Kant's Silent Decade: A Decade of Philosophical Development (Monograph publishing : Imprint series)

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KANT'S SILENT DECADE

KANT'S SILENT DECADE A Decade of Philosophical Development

W. H. Werkmeister Florida State University

A Florida State University Book UNIVERSITY PRESSES OF FLORIDA Tallahassee 197~

Copyright © 1979 University Presses of Florida All rights reserved

This work was evaluated and the book approved for publication by the editorial and governing boards of Florida State University's Academic Press and Publications Board. University Presses of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency of the State of Florida University System. Its offices are located at 15 NW 15th Street, Gainesville, Florida 32603. Published through the Imprint Series, Monograph Publishing Produced and distributed by University Microfilms International Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publicati(l Werkmeister, William Henry, 1901Kant's silent decade. (Monograph publishing: Imprint series) "A Florida State University book." 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. I. Title. B2798.W63 ISBN 0-8130-0606-6

193

78-31668

To my colleagues

in the Department of Philosophy, Florida State University

Contents

Acknowledgment,

Vt1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes, 7

1

1 - Freedom and Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes, 27

9

2 - The Problem of God and of God's Existence Notes, 46 Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notes, 52

30 48

3 - From Metaphysics to the Critique of Pure Reason Notes, 68

53

4 - The Emergence of Kant's Transcendental Philosophy Notes, 115

69

5 -

1775 and After Notes, 144

116

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

146

Acknowledgment

I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Professors Gerhard Funke, Robert B. Pippin, and George Schrader, who have read an earlier draft of this book. Their critical comments were most helpful to me as I prepared the final version for the publisher. However, I alone am responsible for whatever defects of the work still remain. I also thank the Department of Philosophy, Florida State University, and the Florida State University Academic Press and Publications Board for the contributions they have made to the physical preparation of this book.

w,H.w, Tallahassee, 1978

Introduction

During the so-called Silent Decade - the interval between the publication of the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 and that of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 - Kant published only a two-page review of Peter Moscati's paper on the bodily differences between animals and man and a fourteen-page essay, "Von den verschiedenen Rassen der Menschen.)) For so prolific a writer as Kant this is very little indeed. So, what else did he do? An obvious answer to this question is: He spent most of his time writing the Critique of Pure Reason; and, in a sense, this is, of course, true. But it was also during this decade that Kant broke with traditional philosophy and gave the whole of philosophy a new orientation. This development is reflected in the Notes and Reflections that we now know as Kant's handschriftliche Nachlass, which fill volumes XV, XVII, XVIII, and XIX of the Akademie-Ausgabe of Kant's Siimtliche Werke. I shall here examine that Nachlass for any help it may give us in tracing Kant's philosophical development during the 1770s. Anyone familiar with this vast material knows the fragmentary character of the Reflections and the difficulty of determining their 1

2

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Kant's Silent Decade

chronological order. Benno Erdmann's attempt to establish that order on the basis of content was a complete failure. Along these lines nothing further can be achieved. The best available dating of the individual items is that by Erich Adickes, who used changes in ink and paper and in Kant's handwriting as criteria and by means of them established thirty-three more or less well-defined phases of the Reflections, each phase centering around some more or less precisely datable item or items. 1 Since this is the only objectively defensible chronological arrangement of the phases we have, I shall, of course, accept it here. Within each phase, however, the content of individual items may then suggest more specific aspects of the development of Kant's ideas. 2 Since it is highly doubtful that the four volumes of Kant's Nachlass will ever be translated, I shall here render into English what in my judgment are the most important revelant Reflections, thus giving Kant a chance to speak for himself during this important period of transition in the development of his philosophy. I shall arrange the material according to broad topics, preserving, however, in each case the chronological order of the relevant Reflections insofar as this is at all possible. The Reflections pertaining to the Silent Decade begin with Phase A, item 4146 (XVII: 433), and end in the middle of Phase