Reading Immanuel Kant’s ‘Letter of Consolation to a Mother’: Discovering the Foundations of Kantian Thought

A letter written before the Critiques

Kant’s letter to a grieving mother, which many people have never read, was written long before his majestic Critiques. It offers profound reflections on life, death and human destiny while revealing convictions that run through the philosopher’s entire work and remained with him throughout his life.

The vanity of human projects

Kant begins by observing that human beings, often caught up in the frantic pursuit of ambitions and distractions, should devote time to serious reflection. Life would be calmer and more serene if people remembered the vanity of their plans instead of abandoning themselves to noisy and fleeting pleasures.

Most people rush blindly towards futile goals while ignoring the unavoidable realities of life and death.

Death as the horizon of life

Although feared, death is generally neglected until it strikes nearby. Kant explains that it seems particularly unexpected even though it should clearly appear as the horizon of every human life. People are always surprised when hopeful and ambitious friends or relatives are carried away in the midst of their efforts.

Human beings devise ambitious plans for the future, but the final result is often disappointing. Death, always premature in principle, destroys countless projects and aspirations. Yet, though premature and cruel, it may also be a blessing by freeing people from future misfortunes and calamities.

Providence and resignation

Kant’s deep conviction is that divine Providence shapes our destiny, and that even premature death may be preferable to a long life filled with suffering. He encourages readers to meditate on their destiny and adopt a form of Christian resignation before God’s will.

Kant thus places the Christian God beyond all reproach. It would be useless to seek him in the phenomenal world ruled by death, becoming and radical evil. The Christian God is not within the world of passing things; he must be sought in the noumenal world, apprehended by instruments other than ordinary perception—perhaps with the ‘eyes of the heart’, though Kant does not say so.

Philosophy as preparation

Taken as a whole, the letter presents life as an unpredictable journey and death as a divine mystery for which one must constantly prepare. For Kant, philosophy is undoubtedly also a good means of preparing for the final moment.

The influence of Leibniz

The letter develops themes reflecting Leibniz’s influence on Kant when he was still a philosophy student at the University of Königsberg.

First, the idea that ours is the best of all possible worlds appears when individual destinies are said to be governed by a higher wisdom: the young man’s premature death, though painful for his mother, would belong to a divine plan and contribute to the best possible world.

Second, the world is what it is and destiny must be accepted. Leibniz held that everything occurring in the world follows from divine will; Kant similarly urges the mother to accept God’s will humbly.

Third, human life is a transition. For Leibniz it leads towards a higher and better state; Kant evokes such a transition by describing death as a path towards an unknown destiny and a higher good.

Finally, the world’s order and rationality lead to philosophical optimism. Although Kant is less optimistic than Leibniz in this letter, his suggestion that the young man’s premature death may have a deeper meaning or purpose belongs to the broader perspective of Leibnizian optimism.