ABSTRACT
Kant wrote that the world-historical significance of the French Revolution resided not in the immediate reality of the events in Paris, but in the enthusiasm this passionate attempt to realize freedom aroused in the eyes of the impassive observers composed of the educated, enlightened public in France and all around Europe. The actual events in Paris may have been horrifying, propelled by the most repulsive passions, yet the effects of these events on the enlightened public throughout Europe bear witness to the tendency towards freedom as an anthropological and world-historical fact. For Kant what mattered in such an historical moment
is simply the mode of thinking of the spectators which reveals itself publicly in this game of great revolutions, and manifests such a universal yet disinterested sympathy for the players on one side against those on the other, even at the risk that this partiality could become very disadvanteous for them if discovered, owing to this universality.1
