The Cambridge companion to Kant

250 Pages·1992·14.462 MB·English

by  Paul Guyer

This is the third in a sexics cd companions to major philoso-
phers that Cambridge will be issuing in the next few years.
Each volume will cuntain specially commissioned essays by
an international team of scholars, together with a substan-
tial bibliography and wiIl serve as a reference work for stu-
dents and nonspecialists. One aim of the sewics is to dispel
the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the
work of a drfficuIt and challenging thinker.
The fundamental cask of philosophy since the seven-
teenth century has been to determine whether the essential
principles of both knowledge and action can be discovered
by human beings unaided by an external agency. No one
philosopher has contributed more to this enterprise than
has lmmanuel Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason [ 178x1
shook the very foundations of the intellectual world. Kant
argued that the basic principles of natural science are im-
posed on reality by human sensibility and understanding,
and hence human beings can also impose their own free
and rational agency on the world.
This volume is the only available systematic and compre-
hensive account of the full range of Kant's writings and the
first major overview of his work to be published in more
than a dozen years. An internationally recognized team of
Kant scholars explore Kant's conceptual revolution in episte-
mology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, moral and po-
litical philosophy, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion.
The volume also traces the historical origins and consc-
quences of Kant's work.
New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most
convenient, accessible guide to Kant currently in print. Ad-
vanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of
recent developments in the interpretation of Kant.
L
THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO
KANT
The Cambridge Companion to
OTHER VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES OF CAMBRIDGE
COMPANIONS:
K A N T
AQUINAS Edited by NORMAN KRETZMANN and
ELEONORE STUMP
ARISTOTLE Edited by JONATHAN BARNES
DESCARTES Edited by ~ Q H NC OTTINGHAM
FOUCAULT Eclited by GARY GUTTING
FREUD Edited by JEROME NEU Edited by Paul Guyew
HEGEL Edited by FREDERICK BEISER
HEIDEGGER Edited by CHARLES GUIGNON
HOBBES Edited by TOM SORRELL
HUME Edited by DAVID FATE NORTON
HUSSERL Edited by BARRY SMITH and DAVID
WOODRUFF SMITH
LEIBNIZ Edited by NICHOLAS JOLLEY
LOCK€ Edited by VERE CHAPPELL
MARX Edited by TERRELL CARVER
MILL Edited by ~ O H NSK ORUPSKI
NIETZSCHE Edited by BERND MAGNUS
PLAT9 Edited by RICHARD KRAUT
SARTRE Edited by CHRISTINA HOWELLS
SPINOZA Edjted by DON GARRETT
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE CONTENTS
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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B Cambridge University Press 1892
This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and
page vii
to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, List of contributors
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University mess. Method of citation X
Introduction: The starry heavens and the moral law I
First published 1992
Reprinted 1992, 1993, 1994 [twice), 1995, 1996, 1997, 1996, 1999 PAUL GUYER
Printed in the United States of America I Kant's intellectual development: 1746-1781
FREDERICK C. BEISER
Typeset in Trump Mediaeval
2 The Transcendental Aesthetic
A catalogus record for this book is available from the Brjtish Library
CHARLES PARSONS
Library of Congress Cdtoloping-in-PublicorionD utu is avaiiable 3 Functions of thought and the synthesis of intuitions
ISBN 0-5213 6587-2 hardback J. MICHAEL YOUNG
ISBN 0-521-36768-9 paperback
4 The transcendental deduction of the categories
PAUL GUYER
5 Causal laws and the foundations of natural science
MICHAEL FRIEDMAN
6 Empirical, rational, and transcendental psychology:
Psychology as science and as philosophy
GARY HATFIELD
7 Reason and the practice of science
THOMAS E. WARTENBERG
8 The critique of metaphysics: Kant and traditional
ontology
KARL AMERIKS
vi CONTENTS
y Vindicating reason
ONORA O'NEILL
10 Autonomy, obligation, and virtue: An overview of CONTRIBUTORS
Kant's moral philosophy 309
J. B. SCHNEEWIND
I I Politics, freedom, and order: Kant's political
philosophy 3 42
WOLFGANG KERSTING
IZ Taste, sublimity, and genius: The aesthetics of nature
and art 367 KARL AM ERIK s is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre
EVA SCHAPER Dame. He has written widely on Kant and other figures in German
philosophy. He is the author of Kant 's Theory of the Mind: An Analy-
I 3 Rational theology, moral faith, and religion
sis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason (Oxford University Press,
ALLEN W. WOOD
1982)~an d will soon publish a selected translation of Kant's Lectures
14 The first twenty years of critique: The Spinoza on Metaphysics in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Imrnan-
connection
uel Kant (forthcoming].
GEORGE DI GIOVANNI
FREDERICK C. BEISER teaches at Indiana University. He is the au-
Bibliography
thor of The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kan t to Frch te
Index (Harvard University Press, 1987 1. He is currently editing The Cam-
bridge Companion to Hegel.
G E o RG E D I GIo VANN I is Professor of Philosophy at McGill Univer-
sity. He has written widely on Kant and German idealism. With H.
S. Harris, he edited and translated Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in
the Development of Post-Kantian Idealism (StateU niversity of New
York Press, 19851, and he has also edited Essays on Hegel's Logic
(State University of New York Press, I 990).
MICHAEL FRIEDMAN is Professor of Philosophy at the University
of LlIinois-Chicago. He is the author of Foundations of Space-
Time Theories: Relativistic Physics and Philosophy of Science
(Princeton University Press, 19831, and of numerous articles on
Kant's philosophy of mathematics and science, some of which will
be included in his Kant on the Exact Sciences (Harvard University
Press, forthcoming).
PAUL GUYER is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsyl-
vania. He is the author of Kant and the Claims of Tuste (Harvard
.
. ,
Vlll CONTKI HUTOKS Contributors ix
University Press, 1979) and Kunt rrnd rht. Clntms of Kr-lowierige J. B. SCHNEEWIND is Professor of Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins
(Cambridge University Press, r 987); he also edited Es,soys In Knnt 's University. He has worked extensively in the history of both British
Aesthetics (University of Chicago Press, 1982) with Ted Cohen. He
and continental moral philosophy. His publications include Back-
is general co-editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Im-
grounds of English Victorian Literature (Random House, I 970),
manuel Kant (forthcoming).
Sidgwick 's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy (Oxford Univer-
GARY HATFIELD is Professor of Philosophy at the Uiliversity of sity Press, 19751 and Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant
Pennsylvania. He is the author oh The Natural and the Nonnative: (Cambridge University Press, 1990). He also edited Mill: A Collec-
TI~eorieso f Sputial Perception from Kun t to Helmholtz (MIT Press, tion of Critical Essays (Anchor Books, 1968).
~ggo]a,s well as of numerous papers in the history of philosophy and
THOMAS E. WARTENBERG is Associate Professor of Philosophy at
the philosophy of psychology.
Mount Holyoke College. He is the author of The Forms of Power:
wo LFGANG K ERSTING is Professor of Philosophy at the University From Domination to Transformation (Temple University Press,
of Hannover. He has published widely in moral, legal, and political 19901.
philosophy. His books include Die Ethik in Hegels " I3hanomenolo-
ALLEN W. WOOD is Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University.
gie des Geistes" (Hannover, r 9741, Wohlgeordnete Freihei t: Imtnan- His books include Kan t's Moral Religion [Cornell University Press,
uel Kants Rechts- trnd Staatsphilosophie (Walter de Gruyter, 19841, I 9701, Kant 's Rational Theology (Cornell University Press, I 978),
Niccolo Machiavelli: Leben-Werk-W irknng (Beck, I 9861, and Die Karl Marx (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 198 I), and Hegel's Ethical
poli tische Philosophie des Gesellschafrsvertrugs ( Wissenschaf tliche
Thought {Cambridge University Press, 1990). He also translated,
BuchgeseIlschaf t, I gg I ). with Gertrude S. Clarke, Kant's Lectures on Philosophical Theology
ON o RA o 'N EI LL is Professor of Philosophy at the University of (Cornell University Press, I 978). He is general co-editor of The Cam-
Essex. Her works ii~cludeA cting on Principle: An Esslry on Kantian bridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (forthcoming).
Ethics (Columbia University Press, 19751, Faces of Hunger (Black-
J. MICHAEL YOUNG is Professor of Philosophy at the University of
well, 1986), and Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kent's
Kansas. He has published articles on Kant's epistemology and phi-
Prlrc tic~rlP hilosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1989 1.
losophy of mathema tics, and has translated Kant's Lectures on Logic
c HARLES PARSONS is Professor of Philosophy at Harvard Univer- for The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (forth-
sity. He has made contributiolls to logic, pl~ilosophyo f logic, and coming).
philosophy of mathematics. Some of his papers in the latter two
areas as well as on Frege and Quine are included with two studies of
Kant's philosophy of mathematics in his Mathemcrtjcs in Philoso-
phy {Cornell University Press, 1983).
EVA SCHAPER is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glas-
gow. She has written on a wide range of issues in aesthetics and its
history. She is the author of Prelude to Aesthetics (George Allen
Unwin, 1968) and Studies in Katlt 's Aesthetics (Edinburgh Univer-
sity Press, 19791, and has also edited Pleastlre. Preference, orld
Value: Studies in Philosophical Aesthetics (Cambridge University
Press, 1983).
Method of citation xi
A11swer to the Uurstion: Whctt Is Er~lightenrl~et~t!
(17841
False Subtletv The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogi.stjc Figtires
METHOD OF CITATION (1764
Fjrst Izltroductjon to the Critjc~ueo f {udgment
(posthumous]
Groundwork Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (17851
Iudgment Critique of ludgmertt (I7 90)
Lectures Lectures on Phjlosophical Theolog,~(p osthumous!
Living Forces Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces
[1747j
Logic Irnmanuel Kant's Logic: A HandAook ior Lectures
Citations to Kant's texts are generally given parenthetically, although some (edited by G. B. Jkche)( I8 00)
additional references are included in the notes to the essays. Two forins of MetuphysicoI Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
citation are employed. Citations to the Critique of Pure Reason are located Foundations (1786)
in the customary manner by reference to the pagination of Kant's first ("A"] Morals Metaphysics of Morals ( I 797)
and second ("3")e ditions. Where both A and B page numbers are provided, Negative Quantities Attempt to Introduce the Cor~cepot f Negative
the passage cited is included in both editions; otherwise the passage occurs Qr~untitiesi nto Philosophy (I7 63)
only in the one edition cited. In most instances, reference to the title of the Nova dilucidatio A New Exposition OJ the First Principles of Meta-
Critique of Pure Rensorl is omitted. All other passages are located by vol- physical Cognition ( I 7 5 j)
ume and page number, given in arabic numerals separated by a colon, in the Observations Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and
standard critical edition of Kant's works, Kan t's gesammelte Schriften, ed- Sublime (1764)
ited by the Konigiichen Preuflischen (later Deutschen) Akademie der Wis- Only Possible The Only PossibIe Basis for u Demonstrurion of
senschaften (Berlin: Georg Reimer (later Walter de Gruyter], 1900- 1; in Basis the Existence of God (I7 63)
addition, if Kant divided the work in question into numbered sections, his Orientation What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thought!
section number precedes the volume and page of the Akodemie edition. (17861
These references are preceded by a short title for the work in question Perpetual Peace Towards Perpetuol Peoce (I7 95 1
unless the context obviates the need for that. Several authors have followed Physical Monadology The joint Use of Metaphysics and Geometry in
the Akude~niee dition citation with a citation of an English translation of Natural Philosophy, the First Exnmple of wt~ich
the work, although, because most modern English translations include the Contains the Physical Monudology (I7 j 6)
Akademie edition pagination, it is not always necessary to do so. Each essay Practical Reason Critique of Prflctjcal Reason (1788)
provides information about the translations used in that essay. Prize Essay investigation of the Clarity of the Principles of
The following lists, in alphabetical order, the short titles of Kant's works Natural Ti~eologyu nd Morals ( I 76.11
(with date of original publication in parentheses] which are employed Progress What Is the Real Progress That Metaphysics Has
throughout the volume. Note 8 to Chapter 8 includes a list of additional Mude in Germuny since the Time of Leibnii and
abbreviations for Kant's lectures on metaphysics, which are cited only in Wolff!( edited by F. T. Rink] (I8 04)
that chapter. Prolegomena Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That
Shall Come Forth as Scientific (1783)
Conflict Confljct of the Faculties (17981 Pure Reason Critique of Pure Reuson (r781/1787)
Drsserration Dissertatior~o n the Forms and Principles of the R Reflexionen (Kant's marginalia]
Sensible ond lntelligibie Worlds [I7 70) Regions On the Ultimnte Ground of the Differentiation of
Dreams Dreams of a Spirit-Seer ( 1766) Regions in Space ( 17681
xii METHOD OF CITATION
Rclig~on Rel~gionw ithin the Limits of fier~.conA lonc (17c)~] PAUL GUYER
Theoficy On the Flrilure uf all Philosophicr~lA ttempts r~at
Theodicy (I7 9 I J
Theory and Practice On the Old Saying: Thrlt Muy Be Right in Theory Introduction: The starry heavens
But Does Not Work in Practice [1793)
and the moral law
Universnl History Ideas towards a Universal ktstory from a Cosmo-
politan Point of View (1784)
Universul Nrltural Universal Naturul History un J Theory of the
History Heavens (I ~SS[
In what may be his single most famous passage, the first sentence of
which was even inscribed on his tombstone, Immanuel Kant con-
cluded his Critique of Practical Reason ( r 788) thus:
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe,
the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above
me and the 111orall aw withi11 me. I do not seek or coniecture either of them
as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my
vision; I see them before me and connect them immediateIy with the con-
sciousness of m y e xistence. The first starts at the place that I occupy in the
external world of the senses, and extends the connection in which I stand
into the limitless magnitude of worlds upon worlds, systems up011 systems,
as well as into the boundless times of their periodic motion, their beginning
and continuation. The second begins with my invisible self, my personality,
and displays to me a world that has true infinity, but which can only be
detected through the understanding, and with which . . . I know myself to
be in not, as in the first case, merely contingent, but universal and necessary
connection. The first perspective of a countless multitude of worlds as it
were annihilates my importance as an ani~nalc reature, which must give
the matter out of which it has grown back to the planet (a mere speck in the
cosmos] after it has beell (one knows not how] furnished with life-force tor a
short time. The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth, as an
intelligence, through my personality, in which the rnoriil law reveals to me a
Iife independent of animality and even of the entire world of the senses, at
least so far as may be judged from the purposive determination of my exis-
tence through this law, which is not limited to the conditions and bound-
aries of this life hut reaches into the infinite. (Practical Reason, 5:161-z)
Like many philosophers from the time of Rene Descartes and
Thomas Hobbes onward, Kant tried to explain both the possibility of
the new scientific knowledge, which had culminated in the mathe-
2 THE CAMUKIDGE COMPANION TO KANT Introduction 3
n~aticalw orldview of Isaac Newton, and the possibility of human idealist successors. In spite of his sense of human limits, however,
freedom. Unlike mechanists and empiricists from Hobbes to David Kant radically and irreversibly transformed the nature of Western
Hume, Kant did not try to reduce human freedom to merely one thought. After he wrote, no one could ever again think of either
more mechanism among those of a predictable nature, but, unlike science or morality as a matter of the passive reception of entirely
rationalists from Descartes to Goctfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Chris- external truth or reality. In reflection upon the methods of science,
tian Wolff, Kant was not willing to ground human freedom on an as well as in many particular areas of science itself, the recognition
alleged rational insight into some objectively perfect world only of our own input into the world we claim to know has become
confusedly grasped by the senses. Instead, Kant ultimately came to inescapable. In the practical sphere, few can any longer take seri-
see that the validity of both the laws of the starry skies above as well ously the idea that moral reasoning consists in the discovery of
as the moral law within had to be sought in the legislative power of external norms -for instance, objective perfections in the world or
human intellect itself. It took Kant a long time to transcend the the will of God - as opposed to the construction for ourselves of the
solutions of his predecessors, and perhaps he never fully clarified the most rational way to conduct our lives both severally and jointly. Of
nature of his own solution. Nonetheless, the idea to which he was course not even a Kant could have single-handedly transformed the
uItimately drawn was the recognition that we can be certain of the self-conception of an entire culture; but at least at the philosophical
foundations of physical science because we ourselves impose at least level of the transformation oi the Western conception of a human
the basic form of scientific laws upon the nature that is given to us being from a mere spectator of the natural world and a mere subject
by our senses, yet that precisely because we ourselves impose the in the moral world to an active agent in the creation of both, no one
basic laws of science upon our world we are also free to look at the played a larger role than Tmrnanuel Kant.
world from a standpoint in which we are rational agents whose This extraordinary revolution was accomplished by a most un-
actions are chosen and not merely predicted in accordance with likely individual. Unlike those of his predecessors such as Leibniz or
deterministic laws of (as we would now say) biology, psychology, or John Locke who were men of means familiar with the corridors of
sociology. But in neither case, Kant ultimately came to recognize, is power in the great European capitals and active in the political and
our freedom complete. Although we can legislate the basic forms of religious struggles of their day, Kant was born into narrow straits in a
laws of nature, and indeed bring those laws ever closer to the details small city virtually at the outermost limits of European civilization.
of nature through increasingly concrete conceptualizations, we can Although Konigsberg, where Kant was born into an artisan family in
do so only asymptotically and must wait upon nature itself to fill in 1724, was a Hanseatic trading city with English connections as well
the last level of detail -which, because of the infinite divisibiIity as the administrative center of East Prussia, it was hardly London or
and extendability of matter in space and time, nature will never Paris or Edinburgh or Amsterdam (the German city of Konigsberg no
quite do. And although we can autonomously legislate laws oi rea- longer exists, having been leveled in World War I1 and replaced with
son for our actions, we must ultimately also look to nature, not only the Russian naval base Kaliningrad). Its university, which Kant en-
outside us but also within us, for cooperation in realizing the ends of tered at the age of sixteen after a preparatory education financially
those actions. supported by the family's Pietist pastor and where he then spent
For Kant, then, his profound recognition of our legislative power most of his life, was barely more than a glorified high school, and
in both science and morals, in both theoretical and practical reason, even so Kant had to struggle in the poverty of a Privatdozent paid by
always had to be reconciled with an equally deep sense of the contin- the head (he quickly learned how to make his lectures very popular,
gency of our success in both theory and practice. Even though he however) until he was finally appointed to a proper chair in ineta-
was hardly a conventionally religous thinker, Kant retained a sense physics at the age of forty-six. And after the decade of frequent
of the limits of human powers of mind that is often missing from the publication which led to that appointment in 1770, Kant fell into a
wilder optimism of some of his rationalist predecessors as well as decade of silence which must have persuaded many that his long