Perpetual Peace in Kant and Marianne or history versus nature in Fichte's Closed Commercial State

Abstract

Fichte's reception of Kant's booklet Perpetual Peace (Zum ewigen Frieden) both confirmed the elements he was preparing for his theory of Natural Law and motivated him to deepen the theme of Perpetual Peace from the perspective of a Commercial State internally regulated by laws to make it self-sufficient and independent. By identifying, as a difference in the planning of Perpetual Peace, the appeal to nature in Kant and to practical reason in Fichte, the present text exposes the peculiar in the thematization of history from the Kantian theoretical-hypothetical function as a condition to unveil the impulse for historical progress, contrasted to the practical teleology in the rational concept of history in the Fichtean perspective, which elucidates the achievement of self-sufficiency and independence of the existing State as the shortest path in favor of the ends of humanity before the supreme practical end. In the critique of the history underlying existing States, Fichte unveils the point of passage to the ideal State, the closed Commercial State, pointing out the passivity to which they adhere as a mere natural consequence that must be replaced in order for the State to take rational measures to implement a Policy favorable to the internal autonomy of each country. From the contrast between the two authors we extract the reasons why the state represents, within its natural borders, according to Fichte, the only authentic and worthy conquests of any state.