Abstract

In the Critique of Pure Reason the belief that "existence is not a real predicate" anchors the rejection of the ontological proof for the existence of God, and all theoretical knowledge of God in turn. In his pre-critical period, however, Kant put forward an a priori proof for the existence of God, the "proof from possibility," while holding the same view of existence. And the account of the idea of God in the first Critique, the "transcendental ideal," is similar enough to the earlier proof that it can be seen as a proof shifted to the purely noumenal level, i.e., a concept we must think but can never know. Given these links between the critical and pre-critical periods, what-factors forced the transformation of the proof into the transcendental ideal? And how could Kant even offer an a priori proof in the early writings when he was already convinced that existence wasn't a real predicate, and so could not be known through conceptual analysis? ;This dissertation illuminates the background and development of Kant's often perplexing discussion of God. At its three crucial stages, Kant's treatment of ontotheology is an encounter between his rationalist heritage and a philosophic method adopted from Newton. Chapter I examines this background in Leibniz and Newton. Chapter II looks at Kant's first metaphysical treatise, the Nova dilucidatio , and its objections to rationalism. Chapter III looks at the zenith of Kantian rational theology in The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God , and argues that the proof from possibility relies on an application of Newtonian method to metaphysics. Chapters IV and V examine the proof in the changed landscape of the Critique of Pure Reason . Since human intuition is restricted to the sensible, the category of reality can no longer apply to the supersensible, and the proof loses its force. As a regulative idea, however, the concept of God "completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge" ; expressing a primordial unity within diversity, the transcendental ideal accounts for the projected systematic unity of our knowledge, and God retains a deep and shadowy presence in the critical philosophy