The Contest of Theological and Philosophical Faculties in “The Contest of Faculties” by Immanuel Kant

Abstract

Kant’s mature work on the conflict of the faculties includes a theory of the basic establishment of philosophy as an institution embedded in the hierarchical structure of the four faculties in university and touched by the historical conditions of Prussian cultural policy at the end of the 18th century. It involves substantially two intentions: 1st to redefine its ranking within the system of the faculties, changing the position from the lowest to the highest level; 2nd to defend in the name of all faculties the autonomy and the rights of university as a whole unity in relation to the political demands of the Prussian state, because the political autonomy of the university was held to be the precondition for the guaranty of independence of science. In both cases philosophy enters into a struggle with the clerical authority of theology on the one hand and political administration on the other. A central topic of the conflict was the meaning and the role of religion within academic and social life. On the background of these two lines of arguments it will be our tasks in this article 1st to clarify the relation between philosophy and theology concerning moral religion, 2nd to examine the practical relation between the university under the leadership of philosophy and the state as far as the political power should be enlightened about the true principles of government by philosophical reason.