A shadow on the work
– the effect of the history of interpretation

A shadow on the work – the effect of the history of interpretation[1]

My new view at Kant´s philosophical oeuvre amounts to saying that it is a planned entirety of a philosophical staging. At the same time Kant´s work is also a comment on tradition. I shall presuppose a master knowledge of the stock of theories of the tradition. So my idea is: If there included rhetorical differences, that is indirect, satirical or alluding speech, are taken into consideration, it becomes obvious: against the background of philosophical tradition the work includes everything we need to understand its method, its programme and its theory. There is no need at all for reconstruction. Instead, in the course of two hundred years of interpreting the work the unity of the texts has been dissolved into single pieces. Among others, this is due to the fact that in the 19^th century remarks by Kant which seem to indicate deficiencies of his own were taken literally, that is in the sense of diary-like confessions. And it is because the authors of that century had no sense anymore of sceptical irony in texts from the Modern Age.

For example, the oft-quoted passage from Reflection No. 5037: ‘The year 69 provided me with great light´[2] was understood as such a confession, as it seemed to indicate an unexpected gain in insight. Concerning this, Norbert Hinske points out to the striking parallels with a favourite phrase by Christian Wolff.[3] Thus, we might as well understand this remark by Kant as a somewhat mocking reference to Wolff´s descriptions of being enlightened which, however, would not at all compellingly refer to any topical gain which might allow for the conclusion that prior to this time any way of working out a Critique was in principle not possible. Instead, it might as well be about the possibilities and limitations of receiving some other author.

Due to his position as an assistant librarian at the Schlossbibliothek from 1765 to 1772, Kant had access to the traditional stock of texts to the best-possible extent in his time and his region. He had applied by referring to the „erwünschte Gelegenheit, die ich in einem solchen Posten antreffen würde, so viele Hülfsmittel der Wissenschaften bey der Hand zu haben“,[4] and he quit as late as in the spring of 1772, although he had been a university professor since 1770.[5] However, not even the Royal Library could always provide completeness. In particular, much of Leibniz´s works remained unpublished for a long time. Then, in 1768/69, unexpectedly the multivolume edition of Louis Dutens´s works was published.[6] Leibniz´s theories had even before been communicated by Wolff, Meier, Sulzer and Reimarus, or indirectly by Voltaire,[7] certainly not always adequately. What was new now, according to Albert Heinekamp, was that ‘Leibniz became accessible by his authentic works. His ideas were dissolved from their connection to the doctrines of Wolff and his followers. The Leibniz of the Wolffians was replaced by Leibniz himself.´[8] By Dutens´ edition, furthermore ‘rare prints and a total of about 100 previously unpublished manuscripts by Leibniz´ were made accessible.[9]

Kant´s notice according to which the year 1769 had provided him with ‘great light´ should in my opinion be referred to his reading of this edition by Dutens, for the possibility to read Leibniz was of great importance for Kant. Accordingly, Kant writes on his programme as a whole: „Zugleich sey mir erlaubt, zu erklären, daß meine bisher auf Critik gerichtete Bemühungen keinesweges, wie es scheinen könnte, darauf angelegt sind, der Leibnitz-Wolfischen Philosophie entgegen zu arbeiten […] sondern nur durch einen Umweg, den wie mich dünkt, obige große Männer für überflüssig hielten, in dasselbe Geleise eines schulgerechten Verfahrens, und vermittelst desselben, aber nur durch die Verbindung der theoretischen Philosophie mit der Praktischen, zu eben demselben Ziele zu führen – eine Absicht, die sich klärer an den Tag legen wird, wenn ich so lange lebe, um wie ich Vorhabens bin, die Metaphysik in einem zusammenhängenden Systeme aufzustellen.“[10] By the way, here the ‘Umweg´ which is said to lead ‘in dasselbe Geleise eines schulgerechten Verfahrens´ and ‘zu eben demselben Ziele´ like in Leibniz and Wolff clearly indicates that Kant´s system is indeed structured in a somewhat more awkward way, but that large parts of it existed as early as in 1790, otherwise such a detour (via the critical method) would not be so clearly addressed.

After all, thus understood the ‘great light´ would not be part of a report about a personal experience of enlightenment but would refer to extending the knowledge of relevant texts (by Leibniz). Other remarks, such as about ‘Umkippungen (turnarounds)´ might refer to other, strategic, aspects of structuring the work. Particularly in letters Kant presents his peculiar method as searching, finding and discovering.[11] Even self-incriminations are in my opinion staged, as Kant applies the dubitatio as a stylistic means not only text-immanently but frequently also when referring to his ‘I´.[12] This way Kant, whose ambiguous deliberations were indeed not just polemics, like in Voltaire, Rousseau or La Mettrie, but whose work as a whole, as a completion of sceptical methods, provides a safe basis for the structure of his own metaphysics, makes use of his own person as a staged model for the strategy of his work. Like alluding references to the tradition, also self-incriminations are a typical feature of his concept.

Thus, the hermeneutic guidelines for our understanding of passages in letters must be modified. In my opinion, Kant´s letters must not at all be read as diary entries. For, often they show a systematic closeness to the work and discuss contents before or even without them being published in printing,[13] and they are no ‘evidence of his inner life´, as already Karl Vorländer emphasizes.[14] Often, by referring to his age, health or ailments, Kant just excuses his own dawdling.[15] On this, Marie Rischmüller emphasizes quite generally in the context of Kant´s entries in his personal copy of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime:[16] Kant, she says, had ‘a deeply rooted aversion against soul-dissecting introspection´.[17]

Thus, Kant´s ‘I´ in his letters must be understood as a literary I. When Kant, in a letter to Reinhold, at first praises his system while three times writing ‘I´,[18] this is in contrast to his concluding elucidations where he describes his ‘I´ as searching and finding. Even ‚wenn ich bisweilen die Methode der Untersuchung über einen gewissen Gegenstand nicht recht anzustellen weiß´, he says, looking back to his work makes only sense ‚um Aufschlüsse zu bekommen deren ich nicht gewärtig war. So beschäftige ich mich jetzt mit der Critik des Geschmaks bey welcher Gelegenheit eine neue Art von Principien a priori entdeckt wird als die bisherigen´. He says that he had found two principles, been looking for a third one, had not believed to ever find it but, due to the systematic approach of dissecting the capabilities in his work, had still been driven forth, so that now he ‘[recognizes] drey Theile der Philosophie […] deren jede ihre Principien a priori hat´.[19] In my opinion, this letter to Reinhold contains a friendly yet clear hint at Kant´s philosophy “being on the move”, that it is being further shaped and that it is by far not yet exhausted by the First Critique and those topics unfolded in Reinhold (proofs of God, rational psychology etc.). Reinhold was of course not able to get these subtle hints; he rather was the first to open the hunt for an allegedly missing First Principle of Philosophy.

Often the work as a whole and his plan are quite unvarnishedly a subject of correspondence. As early as in 1749 it says that he had ‚eine Fortsetzung dieser Gedancken in Bereitschaft die nebst einer fernern Bestätigung derselben andere eben dahin abzielende Betrachtungen in sich begreifen wird´.[20] In 1783 he writes in a similar way: ‚Es werden sich mit der Zeit einige Puncte aufklären (dazu vielleicht meine Prolegomena etwas beytragen können). Von diesen Puncten wird ein Licht auf andere Stellen geworfen werden, wozu freylich von Zeit zu Zeit ein erläuternder Beytrag meiner Seits erfoderlich seyn wird, und so wird das Gantze endlich übersehen und eingesehen werden, wenn man nur erstlich Hand ans Werk legt und indem man von der Hauptfrage, auf die alles ankommt, […] ausgeht´.[21] In 1785 Kant writes: ‚Ich muß meine Gedanken ununterbrochen zusammenhalten, wenn ich den Faden, der das ganze System verknüpft, nicht verlieren soll´.[22] And in 1786 it says: ‚Aenderungen im Wesentlichen werde ich nicht zu machen haben, weil ich die Sachen lange genug durchgedacht hatte, ehe ich sie zu Papier brachte, auch seitdem alle Sätze, die zum System gehören, wiederholentlich gesichtet und geprüft, jederzeit aber für sich und in ihrer Beziehung zum Ganzen bewährt gefunden habe´.[23] In 1787 he notes down: ‚Ich darf ohne mich des Eigendünkels schuldig zu machen, wohl versichern daß ich je länger ich auf meiner Bahn fortgehe desto unbesorgter werde es könne jemals ein Wiederspruch  […] meinem System erheblichen Abbruch thun´.[24] In 1789 he writes about being burdened in his ‚66ten Jahre noch mit einer weitläuftigen Arbeit meinen Plan zu vollenden´,[25] and he speaks of obstacles ‚die mir immer in den Weg kommen und die ich doch nicht vorbey gehen darf, ohne meinem Plane zuwieder zu handeln´.[26] As early as in 1787 this plan is referred to completing his ouevre, of which, in 1797, he speaks as his final purpose which ‚at the last minute´ he woud not like to lose ‚sight of´:[27] „Ich habe mich in meinen philosophischen Arbeiten in ein für mein Alter ziemlich beschwerliches und weit hinaussehendes Geschäfte eingelassen; aber ich finde darinn, vornemlich was den Rückstand betrift, den ich jetzt bearbeite, so guten Fortgang und habe so gute Hofnung die Sachen der Metaphysik in ein so sicheres Gleis zu bringen, daß mir dieses zur Aufmunterung und Stärkung dient, um meinen Plan zur Vollendung zu bringen“.[28]

While commenting, focusing and emphasizing, Kant structures the history of philosophy, such as according to empiricists/rationalists or to dogmatists/sceptics. Concerning this there holds what Hans-Jürgen Engfer explains in view of Johann Nicolaus Tetens: in a pointed way, one´s own achievement of overcoming and reconciling ‘one-sidednesses´ is emphasized.[29] This is not only true for Tetens but also for Kant and other authors. Kant´s aggravations, however, have been passed on as lessons; then the 19^th century connotes such classifications with national ambitions; and this way finally the schematic idea consolidated that in England and Scotland the people were just thinking in empirical ways and that those on the continent were thinking in rationalist ways.[30] Although e. g. Christian Wolff gives empirical reasons to many things, he is considered a typical representative of rationalism. Bacon, whose concept of form, crucially serving for his reason-giving, is precisely not empirically determined, is still today considered a paradigm of the theoretician of induction.[31]

That in the 19^th century Kant was in all respects taken literally has pushed through to such an extent that still today it commonly and generally shapes our understanding. For interpreting Kant, the 19^th century developed the following presuppositions: 1. Kant´s deliberations give his position at the given time. 2. They must in principle be taken as direct speech, not in the sense of problematisations. 3. Only explicit statements by Kant may be used as evidence. Thus, for researching the historical background only authors were taken into consideration whom Kant mentions by their names, and this only for the “period” when he is doing so. From the fact that Kant sometimes does not mention a relevant work one concluded that at this time he was ignorant of this work or that he could not know it.

However, whenever the textual evidence is insufficiently clear, historical analysis should be obliged to decide that the ‘available sources are insufficient for […] making a decision´.[32] But in the 19^th century one was more than sure that Kant´s work actually happened by such periods, as statements on his own insufficiencies were taken as evidence, not for concrete periods, but for development pushes obviously having happened. That these presuppositions were never put into question is, among others, due to the fact that in those days development was most of all based on the interpretament. After all, the formative, in a way the ‘salvific word´ for the 19^th century, as Hemuth Plessner has it in a nutshell, was development.[33] Since those days one believes Kant´s own development to be reflected by his work. For example Ernst Cassirer is of the opinion that Kant´s ´sequence of steps´ e. g. from the text What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? could be applied to Kant´s ‘own theoretical development´.[34] Benno Erdmann interprets the theory piece of the antinomies as being biographic[35] and bases this on a letter by Kant to Garve of September 21^st, 1798. He had started out, Kant explains there, from the antinomies, and it had been that which „aus dem dogmatischen Schlummer zuerst aufweckte und zur Critik der Vernunft selbst hintrieb, um das Scandal des scheinbaren Wiederspruchs der Vernunft mit ihr selbst zu heben“.[36] But apart from the fact that it is not Kant´s intention to tell Garve about his life but to correct an error,[37] also in this letter the time he gives is completely vague, like in all such statements by Kant in his work, in letters and in his reflections. Kant writes also: „so glaube ich seit der Zeit, als ich keine Ausarbeitungen dieser Art geliefert habe, zu wichtigen Einsichten in dieser disciplin gelangt zu seyn, welche ihr Verfahren festsetzen und […] in der Anwendung als das eigentliche Richtmaas brauchbar sind“;[38] and here the time when he did not deliver any elaborations of this kind is his time of studying at university.

In the 19^th century Kant was accused of not having considered his own intellectual development. ‘This lack of self-observation […] must be replaced by historical observation´.[39] Still today one starts out from the guiding idea of a development of Kant´s thought. This finds strongest expression in Kuno Fischer and Arthur Schopenhauer, by the thesis of old Kant´s intellectual power having been “broken”[40] as well as by Wilhelm Windelband´s thesis of an ideal figure of transcendental philosophy which Kant himself had not been able to realise anymore.[41]

In view of Kant´s theory of law, Christian Ritter is convinced of a continuity of the work: ‘neither in the year 1769 nor later there happened any ‘disruption´ which might allow for speaking of a “pre-critical” in contrast to a “critical” period of Kantian philosophy of law´.[42] And in view of congruencies between Theory of the Heavens and the Third Critique, Lutz Koch states that Kant´s early texts cannot be understood as ‘abandoned stages of thought´.[43] Generally, however, Kant´s work is understood to be a sequence of crises, radical changes, interruptions, and being influenced, in the course of which ‘some outside stimulus intervenes and steers the mental work into a completely new direction´.[44] Kant´s statements, he says, are wavering, and he had been capable of really and truly understanding all of his own arguments.[45] Concepts and classifications, he states, show ‘contradictions and ambiguities´.[46] Concepts and their modifications are referred to defined stages of the author´s thought.[47] His thought is described as having been influenced from the outside. It was, it is said, the theories of others ‘under whose reign Kant [grew into being] an independent thinker´ and ‘whose methods, laboriously and step by step, he gradually learned to figure out´.[48] Still today, from this there comes the methodical claim that contexts may only be explicated by way of systematic reconstruction.[49] Between the thought of the early years and the critical period the transcendental turn is located.

Now, as concerns the way Kant was dealt with in the 19^th century, we must differentiate: on the one hand, it is characterised by an accurate historical analysis, based on strict criteria of scientific objectivity, and on the other hand by sharp polemics. Initially, both ways of dealing with Kant are not connected; however both have in common that assumptions are made an element of analysing Kant, and these are unquestioned assumptions which in each case come from teleological thinking. The historiographers are obliged to teleological thinking in so far as their historical depictions illustrate events as maturity processes and as the “maturing” of philosophical works is discussed in the context of the author´s “maturing”.[50]

The polemic attacks on Kant, on the other hand, are based on the idea of the progress of thought: outmoded theses are supposed to be confronted by one´s own, improved insights. In this sense, Hegel considers Kant a ‘precursor´, as Herbert Schädelbach summarises it pointedly, and ‘from this point of view [Kant´s work] presents itself as an indeed necessary though after all limited pre-stage of Hegel´s system, where at last the absolute has grasped its own truth.´ On this Schnädelbach comments as follows, and I perfectly agree with him: ‘Kant´s status as a precursor is Hegelian propaganda which was adopted by almost all historians of philosophy in the 19^th century.´[51] In particular Schopenhauer, who considered himself the only true ‘successor of Kant and the only one to perfect his philosophy´, dealt with Kant by way of polemics.[52] Polemic opposition is grounded in Kant´s philosophy itself: the method of the neutralisation of irreconcilable antagonisms had a polarising effect on later adapters. The ‘great antagonisms´, J. E. Erdmann explains, which ‘had been neutralised in Kant´, moved to the fore once again.[53] Accusations of Kant were due to biased convictions against a way of thinking which, according to Erdmann, ‘necessarily fell out´ with everybody.[54] Windelband is of the opinion that he who quashes everything is ‘at the same time the one to contain everything, after all´.[55] Erich Adickes declares it to be typical for Kant that often he melts different respects which are ‘frequently believed to be incompatible´ into one.[56]

There are only a few monographic overall presentations of Kant´s work; they are by Karl Rosenkranz, Kuno Fischer, Hermann Cohen, Konrad Dieterich und Günter Thiele in the 19^th century[57] and by Ernst Cassirer, Karl Vorländer, Herman Jean de Vleeschauwer und Friedrich Kaulbach in the 20^th century.[58] Also to be mentioned are contributions and biographies by Harald Höffding, Gereon Wolters, Gerd Irrlitz oder Manfred Kuehn[59] as well as studies dealing with larger parts of the overall work.[60] Rosenkranz´s presentation dates to the year 1840. Up to then, systematic questions did only address parts of the work.[61] At the beginning of the 19^th century, at first the work as a whole did not play any role at all, until, concerning its content, questions about the development of the work were raised. Thus, right from the beginning Kant´s work was met with an interest in how ideas and theories developed. Even the early 19^th century dealt with this question, by way of a teleologically influenced methodology of historical science which was looking for objective laws for a rational kind of historiography.[62] The idea of development became the crucial paradigm. The development of ideas was considered to happen analogously to organic growth and to processes of chemical maturation, by transferring educational and psychological theories of the development of individuals to historical laws as a whole.[63] Accordingly, to give reason to the methods and to the historiographic depiction one linked psychological to epochal laws of development[64] and spoke, by applying biologic metaphors, of the germination or fermentation of thinking and the maturing of ideas;[65] this way the history of ideas – and also Kant´s work – was structured. On the whole, two questions developed when it came to Kant: one was oriented at the development of Kant´s thoughts and attempted to analyse their preconditions, the other one focused on judging topically on transcendental philosophy. The former was connected to a greater interest in details of the body of Kant´s work, and there the way of proceeding was obliged to historical-genetic methods. To this there belong the editions by Rosenkranz and Gustav Hartenstein. Both based their attempts on the scheme of Kant´s thought having matured gradually, Hartenstein rather accentuating the maturing of the work.[66] Rosenkranz places more weight on sketching those epochs of the history of thought as being reflected in Kant.[67]

Authors with a more systematic interest in Kant right from the beginning limited their interest to those texts as being special in the overall work when it came to their complexity and meaningfulness, that is first of all they focused on the critical texts. Those dealing with Kant in this way emphasized that Kant needed much improvement and addition. Already Jakob Friedrich Fries made statements of this kind.[68] Schopenhauer attested a too much of mannerist architecture to the structure of the work – a judgement which later was frequently adopted.[69] He also liked to go on about Kant´s alleged senility[70] and alleged fear of people.[71] In the 19^th century, in favour of criticism the intensive, systematic dealing with Kant, polemical or not, either ignored the work as a whole completely or had an only secondary interest in the other texts.

Kuno Fischer, one of the most influential philosophy-historians of the 19^th century, is the first to more thoroughly include all texts and links into the analyses of work and life, which had still been separated in Rosenkranz´s edition – Kant´s biography had been written by historian Friedrich Wilhelm Schubert[72] - in view of the above sketched analogies of the maturing of individuals and the epochs of the history of ideas. ‘Dogmatic philosophy´, he says, is ‘the development-historical precondition for critical philosophy´,[73]and the analysis must be guided by Kant´s biography.[74] Without the early texts, he states, it is impossible to gain a safe understanding of Kant´s philosophy which was to be found there in nuce.[75]

Since then, inspired by Fischer´s work, the presentation of his work is connected to Kant´s biography, and furthermore one distinguishes a so called pre-critical from a critical period of Kant´s work. Also another determination of those days is to push through: it is the separation Hermann Cohen makes between Kant´s ‘natural scientific´ and ‘epistemic´ texts.[76] Thus, Cohen increases the formula by help of which already Rosenkranz solves the problem of the structuring of the texts, by organising the volumes of his edition according to topical categories.[77] Thus, since Cohen and Fischer, frequently Kant´s apparently natural-scientific texts are separated from the epistemic as well as the pre-critical and the critical ones.

That Fischer´s study was reissued several times is certainly due to his great style. His disciple, Wilhelm Windelband, praises Fischer for having depicted everything in bright ‘simplicity´. And this, he says, attracted even those ‘which had shrunken back from Kant´s difficult, dark and intricate way of writing; and now, after seeing the guidelines for understanding clearly before their eyes, over time they dared approaching the great man from Königsberg himself´.[78]

However, it must be stated that there is a complete lack of justification of these guidelines for understanding. At no time either Fischer himself or those authors following these guidelines presented one. At first, Fischer was criticised particularly by Cohen[79] who demands a topical instead of a chronological sequence, to be more able to discuss how Kant ‘found´ the elements of the theory[80] or how Kant had come to a conviction. Also Höffding, Boehm, Vorländer, Cassirer, De Vleeschauwer, Kaulbach or Irrlitz analysed the progress of Kant´s thought in line with this tradition.[81]  

Fischer proves that in Kant the late and the early texts are closely connected to each other, but he links Kant´s development to the assumption that there had been breaks and ‘turning points´ of his thought.[82] This now, in the wake of Fischer, had the effect that the work as a whole was hardly read as a unity anymore.

BUT: In view of the quoted bright simplicity of his elucidations, Fischer´s analyses and approach are dubious to the utmost. For, the use of predetermined schemes, which Fischer´s guidelines for understanding are, after all, come along with the danger of abstracting ‘systematically from all those aspects and views […] which do not bow to the scheme´.[83] Whereas Rosenkranz viewed at Kant´s methods and structured the work according to a heuristic, a speculative-systematic and a practical period,[84] Fischer links the methodological analysis to topical judgement. He calls the first period he invents the pre-critical one, and the second period the critical one. In his inaugural address, this is still rather meant as a chronological classification; [85] but in his historiographic main work on Kant he pointedly presents Kant´s critical achievement as a move towards dogmatic thought. There now, the pre-critical texts are at the same time presented as being dogmatic.

At no time there was any attempt to critically discuss the interpretation scheme on which Fischer based his work. For, due to the, also stylistically, successful connection of work analysis and biography there was the impression that those developments of thought which were systematically eminent for the interpretation of Kant´s work and which structure Fischer´s scheme had actually happened in Kant´s life.[86] Thus, all presentations of the work as a whole which followed Fischer, in particular the very similar studies by Vorländer and Cassirer, did pursue the goal of discussing preconditions for the scheme and its application in Fischer. Rather, they tried to clarify the causes for the periods or phases of Kant´s life and work. In Hinske´s study,[87] indeed Fischer´s way of seeing things as well as judging on all of Kant´s texts by starting out from the critical texts are put into question, but as a result of Hinske´s emphasis on the independence of the early work the validity of structuring into separated sections is even more substantiated, and this holds also for the study by Martin Schönfeld.

Although all these interpretations share the assumption of breaks in Kant´s work, indeed also continuities are presented, and if only for certain stages.[88] For example Höffding states: ‘There is no point in the development of Kant´s thought where such a leap could be identified which might bring us to saying that there a decisive intervention by somebody else´s reasoning was an indispensable precondition. Everywhere the progress may very well be explained as a continuation of the previous activity.´[89] Also Mirbt writes: ‘It is common opinion that Kant in his later days was quite different from early Kant […]. Anyway, the careful comparison of his early and his later texts gives no reason for such a delusion.´[90] However, all statements of this kind stay vague, for they do not shed sufficient light on the overall context of the work.

Fischer, however, ‘looks for and makes differences´; this, says Cohen, ‘must be recognized most of all´.[91] For his turning points Fischer provides evidence from Kant´s texts. Now, however, it is doubtful if he quotes Kant´s deliberations appropriately. Fischer makes use of many references in a way which is inappropriate to the arguments they belong to, that is he does not quote them in full length or within their contexts but cuts them out and analyses them in an abridged way.[92] This also holds for precisely those two passages by help of which he justifies the beginning and the end of his first pre-critical or dogmatic period. He compares Kant´s concept of space in Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces: Living Forces (as the first text) with that in Concerning the Ultimate Foundation of the Distinction of Directions in Space: Directions in Space (as the last text from this period). In both, he claims, `space [is] frequently [considered] to be given by the nature of things´; Kant, he says, believes `in its objective existence´.[93] In Kant, it says initially: `Es ist leicht zu erweisen, daß kein Raum und keine Ausdehung seyn würden, wenn die Substanzen keine Kraft hätten, außer sich zu wirken. Denn ohne diese Kraft ist keine Verbindung, ohne diese keine Ordnung und ohne diese endlich kein Raum´.[94]

Now, in this context it must be taken into consideration that in Living Forces Kant presents several positions – here: that of Christian August Crusius[95] – by claiming that they could be easily proven, after which he then mentions certain difficulties, so that quite obviously this text is not meant for teaching positions. Kant starts by saying that it is his intention to quote sentences in a particular way: `Man wird mich zuweilen in dem Tone eines Menschen hören, der von der Richtigkeit seiner Sätze sehr wohl versichert ist, und der nicht befürchtet, daß ihm werde widersprochen werden, oder daß ihn seine Schlüsse betrügen können. […] Es stecket eine ganz andere Absicht unter meinem Verfahren. Der Leser dieser Blätter ist ohne Zweifel schon durch die Lehrsätze, die itzo von den lebendigen Kräften im Schwange gehen, vorbereitet, ehe er sich zu meiner Abhandlung wendet´.[96] The reader, says Kant, may certainly be assumed to know the debate as a whole. Thus, it is necessary to attract the reader´s attention by help of little tricks.[97] Thus, it is Kant himself who informs about the significance of rhetoric, but neither in Fischer nor in any other overall presentation we are told about this important aspect.

Now Fischer further claims that also in Directions in Space, Kant attempts to `prove mathematically´ that absolute space is `independent of the existence of all matter´ and, `being the primary cause of the possibility of the possibility of its composition´, `it has a reality of its own´,[98] which he takes as evidence that this is an early work.[99] However, also here Fischer does not account for the context into which Kant himself places his statements. For, in Directions in Space, Kant makes an assessment: `ich setze daher nichts weiter hinzu, als daß mein Zweck in dieser Abhandlung sei, zu versuchen, ob nicht in den anschauenden Urtheilen der Ausdehnung, dergleichen die Meßkunst enthält, ein evidenter Beweis zu finden sei: daß der absolute Raum unabhängig von dem Dasein aller Materie und selbst als der erste Grund der Möglichkeit ihrer Zusammensetzung eine eigene Realität habe´.[100] Thus, the treatise formulates precisely that as a question what is falsely attributed to it as a categorical judgement, that is if the intuitive judgements of geometry are able give any evident proof of the independence and absoluteness of space. Also this may be considered a hypothetical assessment and thus assumes an `absolute´ reality of space only in a certain sense.[101]

In Fischer, passages of Kant´s texts are pieced together so as to make them suitable for a historiographic scheme. This should be reason enough to eliminate presuppositions on the overall context of the work as far as they are based on Fischer´s scheme, just like his `long and simple lines´,[102] from any interpretation of Kant. Heuristically, we should assume the author´s full sovereignty over his work as well as over all possible contexts, rhetorical strategies or details of reasoning. Accordingly, e. g. the handbooks, which are published to conclude his work, may not be understood in the sense of being sheer compilations of the contents of his lectures. From 1800 on, when he was no longer giving lectures, Kant has handbooks on lectures published. Concerning the one on logic, it is true that it provides important elements of his train of thought of his overall work. Logics - A Handbook, for example, presents crucial completions of the deliberations in the First and Third Critique concerning transcendental philosophy and epistemology, particularly concerning questions about the completeness of insight, and among others this happens by there the concept of the `horizon´ of insight being introduced and explained in more detail. Thus, Logics is fundamental for the whole structure of Kant´s work and is not at all `Jäsche´s logic´. Even by its title, the text Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht abgefaßt von Immanuel Kant (1798/1800) makes obvious that it is no handbook at all. It completes, also by its specific methodical approach, some of the lines of the overall work, and this insofar as manifestations of the human aspect of transcendental subjectivity are concerned. Also, this text includes quite a few ironical and alluding passages, and it makes extremely interesting and funny reading. For example, towards the end of constructing his system, and that is since the early 1790s, the author turns to the fields of applying and possibilities to apply his philosophy, in the sense of improving insight, the thus required methods, as well as improving humanity, morality, law and politics. As concerns the applicability of transcendental philosophy to the natural sciences, Opus postumum has the task of functioning as a conclusion, although it also includes a number of concluding remarks which belong to other topical fields.

Assuming, in heuristic terms, the author´s full sovereignty over his work and over all strategies of the structure of the system as well as over details of the train of thought also means that, in view of the initially mentioned thesis of Kant´s Master knowledge of the stocks of theories of the tradition, we must assume that Kant read the texts of other authors in their native languages. At least this cannot be ruled out, and as a matter of fact there is no source saying that Kant did not read English and French. For his purposes, reading skills were absolutely sufficient, for Kant presents his philosophy in the German language, in the context of which it was probably not always easy to decide how to translate one or the other English or French term into German. According to Jachmann, Kant understood French but did not speak it.[103] From this we cannot conclude that Kant´s `French language skills were insufficient´,[104] and not at all does it justify the claim that `in principle [Kant] stayed away from reading works in the French language´.[105] As unfounded is the rumour that Kant did not read ancient authors in their original languages. There is evidence that Kant owned a Greek-Latin edition of Aristotle´s works.[106]

That he read translations of French or English works is due to a particularity of the contemporary scientific discourse. Frequently the translators immediately commented on the texts they translated. These comments are either their own or those by recognized authors, such as, in the case of the translation of Hales´ Staticks, the German translations of the remarks by Buffon, and sometimes these remarks are longer than the texts themselves.[107] Often acknowledging them was worthwhile. When Euler was translating a work by Robins on ballistics, he added voluminous remarks of his own which crucially improved the theory.[108] Even more than periodicals, for some time translations were the platform for scientific exchange. And had the authors of that time not been able to assume that, by and large, English, French and German were understood, such ways of proceeding would not have made any sense at all. Also the purpose – quite obvious in the age of founding national academies of science – to claim priority or to have improved a theory and thus enhancing the reputation of one´s own nation requires at least basic knowledge of the languages of the competing nations. One indication that French language skills were frequently a matter of course is the fact that the Encyclopédie was never completely translated into German. Hans Heinz Holz underlines that `the educated classes in Germany in the 18<sup>th</sup> century were familiar´ with French;[109] translations had rather been demanded by those from the bourgeoisie who had not yet `grown up with higher literary education´.[110] When Kant suggested translations from French to Johann Georg Hamann,[111] it may well be that he wanted to help him with his unfortunate career.[112] – Such considerations show that fixed schemes for interpreting philosophical and historical research might indeed be harmful, by obscuring our view of possible explanations which are not part of the scheme.

Historical analyses explain events anachronously, sometimes by way of inferences. Only the historian is capable of this – the historical person from his/her own, conditioned and diachronic point of view would not be capable of doing so. Now, the structure of Kant´s work is the result of working across a longer period of time, and as such this structure is indeed a historical event. However, in view of the ways in which the arguments are staged and of the theory-constitutive references to the tradition, its diachronicity, which has previously been considered a matter of course, must be qualified. Thus, it is certainly possible to shed light on individual aspects of the layout of the work by help of genetic questions, such as the fact that Kant attempted to take even the most recent publications or debates into consideration, which may have affected the dates of printing. In my opinion, without at last presenting a convincing justification of the method one can no longer claim that the work as a whole could be explicated genetically, as the result of a development process of the author.

Kant´s work consists of discussing theories and of the thus related presentation of his own concept. This was the way in which already Aristotle, Plotin, Duns Scotus or Hobbes proceeded. Sometimes Hobbes lays out texts as a `sequence of hypothetical statements´, `the conditionatum of the first statement serving as the conditio of the second one etc.´[113] Kant extends such ways of proceeding by, in an Enlightened way, contextualising theories from the philosophical tradition. This I call the `panorama-glossing´ of the philosophical tradition. Frequently several references are combined, in the context of which the glossed theories may definitely be hostile to each other, but concerning crucial points they show congruencies which Kant intends to criticise.

In Kant, logic, metaphysics, physics, anthropology, transcendental philosophy, rational theology as well as other disciplines are crossed over in a particular way. In Kant, the basic and methodical foundations of his philosophy, which are valid for the subjects of any possible kind of science, point out to the precondition for the possibility of this foundation, and that is the transcendental and moral subject. This is confirmed in Opus postumum which concludes the structure of the critical metaphysics. Yet still, it is not this one last text but the work as a whole which, together with the annotated stock of tradition, forms a critical-metaphysical whole which, by way of hypothetical arguments and mystifications apart from presenting worked out lessons, presents a methodical instruction which does not first of all tell the reader WHAT but rather: HOW to think reasonably. Only if systematically related to each other, the individual texts give the hole of Kant´s philosophy. If strict conceptual disjunctions for distinguishing analysis foci are introduced, their combination or integration is always justified only at a later stage, and over the course of the work this means always also: in a methodical-reflective way, however frequently also dramaturgically and rhetorically staged as a surprise. For example, at first there is a strict separation between the causality of nature and that of liberty; later, however, a bridging across this apparent hiatus is staged which is supposed to cause astonishment.[114] Just the same, this is also Kant´s way of dealing with ambiguous or diffuse concepts which are defined more precisely at a later stage and thus in a methodical-reflective way.[115] In view of texts by Kant, whose reading is definitely exciting and funny, I believe it to be not at all slanderous to reinterpret the composition of the work as a whole by including interpretaments from other fields, such as by way of “arcs of suspense”, “retarding aspects” or “cliff hangers”. Concerning those parts which, by way of irritation and polemics, are worked out as quaestiones, Kant´s way of arguing must be read together with answers and solutions from later texts. The structure of the work is characterised by a certain openness of texts as well as by dramaturgically staged, provocative presentation strategies. Thus, each according to passage, Kant writes in a hypothetical-assessing way, however indeed also in a defining-deciding way. For interpretation this means: only by starting out from the multi-levelled functions of a text for the overall context it is possible to identify strategies and to set hermeneutic guidelines for understanding individual chapters, paragraphs, remarks, statements or the degree to which concepts are defined or not.

Not only in Kant´s case, but also in those of Gassendi, La Mettrie or Diderot the interpretation prefers the idea of the step-by-step development and gradual change of the author´s thought instead of the execution of planning and steering the work. By and by, sceptical thinkers presented works which were actually interrelated parts of one complete work. Prima facie they rather seem to be independent of each other instead of being combined with each other, for there are topical stages. However, the fact that they ironically refer to their own early texts or even put them into question shows a procedural basic idea of scepticism which presents factual criticism by way of a kind of staged self-criticism. Concerning the works by Gassendi, La Mettrie or Diderot, interpretations which emphasize these continuities have already been presented.[116]