Freedom and Religion in Kant and his Immediate Successors
The Vocation of Humankind, 1774–1800

George di Giovanni stresses the revolutionary character of Kant's critical thought.

George di Giovanni (Author)

9780521099813, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 January 2009

396 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.58 kg

Review of the hardback: '… a magnificent addition to Cambridge's powerful list in German philosophy …' Paul Guyer

The theologians of the late German Enlightenment saw in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason a new rational defence of their Christian faith. In fact, Kant's critical theory of meaning and moral law totally subverted the spirit of that faith. This challenging new study examines the contribution made by the Critique of Pure Reason to this change of meaning. George di Giovanni stresses the revolutionary character of Kant's critical thought but also reveals how this thought was being held hostage to unwarranted metaphysical assumptions that caused much confusion and rendered the First Critique vulnerable to being reabsorbed into modes of thought typical of Enlightenment popular philosophy. Amongst the striking features of this book are nuanced interpretations of Jacobi and Reinhold, a lucid exposition of Fichte's early thought, and a rare, detailed account of Enlightenment popular philosophy.

1. Introduction: the vocation of humankind, 1774
2. The taming of Kant: popular philosophy
3. The intractable Kant: Schultz, Jacobi, Reinhold
4. Of human freedom and necessity
5. Kant's moral system
6. The difference that Fichte made
7. The parting of the ways
8. The vocation of humankind revisited, 1800.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Philosophy of religion [HRAB], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]