scholarly journals The Dialectical Illusion in Kant’s Only Possible Argument for the Existence of God

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-363
Author(s):  
Noam Hoffer
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Regulative Idea ◽  
Contingent Existence

AbstractThe nature of Kant’s criticism of his pre-Critical ‘possibility proof’ for the existence of God, implicit in the account of the Transcendental Ideal in the Critique of Pure Reason, is still under dispute. Two issues are at stake: the error in the proof and diagnosis of the reason for committing it. I offer a new way to connect these issues. In contrast with accounts that locate the motivation for the error in reason’s interest in an unconditioned causal ground of all contingent existence, I argue that it lies in reason’s interest in another kind of unconditioned ground, collective unity. Unlike the conception of the former, that of the latter directly explains the problematic ontological assumption of the possibility proof, the existence of intelligible objects as the ground of possibility. I argue that such Platonic entities are assumed because they are amenable to the kind of unity prescribed by reason. However, since the interest in collective unity has a legitimate regulative use when applied to the systematic unity of nature, the conception of God entailed by the possibility proof is retained as a regulative idea of reason.

scholarly journals Kant’s Response to Hume’s Critique of Pure Reason

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
General Question ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Abstract In this article I argue that Kant considered Hume’s account of causality in the Enquiry to be primarily relevant because it undermines proofs for the existence of God and, moreover, that this interpretation is plausible and text-based. What the Prolegomena calls ‘Hume’s problem’ is, I claim, the more general question as to whether metaphysics can achieve synthetic a priori knowledge of objects at all. Whereas Hume denied this possibility, I show how the solution Kant develops in the Critique of Pure Reason is in agreement with Hume’s critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but salvages the synthetic a priori principles he takes to be constitutive of empirical cognition.

The Non-Moral Element in Kant's ‘Moral Proof’ of the Existence of God

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-516
Author(s):  
Gordon E. Michalson
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Certainty

In a discussion in this journal of Kant's ‘moral proof’ of the existence of God Peter Byrne describes what he takes to be the ‘fundamental incoherence’ of Kant's position. Kant, it is well known, wishes to hold together two claims concerning our epistemological relationship to God: the claim that we can have no ‘theoretical knowledge’ of God's existence; and the claim that we nonetheless have ‘moral certainty’ of God's existence. The first claim arises out of the Kantian criticism of the pretensions of speculative metaphysics, a criticism developed most rigorously in the Critique of Pure Reason. The second claim, in turn, arises out of Kant's so-called ‘moral proof which appears in skeletal form in the firstCritique and acquires more detail edelaboration in the Critique of Practical Reason.

Proofs of the Existence of God in the Critique of Pure Reason and Morning Hours

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-141
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Belief In God

This chapter examines Kant’s continued criticism of the classical arguments for the existence of God in the Critique of Pure Reason and his critique of his own earlier new argument for God as the ground of all possibility. Kant’s conclusion is that belief in the existence of God must be defended on practical rather than theoretical grounds. In Morning Hours Mendelssohn defended the ontological and cosmological arguments and added a new argument from the incompleteness of human knowledge. Mendelssohn does not accept Kant’s argument for belief in God on moral grounds only but instead adopts a pragmatic position that we have no choice but to rely on the results of the unimpaired use of our own cognitive powers.

Knowledge of God in Bernard Lonergan and Hans Küng

1977 ◽  
Vol 70 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 327-341
Author(s):  
Edward K. Braxton
Keyword(s):  
Bernard Lonergan ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Knowledge Of God ◽  
Hans Küng

Can the existence of God be rationally demonstrated? This question has occupied philosophers and theologians for centuries and in a particular way since Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. This essay will examine the question of the knowledge of God as it is met by two contemporary Catholic theologians, Bernard Lonergan and Hans Küng. These two scholars are not chosen arbitrarily for comparison. Not only is each of them on the forefront of current theological development, but I shall argue that on the question of God the ambitious, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts of the former are significantly complemented by the latter.

Hidden Antinomies of Practical Reason, and Kant’s Religion of Hope

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 199-217
Author(s):  
Rachel Zuckert
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul

AbstractIn the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that morality obliges us to believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. I argue, however, that in two late essays – “The End of All Things” and “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” – Kant provides moral counterarguments to that position: these beliefs undermine moral agency by giving rise to fanaticism or fatalism. Thus, I propose, the Kantian position on the justification of religious belief is ultimately antinomial. One ought, moreover, to understand Kant’s considered position concerning the immortality of the soul and the existence of God to be similar to that he proposes concerning the theoretical ideas of reason in the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason: they are necessary as regulative ideas guiding moral action, not endorsed or even postulated as propositions. In other words, they are subject matters not of belief, but of hope.

God, Hypostasis, and the Threat of Paradox: Exploring Kantian And Non-Kantian Reasons for Circumspection

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-198
Author(s):  
Damián Bravo Zamora
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Ideal

AbstractIn this paper, I present an interpretation of Kant’s view that reason’s hypostasis of the idea of a sum-total of reality is dogmatic and illegitimate. In the section on the ‘Transcendental Ideal’, the second section of the Ideal of Pure Reason chapter in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant starts by describing reason’s procedure from the affirmation of the principle of thoroughgoing determination to the hypostasis in question. According to the interpretation I defend, the argument for hypostasis deployed in this section constitutes an improvement upon an argument defended by the pre-critical Kant himself in his 1673 essay “The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God”. By making reference to the concept of omnitudo realitatis, the argument in the ‘Transcendental Ideal’ section presents a much more radical and convincing interpretation of the thesis that ‘possibility presupposes actuality’. Second, I present transcendental idealism and its related distinction between objects of sense and objects in general as the main dissuasive argument of the critical philosopher against hypostasis. Finally, I consider an argument against hypostasis that is independent of transcendental idealism: the threat of set-theoretical paradoxes if we hypostatize the relevant idea, intended as the concept of an absolutely comprehensive totality.

Kants kritische Psychologie als Aufklärung

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-273
Author(s):  
Hyeongjoo Kim ◽  
Carina Pape
Keyword(s):  
Important Change ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment

In his famous essay from 1784, Kant denied that we "live in an enlightened age"; yet he claimed that we "live in an age of enlightenment". If we should answer the question if we live in an enlightened age now, we could basically give the same answer. The enlightenment as an ongoing process can be found throughout Kant's whole work. This article focuses on how the concept of enlightenment can be applied to the Kantian psychology, which marks an important change of theory of the soul within modern western metaphysics. Kant's idea of enlightenment and 'critique' will be illustrated with reference to the "Paralogisms" of the Critique of Pure Reason. Finally, an analysis of some passages of the "Paralogisms" shall demonstrate that Kant's critique of the previous metaphysical doctrine of the human soul should not be understood as a complete rejection of this doctrine; rather, Kant's critique of what is called rational psychology should be understood as a critical transformation.

Kant’s Material Condition of Real Possibility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Leech
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
Material Condition

In the Postulates of Empirical Thinking, a section of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant presents an account of the content and role of our concept of real possibility in terms of formal conditions of experience. However, much later in the Critique he introduces the idea of a material condition of possibility. What is this material condition of possibility, and how does it fit with the conception of possibility in terms of formal conditions? This essay argues that the key to answering these questions—as well as to understanding Kant’s criticism of rational theology, in which the discussion of the material condition of possibility appears—is Kant’s account of how we can individuate objects.

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