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Kantian Journal

2025 Vol. 44. №2

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Krouglov A. N

Gustav Shpet’s Critique of Kant’s “History”

DOI
10.5922/0207-6918-2025-2-3
Pages
61-75
history historical science a priori history methodology of history Shpet Kant Herder

Abstract

In his 1916 book, History as a Problem of Logic, Gustav Shpet undertakes the task of reconstructing the whole Kantian conception of history, previously scattered in various articles and minor works of the critical period. He builds the reconstruction around Kant’s Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective, with a focus on the a priori ‘thread’ in history and not empirical history. Shpet’s general assessment of Kant’s contribution to the development of historical science is sharply negative: Kantianism is hostile to historicity, and it hinders the development of history as a science. An undeniable merit of Shpet’s investigation is that he demonstrates the historical context of Kant’s views — to which end he brings in the works of Christian Wolff, Christian August Crusius, Georg Friedrich Meier, Johann Gottfried Herder, and other European thinkers — analysing, as well, the Kantian concept of mankind (Menschheit). But Shpet does not clearly distinguish Kant’s conception of history as an historical process (Geschichte), and historical science. Further, he pays insufficient attention to Kant’s ethical treatises in clarifying his views on history and its goals.


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