Abstract

A decade before his turn towards transcendental idealism Kant penned the substance of his critique of rational theology in the third section of "The Only Possible Basis of Proof for a Demonstration of God's Existence" in 1762. This fact itself warrants an investigation of the relation between this earlier work and the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Josef Schmucker, long a leading scholar of Kant's precritical writings, promises such a book as a sequel but the present undertaking is a superb analysis of the first two sections of the Beweisgrund, after a brief consideration of Kant's Nova Dilucidatio of 1755.