Interpretation of the German social democracy reformist program under the Kantian conception of state

Abstract

The "theory of society" developed by Marx and Engels, strongly attached to Hegel, starts being criticized by the left-wing of the German democratic socialism movement in the mid-60´s in the 19th century. The influence of Hegel´s dialectic used to be mentioned as the main cause of the insufficiency of the revolutionary Marxism theoretical and practical paradigm in solving theoretical and practical problems of the German workers movement.The solution found to "eliminate" the impurities of the "scientific socialism" doctrinal building was to pay attention to what is called: "Zurück auf Kant". This "return to the Kantian critical thinking", in spite of being announced before in many philosophic circles, was applied to the social matters for the first time by Friedrich Albert Lange (1828-1875). However, it was through Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932) that this theoretical explanation and alternative practical orientation of the working class emancipation theory, marked by the Hegel/Marx and Kant/Marx tension, started to occupy central place in the German social democracy debate. In this postdoctoral project it is proposed to interpret the emancipatory reformist orientation in Lange and in Bernstein in the picture of the Kantian conception of State, more precisely of the concept of the gradual, continuous and peaceful reform. The present research proposal is a continuation of my doctoral research about Kant´s philosophy of law and politics.