A Term Unseen, Unheard, Unspoken
Developing a Minor Kant approach to Die Religion
Keywords:
Radicality, Evil, Arendt, KantAbstract
This paper investigates the possibility of an alternative reading Kant’s first text from Die Religion Innerhalb Der Grenzen Der Bloßen Vernunft (1793 Über Das Radicale Böse In Der Menschliche Natur. We argue that an approach which centres the ‘radical’ term in Kant’s argument, rather than treating the text within established ethical boundaries, is possible. We show how the assumption that Kant ‘meant nothing’ with the term Radical is grounded in a ‘common sense’ which is, at least partly, due to the history of the text’s reception in the 20th century, spearheaded by Hannah Arendt. However, through the lens of Hardt and Negri’s ‘minor Kant’ dictum, the space opens up for a hypothetical, rather than deductive construction of the text instead; meaning that, rather than defending a particular thesis, Über Das Radical Böse is tracing the consequences of a particular conceptual construction. This reading presents us with a potential Kantian account of radicality itself. As a result, we argue that perhaps, rather than continuing to treat the radicality of evil as something commonly understood, an external demand which Kant must account for, Die Religion could be deployed as a way to challenge our contemporary understanding of radicality itself.
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