The historical conception of Kant is inspired by the Aristotelian idea of the

physis, that is, by the conception of a nature of things, an essence that

unfolds and that contains both the need and the basic laws of development.
It is about the idea of a potentiality (potentia) that through its own natural
process of development (physis) becomes reality or actuality (actus). In this
way the entelechy or end of development is reached. Kant will transform
this idea into the basis of a progressive vision of history totally alien to
classical Greek thought. According to Kant, an immanent law of progress,
dictated by nature's need to achieve its ends, governs the seemingly absurd
and whimsical history of the human species, elevating it successively "from
the lower level of animality to the supreme level of humanity . " The task
of the philosopher is, precisely," to discover in this absurd course of human
things an intention of Nature, from which a history of such creatures is
possible that, without being conducted according to an own plan , if they
do it according to a certain plan of Nature. "

According to Kant, man shares, as a species, the teleological destiny or

determined by its end that Aristotle saw as the law of development of all
natural: "All the natural dispositions of a creature are destined to be
developed at some time completely and according to an end [...] In man
those natural dispositions, which tend to the use of reason, must develop
completely in the species, but not in the individual. " This is the force acting
behind the scenes in order to unfold all human potentialities and individuals
or peoples are only their unconscious instruments: "Little do men imagine
(as individuals and even as peoples) that, as each one pursues his own
intention according to his opinion and often against the others, continue
without noticing it, as a common thread, the intention of Nature, which is
unknown to them, and they work for it.

This idea of a hidden force that acts as the motor and "thread" of a story
whose true meaning is not understood by its direct protagonists is nothing
but an "Aristotelian naturalization" of the idea of Providence and will be
central both in the vision of the history of Hegel as in that of Marx. Hegel
will replace the laws of Kant's nature with those of logic or reason and Marx
will put the productive forces in place, but the mental structure designed
by Kant will remain, in its essence, intact. Now, the kinship between these
three thinkers goes much further than this. Kant also conceives history as
a triadic process or divided into three phases, ranging from the state of
animality, through a long development full of pain, conflict and struggle to
the end of history, which will be a state of perfection that Kant himself
defines chiliasm, which is nothing but the synonym of the Greek root of the
millennium (the Kingdom of Christ on Earth which, according to the
Biblical Apocalypse, will last a thousand years): "The history of the human
species can be considered in its together as the execution of a hidden plan
of Nature to carry out an interior constitution and - for that purpose -
outwardly perfect, as the only state in which it can fully develop all its
dispositions in humanity As you can see, philosophy can also have its
chiliasm. In a passage from another work, Kant expresses himself in a way
still more charged with millenarian symbolism:" When the human species
has reached its full destination and its highest possible perfection, the
Kingdom of God on earth will be constituted

From what has been said here, however, it would be a serious error to draw
the conclusion that the great philosopher of Königsberg had been a
millenarian thinker in the true militant and revolutionary sense of the word.
For this, it lacks many of the most essential and dynamic elements of
millenarian thought as it was structured in medieval thought or will be
structured in the coming Marxism. The announcement of the millennium
is something distant in Kant, almost theoretical. Whenever he proclaims
his faith in a coming state of perfection or quiliasm, he adds phrases such as
the following: "although it can only be expected after many centuries have
passed". The adherence to what Kant himself characterizes in another
writing as "the chiliastic conception of history" is linked to a sober and
sometimes somber description of the current situation and possibilities of
man and, more importantly, of his nature essentially imperfect as his famous
phrase reminds us of the twisted wood from which the human is made and
from which nothing straight can be carved. Kant's is not, therefore, but a
"light utopianism", soft and distant, a methodological premise more than
anything else