Kant and the Meaning of the Public Reason

The tutorial started with three questions:

·         What does Kant mean by Public Reason?

·         How is it different from Private Reason?

·         Why is it so important?

1. We identified the key sentence or passage where Kant talked about the meaning of public reason.

2. We talked, talk about a site, space or place that embodies this notion of public reason in some way shape or form...

The results:

Kant on private reason.

·         I call the private use of reason that which a person may make in a civic post or office that has been entrusted to him.

·         Thus an appointed teacher’s use of his reason for the sake of his congregation is merely private, because, however large the congregation is, this use is always only domestic; in this regard, as a priest, he is not free and cannot be such because he is acting under instructions from someone else

Kant on Public Reasoning

• Reason not governed by any official post
•  prescribes nothing
•  allows men complete freedom
• By the public use of one’s own reason I refer to the way anyone who regards himself
• Insofar as this part of the machine also regards himself as a member of the community community as a whole, or even of the world community as a whole, or even of the world community, and as a consequence addresses the public
• in the role of a scholar, in the proper sense of that term, he can most certainly argue, without thereby harming the affairs for which as a passive member he is partly responsible.
• Reason not governed by any official post
• Public reason involves using  his own rational capacities and to speak his own mind.
• Free from immaturity   

What are some examples of a space, place or installation that embodies this kind of puhblic reasoning today?

1. Street art

2. Blog / internet

• Wikipedia – collaborative and accountability
• Youtube- face book, blogging

3. Where is street art “left alone”

4. Local community forums

·         council meeting

·         public library

·         speakers corner- who sanctions speakers corner

·         Communioty garden

5. Bars and/or pubs/clubs

Comedy

6. Collaborative capitalism

·         Car sharing- Go Get

·         Collaborative online shopping.

• Festival of dangerous ideas
• Controversial example: The recent Aboriginal Boxer at the olympic games who wore an aboriginal flag
• Universities- oppressive governance versus free speach..