Otto Paans

The Thing-in-Itself has been contentious issue within Kantian philosophy. Initially, it seems like an unfortunate side-effect of Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. This article deals with this issue in a different manner, attempting to re-situate the Thing-in-Itself within Kantian philosophy, albeit from an anthropological rather than a critical angle. The anthropological works of Kant fully recognize that subjectivity and lived experience, as well as a thoroughgoing cognitive gradualism are necessary to “orient ourselves in thinking”. By reading the importance of the Thing-in-Itself from the anthropological viewpoint of Otto Friedrich Bollnow and the Kyoto School philosophy of Ueda Shizuteru, I argue that in all its negativity, the Thing-in-Itself constitutes the outer expanse of thought. Connecting this exposition with contemporary thinking on actancy and ecology, and following the Romantic tradition represented by Schopenhauer and Schelling, I argue that the Thing-in-Itself can be grasped indirectly and non-conceptually. As such, it constitutes the ground of thought. This insight makes Kant’s initially problematic concept directly relevant for our current ecological predicament, through which we realize the necessity for epistemic humility and embracing the unknown or the noumenal dimension that we cannot conceptually represent.

On the supposition that one’s ethics and politics are fundamentally dignitarian in a broadly Kantian sense—as specifically opposed to identitarian and capitalist versions of Statism, e.g., neoliberal nation-States, whether democratic or non-democratic—hence fundamentally non-coercive and non-violent, then is self-defense or the defense of innocent others, using force, ever rationally justifiable and morally permissible or obligatory? We think that the answer to this hard question is yes; correspondingly, in this essay we develop and defend a theory about the permissible use of force in a broadly Kantian dignitarian moral and political setting, including its extension to non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr; and perhaps surprisingly, we also import several key insights from Samurai and Martial Arts ethics into our theory.