Introduction

In this chapter, authors investigate philosophical conceptions of transformation that are informed by Immanuel Kant's Copernican revolution. Joshua di Paolo analyzes the concept of radicalization in order to provide a philosophical account of this particular sort of transformation. He hypothesizes that radicalization is one's transformation into a fanatic and argues that accounts of fanaticism found in John Locke, Kant, and Friedrich Nietzsche fail to vindicate this hypothesis. Jaime Edwards shows how Karl Marx's idea of historical materialism explains, not only the material conditions of human activity, but also the transformation of such conditions that thereby explains the passage of epochs of human activity. Defending Marx's idea allows Edwards to demonstrate the viability of a materialist extension of Kantian analysis. Benjamin Pollock presents Franz Rosenzweig's spiritual self-transformation as a shift from world-denial to world-redemption.