Original Representing and Practical Philosophy

Abstract

This chapter presents Beck’s reading of Kant’s practical philosophy. In a continuous manner to his presentation of the theoretical part of the critical philosophy, Beck presents an explanation of the practical part of critical philosophy, that is, morality, without resorting to the concept of a thing-in-itself. Beck attempts to elucidate the distinction between natural necessity and moral necessity. Through the distinctness on the one hand and the connection on the other between these two senses of the concept of necessity, Beck shows the integration of theoretical and practical philosophy. Since the concept of necessity, in both its natural and moral sense, is an original representing, the meaning of both kinds of necessity and the distinction between them can be made on merely subjective grounds without involving the problematic concept of the thing-in-itself.