The Critique of Pure Reason and Continental Philosophy: Heidegger’s Interpretation of Transcendental Imagination

Abstract

The Critique of Pure Reason has been a constant source of inspiration for philosophers on the European continent for well over a century. In Germany, Kant's theoretical outlook had a noticeable impact even on thinkers struggling to distance themselves from Neo-Kantian thinking. Husserl's controversial recasting of his phenomenological project along transcendental lines inherited from Kant is still evident in Heidegger's early critical revisions of Husserl's method. For Jaspers, “the fate of philosophy hinges on our attitude toward Kant,” more precisely, on our capacity to differentiate the critical method from the uncritical elements of Kant's system. In France, the focus on Kant's theoretical philosophy is no less prevalent, if more critical. Sartre crafts his account of phenomenon, transcendence, selfhood, and others in direct confrontation with Kant's conceptions of them. Similarly, by locating the transcendental conditions of knowledge in the lived body's interaction with its environment, Merleau-Ponty conceives his work as a radical revision of Kant's philosophy. In Kant's Critical Philosophy (“a book about an enemy”), Deleuze attempts to show how a different hierarchical order of faculties dominates each Critique , but - to Kant's credit - without suppressing their differences or neglecting human finitude.