Kant and the Enlightenment 1500 to 1800 is an interesting read even for philosophical nonprofessionals because … – the philosophy of the Enlightenment is presented in comprehensible language and embedded in the 300-year struggle for the liberation of the bourgeoisie against feudalism, – the importance of reason in our knowledge, in the sciences, and in the democratic republic is elaborated based on Kant’s writings, – in times of threat with Kant’s philosophy a reassurance can be made regarding the foundations of the democratic republic and the worldwide spread of this form of government since the First French Republic, – Kant’s "categorical imperative” must be reinterpreted as a fundamental political norm of the democratic republic, if his ethics is understood as a "German theory of the French Revolution” (Marx), – countering the postmodern discrediting of the philosophy of history by placing the current struggle for the democratic republic in the context of Kant’s goal of history, which called for a democratically organized and federally unified humanity on the grounds of reason.
