“Enlightened” Universal
History and
its Impacts on World History
„Historiography of Global History“
2 Course Type W3 = Philosophy of Science 3
Enlightenment in different cultural
frameworks and at different times
French Revolution (1789–1799))
a concept in mysticism, philosophy and psychology
The Age of
Enlightenment
Periode of
European History
18th century
Historical
Intellectual
Movement
In search for the light (= reason)
Kant
In:
Berlinische
Monatsschrift
1784
"Enlightenment is
when a person leaves behind a state of immaturity
and dependence ("Unmündigkeit", translated here as
the phrase "immaturity and dependence") for which
he himself was responsible. Immaturity and
dependence are the inability to use one's own
intellect without the direction of another. One is
responsible for this immaturity and dependence, if its
cause is not a lack of intelligence or eductation, but a
lack of determination and courage to think without
the direction of another. Sapere aude! Dare to know!
is therefore the slogan of the Enlightenment.„
• Kant 1784
Wikipedia: regarding the translation
The German word "Unmündigkeit" means not
having attained the age of majority or legal
adulthood. It is sometimes also translated as
"tutelage" or "nonage" (the condition of "not
[being] of age").
Kant, whose moral philosophy is centered
around the concept of autonomy, is
distinguishing here between a person who is
intellectually autonomous and one who keeps
him/herself in an intellectually heteronomous,
i.e. dependent and immature status.
Universal History (=UH)
"Universal History: Historical
writing that attempts to
depict the history of the
human race as a whole,
understood as a unified
process of development."
(Harry Ritter, Dictionary of
Concepts in History, p.
440)
... doesn‘t mean the
same in different
epochs
UH = principle
18th century/ invention
of UH as an expression
of a universal future of
mankind 
philosophy of histroy
19th century/
institutionalization of
UH as the leading
principle of history as
an academic science 
philosophy of
historical sciences
Universal History (18th century:
Immanuel Kant)
The UH is the expression of a universal
reason composed by the answers to the
following three questions
1.
2.
3.
What can we know?  means = reason 
Epistemology (Kritk der reinen Vernunft)
How can we reason?  means = senses 
Aesthetics (Kritik der Urteilskraft)
What can we hope for?  goal = freedom 
Ethics (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft)
Recommended reading...
Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804): Idea for
a Universal History from a
Cosmopolitan Point of View =Idee zu
einer allgemeinen Geschichte in
weltbürgerlicher Absicht. EA 1784
(verschiedenste aktuelle Ausgaben) hier In:
Immanuel Kant (1980) Schriften zur
Geschichtsphilosophie: 21-39) ReclamAusgabe
Dynamics of explanation ...
Human nature
Human organism
•
•
•
Needs
Particular interessts
Wishes
Human resaon
•
•
responsabilities
duties
Dimension of
historical
development
Culture
Civilisations
Law
morality
transcendental
bases of
history
Asserting dynamics of Universal
History (18th century)
Through to the isolation of the UH from
the variety of histories the
matchlessness of the reason and
its legal order is theoretically
evidenced.
Johann Gottfried von Herder
(1744-1803)
Volk and Nation
folk-nation is organic in its
historical growth.
Every nation is in this
manner organic and whole,
nationality a plant of
nurture.
Herder talked of the
"national animal" and of the
„physiology of the whole
national group" , which
organism was topped by the
"national spirit", the "soul of
the people" (Volksgeist)
Eurocentrism a false understanding
of universality?