Infinity and the Possibility of Metaphysics. The Debate on Kant's Antinomies in France (1850s-­1920s)

Abstract

The article focuses on a neglected chapter in the French reception of Kant: the debate on antinomies. Initially understood, by Victor Cousin's eclecticism, as symbolizing the abstractness of the Kantian system, antinomies were the focus of cogent interpretations in the second half of the nineteenth century. The debate that arose following Charles Renouvier's solution, based on the rejection of the mathematical notion of actual infinity, was intense, involving major philosophers of the time, such as François Evellin, Louis Couturat, Henri Bergson and Léon Brunschvicg. The stakes were decisive: the nature of reason, the relationship between philosophy and science, and the possibility of a positive metaphysics. The Author reconstructs and analyzes the various interpretations, showing how the debate on antinomies played a decisive role in the formation of French philosophy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.