Religione e diritti civili: la questione ebraica in Kant

In various works published in the last decades, antisemitic and antijudaic motives have been
found in Kant’s philosophy. Moreover, Kantian wish of an «euthanasia of Judaism» has been
interpreted as forerunner of Nazism. This kind of misunderstanding of Kant’s position can
be avoided – this is the main thesis of this essay – only taking into proper account the political
and social condition of Jews in Kant’s time, on one hand, and the whole Kantian philosophy
of religion, on the other one, including those passages where themes are tackled, even
though without mentioning Jews, which were politically conclusive for their fate. Kant expressly
challenged the legitimacy of serfdom, which was Jews’ juridical status; the destiny he
wished for Judaism, that is its reduction to pure moral religion, was the same he wished for
Christianity; if the ways of expressing his attitude towards the dominating revealed religion
are involved, it’s because he knew that the Prussian censor would have been his first reader,
and could also be the only one.