Abstract

In this book Carnois analyzes the notion of freedom as the central concept which gives internal coherence to the Kantian enterprise. The book is divided into two parts: Freedom and Nature, and Freedom and Morality. Carnois begins his analysis with the third antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason which questions whether a cause, of its own account, can initiate a series of effects. The double causality pointed to here is taken as a fact. The author shows that Kant distinguishes the practical freedom "inserted" in nature from the transcendental freedom heterogeneous with the sensible world. The distinction indicates the speculative interest of reason in freedom, but since its real possibility cannot be shown by theoretical reason, freedom remains problematic: a rational hypothesis and a regulative principle. Carnois explores the double causality through the concept of character which is both empirical and intelligible. He shows that the relation between characters is one of causality or that of sign to signified; and that it is this relation which defines the human being.