Contemporary philosophers frequently assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism --certainly not before the break of Der Pantheismusstreit, or within the Critique of Pure Reason. Offering an alternative reading of key pre-critical texts and to some of the Critique's most central chapters, Omri Boehm challenges this common assumption. He argues that Kant not only is committed to Spinozism in early essays such as "The One Possible Basis" and "New Elucidation," but also takes up Spinozist metaphysics as Transcendental (...) Realism's most consistent form in the Critique of Pure Reason. (shrink)

Drawing on Descartes' account of générosité, a reinterpretation of the Cogito is offered, emphasizing the role of the will. The paper's first part focuses on Cartesian ethics. It is argued that Descartes can be viewed as a Stoical thinker rather than a Baconian one. That is, he holds that theoretical contemplation is itself the primary ground of human happiness and tranquility of mind – experienced as the feeling of générosité. The paper's second part draws on the first in accounting for (...) the relation between radical doubt and certainty. By engaging with doubt, it is argued, the meditator comes to experience générosité, assert freedom. This experience is not, then, as argued by some, merely the Cogito's ethical counterpart. It is rather the Cogito's foundation. The meditator's assertion sum follows from – insofar as freedom is, as the definition of générosité asserts, ‘the only thing truly belonging to us', it consists in – the assertion of freedom. (shrink)

: The question of Kant’s relation to Spinozist thought has been virtually ignored over the years. I analyze Kant’s pre-critical ‘possibility-proof’ of God’s existence, elaborated in the Beweisgrund, as well as the echoes that this proof has in the first Critique, in beginning to uncover the connection between Kant’s thought and Spinoza’s. Kant’s espousal of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR] for the analysis of modality during the pre-critical period committed him, I argue, to Spinozist substance monism. Much textual evidence (...) suggests that he was aware of this commitment. However, by transforming the PSR into a regulative principle the critical Kant has transformed his pre-critical proof into a regulative ideal. He is thereby committed, I argue, to regulative Spinozism. (shrink)

Kant's attack on metaphysics consists in large part in his attack on a principle that he names the Supreme Principle of Pure Reason. This principle, it is not often noticed, is the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR]. In interpreting this principle as such, I argue that Kant's attack on the PSR depends on Kant's claim that existence is not a first-order predicate. If existence isn't what Kant calls a real predicate, the PSR is false. While this constitutes a powerful Kantian (...) argument against dogmatic rationalism, it also poses a problem for Kant. For, as I argue, if the PSR is true, Kant's argument that existence isn't a first-order predicate is false. In this sense, Kant's attack on the PSR is begging the question vis-á-vis radical metaphysicians. Concluding the paper I suggest relying on Kant's 'is'/'ought' distinction in avoiding this circularity, thereby reinforcing the Kantian critique. (shrink)

Scholars commonly assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism. However, in his later writings Kant argues several times that Spinozism is the most consistent form of transcendental realism. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the first Antinomy, debating the age and size of the world, already reflects Kant's confrontation with Spinozist metaphysics. Specifically, the position articulated in the Antithesis ? according to which the world is infinite and uncreated ? is Spinozist, not Leibnizian, (...) as commonly assumed. In the second part of the paper, I raise the chief Spinozist challenge to the Antinomy, arising from Spinoza's reliance on a cosmological `totum analyticum' ? an infinite whole which is prior to its parts. In conclusion, I begin to elaborate a defence of the Kantian position, confronting Spinoza's infinite whole with Kant's account of the absolutely infinite in his discussion of the sublime. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 0, Issue 0, Page 1-4, Ahead of Print.