Abstract

This essay shows that according to Kant the philosophy of history is a division of physical teleology, which only meaning is to be a confirmation of the moral (juridical) teleology which grounds and seeks in the physical world a natural grounding for the standpoint of ends (peace) which nature itself is always powerless to bring about. The teleology of freedom seeks in the teleology of nature grounds for hope and its actual achievement, yet without ever filling the void of the separation that prohibits all natural accomplishment of right. That explains the effects of rupture one can find in the Kantian texts, and which are only a problem for the continuist reading which is here refused. Finally, it is shown that genuine historical events consist rather in that which within history cannot knowingly be deduced from history, because they precisely escape from the natural world that is their invariable context.