Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Bibliographical note on quotations from and citations of Kant's work
- PART I AUTHORITY IN REASONING
- PART II AUTHORITY, AUTONOMY AND PUBLIC REASON
- PART III AUTHORITY IN POLITICS
- PART IV AUTHORITY IN INTERPRETATION
- 13 Kant on reason and religion I: reasoned hope
- 14 Kant on reason and religion II: reason and interpretation
- Index
13 - Kant on reason and religion I: reasoned hope
from PART IV - AUTHORITY IN INTERPRETATION
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2015
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Bibliographical note on quotations from and citations of Kant's work
- PART I AUTHORITY IN REASONING
- PART II AUTHORITY, AUTONOMY AND PUBLIC REASON
- PART III AUTHORITY IN POLITICS
- PART IV AUTHORITY IN INTERPRETATION
- 13 Kant on reason and religion I: reasoned hope
- 14 Kant on reason and religion II: reason and interpretation
- Index
Summary
Kant's philosophy of religion has perplexed even his warmest admirers. Nobody has pointed this out more amusingly than Heinrich Heine, who saw in Kant the Robespierre of the intellect. The orderly philosopher of Königsberg, whose daily constitutional was attended and sheltered by his servant Lampe, armed with a modest umbrella, was really a terrorist who destroyed the ancien régime of European religion and philosophy. The Critique of Pure Reason was the sword that killed deism in Germany. Yet Kant, Heine suggests, derailed this sublime and terrifying philosophy, that pointed towards the death of God, when a domestic difficulty arose. He relented and patched a God together because his servant, old Lampe, was disconsolate. Heine lampoons Kant:
Immanuel Kant traced his merciless philosophy up to this point, he stormed heaven…there was no more allmercyfulness, no more fatherly goodness, no otherworldly rewards for this worldly restraint, the immortality of the soul was at its last gasp…and old Lampe stood there with his umbrella under his arm, a miserable onlooker with anxious sweat and tears running down his face. And so Immanuel Kant had mercy and showed that he wasn't just a great philosopher, but also a good person. He thought it over and said, half kindly and half in irony: ‘Old Lampe must have a God, or the poor fellow can't be happy – but man ought to be happy on earth – practical reason says so (at least according to me); so let practical reason also disclose the existence of God.’ By this argument Kant distinguished theoretical from practical reason and, as with a magic wand, brought back to life the corpse of deism which theoretical reason had killed. (trans. OO'N)
If Heine and other critics are right, Kant's retreat is ignominious. In the First Critique he asserts the death of God: ‘No one indeed will be able to boast that he knows that there is a God and a future life’ (CPR A 828–9 / B 856–7); in the Second Critique he argues for God and immortality. Can practical reason really produce a magic wand to revive the corpse of deism – let alone a more comfortable religion for old Lampe? Or does it provide no more than an old man's umbrella as defence against the terrifying weapons of theoretical reason?
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- Information
- Constructing AuthoritiesReason, Politics and Interpretation in Kant's Philosophy, pp. 217 - 233Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015