C.C.E. Schmid and the doctrine of intelligible fatalism

Abstract

ABSTRACT C.C.E. Schmid’s doctrine of intelligible fatalism was immensely influential in the immediate reception of Kant’s philosophy. Existing treatments of this doctrine, largely neglected by modern scholarship, echo uncharitable interpretations espoused by Schmid’s contemporaries. I demonstrate that Schmid’s intelligible fatalism is more coherent and philosophically robust than hitherto recognized. I argue for a novel interpretation of Schmid’s account of rational agency, showing that intelligible fatalism is compatible with his conceptions of freedom, obligation, and imputation. Specifically, I argue that the role of consciousness in this account carves out conceptual space for a distinction between the theoretical and the practical that is sufficient to render intelligible fatalism consistent with these conceptions.