Kant’s Socratic Method and the Problem of Polemics

It was Habermas who famously articulated a widespread criticism of “the monological approach of Kant, who assumed that the individual tests his maxims foro interno” (1992, 203). According to this criticism, Kant conceived rational justificatory practices as attainable through solitary reflection, independent of intersubjective interaction. One unfortunate consequence of such a monological approach is the confinement of reason to the realm of science, at the expense of the public sphere. This limitation appears particularly ill-suited to our age of public polarization, marked by fierce polemics that urgently call for rational forms of communication. In this article, however, I contend that Habermas’s criticism does not hold in the case of Kant’s engagement with metaphysical polemics. I aim to show that Kant developed a dialogical method—one he associated with Socrates—that extends beyond strict scientific engagement and offers a promising strategy for addressing metaphysical polemics within the public sphere. I ground my reading in the first chapter of the Doctrine of Method of the Critique of Pure Reason, titled The Discipline of Pure Reason. In this text, Kant portrays the prevailing form of metaphysical discussion as a battle in which victory is falsely credited to “the one who is on the attack,” leaving “nothing settled about the real issue” (A793/B821). This gives rise to what I will call the problem of polemics: unlike constructive debates, in which stronger arguments prevail, polemics render argumentation ineffective; and at times, even destructive. My primary aim in this paper is to assess Kant's strategies for addressing this problem. My broader ambition is to lay the groundwork for future studies that draw on Kant’s insights as resources for navigating the polemical character of the contemporary public sphere. I focus on one feature that renders arguments destructive in polemics: the dynamic of escalation driven by moral interests. As we know from the Dialectic, moral interests are intimately tied to transcendental illusion. I argue that these interests lead opponents to perceive attacks on their positions as moral threats, prompting them to regard their interlocutors as enemies to be debunked. From this follows that a metaphysical polemical method must be capable of addressing extreme polemical cases. More specifically, we shall see that within the context of the Critique, this method is needed to make room for the “court of reason,” understood as the critical procedure which, drawing on juridical practices, brings conflicts to an end. In both the Critique and the logic lectures, this task is assigned to a skeptical method. I contend, however, that Kant’s Socratic method, likewise developed in his logic lectures, is better suited to this purpose. Both methods aim to lead the opponent to recognize that something has gone wrong in her reasoning, by showing that both her position and its opposite are equally refutable. Yet whereas the skeptical method delivers this insight as a shock, through direct refutation, and thus risks further escalation, the Socratic method enables the opponent to reach it herself through a dialogical exchange of questions and answers.