us, what do you mean by this 3revolution? What were these major revolutions and how it impacted the personal, philosophical and the political one, how they impacted his life and thinking?
- [07:52]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, a very good question. I mean, they're. What I try to do in the book is I concentrate on the content of Kant's philosophy, but I also try to situate that in the context both of Kant's own life, which is quite interesting, even though Kant is said to be quite a bore and he never left Konigsberg and so on. But still, I mean, his life is quite, quite interesting, and he was a very original person. But also I also tried to situate it in the context of his times. And these three revolutions you mentioned, they can highlight that. So the first revolution is one in Kant's own personal life. So Kant came from a very poor background, and he was something like a social climber in that he was then able to go to university and to become, in his late 30s, one of the most widely read and influential intellectuals in Germany. So he published books that were widely discussed. He was at the center of a large group of friends in his hometown, Konigsberg. But it seems that around his 40th birthday, he changed the way he perceived his own life and perspective on life, and then became a person who had a very strict daily schedule, who worked extremely hard to get his philosophy done, which didn't mean that he gave up his friends, but only that he concentrated more on his work and had a more strict schedule. So he got up very early in the morning at 5 or so, started to work, started to write, then gave his lectures, but also later in life, even though he didn't leave his house much, only for teaching in university. He had a group of friends and guests and visitors coming to his table for lunch basically every day of the week. So around his 40th birthday, Kant changed his attitude to life. So that's the one revolution. The other is the one I had already mentioned. It's the revolution in thinking, which consists in putting the human perspective and its conditions at the center of how we think about our relationship to reality. And this happens a little later, around between Kant's 45th and 55th birthday, because by now he had become a professor in Konigsberg. But instead of continuing to publish, as he had done before, many books and articles, he basically kept quiet for 10 years. And in these 10 years he worked extremely hard on what then would become perhaps the most influential book in the history of modern philosophy, namely the Critique of Pure Reason, which was published in 1781. And in that book, Kant explains how metaphysics is possible, how we can have knowledge about reality by focusing on this change of perspective, putting the human point of view in the center. So that's the second revolution, but then there's a third revolution, and this is one we all know, namely the French Revolution from 1789, which fell in the final decades of Kant's life. Kant had always been a champion of the Enlightenment, of freedom of human rights. But the fact that people, the French people, rose up and got rid of their monarchy and established a republic was for Kant, really an eye opening experience because he now understood that progress was possible on a scale he hadn't anticipated before. And so he was a big fan of the French Revolution. And the French Revolution radicalized his political thinking. So he now became an outspoken critic of monarchy and the privileges of the nobility. He defended representative democracy, constitutionalism and so on. So this really changed his political thinking. And in his later years, even though Kant always worked on all topics at the same time, he concentrated much more on political philosophy than he had done before.
- [12:46]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
This is quite interesting and I really wish we could delve deeper into each one of these. But I guess what I want to emphasize here for listeners to read the book, because for me, like I told you before, for an uninitiated, I found this quite helpful when you kind of categorize these revolutions in his thinking in terms of his personal life, philosophical and also political. And I'm myself more interested in the ethical and also political aspects of his thoughts. And one of the themes or ideas in your book, is that Kant's claim? It's Kant's claim. That practice takes precedence over theory. To me it's important, especially these days where more and more people are becoming politicized and they are trying to. Some people, you know, protest or go on strike or fight for justice. But some people write about this and I've always founded them. Amazing to figure out which one is more important or which one informs the other. Is it the theory that informs practice or the other way around? But I'm interested to explore this idea or this claim that practice takes precedence over theory in Kant's ideas. And how does this principle influence his ethics and political philosophy?
- [14:08]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, thank you for the question. I think you are right that this is a very important topic from our today's perspective. And just to respond quickly to one aspect of how you framed the question, I don't think that necessarily there is a conflict between being an activist on the one hand and doing theory on the other. Rather, I think what we need is both. We need clear theory, guided thinking about the current problems, political problems, problems of justice, problems in dealing with the environmental crisis, and so on. But what we also need is that these ideas are then transposed into practice. And if Kant says that there is a primacy of practice over theory, which is something I very much highlight in the book, maybe more than others have done before because I find this idea so appealing, he doesn't want to. His point is not to say that theory is not important. Quite the contrary, of course. Kant was a theoretician. He wants to say that in a very specific sense, theory can be guided by practical concerns, moral concerns and political concerns. So one aspect of what Kant calls the primacy of practice over theory is that it allows him to combine a very, let's say, realist or even pessimist unvarnished picture of human beings with political idealism or even utopianism. So Kant famously said that human beings are made of crooked timber and nothing quite straight can be made from them. Meaning by that that it's highly unlikely that because of the way human beings are egotistic and weak and in many ways don't understand things properly, that we will ever be able to achieve something like the morally perfect world or political utopia. The so that is highly improbable from a theoretical point of view. If we think clearly about human beings, we know that we can't really achieve this. But on the other hand, we are morally and politically obligated to do so. We owe it to ourselves to do everything that is possible to at least approximate a more just society, a world in which human beings and environment are not in conflict with each other, and so on. So this is something we just cannot give up, according to Kant. And so in this sense, even though if we only were theoretical observers of the human species, we would say, hey, this case is hopeless, forget it. As moral beings we are still called upon to do the very best we can in order to make the world a better place. And so the point of the primacy of practice over theory is in some sense to give us hope where otherwise there would not be hope, where otherwise we would perhaps give up. And maybe we're going to talk about the categorical imperative in a minute because Kant thinks that there is, that there are uncompromising moral requirements on human beings, we just cannot give up. So this is the one aspect of the primacy of practice over theory that even though, theoretically speaking, prospects of success for, let's say, political progress and other important moral issues is diminished, still we have a good reason to try to do our best in achieving that. There's another aspect I find more problematic, but also very interesting. It is that Kant, who says that we cannot know whether God exists, whether our will is free, or whether we have immortal souls because this is beyond the scope of human knowledge. He says that we can believe in these things and it's precisely because they are beyond knowledge that we can believe in God's existence. And here he also thinks that there is a moral requirement that can make it necessary for us to have these beliefs. I find this argument problematic, but still I think it's very interesting and particularly in the case of free will. I think Kant has a point here that even though we can't prove that we are free and that our wills are free, there is a moral and practical reason to assume that, namely that otherwise we couldn't be agents and active beings in the first place. So this is one other aspect of the primacy of practice, and I think it shows how complex this claim is, but also how fruitful and interesting.
- [20:13]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Thank you. And in terms of your comment about which one takes precedence is ethereal practice, I completely agree with you and I think your explanation kind of makes it clear as well, especially in today's, I mean, the past few years, which I guess a lot of countries, a lot of people have become more politicized. That could be a guiding light to them as well. Let me talk about or ask you about Kant and enlightenment. He famously defining Enlightenment as a new book. You're quoting, quoting your book Emergence from Self Incurred Immaturity. What does it mean? Can you unpack this idea? What does he mean by self incurred immaturity and then enlightenment being departure from that?
- [21:05]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, Kant was part of the age of enlightenment, but he also in some sense was at the end of a historical development, because after the French Revolution and after Kant's own philosophy, people somewhat turned away from the idea of enlightenment. So in one sense, Kant is also the final, gives the final formulation to the idea of enlightenment by calling it the emergence from self incurred immaturity. And what he means by that is that people are being born within a certain social and historical context in which certain things seem self evident to them, but many of them are not founded on sound reasons. So what we have to do is to question, critically question many of the things we take for granted and only then decide whether they are well founded or not. And as long as we don't do that, as long as we just take over the views of our elders and of our peers, we are immature, as Kant calls it. So maturity consists in being able to think for yourself, as Kant says, to come up with independent judgment on the basis of sound reasons. So that is on the level of the individual. But Kant also sees that individuals cannot come to maturity unless they are part of a society that allows for the exchange of arguments, for open discourse. And for that Kant things we need freedom of the press and freedom of opinion. As we know right now, these conditions are endangered in many parts of the world. And for Kant it's absolutely vital that people can really freely voice their opinions. But also it's important that people who do this are on the one hand self critical, be aware of the fact that they might be wrong and the others might be right in political debates, for instance, but also in that they base their judgment not on their prior prejudices or self interest, but really try to aim at the truth.
- [23:52]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Truth.
- [23:53]
Professor Markus Wilichek
So this means that enlightenment for Kant is a continuing process of critical self reflection. And that includes Kant himself in many ways. Because Kant did not get rid of all prejudices of his own time. For instance in his political theory, he didn't grant voting rights to women because he thought they would be incapable of using them properly, which of course is absurd. But we can see in that that Kant did have blind spots himself when it came to questioning the prejudices of his own time. But on a more abstract level, he was aware of the fact that everyone would have blind spots of some kind. So that what we need is others to correct us, and that we need a historical process in which as a society we can overcome these prejudices. So it's not Only the task of the individual, but also of the society.
- [25:06]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
I'm also keen to know more about Kant's ideas about human dignity, that he grants human dignity in autonomy and rationality. Why is this such a revolutionary idea? Because lots of other philosophers have talked about human dignity and rationality or autonomy. But I'm keen to know, why do you think it's an important idea, and how do you connect it to modern ideas of human rights?
- [25:36]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, for Kant, the fundamental value of human beings is what he calls their dignity. This relates to one of the two most important formulations of the categorical imperative. As some may know, the most famous formulation is act only on maxims that can be universal laws. But there's another formulation which says, Never treat others merely as means, but also always as an end, which basically means that we shouldn't instrumentalize others, make them mere means to our own purposes, but have to respect their own interest, the interest of the others. And this is exactly what Kant means by human dignity. So respecting human dignity means that we take seriously the point of view of the others and ask ourselves whether they could rationally consent to the way in which we treat them. And Kant, even though the idea of human dignity has a long history going back to both Christianity, Stoic ethics, and Renaissance thought, I think Kant was maybe the first who clearly articulated this idea, first of all, in a way that makes it clear that every human being has the same kind of value and the same absolute value which he calls human dignity. But also, Kant was the first to ground this idea not in religious thinking, but rather in the idea that human beings are, to put it a bit simple, are born free, that they have the capacity to rule themselves, to decide on the way they want to live their lives for themselves, and that this kind of freedom is the basis for their dignity. And so you also asked how this relates to human rights in our modern sense. Interestingly, Kant doesn't talk about human rights in the plural explicitly, at least. So for Kant, there is only one human right, and that's the right to freedom. But from that right to freedom derive many other rights, which include much of what we today would call human rights. Let me very briefly mention that when Kant says that the fundamental human right is the right to freedom, he doesn't mean to do whatever you please. What he means is freedom within universal laws. So what? The idea is basically that every human being has the right to do whatever they want to do, as long as it is compatible with the same freedom for everyone else. And I think that's a fantastic formulation on Kant's part. And a wonderful idea that on the one hand there is freedom, but freedom in one person is limited by the same freedom in everyone else.
- [29:18]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
And is this part of his, you know, let me rephrase the question that I have. This is a wonderful formulation. But how do you reconcile this? And in your book you talk about some of his more, you know, sexist or even racist ideas. How do you or how does Kant reconcile this idea of human dignity and freedom? Whereas he also talks about he has some racist and sexist ideas which contradict his universalist ethics in the way you put it?
- [29:57]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Well, I mean, I think there's no way of reconciling Kant's universalism and his acknowledgment of human dignity for everyone with his racist and sexist and also sometimes anti Semitic views. And all these three cases, racism, sexism and antisemitism, I think they need different explanations. So when it comes to racism, on the one hand, he just fell prey to the same prejudices many white people in Europe had at that time, that there was something like a racial hierarchy. And if it was only that, one could think that, okay, this is completely external to his philosophy, so doesn't mean much. Kant wasn't thinking through properly the consequences of his own moral and political theory. However, when it comes to racism, Kant actually published a number of essays in which he defended a conception of human races that was based in certain kind of biological, proto Darwinian evolutionary theory. And so racism became part of his philosophy proper. But still, I think that it's quite clear that Kant had gotten himself into a contradiction here because if his racism implied that people of non white races would be inferior, that was absolutely incompatible with his moral and political universalism. Lenny mentioned that when Kant in his final years, partly, I think under the influence of the French Revolution, Kant became a severe critic of colonialism, which he hadn't criticized before in his writings and lectures. So there seems to be something like a learning process here. And Kant clearly changed his views, but he never explicitly revoked his racist statements. So it's not quite clear, and there's a big debate about this in Kant scholarship, how deep the racism goes with respect to his philosophy. I think it is part of his philosophy, but it's incompatible with his ethical and moral and political theory.
- [32:50]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
And you're right, maybe I should have rephrased the question. There's no way you can reconcile it. What I meant was basically that I was really. There are a lot of books again about counts racist or, you know, sexist ideas. But when I was reading your book, I was glad that I could see you had also tackled this part of his legacy as well, despite all the other wonderful ideas he had. But of course, he had some troubling, disturbing ideas as well, which you discuss in the book. Like I said, I'm really interested in more political and ethical aspects of his thoughts. And you discuss Kant's ideas of perpetual peace. He envisioned a perpetual peace. How did he envision that? How does your book explore these ideas? And again, I like to relate it to, again, what's happening these days around the world. This perpetual peace. How is it relevant to today's world? Again, where you look, people are fighting for justice or peace, although it seems a little bit unachievable, given there's a lot of political violence all around the world. But what is this idea of perpetual peace and how is it relevant to today's troubled world?
- [34:18]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, I think this is one of the most important parts of Kant's legacy. I think, first of all, I mean, the turn, perpetual peace sounds a bit outdated, but the idea basically is that what we need is a stable, global political peace order, because everything else Kant thinks is just a truce. So you don't have real peace unless it's peace that is guaranteed by a political and legal structure. And I think one important idea here in the background is that Kant thinks of peace not just as a matter of political power, but rather as a legal statute. So the idea is that just as the state, each individual state in which we live, has to guarantee people's rights within a society through the rule of law. So only a global peace order can guarantee people's rights externally with respect to other states. Because for Kant, what is bad about war is not just that it causes so much suffering, which of course is bad, and that it costs so much money and diverts funds from other more sensible pursuits, but also, and even primarily because war violates people's fundamental rights, their right to bodily integrity, to property, to education, and many more. And we can see that, of course, in the many wars in the world right now. So what Kant thinks is that peace is a legal issue, and a legal issue is one in this case of international law, in which we need an international order that really stably guarantees people's rights all around the world. And so what Kant says is what we need is a League of nations that is constituted of member states that are internally republican and democratic. Because this is a famous doctrine of Kant's real democracies don't wage war on each other, which is historically debated, but I think there's at least some truth in it. And so we need republics, democratically organized republics that then form a global international system. And in this way Kant anticipated and also influenced what now is the un, the United Nations. And of course, even though we know that the United nations is a highly imperfect system precisely because they are not.
- [37:23]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Really.
- [37:26]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Only institutionalizing international law, but also are the play ball of political powers, still Kant would have seen the United nations as a step in the right direction. So Kant's, Kant's way of thinking about these issues is that progress is a very, very long, takes a very long breath. And we can't expect that the crooked timber of human beings, as I had mentioned before, allows us to very quickly transform what is an unjust and imperfect political system into a perfect, morally perfect or politically perfect world. But rather this is an ongoing process. And if you look at the world as it had been in Kant's time, and if you look at the world as it is now, maybe the suffering is not much less than it had been in Kant's times, but at least there are political institutions that point in the right direction. And so Kant would have seen some hope for progress here.
- [38:36]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Another important aspect of his thoughts was how he makes us think about the idea of reality and how, and you know, he's famous for his metaphysics, of course. How does this approach to metaphysics challenge traditional ideas about what we truly know? And if I'm, again, I'm trying to relate it to today's world where we are inundated with information, a lot of misinformation, a lot of disinformation or alternative food or whatever else you want to call it. Again, how does his approach to reality and metaphysics help us better grasp the nature of truth in today's world?
- [39:20]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Well, when it comes to metaphysics, of course, that is quite far removed from current issues about fake news and so on. I mean, if I would tell you now, I a have proof of the immortality of the soul, which is something Kant would contest. Of course, this wouldn't count as fake news, right? Because no one would believe me. So when it comes to metaphysics, if I may start there, Kant's interest is in how metaphysics is possible in the first place. And he thinks of metaphysics as a way to uncover basic structures of reality through mere thinking, that is, without independently from experience and independently and without experiment. So it's not like physics, for instance, that also tries to uncover fundamental structures of reality. In metaphysics, we try to do that through mere thinking. So how could this be possible? How is it possible to know something about reality, and in particular something fundamental, without engaging reality through experience and experiment? So is this possible at all? And Kant gives a two part answer. He says if it is possible at all, then only because the way we think of reality structures reality itself. So there are certain conditions under which reality is accessible to us that are dictated to reality through our minds. That's the basic idea. So there are certain fundamental structures of empirical reality we can know independently from experience, because they are preconditions of our relating to reality at all. And Kant counts among these space and time, which he thinks are not part of reality independently from our minds, but rather are something like frameworks in which we can represent reality to ourselves. And on the other hand, things like causation, cause and effect, or the structure that there are continuing objects with changing properties, all these are aspects of reality that are absolutely fundamental and that we do have to presuppose in order to have the conception of reality in the first place. So these are aspects of metaphysics that we can know. But on the other hand, when we try to go beyond objects in space and time, when we think about God or immortality or free will, which were the central topics of metaphysics in Kant's time, then we find that we can't have knowledge about them, that we can't prove God's existence, for instance, because they lie beyond the limits of human cognition, human knowledge which are drawn by space and time. So we can have metaphysical knowledge of reality in space and time, namely its fundamental structures, but we can't have metaphysical knowledge of things beyond space and time, which would, for instance, include God and immortal souls. Is that an answer to your question? Maybe it's an answer to the first part of your question, but then there was the second part. What does it mean for.
- [43:18]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Wow. Yeah, I know that I'm stretching my luck because I absolutely understand that his idea, maybe metaphysics, was quite different from alternative truth. But I guess I'm more interested in how we think of reality in Kant Stamps, which you've explained. Well, like I said, I guess I'm pushing my luck to relate it to today's world.
- [43:40]
Professor Markus Wilichek
No, but I think you are right to do so. Namely, I think there is a very interesting relationship, and one is that. So in claiming that there are fundamental features of reality that we can know independently from experience, Kant is basically saying that the structure of our own thinking, the structure of our cognition, structures reality itself. So reality is not just found, it's not mirrored in Knowledge about the world, but rather also constructed. So reality as we know it, reality as we can know it, is structured by the human mind. And that is, I think, in this way, Kant was extremely radical in his own days. This was an absolutely revolutionary idea because until then, philosophers, and of course also scientists and, and ordinary folk would have thought that knowledge just mirrors what is there. We just take in what is there. Whereas Kant says in knowing something about the world, we not only take in what is there, but we also structure and construct what is there. And I think this idea is one without which today it would be impossible, for instance, to think something like gender is defined by society or science does not investigate facts, but also construct facts. So in many ways, Kant is the father of all these kind of constructivist thoughts in current philosophy, sociology, but also in the political discourse. So in that respect, I think Kant has been extremely influential. And now to relate this to the problem of fake news, maybe the point here is to say that for Kant there is a way to say that truth is constructed without saying that truth is arbitrary, without saying that truth is up for grabs for everyone to define as they please. Rather, Kant wants to say truth is construction, but the construction follows principles and rules that are the same for every human being. So we do have to think of empirical objects in space and time. But space and time are the framework that holds for everyone. And it's. So if you ask me what time it is now in Frankfurt, in Germany, it's not up to me to simply decide what it is. Even though of course, clocks and the framework of times and calendars is a human construct, once there is the construct, it's not arbitrary what the constitution, true answer to a question is. And for Kant, the same holds in many other respects. So that we can, on the basis of Kant's epistemology, we can hold on to the true idea that truth is not just found, but rather constructed. But avoid a kind of relativism or arbitrary definition of truth, so that there is no sensible discussion and everyone says what they please.
- [47:31]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Because you have masterfully managed to establish the relation. Although that. Like I said, although. Although it was a. A bit of a stretch question there. Another part of the book that I was really interested in is K's ideas or claims about how our minds actively shape experience. Why was this such a radical idea then? And what does it mean for how we understand knowledge today? The fact that our minds may shape our experience?
- [48:08]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Well, I think this is another angle on the topic I just mentioned. And it takes us back to the fundamental Revolution in thinking Kant advocates. So he invites us to take into account, when we think about reality, of the way reality necessarily must appear to finite human beings like we are. And in the background there's the idea that only if there was a God, that God could take in reality as it is in itself, whereas human beings can take in reality only as it appears to us, given certain conditions of cognition and knowledge, for instance, space and time, fundamental concepts such as cause and effect, substance and attribute, and so on. So Kant's central idea here is that the world we access, in thinking about it, the world we experience as reality, is a world that is constructed by our minds, or at least partly constructed by our minds, and so far is what Kant calls appearance. It's the way reality appears to us. And it's not as what Kant calls things in themselves. It's not reality in itself, independently from the human mind. So I think one very important lesson to learn from Kant is something like humility in the way we think about reality. We should not assume that finite human beings in everyday life or even in science, can get at reality completely independently from the way we represent it, but rather, it's always framed by the conditions under which we finite minds can access reality. So I think that's one very important lesson to learn from Kant, which also, of course, means that even though science, Kant was a scientist in many ways. So he also developed cosmological theories that proved to be correct. So he had a theory about the way the solar system developed in time, and that proved to be correct in the 19th century. So Kant was a scientist and he was very much pro science, but he also at the same time emphasizes the limits of science. And I think that's also an important lesson for us to learn from Kant today that science is important. Science is objective in a certain way, but it's also dependent on the human point of view and thereby limited.
- [51:18]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
In another part of the book, he wrote about humans, humans being a part of nature and the limits of science. And I Myself did my PhD in English. When I was doing my PhD in English literature, I focused on environmental humanities. So I did a lot of reading about humans and nature and science and ecological aspects and how humanities can help. And this part was particularly interesting to me because, like I said, he wrote about humans being a part of nature, and also he wrote about the limits of science. How did he see this relationship between human reason and the natural world, the relation between humans and the natural world?
- [52:03]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, that's a very good, but also slightly complicated question. Complicated to answer Because Kant had a very interesting double perspective here. Kant, on the one hand, saw human beings as products of nature. So he even had something like, and I had mentioned that before, something like a proto Darwinist or Darwinian evolutionary theory, according to which the human race developed, developed over long time spans. And so he had a perspective on human beings that allowed him to see also things like human morality, society, human cognition and knowledge, science as something like part of the natural endowment of human beings, coming from the way they are constituted as biological entities. But on the other hand, he thought that human reason sets us apart from nature, that both in science and in ethics, for instance, we have to assume fundamental principles that cannot be derived from empirical knowledge about human nature, but must be presupposed to make sense of nature and human agency in the first place. So these fundamental principles are what Kant calls a priori. They are independently from experience. They cannot be based in human nature. You had mentioned, I think, Kant's concept of autonomy very briefly before. And the point here is that autonomy, for Kant, means that when it comes to ethics, we have to think of ourselves as lawgivers. So moral principles, according to Kant, are not given to us by nature or even by God, but rather we have to think of themselves as constitutive principles of our own wills, of our rational wills. Or if we think clearly about what we want, we have to acknowledge these moral principles. And so they can be seen as something that is not coming from outside, from nature, for instance, or from society, but rather are aspects of our own rational wills. And in this respect, Kant thinks that human beings stand outside nature. So he has this double perspective. And one of the perennial questions in Kant scholarship is how he relates to these two perspectives. Whether he, in the end, is an ontological dualist, that he thinks that there is a world independently of nature and human beings really belong to that, or whether he thinks that human beings fundamentally belong in nature and rationality. Reason is just a standpoint they can take. I'm more favorable to the second option, but it's a hotly debated topic in Kant's Konish.
- [55:18]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Yeah, you're right, and it's a complicated one. As you mentioned, one final question is if, and it's a hypothetical question, of course, if Kanto are alive today, what aspects of his philosophy would you think speak most powerfully to our current political. We have already talks about some of them here. But which one of his ideas do you think most powerful would speak to our current political? Cultural challenges, political polarization, climate change, you know, the erosion of democratic Institutions. Which one do you think he would. Which one would be most powerful, relevant to today's world?
- [55:59]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yeah, that's a great question. And of course, it would be so great to have Kant around to ask him. I think if Kant were to return today, if he had lived in his time and could see how we live today, I think one important lesson from that exercise in imagination is that we can see our world from the perspective of the 18th century. And from that perspective, even though, I mean, we have right now so many reasons for pessimism, for being really desperate about the political developments in the world today, I think thinking about how Kant would see us today can also console us a little bit with our situation because he would see the many ways in which we have progressed that are so obvious to us that we today often don't see them. Them, for instance, when it comes to the medical situation. So that people. Kant was a person who. He died at 79, which was absolutely extraordinary in his time, he had survived basically all his friends and even most of his early students. So today people live up to 80 and 90 in many parts of the world. World and that in good health. So Kant would have seen this as a huge improvement in the quality of life of people. He would also think of the United Nations. He would think of the fact that in Europe, in Australia, New Zealand, and many other parts of the world, we have democracies. Human rights are secured. Not everywhere, of course, unfortunately, but it's in some parts of the world they are. And Kant would have seen all that as indication of the possibility of progress. And I think this is something we should take seriously, particularly people who today tend to be depressed by recent developments in global politics. Now, when it comes to lessons from Kant's philosophy, I think maybe there's one thing we hadn't talked about so far that I also emphasize a lot in the book. Kant in philosophy might be called a synthetic thinker. So he has this really uncanny way of taking seemingly contradictory views and seeing that there is truth on both sides that has to be somehow extracted and combined in the full picture. And I think this is something that could also be a very important lesson also for political debates, that we understand that very often if people are passionate about something, they have a point. Even though we may find what they say completely against our own views, we have to take it seriously and see whether there is a vantage point from which we can see the truth in what they say and the truth in what we think. And so this kind of synthesizing quality of combining seemingly incompatible elements in a complete picture of reality. I think that's also something that is very important for our situation today, that we can learn from Kant and maybe one very fundamental point at the end. Kant was, as I said before, a realist, maybe even a pessimist about human beings. But he was also an optimist in that he thought that political progress is possible, but only in the very, very long run.
- [60:16]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Before we come to the end of this interview, I know that we have recently published this book, but is there any other book or project you're currently working on that might come out sometime soon?
- [60:29]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Yes, and in fact there is. So basically I interrupted work on the book I hadn't very briefly mentioned before on death in order to write this book on Kant, and then I returned to that book. So I've been working on it for many years now. And it's supposed to answer the question whether we have reason to fear our own deaths. So it takes as its starting point, not Kant, but Epicurus, Epicurus, who famously argued that death is nothing to us. And so what I do in the book is to point out that as many people think, and I think they're right, Epicurus overstretches his point. So it's not that death, our own death, is nothing to us. It is bad for us in many ways. But I think that most people in philosophy so far have not seen the correct point and the strength in Epicurus view, because I think that Epicurus has a very strong argument that can teach us that even though death is bad for us, it's not quite as bad as one might have thought. And that's the topic of my new book, which I hope will come out in 2027. But it will be wise to. It's there.
- [61:55]
Mozahjeezadeh (Host, Critical Theory Channel)
Well, it's a year or so away, but we're looking forward to reading that book and hopefully discussing it with you on New Books Network. Thank you very much for your time to speak with us on New Books Network. Really enjoyed talking to you about the book. And I do reiterate the fact that it's a very accessible book for the ones who are not even that much familiar with Kant's ideas. Kant's A Revolution in Thinking Population by Harvard University Press. Thank you so much for your time to speak with us on your bookstore.
- [62:25]
Professor Markus Wilichek
Than Mortese for this wonderful interview. I enjoyed it a lot. Thanks. Limu Emu and Doug. Here we have the Limu imu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, limu. Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@liberty mutual.com. liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates Excludes Massachusetts.