Konstantinos Sargentis

For the sake of completeness, Kant’s teleological thinking should cover not only what is purposive, but also what is contrapurposive. Kant fulfils this systematic requirement by means of the concept of theodicy, which is typical of his general critical parting from traditional Metaphysics. Within the transcendental framework of the teleological reflection upon world and nature, theodicy could no longer proceed theoretically and speculatively, but had to gain a new foundation on practical grounds. And insofar as, within this framework, the standpoint of God is made dependent on the human cognitive faculties, theodicy could no longer count as a theo-, but should instead become an anthropodicy. To show this, I rely on the conceptual pair “doctrinal – authentic” and I argue that the former is not a description of traditional theodicies (as is held in the relevant literature), but plays a constitutive role in Kant’s own account of theodicy.

In this paper, I examine the place of the principles “ought implies can” (OIC) and “you can because you ought” (CBO) in Kant’s moral philosophy. Contrary to an often tacit assumption in the relevant literature, according to which CBO is simply a version of OIC, I argue that it is a separate principle, which has a central role in Kant’s attempt to justify morality and freedom on the basis of the consciousness of the moral law as a “fact of reason”. Crucial to my main argument is the somewhat neglected distinction between actuality and reality of freedom, which leads me to a differentiation within CBO itself. This differentiation is of particular importance for understanding in what the deduction of freedom in the second _Critique_ consists.