The Conflict of the Faculties

The Conflict of the Faculties

Author
Immanuel Kant
Publication Year

"Best known for its defense of academic freedom, Conflict of the Faculties (1798) also includes a short essay from 1795 that responds directly to the French Revolution. There Kant argues that the revolution’s transformational power lies not with those agents participating directly in political events but in the response of nonparticipant spectators at a distance, those whose engaged but detached attitude (much like his own) is characterized by 'a wishful participation bordering on enthusiasm.' Kant’s belief in the revolutionary role of the spectator-intellectual, combined with his account of the spectator’s critical emotion, helped shape my understanding of Blake’s paradoxical political character: urgently engaged in all matters of public importance; detached from any direct political involvement."

Recommended by Steven Goldsmith, Professor of English and author of Blake's Agitation: Criticism and the Emotions.