Abstract

A revised version of my dissertation will soon appear (in German) under the title "Der Streit um das Ding an sich: Systematische Analysen zur Rezeption des kantischen Idealismus 1781–1794" (de Gruyter, vol. 150 “Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie” series). My dissertation is focused on Kant’s transcendental idealism and the early, pre-Fichtean criticism thereof. It takes up the problem of the thing in itself in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and analyzes the most influential criticisms by Kant’s very first readers (J. G. Feder, C. Garve, F. H. Jacobi, H. A. Pistorius, J. A. Eberhard, G. E. Schulze, and S. Maimon), who challenged the coherence and plausibility of Kant’s overall idealist conception. In reconstructing and discussing these early reactions to Kant’s idealism, I analyze and assess their criticism against the background of new scholarship on transcendental idealism, pursuing two central goals: (i) I defend Kant’s idealism –– and in particular, the status of the Kantian thing in itself –– against these early critics; (ii) nonetheless, I argue that by engaging with their texts, there are valuable lessons to be learnt which can and should inform our contemporary understanding of Kant. Consequently, the claims and arguments of this thesis have implications for both contemporary Kant scholarship, as well as research on the reception of Kant and/or the origins of German Idealism. With respect to Kant scholarship, I do not regard the endorsement of one-world readings of Kant’s idealism as an indispensable move for a defense of Kant against his early critics; the interpretive and argumentative strategies I develop are mostly neutral with respect to the debate between one- and two-world readings. From the perspective of research on the reception of Kant and/or the origins of German Idealism, my dissertation goes against a widespread tendency within the historiography of German philosophy: the tendency to distinguish between “conservative”, “backward-looking” early critics of Kant on the one hand, and more “progressive”, “forward-looking” ones –– who pave the way for German Idealism –– on the other hand. I argue instead that Kant’s pre-Fichtean readers form a far more homogeneous group than is often thought: rather than considering their arguments in isolation, where they can easily be overlooked philosophically, placing them in context with one another helps us better appreciate the interesting philosophical points they contain. .