Abstract

In Sept. 1798, eight years after the publication of his three famous critiques, the oíd Kant complains, in a letter to his friend Christian Gane, that he is tortured by a "tantalic pain", because he had not found yet any insight of the "whole of philosophy". The aim of this - study is to "diagnose" this pain and to reveal an efficacious "therapy". It is explicated that Kant's project of an "a priori judging reason" suffers from Ihe unsolvable difficulty of application, caused by the total abstrac tion of empirical contents. ln order to break up this difficulty, the rehabi litation of sentiments seems to be necessary. Thus it becomes possible to comprehend the processua.l wholeness of the kantian critiques: the - mutual relationship of feeling ("Critique of judgement"), thinking ("Critique of pure reason") and willing ("Ctitique of practical reason"). By means of Uds onto-logo-ellzi cal dimension the basic desire of kantian criticism becomes apparent in its positivity: the "renovation of metaphy sics by refutation of scepticism and indifferentism"