There is a continuing irresolution on the levels, both of theory and political praxis, vis-à-vis a coming to terms with the problem of 'historical greatness'. This results from the pre-history of a concept which is, when seen in the context of a systematic theory of science, in two respects methodologically unsatisfactory. 1. The pre-idealist understanding of "greatness", in the sense of canonical exemplariness, is based on a timeless concept of morality, itself determined through a heteronomous concept of norm-giving transcendence and/or (...) nature. 2. The philosophy of history ignores the Kantian reference to the autonomy of the genesis of human orientation; instead it sees this genesis not as the expression of a potentially autonomous normativity but as a source of normative existential orientation. In this orientation the goal and the steps towards the goal are pre-reflexively implied. In the philosophy of history the 'historically great' function as genial mediators between telos and epoché. Their actions are not explicable by the categories of normal rationality. The lack of a sufficient methodology of socially practicable communication continues to lessen the chances of overcoming the practical and theoretical dependency on the idea of the mediating genius. Yet the shift to a critical social hermeneutic remains impossible as long as hermeneutic theory is willing to deny itself in the face of a purely scientistic analytic philosophy. (shrink)

In seinem Aufsatz „Immanuel Kant und die Reichweite der Kanonen. Die Abkehr von der Illusion eines ewigen Friedens“, in: Internationale Politik, Heft 11–12, Berlin 2004, 155ff. stellt Heinz Kluss, ehemaliger Direktor des Ausschusses für Verteidigung und Sicherheit der Parlamentarischen Versammlung der NATO, drei eingängige Thesen auf.