ABSTRACT
German Idealism and Classical Pragmatism share Kantian origins. An obvious way seeks to characterize the differences is in terms of Kant's distinction of the constitutive and regulative. Classical Pragmatism, it is plausible to suggest, retains the Kantian regulative and either drops the constitutive or subordinates it to the regulative, while German Idealism holds fast to the constitutive, massively enlarging its scope and absorbing into it all of Kant's "merely" regulative structure; whence the metaphysicality of German Idealism and the post-metaphysicality, or tendency thereto, of Classical Pragmatism. The original parting of ways of German Idealism and Classical Pragmatism understood systematically and to some extent also historically, can be assigned a definite locale in Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment. The Third Critique opens up a perspective on Nature that Kant himself does not pursue, however, on which Schelling seizes. Kant continues in the Third Critique to insist on the subjectivity of regulative principles.
