Standing in front of the Ocean. Kant and the dangers of Knowledge

The Kantian critical examination of the human cognitive certainties proposed in both of the editions of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (17811, 17872) is accomplished, in a very significant way, by the careful use of metaphors. One of the most important images, by which we pass from the transzendentale Analytik to the transzendentale Dialektik, is that of sailing. This image is closely tied with the metaphors, on the one hand, of the Land der Wahrheit (the island of the pure intellect, whereof we must look for the finis terrae, in geographical terms, and for the formula for a good governance, politically) and, on the other, of the “Odyssean fate” of the human Vernunft. Both themes of travel and of vast stormy ocean engender an uninterrupted path which links Kant (more or less consciously) to Francis Bacon and John Locke, as well as to Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s thought. In spite of the analogies between these philosophers, there is a gradual change of the tone of the speech, which becomes increasingly dark and gloomy, culminating in the Kantian firm denial of the early relationship between delight and discovery/sailing, in favor of the adoption of a reassuring and anti-nomadic “nesocentricity”. This contrast between the islander’s feeling of security and the stormy ocean’s terrifying aspect will constitute the core of “dynamic sublime” in the Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790) and, far from representing a disheartening declaration of resignation, it is the clearest manifestation of the greatness of human nature.