Search

The Seventh Immanuel Kant International Summer School devoted to the themes of enthusiasm and history in Kantian philosophy was held in Kaliningrad from 28 July to 5 August 2025. Organised by the Academia Kantiana at the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, the Petersburg Dialogue and the Sochi Dialogue Forums, it was addressed to budding scholars, i.e. undergraduate and post-graduate students and young doctors. The lectures of the School’s scientific supervisor, Vadim A. Chaly, and the discussions...

The article presents an overview of the history of the establishment of higher medical education (from the stage of its planning to the first graduation of physicians) within the framework of a classical university — Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University in the Kaliningrad Region, an exclave territory of the Russian Federation. The retrospective and analysis highlight the relevance and urgency of the problem of physician, nurse, and paramedic shortages in the Kaliningrad Region during the 2000s...

This article assesses the role of Immanuel Kant’s ideas in the historical philosophy of Gustav Shpet (1879—1937). This theme has been largely ignored by Shpet scholars who have concentrated on comparing his logical-methodological theories with the ideas of representatives of phenomenology (E. Husserl, R. Ingarden and others) and hermeneutics (F. Schleiermacher, W. Dilthey, H. Lipps, H.-G. Gadamer and others). Accordingly, the authors consistently reconstruct “the sphere of conversation” within which...

The origins in Marxist-Leninist philosophy of the dogma about Kant as the German theorist of the French Revolution requires some analysis and I explain how a phrase of Marx later gave rise to the dogma. I first look at the sources that influenced K. Marx’s view of Kant and the French Revolution, above all С. F. Bachmann and H. Heine. I then examine the form in which Kant’s philosophy was compared with the French Revolution in the non-Bolshevik milieu before the 1917 Russian Revolution (P. Ya. Chaadayev...

The hypothetical approach to the supersensible developed by Kant in his three Critiques, exemplified by his analysis of the aesthetic and reflective judgment in his third Critique, with their principle fortuitous purposiveness, can be considered as the basis for a new foundation of metaphysics. According to Kant’s limitation of cognition to the realm of sense intuition, theoretical knowledge of God, the subject, things-in-themselves, transcendental ideas is impossible. This leads to a kind of “negative...

An unrecognised copy (1665) in Kant’s private library of Michael Piccart’s Isagoge (1605), an introduction to the system of Aristotelian philosophy together with Kant’s own remarks on this author (Refl 4160, AA 17, p. 439) can be established as an original source for the Kantian ‘ideosphere’. First, I point out contexts and consequences of Piccart’s Altdorfian Aristotelianism, in contrast to the Königsbergian Aristotelianism (emphasised by Tonelli’s research). To further check the quality of Piccart...

n this article, which completes a two-part series on the problem of optimism in Kant’s works, I explore in detail the arguments advanced by the Crusians A. F. Reinhard and D. Weymann against the actual world as the best of all possible worlds and in favour of the actual world as one of the good worlds, Kant’s counterarguments put forward in the mid-1750s drafts and in An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism (1759), and further polemical attacks on this topic against Kant by D. Weymann in his works...

Heiko Puls’ work Sittliches Bewusstsein und Kategorischer Imperativ in Kants Grundlegung: Ein Kommentar zum dritten Abschnitt, presents an attempt to show that, in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant’s argumentation for the objective value of the categorical imperative is almost based upon the same principle as the one presented in the second Critique. More precisely, Puls claims that, like in the Critique of Practical Reason, the Groundwork operates with some kind of fact of reason-theory...

Kant’s deduction of the Christian doctrine of justification, respectively the doctrine of grace, leads to the question in what sense philosophy can deal with God’s grace without falsely replacing it with its own arguments. Kant’s answer (a) is that the imputation of evil without attempt to justify it by means of one’s own resources requires thinking of God as the external judge in the internal court of justice, respectively as one’s conscience. This reference to God implies that one makes oneself...

The starting point of my study is Kant’s remark to the effect that Garve in his treatise on the connection between morality and politics presents arguments in defence of unjust principles. Recognition of these principles is, according to Kant, an inadvisable concession to those who are inclined to abuse it. I interpret this judgement by making a detailed comparison of the texts of the two treatises. I demonstrate that Garve’s work is an eclectic attempt to combine in one concept the lessons of historical...

The article is meant for teachers and everyone interested in the problems of upbringing and self-upbringing. The major incentive for all works of the great scientists was the desire to reveal the extent of possibility and necessity of dignity for a person pursuing their vocation. Kant showed the world as the world should be in accordance to the sensible disposition of the human being. The author analyses the main concepts of Kant's rational ethics and attempts to classify his pedagogical ideas, which...

The article broaches the issue of Kant’s claim of the enlightenment of the philosophizing subject by tracing his criticism of philosophical enthusiasm (“Schwärmerei”). For Kant intellectual intuition (“intellektuelle Anschauung”) serves in case of philosophical enthusiasm as a reason for the justification of philosophical knowledge. This determination is a threat for his project of enlightenment, because it entices the philosophizing subject to contradict the maxim of self-thinking. In order to show...

Kant’s treatises on political problems form a loosely structured text corpus. However, due to its passionate polemic, it can be rewritten in the form of dialogues. The most dramatic instalment is the authoritative treatise Toward Perpetual Peace, which is full of memorable phrases that used to excite the very first readers. Kant’s opponents are both concrete authors — either living or dead contemporaries (Garve, Mendesohn, Frederick the Great) — and generalised characters representing entire classes...

Based on earlier unknown or poorly studied archival documents, this article reconstructs the post-war history of the 14th century Königsberg Cathedral and the tomb of philosopher Immanuel Kant in former Kneiphof. The study investigates the authorities’ and general public’s attitudes towards this monuments. Throughout the Soviet period until the beginning of Perestroika, the local Communist party and state authorities attempted to demolish the ruins of the Cathedral, which was damaged during the war...

The legends about dinner parties of Immanuel Kant’s friends have been known since the times of his first biographers and other contemporaries. However, there were other communities of friends in Königsberg. Gathering friends at a dining table for the purpose of intellectual communication became a tradition in Königsberg in the 17th/18th centuries. This tradition created a sub-system of creative communication and leisure bringing together both nobility and aristocracy and ordinary curious citizens...

The originality of Kant’s answer to the question of the Enlightenment in a 1784 article consisted not in addressing the words of Horace, which was commonplace in Germany of the time, but in linking it to the revised legal notion of immaturity, which is now interpreted from the philosophical and theological perspective and has become one of key philosophical notions. However, Kant’s view is fraught with certain complications: firstly, it is dominated by negative characteristics; secondly, unlimited...

The essay is dedicated to the fate of the valuable Kant-related collections and manuscripts from the library of Tartu University, which, in 1895, were transported to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin for the publication of Kant's complete works and did not return to Tartu and escaped the notice of researchers for a long time. 1. Архив научной библиотеки Тартуского университета. Ф. 4. Оп. 1. Ед. хр. 982. 2. Блюм В. Р., Танклер Х. Л. Автографы философов в научной библиотеке Тартуского университета...

With its exclave status, the Kaliningrad region has been drawing attention of many researchers in different fields. Yet the prospects for cooperation between the region and neighbouring communities in Poland and Lithuania, which once constituted an integrated social, economic and political space, remain unclear. Media analysts and scholars alike tend to view the Kaliningrad region as “double periphery”, since it is excluded from major modernisation processes both in the European integration zone...

Kant scholars traditionally trace the origin of Kant’s doctrine of revolution in the disposition to the Pietist teaching on a new birth whose main tenets are most fully set forth in the programmatic works of its founder, Philipp Jakob Spener. However, in spite of some similarities between these teachings there are important differences between them. Chief of them is Kant’s characteristic reduction of the usefulness of religion to its impact on the moral sphere and the search for the possibility of...

The key commemorative practices associated with the name of I. Kant in the Kaliningrad region during the post-Soviet period have been examined in the article. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, due to the growing interest in the pre-war history of the region, there was an expansion of the landscape of “places of memory” related to and associated with Kant. This resulted in the establishment of the philosopher’s image in the cultural memory of the residents of Kaliningrad as a “local” historical figure...

The article is dedicated to summarizing the results of the inventory of the plant collection at the Botanical Garden of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (IKBFU). Over the past 20 years, the taxonomic composition has nearly doubled. New collection sections have been created (for fruit plants, magnolias, lilacs, rhododendrons, medicinal plants, and others), and the reconstruction of the greenhouse collection has significantly enriched the assortment of tropical, subtropical, and arid plants...

The letters of S. I. Hessen and I. I. Lapshin, two Russian Neo-Kantian philosophers, were written in the early post-war years. These letters bear witness to the later period in the life and work of their authors, a period of hardship, tragic losses and hopes. Both philosophers were deeply embedded in the intellectual landscape of Russian emigration. They were also known and valued by their peers in the countries that gave them refuge, Poland and Czechoslovakia, where they not only published their...

The archive of Gustav Shpet contains scattered preparatory materials for his “Lectures on the Theory of Cognition” and his major philosophical work History as a Problem of Logic. Some of these handwritten rough notes are devoted to Kant, indeed some of them have already seen the light of day in the “Kant­ian Journal” (2022, № 3). The notes published below continue to acquaint the reader with Shpet’s creative laboratory. His method of work with the concepts and ideas is instructive in that it enables...

The relation between Kant’s philosophy and the “philosophy of balance” as it is described in the report Come on! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destruction of the Planet, delivered to the Club of Rome in 2018, requires some analysis. The authors of the report consider Kant to be a philosopher of European Enlightenment which laid the foundations of the modern world, but also proved to be the source of global problems. The report characterises the philosophy of the Enlightenment as lop-sided...

The movement for the revival of the Scholastic tradition (Neo-Scholasticism) was a reaction to devastating criticism by the representatives of Enlightenment which led to the destruction of traditional metaphysics and of epistemological optimism, the two pillars of European religious philosophy. Reception of Kantian ideas in Neo-Scholasticism varied from total rejection to its use in renewing the philosophical foundation of religious philosophy. In this regard the legacy of the Polotsk Jesuit Academy...

Although Kant was born three hundred years ago, his practical philosophy is still relevant and helpful for understanding difficult and crucial issues of today. One example is the strange transformation the concept of human dignity has undergone in post-Soviet Russia — in everyday language, in ideological doctrines, and in legal documents. While in ordinary life dignity is increasingly reduced to access to material benefits, in its legal sense — above all in the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation...

Altashina, V. D., 2012. From a ‘Weak Heddle’ to a ‘Thinking Reed’: On the History of Translations of Pascal’s Thoughts. Review RHGA, 13(4), pp. 105-112. (In Rus.) Cassirer, E., 1981. Kant’s Life and Thought. Translated by J. Haden; introduction by S. Körner. New Haven: Yale University Press. Hegel, G. W. F., 1995. Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Volume 3: Medieval and Modern Philosophy. Translated by E. S. Haldane and F. H. Simson; Introduction by F. C. Beiser. Lincoln: University of Nebraska...

This research aims to present a coherent analysis of so-called “doctrinal hermeneutics” by examining notable passages from Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment. It is first shown that doctrinal hermeneutics essentially relies on symbolic hypotyposis, which can be understood as thinking by analogy supplemented with a reference to intuition. Here, both an historical and a contemporary interpretation inform the reconstruction of what Kant understands by...

Kant’s treatise “The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures” has logical, epistemological, and cognitive-psychological implications. These three perspectives on his conclusions are practically undifferentiated. The first part of this article discusses the logical and ontological-gnoseological content of the treatise in order to reveal the prerequisites for the cognitive interpretation of syllogisms. The second part is an attempt to explicate the treatise’s cognitive content, i.e. a systemic...

This article examines the attempts of many libertarian philosophers to justify the self-ownership principle using the second formulation of the categorical imperative. It begins by reconstructing the self-ownership principle, according to which each person has a natural property right over her body and person. There are many versions of this principle, each recognizing a different set of such property rights; but what all formulations have in common is their radical anti-paternalism and, consequently...

Based on the analysis of the data from a mass survey of the population of the Kaliningrad region conducted in 2023, a preliminary hypothesis is proposed regarding the specifics of the regional variant of the “pantheon of heroes” — an important structural element of the cultural memory of Kaliningrad residents. Peter the Great (across all age groups), Joseph Stalin, and Catherine II possess the greatest potential as “symbols of Russia,” whose activities respondents generally evaluate positively. At...

This article discusses the potential of the linguistic persona theory in the linguistic studies of Kant’s texts. Linguistic Kant studies is a scientific discipline focusing on the language of Kant's works. Such a study can be either independent or integrated int a logicalphilosophical analysis. The author emphasizes Kant’s contribution to the German philosophical and scientific discourse of the Enlightenment and summarizes current findings on the philosopher’s style and language. It is shown that...

In his “Letters of a Russian Traveller” Karamzin left a detailed account of his visit to I. Kant in Königsberg on June 18, 1789. Published in 1791, his report is important as the first printed mentioning of Kant in Russian. Karamzin was looking forward to meet J. K. Lavater in Zürich, with whom he had already corresponded for three years, but Kant warned him of Lavater’s excessive imagination, which let him believe in dreams and magnetism. Lavater’s ‘Schwärmerei’ was above all attacked by the publishers...

Kant’s turn to the subject has changed the epistemological conditions for theology. Four intellectual backgrounds of objections are examined: an Aristotelian and Thomistic teleological order of nature (1); Augustinianism based on original sin in which human agency is completely attributed to God’s grace (2); a Hegelian critique of the deontological conception of an “unconditional ought” which also puts Kant’s postulate of the existence of God into question (3); the combination in Radical Orthodoxy...

This review covers the content of reports and discussions at the 12th Kant Readings Conference held in April 2019 and organised by the research unit of the Academia Kantiana of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad. Traditionally, Kant Readings have been thematically universal, embracing all the areas of Kant’s legacy. This time the conference focused on practical philosophy, i.e. the historical grounds and modern significance of Kant’s ethical thought as compared to other philosophical...

The aim is to examine Alois Riehl’s contribution to the “culture war” (Kulturkampf) in the second half of the nineteenth century. We show that he used Kant’s autonomy principle to argue against the idea that religious dogmatism is a fundament of morality. We prove this thesis by focusing on the forgotten historical background, which is important for an understanding of Morals und Dogma. Originally this essay was an expert opinion for the court case of the socialist H. Tauschinski who was accused...

This article tells how Kant's deathmask ended up in the Museum of Classical Antiquities of the University of Tartu. 1. Столович Л. Н. О судьбе тартуской кантианы // Кантовский сборник. 2008.1(27). С. 94—108. 2. Glasen K. H. Kant-Bildnisse. Königsberg, 1924. 3. Immanuel Kant: sein Leben in Darstellungen von Zeitgenossen. Die Biographien von L. E. Borowski, R. B. Jachmann und E. A.Ch. Wasianski. Mit einer Einleitung von Rudolf Malter. Neudruck der Ausgabe Berlin 1912. Deutsche Bibliothek. Bd...

1. Асмус В. Ф. Религиозно-философские трактаты Л. Н. Толстого // Толстой Л. Н. Полн. собр. соч. Репринт. воспроизведение изд. 1928—1958 гг. М., 1992. Т. 23. С. V—XXXI. 2. Бердяев Н. А. Русская идея // Вопросы философии. 1990. № 2. С. 87—154. 3. Бердяев Н. А. Новое Средневековье. Размышление о судьбе России и Европы // Философия творчества, культуры и искусства : в 2 т. М., 1994. Т. 1. С. 406—464. 4. Булгаков С. Н. Свет невечерний. М., 1994. 5. Гадамер Х.-Г. Истина и метод. Основы философской герменевтики...

The article examines the following problems: 1) How well-founded is the comparison of the ideas of Kant’s essay «Towards Perpetual Peace», written in late XVIII century, with the implementation of nowadays project of European Union 2) If such parallels are possible, to what extent the structure of the EU corresponds to Kant’s vision? 3) Which Kantian ideas are of the foremost importance to future development of the EU? Basing on the analysis of Kant’s treatise and of the current structure of the...

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the notion of optimism as it was interpreted by the Königsbergian philosopher in the mid-18th century. The notion originates from Leibniz’s Theodi­cy and from debates over whether the actual world is the best of all possible worlds. The first of a two-part series, this article studies the historical context in which appeared Kant’s 1759 lecture advertisement leaflet entitled An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism. The study describes the requirements of the...

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the content, meaning, and scenarios of applying the transcendental principles of public law formulated in the second appendix to Kant’s treatise Toward Perpetual Peace. The author compares different interpretations of these principles by Russian and international researchers. The article strives to answer the question as to what type of ‘public’ is meant by these principles, whether these principles can serve as a priori criteria for selecting maxims...

Natural Law Notes of Feyerabend is one of the most important sources by the research of ethical and juridical views of Kant. Dating back to 1784 they distinctly demonstrate that the basic principles of Kant’s philosophy of right are not a late production of the philosopher, but they have been formed already in the middle of 80’s of 18th century. Therewith we can use this lectures notes for the studies of Kant’s moral philosophy too, because of their closeness to the Foundations of Metaphysics of...

The tragedy Boris Godunov occupies a unique place in A. S. Pushkin’s oeuvre. It was a turning point, when the author needed the whole power of his poetical genius, when a work beyond traditional literary and aesthetic styles, which interchange and establish a canon of a new style that transforms its predecessors in an act of creativity, appeared in Russian culture. Boris Godunov marked the birth of an individual author’s style in Russian art. A unique literary world — the world of Pushkin — manifested...

The lectures on natural law delivered by Kant in the winter semester of 1784/85 have recently attracted increasing attention from Kant scholars. Dating back to the 1780s, they elucidate a number of important aspects in the genesis of Kant’s practical philosophy. Firstly, this relates to the formation of the Königsberg philosopher’s views on law. However, the lecture notes (especially the introduction) are of equal importance to understanding certain problems of Kant’s ethical concept and interpretation...

This article focuses on the interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s political views in V. Gerhardt’s “existential liberalism”. The author considers the basic elements of the “theory of politics” presented in this interpretation, emphasises the components of interpretation per se and additional reception, and offers a critical analysis of certain conclusion from the general point of view of contemporary discussion on Kant’s political works. 1. Винокуров Е. Ю. На пути к вечному миру: философия Канта в современных...