KANTS LECTURES ON METAPHYSICS: A CRITICAL GUIDE1

EDITOR: COURTNEY D. FUGATE

Kant lectured on metaphysics at least fifty-three times over the course of his long academic
career, which is more than any other subject except for logic. In these lectures, Kant critically
evaluated and reformulated the definition and structure of metaphysics, as well as of its four
major divisions: ontology, cosmology, psychology and natural theology. He also developed and
refined key positions taken in his public writings in direct dialogue with the traditional doctrines
that they were intended to replace. Several sets of these lectures were transcribed by students and
substantial portions of at least ten such transcripts, ranging in date from the mid-1760s to the
1790s, have been preserved in volumes 28 and 29 of the Akademie-Ausgabe of Kants writings.
These have long been recognized as a unique source for Kants views on a number of topics not
treated in his authorized works as well as for an understanding of the development of his critical
philosophy. In recent years, several major studies have shown conclusively that the lectures
provided Kant with a kind of laboratory within which he could propose, test and refine key
doctrines.2 But more than this, they also provide us with a rare glimpse of Kant at work in the
periods when he did not publish (e.g. the so-called silent decade), shed light on his views on
specific topics at times when they were not at the center of his published work, and reveal the
larger context within which he first arrived at many of his Critical doctrines. From a wider
1 My thanks to Steve Naragon, Lawrence Pasternack, David Curell, and Hilary
Gaskin for their comments and suggestions regarding this proposal and to all the
contributors for their time and effort.
2 For just a few of the many examples in the English literature, see: Karl Ameriks,
Kants Theory of Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Karl Ameriks, The
Critique of Metaphysics: Kant and Traditional Ontology, in The Cambridge
Companion to Kant (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.
249-279; Corey Dyck, Kant and Rational Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014); Courtney D. Fugate, The Unity of Metaphysics in Kants Lectures, in
Reading Kants Lectures, ed. by Robert Clewis (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2015);
Nick Stang, Kants Modal Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
forthcoming); Eric Watkins, Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005); Eric Watkins, Kant on Rational Cosmology, in
Kant and the Sciences, edited by Eric Watkins (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), p. 70-91; Julian Wuerth, Kant on Mind, Action and Ethics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2014).
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vantage point, the lecture notes also provide the best insight into Kants relation to the
metaphysical tradition and into the critical system of metaphysics he always supposed possible,
but never found time to compose himself.3
However, despite their recognized importance, the lecture transcripts have yet to be fully
utilized by scholars and students. This is due in part to justified concerns regarding the reliability
of the texts themselves and in part to the absence of a full translation of the textbook upon which
Kant based his lectures, namely Baumgartens Metaphysics. Very recently, however, advances
have been made on both fronts, and now more than ever, scholars are concentrating their efforts
on Kants activity as lecturer and on the contents of the surviving transcripts from all of his
courses, as the Cambridge series of critical guides illustrates so well.4 The time therefore seems
ripe for a critical introduction to the metaphysics transcripts that is aimed at a wider audience.
The present volume will fulfil this purpose by providing the most comprehensive,
balanced, and informed treatment of Kants lectures to date. The introduction will apprise the
reader of the status quaestionis regarding the reliability, origin and dating of the transcripts,
while each successive chapter will break new ground in Kant scholarship, deepen our current
understanding of his published writings, and demonstrate the importance of Kants lectures on
metaphysics.
AIM AND STRUCTURE OF THE VOLUME
Following the structure of Baumgartens Metaphysica, Kant divided his own course on
metaphysics into six parts, namely, into a section entitled prolegomena followed by chapters
on ontology, cosmology, empirical psychology, rational psychology, and natural theology. This
provides a natural way of ordering the chapters in this volume. The introduction will inform the
reader of the background to the lectures and the origins of the various transcripts, while alerting
them to the special difficulties associated with the use of these texts. The first chapter will focus
3 See the letter to Ludwig Heinrich Jakob, September 7, 1787, in which Kant tries to
persuade Jakob to write a Kantian critical metaphysics after the model provided by
Baumgarten.
4 In addition to the Cambridge Critical Guides, there has recently appeared Reading
Kants Lectures, ed. by Robert R. Clewis (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2015), and
Kants Lectures/Kants Vorlesungen, ed. by Bernd Drflinger, Claudio La Rocca,
Robert Louden, and Ubirajara Rancan de Azevedo Marques (Berlin/New York: De
Gruyter, 2015).
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exclusively on the Herder lecture notes, since these were composed by Kants most famous
student and are also the only set that survive from Kants pre-critical period. The second chapter
will concern Kants evolving conception of metaphysics, the final version of which would
become the definition employed in the Architectonic of the Critique of Pure Reason, and explain
how he used it to structure the course as a whole. Chapters three through thirteen will then
provide balanced coverage of the courses five major divisions (ontology, cosmology, empirical
psychology, rational psychology and natural theology), with at least two chapters devoted to each
division, and illustrate the philosophical potential of this material through original interpretations
by leading scholars.
PRINCIPLES OF THE VOLUME
-

In order to provide the volume with greater overall cohesion, the first chapter treating
each of the major divisions will begin by introducing and explaining Kants
understanding of the general nature of the relevant part of metaphysics and its contents in

contrast with those of Baumgarten.

While it will be left up to the contributors to decide whether they will focus on issues of
development or try to relate material in the lectures to Kants published writings, all will
be strongly encouraged to provide the reader with at least an overview of the existing

material on a given topic as context for the thesis of their chapter.

For the sake of uniformity and consistency, every contributor will be encouraged, but not
required, to make use of the recent translation of Baumgartens textbook and to employ

the Cambridge translations of Kants writings when suitable.

To ensure a balanced coverage of all the topics to which Kant devoted substantial space

in the lectures, at least two chapters will be devoted to each major divisions.
Great effort has been made to include contributors with the most potential for bringing a
new perspective to the discussion or for giving voice to relatively new lines of
interpretation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Courtney D. Fugate (AUB)
1. Herders Notes from Kants Metaphysics Lectures
John Zammito (Rice University)
2. Kants Account of Metaphysics, Critique, and System in the Prolegomena to the Lectures on
Metaphysics
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Karin de Boer (KU Leuven)

3. The Genesis of Kants Table of Categories
Huaping-Lu Adler (Georgetown)
4. The Concept of Ground in Kants Lectures on Metaphysics
Nick Stang (Toronto)
5. The Development of Kants Views on Space and Time in the Lectures
Emily Carson (McGill)
6. Kants Rational Cosmology and the Antinomies of Reason
Michelle Grier (UCSD)
7. Nature, Mechanism and the Possibility of Miracles in Kants Cosmology
Courtney D. Fugate (AUB)
8. Kant's System of Mental Faculties
Julian Wuerth (Vanderbilt)
9. Kants Aesthetics in His Lectures on Metaphysics
Paul Guyer (Brown)
10. Kants Metaphysics of Freedom: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives
Heiner F. Klemme (Martin-Luther-Universitt Halle-Wittenberg)
11. The Life of the Soul in Kants Rational Psychology
Jennifer Mensch (University of Western Sydney)
12. Cognition, Possibility and the Ens Realissimum
Lawrence Pasternack (Oklahoma) and Brian Chance (Oklahoma)
13. Kants Critical Ethico-Theology in the Lectures
Dennis Schulting (Independent)
Delivery Schedule
As discussed with the CUP editor previously by email, several key contributors have requested
18 months for research and composition of their chapters. Assuming the proposal is accepted by
the end of November, this would put the delivery of chapters to the volume editor in May 2017.
Allowing a buffer month for possible delays and three months for the final editing of the volume,
it can be delivered to the press by October 1, 2017.

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CHAPTER ABSTRACTS
1. 1Herders Notes from Kants Metaphysics Lectures
John Zammito (Rice University)
The Herder lecture notes are unique in the Kantian corpus in that they are the only ones where
we can be as concerned with the intellectual project of the note-taker as with that of the lecturer.
Still, the main concern of this chapter will be with what Kant presented, not with Herders
interpretation, though it will have to be borne in mind that the role of the latter was not that of
mere passive transcriber.
What is crucial is to discern Kants position in the tradition of School Philosophy as he
presented it in the years 1762-1764. This was a time when Kant was carving out his own position
in contrast not only to Christian Wolff (and behind him Gottfried Leibniz) but also the Pietist
critics who had challenged Wolffianism from within the German academic world and the British
thinkers who were challenging it from without. Already in the 1760s, as Kants contemporary
Johann Nicolaus Tetens observed, German School Philosophy and its metaphysical system were
under fire from all sides. Kants lectures on metaphysics as Herder attended and recorded them
represented his discriminating effort to offer a thoughtful reformulation of that German tradition.
Soon, he would come to the view that more drastic revision was called for, but there is already in
his lectures of the early 1760s a great deal that is new and important. In particular, the question
of what philosophical method can be in juxtaposition to mathematical and to historical methods
and the fascinating question of existence as an extra-logical principle a Realgrund that could
not be deduced from first principles but only registered experientially assumed great
prominence in these lectures.
2. Kants Account of Metaphysics, Critique, and System in the Prolegomena to the Lectures on
Metaphysics
Karin de Boer (KU Leuven)
Of Kants lectures on metaphysics, eight versions, stretching from 1762 to 1792, contain an
introductory account of the topic of the lecture series. These sections, often called
Prolegomena, correspond to the extremely concise introductory section of Baumgartens
Metaphysics. Baumgarten here defines metaphysics as the science of the first principles in
human knowledge, enumerates its various parts, and distinguishes the mere use of metaphysical
principles from their explicit discussion in the treatise that is going to follow.

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While there are substantial differences between Kants formulations of the Prolegomena
in the various lectures, this chapter will focus on what they have in common, namely, the
question as to what metaphysics is. In this chapter, I will primarily analyze the various ways in
which Kant tries to improve Baumgartens definition of metaphysics, which he considers to be
merely nominal and, for that reason, not only too abstract but also misguided. Some of the
definitions Kant offers are largely in line with the Wolffian tradition in the sense that they
determine the concept of metaphysics by distinguishing metaphysics from other disciplines or by
singling out its various parts. Yet from the very beginning, Kant realizes that these definitions
must be supplemented by a definition that concerns the way in which a metaphysics can actually
be brought about, that is, with a real definition. Thus, dissatisfied with a number of elements of
Wolffian metaphysics, Kant realizes that metaphysics must first of all determine the limits within
which it is possible. In this regard, the various versions of the Prolegomena offer us a window on
the development of Kants conception of a critique of pure reason.
The topics covered in the introductory sections of the lectures are also dealt with in a
number of Kants early writings as well as in the prefaces, the introductions and the Doctrine of
Method of the Critique of Pure Reason. They have the advantage, however, of treating the
subject in a relatively accessible manner. More importantly, they show how the Critique of Pure
Reason emerges from Kants effort to determine what is worthwhile and what is worthless in
Wolffian metaphysics, in other words, to elevate metaphysics to the level of a proper science. In
this regard, these introductory sections also offer us a window on the Critique of Pure Reason
itself. Contrary to the prevailing focus on Kants question concerning the conditions of
possibility of experience in this work, they show us how Kant took this question to be embedded
in the more radical question as to the conditions of possibility of metaphysics itself.
3. The Genesis of Kants Table of Categories
Huaping-Lu Adler (Georgetown)
This chapter considers the section on ontology. In each of the available transcripts of Kants
metaphysics lectures, this section amounts to a critical commentary on the ontology in
Baumgartens Metaphysics. In his lectures, Kant follows Baumgarten by defining ontology as a
science of the universal predicates of all things and by including among these predicates such
concepts as being and non-being, reality and negation, possibility and necessity, substance and
accident. However, Kants treatment of ontology in the lectures is both richer than Baumgartens
and diverges from the latter in significant ways. Besides criticisms of Baumgartens views on
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specific issues (e.g., quantity) and occasional insertions of Kants own topics (e.g., analytic and
synthetic judgments), we can also find more radical transformations of Baumgartens ontology in
Kants lectures from the mid-1770s onwards. These transformations concern the foundation and
possibility of ontology and track the emergence of Kants table of categories as a truly systematic
and exhaustive classification of all basic predicates of things in general. The focus of this chapter
is to examine these transformations and see how exactly the final version of Kants table of
categories might have taken shape in the process.
4. The Concept of Ground in Kants Lectures on Metaphysics
Nick Stang (Toronto)
The principle of sufficient reason, or, as I will refer to it, sufficient ground (Grund)5 was fiercely
contested in German philosophy for decades before the publication of the Critique of Pure
Reason in 1781. A great deal of scholarly attention has focused on that principle and Kants
complex reaction to it. In this chapter, I will take a step back from the principle of sufficient
ground and examine Kants view on its core concept: the concept of ground. While the lions
share of critical attention has focused on Kants theory of a specific kind of ground
(efficient causal grounds) I will focus on his theory of non-causal grounds.
To get some purchase on this incredibly broad concept, Kant distinguishes between (what
I will call) epistemic grounds and ontological grounds. In this chapter I focus mainly
on ontological grounds (with some attention to what it means to know something from its
ground). Kant distinguishes, within ontological grounds, between logical and real grounds. A
logical ground posits its consequence in virtue of logically entailing its consequence, for
instance, the humanity of Socrates is a logical ground of his animality. A real ground posits its
consequence but not in virtue of logical entailment.
Kant usually argues for the distinction between logical and real grounds by arguing that
(efficient) causes posit their effects (make it the case that they exist) but do not logically entail
their effects. However, efficient causation is really one species of the genus real ontological
ground. Efficient causation is the relation of a substance to an alteration, either in itself or in
another substance, where the substance, in virtue of exercising a power, brings that alteration into
existence. Efficient causes are thus what Kant calls ratio fiendi, grounds of becoming. Kant
The principle of sufficient reason (ratio) is commonly translated into German as Satz des
zureichenden Grundes. Grund was introduced as the German philosophical equivalent to the
Latin ratio, and Ursache as the equivalent to causa.
5

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contrasts ratio fiendi with ratio essendi, real grounds of being. A ratio essendi is not a ground of
the existence of a thing but of the possibility of a thing. I argue that Kant uses the notion of
a ratio essendi to describe at least three different kinds of relations: (i) the relation of a thing to a
space of possible objects it makes possible, (ii) the relation of the essence of a possible thing to
that possible thing, and (iii) a relation of dependence among the properties of a thing (e.g. a
triangle has three angles in virtue of having three sides). In the rest of the chapter I explain what
these three different grounding relations have in common, and I apply this understanding to
Kants Critical theory of non-causal real grounds with respect to: (a) the relation of space to
figures in space, (b) the relation of the principles of experience to objects of experience, and (c)
relations among properties of objects of experience.
5. The Development of Kants Views on Space and Time in the Lectures
Emily Carson (Toronto)
In this paper, I will trace the development of Kants treatment of space and time from the preCritical period through the first Critique and later, as reflected in his lectures on metaphysics. I
propose to do this by means of a comparison of those lectures with Baumgartens Metaphysics,
the text Kant used for the lectures.
This offers two advantages over any account that draws merely on Kants published
writings. First, when he presents his account of space and time in the Transcendental Aesthetic of
the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant only addresses very briefly what he takes to be the alternative
possible accounts: are space and time actual entities, or only determinations of the relations of
things? Baumgartens text presents a Leibnizian account of space as the order of simultaneous
beings that are posited mutually outside of each other (Metaphysics, 239). In engaging with
Baumgartens text, then, Kant elaborates both on his understanding of the relationalist alternative
and (eventually) on his arguments against it in a far deeper way than we find in the published
writings.
Second, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant considers space and time by separating
off everything that the understanding thinks through its concepts (A22/B36), which is the
subject of the Transcendental Analytic. This has led to disagreement among commentators about
the relation between the discussion of space and time in the Aesthetic, on the one hand, and the
discussions of space and time in the Analytic. But because the metaphysics lectures are presented
largely in accordance with the structure of Baumgartens Metaphysics, Kants treatment of space
and time there need not be so strictly isolated from the contributions of the understanding (e.g.,
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the concept of magnitude). This paper will show how such a treatment illuminates both the
complexity of this relation and how Kant sought to deal with it as his views developed.
6. Kants Rational Cosmology and the Antinomies of Reason
Michelle Grier (UCSD)
In the Transcendental Dialectic to the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant undertakes to expose the
illusion that grounds and motivates the dialectical disciplines characteristic of traditional
(special) metaphysics: theories about the nature and constitution of the Soul, the World, and God.
In Kants view, each of these traditional metaphysical disciplines fails, due to the limitations of
reasons real use.
In this chapter, I propose to consider Kants arguments about the world, which he
understands within the context of the discipline of Rational Cosmology. Although Kants
criticisms of all of the metaphysical disciplines share certain features, Rational Cosmology is
unique, precisely because the cosmological concept at issue for the metaphysician carries with it
certain inherent tensions in the interpretation of world.
The transcripts of Kants lectures on metaphysics provide an unparalleled resource for
understanding his views on this matter. In these lectures, Kant goes to considerable lengths to
define the concept of the world-whole. In so doing he develops his view that the connection
(nexus) of substances that stand in interaction is an essential condition of the world. Thus, in the
lectures, we find substantial resources for developing Kants discussions of systems of
substantial interaction and their relevance for Cosmology. My aim is to use the resources
available in the lectures on metaphysics to elucidate the cosmological conflicts, and the relation
between these and Kants views about substantial interaction.
7. Nature, Mechanism, and the Possibility of Miracles in Kants Cosmology
Courtney D. Fugate (AUB)
Nearly every modern philosopher, whether empiricist or rationalist, felt the need to address the
distinction between natural and supernatural events, and in particular to either defend or deny the
very intelligibility of miracles when these are understood as exceptions to the natural order. This
discussion was as important for clarifying the real definition of nature, as it was for
demarcating the limits of legitimate rational explanation (i.e., through the exclusion of occult
qualities) and negotiating the boundary between science and religion. It is not surprising, then,
that Kant also devoted special attention to clarifying the meaning of the term nature, or that a
very precise account of the natural/supernatural distinction runs throughout his Critical

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philosophy. Kants detailed analysis of these concepts, however, is for the most part not found in
his published writings, but rather in various parts of his handwritten remains and in the surviving
transcripts of his lectures on Baumgartens Metaphysics. There is a good reason for this:
Baumgarten, who Kant famously regarded as the best of the metaphysical analysts, provides in
that work a highly articulated account of all of these concepts as part of the science termed
Rational Cosmology. Indeed, nearly half of Baumgartens Rational Cosmology is devoted to
these topics. It can be shown that Kant attended carefully to Baumgartens analysis here and
arrived at his own views through a prolonged Critical reformulation of it.
In this chapter, I will trace the development of Kants definition of nature and of his
understanding of the natural/supernatural distinction in the transcripts and show in particular how
he attempts to transform Baumgartens metaphysical account almost seamlessly into his own
transcendental account. This will better illuminate not only the source of some of Kants more
idiosyncratic views on this matter, but also the relation between his Critical philosophy and the
metaphysical tradition from which he departed. At the same time, it will provide the general
reader of the lectures with a critical treatment of Kants approach to these core topics in Rational
Cosmology.

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8. Kants System of Mental Faculties

Julian Wuerth (Vanderbilt)
Kant ascribes a vast network of powers and interrelations of powers to the soul, and the goal of
this chapter is to provide a single map of these powers and their interrelations, drawing heavily
from Kants lectures on metaphysics. This map helps to shed light on broad and narrow doctrines
alike across Kants philosophical corpus by clarifying what these powers and their interrelations
are, Kants terminology concerning them, and the manner in which this system of powers in turn
structures Kants system of philosophy.
This chapter begin by discussing the systematic reasons for why, although Kants account
of the faculties of the mind is ever-present in his philosophy, he nonetheless rarely addresses
them explicitly, as such, in most of his major works. This discussion also provides a brief sketch
of the minds basic powers and an explanation of the manner in which Kants major works can
be seen as dividing the labor of addressing these powers of the mind, the relationships of these
powers to one another, or both.
Consulting Kants recorded thought from the two decades preceding the Critique, the
Critique itself, and the approximately two decades following the Critique, this chapter then
provides a more detailed breakdown of the powers of the mind. I begin by addressing many of
Kants views regarding sub-faculties of one of the fundamental faculties of the mind, the faculty
of cognition. But this chapter also shows how Kant identifies two additional fundamental
faculties of the mind, each distinct in kind and not merely in degree from the other and from the
faculty of cognition: the faculty of feeling and the faculty of desire. Each of these fundamental
faculties in turn has many sub-faculties, and Kant classifies these together in many different
ways. I consider Kants views on the important role of self-consciousness in distinguishing
between humans and non-rational beings, or animals, and in distinguishing between various
higher and lower classes of powers. I then proceed systematically through the three fundamental
faculties, looking at the various sub-faculties, the mental states they are responsible for, and the
ways in which these sub-faculties interrelate.

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9. Kants Aesthetics in the Lectures on Metaphysics

Paul Guyer (Brown)
Because Baumgarten touched upon his aesthetics in his Metaphysics ( 662), Kant also touched
upon aesthetics in his lectures on metaphysics, which used Baumgarten's whole book as their
text, as well as in his lectures on anthropology, which used only Baumgarten's chapter on
empirical psychology, where 662 is located. Among the surviving transcriptions of the
metaphysics lectures, Kant's remarks upon aesthetics are recorded at some length in Metaphysics
L1, from the mid-1770s; the Metaphysics Mrongovius, from 1782-3; and, a little more briefly, in
Metaphysics Dohna (1792-3); only fragmentary comments have been preserved from Herder's
notebooks from the 1760s. This means that the lectures on metaphysics afford us evidence about
the development of Kant's aesthetics in the silent decade of the 1770s and the early part of the
Critical period of the 1780s (i.e. after the publication of the first Critique, but before he had
decided to publish a third), which are precisely the periods in which evidence about Kant's
developing aesthetic is absent from his published works.
On the whole, these lectures show that Kant's division of pleasure into three classes
associated with the agreeable, the beautiful, and the good and the analysis of judgments of taste
about the beautiful as claiming the universal validity of experienced pleasure (unlike pleasure in
the agreeable), but without dependence upon a concept of purpose (unlike pleasure in the good),
was already in place by the mid-1770s, as we also see from the lectures on anthropology. But the
lectures on metaphysics more fully reveal Kants understanding of pleasure as the feeling of life
or of unhampered activity than do his published works or the lectures on anthropology. But like
the latter lectures, the discussions of aesthetics in the lectures on metaphysics also show that in
the 1770s Kant still connected the logical analysis of the universal subjective validity of
judgments of taste with the empirical hypothesis that people would develop taste only in actual
community with others, while in the early 1780s he had not yet arrived at the view that aesthetic
experience could prepare the way for morality in spite of the distinction between judgments of
taste and judgments of goodness. The latter confirms the hypothesis that it was only the
latter recognition that impelled Kant in the late 1780s to embark upon a third Critique, which is
guided by the thought that both aesthetic and teleological judgments, in spite of their formal
distinction from theoretical and practical judgments of goodness, nevertheless help bridge the
chasm between the domains of nature and freedom. The brief comments on aesthetics in the

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Dohna lectures, given after the publication of the third Critique, are consistent with this
interpretation.
10. Kants Metaphysics of Freedom: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives
Heiner F. Klemme (Martin-Luther-Universitt Halle-Wittenberg)
The lecture notes on metaphysics are an indispensable source for our understanding of Kants
conception of freedom for several reasons. First of all, they help us understand the way in which
Kant conceived the concept of freedom within the tradition of Wolffian metaphysics, as it is
present in Baumgartens Metaphysics, and how Kant sought to overcome or modify this
tradition. Second, they are important for understanding the emergence of his critical concepts of
freedom that are based on the distinction between transcendental and practical freedom at the end
of the 1770s , as well as later developments. One of the crucial points to clarify here is the
relation between the spontaneity of transcendental apperception and that of transcendental
freedom in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is related to both the Transcendental Analytic and the
Transcendental Dialectic (the chapter on the paralogisms) of the first Critique. Third, the concept
of freedom plays a crucial role in Kants practical philosophy. It is significant to realize that both
in the Wolffian tradition and in Kants philosophy, practical philosophy rests on a certain concept
of freedom as it is explained and vindicated in metaphysics. It was a common claim in German
philosophy at that time that all moral obligations presuppose freedom. However, there was no
agreement about what kind of freedom obligation exactly presupposes. In this chapter, I will
address all three issues by drawing on Kants lectures of metaphysics before and after the
publication of the first Critique.

11. The Life of the Soul in Kants Rational Psychology

Jennifer Mensch (University of Western Sydney)
For readers primarily familiar with the Critique of Pure Reason, mention of rational
psychology will naturally draw their thoughts to Kants well-known critique of rationalist
metaphysics and its approach, in particular, to the souls permanence, incorruptibility, and
personality. Indeed, Kants discussion of these matters in the Paralogisms chapter of the first
Critique have in this way come to define his stance on the soul. Kant spent some forty years
lecturing on metaphysics, however, and his discussion of the soul in both the surviving lecture
notes taken by his students and Kants own notes associated with the course, provide a far richer
approach to his portrait of the soul than is usually understood.
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In keeping with the aims of the Cambridge Critical Guide series, this essay will provide a
comprehensive discussion of Kants discussion of the soul in his lectures on metaphysics. It will
thus trace the path taken by Kant as he began to distinguish his own metaphysics from the
approach taken by Baumgarten, author of the text from which Kant lectured for the bulk of his
courses. While this discussion will naturally lead readers to Kants better-known discussions in
the first Critique, the aim here will be to introduce more novel elements into the discussion as
well. These will include Kants important attention to debates taking place in the life sciences
during the 1760s so far as these can be seen to have influenced Kants earliest reformulation of
metaphysics as a science restricted to understanding both the limits and extent of the mind. The
influence of these debates for Kants developing theory of cognition can be seen most clearly in
the lectures on metaphysics delivered during the 1770s, particularly given the challenge Kant
faced when it came to distinguishing his new, transcendental account from the naturalized
portrait of the soul provided by Tetens in his 1777 Philosophische Versuch ber die menschliche
Natur und ihre Entwicklung. As will be shown, Kants response to Tetens was determinative for
the discussions of empirical and rational psychology so familiar to readers of the Critique of
Pure Reason today.
12. Cognition, Real Possibility and the Ens Realissimum
Lawrence Pasternack (Oklahoma) and Brian Chance (Oklahoma)
In addition to his special lectures on natural theology, which he based in part on Eberhards
Vorbereitung zur natrlichen Theologie, Kant also lectured on religious topics drawn from Part
IV of Baumgartens Metaphysics during the course he gave regularly on metaphysics. The aim of
this chapter is to examine the latter, particularly the lecture notes from the 1780s and 1790s, in
order, thereby, to better understand the many considerations that shaped Kants account of the
ens realissimum. We will further examine how these lecture notes appropriate principles from
both Eberhard and Baumgarten, while also comparing their contents to Kants published views
on the ens realissimum during the Critical Period.

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13. Kants Critical Ethico-Theology in the Lectures

Dennis Schulting (Independent)
The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, it will assess the place of Kants argument for moral
theism in the development of the various incarnations of his ethico-theology in the published
works, that is, in its inchoate form in the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant
discusses the ideal of the highest good, and then in the section of the Dialectic of Practical
Reason in the Critique of Practical Reason, where he presents the canonical proof of Gods
existence as a practical postulate, and subsequently in the Doctrine of Method of the Teleological
Power of Judgment in the Critique of Judgment ( 868), where the highest good is interpreted
in terms of a moral teleology that first establishes a theology. This assessment will draw cheifly
upon the sections on moral theology that were part of his lectures on metaphysics (of those
extant, only L1, K2, and Dohna contain small separate sections on moral theology) and the more
extensive lectures that he held separately on natural theology (Plitz and Danziger), both of
which were based on Part III of Baumgartens Metaphysics.
Secondly, in the light of Eckart Frsters claim (a) that there are at least four different
versions of the practical postulate of Gods existence, three of which he maintains are abandoned
by Kant by the time he publishes the Religion in 1793, and (b) that in the Opus postumum he
presents an entirely new one (namely, the concept of God as necessary for practical
Selbstsetzung, which supposedly eliminates Gods transcendence), I want to determine the
systematic and Critical consistency of Kants moral proof of Gods existence across the
aforementioned works, and, importantly, to what extent this is also demonstrated by the account
in the lectures.

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