Abstract

A famous scholar remembered recently an old and well known thesis, which is generally accepted by Kantians and historians of philosophy. According to it Kant, as was of use at his time, did not teach his own philosophy. This is not the evidence, however, when we examine the Dohna-Wundlacken Lectures on Metaphysics, which Kant presented in the 1792-93 winter semester. If we take as base for analysis the text of the course transcribed by Count Heinrich L. A. zu Dohna-Wundlacken, a sharp and young Student, and Baumgarten’s Metaphysica, we will see that the situation is totally different. In order to make it clear, we discuss first Kant’s criticism to the Wolffian concept of Metaphysics and present some aspects of the new concept of Metaphysics proposed by Kant in the abovementioned text. Second, we point out how Kant did make use of theses and arguments already defended in the first Critique, thus dislocating the focus of his examination from an apparent commentary to Baumgarten’s text to the exposition of his own philosophy. Finally, we try to evaluate to what extent Kant’s concept of Metaphysics defended in this Lectures do remain faithful to the teachings of the critical philosophy.