Course level: Graduate
Fall 2024
Syracuse University
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant says that the main aim of his critical philosophy is to draw a map of what he calls “the island of truth,” and to clearly mark the boundaries between this island of truth and the broad and stormy ocean of what he calls “transcendental illusion” (KrV A236/B295). What Kant conveys with this image is his view that there are clear limits to what human beings can know, and that being aware of these limits will help us discover the methods that are available to answer some of the most important questions that arise in philosophy and in life. For example, Kant thinks that, because of the limits of human knowledge, we cannot know whether God exists or whether we are free. But he argues that he can show what entitles us to believe in God’s existence or our own freedom, and he thinks that belief is a form of holding something to be true that is not inferior to knowledge.
In this course, we will see that the trajectory of 19th century philosophy can be read as an extended commentary on these Kantian views. We will see that a fork opens up in the road, with one side leading to thinkers such as Hegel, who rejects Kant’s views on the limits of human knowledge, and another leading to thinkers such as Fichte, Schelling, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, who accept, but also transform, Kant’s views on the finitude of human knowledge. Some of the topics that we will discuss include: the doctrine of transcendental idealism, transcendental arguments, the nature and possibility of knowledge, the difference between knowledge and belief, the relationship between thinking and acting or knowing and willing, moral obligation, human freedom, and religious belief.