Kant’s Humanism: A Loophole in the Principle of Sufficient Reason

Document Type : Research Paper

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Professor of Philosophy, Rowan University, United States

Abstract

I consider the principle of sufficient reason (henceforth, PSR) as it functions in both Leibniz and Kant. The issue separating these thinkers is a modal status of absolute contingency, which is exempt from PSR insofar as it is neither logically necessary, nor does it necessarily follow from the given causal series. Leibniz’s ambitious metaphysics applies PSR even to God’s choices, which, since they must rest on a reason that makes sense of them, necessarily tend to the creation of the best of all possible worlds. Through PSR, the exercise of human freedom represents the unfolding of a concept God already has chosen, with an eye to the best possible world aligned with the universal intelligibility enjoined by PSR. PSR, in Kant’s critical period, is not a principle of being, but one of mere experience, since any extension of thought beyond possible experience can yield no knowledge. Human agency, for Kant, has an intelligible aspect that is beyond possible experience. Since PSR is only a principle of experience for Kant, the agent in its intelligible aspect is not subject to it. Human free will introduces a special modal category of absolute contingency. Kant provides impetus for a humanism that makes the absolute freedom of the human will a competitor with the sovereignty of God, and also liberates the human will from contemporary ideologies that would subordinate it to natural determinism or group dynamics.

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References

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Journal of Philosophical Investigations
Volume 18, Issue 47 - Serial Number 47
Special Issue
Special Issue: Kant's Philosophy in the 21st Century (Summer 2024)
2024
Pages 29-48

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