The present collection contains several essays that I have written over the last two decades on Kant, specifically addressing the topic of human knowledge; other writings on ethics and the philosophy of religion in Kant have not been included here. In spite of the varied and occasional character of the individual essays, they nonetheless exhibit an inner connection, inasmuch as they all relate to the theme that I examined in the second half of the 1960s in my dissertation at the University of Bonn under the direction of Professor Gottfried Martin, namely, ‘The A Priori in Human Knowledge.’ Even then,...

Kant’s work is indissolubly bound up with two notions: that of the transcendental as a method of analysis and that of the a priori as the result of such an analysis. In the following pages we propose to study that second notion as it appears in theCritique of Pure Reason,though this will often lead us to touch on the first notion as well. Our aim is to set forth as detailed an analysis as the limits of the present paper will allow. Without entering into the history of the composition of theKRV,let us simply say that...

The introduction to the second (B) edition of theCritique of Pure Reasontreats first of all the theme ‘of certain modes of a priori knowledge’ with which our faculty of knowledge is equipped; the upshot of this discussion is then incorporated into the inquiry regarding synthetic judgments a priori. In this way Kant establishes the perspective from which he intends to develop his doctrines of knowledge and being. He accordingly defines his transcendental theory as the theory of the possibility of a priori modes of knowledge (B 25). Thus it appears that an examination of the a priori can...

The third section of the chapter on the antinomies in theCritique of Pure Reasoncontains one of Kant’s repeated attempts to locate his epistemological and metaphysical position vis-á-vis the dominant philosophical schools of his time - rationalism (dogmatism) and empiricism. The passage concludes with a statement that unmistakably recounts an autobiographical experience: ‘it is fitting that a reflective and enquiring being should devote a certain amount of time to the examination of his own reason, entirely divesting himself of all partiality and openly submitting his observations to the judgment of others’ (A 475).¹ Such an examination of reason was...

In my study of theCritique of Pure Reason¹I defended the thesis that the epistemology of Kant’s major work consists in a sensualistic version of intuitionism. The friendly response of Fr Josef de Vries to my remarks, inTheologie und Philosophic58 (1983) 566-69, provides me with the opportunity once again to explain what I mean by intuitionism and why I take it to be an incorrect interpretation of human knowledge.

Reflection on human knowledge spontaneously begins - and it has been carried out in this way through most of the history of philosophy - with the question, How...

It is well known that Kant’s major work had a long period of gestation. According to Kant’s own most extensive remarks on the topic, the seed from which theKRVgrew was an invitation from the philosopher and mathematician Johann Heinrich Lambert in 1765 ‘to enter into a close partnership with him for the purpose of reforming metaphysics.’¹ The exceedingly tortuous development of Kant’s thought during a period of roughly sixteen years has been thoroughly investigated by Kant scholars, on the basis of both Kant’s published and unpublished writings. Different researchers have reconstructed in different ways the stages Kant went...