Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries pp 227-244 | Cite as
Sensible and Intelligible Worlds in Leibniz and Kant
Abstract
Kant is generally held to have demonstrated the false pretence of a system constructed on the order of Leibniz’s Monadology to describe a supersensible or “intelligible” reality. The Critique is thus conceived as superseding all previous philosophical systems, which are thereby revealed as “dogmatic” or based on wishful thinking. This is certainly the way Kant portrays himself in works dealing with the subject of progress in metaphysics. However, when faced with what he regarded as the corruptions of the contemporary Leibnizians, Kant could also depict himself as the true defender of Leibniz and his own critical work as the key to the correct understanding of the systems of the past. Clearly, then, the relation of Monadology to Critique is not simply the relation of a conjecture to its refutation. The present essay examines some aspects of Kant’s own fascination with the idea of the supersensible, arguing that the Critique is an attempt to unmake and then remake the notion in more serviceable form. The relation between the Leibnizian and the Kantian phenomenalisms is discussed in the main body of the paper.
Keywords
Pure Reason Sceptical Hypothesis Pure Concept Moral Impulse False PretencePreview
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