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Reviewed by:
  • Kant and the Early Moderns
  • Kevin J. Harrelson
Daniel Garberand Beatrice Longuenesse, editors. Kant and the Early Moderns. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pp. xv + 257. Paper, $29.95.

This volume contains ten essays that treat the relationship between Kant’s philosophy and those of his predecessors in the early modern canon. The essays divide into five pairs devoted respectively to Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. In each case, the work of a prominent Kant scholar precedes a reply by an early modernist. This format provides the opportunity to reevaluate both Kant’s philosophy and those of his predecessors, the contention being that the latter “in our historical conscience” too often are read “in light of Kant’s reconstruction of their thought” (Introduction, 5).

In this review, I discuss a selection of the articles in order to evaluate the extent to which they contribute to the stated historiographic aim of the volume. Each of the ten contributions provides a worthwhile read in isolation from the others, but the success they achieve in reassessing the relationship of Kantian to pre-Kantian philosophy varies significantly from essay to essay. Cumulatively, they offer an inspiring retort to the central arguments of that chapter of modern philosophy entitled “On the division of all philosophies into vorkantische and nachkantische.” Individually they reveal how the division in question is reflected in the approaches scholars of the respective periods take to their materials.

Several contributors adhere to Kant’s own view of his relation to his predecessors, evaluating the latter only in light of the former. Anja Jauernig’s discussion of space in Kant and Leibniz, for example, underwrites a defense of Kant’s claim that the Critique of Pure Reason is “the true apology for Leibniz.” Her intention is to challenge Kant’s reputation as an “all-destroyer,” showing instead that Leibniz in fact anticipated an important part of the Critical philosophy. The result is that she brings the central historiographic distinction into question, but without evaluating the fairness of Kant’s criticisms of his predecessors. The best compliment that could be paid to Leibniz on this kind of reading is that he is a proto-Kantian rather than a mere pre-Kantian.

Garber responds by denying Jauernig’s premise that “there is an intellectual edifice that can be called ‘the philosophy of Leibniz’” (54), such that Leibniz could be reduced to his place in the Kantian scheme. He illustrates his point by navigating through a series of passages on the nature of bodies from the de Volder and Des Bosses correspondences. These reveal a Leibniz who, in his last years, abandoned idealism in favor of a realism about bodies. Leibniz is in this instance not so much vindicated in relation to Kant, though his writings are defended as sufficiently complex and varied to justify the kind of historical research that the essay exemplifies.

Traversing the much-traveled path of “Kant’s answer to Hume” on causality, Wayne Waxman helpfully distinguishes a conceptual from an epistemological phase of Hume’s skepticism, detailing the various stages of Kant’s answers to these challenges. Hume appears [End Page 111] in his common garb of one who posed questions to which Kant, thankfully for us post-Kantians, provided the appropriate answers. In his reply, Don Garrett challenges this view by explaining how the recently popular reading of Hume as a causal realist presents a genuine alternative to Kant’s idealistic solution. Here the traditional view of Kant’s relationship to his predecessors unravels, Hume serving as a competitor to Kant rather than as a mere way station on the golden road to the Transcendental.

The chapters on Locke provide the most interesting debate, since Paul Guyer departs from the script followed by the other Kantians. After comparing Locke’s account of the empirical limits of human knowledge to Kant’s arguments for transcendental limits, he identifies an illicit substitution of absolute for relative necessity that undermines Kant’s position. He then shows how, even when stripped of his transcendental claims, Kant provides interesting criticisms of Locke. This proves that one can learn from Kant despite, and even by means of, departures from transcendental orthodoxy.

Lisa Downing...

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