The Failure of Divided Reason

As a growing confidence in reason leads to the questioning of authority, both political and moral, leading to a defensive response by those in power to retain power. This inevitable confrontation between reason and power has historically led to revolution, as was the case in both the French Revolution and America’s Independence – whose end products were far from the enlightened ideals that motivated them.

Where the ideals of the Enlightenment making way for new systems of governance similar in degree but different in kind to the old ones they overthrew. America became a Republic where the few rule the many based on greed and corruption, and an ever increasing gap between the rich and poor; while the French Revolution quickly fell to a period known as “The Terror” that was ruled by fear and panic, and within ten years France had become a militaristic state under the rein of Napoléon Bonaparte. Each became just another struggle for power and control though, uniquely, under the guise of genuine philosophical change.

The reason for this corruption of enlightened ideals is the inherently unenlightened principles that govern the private domain. Which being based on politics, commerce and industry, is ruled by greed and a thirst for power. Essentially, business and politics are impersonal exercises: businesses aim for profit; politics aims for power. And it is by making a distinction between the public and private domains that reason is left vulnerable and the Enlightenment doomed to failure as history has shown. In contrast, we can think of the public realm as a product of our humanity, a reflection of us, of our souls and of our will. Whereas the private realm is best compared to our body; being necessary and subordinate to us and our will.

Aristotle states, in his Nicomachean Ethics, that the end of medicine is health; similarly, the end of the Enlightenment is, as Kant defines, maturing the will to think for ourselves. (Kants definition). And Plato states that is doesn’t do “someone any good to live with his body in misery [as] the inevitable outcome is a miserable life.” (Plato p. 101) Hence, just as we require medicine to heal us when we are sick, so that we may exercise our will and live our lives; so too does society require enlightenment to heal it so that it better represents those from whom it is made. As medicine treats the body which serves the soul, Enlightenment is of the soul and treats society. And just as by ignoring sickness in any part of our body threatens the health of our self as a whole, so too does ignoring sickness in any part of society threaten the health of society as a whole. When we are healthy we are fit and able; when society is healthy it is enlightened.

A world of only private reason is a dead inhuman world in which people operate to the system’s needs and ideals. Whereas a world of only public reason is a living human world in which the system is dictated by the people’s needs and ideals. A world of only private reason is uninteresting; whereas a world of only public reason is interesting. It is by discarding the limits on reason which are imposed by Kant’s categories that we may live in an interesting and human world, by demanding freedom not obedience and exercising our will to act in accordance with our being, without limit and as an end in itself.