It is widely claimed that the second Critique’s argument for the postulate of immortality is relevantly different from the first Critique’s argument for the postulate. It is also widely claimed that after the second Critique, Kant distances himself from its particular version of the argument, and even the postulate altogether. It is the purpose of this article to challenge these claims, arguing instead that (a) there is overwhelming textual evidence showing that Kant did not abandon the postulate; (b) the second (...) Critique does not contain a substantially different argument for the postulate than how it is argued for in the first Critique; and (c) the philosophical objections levied against the second Critique’s argument, including its putative substitution of holiness for virtue, become moot once its argument is better understood. (shrink)

Kant’s moral proof of the postulate of immortality in the Critique of Practical Reason is often dismissed as a failed argument that trades on illicit conceptual shifts. I argue that Kant’s argument is more interesting and less problematic than is usually thought. I first examine its role in the second Critique’s Dialectic. I then point out that the standard interpretation, according to which the argument presupposes God’s intuitive grasp of the moral equivalence between the disposition to pursue holiness and its (...) attainment, faces a number of philosophical and textual problems. I offer an alternative reading that avoids these problems. In particular, I stress the importance of Kant’s mathematized conception of the relationship between infinite progress towards an ideal goal and its attainment and argue that appealing to this conception allows Kant to meet a well-known criticism that his proof illegitimately substitutes the endless progress towards holiness for holiness itself. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 808-822, June 2022.

What is the highest good actually good for in Kant’s third Critique? While there are well-worked out answers to this question in the literature that focus on the highest good’s practical importance, this paper argues that there is an important function for the highest good that has to do exclusively with contemplation. This important function becomes clear once one notices that coherent [konsequent] thinking, for Kant, was synonymous with "bündiges" thinking, and that both are connected with the highest good in (...) the third Critique’s moral proof for God’s existence. I show that the original meaning of "bündig," which is from the carpentry trade and has been forgotten, illuminates the stakes of the highest good in Kant’s system. For us, as proverbial carpenters of reason, coherence is essential for the intellectual activity of constructing a philosophical worldview in his transcendental idealism. I motivate the reading further by showing how this function can neatly reconstruct Kant’s proof for God’s existence in the third Critique. I conclude by sketching Kant’s reasons for why the project of creating a coherent worldview grounded in the highest good is worth the labor costs. (shrink)

I examine Kant’s claim in part one of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that moral reform requires both a ‘change of heart’ and gradual reformation of one’s sense (R, 6: 47). I argue that Kant’s conception of moral reform is neither fundamentally obscure nor is it as vulnerable to serious objections as several commentators have suggested. I defend Kant by explaining how he can maintain both that we can choose our moral disposition via an intelligible choice and that (...) we become good through a continuous struggle. I then provide an interpretation of how moral reform occurs in the phenomenal realm. (shrink)

This article aims to highlight the extent to which Kant’s account of belief draws on the views of his contemporaries. Situating the non-evidentialist features of Crusius’s account of belief within his broader account, I argue that they include antecedents to both Kant’s distinction between pragmatic and moral belief and his conception of a postulate of pure practical reason. While moving us closer to Kant’s arguments for the first postulate, however, both Crusius’s and Meier’s arguments for the immortality of the soul (...) fail to anticipate the most important aspect of their Kantian counterparts. Developing the non-evidentialist features of Basedow’s account of belief, I distinguish it from its Pascalian and Jamesian relatives and argue that it is the clearest antecedent to Kant’s arguments for the first and second postulates. Finally, I consider the development of Kant’s account of belief after the first Critique in light of the foregoing, and discuss the broader implications of my analysis. (shrink)