Kant's Elliptical Path

380 Pages·2012·1.53 MB·English

by  Karl Ameriks

KANT’S ELLIPTICAL PATH
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Kant’s Elliptical
Path
KARL AMERIKS
CLARENDON PRESS
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP,
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
NoteonSourcesandKeytoAbbreviationsandTranslations ix
Introduction:OurEllipticalPath 1
PART I. BEFORE THE CRITIQUES: KANT’S
UNCOVERING OF OUR FUNDAMENTAL END
1. Kant,HumanNature,andHistoryafterRousseau 29
2. Reality,Reason,andReligionintheEarlyDevelopment
ofKant’sEthics 46
PART II. THE CRITIQUES AS A DEFENSE OF A
RETURN TO OUR FUNDAMENTAL END
FIRST SECTION: THE ELLIPTICAL IMPLICATIONS
OF THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
3. Kant’sIdealismonaModerateInterpretation 75
4. OnReconcilingtheTranscendentalTurnandKant’sIdealism 100
5. IdealismandKantianPersons:Spinoza,Jacobi,andSchleiermacher 120
SECOND SECTION: THE ELLIPTICAL IMPLICATIONS
OF THE CRITIQUE OF PRACTICAL REASON
6. Kant’sAmbivalentCosmopolitanism 145
7. IsPracticalJustificationinKantUltimatelyDogmatic? 162
8. AmbiguitiesintheWill:KantandReinhold, BriefeII 183
THIRD SECTION: THE CRITIQUE OF THE
POWER OF JUDGMENT AND OTHER WRITINGS
ON A FINAL PURPOSE
9. ThePurposiveDevelopmentofHumanCapacities 201
10. Kant’sFatefulReviewsofHerder’sIdeas 221
vi Contents
11. TheEndoftheCritiques:Kant’sMoral‘Creationism’ 238
12. KantandtheEndofTheodicy 260
PART III. AFTER THE CRITIQUES: EXTENSIONS OF,
AND ALTERNATIVES TO, KANT’S ELLIPTICAL PATH
13. OntheExtensionofKant’sEllipticalPathinHo¨lderlinandNovalis 281
14. Kant,Nietzsche,andtheTragicTurninLateModernPhilosophy 303
15. InterpretationafterKant 324
References 343
Index 359
Acknowledgments
I am very pleased to have the chance again to thank the editors of Oxford
University Press and especially Peter Momtchiloff for invaluable assistance.
Time essential for completion of the volume was made possible by a National
EndowmentfortheHumanitiesFellowship,anEarhartFoundationGrant,anda
Fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. In regard to these
grantsIamespeciallyindebtedtoseveralcolleaguesatNotreDame:toKenneth
Garcia at the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts for timely help,
to Vittorio Ho¨sle, the Director of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced
Study, as well as his excellent staff and the other Fellows for 2010–11, for their
stimulating encouragement, and to the recent chairs of the department of phil-
osophy, Stephen Dumont and Richard Cross, for their constant support. I also
owespecialthanksforrecentrepeatedphilosophicalassistancefromextraordin-
arilyhelpfulcolleaguesnearandfar:RobertAudi,DanBreazeale,PaulGuyer,
GaryGutting,ManfredKuehn,RobertPippin,FredRush,andEricWatkins.
Forcountlessotheractsofassistance,IremainmoredeeplyindebtedthanIcan
everadequatelyexpresstothesupportofkindfriends,students,andassociates.
I regret that acknowledgements of help with individual chapters can indicate
onlyasmallpartofthisindebtedness.Thanksabovealltomyfamilyfortheir
patience, support, and inspiration, especially to Geraldine, and—since the
theme of this book very much concerns hope—to the youthful enthusiasm
generated by our grandchild, Nolan Quynh Ameriks, whose generation we
hope will have the fortunate opportunities of his parents andtheir siblings.
Manysectionsofthisbookhaveappearedinanearlierformelsewhere,butall
havebeenupdated,withminorcorrectionsandstandardizingofformat,andthe
material in Chapters 5 and 14 has been substantively expanded. I gratefully
acknowledgethatearlierversionsofthesechaptersinthefollowingpublications
are reprinted with permission. ‘Kant, Human Nature, and History after Rous-
seau,’ in Kant’s ‘Observations’ and ‘Remarks’: A Critical Guide, Susan Shell
and Richard Velkley (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
247–65; ‘Reality, Reason, and Religion in the Early Development of Kant’s
Ethics,’ in Kant’s Moral Metaphysics: God, Freedom and Immortality, Benjamin
J. Bruxvoort Lipscomb and James Krueger (eds.) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010),
23–47;‘Kant’sIdealism onaModerate Interpretation,’inKant’sIdealism:New
InterpretationsofaControversialDoctrine,DennisSchultingandJaccoVerburgt
(eds.) (Berlin: Springer, 2010), 29–54; ‘On Reconciling the Transcendental
Turn and Kant’s Idealism,’ in The Transcendental Turn, Sebastian Gardner
(ed.) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, (in press)); ‘The Question Is Whether
a Purely Apparent Person Is Possible,’ in Spinoza and German Idealism, Eckart
viii Acknowledgments
Fo¨rster and Yitzhak Melamud (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), 44–58; ‘Kant’s Ambivalent Cosmopolitanism,’ in Proceedings of the XI
International Kant-Congress 2010, vol. 1, Claudio La Rocca etal. (eds.) (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2012), 57–74; ‘Is Practical Justification in Kant Ultimately Dog-
matic?’inKantonPracticalJustification,SorinBaiasuandMarkTimmons(eds.)
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 257–95); ‘Ambiguities in the Will:
ReinholdandKant,BriefeII,’inStudiaReinholdiana:TagungsbandderReinhold-
Tagung in Siegen 2010, Martin Bondeli and Marian Heinz (eds.) (Berlin: de
Gruyter,2012),71–90;‘ThePurposiveDevelopmentofHumanCapacities,’in
Kant’s‘IdeaforaUniversalHistorywithaCosmopolitanAim,’AmelieOksenberg
Rorty and James Schmidt (eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009), 46–67; ‘The End of the Critiques: Kant’s Moral “Creationism”,’ in
Rethinking Kant, vol. 1, Pablo Muchnik (ed.) (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars
Press,2008),165–90;‘Tragedy,Romanticism,andIdealism,’inDasNeueLicht
derFru¨hromantik:InnovationundAktualita¨tfru¨hromantischerPhilosophie,Ba¨rbel
Frischmann and Elizabeth Milla´n-Zaibert (eds.) (Paderborn: Ferdinand Scho¨-
ningh, 2008), 28–38; ‘Interpretation after Kant,’ Critical Horizons, 10 (2009):
31–53(#EquinoxPublishingLtd2009).
Note on Sources and Key to
Abbreviations and Translations
References to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Critik der reinen Vernunft, Riga:
Hartknoch,1781,1787)aregiveninthestandardwaybycitingthepagesofthe
first (‘A’) and/or second (‘B’) edition. Otherwise all references to Kant’s works
are cited with the volumeand page number, given in square brackets, ofKant’s
gesammelte Schriften, Ausgabe der ko¨niglichen preussischen Akademie der Wis-
senschaften(Berlin:WalterdeGruyter,1900–),withabbreviationsforparticular
works from List 1 below, which also indicates the relevant English translations.
In some references, for convenience, pages in the translation are also provided
and are added in the form, ‘in Kant (yyyy, zz),’ indicating the year of the
translationfromList2below,andtherelevantpagesintheEnglishversion.
LIST 1 KANT’S WRITINGS, BY ABBREVIATIONS
USED FOR GERMAN TITLES
ANGAllgemeineNaturgeschichteundTheoriedesHimmels(1755)[1:217–368]
Universal,NaturalHistoryandTheoryoftheHeavens
AnthAnthropologieinpragmatischerHinsicht(1798)[7:119–333],Anthropology
from a Pragmatic Point of View, trans. Robert B. Louden, in Kant (2007,
231–429)
API Anthropologie Pillau (1777–8) [25: 733–847], Pillau’s ‘Notes on Kant’s
AnthropologyLectures’
Auf ‘Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufkla¨rung?’ (1784) [8: 35–42], ‘An
Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment?,’ trans. Mary J. Gregor in
Kant(1996a,17–22)
Bem Bemerkungen zu den Beobachtungen u¨ber das Gefu¨hl des Scho¨nen und
Erhabenen(1764–65)[20:1–192],‘RemarksintheObservationsontheFeeling
of Beautiful and Sublime,’ trans. Thomas Hilgers, Uygar Abaci, and Michael
Nance,inKant(2011,65–202);alsoinpartas‘SelectionsfromNotesinthe
Observations on the Feeling of Beautiful and Sublime,’ trans. Curtis Bowman,
PaulGuyer,andFrederickRauscher,inKant(2005,3–24)
Beo Beobachtungen u¨ber das Gefu¨hl des Scho¨nen und Erhabenen (1764) [2:
205–56] Observations on the Feeling of Beautiful and Sublime, trans. John
T.Goldthwait,Kant(1960)
Bew Der einzig mo¨gliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Dasein Gottes
(1763)[2:63–163]TheOnlyPossibleArgumentinSupportofaDemonstration