Kant et l'hérmeneutique

“Kant et l’herméneutique” The article aims to discuss Kant’s theory of interpretation as outlined in the Religion within the Limits of Simple Reason and in the Conflict of Faculties. In contrast with the tradition of the “sacred hermeneutics”, Kant’s moral interpretation of the Old and the New Testament is based on the method of “submission of sense” under the words of the authors in order to interpret according to the needs of the contemporary age. As such, his method radically departed from the philological and historical tradition, and elicited the strong reaction of the professional theologians (for example Eichhorn, Noesselt) who accused Kant’s theory of “new barbarism”. But Kant’s aim was to improve morally and progressively the human beings of his own age and not to reconstruct the texts only philologically. The two perspectives of this hermeneutical conflict remained separated without possibility of reconciliation.