The Metaphysics of Freedom

Abstract

INTRODUCTION As we have seen in Chapters 3 and 4, the issue of causality occupies a prominent place within the Transcendental Analytic's Analogies of Experience. However, causality is also a major topic of the Transcendental Dialectic. While the Paralogisms and Ideal of Pure Reason touch on the issue in various ways (e.g., in addressing interaction between mind and body and in discussing the cosmological argument for the existence of God, respectively), it is one of Kant's central concerns in the Antinomies of Pure Reason, in the Third Antinomy in particular, where it arises in the context of the problem of free will and determinism. Thus, we continue our discussion of Kant's views on causality by considering his treatment of the problem of free will and determinism. The problem of free will and determinism is, of course, a notoriously difficult one, and our discussion of it in this chapter in no way attempts to resolve all of its complexities, not even all of those that Kant himself draws our attention to throughout the Critique of Pure Reason . Rather, the primary aim of this chapter is merely to come to a better understanding of how the general model of causality that was described and argued for in Chapters 3 and 4 can both clarify and be clarified by Kant's views on freedom. In particular, we see that in solving certain aspects of the problem of free will and determinism, Kant appeals to many of the same notions that he invoked in his general model of causality.