Left Kantianism.

Mr Nemo

5 min readApr 24, 2023

By Robert Hanna

“Immanuel or Emmanuel Kant, an 18th Century German School Engraving.” Available online at URL = <https://pixels.com/featured/immanuel-or-emmanuel-kant-engraving-german-school.html>.

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Left Kantianism

[Saturday], 22 April 2023, [was] the 229th anniversary of Immanuel Kant’s birthday. In celebration of that, I’m going to draw your attention to a little-known but in my opinion extremely important philosophical movement.

Left Hegelianism was a 19th and 20th century radical intellectual, sociocultural, and political movement flowing from certain themes and texts in Hegel’s philosophy — especially the Phenomenology of Spirit — that sharply criticized religion, conservatism and reactionary politics, and capitalism, and strongly recommended materialism and secularism, universal equality, personal and political liberation or freedom, and socialism: most controversially and notably, communism. The Left Hegelians included David Strauss, Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Carl Nauwerck, Arnold Ruge, Max Stirner, August von Cieszkowski, Karl Schmidt, Edgar Bauer, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and Jean Hyppolite.

Riffing on all that, by Left Kantianism I mean the radical extension of Kant’s ethics, philosophy of religion, and political theory, to agnosticism, anarchism, socialism, and/or anarcho-socialism. Left Kantians include the 19th century Marburg neo-Kantians F.A. Lange, Hermann Cohen, and Rudolph Stammler; the early 20th century neo-Friesian neo-Kantian Leonard Nelson; some 20th century proponents of neo-Marxist Frankfurt School Critical Theory, including Theodor Adorno and Jürgen Habermas; and the 20th century New Leftist, Robert Paul Wolff. According to my view, however, Left Kantianism should not only be extended back to Kant himself and to radical agnostic and radical enlightenment thinking more generally, but also be extended forward to what I call existential Kantian cosmopolitan anarcho-socialism, aka dignitarian anarcho-socialism, and dignitarian post-capitalism. Most importantly, in my opinion, not only is Left Kantianism a significant intellectual, sociocultural, and political movement, but also its doctrines are actually true, and what everyone ought to believe, choose, and wholeheartedly enact.

Instead of arguing all over again here for these — admittedly controversial — claims, I’ll simply provide a short bibliography of texts that interested readers can look at and think about for themselves, which in my opinion collectively make a decisively strong case for Left Kantianism:

(Hanna, 2015a). Hanna, R. “A world with persons but without borders.” Oxford University Press Blog. 11 October. Available online at URL = <http://blog.oup.com/2015/10/kant-global-refugee-crisis/>.

(Hanna, 2015b). Hanna, R. (61) “A world with persons but without guns or the death penalty.” Oxford University Press Blog. 29 November. Available online at URL = <http://blog.oup.com/2015/11/world-without-guns/>.

(Hanna, 2016a). Hanna, R. “A world with persons but without states.” Oxford University Press Blog. 3 January. Available online at URL = <http://blog.oup.com/2016/01/world-without-states/>.

(Hanna, 2016b). Hanna, R. “Radical Enlightenment: Existential Kantian Cosmopolitan Anarchism, With a Concluding Quasi-Federalist Postscript.” In D. Heidemann and K. Stoppenbrink (eds.), Join, Or Die: Philosophical Foundations of Federalism. Berlin: De Gruyter. Pp. 63–90. Also available online in preview HERE.

(Hanna, 2017a). Hanna, R. “Kant, Adorno, and Autonomy.” Critique. Also available online in preview at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/44881739/Kant_Adorno_and_Autonomy_Critique_2017_>.

(Hanna, 2017b). Hanna, R. “Exiting the State and Debunking the State of Nature.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5: 167–189. Available online at URL = <https://www.con-textoskantianos.net/index.php/revista/article/view/228>.

(Hanna, 2017c). Hanna, R. “Why the Better Angels of Our Nature Must Hate the State.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6. Vvailable online at URL = <https://www.con-textoskantianos.net/index.php/revista/article/view/281>.

(Hanna, 2018). Hanna, R. Kant, Agnosticism, and Anarchism: A Theological-Political Treatise. THE RATIONAL HUMAN CONDITION, Vol. 4. New York: Nova Science. Available online in preview HERE.

(Hanna, 2021). Hanna, R. “The New Conflict of the Faculties: Kant, Radical Enlightenment, The Hyper-State, and How to Philosophize During a Pandemic.” Con-Textos Kantianos 13: 209–233. Available online at URL = <https://www.con-textoskantianos.net/index.php/revista/article/view/582/955>.

(Hanna, 2023a). Hanna, R. “What Can Kantian Philosophy Do For Humanity? From Leonard Nelson To Phildialogues.” In N. Dmetrieva, R. Hanna, and V. Chaly (eds.), Kant and the Ethics of Enlightenment: Historical Roots and Contemporary Relevance. Proceedings of the 12th International Kant-Readings Conference. SHS Web of Conferences 161 (8 March 2023). Available online at URL = <https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2023/10/shsconf_kr2023_06007.pdf>, and also in preview HERE.

(Hanna, 2023b). Hanna, R. “Dignity, Not Identity.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/96684801/Dignity_Not_Identity_February_2023_version_>.

(Hanna, 2023c). Hanna, R. “Frederick Douglass, Kant, and Human Dignity.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/97518662/Frederick_Douglass_Kant_and_Human_Dignity_February_2023_version_>.

(Hanna, 2023d). Hanna, R. ““WTFU: The Manifesto of The Nobodies.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/93043230/WTFU_The_Manifesto_of_The_Nobodies_January_2023_version_>.

(Hanna, 2023e). Hanna, R. “Gun Crazy: A Moral Argument For Gun Abolitionism.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/61516955/Gun_Crazy_A_Moral_Argument_For_Gun_Abolitionism_January_2023_version_>.

(Hanna, 2023f). “Dignitarian Post-Capitalism.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/98587927/Dignitarian_Post_Capitalism_March_2023_version_>.

(Hanna, 2023g). Hanna, R. “Videre aude! The Weapons Effect and The Banksy Effect.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/81326698/Videre_aude_The_Weapons_Effect_and_The_Banksy_Effect_March_2023_version_>.

(Hanna, 2023h). Hanna, R. “Organoid Intelligence? Just Say No.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/98233725/Organoid_Intelligence_Just_Say_No_March_2023_version_>

(Hanna, 2023i). Hanna, R. “Don’t Pause Giant AI Experiments: Ban Them.” Unpublished MS. Available online at URL = <https://www.academia.edu/97882365/Don_t_Pause_Giant_AI_Experiments_Ban_Them_April_2023_version_>.

(Hanna and Paans, 2019). Hanna, R. and Paans, O. “On the Permissible Use of Force in a Kantian Dignitarian Moral and Political Setting, Or, Seven Kantian Samurai.” Journal of Philosophical Investigations 13: 75–93. Available online at URL = <https://philosophy.tabrizu.ac.ir/article_9431.html>.

(Love, 1987). Love, N.S. “Overcoming the World: The Left Kantians.” The Review of Politics 49: 585–587. Available online at URL = <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1407743>.

(Moggach, 2021). Moggach, D. “Left-Kantian Perfectionism.” Critical Review 33: 184–205. Available online at URL = <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08913811.2021.1976006?journalCode=rcri20>.

(Widmer, 2022). Widmer, E. “Psychophysiological Transcendentalism in Friedrich Albert Lange’s Social and Political Philosophy.” Journal of Transcendental Philosophy. Available online in preview HERE.

(Widmer, 2023). Widmer, E. “‘Left-Kantianism’ and the ‘Scientific Dispute’ between Rudolf Stammler and Hermann Cohen.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie. Available online in preview HERE.

(Wolff, 1970/1998). Wolff, R.P. In Defense of Anarchism. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press. Also available online at URL = <http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/robert-paul-wolff-in-defense-of-anarchism>.