Wilkins Teleology in Kant's Philosophy of History

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Teleology in Kant's Philosophy of HistoryAuthor(s): Burleigh Taylor WilkinsReviewed work(s):Source: History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 2 (1966), pp. 172-185

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TELEOLOGY IN KANT'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

BURLEIGH TAYLOR WILKINS

Kant's "Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" was

written, without apologies, from the teleological point of view. Read in con-

junction with the treatments of teleology in the Critique of Pure Reason andthe Critique of Judgment, Kant's essay on the philosophy of history acquires

a greater significance for his overall philosophy than is generally acknowl-

edged. With its teleology in mind we can see it as being something more than

a by-product of Kant's moral and political convictions and his belief in pro-

gress. We can relate it directly to his theory of knowledge, especially his dis-

tinction between reason and the understanding, and read it as an attempted

application to historical inquiry of principles that Kant elsewhere develops in

a more abstract manner.Kant begins his essay by making three important points: (1) that human

actions are determined by universal laws; (2) that history affords by and large

a repugnant spectacle; and (3) that we may yet be able to discover in history

"a clue" as to what the universal laws of human actions are, and that such

a discovery may help us make sense of the seemingly senseless character of

much of human history. Kant argues that (1) is true regardless of the views

one may hold concerning the freedom of the will. What appears to be "tangled

and unrelated" in the case of individuals can be recognized, according toKant, in "the history of the whole species as a continually advancing, though

slow, development of its original capacities and endowments." He cites mar-

riages, births, and deaths as examples of things that appear to be greatly in-

fluenced by man's free will; but he notes triumphantly that "the annual statis-

tics of great countries prove that these events take place according to constant

natural laws." The optimism of (1) is, however, qualified considerably by

Kant's admission that, because man's actions are neither purely instinctual

nor purely rational, "it appears as if no regular systematic history of mankind

would be possible." Kant confesses to a certain repugnance upon looking at

man's conduct: with but few exceptions it seems "on examining it externally

as if the whole web of human history were woven out of folly and childish

vanity, and the frenzy of destruction ... .91

1. "Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View," Kant's Prin-

ciples of Politics, ed. W. Hastie (Edinburgh, 1891), 4. Subsequent quotations from this








TELEOLOGY IN KANT'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 173

What is the philosopher to do? Is he to give up the hopes expressed by

Kant in point (1) and to accept the pessimism of point (2)? Kant thinks (1)

and (2) can both be kept provided we accept (3). (3) states that we may

after all find in history the universal laws of history and that these might help

us make sense of the historical spectacle. What is required, Kant believes, is

the surrender of a search for a rational conscious purpose that determines the

actions of men, and our trying instead to discover a universal purpose of

nature in the paradoxical movements of human beings. We should consider

whether, in view of this purpose of nature, a history of creatures who proceed

without a plan of their own - that is, without a fully rational or universally

agreed-upon plan - may nevertheless be possible according to a determinate

plan of nature. If we can find a clue to this plan we may, Kant writes, leaveit to nature to bring forth a Kepler to compose this universal history and a

Newton to explain the laws of this history in terms of "a universal natural

cause."

Kant then proceeds to offer nine propositions concerning nature's plans for

mankind. The first proposition reads: "All the capacities implanted in a crea-

ture by nature, are destined to unfold themselves, completely and conformably

to their end, in the course of time." He maintains that this proposition is

established by observation in the case of all animals: "An organ which is notused, or an arrangement which does not attain its end, is a contradiction in

the teleological science of nature. For, if we turn away from that fundamental

principle, we have then before us a nature moving without a purpose, and

no longer conformable to law. . . ." Without this principle the "cheerless

gloom of chance" would supplant reason. The second proposition reads: "In

man, as the only rational creature on earth, those natural capacities which are

directed towards the use of his reason, could be completely developed only

in the species and not in the individual." Reason requires that one generationmust hand down its learning to another, in order that the germs she has

implanted in our species be unfolded in an ultimate stage of development

completely conformable to her "inherent design."

Kant's third proposition states: "Nature has willed that man shall produce

wholly out of himself all that goes beyond the mechanical structure and ar-

rangement of his animal existence, and that he shall participate in no other

happiness or perfection but what he has procured for himself, apart from

instinct, by his own reason." The fourth proposition concerns nature's meansof bringing forth the development of man: "The means which nature employs

to bring about the development of all the capacities implanted in men, is their

mutual antagonism in society, but only so far as this antagonism becomes at

essay occur between pages 5 to 29 of this volume and are cited by the numbers of thevarious propositions.Hastie's translation is reprintedin Theories of History, ed. Patrick

Gardiner (Glencoe, Illinois, 1959), 22-34.








174 BURLEIGH TAYLOR WILKINS

length the cause of an order among them that is regulated by law." The

antagonism Kant has in mind is the "unsocial sociability" of men. Man tends

both to socialize himself and to individualize himself. It is the mutual antag-

onism stemming from our attempts to individualize ourselves that awakensall the powers of men: "Thanks be then to nature for this unsociableness, for

this envious jealousy and vanity, for this unsatiable desire of possession, or

even of power! Without them all the excellent capacities implanted in man-

kind by nature, would slumber eternally undeveloped. Man wishes concord;

but nature knows better what is good for his species, and she will have

discord. . .

In his fifth and sixth propositions Kant states that the problem of estab-

lishing a civil society administering right according to law is the greatest, themost difficult, and the latest practical problem to be solved by the human

race. Kant believes that "a society in which liberty under external laws may

be found combined in the greatest possible degree with irresistible power, or a

perfectly just civil constitution, is the highest natural problem prescribed to

the human species. And this is so, because nature can only by means of the

solution and fulfillment of this problem, realize her other purposes with our

race." The seventh proposition affirms: "The problem of the establishment of

a perfect civil constitution is dependent on the problem of the regulation ofthe external relations between the states conformably to law. . . ." What Kant

has said about how the mutual antagonism of men requires regulation by a

civil authority is now extended to the field of international relations and the

mutual antagonism of states: "Nature has . . . used the unsociableness of

men, and even of great societies and political bodies, her creatures of this

kind, as a means to work out through their mutual antagonism a condition

of rest and security." Kant informs us that there are two possible views as to

howthe

states maybe

brought togetherin a

federation.It

may comeabout

by chance that the states will hit upon some enduring constitution; or it may

come because nature pursues a regular march in carrying the species from the

lowest stage of animalism to the highest stage of humanity. On the other hand,

Kant concedes, it is possible to believe that out of all the actions and reactions

of man nothing rational will come, that the future will be like the past - or

worse. Which of these views is to be accepted, Kant writes, "depends almost

entirely on the question, whether it is rational to recognize harmony and de-

sign in the parts of the constitution of nature and to deny them of the whole."

If we have understood how the state of savagery was such as to compel men

to enter a civil society, then we should see that from the lawless conditions

prevailing among the various states a universal union of states will emerge.

Kant's eighth proposition is a corollary of his seventh. It reads: "The his-

tory of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realisation

of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution, internally,









and, for this purpose, also externally perfect, as the only state in which all the

capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed." The very

idea of such a future state of affairs may help to further its realization, Kant

claims. "The real question is, whether experience discloses anything of such amovement in the purpose of nature. I can only say it does a little. . .." We

have seen enough "to infer, confidently" that there is such a movement. Kant

notes in this connection the decline in restrictions upon personal liberty, in-

cluding matters of religious belief.

Kant's ninth and final proposition maintains that: "A philosophical attempt

to work out the universal history of the world according to the plan of nature

in its aiming at a perfect civil union, must be regarded as possible, and as

even capable of helping forward the purpose of nature." The idea that naturedoes not proceed without plan and design may serve as "a clue to enable us

to penetrate the otherwise planless aggregate of human actions as a whole,

and to represent them as constituting a system." Such an idea "may so far be

easily verified," Kant thinks; he claims to have discovered "a regular move-

ment of progress through the political institutions of our continent, which is

probably destined to give laws to all other parts of the world." In the history

of political institutions and states thus far we can see how "the good they con-

tained served for a certain period to elevate and glorify particular nations, andwith themselves, their arts and sciences - until the defects attaching to their

institutions came in time to cause their overthrow. And yet their very ruin

leaves always a germ of growing enlightenment behind, which being further

developed by every revolution, acts as a preparation for a subsequent higher

stage of progress and improvement."

It is no surprise to find Kant speaking next of the justification of nature

or of Providence. "Such a justification of nature - or rather let us say, of Pro-

vidence - is noinsignificant

motive forchoosing

aparticular point

of view

in contemplating the course of the world." What would be the point of pro-

claiming the glory and wisdom of creation in the irrational domain of nature

if the history of the human race offered only perpetual objections to the

glory and wisdom of that creation?

Kant concludes his essay by conceding that to some extent his idea of a

universal history has an a priori character, but he denies that he wishes to

supplant the empirical side of history or the narration of the actual facts of

experience: "It is only a thought of what a philosophical mind which, as

such, must be thoroughly versed in history -might be induced to attempt

from another standpoint."

Kant's essay is easily criticized. He has offered us, in a highly suspect manner,

an exclusive disjunction between purpose and laws on the one hand and

chance and lawlessness on the other. It is difficult, if not impossible, for us









now to accept Kant's belief that a nature moving without a purpose could not

"conform" to law, just as it is difficult to accept Kant's underlying assumption

that nature does nothing in vain. It is easy enough to find organs in nature,

such as man's appendix which are not used. Also, it seems reasonable evennow to wonder whether the establishment of a just civil society is a necessary

condition for the realization of nature's other purposes for man. The Renais-

sance, and possibly the Enlightenment itself, could be cited as counter-

examples to Kant's belief in the dependence of rational advancement upon a

just and stable political order. Finally, the very morality of Kant's interpreta-

tion of history is in doubt - "evils" which for Kant become, in the hands of

nature, necessary evils are well on the way to being elevated to the status of

"goods."The trouble with such criticisms is not that they are mistaken but that they

are easily made. They exhibit not the strength of Kant's essay but only its

weaknesses. To avoid the perils of too much facility it seems desirable to

select one problem to which there is no easy answer. While Kant's teleology

suggests many problems, as the above paragraph shows, the fundamental

problem posed by Kant's essay is the relationship between "nature's purpose"

for man and the inquiries of historians. What exactly is the connection be-

tween the principle of teleology and the pursuits of ordinary historians? Is itpossible to entertain such a principle without its affecting one's actual histori-

cal inquiries and interpretations?If the answer is yes, why bother to entertain

such a principle at all, save perhaps for moments of idle reverie? If the answer

is no, then is it not possible - Kant's denials notwithstanding - for Kant's

admittedly a priori universal history to supplant empirical history as we now

have it?

Robert Flint sees Kant's teleology as potentially disastrous to the study of

history. It invites us, Flint believes, to reason not from facts to final causesbut from final causes to facts. Nature does nothing in vain, nature has such

and such an end in view, nature must perfectly realize her ends - such prin-

ciples, according to Flint, tempt us to make wider inferences than the histori-

cal facts themselves justify: "The farsighted man must have perceived that

there was a danger that a priori speculation would not consent to remain

merely the servant of . . . empirical history, but might assert independence

in which case the study of history would be more hindered than helped by

it." Could Kant say to such a priori speculation: go this far but no farther?

No, Flint replies; and he asserts that either there is no a priori use of reason

and Kant has gone too far, or there is and he has not gone far enough. If the

second part of this disjunction is true, then Fichte was right in maintaining

that philosophy can, apart from all experience, think out the entire plan of

the world and determine the epochs of human history; and this belief Flint









thinks to be a "monstrous paradox."2 Flint's criticism of Kant, though pub-

lished in 1874, remains "standard"; it is in crucial respects the same as that

given by W. H. Walsh in his recent An Introduction to the Philosophy of His-

tory. Is there no way out for Kant from such criticism? Can an alternative, andless disastrous, construction of Kant's teleology as applied to history be

offered? Are there in the Critique of Pure Reason grounds for disavowing

Flint's interpretation of Kant's teleology?

In the "Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic" Kant attempts to clarify

the distinction between reason and the understanding by making clear what

the task of reason is. This is of crucial importance because Kant's emphasis

upon the limitation of knowledge to the field of possible experience and his

criticism of the excesses of dialectic sometimes arouse doubt as to whetherreason in Kant's sense has any legitimate task left to it. Transcendental ideas

are, however, in Kant's view as natural to human thought as categories such

as substance and causality are to the understanding. Such ideas must, there-

fore, have a proper use; and if they appear deceptive, this is a sign not that the

ideas are mistaken but that we have misapplied or misused them. To what

are such ideas of reason applicable? Not to objects, certainly, but to the under-

standing. It is only through the understanding that reason has its own specific

empirical employment. It does not create concepts of objects - a task of theunderstanding - but it orders these concepts and gives them unity. Just as the

understanding unifies the manifold in the object by means of concepts, so rea-

son unifies the manifold of concepts by means of ideas.

The sole object of reason is the understanding and its application. The

ideas of reason are regulative and not constitutive.8 They do not tell us about

the constitution of the objects of possible experience or give us information

about objects outside the range of human experience. Rather they regulate in

some respects our way of looking at or arranging the objects of possibleexperience. The ideas of reason (ideas such as 'God' or 'the world in general')

are indispensable, even though they sometimes give rise to the illusion

that the concepts of the understanding have their ultimate source in a real

object lying outside the field of empirically possible knowledge - "just as

objects reflected in a mirror are seen as behind it." Such an illusion is neces-

sary, Kant thinks, if we are to direct the understanding beyond every given

experience and to secure its greatest possible extension. If we consider all the

knowledgeobtained

bythe

understanding,what is

peculiarto

reasonis

itsattitude toward this knowledge. Reason prescribes and seeks the systematiza-

2. The Philosophy of History in France and Germany (London, 1874), 396-98.

3. Kant'sdistinction between regulativeand constitutive is no simple matter, and thosewho (like myself) have difficultywith this distinctionmight find T. D. Weldon's Kant'sCritique of Pure Reason (Oxford, 1958), 232-45, helpful.









tion of that knowledge, to exhibit the connection of its parts according to a

single principle. Reason presupposes a whole of knowledge, a system con-

nected according to necessary laws so that the knowledge attained by the

understanding is not seen as unrelated, contingent bits and pieces. The sys-tematic unity of the knowledge of understanding, as this is prescribed by

reason, is a logical principle. Its use is to assist the understanding, either in

the sense of helping out in cases where the understanding cannot, unaided,

establish rules, or in the sense of providing unity for those diverse rules

which the understanding can establish.

Kant believes that we presuppose not merely the unity of the concepts of

the understanding but the unity of its objects in nature as well. This latter

presupposition, according to Kant, is not to be considered as merely aneconomical contrivance useful to scientific inquiry. Such a "selfish" purpose

can easily be distinguished from the idea itself: "For in conformity with the

idea everyone presupposes that this unity of reason accords with nature itself,

and that reason - although indeed unable to determine the limits of this unity

-does not here beg but command." (Critique of Pure Reason A653 B681)

Here Flint might have interjected: "How is this a defense of Kant? Is not

this proof that Kant tended in general to think of reason not as a servant but

as a master? In the face of passages such as this, what becomes of Kant's dis-tinction between the ideas of reason as regulative and the concepts of the

understanding as constitutive?" Kant's reply would presumably be that reason

commands not only unity but also diversity: "The logical principle of genera,

which postulates identity, is balanced by another principle, namely, that of

species, which calls for manifoldness and diversity in things." (A655 B683)

The principles of manifoldness, affinity, and homogeneity are not "arbitrary"

- they possess "as synthetic a priori propositions, objective but indeterminate

validity, and serve as rules for possible experience." (A663 B691) They servein the elaboration of experience as heuristic principles; but as with all ideas

of reason, no transcendental deduction of them can be effected.

Whether we emphasize diversity or unity, we do so, Kant argues, not be-

cause we have greater insight into objects, but because of our greater or lesser

attachment to one of these two principles. Kant's own attachment is to the

principle of unity; he speaks of how the three logical principles of manifold-

ness, affinity, and homogeneity together prescribe systematic unity. Kant

writes, as thoughin

anticipationof "Flint's

Rejoinder":"The unity of reason

is the unity of system; and this systematic unity does not serve objectively as

a principle that extends the application of reason to objects, but subjectively

as a maxim that extends its application to all possible empirical knowledge

of objects. Nevertheless, since the systematic connection which reason can

give to the empirical employment of the understanding not only furthers its

extension, but also guarantees its correctness, the principle of such systematic









unity is so far also objective, but in an indeterminate manner. It is not a

constitutive principle that enables us to determinate anything in respect of its

direct object, but only a merely regulative principle and maxim, to further and

strengthen ... the empirical employment of reason. . .." (A680 B708 [Myitalics]) Reason, however, cannot think this systematic unity without giving

to the idea an object, but such an object is not a real thing.

Kant writes that the "highest formal unity, which rests solely on concepts

of reason, is the purposive unity of things. The speculative interest of reason

makes it necessary to regard all order in the world as if it had originated in

the purpose of a supreme reason. Such a principle opens out to our reason,

as applied in the field of experience, altogether new views as to how the things

of the world may be connected according to teleological laws, and so enablesit to arrive at their greatest systematic unity." If we limit ourselves to a merely

regulative use of this principle, even error cannot be very harmful: "For the

worst that can happen would be that where we expected a teleological connec-

tion we find only a mechanical or physical connection." (A688 B716) The

principle of teleology itself would not be affected by this disappointment. In

such a case we merely fail to find the additional unity; we do not destroy the

unity upon which reason insists in its empirical employment. For example, an

anatomist might be convicted of error in assigning to some organ an endwhich it can be shown not to subserve, but still it is impossible to prove in

any given case that an arrangement of nature subserves no end whatever:

"Accordingly, medical physiology extends its very limited empirical knowl-

edge of the ends served by the articulation of an organic body, by resorting to

a principle for which pure reason has alone been responsible; and it carries

this principle so far as to assume confidently, and with general approval, that

everything in an animal has its use, and subserves some good purpose."

The Kantian reply to Flint, as constructed on the basis of the Critique ofPure Reason, would then insist upon the regulative and not the constitutive

character of "the end" or "ends" of historical development; would deny that

reason is claiming to have access to objects inaccessible to the understanding

or trying to force the understandingto acknowledge the truth of propositions

which the understanding cannot itself verify; and would argue that the meta-

phors of servant and master are ordinarily inappropriate to a systematic dis-

cussion of reason and the understanding.

It is, however, possible for someone sympathetic to Flint's criticism to reply,

as W. H. Walsh does, that the principle taken for granted by the Kantian

philosopher of history is not merely formal but material as well. In his "Idea

of a Universal History," at any rate, Kant goes far beyond the Critique of

Pure Reason. In this essay Kant affirms, according to Walsh, "not merely that

there is a pattern in history but further that it is a pattern of a certain kind."









Kant tells us: "not only that history has a plot, but also, in general terms,

what that plot is"; and to the working historian this is bound to appear as a

high-handed intrusion on the part of the philosopher.4

Certainly there is a partial disanalogy between the general way in whichKant speaks of the biologist's use of teleology and of the fairly specific way

in which he proposes that this principle be applied to human history; more-

over there is a considerable difference between affirming that nature does

nothing in vain and believing that in the long run nature's child, man, does

nothing in vain - especially since man on the noumenal level is granted free

will (that is, the freedom to act contrary to natural impulse and inclination).

Is there any warrant, then, for Kant's fairly specific proposals in his "Idea

of a Universal History"? In my opinion there is some warrant for them, butour seeing this depends upon our recognizing an analogy between, on the one

hand, reason and the understanding and, on the other, philosophy and the

various sciences. Reason, by this analogy, is to the understanding what philos-

ophy is to the various empirical inquiries, including history. Reason is a help-

ful friend or ally, suggesting how to maximize the coherence and extension of

the rules of the understanding; and in emergencies it is a therapist, although

this second conception of reason's role is not as fully present in Kant's writ-

ings as is the first. Reason, as represented by the philosopher, has intrudedinto the domain of history in a way that it has not intruded into biology be-

cause of the fact that history is troubled or disturbed in a way that biology

is not.

Kant does not say much about the nature of this disorder beyond remark-

ing that posterity will surely have difficultyin digesting all the accumulated data

contained in historical records and will need some fresh point of view or prin-

ciple of selection to cope with them. However, we could on his behalf argue

that the disorder goes much deeper than this. Historians say conflicting thingsabout the logic of their discipline in a way that biologists ordinarily do not;

they debate whether their findings are "objective" and whether there are any

general laws, rules, or principles presupposed by or developed from their

inquiries. Now if, as Kant remarks in the Critique of Judgment, to explain

means to derive from a principle and if, as seems clear, historians are in doubt

as to what principles, if any, are actually used in historical explanation, the

historian's argument (as presented for him by Flint and Walsh) that he has

no need of help seems deserving of no more serious consideration than a sickman's claim that he has no need of medicine. Here, returning to what Kant

has said about reason and the understanding, is a clear case of the under-

standing's being unable either to establish rules on its own or to systematize

those rules which it has established.

4. An Introduction to the Philosophy of History (London, 1953), 127-30.








TELEOLOGY IN ICANT'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 181

There is philosophy of history in a sense in which there is no philosophy

of biology; and Kant's essay covers both of the areas generally subsumed

under the philosophy of history, that is, theory of knowledge and theory of

values. My approach throughout this paper is one which largely neglects that

dimension of Kant's philosophy of history and of his teleology which belongs

to the theory of values. I must, however, note two things about Kant's theory

of values if I am to avoid turning selectivity into distortion. First, there is

Kant's claim in both the Critique of Practical Reason and in the Critique of

Judgment that we discuss final ends, as we discuss God, from the moral point

of view. Second, there is Kant's argument in the Critique of Judgment that we

can find purposes or ends in the organized beings of nature (trees and men, as

distinct from earth and water) and that this discovery justifies us in applyingthe concept of ends to the whole of nature, although we have not the empirical

means of knowing whether this is so, and must therefore treat it as a reflective

(regulative) and not a determinant (constitutive) judgment. While we can

find ends in nature, we can find no final ends; morality, not physics, covers

the area of final ends. It is from the moral and not the scientific point of view,

according to Kant, that we are justified in treating man, as the only creature

in nature who consciously pursues certain ends, as the final end of nature.

Kant's belief is that from the point of view of nature alone, man might betreated as either end or means. What then is to be gained from the scientific

or empirical point of view, if we treat man's development as an end? This is

the question to which I must confine myself for the remainder of this essay.

In a sense Kant may be said to have taken part in the reaction against seven-

teenth-century mechanism; his reaction is, however, distinctive in that he tries

to resolve the debate between teleology and mechanism not by slighting the

empirical sciences but by trying to show that teleology and mechanism, al-though both are regulative principles, do different but necessary jobs.

Mechanism reminds us that the spatio-temporal objects of experience must

admit of indefinite analysis in terms of efficient causality. Teleology, on the

other hand, is always there: (1) to remind the mechanist that neither a blade

of grass nor the founding of a political state is fully or satisfactorily explained

on the level of efficient causality; and (2) to assist us in extending the range

and furthering the coherence of explanations on the level of efficient causality.

Teleological and mechanical explanations form, as it were, a continuum but -

since they can never be in direct competition or conflict - a continuum exist-

ing, so to speak, on two levels. As science explains more and more phenomena

on the level of efficient causality, the principle of teleology withdraws farther

and farther on its own level - but that level is always there, for no explanation

on the level of efficient causation is fully "satisfactory."

Because our model of the continuum has - however this may strain the









concept of continuum - two levels, there is never any danger that teleology in

assisting in (2), the advance of explanation on the level of efficient causation,

will be thereby preparing its own demise. But how, since our "continuum"has

two levels, can the principle of teleology assist mechanism? Kant answers thisquestion in the Critique of Judgment in his remarks about the question "What

is that for?" - a question which, as he puts it, serves as a "guiding thread" in

inquiry. Since a discussion of teleology invites somehow an endless flow of

analogies, we might say that this thread has two ends, and that if we pull one

end (the teleological) long enough and hard enough we will in time see the

other (mechanical) end.

A somewhat poetic but harmless example from ordinary life might help to

illustrate Kant's point. On a chilly night a farmer's son might ask: "Why[meaning for what] is the wind blowing so hard?" His father might reply: "So

that there will be no frost and our crops will be spared." This teleological

answer, if Kant is correct, helps the boy see the answer to another question,

that of "What does the wind do?" The wind keeps away the frost and thereby

helps protect the farmer's crops, an explanation on the level of efficient

causality. But had the farmer answered his son's question by saying: "I don't

know what the wind's blowing for," such an answer might well have delayed

his son's learning the effects of wind upon crops. One other possibility: sup-pose the farmer had said: "That's a stupid question. The wind's not blowing

for anything." Such an answer, Kant felt, would throw the burden of proof

upon the speaker - and if Kant is right it is impossible to prove a negative in

such a case. According to Kant, the question "What is that for?" is never

stupid or inappropriate. We might in some cases misapply the principle of

teleology (as, for example, if the farmer had answered his son: "So that your

mother can sew better,") but the principle itself cannot be falsified by such

mistaken applications. On the reading of Kant that I propose, his talk aboutthe purposes of nature is in some respects a harmless anthropomorphism, a

reasoning by analogy from man's purposeful pursuit of certain ends.

Take a familiar fact, the mutual antagonism of men. Look at it in this light:

What is it for? Here the historian can make moves comparable to those made

by our farmer in the above example. But suppose that he says: "It is for

nothing. The question is stupid, or metaphysical. All I know is that Napoleon,

for example, wanted one day to conquer Spain, and that on another day he

wanted to conquer Russia. I know that his desires or ambitions caused, or

helped cause, a lot of wars, and that is all I know or care about 'mutual antag-

onism'." For Kantian purposes, this man is difficult to reason with, but sup-

pose that another, more reflective, historian has been standing by, and that

he replies to the first historian: "But could we not say that the Napoleonic

Wars, by exhausting and disgusting Europeans, paved the way for one of

the longest periods of peace in European history and provided, for a time









at least, for a greater cooperation of European states? And could not we also

say that Napoleon, influenced as he was to some extent by the ideals of the

Revolution, may have made war to make peace, to impose a just, stable, and

uniform civil authority upon all of Europe?" Our second historian has donetwo things: (1) on the level of teleology or ends, he has considered the

effects of the Napoleonic Wars - and as a matter of fact these effects are in a

general way in accord with Kant's remarks, made before the Napoleonic

Wars, about the effects of war as a species of mutual antagonism; and (2)

by considering seriously Kant's "What is this for?" he has seen Napoleon's

motives in a new light. Instead of finding in Napoleon a random and capricious

lust for power, he sees a desire for a unified, orderly European federation or

state. He may be wrong, but at least he has an hypothesis for further investiga-tion which the anti-teleological historian has, presumably, overlooked.

I think that the most hardened anti-teleologists would ultimately concede

that Kant's "guiding thread" might lead us to intelligent answers to questions

about efficient causes, if for no other reason than that "stupid" questions may

lead to intelligent answers. Yet, at least where man is concerned, the firmest

anti-teleologists (Isaiah Berlin, for example) insist that a mechanical (physi-

cal, economic, or psychological) explanation of human behavior is incomplete

precisely because it neglects conscious human purposes and actions done withan end in view. So the anti-teleologists are usually hostile not to the concept

of ends (conceived as objects of human desires and intentions) but to the

concept of ends apart from human purposes and desires. Reading teleologists

all too literally, they themselves in effect "reify" God or Nature, forgetting

to treat them, as Kant would, as objects of an idea of reason; and they then

resist strenuously a move that Kant, at least, did not make: the argument that

this real God or Nature has purposes or ends for man that it will impose upon

him in the course of time and that the philosopher can, apart from all ex-perience, determine what these purposes or ends are.

Thus far we have supposed the anti-teleologists to concede, however

reluctantly, that the question, "What is it for?"might lead indirectly to answers

to questions on the level of efficient causation (assuming that motives, in-

tentions, and purposes can be efficient causes). By projecting human purposes

onto nature we can sometimes throw, by way of reflection, some additional

light back onto human purposes. But what about the question "What is that

for?" considered in its own right, and not as a crutch or research guide for theworking historian? Can this tell us anything about the direction of human

history, as distinct from its sources (its sources being, in Kant's view, ambition,

jealousy, vanity, and other passions)? There is, I think, nothing alarmingly

visionary in Kant's belief that in the long run a species will most fully develop

those capacities distinctly its own. A rational species will become more, not

less, rational; in his struggles with other species and with himself man has









this advantage, that he can learn from experience, that he can consciously set

himself goals and decide upon means he considers appropriate thereto - and

that he can read Kant's "Idea of a Universal History."

At any given moment in history there will be available a large number of"clues" or "threads" to history, all of which have some evidence in their

favor, as to the direction which history will take. In calling our attention to

those pieces of evidence that point to man's rational and moral advance

under an ever-expanding civil society, Kant is, without apologies, recommend-

ing that we take steps to see that the future will be like certain parts of the

past, in the sense of being an extension of them. This is history written from the

moral point of view, and when Kant speaks of the "inevitability" of a federa-

tion of states he appears in part at least to be speaking of the moral necessityof such a federation. Does, however, Kant's moral optimism concerning the

final end of human struggles and his moral use of words like "inevitable"

make him, to use Popper's terminology, an historicist, that is, one given to

unconditional and hence unscientific predictions about the course of human

events? This is a difficult question to answer. It is easy enough to mistake

Kant's moral optimism about the future for a pseudo-scientific prophecy.

On the other hand, by attending to Kant's distinction between constitutive

and regulative principles and his conviction that we can speak of final endsonly from the moral point of view, we might wish to deny altogether the

relevance of a criticism of Kant's essay similar to Popper's criticism of his-

toricism. But then what becomes of some of the misgivings expressed by

Flint and Walsh?

Distinctions are in order, but they are difficult to make with any great

assurance. The principle of teleology, when final ends are under consideration,

shades off into morality; and, when efficient causes are being considered and

the understandinghas difficulty in making progress, it shades off into science,

at least in the sense of "guiding"the understanding. We must, I think, recog-

nize that Kant as a teleologist may be playing any of three roles; the fact that

he may be playing them separately or together adds to our difficulties. In

speaking of ends, he may be speaking as a moralist, as a philosopher of science

(or history), or as a scientist (or historian). Generally in his first and third

capacities he seems to be saying, roughly, the same thing, namely that the end

of human history is a federation of states. As moralist, he considers this

to be a final end, and as moralist he is immune from Popper-like criticisms.

As historian, he considers this kind of organization to be a natural end of an

organized being such as man; he offers historical evidence that this is the

direction in which history is moving, but he does not take seriously the possi-

bility that this movement may, under certain conditions, be stopped cold, that

the mutual antagonism of men may, for example, get out of hand and blow

us all up. There is moreover a serious ambivalence in Kant's conception of









the part mutual antagonism will play in bringing about a universal civil society.

In his "Idea of a Universal History" he seems sometimes to think that mutual

antagonism can by itself realize this state of affairs and at some other times

to think that philosophical reflection and moral exhortation might also beneeded.

There is no question but that, as Flint and Walsh have complained, Kant

did at times go beyond the philosophy of science and the recommendation

that the historian try to apply the principle of teleology to his data. Kant

has tried, in a tentative and modest way, to show how this application might

be effected. If, however, his suggested application fails, then he can always

withdraw from the fray and return to his primary roles as moral philosopher

and philosopher of science with the principle of teleology intact and unaffectedby his failure to apply it convincingly in the historical realm.

Rice University

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Wilkins Teleology in Kant's Philosophy of History

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