Robert Solomon offers a helpful fairly traditional summary of Kant’s philosophy in his little book on Continental Philosophy. Kant’s overall agenda, Solomon says, was (in Kant’s own words) to “deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.” Much as he admired the advances of post-Newtonian science, he worried that it could destroy the human world and religion. He wanted to show that religion and science could live together peaceably. Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” is worked out first in the Critique... Read more

One of Kant’s central contributions to philosophy was the invention of the notion of “critical philosophy,” which means epistemology, which means philosophy as a critique of knowledge. Philosophy is the queen of the sciences that polices the borders between sciences and keeps everyone safely in his or her own department. But, as Caputo points out, this is a massive concession: “Philosophy concerns a higher epistemological theory of science, but it has abandoned the real world to the sciences.” (more…) Read more

One of Kant’s central contributions to philosophy was the invention of the notion of “critical philosophy,” which means epistemology, which means philosophy as a critique of knowledge. Philosophy is the queen of the sciences that polices the borders between sciences and keeps everyone safely in his or her own department. But, as Caputo points out, this is a massive concession: “Philosophy concerns a higher epistemological theory of science, but it has abandoned the real world to the sciences.” (more…) Read more

Paul D. Janz offers a favorable interpretation of Kantian epistemology in his God, the Mind’s Desire . Janz begins with an assessment of Kant’s project in the first Critique. It is, he points out, a Critique of Pure Reason , not a defense, yet in spite of this title and stated project, it has frequently been read as a defense of pure reason. Further, Janz does not think that the Critique attempts to bring an end to metaphysics; Kant himself... Read more

What is the problem Kant is trying to solve? Near at hand, there are a host of problems: He wants to respond to Hume’s skepticism; he struggles with the problem of evil; he wants to affirm the advances of Newton without sacrificing humanity and religion. But if we look in a larger perspective, he is trying to resolve a problem perennial in philosophical study. He is challenging the desire, which he finds everywhere in the philosophical tradition, to know as... Read more

What is the problem Kant is trying to solve? Near at hand, there are a host of problems: He wants to respond to Hume’s skepticism; he struggles with the problem of evil; he wants to affirm the advances of Newton without sacrificing humanity and religion. But if we look in a larger perspective, he is trying to resolve a problem perennial in philosophical study. He is challenging the desire, which he finds everywhere in the philosophical tradition, to know as... Read more

Kant is often accused of bringing an end to metaphysics. He didn’t think so: “Metaphysics, with which it is my fate to be in love, although only rarely can I boast of any favours from her, offers two advantages. The first is that it serves to solve the tasks which the questioning mind sets itself when by means of reason it inquires into the hidden qualities of things. But here the result only too often falls below expectation . .... Read more

Searching for precedents for Descartes’ notion that God is causa sui Jean-Luc Marion finds that “Suarez anticipates Descartes’ daring formula, de ipso Deo . . . , because, like him, he begins by submitting God to what will become the principle of reason, and, in order to succeed in this, to an interpretation of the divine essence as a ratio .” In the words of Suarez, the question of cause “may even be asked concerning God, not because he needs... Read more