Freedom, Nature, and the Pursuit of the Whole: The Legacy of Kant's Third Critique

Professor Sebastian Gardner has been awarded funding from the Leverhulme Trust to write a monograph on the legacy of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement. The book will offer an account of how the Third Critique shaped subsequent philosophical developments from German Idealism to the late twentieth century, and a critical appraisal of Kant’s conception of philosophy as having centrally the task of systematically uniting Freedom and Nature.

The book will be divided into three parts. Part One offers an account of why the Third Critique should be considered the linchpin as well as the coping stone of Kant’s system. Part Two will cover subsequent classical German philosophy, beginning with Schiller and then considering in turn the projects of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, through the lens of the Third Critique. Part Three will be organized thematically and considers the legacy of the Third Critique in nineteenth- and twentieth century philosophy in three spheres: teleology in the theory of Nature (with reference to Darwinism); Protestant theology; and aesthetics or philosophy of art. Included here are Arendt, Frankfurt School thinkers, and Merleau-Ponty.

Awarded July 2017