Hume’s Attack on the “Impious Maxim” as the Hidden Spine of the Critique

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 5 tests the proposal that it was Hume’s attack on the principle of sufficient reason that first interrupted Kant’s dogmatic slumber and set Kant on the path to the Critique by looking, in the Critique, for echoes of Enquiry 12.29 note (d). It finds such echoes in the Transcendental Ideal, the Postulates of Empirical Thought, the Analogies of Experience, and the Antinomy of Pure Reason. It seeks to explain how Enquiry 12.29 note (d) might have helped suggest the solution to the Antinomy, transcendental idealism. It discusses Boehm’s view that the Antinomy is a reply to Spinoza. Kant is indeed responding to Spinoza, but also to Clarke; his response to both is inspired by Hume.