THE KEELE-OXFORD-ST ANDREWS KANTIAN (KOSAK) RESEARCH CENTRE &
THE FORUM FOR PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH @
THE SCHOOL OF POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT (SPIRE)
KEELE UNIVERSITY
Invites you all to the final 2016/17 Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture
The Moral Archetype and Prototype in Kant’s Religion:
Between Mendelssohn and Jacobi
By: Jonathan Head (Keele)
On: Tuesday, 25 April
From: 6-7.30 pm
In: CBA0.060, Chancellor’s Building, Keele University
All Welcome! Wine
Abstract:
This paper explores Kant’s account of the moral archetype and prototype in Piece Two of Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793), as a reaction to the controversy between Moses Mendelssohn and F.H. Jacobi. I will first consider Mendelssohn’s critique, particularly found in his Morgenstunden (1785) and An die Freunde Lessings (1786), of the historical particularism of Christianity as being inimical to a common religion of reason, which could stand as the basis for an enlightened, tolerant society. I will then examine Jacobi’s critique of Mendelssohn, in the Spinoza-Letters (1785) and elsewhere, centred on the argument that the Enlightenment emphasis on the power of reason will inevitably lead to belief in an impersonal God, along the lines of Spinoza, and a world without providence. I will argue that Kant’s account in Piece Two is at least partly intended to find a middle way between Mendelssohn and Jacobi, in both defending the use of reason as compatible with faith in a personal God, as well as holding that the historical particularism of Christianity is not inimical to a universal religion of reason in the manner Mendelssohn supposes. I will conclude with a consideration of what this might entail for our wider understanding of Religion, in comparison with other recent interpretations of Kant’s account of the moral archetype and prototype.
Abstract:
This paper explores Kant’s account of the moral archetype and prototype in Piece Two of Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1793), as a reaction to the controversy between Moses Mendelssohn and F.H. Jacobi. I will first consider Mendelssohn’s critique, particularly found in his Morgenstunden (1785) and An die Freunde Lessings (1786), of the historical particularism of Christianity as being inimical to a common religion of reason, which could stand as the basis for an enlightened, tolerant society. I will then examine Jacobi’s critique of Mendelssohn, in the Spinoza-Letters (1785) and elsewhere, centred on the argument that the Enlightenment emphasis on the power of reason will inevitably lead to belief in an impersonal God, along the lines of Spinoza, and a world without providence. I will argue that Kant’s account in Piece Two is at least partly intended to find a middle way between Mendelssohn and Jacobi, in both defending the use of reason as compatible with faith in a personal God, as well as holding that the historical particularism of Christianity is not inimical to a universal religion of reason in the manner Mendelssohn supposes. I will conclude with a consideration of what this might entail for our wider understanding of Religion, in comparison with other recent interpretations of Kant’s account of the moral archetype and prototype.
About the Speaker:
Jonathan Head is Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at Keele University. He is co-editor of Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root (Routledge, 2017), and has recently published papers on Kant’s philosophy of religion and various aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy.
Jonathan Head is Teaching Fellow in Philosophy at Keele University. He is co-editor of Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root (Routledge, 2017), and has recently published papers on Kant’s philosophy of religion and various aspects of Schopenhauer’s philosophy.
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