Illa se iactet in aula!

Abstract

More than a few of Kant’s contemporaries, including some of his disciples, were sharply critical of the systematic character of his philosophy, and, markedly, of the philosophical prose in which this character was expressed. Others, on the contrary, found solace in the prospect of seeing the philosopher either isolated or trapped in the purely speculative realm of the academic room, in the good —or bad— company of all the metaphysical politicians of the time: «illa se iactet in aula!» However, fearful that the walls or the metaphorical bars of the room were not enough to contain the «popular» propagation of Kant’s ideas, they completed —in line with Burke— Virgilio’s poem, distinctly alluding to surely less symbolic bars: «Illa se iactet in aula Aeolus, et clauso ventorum carcere regnet». Kant replied in time, writing both to each group separately and to everyone at once. But he did it always from his fiercely held conviction about the importance of both a philosophical theory and a methodological discipline, which, even when «unpopular» in the beginning, he considered essential elements of a moral and political practice that was so hostile toward moral paternalism as it was to its counterpart, a (paternalistic) political despotism.