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Esta fue una pregunta lanzada al mundo académico por Vadim Vasilyev,profesor principal de la Universidad del Estado de Moscu, en ocasión de conmemorarse los 200 años de la muerte de Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). La pregunta fue bien acogida y respondida por los principales "Kant scholars" del mundo.
Aquí publico algunas de las respuestas que agregadamente enfocan un visión general del pensamiento kantiano y que además tienen la virtud de al menos estar en inglés.
Todas las respuestas(en aleman, frances e inglés)en: http://www.philos.msu.ru/community/staff/vasiliev/Kant_Interview/Interview-1.htm




Kant's claims about the equal and infinite value of each moral agent will come to most peoples' minds. Since I know his philosophy of mind and epistemology far better than the rest of his work, let me single out his claims about the interplay of the constructive, concept-using aspects of the mind and input to which we are and must remain passive, and his claims about the centrality of the unity of consciousness.





Each of Kant's three Critiques presents such an idea. The Critique of Pure Reason argues that our experience of the world is partly constituted by us and is not merely a passive reception. The Critique of Practical Reason insists that there is a basis for morality apart from religion. The Critique of Judgment discovers a dimension of human experience--namely, aesthetic experience--that is essentially irreducible to any other kind of experience. None of these ideas is entirely new in Kant (many are in Hume), but it is Kant who first gives them forceful, systematic defense.





What aspects of Kant's work are most often cited, analysed, taught or criticised? Having in fact recently conducted a closely related empirical study, I feel some confidence in answering. These five themes (there may be a few others) are likely the most universal and have proven themselves very durable: (i) The 'second Copernican revolution' conception of transcendental philosophy; (ii) The link between the event of Vorstellung and the formal structures of synthetic activity; (iii) The analyses of causation and substance; (iv) The criticisms of the traditional arguments for the existence of God; (v) The conception of moral law as the universal form of law.
(…) Kant is the last major philosopher taken seriously by all traditions of philosophical enquiry: from the 'analytic' to the 'continental' to recent additions such as cognitive science. Kant thus forms one of the very few bridges by which these traditions might still be able to speak to and understand one another.




Kant is the only thinker in the history of western philosophy to clearly distinguish between the claims of reason and the claims of reality, and to give equal weight to each. I take the beginning of the "Transcendental Dialectic" of the Critique of Pure Reason to be the most important part of his work: having given us a detailed analysis of what it means for an object to be real, he turns to discuss what it means for ideals to be real. They are neither fantasies, nor wishes, nor Vorländer's well-meant but fatal als ob; but entities with their own sort of force and power, whose reality cannot be the same as that of objects of experience. For their task is to question the necessarily limited experience with which we are confronted, and to challenge reality to meet the claims of the ideal - be it a just society in the practical realm, or a complete and transparent science in the theoretical realm. Kant's metaphysics has thereby a crucial political function. One the one hand, it provides reason with the basis to change the world to meet its own standards. This is crucial in order to answer conservatives like Hume, for whom reason is impotent to decide any of the questions which determine our lives. It is, on the contrary, custom and tradition which insure our conviction that the sun will rise tomorrow, as well as our preference for preserving worlds to itching fingers. Having undercut the legitimacy of reason in the realms we already experience, it is no surprise that Hume, and disciples like Burke, should be chary of its use in uncharted waters. If custom and tradition have preserved us thus far, it is wiser to follow them than the allegedly untried demands of reason. By strengthening the claims of reason Kant's metaphysics, by contrast, provides the groundwork for radical social change. At the same time, his emphasis on the demands of experience should undercut those utopian thinkers who wish to proceed without much attention to it - with the disastrous consequences the 20th century has seen. Thus even more than his moral philosophy Kant's metaphysics provide the foundation for a stance towards the world that is mature without being resigned, hopeful without being naive.



Almost all of Kant's major ideas are, I think, of enduring value. Even where he is wrong he makes you think. These are some of my favourite ideas:

The primacy of practical reason. We are so used to thinking of knowledge solely in factual, empirical terms. Kant's emphasis on the role that knowledge plays in our moral deliberation and his hypothesis that our knowledge is more reliable in this context is a very useful antidote to our ordinary views. Although Kant's moral philosophy is greatly appreciated by contemporary ethicists this side of his thinking has yet to be fully understood. I am of the view that objective standards can be required and deployed in practical reasoning

The antinomies of pure reason. I am persuaded that we can be too ambitious in our employment of theoretical reason, and in his own time Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, as Mendelssohn pointed out, laid to waste many of the extravagant pretensions of earlier metaphysics.

Kant's account of freedom. He has a very systematic account of freedom, running from the theoretical philosophy to his moral and political philosophy. At the heart of this concept is the idea of a dominion/realm of ends which I find very persuasive.

In my own specialist area of political philosophy Kant’s concept of property provides the basis for a sound critique of both dogmatic communism and libertarian capitalism. His understanding of the link between domestic and international politics is genuinely prescient and his vision of world peace demonstrates how utopianism and realism can be brought into harmony. A little appreciated part of his political philosophy is his account of political change which he sees as best being brought about through a process of metamorphosis. This metaphor is a useful counter to the metaphor of revolution more often used in political theory and practice.


Kant Kant scholars Andrew Brook Ted Cohen Douglas Burnham Susan Neiman Howard Williams