Opus Postumum Research Articles

Kant’s Transcendentalism as Metaphysics of Possible Experience and its Realistic Interpretation in Analytical Philosophy

In the “Critique of Pure Reason” and subsequent “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics...”, “Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science”, “Opus Postumum” Kant develops one of the modes of his transcendentalism, the metaphysics of possible experience, whose task is to study the transcendental conditions for the possibility of our (cognition), which, according to Kant, has a priori character. P. Strawson calls this mode of metaphysics ‘ descriptive metaphysics ’ and connects it with the analyzing the ‘conceptual structure’ of our thinking about the world. The contemporary realistic trend (primarily within the framework of the analytical philosophical tradition) in the interpretation of Kant’s transcendental philosophy is associated with the modern theory of “two aspects” (80s of the 20th century), which replaced the classical theory of “two objects/worlds” (compare also with the opposition “ theory of appearance vs. theory of appearances ”). Within the framework of this theory, the Kantian ‘appearance’ receives an objectified status, it is not our mental representation, but corresponds (as its signs) to really existing things, or Kantian ‘objects of experience’. The article traces the formation of the historical and conceptual background of the ‘ metaphysics of experience ’ (H. Paton's original expression). Historically, the metaphysics of experience inherits the neo-Kantian approach to interpreting Kant's transcendentalism as a ‘theory of experience’ (H. Cohen, E. Cassirer), then it develops in logical positivism/empiricism (H. Reichenbach, R. Carnap; further in post-posivivism: the theory of I. Lakatos and T. Kuhn), analytical philosophy of science (W. Sellars, G. Buchdal, H. Putnam), and at present the metaphysics of experience is developing in a number of contemporary works of an analytical orientation (P. Strawson, K. Ameriks, L. Allais and etc.).

Kant’s philosophy as the development of the intentions of enlightenment

Ernst Cassirer in hisThe Philosophy of the Enlightenmentwrites of Kant’s overcoming of the Enlightenment yet giving its deepest justification. This justification came in the form of epistemology which transformed the modern worldview, handing its form and content over to science. The medieval theistic worldview had to be cleansed from miracles and mysticism and give way to a scientific worldview. However, the Enlighteners, though initiating this movement, could not follow it through and failed to break the ties to theology. This was true in psychology, epistemology, philosophy of history and religion, law and the state. Kant’s role was to complete this task. His philosophy is built upon the principle of the material unity of the world. This required the creation of transcendental anthropology which resolved the problem of the human being and the natural foundations of reason – the problem that had puzzled the most prominent thinkers of the Enlightenment. The principle of the material unity of the world is consistently maintained from the firstCritique to the Opus Postumum, making Kant’s system monistic. In order to maintain this unity, Kant had to subordinate formal logic to transcendental logic which made extensive use of the antinomical dialectic, the principle of the relativity of rational thinking, including the relativity of such ideas of reason as object and subject. Kant’s effort resulted in human nature’s being presented as part of the whole of nature, and so the limit of Enlightenment thinking was overcome.

The Highest Good and Its Crisis in Kant’s Thought

Abstract The article has the aim to show that Kant’s “standard” conception of the highest good does not represent his last word about the problem. Kant moves from a conception of the highest good close connected with the metaphysical tradition and with the aim of a new, moral justification of traditional metahysical concepts such as God and immortality of the soul. This view does find many difficulties and oscillations in the Critiques, looking for different formulations of a moral “proof” for the metaphysical concepts, grounded upon the need of justice and of a rational solution to the question of theodicy. The failure of this project is apparent with the essay on theodicy (1791). In the last decade of Kant’s intellectual activity, the expression “highest good” occurs few times and the concept looses its systematic relevance, as shown by the last works up to the Opus postumum.

Kant’s Opus postumum and Schelling’s Naturphilosophie: The Very Idea

This paper is about Kant’s late unfinished manuscript, Opus postumum (1796–1803) and some of the resonances it has with Schelling’s early Naturphiloso­phie (1797–1800). Most of the secondary literature on Opus postumum investigates its relation to the rest of Kant’s corpus, often framing the drafts as an attempt to fill a so-called “gap” in the Critical philosophy whilst ignoring the relationship it has to the wider landscape of late eighteenth century German philosophy. Whether Opus postumum may provide grounds for reviewing the relationship between Kant and Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, for example, is rarely discussed. Some scholars have remarked upon the striking parallels between Opus postumum and Naturphilosophie, but there has yet to appear a single monograph-length text on the relation. Whilst certainly “Schelling’s Post-Kantian confrontation with nature itself begins with the overthrow of the Copernican revolution” (Grant 2008, 6), what if Kant was himself overthrowing the Copernican revolution? In this paper, I will outline some of the points of contact to start from in support of posing this question.

Apperception and Related Matters in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and Opus Postumum

In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/7), Kant laid out a deep-running and largely original picture of the apperceptive mind, including a claim that in consciousness of self, one does not appear to oneself as an object and that consciousness of self is presupposed by consciousness of other things. As a result, consciousness of oneself does not provide knowledge of oneself and the referential apparatus of consciousness of self is radically different from other kinds of referential apparatus. The main purpose of this paper is to summarize this picture and then explore how much of it is still to be found in his late, unfinished Opus Postumum (1800/04).

Istorijska umnost i Hajdegerove "Crne sveske" - istorijsko mišljenje i hermeneutički ključevi misterioznih tekstova "Crne sveske" Martina Hajdegera - ničeovski neopaganizam i naciorijentacija više nije uslov filosofstvovanja

The growing discussions of Heidegger's opus postumum, Schwartze Hefte, require adequate considerations of the issue. These discussions can no more be considered by separating Heidegger's political and philosophical thought, as was the case until now, because the content they provide is almost unambiguous. The concept of 'decision' is actualized almost universally, hence the decisionism here accounts for the negative unity of all investigating categories. We postulate that this resulted from abandoning the critical attitude and the subsequent dialectological discussion of the original ontological concepts, as well as its hermeneutical consequences. The absurdity of turning a blind eye to the glorification of Neo-Nazi inclinations should not be a part of philosophy.

The Noise of Time

The ‘I’ fractured by time – if Deleuze returns repeatedly to this seemingly minor moment in Kant's system, it is not simply to sound anew the theme of ‘difference’ (this time, with an a priori accent). No, Deleuze turns to this ‘interior drama’ for the same reason that Kant, in the Opus Postumum, returns to it: it presents the most direct passage from ‘interior’ (self) to ‘exterior’ (Nature). But Kant's late complication of the transcendental field undermines several of his most cherished theses – in particular, the fixity of the table of categories, the homogeneity of the forms of intuition (Space and Time) and the rights of logical determinacy. It is left to Deleuze to radicalise Kant's critique along the lines of time. In contending with this fissure, Deleuze inaugurates nothing less than a truly genetic philosophy of Nature – one that would think with Nature rather than of it. Only one caught in this labyrinthine flow could inquire into the possibility of radical metamorphosis.

Idea Boga w późnych pismach Immanuela Kanta

Kant’s position on the problem of God is radicalized under the influence of transcendental philosophy’s evolving project. The weakening position of physico-theology and the growing importance of moral theology are possible ways of describing the shift in perspective between the pre-critical period writings and the critical period writings. The separation of the area of cognition and action excludes the possibility of formulating theodicy in a classical form. God, as only a conceived idea, and its meaning is firmly grounded in practical philosophy, in which the presentation of the law is a sufficient condition for moral behaviour. In such a model, God is only an idea, but a fully functional one. This could be noticed mostly in the Opus postumum, where in analogy to God’s practical idea, Kant deduces the transcendental ether’s existence. Ether is not just a hypothesis for Kant; it is not just a ‘temporary’ or ‘contingent’ assumption made ad hoc to explain a particular experience. Still, it is a fundamental and indelible condition, a conditio sine qua non of experience in general. The non-hypothetical matter of heat (ether) is the transcendental condition of all experience, though it does not cease to be an ‘intelligible thing’, an ‘idea’. The status of this idea is entirely ‘non-theoretical’. Kant writes about the ether similarly as he writes about the idea of God, which is only conceivable but at the same time it maintains a strong ‘non-theoretical’ status. The Kantian idea of God is strongly objectified. It is not a ‘product’ of reason, but rather something ‘perceived’ by reason, a strictly theistic idea (as Erich Adickes claims). Kant’s statements, characteristic for the Opus postumum, in which God is identified with moral law, of course give grounds to suppose that the deification of practical reason can be understood as a final stage in the long process of anthropologizing God. However, these statements also allow us to consider practical reason as a new source of what is given.

The Tantalus’ Torments of Transcendentalism

Kant’s manuscripts of 1796–1803, which the Academic German edition of his works combined in 21–22 volumes of under the invented by H. Vaihinger name ‘Opus postumum’, still attract the attention of researchers. Was there really a significant theoretical “gap” in the system of Kant's “critical”, transcendental philosophy, which built by 1790, needed to be filled, namely, to undertake a conceptual "transition" from the already constructed a priori metaphysics of corporeal nature (metaphysical principles of natural science) to experimental mathematical physics, to the entire scientific empirical investigation of nature? In the last years of his life Kant tried to solve a problem that was really decisive for the fate of transcendentalism, which he had already realized in ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ and concretized in ‘Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’, however he found himself in a hopeless situation, which doomed him to the “Tantalus’ torments”. The problem that he was constantly thinking about necessarily arises in the system of transcendental philosophy, but has no solution in it. ‘Opus postumum’ is an important piece of evidence on the insurmountable difficulties faced by the attempt to “save” philosophy as a perfect and complete system of absolutely reliable, "apodictic" science, based on the idea of universal and necessary conditions for the experience possibility.

О назначении Opus postumum в философской системе Канта

At the article devoted Kant’s last unfinished work “The transition from metaphysical elements of the natural sciences to physics” (Opus postumum) is made an assumption that Kant in course of the working has decided to change the first title of book extend its subject end to give the new one – “The philosophy as a science”. Only the successfulness of the philosophical system as the methodology of science can be the base of its truth. So, Kant comes to the conclusion a philosophical system mast has two parts: 1 the system of critics (the analysis all cognitions of the soul) and 2 the doctrine, i.e. the theoretical science knowledge as the mediator among philosophy and empirical science. Kant assigns a part of doctrine to Opus postumum. In the course of working at the manuscript Kant suggested number of hypotheses overstepping the limits of classical science. Kant proceeded from the principle of material unity of world in construction of the system so the doctrine should contain three parts. Accordingly in the Opus postumum there are materials devoted to physics, biology and anthropology. Kant introduces the notion of hyperphysics with which idea of a first substance is connected named by Kant a heat matter, or a light, or an ether – an absolutely thin all-penetrating structure could be the basis for every things of material world. This ideas opened perspectives of post-classical science.

The Impossible Possibility of Palmquist’s Kant and Mysticism

AbstractStephen R. Palmquist’s Kant and Mysticism revisits his earlier work on Kant and Swedenborg, arguing that, contrary to standard interpretations, the arguments of Dreams of a Spirit-Seer expand into ‘Critical mysticism’ throughout the Critical philosophy and into the Opus Postumum. Although the beginning portions of Palmquist’s book successfully disturb the standard portrait of Kant as the all-destroyer of metaphysics and religious experience, his argument for critical mysticism is inconclusive. It is impossible to know if his interpretation of the Opus Postumum is more right than its competitors. The conflict of interpretations shows Palmquist’s interpretation to be a hermeneutic impossible possibility.

Kant y el dilema de la anticipación de la infinitud

In this article we’ll explore the logical dimension of the so-called Anticipations of the Perception in the Critique of pure reason, in order to dialogue with the possibilities opened from there with the late Kantian work, especially with the Opus postumum. For this, we’ll discuss the composition of the Anticipations en its narrative context to then relate them with the observations made in Prolegomena on their formal or material character and, finally, to think el problem of the anticipation of infinite magnitudes in the Opus.

Kant and Mysticism: Critique as the Experience of Baring All in Reason's Light by Stephen R. PALMQUIST

Reviewed by: Kant and Mysticism: Critique as the Experience of Baring All in Reason's Light by Stephen R. PALMQUIST Brendan Kolb PALMQUIST, Stephen R. Kant and Mysticism: Critique as the Experience of Baring All in Reason's Light. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2019. xiv + 167 pp. Cloth, $90.00 One might have the following unfounded worry about Palmquist's Kant and Mysticism: "Of course Kant will have some features of his thought that can be construed as mystical. Are not all great philosophers mystics in a sense, who redirect a conversation by their seeming access to another realm? There are, of course, the literal mystical visions of a Plato or a Hildegard, but consider also the skeptical ascent in Hume's Treatise, or the otherworldly presence of David Lewis. Even Russell had his mathematical revelations. Is not Kant bound to come off as a bit of a mystic, as the one who saw the power of the 'moral law within,' as the voice of reason itself, to redirect metaphysics and rein in its speculative demands?" However, this worry is not a reason to avoid Kant and Mysticism. It is a reason why books like it need to be written, particularly for figures like Kant, whom we so often think of as dry and austere. To that end, Kant and Mysticism does a good job of capturing what is mystical in Kant, pushing some key Kantian themes toward the mystical while seemingly preserving their spirit: "'Reason' is Kant's name for the ultimately unknowable mystery that generates all our human capacities for knowledge and [End Page 854] goodness"; or: "Surely Kant's moral philosophy is grounded on what might well be called a mystical intuition of the unity of human personhood"; or again: "The core message of Kant's Critical mysticism is that anyone who experiences Critique, by allowing the light of reason to lay bare all of the dark recesses of human ignorance, will recognize that we cannot, and therefore should not, ask for more." Palmquist thus helps us to see a Kant whose concern with the limits of knowledge goes beyond developing a metaphysics, and whose concern with religion goes beyond grafting doctrines onto morality. Palmquist is quick to note that he is not offering a Kant who approves of schwärmerei—a term Kant associates with his criticism of many mystics, and which is often translated as "enthusiasm" but which Palmquist offers is best rendered in contemporary English as "delirium." For Palmquist, Kantian critical mysticism is (naturally) first negative—clearing out whatever goes beyond reason's limits or against the moral—and only within this cleared space does it take shape. In one of the most interesting parts of the book, Palmquist argues that even as Kant critiqued Swedenborg in his early Dreams of a Spirit Seer, he was beginning to develop a mystical idea of the moral community—literally, a corpus mysticum—out of the shell of Swedenborg's spirit-world (A808/B836). Palmquist may overstate his case here, in saying that Dreams of a Spirit Seer is where Kant finds the "seed" that "eventually matured into the tree of Critical philosophy," but the connections he draws are worth exploring nonetheless. Palmquist argues that once the tree of the critical philosophy was fully grown from the seed of Dreams of a Spirit Seer, it was finally able to bear long-intended fruit, its own "mystical seed," the unfortunately unfinished Opus postumum. One key textual question here arises due to Palmquist's basing his reading of the latter text on one account Kant gives of three transitions that will structure it. This is crucial because Kant also gives a different, seemingly irreconcilable account of these transitions elsewhere in the text; further, much of Palmquist's argument about Opus postumum's significance for Kant may ride on the claim that this passage, 21:17, in the "first" fascicle of Kant's papers was written early on in Opus postumum—and much of that fascicle was certainly not (see Opus postumum, ed. Eckart Förster, trans. Eckart Förster and Michael Rosen, p. xxviii). Does the book establish its ambitious main thesis, that Kant's goal in his corpus...

Filozofia religii Kanta w kontekście nowożytnego racjonalizmu religijnego

The article analyses certain aspects of Kant’s conception of religion which testify to its affinity with what has been described as religious rationalism. These aspects include a critical reading of the Scriptures, proposed primarily in the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and The Conflict of the Faculties, as well as an attempt to identify God with practical reason, which can be found in the notes written for the unfinished work of the philosopher, published as the Opus postumum. I suggest that by reading Kant in light of the ideas of the early modern religious rationalists, especially those inspired by the thought of Baruch Spinoza, one can better explain the radicalization of Kant’s late views on religion, recognized by some contemporary scholars.

The transition within the transition: the Übergang from the Selbstsetzungslehre to the ether proofs in Kant’s Opus postumum

Abstract Recent literature on Kant’s Opus postumum has typically focused on two parts of the drafts: the ether proofs and the Selbstsetzungslehre. Eckart Förster’s interpretation is representative of this tendency and, moreover, presents the Selbstsetzungslehre as the culmination of Kant’s late project. By contrast, I argue that the drafts of fascicles X/XI, written in between the ether proofs and the Selbstsetzungslehre, are of primary importance for understanding the Opus postumum. Through a close reading of a page from fascicle XI, I show that Kant attempts to resolve problems internal to the Selbstsetzungslehre and the ether proofs by presenting a transition from the former to the latter. I advocate a renewed appreciation of the centrality of fascicles X/XI, insofar as the Opus postumum drafts aspire to a science of transition.

A SUSPICION OF ARCHITECTONIC IN KANT’S TRANSITION PROJECT

This essay explores the undervalued methodological elements underpinning Kant’s Transition from Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics in Opus postumum. I do this by drawing a line between the Architectonic of Pure Reason in Critique of Pure Reason and the Transition, although this line is problematized at various points. What emerges is the call for an explicitly architectonic understanding of the concept of transition in Opus postumum. According to the architectonic of Transition, instead of only devising the strict division of metaphysics and physics we must devise systematic ways of building bridges between them and finding their points of interconnection. When extended to the wider critical edifice this implies a radical departure from the Architectonic of Pure Reason as it was understood in Critique of Pure Reason and a complication of Kant’s theorization of metaphysics, physics, and physiology throughout his corpus.

Kant's Transition Project and Late Philosophy: Connecting the Opus postumum and Metaphysics of Morals by Oliver Thorndike

Kant's Transition Project and Late Philosophy: Connecting the Opus postumum and Metaphysics of Morals by Oliver Thorndike

The Understanding in Transition: Fascicles X, XI and VII of Opus postumum

This essay investigates the transformation of the faculty of understanding in Kant’s Transition from Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics drafts found in Opus postumum . I argue that in fascicles X and XI Kant implicitly reverses the architectonic order of sensibility and understanding. Without an account of this reversal, Kant’s critique of Isaac Newton’s conception of phenomena and the so called Selbstsetzungslehre (doctrine of self-positing) in fascicle VII fall apart. I argue that what is at stake is a challenge Kant makes to his own presuppositions and a challenge to the Kantian philosopher who wishes to stay with a strictly ‘critical’ Kant.

Магистерская диссертация И. Канта «Об огне» и трансформации его представлений об эфирной материи

Kant’s dissertation for the Master’s degree Succinct Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire was written in Latin in 1755 as a sample (specimen) preceding a Master’s exam, but its first printing did not appear until 1838. What is the relevance of this Master’s dissertation for historical and philosophical studies? To answer this question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place of this work among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish continuity between the text of On Fire and the so-called Physical Monadology, draw parallels between the ideas enunciated by Kant in his first dissertation and the interpretation of ether in the printed works that followed. Finally, I put forward the hypothesis of the heuristic potential of the On Fire treatise for the analysis of Kant’s manuscript legacy. Perhaps this dissertation will enable researchers to clear up some tangled propositions in Kant’s Opus Postumum. However, a series of further studies is needed to verify the hypothesis.

The Problem of Transition in Kant’s Opus Postumum

In this paper, I try to reveal the nature of the transition problem in Kant’s Opus Postumum. Scientific developments in eighteenth century, particularly the ones in chemistry, forces philosophers to re-evaluate the role of scientific findings in the philosophical debates. In addition to these crucial developments, we observe that the a prioricity for Kant primarily depends on the physical nature of the matter which implies moving forces, but the developments in chemistry add a new dimension to the problem. Once again, Kant, after the publication of the third Critique, starts to think about the possibility of a transition from The Metaphysical Foundation of Natural Science to physics. If we succeed to construct a proper transition, we not only save the sciences from being just aggregation of the empirical data, but we may fill the gap between the knowledge about the matter and the nature as a whole.