Critique and Totality

Pierre Kerszberg is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of The Invented Universe: The Einstein-De Sitter Controversy (1916-17) and the Rise of Relativistic Cosmology and collaborated on the critical edition of the French translation of Kant: Theory of the Heavens.

"Most pivotal in this book is Kerszberg's nuanced account of the relationship between the antinomies of pure reason and the foundations of critique itself. On Kerszberg's reading, the relationship between Kant's Analytic and Dialectic is much more complicated than anyone has recognized. On the basis of his discoveries, Kerszberg is able to clarify the stakes involved in Kant's resistance to the sorts of moves made by his immediate successors (Maimon, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) as well as to offer a powerful alternative to the Heideggerian reading of Kant. Along the way he offers compelling evidence against many of the standard readings of Kant's philosophy of science, frequently by situating Kant's texts in the context of early modern debates. Throughout, Kerszberg's scholarship is impeccable. The entire book is brilliant." — Andrew Cutrofello, Loyola University, Chicago"This book concerns the essential role that the issue of cosmology plays both in Kant's thought and those (especially in continental thought, Husserl and Heidegger) that Kant has affected. Both Husserl and Heidegger, still the most important thinkers in twentieth-century continental thought, briefly (but unsystematically) explored these topics for which now, thanks to Pierre Kerszberg, we have the details. His point is that Kant's project remains both more complicated and more fertile than either of these thinkers grasped, to the detriment of their own general philosophical positions." — Stephen H. Watson, University of Notre Dame

• 1. Totality, Finitude, and Division Kant and the Cosmic Concept of PhilosophyNature and FreedomBeing and Knowing2. The Mathematical Dream of Philosophy "I See the Trace of a Man"The Quarrel between Mathematics and PhilosophyOf Shining Misery in Modern Times3. An Experiment with Concepts What are the Objects of Reason?The Analogy with Copernicus as a Speculative Starting PointKant's Cosmological PrincipleThe Movement and Rest of the Spectator4. Reversing the Order of Time The Second Birth of KnowledgeTime from the Transcendental Point of ViewThe Antinomies as the Life of Reason5. A Logic of Illusion Reflecting upon Nothing Determinate: What is a Thing?The Historical versus the Speculative Background of the First AntinomyTaking Illusion out of its HiddennessOn the Logical Employment of ReasonThe Transcendental Amplification of the WorldFrom the Natural to the Transcendental Antithetic: The Breakdown of MathematicsThe Critical Solution, or the Doubled IllusionDialectic without Nihilism6. A Reversal of the Reversal Crossing the Border of ReasonThe Future as a Transcendental ProblemTransition to LifeThe Antinomy of Life: The Often Foolish ReasonA Solution to the Antinomy, or the Endless ProlegomenaFreedom, Contingency, and Non-senseThe Problem of the Future Reconsidered7. Lost Illusions On Concepts Other than CosmicThe Texture of Our World: Oscillating Between Givenness and NothingnessTransition to the AbsoluteProlegomena to Finitude and DeathFeeling and CoercionNotes Index