Spinozism in the Ether

In this chapter I turn to Kant’s Opus Postumum , the text in which his relation to Spinozism is at its most puzzling and intriguing. In this final text, Kant appears to affirm a single material substance produced by the subject’s self-positing. This substance, the ether, is at once a material and transcendental condition of possible experience, and goes some way towards satisfying Maimon’s and Deleuze’s demand for a genetic condition of real experience. Moreover, a number of cryptic references to ‘Spinoza’s transcendental idealism’ are out of line with Kant’s usual antagonism towards Spinozism. While I will defer discussion of these references to this book’s conclusion, they raise a number of immediate questions. Did Kant see the mature form of his transcendental idealism as compatible with Spinozism, or with a materialist or idealist variant of it? Did the development of the concept of ether make him re-evaluate his attitude towards Spinoza? Does Kant truly move to a theory of the immanent production of empirical objects from a single substance? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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