ABSTRACT

It would be hard to exaggerate the importance of Kant’s philosophy; hardly any major philosophical movement since the end of the eighteenth century can claim to have shielded itself from his influence. Kant rewrote the history of modem philosophy in a way that made it impossible to conscientiously revert to earlier modes of philosophising. The Critique swiftly brought rationalism to a halt, and after Kant empiricism has displayed a nervousness regarding its foundations and been forced to assume more sophisticated forms. With the single exception of Hegel, no later philosophical system equals in stature Kant’s attempt to weld together the diverse fields of natural science, morality, politics, aesthetics and religion into a systematic, overarching epistemological and metaphysical unity. Moreover, in contrast with many other great philosophical systems, Kant’s is one that it has continued to seem possible, to some degree, to endorse as a whole, as opposed to an edifice that 328has most to offer through being dismantled. Hence the continuing controversy concerning the exact nature of Kant’s achievement.