Kant on Communication

The article deals with the question of communication and communicability in Kant’s philosophy, moving from some important suggestions of Onora O’Neill concerning Kant's conception of the public use of reason. Accepting the “political” nature of Kant’s critical enterprise suggested by O’Neill, the article shows how much this political trait of Kant’s philosophy does in fact have epistemological presuppositions, which can be found in his analysis of certain mental states. They prove a central role of the question of communication in Kant’s philosophy, because exactly the communicability does play in different contexts the role of the touchstone or criterion for the distinction between the private and the public. This main thesis is illustrated with the analysis of the section of the first Critique dedicated to Having an opinion, knowing and believing (in the Canon of the Doctrine of method) and with some pages of the Critique of Judgment.