European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

THE ETHICAL DIMENSION IN EUROPEAN IDENTITY 301we dare to “tell history” with some sense? Historia magistra vitae, saidthe classical thinkers, but which lesson does history enclose? Whatcould be said about human life contemplated in this total time framewhich encloses the entire series of generations and contains all humanworks? 5With these questions Kant looks for the ability to make historicalreason, the historical reason of a human civitas - since history before usis not civitas Dei. Kant proceeds to totalise history with a cosmopolitanperspective, i.e. considering the totality of individuals of the species inthe unity of history’s “forum” of the one history (allow me the redundancy).And one more step, he goes on to look for the understanding of humanactions —so disparate and ridiculous, so opposed among them and sodiversely oriented— under the hypothesis that the whole has a unity ofdesign, that it follows a plan of nature about the rational being as aspecies; so despite all difficulties, the sense, the aim, or the limits of amarch can be evidenced. A march protagonized by man according to aplan which is one vis a tergo, but one which does not stop being themarch of human freedom.With this, Kant wants critical reason, in view of historical reason, topromote political action as conscious pursuit of historical logic.That plan is none other than the development of all dispositionsenclosed in reason, the sole means man possesses —reason— toobtain any happiness or perfection from its nature. But there is more:the complete development of the dispositions of reason is beyond thelimits of any individual life, it is an issue concerning the species; i.e. it issomething that is carried out counting on those it finds in its currentpath, on the legacy of the past, and with a future perspective in mind.But there is still something more: the development of dispositions isalways preceded by antagonism between the latter in society. Such isthe foundational picture of the human creature in Kant’s description: apicture with traces of biblical accounts, of the myth of Prometheus andof Christian glad tidings.The subject of history is indeed a complicated and rare creature,more than due to the initial nature of its destination (an emancipated5I remember that Kant suggests here, as in the rest of the areas integrating culture,that the discourse known as “history” should constitute scientific knowledge. Cf. in themost relevant piece of work in this regard —Idea of a Universal History with aCosmopolitan Sense (1784)— his expectations regarding a sudden new Kepler, or anew Newton, who may transform the way historical knowledge is constructed. Theirreflections, strictly philosophical as they are, simply try to prepare the ground forproving the formulation of principles that can put such work in motion.