A Preface to the First Critique
Reason’s Desire and Kant’s Political History of Metaphysics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11587955 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nicholas A Anderson (0000-0002-5758-7944, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 87 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 21-42 |
| Publication date | 2025-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Review of Politics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0034670524000457 |
| OpenAlex | W4406832774 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 11 |
Kant begins the 1781 Preface of the Critique of Pure Reason with a history of metaphysics told as a sequence of failed political regimes. This history has been largely passed over both in the literature on Kant’s metaphysics and in that on his political philosophy. This article provides an interpretation of Kant’s history of metaphysical regimes as a way of exploring the political themes and aims of the First Critique. Kant’s opening narrative articulates the role his critique of metaphysics plays in establishing the possibility of a lawful order of reason that defends morality against threats arising from reason’s theoretical dissatisfaction. The political history of metaphysics presented in the A Preface reveals Kant’s understanding of the public role philosophy must undertake in the context of the modern crisis of reason
Epistemology · Metaphysics · Political science · Politics · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought
| Highly cited | No |
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