ABSTRACT
Kant’s essay, ‘What is Enlightenment?’ seems to me to introduce a new type of question into the field of philosophical reflexion. Of course it is certainly not the first text in the history of philosophy, nor indeed the only one of Kant’s writings, which takes as its theme a question concerning history. One finds texts by Kant which address to history a question of origin: the essay on the beginnings of history itself, the essay on the definition of the concept of race; other pieces address to history the question of its fulfilment: thus, in this same year of 1784, ‘The Idea of a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View’. Lastly there are other writings which consider the inner finality which organises historical processes, such as the text concerning the use of teleological principles. All these questions, which are moreover closely interrelated, can be found running through Kant’s analyses concerning history. It seems to me that the text on Aufklärung is rather different; at any rate, it does not directly pose any of these questions, neither that of origin nor, despite appearances, that of completion, and it poses only in a relatively discreet, almost lateral manner the question of the teleology immanent in the very process of history.
