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  • Introduction:Perfectionism and Education—Kant and Cavell on Ethics and Aesthetics in Society
  • Klas Roth, Martin Gustafsson, and Viktor Johansson

Immanuel Kant’s conception of ethics and aesthetics, including his philosophy of judgment and practical knowledge, are widely discussed today among scholars in various fields: philosophy, political science, aesthetics, educational science, and others. His ideas continue to inspire and encourage an ongoing interdisciplinary dialogue, leading to an increasing awareness of the interdependence between societies and people and a clearer sense of the challenges we face in cultivating ourselves as moral beings.

Early on in his career, Cavell began to recognize the strong connection between Kant’s aesthetics (as it finds its expression in the Critique of the Power of Judgment) and the claims of ordinary language philosophy. In this connection, he also found a fruitful way of dealing with philosophical problems in response to modern art and music. Commentators have found in Cavell’s work powerful criticisms of, and novel support for, a Kantian aesthetics. Cavell was also one of the first to describe Wittgenstein as working within a Kantian framework.

In both Kant’s and Cavell’s aesthetics, moral practice and education play an absolutely central role. Both philosophers see art as crucial to moral education, in its capacity to cultivate and expand our moral experience. It is, therefore, surprising how little has been written on their contribution to education, in particular, on how their views on the relation between ethics and aesthetics matter to education and contemporary educational theory.

The aim of this collection of papers is to discuss the value, significance, and relevance of Kant’s and Cavell’s conceptions of education, ethics, and aesthetics in relation to contemporary educational theory. In particular, Kant’s and Cavell’s conceptions of moral perfectionism and education are in focus. The first contribution is an original paper by Paul Guyer (Brown University), one of the world’s leading scholars on Kant and a student of Cavell’s. Guyer has written on almost every aspect of Kant’s philosophy, including education, and he has developed novel and highly influential interpretations throughout his academic career. [End Page 1]

Guyer’s paper serves as the starting point for the other contributions, written by (in order of appearance) Klas Roth (Stockholm university), Pradeep Dillon (University of Illinois at urbana-Champaign), Viktor Johansson (Stockholm university), Richard Eldridge (Swarthmore College), Alice Crary (New School for Social Research), Martin Gustafsson (Åbo Akademi University), and Timothy Gould (Metropolitan State University).

In “Examples of Perfectionism,” Guyer argues that there are deeper affinities between Kant’s and Cavell’s conceptions of perfectionism and education than most commentators (including Cavell himself) have recognized. The first affinity has to do with the relation between reason and freedom. As Guyer understands Kant’s moral philosophy, rationality does not figure there as an end in itself, but rather as a means to human freedom: the use of reason is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the perfection of the will, that is, for free choice. Guyer argues that we can find a similar structure in Cavell’s thought. Even if there are passages where Cavell might seem to suggest that making oneself intelligible to oneself and others is the main goal of moral perfectionism, Guyer offers a reading according to which Cavell thinks such intelligibility is merely a necessary condition for the substantive aim of perfectionist striving, namely, the full exercise of one’s freedom. The second (and related) affinity Guyer sees between Kant and Cavell has to do with their views of moral education. Guyer brings out the ways in which both thinkers emphasize the significance of examples in such education. According to Guyer, Kant and Cavell both appreciate how actual instances of real-life moral striving are indispensible when it comes to providing an understanding of how finite human existence can involve the freedom to be moral. Guyer connects this point with Kant’s and Cavell’s shared sense that the striving for moral perfection is never ending.

In his response, Klas Roth explores further how Kantian themes come in at pivotal moments in Cavell’s thought. Roth points out that, even if Cavell is hesitant to assign the same significance...

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