The Radical Evil in Human Nature

Abstract

Towards the end of the Critique of Pure Reason, in the section entitled the ‘Canon of Pure Reason’, Kant poses the three fundamental questions which in his view philosophy should attempt to answer. They are: (1) What can I know? (2) What ought I to do? and (3) What may I hope for?1 In a letter to Carl Friedrich Staudlin of Gottingen, dated 4 May 1793 — on the morrow, that is, of the publication of Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft — he repeats these same questions and states that with this last book of his he had sought to complete the philosophical scheme which had begun with the first of the Critiques. In the new work, he writes, ‘a scrupulous conscience and a genuine respect for the Christian religion’ had combined with a free determination to conceal nothing and to affirm openly how he believed it possible to unite religion with ‘the most pure practical reason’.2 The letter also clearly indicates that Kant regarded the content of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone as an integral part of his systematic philosophical enterprise and not simply as an addition external to it. But if he himself saw it thus his statement is nonetheless misleading should it be taken to mean that three Critiques, followed now by a substantial book on religion, were the outcome of a preconceived plan.