Kant's Critique of Spinoza [Hardcover]

Contemporary philosophers frequently assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism-certainly not before the break ofDer Pantheismusstreit, or within theCritique 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. The success -- or failure -- of Kant's critical projects must be evaluated in this light. Boehm here examines The Antinomies alongside Spinoza's Substance Monism and his theory of freedom. Similarly, he analyzes the refutation of the Ontological Argument in parallel with Spinoza's Causa-sui. More generally, Boehm places theCritique of Pure Reason's separation of Thought from Being and Is from Ought in dialogue with the Ethics' collapse of Being, Is and Ought into Thought.

Preface
Introduction

1. The One Possible Basis: The Ideal of Pure Reason and Kant's Regulative Spinozism

2. The First Antinomy and Spinoza

3. The Third Antinomy and Spinoza

4. The Causa Sui and the Ontological Argument, or The Principle of Sufficient Reason and The Is-Ought Distinction

5. Radical Enlightenment, the Pantheismusstreit, and a Change of Tone in the Critique of Pure Reason

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

While Boehm's arguments achieve varying degrees of success, it is worth noting up front that, even taken alone, his addition to the literature on contemporary considerations of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) in chapter 4 is well worth the price of admission. --Journal of the History ofPhilosophy

An avalanche of important work has been done recently on Spinozló½