PROBLEMS OF INTERPRETATION

Any student who approaches Kant's philosophy of religion for the first time is bound to be daunted by the task. The obstacles are wide, deep, and long. They are wide because Kant thought about virtually every aspect of religion. They are deep because he thought through all these issues with systematic thoroughness and relentless rigor. And they are long because Kant began to think about religious issues as early as the 1760s, and his thinking underwent several transformations through the decades. If these challenges are not enough, Kant's thinking appears in a formidable corpus of writings. His mature religious philosophy is expounded in his three critical works, the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Dialectic of the Critique of Practical Reason, and the Doctrine of Method of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The most important mature work, the only one entirely devoted to the philosophy of religion, is his 1793 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Apart from these systematic works, there are several important essays of the 1780s and 1790s; there are also the lectures on theology, and last but not least the lectures on ethics, which are crucial for their religious themes.