Kant and the Fate of Autonomy: Problems in the Appropriation of the Critical Philosophy (Modern European Philosophy)

It has been argued that Kant's all-consuming efforts to place autonomy at the center of philosophy has had, in the long-run, the unintended effect of leading to the widespread discrediting of philosophy and of undermining the notion of autonomy itself. The result of this "Copernican revolution" has seemed to many commentators the de-centering, if not the self-destruction, of the autonomous self. Ameriks challenges the presumptions that dominate popular approaches to the concept of freedom, and to the interpretation of the relation among the Enlightenment, Kant and post-Kantian thought. "In this reinterpretation of Kant and the post-Kantian response to his Critical philosophy, Karl Ameriks argues that such a view of Kant rests on a series of misconceptions. He demonstrates that the thought of Kant's successors (such as Fichte and Hegel) was determined by a radical Enlightenment conception of autonomy developed by Karl Reinhold, and that this conception entailed a serious distortion of Kant's more modest approach. The influence of Reinhold continues to mar current interpretation of Kant. By providing the first systematic study of the underlying structure of the reaction of Kant's Critical philosophy in the writings of Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel, Karl Ameriks challenges the presumptions that dominate popular approaches to the concept of freedom, and to the interpretation of the relation between the Enlightenment, Kant, and post-Kantian thought.". "A landmark study, this book will be of particular interest to all students of Kant as well as those in fields such as intellectual history, political theory, and religious studies concerned with issues of autonomy and modernity."--BOOK JACKET. CONTENTS......Page 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 8 INTRODUCTION......Page 12 PART I: Kant......Page 46 1. KANT'S MODEST SYSTEM......Page 48 PART II: Reinhold......Page 90 2. REINHOLD'S CONTRIBUTION......Page 92 PART III: Fichte......Page 172 3. KANT, FICHTE, AND SHORT ARGUMENTS TO IDEALISM......Page 174 4. KANT, FICHTE, AND THE RADICAL PRIMACY OF THE PRACTICAL......Page 198 5. KANT, FICHTE, AND APPERCEPTION......Page 247 PART IV: Hegel......Page 278 6. HEGEL'S CRITIQUE OF KANT'S THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY......Page 280 7. THE HEGELIAN CRITIQUE OF KANTIAN MORALITY......Page 322 8. THE UNRESOLVED FATE OF AUTONOMY......Page 351 NAME INDEX......Page 357 SUBJECT INDEX......Page 362 From a contemporary perspective, this remark, like Kant's Critical writings in general, can easily appear to suffer from a laughable fascination with systematicity, and to indicate an attitude that does serious injustice to both theoretical and practical realities by distorting issues in order to satisfy an obsession with formal principles.