Introduction to an Extended Era

Abstract

Abstract In addition to outlining the chapters that follow, this introduction distinguishes three relevant meanings attached to the notion of “Kantian subjects.” The first meaning concerns the fact that a number of subjects, in the sense of a wide range of topics, are worthy of contemporary study on account of Kant’s Critical philosophy in general. The second meaning concerns the more specific point that Kant’s Critical philosophy has a specific conception of being a subject, one which deserves close examination and defense. The third meaning concerns that fact that in the wake of the development of post-Kantian philosophy there has developed a general cultural notion of what it is to be a subject in the era after Kant’s, that is, the late modern period. A new conception of philosophical methodology and historical self-consciousness arises in this context.