Response to Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

Nicholas Adams

doi:10.1177/09539468211009762

Abstract

This is a response given at the book launch for Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), hosted jointly, in November 2020, by the Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, and the Australian Catholic University. The response considers the gap between the textual Kant (as set out by Insole), and the received Kant, and reflects on how theologians have been too quick either to condemn and dismiss (a poorly interpreted) Kant, or to rehabilitate Kant for theological projects, which Kant would have been opposed to, given his deepest philosophical commitments.

Highlights

In particular, use words like ‘Kantian’ or attribute views to ‘Kant’ these reflect what they were taught in lectures and what they have read in books written over the last 200 years
Chris Insole’s Kant and the Divine is a decisive intervention for the textual Kant and against the received Kant
The received Kant—his influence, his stature—is what motivates and in some ways justifies our reading of the textual Kant

Summary

Introduction

Tom. I have two comments—the first on texts and reception; the second on how theologians learn philosophy, and the difference that Chris Insole’s new book makes. In particular, use words like ‘Kantian’ or attribute views to ‘Kant’ these reflect what they were taught in lectures and what they have read in books written over the last 200 years. The Kant who emerges is strange, unfamiliar, asking questions that theologians today might not even imagine asking.

Results

Conclusion