Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century Philosophy

According to his own exposition, the chief targets of Kant’s critical philosophy were determinism, atheism, and materialism. These positions, a source of existential anxiety for his contemporaries, were associated with the eighteenth-century radical Enlightenment in Europe, whose representatives included Locke, La Mettrie, Buffon, Hume, Maupertuis, Holbach, Herder, and the Göttingen materialists. Appealing to the powers of nature and to empirical enquiry, these philosophers typically ridiculed academic metaphysics, rejected appeals to incorporeal substances, emphasized the animal-human continuum, grounded ethics and law in convention and utility, and challenged the legitimacy of worldly hierarchies and priestly authority. The present study focuses on Kant’s transcendental idealism and his theory of human nature. Reversing certain more familiar characterizations, it shows how the critical philosophy was intended to constitute a bulwark against a radical naturalism while leaving space for nonthreatening investigations in physics, chemistry, and the sciences of life. It substantiates earlier claims that Kant was, at best, a proponent of ‘moderate Enlightenment’, while offering a cleared pathway to comprehension through his famously complicated expositions. The reader is further encouraged to reflect critically on Kant’s philosophical relevance for us, given that our present concerns and anxieties are so different from his. The most progressive and humane positions, from our current perspective, with respect to scientific explanation, mind-body relations, altruism, economic and criminal justice, animals, women, warfare, non-Europeans, and evolution, were in fact held by Kant’s implied and declared opponents. "Struck by the absence of love affairs, adventures, travels, and political engagement in Immanuel Kant's life, a noted commentator describes him as unformed, to a degree surpassing all other philosophers, by challenging life events. Declaring that Kant 'can be understood only through his work in which he immerses himself with unwavering discipline,' the writer evokes the image of a body of writing demanding to be understood through text-internal analytical methods alone. The theme of the enclosed Kantian text is virtually irresistible. It dominates in teaching practice and in a large percentage of the expository literature, where Kant's ideas are paraphrased in more, or even less transparent prose. It is attributable to the fact that Kant is a difficult author, a fact that, despite his scorn for popular philosophy, he knew and to some extent regretted. The commentator too is apt to immerse him or herself in Kant's writings with unwavering discipline, leaving little time and energy for a study of Kant's surrounding context. Like Wordsworth's Isaac Newton, whose innate powers enable him to teach the truth to himself, Kant is seen as a walled-off genius whose innovations nevertheless reached to the whole world. But Kant's famous domesticity and addiction to routine did not preclude contact with an external world. His mind was formed--as was Newton's, as is that of any one of us-- by his encounters with books and essays, by his exchanges with correspondents and dinner guests, from whom he learned and by whom he was provoked and challenged. The name index of the Academy Edition of Kant's works and the range of authors in the catalogue of Kant's library books published by Arthur Warda in 1922 leave no doubt as to the breadth of his personal and literary acquaintances"-- Provided by publisher Kant's philosophy is usually treated according to 'internalist' textual methodology rather than contextually according to 'externalist' methodology. Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century Philosophy presents transcendental idealism, the metaphysics of morals, and other Kantian innovations in philosophy as a reaction to 18th century developments in the life and human sciences. It interprets Kant's metaphysics as motivated by, on one hand, anxiety over the moral dangers he perceived in the empiricism of Buffon, Hume, Smith, and certain German materialists; and, on the other, his theological scepticism. Topics treated include cosmology and the fate of the earth, the mechanical philosophy and the problems of life, mind, and matter, historical pessimism, warfare and class consciousness, and the role of women in 18th century society. This book sheds new light on all major aspects of Kant's philosophy and opens avenues for further research. Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Discoveries and Controversies 2. The Laws of Nature and the Origins of the World 3. The Background: Problems of Life and Matter 4. The Veil of Perception and Kant’s Transcendental Idealism 5. The ‘Physiologists’ and Material Minds 6. The Penchant for Determinism and Kant’s Response 7. Obligation and the Moral Sentiments 8. The Puzzles of Purposiveness 9. Kant on Humanity, Diversity, and Human Value 10. Civilization, Extinction, and Moral Effort 11. Futility and Transcendence: Kant’s Arguments of Hope Epilogue Editions Cited and Concordance of Translated Passages Bibliography Index of Names Index of Subjects Kant's philosophy is usually treated according to 'internalist' textual methodology rather than contextually according to 'externalist' methodology. This book presents transcendental idealism, the metaphysics of morals, and other Kantian innovations in philosophy as a reaction to 18th century developments in the life and human sciences. It interprets Kant's metaphysics as motivated by, on one hand, anxiety over the moral dangers he perceived in the empiricism of Buffon, Hume, Smith, and certain German materialists; and, on the other, his theological scepticism This book presents transcendental idealism, the metaphysics of morals, and other Kantian innovations in philosophy as a reaction to 18th century developments in the life and human sciences. It sheds new light on all major aspects of Kant's philosophy and opens avenues for further research.