We compare Kant's essay Announcement of the forthcoming signing of a treaty for perpetual peace in philosophy with the second section in chapter one of the Transcendental Theory of Method of the Critique of Pure Reason ("Discipline of pure reason in respect of its polemical use"), and try to identify and understand the seeming contradiction of Kant's program. On the one hand Kant intends to solve the unending conflicts in the arena of pure reason by overcoming the apparent contradictions of reason with itself, and thus at last establishing "perpetual peace in philosophy". On the other hand he follows a dialectical procedure inspired by judicial rhetoric, appealing to a "polemical use of pure reason" as the most adequate and indeed the only way possible of neutralizing the pretensions of both dogmatism and scepticism. Our reflection leads us to characterize Kant's pax philosophica and the pressuposed homologies between the solution of political and speculative conflicts. We also recognize that Kantian philosophy is originally determined by an agonic conception of life, human society, the cosmos, and reason itself.
Polemical use of reason; Dogmatic use of reason; Perpetual Peace in Philosophy; Antinomies; Biomedical metaphors; Political metaphors