Kant and Secular Transcendentalism

Phemister, Alexander Ewen

Kant and Secular Transcendentalism

Date

2007

Authors

Phemister, Alexander Ewen

Abstract

This writing argues that some embedded moral and religious linkages in Kant’s metaphysical thought have been unobserved in much recent philosophical commentary, something we may attribute to the de-emphasis of metaphysics within significant parts of the contemporary academic world, combined with a lack of awareness of the religious milieu within which he worked. Paradoxically in the light of this, and based on the religious content I find in the first Critique and elsewhere, I explore what I perceive to be Kant’s attempt to steer traditional religious doctrines and practice into a secular, individualised, scientifically congruent, completely independent and universally acceptable format. From this, I develop the idea that an appreciation of these efforts to reform earlier theological thought allows for a more complete and coherent interpretation of critical philosophy than has previously been available, with application, for example, to a heightened understanding of the employment of the idea of things in themselves. The primary notion involved in this amended reading is the primacy Kant gives to practical reason...