Although it may seem unlikely,

Although it may seem unlikely, even extraordinary, it happened that in 1785 at 3:32 pm on August 12th while on his daily walk Immanuel Kant encountered a copy of Flaubert’s novel Madame Bovary lying on the sidewalk directly in his path.  Kant was famous for setting out to walk at precisely the same time each day. His neighbors said that they could set their clocks by observing the time at which he passed their houses. One could conjecture Kant’s incredible precision in passing through the same space at exactly the same  time repeatedly may have accounted in some way for an object from the future falling directly into his path. For indeed, the copy of Madame Bovary that Kant picked up was in fact dropped by a university student mirroring Kant’s path on August 12, 2013 at precisely 3:32 pm. His name was Johannes Friedenberg. He disliked the book and was glad to be rid of it when it mysteriously disappeared. During the evening of  August 12th, 1785 Kant sat in his favorite chair and read the time-traveled copy of Madame Bovary.

During the year before this occurrence, 1784, Kant had thought a great deal about historical progress. In his writings he had expressed hope that with the passage of time the society he lived in would become more mature, more enlightened. 

In an essay that year - Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?" he wrote:

                                                  

As history progressed “man's (natural) inclination and vocation to think freely (would) influence(s) the principles of governments, which find that they can themselves profit by treating man, who is more than a machine, in a manner appropriate to his dignity.”

As always, Kant was interested in finding Universal principles. Progress, he thought, was an attribute of Nature itself.  In “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” Kant expressed his optimism about the future as follows:

FIRST THESIS

All natural capacities of a creature are destined to evolve completely to their natural end.
SECOND THESIS 

In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.

EIGHTH THESIS 

The history of mankind can be seen, in the large, as the realization of Nature’s secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end.

As he read Madame Bovary,  Kant tested each thesis against the development of events in the novel.

Flaubert presents his characters in a specific time and place that exists decades ahead of Kant’s reading. They use inventions and act within the manners of their period that are different from Kant’s time but obviously a natural evolution from his period, thus supporting Thesis One.

Flaubert’s intention was to portray his characters realistically, ruthlessly. His goal was to write his cast of characters into full existence by describing them in the clearest, most resonant images possible.  Kant was amazed by the writer’s craft but concluded that none of Flaubert’s characters in any way have their author’s sympathy. Flaubert had left any feelings of pity, compassion, or disgust to his readers discretion. This disturbed Kant he, like young Johannes centuries later, greatly disliked the book. He frankly wished that he had never encountered any of these people. However, the book was, without question, supporting evidence for Thesis Two.

On the morning of August 13th, at 1:32 am, Immanuel Kant was awakened from his sleep either by a cramp in his foot or by a mildly unpleasant dream. It began with the scratching of his pen as he wrote Thesis Eight slowly word-by-word, and then images of each of Flaubert’s country citizens flashed briefly before him. How could these people be anything but a barrier to Nature’s goal? They seem to be committed to ignoring the capacity for reason with which Nature had endowed them! Unpleasant as these French folk may be, Kant remained committed to Thesis Eight, remembering that he had written as proof of the thesis:

                                

“The only question is: Does Nature reveal anything of a path to this end? And I say: She reveals something, but very little. This great revolution seems to require so long for its completion...”

                                

Comforted by his thoughts, Kant brewed a cup of camomile tea for himself, massaged his aching foot, rinsed his cup, put it on the shelf and went back to bed.

Kant,"What is Enlightenment?"(1784) 

Kant, Idea for a Universal History (1784) 

Flaubert, Madame Bovary (1856)     

                                

                   

Kant & Rousseau

I understand Kant. I’ve always been comfortable with him. Kant recognized man’s ignoble, lazy, cowardly, savage nature and urged education, discipline, logic, and long and careful thought before action. He was mildly optimistic. Only a few would “Dare to be wise.” But under the right conditions – a wise prince who allowed freedom of thought and speech, but at the same time insist that the law be obeyed – the number of the enlightened might gradually increase. A system of government based on reason could emerge. The first criteria would be:
                         
“To test whether any particular measure can be agreed upon as a law for a people, we need only ask whether a people could well impose such a law upon itself.”                                  
- An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?"
   
Kant was cautious. The Prince who allowed freedom of thought and speech would also require a strong army to slow down the pace of change. “Argue as much as you like and about whatever you like, but obey!” Eventually, enlightenment and reason would grow and the population would be truly free.
       
I’ve never been comfortable with Rousseau. He lamented the loss of an innocent savage that never existed. We’ve discovered too many million-year-old skulls smashed in by  rocks to believe that one. He admitted that civilization must be endured, but raged against its complexity, longed for simpler, more honest days. Rousseau’s repeated claims that all was better in the cities of the past rings false to anyone who has read the Iliad or watched a BBC historical drama. We are what we are and always have been - an ape with a big brain.

Emotional, restless, never wholly satisfied with his present condition, he wandered through Europe and through life, conversing with Europe’s best minds, and then breaking  with them over trifles.  Rousseau recognized that something beneath the surface of the mind, something of great value is somehow injured by civilization.  If he could not heal his wounds, perhaps he could expose them with a brutal honesty, refusing to deny that they are there. Honesty that could only be approached by letting the passionate forces that lie beneath escape unrestrained. Manners, politeness, even the formalities required for the arts and for science all led to corruption and deceit. He advised communion with nature and a return to simple life practicing useful skills as a path to virtue. Advice he didn’t himself take.

Think about this – What if you could  spend an hour with a genius who influenced the course of intellectual and political history? Personally, I’d like to spend that hour with Kant. It would be an amiable time well spent. I would share with him that during my thirty-two years as a middle school teacher his imperative that we treat every person as an end in his or her self and no one as a means to an end appeared on my board at least a hundred times, and that do we determine a universal law was often the theme of my lessons.

I wouldn’t want to spent five minutes with Rousseau. Rousseau’s arguments against philosophers, painters, and poets sound petty and whining to my ears. The passage below in which he identifies himself as a common man seems particularly paradoxical. Denying his role as a philosopher and international figure of renown, he gives advice about not taking advice:


As for us, common men to whom heaven has not allotted such great talents and destined for so much glory, let us remain in our obscurity. … What good is it looking for our happiness in the opinion of others if we can find it in ourselves? Let us leave to others the care of instructing people about their duties, and limit ourselves to carrying out our own well. We do not need to know any more than this.
- Discourse on the Arts and Sciences


I was an English teacher for thirty-two years. The history of education was influenced very positively by Rousseau’s Emile. I love many parts of the book. You could argue that childhood is far less brutal because of Rousseau’s book. But I wouldn’t want to discuss Emile with him or even share its historical influence. Instead I would want to know why he dropped off five of his babies at the local founding house where only one in three infants survived the first weeks after their arrival. His answer might even inspire me to mention that his thoughts about the social contract may have inspired some of the nastier parts of the the French Revolution and also were used to justify the horrors of Totalitarianism and Fascism in the 20th century.

No you Kant!

Rousseau longed for an innocence savage that never existed.
Kant recognized the savage and urged his education.