Abstract
The discussion concerning Kant’s knowledge of the Greek world has long been a subject of debate. Our contribution is intended to show that in the Dissertation of 1770 Kant is measured against some currents of Greek thought, and above all with Plato, on topics which will become very important in the articulated development of criticism in the 1770s. One aspect of our analysis deals with the texts that could have filtered Kant’s knowledge of ancient Greek tradition. We will then pore over some crucial features of the Dissertation, such as the distinction between sensible and intelligible knowledge and the ambiguous nature of the intellectualia, in order to assess how Kant’s understanding of certain issues of Greek classicism may have contributed to the outline of some still problematic theses in the text of 1770.
Highlights
The discussion concerning Kant’s knowledge of the Greek world has long been a subject of debate
Given Kant’s indirect knowledge of Plato, he may have had a distorted view of the Platonic perspective to the extent that he could have ignored the fundamental hierarchy between the intelligible and the sensible dimension placed at the basis of Plato’s thought
Our contribution is intended to show that in the Dissertation of 1770 Kant is measured against some currents of Greek thought, and above all with Plato, on topics which will become very important in the articulated development of criticism in the 1770s
Summary
A great deal has been written about Kant’s relationship with classical Greek thought, from very diverse perspectives and with different aims For this reason, it is necessary to clarify that in this contribution we will confine our analysis to some topics linked to this relation, which recur in the Dissertation of 1770 and that can contribute to the emergence of the methodological shift announced but not resolved in this dense text. The only “archaeology” allowed in the history of philosophy is a philosophical archaeology, that is, an approach shaped by the life of reason itself, which is neither exhausted by nor resolved in its contingent manifestation This premise is necessary in order to understand both the meaning, the limits and the potentialities of the way Kant relates to Greek thought, in particular to Plato, in the somehow enigmatic and challenging Dissertation of 1770. It will be a question of trying to understand what problems Kant was dealing with at this crucial moment in his theoretical path and how the Greek world, or rather the image that Kant himself had formed of it, plays a role in the outline of these problems and in Kant’s attempt to solve them
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