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Kantian Journal

2025 Vol. 44. №4

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Kornienko A. G.

The Experience of Modernity from the Kantian Perspective

DOI
10.5922/0207-6918-2025-4-4
Pages
92-117
Kant Foucault enlightenment modernity epistemic autonomy heroisation of the present common sense

Abstract

In this article, I attempt to reconstruct Kant’s enlightenment project, viewed as a complex phenomenon which combines various programmatic principles of all three Critiques, and which offers a special perspective on the perception of modernity. I have chosen, as the lens for my analysis, the interpretation of Michel Foucault, who presents Kant’s project as a phased transition from philosophical critique to political pragmatics. Following the path charted by Foucault, I analyse a number of ideas developed by Kant within the framework of his critical philosophy, which laid the theoretical foundations for subsequent implementations of his enlightenment project in daily political practices. The first part of my study examines the concept of epistemic autonomy as a prerequisite of legitimate governance, first of oneself, and then of others. The second part analyses the experience of ‘heroisation of the present’, which determines people’s attitudes toward their historical epoch. The third part explores the concept of ‘common sense’ as the basis of the political mechanism that makes agreement possible among citizens with respect to social issues. I arrive at conclusions which present the perception of modernity, in the context of Kant’s enlightenment project, as the experience of existence within a special historical space that is open not only to critique but also to action and dialogue, and in which the three Kantian Critiques appear as mutually complementary aspects of a single critique of the present moment in modern discourse.

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