Metaphysics of Freedom?: Kant's Concept of Cosmological Freedom in Historical and Systematic Perspective 9789004383784, 9789004383777

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Metaphysics of Freedom?

Critical Studies in German Idealism Series Editor Paul G. Cobben Advisory Board Simon Critchley – Paul Cruysberghs – Rózsa Erzsébet – Garth Green Vittorio Hösle – Francesca Menegoni – Martin Moors – Michael Quante Ludwig Siep – Timo Slootweg – Klaus Vieweg

VOLUME 23

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/csgi

Metaphysics of Freedom? Kant’s Concept of Cosmological Freedom in Historical and Systematic Perspective

Edited by

Christian Krijnen

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Krijnen, Christian, editor. Title: Metaphysics of freedom? : Kant’s concept of cosmological freedom in  historical and systematic perspective / edited by Christian Krijnen. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2018] | Series: Critical studies in  German idealism, ISSN 1878-9986 ; volume 23 | In English and German. |  Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018032014 (print) | LCCN 2018039336 (ebook) |  ISBN 9789004383784 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004383777 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804. | Free will and determinism. |  Liberty. Classification: LCC B2799.F8 (ebook) | LCC B2799.F8 M48 2018 (print) |  DDC 123/.5092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018032014

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1878-9986 isbn 978-90-04-38377-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-38378-4 (e-book) Copyright 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Notes on Contributors vii 1 Introduction 1 Christian Krijnen 2

Free Will in Antiquity and in Kant 10 Michael N. Forster

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Freedom in Nature, Freedom of the Mind in Spinoza 27 Gábor Boros

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Kants theoretischer Freiheitsbegriff und die Tradition der „libertas spontaneitatis“ 47 Thomas Sören Hoffmann

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The Freedom of the Monad and the Subject of Freedom 68 Klaus Erich Kaehler

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Das Problem der transzendentalen Freiheit und seine Lösung: Kant versus Wolff 77 Heiner F. Klemme

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Kant on “Practical Freedom” and Its Transcendental Possibility 91 Stephan Zimmermann

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Absolute Spontaneity and Self-Determination: The Fact of Reason and the Categories of Freedom 123 Martin Bunte

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Kant’s Problems with Freedom and Fichte’s Response to the Challenge 137 Marina F. Bykova

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Sameness and Otherness in the Free Principle of Philosophy: Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre in Comparison to Hegel’s Science of Logic 157 Faustino Fabbianelli

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Kant’s Conception of Cosmological Freedom and its Metaphysical Legacy 173 Christian Krijnen

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Hegel’s Concept of Recognition as the Solution to Kant’s Third Antinomy 188 Arthur Kok

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Does Spontaneity have to be Naturalized? Freedom as Spontaneity—Today and in Kant 205 Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz Index 219

Notes on Contributors Gábor Boros is Professor of Philosophy at the Eötvös Loránd University Budapest. Fields of research: Early-Modern Philosophy, especially Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz; Philosophy of Emotions; Practical Philosophy; Philosophy of History. Recent major publications: “Life as Death in Spinoza,” in: The Concept of Affectivity in Early Modern Philosophy, 142–158, edited by Gábor Boros, Judit Szalai, and Olivér István Tóth (2017); The Passions, in: The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, 182–200 (2011); A szeretet/szerelem filozófiája [Philosophy of Love] (2014); Descartes és a korai felvilágosodás [Descartes and Early Enlightenment] (2010). Martin Bunte (PhD), Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Fields of research: Kant, Neo-Kantianism, German Idealism, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Science, Political Philosophy, Intercultural Philosophy. Major publications: Erkenntnis und Funktion. Zur Vollständigkeit der Urteilstafel und Einheit des kantischen Systems (2016). Transzendentalphilosophie und Transkulturalität (with Fabian Völker). Kategorie und Kategorem. Grundriss einer kritischen Wissenslehre. Natur—Kunst—Freiheit. Rousseaus Genealogie der politischen Freiheit. Marina F. Bykov is Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University, specializing in German idealism. She has authored three books and numerous articles on classic German philosophy and edited a new Russian edition of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (2000) with a new commentary. Currently, she is working on The German Idealism Reader and editing the Bloomsbury Companion to Fichte. Faustino Fabbianelli is Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Parma. He studied in Florence, Pisa, Bochum, Zürich and Munich. His doctoral dissertation was on Fichte’s practical philosophy, and his areas of specialization are Kant and German Idealism, Phenomenology, and Italian Philosophy. Michael N. Forster is currently Alexander von Humboldt Professor, holder of the Chair in Theoretical Philosophy, and Co-director of the International Centre for

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Philosophy at Bonn University. He taught for 28 years at the University of Chicago, where he served for 10 years as chairman of the Philosophy Department and was Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor. His work combines historical and systematic aspects. His historical work is on ancient philosophy and especially German philosophy. His systematic work is mainly on epistemology and philosophy of language. He has published numerous articles and seven books, including Hegel and Skepticism (1989), Hegel’s Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit (1998), Kant and Skepticism (2008), After Herder: Philosophy of Language in the German Tradition (2010), and German Philosophy of Language: From Schlegel to Hegel and Beyond (2011). Thomas Sören Hoffmann holds since 2009 the Chair in Practical Philosophy at Fern Universität (Hagen). He has published on Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, also in philosophy of law, philosophy of economics, and bioethics, e.g. Die absolute Form (1991), Philosophische Physiologie (2003), Wirtschaftsphilosophie (2009), Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. A Propaedeutic (2015). Klaus Erich Kaehler Prof. em. at the Philosophical Seminar of the University of Cologne. Fields of research: modern philosophy, metaphysics and its criticism, theory of subjectivity, phenomenology, aesthetics. Numerous essays, articles, reviews in these fields of research; two monographs on Leibniz; (together with Werner Marx:) two books on Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes; Das Prinzip Subjekt und seine Krisen. Selbstvollendung und Dezentrierung (2010). Heiner F. Klemme is Professor of History of Philosophy at the Martin-Luther-University in HalleWittenberg and director of the Immanuel-Kant-Forum. Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Wuppertal (2006–2008), and Professor of Modern Philosophy at the University of Mainz (2008–2014). His fields of research cover modern philosophy and contemporary philosophy in particular, Kant and practical philosophy. Recent publication: The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth Century German Philosophers, ed. Heiner F. Klemme und Manfred Kuehn (2th ed.). Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz is Professor at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Warsaw. Fields of research: classical German philosophy, social philosophy. Recent publications: Anerkennung als Verpflichtung. Klassische Konzepte der Anerkennung und

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ihre Bedeutung für die aktuelle Debatte (2015); „Wir alle werden im Egoismus erzeugt und geboren …“: Fichtes Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters als Selbstreflexive Kritik der Moderne, Fichte-Studien 2017, Bd. 44. Arthur Kok (PhD) studied philosophy in Tilburg and Berlin. In 2013, his dissertation was published as the monography Kant, Hegel, und die Frage der Metaphysik. His main areas of research are metaphysics, philosophy of religion and political philosophy. Recent publications are “Jenseits des Gewissens: Der Mensch als Endzweck der Schöpfung” (2016), “The Boundaries of Hegel’s Criticism of Kant’s Concept of the Noumenal” (2017) and “Religion in der modernen Demokratie: Ein Vergleich zwischen Hegels offenbarer Religion und Rawls’ öffentlicher Vernunft” (2018). Christian Krijnen Ph.D. 2001, habilitation 2006, is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Netherlands). His research focuses on Modern Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy of Culture, Social Philosophy, Philosophy of Economics and Management & Organization In his numerous monographs and articles, including Nachmetaphysischer Sinn (2001), Philosophie als System (2008), Recognition— German Idealism as an Ongoing Challenge (2014), and The Very Idea of Organization (2015), Kant, Hegel, neo-Kantianism and contemporary transcendental philosophy play a major role. Stephan Zimmermann (PhD), University of Bonn (Germany). Fields of research: German Idealism (Kant, Hegel), Hermeneutics (Heidegger, Gadamer, Dilthey), Practical und Political Philosophy, Wittgenstein. Major publications: Kants “Kategorien der Freiheit” (2011), ed. Die “Kategorien der Freiheit” in Kants praktischer Philosophie. (2016), co-ed. with Ch. Krijnen Sozialontologie in der Perspektive des deutschen Idealismus (2018).

Chapter 1

Introduction Christian Krijnen Freedom is the core topic of modern philosophy. Seen as a philosophical epoch, a new perspective arises of how humans conceive of themselves and their relationship to the world. From now on, human thought and action is no longer held to be determined by external factors (heteronomy) but selfdetermined (autonomy), and hence freed from external factors as grounds for its determination. The philosophical paradigm for mastering this impetus of freedom is reason. With his ‘Copernican’, i.e. transcendental turn, Immanuel Kant gave reason a form that suits the modern understanding of humans as self-determined agents. Reason transpires to be the source of all validity, of any normativity of human thought and action. Objectivity, whichever, is framed from the start by the conditions of reason, or as it is also called in the discourse, of ‘subjectivity’. While the German idealists were thrilled by this thought, they were unconvinced by Kant’s elaboration of the idea of transcendental philosophy. Thinkers as diverse as Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel were all of the opinion that Kant’s transcendental turn had unfettered a revolution in philosophical thought that should not so much be stopped but rather completed and this should be accomplished by addressing critically the presuppositions or ‘foundations’ of Kant’s philosophy itself. To these presuppositions belong, without doubt, Kant’s architectonic of reason in general as well as the role the concept of freedom has within it in particular. The adventure of exploring Kant’s presuppositions from the start gave wings to the astonishing development of German idealist philosophy. The unity of reason now was to be conceived of as freedom. Already Fichte, with revolutionary pathos, qualified his Wissenschaftslehre (1794) as “the first system of freedom,” and subsequently the young Schelling proclaimed that the “Alpha and Omega of all philosophy is freedom.” Hegel, as it seems in the most radical fashion, tried to conceive of reason and freedom as a unity from which everything else emerges and can be comprehended. Whereas for Kant freedom is not so much the origin of all philosophy and being but the “capstone” of the whole system of pure reason, for Hegel freedom makes up the beginning, the way and the end of philosophy.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004383784_002

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Kant’s architectonic of reason forms the starting point of the German idealist attempt at perfecting Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Referring to the history of philosophy, Kant divides philosophy continuously into theoretical and practical philosophy as well as categorizing the corresponding objects into nature and freedom. This reference to the history of philosophy, which for Kant is prominent especially as the so called Deutsche Schulphilosophie, i.e. the German metaphysics of his age, moreover informs the basic characteristics of Kant’s concept of freedom. For Kant, freedom is a causal power. In the third antinomy, Kant models freedom as a “power” to begin a series of effects “spontaneously.” This power-theoretical modelling enables Kant, who already within the cosmological context was focusing on freedom “in the practical sense,” to understand humans as agents of their actions, and hence as a subject, not merely as an effect of a natural cause, not as a mere object. Hegel, surprisingly enough, rejects as a general determination of freedom Kant’s cosmological or transcendental concept of freedom as a power to begin a series of effects “spontaneously.” For Hegel, freedom is not primarily a causal power; it is being with itself in its other. Hence, Kant’s cosmological concept of freedom is supposed to stem from more basic presuppositions, which remain unaddressed in Kant’s philosophy. Moreover, with his criticism of Kant’s cosmological concept of freedom, Hegel criticizes a conception of freedom that in one way or another guides much of the later transcendental philosophy. This still applies today with freedom being a causal power of the subject that determines itself in accordance with its own laws of validity. Hegel, by contrast, aims at establishing a more genuine concept of freedom. Against the background of this this radical turn in the concept of freedom, I organized a Humboldt Kolleg on Metaphysics of Freedom? Kant’s Concept of Cosmological Freedom in Historical and Systematic Perspective. It took place from 29 to 31 March 2017 at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The Humboldt Kolleg aimed to put Kant’s concept of cosmological freedom into the center. Hence, it explicitly was not primarily bothered with Kant’s concept of practical freedom, addressed frequently in contemporary debates. In contrast, it concentrates on the much less discussed and mostly taken for granted cosmological foundation of it. – What is the philosophy historical background of Kant’s concept of cosmological concept of freedom? In this respect prefigurations in ancient and medieval philosophy as well as in modern Rationalism are relevant, e.g. the much-disputed issue of the relationship between willing and the will, Intellectualism and Voluntarism, and hence, conceptions of freedom as freedom of thought and freedom of choice.

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– Concerning Kant’s cosmological concept of freedom within the framework of his own theoretical philosophy, difficulties arise with respect to the relationship between the cosmological concept of freedom and other basic concepts of theoretical acts like “actions of understanding,” “synthesis,” or “spontaneity.” What problems emerge from this with regard to the unity of Kant’s theoretical philosophy? – What are the challenges the later German idealists conceptions have to face when dealing with Kant’s problem of cosmological freedom? How do they integrate the problem of cosmological freedom regarding a uniform conception of reason? To what extent do their conceptions fall back behind Kant, and to what extent do they substantially go beyond Kant? In short, how to understand and esteem Kant’s concept of cosmological freedom in a historical and systematic perspective? By elaborating on this question, the Humboldt Kolleg takes up the contemporary interest in Kant and freedom as well as that for Kant’s philosophical predecessors and attempts at a reactualization of German idealism. This collection of essays is the result of the presentations and discussions during the Humboldt Kolleg. It roughly follows the historical arrangement leading the program. Michael Forster discusses Free Will in Antiquity and in Kant. He traces the origins in antiquity of a certain model of free will and its relation to morality that Kant, along with many other moderns, presupposes. He then sketches the development of Kant’s own theory of free will over the course of his career. Finally, Forster shows that taking the ancient development of the model of free will that Kant assumes and his own development into account not only illuminates key aspects of his mature theory but also makes it possible to assess its strengths and weaknesses more effectively, in particular to see that in one respect it is more coherent than has often been thought (innocent of the “imputability problem”) but in another respect even more problematic (concerning free will and causal determinism). In his Freedom in Nature, Freedom of the Mind in Spinoza, Gábor Boros argues that Spinoza’s concept of freedom is strongly systematic in character: it appears in most segments of his system. Boros concentrates on what can be called the “cosmological” aspect of Spinoza’s overall concept of freedom. This means freedom related to the cosmos that Spinoza calls Nature linked to God in his famous expression Deus sive Natura, “God or Nature.” Boros also analyzes the aspect of natural-theological freedom that makes itself experienced in the human being as the freedom of the mind, a completion of the “cosmological” freedom in Nature. Both analyses are carried out from the double perspective

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of Spinoza’s most important sources, the system of Descartes, on the one hand, and the peculiar type of Neoplatonism, on the other, whose unique representative was the Portuguese-Jewish physician and philosopher Leone Ebreo (Yehuda Abarvanel). Spinoza’s main achievement in the history of the concept of freedom seems to be the transference of the theological-metaphysical concept of an anti-indifferentist freedom over to a scientifically oriented concept of it with a natural-theological underpinning. Thomas Sören Hoffmann addresses Kants theoretischer Freiheitsbegriff und die Tradition der „libertas spontaneitatis.“ He starts with identifying the ‘logical’ profile of the problem of freedom within the framework of early modern thinking: due to the new—mainly Cartesian or Galileian—foundations of thinking and science, it is no longer possible to conceive of freedom in the traditional Aristotelian (e.g. teleological) way. The alternatives are now (a) a voluntaristic conception of the “liberum arbitrium” and the idea of a mere “libertas indifferentiae” or (b) a reinterpretation of freedom by the concept of a universalized “spontaneity” which in Leibniz becomes fundamental for any further debate on freedom. In the second section Hoffmann shows how Kant in his early Nova dilucidatio starts from Leibniz-Wolffian premises, so e.g. with respect to the concept of freedom as referring to internal self-determination, being nevertheless open to some criticism of this approach in general and pointing out that the notion of spontaneity should be referred to the action itself, not to the (inner) principle of acting. Finally, in the third section, it is shown that the main issue in Kant’s critique of cosmological freedom in his Critique of Pure Reason is to make clear that every “ontological” understanding of freedom, including the Leibnizian one, is in itself antinomian and therefore leads to a “transcendental,” i.e. basically reflexive instead of objective way of conceiving freedom. Transcendental freedom itself describes the formal possibility of practical freedom which is connected to the “absolute spontaneity” of a self-realizing idea of freedom which according to Kant is the real cornerstone of his philosophy. For Klaus Erich Kaehler, in The Freedom of the Monad and the Subject of Freedom, the conception of freedom deeply depends upon the whole framework of a philosophy. More in particular, the objective metaphysics of Leibniz is based on the presupposition of a most perfect subject exerting absolute power by knowledge and will, that is as the most perfect subject of reason. Only inasmuch as reason is exerted, freedom is possible. The finite, created monads are free only to the grade of their own capacity of reason. But this does not mean that they are able to change the metaphysical order of being and becoming. Since the freedom of the monads includes the possible reality of each monad determined by the limits of their “complete concept,”

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freedom cannot consist in the power of changing itself from scratch but has to be carried out within the subject’s internal self-relation as the subject of reason, though limited, to the will. It is free to the degree of its contributing to the universal order of the “best of all possible worlds.” Kant, although he rejects Leibniz’ metaphysical objectivation of the subject, nevertheless holds on to the idea of freedom as dependent of an internal relation between reason and will. Since for Kant, however, the empirical world as appearance follows strictly the law of causality in space and time, the intra-subjective determination of the will can be exerted originally only independent of the empirical states and their change in time. Ultimately, it is Kant’s distinction of appearances and things in themselves, what “rescues” freedom. The determination of willing and acting even within the empirical world has to be ascribed to an “intelligible c­ haracter”—as an idea of pure reason without any theoretical objective reality but only a practical one. In Das Problem der transzendentalen Freiheit und seine Lösung: Kant versus Wolff, Heiner F. Klemme aims to clarify what kind of problem Kant intends to solve with his conception of transcendental freedom, with reference to both the development of his critical philosophy and to two alternatives concerning freedom (and necessity). These alternatives are represented by Christian Wolff’s German Metaphysics (1719) on the one hand and Christian Garve’s comments on the relationship between freedom and natural necessity in his Grundsätze der Moralphilosophie (1772) on the other. It is only at the end of the 1770s that Kant realizes that transcendental freedom is just an idea of reason, and that this idea provides the basis for solving both the problem of the antithetic of freedom and necessity and that of practical freedom, as required by the standpoint of moral philosophy. The starting point for Stephan Zimmermann’s Kant on “Practical Freedom” and Its Transcendental Possibility is Kant’s distinction between two forms of the freedom of the will. Besides transcendental freedom, which he posits as the foundation of moral philosophy, he also deals with an empirical freedom. Zimmermann follows Kant’s reflections through numerous writings and lecture notes. He argues that the so-called “practical freedom” constitutes an undeniable constant in Kant’s thought. It does not consist in the absolute freedom or autonomy of the determination of the will to an action but in the subsequent alternativity of the realization of the will already determined, i.e. the relative freedom of choice (Willkür) between different actions—they may be those, which the moral law prescribes, or those imposed by our sensible inclinations. On closer inspection, Kant’s concept of an imperative stands and falls with the freedom of the Willkür, thereby revealing itself as an indispensable part of Kant’s moral philosophy; it is presupposed by the ‘ought’,

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through which moral laws (as well as rules of prudence) present themselves where conflicting intentions oppose them. Finally, Zimmermann discusses the transcendental possibility of “practical freedom.” Although this kind of freedom takes place in the midst of the determinism of nature constituted by the second analogy of experience, the decision between alternatives is very well compatible with the principle of causality. In Absolute Spontaneity and Self-Determination. The Fact of Reason and the Categories of Freedom, Martin Bunte shows that freedom in the cosmological sense as absolute spontaneity possesses central importance for Kant’s practical philosophy. The idea of initiating a causal series originally from freedom constitutes the essential core of the idea of imputability; without imputability, morality would be unthinkable. If the idea of a subject capable of dedication, a personality, constitutes the a priori core of praxis, then it should be possible to bring all the determinations of practical reason back to this idea. That this is indeed the case, will be shown by referring to the “fact of reason,” i.e. the consciousness of the moral law, insofar as in this the will knows itself both as determining and as determined. Thus, as in the theoretical realm, selfdetermination also forms the primary and a priori core of deduction in the practical realm. All other determinations have to be derived from that core as its moments. This again becomes apparent by the fact that the categories of freedom could be exhibited as just these moments. As such, they form a trichotomous order of three or four series, according to the law of completeness in the logic of determinations. This ordering is expressed in the three formulas of the categorical imperative, in terms of maxims, natural law, and ends; the latter takes the double form of “end in itself” and “kingdom of ends.” Marina F. Bykova elaborates on Kant’s Problems with Freedom and Fichte’s Response to the Challenge. Approaching Kant’s metaphysics of freedom from the historical perspective, Bykova focuses on Fichte’s response to problems associated with Kant’s concept of cosmological freedom. Recognizing Kant’s failure to unify the intelligible and sensible realms in a way that it could justify the actuality of freedom and explain its possibility in the causally determined world, Fichte took it upon himself to complete Kant’s Critical Philosophy in a way that it could indeed provide a practical affirmation of human freedom. Examining some key elements of Fichte’s theory of freedom, Bykova argues that Fichte surpasses Kant successfully addressing problems that Kant left unresolved. Introducing the concept of the self-positing I, Fichte is able to explain freedom in terms of spontaneity and self-initiation, which Kant only postulated in his cosmological concept of freedom but was not able to justify. Emphasizing the practical significance of the idea of the self-determinacy of the I for the concept of autonomy, Fichte restored the conceptual unity of

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freedom and morality and provided a justification for the possibility of a moral theory based on autonomy. Sameness and Otherness in the Free Principle of Philosophy. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre in Comparison to Hegel’s Science of Logic is the topic of Faustino Fabbianelli. With Heinrich Rickert and Werner Flach, Fabbianelli proposes a heterological principle (according to which the other of the one must be seen as a positive not-one) in contrast to a principle of antithetic dialectic (for which the other of the one is not just any arbitrary other but rather its other, which is directly opposed to it). He finds the heterological principle expressed in Fichte’s late Wissenschaftslehre and the antithetical principle in Hegel’s Science of Logic. By understanding transcendental philosophy as knowledge of the boundary and from the boundary in the Kantian sense, Fichte recognizes the principle of philosophy as an analogical and absolute knowledge, insofar as knowledge is heterological in relation to the absolute. At the same time, Fichte opens up the path to a transcensive metaphysics in Hans Wagner’s sense. This has direct consequences for the freedom that can be attributed to the principle of philosophy. The principle of the Wissenschaftslehre is free because it is analogical; it possesses the freedom of the image that understands itself as image of the absolute. On the contrary, for Hegel such freedom cannot be true freedom because it is still determined by the otherness—that is by the excendence—of the absolute with respect to the image. Conversely, concrete freedom can be found only in the speculative concept as being-withoneself in the other. The German idealists intended to complete Kant’s transcendental turn by addressing critically the presuppositions or ‘foundations’ of Kant’s philosophy itself. These presuppositions include Kant’s architectonic of reason in general as well as the particular role of the concept of freedom. In Kant’s Conception of Cosmological Freedom and its Metaphysical Legacy, Christian Krijnen shows that Kant’s cosmological or transcendental freedom appears to be not so much a secure starting point for further elaborations but a problem on its own. In doing so, it becomes clear that the profile of Kant’s critical conception of freedom in general and that of the third antinomy in particular becomes plausible by taking into account that it draws heavily upon the German metaphysical tradition of the 18th century. As a result, several preliminaries and non-justified constellations come into view. From Hegel’s perspective, they cannot even be justified. Rather, getting to the bottom of them transcendentally would lead to a more general concept of freedom. Finally, the consequences of this analysis are illustrated by taking into consideration the fundamental axiotic relation of transcendental philosophy as conceived of by Bruno Bauch, probably the best neo-Kantian Kant specialist.

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In his essay on Hegel’s Concept of Recognition as the Solution to Kant’s Third Antinomy, Arthur Kok deals with the role of thingness in the philosophical determinations of nature and subject. In his ‘Lectures on the History of Philosophy’, when discussing Kant’s third antinomy, Hegel reproaches Kant for having “too much tenderness for the things.” Kok endeavors to explain what Hegel means by this criticism. Kok’s point of departure is the problem of the third antinomy: that we are forced to accept the assumption of transcendental freedom, but by doing so we postulate a contradiction. Kant argues that his transcendental idealism can resolve this contradiction. Yet Hegel does not accept this solution, particularly challenging Kant’s distinction between appearances and things in themselves. Kok argues that Hegel’s concept of recognition in the self-consciousness chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit can be reconstructed as a further reflection on the nature of the transcendental subject. By reading the self-consciousness chapter in the light of the previous chapter ‘Force and Understanding’, Kok shows how the lord/bondsman-­relation can be understood as Hegel’s solution to the contradiction that Kant’s antinomies have brought to light. His most important conclusion is that Hegel convincingly argues against Kant that the possible contradiction between appearances and things-in-themselves does not reside in the subject but in fact entails a contradiction of the sensible things with themselves. Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz poses the question Does Spontaneity have to be Naturalized? Freedom as Spontaneity—Today and in Kant. He intends to formulate an apology of Kant’s understanding of spontaneity. Kant’s position is being reconstructed and placed in the context of his transcendental and practical philosophy. Kloc-Konkołowicz discusses Kant’s reasons to give his notion of spontaneity a moral connotation and considers the implications of this moral concept of spontaneity. Subsequently, he depicts the argumentative strategy which underlies the project of naturalization of spontaneity and of interpreting it in anthropological categories. Finally, Kloc-Konkołowicz disputes the main argument of this anthropologically oriented project. By doing this, it becomes possible to answer the following questions: Are the changes proposed by the critics necessary at all? Do they accomplish the aim set by their authors? Do the changes threat the advantages of the Kantian concept of spontaneity that make this concept so useful to face some of the challenges linked to the modern understanding of individual freedom? In his analyses, Kloc-Konkołowicz sketches the genuine Kantian position and shows its inclusivity. Kant’s concept of spontaneous action, clearly delimited from all psychological and other empirical contexts, proves to be basically open to all rational beings independently of their hitherto life-history, inclinations and predispositions.

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Finally, I would like to express my thanks to a number of people and institutions: The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Bonn, Germany) was the main sponsor of the conference. In fact, already the plan for addressing the issue of Kant’s conception of cosmological freedom within the context of a Humboldt Kolleg arose during one of their meetings (in September 2015 in Leipzig on the occasion of the Anneliese Maier Forschungspreis). I had the opportunity to discuss ideas for a cooperation in this respect with some of the speakers. Some years ago, the research institute Clue+ was established at the Faculty of Humanities of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. One of its tasks is to cope with the infrastructure for conferences. Clue+ not only co-sponsored the Humboldt Kolleg, but without the help of Gert-Jan Burgers and his team, especially Rita Hermans and Ties Verhoeven, it would not have been possible to organize the Humboldt Kolleg at all. Vincent Panhuysen of the philosophical fraternity was so kind to assist during the conference. The Humanities Graduate School of the Vrije Universiteit supported the conference too. The cooperation with the publishing house Brill has been very pleasant again.

Chapter 2

Free Will in Antiquity and in Kant Michael N. Forster In this chapter I would like, first, to sketch how the ideas of free will and of moral responsibility’s dependence upon free will originally arose and developed in western antiquity, in order then, second, to explain some central features of Kant’s theory of free will as after-echoes of those ancient developments. My primary goal concerning Kant will be to throw some light on the nature of his position. Beyond that, I shall defend it in certain respects but criticize it in others. 1

The Origins and Development of the Idea of Free Will in Antiquity

Since late antiquity western culture—philosophy, religion, and “common sense” alike—has subscribed heavily to a certain family of ideas concerning free will: (1) that people have a faculty of will which produces their decisions and actions; (2) that it is sometimes free; (3) that this freedom essentially includes an ability to choose otherwise than we do in fact choose even under identical external and internal (i.e. psychological) circumstances; (4) that all or at least most people possess such a free will; and (5) that doing so is a precondition of being morally responsible (i.e., either morally praiseworthy or morally blameworthy). This standard model is in fact highly specific both historically and c­ ulturally— very local in time and place. It was quite unknown to Homeric culture, which did indeed have a distinction between action that was done “voluntarily [hekôn]” vs. action that was done “involuntarily [akôn],” and also a conception that voluntariness was a requirement for moral responsibility (albeit that the moral values in question were very different from our own), but which had no concept of the will,1 let alone a concept of a free will. The model is also quite 1  The translation of hekôn as “voluntarily” is only an approximation. In particular, note that there is no component in the word hekôn corresponding to the Latin word voluntas, “will” that is involved in the word “voluntarily.” © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004383784_003

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unknown to the Chinese cultural tradition, including its sophisticated tradition in moral philosophy—as scholars such as François Jullien have pointed out. Moreover, the standard model only emerged quite gradually in the West, namely, via a strikingly different model of “free will” that was first clearly developed by the Stoics from about the end of the fourth century BC onwards: a model that accepted versions of claims (1) and (2), but which did not include claims (3), (4), or (5) at all. On the contrary, the Stoics, as strict causal determinists, did not espouse principle (3) (the principle of “alternate possibilities,” as it is sometimes called today); they did not think that all or most people have free will (on the contrary, they thought of free will as vanishingly rare, the preserve of a very small class of genuine “wise men”), and thus rejected principle (4); and they did not think of free will as a precondition of moral responsibility, i.e., of moral praiseworthiness or blameworthiness—principle (5)—but instead virtually equated free will with being morally praiseworthy, conceiving moral blameworthiness as instead the lot of people who lacked it. Nonetheless, the standard model has become so firmly rooted in the West since late antiquity that much of the philosophical debate concerning free will that has taken place in modernity has not been about whether the model is correct but rather about how, assuming that it is correct, it should be construed. For example, Hume accepts the model but tells us that it is compatible with determinism, since condition (3) should be analyzed as meaning no more than that if one had chosen to do otherwise then one would indeed have done otherwise (which is perfectly compatible with causal determinism); whereas Kant accepts the model but tells us that condition (3) can only be fulfilled if there are uncaused acts of will. And even thinkers who are a bit more skeptical about the model in modernity usually retain rather large parts of it. How did this standard model of free will arise? I have tried to answer that question in another article titled “Toward a Genealogy of the Idea of Free Will” that draws on research by the classicists Arthur Adkins, Myles Burnyeat, Michael Frede, and Albrecht Dihle (Forster, forthcoming). So I shall not repeat the case or present the historical evidence on which it rests in any detail here. But it may be helpful to at least sketch the main steps of the model’s historical development as they emerge from the account, focusing especially on some aspects that are relevant for interpreting Kant’s position. The first step—which has not been well understood by previous scholarship (even the excellent scholarship just listed) and is probably in some ways the most important of all—took place when Socrates and Plato in the fifth and fourth centuries BC projected what had up till that time been the purely socio-political conceptions of freedom vs. slavery or unfreedom inwards into individual souls (a locus classicus for this move is Plato’s Phaedo with its metaphors of the soul’s liberation by philosophy and by death from a body to which

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it is normally fettered). Socrates’ and Plato’s philosophical arguments for taking this extraordinary step are vanishingly thin—they really just introduce it in the form of a set of emotive metaphors for characterizing other alleged circumstances for which they do provide certain arguments, albeit strikingly bad ones (in particular, circumstances concerning the relation of the soul to the body and the separation of the soul from the body first by philosophy and then by death). So one is prompted to look beyond what they say explicitly for the deeper psychological motives that lie behind their introduction of this set of metaphors. Its deepest psychological source was, I suggest, Socrates’ and Plato’s shared feeling that contemporary socio-political life—in both its tyrannical and its radical democratic variants—was profoundly oppressive (see especially Plato’s Apology, Republic, and Seventh Letter). This caused them to seek (a) the illusory consolation of a sort of imaginary freedom that lay beyond the reach of socio-political oppression in the individual soul (see for this motive especially Plato’s Apology and Phaedo) and (b) the illusory satisfaction of their desire for revenge on their oppressors that was afforded by depicting them as merely inner slaves (a locus classicus for this second motive is Plato’s Gorgias with its picture of the tyrant’s soul as like a leaky vessel that he constantly has to refill, just as a slave might do). This situation turns out to be a key for understanding the subsequent steps of the model’s development as well. For the Stoics and Christians, who later inherited the Socratic-Platonic move of projecting freedom vs. slavery or unfreedom into individual souls, were driven by very similar motives: they too usually experienced their socio-political world as oppressive, and as a result they too found the move in question attractive because of the two motives just mentioned. Moreover, in an important and highly ironic further twist to this psychological explanation of the move in question, an additional powerful motive emerged in its support as well, namely that it served a useful ideological function for the oppressors themselves. For, by allowing the oppressed the illusory consolation of an imaginary inner freedom and the illusory revenge of reclassifying their oppressors as mere inner slaves, it defused their impulses to seek real freedom and to take real revenge at their oppressors’ expense. In a second step, then, the Stoics from about the end of the fourth century BC onwards proceeded to recast this seminal Socratic-Platonic move into a more canonical form, thereby generating parts (1) and (2) of the standard model. Myles Burnyeat, in his lecture “Ancient Freedoms,” has given a fairly detailed account of how this happened whose main steps are as follows.2 Even 2  Burnyeat delivered this lecture as a Berkeley Graduate Lecture at the University of California at Berkeley in 1996 and it is available as a video online. I also heard a version of the lecture which he delivered at the University of Chicago at around the same time and possess a very

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before the Stoics, the Cynics of the fourth century BC prepared the ground for it by developing a conception of freedom as excluding not only external but also internal, psychological forms of enslavement (in this connection Burnyeat quotes the Cynic Crates, fr. 5: “Not bent or enslaved by slavish pleasure, they love immortal kingship, freedom”). Then at the end of the fourth century BC the founder of Stoicism, Zeno declared in his Republic that only the good/wise man was free (here Burnyeat quotes Diogenes Laertius’ Life of Zeno: “In the Republic he [Zeno] declares the good alone to be … free men”; “They declare that [the wise man] alone is free and bad men are slaves”). Finally, in the third century BC the Stoic Chrysippus defended this position of Zeno’s in a work titled On Zeno’s Having Used Words in their Proper Meanings, where he equated freedom with the power of independent action (exousia autopragias) (as Burnyeat notes, Diogenes Laertius reports this explicitly in his Life of Zeno). The Stoics’ philosophical reasons for espousing these views were certainly more elaborate than Socrates’ and Plato’s had been, but they were not much more cogent (instead relying on a dubious new psychology and on fanciful assumptions about God, Fate, or Reason and about the wise man’s identification with the good goals of the same, for example). The real explanation for the continued appeal of the views in question rather lay mainly in the sort of psychological mechanism that I have already sketched. A locus classicus for the Stoics’ continued commitment to the two motives that I mentioned is Cicero’s Paradoxa Stoicorum. A third important step then took place in the second century AD and involved the Peripatetic philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias, author of the book On Fate. As has already been mentioned, the Stoics had not yet generated parts (3), (4), or (5) of the standard model at all. That achievement was mainly Alexander’s. He added these three parts to the two parts of the model that the Stoics had already supplied by effecting a sort of dubious conflation of Stoic with Aristotelian ideas. First, he fused the Stoic idea of the freedom of the will with the Aristotelian notion of an action’s voluntariness, which already included the idea that the agent could have acted otherwise than he did, and he also substituted for the Stoics’ causal determinism a standard, albeit intrinsically implausible, Aristotelian causal indeterminism concerning the sublunar realm—thereby generating part (3) of the model, which he explicitly championed for the first time. Second, he fused the Stoic distinction between freedom of the will and unfreedom of the will with the older Aristotelian distinction between voluntariness and involuntariness, and thereby came to conceive of helpful handout of relevant passages from ancient texts that he supplied on the occasion and on which I have drawn here. To my knowledge, he has not yet published a printed version of the lecture.

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freedom of the will as something that was shared by all, or at least most, human beings and as a precondition of moral responsibility (i.e., of praiseworthiness or blameworthiness), just Aristotle had already conceived voluntariness— thereby also generating parts (4) and (5) of the model. Michael Frede in his book A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought has sharply criticized Alexander’s intellectual contribution here, in particular rejecting his development of part (3) of the standard model (the notion of alternate possibilities) as hopelessly confused (Frede 2011, 2). He does so on three main grounds: (a) This idea would make the good/wise man, who cannot choose otherwise than he does, not responsible. Moreover, in a feeble attempt to solve that problem Alexander develops the merely weird idea that the good/wise man’s responsibility derives from a period before he became good/ wise (Frede 2011, 97). (b) The idea in question conflicts with a very sensible Aristotelian rationale for blaming/punishing and praising/rewarding agents, namely, achieving the goal of improving them, for the performance of which function Alexander’s “could have chosen otherwise” criterion is irrelevant (Frede 2011, 98). (c) Furthermore, the “could have chosen otherwise” criterion is itself hopelessly mysterious (Frede 2011, 100). Frede’s general line of argument in these several objections is that Alexander’s introduction of part (3) of the standard model not only conflicts with his own basic Aristotelianism but is also intrinsically implausible. This seems to me essentially correct, but with two modest qualifications. First, Frede should have distinguished between those two sorts of criticism more clearly than he does. In particular, whereas criticism (a) is mainly just an ad hominem criticism (i.e., one in terms of Alexander’s own Aristotelian assumptions), criticism (b) is both ad hominem and intrinsic, and criticism (c) is again both ad hominem and intrinsic. Second, Frede’s version of criticism (c) requires some refinement. The problem here is not that Alexander’s idea that a free agent could have chosen otherwise is intrinsically mysterious, let alone unintelligible. In particular, this idea need not involve the sort of implication of self-causation that Nietzsche would later ridicule in Beyond Good and Evil as being like Baron Münchhausen pulling himself out a swamp by his own hair (Nietzsche 1886, § 21). Rather, the condition in question here might simply consist in the agent’s choice being uncaused (Alexander 1983, 185.18–186.12). (As Frede himself notes, it was standard Aristotelian doctrine that the sub­ lunar sphere generally and human actions in particular are not always causally determined.) The real problem here is rather that there was no very good reason in antiquity, and that there is even less reason today (after modern developments in fields such as physics and neurophysiology), to believe that human choices ever are causally undetermined, so that if interpreted in such a

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way the “could have chosen otherwise” condition probably turns out never to be instantiated. Still, with those two modest qualifications, Frede seems to me basically correct in saying that Alexander is confused here. Finally, in a fourth step, Christianity (Origen, Augustine, and others) took over this whole model and then popularized it for millennia, thereby generating the strong “intuitions” in its favor that most philosophers and non-­ philosophers alike share in western modernity. Christianity did not improve on the weak philosophical arguments in support of the model that Socrates and Plato, the Stoics, and Alexander had provided. But it did add some further dubious arguments of its own, including two that were charged with strong emotive appeal. First, it reinforced the model by invoking some relevantly similar ideas from the Old Testament concerning a God who creates the world out of nothing and a mankind that is made in His image (as Albrecht Dihle (1982) rightly, albeit one-sidedly, argued). Second, it also invented the consideration that the existence of human beings’ free will as conceived by the model was a wonderful way of getting God off the uncomfortable theological hook of responsibility for all of the bad things that happen in the world. (These two motives already play a significant role in Origen and Augustine.) However, it seems fair to say that the deepest explanation for Christianity’s strong commitment to the standard model lay less in these dubious arguments and their emotive appeal than in the psychological motives of both the oppressed and the oppressors within oppressive societies that had already made earlier versions of the model seem attractive to Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics, and which I have explained above: imaginary consolation (and revenge) for the oppressed together with a welcome ideological defusing of revolt for the oppressors. 2

The Development of Kant’s Theory of Free Will

Let us now fast-forward from antiquity to Kant.3 Kant’s views on free will underwent an interesting development over the course of his career. And it is helpful for understanding his mature position during the critical period to see it not only in light of the ancient background that has just been sketched but also in light of his own development. 3  Kant’s works are cited in this article according to the standard German edition of Kant’s works, Kants Gesammelte Schriften, ed. the Royal Prussian (later German) Academy of Sciences (Berlin: Georg Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter, 1900–), abbreviated here as GS. When English translations are given, they are borrowed from the relevant volume of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, ed. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–).

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Kant was already committed to a strong form of causal determinism during the early pre-critical period. This determinism came from two distinct sources: Wolff with his principle of sufficient reason (which Kant espouses in A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition from 1755, for example) and Newton’s physics (in his Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, likewise from 1755, Kant champions the causal determinism of Newtonian physics, indeed even strengthening it in a certain way: whereas Newton had himself held that the laws of physics were only adequate for explaining the running of the solar system, but not its origin, which instead required an act of God, Kant undertook to explain even its origin in terms of emergence out of a sort of ur-plasma in accordance with the laws of Newtonian physics). Correspondingly, during this early pre-critical period Kant’s position concerning the nature of free will was a form of compatibilism, somewhat similar to that which had recently been espoused both by Wolff in Germany and by Hume in Britain: in the New Elucidation Kant essentially argues that free, and therefore morally imputable, actions are perfectly compatible with universal determinism because they are distinguished from unfree behavior merely by having an internal cause, being voluntary, being done from inclination (and hence producing pleasure), being performed with understanding, and aiming at what is best. He explicitly rejects the anti-Wolffian position of Crusius according to which the principle of sufficient reason is false and freedom of the will and moral responsibility require it to be so. This early Kantian position seems rather philosophically attractive, at least in its general tendency. Nonetheless, a few years later Kant came to have serious doubts about it. Thus in The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God from 1763 he went on to say that free will, or the causality of freedom, is only not entirely emancipated from the laws of nature, and he added that it is not properly understood (GS 2:110–11). These doubts then led Kant to develop a quite new position concerning free will in the Inaugural Dissertation, On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World from 1770. He in effect argues there that the principle that every event has a cause is only a subjective rule (i.e., roughly what he would later in the critical period call a regulative rather than a constitutive principle). In other words, it does not assert that every event has a cause—an assertion that seems to be incompatible with free will—but instead merely enjoins us to always try to find causes for events—a recommendation that is consistent with there being free will (GS 2:417–18). Finally, in the Critique of Pure Reason from 1781/7 Kant develops his famous mature position on free will. Treating the principle that every event has a cause as merely regulative is no longer a viable solution in his view, since he now

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thinks that he can prove the principle to be in fact constitutive, i.e., true of all phenomena (something that he purports to do in the Second Analogy).4 So he needs a new solution. The solution he finds in the Third Antinomy draws on the transcendental idealism that he had already introduced in the Inaugural Dissertation and develops more fully in the Critique of Pure Reason—i.e., his position that space and time are not mind-independent but are instead contributed by our own minds, so that the realm of nature, of which we can achieve knowledge, is merely a realm of appearances (i.e., of things or facts insofar as mind-dependent), as contradistinguished from things in themselves (i.e., things or facts insofar as mind-independent). The solution is essentially that thoroughgoing causal determination applies to the realm of appearances, but that free will, if it exists, belongs to the realm of things in themselves. Kant also developed this core solution further in various ways during the critical period. In particular, he went on to argue in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals from 1785 that besides this merely negative sort of freedom there is also a positive sort of freedom that consists in “autonomy,” a self-giving of law, more specifically, a self-legislating of the categorical imperative. 3

Some Good News: No “Imputability Problem”

Getting clear about the ancient history of the idea of free will and the history of Kant’s own development toward his mature theory of free will in these ways makes it possible to understand and assess his mature theory better. Concerning assessment, there turns out to be both good news and bad news for Kant. So let us begin with the area in which there is good news. One problem that has often been thought to afflict Kant’s mature theory of free will is what has come to be known in the secondary literature as the “imputability problem.” A version of this problem was already noticed by Kant’s contemporary Reinhold and then again by the nineteenth-century ethicist Sidgwick. More recently, versions of it have been raised against Kant by a whole series of commentators, including Lewis White Beck (1987), Gerold Prauss (1983), and Roger Sullivan (1989). The alleged problem is essentially 4  He does, however, during the critical period retain a close analogue of that earlier solution, namely, in relation not to universal causation but to universal mechanism (i.e. physical causation): In the Critique of Judgment he develops an antinomy between universal mechanism and freedom and then does indeed resolve this by claiming that universal mechanism only has the status of a subjective rule (a regulative principle).

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this: In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Kant argues that “a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same” (GS 4:447). (That moral goodness essentially involves free will may seem obvious enough, but Kant here also holds the converse, and he develops an argument for it that proceeds via the idea that autonomy, a self-giving of law, is the source of the will’s freedom.) But the difficulty then arises that this principle seems to preclude the freedom of, and hence moral responsibility for, bad decisions or actions. That, in a nutshell, is the so-called “imputability problem.” However, Kant’s position in this area becomes considerably more intelligible once it is understood in light of the ancient philosophical background that I sketched earlier. And once that background is taken into account, it can be seen that his position here is considerably more promising than it initially appears, indeed that there is in reality no problem of the alleged sort at all. The appearance that there is such a problem arises because Kant is in effect trying to synthesize two very different conceptions of “free will” that had both emerged in antiquity. First, there was the Stoic conception, which regarded free will as compatible with causal determinism, a rare possession, and identical with choosing the good. Second, there was the conception of Alexander of Aphrodisias and his Christian followers, which held free will to be something that requires that one “could have chosen otherwise” and that therefore excludes causal determinism, a common possession, and a precondition of moral responsibility whether for good or for evil. Clearly, any synthesis of these two conceptions would need to reconcile their opposing positions on causal determinism in some way, but beyond that they do not seem obviously incompatible with each other: both sorts of freedom might occur. Kant already tries to achieve a sort of synthesis of these two conceptions in the New Elucidation. His way of doing so there is basically to distinguish between two different senses of “freedom”: (a) what he calls “spontaneity,” which is basically the sort of freedom that Alexander and Christianity were concerned with; and (b) what he calls “freedom” proper, which goes beyond mere spontaneity in aiming at the good, and which is therefore more like the “freedom” of the Stoics. Thus he writes: “Spontaneity is action which issues from an inner principle. When this spontaneity is determined in conformity with the representation of what is best it is called freedom.” (GS 1:402, emphases omitted) And he then goes on to make it clear that unlike freedom proper, spontaneity is a precondition of moral responsibility not only for good decisions or actions, but also for bad ones (GS 1:403–5). The Groundwork essentially continues this earlier project, recasting the earlier distinction between “spontaneity” and “freedom” proper as one between “negative” freedom and “positive” freedom. Moreover, it draws on

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this distinction in a way that prevents the alleged imputability problem arising. Thus Kant begins the longer passage within which his recently quoted assertion of an identity of free will with being under moral laws appears as a conclusion by distinguishing between merely “negative” freedom and “positive” freedom, and he makes it clear that the identity that he asserts concerns only “positive” freedom: Will is a kind of causality of living beings insofar as they are rational, and freedom would be that property of such a causality that it can be efficient independently of alien causes determining it … The preceding definition of freedom is negative and therefore unfruitful for insight into its essence; but there flows from it a positive concept of freedom, which is so much the richer and more fruitful … What … can freedom of the will be other than autonomy, that is, the will’s property of being a law to itself? The proposition, the will is in all its actions a law to itself, indicates only the principle, to act on no other maxim than that which can also have as object itself as a universal law. This, however, is precisely the formula of the categorical imperative and is the principle of morality; hence a free will and a will under moral laws are one and the same.5 Kant’s idea in the Groundwork is thus that negative freedom consists in an ability to choose or act without being determined to do so by alien causes, an ability that is possessed as much by wicked wills as by good ones; whereas positive freedom consists not only in having such an ability but also in exercising it by self-legislating the moral law, i.e., something that only good wills do. No doubt this position could still benefit from further clarification, but it at least seems internally consistent. When seen in the light of the ancient history and the history of his own development, Kant’s alleged “imputability problem” therefore turns out to be a mere pseudo-problem. 4

Some Bad News: Problems with “Negative Freedom”

However, Kant’s underlying conception of “negative” freedom and his defense of it in the face of determinism in the Third Antinomy are much more problematic, indeed a philosophical train wreck. Here again both the 5  GS 4:446–7. For the distinction between negative and positive freedom, cf. Critique of Practical Reason, GS 5:33; The Metaphysics of Morals, GS 6:213–14.

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understanding and the assessment of his position can benefit from taking the ancient history and the history of his own development into account. The following are some of the main problems that seem to confront his conception of “negative” freedom: (a) It depends on his very ambitious, and indeed almost certainly false, doctrine of transcendental idealism.6 (b) In particular, it depends on one of the most notoriously and deeply problematic components of that doctrine: its positing of unknowable things in themselves. (c) Because Kantian things in themselves are timeless, it moreover implies that free agency is timeless. But the very concept of making decisions or performing actions timelessly seems an incoherent one. (d) By implying that free agency is timeless it also excludes the possibility of both moral improvement and moral decline—phenomena that we have every reason to believe in and which, indeed, Kant himself in other contexts firmly believes in (for example, in his lectures on pedagogy, where he treats moral improvement as a key goal of education) (GS 9:446). (e) It also leads to serious problems concerning how exactly free decisions of the will in the realm of things in themselves are supposed to cause (or ground) actions in the realm of appearances. For example, at one point in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) Kant asserts that they do so by determining the very laws of nature.7 But such an answer seems merely fanciful. Moreover, it would lead to grave difficulties concerning how in that case the multiple free decisions that a single individual makes could possibly be compatible with each other, let alone with the free decisions made by other individuals. Of course, as often happens (especially in connection with Kant), various attempts have been made in the secondary literature to interpret such problems away. Two extensive examples of this are Henry Allison’s Kant’s Theory of Freedom (1990) and Hud Hudson’s Kant’s Compatibilism (1994). Both of these works champion a “two-aspect” against a “two-thing” reading of transcendental idealism. The former work makes much of the fact that Kant sometimes holds that we presuppose free will not only in our actions but also in our theoretical uses of reason, whereas the latter work assimilates Kant’s position to Donald Davidson’s “anomalous monism” in his influential article “Mental Events.” But these attempts are not very convincing. Among the problems they face are the following. The choice that they offer us between a “two-thing” reading and a “two-aspect” reading in order to induce us to accept the latter is a false one. There really is a certain ambiguity in the transcendental idealism that Kant 6  For a critical discussion of this doctrine, see Forster (2017). 7  GS 4:346: “Reason is the cause of these natural laws and is therefore free.”

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invokes in order to solve the problem of freedom, but it is not that ambiguity but instead one between a “two-thing” version and what could be called a “two-sets-of-features-of-the-same-thing” version. Kant is at least committed to the latter position. But this is quite enough to get him into versions of all of the difficulties that I listed above. Nor do Allison’s and Hudson’s charitable readings generate a position that Kant himself would have found philosophically tenable. For in holding that the will itself is thoroughly causally determined and predictable, albeit that this is only knowable from one descriptive vantage point but not from another, these “two-aspect” readings leave the will itself thoroughly causally determined and predictable, which from Kant’s perspective would preclude its freedom. In addition, Allison’s Kant-derived idea that we presuppose our own freedom of will even in theoretical reasoning is highly implausible—unless the “we” in question merely means people in the West who have had the Stoic-Christian tradition drumming the notion of free will into them for the last couple of thousand years (just try asking the average Chinese person about this—even today—and you will be met with an uncomprehending stare). Moreover, Hudson’s account leaves no room for Kant’s explicit assertions that we can never know that free will occurs, and Hudson even denies that Kant holds a thesis of timeless agency despite the fact that Kant explicitly asserts just such a thesis. It therefore seems to me wiser and more fruitful to acknowledge that Kant got himself into a philosophical mess here and to ask why he did so. The answer to that question can be found by going back to the texts in which he originally made the transition from his initial compatibilism toward this mature position, the New Elucidation and the Only Possible Argument, and to the ancient history that I have sketched. Why did Kant lose faith in the compatibilism of the New Elucidation and instead come to hold in the Only Possible Argument that free will is only not entirely emancipated from laws of nature and that its character is not properly understood, thereby beginning the train of thought that eventually led to the philosophical disaster that I have just described? The reason, it seems to me, is that he came to embrace Alexander of Aphrodisias’s “could have chosen otherwise” condition for the free will that is required for moral responsibility. Kant had already ascribed a commitment to such a condition to the incompatibilist Crusius in the New Elucidation. For example, he writes there: The celebrated Crusius thinks … that certain existent things are determined by their actuality in such a way that it would be futile to demand anything else in addition. Titus acts of his own free will. I ask: why did

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he do this rather than not do it? He replies: because he willed it. But why did he will it? He maintains that asking this is foolish. If you ask: why did he not rather do something else? he will reply: because he is already doing this. GS 1:397

And in an even clearer attribution of commitment to the “could have chosen otherwise” condition to incompatibilist opponents such as Crusius, Kant then goes on to ascribe the following statement to the incompatibilist character Caius in an imaginary dialogue that he constructs: Personally, I should think that if you eliminate everything which is in the nature of a connected series of reciprocally determining grounds occurring in a fixed order, and if you admit that in any free action whatever a person finds himself in a state of indifference relative to both alternatives, and if that person, even though all the grounds which you have imagined as determining the will in a particular direction have been posited, is nonetheless able to choose one thing over another, no matter what—if all that is conceded, then I should finally admit that the act had been freely performed. GS 1:402

Kant does not in the New Elucidation make any attempt to show that this condition can be vindicated in a way that is consistent with causal determinism; he merely champions the different conception of free will in terms of being internal, voluntary, etc. that I described earlier. Presumably, though, he afterwards reflected further and came to think that the condition was legitimate after all (this is certainly his position in the critical period),8 and so, believing it to be incompatible with causal determinism, he was driven to the new position that we find in the Only Possible Argument and thence to the path that led to his mature conception of “negative” freedom. It seems to me likely (though not provable) that Hume’s An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) played a significant role in Kant’s change 8  Some examples of his commitment to this condition during the critical period: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (GS 6:50): “according to freedom the action, as well as its contrary, must be in the control of the subject at the moment of its happening.” Metaphysics Dohna (GS 28:682): “a being is free only if in each state it stands in its control to do an action, or to forgo it; therefore fatalism wholly opposes freedom.” The critical Kant indeed sometimes builds this condition into his very definition of “will [Willkühr]” (for example, in the Metaphysics of Morals [1797]).

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of heart here. Hume’s work had been available to Kant in a German translation since 1755 and there is a fair amount of evidence that Kant was already interested in and impressed by Hume’s philosophy at around the time of the Only Possible Argument—including Kant’s lectures on ethics from the period 1762–4 (as transcribed by Herder), which contain references and debts to Hume, and the Negative Magnitudes essay from the same year as the Only Possible Argument, which has plausibly been argued to show Hume’s influence on the theoretical side of Kant’s thought as well. In the famous chapter of the Enquiry titled “Of Liberty and Necessity” Hume had attempted to furnish a sort of vindication of the “could have chosen otherwise” condition that would make it compatible with causal determinism, by in effect analyzing it as really meaning “would have done otherwise if had chosen to do otherwise.” As Hume (1975, 95) puts it: “By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to move, we also may.” Kant would have drawn two lessons from this attempt of Hume’s. First, he would have been impressed by the fact that even the insightful compatibilist Hume took the condition in question seriously. But second, he would also have been struck by the fact that even this ingenious compatibilist had failed to find an analysis of the condition that genuinely analyzed it and vindicated it within the framework of ­­compatibilism—at best only finding one that analyzed and vindicated the Aristotelian “could have done otherwise” condition that it had radicalized. And he would have drawn the moral from these two lessons that if even such a clever philosopher as Hume recognized the validity of the condition but was unable to reconcile it with causal determinism, then the condition must be a valid one but one that is irreconcilable with causal determinism, so that the only way of vindicating free will and this condition for it must instead lie in undermining or limiting causal determinism in some way. Although this account of Hume’s influence on Kant is speculative, it receives some support from three interesting pieces of evidence from the critical period which can be read as reminiscences of Hume’s treatment of the issue. First, in a review of an article by Schulz from 1783 Kant both mentions and rejects just the sort of analysis of freedom and its condition that Hume had proposed, albeit while attributing the analysis to other people (people who were perhaps influenced by Hume): Kant writes that Schulz’s speculative audacity in his determinism will not seem so frightful to one acquainted with what Priestley—an English theologian esteemed as much for his piety as for his insight— has said in unison with our author and expressed even more boldly, and

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what several clergymen of this country … are already repeating unreservedly—indeed, what Professor Ehlers just recently put forward as a concept of free will, namely, that of the faculty of thinking beings to act in keeping with the existing state of their ideas. However, no impartial reader, especially if he is sufficiently practiced in this sort of speculation, will fail to note that the general fatalism which is the most prominent principle in this work and the most powerful one, affecting all morality, turns all human conduct into a mere puppet show and thereby does away altogether with the concept of obligation. GS 8:12–13

Second (and more curiously), in the course of a discussion of Moses Mendelssohn in 1786 Kant mentions that “Mendelssohn sought to reduce the old dispute over freedom and natural necessity in determinations of the will … to a mere dispute over words”—which, of course, had been exactly Hume’s project in his chapter “Of Liberty and Necessity”—and he then seems to be subconsciously or confusedly reminded of Hume’s treatment along the same lines, for he immediately goes on to object to Mendelssohn’s approach: “But (to speak with Hume) this is like wanting to fill the breach of the ocean with a whisk of straw.” (GS 8:152) Third, in a footnote to Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1792–3) Kant raises an objection that again seems to allude to Hume’s chapter, which had begun by considering the causation of actions by mental conditions in a manner that can easily make a reader think that Hume has simply missed the real point, namely, that these mental conditions seem in their turn to have been caused: Those who pretend that this inscrutable property [of a free power of choice] is entirely within our grasp concoct an illusion through the word determinism (the thesis that the power of choice is determined through inner sufficient grounds) as though the difficulty consisted in reconciling these grounds with freedom—[an issue] that does not enter into anyone’s mind. Rather, what we want to discern, but never shall, is this: how can pre-determinism co-exist with freedom. GS 6:49

Whether or not Hume did play this sort of role in Kant’s deliberations, we can at least see that Kant’s mature theory of freedom ultimately rests on Alexander of Aphrodisias’s introduction of the “could have chosen otherwise” condition for the free will that is required for moral responsibility. Despite having had a longstanding commitment to causal determinism, Kant already during the

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pre-critical period came to accept that condition and as a result found himself forced to the realization that satisfying it was incompatible with an unqualified causal determinism of the sort that he had favored. This led him to various attempts to qualify causal determinism, eventually in the manner of his solution to the Third Antinomy. However, as we have seen, this mature attempt to vindicate the condition entangled him a whole set of implausibilities and incoherencies. Moreover, Alexander’s original development of the condition had been extremely dubious to begin with. So in the end, once Kant’s mature theory of “negative” freedom is viewed in light of its background in antiquity and in his own development, it turns out to be a most problematic structure resting on a most dubious foundation. 5 Conclusion Let me conclude by summing up the main morals of this account briefly. The modern conception of free will can largely be traced back to ancient Stoicism, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and the continuation and popularization of Alexander’s contributions by Christianity. Keeping these ancient developments in mind can help us to understand certain key aspects of Kant’s theory of freedom. In one area that I have considered it helps us to see that what has often been thought to be a deep problem in Kant’s theory is in fact merely a pseudo-problem. But in another, more fundamental, area, far from enhancing the plausibility of Kant’s theory, it instead reinforces the assessment that the theory is deeply misguided. Bibliography Alexander of Aphrodisias, De fato, in Robert W. Sharples (ed.) 1983, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Fate, London: Duckworth. Allison, Henry E. 1990, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beck, Lewis W. 1987, “Five Concepts of Freedom in Kant,” in J. T. J. Srzednick (ed.), Philosophical Analysis and Reconstruction, a Festschrift to Stephan Körner, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. Burnyeat, Myles 1996, “Ancient Freedoms,” Berkeley Graduate Lecture, available online. Dihle, Albrecht 1982, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Forster, Michael N. 2017, “Kants transzendentaler Idealismus. Das Argument hinsichtlich des Raumes und der Geometrie,” in David Espinet, Tobias Keiling, and Nikola Mirkovic (eds.), Raum erfahren, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Forster, Michael N. forthcoming, “Toward a Genealogy of the Idea of Free Will.” Frede, Michael 2011, A Free Will: Origins of the Notion in Ancient Thought, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hudson, Hud 1994, Kant’s Compatibilism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Hume, David 1748, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding in David Hume 1975, Enquiries concerning Human Understanding and concerning the Principles of Morals, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kant, Immanuel 1900–, Kants Gesammelte Schriften, Royal Prussian (later German) Academy of Sciences (ed.), Berlin: Georg Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter. (Abbreviated in this article as GS and cited with volume and page number.) Kant, Immanuel 1992–, Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (eds.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (All quotations from Kant in English are borrowed from this edition, though cited according to GS volume and page numbers, as used in this edition itself.) Nietzsche, Friedrich [1886] 1966, Beyond Good and Evil, New York: Random House. Prauss, Gerold 1983, Kant über Freiheit als Autonomie, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Sullivan, Roger J. 1989, Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 3

Freedom in Nature, Freedom of the Mind in Spinoza Gábor Boros Spinoza’s main ideas on freedom are not concealed in scattered passages of his work. He was quite explicit on freedom’s nature, significance and place or places within his overall system. Thus the interpreter must lay special emphasis on the strongly systematic character of his concept of freedom: in some way or other it appears in most segments of his system. Schelling, when formulating the first passages of his Freiheitsschrift on the necessarily ubiquitous character of freedom in any real philosophical system, may have had Spinoza’s Ethics in mind.1 Freedom also plays a crucial role in the political-theological division of Spinoza’s system that finds its main exposition in the Theologicalpolitical Treatise the subtitle of which emphasizes the unrivalled importance of political liberty: Several discussions showing that the republic can grant freedom of philosophizing without harming its peace or piety, and cannot deny it without destroying its peace and piety. SCW 2016, 65

We will concentrate on what can rightly be called the “cosmological” aspect of Spinoza’s overall concept of freedom. This means freedom related to the ­cosmos that Spinoza calls Nature linked to God in his famous expression Deus sive Natura, “God or Nature.”2 We will also treat the aspect of natural-­ theological freedom that makes itself experienced in the human being as the freedom of the mind, a completion of the “cosmological” freedom in Nature. The most fruitful way of analyzing Spinoza’s thoughts concerning these important issues seems to be gained from the double perspective of his 1  Cf. Schelling 2006, 9 (SW 336). 2  Cf. for example this passage from the preface to Bk 4 of the Ethics: “That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists…. The reason, therefore, or cause, why God, or Nature, acts, and the reason why he exists, are one and the same.” (SCW 1985, 544).

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most important sources, the system of Descartes, on the one hand, and the peculiar type of Neoplatonism, on the other, whose unique representative was the Portuguese-Jewish physician and philosopher Leone Ebreo (Yehuda Abarvanel). In my view, Spinoza’s main achievement in the history of the concept of freedom was the transformation of the theological-metaphysical concept of an anti-indifferentist freedom into a scientifically oriented concept of it with a natural-theological underpinning. This can be considered part of the series of Blumenbergian transpositions (Umbesetzungen) that characterized the threshold of the early modern period. The type of transposition Spinoza introduced and partly realized in his philosophy of freedom in Nature proved to be but the outset of a process within which the anti-indifferentist concept of freedom has gradually been deprived of its dominance in order finally to almost disappear from the theoretical philosophy—excluding Kant and Hegel. It should reappear in the political philosophy from Rousseau to Isaac Berlin in the form of the positive concept of liberty.3 When treating Spinoza’s “cosmological,” i.e. natural-theological concept of freedom, my main points of reference are taken from the beginning and the end of his Ethics. Definition 7 famously affirms: That thing is called free which exists from the necessity of its nature alone, and is determined to act by itself alone. But a thing is called necessary, or rather compelled, which is determined by another to exist and to produce an effect in a certain and determinate manner. SCW 1985, 409

The corresponding passage from the other end of the Ethics, Bk 5, Prop. 36, Scholium to the Corollary reads as follows: our salvation, or blessedness, or Freedom, consists … in a constant and eternal Love of God, or in God’s Love for men. And this Love, or blessedness, is called Glory in the Sacred Scriptures—not without reason. SCW 1985, 612

3  One could certainly argue that this reappearance was already initiated by Spinoza’s own political concept of freedom in Ch. 16 of the Theological-Political Treatise. Cf. among others Eckstein (1994). If we look back to the ancient period, we can also come to the conviction that this whole movement was but the reappearance of the stoic-republican idea of political philosophy we can follow at least from Cicero onward. Yet, this is another history.

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Spinoza’s first systematic writing titled Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being (ST) employs an even more explicitly theological formulation when talking about “true freedom” in Part 2, Ch. 26: But because this can make no progress unless we have first arrived at the knowledge and love of God, it is most necessary to seek him. And because … we have found him to be the greatest good of all goods, we must stand firm here, and be at peace. For we have seen that outside him, there is nothing that can give us any salvation. True freedom is to be and to remain bound by the lovely chains of the love of God. SCW 1985, 147, emphasis added

Spinoza uses the expressions freedom and blessedness or salvation jointly in other contexts, as well, such as in the Preface to Book 5 of the Ethics: Here, then, I shall treat of the power of reason, showing what it can do against the affects, and what Freedom of Mind, or blessedness, is. SCW 1985, 594

Before elaborating on the role of these passages as the main pillars of Spinoza’s metaphysical ethics4 I propose to have a look at the most relevant source of this concept of freedom. Fortunately, Spinoza did not only develop his own concept of freedom but also reflected upon the concepts of his main predecessor. Descartes and the Cartesians’5 were the natural background for a thinker who lived so close to the University of Leiden as Spinoza did, albeit scholastically minded philosophers such as Suarez and the Suarezians also played an important role in his philosophically formative years, similarly to Leone Ebreo the above mentioned renaissance Platonist thinker. A promising methodological tool in the analysis of philosophers’ work is the differentiation between the level of the basic philosophical decisions, and the implementation of these decisions through an age-bound technical apparatus. In Spinoza’s case, the frame for the basic decisions was set by Descartes and the new mathematical-mechanical science whereas the

4  Strictly speaking, there is one more pillar, the treatment of which does not belong to the scope of this paper. I have in mind Bk 3 Prop. 7: “The striving by which each thing strives to persevere in its being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing.” (SCW 1985, 499). 5  Cf. Douglas 2015; Schmaltz 2016; Verbeek 1993.

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implementation was more traditional, Platonic and scholastic as far as the terminology and argumentation is concerned. The obvious point of departure is a short analysis of Spinoza’s reflections on Descartes’s well-known passages on freedom in the Fourth Meditation on first philosophy. Spinoza summarizes these passages in his interpretive handbook Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy written in 1662, and he comments on them later in his epistle 21 addressed to Blyenbergh. The order of presentation in the handbook is the same geometrical order that the Ethics should apply more adequately shortly afterwards. Prop. 15 reminds the reader of the traditional thesis that “Error is not something positive.” In Descartes, this thesis is supported by an analysis of the freedom of the will which Spinoza alludes to in his long scholium to this proposition: Now since the will is free to determine itself, it follows that we do have the power to contain our faculty of assenting within the limits of the intellect, and so can bring it about that we do not fall into error. Hence it is quite evident that it depends entirely on the use of the freedom of the will that we are ever deceived. That our will is free is demonstrated in Principles I, 39 and in the Fourth Meditation. SCW 1985, 258

If not the demonstration, at least the characterization of freedom as indifference can be found in the Fourth Meditation: [The freedom of the will] consists only in this, that we can do or not do a thing (that is, affirm or deny it, pursue or flee it), or rather that in affirming or denying, or pursuing or fleeing, what is proposed to us by the intellect, we are so impelled that we feel ourselves to be determined toward it by no external force. AT VII, 57, CSMK 2, 40, emphasis added

For Spinoza, the concept of a free will that differs from an “unfree” intellect is obviously untenable. So much so that Spinoza’s friend, Lodewijk Meijer mentions precisely this issue as an example of the deepest disagreement between the two philosophers in his preface to the handbook: So let no one think that he [Spinoza] is teaching here either his own opinions, or only those which he approves of…. there are many that he rejects as false, and concerning which he holds a quite different opinion.

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An example of this … is what is said concerning the will in the Principles IP15S and in the Appendix, II,…. For he does not think that the will is distinct from the Intellect, much less endowed with such freedom. SCW 1985, 229

For Spinoza, Descartes’ classical formulation of the essential elements of libertas indifferentiae is obviously mistaken. There are at least two serious problems that accompany this manner of accounting for freedom. The first is displayed in the passage in which Descartes explains the peculiar interplay between the two types of freedom he talks about: freedom as indifference—also called “negative”—and intellectual-illuminative freedom—also called “positive”. Although the freedom of indifference is placed on the lowest level, it constitutes a basic requirement for the Cartesian theory of freedom as a whole. On the one hand, it is the general precondition of the higher level intellectualilluminative freedom. On the other hand, the “negative” freedom is the human form of the subversive freedom Descartes acknowledges even in God when he maintains in his famous letters to Mersenne (27 May 1630; AT I 152, CSMK 3, 25) and Mesland (2 May 1644; AT IV 118–119, CSMK 3, 235) that God is free to dispose of the eternal truths like a sovereign is free regarding the laws in his kingdom. God’s absolute power, omnipotence reveals itself fundamentally in the eternally remaining possibilities to introduce in the course of things twists, exceptional cases. Evidently, this concept of God and His freedom could hardly be more alien to Spinoza’s God, whose power manifests itself in stable regularities of nature instead of miraculous exceptions. In the Short Treatise Spinoza “rectifies” this Cartesian—“false”—concept of freedom in an illuminating way: So we deny that God can omit doing what he does. Some consider this a slander and belittling of God. But such talk comes from a misconception of what true freedom consists in. For it is not at all what they think, viz. being able to do or to omit something good or evil. True freedom is nothing but [being] the first cause, which is not in any way constrained or necessitated by anything else, and only through its perfection is the cause of all perfection. So if God could omit doing this, he would not be perfect. For to be able to omit doing good or bringing about perfection in what he produces can only be through a defect. SCW 1985, 82; ST Ch. IV, “On God’s necessary actions”

Another formulation from the same chapter summarizes this line of thought even more succinctly:

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Because we say that freedom does not consist in [being able to] do something or not do it, and because we have also shown that what makes [God] do something can be nothing other than his own perfection, we conclude that if it was not his perfection which made him do it, the things would not exist, or could not have come to be what they are now. [This is just as if one said that if God were imperfect, things would now be different than they are now.] SCW 1985, 84

As Leibniz would eventually proceed in the first article and its comments in his Discourse on Metaphysics twenty years later, Spinoza refuses the conception of God that implies his being analogous to a tyrannical sovereign. He “rectifies” the erroneous concept of God by way of “rectifying” the erroneous concept of freedom. God’s freedom as that of the first, immanent and perfect cause can but consist in the freedom of doing the good, i.e. in producing beings that tend spontaneously, on their own nature to become more and more perfect. This is the only thing He/It can freely do: expressing Itself/Himself in perfections, i.e. operating sub specie perfectionis. This moral-metaphysical line of argument against the Cartesian concept of freedom is not the sole one. Spinoza complements it through an epistemological argument having as its target the inappropriate manner of its being experienced, being felt; precisely that its mode of coming to awareness is the feeling, being felt: “we feel ourselves to be determined toward it by no external force”—as the above quotation from the Fourth Meditation affirms. Famously, the everyday felt experience plays an important role in Descartes in several contexts. For example when the question arises, if the awareness of such phenomena as the union of the soul and the body can be philosophically exploited.6 The phenomenon of the felt experience of our freedom of indifference is counted to these cases in the passages we quoted above. Yet, Spinoza can but sarcastically refuse any claims to take seriously such “felt” phenomena. In the Scholium to Ethics Bk 2, Prop. 35 he summarizes his reasons for being deeply suspicious concerning the felt experience of 6  This is the moral of Descartes’ teaching expressed in a letter to Elisabeth of Bohemia:   what belongs to the union of the soul and the body is known only obscurely by the intellect alone or even by the intellect aided by the imagination, but it is known very clearly by the senses. That is why people who never philosophize and use only their senses have no doubt that the soul moves the body and that the body acts on the soul…. it is the ordinary course of life and conversation, and abstention from meditation and from the study of the things which exercise the imagination, that teaches us how to conceive the union of the soul and the body. (28 June, 1643, CSMK 3, 227).

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freedom, and he makes obvious allusions to numerous elements of Descartes’ philosophy: [M]en are deceived in that they think themselves free,7 an opinion which consists only in this, that they are conscious of their actions and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined. This, then, is their idea of freedom—that they do not know any cause of their actions. They say, of course, that human actions depend on the will, but these are only words for which they have no idea. For all are ignorant of what the will is, and how it moves the Body; those who boast of something else, who feign seats and dwelling places of the soul, usually provoke either ridicule or disgust. SCW 1985, 473, emphasis added

Epistle 58 formulates similarly in the context of the famous ironic reference to the stone that would think itself moving freely if it were capable of thinking: This is that famous human freedom everyone brags of having, which consists only in this: that men are conscious of their appetite and ignorant of the causes by which they are determined. SCW 2016, 428

The theoretical support for these remarks is the thesis on the causal closeness of nature viewed from the attribute of extension: if a stone is lying at rest, it is impossible that it should be able to be moved by the power of thinking, or anything else but motion,…. Similarly, a stone in motion will not come to rest except through something else that moves less. So it follows, then, that no mode of thinking will be able to produce either motion or rest in the body. ST II, Ch. 19 “Of our blessedness,” SCW 1985, 131

The ideas explained in the Short Treatise also deepen our understanding of Spinoza’s disagreement with Descartes regarding free will that Lodewijk Meijer mentioned in his preface to Spinoza’s handbook on Descartes. The following quotation connects the two arguments against Descartes’ concept referring to the external causes as signs of not being truly free. 7  The contemporary Dutch translation adds the following short explication: “i.e., they think that, of their own free will, they can either do a thing or forbear doing it.”

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[T]his or that will of man must also have an external cause by which it is necessarily produced (for the will’s existence does not belong to its essence). ST I, Ch. 5 “Of God’s predestination,” SCW 1985, 86

True freedom is as different from the delusive freedom of indifference, as the “true religion” of the Preface to the Theological-Political Treatise is different from the illusionary one. The epistemological basis of Spinoza’s whole argumentation against this lower kind of freedom is that he counts the feeling of indifference to the sphere of the imagination, to the lowest kind of cognition, which renders this experience altogether unreliable. Descartes, however, considers the same experience as a necessary presupposition of reason’s or intellect’s own kind of freedom, which is—not to be reticent about this—very similar if not identical with Spinoza’s freedom of the intellect that he firmly believes is real. Spinoza is convinced that the Cartesian complex of opinions concerning both the libertas indifferentiae and the related issue of the soul’s capability of inducing changes in the movement of the bodies rely on Descartes’ misrepresentation of the relations between the two attributes of the one substance—that Descartes mistakenly construes as two types of substance. This is already a prefiguration of the strongly intellectual character of real freedom for Spinoza in the sense of its being located in the attribute of thinking and in its being accessible through the intellect, the highest mode of cognition. Spinoza’s true human freedom is a today rather neglected “brand image” of him: a strongly intellectualist, anti-indifferentist concept of human freedom. The first thing to emphasize in this context is the continual presence of this type of freedom not only in the systematically important parts of his mature works but also in his earlier œuvre. Already in the Short Treatise, Spinoza accentuates this idea of freedom connecting it to the idea of the highest human happiness traditionally called salvation. The author of a summary of the Short Treatise highlights this connection between the beatific freedom and the mode of cognition called reason: In the second [part] the Author explains his thoughts about Man’s existence, how man is subjected to and slave of the Passions; then how far the use of his reason extends; and finally, by what means he may be brought to his Salvation and perfect Freedom. SCW 1985, 55

This is a motive that recurs at the end of Book 5 of the Ethics in the passage I have quoted earlier. The summary’s reference to reason must not disturb

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us: there is no principal difference between reason and intellect in the Short Treatise nor in the Ethics. What we read in and can conclude from a passage from the first dialogue in Part 1 of the Short Treatise attributed to the “Intellect” holds true for both the early and the mature works: Intellect: For my part, I consider Nature only as completely infinite and supremely perfect. If you doubt this, ask Reason. He will tell you this. SCW 1985, 73

The intellect is the mode of cognition of the simple, adequate, unitary mental insight that is called intuition. It is brought into play when the system begins unfolding and again when it attains its ends. In the meantime, between beginning and ending, reason is provided with the argumentative authority as the discursive mode of cognition producing adequate articulated knowledge able to be expressed in the languages of the finite human beings. However, beyond freedom and intellect there is a third constituent of the highest happiness of man that was already mentioned in earlier quotations: love. In Ethics 5 the concept of the intellectual love of God is closely linked to the intellectual freedom. As for the Short Treatise, one of its main contributions to a better understanding of Spinoza’s thought is that parallel to love’s distinguished role in the first dialogue quoted above it gains an absolutely central position among the affects. This position is comparable almost only to the role love plays in the traditional Augustinian line within Christian thought. In this tradition, love is not only one of the theological virtues—faith, hope, love—, but also the highest among them. In the soul of the saints, faith and hope transfigure in certainty and clear knowledge of God respectively. Love alone remains unchanged throughout the whole circle of the creation and redemption,8 as it were, from God to God through the descent and ascent of the created world in form of the creation of the whole world and deification of man (at least some). Notwithstanding this theoretical connection between the early Spinoza and Augustine—beside the factual one of Spinoza’s owing a copy of an Opera omnia of Augustine9—, mentioning the circularity already serves as a passage to what I take to be the main source of the uncommon connection between intellectual freedom and love in Spinoza. This source is not the pater of the Christian Church from the 4th and 5th centuries but the 15–16th century Jewish thinker Leone Ebreo. Ebreo’s importance for Spinoza has always been

8  Cf. for example On Christian Doctrine Bk 1, Ch. 16, 35, and especially 38 f. 9  Cf. van Sluis, Muschenga, 2009, 24.

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maintained in the secondary literature.10 One of the Spanish translations of Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore must have belonged to Spinoza’s library.11 Instead of a detailed comparison of the works of the two thinkers. I confine this investigation to an aspect of the complex role the triad intellect, love and freedom play in Ebreo’s and Spinoza’s systems. From our perspective, the most instructive point of the comparison will be the presentation of a crucial detail where their respective accounts differ considerably; this detail concerns freedom. The feature of Ebreo’s Dialogues that lends itself to a comparison with Spinoza is his Neoplatonic theological philosophy spread out in three lengthy dialogues between Philo and Sophie. Philo and Sophie are more than just the separated parts of the word “philosophy”. Ebreo depicts Philo as a man continually attempting to seduce Sophie, his lady through sophisticated ­arguments—in vain, finally. Ebreo’s religious metaphysics does not rely on the Christian teaching on love like Ficino’s and Mirandola’s works. His foundational authorities are Moses and the Jewish Kabbalah: Philo’s confession of faith shared by Sophie is the “Mosaic” one. The reader searches in vain for Christian theological connotations when Ebreo uses terms mostly known as part of the Christian faith such as the “son of God.” Ebreo’s Philo reconstructs a Jewish religious metaphysics Plato might have learnt when visiting the Jewish thinkers in Egypt—he believes in this myth of the Egyptian origin of Plato’s philosophy. He does not fail to show creatively how the original became degenerated in Plato’s hands. I consider Ebreo’s work as a source of Spinoza’s theory of the intellectual freedom paired with the intellectual love in Book 5 of the Ethics. Among others, this can also explain why the distinctively Christian connotations are missing in passages where Spinoza does interpret in a religious manner the sage who “embodies” intellectual freedom—“enminds” would be a more fitting term. The Spinozian sage attains at once wisdom, freedom, and love of God, and he is also granted the religious rewards of being glorious and participating in salvation according to Jewish-Biblical texts.12 The Ebreo-connection renders it also plausible to link Spinoza’s sage to the most speculative Kabbalist teachings instead of the popular versions 10  Let me just mention the study of Saverio Ansaldi (2005) which is particularly important from our perspective: Cf. Curley’s reference to Gebhardt, Wolfson and others in his note 3 in SCW 1985, 15 f. 11  Van Sluis, Muschenga (2009, 37) mention and identify it as a copy of the Venice edition in 1568. 12  Cf. among others Psalms 16:9 and 73:24 mentioned by Curley referring to Wolfson in SCW 1985, 612.

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of the Jewish or Christian religion. Systematically, the salvation of Spinoza’s sage means something very similar to finding “his” way back to the speculative Garden identified by Ebreo with the prelapsarian Paradise and the Garden of Zeus where Eros was born after the feast of the gods—in the language of the Bible and of Plato’s Symposium respectively.13 Spinoza’s sage as sapiens has literally-linguistically overcome the distinction of the male and female sexes as the prelapsarian Adam in Ebreo’s reconstruction of the Genesis’ narrative of the creation of the first human being was, so to speak, “cisgender”, “cissex.”14 It is important to compare Spinoza’s speculative views that support his intellectualist concept of freedom with Ebreo’s views concerning the wise philosopher who relies mostly on his intellectual soul—the essence of man—when closing the circle of intellectual love.15 This comparison will also prove to be illuminative as for the fourth member of the conceptual chain freedom-­wisdom-love: eternity viz. immortality. Philo maintains that the wise philosopher acquires immortality: “through virtue, wisdom, cognition, and love of God, [the intellectual soul] is made glorious and immortal.” (265) It is not difficult nor illegitimate to change the literary setting and discover in this quotation the prefiguration of the philosophically conceived eternity demonstrated in Bk 5 of the Ethics: the sage loves God as a result of his knowing Him through the highest kind of cognition.16 It is equally plausible to link Ebreo’s explanation of the functioning of the intellect to Spinoza’s characterization of the highest kind of cognition. Those—Philo maintains—whose mental vision is sound know that real beauty is spiritual splendor, luminosity. Somewhat later, his formulation is almost ­prefiguring Spinoza’s thoughts:

13  I make use of Ebreo (2009). For the interpretation of the Garden of Zeus and the birth of Eros, cf. 289 ff. 14  Cf. Ebreo 2009, 277 ff. 15  God—creation/descent—ascent/redemption—God. 16  I am far from maintaining, however that the two thinkers work out the same theory. In Spinoza, the rehabilitation of the concept of beauty as intellectual beauty is missing, albeit it seems to be a matter of course given the traditional understanding of love as desire of the beautiful. What else could be the object of the intellectual love of God than the divine beauty either in the form of the luminosity of the simple divine essence (Ebreo) or in that of the beautiful Order of God’s perfections (Malebranche)? Another important difference is the appearance of virtue at the very end of the Ethics: it is not linked to the highest intellectual activity itself but turns back to the active affects of generosity and tenacity introduced in the last propositions of Pt 3.

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the pure mind knows directly, in a simple intuition, the unique beauty of the Ideas of the first Intellect, which is final human beatitude. Ebreo, Leone 2009, 307

If we put aside for a moment Ebreo’s emphasis on the concept of beauty, in the other elements of the following equation we can discover Spinoza’s main concepts through which he tries to link the sphere of the human to the divine: wisdom, idea, intellect. God is His own wisdom and the first intellect and Idea of the universe. His beauty is the same as that of His wisdom and intellect, which is the idea of all things…. this is the first and true beauty through greater or lesser participation in which every created thing is made more or less beautiful. Ebreo 2009, 322

Not surprisingly, the early Short Treatise stands even closer to this Ebrean perspective than the later Ethics in which Spinoza does no longer considers love as unification with the beloved object.17 Yet, my explanation of this internal difference in Spinoza’s œuvre is not simply the straightforward one stating that he has overcome an earlier stage in his development. This explanation is indisputably true, on the one hand. On the other hand, however, I believe it must have seemed inadequate for Spinoza to talk about a unification with God in the intellectually free love, because he was firmly convinced that we have always already been united with God, and it is merely a “fiction” to speak about our becoming united with Him.18 In the above mentioned summary of the Short Treatise we read as follows: From all this he concludes then that human freedom consists in a firm existence which our intellect possesses through immediate union with God, so that neither it nor its effects can be subjected to any external cause, or be destroyed or changed by it. Hence it must persevere with an

17  Cf. Bartuschat 2007. 18  Analogously to the way Spinoza talks about our fictitious becoming lovers in Ethics Bk 5, Prop. 33, Schol.: “Although this Love toward God has had no beginning (by P33), it still has all the perfections of Love, just as if it had come to be (as we have feigned in P32C). There is no difference here, except that the Mind has had eternally the same perfections which, in our fiction, now come to it, and that it is accompanied by the idea of God as an eternal cause.” (SCW 1, 611).

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eternal and constant duration. And with this Spinoza finishes the Second and last Part of his Work. SCW 1985, 58

Somewhat audaciously we can even play with the idea that Spinoza does not regard love as unification with the beloved object because in the only philosophically relevant sense, man has always already been united with God. What is at issue is the recognition of this unity in the intellectual love of God. And since God is the perfect freedom for Spinoza, while love is but the unity of lover and beloved, we can understand the expression “love of freedom” in the following quotation as genitivus objectivus and subectivus at the same time: One, therefore, who is anxious to moderate his affects and appetites from the love of Freedom alone will strive, as far as he can, to come to know the virtues and their causes, and to fill his mind with the gladness which arises from the true knowledge of them … Ethics BK 5, Prop. 10, Schol, SCW 1985, 603

To draw an interim balance regarding the systematic development of freedom in Spinoza, we can affirm that he made use of his two main sources differently and complementarily. He seems to have been impressed by Descartes’ analysis of freedom, even if he felt compelled to refuse the part of this analysis that goes back to the late scholastic voluntarist tradition. In return, he embraced the intellectualist aspect of Descartes’ concept, which was no more to be taken as Descartes’ proper concept any longer; it was stripped of its voluntarist aspect. It bore rather the main characteristics of Ebreo’s Platonic Jewish religious world-view with the almost interchangeable forms of intellectual virtue, wisdom, love, and salvation—in a Jewish sense in Ebreo, and in a naturaltheological sense in Spinoza. Love’s prominent place in the early Short Treatise and in Ethics Book 5 shows clearly its provenance from the Platonic tradition, an obvious sign of which is Spinoza’s emphasis on the unification with the beloved object: So it is necessary that we not be free of it, because, given the weakness of our nature, we could not exist if we did not enjoy something to which we were united, and by which we were strengthened. Love, then, is nothing but enjoying a thing and being united with it. We divide it according to the qualities of the object man seeks to enjoy and unite with. ST, Pt 2, Ch. 5 “Of Love” SCW 1985, 105

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In contrast with this Platonic manner of distinguishing love as an aspect of life of metaphysically crucial significance, in the first propositions of Book 3 of the Ethics, Spinoza provides us with an enumeration of affects similarly to Descartes’ method en physicien albeit Spinoza transformed Descartes’ order in a significant way. He does not even count love to the primary affects like Descartes does. From the contemporary science- and/or Enlightenment-based perspective of many philosophic interpreters, this common physicalist platform of Descartes and Spinoza appears to be the most important. Certainly, Damasio is not to be blamed for his attempt to find the ancestor of his own neurosciencebased account of emotions in Spinoza’s Ethics Bk 3. And what is even more, the shared conviction of Spinoza and Ebreo squares with the new scientific view insofar as their concept of an intellectual freedom is strongly opposed to the voluntarist concept of an absolutely free will. This anti-voluntarist attitude is not far from the scientific one albeit on different grounds: The Platonists rely on the intellect whereas the scientists on the laboratory experiences. To see clearly the background to the Platonic anti-voluntarism it is useful to have a look at Spinoza’s and Ebreo’s refusal of the concept of a libertas indifferentiae, the faculty of a subversive sudden choice between two radically opposite options, allegedly inexplicable on the basis of an account of earlier and present influences. Traditionally, this choice was presented as the one between the brutish-sensual and the angelic-intellectual ways of life, both equally open for man. In opposition to Pico della Mirandola’s traditional concept of human dignity, both Ebreo and Spinoza consider the eventually occurring change of mind the result of assiduous efforts to work on ourselves in two basic ways. First, by way of our essentially limited capacity of immediately teaching ourselves and learning from our sufferings due to the overweight of external causes. Second, by way of an inter-individual cooperation, which is exemplified in Ebreo through the educational dialogues themselves, in Spinoza through the not specified regime of the society of reasonably or intellectually free men.19 Our capacity to lead ourselves to change the direction of our fundamental love without the heroic act of a freedom of indifference is depicted in the following passage of the Short Treatise:

19  Spinoza’s thinking revolves around the formation of a new type of community more than that of his contemporaries. This is already attested by the famous preface to the early Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect (SCW 1985, 7–12, esp. 11), and made all the more obvious in the Prop. 67–73 of Bk 4 of the Ethics. Cf. Boros 2011.

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But whenever it happens (as it usually does in these cases) that he comes to know something better than this good he now knows, then his love turns immediately from the first to the second. We shall make all of this more evident when we discuss man’s freedom. SCW 1985, 100

The same thought appears in another version, when answering the self-posed question of what lets someone turn his back on a certain appetite: Nothing else except that by the order and course of Nature he is affected by something that is more pleasant to him than the first thing. SCW 1985, 127

I take the expression “pleasant” or rather “pleasing” in a sense Malebranche would eventually give it and emphasize thirty years later alluding to something perceived as beautiful and thus attracting the perceiver irresistibly. By implication this refers also to the chance to letting of ourselves or others influence us/them by “training” to perceive the “real”, the intellectual beauties as by their very nature more beautiful, more pleasing than the ephemeral corporeal ones.20 This is indicated in Ch. 26 of the Short Treatise, where Spinoza comes to talk about the “true intellect” and the “human freedom” attached to it: All the effects of the intellect which are united with him are the most excellent, and must be valued above all others. For because they are internal effects, they are the most excellent of all (by the fifth proposition); moreover, they also must be eternal, for their cause is eternal. SCW 1985, 148

The argument leads the reader towards recognizing the intellect’s unrivalled significance when accounting for true human freedom: if I teach my fellow men to love sensual pleasure, esteem, and greed, then whether I also love these things or not, I am hacked or beaten. This is 20  The idea of training ourselves and/or others does not, however constitute a distinguishing feature of the intellectualist thinkers. Cf. the closing passage of the first part of Descartes’ The Passions of the Soul: “For since we are able, with a little effort, to change the movements of the brain in animals devoid of reason, it is evident that we can do so still more effectively in the case of men. Even those who have the weakest souls could acquire absolute mastery over all their passions if we employed sufficient ingenuity in training and guiding them.” CSMK 1, 370.

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clear. But [this will] not [be the result] if the only end I strive to attain is to be able to taste union with God, produce true ideas in myself, and make all these things known to my fellow men also. For we can all share equally in this salvation … SCW 1985, 149

The final definition of true human freedom relies on all these findings: it is a firm existence, which our intellect acquires through immediate union with God, so that it can produce ideas in itself, and outside itself effects agreeing well with its nature, without its effects being subjected, however, to any external causes by which they can be changed or transformed. SCW 1985, 149

Another passage shows even more clearly the necessary dependence of the direction of our love on the cognition accomplished by the cognitive faculty without the mediation of an indifferent-independent appetitive faculty: a free choice is a sheer impossibility because it does not depend on us, but only on the good or advantage we find in the object. If we did not want to love it, it would be necessary for us not to have known it before. And this does not depend on us or on our freedom. For if we knew nothing, certainly we also were nothing. SCW 1985, 105

Once we have received the knowledge of a thing, the “choice” concerning the worth or worthlessness, attraction or repulsion of it happens automatically, without the concomitance of a free will originating in an appetitive faculty. What is or can be up to us is but the determination by way of a troublesome training of the type of cognition that should influence us. The presence of the lowest kind together with the inadequate knowledge is unalterable, because it depends on the unavertable influence of external causes. Our only chance to influence the chain of events connecting inadequate cognition, passive affects, and regrettable actions is the “eclipsing” of the inadequate cognition by the adequate one the generation of which depends on us insofar as we can render us adequate causes. In order to eclipse the inadequate cognition and the chains of passively generated actions we must re-orientate our cognitive selves. This means calling our attention to the interplay between the sheer necessity of the influence of external causes, and the kind of inter-individually mediated

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freedom or, to put it better, inter-individually negotiated leeway, margin of freedom that offers for us a limited influence on the change of the direction of our love as a fundamental metaphysically orienting force. One can plausibly maintain that this kind of inter-individually negotiated limited influence on the fundamental metaphysical orientation cannot be confined to the human beings. If there is no free will in man as a distinctive feature creating an absolute difference between the human and the a-human nature the possibility of the metaphysical (re-)orientation depends merely on the respective beings’ capability of consciously acting together and in this way producing the inter-individual margin of freedom to influence the decisions and behaviour of the members of the community. Once the independent “freelancer” disappeared in metaphysics and replaced by the finite modes depending in infinitely many ways on the circles of mutual influence within the aggregate of all finite modes, the concept of freedom must necessarily change its character. Instead of being absolute and absolutely distinguishing the individual man, it becomes relative and brings in relation the members of a (not necessarily pre-given) community who have their common task to establish their shared freedom.21 Since Spinoza considers nature a continuous chain of beings without ruptures, it is also plausible to interpret the idea of a common freedom as extendable to non-human beings—“though in different degrees”22—, natural or artificial alike,23 rendering it “cosmological” in an unexpected way. To turn back to the more traditional concept of the cosmological, it is important to notice that the denial of the indifferentist conception of the freedom of the will goes hand in hand with the demonstration of its inconsistency with the Cartesian doctrine of continuous creation attributed to a transcendent God. The following passage from the KV shows the necessity of renouncing either the indifferentist conception of the free will or the doctrine of continuous creation—within the Cartesian system. Obviously, Spinoza’s own way is 21  One can easily continue the line of thought in the direction of analyzing political communities regarding their respective grades of common freedom proffering a frame of a maximum liberty for each member of the community. This is the direction Spinoza followed in his political works. 22  “For the things we have shown so far are completely general and do not pertain more to man than to other Individuals, all of which, though in different degrees, are nevertheless animate. For of each thing there is necessarily an idea in God, of which God is the cause in the same way as he is of the idea of the human Body. And so, whatever we have said of the idea of the human Body must also be said of the idea of any thing.” Ethics Bk 2, Prop. 13, Schol., SCW 1985, 458. 23  I mention the artificial to render it possible to involve artificial intelligences capable of learning to eventually produce circles of liberty.

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different: he renounces both the indifferentist conception and the continuous creation by a transcendent God. I shall only show briefly that Freedom of the Will is completely inconsistent with a continuous creation, viz. that the same action is required in God to preserve [a thing] in being as to create it, and that without this action the thing could not exist for a moment. If this is so, nothing can be attributed to [the will]. SCW 1985, 123

From a systematic point of view, the doctrine of continuous creation presupposes a close connection, almost a union between the creator and the created so that those who maintain the doctrine come close to the concept of God understood as an immanent cause. The freedom of such an immanent God does not consist in His voluntarily changing from time to time His manner of creating and re-creating but precisely in the necessity of His not changing His mind and especially not withdrawing from the maintenance of nature, which is a joint venture of the immanent God and those who are maintained. In some texts of Spinoza, immanent causality, mutual dependence of cause and effect, freedom and even love come very close to each other. The freest cause of all, and the one most suited to God, is the immanent. For the effect of this cause depends on it in such a way that without it, [the effect] can neither exist nor be understood; nor is [the effect] subjected to any other cause. Moreover, [the effect] is also so united with [the cause] that together they form a whole. SCW 1985, 148

Notwithstanding this overall metaphysical structure that can be characterized by true freedom and immanent causality, types or grades of Spinozian true freedom must be distinguished. God’s freedom is that of a global immanent cause solely acting and never acted on. The human being can only “imitate” this kind of divine free immanence by way of transposing his existence onto the plan of pure intellectuality as much as possible since the fact is that his existence belongs to two relevant attributes. This can be achieved by studying the rational laws of nature concentrating more and more on the innermost circle around the respective individual ending up with achieving the intellectual insight into the unity of his/her innermost essence and Nature-God. This achievement issues in the formation of a sound emotional economy, within which the passive affects are left to possess less and less territory.

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However, human beings are not substances. They cannot achieve of themselves to devote their studies mostly to those laws. They need the limited freedom rendered possible through the inter-individual sphere, the existence of which relies on the leeway of the finite modes within the dominion of the universal laws ascertained in the propositions around Bk 1, Prop. 28 of the Ethics. Acknowledgement During the elaboration of this paper my work was supported by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office Grant K-120375. Abbreviations CSMK. 1984. Descartes, René. 1984. CSMK. 1985. Descartes, René. 1985. CSMK. 1991. Descartes, René. 1991. SCW. 1985. Spinoza, Baruch. 1985. SCW. 2016. Spinoza, Baruch. 2016. ST Short Treatise on God, Man, and his Well-Being

Bibliography Ansaldi, Saverio. 2005. « Un nouvel art d’aimer. Descartes, Léon l’Hébreu, et Spinoza » In Spinoza, philosophe de l’amour, edited by Jaquet, Chantal, Pascal Severac, and Ariel Suhami. 27–38. Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Université de Saint-Étienne. Bartuschat, Wolfgang. 2007. “Spinoza über Liebe und Erkenntnis” In The concept of love in 17th and 18th Century Philosophy, edited by Boros, Gábor, Herman De Dijn, and Martin Moors. 69–78. Leuven: Leuven University Press and Budapest: ELTE Eötvös University Press. Boros, Gábor. 2011. “Egos and Communities in Early Modernity” In Departure for Modern Europe. A Handbook of Early Modern Philosophy (1400–1700), edited by Busche, Hubertus, Stefan Hessbrüggen-Walter. 395–408. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag. Descartes, René. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 2. Translated by Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Descartes, René. 1985. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 1. Translated by Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Descartes, René. 1991. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 3. Translated by Cottingham, John, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Douglas, Alexander X. 2015. Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism. Philosophy and Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ebreo, Leone. 2009. Dialogues of Love. Translated by Bacich Damian and Pescatori Rossella. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Eckstein, Walter. 1944. “Rousseau and Spinoza: Their Political Theories and Their Conception of Ethical Freedom” Journal of the History of Ideas 5: 259–291. Schelling, Friedrich W. J. 2006. Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom. Albany: SUNY Press. Schmaltz, Tad. 2016. Early Modern Cartesianisms: Dutch and French Constructions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 1985. The Collected Works. Vol. 1. Translated by Curley, Edwin M. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 2016. The Collected Works. Vol. 2. Translated by Curley, Edwin M. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press. van Sluis, Jacob and Tonnis Muschenga. 2009. De boeken van Spinoza. Groningen: Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit and Den Haag: Haags Gemeentearchief. Verbeek, Theo. 1993. Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions on Cartesian Philosophy, 1637–1650. Journal of the History of Philosophy. Monograph Series. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.

Chapter 4

Kants theoretischer Freiheitsbegriff und die Tradition der „libertas spontaneitatis“ Thomas Sören Hoffmann Kant hat an bekannter Stelle in der Kritik der Urteilskraft davon gesprochen, „daß unter den drei reinen Vernunftideen, Gott, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit, die der Freiheit der einzige Begriff des Übersinnlichen“ sei, „welcher seine objektive Realität […] an der Natur durch ihre in derselben mögliche Wirkung beweiset“ (Kant 1790, § 91, 474).1 Mehr noch: indem die Freiheit die einzige Vernunftidee ist, die sich selbst zugleich objektive Realität gibt, ist sie gerade auch der Mittelbegriff, über den auch die anderen, ihr korrelierten Ideen mehr als nur intelligible Größen sind: auch sie gelangen vermittelst der Freiheit vielmehr zu einer „Verknüpfung […] mit der Natur“ (Kant 1790, § 91, 474). Mit der Freiheitsidee verfügen wir somit über eine „Idee des Übersinnlichen“, mit der wir auf bestimmte Weise den theoretischen Naturbegriff zwar transzendieren können, ohne ihn darum aber unvermittelt überspringen oder einklammern zu müssen.2 Auf der Stufe der Kritik der Urteilskraft hat der Freiheitsbegriff damit jene effektive Scharnierfunktion zwischen sinnlicher und intelligibler Welt erlangt, die er im Resultat der Kantischen Denkentwicklung auch sonst besitzt und die es in systematischer Perspektive grundsätzlich erlaubt, Kants gesamte Philosophie als eine Ausmessung des Umfangs der Freiheitsidee 1  Cf. mit für unseren Zusammenhang wünschenswerter Deutlichkeit ebenso 468: „Was aber sehr merkwürdig ist, so findet sich sogar eine Vernunftidee (die an sich keiner Darstellung in der Anschauung, mithin auch keines theoretischen Beweises ihrer Möglichkeit fähig ist) unter den Tatsachen; und das ist die Idee der Freiheit, deren Realität als einer besonderen Art von Kausalität (von welcher der Begriff in theoretischem Betracht überschwenglich sein würde) sich durch praktische Gesetze der reinen Vernunft und diesen gemäß in wirklichen Handlungen, mithin in der Erfahrung dartun läßt. – Die einzige unter allen Ideen der reinen Vernunft, deren Gegenstand Tatsache ist und unter die scibilia mitgerechnet werden muß“. 2  Kant erwähnt in diesem Kontext auch, daß die Freiheitsidee durch ihre Selbstrealisierung wie durch die dadurch bedingte mittelbare Realisierung der anderen beiden Vernunftideen ebenso „die Verknüpfung […] aller drei […] zu einer Religion möglich macht“ (ibd.). Wir vertiefen diesen Punkt hier nicht, halten aber fest, daß die Revolutionierung auch der religiösen Denkart, die in Kants Philosophie angelegt und natürlich auch in verschiedenen Anläufen ausgeführt ist, eben in dem Rekurs auf die Freiheit als den einen Grundlegungsbegriff der Religion begründet ist.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004383784_005

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zu verstehen – die theoretische Philosophie genauso wie die praktische, die Kritiken in ihrer kritischen Funktion genauso wie das „doktrinale Geschäft“, dem Kant sich ja keineswegs entziehen wollte und auch nicht entzogen hat, wozu wir nur an die Erträge denken, die er in den Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft nicht weniger ausformuliert hat wie in der Rechts- oder der Tugendlehre der Metaphysik der Sitten.3 Wie gesagt: dies alles hängt in letzter Instanz im Freiheitsbegriff als dem einen realen terminus medius zwischen sinnlicher und intelligibler Welt zusammen, und Freiheit erweist sich damit bei Kant als einer, wenn nicht als der Hauptknoten, in dem die verschiedenen Fäden, denen sein Denken folgt, zusammenlaufen. Mit den folgenden Überlegungen zielen wir insofern auf keineswegs weniger als das Zentrum der Kantischen Philosophie – was auch dann gilt, wenn wir den Fokus im folgenden zunächst auf den theoretischen Freiheitsbegriff und dabei näher auf das kosmologische Freiheitsproblem legen, wie ihn die dritte Antinomie aufgreift. Im einzelnen soll es darum gehen, Kants Weg zu einem transzendentalen Freiheitsbegriff bzw. zu einem genuinen Verständnis von Freiheit als sich selbst realisierender Vernunftidee in Beziehung auf das Freiheitsdenken zu setzen, wie es im Zeichen des frühneuzeitlichen Konzepts der „libertas spontaneitatis“ die Debatten bis hin zu Kants Lebzeiten bestimmt hat und an deren Ende nicht zuletzt Kants Durchbruch zu einem nicht mehr gegenständlichen Freiheitsdenken steht, das sich gerade aus dem Abstoß von der genannten Tradition gewinnt. Wir werden dabei so verfahren, daß wir uns zunächst die theoretische Ausgangskonstellation vergegenwärtigen, in die hinein Kant argumentiert: die Konstellation einer Entgegensetzung zweier konkurrierender Freiheitskonzeptionen, die zwar beide lange Vorgeschichten bis in die Antike hinein hatten, aber im Kontext der frühneuzeitlichen Debattenlage ihrerseits neu gefaßt wurden – im Kontext einer Debattenlage, für die nicht zuletzt die Ablösung der aristotelischen Ontologie durch eine neue Form präpositivistischer Dingontologie von Bedeutung 3  Auch die Kritik der praktischen Vernunft entwickelt im Kontext des sog. moralischen Gottesbeweises wie auch der Postulatenlehre allgemein bereits ein Argument aus der Selbstrealisierung der Freiheit; im Unterschied zur KdU fehlt jedoch noch die Reflexion auf die gesamtsystematische Bedeutung der Freiheit, d.h. ihre übergreifende Bedeutung für das Feld des systematischen Erkennens wie des Handelns. – Nur verwiesen sei an dieser Stelle auf eine Formulierung Kants im Opus postumum, die die (Selbst-)Realisierung der Freiheit mit dem im Menschen lebendigen Pflichtbegriff verschränkt: „Der Mensch mit seinem Freyheitsprincip ist selbst eine bloße Idee der reinen Vernunft der categorische Imperativ bewährt ihm seine Realität und er ist in so fern Noumenon“ (Kant, AA XXI, 48f.) – eine Aussage, die wichtig genug ist, weil sie eindrücklich klar macht, daß Kants „Zwei-WeltenAnthropologie“ gerade nicht im Sinne einer metaphysischen ontologischen Differenz verstanden werden kann.

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ist. Wir werden dabei finden, daß der in signifikantem Umfang erst im 17. Jahrhundert auftauchende Begriff der „Spontaneität“ zunächst ein durchaus bedenkenswertes Angebot zu enthalten schien, Freiheit eben auch im Kontext der ‚neuen’ Dingwelt, also „kosmologisch“, zu denken, sie mithin weder überhaupt preisgeben noch auch auf das „liberum arbitrium“ reduzieren und insoweit inhaltlich entleeren zu müssen. Kant wird sich entsprechend in der vorkritischen Phase gerade als Anwalt einer „libertas spontaneitas“ erweisen, auch wenn er mit Rücksicht auf zeitgenössische Auseinandersetzungen um den Sinn und die Reichweite des Prinzips vom zureichenden Grund durchaus Probleme zur Sprache bringt, die prinzipiell mit dem in der Debatte vorausgesetzten verdinglichten Freiheitsbegriff einhergehen. In der Kritik der reinen Vernunft wird er im Sinne dieser sich hier meldenden Vorbehalte dann jedoch aufzeigen, daß der Begriff einer „libertas spontaneitatis“ eben antinomisch, weil die Freiheit nolens volens verdinglichend ist und daß diese Antinomie die Neufassung des Freiheitsbegriffs im Sinne eines explizit nichtgegenständlichen Verständnisses von Freiheit verlangt; Kant wird für diesen Durchbruch zu einem nicht mehr gegenständlichen Freiheitsbegriff zunächst den von ihm eingeführten Begriff der „absoluten Spontaneität“ verwenden, mit dem systematisch überhaupt die Ebene „transzendentaler Freiheit“ erreicht ist. Es wird in diesem Zusammenhang genau zu erläutern sein, was „transzendentale“, von vornherein nicht mehr selbst in der Dingwelt anzutreffende Freiheit ­bedeutet – wie es um ihren Gegenstandsbezug genauer bestellt ist oder was es mit ihrer nach Kant unmittelbar auch praktischen Dimension auf sich hat. Im Gesamtergebnis wird es dann zuletzt darum gehen, den Schritt zu einer wohlbestimmten transzendentalen Freiheit auch als den entscheidenden Schritt zur reflexiven Selbstappropriation der Freiheit verstehen und erläutern zu können – aber bis dahin sind es noch einige Stufen zu nehmen.4 Wir beginnen ohne weitere Vorrede bei dem ersten hier wichtigen Schritt, dem Auftreten einer Deutung der Freiheit als Spontaneität, wie sie vom 17. Jahrhundert an systematisch möglich war und naheliegend erschien! 1

Ausgangspunkte der frühneuzeitlichen Freiheitsdebatte

Überblickt man die frühneuzeitliche Diskussion in ihrem spezifischen Profil, in die die Neudeutung der Freiheit als Spontaneität eingebettet ist, so zeigt sich 4  Als primäre Instanz der „reflexiven Selbstappropriation“ der Freiheit kann dabei das praktische Selbstbewußtsein verstanden werden, in welchem sich Freiheit im Zeichen der Pflicht ebenso thematisch wird wie in der vernünftigen Selbstbestimmung des Willens realisiert.

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rasch, daß man es hier mit mehreren epochalen Faktoren zu tun hat, die in der Neufassung des Problems direkt oder indirekt wirksam werden mußten. Es mag für unsere Zwecke genügen, drei dieser Faktoren herauszugreifen und vorab zu kennzeichnen: wir werfen einen Blick auf die nacharistotelische, „post-teleologische Ontologie“, auf die neue Dominanz der „Vorstellungsphilosophie“ und schließlich auf den tendenziell immer irrationalistischen Voluntarismus als Grundkoordinaten eines Freiheitsdenkens, mit dem auch Kant sich noch auseinanderzusetzen hat. a) Das – bereits erwähnte – Zurücktreten bzw. die Ablösung einer zuvor weitgehend durch die aristotelische Metaphysik bestimmten Ontologie, die ja nicht zuletzt immer eine teleologische bzw. entelechiale Verfaßtheit des Seienden einschloß, ist für unsere Frage bedeutsam, da dem alten onto-teleologischen Moment auch ein bestimmter, eben der aristotelische Freiheitsbegriff, affin, wenn nicht immer schon eingeschrieben ist. Die aristotelische Ontologie ist, wie man weiß, sukzessive in einem langen, mindestens bis in das 15. Jahrhundert zurückreichenden Prozeß ausgemustert worden. So liegt es auf der Hand, daß die aristotelische Zweckwahl bzw. Prohairesis, ebenso aber auch die reelle Unterscheidbarkeit von Freiwilligkeit und Unfreiwilligkeit in Handlungen, also das ἑκούσιον bzw. ἀκούσιον als Freiheitsmomente des Handelns, ohne eine grundlegend entelechiale Verfaßtheit des Seienden bzw. ohne Realbedeutung der causa finalis nicht denkbar sind. Für die Ablösung der aristotelischen Ontologie (und damit dann auch des durch sie fundierten Freiheitsdenkens) gab es bekanntlich mehrere Gründe, die vom neu erstarkten platonischen Denken über die neuen Ansätze der Naturphilosophie des 16. Jahrhunderts bis zum Nominalismus reichten; vom Ende her gesehen muß zudem auf den Erfolg des neuen, galileischen Wissenschaftstyps aufmerksam gemacht werden, durch den es zu einer methodischen Eliminierung der Substanz-Akzidens-Differenz kommt, womit selbstverständlich auch ontologisch ansetzende Zweck-MittelDifferenzierungen hinfällig werden. Wenn Freiheit, aristotelisch gedacht, immer im Sinne einer Logik der Selbstvervollkommnung im Wege richtiger Mittelwahl auf vernünftige Strebensziele hin gedacht war, fehlt diesem Modell in den neuen Ontologien gleichsam das Substrat. Daß Descartes, der Denker einer wesentlich zweckfreien Äußerlichkeit und eigentliche Begründer des frühneuzeitlichen Mechanizismus, für den Freiheitsbegriff jetzt auf ein „unbeschränktes“ liberum arbitrium zurückgreift,5 markiert wohl am deutlichsten 5  Von der Willensfreiheit gilt nach dem Zeugnis der IV. Meditation, daß ich sie „sane nullis […] limitibus circumscribi experior“ (Descartes 1641, 57). Die Willensfreiheit ist dabei für Descartes eine ursprüngliche, irreduzible „notion première“; cf. dazu den Brief an Mersenne von Dezember 1640, (Descartes 1640, 259).

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die entscheidende Verschiebung, die sich für das Verständnis von „Freiheit“ denkgeschichtlich zu Beginn der Neuzeit ergeben hat.6 b) Da ist zum anderen das Auftreten des Neustoizismus, zu welchem wesentlich die Voraussetzung eines Naturdeterminismus wie auch die Verschiebung der Realität der Freiheit auf die Ebene der Vorstellung bzw. des Umgangs mit Vorstellungen gehört. Man darf dabei nicht übersehen, daß die Rückkehr der εἱμαρμένη, des stoischen Fatums, hier keineswegs einfach mit einer nur als dogmatisch zu verstehenden These von der Rationalität des ordo rerum insgesamt einherging. Die deterministische Konzeption der äußeren Welt erlaubte es vielmehr, die Erscheinungstotalität als „rationalen“ Interaktionszusammenhang von Ursachen und Wirkungen vorzustellen, der sich in einem homogenen Einheitsraum vollzieht, in dem überhaupt alles jeweils die Funktion von anderem ist. Allerdings findet hier die Freiheit und mit ihr das ursprüngliche Selbst- und Beisichselbstsein so rasch ihren Ort nicht mehr. Sie wandert entsprechend aus der äußeren Welt aus und kehrt (so etwa bei Spinoza) als „Gemütsverfassung“ wieder, die zu den Dingen, wie sie sind, Ja sagen kann. Die Pazifizierung des Gemüts über seinen Freiheitsverlust erfolgt hier über die These von einem Rationalitätsgewinn, wie er sich in der strengen Gesetzmäßigkeit der äußeren Welt manifestieren kann, enthält aber eben auch die Aufforderung an das Subjekt, sich selbst zuletzt in diese Ordnung der Dinge zu finden und sie nicht etwa anders haben zu wollen. Man hat im übrigen mit einigem Recht davon gesprochen, daß gerade der – ­explizite wie auch der verdeckte – Neustoizismus den Umbau der Philosophie der Neuzeit zu einer „Vorstellungsphilosophie“ begünstigt, wenn nicht bedingt hat.7 In der Tat verschiebt sich das Freiheitsproblem jetzt, aber auch bis hin zu Kant und Fichte von einem Problem des ontologisch gestützten vernünftigen Selbstbesitzes hin zu den beiden Fragen: 1. Ist Freiheit vorstellbar – und wenn ja, unter welchen Voraussetzungen? sowie 2.: Ist der eigentliche Ort der Freiheit womöglich gar nicht auf der Ebene des konkret Vorgestellten bzw. Vorstellbaren zu suchen, sondern in der Form oder dem Akt des Vorstellens? Auf diese beiden Fragen kann man eine leibnizsche, dann aber auch eine kantische Antwort geben. Wir werden sehen, daß bei Leibniz hier der Begriff der Spontaneität wichtig werden wird, den Kant zwar zunächst ebenfalls rezipiert, 6  Welche Bedeutung der Wegfall der aristotelischen Fundierung für die praktische Philosophie auch sonst haben mußte, kann man sich nicht zuletzt daran klarmachen, daß sich Leibnizens Theodizeeproblem eigentlich erst für eine nicht-aristotelische Ontologie stellt, in die das Gute, das nunmehr den Charakter eines Funktionsbegriffs gewinnt, erst über einen Kalkül des Unendlichen, über eine totale Vermittlung alles Seienden durcheinander, wieder eingeführt werden muß. 7  So nicht zuletzt Schmitt (2008 passim), für unseren Zusammenhang z. B. 100–113.

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dann jedoch in einer transzendentalen Wendung von den bei Leibniz noch mitgesetzten metaphysischen Implikationen befreit. c) Da ist drittens das Erstarken des bekanntlich dem Nominalismus verschwisterten, freilich nicht zuletzt auch bei Descartes anzutreffenden Voluntarismus, der sich auf verschiedene Weise mit den neuen ontologischen Szenarien verbinden und verbünden konnte. Im Sinne der dem Voluntarismus eigenen Entkoppelung von Willensäußerung und Wahrheits- bzw. Richtigkeitsanspruch kommt es hierbei zu einer Irrationalisierung des Freiheitsbegriffs und -problems,8 wobei der Voluntarismus als ein Subjektivismus auch als ein Einspruch gegen die „Verdinglichung“ des Subjekts durch die neue Dingonto­ logie verstanden werden kann. Ein systematisches Problem des Voluntarismus liegt dabei in der Hypostasierung des Willens zu einer „neben“ dem wirklichen Wollen bestehenden Größe; in der Tat kann man die Unterscheidung zwischen „dem“ Willen und den einzelnen Volitionen auch als den Sitz der „Willensfreiheit“ im Sinne des liberum arbitrium ansehen. Schon jetzt an dieser Stelle ist festzuhalten, daß die Voluntaristen entsprechend auch in der Folge Freiheit wesentlich als jene libertas indifferentiae auffassen, die sich aus der Unabhängigkeit der Willensinstanz gegenüber den einzelnen Willensregun­ gen erklärt; Descartes, Lange oder Crusius sind auf dem Wege zu Kant Zeugen für diese Position, gegen die die leibniz-wolffsche Schulphilosophie die libertas spontaneitatis ins Feld zu schicken versuchen wird. Um was genau aber geht es in der libertas spontaneitatis? Wir versuchen, die Grundkoordina­ ten im Blick auf die neue, im Zeichen von Nacharistotelismus, Neustoizismus und Voluntarismus stehende Debattenlage im nächsten Abschnitt zusammenzufassen. 2

„Spontaneitas“ und „libertas spontaneitatis“ im Kontext der nacharistotelischen Ontologien

Der – unseres Wissens – erste Beleg für eine Deutung von „Freiheit“ von „Spontaneität“ her oder auch für die Deutung beider Begriffe durcheinander findet sich bezeichnenderweise bei Wilhelm von Ockham: „libertas et spontaneitas videntur non posse distingui“, lesen wir an einer – freilich eher singulären – Stelle im Sentenzenkommentar (Ockham, Sent. I d. 10 q. 2 [OT III], 8  Diese tritt etwa z.B. bei den Reformatoren auf, so bei Luther in der Lehre vom von sich aus stets unfreien Willen, so bei Calvin in der forcierten Betonung eines für den Menschen undurchschaubaren Prädestinationsgeschehens. In beiden Fällen ist die Freiheit gerade keine sich selbst realisierende Idee im Sinne Kants.

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340). Freilich sollte diese frühe Annäherung von Freiheit und Spontaneität nicht darüber hinwegtäuschen, daß beide Begriffe weder ihrer Herkunft nach noch im Blick auf ihre weitere Entfaltung einfach als synonym angesehen werden können. Denn auch, wenn man nicht zuletzt das Moment des „Freiwilligen“ (des aristotelischen ἑκούσιον)) in dem erst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert häufiger auftretenden Begriff der „Spontaneität“ zumeist mithören kann, verwies dieser Begriff doch zunächst nicht ohne weiteres auf das Freiheitsthema, sondern viel eher auf das in der Natur „von selbst“ Stattfindende, auf das au¬tómaton, in dessen Umkreis etwa auch die bis ins 18. Jahrhundert hinein vertretene Lehre von der „Spontanzeugung“ fällt. Die neue Konjunktur der Spontaneität9 kann dabei durchaus als Antwort auf das Problem der zweckfreien Tätigkeit verstanden werden, wie eben das αὐτόματον seit Aristoteles eben durch die Abwesenheit eines Zweckgesichtspunktes gekennzeichnet ist.10 Um so mehr handelt es sich dann aber bei dem Konzept einer libertas spontaneitatis (für das, wie wir sehen werden, vor allem Leibniz einstehen wird) um eine Freiheitskonzeption, die insoweit dem Ende der aristotelischen Ontologie Rechnung trägt, als sie selbst jedenfalls nicht unmittelbar teleologisch verfaßt ist. „Spontaneitas“ verweist vielmehr zunächst nur auf eine akute Selbsttätigkeit, die keineswegs nur den bewußt handelnden Menschen, sondern eben auch andere belebte Wesen, ja Naturereignisse meinen kann. Hobbes etwa kann dabei die Reflexionslosigkeit der Spontaneität hervorheben: „By spontaneity is meant inconsiderate action“ (Hobbes 1840, 275), und Goclenius kann in seinem bekannten Lexikon unterstreichen, daß das „spontaneum […] etiam rebus animo carentibus“ zugesprochen werden kann (Goclenius 1613, 1080–1081, loc. cit. 1080). Auch bei späteren Autoren, übrigens bis hin zu Fichte, werden wir mit „Spontaneität“ immer auch mechanische Selbsttätigkeit bezeichnet finden, bei Tetens (cf. Tetens 1777, 47ff.) oder auch Fichte (cf. Fichte 1798, 44f.) etwa diejenige einer gespannten und dann aufspringenden Stahlfeder. Auch das unterstreicht, daß „Spontaneität“ als 9  Darauf, daß es sich hier um eine vox docta, wenn nicht eine Neologismus handelt, der zugleich mit Unklarheiten behaftet sein mag, weist Hobbes (1841, 47) in seiner Auseinandersetzung mit Bischof John Bramhall um den Freiheitsbegriff hin: „I note only this, that spontaneity is a word not used in common English; and they that understand Latin, know it means no more than appetite, or will […]“. Hobbes leitet an der zitierten Stelle übrigens ab, daß dann, wenn nach Bramhall Notwendigkeit und Spontaneität zusammenbestehen können, auch der Begriff des Willens mit dem der Notwendigkeit vereinbar sein können muß. 10  Zur Begriffsgeschichte von „Spontaneität“ allgemein cf. Hoffmann (1995, 1424–1434); zur Ausbildung der Differenzierung zwischen „libertas indiffierentiae“ und „libertas spontaneitatis“ auch im Blick auf Kant cf. Finster (1982, 266–277), Finster (1984), Kawamura (1996).

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(neuer) Deutungsrahmen von „Freiheit“ keineswegs zwangsläufig einen Determinismus der äußeren Erscheinungsfolge ausschließt, wie er dem neuzeitlichen, insbesondere auch cartesischen Begriff von (Natur-) Wissenschaftlichkeit inhärent war. Gleichwohl kann sie in einem bestimmten Sinne für Freiheit einstehen: Sofern es nämlich möglich ist oder bleibt, die Selbsttätigkeit z.B. der aufspringenden Stahlfeder oder, auf höherer Ebene, die Freiwilligkeit der Handlung im Sinne des ἑκούσιον bzw. αὐθαίρετον als innere Prinzipiierung von einer äußeren Phänomenverkettung zu unterscheiden, kann „Spontaneität“ eine dem eigenen Willen nicht zuwiderlaufende Selbsttätigkeit meinen. Es geht insoweit zunächst um eine „Perspektivenkombination“, die mutatis mutandis bereits Thomas von Aquin kannte11 und die in der Neuzeit mit der Befestigung des Gegensatzes von „Innen“ und „Außen“ nur an Gewicht gewann. Leibniz, bei dem wie bei anderen nach-cartesischen Autoren die Differenz zwischen „Innen“ und „Außen“ eine ontologische Relevanz gewinnt, wird in diesem Sinne die innere Selbsttätigkeit als libertas (spontaneitatis) deuten können, die durch die äußere Verkettung der Phänomene in keiner Weise angefochten wird. „Spontaneität“ steht dabei für einen unmittelbar nicht-­linearen Wirkzusammenhang (die Selbsttätigkeit des Agens oder Akteurs ist qua Selbsttätigkeit nicht fremdbestimmt oder nezessitiert, dennoch aber nicht ohne auch äußere Wirkung), der es erlaubt, den Rückgang auf eine Eigentätigkeit der Agentien oder Akteure mit der Koordinierbarkeit ihrer Aktionen in der Außenansicht zu verbinden. Wir bemerken an dieser Stelle am Rande, daß es einer der entscheidenden Unterschiede zwischen der Leibnizschen Lösung des Freiheitsproblems und der Kantischen Antinomie ist, daß Leibniz Ursache-Wirkungs-Folgen metaphysisch als systemische Koordinationen, Kant sie aber als lineare Determinationen versteht; es ist klar, daß nach der ersten Version Freiheit qua individuelle Selbsttätigkeit mit dem Prinzip vom zureichenden Grund vereinbar ist, dies nach der zweiten jedoch gerade nicht gelten kann. Schließlich erlaubt es das Konzept einer libertas spontaneitatis, Freiheit nicht nur als Reflexionsgröße, sondern als wirksames Realprinzip zu denken, 11  Cf. Thomas von Aquin. In Eth. III, 4c: „Si ergo quae per iram et concupiscentiam et alias passiones appetitus sensitivi fiunt, essent involuntaria, sequeretur quod neque bruta animalia neque pueri voluntarie operarentur. Dicuntur autem voluntarie operari, non quia operentur ex voluntate, sed quia proprio motu sponte agunt, ita quod a nullo exteriori moventur. Hoc enim dicimus esse voluntarium quod quis sponte et proprio motu operatur“. Wenn „spontanes“ Handeln hier eine willentliche Tätigkeit bezeichnet, bezeichnet es dennoch nicht eo ipso schon eine Tätigkeit des Willens, wie z.B. im Voluntarismus der Fall. Ebenso muß es sich nach aristotelischen Prämissen nicht ohne weiteres um freie Tätigkeit im Sinne vernünftiger Zwecksetzung handeln.

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sie also nicht auf eine von aller Realität zunächst abgekoppelte libertas indifferentiae zu reduzieren. Dem korrespondiert, daß Spontaneität gerade als aus dem Selbstsein des jeweiligen Agens heraus bestimmt gedacht werden kann, wie auch spontanes Handeln einen vorgegebenen Inhalt haben kann, ohne darum als fremdverursachtes Handeln angesehen werden zu müssen. Die libertas spontaneitatis stellt insofern dann gerade ein antivoluntaristisches Konzept dar, das es zum einen vermeidet, den Willen hypostasieren zu müssen, und das zum anderen eine konkrete Gegenständlichkeit der Handlung denkbar macht, die als solche ja nicht „Option“ ist, sondern als bestimmte Wirksamkeit erscheint. Freiheit im Sinne der libertas spontaneitatis ist so überhaupt eine Freiheit, mit der es – wie mit aller Spontaneität – eine gegenständliche Erfahrung gibt, deren wirkliches Dasein insoweit gewiß ist und die dennoch nicht einfach von anderen Verursachungsformen aufgehoben werden kann. Oder anders: Die libertas spontaneitatis denkt Freiheit als Seinsvollzug, der auf andere Seinsvollzüge hin geordnet sein kann, ohne dadurch in einen Fremdvollzug konvertiert zu werden. Es lohnt sich, für ein genaueres Verständnis dieses Satzes etwa einen Blick in Leibniz’ Discours de Métaphysique (Leibniz 1875–1890, 458) zu werfen, in dem wir lesen: „toute substance a une parfaite spontaneité (qui devient liberté dans les substance intelligentes), que tout se qui luy arrive est une suite de son idée ou de son estre, et que rien ne la determine excepté Dieu seul“. „Spontaneität“ ist bei Leibniz grundlegend nicht nur durch die Abwesenheit von äußerem Zwang, sondern auch durch individuelle Selbstaffirmation im Selbstvollzug gekennzeichnet.12 Sie ist hier Grundattribut der (individuellen) Substanz als solcher geworden, wobei sie je nach dem Perfektionsgrad der Substanz naturhafte Selbsttätigkeit oder aber mit Einsicht verbundene Selbstbestimmung meinen kann – insoweit korrespondieren die beiden Grundformen der Spontaneität jetzt der Ordnung von „Reich der Natur“ und „Reich der Gnade“, wobei freilich nur das letztere ein Freiheitsreich im eigentlichen Sinne ist. Die Schulmetaphysik übernimmt diesen Ansatz weithin und ist sich dabei durchaus auch der Tatsache bewußt, daß er einige Hypotheken enthält: in diesem Sinne erklärt etwa auch der von Kant in der Freiheitsfrage herangezogene Wolffianer Georg Bernhard Bilfinger ausdrücklich, daß Freiheit umfassend nur dann über die Spontaneität dargestellt werden kann, wenn man zugleich auf dem Boden des Leibnizschen „System der prästabilierten Harmonie“ steht (cf. Bilfinger 1725, § 337). Wenn 12   Insoweit ist der entscheidende Gesichtspunkt gar nicht so sehr der, daß Leibniz Spontaneität formal mit Kontingenz kombiniert, sondern der, daß er Freiheit als Vollzug individuierter Totalität (eben der Monadizität) denken kann (anders Liske 1993, bes. 203ff.).

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in der Folge andere Autoren auf einen anderen Freiheitsbegriff zielen, etwa indem sie erneut bei der libertas indifferentiae ansetzen oder in der Freiheit ein Kontingenzursprung finden wollen, heißt dies auch, daß diese Autoren die Prämissen des Leibnizschen Systems nicht mehr teilen. In der Tat ist in der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts eine nunmehr nachleibnizsche Debatte um die libertas spontaneitatis entbrannt, in die sich, wie im nächsten Schritt kurz zu erinnern ist, auch der frühe Kant verwickeln ließ. 3

Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio: Kants Einstieg in die Freiheitsthematik

Kants Stellung im Streit der Freiheitsbegriffe ist keinesfalls eine unveränderliche gewesen, sie hat sich vielmehr zu ihrem endgültigen Resultat, das wir eingangs mit der KdU bereits in Erinnerung gerufen haben, sukzessive fortentwickelt. Kant hat zu Beginn seiner philosophischen Laufbahn im wesentlichen die leibniz-wolffsche Konzeption der libertas spontaneitatis geteilt, hat dabei allerdings von Anbeginn an auch ein offenes Ohr für die zeitgenössische Kritik an dieser Position gezeigt. Wenn er auf der Stufe der ersten Kritik dann die „absolute Spontaneität“ des „liberum arbitrium“ zum entscheidenden Freiheitskriterium erhebt, geschieht dies entsprechend auch als Abstoß von der libertas spontaneitatis und der ihr zugrunde liegenden Metaphysik. Unseren Überlegungen etwas vorgreifend können wir auch sagen, daß die kritische Wende im Freiheitsbegriff für Kant in der Einsicht besteht, daß Freiheit ihrem Vollbegriff nach jedenfalls nicht unter den Phänomenen, auch nicht in ihnen als wesentlich spontanen, verankert sein kann. Freiheit transzendiert vielmehr an ihr selbst den ordo rerum – sie transzendiert ihn auf eine Dimension hin, die Kant mit dem Begriff der „transzendentalen Freiheit“ benennen wird. Konzentrieren wir uns aber zunächst auf Kant als Advokaten der libertas spontaneitatis, wie wir ihn in wünschenswerter Entschiedenheit in der Nova dilucidatio von 1755 antreffen! Kant beschäftigt sich in dieser seiner Schrift zum Erwerb der venia legendi, wie wir wissen, zentral mit einem Leibnizschen Grundprinzip, dem Prinzip vom „zureichenden“ – oder, wie Kant mit Crusius sagt,13 „bestimmenden“ – Grund. In diesem Zusammenhang kommt der junge Königsberger Dozent in spe auch auf geläufige Einwände gegen dieses Prinzip zu sprechen, Einwände, die ihm zufolge dann als besonders schwerwiegend anzusehen sind, wenn sie darauf hinauslaufen, über das Prinzip vom bestimmenden Grund faktisch das „Fatum der Stoiker“ wieder einzusetzen und damit 13  Cf. dazu Kants eigenen Hinweis in der Nova dilucidatio (Kant 1755, AA I, 393).

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bei aller verbaler Beschwörung des Gegenteils alle Moral und Ethik aufzuheben. Genau wegen dieser wirklichen oder vermeintlichen Gefahr war, wie Kant weiß, Wolff in Halle seinerzeit unter Beschuß geraten, ja die Debatte um das principium rationis sufficientis und die mit ihm zusammenhängenden Aspekte des Freiheitsthemas schien dank der Einschaltung auch der Theologen längst von einer innerphilosophischen zu einer weltanschaulich-politischen mutiert zu sein. Nennen muß man hier an erster Stelle den streitbaren Theologen Joachim Lange in Halle, der sich in seiner Caussa Dei et religionis naturalis adversum atheismum vehement gegen den angeblichen Spinozismus und Fatalismus Wolffs gewandt und dabei explizit jede Vermengung von Freiheit und Spontaneität, die immerhin auch „brutis automatis, ac caussis ex necessitate agentibus“ zukomme, scharf zurückgewiesen hatte; er selbst definiert in diesem Zusammenhang die Freiheit neu als „radix contingentiae, seu eventuum contingentium“ (Lange 1727, 8),14 also als eigentlichen Ursprung von Kontingenz und kontingenten Ereignissen. Kant bezieht sich in der Nova dilucidatio seinerseits auf philosophische Gegner Wolffs, nämlich ausdrücklich auf Christian August Crusius15 in Leipzig, aber auch auf Joachim Georg Darjes16 in Jena. Kant positioniert sich in dieser Debatte dabei grundsätzlich auf Seiten Wolffs, d.h. er vertritt mit einigen Abweichungen im Detail die Standardlösung der Schule, die besagt, daß das Prinzip vom bestimmenden Grund mit einer aus innerer Selbstbestimmung fließenden Handlung kompatibel ist und Freiheit insofern nicht einfach als objektive Indeterminiertheit verstanden werden kann, sondern eben von innerer Selbstbestimmung her aufgefaßt werden muß. Bemerkenswert ist hier übrigens, daß Kant den Kern der Frage, wie er sie auffaßt, in der Nova dilucidatio nach einer allgemeinen Exposition des Themas in Dialogform entfaltet – dem Vertreter der Indifferenzthese, Caius, antwortet der Spontaneitätstheoretiker, Titius, der entsprechend zugleich Kants eigene Position vertritt: wenn man so will, hat Kant also schon seiner frühesten Erörterung des Freiheitsproblems die Form eines Sic et Non gegeben, auch wenn der Disput hier am Ende nicht auf eine Antinomie hin geführt wird. Dieser Disput setzt dabei eben mit der Frage ein, ob aus dem Satz des Grundes nicht zwangsläufig folge, daß niemand Herr seiner Handlungen sei, 14  Zum Streit zwischen Lange und Wolff um die libertas spontaneitatis cf. Kawamura (1996, 25–28). 15  Von Crusius wird in der Nova dilucidatio (cf. z.B. Kant 1755, AA I, 393) die Dissertatio de usu et limitibus principii rationis detreminantis vulgo sufficientis, Leipzig 1743, herangezogen. Kant teilt in der frühen Phase bekanntlich bestimmte Punkte der Leibniz-Kritik Crusius’, ohne ihm doch in seinen theologischen Anschauungen zu folgen. 16  In der Nova dilucidatio (Kant 1755, AA I, 390; 398) bezieht sich Kant auf die Elementa metaphysica, die Darjes 1743 in Jena herausgebracht hatte.

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da diese ja in einem großen Verursachungszusammenhang stehen, aus dem nichts herausfallen kann und der auch den einzelnen Handelnden immer schon von jeder Schuld und Zurechnung entlaste. Titius, der Sprecher Kants, antwortet darauf, daß faktisch niemand ohne eine „spontanea propensio“ zu einer bestimmten Handlung wirklich handle: der allgemeine – bei Leibniz über das Optimitätsprinzip vermittelte – Bestimmungszusammenhang aller Dinge, auf den der Satz vom Grund hinauswill, besagt eben nicht, daß es Handeln nur im Sinne von linearer externer Verursachung geben könne; er bestreitet dabei keineswegs die These, daß es Handeln ohne Eigentätigkeit, ohne Selbstbestimmung zu einer bestimmten Aktivität nicht geben kann; er macht aber darauf aufmerksam, daß die jeweilige Handlung ihren konkreten Inhalt jeweils nur im Kontext einer schon gegebenen (Gesamt-)Bestimmtheit gewinnt und jedenfalls nicht einfach aus einer bloßen Indifferenz gegen das bestimmt Gegebene resultieren kann – was die Position des Voluntarismus oder anderer Versionen des libertas indifferentiae wäre. Kant definiert in diesem Zusammenhang die Spontaneität übrigens mit den Worten: „spontaneitas est actio a principio interno profecta. Quando haec repraesentationi optimi conformiter determinatur, dicitur libertas“ (Kant 1755, AA I, 402). Diese Definition mag im Kontext der zeitgenössischen Debatten etwa in Beziehung auf die Zweistufigkeit, die sie enthält und die wir auch bei Leibniz schon angetroffen haben, nicht weiter auffällig scheinen, ist es auf einen zweiten, genaueren Blick hin dann aber doch. Kant führt nämlich „Spontaneität“ nicht, wie bei den Wolffianern üblich, selbst als das Prinzip freien Handelns ein. Er identifiziert sie vielmehr mit der Handlung (actio) als solcher, insofern diese einem inneren Prinzip, nicht einer äußeren Verursachung entstammt: „spontaneitas est actio a principio interno profecta“ – und nicht etwa wie z.B. bei Reusch: „SPONTANEITAS est principium internum, quo agens se ad agendum determinat“.17 Man kann zu dieser wohl nicht nur geringfügigen Verschiebung verschiedene Überlegungen anstellen, so etwa auch die, wie glücklich sie sprachlich sein mag. Wir beschränken uns hier auf zwei Aspekte: Zum einen – Kant rückt mit seiner Version, die Spontaneität in der Handlung selbst findet und dieser, wenn man so will, so etwas wie einen verstärkten 17  Das vollständige Zitat lautet bei Reusch (1735, § 502): „SPONTANEITAS est principium internum, quo agens se ad agendum determinat: ACTIONES SPONTANEAE dicuntur, qua a spontaneitate profiscuntur; adeoque nullum habent principium determinans externum. Nulla vis externa volitiones atque nolitiones in anima elicit […]; non tamen sine motivis existunt volitiones atque nolitiones […]: unde anima se ipsa, motivis suis convenienter, determinat ad volendum atque nolendum; adeoque hi actus sunt spontaneae“. Reusch macht mithin klar, daß „spontanes“ Handeln nicht „motivationsloses“ Handeln bedeute, sondern ein Handeln „motivis suis convenienter“ meine.

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„Ereignischarakter“ verleiht, einen ersten Schritt von jener ontologischen Deutung der Spontaneität ab, wie wir sie vor allem bei Leibniz angetroffen haben. Weniger als irgendein anderer Vertreter der libertas spontaneitatis ist Kant damit auf das „System der prästabilierten Harmonie“ als den notwendig vorauszusetzenden Rahmen einer inneren Stimmigkeit des freien Handelns verpflichtet. Der junge Kant lehrt so eher, daß Handlungen spontan und daher auf ein inneres Prinzip bezogen sind, als daß er behaupten müßte, alles, was ist, sei auf die Weise der Spontaneität und münde in diesem Sinne auch in konkrete Handlungen. Zum anderen – indem jetzt die Handlung selbst als Ort der Spontaneität, ja der Freiheit fokussiert wird, ist ebenfalls ein Schritt auf die „absolute Spontaneität“ der dritten Antinomie hin getan, was auch gilt, wenn man sogleich unterstreichen muß, daß Kant in der Nova dilucidatio sonst in keiner Weise versucht, die Spontaneität bzw. Freiheit aus dem Kontext der empirischen Welt herauszunehmen. Im Gegenteil spricht Kant hier davon, daß gerade die Freiheit sich der Begründung ihrer bestimmten Handlungen nicht entziehe, daß sie etwa auf Neigung bezogen sein könne, ja daß ein Mensch sogar um so freier sei, je gesetzmäßiger die Begründung seines Handelns ausfalle,18 daß aber dennoch hier keine äußere oder mechanische Verursachung von Handeln vorliege, sondern nur „Motive“ angeboten und wahrgenommen werden, in Beziehung auf welche es dann zu wirklichem Handeln komme. Auch das Argument der Gegenseite, daß damit Gott auf dem Wege der Zulassung zumindest indirekt zum Urheber des Bösen gemacht werde, verfängt nach Kant nicht, da Gott zwar unterschiedliche Grade der Vollkommenheit geschaffen und davon auch bewußt keinen ausgelassen habe, dennoch aber die konkrete Selbstbestimmung im Handeln den Handelnden nicht abgenommen habe (cf. Kant 1755, AA I, 404) – „in interno semet determinandi principio resederit malorum origo“, heißt es dabei ausdrücklich (Kant 1755, AA I, 405f.). Sich zu dem weniger Vollkommenen hin zu motivieren, ist dem Menschen nicht verwehrt, sondern gerade auch dann möglich, wenn uns die höheren Erkenntniskräfte Motive liefern, eine andere Richtung einzuschlagen. Entscheidend ist immer, daß eigentliches Handeln intrinsisch motiviert und genau in diesem (Leib­ nizschen) Sinne frei ist; daß es überhaupt Motivationen folgt bzw. daß die Totalität der Erscheinungen wie in der Perspektive der Leibnizschen Optimität auch als ein großer Motivationszusammenhang aufgefaßt werden kann, kollidiert damit nicht, sondern macht nur eines deutlich: daß nämlich wirkliche Freiheit in Welt schon verwickelt, daß sie weltlich bestimmt, wenn auch 18  Cf. Kant 1755, AA I, 401: „Quo huic legi [sc. dem Gesetz der „inclinatio“] certius alligata est hominis natura, eo libertate magis gaudet“.

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nicht nezessitiert ist und insofern jedenfalls etwas Reelleres meint als es bei den Abstraktionen der libertas indifferentiae, des liberum arbitrium oder des Entscheidungsgleichgewichts der Fall ist. Gerade aufgrund ihrer Kompatibilität mit dem Satz vom Grunde ist Freiheit so auch für den vorkritischen Kant überhaupt eine reelle bzw. reell wirksame Größe – nicht zwar wie bei Leibniz im Sinne der monadisch existierenden Spontaneität, zumindest aber im Sinne der jeweils eine „Innerlichkeit“ äußerlich repräsentierenden Handlungen, die jeweils für sich den Vermittlungszusammenhang, in dem sie inhaltlich stehen, transzendieren, dennoch aber in dieser Transzendenz inhaltsbezogen bleiben. Das Problem, das sich dann mit der kritischen Wende der Philosophie Kants stellen wird, ist dies, in welchem Sinne tatsächlich eine unmittelbare Verwicklung von Freiheit und Welt gedacht werden kann, inwiefern Freiheit wirklich „etwas“ im Kontext anderer Etwasbestimmtheit ist oder doch in ganz anderem Bezug gedacht werden muß. Kants dritte Antinomie wird, wie oben bereits angedeutet, darauf aufmerksam machen, daß die Wendung libertas spontaneitatis genau besehen bereits als solche einen Widerspruch enthält: den Widerspruch nämlich, daß hier die aller Dinglichkeit vorausliegende Freiheit, obwohl vollzugshaft aufgefaßt, immer noch ontologisch angesetzt wird: darin aber liegt das πρῶτον ψεῦδος. 4

Dritte Antinomie und sich selbst ergreifende Freiheit

Wenn Kant im Kontext der dritten Antinomie „unter Freiheit, im kosmologischen Verstande, das Vermögen“ versteht, „einen Zustand von selbst anzufangen“ (Kant 1781/1787, KdrV A 533 / B 561; cf. A 446 / B 474), dann ist hier bereits in der Wortwahl der Anschluß an die Tradition der libertas spontaneitatis mehr als deutlich – immerhin ist das ausdrückliche „von selbst“ nichts anderes als die direkte Übersetzung eines αὐτόματον oder „sponte sua“ ins Deutsche. Bemerkenswert sind in diesem Kontext freilich gleich mehrere Details. Zum einen läßt Kants Formulierung eine Deutung auch im Sinne der alten Lehre von den Spontanursachen nicht nur zu, sie begünstigt sie so sogar in besonderer Weise. Das heißt aber, daß Kants kosmologischer Freiheitsbegriff so, wie er eingeführt wird, primär auf jene dingliche Selbsttätigkeit verweist, die im Begriff der Spontaneität immer, wenn nicht gar primär präsent war – wir denken dafür nochmals an die aristotelische „Spontanzeugung“ oder an Goclenius, der „sponte“ mit „vi sua“, „per se“ und ähnlich wiedergeben kann.19 Kant selbst 19  Cf. Goclenius (1613, 1080): „Sponte & sua sponte, non tantum tribuitur agentibus voluntate, sed etiam natura, ac idem est, quod ultro, sua natura, suapte natura, vi sua, per se, a

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hat, wie wir gesehen haben, in der Nova dilucidatio zwischen einer spontanen „Handlung“ aus einem inneren Prinzip überhaupt und einer solchen unterschieden, die darüber hinaus von einer Vorstellung des Guten geleitet ist, also auf Reflexionstätigkeit verweist. Während dieses Konzept ersichtlich noch den Zuschnitt des Leibnizschen Ansatzes zeigt und auch noch im Sinne von dessen Gradualismus gedeutet werden kann (wir steigen von einer unmittelbaren, reflexionslosen zu einer sich reflexiv motivierenden, eigentlich freien Spontaneität auf), ist Freiheit in der KdrV nun nicht mehr im Sinne von innerer statt äußerer Prinzipiierung, noch weniger im Sinne substantiellen Selbstvollzugs wie bei Leibniz gedacht ist, sondern an ihrer Unvermitteltheit, ihrer Inkommensurabilität mit der sonstigen Ordnung der Erscheinungen festgemacht. Freiheit ist jetzt „absolute Spontaneität“, was in gewisser Weise der Ersatz- und auch Gegenbegriff zu jener Leibnizisch inspirierten „spontaneitas perfecta“ ist, von der zuletzt noch Bilfinger gesprochen hatte,20 damit auf die nur bei Leibniz auf diese Weise denkbare Spontaneität verweisend, die auch noch die Sinnlichkeit vom aktiven Selbstvollzug her versteht. Kant hatte sich, wie wir gesehen haben, von einer entsprechenden Option schon dadurch entfernt, daß er die Spontaneität und mit ihr die Freiheit bereits in der Nova dilucidatio in die Handlung selbst statt in das Prinzip der Handlung verlegte. Jetzt, auf der Stufe der KdrV, steht von vornherein nur noch zur Debatte, ob es auf der Ebene der Erscheinungen Spontaneität und mit ihr Freiheit im Sinne einer „absoluten“ Unterbrechung des Erscheinungszusammenhangs sozusagen als Grenzbegriff „geben“ kann, daneben aber auch, welchen weiterführenden Sinn die mit dem Begriff dieser absoluten Spontaneität verbundenen Ambivalenzen se. […] Latius igitur patet spontaneum quam voluntarium. Spontaneum sc. etiam rebus animo carentibus convenit, non autem voluntarium. In Ethicis spontaneum est, vel consulto vel inconsulto faciens vel factum, ac opponitur ei non voluntarium seu invitum […]. Atque in rebus ina[ni]mis quidem et animantibus rationis expertibus sponte sua idem [valet], quod per se, nulla vi seu necessitate coactionis, aut nulla arte adhibita […]“. 20  Cf. nochmals Bilfinger (1725, § 337). Wir zitieren an dieser Stelle noch aus dem § 302, der die (wiedergewonnene) Nähe zu Leibniz des Wolff-Schülers in mehreren Punkten zeigt: „1. Libera non est actio, de qua agens nullam habet intelligentiam. Est igitur hoc praerequisitum libertatis, ut agens liberum sit intelligens. 2. Libera non est actio, quae sola in sese est possibilis: quae igitur absolute est necessaria. Requiritur itaque, ut actio sit in sese contingens. 3. Libera non est, quae ex statu antecedente non in facultate agentis posito ita sequitur, ut posita conditione illa non possit non sequi: h. e. quae ex conditione antecedanea influente physica, et per sese necessitante, est hypothetice necessaria. 4. Libera non est, quae non oritur a principio agentis interno, sed ab extrinseco in solidum dependet. Requiritur itaque spontaneitas. Ex his consequitur, 5. quod libera actio non sit, nisi adfuerit in Animo facultas actionem istam suscipiendi aut negligendi, suscipiendi hanc vel aliam. Ea facultas dici solet indifferentia, non aequilibrii […], sed exercitii […].“.

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allenfalls haben. In der Tat soll der Begriff einer „absoluten Spontaneität“ nach Kant ja auf die Vernunftantinomie führen, eine Antinomie, in der sich der Begriff einer gegenständlichen Spontaneität bzw. Freiheit destruiert, zugleich aber der Begriff einer nicht-gegenständlichen, vielmehr transzendentalen, d.h. die Reflexion auf Gegenständlichkeit als solche enthaltenden Freiheit aufscheint, deren Verhältnis zur Welt der Gegenstände einerseits, zur Sphäre des Handelns andererseits freilich noch genauer zu klären ist. Wenn man die dritte Antinomie, wofür dieser Beitrag unter anderem plädiert, insoweit einerseits als eine weitere Leibniz-Kritik des Königsbergers lesen kann – eine Kritik, deren Kern die Aufhebung der Vorstellung von einer den Erscheinungen immer schon zugrunde liegenden substantiellen Spontaneität und insoweit auch gegenständlich instanziierbaren Freiheit ist –, muß man sie andererseits als den Ort der originären Bewußtwerdung der Dimension einer „transzendentalen Freiheit“ überhaupt sowie dann auch unseres praktischen Selbstverhältnisses verstehen, das dann ebenfalls als ein grundsätzlich nicht-gegenständliches zu denken ist.21 Aus der dritten Antinomie ergibt sich überhaupt die Möglichkeit, Freiheit im Sinne der „transzendentalen Idee der Freiheit“ überhaupt in ihrer wesentlichen „Übergegenständlichkeit“ zu denken, die nach Kant ausdrücklich auf den „praktische(n) Begriff derselben“ (Kant 1781/1787, KdrV A 533 / B 561) verweist. Mit diesem immer vorausgesetzten Abstoß von der Gegenstandswelt kann der Begriff der praktischen Freiheit jetzt sogar gerade in der Sprache der Tradition der libertas indifferentiae ausgedrückt werden, spricht Kant doch ausdrücklich davon, daß die „Freiheit im praktischen Verstande“ in der „Unabhängigkeit der Willkür [!] von der Nötigung durch Antriebe der Sinnlichkeit“ gründe und auch als „arbitrium sensitivum“ immer noch als ein „arbitrium liberum“ (Kant 1781/1787, KdrV A 534 / B 562) aufgefaßt werden müsse. – Kehren wir aber noch einmal kurz zum noch keineswegs abschließend erläuterten Begriff einer „absoluten Spontaneität“ zurück, für den es, wie erwähnt, in der Tradition unmittelbar keinen Vorläufer gibt. Fragt man sich, welchen genauen Sinn die Rede von einer „absoluten Spontaneität“ haben kann, wird rasch klar, inwiefern mit ihr die Lösung des Freiheitsproblems im Sinne der libertas spontaneitatis in gleich mehrfacher Hinsicht preisgegeben ist. Preisgegeben wird etwa der Versuch, in dem mit dem Ansatz bei der libertas spontaneitatis einhergehenden Sinne äußere und innere Verursachung einander entgegenzusetzen und von „Freiheit“ dann zu sprechen, wenn zwar 21  Insoweit kann man in der Reduktion des gegenständlichen Freiheitsdenkens, die die dritte Antinomie leistet, auch schon den Anfang der kritischen Ethik ausmachen, für die es bekanntlich keine gegenständlichen orientierenden Größen mehr gibt.

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die äußere Verursachung wegfiel bzw. auf eine bloße Veranlassung reduziert werden konnte, eine innere Verursachung oder doch Motivation darum aber nicht ausgeschlossen war. In diesem Sinne haben eben die Vertreter der Schulphilosophie den Satz vom Grunde mit der Bejahung der Freiheit vereinbaren können, während Kritiker einer unumschränkten Geltung jenes Satzes wie etwa Crusius eben auf ein reelles arbitrium liberum (als „Grundkraft“22) zurücklenkten, das in der Tat gänzlich bei sich selbst anfangen können sollte. Kant hat bezüglich der schulphilosophischen Unterscheidung in eine, wie er sagt, „mechanische“ und eine „psychologische Kausalität“ sowie bezüglich des Versuchs, die Freiheit qua Spontaneität mit der letzteren zu identifizieren, von einem „comparativen Begriffe von Freiheit“ gesprochen, in dem er zuletzt nur einen „elende[n] Behelf“ erblicken konnte, da hier ein „schwere[s] Problem mit einer kleinen Wortklauberei“ (Kant 1788, KpV AA V, 96) aufgelöst werden soll, während es der Sache nach bei der Vorstellung bleibt, daß Handlungen innerhalb der Zeitordnung aus einem ihnen jeweils vorausliegenden Zustand abgeleitet werden können. „Absolute Spontaneität“ kann sich demgegenüber weder nur auf die „Innerlichkeit“ beziehen, noch hat sie eine Beziehung auf die konkrete Zeitordnung; vielmehr besteht sie in der Negation der Zeitordnung als ganzer, was bei Kant, wie wir wissen, unter anderem mit der Unterscheidung zwischen empirischem (sich zeitlich entfaltenden) und intelligiblem (von aller Zeit unabhängigem) Charakter aufgenommen wird. An dieser Stelle soll jedoch nicht noch auf die entsprechende Lehre eingegangen werden, sondern noch einmal auf den eingangs erwähnten Punkt, daß die transzendentale Idee der Freiheit nach Kant als einzige der Ideen ihre Realität selbst erweist, ja daß sie sich „in wirklichen Handlungen, mithin in der Erfahrung darthun läßt“ und daher auch „unter die scibilia mit gerechnet werden muß“ (Kant 1790, KdU AA V, 468). Wir versuchen, uns dem Kerngehalt dieser These mit Blick auf das bisherige Ergebnis abschließend noch mit wenigen Überlegungen anzunähern! Die allgemeine Antwort auf die Frage nach dem kosmologischen Freiheitsbegriff Kants kann, was kaum umstritten sein dürfte, nur negativ lauten: Freiheit ist „kosmologisch“, d.h. im Sinne theoretischer Objektivation oder „dinglich“, nicht darstellbar; sie „erscheint“ nicht im Kontext unserer im eigentlichen Sinne gegenständlichen Erfahrung, was auch dann gilt, wenn daraus noch nicht (unkritisch) geschlossen werden kann, daß es sie nicht „gäbe“ – „geben“ kann es sie zum Beispiel auf der Ebene der Konstituentien der Erfahrung, die von der Spontaneität des Verstandes über die Form des sich in 22  Cf. Crusius 1753 (§§ 70–78); für unseren Zusammenhang cf. auch Kawamura (1996, 29ff. und 160ff.).

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der transzendentalen Apperzeption selbst vermittelnden Selbstbewußtseins bis hin zur Aussicht auf die eigentlich praktische Freiheit reichen, die Kant schon mit der Antinomie eröffnet sieht – „geben“ kann es sie überhaupt in jedem theoretischen und praktischen Selbstverhältnis und Selbstvollzug, die nur beide nicht „ontologisiert“ werden dürfen, sondern in reiner Reflexivität aufgefaßt werden müssen. Die Lehre von der libertas spontaneitatis ging demgegenüber davon aus, daß es in den Phänomenen natürlicher, insbesondere aber auch willentlicher Selbsttätigkeit sehr wohl eine sich gegenständlich zeigende Freiheit gebe: eine Freiheit freilich, deren Wesen ihre Vollzugshaftigkeit, ihr aktuales Tätigsein sei. Leibniz’ Metaphysik ist dabei der sicher beeindruckendste Versuch der neueren Philosophiegeschichte gewesen, Selbsttätigkeit als Seinsprinzip zu denken und in diesem Zusammenhang tätiges Selbstsein, eben insofern es Selbstsein ist, als Freisein zu deuten – als ein Freisein, von dem wir gesehen haben, daß es zugleich dem Satz vom Grunde nicht widersprechen mußte, insofern eine intrinsische Bestimmung bzw. die Selbstbestimmung ja auch eine Bestimmung ist und mit anderer Bestimmung auch harmonieren kann, ohne deshalb in Fremdbestimmtsein umzuschlagen. Es verwundert vor dem Hintergrund dieser Grundkonzeption keineswegs, daß in der leibniz-wolffschen Schule der libertas spontaneitatis immer wieder deutlich reflexive Momente zugesprochen werden; wir nennen als Beispiel dafür hier nur die Definition in Baumeisters Institutiones metaphysicae, die Kant in seinen frühen Metaphysik-Vorlesungen benutzt hat: „Facultas animae seipsam determinandi [Hervorhebung TSH] dicitur Spontaneitas, et ea actio, ad quem se ipsa determinat anima, dicitur spontanea“ (Baumeister 1738, § 672). Gerade Selbstbestimmung ist nach Kants kritischer Philosophie auf die Ebene der Erscheinungen prinzipiell aber nicht projizierbar; sichtbar werden auf dieser Ebene nur Abfolgen von Erscheinungsbildern nach der Ordnung der Zeit, in deren Form (als Erscheinung) bereits die Irreflexivität und damit immer nur die Möglichkeit der Bestimmung bzw. Bestimmtheit durch anderes, nie jedoch die der Selbstbestimmung liegt. Allerdings bedeutet der Abschied von einer erscheinenden bzw. sonst gegenständlichen Freiheit nun gerade nicht, daß damit der Freiheitsbegriff überhaupt entleert oder gar obsolet werden würde. Im Gegenteil liegt, wenn man so will, im Vernunftwiderfahrnis der Antinomie die Chance für einen Abstoß der Freiheit zu sich selbst, den wir auch den Abstoß hin zu einer nicht mehr gegenständlichen, sondern transzendentalen und dann auch praktischen Selbstaneignung der Freiheit nennen können. Kant faßt diesen philosophisch fundamentalen Abstoß zu sich mittels der Begriffstrias absolute Spontaneität, transzendentale Freiheit und praktische Freiheit. In diesem Sinne kann der genannte Abstoß der Freiheit zu sich als das Erwachen des Freiheitsbewußtseins überhaupt

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verstanden werden, das sich ja auch als nicht-erscheinend nur dann begreifen kann, wenn es bereits aktualisiert ist. Näherhin aber begreift sich dieses Freiheitsbewußtsein als transzendentale Freiheit, d.h. es begreift sich mitten in seiner Inkommensurabilität zur Welt der Erscheinung als doch auf diese Welt bezogen, ja als Konstituens dieser Welt, die sich als ganze bzw. in ihrer konkreten Bestimmtheit den (spontanen) Verstandeshandlungen überhaupt verdankt, die bis hinunter zur Einheit der Formen der Anschauung a priori als solcher reichen. Insoweit kann die Freiheit qua transzendentale Freiheit auch als dem Objektbewußtsein korrespondierendes Selbstbewußtsein begriffen werden, das freilich von sich weiß, daß es in theoretischer Hinsicht niemals auf der Ebene der Objekte wird erscheinen können. Als praktische Freiheit jedoch hat die Freiheit zuletzt das Bewußtsein, sich durchaus objektivieren zu können: sie hat das allgemeine Bewußtsein, handelnd eine andere Ordnung der Dinge etablieren zu können als die gegebene, oder sie weiß, daß sie generell „Ursache“ sein kann in Beziehung auf eine anders bestimmte als die jeweils erscheinende Welt. Dieses Wissen um eine – jederzeit, weil nicht in der Ordnung der Zeit begründete – mögliche „Kausalität aus Freiheit“, die in dem Abstoß der Freiheit zu sich aus aller Gegenständlichkeit liegt, ist dem im eigentlichen Sinne theoretischen Wissen nicht mehr kommensurabel. Dennoch ist es kein leeres oder nur scheinbares Wissen. Es ist, wie gesagt, zunächst ein Wissen um die Möglichkeit einer anderen als der gegebenen Welt und insofern als „liberum arbitrium“ dargestellt: handelnd motivieren wir uns immer aus einer bestimmten Alternative heraus, in deren Licht wir die Dinge sehen. Gleichwohl ist die Freiheit nicht nur eine mögliche, sondern auch eine wirkliche. Diese Wirklichkeit der Freiheit ist die der absoluten Spontaneität, in der die Freiheit wählt. Was wählt die Freiheit in dieser absoluten Spontaneität? Die Antwort ist einfach: sie wählt als erstes sich selbst, d.h. sie entscheidet sich dazu, transzendentale und sich praktisch realisierende Freiheit zu sein. Und eben von hieraus erklärt sich dann Kants Satz, daß Freiheit als Idee zugleich schon realisiert, ja eine Tatsache sei: denn wer immer die Freiheitsantinomie versteht, also versteht, daß Freisein nicht unmittelbar zu erscheinen vermag, weil Freiheit nicht in die Ordnung der Dinge, sondern in die des Bezugs des Selbstbewußtseins auf die Dinge gehört, der hat auch verstanden, daß Freiheit erst im Blick auf die Ordnung der Dinge als ganze zu sich kommt bzw. daß er selbst zu sich erst im Abstoß von der Ordnung der Dinge kommt, die er sich auch anders denken kann. Sofern er dies aber kann, hat er sich schon als freies Wesen gewählt, d.h. er ist sich seiner selbst außerhalb der Ordnung der Zeit als Ursache einer anderen Ordnung der Dinge bewußt geworden. Diese „andere Ordnung“ meint nicht die Gesetzlosigkeit der Erscheinungen, wie die Antithesis, also die Anwältin des Satzes vom Grunde, befürchtet. Sie

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meint vielmehr eine Gesetzgebung aus Freiheit, die sich im Handeln, die aber auch mich im Handeln realisiert. Kants Abarbeitung des gegenständlichen Freiheitsdenkens, das zuletzt im Konzept der libertas spontaneitatis erschien, führt insoweit bis an die Schwelle eines Begriffs der Selbsterzeugung des praktischen Subjekts in seinen dem Gesetz der Freiheit, also der Autonomie, konformen Handlungen. Und da dieses Handeln, das ein Sich-Erhandeln ist, immer schon angefangen hat, kann die Freiheit auch nur als jene transzendentale, nicht auf Empirie reduzierbare Idee verstanden werden, die sich schon realisiert hat. Wir können das Ergebnis auch so wenden: Wer immer die Antinomie der Freiheit versteht, wer immer aus ihr den Abstoß der Freiheit zu sich gewinnt, hat eben darin Freiheit im Sinne absoluter Spontaneität schon realisiert. Er hat damit auch bezeugt, daß man um Freiheit wissen kann, was einschließt, daß sie ein scibile ist. Das Entscheidende aber ist, daß damit der Horizont der Vernunft offengehalten wird gegenüber den Dingen, wie sie schlicht zu sein nur scheinen. Die Freiheit steht immer in diesem offenen, den Schein eines Seins überwindenden Horizont. Literatur Baumeister, Friedrich Christian. 1783. Institutiones metaphysicae Ontologiam, Cosmologiam, Psychologiam, Theologiam denique naturalem Complexae. Wittenberg / Zerbst. Bilfinger, Georg Bernhard. 1725 (ND 1982). Dilucidationes philosophicae de Deo, anima humana, et generalibus rerum affectionibus, Tübingen (ND Hildesheim). Crusius, Christian August. 1743. Dissertatio de usu et limitibus principii rationis detreminantis vulgo sufficientis, Leipzig. Crusius, Christian August. 17532 (ND 1963). Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft= Wahrheiten, Leipzig (ND Darmstadt). Darjes, Joachim Georg. 1743. Elementa metaphysica. Jena. Descartes, René. 1640. Brief an Mersenne von Dezember 1640. Charles Adam und Paul Tannery (Hrsgg.). Oeuvres de Descartes (= AT) III. Descartes, René. 1641. Meditationes de prima philosophia IV. AT VII. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1798 (1970). System der Sittenlehre. Reinhard Lauth et al. (Hrsgg.). Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Bd. I/5. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Finster, Reinhard. 1982. „Spontaneität, Freiheit und unbedingte Kausalität bei Leibniz, Crusius und Kant“. Studia Leibnitiana XIV (2): 266–277. Finster, Reinhard. 1984. Spontaneität und Freiheit. Eine Untersuchung zu Kants theoretischer Philosophie unter Berücksichtigung von Leibniz, Wolff und Crusius, Trier: Diss.

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Goclenius, Rudolf. 1613 (ND 1964). Lexicon philosophicum quo tanquam clave philosophiae fores aperiuntur, Frankfurt (ND Hildesheim). Hobbes, Thomas. 1840 (ND 1966). Tripos III: Of Liberty and Necessity. W. Molesworth (Hg.). The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Bd. 4. London (ND Aalen). Hobbes, Thomas. 1841 (ND 1966). The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity, and Chance. W. Molesworth (Hrsg.). The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Bd. 5. London (ND Aalen). Hoffmann, Thomas Sören. 1995. Art. ‚Spontaneität’. In Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 9, hrsgg. von Joachim Ritter / Karlfried Gründer, 1424–1434. Basel / Darmstadt. Kant, Immanuel. 1755. Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio. Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Hrsg.). Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften Akademie-Ausgabe [=AA]. Bd. I. Berlin 1900ff. Kant, Immanuel. 1781 /1787. Kritik der reinen Vernunft [= KdrV]. AA III/IV. Kant, Immanuel. 1788. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft [= KpV]. AA V. Kant, Immanuel. 1790. Kritik der Urteilskraft [=KdU]. AA V. Kant, Immanuel. Opus Postumum. AA XXI, Kawamura, Katsutoshi. 1996. Spontaneität und Willkür. Der Freiheitsbegriff in Kants Antinomienlehre und seine historische Wurzeln, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Lange, Joachim. 1727 (ND 1984). Caussa Dei et religionis naturalis adversum atheismum. Halle (ND Hildesheim). Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1875–1890 (ND 1965). Discours de Métaphysique. C. J. Gerhardt (Hg.). Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Bd. IV. Berlin (ND Hildesheim). Liske, Michael-Thomas. 1993. Leibniz’ Freiheitslehre. Die logisch-metaphysischen Voraussetzungen von Leibniz’ Freiheitstheorie, Hamburg. Ockham, Wilhelm von. Scriptum in librum primum sententiarum ordinatio. Opera Philosophica et Theologica ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum edita, St. Bonaventure, New York 1974–1988. Abt. 1, Bd. III, 1977. Reusch, Johann Peter. 1735 (ND 1990). Systema metaphysicum antiquiorum atque recentiorum item propria dogmata et hypotheses exhibens, Jena (ND Hildesheim). Schmitt, Arbogast. 20082. Die Moderne und Platon. Zwei Grundformen europäischer Rationalität, Stuttgart. Tetens, Johann Nikolaus. 1777 (ND 1979). Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwicklung, Leipzig (ND Hildesheim). Thomas von Aquin. Sententia in librum Ethicorum. R. M. Spazzi (Hg.), Torino 1949. (=In Eth.).

Chapter 5

The Freedom of the Monad and the Subject of Freedom Klaus Erich Kaehler If philosophy has no external court for proving the truth claim of it, so it always matters first to comprehend its conceptually determined contents and its coherence of sense, in order to get what has been achieved already for the subject-matter of philosophy at that point, where the philosopher takes and continues it. With the problem of freedom—the question what it might be and how it is possible—it is recognizable, that Kant takes up the idea of reason as the subject-matter of philosophy, with the intention to determining and asserting it by means of principally-methodical reflection, which is at the same time and throughout a self reflection, carrying out its self-certainty within their bounds recognized just by this reflection. Even though the conceptual content connected with the idea of reason in Leibniz, is acknowledged in Kant’s critical philosophy, Kant has no longer ascribed the same epistemic value to that content because of its new systematic reformulation and placing within the system of the Critique. Hence, the comparison of the conceptions of freedom in Leibniz und Kant will show the difference between them as evoked by systematic and methodical reasons. 1

Leibniz: The Freedom of the Monad

Let us first turn to the problem of freedom in Leibniz in order to understand it as the systematic result of the architecture of the leibnizian metaphysics. This can be done here, due to the limits of this paper, only in a direct, thetical manner of exposition.1—To begin with the subjective character of the monad, we can say, following its basic feature: The monad is a unity that contains a well-ordered manifold, the succession of which in existence is ordered by an internal law, given by that unity as a whole. Thus the monad is related to itself as a whole to itself as a part. This self-relation as such already makes up 1  For an account in more detail cf. Kaehler 2005; and the chapter on Leibniz in Kaehler 2010: 94–151.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004383784_006

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the formal structure of subjectivity. The further determinations and modes of carrying out this self-relation Leibniz has qualified by means of psychology, epistemology and moral philosophy. At the same time all monadic modes of being and acting are throughout, even though in different ways, related to some otherness, which is represented internally as being external. These are, metaphysically spoken, the other monads, respectively to each, which is together with them brought to existence by creation. Each monad realizes in itself this being related to all others, corresponding to its “complete notion,” respectively. This realization is the succession of perceptions of events in the “outside world,”which appears together with the internal development, that is, the unfolding of the individual complete concept of each.2 All this holds as well for those monads, the perceptions of which are not able to get beyond the degrees of “darkness” or “confusion,” so that these monads are unable to reflection and self-consciousness. Here, the self-relation is realized only existentially, as changeable, confused or just dark self-sentiment and self-feeling, but not as conscious, intentional self-relation, which comes up only with apperception, “reflexive acts,” and the faculty of reason, qualifying these monads as “ames raisonnables” (Mon. § 29f./ GP VI, 611). This formal structure of the subjectivity of the monad and its self-­ development in existence, the spontaneity, gives a necessary, but not sufficient condition of freedom. Although all monads are to be conceived in this way, not to all of them can be attributed freedom, but only to those, which are distinguished by the faculty of reason: freedom is “spontaneitas intelligentis”; and it is this connection of spontaneity and reasonable insight which makes these monads partially identical with that subject, which is the ultimate reason of all existing monads—even those, which are gifted with the capacity of reason. The performance of reason by perfect cognition, will, and achieving, before any “nature,” i.e. any created being,—this singular divine and primeval act as actual ground of all being, possible as well as existing, is eo ipso the highest, unsurpassable actuality of freedom. Therefore, the fundamental thesis on freedom in Leibniz is: Freedom is executed, when a will founded in an insight into what is possible, strives to realize spontaneously and deliberately what is the best out of those possibles. Thus the performance of freedom has a highest degree in that subject, which itself is nothing else but the pure and perfect actuosity of reason. Hence the difference between this freedom in god and the freedom of man—created rational

2  Perceptio “nihil aliud est, quam illa ipsa repraesentatio variationis externae in interna.” (GP VII, 329f.).

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monad, gifted with the capacity of reason—is a gradual one. The meaning of the concept of freedom, however, remains univocal. But still every performance of reason not coinciding with the primeval divine act is more or less limited, according to the essential ontological difference between god and the finite, created subjects of freedom: God is absolutely free, because he has at his disposal the complete insight into all possibles, that is the disjunctive totality of all possible worlds—which are only there, anyway, by being thought. This realm of possibles contains all of the “internal objects” (Mon. § 46 /GP VI, 614) of the divine understanding. However, god has not created this content by any blind perfection of power, as little as he has created his own understanding (Théod. § 380/ GP VI, 341). He rather recognizes as being valid per se not only all necessary truths and formal laws of logic with their validity within all possible worlds, but also all possible, i.e. non-contradictory complete concepts, which are the concepts of all possible monads with their complete individual determinacy. Moreover, as the equally valid logical possibilities are reflected as objects of value, they become ordered as a hierarchy of possible worlds, the top of which is chosen for creation by the divine will. As this is objectively and per se the best of all possible worlds, and as it is cognized exactly as such by god, the choice of it results with “moral necessity”. The contrary, however, remains possible and does not contain a logical contradiction, but a “moral absurdity” or “Inconvenience” (CD § 21/ GP VI, 441). If those monads which together make up the best of all possible worlds, are brought to existence by the divine primeval monad, they get a new mode of being: The unity of the complete concept of each monad, as a merely possible one, has a static logical structure. By having come to existence it gets an actuality of its own and an entirely new dynamic quality—a capacity to act. Thus, only as brought to existence, not yet as a possible one, a monad can be considered as free. Although the ontological levels of the creator and the created, more abstractly: of the ground and the grounded, are immutably ordered hierarchically, the esse ab alio of the created monads does not annul the spontaneity of its development out of its own internal ground, respectively, because this is just the coming to existence and therein the internal unfolding unity of its own complete concept, respectively. The limits of their spontaneity are just the limits of the positive content of this concept. The thereby fixed individual determinacy is unsurpassable for each monad. Even all mental states and acts must be determined as being contained in the complete concept, otherwise not even god could know in before, how the monads brought to existence might develop themselves; and thus neither, whether and why this world might be the best of all possible worlds. Thus, also the scope as regards

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content of thinking, cognizing, and willing of rational created monads is limited according to its metaphysically determined individuality—and so is the spontaneitas intelligentis: the freedom of this subject. From the metaphysical point of view of the causation of finite monads as always already preceding the latter a parte rei, there is no way to avoid the consequence, that the created monads cannot go behind their determination in statu possibilitatis, that is before their admission to existence; in other words: that they are not able to determine themselves otherwise than god has brought them to existence—as an integral part of the best of all possible worlds. Therefore the freedom of the creatures cannot consist in shaping themselves anew from scratch. Following this criterion—that is, from this ontologically prior level,—there could not be attributed freedom to them at all. Against that, however, it should be reminded of the maximal concept of freedom as the divine primeval act of perfect insight, will, and power of executing what is recognized as the best: Thus freedom consists of and is achieved as a subject-internal relation between rational insight und the will to perform what the subject thinks to be the best. The goodness of the will—and therefore the degree of freedom—determines itself principally according to the degree of opening itself to the rational insight and of following it in acting.3 This determining is throughout and genuinely up to the will, so that by the understanding it can be judged as (logically) “contingent.” However, the moral judgement just refers to the subject-internal behaviour of the will in the view of his available rational resources. Here the presupposed determination of the complete individual in statu possibilitatis has to be left out of consideration, as for the created individual this entire ontological predetermination—as mere possibility of its complete concept—lies “at the back” of it, because it will never be able to grasp this concept in its original, intelligible form. Solely by leaving out of account the metaphysical ultimate foundation of the entire reality of the existing monads before their coming to existence, the question after the freedom of created beings can be put meaningfully at all.4 Indeed, the commitment of the freedom of the will to rational insight includes as a minimal condition for a striving to be qualified as a will, that the subject of it has as its disposal any rational insight at all. To the extent the subject not only has to its disposal such insights, but also takes them willingly and acts in accordance with them, to this extent this subject can be denoted as free. However, not to follow rational insight deliberately succumbs to a motivational complex 3  „Estre determiné par la raison au meilleur, c’est estre le plus libre.“ (NE II.21, § 50/ GP V, 184). 4  Therefore “solae mentes sunt liberae.“ (Grua I, 384).

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of dark and imperceptible perceptions (petites perceptions), that is, it arises due to an imperfection of the mind and “a slavery by the senses,”as Leibniz ­sometimes puts it. So this behaviour is not at all to be considered as a result of a real will. Only to the extent a subject is able to will at all and thus to strive to the good, according to the Natura Libertatis, it is free. This commitment of freedom and will to the affirmation of rational insights and grounds is the profound consequence of the objective metaphysical idea of the most perfect subject of reason and the original actuality: With every rationally motivated act of the will the finite subject hits and repeats a tiny bit of the divine primeval and total act culminating in bringing to existence those monads, whose reality and interrelations make up the best of all possible worlds. To contribute knowingly and willingly to this highest good, makes a subject free, according to that freedom which has its measure and justification in the purely active divine subject of reason, as the absolute ground of all other subjects and everything belonging to them, respectively; and these finite subjects, on the other hand, reflect their ground in themselves—more or less adequately, according to the different degrees of original limitations. So we can say: Free is the subject that by his own power, knowing, and willing plays a part in actualizing everywhere the universal order of reason and its existing reality; and to the extent this has been carried out, freedom and authentic subjectivity are realized. 2

Kant: The Subject of Freedom

Leibniz systematically locates and solves the problem of freedom within the framework of an objective metaphysics of reason. The highest object of this metaphysics is that subject, which achieves the maximal possible actuality; and at the same time this highest, unconditioned actuality of reason is, as an act, the maximal possible actualization of freedom. This mutual connection of reason and freedom holds for Kant too. He, however, does not justify it by means of an objective metaphysics of the subjects of reason and freedom— god and created monads, brought to existence with the gift of the capacity of reason—, but via a critical enquiry of that, “what lies outside of the metaphysics, the source of it to be find in reason” (Prol.: IV, 377). This presupposed reason, however, cannot be there or be given to the critical investigation as an external object—then it would not be grasped as reason. So this enquiry is not about existing objects, but rather aims at those conditions of knowledge that are valid a priori. Then, the subject of such “transcendental” enquiry has to be

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the same subject as that of the enquired reason: It can meet (“antreffen”) and measure (“ausmessen”) reason solely in itself, and moreover, only just as it is accessible and as it shows itself to the self-certain subject, that performs and reflects reason as its own capacity. So this self reflectively enquired reason is to be taken completely independent of metaphysical assumptions—including the leibnizian co-aeternitas of reason with god. Looked at this self-reflective subject of reason from within the framework of the leibnizian metaphysics, it would be the created, finite monads, inasmuch as they are capable of reason at all, therefore of apperception, reflexive acts, and consciousness of the I (cf. Mon. §§ 29f./ GP 611f.)—precisely and only insofar as they are concentrated on just this capacity with its internal forms, principles, and contents. Thus they are to be taken and considered not as existing subjects within a metaphysically interpreted world, but in spite of their existential diversity as that one and universal self-identical subject of reason functioning in a principally methodical meaning. Thereby the reformulations of leibnizian concepts and theories get a mediated meaning wherein the not only historical but rather intra-philosophical meaning of Kant’s “transcendental turn” is to be recognized. “If appearances are things in themselves, then freedom cannot be rescued” (III: 365/ B 564). Here the distinction of realms of objectivity, being fundamental for Kant’s “transcendental idealism,”is taken into account. This distinction on the other hand is for Kant already grounded in the specific scope and achievements of the capacities of recognition, as conditions a priori of experience and thereby of the objects of experience. In Leibniz, however, the same distinction of appearance (phaenomenon) and thing in itself (monad) has got a straightforward ontological and as such a real-metaphysical meaning. But when Kant holds that there is no possibility for freedom within the realm of appearances as such, he does not maintain an objectively metaphysical reality beyond the appearances. The non-empirical (“apriori”) has objective reality and validity only in relation to experience and the entire “aposteriori”; and this relationship is mutual, though not symmetrical, of course. At any rate, this distinction is, besides others, a necessary condition for the concept of freedom and its possibility. Indeed, only the presupposition of a causality of the non-empirical capacities for the appearances opens a place for freedom. While freedom is not possible within the succession of appearances, since here is ruling throughout the law of nature, the mere separation of freedom and nature doesn’t suffice to “rescue” freedom. To be sure, Kant has, on the ground of his presupposition of the two “trunks” (Stämme) of recognition, to maintain that reason alone,

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“mere” reason, is not able to achieve objectively real knowledge, even though its immanent content, the ideas as such, are systematically determinable und justified. Only by connecting and uniting sensuality and thinking qua understanding and reason cognizable objects can be constituted. Therefore, the possibility of freedom needs apart from its separation from the causal nexus of nature still the securing of its relationship to the latter. Kant’s foundational determining of this freedom “in the cosmological sense” is “the capacity to begin a state of affairs by itself ” (III: 363/ B 561)—a state within the sensual world as an effect of a causality by freedom, which itself is not subject to the conditions of natural causality. Therefore the law of this causality, that Kant has called a “character,” is itself not empirical, but intelligible, a Noumenon, as thinkable solely by pure reason. All “we” can know of it is the appearance, as an empirical object within the bounds of spatio-temporal laws of nature, by means of which that appearance is always explicable. In this respect an empirical character can also be attributed to the subject of the intelligible character. This can be inferred by observation and reflection, if various appearances concerning the behaviour of a person are explicable as a motivational connection following certain regularities. These appearances can be interpreted as effects from non-empirical causes. Had we a complete knowledge of our intelligible character, so would “all good and evil be attributed not to external circumstances, but solely to the subject alone including the good or disadvantageous consequences” (XVIII: 253f./ Nr. 5612). Therefore only those activities and actions are free, which determine and execute themselves by this part of reason, the intelligible character. Reason, so Kant presupposes, “builds for itself with perfect spontaneity an order of its own according to ideas, into which it makes fitting the empirical conditions …” (III: 372/ B 576). This order, however, has no theoretically objective value—it is transcendent to appearances and so to experience. It is executed only by practical reason with practical freedom, being present in the consciousness of the ought. However much the intelligible characters and their connections within an intelligible world of pure reason are to be presupposed to the empirical characters within the sensual world, so little the freedom founded in the former can be recognized theoretically—that is, just not as a real ground of the sensual world being effective by pure reason. Nevertheless, it has to be emphasized, that with this distinction between empirical and intelligible causality within the realm of appearances, attributed to one and the same subject, the condition for the solution of the Third Antinomy is fulfilled (what then holds for the Fourth as well): Namely, that according to these “dynamical” ideas of reason the condition and the conditioned “do

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not belong to one and the same succession” (III: 374f. 377/ B 581f., 585). But again, there is no claim to an ontological truth on this distinction. The essence has to appear, pre-Kantian metaphysics had said—but we do not recognize how the phenomena arise from their substances (the monads) together with the internal development of the latter, so how, saying it with Kant, the facts of the sensual world arise from the conditions of the intelligible world, its characters, activities, and forces; and thus the presupposition of this emergence remains a mere possibility of thinking. This, after all, suffices for rejecting the dogmatic denial of freedom in the cosmological sense. To be sure, only ­freedom as an idea of practical reason gets an objective ­reality— the reality of the moral “ought” within the empirical world, including all what follows thereby. The consciousness of this ought—the famous “fact of reason (V: 31)—in the categorical imperative as foundational law of the intelligible world contains anyway “a darkly known metaphysics, that is present at every man’s gift for reason,” as Kant remarks in the Vorrede to the Second Part of Metaphysik der Sitten: Tugendlehre (VI: 376). This metaphysics, founded on practical reason with its moral law and the idea of practical freedom provides all other ideas of reason with objective reality. But this altogether is possible as a result of a critique of reason only because systematically prior to it the thinkability of the idea of freedom in the cosmological sense has been secured. Bibliography Kaehler, K. E.: 2001: Der Empirismus im leibnizschen Universum. Zur Problematik des Subjekts bei Leibniz und Locke. In: VII. Intern. Leibniz-Kongress, Berlin, Nachtragsband, 230–236. Kaehler, K. E.: 2005: Leibniz: Die Seele als Monade und Subjekt. In: Klein, H. D. (Hg.), Der Begriff der Seele in der Philosophiegeschichte. Würzburg, 209–234. Kaehler, K. E.: 2010: Das Prinzip Subjekt und seine Krisen. Selbstvollendung und Dezentrierung. Freiburg/ München. Kaehler, K. E.: 2015: Leibniz: Die Natur als Verwirklichung und Erscheinung der Vernunft. In: Girndt, H. (Hrsg.): „Natur“ in der Transzendentalphilosophie, 17–42, Berlin. Kant, Immanuel. Gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. von: Bd. 1–22: Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. 23: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, ab Bd. 24: Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. [Cited: number of volume, page number.]

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Kant, Immanuel. Kritik der reinen Vernunft (CPR) [With additional reference to the first prints: A / B, page number.] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Causa Dei (GP VI, 437–462). [CD] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Die philosophischen Schriften I–VII, hg. C. J. Gerhardt. Nachdruck der Ausgabe Berlin 1875–1890: Hildesheim 1965. [GP] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Textes inédits, hrsg. von G. Grua. Paris 1948 (Bde.). [Grua] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. „Monadologie“ (GP VI, 607–623). [Mon.] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Nouveaux Essais sur l’Entendement (GP V, 39–509; A VI/ 6). [NE] Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Essais de Théodicée sur la Bonté de Dieu, la Liberté de l’Homme et l’Origine du Mal (GP VI, 21–436). [Théod.]

Chapter 6

Das Problem der transzendentalen Freiheit und seine Lösung: Kant versus Wolff Heiner F. Klemme 1 Einleitung Wie lautet das philosophische Problem, das Kant mit seinem Begriff der transzendentalen Freiheit in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft zu lösen beabsichtigt? Welche Merkmale unterscheiden seinen Begriff transzendentaler Freiheit vom Begriff der Freiheit, so wie ihn seine Zeitgenossen vertreten haben? Ich möchte diese Fragen ansatzweise im Ausgang von Wolffs 1719 erschienenen Deutschen Metaphysik1 zu beantworten versuchen, der ersten systematischen Abhandlung der Metaphysik in deutscher Sprache. Der Vergleich mit Wolff folgt der kontrastiven Methode, d.h. ich möchte nicht behaupten, dass Kant seinen Begriff der transzendentalen Freiheit über Wolffs Schrift gebeugt entwickelt hat. Vielmehr dient mir Wolffs Schrift dazu, die Besonderheiten von Kants Position zu verstehen. Darüber hinaus werde ich auf Christian Garve, einen Philosophen aus der ersten Phase des post-wolffianischen Dogmatismus in Deutschland, eingehen, den Kant sehr geschätzt, jedoch auch ausführlich kritisiert hat. Garve studierte unter anderem bei Christoph Semler, Johann Andreas Segner und Georg Friedrich Meier2 in Halle und hätte auch bei Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten3 studiert, wenn dieser nicht kurz nach Garves Ankunft in Frankfurt an der Oder verstorben wäre. Ich erwähne dieses biographische Detail an dieser Stelle nur, um anzudeuten, dass Garve sehr gut mit der Philosophie Wolffs und Baumgartens vertraut gewesen ist, also ein klares Bewusstsein davon hatte, worin die Stärken und Schwächen ihrer Philosophie zu sehen sind.

1  Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt, und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (sigle DM). 2  Zu biographischen Details siehe die Einträge in Klemme/Kuehn (2016). 3  Im Unterschied zu Wolff widmet Baumgarten den Begriffen der Spontaneität, der Willkür und der Freiheit eigene Abschnitte in seiner Metaphysica. Siehe dazu Kawamura (1996, 53–57).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004383784_007

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Wolff über Freiheit

Wolff thematisiert den Begriff der Freiheit in der Deutschen Metaphysik im Bereich der metaphysica specialis und zwar in der empirischen Psychologie und in der Theologie. In der empirischen Psychologie thematisiert er die Freiheit der menschlichen Seele, in der Theologie die Freiheit Gottes. Letztere entwickelt Wolff im Ausgang seines Weltbegriffs. Wenden wir uns den drei Bereichen der speziellen Metaphysik etwas näher zu: (a) Empirische Psychologie. Worin besteht die Freiheit der menschlichen Seele? Nach Wolff hat die Seele das Vermögen, „durch eigene Willkühr aus zweyen gleich möglichen Dingen dasjenige zu wehlen, was ihr am meisten gefället, […] dazu sie weder ihrer Natur nach, noch von etwas von aussen determiniret ist.“ (DM § 519) Wolff nennt dieses Vermögen Freiheit. Da es die Vernunft ist, die uns erkennen lässt, was gut und was schlecht ist, „ist die Vernunft der Grund der Freyheit“ (DM § 520). Der menschliche Wille folgt immer der Vernunfteinsicht. Je vernünftiger wir sind, desto freier sind wir. Weil es unmöglich ist, das Bessere nicht dem Schlechten vorzuziehen, wählen wir das Bessere mit Notwendigkeit. Doch diese Art der Notwendigkeit widerstreitet Wolffs Auffassung nach nicht unserer Freiheit. Der Gegenbegriff zur Freiheit ist nicht die Notwendigkeit sondern der Zwang.4 Ohne diese „Nothwendigkeit der Sitten“ gäbe es keine „Gewißheit in der Sitten-Lehre“ (DM § 521). (b) Kosmologie. Wolff diskutiert den Weltbegriff unter zwei verschiedenen Perspektiven: In seiner Deutschen Metaphysik fragt er vor allem nach dem Ganzen dieser Welt („was zu der allgemeinen Erkäntniß der Welt gehöret“, DM § 541), in seiner Teleologie nach der Natur der Veränderungen, die wir in dieser Welt vorfinden. In der Deutschen Metaphysik betont Wolff, dass die Welt „eine Reihe veränderlicher Dinge […] [ist], die neben einander sind, und auf einander folgen, insgesamt aber mit einander verknüpffet sind.“ (DM § 544) Mit einander verknüpft zu sein bedeutet für Wolff, dass das Eine der Grund der Existenz des Anderen ist. Weil nach dem Satz des zureichenden Grundes in der Welt alles in Raum und Zeit miteinander verknüpft ist, ist die Welt ein Ding.5 Ein Ding aber ist ein Ganzes. Die Welt ist „ein Gantzes, und die Dinge, 4  „Allein diese Nothwendigkeit ist der Freyheit nicht zuwider: denn der Mensch wird dadurch nicht gezwungen das Bessere zu erwehlen, weil er auch das Schlimmere erwehlen könnte, wenn es ihm beliebte, indem eines sowohl als das andere vor und an sich selbst möglich ist“ (DM § 521). 5  „Was der Zeit und dem Raume nach mit einander verknüpffet ist, machet zusammen eines aus. Denn aus der Verknüpfung des verschiedenen dem Raume und der Zeit nach erkennet man, daß es nur ein Ding sey. Da nun in der Welt der Zeit und dem Raume nach alles mit einander verknüpffet ist […]; so ist die Welt als ein Ding anzusehen.“ (DM § 449).

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welche neben einander sind, imgleichen die, so auf einander folgen, sind ihre Theile“ (§ 550) Alle Begebenheiten in ihr sind notwendig, oder, wie sich Wolff auch ausdrückt, ‚gewiß‘ (vgl. DM § 561). Wäre die Welt nicht ein gewisses Ganzes, wäre sie nicht vom Traum zu unterscheiden. In welchem Sinne des Wortes sind die Veränderungen in der Welt notwendig? Wolff unterscheidet zwischen einerseits der „natürlichen Nothwendigkeit“ oder Nothwendigkeit der Natur“ und andererseits der „geometrischen“ oder „metaphysischen“ Notwendigkeit. Dinge, die unter die „Nothwendigkeit der Natur“ fallen, sind unter „nur unter einer gewissen Bedingung“ notwendig, Dinge dagegen, die unter die metaphysische Notwendigkeit fallen, sind „schlechterdings notwendig“ (DM § 575). „Schlechterdings notwendig“ ist dasjenige, „was für sich nothwendig ist, oder den Grund der Nothwendigkeit in sich hat: hingegen nothwendig unter einer Bedingung, was nur in Ansehung eines andern nothwendig wird, das ist, den Grund der Nothwendigkeit ausser sich hat.“ (Ibid.) Was den Grund der Notwendigkeit außer sich hat, wird „die Nothwendigkeit der Natur, genennet, weil sie ihren Grund in dem gegenwärtigen Lauffe der Natur hat, das ist in dem gegenwärtigen Zusammenhange der Dinge.“ (Ibid.) Auch die Freiheit der menschlichen Seele hat „ihren Grund in dem gegenwärtigen Lauffe der Natur“. Demnach ist die „natürliche Nothwendigkeit“ der „Grund der Sittenlehre“ (DM § 575). Die auf die Freiheit bezogene „natürliche Nothwendigkeit“ nennt Wolff „die Nothwendigkeit der Sitten“. Da die natürliche Notwendigkeit nur unter einer Bedingung notwendig ist, ist sowohl die Wirklichkeit der Welt wie alles dasjenige, was sich in ihr ereignet, zufällig. Unter einer hypothetischen Notwendigkeit stehen und zufällig sein, sind für Wolff bedeutungsgleiche Ausdrücke. Etwas Zufälliges wird wirklich, wenn es nach dem Satz vom zureichenden Grunde durch etwas anderes bewirkt wird.6 Während die Wirklichkeit der Welt und aller Dinge in ihr nur hypothetisch notwendig ist, ist das Wesen der Welt schlechterdings notwendig (vgl. DM § 576). Betrachten wir die Verknüpfung der Dinge in der Welt, werden wir zu einer ersten Ursache geführt. Diese erste Ursache erklärt, warum die Welt ihrem Wesen nach das ist, was sie ist. Die erste Ursache ist ihrem Wesen nach notwendig. Wie erkennen wir diese Ursache? Durch das gründliche Studium der Natur, durch Erfahrung. „Und man bleibet endlich, ja zuweilen gar bald, bey einer Ursache stehen, davon wir keine fernere zu geben wissen, sondern 6  Etwas wird nicht anders wirklich „als durch eine Reihe von unzehlicher anderer Dinge, die vor ihnen vorhergegangen und neben ihnen zugleich sind, dergestalt, daß, wenn man ihren Grund anzeigen soll, derselbe immer wieder einen neuen Grund hat ohne Aufhören.“ (DM § 579).

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vergnügt sind, daß wir sie in der Natur angetroffen, und daher durch die Erfahrung versichert sind, sie sey da gewesen, und nicht von uns erdichtet worden. Und dieses ist der Grund, daraus man erweisen kann, daß ein Urheber der Natur seyn müsse.“ (DM § 579) Der Begriff eines Ganzen der Welt hängt demnach einerseits an ihrem empirischen Studium und andererseits an einer psychologischen Eigenschaft des Menschen, nämlich „vergnügt“ zu sein, wenn er den Urheber bzw. die Ursache der Welt erkannt hat. (c) Theologie. Das Studium der Welt führt uns zur Erkenntnis ihres Urhebers bzw. ihrer Ursache. Welche Merkmale hat der Urheber der Welt? Wolff überträgt seine Konzeption der Freiheit des Menschen auf Gott und schreibt ihm eine göttliche Freiheit zu. Allerdings gibt es eine entscheidende Differenz zwischen uns Menschen und Gott: Gott versteht „vollständig“, „was er will“ (DM § 984). Er ist allwissend, er ist im höchsten Mäße frei. Was aber will Gott? Wir erkennen Gottes Willen an seinem Werk. Warum hat Gott diese und keine andere Welt geschaffen? Weil Gott erkannt hat, dass sie die beste aller möglichen Welten ist. Aber bedeutet dies nicht, dass Gott aufgrund der Vollkommenheit seines Willens „alle Freyheit benommen“ ist, er also die beste aller möglichen Welt schaffen musste? Wird er nicht durch seine eigene Natur „genöthiget das beste zu wollen“? Nein. Gott hat „sich selbst zu seinem Wollen“ „determiniret“ (DM § 984). Keiner hat ihn gezwungen, sie zu erschaffen. Denn er hat die Welt „gerne“7 geschaffen. Wenn man etwas gerne tut, dann wird man nicht gezwungen. Und wenn man nicht gezwungen wird, dann hat man „sich selbst zu einem Wollen“ „determinirt“. Gott also versteht „vollständig“, „was er will“. Im Unterschied zum freien Wollen des Menschen ist er nicht von der Erkenntnis von Gründen abhängig, die durch das Studium der Welt gewonnen werden. Das menschliche Wollen steht unter einer hypothetischen, das göttliche Wollen jedoch unter einer metaphysischen Notwendigkeit. Sein Wollen ist „schlechterdings notwendig“. Aber diese Notwendigkeit widerspricht eben nicht seiner Freiheit. Da Gott die Welt gern erschaffen hat, ist er nicht gezwungen worden.8 Der Übersichtlichkeit und Einfachheit halber können wir Wolffs Überlegungen zum Begriff der Freiheit in sechs Thesen zusammenfassen: 7  „Allein, man kann leicht zeigen, daß Gott deswegen nicht gezwungen wird, weil er bloß dasjenige wollen kann, was am besten ist: denn er will es gerne; was er aber gerne will, das will er ungezwungen. Wir finden es selbst bey uns, daß wir dasjenige gerne thun, was wir für gut halten, und um so viel gerner, je besserer es unserer Meinung nach ist.“ (DM § 987). 8  Wolff weist immer wieder darauf hin, dass „Gottes freier Rathschluss“ (DM § 980) die Ursache ist, aufgrund derer die Welt existiert. Und er betont vor allem in seiner Teleologie, dass „die Welt ein Spiegel der Freyheit des göttlichen Willens“ (Teleologie § 11) bzw. „die Natur ein Spiegel der Weisheit Gottes“ (Teleologie § 17) ist.

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(1.) Freiheit ist eine Eigenschaft zugleich des menschlichen und des göttlichen Willens. Sie besteht in dem Vermögen, das Bessere dem Schlechteren vorziehen zu können. (2.) Im Falle der menschlichen Freiheit kann sie gesteigert werden: Je vernünftiger wir sind, desto freier sind wir. Im Falle Gottes ist die Freiheit vollkommen, weil seine Vernunfterkenntnis vollkommen ist. (3). Freiheit und Notwendigkeit widerstreiten sich nicht. Der Gegenbegriff sowohl zur natürlichen wie zur metaphysischen Notwendigkeit ist der Zwang. Was ein vernünftiges Wesen gerne tut, dazu wird es nicht gezwungen. (4.) Unsere auf Erfahrung beruhende Erkenntnis des Zusammenhangs der Dinge führt zu der Erkenntnis einer ersten Ursache. (5.) Die Welt und alle Dinge in ihr existieren zufällig, sie sind bloß hypothetisch notwendig. Wir können uns eine andere Welt als die gegenwärtige Welt vorstellen. D.h. die Erklärung der Wirklichkeit der Welt und der Verknüpfung aller Dinge in ihr verlangt nach einer Ursache, die außerhalb ihrer liegt und ihrerseits nicht bloß hypothetisch notwendig ist. (6.) Das Wesen der Welt ist notwendig. Diese Notwendigkeit beruht auf der Freiheit Gottes, der die Welt erschaffen hat, weil er sie als die Beste aller möglichen Welten erkannt hat. Wie unschwer aus diesen zusammenfassenden Aussagen zu entnehmen ist, vertritt Wolff einen, wie wir heute sagen würden, einheitswissenschaftlichen, die Trennung von Tatsachen und Werten, Sein und Sollen negierenden Ansatz: Alle Ereignisse in der Welt unterliegen dem Satz vom zureichenden Grund. Die Freiheit des Menschen ist ein Modus natürlicher Notwendigkeit. Diese Ansicht haben bekanntlich nicht alle Philosophen zu Zeiten Wolffs geteilt. Einige von ihnen führen als ein gewichtiges Argument gegen den Begriff der natürlichen Notwendigkeit den Fatalismus an: Wenn sich unsere Freiheit darauf beschränken würde, das zu tun, was wir entsprechend unserer Vernunfterkenntnis tun wollen, dann kann es keine moralische Verbindlichkeit geben. Gott wäre der Urheber der Welt, aber wir Menschen wären nicht Urheber unserer Handlungen. Zwar gehen alle maßgeblichen Philosophen der Zeit davon aus, dass es keine moralische Verbindlichkeit ohne Freiheit geben kann. Das behauptet auch Wolff.9 Doch die große Frage lautet, welche Art von Freiheit die Verbindlichkeit erfordert, ob dieser also durch den Begriff einer unter dem Satz vom Grunde stehenden Kausalität aus Freiheit Genüge getan werden kann. So greift Christian August Crusius auf einen Begriff der Freiheit des menschlichen Willens im Sinne der „libertas indifferentiae“10 zurück, womit der von Wolff behauptete Zusammenhang zwischen Vernunfterkenntnis und Willen negiert wird. Gerade weil der menschliche Wille nicht unter der 9  Siehe Wolff, Deutsche Ethik, §§ 16–19. 10  Siehe Klemme (2013).

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natürlichen Notwendigkeit steht, kann der Mensch für seine Handlungen zur Rechenschaft gezogen werden. Mit einer Position wie der von Crusius vertretenen stellt sich in jedem Fall das philosophische Problem, wie Freiheit in einer ansonsten durch Notwendigkeit geprägten Natur möglich ist. Eine denkbare Antwort auf dieses Problem wird von Christian Garve gegeben, dem ich mich jetzt zuwenden möchte. 3

Die Antithetik von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit bei Christian Garve

Von besonderer Bedeutung sind Garves Ausführungen in seinen Kommentaren zu Adam Fergusons Grundsätze der Moralphilosophie aus dem Jahre 1772.11 Garve zeigt sich in diesen Kommentaren nicht an einer umfassenden Metaphysik der Freiheit interessiert. Vielmehr möchte er zu verstehen versuchen, wie die vom moralischen Prinzip der Vervollkommnung vorausgesetzte Freiheit angesichts einer Naturnotwendigkeit möglich ist, durch die diese Freiheit negiert wird. Wäre Garve ein treuer Wolffianer, würde er die Problemstellung als unplausibel zurückweisen. Er würde argumentieren, dass es überhaupt keinen Gegensatz zwischen Freiheit und Naturnotwendigkeit gibt. Doch offensichtlich überzeugt Garve Wolffs Auffassung nicht. Dies wird aus der Art und Weise deutlich, in der Garve die „Schwierigkeit“ formuliert, um dessen Auflösung es ihm geht. Diese „Schwierigkeit“ resultiert aus zwei Empfindungen, die sich widerstreiten: „Dieß ist nun eben die Schwierigkeit. Die eine Empfindung sagt mir: ich handele nach Vorstellungen; und eben darinn besteht meine Tugend, daß ich durch die Vorstellung des Guten angetrieben werde es zu bewirken. Die menschliche Natur weiß von keiner andern Entstehung der Begierden, und die Natur der Tugend läßt keine andre zu. Denn eine gute, d.h. eine nützliche Handlung, wenn sie nicht grade um der Bewegungsgründe dieses Nutzens willen geschieht, ist nicht mehr Tugend. Eine andre Empfindung sagt mir: ich bin selbst der Urheber meiner Handlungen; und ich bin nur insofern tugendhaft, als ich Urheber des Guten bin was ich thue. Ich bin aber nur Urheber, wenn meine Handlung von nichts außer mir abhängt; also auch von meinen eignen Vorstellungen nicht, denn diese hängen zuletzt selbst von Dingen außer mir ab. Diesen Schwierigkeiten abzuhelfen, hat Ein Theil der Philosophen bloß die erste Empfindung sammt ihrer Theorie angenommen, und die andre 11  Ich habe auf Garves in der bisherigen Forschung zu den Quellen von Kants Kehre von der Antinomie der reinen Vernunft übersehenen Auffassung bereits verschiedentlich hingewiesen (siehe u.a. Klemme 2014).

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Empfindung gänzlich als eine Illusion verworfen; das sind die eigentlichen Fatalisten. Ein andrer Theil, worunter scharfsinnige und rechtschafne Männer von jeher gewesen sind, haben sich bloß an die letztre Empfindung gehalten, und die erste entweder nicht bedacht, oder für trüglich gehalten. Dieß sind die, welche die Freyheit der Gleichgültigkeit annehmen. Ein dritter Theil hat beyde Empfindungen zugegeben, (und wer wollte sie läugnen, der sich selbst Acht gegeben hat?) und hat ihre Theorie zu vereinigen gesucht. Aber wie ist dieß möglich? Sollen unsre Handlungen ganz unabhängig seyn, so müssen sie es auch von unsern eignen Vorstellungen seyn, denn diese sind selbst zuletzt abhängig. – Sollten unsre Handlungen gut seyn; so müssen sie nach Gründen geschehn; so müssen sie von den Ideen abhängen, die diese Gründe in sich enthalten.“12 Damit ist das philosophische Problem benannt, um dessen Lösung Garve verlegen ist: Auf der einen Seite folge ich mit Notwendigkeit meinen Vorstellungen vom Guten und bin insofern von diesen Vorstellungen abhängig. Auf der anderen Seite empfinde ich mich selbst als Urheber meiner Handlungen. Urheber meiner Handlungen zu sein bedeutet aber, in meinem Wollen nicht von den Vorstellungen bestimmt zu werden, die ich vom Guten und Bösen habe. Nicht von diesen Vorstellungen bestimmt zu werden bedeutet, die Freiheit zum Guten wie zum Bösen zu haben. Wie unschwer zu erkennen ist, rekonstruiert Garve die beiden Positionen von Wolff und Crusius in Gestalt einer Theorie der Selbstbeobachtung und Selbstempfindung. Wolff steht für den Fatalismus, Crusius für die „Freyheit der Gleichgültighkeit“. Unschwer zu erkennen ist auch, dass Garves Rekonstruktion aufgrund ihrer Antithetik auf die dritte Antinomie in Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft vorverweist. Garve fragt angesichts dieser Antithetik nach einer Theorie, die erklärt, was praktisch außer Frage steht, nämlich dass ich über eine für den Begriff der moralischen Verbindlichkeit hinreichende Freiheit verfüge, die keiner Bedingung, also nicht der natürlichen Notwendigkeit unterliegt. Die Moral ist wirklich. Wie aber ist eine Konzeption der Freiheit möglich, die mich selbst zum Urheber meiner Handlungen macht, die mich nicht in Abhängigkeit setzt von den mir gegebenen Vorstellungen? Das ist die philosophische Frage, die Garve stellt – und auf die er selbst keine Antwort hat. Garve bestreitet sogar, dass es überhaupt eine Antwort geben kann. Wir sind moralisch verbunden, uns zu vervollkommnen. Wie aber das, was praktisch wirklich ist, theoretisch möglich ist, können wir nach Garve unmöglich erklären. 12  Garve 1772, 294–296.

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Kant über transzendentale Freiheit

Ob Kant Garves Anmerkungen zu Ferguson zeitnah oder doch zumindest vor 1781 gelesen hat, wissen wir nicht. Aber Kant bezieht sich in seinem Aufsatz „Über den Gemeinspruch“ von 1793 auf Garves Kommentare und seine CiceroÜbersetzung von 1783, die, wie wir wissen, er 1783 gelesen und ihn vielleicht auch zur Abfassung der Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten motiviert hat. Ob Kant Garves Position vor 1781 kannte, ist für unsere Thematik aber auch gar nicht so entscheidend. Entscheidend ist vielmehr, dass Garve ein Problem gesehen und deutlich formuliert hat, welches Kant mit seiner Lehre von der transzendentalen Freiheit im erweiterten Kontext der dritten Antinomie zu lösen versucht. Wie stellt sich aus der Perspektive seiner Kritik der reinen Vernunft das Problem der Vereinbarkeit von natürlicher Notwendigkeit und Freiheit dar? Damit es sich für Kant überhaupt als ein Problem darstellt, muss er die Voraussetzung von Garves Position teilen. Er muss auf der einen Seite nachweisen, dass die Verknüpfungen in der Welt eine natürliche Notwendigkeit aufweisen. Und er muss auf der anderen Seite begründen, warum wir einen Freiheitsbegriff benötigen, der nicht à la Wolff naturalisiert werden kann. Dass die Natur unter dem allgemeinen Kausalgesetz und insofern alles in ihr unter einer allgemeinen Naturnotwendigkeit steht, sollte nach kantischem Verständnis für den Leser der Kritik der reinen Vernunft spätestens nach der Lektüre des Grundsatzkapitels gewiss sein. Doch wie steht es mit der Freiheit? Innerhalb seiner kritischen Grundlegung einer Metaphysik der Natur und der Freiheit stehen Kant zunächst zwei ihm aus der bisherigen Philosophie vertraute Optionen für die Einführung und Rechtfertigung der Freiheit zur Verfügung. Die erste Option: Kant könnte die Freiheit mit dem Bewusstsein der Spontaneität identifizieren und behaupten, dass sie ebenso gewiss ist wie unser Bewusstsein der transzendentalen Apperzeption. Tatsächlich vertritt Kant diese Ansicht seit 1772/73 in seinen frühen Vorlesungen über Anthropologie und auch in der aus der Mitte der siebziger Jahre stammenden Metaphysik L1 (Pölitz).13 Doch gegen Ende dieses Jahrzehnts gibt Kant diese Auffassung mit guten Gründen auf. Sie hätte desaströse Folgen für seinen Begriff natürlicher Notwendigkeit. Eine der Kernaussagen von Kants Kritik besteht ja darin, dass die Natur kein Sollen enthält.14 Natur ist Natur und nicht auch noch etwas anderes, wie beispielsweise Wolff behauptet hatte. Wolff konnte Freiheit als natürliche Notwendigkeit interpretieren, weil seiner Ansicht nach die Natur 13  Siehe umfassend Klemme (1996, 38 ff.). 14  Siehe KrV A 547–548/B 575–576.

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immer auch eine normative, unmittelbar unser vernünftiges Wollen leitende Ordnung ist. Das natürliche Gesetz hat nach Wolff einen Doppelsinn: Es ist zugleich natur-physikalisches und moralisches Gesetz. Wolffs Auffassung redet dem Freiheitsverständnis von Garve und Kant zufolge jedoch dem Fatalismus das Wort. Kant setzt sich mit dieser Auffassung in seiner Rezension von Schulz’ Versuch einer Anleitung zur Sittenlehre von 1783 kritisch auseinander, einem Dokument des späten Wolffianismus.15 Wenden wir uns der zweiten Option zu, auf die Kant zurückgreifen könnte. Kant könnte wie Garve beim Bewusstsein unserer moralischen Verbindlich­ keit ansetzen und nach den Bedingungen fragen, unter denen diese Verbindlichkeit möglich ist. Und genau diese Strategie scheint Kant auch zu vertreten. Ohne Freiheit keine Verbindlichkeit, ohne Freiheit kein kategorischer Imperativ. Doch diese Antwort würde nicht über Garve hinausführen. Denn mit dem Hinweis darauf, dass unser Bewusstsein des moralischen Gesetzes, unserer Verbindlichkeit oder unsere Pflichten einen bestimmten Begriff von Freiheit impliziert, wäre das zentrale Problem nicht gelöst, wie denn Freiheit angesichts der natürlichen Notwendigkeit ihrerseits möglich ist. Die Lösung dieses Problems kann also nicht allein von der Seite der Moralphilosophie erfolgen. Sie muss von derjenigen Seite aus erfolgen, von der aus auch die Frage nach der Einheit unserer Erfahrung und der Einheit der Welt beantwortet worden ist. Und für sie steht die theoretische (die spekulative) Philosophie. Zu keinem Zeitpunkt seiner philosophischen Entwicklung nach 1781 ist Kant übrigens anderer Ansicht gewesen. Gelingt es uns auf dem Boden der theoretischen Philosophie nicht, die Vereinbarkeit von natürlicher Notwendigkeit und der auf Freiheit beruhenden moralischen Notwendigkeit nachzuweisen, dann scheitert die Lehre vom kategorischen Imperativ.16 Steht ein praktischer Satz in einem Widerspruch zu einem theoretischen Satz, dann muss der praktische Satz aufgegeben werden. Wenn in der theoretischen Philosophie nicht die Möglichkeit dieser Freiheit wider die Angriffe durch den Fatalismus aufgewiesen werden könnte, dann müssten wir die Freiheit und mit ihr die Verbindlichkeit des Moralgesetzes als chimärisch aufgeben. 15  Wären wir uns unserer Freiheit unmittelbar bewusst, drängt sich allerdings ein weitere Interpretation auf, die Kant jedoch nicht in Erwägung zieht: Natur könnte als Freiheitsordnung interpretiert werden, und zwar so, dass sie, anders als dies bei Wolff der Fall ist, den Mechanismus der natürlichen Notwendigkeit aufhebt. 16  Kant scheint das Verhältnis von transzendentaler und praktischer Freiheit nicht immer konsistent zu bestimmen (vgl. u.a. Schönecker 2005 und Milz 2014). Ein Grund hierfür mag auch darin liegen, dass er zum Zeitpunkt der Publikation der ersten Kritik noch nicht über die begrifflichen Mittel verfügt, jeden Anschein einer eudämonistischen Grundlegung seiner Ethik zu vermeiden.

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Was tun? Wie wir aus Kants Hinweisen zur eigenen philosophischen Entwicklung wissen17, hat er sich über einen langen Zeitraum mit der Frage beschäftigt, wie das antithetische Verhältnis von Naturkausalität und Kausalität aus Freiheit als ein bloß scheinbares ausgewiesen werden kann. Aber erst gegen Ende der siebziger Jahre scheint ihm klar geworden zu sein, dass es eine dritte Option gibt, die Lösung bringt. Kant erörtert das Problem aus der Perspektive der Kosmologie.18 Denn was könnte näher liegen, als im Rahmen einer dem Ursprung und der Einheit (oder Ganzheit) der Welt gewidmeten Untersuchung nach dem Ort zu fragen, den die Freiheit in ihr haben könnte. Betrachten wir die kausalen Verknüpfungen in der Welt und fragen nach den Ursachen der natürlichen Ursachen, begeben wir uns in einen Regress. Im Rahmen unserer Erfahrungen kann dieser Regress aber gerade nicht, wie Wolff meinte, durch den Aufweis einer ersten Ursache abgeschlossen werden. Aus der Erfahrungsperspektive betrachtet ist der Regress infinit. Die ganze Pointe gegenüber der Position Wolffs besteht nun darin, dass diese erste Ursache nach Kant nicht mit den Bordmitteln der empirischen Naturerkenntnis erkannt werden kann. Wir müssen eine Unterscheidung treffen, die Wolff so fremd ist wie dem Teufel die Barmherzigkeit: Die Unterscheidung zwischen Verstand und Vernunft. Es ist die Vernunft, nicht der Verstand, der nach der Einheit und dem Ganzen der Welt fragt und mittels dieser Frage zu der ersten Ursache bzw. dem Urheber der Welt geführt wird.19 Diese erste Ursache erklärt auf der einen Seite die Einheit und Ganzheitlichkeit der Welt. Sie erklärt, warum alles in der Natur unter einer hypothetischen Notwendigkeit steht. Auf der anderen Seite unterscheidet sich diese erste Ursache ihrem Wesen nach aber fundamental von allen anderen Ursachen, die wir in der Welt als Teil der natürlichen Notwendigkeit formlich erkennen können. Die Welt ist kein „Spiegel der Freiheit des göttlichen Willens“20, wie Wolff meinte, aber sie führt uns als Vernunftwesen auf einen Begriff der Ursächlichkeit, der aus unserer Erfahrung ein Ganzes macht, weil dieses Vernunftwesen ganz anders als alles ist, was wir als Teil des natürlichen Zusammenhangs der Dinge in der Welt förmlich erkennen können.

17  Übrigens aus einem Brief an Garve vom 21.09.1798. 18  In der Metaphysik L1 behandelt Kant die transzendentale Freiheit noch in der Rationalen Psychologie, wohingegen er sie in der aus dem Wintersemester 1782/83 stammenden Metaphysik-Mrongovius in der Kosmologie thematisiert. 19  Wie Wolff ist die erste Ursache der Welt bei Kant durch Urheberschaft, nicht durch bloße Ursächlichkeit zu erklären. 20  Wolff, Teleologie, § 11 („Eben die Zufälligkeit der Welt mach sie zu einem Spiegel der Freiheit des göttlichen Willens.“).

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Kant kennzeichnet diese erste Ursache mit dem Begriff der transzendentalen Freiheit. Er spricht von „Freiheit“, weil es eine Form von Spontaneität ist, die voraussetzungslos etwas bewirkt (und sich damit im Übrigen von der Spontaneität der transzendentalen Apperzeption unterscheidet, die nur tätig werden kann, wenn ihr etwas in Gestalt von Vorstellungen zum Denken gegeben wird). Und er spricht von „transzendental“, weil diese Freiheit die Bedingung der Möglichkeit der Wirklichkeit der Welt als eines Erfahrungsganzen darstellt. In einem zweiten Schritt überträgt Kant in der Thesis der dritten Antinomie diesen vom Begriff Gottes entkernten Begriff der transzendentalen Freiheit unvermittelt auf bestimmte Gegenstände in der Welt.21 Wir können uns Gegenstände in Raum und Zeit denken, die ihrerseits über transzendentale Freiheit verfügen und aufgrund dieser Eigenschaft gerade nicht unter den Bedingungen von Raum und Zeit stehen. Obwohl sie in ihren Wirkungen unter den Bedingungen der natürlichen Notwendigkeit stehen, verfügen diese Gegenstände (mit denen wir Menschen gemeint sind) über (wie wir heute sagen würden) Urheberkausalität, welche unabhängig von allen empirischen Bedingungen neue Kausalketten in der Natur bewirken kann. Transzendental ist also jede Form von unbedingter Ursächlichkeit, die einen Grund für die Wirklichkeit eines Bedingten darstellt. Mit seinem Begriff der transzendentalen Freiheit, so wie ihn Kant in der Thesis-Argumentation der dritten Antinomie zum Ausdruck bringt, hat er sicherlich noch keine Antwort auf die Vereinbarkeit von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit gegeben. Aber er hat im Rahmen der dritten Antinomie das philosophische Problem identifiziert und spezifiziert, um dessen Lösung es im Rahmen der Kritik der reinen Vernunft immer auch geht. Dieses Problem lautet: Wie ist der Begriff der Freiheit mit dem Begriff der natürlichen Notwendigkeit vereinbar? Kants Problem der Vereinbarkeit zielt dabei weniger auf die Frage nach der Vereinbarkeit von natürlicher Naturnotwendigkeit und erster Weltursache. Sein Interesse zielt auf die Vereinbarkeit der natürlichen Notwendigkeit mit einer Freiheit, die in der Welt wirksam wird, obwohl sie nicht unter ihren Gesetzen steht. Mit welchem Lehrbegriff Kant die dritte Antinomie auflöst, ist allgemein bekannt. Er nennt ihn „transzendentalen Idealismus“ (KrV A 491/B 519). Transzendentale Freiheit ist möglich, weil die Gegenstände unserer Erfahrung bloße Erscheinungen und nicht Dinge an sich selbst sind. Hierbei ist zu beachten, dass Kant einen zweifachen Möglichkeitsbegriff verwendet. Wie Freiheit selbst im Sinne der Modalitätskategorie der Möglichkeit möglich ist, werden wir niemals wissen können. Auf der Ebene 21  Siehe KrV A 450/B 478.

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dieses Möglichkeitsbegriffs hatte Garve ganz Recht: Es gibt keine Theorie, die uns die objektive Bedeutung von Begriffen erklären könnte, die der intelligiblen Welt angehören. Spricht Kant von der Möglichkeit der transzendentalen Freiheit in einem positiven Sinne, ist etwas anderes gemeint. Es ist gemeint, dass dieser Begriff der Freiheit nicht der Naturnotwendigkeit widerspricht. Würde der Freiheitsbegriff der Naturnotwendigkeit widersprechen – und er würde ihr widersprechen, wenn die Unterscheidung zwischen Ding an sich und Erscheinung falsch wäre („Freiheit wäre nicht zu retten“) – würde der Fatalismus im Bereich der Moralphilosophie triumphieren. Denn Garve hat Recht: Unsere moralischen Verbindlichkeiten erfordern einen Freiheitsbegriff, vermittels dessen wir uns als Urheber unserer Handlungen verstehen können. Wir benötigen einen „eigenen Willen“ (AA 4:448), wie Kant in der Grundlegung betont, weil wir uns ohne ihn keine Handlungen zurechnen könnten. Soll praktische Freiheit mehr bedeuten als die „Freiheit eines Bratenwenders“ (AA 5:97), dann setzt sie transzendentale Freiheit voraus. Sie setzt unsere Freiheit voraus, nach den Vorstellungen von Prinzipien handeln zu können, von denen wir zwar insofern abhängig sind, als wir ohne sie keinen Grund hätten, uns überhaupt in bestimmter Weise zu Handeln zu bestimmen. So wie es kein „Ich denke“ ohne gegebene Vorstellungen geben kann, können wir ohne die Vorstellung von Prinzipien, die aus reiner Vernunft oder Erfahrung stammen, auch nichts wollen. Dass wir aber dem einen und nicht dem anderen Prinzip im Vollzug unseres Wollens folgen, ist Ausdruck unserer transzendentalen Freiheit. In einem Satz formuliert: Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Vereinbarkeit von Freiheit und natürlichen Notwendigkeit liegt im Bereich einer Thematik, die Wolff im Ausgang von einer kosmologischen Fragestellung verhandelt hat: Was ist der Grund oder die Ursache der Wirklichkeit der Welt und aller Verknüpfungen in ihr? Kants Rekonstruktion dieser Problemstellung in der dritten Antinomie und ihrer Auflösung im Rahmen des transzendentalen Idealismus sichert seiner Auffassung nach die Freiheit vor allen Angriffen, die aus der Perspektive des Fatalismus (und damit der theoretischen Philosophie) auf sie ausgeübt werden könnten. Es ist unmöglich, die Unmöglichkeit einer Kausalität aus Freiheit zu beweisen. Das ist der entscheidende Gedanke, den Kant unermüdlich in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in der Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten und in der Kritik der praktischen Vernunft anführt: Obwohl und weil wir die Idee der Freiheit nicht durch Erfahrung beweisen können, müssen und können wir sie „verteidigen“22. Mit dem in diesem Sinne möglichen Begriff der transzendentalen Freiheit ist immer noch nicht viel 22  V 48; vgl. IV 459 und KrV A 776–777/B 804–805.

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gewonnen. Wir müssen auch einen Anlass haben, uns selbst als Wesen zu denken, die über das Vermögen transzendentaler Freiheit verfügen. Was könnte der Grund sein, dass wir uns dieses Vermögen kausaler Urheberschaft zuschreiben? Nichts anderes als unser Anspruch, Autor unserer Handlungen zu sein (1785) oder das Bewusstsein unserer moralischen Verbindlichkeit (1787/88). Literatur Ferguson, Adam (1772), Grundsätze der Moralphilosophie. Uebersetzt und mit einigen Anmerkungen versehen von Christian Garve, Leipzig: Dyck 1772. [ND: Bristol u.a. 2000 (= Heiner F. Klemme (Hg.), Reception of the Scottish Enlightenment in Germany. Six significant Translations 1755–1782, Bd 6)] Garve, Christian. 1772. „Anmerkungen des Uebersetzers“, in: Ferguson S. 285–420. Kant, Immanuel 1998.: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hrsg. von Jens Timmermann. Hamburg. Kant, Immanuel. 1900sq. Gesammelte Schriften. Edited Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften et al. Berlin. (Sigle AA) Kawamura, Katsutoshi. 1996. Spontaneität und Willkür. Der Freiheitsbegriff in Kants Antinomielehre und seine historischen Wurzeln. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Klemme, Heiner F. 1996. Kants Philosophie des Subjekts. Systematische und entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Verhältnis von Selbstbewußtsein und Selbsterkenntnis. Hamburg. Klemme, Heiner F. 2013. „Kants Erörterung der „libertas indifferentiae“ in der Metaphysik der Sitten und ihre philosophische Bedeutung“, in: Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus / International Yearbook of German Idealism, 9, Jahrgang 2011, hrsg. von Fred Rush und Jürgen Stolzenberg, Berlin, S. 22–50. Klemme, Heiner F. 2014. „Freiheit oder Fatalismus? Kants positive und negative Deduktion der Idee der Freiheit in der Grundlegung (und seine Kritik an Christian Garves Antithetik von Freiheit und Notwendigkeit)“, in: Deduktion oder Faktum? Kants Rechtfertigung des Sittengesetzes im dritten Abschnitt der „Grundlegung“, hrsg. von Heiko Puls, Berlin, Boston, S. 61–103. Klemme, Heiner F. 2015. „ ‚als ob er frei wäre‘. Kants Rezension von Johann Heinrich Schulz‘ Versuch einer Anleitung zur Sittenlehre für alle Menschen“, in: Crítica y Metafísica. Homenaje a Mario Caimi, ed. Claudia Jáuregui et al., Hildesheim, Zürich, New York, S. 200–211. Klemme, Heiner F. und Kuehn, Manfred (Hrsg.) 2016. The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth Century German Philosophers, London, New York. Milz, Bernhard. 2014. ‚Kants Deduktion des kategorischen Imperativs in entwicklungsgeschichtlicher Perspektive‘. Kants Rechtfertigung des Sittengesetzes in

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Grundlegung III. Deduktion oder Faktum? Hrsg. von Heiko Puls. Berlin, München, Boston, S. 133–165. Schönecker, Dieter. 2005. Kants Begriff transzendentaler und praktischer Freiheit. Berlin, New York. Wolff, Christian (1724), Vernünfftige Gedanken von den Absichten der natürlichen Dinge, Frankfurt u. Leipzig, 3. Auflage 1737 [ND: Hildesheim u.a. 1980 (= Gesammelte Werke, Abt. I, Bd 7)]. Wolff, Christian (1733), Vernünfftige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen, zu Beförderung ihrer Glückseeligkeit. Den Liebhabern der Wahrheit mitgetheilet (= ‚Deutsche Ethik‘, 1720). Die vierdte Auflage hin und wieder vermehret, Frankfurt u. Leipzig 1733. [ND: Hildesheim u.a. 1976 (= Gesammelte Werke, Abt. I., Bd 4)]. Wolff, Christian (1751), Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, Der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, Auch allen Dingen überhaupt. Den Liebhabern der Wahrheit mitgetheilet (= Deutsche Metaphysik, 1720), Neue Auflage hin und wieder vermehret, Halle: Renger 1751. [ND: Hildesheim u.a. 1983 (= Gesammelte Werke, Abt. I, Bd 2)].

Chapter 7

Kant on “Practical Freedom” and Its Transcendental Possibility Stephan Zimmermann

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Especially in his lectures, I. Kant distinguishes on a first conceptual level of differentiation between two forms of freedom, that of the will and that of action. One, the freedom of action, shall show itself in the external. It is defined by the absence of obstacles of any kind that may affect the performance of an action. According to this conception of freedom, it is our behavior in the spatial world of the corporeal which is to be called free, namely insofar as, and to the extent that, it is not inhibited. Thereby the feature of being unhindered deliberately remains so broad that it covers everything which can curtail the execution of the will in an action. The resistance may be a social one and consist in the activity of other people who oppose me, or a natural one as chemical, physical, biological or similar circumstances make my plans difficult or completely impossible. In the lecture Metaphysics L1 according to Pölitz, which from all that we know dates at the earliest to the winter semester 1775/76 and at the latest to that of the year 1779/80,1 Kant calls this sort of freedom altogether the “physical” one (L-Met-L1/Pölitz, 28: 257). He illustrates it with reference to the ancient philosopher Epictetus, an influential representative of the late Stoa: “Practical freedom, or the freedom of the person, must be distinguished from physical freedom, or from the freedom of one’s state. Personal freedom can remain, even when physical freedom is missing, as e.g., with Epictetus.” For tradition has it that Epictetus had a lame leg, for which, depending on the source one uses, a disease in his childhood or the maltreatment by his master during the time as a slave is responsible, but which he is said to have, of course, endured with proverbial stoic serenity.2

1  For dating, see the groundbreaking study Heinze 1894, 516 f. 2  T. Hobbes operates with this concept of freedom. The physics, which his rigorous systemic thinking understands as the application of mathematical laws to the motions of bodies, in

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Of course, such a libertas agendi does not constitute the beginning of Kant’s reflections in the field of moral philosophy, neither before nor after the critical turn, which is marked by the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. He does, however, by no means deny the fundamental legitimacy of its concept. This is already to be seen in that it is very well to be found at a later, derivative place, namely in the system of all moral duties as developed by the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). For it is part of Kant’s concept of law and the “authorization to use coercion” contained in it, i.e. the “hindering of a hindrance to freedom” (MSDR, 6: 231), which refers to the freedom of acting and not of willing. In the founding of ethics, the other type of freedom, the freedom of the will, is instead the primary and the actual, which Kant’s effort is directed at. It shall, by contrast, have its domain in the internal and, whatever else may be said of it, concern the preparation of an action. According to this conception of freedom, it is our behavior in the temporal world of the mental, which is to be characterized as free in a manner to be specified in more detail, the formation of our will to an action. Such a libertas volendi includes by no means, as Kant remarks in the cited passage from the Metaphysics L1 and the example of Epictetus is meant to teach, that the social and natural conditions are such that we can realize what we intend. The one is relatively independent of the other. Even if a man’s freedom of action may be limited, this does not need to have any consequences for his freedom of will: “Personal freedom can remain, even when physical freedom is missing, as e.g., with Epictetus.” Somebody lying caught in chains, cannot do many things;3 but no prison keeps him from making resolutions and bringing himself to rise up to make plans that are close to the situation or bear on the rest of his life. Kant therefore considers the freedom of willing to be compatible with a considerable degree of external unfreedom. That is because internal freedom begins earlier than the freedom of acting. To intend something is one thing, to realize it is something else, and the former precedes the latter insofar as it is its enabling condition: no corporeal performance of an action without its corresponding mental preparation, no execution of the will in an action without its prior formation to that action.4

its own application to anthropology for its part leads to the idea that man is a body inter alia and that his freedom consists in the “absence of externall Impediments.” (Hobbes 1651, 64). 3  So the drastic words of J.-J. Rousseaus’ famous opening passage in the Contract social (1762). Cf. CS, 351. 4  Kant takes intentional states of consciousness in the way which, according to W. V. O. Quine, P. M. Churchland and D. Dennett, is ultimately groundless, although it permeates our everyday psychology, and remains purely metaphorical, namely that these states stand behind our

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Yet, freedom of will is not the same as freedom of will. It shows several faces in Kant. For on a second level of conceptual differentiation, we have to say, he distinguishes again between two forms of freedom. This is now, on closer inspection, a differentiation within the meaning the freedom of the will can have. With one of these subspecies, I will be concerned in what follows. It should be noted in this context that Kant conceives of the human will as a causal faculty, which is not without consequences for any freedom that is to be associated with it.5 This does not only apply to the first-mentioned freedom of action; Kant repeatedly declares the will as the capacity of an intelligent being, as man is, to be the cause of the existence of objects as effects through his representations of these very objects.6 But this also applies to both of the varieties of freedom of the will just mentioned. The will probably exercises itself as one of many causes in nature and thus initiates subsequent effects, insofar as no counterforce prevents it from doing so. According to Kant, however, it also and even earlier determines itself in a causal way. For the will is never a groundless striving beyond any causality; it is always as the effect of a presupposed condition that it commits itself to an object, whatever the conditional presupposition may precisely be by which this is caused.7 And since Kant grasps both the relation of our will to that which results from its realization as well as the relation of our will to that which precedes its formation in terms of causality, i.e. of effective cause to caused effect, his talk of the freedom of willing as well as of the freedom of acting consequently provokes at least two questions that demand an answer. On the one hand, that is the question for the whereof of freedom and, on the other hand, its whereto. For due to their causal conceptualization, freedom of willing like freedom of acting for Kant always means the freedom of something. Being free in its negative sense means as much as not being indebted by something other, as being causally independent; in the course of its formation and exercise, the will is deprived of the influence of certain events. And freedom of the will like freedom of action always means the freedom to something. This is the positive sense that what is free in turn incurs other things, i.e. is causally effective. The will is by no means inactive, on the contrary, it is indeed actions, triggering, accompanying and directing them. Cf. Quine 1960, 221; Churchland 1981; Dennett 1971; Dennett 1991. 5  This is already stated by M. Heidegger in his lecture of the summer semester 1930. Cf. Heidegger 1982, 29 ff. 6  For Kant’s causal explanation of the human will in regard of that which results from it, see CPR, B IX f.; GMM, 4: 446, 449, 453; CPrR, 5: 9 fn., 15, 32, 55, 89; MSDR, 6: 211; CJ, 5: 219 f. 7  For Kant’s causal explanation of the human will in regard of that which precedes it, see Horn 2002, 46 f.

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able to have an impact by directing itself towards its own course of events and triggering it subsequently. It is hence a double causality of the human will, which, according to Kant, is afforded freedom, and that in two ways, both in regard to that which the causality of the will is free of and which it is free to. In other words, Kant does not know a merely negative or a merely positive freedom, as some interpreters mistakenly assume. Correctly understood, the distinction between a whereof and a whereto of freedom, although made verbally by us, but nonetheless reflecting Kant’s fundamentally causalistic thinking of freedom, is always a distinction of moments of one and the very same freedom. These are always two aspects that can be separated conceptually, but occur only jointly and make up the entire freedom of action or the respective freedom of the will only together: namely that the thing in question is on the one hand not caused by something and on the other hand effects something for its part.

2

The first sub-form of freedom of the will, which comes to the mind of the knowledgeable Kant reader, is undoubtedly the one, which Kant famously and notoriously introduces into the philosophical discourse for the first time under the title of transcendental freedom and which he puts in place as the foundation of moral philosophy. It stems from the thinking circle of cosmology in the first Critique, more precisely from the resolution of the third antinomy in the “Transcendental Dialectic.”8 The third antinomy essentially consists in the following contradiction. According to Kant, it is an unavoidable dialectic into which the human intellect runs, when, on the one hand, on the standpoint of the understanding it rightly assumes that, according to the pure concept of the understanding or category of causality, the series of events in nature are necessarily experienced as continuous, while, on the other hand, on the standpoint of reason it asserts with the same justification that, according to the pure concept of reason or the idea of the ​​ world, a not further reducible first cause of those series of events in nature is no less necessary to be thought of. Freedom, understood in this way as a conceptual feature of the idea of the world, is a strong, metaphysical concept. In contrast to every causation of a natural process itself effected, it means the uncaused beginning of all natural chains of effect, which, due to 8  See Heimsoeth 1966; Watkins 1998.

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their unitary point of reference for our experiencing, combine themselves to a widely spread whole, a totality.9 As soon as the space has been opened up to think such a freedom in the theoretical field of cosmology by exposing that dialectic as merely illusory, it can, according to Kant, on trial be drawn into the practical sphere of moral philosophy.10 It then has to be tested whether freedom in sensu transcendentali may also be attributed to the causal faculty of man as which Kant sees the will. This is the task, which is afterwards given with priority to the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and then again to the Critique of Practical Reason (1788). In question are, as Kant technically expresses himself in “Chapter One” of the Critique, the “determining grounds”11 (rationes determinans) of our practical faculty. These are the conditions on which the determination of the will to an object is based and from which the determination emerges as an effect. Is man’s will, as Kant already distinguishes in the Critique of Pure Reason, determinable to an object only under the empirical presupposition of a feeling of pleasure or displeasure, which as a fact of experience is subordinate to a “causality in accordance with laws of nature” (CPR, B 472)? Or does the will likewise determine itself to an object under the intelligible presupposition of a moral law, which as a thought-entity sets a “causality through freedom” in motion?12 To have displayed that the practical faculty of man indeed exhibits such a freedom, is Kant’s claim, which is groundbreaking for everything else in the field of moral philosophy. The human will is thus free in an incompatibilistic sense of freedom. Compatibilism and incompatibilism are views of the relation between the freedom of the will and the determinism of nature. The question, however, whether they are compatible with each other is ambiguous. One has to differentiate here, for it enquires after something else, depending on how the relevant ‘with’ is understood: ‘compatible with’ can either mean that freedom is possible in nature or that it is possible outside of it. Kant’s concept of the transcendental freedom of the will is incompatibilistic in the first, but compatibilistic in the second sense. Such freedom does not take place within the 9   “By freedom in the cosmological sense, on the contrary, I understand the faculty of beginning a state from itself, the causality of which does not in turn stand under another cause determining it in time in accordance with the law of nature.” (CPR, B 561). 10  Cf. CPR, B 478. 11  Cf. CPrR, 5: 15, 19. See already GMM, 4: 401, 460 fn., 462. 12  The distinction of German school philosophy between a lower and a higher faculty of desire (appetitivus sensitivus vs. rationalis) hence transforms from a difference of the “representations” by which human desire is determined, whether they “have their origin in the senses or the understanding”, to a difference of the “determining grounds of desire” (CPrR, 5: 23). Cf. Baum 2006, 136.

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sensible order of things to which we always count as sensible beings. Rather, it lifts us out of it—this is Kant’s higly controversial assertion—and allows us to share in another, an “intelligible order of things” (CPrR, 5: 42) to which we belong as rational beings.13 What is moral duty for us, is thought by Kant from that, which is not peculiar to man but which is one and the same in each of us. What we are seeing here is the idea of a cosmic order of reason superior to our sensible inclinations.14 Kant takes the imperatives the human praxis is subordinate to not from the facticity of historically established morals, which have been passed on as well as transformed by socialization and education. But he gains them transfactually: by going beyond and back to the “enduring” (CPrR, 5: 44) order, which shall characterize the activities of merely rational subjects.15 Such beings possess no sensible side and have no deviant inclinations. Their willing is sufficient for their acting and both is lawful. The laws in question, which are “independent of any empirical condition” and lie in the structure of pure rational subjectivity, are synonymously called ‘practical’ or ‘moral’ laws by Kant. And man participates in this cosmos of practical lawfullness insofar as he is likewise a rational, though at the same time sensible being. The laws, which are effective there, indicate how his action (as well as that of any other sensiblerational subject) would turn out to be if reason had exclusive control over its will. Instead, they prescribe to him or forbid what he, in spite of all the temptations of his sensibility, should do or refrain from doing.16 The question concerning the two moments of this sort of freedom of the will, its negative whereof and its positive whereto, is therefore to be answered as follows. What the will is free of, are the chains of events in the sensible nature; concerning its determining ground, our will is supposed to exhibit an independence from all phenomena in space and time that could give him direction. And what the will is free to, is its determination according to the “suprasensible nature” (CPrR, 5: 43); our will is supposed to be able to instead measure up in its formation to the laws of that non-phenomenal, non-spatial 13  In the third section of the Groundwork, Kant speaks of a “world of understanding” (GMM, 4: 452) and an “intelligible world” (GMM, 4: 454). Already in the “Canon“ of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant speaks of “an intelligible“, i.e. “moral world, in the concept of which we have abstracted from all hindrances to morality” (CPR, B 837). Cf. Wood 1984. 14  So with regard to Kant’s argumentation in the third section of the Groundwork Schönecker 1999, 379. 15  A “higher, unchangeable order of things” (CPrR, 5: 107), as it is called in the Critique of Practical Reason. 16  Practical laws prescribe nothing to mere intelligences, which for Kant include angels and God Himself, and they forbid nothing. They thus do not take an imperative form for them, because mere intelligences cannot help but follow them. Cf. CPrR, 5: 32; GMM, 4: 389.

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and non-temporal realm of reason, which are inscribed in the essential constitution of every rational subject, i.e. to lawfull self-determination. The strong, metaphysical concept of the freedom of our causal faculty means a plainly first impulse of the willing, which is not reducible to any changeable factors such as individual lifestyle or social culture—no matter how we subsequently deal with it and whether we take account for it in our acting.17

3

This variant of the freedom of the human will is undisputedly Kant’s main concern in moral philosophy. It is nothing less than that, which the word of the autonomy of the will addresses since the Groundwork. By comparison, Kant’s approach to other forms of free will, which are likewise found in his works, understandably has a restrained style. Just think of the mocking tone with which he declares in the Critique of Practical Reason that the freedom of our will was comparable to the “freedom of a turnspit,” if it was none other than that, which he there calls the “psychological and comparative” one and which he delimits against the “transcendental, i.e., absolute, freedom” (CPrR, 5: 97). For the turnspit—a mechanically operated rotisserie with whose help the attached roast turns over the fire from one side to the other—“once it has been wound up, also performs its motions on its own.” It cannot take up its activity by itself, but requires a foreign push. However this may be interpreted in detail, one must at least be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. For Kant notably does not deny with a single word, neither here nor elsewhere, that man’s will possesses such a psychological and comparative freedom. What Kant denies, and in fact resolutely so, is only that the concept of this freedom of the will is suitable for the foundation of moral philosophy—as the empiricists assume and as Kant himself assumed in his habilitation Nova dilucidatio from 1755.18 To do so, as he now thinks, is only a “wretched subterfuge” by which “[s]ome still let themselves be put off” (CPrR, 5: 96). But instead of rejecting it lock, stock and barrel, the mature Kant points it to the second row. He surpasses it with the concept of the transcendental and absolute freedom of the human will, the “freedom

17  “That independence, however, is freedom in the negative meaning, whereas this legislation—pure and, as such, practical reason’s own legislation—is freedom in the positive meaning.” (CPrR, 5: 33) Cf. GMM, 4: 446. 18  For Kant’s understanding of freedom in the Nova dilucidatio see Milz 2005, 137 ff.

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of the person,” as it is called in Metaphysics L1, which is supposed to be solely capable of bringing philosophical ethics into its possibility. Another passage in the second Critique, admittedly an inconspicuous one, affirms this. At the beginning of “Chapter Two,” where Kant in the first of two subchapters, namely “On the Concept of an Object of Pure Practical Reason,” deals with both the concepts of good and evil as well as the newly introduced so-called categories of freedom, which are not yet found in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, he begins by stipulating: “By a concept [of an object]19 of practical reason I mean the representation of an object as an effect possible through freedom.” (CPrR, 5: 57) Here it is not, that must be emphasized emphatically, about pure practical reason, but initially about practical reason as such. Only then does the focus narrow to the “object of pure practical reason,” whereby “pure” is set in spaced letters in the original and thereby highlighted by Kant.20 The freedom Kant speaks of can accordingly not be the transcendental and absolute one. For it adheres only to the will determined by pure practical reason, i.e. under the condition of a moral law. But it must be another type of freedom, certainly a psychological and comparative one, which Kant evidently no less associates with the will that is formed by empirical practical reason, i.e. under the condition of a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Hence, according to the passage quoted, every concept of an object of the human will is the “representation of an ​​ object as an effect possible through freedom.” Reason in its entire practical use seems to possess a certain freedom, not only pure practical reason, but also empirical practical reason. The adjective ‘free’, however this may be interpreted in particular, does not seem to add anything new to the noun ‘will’. Man never acts differently than per libertatem: his practical faculty is understood by Kant as a will that is free by its very nature. Kant at least indicates what that means. For he continues: “Therefore, to be an object of a practical cognition, as such, signifies only the reference of the will to the action through which the object or its opposite would be made actual [my emph.].” Unfortunately, Kant does not say more about this. But the thought, after all, seems to be that the freedom in question, which Kant attributes to the essence of the human causal faculty, rests on the fact that the respective subject of the will is able to realize some “object or its opposite.” The accent is on the “or”: to will something means to be able to act one way or the other under given circumstances. Such an alternativity of action is part 19  I take over the conjecture of the Academy edition, which, not least, takes into account the headline of the chapter. 20  That is overlooked by Pieper 2002, 115.

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of Kant’s concept of the will at the time of writing and publishing the Critique of Practical Reason. And not only there. One can still read, for example, in the work about Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason from 1793 almost incidentally, that “the action, as well as its contrary, must be in the control of the subject at the moment of its happening” (RGV, 6: 49 f. fn.). For Kant, actions that deserve this name move in a sphere of contingency. According to the classical definition of Aristotle, contingent is “what could be different [ὃ ἐνδέχεται ἄλλως ἔχειν].”21 In Kant as well as in Aristotle, human praxis is neither governed by stubborn necessity nor surrendered to random arbitrariness. Rather, it defines an area in which things do not have to be as they are, yet cannot vary unrestrictedly, but may well happen differently as a matter of principle: action means the practical positing of determinacy in the horizon of an at least certain ability to do otherwise.22 This is a form of freedom of our practical faculty for Kant. In his opinion, man’s will is free qua talis, i.e. that “the action, as well as its contrary,” is “in the control of the subject at the moment of its happening.” It is, however, important to be clearly aware that this does not mean that the performance of an action is not affected by any external physical impediments. The freedom, which is Kant’s concern here, is no freedom of action. Instead, it concerns the internal, mental preparation of an action. We are dealing with a concept of the freedom of the will that begins earlier. What Kant wants to say is that willing an action always also means being able to decide upon the action in question or its opposite, no matter whether the given circumstances allow for a subsequent implementation of that decision, the subject has taken between different determinations of his will.23

4

This can already be found in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the “Canon of Pure Reason,” Kant explains in a frequently quoted passage: “Everything is practical that is possible through freedom.” (CPR, A 800/B 828) It is noticeable that this 21   Eth. Nic., 1139a8. 22  Here I make use of a formulation by R. Bubner, which he, however, does not use with a view to Kant’s philosopy. Cf. Bubner 1984, 122. 23  The German Federal Court of Justice understands freedom similarly as alternativity. According to a principle-establishing judgment from 1952, “the condemnation of guilt” accuses a perpetrator for “having decided in favour of the wrong, even though he could have behaved lawfully, could have chosen the right. [my transl.]” (Roxin 31997, 732).

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is already in 1781, the same wording in the first edition of the Critique as later in the Critique of Practical Reason. And Kant immediately goes on by saying: “But if the conditions for the exercise of our free choice [ freien Willkür] are empirical …” Again, this does not aim at the pure, sensibly unconditioned will. Instead, as Kant explicitly points out, we move on the terrain of “prudence;” he speaks of “ends that are given to us by our inclinations,” of “happiness,” the “means for attaining that end,” and that it is the “business of reason” to devise these means and to prescribe “pragmatic laws of free conduct for reaching the ends recommended to us by the senses.” In other words, a certain kind of freedom also and no less belongs to the empirical, sensibly conditioned will. This becomes completely clear afterwards. For Kant comments his further procedure with the remark that he “will use the concept of freedom only in a practical sense” and “set aside … the transcendental signification of the concept” (CPR, B 829 f.). The human will was free in the “practical sense” even if it was not free in the “transcendental signification of the concept.” The one shall be independent from the other. For that reason, practical freedom does not inherently fall within the competence of the philosophia practica moralis, which Kant thoroughly elaborates on in his works, but into that of the philosophia practica universalis, which he largely presumes without much ado.24 Whatever practical freedom may mean in detail, in the “Canon,” as later in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant at any rate recognizes it as an integral moment of our will, thereby attesting its truly all-practical range: the will of an intelligent being is free sua natura, not free in the “transcendental signification of the concept,” but in the “practical sense.” “Practical freedom can be proved,” as Kant unanimously asserts, “through experience” (CPR, B 830). Each one of us shall be able to basically perceive it in his own as well as in the action of third parties and not just to postulate it as in the case of transcendental freedom, which contains “nothing,” as it is said in the “Dialectic,” “borrowed from experience” and “the object of which also cannot be given determinately in any experience” (CPR, B 561). It does not have its place beyond the sensible order of things in a purely intelligible cosmos of reason, but is an empirical freedom. To put it differently, Kant speaks here in favor of an understanding of freedom of the will, according to which man’s will is essentially free in a definitely compatibilistic sense. That freedom is compatible with the determinism of nature, however, now means that it occurs in the midst of its continuously ongoing causal connection. “We thus cognize,” so Kant once again in the “Canon,” “practical freedom through experience, as one of the natural causes” (CPR, B 831). 24  Cf. MSDR, 6: 221 ff.

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In the course of the resolution of the third antinomy, i.e. within the “Transcendental Dialectic,” Kant has likewise already distinguished between the two above-mentioned conceptions of freedom of will: freedom in the “cosmological” (CPR, B 561) or “transcendental sense” (CPR, B 473) on the one hand and freedom “in the practical sense” (CPR, B 562) on the other. Delicate about this distinction seems to be at first sight that in the “Dialectic” it turns out differently than in the “Canon,” which has given rise to various explanation attempts until today.25 The presumed discrepancy does not touch what Kant writes about transcendental freedom, but rather exists between his two discussions of practical freedom. For while the “Canon” separates the practical concept of freedom from the transcendental one, as we have seen, the “Dialectic” states that the former contains the latter as a property: “It is especially noteworthy,” Kant writes there, “that it is this transcendental idea of freedom on which the practical concept of freedom is grounded, and the former constitutes the real moment of the difficulties in the latter” (CPR, B 561). Yet, the seeming contradiction is none. Already F. W. J. Schelling has pointed out that the problem of free will remains ambiguous in Kant’s language.26 Kant does not fluctuate indecisively between different ideas about the freedom of our practical faculty, just as little as he opts at times for this and at other times for that. Schelling rightly diagnoses a homonymy that Kant has never quite eliminated in his talk of the freedom of human will: “Dialectic” and “Canon” of the first Critique simply treat different things under an identical name.27 What Kant apostrophizes as ‘practical freedom’ is at one time, namely in the “Canon,” that freedom, which is characteristic of the general concept of the will as such, i.e. the alternativity of its realization, at the other time, namely in the “Dialectic,” that freedom, which in particular establishes the concept of the moral will, i.e. the autonomy of its determination.28 What does, according to the “Canon,” the said freedom “in the practical sense” consist in? Which does not constitute a form of freedom in the “cosmological” or “transcendental sense,” but shall, in contrast, be independent? Kant characterizes the faculty of desire (Begehrungsvermögen) of finite beings as arbitrium sensitivum, for it is conditioned by impulses of sensibility. But depending on 25  A detailed overview of the respective literature can be found in Schönecker 2005, 5 ff. 26  Cf. SW, I/1: 435. 27  That there is an ambiguity in the expression ‘practical freedom‘, is also seen by Baumann 2000, 140 ff.; Hutter 2003, 137 ff. 28  Cf. Aune 1979, 92 f.; Sidgwick 1888. L. W. Beck documents even five different concepts of freedom in Kant’s works. These concepts partially overlap, presuppose each other or are incompatible with each other. For some of them, so Beck, the name is variable, for some Kant even has no name. Cf. Beck 1987.

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what kind of conditional relation it is, the faculty of desire is either merely affected or necessitated. The latter is said to be the case with beings who are not endowed with reason and is with the vocabulary of the German school philosophy called “arbitrium brutum”: “A faculty of choice [Willkür], that is, is merely animal (arbitrium brutum) which cannot be determined other than through sensible impulses, i.e., pathologically.” (CPR, B 830) The former is called “arbitrium liberum” and is said to be the case with beings who are endowed with reason: “However, one which can be determined independently of sensory impulses, thus through motives that can only be represented by reason, is called free choice [ freie Willkür] (arbitrium liberum).”29 While the stronger of the sensible impulses in each case inevitably compels the animal to a corresponding behavior and makes all others withdraw, the mere presence of such an impulse does not unavoidably force man to an action. For, and this is the decisive point Kant advances, human “reason,” he thinks, can normally intervene and “overcome impressions on our sensory faculty of desire with representations of that, which is useful or injurious even in a more remote way.” On grounds of “prudence,” it can defere, divert or refuse the realization of the will, however the will is formed. The experience, which everyone is supposed to be able to make through himself or others, insofar as he is only a rational, though at the same time sensible being, is that human praxis is based on an affection of our causal faculty, but never on a necessitation. Unlike the will of mere intelligences (which have no sensibility) and the desire of irrational animals (who have no reason), in the case of man (who possesses both sensibility and reason), the presence of an intention is a necessary, however not a sufficient internal preparation for the external performance of the corresponding action.

5

Now, the phrase “practical freedom” is to be found long before the Critique of Pure Reason, in the pre-critical phase of Kant’s thinking. Some lecture notes from the 1770s may prove that.

29  In the concept of the will, man’s intellect and faculty of desire are sublated as moments. According to Kant, the will is the faculty of desire insofar as it is determined by reason: it is a “faculty of desire in accordance with concepts” (MSDR, 6: 213). The intellect conceptually represents the object of desire, what is not afforded to the ability to animals. Cf. GMM, 4: 427, 446, 459; CPrR, 5: 32, 89; CJ, 5: 172, 210. For this, see Höffe 2002, 5; Sala 2004, 82.

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In the lecture Metaphysics L1, for example, already mentioned at the beginning, handed down by Pölitz, Kant divides the human faculty of desire in the diction of scholastic school philosophy into a lower and a higher one. In both cases, however, the Willkür, as we read there, is supposed to be free: the “arbitrium human is liberum, it may be sensitivum or intellectuale” (L-Met-L1/Pölitz, 28: 255). This freedom stands, as it were, crosswise to the difference between lower (“sensitivum”) and higher (“intellectuale”) faculty of desire. The human faculty of desire is as such free. And again, it is reason, which is responsible for that. “A human being thus,” writes Kant at first, “has a power of free choice [eine freie Willkühr]; and everything that arises from his power of choice [Willkühr] arises from a power of free choice [einer freien Willkühr].” The exceptions that Kant then enumerates are hereby interesting. Thus, only in some cases does man have no power of free choice as “e.g., in the most tender childhood, or when he is insane, and in the deep sadness, which is however also a kind of insanity.” All these examples accord with each other in that they consist of states of a certain mental powerlessness. It can therefore be concluded e contrario that the freedom of the Willkür (“arbitrium”), whether determined by sensible or rational representations, correlates with the power of the human intellect: to the extent that the latter is able to contribute (again) to and influence the will, however that may be formed, the former is free. And Kant places the concept of this kind of freedom in the responsibility of empirical psychology. The freedom of the Willkür, which, as he notes, is “defined psychologically or practically,” consists in being independent of the coercion by sensible impulses. The human power of choice, unlike that of animals, is “affected or impelled by the stimuli,” but not “necessitated.” Transcendental freedom, on the contrary, means an independence from any and all sensible impulses. Man’s Willkür is “not necessitated or impelled at all by any stimuli.” And while the first form of freedom is cognized through experience, our knowledge of the second comes from a priori concepts: “This practical freedom rests on independentia arbitrii a necessitatione per stimulos. That freedom, however, which is wholly independent of all stimulis, is transcendental freedom, which will be spoken of in the psychologia rationali.” (L-Met-L1/Pölitz, 28: 257)30 Among other lecture notes is also A Lecture of Kant on Ethics, edited by P. Menzer, which Menzer dates quite similarly to a few years before 1781.31 In terms of freedom, this lecture is in accord with the first Critique and the Metaphysics L1, albeit with the peculiarity that Kant’s discussion of human freedom is completely exhausted here in the concept of practical freedom and 30  Cf. Allison 1995, 59. 31  Cf. Kant 1924, 322–328; Menzer 1899.

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manages without any reference to the concept of transcendental freedom.32 In the same manner Kant notes: “The human will [Willkür] is an arbitrium liberum in that it is not determined [necessitiert] by stimuli, but the animal will [Willkür] is an arbitrium brutum and not liberum because it can be determined [necessitiert] per stimulos.”33. As an example of the latter, Kant mentions a dog; the dog must eat when hunger pushes him. By contrast, a human cannot be forced into a certain behavior even through great torment that is inflicted on him. He can stand the torture and refuse the expected action. More precisely, he can be only compelled “comparative,” but not “stricte”; he always has to decide to act.34 And in this lecture, what is revealing to us, Kant unambiguously states the full extent of the freedom in question. The human will, he remarks, is free, because the conditions to which he owes its determination are always “grounds of reason [Bewegungsgründe der Vernunft]”35. The libertas practica keeps pace with the practical use of our intellect. But Kant here mentions not only grounds of reason (“motiva”) that are “pragmatica,” but also those that are “moralia.”36 Besides the instrumentally calculating reason of prudence, Kant provides the lawfully deliberating reason of morality. From here, his statements in the Critique of Pure Reason and Metaphysics L1 can be completed. For in substance this also and still applies very well to Kant’s thinking after the critical turn that the human intellect can postpone, redirect or completely suppress the realization of the will not only out of considerations of prudence but also of morality: regardless of how the moral is conceptualized here in A Lecture of Kant on Ethics or elsewhere, we then do not consider whether an intended behavior is useful or injurious, but instead whether it is good or evil. The reason of a human being can therefore always also influence the exercise of the causal faculty determined to a certain action sub specie moralitatis.37

32  See Schmucker 1961, 381 ff. 33  Kant 1963, 28. 34  So too in the Metaphysics L1 according to Pölitz: “All kinds of torment cannot compel his [man’s; S.Z.] power of free choice [ freie Willkühr]; he can endure them all and still rest on his will.” (L-Met-L1/Pölitz, 28: 255; cf. 256). 35  Kant 1963, 28. 36  Cf. L-Met-L1/Pölitz, 28: 254. 37  Cf. L-MS/Vigil, 27: 493 f. Already in an early note from the 1760s it says: “One must coerce oneself to prudent and morally good actions. Hence imperativi. The reason is that one’s power of choice is also sensible, and the first movement stems from the sensible. The more one can coerce oneself through pragmatic coercion, the freer one is.” (N, 6998).

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6

The freedom of the will in question is most visibly discussed in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. Although in substance already at work in earlier writings, Kant only here terminologically fixes the difference between the will (Wille) and the power of choice (Willkür). And he repeats this conceptual distinction in two places of the “Introduction,” once in the chapter dealing with “the Relation of the Faculties of the Human Mind to Moral Laws,” the other time in the chapter “Preliminary Concepts of the Metaphysics of Morals (philosophia practica universalis).” Both passages accord with each other in at least two relevant points. Thereby, will and power of choice are, firstly, not substantially independent powers of the mind, but two functional sides of a single faculty. Kant also calls this faculty will; therefore we have actually to distinguish between the will in the broader sense (voluntas) and the will in the narrower sense.38 And the difference between will in the narrower sense and power of choice (arbitrium) is, secondly, to be understood as that between the determinative and the executive dimension of the human will in the broader sense. This reflects the double causality, which our practical faculty possesses in Kant’s view, that it is called Wille if and only if it is considered in relation to the reasons preceding its ­determination—the empirical condition of a feeling of pleasure or displeasure and the intelligible condition of a moral law—, and Willkür if and only if it is related to the subsequent effects it is capable of producing—our actions and their foreseeable consequences.39 In the Metaphysics of Morals, the distinction between Wille and Willkür goes hand in hand, and that is what matters to us, with an eleutherological difference. For each of these sides of our causal faculty, Kant assigns its own sort of freedom. The freedom of the will, which concerns its determinative dimension, its determination to an action, is the transcendental one. The will in the narrower sense cannot be formed solely by virtue of a feeling of pleasure and displeasure, but also of a practical law. On the other hand, the freedom of the will, which concerns its executive dimension, its realization in an action, is of a different kind. Kant characterizes it in the text of the Metaphysics of Morals published by his hand as the “faculty to do or to refrain from doing as one pleases” (MSDR, 6: 213).40 This freedom is none other than that, which also 38  Cf. Allison 1995, 130; Willaschek 1992, 51 f. 39  Cf. Horn 2002, 53; Stekeler-Weithofer 1990, 307 f. An overview of the usage of Wille and Willkür common in Kant’s time can be found in Meerbote 1982, 78 ff.; Silber 1960, xciv. 40  Cf. MSDR, 6: 226.

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encounters in the “Canon” of the first Critique, in the Metaphysics L1 and in A Lecture of Kant on Ethics, namely freedom—as we can say with the Peparatory Works on the Metaphysics of Morals unpublished by Kant himself—the choice between arising alternatives to act.41 Consequently, “practical freedom” in the sense of the freedom of the Willkür is not concerned with the very first impulses of the formation of the will. Rather, it manifests in what continues to happen with such impulses. The decision to carry out an action is not at the beginning, but at the end of the preparation of an action. The libertas arbitrii is the freedom of the action-inducing decision. For neither our particular needs for happiness with which we carry ourselves nor the universal commands of morality to which we are subject are transferred into reality, as Kant understands it, without our input. Basically, thanks to the spontaneity of our intellect, in the busy back and forth of life, we can keep abreast of ourselves, bethink ourselves and—for whatever reasons, those of prudence or of morality—distance ourselves from the previously intended “action” and instead choose its “contrary.” That we can decide on this and against that, even if it is what duty requires of us, is a phenomenon that traverses all practical use of the human intellect.42 In the light of this distinction between Wille and Willkür, which Kant makes in the Metaphysics of Morals, it may retrospectively be stated that in the “Canon” of the Critique of Pure Reason, when paying close attention to the language Kant uses there, interestingly enough only the Willkür is mentioned, not a single time the Wille. And even further, that “Dialectic” and “Canon,” now taken in view of the treated topic, collaboratively trace different aspects of the human faculty of will and only jointly render a complete picture.43 The “Dialectic,” as we can now say, turns towards the will in the narrower sense; “practical freedom” there means the dissolution of the concept of transcendental freedom from the context of cosmology and its transference into the realm of practical philosophy. The “Canon,” on the other hand, is devoted to the power of choice. There “practical freedom” means something else, not the

41  There it reads that Willkür was free “to do or refrain from doing what the law commands” (PWMS, 23: 249), that it was the “faculty of choosing among two opposite [human actions; S.Z.] (the lawful and the unlawful)” (248) or, as general as possible, “the faculty to choose among given objects.” 42  For the historical sources of Kant‘s concept of the freedom of Willkür see Kawamura 1996. 43  In this point, we can manage without the so-called patchwork theory, according to which the Critique is a patchwork of testimonies of Kant‘s various stages of thinking and therefore involuntarily contradictory. Cf. Adickes 1889; Smith 22003, xxviii ff.; Vaihinger 1882/92.

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autonomy of willing, but as much as the alternativity of acting, the selection between different, mutually exclusive options.44 A statement in the Metaphysics of Morals seems to diametrically oppose this. For in the second passage Kant writes: “But freedom of choice [Willkür] cannot be defined—as some have tried to define it—as the ability to make a choice for or against the law (libertas indifferentiae)  …” (MSDR, 6: 226) One against whom Kant is unquestionably opposed here, is C. L. Reinhold.45 A few years earlier, in his Letters on the Kantian Philosophy (1792), Reinhold had articulated the objection that it was too an act of freedom to elude a moral law and to act against it. Kant had missed this. Reinhold himself advocates an indifferentistic concept of freedom. According to this, the freedom of the will is “the power of the person,” as he declares, “to determine oneself to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of a desire either in accordance with the practical law or against it.”46 The key for the correct understanding, however, lies in how Kant finishes the sentence: “… even though choice [Willkür] as a phenomenon provides frequent examples of this in experience.” Thus, Kant does not deny what is in question. Whatever he may exactly understand by “libertas indifferentiae”47, he by no means contests that human Willkür shows the freedom to decide “for or against” the realization of the will formed under a practical “law,” that is to say to either comply with the respective law or to break it. On the contrary, Kant affirms this openly; “in experience” “frequent examples” can be found for it.48 What he actually turns against is once again that the edifice of moral philosophy can be built on this freedom in sensu empirico. Only a few lines later he says: … although experience shows that the human being as a sensible being is able to choose in opposition to as well as in conformity with the law, 44  In total, however, the textual situation is more complex than shown here. In dealing with the topic of freedom, Kant makes a difference, which correlates with the respective interest in knowledge. If it is merely a matter of determining what is to be done from a moral point of view, then, Kant claims, it was sufficient to presume that the will is transcendentally free; here the mere assumption of an as-if-freedom suffices. By contrast, the “speculative question” (CPR, B 831), whether the will is actually free in the transcendental sense, is something else. Cf. Geismann 2007. 45  Cf. Bojanowski 2006, 230 ff.; Milz 2005, 147 ff. 46  Reinhold 1975, 255. 47  See in detail Klemme 2013. 48  So, for example, in the lecture on natural law held in 1784, which is handed down to us by the notes of G. Feyerabend: “Man can choose the good and the evil” (L-NR/Feyerabend, 27: 1322).

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his freedom as an intelligible being cannot be defined by this … that freedom can never be located in a rational subject’s being able to choose in opposition to his (lawgiving) reason, even though experience proves often enough that this happens (though we still cannot comprehend how this is possible). [my emph.] For one thing, we can draw the conclusion that the freedom of the Willkür for Kant unmistakably includes a negative and a positive moment, too. It is a freedom as much of something as to something. The whereof, we have to say, consists in the independence from any inner compulsion (“independentia arbitrii a necessitatione”).49 Neither by interests nor by duties is the Willkür forced to a particular behavior. Neither can our sensibel inclinations normally take possession of us such that they ineluctably lead to a corresponding action, nor do practical laws initiate actions, as it were, bypassing us. The way from the intention to the action is sometimes far, and at times it does not even reach its destination. On the other hand, the whereto of the Willkür, the Metaphysics of Morals leaves no doubt about this, lies in the choice or decision between alternatives (“arbitrium liberum”). The instrumental or moral reflection creates a certain distance from what currently occupies us; what is next does not determine us completely. Even when all the internal factors of the preparation of an action are given, human intellect can (again) bring itself to the fore under ordinary circumstances and influence the forthcoming performance of an intended action. For another thing, we can draw the conclusion that for Kant it is obviously an empirical question that needs to be explored time and again, of how far this freedom of reflecting and choosing reaches in individual cases. It remains a “comparative” one, as it is said in the Critique of Practical Reason, because it always occurs with changing extent. Any such gradation remains alien to the transcendental freedom of our will; it is an “absolute” spontaneity in that it is to be detached from any and all empirical factors of the preparation of an action. However, the freedom of the Willkür, which always remains involved in those factors, manifests itself differently in different situations. A rational being such as man is in this respect only more or less free, depending on how much pressure emanates from the inner factors of action respectively in each case. It is “affected, but not determined” (MSDR, 6: 213) by interests and duties

49  Cf. L-Met-L1/Pölitz, 28: 257, 267.

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at any time and, as such, is a spontaneity varying in degree in the decision for an action preference and against the others.50

7

If we now admit what was said above, namely that besides the freedom of the will, which is of an intelligible kind and consists in the autonomy of the formation of the will, Kant also knows another freedom of the will, which is of a sensible kind and consists in the alternativity of the exercise of the will, we see ourselves faced with a possible problem. There is much to be said about this concept of freedom, which we have undertaken to document only on the basis of some of Kant’s comments in some of his texts. The question, however, I would like to pick out and ask is a very fundamental one and aims at its transcendental possibility. This question addresses the relationship of Kant’s concept of “practical freedom,” as we have reconstructed it, with the second analogy of experience, which the Critique of Pure Reason establishes, i.e. the principle of causality. Like all transcendental principles of the understanding that are listed there, this principle contains a non-experiential cognition of how objects, which we can encounter in the course of our experiential life, always already are. They carry out the “application of the pure concepts of understanding to possible experience” (CPR, B 199): spatio-temporal appearances as the conceptually still undetermined objects of sensible intuition are represented as determined according to the categories. And the second analogy makes use of the categorial concept of causality; it has as its content that all phenomena in space and time necessarily fall under it. According to the causal principle, every alteration in nature shall be a priori causally structured and occur in continuous sequences of cause and effect. Yet, there is a possible difficulty involved. For the freedom of Willkür to “do or to refrain from doing as one pleases” seems to amount to something like a gap: a gap between the determination of our will to an action and the realization of the will in an action. For, as we have said, we are never necessitated to a behavior by our interests or duties, but always merely affected; and even our considerations, whether they be those of prudence or morality, are not inexorably dictating to us a behavior once decided, but can in principle be

50  Cf. Allison 1996; Beck 1960, 176 ff.; Beck 1987, 35 ff.; Stekeler-Weithofer 1990, 307; Willaschek 1992, 48 ff.

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undertaken anew (again and again).51 Hence, we have to consider, whether the second analogy of experience to which all phenomena are inevitably subject permits such a practical freedom in the first place. Can there be a freedom of the will in the sense of an independence from inner compulsion and the choice or decision between alternatives in the midst of the determinism of nature constituted by the category of causality? In other words, it is not about whether freedom qua transcendental in the incompatibilistic manner outlined above is possible besides the causal principle, but whether freedom qua empirical in the last-stated compatibilistic form is possible under the causal principle. After all, Kant seems to indeed tacitly assume that both can go together. In any case, this is confirmed not only by the textual evidence that freedom “in a practical sense” constitutes an undeniable constant in Kant’s thinking also and no less so after the critical turn. In addition, this is underpinned by a purely substantial point of view. For the imperative ‘ought’ with which both rules of prudence and moral laws occur where conflicting intentions oppose them, strictly speaking, presupposes freedom of the Willkür. For imperatives, be they hypothetical or categorical, can in principle only exist in such a way that they claim validity in relation to something. That, however, at which the claim for validity aims must therefore be of a certain kind: it must be such that it can be standardized in the first place. This is nothing else than human praxis in the broadest sense. Imperatives have a normative validity only with a view to the standardization-apt character of human will and action. One does not exist without the other; there is an internal nexus between the validity claims of instrumental or moral standardizations on the one hand and the realm accessible for instrumental or moral standardizations, which the validity claims aim at, on the other hand. An imperative can claim its validity only in relation to something that does not by itself conform to that, which the imperative prescribes or forbids, although it is principally able to satisfy it. The openness of human praxis for standardization is due to its special character of contingency. Without a contingent reference pole, without people being able to act differently under given circumstances, the talk of a binding ‘ought’ would remain inconsistent. Normativity can only exist if its addressees are able to break with it; the claim it 51  In a lecture held at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 2001, J. R. Searle (with no reference to Kant) diagnoses a whole “series of gaps.” A first such gap can be found “between the reasons for the decision and the making of the decision,” a second one “between the decision and the onset of the action,” and thirdly there shall be “for any extended action … a gap between the onset of the action and its continuation to completion.” (Searle 2007, 42).

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states must be capable also of being refuted, which is not the case with merely rational beings, because they never want something differing from practical laws. Thus, normativity only engages where freedom is at work: normative bindingness presupposes a certain ability to do otherwise of those concerned, the alternativity of their actions. Kant’s general concept of an imperative stands and falls with the freedom of the Willkür, which he locates within the realm of the gaplessly determined natural causality and according to which we can decide for or against instrumental advices as well as moral commands. The first is inconceivable without the second.52

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Concerning the question of whether the freedom of the Willkür is transcendentally possible, i.e. possible under the causal principle, everything depends on how one interprets the latter. In the second edition of the Critique of 1787, the causal principle says: “All alterations occur in accordance with the law of the connection of cause and effect.” (CPR, B 232) The second analogy of experience contains the application of the category of causality to appearances, which in turn goes back to the hypothetical judgment function of the human intellect. Let us recall this derivation in all brevity.53 At the beginning stands Kant’s rationality-philosophical basic assumption that “the cognition of every, at least human, understanding is a cognition through concepts” and that the understanding “can make no other use of these concepts than that of judging by means of them” (CPR, B 93). The intellect is the faculty of thinking, and all thinking takes place as judging: “We can … trace all actions of the understanding back to judgments, so that the understanding in general can be represented as a faculty for judging.” (CPR, B 94)54 Judging is therefore the central activity of the understanding. As little as the use of concepts is an act that happens before judging, so little is concluding an act, which follows the completed judging. Concepts can only be used (including

52  In the Metaphysics of Morals, for example, Kant writes with a view to categorical imperatives that “practical laws,” which for us, “whose choice is sensibly affected and so does not of itself conform to the pure will but often opposes it, moral laws are imperatives (commands or prohibitions) and indeed categorical (unconditional) imperatives” (MSDR, 6: 221). Cf. Zimmermann 2015. 53  For the following, see in detail Zimmermann 2011, chap. II.4 and 5. 54  Cf. CPR, B 106; RP, 20: 271 f.; Prol, 4: 300, 323; L-Lo/Busolt, 24: 662 f.

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explained and defined) in judgments,55 and a conclusion is itself nothing else but a judgment, which is composed of judgments instead of concepts.56 The operationes intellectus do not happen arbitrarily. The ways in which the mind can place and relate representations in a judgment are supposed to be the same in all cases. In this regard, Kant speaks of the functions of our thinking: “By a function, however, I understand the unity of the action of ordering different representations under a common one.” (CPR, B 93) The concept of a function is thus related to that of an “action,” but also to be distinguished from it.57 To conceive of an action in terms of its “unity” negatively means to abstract from the varying circumstances of its respective realization. It is not this or that act together with the fullness of its details that is in the foreground then. In comparison to the concrete action, a function is an abstraction.58 To conceive of an action in terms of its “unity” positively means to pay attention to the repeated character of its every time occurring realization. Although not a datable and localizable act, it is one and the same function, which is exercised therein. And likewise in the case of the human intellect. The functions of the understanding are, according to Kant, nothing else than the universal laws, which are at work in the particular acts of judgment over and over again.59 It is Kant’s claim in the Critique of Pure Reason to have detected these laws of thought exhaustively and to have exposed them systematically in a table, the so-called table of judgments. One of them, namely the second law under the title “relation,” Kant calls the “Hypothetical” (CPR, B 95) synthesis function. In accordance with it, as he elaborates subsequent to the table, “two judgments” are connected in the relation of “the ground to the consequence.” (CPR, B 98) By operating the hypothetical function, a conditional relationship is represented; one is related to another and thought to be based on it. Kant’s example of such a hypothetical judgment reads: “If there is perfect justice, then obstinate evil will be punished.”60 This is the logical core of the causal category that results from it, the relation of a condition to that, which is conditioned by it. 55  Cf. CPR, B 93; L-Met/Mron, 29: 801 f. 56  Cf. CPR, B 386, 364. For Kant’s trace-back thesis, see Allison 1983, 66 ff.; Brandt 1991, 48 ff.; Wolff 1995, 74 ff., 88 ff. 57  Cf. Kreis 2010, 67. 58  Cf. Reich 31986, 30. 59  Cf. CPR, B 350. This can already be seen from Kant’s famous letter to M. Herz of February 21, 1772, which is regarded as the birth of the Critique of Pure Reason. There Kant writes that all categories “classify themselves by their own nature, following a few fundamental laws of the understanding” (C, 10: 132). These “fundamental laws” are the thinking functions of the intellect. 60  The example in § 25 of the handbook for Kant’s lectures on logic edited by G. B. Jäsche is: “If all bodies are composite, then they are divisible” (Log, 9: 106).

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The derivation of the pure concepts of understanding, which Kant once calls their “metaphysical deduction” (CPR, B 159), then proceeds from the judgment functions. It develops the categories by considering the manifold of sensible intuition as the material on which the functions can operate. For such a manifold, if it is thought by the intellect, cannot be thought otherwise than in accordance with the laws of thought: “The same function that gives unity to the different representations in a judgment, also gives unity to the mere synthesis of different representations in an intuition, which, expressed generally, is called the pure concept of understanding.” (CPR, B 104 f.) The function by whose exercise our intellect links representations in a judgment, and the function by whose exercise it connects the corresponding phenomena in space and time given by sensible intuition, are identical: “In such a way there arise exactly as many pure concepts of the understanding, which apply to objects of intuition in general a priori, as there were logical functions of all possible judgments in the previous table” (CPR, B 105).61 This is the result of the metaphysical deduction that the understanding is the source of pure concepts and that these concepts are nothing else than its thinking functions insofar as these have a real application, i.e. in relation to spatio-temporal objects.62 Through the category of “Causality and Dependence,” phenomena are synthesized as “cause and effect” (CPR, B 106). This is then no longer a mere logical relation of ground and consequence, condition and conditioned, but a real one. By means of the respective schemata, i.e. the transcendental time-determinations, the hypothetical synthesis function places the objects corresponding to the representations in the judgment in a temporal connection. Cause and effect are the relata of a relation in which the earlier one is the ground—the “real ground” (CJ, 5: 220), as the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) once says—for the occurence of the later one as consequence, the real consequence. To be a cause means that the condition precedes the conditioned temporally, and to be an effect means that the conditioned follows its condition temporally.63 Finally, in the wake of the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of understanding, which states that there is no manifold of sensible intuition that is not thought by the judgment functions of the intellect Kant develops the “System of all principles of pure understanding” (CPR, B 187). This system exhibits the “judgments that the understanding actually brings about a priori,” 61  The categories are the “functions of thinking (of judging) applied to our sensible intuition“ (CPR, B 429). Cf. CPR, B 128, 143, 186 f., A 244 f., B 377, A 348 f.; Prol, 4: 302; RP, 8: 271; MFNS, 4: 474 fn.; L-Met/Mron, 29: 801. 62  For the use of the adjective ‘real’ in contrast to ‘logical’, see CPR, B 261, 273, 293, 302, 329 f., 626. Cf. Schulthess 1981, 272; Longuenesse 1998, 26 ff. 63  Cf. CPR, B 183, 232 ff.

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“for which our table of the categories must doubtless give us natural and secure guidance.” And the second analogy of experience is the principle that asserts the concept of causality with universality and necessity regarding phenomena. The idea is that, because our intellect links all objects in space and time as cause and effect, there can be no spatio-temporal object, which does not stand in such relations. Every phenomenon that is experienced as the cause of another phenomenon following it, in turn depends on another phenomenon preceding it, whose effect it is.64 The problem we are confronted with, namely whether the freedom of choice and the causal principle are compatible with each other, thus comes back to the question of whether the relation of conditionality, which is involved in the causal principle, is compatible with the freedom of choice. How is the decision between an “action” and its “contrary” possible if this decision, like everything else that happens within nature, is a priori something, which is conditioned by a condition? Something, which is the real consequence of a real ground? Insofar as the category of causality is a constituent of the possible experience of objects and insofar as the second analogy draws the conclusion of this for the objects of possible experience, one might just as well ask, as we have done, whether the freedom of Willkür is transcendentally possible.65

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A not uncommon interpretation of the second analogy of experience suggests that Kant would argue for the uniformity in the sense of empirical regularity of the natural event; all phenomena in space and time were irrevocably subject to laws, which can be revealed by experience.66 The principle of causality would state that every alteration presupposes a cause by which it is effected in accordance with a, and i.e. in the sense of the respective rule; for every type of spatio-temporal appearance it helds that the same cause leads to the same 64  Cf. Melnick 1973, 48 ff. This does not mean, as A. Schopenhauer imagines, that for Kant every temporal relation of succession also represents a logical relation of conditionality. Someone, according to his counterexample, steps outside the door at time t1, and at t2 a brick falls from the roof that hits him; but this is undoubtedly also for Kant a post hoc, not a propter hoc. Cf. Schopenhauer 1890, 122. 65  According to Kant, only such a “cognition must be called transcendental … by means of which we cognize that and how certain representations (intuitions or concepts) are applied entirely a priori, or are possible (i.e., the possibility of cognition or its use a priori)” (CPR, B 80). 66  Cf. Friedman 1992, 170 ff.; Rohs 1992, 85 f.

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effect.67 Nature shall, for example, conform to the kind of axioms taught by Newtonian physics. Or, what finally makes the same point differently, Kant would answer with his version of the causal principle to the skepticism of a D. Hume by establishing a “principle of induction,”68 which guarantees that cases occuring to us in experience yield to the subordination under rules. I consider that to be a misinterpretation. The claim Kant raises with the second analogy of experience is in reality a different and much more modest one. In fact, in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) he describes that it was Hume’s skeptical views on the concept of causality, which once tore him from his “dogmatic slumber” (Prol, 4: 260). He agrees with him that universal and necessary relations, such as cause and effect, cannot be found through experience. And indeed, Kant does not draw the same consequence from this as Hume, who derives the causal principle, as we read in the second edition of the first Critique, “from a frequent association of that which happens with that which precedes and a habit (thus a merely subjective necessity) of connecting representations arising from that association” (CPR, B 5).69 It is, however, crucial to see that the general principle of causality is not only to be distinguished from the individual causal laws, but that it does not even say anything about them.70 What the second analogy of experience fixes is merely that all alterations, as we experience them, “occur in accordance with the law of the connection of cause and effect”; it implies that any appearance in space and time is the effect of a cause and itself the cause of an effect. This is the one law in the singular, the transcendental principle of understanding to which all objects of experience are necessarily subordinated. The many laws in the plural, on the other hand, the empirical rules, according to which spatiotemporal phenomena are caused by others and themselves effect others, in contrast to this, can be found, with this Kant is unambiguous, solely through experience of objects.71 And that is not all. For whether there are such rules at all, according to which the alterations in nature take place, is thus not a question that can be answered in transcendental reflection. The structure of rational subjectivity, which it seeks to lay open, simply does not allow for any 67  Cf. Rang 1990, 25. The ambiguous wording in the first edition of the Critique suggests that where the second analogy reads: “Everything that happens (begins to be) presupposes something which it follows in accordance with a rule.” (CPR, A 189). 68  Brittan Jr. 1978, 189. 69  See also CPR, B 19 f., 127. 70  Cf. Thöle 1998, 281; Höffe 52000, 127. 71  Cf. CPR, A 127 f., B 165, 263; Prol, 4: 318 f., 320; CJ, 5: 182 f.; FICJ, 20: 208 f. One should thus not be led astray by the fact that Kant cites several such rules as examples in the Critique as well as in the Prolegomena. Cf. CPR, B 162 f., 247 f., 249; Prol, 4: 305 fn.

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a priori statement about what that furthermore is, which must be given from elsewhere, namely in sensible intuition. In the third Critique at the latest, Kant expresses this openly. But it is already in the Critique of Pure Reason that we read: The pure faculty of understanding does not suffice, however, to prescribe to the appearances through mere categories a priori laws beyond those on which rests a nature in general, as lawfulness of appearances in space and time. Particular laws, because they concern empirically determined appearances, cannot be completely derived from the categories, although they all stand under them. [my emph.] CPR, B 16572

Accordingly, the determinism of nature that Kant’s critical philosophy designs has to be construed. The second analogy of experience does not argue for a material determinism, as one might say. Such a determinism would be the assertion that everything in nature stands in such a conditional relationship that a certain x always causes a certain y. Transcendental philosophy, however, is capable only of sounding out, which logical synthesis functions our intellect contains and which synthetic order is carried out between spatio-temporal objects by their real use, i.e. with respect to the manifold of sensible intuition. And this is—taking up Kant’s talk of a merely formal rather than material idealism73—a merely formal determinism of nature. This determinism only asserts that all objects in space and time necessarily stand in such a conditional relationship that any x is effected by any y.74 The causal principle does not guarantee what happens after and because of an appearance, but simply that something happens after and because of it. In contrast, it remains thoroughly accidental whether and, if so, to what extent uniform causal connections exist among certain types of phenomena, which sensible intuition gives to us, and whether they correspond to Newton’s axioms of classical mechanics.75

72  In the “Introduction“ of the Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant states: “Thus we must think of there being in nature, with regard to its merely empirical laws, a possibility of infinitely manifold empirical laws, which as far as our insight goes are nevertheless contingent (cannot be cognized a priori)” (CJ, 5: 183). Cf. CJ, 5: 179 f.; FICJ, 20: 203 f., 210. 73  Cf. CPR, B 43 f., 52 f., 124 f., 295 f., A 367 ff., B 670 ff. 74  Cf. Allison 1983, 228 ff. 75  In this regard, L. W. Beck speaks of the weaker principle of “every-event-some-cause” as opposed to the stronger principle of “same-cause-same-effect.” (Beck 1978) See also Paton 1936, 275 ff.

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With regard to the compatibility of the principle of causality and the freedom of choice, which we ask for, we can deduce from this that the latter is very well transcendentally possible in terms of the former. For it is one thing to say, as Kant does according to the above-mentioned construal, that every action-making resolution, which someone takes, is ineluctably conditioned by anything preceding; and it is another thing to advance the view, which is much farther-reaching and not that of Kant, that the respective preceding condition entails a certain action-making resolution. By thinking the categorial concept of causality and consequently the determinism of nature, which the second analogy of experience expresses by means of the causal category, formally and not materially, the mere fact that human decisions are caused is not a threat to freedom at all. Man’s will may be formed under the empirical presupposition of a feeling of pleasure and displeasure or under the intelligible presupposition of a moral law and thus subject to the “causality in accordance with laws of nature” or the “causality through freedom,” its realization does not follow in every case nor does it necessarily follow certain empirical regularities, which presage the choice between mutually exclusive possibilities. Being caused here, as usual, is not the same as being caused in accordance with a rule. Quite the contrary, it would be an equally excessive extreme, which Kant rejects expressis verbis, if one would allow for the freedom of the Willkür, instead of denying it by recourse to the second analogy of experience, only in the form of a total unconditionality or causal indeterminacy. Freedom would then exist in the indifference towards all alternatives a situation offers, that is to say in the fact, that one holds oneself in an equidistance to all possibilities.76 At one point in the Opus Postumum, Kant not only once again repeats his refusal of freedom as indifference, but he also substantiates it with an interesting argument. He notes: We cannot define the freedom of choice [Willkühr] such that it was a faculty to act according to the law or also against it for that was an utter subjective lawlessness of it (indifferentia arbitrii) independence of choice from all determining grounds from which no action can arise…. although choice [Willkühr] as a phenomenon gives examples enough of it in experience. [my emph.] OP, 21: 470

76  This is postulated, for example, by J. Rometsch, who in the light of his material understanding of Kant’s causal principle denies Kant the conceptual means to think an empirical freedom of choice. Cf. Rometsch 2016, 139 f.

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Some of this is already familiar to us both in wording and substance. What points the way for us now, however, is the remark that “indifferentia arbitrii” means an “independence of choice from all determining grounds” and that “no action can arise” from it. According to Kant, the modification, channeling or moderation of an intention cannot be performed as a fully unconditioned rational activity. Rather, it only happens on behalf of other intentions, which we also harbour. For Kant, there is no freedom without any presupposition; even the formation of the will to an action has its presupposition in the “determining grounds” of a feeling of pleasure and displeasure or of a practical law, and also the execution of the will in an action has its indispensable presupposition therein. A decision for this and against that is always taken only as a commitment to a scope of options we are already partial to. Where everything remains indifferently equivalent, neither a determination of the will in contrast to another takes place nor its performance in contrast to another, that is to say that “no action can arise.” We must already be taken with alternatives in order to be able to grasp one of them.77 The choice, which Willkür has to make, must therefore not be exaggerated to a causally undetermined and, in this sense, indifferent one. Decisions that we make by virtue of instrumental or moral considerations always remain conditioned, causally determined and, in this sense, affected, without thereby being degraded to something that is necessitated. At last we can even see that the adjective ‘free’ does not add anything to the talk of choice or decision. A choice or decision can only be performed where neither the one nor the other rules, where neither an unbridled unconditionality opens the door for arbitrariness nor sufficient conditions inescapably prescribe everything. Instead, it presupposes necessary conditions on the ground on which it happens, no more, but no less. To choose or to decide for Kant means in this very sense to be free. Bibliography Adickes, Erich. 1889. “Einleitung.” In Immanuel Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, edited by Erich Adickes, xiii-xxvii. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. Allison, Henry E. 1983. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Allison, Henry E. 1995. Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

77  See also, albeit with no reference to Kant, Seel 2002.

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Melnick, Arthur. 1973. Kant’s Analogies of Experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Menzer, Paul. 1899. “Der Entwicklungsgang der Kantischen Ethik in den Jahren 1760– 1785.” Kant-Studien 3: 41–104. Milz, Bernhard. 2005. “Freiheit und Unbestimmtheit. Kants Problem mit der Willensfreiheit.” In Die Aktualität der Philosophie Kants. Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie 42, edited by Kirsten Schmidt, Klaus Steigleder and Burkhard Mojsisch, 139–157. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: B. R. Grüner. Paton, Herbert J. 1936. Kant’s Metaphysic of Experience. A Commentary of the First Half of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Vol. 2. London: Allen & Unwin. Pieper, Annemarie 2002. “Zweites Hauptstück (57–71).” In Immanuel Kant. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Klassiker Auslegen 26, edited by Otfried Höffe, 115–133. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Quine, Willard V. O. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press. Rang, Bernhard. 1990. “Naturnotwendigkeit und Freiheit. Zu Kants Theorie der Kausalität als Antwort auf Hume.” Kant-Studien 81: 24–56. Reich, Klaus. 31986. Die Vollständigkeit der Kantischen Urteilstafel, Hamburg: Meiner. Reinhold, Carl L. 1975. “Erörterungen des Begriffs von der Freiheit des Willens (1792).” In Materialien zu Kants Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, edited by Rüdiger Bittner and Konrad Cramer, 252–274. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Rohs, Peter. 1992. “Noch einmal: das Kausalprinzip als Bedingung der Möglichkeit von Erfahrung.” Kant-Studien 83: 84–96. Rometsch, Jens 2016. “Kants „Kategorien der Freiheit“: Freiheit als empirischer und transzendentaler Bratenwender?” In Die „Kategorien der Freiheit“ in Kants praktischer Philosophie. Historisch-systematische Beiträge. Kant-Studien Ergänzungshefte 197, edited by Stephan Zimmermann, 129–148. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1964. Du contract social ou Principes du droit politique (1762). Œuvres complètes. Vol. 3, edited by Bernhard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, 347– 470. Paris: Gallimard. (= CS) Roxin, Claus. 31997. Strafrecht. Allgemeiner Teil. Vol. 1: Grundlagen Aufbau der Verbrechenslehre. München: Beck. Sala, Giovanni B. 2004. Kants Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. Ein Kommentar. Darmstadt: WBG. Schelling, Friedrich W. J. 1856–1861. Sämmtliche Werke. 14 Vols., edited by Karl F. A. Schelling. Stuttgart/Augsburg: Cotta. (= SW) Schmucker, Josef. 1961. Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants in seinen vorkritischen Schriften und Reflektionen. Monographien zur philosophischen Forschung 23. Meisenheim am Glan: Hain. Schönecker, Dieter. 1999. Kant: Grundlegung III. Die Deduktion des kategorischen Imperativs. Symposion 113. Freiburg/München: Alber.

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Schönecker, Dieter. 2005. Kants Begriff transzendentaler und praktischer Freiheit. KantStudien Ergänzungshefte 149. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1890. Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde. Eine philosophische Abhandlung. Sämtliche Werke 1, edited by Rudolf Steiner. Stuttgart: Cotta. Schulthess, Peter 1981. Relation und Funktion. Eine systematische und entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur theoretischen Philosophie Kants. Kant-Studien Ergänzungshefte 113. Berlin: de Gruyter. Searle, John R. 2007. Freedom and Neurobiology. Reflections on Free Will, Language, and Political Power. New York: Columbia University Press. Seel, Martin. 2002. Sich bestimmen lassen. Studien zur theoretischen und praktischen Philosophie. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Sidgwick, Henry. 1888. “The Kantian Conception of Free Will.” Mind 13: 405–412. Silber, John R. 1960. “The Ethical Significance of Kant’s Religion.” In Immanuel Kant. Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, edited and translated by Theodore M. Green and Hoyt H. Hudson, cxxix—lxxxiv. New York: Harper and Row. Smith, Norman K. 22003. A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1918). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Stekeler-Weithofer, Pirmin 1990. “Willkür und Wille bei Kant.” Kant-Studien 81: 304–320. Thöle, Bernhard 1998. “Die Analogien der Erfahrung (A176/B218–A218/B265).” In Immanuel Kant. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Klassiker Auslegen 17/18, edited by Georg Mohr and Marcus Willaschek, 267–296. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Vaihinger, Hans. 1882/92. Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Zum hundertjährigen Jubiläum derselben. Stuttgart: Spemann. Watkins, Eric. 1998. “The Antinomy of Pure Reason, Sections 3–8 (A462/B490–A515/ B543).” In Immanuel Kant. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Klassiker Auslegen 17/18, edited by Georg Mohr and Marcus Willaschek, 447–464. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Willaschek, Marcus. 1992. Praktische Vernunft. Handlungstheorie und Moralbegründung bei Kant. Stuttgart/Weimar: J. B. Metzler. Wolff, Michael 1995. Die Vollständigkeit der kantischen Urteilstafel. Mit einem Essay über Freges Begriffsschrift. Philosophische Abhandlungen 63. Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann. Wood, Allen W. 1984. “Kant’s Compatibilism.” In Self and Nature in Kant’s Philosophy. 73–101. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Zimmermann, Stephan. 2011. Kants „Kategorien der Freiheit“. Kantstudien Ergänzungshefte 167. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. Zimmermann, Stephan 2015. “Praktische Kontingenz. Kant über Verbindlichkeit aus reiner praktischer Vernunft.” In Das Band der Gesellschaft. Verbindlichkeitsdiskurse im 18. Jahrhundert. Perspektiven der Ethik 5, edited by Simon Bunke, Katerina Mihaylova and Daniela Ringkamp, 81–98. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Chapter 8

Absolute Spontaneity and Self-Determination: The Fact of Reason and the Categories of Freedom Martin Bunte As is the case with most of the fundamental systemic questions in transcendental philosophy, there is no consensus on the significance possessed by the notion of freedom within Kant’s system. Nor is this surprising, given Kant’s inability to resolve to his own satisfaction the question of the unity of his system from the highest vantage-point of freedom as ‘spontaneity.’ To that extent the difficulties we face in interpreting Kantian philosophy might be called epigonal after-echoes of its creator’s own ‘agony of Tantalus.’ To understand the problems raised by the concept of freedom, it is advisable to view them in the light of theoretical reason, that is, in the context of the Critique of Pure Reason. There, in the first dynamic antinomy, Kant presents freedom as a cosmological idea in the sense of a causa prima, and in the Thesis he argues for this from the condition that a causal series must be complete: Accordingly, a causality must be assumed through which something happens without its cause being further determined by another previous cause, i.e., an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself series of appearances that runs according to natural laws, hence transcendental freedom, without which even in the course of nature the series of appearances is never complete on the side of the causes. […] The transcendental idea of freedom is far from constituting the whole content of the psychological concept of that name, which is for the most part empirical, but constitutes only that of the absolute spontaneity of an action, as the real ground of its imputability; but this idea is nevertheless the real stumbling block for philosophy, which finds insuperable difficulties in admitting this kind of unconditioned causality.1 1  KrV, A 446f. | B 474f.; p. 484, 486.   „Diesem nach muß eine Kausalität angenommen werden, durch welche etwas geschieht, ohne daß die Ursache davon noch weiter, durch eine andere vorhergehende Ursache, nach notwendigen Gesetzen bestimmt sei, d.i. eine absolute Spontaneität der Ursachen, eine Reihe von Erscheinungen, die nach Naturgesetzen läuft, von selbst anzufangen, mithin transzendentale Freiheit, ohne welche selbst im Laufe der Natur die Reihenfolge der

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/9789004383784_009

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Kant then concludes from the dynamic in the concept of the categories of relation that there is a compossibility between a causality of freedom and a causality of nature, taking the form of a transcendental-ontological differentiation between a vis prima and a vis secunda—the former centred on being, the latter on appearance. I call intelligible that in an object of sense which is not itself appearance. Accordingly, if that which must be regarded as appearance in the world of sense has in itself a faculty which is not an object of intuition through which it can be the cause of appearances, then one can consider the causality of this being in two aspects, as intelligible in its action as a thing in itself, and as sensible in the effects of that action as an appearance in the world of sense. Of the faculty of such a subject we would accordingly form an empirical and at the same time an intellectual concept of its causality, both of which apply to one and the same effect. Thinking of the faculty of an object of sense in this double aspect does not contradict any of the concepts we have to form of appearances and of a possible experience. For since these appearances, because they are not things in themselves, must be grounded in a transcendental object determining them as mere representations, nothing hinders us from ascribing to this transcendental object, apart from the property through which it appears, also another causality that is not appearance, even though its effect is encountered in appearance. But every effective cause must have a character, i.e., a law of its causality, without which it would not be a cause at all. And then for a subject of the world of sense we would have first an empirical character, through which its actions, as appearances, would stand through and through in connection with other appearances in accordance with constant natural laws, from which, as their conditions, they could be derived; and thus, in combination with these other appearances, they would constitute members of a single series of the natural order. Yet second, one would also have to allow this subject an intelligible character, through which it is indeed the cause of those actions as appearances, but which does not stand under any conditions of sensibility and is not Erscheinungen auf der Seite der Ursachen niemals vollständig ist. […]Die transzendentale Idee der Freiheit macht zwar bei weitem nicht den ganzen Inhalt des psychologischen Begriffs dieses Namens aus, welcher großen Teils empirisch ist, sondern nur den der absoluten Spontaneität der Handlung, als den eigentlichen Grund der Imputabilität derselben, ist aber dennoch der eigentliche Stein des Anstoßes für die Philosophie, welche unüberwindliche Schwierigkeiten findet, dergleichen Art von unbedingter Kausalität einzuräumen.“ KrV, A 446f. | B 474f.; S. 550.

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itself appearance. The first one could call the character of such a thing in appearance, the second its character as a thing in itself.2 With the resolution of the third antinomy Kant evidently suggests a relationship of appearance between freedom and nature: the world is nothing other than the appearance of freedom. However, this thought, to which Fichte would attach such importance, leads Kant to the problematic consequence that freedom as spontaneity must not only be causa naturae formaliter spectata in the sense of theoretical reason, but must also be so materialiter. Kant’s transcendental idealism thus seems to issue in an absolute.3 Why Kant did not go down this path is explained by his fundamentally realistic attitude towards the thing in itself and how it affects our mind, 2  KrV, A 538 | B 566; pp. 535–536.   „Ich nenne dasjenige an einem Gegenstande der Sinne, was selbst nicht Erscheinung ist, intelligibel. Wenn demnach dasjenige, was in der Sinnenwelt als Erscheinung angesehen werden muß, an sich selbst auch ein Vermögen hat, welches kein Gegenstand der sinnlichen Anschauung ist, wodurch es aber doch die Ursache von Erscheinungen sein kann: so kann man die Kausalität dieses Wesens auf zwei Seiten betrachten, als intelligibel nach ihrer Handlung, als eines Dinges an sich selbst, und als sensibel, nach den Wirkungen derselben, als einer Erscheinung in der Sinnenwelt. Wir würden uns demnach von dem Vermögen eines solchen Subjekts einen empirischen, ungleichen auch einen intellektuellen Begriff seiner Kausalität machen, welche bei einer und derselben Wirkung zusammen stattfinden. Eine solche doppelte Seite, das Vermögen eines Gegenstandes der Sinne sich zu denken, widerspricht keinem von den Begriffen, die wir uns von Erscheinungen und von einer möglichen Erfahrung zu machen haben. Denn, da diesen, weil sie an sich keine Dinge sind, ein transzendentaler Gegenstand zum Grunde liegen muß, der sie als bloße Vorstellungen bestimmt, so hindert nichts, daß wir diesem transzendentalen Gegenstande, außer der Eigenschaft, dadurch er erscheint, nicht auch eine Kausalität beilegen sollten, die nicht Erscheinung ist, obgleich ihre Wirkung dennoch in der Erscheinung angetroffen wird. Es muß aber eine jede wirkende Ursache einen Charakter haben, d.i. ein Gesetz ihrer Kausalität, ohne welches sie gar nicht Ursache sein würde. Und da würden wir an einem Subjekte der Sinnenwelt erstlich einen empirischen Charakter haben, wodurch seine Handlungen, als Erscheinungen, durch und durch mit anderen Erscheinungen nach beständigen Naturgesetzen im Zusammenhange ständen, und von ihnen, als ihren Bedingungen, abgeleitet werden könnten, und also, mit diesen in Verbindung, Glieder einer einzigen Reihe der Naturordnung ausmachten. Zweitens würde man ihm noch einen intelligibelen Charakter einräumen müssen, dadurch es zwar die Ursache jener Handlungen als Erscheinungen ist, der aber selbst unter keinen Bedingungen der Sinnlichkeit steht, und selbst nicht Erscheinung ist. Man könnte auch den ersteren den Charakter eines solchen Dinges in der Erscheinung, den zweiten den Charakter des Dinges an sich selbst nennen.“ KrV, A 538 | B 566; S. 625f. 3  This idealistic notion is insofar not farfetched as one might think, because Kant pointed out himself that spontaneity is in its speculative or theoretical sense the same spontaneity as in its practical, which is pure reason. (KpV, AA V: 89.) This thought was rightfully stressed by Krijnen (2016).

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independently of our positing it. For Kant, this affection is not a product of spontaneity but of receptivity. In contrast to the idealists, therefore, Kant explains the suppression of spontaneity, conditioned by reception, no longer as spontaneous achievement but as external effect. To the contrary, in the case of absolute spontaneity, as the adjective indicates, we are dealing with a spontaneity that has the capacity to determine itself as spontaneity, that is, to activate its own activity in limiting it. As originating spontaneity, that is, as causa originans, it accordingly embraces the originated spontaneity as causa originata. The non-idealist interpretation of Kant, which endeavors to uphold the prohibition on undoing the critical separation of the powers of sensibility and understanding in the realm of transcendental logic, is thus faced with the challenge of making the opposition of spontaneity and receptivity as a determination by absolute spontaneity so perspicuous that, while this determination indeed brings out the form of appearance as separation, it does not make the content of appearance a function of its transcendent transcendentality. This systematic undercutting of the speculative standpoint in critical philosophy accounts on one hand for the indispensability of experience and on the other for the non-discursivity of the forms of affectability that condition difference, namely ‘space’ and ‘time.’ This defence of formal idealism under the assumption of absolute spontaneity can succeed only if the meaning of absolute spontaneity is restricted. For obvious reasons, this limitation of absolute spontaneity cannot be imposed from outside; spontaneity cannot be determined relative to something else. Absolute spontaneity must therefore undergo an absolute restriction coming from spontaneity itself. This restriction or determination of spontaneity must accordingly come about in the mode of self-determination.4 The regularity of self-determination can in turn be grasped in reflection as a law. When connected to the theoretical part of reason, this reflection on reflectability brought with it the inner logic and completeness of the tables of judgements and categories, in that it could be shown that Kant’s triadic arrangement of the categories contains an ordering of possible relationships of representations in terms of a logic of determinations: Reflection on the condition of possibility of the cognitive order of knower, known, and the knowing that lies between them as basis and goal of epistemic activity.5 4  O`Neill is therefore absolutely right, when she writes: “[…] in my view, is to see the self in self-legislation simply as a reflexive term. Self-legislation is legislation that does not refer to or derive from anything else; it is non-derivative legislation.” O`Neill (2002), p. 86. 5  Cf. Bunte, Martin: Erkenntnis und Funktion (Berlin, 2016).

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How do these considerations relate to praxis? The idea of freedom in the cosmological sense signifies the primordial initiality of a causal series. Its practical relevance is immediately apparent when one realizes that the subject of action cannot be thought of as a subject if his actions, as they stand over against him, are not capable of being attributed to him. Freedom as the condition of the possibility of imputability is therefore an unconditional presupposition, the ratio essendi,6 of all thinking on praxis. It is important to set forth this thought. Usually the discussion of Kant’s practical philosophy starts from the idea of pure will. The pure will is in this case nothing other than purely practical reason, which determines itself only from its grounds in praxi. Kant opposes to this positive determination of free will a negative one: free arbitrariness, which would entail the empirical de-necessitization of our actions. Fortunately, there is a law in our reason which as a fact of reason itself serves as a pure determination of will. Accordingly all that is left to our freedom in the cosmological sense would be the mode of the practical postulate, that is, its validity could be thought only for and by practical reason. In the comment to § 7, which enunciates the basic principle of pure practical reason: ‘So act that the maxim of your will could always at the same time be valid as a universal legislation,’7—Kant accordingly says the following: The practical rule is, therefore, unconditional, and hence it is conceived a priori as a categorically practical proposition by which the will is objectively determined absolutely and immediately (by the practical rule itself, which thus is in this case a law); for pure reason practical of itself is here directly legislative. The will is thought as independent on empirical conditions, and, therefore, as pure will determined by the mere form of the law, and this principle of determination is regarded as the supreme condition of all maxims. The thing is strange enough, and has no parallel in all the rest of our practical knowledge. For the a priori thought of a possible universal legislation which is therefore merely problematical, is unconditionally commanded as a law without borrowing anything from experience or from any external will. This, however, is not a precept to do something by which some desired effect can be attained (for then the will would depend on physical conditions), but a rule that determines the will a priori only so far as regards the forms of its maxims; and thus it is at least not impossible to conceive that a law, which only applies to the 6  KpV, AA V, 4. 7  “Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne” (KpV, AA V, 31).

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subjective form of principles, yet serves as a principle of determination by means of the objective form of law in general. We may call the consciousness of this fundamental law a fact of reason, because we cannot reason it out from antecedent data of reason, e.g., the consciousness of freedom (for this is not antecedently given), but it forces itself on us as a synthetic a priori proposition, which is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical. It would, indeed, be analytical if the freedom of the will were presupposed, but to presuppose freedom as a positive concept would require an intellectual intuition, which cannot here be assumed; however, when we regard this law as given, it must be observed, in order not to fall into any misconception, that it is not an empirical fact, but the sole fact of the pure reason, which thereby announces itself as originally legislative (sic volo, sic jubeo).8 Kant here seems to relinquish the above approach of taking freedom as the presupposition of practical reason: consciousness of the moral law cannot be inferred analytically from consciousness of freedom. Rather, consciousness of the practical principle must be conceived as a fact of reason. However, this talk of facts is quite problematic, insofar as an ambiguity lurks in the very concept of fact, which may carry the meaning of a ‘datum’ or of a ‘product.’ However, in the following sentence Kant gives the decisive clue for understanding the concept of fact. On the one hand, the law or awareness of the law is to be ‘regarded as given,’ but only on the premise that it is not an empirical datum. Rather, we are dealing her with the sole fact of pure reason which—and 8  „Die praktische Regel ist also unbedingt, mithin, als kategorisch praktischer Satz, a priori vorgestellt, wodurch der Wille schlechterdings und unmittelbar (durch die praktische Regel selbst, die also hier Gesetz ist) objektiv bestimmt wird. Denn reine, an sich praktische Vernunft ist hier unmittelbar gesetzgebend. Der Wille wird als unabhängig von empirischen Bedingungen, mithin, als reiner Wille, durch die bloße Form des Gesetzes als bestimmt gedacht, und dieser Bestimmungsgrund als die oberste Bedingung aller Maximen angesehen. […] Man kann das Bewußtsein dieses Grundgesetzes ein Faktum der Vernunft nennen, weil man es nicht aus vorhergehenden Datis der Vernunft, z.B. dem Bewußtsein der Freiheit (denn dieses ist uns nicht vorher gegeben), herausvernünfteln kann, sondern weil es sich für sich selbst uns aufdringt als synthetischer Satz a priori, der auf keiner, weder reinen noch empirischen Anschauung gegründet ist, ob er gleich analytisch sein würde, wenn man die Freiheit des Willens voraussetzte, wozu aber, als positivem Begriffe, eine intellektuelle Anschauung erfordert werden würde, die man hier gar nicht annehmen darf. Doch muß man, um dieses Gesetz ohne Mißdeutung als gegeben anzusehen, wohl bemerken: daß es kein empirisches, sondern das einzige Faktum der reinen Vernunft sei, die sich dadurch als ursprünglich gesetzgebend (sic volo, sic iubeo) ankündigt.“ KpV, AA V, 31.

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this is the decisive point—consists in its original lawgiving character. Thereby, however, is fulfilled what we initially required from the meaning of the cosmological idea of ​​​​absolute spontaneity, i. e. self-legislation as the presupposition of autonomy, which ‘announces itself’ through the former, as Kant says. With that we have answered in passing a much discussed question of interpretation, namely whether the genitive of ‘fact of reason’ is to be taken as subjective9 or objective.10 Consciousness of the validity of the moral law is identical with consciousness of the determinateness of reason through itself, ‘sic volo, sic iubeo’—as I wish, so I command. This determinacy through which the lawgiving of reason announces itself is however entirely referred to itself. The fact thus possesses a threefold meaning: It is the consciousness of the will-­determining function of reason, it is the consciousness of will’s being determined by reason, and of course it is also the consciousness of its own determinateness. The cosmological idea of absolute spontaneity is thus nothing other than precisely this consciousness of the original self-legislation of practical reason. From this the entire formalism of Kantian ethics can be explained as basis of the positive doctrine of freedom, insofar as pure reason looks only at the form of its own lawgiving and there discovers itself practically as free in the transcendental sense.11 For the step to the categorical imperative all that is still needed, according to the reflection on the capacity for generalization of a law, is the form of imputation, thus finally of reflection on imputability: Does the rule or maxim that I have set for myself accord with the form of self-legislation of my will, or does it contradict it, so that I cannot at all make it a determination of my will either formaliter, since it is self-­contradictory, or materialiter, since it cannot be meaningfully willed as a determination of the will? If our analysis is correct, then it would be desireable that Kant not only give an account of the general form of practical self-determination, but also himself provide a logical ordering of the determination of the will from freedom. This he in fact does, in what must be the darkest part of the Critique of Practical Reason, in the form of the so-called categories of freedom:

9  Cf. Beck 1960/61, p. 279. 10  Cf. Schöndorf 1995, p. 185. 11  Cf. KpV, AA V, 51; S. 33.

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Table of the Categories of Freedom Relative to the Notions of Good and Evil

Quantity

Quality

Relation

Modality

Subjective, according to maxims (practical opinions of the individual). Objective, according to principles (Precepts). A priori both objective and subjective principles of freedom (laws).

Practical rules of desire (praeceptivae).

In relation to personality.

The Permitted and the Forbidden.

Practical rules of omission (prohibitivae). Practical rules of exceptions (exceptivae).

In relation to the Duty and the state of the person. contrary to duty.



Reciprocal, of one person to the others of the others.

Perfect and imperfect duty.

Tafel der Kategorien der Freiheita in Ansehung der Begriffe des Guten und Bösen

Der Quantität

Der Qualität

Der Relation

Der Modalität

Subjectiv, nach Maximen (Willensmeinungen des Individuums). Objectiv, nach Prinzipien (Vorschriften). A priori objective sowohl als subjective Prinzipien der Freiheit (Gesetze).

Praktische Regeln des Begehrens (praeceptivae).

Auf die Persönlichkeit.

Das Erlaubte und Unerlaubte.

Praktische Regeln des Unterlassens (prohibitivae). Praktische Regeln der Ausnahmen (exceptivae).

Auf den Zustand der Person.

Die Pflicht und das Pflichtwidrige.

Wechselseitig einer Person auf den Zustand der anderen.

Vollkommene und unvollkommene Pflicht.

a KpV, AA V, 66.

Kant gives an astonishingly laconic explanation of this Table: It will at once be observed that in this table freedom is considered as a sort of causality not subject to empirical principles of determination, in regard to actions possible by it, which are phenomena in the world

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of sense, and that consequently it is referred to the categories which concern its physical possibility, whilst yet each category is taken so universally that the determining principle of that causality can be placed outside the world of sense in freedom as a property of a being in the world of intelligence; and finally the categories of modality introduce the transition from practical principles generally to those of morality, but only problematically. These can be established dogmatically only by the moral law. I add nothing further here in explanation of the present table, since it is intelligible enough of itself. A division of this kind based on principles is very useful in any science, both for the sake of thoroughness and intelligibility. Thus, for instance, we know from the preceding table and its first number what we must begin from in practical inquiries; namely, from the maxims which every one founds on his own inclinations; the precepts which hold for a species of rational beings so far as they agree in certain inclinations; and finally the law which holds for all without regard to their inclinations, etc. In this way we survey the whole plan of what has to be done, every question of practical philosophy that has to be answered, and also the order that is to be followed.12 This table should contain determinations that hold of intelligible beings—and man, as a being of freedom, must be counted such.13 But its self-­explanatory 12  „Man wird hier bald gewahr, daß, in dieser Tafel, die Freiheit, als eine Art von Kausalität, die aber empirischen Bestimmungsgründen nicht unterworfen ist, in Ansehung der durch sie möglichen Handlungen, als Erscheinungen in der Sinnenwelt, betrachtet werde, folglich sich auf die Kategorien ihrer Naturmöglichkeit beziehe, indessen daß doch jede Kategorie so allgemein genommen wird, daß der Bestimmungsgrund jener Kausalität auch außer der Sinnenwelt in der Freiheit als Eigenschaft eines intelligibelen Wesens angenommen werden kann, bis die Kategorien der Modalität den Übergang von praktischen Prinzipien überhaupt zu denen der Sittlichkeit, aber nur problematisch, einleiten, welche nachher durchs moralische Gesetz allererst dogmatisch dargestellt werden können. Ich füge hier nichts weiter zur Erläuterung gegenwärtiger Tafel bei, weil sie für sich verständlich genug ist. Dergleichen nach Prinzipien abgefaßte Einteilung ist aller Wissenschaft, ihrer Gründlichkeit sowohl als Verständlichkeit halber, sehr zuträglich. So weiß man, z.B., aus obiger Tafel und der ersten Nummer derselben sogleich, wovon man in praktischen Erwägungen anfangen müsse: von den Maximen, die jeder auf seine Neigung gründet, den Vorschriften, die für eine Gattung vernünftiger Wesen, so fern sie in gewissen Neigungen übereinkommen, gelten, und endlich dem Gesetze, welches für alle, unangesehen ihrer Neigungen, gilt, u.s.w. Auf diese Weise übersieht man den ganzen Plan, von dem, was man zu leisten hat, so gar jede Frage der praktischen Philosophie, die zu beantworten, und zugleich die Ordnung, die zu befolgen ist.“ KpV, AA V, 67. 13  A detailed summary of the history of the interpretation concerning the categories of freedom can be found in Puls (2013), 6–22.

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character is far from apparent to the reader at first; once again ‘finer considerations’ of the categories of freedom should surely have been supplied. However, one recognizes their deeper order if one reconstructs them as determinations, as functions or formulas, of absolute spontaneity, that is, of the practical self-determination of the will.14 Analogous to the proof of the table of judgements in terms of the logic of determinations, one may expect that the will must be understood in three respects: first, as determining will, secondly as determinable, and thirdly as determined spontaneity.15 The starting-point must of course be absolute spontaneity as supremely a determining instance. Imputability has already been identified as a function of freedom in the cosmological sense. If one looks at the table, one finds this as the first category of freedom under the heading of relation, in the form of personality, insofar as personhood means nothing other than being capable of imputation.16 Personality is now to be determined by a law given by itself. Since this law is centred only on self, on the person’s own urges, it has the positive form of a practical rule of desire. Since such rules represent only determinations of the will of one’s own person, they must necessarily take the form of maxims. Finally, these individual determinations of the will must be made with regard to the general form of volitional self-determination, and in such a way that they appear to be possible. 14  In the Critique of Practical Reason Kant gladly uses the expression ‘formula,’ which has the same sense there as the concept of function in the Critique of Pure Reason, namely, the determination for the unity of an action: “A reviewer who wanted to find some fault with this work has hit the truth better, perhaps, than he thought, when he says that no new principle of morality is set forth in it, but only a new formula. But who would think of introducing a new principle of all morality and making himself as it were the first discoverer of it, just as if all the world before him were ignorant what duty was or had been in thorough-going error? But whoever knows of what importance to a mathematician a formula is, which defines accurately what is to be done to work a problem, will not think that a formula is insignificant and useless which does the same for all duty in general.”—„Wer aber weiß, was dem Mathematiker eine Formel bedeutet, die das, was zu tun sei, um eine Aufgabe zu befolgen, ganz genau bestimmt und nicht verfehlen läßt, wird eine Formel, welche dieses in Ansehung aller Pflicht überhaupt tut, nicht für etwas Unbedeutendes und Entbehrliches halten.“ KpV, V, 8. 15  Herein lies the primary meaning of the Kantian categories as mere categories or logical functions: They are functions or moments of self-determination. Since Zimmermann knows no difference between the primary a priori form of the determination of the will as self-determination and its secondary form as a determination of an object, he comes to the conclusion that Kant’s argument is inverted. Cf. Zimmerman (2011), p. 42. Kobusch, on the other hand, fully recognizes the original primary-a priori meaning of the categories of freedom insofar as they “only concern the internal process of forming the will.” Cf. Kobusch (2016), p. 36; Kobusch (1990). 16  RGV, B 15 f.; AA VI, 27.

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Summarizing this result, one finds three consequences for the self-­ determination of the will that result from the fact of its character as what freely determines: (1) The will is determined by the personality by means of practical rules of desire as maxims, according to the possibility of the form of its self-determination, which is the categorical imperative.17 If one looks at the second row of the table, here the fact of voluntary selfdetermination must be grasped as the object of determination, that is, as the determinable. Therefore the task here is to grasp the determination of the will from the factual demand of the form of imputability, that is, from the determination of the will by duty. The obligation of the will is not understood as a mere self-obligation, something subjective, for its indispensable character consists precisely in the non-subjectivity of the obligation, in its universality. Duty has for the will the character of an objective law, which limits the subjective actions in the guise of a prohibition, and thereby bears on the state of the person as being of freedom who is bound. Thereby the second meaning of the fact is sufficiently determined: (2) The will is determined by a given duty as an objective principle of omission, and thus refers to the state of the person as a being of freedom, that is, as part of an intelligible nature under rules of natural law that correspond to it. This matches perfectly the natural law formula of the categorical imperative.18 The third row must have its origin in the determinateness of the will, as expressing both the activity of my self-determination as a free being, and my being determined from freedom, that is, in the reciprocity of the determinedness of my person through the personality of the other. I must think of this determinateness of my person through the state of others as a suppression of my freedom, though the suppression is not to be understood as a negation, as in the order of the second row, but as a limitation. This limited freedom of my 17  Goy’s correct thesis that the categories of freedom determine all action under sensuous conditions in relation to the sensually unconditioned, the practical law, (cf. Goy (2016), p. 172) has to be rendered more precisely that the categories of freedom are, in actual fact, nothing more than explications or moments of this relation. 18  In the natural law formula an action is to be appraised “if the action you propose were to take place by a law of the system of nature of which you were yourself a part, you could regard it as possible by your own will.” KpV, AA IV, 122. The idea of ​​the formula of natural law is thus to think of omeself as part of (intelligible) nature and to conceive oneself to be correspondingly affected in the determination of actions, that is, to understand the state of my person as externally determined in such wise that this external determination of my state could be willed by me as a person. The parallel formulation in the Groundwork is: ‘Act as if the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature.’ GMS, AA IV, 421; S. 45.

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person through the freedom of others divides my actions into allowed and prohibited, that is, actions that are approved or disapproved by the general rule. Referring back to the general form of legality as the fact of the accountability for my actions, i.e. my freedom, one can distinguish perfect obligations (legal obligations), and imperfect ones (obligations of virtue towards the person of the other). With this the third sense of the fact of freedom as determinateness of the will is exhaustively grasped: (3) The will is reciprocally determined by the will of the other in relation to its state through restricting arbitrariness in every case by practical rules of permission, and by the very form of this connection as one involving a perfect or imperfect claim on the other, that is, according to the determining claim on each other posed by the purposive nature of each. Herein lies the origin of both formulas of the categorical imperative in terms of end or purpose: On one side the will, from the mutual determination to other subjects, must thought as determining; on the other, as part of the reciprocal determination, it must be thought as necessarily determined. In the first case the will of the other obliges me never to use him merely as a means but always as an ‘end in itself.’19 In the second case I must conceive myself as part of a community of end-positing beings, that is, as subordinate in a realm of virtues.20 This twofold, descending and ascending order, is essential for the third row of categories. Summary The analysis given here has shown that freedom in the cosmological sense as absolute spontaneity possesses central importance for Kant’s practical philosophy. We have shown that the idea of an original initiality of a causal series from freedom constitutes the essential core of the idea of imputability, without which morality would be unthinkable. Now if the idea of a subject capable of dedication, a personality, constitutes the a priori core of praxis, then it should be possible to bring all the determinations of practical reason back to this idea. That this is indeed the case we were able to show by referring to the ‘fact of reason,’ i.e. the consciousness of the moral law, insofar as in this the will knows itself both as determining and as determined.

19  KpV, AA V, 87. 20  KpV, AA V, 145.

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Thus, as in the theoretical, self-determination also forms the primary and a priori core of deduction in the practical, from which all other determinations are to be derived as moments. That this is how things are could again be shown by the fact that the categories of freedom could be exhibited as just these moments. As such, they form a trichotomous order of three or four series, according to the law of completeness in the logic of determinations. This ordering is expressed in the three formulas of the categorical imperative, in terms of maxims, natural law, and ends; the last of these takes the double form of the ‘end in itself’ and the ‘kingdom of ends.’ Kant’s critique of practical reason is thus shown to be correct in its theoretical core as a formal determination of the will. But the merely formal determination of the will still leaves unanswered the question of the origin of its materiality, that is, of the actual content of the determination of the will. It needed to be shown not only that and how consciousness of the moral law obliges us, but beyond this to what it obliges us. However, to answer this question a separate investigation would be required. Bibliography Beck, Lewis White 1960/61: Das Faktum der Vernunft. In: Kant-Studien 52, 271–282. Bunte, Martin 2016: Erkenntnis und Funktion. Zur Vollständigkeit der Urteilstafel und Einheit des kantischen Systems. Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter. Goy, Ina 2016: Momente der Freiheit. In: Stephan Zimmermann (ed.): Die „Kategorien der Freiheit“ in Kants praktischer Philosophie. Historisch-Systematische Beiträge, Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 149–174. Kant, Immanuel 1998: Critique of pure reason (translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood), Cambridge: University Press. [KrV] Kant, Immanuel 1998: Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Hamburg: Meiner. [KrV] Kant, Immanuel 1999: Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, Hamburg: Meiner. [GMS] Kant, Immanuel 2003: Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft, Hamburg: Meiner. [RGV] Kant, Immanuel, and Thomas Kingsmill Abbott: The Critique of Practical Reason. Raleigh, N. C.: Generic NL Freebook Publisher, n.d. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed November 30, 2017). Kant’s gesammelte Schriften, hrsg. Von der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin 1900 ff. [AA] Kobusch, Theo 1990: Die Kategorien der Freiheit. Stationen einer historischen Entwicklung: Pufendorf, Kant, Chalybäus. In: Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 15, 13–37.

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Kobusch, Theo 2016: Die praktischen Elementarbegriffe als Modi der Willens­ bestimmung. Zu Kants Lehre von den Kategorien der Freiheit. In: Stephan Zimmermann (ed.): Die „Kategorien der Freiheit“ in Kants praktischer Philosophie. Historisch-Systematische Beiträge, Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 17–76. Krijnen, Christian 2016: Kants „Kategorien der Freiheit“ und das Problem der Einheit der Vernunft. In: Stephan Zimmermann (ed.): Die „Kategorien der Freiheit“ in Kants praktischer Philosophie. Historisch-Systematische Beiträge, Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 309–332. O`Neill, Onora 2002: Autonomy and the Fact of Reason in the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft. In: Otfried Höffe (ed.): Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (=Klassiker Auslegen Band 26), Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 81–98. Puls, Heiko 2013: Funktionen der Freiheit. Die Kategorien der Freiheit in Kants „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter. Schöndorf, Harald 1995: Setzt Kants Philosophie die Existenz Gottes voraus? In: KantStudien, Band 86, 175–195. Zimmermann, Stephan 2011: Kants „Kategorien der Freiheit“, Berlin: Verlag Walter de Gruyter.

Chapter 9

Kant’s Problems with Freedom and Fichte’s Response to the Challenge Marina F. Bykova 1

Introduction: Kant’s Metaphysics of Freedom and Its Difficulties

The question of freedom is the core topic of modern philosophy. Yet, Kant was perhaps the first to discuss the topic not merely as a practical issue, but also as a theoretical matter of great significance. Making the topic a focus of his transcendental philosophy, in the third antinomy of the Critique of Pure Reason, he considers freedom in a “cosmological sense” as an intelligible efficient causality. Here he explains that cosmological freedom is a concept that points to “a thing’s power to begin a state on its own, without help of stimulus from anything else” (CPR A533/B561), i.e. without being causally determined by antecedent conditions. While natural causality is a succession of events in accordance with a universal law of nature, the kind of causality central to this concept of freedom must be conceived as a power of initiating a new series of events independent of any sensible conditions. This causality is “through which something happens, without its cause being further determined by another previous cause, i.e., an absolute causal spontaneity beginning from itself” (CPR A446/B474). Only such a “spontaneity of cause” can explain a “first beginning.” Kant thus states that cosmological freedom is independent of causal relations existing under the natural law. As a self-origination and initiation of a new state, this freedom is not determined externally and hence free “from the guidance of all rules.” It is in this sense that Kant claims that as opposed to nature, which is “lawful,” transcendental freedom is “lawless” (CPR A447/B475). Exceptionalism from laws (“lawlessness”) is a decisive feature of freedom, for it would no longer truly be freedom if it is “determined according to laws.” But Kant seems to stop halfway when he declares that freedom, in a cosmological sense, is just “a pure transcendental idea” which “cannot be given in any experience” (CPR A533/B561). Furthermore, attempting to apply this idea to regular experience would yield successive effects with no linking cause and be “destructive” to the possibility of unity in experience. Thus, he

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treats it as a “mere fiction of thought,” asserting that it is “reason creates for itself the idea of spontaneity that can begin to act on its own, without having to be kicked into action by an antecedent cause in accordance with the law of causality” (CPR A533/B561). This clearly signals that the notion of freedom as efficient causality of an intelligible sort is not suitable for practical purposes. It is not sufficient as long as it is something of which we can only think. For, in order to be practically relevant, freedom must be what we can put into practice, i.e. something we use as we exercise moral reasoning in our regular experience. To close this gap, Kant offers a practical concept of freedom, which he elaborates in his moral philosophy how it is laid down in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and in the Critique of Practical Reason. Here freedom, in its practical sense, is formulated as a concept of autonomy, which is understood as self-legislation of a rational will. It is a rational moral agency, a kind of agency that we ascribe to ourselves when we think of ourselves as morally responsible for how we choose and act. According to Kant, practical freedom must involve actions not necessitated by sensibility but arising from a “faculty of determining oneself from oneself” (CPR A534/B562). This makes the transcendental idea of freedom fundamental for the practical concept of freedom (see CPR A533/B561). For, if there were only a causality of a natural type (the natural conformity to laws), there would only be causality arising from sensibility (experience) and hence all actions would become necessary leading us to “the abolition of transcendental freedom” which would simultaneously “eliminate practical freedom” (CPR A534/B562). This intrinsic interconnection of practical and transcendental freedom points to a crucial fact. The two concepts of freedom specified by Kant represent what he calls the “two aspects” (CPR A538/B566) of causality of human being: an empirical one that can be described by condition of sensibility and an intelligible one as the self in itself or the self as transcendental. Here is another way of looking at it. Moral agency requires both freedom and causal determination, and both should be present in me. For, in order for my action to have a real effect in the world, I must operate in an actual world which is subject to causal regularities. But by performing a moral action, I must be completely independent from any external influences, i.e. I must be totally free. Thus, I should, Kant says, think of myself as sensibly determined, but intelligibly free, and these two aspects must be present in me at once. However problematic this conclusion might be, it signals one of the biggest challenges that freedom poses to philosophy. This is freedom’s apparent exceptionalism from law, or freedom’s “lawlessness” mentioned above. The question

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that arises here is how to reconcile this property of freedom with universal lawfulness. Kant tries to resolve the problem by introducing a class of laws which are distinct from laws of natural causality. Following Rousseau, he claims that freedom is not intrinsically lawless; this characteristic merely signifies the independence of freedom from natural laws. Although not determined by natural causality, freedom is a subject to another causality, that of spontaneity, which is regulated by moral laws. Those laws are purely rational laws of selfdetermination, which Kant discusses in terms of freedom as autonomy. What autonomy implies is that one is free of causes originating outside from oneself, and thus the source of moral principles by which one bound is not external, but rather internal. The source is one’s own will, and not the will of another. This will is rational, and as such cannot act except “under the idea” of its own freedom (G 4:448), meaning that the rational agency can only operate by seeking to be the first cause of its own actions. However, even if I view my rational will as an autonomous cause, it does not prove that I am really free. For freedom in me requires not only establishing the law of an autonomous rational will, but also me actually being the first cause (a causa sui) of myself. This is the idea of the self-origination of a state, which Kant associates with transcendental (cosmological) freedom, describing it as the absolute “spontaneity, which could start to act from itself” (CPR A533/B561). Kant maintains that the property of self-origination and its spontaneity is fundamental for a true understanding of human freedom. For only on this ground is autonomy possible. Yet, he fails to logically explain the nature of this spontaneity of the self-origination. Furthermore, Critique of Pure Reason does not show that cosmological freedom is actual, but just that it is possible, and not logically contradictory. Kant only postulates transcendental foundations of freedom, but he does not allow any cognitive access to it. He tells us that we are practically free, even though we are not able to know that we are transcendentally (cosmologically) free. But the irresolvable disparity between the theoretical and practical use of reason leads Kant to the difficulty of understanding how a subject that is (practically) free, and as such capable of self-determination according to moral law, can in fact act and realize its freedom. Thus not only is freedom problematic as theoretical, but also as practical. This response was unsatisfactory not only to Kant’s critics but also to his followers and disciples who strived to remain truthful to the master’s Critical philosophy. Fichte was perhaps the most prolific figure among them. He regarded himself as Kant’s most loyal follower, proud to claim that his system is “nothing other than the Kantian philosophy properly understood” (IWL 52; cf. 4).

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Yet, despite him being clearly inspired by Kant and presenting himself as a true Kantian, his ideas and findings are simultaneously different from and substantially advantageous to Kant’s system. One such example is Fichte’s theory of freedom, which was largely motivated by Kant’s failure to deliver a sound argument for the reality of freedom and a justification for the autonomy of the will. In this paper, I focus on Fichte’s response to Kant’s difficulty explaining how a real free act is grounded in spontaneity and is independent of any external influences and causal laws. The core of this response is to find in the first principle of his system—the I that freely posits itself as the I—as it is laid down in the Jena Wissenschaftslehre. In his later system, Fichte develops his solution into a well-argued concept of freedom as self-determination. In the most elaborate form, this concept is formulated in the System of Ethics, which focuses on the notion of human moral agency and its fundamental role for legislation of morality. In what follows, I sketch how Fichte conceives the notion of freedom in his Jena system and show to what extent it responds to challenges that Kant tried to address by introducing the notion of the cosmological freedom. In the second part of the paper, I turn to the Fichte’s System of Ethics and discuss Fichte’s concept of self-determined agency developed there. My aim is not only to present some key elements of Fichte’s theory of freedom, but also to put it into historical perspective by assessing it through the prism of difficulties concerning freedom that Kant was not able to resolve. 2 Kant, Fichte and the Question of Freedom There is no lack in studies of Fichte’s theory of freedom, but most of them argue that whatever is of importance in this theory can already be found in Kant.1 After all, Fichte’s rejection of determinism and deterministic systems characterize his early thought, and his adherence to critical idealism had been motivated by Kant’s theory of freedom, especially how it was detailed in the Critique of Practical Reason. Thus, according to this position, Fichte’s historical significance lies not so much in any substantive revision of Kant’s theory, but rather in extending it to more specialized areas, such as social and political philosophy and the phenomenology of agency. 1  Comprehensive studies of Fichte’s theory of freedom include Wood 2016, 65–85; Binkelmann 2007; Taver 2006, 11–84; Tilliette 2003; Merker 2000, 137–45; Wildfeuer 1999; Hinz 1981. There are studies that focus on Fichte’s theory of political freedom (James 2013; Philonenko 1966) and examine different tenets of his concept of moral freedom (Neuhouser 2016; Kosch 2013).

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While I agree that Fichte is very successful in emphasizing the significance of freedom as applied to some specific themes and topics, as well as the fact that he demonstrated how it could be effectively used in special fields of philosophical knowledge, I believe that it would be a mistake not to recognize the important innovations he introduced to the theory of freedom, which take it far beyond what Kant was able to offer. Fichte’s treatment of freedom is not only substantially different from Kant’s, but Fichte is able to clarify a number of important ideas left unresolved by the master, including the notion of moral agency and the concept of autonomy. It is crucial to recognize Fichte’s contribution to the discussion not only for a pure historical reason, but also for understanding of the problem of freedom itself. Fichte cites the master’s firm commitment to freedom as one of Kant’s main theoretical and practical achievements. This commitment, for Fichte, materializes not merely in Kant’s uncompromising insistence upon the practical certainty of human freedom, but even more so in Kant’s attempt to provide a transcendental account of ordinary experience that could explain the objectivity and necessity of theoretical reason in a manner consistent with the practical affirmation of human liberty. However, Fichte was convinced by Schulze, Maimon, and other figures that defined debates in the development of post-Kantian idealism that Kant had failed to unify the intelligible and sensible realms in a way that would justify the actuality of freedom and explain its possibility in the causally determined world. Thus, Fichte took it upon himself to complete Kant’s Critical philosophy in a way that it would escape the inherited dualist presuppositions which debilitated it and could indeed provide a practical affirmation of human freedom, the task that Kant had begun but was not able to accomplish. Responding to the challenge with his new philosophy, which he calls the “doctrine of science” or Wissenschaftslehre,2 Fichte claims to develop “the first system of human freedom” (EPW 335). In his letter from 1795, he claims that his achievement had a significance and effect comparable to the French revolution. He writes: Just as France freed man from external shackles, so my system frees him from the fetters of things in themselves, which is to say, from those external influences with which all previous systems—including the Kantian—have more or less fettered man. Indeed, the first principle of my system presents man as an independent being (ibid). 2  For a fascinating discussion of Fichte’s Jena Wissenschaftslehre cf. Breazeale (2013, esp. 96–123).

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For Fichte, the only way to escape from conceiving freedom as a merely metaphysical idea and make it the supreme reality, and so complete Kant’s project, was to ground philosophy in the uncompromised and pure freedom of the I. Either, he says, we can begin (as he does) with the self-determined activity of the I as the ground of all possible cognitive and practical ventures and experiences, or we can begin with the thing in itself. This dilemma, as he puts it, is the choice between idealism and dogmatism. The former is transcendental philosophy of human freedom; the latter implies a naturalistic approach to the I that explains it solely in causal terms. The balance between the two cannot be maintained, since they are mutually exclusive yet equally possible views: Neither of these two systems [dogmatism and idealism] can directly refute its opposite, for their quarrel is about the first principle, which admits of no derivation from anything beyond it; each of the two, if only its first principle is granted, refutes that of the other; each denies everything in its opposite, and they have no point at all in common from which they could arrive at mutual understanding. SK 12

As Fichte famously says in the First introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre from 1797, the choice between the two depends on the kind of person one is. Since dogmatism unavoidably implies a strict form of determinism which is inconsistent with human freedom, one’s desire to be free necessarily leads to embracing idealism and rejecting dogmatism (IWL 18–20). It should come as no surprise then that Fichte chooses idealism, for, in his view, it alone is capable of securing freedom required for an adequate account of moral agency. He sees the primary goal of his Jena Wissenschaftslehre as establishing a new concept of free agency that would account for the natural necessity and which could operate in a causally conditioned world. Fichte completely refutes that any dogmatic system could ever accomplish what he views as his task and what, in his opinion, is required of a unifying system of philosophy that affirms freedom and reconciles it with necessity. Idealism is the only philosophical position which is able to explain freedom and be grounded in it. He thus concludes that the system of freedom must begin with an immediate, selfsufficient, and self-grounding first principle. Any first principle of such system has to establish that freedom is not conditioned by any outside causes. The possibility of freedom must be grounded on an active self whose determination could not be explained by appeal to the given.

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Fichte thus begins his Wissenschaftslehre with the ungrounded assertion of the active self, whose activity is not determined by any external causes, but is rather described as its own spontaneity and freedom. This actively selfdetermined self is presented as the first principle upon which all human activities (both mental and practical), that is, human cognitive and moral agency, could be grounded. In Fichte’s technical terminology, the first principle of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre is formulated as a proposition, “the I posits itself”; more specifically, “the I posits itself as an I.” What it implies is a kind of the immediate presentation of the I to itself, a sort of the self-identity which is not presupposed or given, but self-initiated. Because of different formulations and quite different uses of “the I” in Fichte, it is not self-evident what the “first principle” should mean and how the act of self-positing should be understood. This, in turn, leads to a misinterpretation and even mystification of Fichte’s principle. It is thus necessary to briefly discuss the meaning of “the I” as the “first principle” in Fichte and clarify his concept of the self-positing. 3

Fichte’s Concept of the Self-Positing I and the Project of Realization of Cosmological Freedom

For centuries philosophers tried to discover an absolutely infallible and necessary foundation upon which they could systematically build, finding it either in an “object” (Plato’s form, God as an eternal entity, etc.) or in a cognitive “fact.” Continuing here along truly Kantian lines, Fichte argues that the sought certainty could not be guaranteed by a “fact” of any sort, be that part of “the domain of ‘facts of consciousness’” or “part of the realm of experience” (IWL 33). It could also not be found in any appearance of some other substance beyond the I. Rather, it must be something that expresses the original, irreducible nature of the active I itself. In Fichte’s terminology, this is the activity of the “self-positing” of the I, which is understood as an “act” of the I, but the act that is identical with its own product and thus with the very existence of the I itself. He thus concludes that the first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre could not be a “fact” (Tatsache) but should be instead a “fact/act” (Tathandlung), a fundamental mode of doing that includes both the entitlement to act and also its justification (EPW 64; SK 93, 96, 97, 99). This, however, should not be interpreted as a simple “act as fact” either, as some commentators suggest (La Vopa 2001, 188). The “deed-act” is not “factual” in character, it has a status that has to be instituted and which cannot be found in the world. This instituted status

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must be authorized not by any external source, but from within. Since this self-authorized instituting cannot be attributed to the natural things, only the subject will serve as a real “deed-act” agent. This agent is thought not as a natural “thing” (in the spirit of Descartes). This is rather the apperceptive self, the status that is instituted by an act of positing itself. As Terry Pinkard explains: “the subject that institutes the license must itself be such an “act,” indeed, an act that somehow institutes the license and also simultaneously authorizes itself to institute such licenses” (Pinkard 2002, 113–14). Fichte suggests that the self, which he typically refers to as “the I,” is not merely a static thing with fixed properties, but rather a self-producing process. And since it owes its existence to nothing but itself, it must be free. This explains Fichte’s well-known statement that the subject comes into existence as it acts; prior to the act there is no subject, not even a potential agent of entitlement. There may be natural things, including bodies equipped with brains, but there could be nothing that has the “non-factual” statuses before the I attributes them. The Tathandlung, which Fichte uses to introduce the “first principle” of his Wissenschaftslehre, can be thus understood as expressing the concept of a rational agent that constantly interprets itself in light of standards that it imposes upon itself, in both the theoretical and practical realms, in its efforts to determine what it ought to believe and how it ought to act, i.e. a sort of selfimposed lawfulness. Introduced in this way, the “fist principle” has normative conceptual meaning that is realized through the agency of the I. Since this agency is both practical and theoretical activity, the “deed-act” serves in Fichte not only as a normative principal that grounds the self and its activity but also as an epistemic principle that grounds systematic knowledge and provides a basis for deducing the rest of the Wissenshaftslehre. In the Tathandlung Fichte employs the full force of the concept of the first principle by coupling it with an analysis of the self-sufficient I, which must “produce” or, as Fichte puts it, “posit itself” without an external “kick-off.” Fichte attributes self-evident certainty to the self-positing I, which he eventually associates with the cognitive activity of the I. In its presence, the I is primarily itself, is self-governing and undisturbed by any objectivity or external causality, yet as the cognitive agency it is capable of knowing the world. In this way, the self-posited I is qualified to serve as the single principle that provides a systematic ground not only for human knowledge but also for all—actual and possible—experience through which a knower is engaged with the external world. However, this engagement presupposes not only the external world of objects that exists apart from the I, but also a recognition of the distinction between oneself and the world in one’s representations. The issue here is establishing the source of the activity of representation: specifically, how can

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one explain both the spontaneity of the I and the particular determination of representations. To put it a different way, along the lines of our discussion, the question is about how to explain freedom and free agency in the light of the natural causation. This is what Kant formulated as the project of reconciling transcendental freedom and natural necessity, and what Fichte viewed as a desideratum toward completing Critical philosophy. Fichte responds to this challenge by employing the concept of “the mediacy of positing” that is grounded in the I. He explains that to recognize the distinction in our representations is to posit a distinction between the I and the Not-I, i.e., the self and whatever exists independently of it. Yet, the source of this positing is the I itself. In other words, the I posits itself as limited by something other than itself, yet limit is ultimately founded in the very activity of the I. Representation or positing of the I, Fichte says, is dependent for its content on the “check” (Anstoss).3 This is the check on the free and infinite activity of the I which is both itself a posit of the I—and thus conditioned by it—but also a condition for the possibility of the positing of the I. The real difficulty is to show how the I posits something which is still sufficiently external to its activity of positing to provide the differentiation between itself (the freely and active I) and the external world that is taken to be causally determined and passive. Fichte discusses this issue in the following passage in his Wissenshaftslehre: The objective element [the Not-I] that is to be excluded [from the I] has no need at all to be present; all that is needed … is the presence of an Anstoss for the I. … Such an Anstoss would not limit the I as active, but would give it the task of limiting itself. … What [this explanation] assumes is not a not-I that is present outside of the I, and not even a determination that is present within the I, but rather the mere task, on the part of the I itself, of undertaking a determination within itself—that is, the mere determinability of the I. SK 188

Here Fichte makes two fundamental claims about the Anstoss. The first claim is that Anstoss is not itself the not-I, but is internal to the I. The Anstoss does not check the I “from the outside,” it does not limit the I as active, but gives it the “task” of limiting itself. The Anstoss is thus not an external check, but rather a self-imposed challenge of limitation, which is internal to the I. Thus its confrontation with the Anstoss is an encounter with a limit that is original 3  On the centrality of the concept of the Anstoss in Fichte see Breazeale 1995, 87–114. Cf. his enlightening discussion of Anstoss in Breazeale 2013, 156–196.

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to the I as its pure activity. This is an original limit that the I confronts as something that is given in cognition, but by which it is not limited externally. In fact, the I is not self-limiting, but posits the check as a limitation for itself. This is the most essential element of the idea of self-determination. The second point about the Anstoss is that its primary function is to check the positing I. Moreover, the Anstoss has its essential character as a check only in virtue of the activity of the I itself. If the I were internally passive, it would not be able to meet the challenge of the check. Thus the Anstoss is both dependent on the determining I and necessary for the determinability of the I, the very condition of its possibility. This determinacy of the I is possible only if the I reflects on its own activity through positing itself as limited by something other than itself. That results in the I positing a not-I as the necessary source of the check. The Anstoss as a limit on the spontaneity of the self is thus a necessary impetus to (self)-determinacy. First, it challenges the self and forces it to act. Second, it puts an internal check to that activity, stimulating the I to self-reflection upon its own positing. The nature of the Anstoss is made increasingly more complex through further acts of reflection. The I first posits a check, an Anstoss, on its practical activity, in that it encounters resistance to its will when it acts in the world. This check then develops into more refined forms of limitation: sensations, intuitions, and concepts, all united in the experience of the things of the natural world, i.e., the spatio-temporal realm ruled by causal laws. The Anstoss does not merely summon us to act, it summons us to act for the end of acting freely. It presents the occasion for the I’s fundamental drive to self-identity to consciously manifest itself in its actions. That means that the Anstoss summons the I to be cognizant of the ends to which it is called. It should be clear that what Fichte has in mind under the concept of the self-positing I is what Kant tried to postulate in his concept of cosmological freedom. This is the idea of self-origination, the absolute spontaneity that explains the original identity of the I. But Fichte does not stop here. His principle of absolute self-positing is not a traditional principle of identity.4 Not only does it include an extra dimension of existential (practical) significance, but also guarantees the “identity in difference” of the original I and eventually explains the acts of “distinguishing” and “referring” which give rise to self-­consciousness in the first place. The activity of the I is internally (self)determined and freely applied to any sensory content; it is enacted through 4  For the discussion of Fichte’s principle of absolute self-positing of the I and associated with this principle the concept of subject see Bykova (2009).

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experience in the world of sensibility ruled by natural laws. Fichte’s principle of “the I that simply posits itself” requires that the I posits both itself and its world and in this way becomes self-conscious of itself and its practical agency, and thus self-aware of its (transcendental) freedom and this freedom’s practical realization. The unity of theoretical and practical reason (which remained problematic for Kant) is now guaranteed from the start, inasmuch as this very unity is a condition for the possibility of freedom (and self-consciousness). Furthermore, contrary to Kant, for whom freedom was a property of the transcendental subject, Fichte clearly states that the only actually existing and acting I as a free agent is a finite, empirical, embodied, individual self.5 Although “the I simply posits itself,” its freedom is never “absolute” or “unlimited”; instead, freedom proves to be conceivable—and hence the I itself proves to be possible—only as limited and finite, and the external world upon which Fichte’s empirical, embodied self acts is a condition necessary for the possibility of its freedom. This uniquely interpreted self is Fichte’s response to Kant’s difficulties in explaining the possibility of the transcendental freedom and reconciling it with the practical concept of the same. What I suggest here is that Fichte’s attempt to establish the reality of freedom required the overcoming of Kant’s conceptualization of transcendental freedom as a merely metaphysical idea. In addition, the author of the Wissenschaftslehre had to justify certain other Kantian doctrines regarding the self’s immediate presence to itself both as a cognizing subject cable of self-origination and as an autonomous striving moral agent. I would like to argue that Fichte’s theory of infinite “self-positing” activity of the I and its finite “representing” activity was in fact such overcoming. This activity of the self is a practical (indeterminate) striving of the I to overcome all external and internal hindrances, and to make itself a totally independent free agent—in the words of the first principle of the “practical portion” of the 1794/95 Grundlage, to “determine the Not-I.” In Fichte’s philosophy, the very concept of an I that actively posits itself implies one and the same I must be simultaneously limited (with respect to the sheer occurrence of the Anstoss) and unlimited (with respect to the necessary positing thereof), or, in Fichte’s somewhat hyperbolic language, finite and infinite at one and the same time. Such a “dialectical” content of Fichte’s conception of the I is one of the main reasons why this conception has proven so difficult to grasp. Yet, this difficulty is also due to the goal that Fichte pursues by introducing this 5  For the detailed analyses of finitude of the Fichtean self, see Breazeale (1995, esp. 98–102).

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conception. Attempting to complete Kant’s critical project, he responds to the challenge of explicating the possibility of freedom in the determined world. Fichte continues arguing for his concept of freedom throughout the majority of his writings, including the numerous versions of Wissenschaftslehre and his works on topics relevant to practical philosophy. But perhaps the most elaborate discussion of the topic is found in his System of Ethics (1798), where he undertakes a task of justifying one’s freedom solely in accordance with the concept of self-determination. Not being able to discuss this doctrine here in detail, I will comment on its most important tenets, especially focusing on those that add to a better understanding of Fichte’s response to Kant’s challenge about freedom and could be viewed as Fichte’s advancement over Kant. 4

Self-determinacy of the I and the Account of Moral Freedom in Fichte’s System of Ethics

The System of Ethics is Fichte’s main work on moral philosophy, where he addresses the central issues of his ethics in the most systematic way. Among those issues are important topics relevant to the discussion of human moral agency, such as our moral duties, questions of human volition and the relation between reason and will, freedom of choices, the role of the drives in human willing, and many others. In this section, my main focus will be on Fichte’s notion of self-determined agency and, associated with this notion, his account of human freedom that introduces important revisions to Kant’s concept of the same. Having demonstrated the supreme principle of morality by reference to autonomy, Kant could hardly claim to ground free volition upon the supposed fact of morality. That would be to exceed the bounds of reason by employing an epistemological argument for metaphysical purposes. As it was mentioned above, Kant’s reasoning led to a dual controversial result: first, to a highly problematic account of human freedom, and second, to undermining the very possibility of a plausible moral theory based on freedom. Fichte sees his goal in restoring the conceptual unity of freedom and morality and providing justification for the possibility of morality based on autonomy. In the System of Ethics, freedom is introduced as a unified concept of both the idea of self-determination of the I and the idea of my “free willing” (Willkürfreiheit). Although Fichte distinguishes these two tenets of freedom, they are essentially linked together in the concept of the moral self: the I must freely commit itself to self-determinacy and its choice of morality is its own free (and not externally pre-determined) choice. From this “tendency to determine

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itself absolutely, without any external impetus” (SE 33), Fichte deduces the principle of autonomy, developing a decisively new (in relation to Kant’s) account of freedom as lawfulness. This account is essentially grounded in his idea of free (self-determined) agency, to which discussion I turn now. In § 3 of the System of Ethics Fichte writes: When you think of yourself as free, you are required to think your freedom under a law; and when you think of this law, you are required to think of yourself as free, for your freedom is presupposed by this law, which announces itself as the law of freedom. … Freedom does not follow from the law, no more than the law follows from freedom. These are not two thoughts, one of which can be thought to depend upon the other; rather this is one and the same thought. This thought constitutes a complete synthesis (in accordance with the law of reciprocity), which is also how we have viewed it. SE 55

At least three points deserve close examination here. First, Fichte derives the concept of free agency from a transcendental analysis of the thoughts that we have about ourselves and our action. The second idea concerns Fichte’s claim that freedom is not distinct from the moral law; these two notions label one and the same phenomenon. Finally, he states that freedom and law reciprocally imply each other; and freedom, he continues, is “the concept of the necessity of determining myself through my freedom, but only in accordance with the concept of self-sufficiency” (SE, p. 55). I shall briefly comment on each of these three points individually.6 1. Fichte’s main concern is the standpoint of the I as practically committed to its own agency. Fichte rightly believes that although there are many conditions and cognitive dispositions that are crucial for our self-awareness, the conception of ourselves as active agents is fundamental to all of them. Practical commitment to acting is one of the central features of our idea of ourselves. Our agency as the basic structure of the I is an established relation between the individual self (subject) and the world (object); it involves both the “separation of what is subjective from what is objective” and their agreement (SE 7). And, as Kant famously emphasized, “the synthesis” of objective and subjective is something that must be necessarily assumed. Otherwise, we will not be able to have any effect on the world. Unsatisfied with a mere assumption and attempted to verify it rationally, Fichte explains the synthesis by referring to causality found in the I or, how he puts it, “the causality of a mere concept 6  For a detailed discussion of Fichte’s concept of free agency see Bykova (2008, 393–95).

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exercised on what is objective” (SE 14). What he means by this is that in acting, I am always governed by a certain concept, which is my own subjective idea of the purpose of my action and which I later “objectify,” i.e. transform into something objective. This “objective,” however, should not be understood merely as a thing outside myself, but it also includes—and for Fichte comes from—my “internal objectivity.” The process of shaping myself is always governed by a concept that I have of my own self; I make myself a determinate object through this concept. My agency is thus my ability to posit myself absolutely. The absoluteness of this self-directed and self-executed positing of the I is guaranteed by the fact that the I is a determinate object only to the I itself and just through a concept that the I has of its own self. Fichte points out that “in order for something to be thought of as free, you required it to determine itself and not be determined from outside, or even by its own nature” (SE 40). My free agency is grounded in my ability to determine my own objectivity through a mere concept, and the thought of me as being free necessarily includes a thought of me determining myself. My self-determinacy precedes my freedom as an acting self. This is a transcendental order that explains Fichte’s account of freedom in the 1798 System of Ethics. 2. Contrary to Kant, who understands freedom as a metaphysical (transcendental) idea, and the moral law as a practical principle distinct from this theoretical proposition, Fichte regards the thought that we are free and the thought that we are subject to a law of autonomy as one and the same. To better understand this claim it is necessary to briefly consider Fichte’s idea of the I’s original tendency “to determine itself” (SE 33), which is a sort of a specific elaboration of the principle of the “self-positing I” discussed above. Here he emphasizes that the urge for self-determination manifests itself in the drive for absolute self-activity that the I not merely possesses as one of its abilities among others, but that “is posited as the essence of the I, and, as such, it belongs necessarily to the I and is within the I” (SE 44). The self-activity is the drive toward the “completeness” of the I, its most unified and harmonized state. This drive, which content is the law, results in the thought that we are free (Cf. SE 48). The thought of my freedom for Fichte is never a pure (metaphysical) idea but always an attitude involving a practical commitment. The self-activity requires a practical involvement of the I with the world and itself. Thus, practical commitment is necessarily assumed in the I’s idea of free agency. 3. The idea of reciprocity of freedom and law is perhaps Fichte’s most direct response to Kant’s failure to demonstrate the reality of cosmological freedom and explicate the true relation between freedom and law. Insisting that Kant’s definition of freedom as “the power to begin a state [Zustand] … absolutely”

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(SE 41) is only a nominal proposition, which still does not explain how this “absolute beginning” is possible, Fichte seeks to identify a true ground for such a power and finds it in a “concept” that the I has of itself (cf. SE 40–1). The latter is not an abstract construction or a kind of a presupposed idea of the I; instead, it is an “absolute activity” of the I itself, the “active force” or “drive” toward the whole I. “Whatever the I is ever supposed to become, it must make itself this by means of a concept” (SE 42). The concept is the thought from which the I necessarily arises as an object to its own volition, but the object which is self-sufficient and self-determined. Thus this thought is not just the thought of what is somehow possible (what could potentially be); rather, it is the thought that determines what the I is in fact to be. The point Fichte makes is that free agency is not to be conceived merely in terms of the abstract possibilities (what the free agent can do); instead, he insists that freedom must be conceptualized in terms of what the agent is actually doing, or to express Fichte’s idea more precisely, of what the agent becomes by exercising freedom. The I’s grounding concept appears therefore as a law that describes the conditions of the I’s actualized freedom; the law has to be fulfilled and this fulfillment is guaranteed by and is possible through the I’s ability of self-determination, the I’s self-sufficiency. Fichte stresses that your concept of self-sufficiency [already] … contains both the power and the law demanding that one employ that power steadfastly. You cannot think of the concept of self-sufficiency without thinking of these two, [the power and the law,] as united.… If a rational being thinks of itself as self-sufficient …, then it necessarily thinks of itself as free, and … it thinks its freedom under the law of self-sufficiency. SE 54

Fichte considers the rule of free agency to be the legislation of autonomy. The I is infinitely striving for its own actualization, which means the actualization of a concept that the I has of itself. As such it becomes a law to itself, a law that requires absolute self-sufficiency and indeterminability of the I by anything outside itself. For Fichte, to be an I is to be conscious of positing oneself as a determinate being governed merely by one’s own concept of oneself. This concept is an ideal to be achieved, a required end product to strive for, a norm that the I ought to become. To be the I is to actualize the unity of both subjective and objective in the I’s free agency. A subjective element of the I is a consciousness of freedom, i.e. an awareness of both the manifold of choices the I has concerning its own determination and the ability of the I always to determine itself differently than it in fact chooses. An unfulfilled end that the

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I is always striving toward is an objective element of the I. This end is the I’s self-concept, which for the I as subject is here at every given moment, yet as an object it still requires to be actualized or fulfilled as the I’s duty. The latter appears thus as a duty toward oneself and completion of one’s own project of self-determinacy. Despite the ethical task being unlimited,7 it is not something that can never be accomplished. Since at each particular moment it is presented as a specific end to be achieved, this I’s ethical task is not just a potentiality, but rather an actual realization of the I and its own concept, i.e. the I’s being itself. This I is an autonomous agent, whose free selfdetermination has a normative character and appears as a self-legislated law. In this context, Fichte does not simply link the concept of freedom with the concept of law, but shows that the thought of a law lays at the very foundation of the phenomenon of free agency of the I. Fichte rightly argues that to be an I is to think of oneself as always bound by a law which one is always striving to fulfill. My freedom is guaranteed by a law that I give to myself as a real criterion to distinguish between what I ought to do and what I ought not to do. Without a law my freedom appears formal, leaving entirely indeterminate what rules the free agent has to follow and what specific actions he has to perform. Thus every exercise of free agency involves the thought of a law as the content of the concept of free agency. This concept of freedom as lawfulness serves as a ground for Fichte’s accounts of moral legislation and moral freedom. Although the detailed discussion of these topics is beyond the scope of this paper, I allow myself a few remarks. Similarly to Kant, Fichte considers the I as the legislator of moral law and as the one who also bound by it. Yet, while Kant takes these two forms of the I’s agency as related externally, and thus the giver of the moral law and its subject often appear as two different selves, Fichte views them as two necessarily connected tenets of any moral agency of the I. In order to exercise its freedom, the I must be self-legislative and at the same time a subject to a law that it gives to itself. Moral freedom requires not only the moral legislation, but also the moral lawfulness and obedience. Reciprocity of the moral legislation and moral obedience is grounded for Fichte in moral freedom of the I. They are both necessary forms that any rational being must take in order to exercise its free agency. For Fichte, “moral existence in its entirety is … nothing but an unbroken process in which a rational being continually legislates to itself” (SE 58). 7  Here Fichte closely follows Kant, who famously insisted on the endless progress in virtue, even making it a ground of his postulate of immortality. Cf. CPrR 5:122–24.

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The content of this self-legislation is freedom of the I, or what is called here the “absolute self-sufficiency, absolute indeterminability by anything other than the I” (ibid.). The idea that Fichte puts forward is that to be moral, a rational being has to be autonomous and evolve, develop itself out of the “concept” of oneself. Yet, as we saw earlier, this concept has a normative character; it is normative for the being who I am. This normativity of the “concept” (that the I has of itself) allows Fichte to identify it with the concept of a moral law or categorical imperative and draw his further conclusions about the nature and character of obligations that the rational being (the I) must impose upon itself. Although it is not always clear how all these conclusions follow and what relation they have to the discussion of moral legislation, in these passages Fichte advances an idea that all that the I legislates, does, or imposes upon itself and others is rooted in freedom. The I’s free agency is what guarantees and grounds the absolute self-sufficiency and self-legislation of the I that Fichte was so fond of and that he often used as a substitutive term for freedom. 5 Conclusion What I tried to sketch above is some fundamental elements of Fichte’s philosophy of freedom that he developed in response to challenges of Kant’s Critical philosophy and in attempt to bring it to completion. An advantage of Fichte’s account of freedom over Kant’s lies in its ability to explain freedom in terms of spontaneity and self-initiation, which Kant only postulated in his cosmological (transcendental) concept of freedom but was not able to justify. Fichte also demonstrated the mutual relation between self-determination (autonomy) and law, pointing to an important role of human cognition in human selfdeterminacy. Fichte was equally successful in showing that free agency is not something what is presupposed as an abstract idea but is rather posited by the activity of the I itself. Human freedom is not only possible but also actual, and the reality of human freedom is grounded in our practical commitment to action. Activity is the means of our striving for the absolute self-­sufficiency, but it is also the way in which we realize ourselves and our free agency in the world. In formulating an understanding of the human being as individual and limited, while practically realizing itself in a context of a real world, Fichte surpasses Kant in a way that remains relevant. Kant thinks cosmological freedom as a pure transcendental idea located in a noumenal realm; he also construes freedom underlying morality through a dualistic analysis including a basic difference between phenomenal and noumenal world, which are determined and

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free, or again subjective and objective. In distancing himself from Kant, Fichte simply abandons anything noumenal. He agrees with Kant, who thinks that the cosmological freedom is a fundamental transcendental principle that must be taken on faith and that a principle of morality must be deduced solely from reason alone. Yet, Fichte understands these as merely ideas that are unrelated to the world in which we live. Instead, in his philosophy he establishes the concept of real freedom that he equates with the activity of the self-determined I. Fichte points out that the I is essentially to be conceived as unconditioned activity; being finite and limited, the I is naturally striving to overcome any limits, even those posited by its own facticity, and to determine itself and the world. The demand for its indeterminacy and infinity that allegedly conflicts with the real finality of the I is often interpreted in terms of absolute idealism, and it is mistakenly understood as Fichte’s call for the “absolute I.” The real meaning of the claim is that the I is possible only as a free individual I, and as such must posit its freedom absolutely, that is, purely and unconditionally, and not be determined and limited by any empirical fact, including the facticity of its own existence. The only determination of the I is its own internal striving for being itself. Yet, it is possible only within a social world among other individuals. Hence, freedom does not realize itself in the separate individual I, but in human society. In order to become a reality, the self-positing I becomes engaged with a plurality of historical subjects, and realizes itself in the moral relations established among them. And these relations are the source of natural, penal, and political rights. This, however, is a topic for another discussion. Bibliography Binkelmann, Christoph. 2007. Theorie der Praktische Freiheit: Fichte und Hegel. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Breazeale, Daniel. 1995. “Check or Checkmate? On the Finitude of the Fichtean Self.” In The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy, edited by Karl Ameriks, Dieter Sturma, 87–114. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Breazeale, Daniel. 2013. Thinking through the Wissenschaftslehre: Themes from Fichte’s Early Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bykova, Marina F. 2008. “On Fichte’s Concept of Freedom in the System of Ethics,” Philosophy Today (52):3–4, 391–398. Bykova, Marina F. 2009. “Fichte’s Doctrine of Self-Positing Subject and Concept of Subjectivity,” Fichte-Studien (32): 129–139.

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Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1982. The Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) (1794), edited and translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (1st ed., 1970) [GA I/2]—abbreviated in text as SK. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1993. Early Philosophical Writings, edited and translated by D. Breazeale. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (1st ed., 1988)—abbreviated in text as EPW. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1994. Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings, edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett— abbreviated in text as IWL. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 2005. System of Ethics, translated and edited by Daniel Breazeale and Günter Zöller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [GA I/5]— abbreviated in text as SE. Hinz, Manfred O. 1981. Fichtes System der Freiheit: Analyse eines widersprüchlichen Begriffs. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. James, David. 2013. Property and Virtue: Fichte’s Social and Political Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by M. Gregor, 41–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Ak 4]—abbreviated in text as G. Kant, Immanuel. 1997. Critique of Practical Reason, translated by M. Gregor. In Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, edited and translated by M. Gregor, 133–272. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Ak 5]—abbreviated in text as CPrR. Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason, translated by P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. [1st (A) ed. – Ak 4; 2nd (B) ed. – Ak 3]—abbreviated in text as CPR. Kosch, Michelle. 2013. “Formal Freedom in Fichte’s System of Ethics,” International Yearbook of German Idealism (9):150–68. La Vopa, Anthony J. 2001. Fichte. The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762–1799. Cambridge University Press. Martin, Wayne M. 2016. “From Kant to Fichte.” In The Cambridge Companion to Fichte, 7–57. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Merker, Barbara. 2000. “Der Wille, Eigenheit, Freiheit, Notwendigkeit und Autonomie.” In Autonomes Handeln. Beiträge zur Philosophie von Harry G. Frankfurt, edited by M. Betzler und B. Guckes, 137–152. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Neuhouser, Frederick. 2016. “Fichte’s Separation of Right from Morality.” In Fichte’s “Foundations of Natural Right”: A Critical Guide, edited by Gabriel Gottlieb, 32–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Philonenko, Alexis. 1966. La liberté hu main dans la prima philosophie chez Fichte. Paris: Vrin.

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Pinkard, Terry. 2002. German Philosophy 176–1860. The Legacy of Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taver, Katja V. 2006. Freiheit und Prädetermination unter Auspiz der prästabilierte Harmonie: Leibniz und Fichte in der Perspektive. New York: Rodopi. Tilliette, Xavier 2003. Fichte: La science e la liberté. Paris: Vrin. Wildfeuer, Arnim G. 1999. Praktische Vernunft und System: Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur ursprüngliche Kant-Rezeption Johann G. Fichtes. Tübingen: Frommann. Wood, Allen. 2016. Fichte’s Ethical Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 10

Sameness and Otherness in the Free Principle of Philosophy: Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre in Comparison to Hegel’s Science of Logic Faustino Fabbianelli

1

In his unfinished book on religion, Hans Wagner wrote that metaphysics is the bread “from which we live in good times and in bad; and if we hunger for anything, then most often for a valid metaphysics.”1 He distinguishes between a transcensive metaphysics, which compellingly clears a path to the unexperienceable, and a ciscensive metaphysics which, conversely, rests upon a glossing over of the unexperienceable. In both cases, in starting from experience one reaches that which lies beyond experience—either in the transcendent manner of transcensive metaphysics (which is capable of substantiating and justifying its claims), or in the exuberant style of ciscensive metaphysics, which presents a way of thinking that no longer necessarily follows from the certainty of what is known, and consequently lacks any sufficient grounding.2 Transcendental philosophy, then, claims to establish a valid metaphysics; to this end, it is understood as the basis for a transcensive metaphysics in Wagner’s sense, insofar as it represents knowledge of a boundary and knowledge from this boundary. As Kant emphasizes, this boundary (Grenze) divides two domains in a positive way, since it leaves open the possibility for movement on both sides of the division. The limit (Schranke), on the other hand, represents the containment of something, and negates its own overcoming. While the boundary is “something positive,” in the way that a point dividing a line is “nonetheless a locus in space,” the limit includes “mere negations.”3 What transcendental philosophy knows, it knows about concepts and the normative rules of their relations. Thus, such concepts can be seen as the boundary points from which it is possible for something to be known (though not objectively). Although they separate the domains of that which is located 1  Wagner 1953, 220; my translation. 2  Wagner 1953, 210–214. 3  A A 4, 354; Kant 2004, 105.

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on either side of the line that they constitute, these terms display a characteristic positivity in that they enable us to obtain knowledge (though not objective knowledge) in both domains. Knowledge of the boundary and from the boundary is, strictly speaking, nothing other than the application of the principle by which philosophy is transcendental, because it does not have to do with objects but with a priori knowledge. Thus, Kant calls this kind of knowledge “knowledge of a boundary” insofar as it “restricts itself solely to the relation of what lies outside the boundary to what is contained within.”4 The knowledge of transcendental philosophy, then, allows for an analogical explanation of certain objects and states of affairs. One such example for Kant is the notion of religion and the related understanding of God as that moral entity to which the human conscience answers. The reality of God is not theoretically or objectively accepted, but rather subjectively, that is, through practical reason. It is “only in following out the analogy” of God that one knows how he or she should act. In this way, religion becomes for the human being “a principle of estimating all his duties as divine commands.”5 Even when one has no objective knowledge of God, it is permitted from the standpoint of reason to know Him as the legislator of human duties. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre also presents knowledge of the boundary and from the boundary as transcendental philosophy, and here too we can speak of analogical thinking. In contrast to Kant’s critique of reason, the analogy found in the Wissenschaftslehre holds not only in regard to knowledge of particular objects and states of affairs, but also in regard to the principle of philosophy. In other words, according to this analogy we can speak not only of duties and commands, but also of the rational knowledge itself which underlies diverse knowledge of these duties and commands. Namely, the Wissenschaftslehre is knowledge of the various forms of knowledge, which would not be possible without understanding this absolute knowledge as knowledge of the absolute. In this way, transcendental philosophy opens up the path to a transcensive metaphysics, inasmuch as it knows that which is beyond reason on the basis of knowledge of reason. First, it is appropriate to characterize the absolute knowledge that is the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre as a boundary, since it presents a point of reference between the absolute and the relative, the infinite and the finite. Accordingly, the Wissenschaftslehre of 1804 calls the principle of philosophy “the absolute” that is “neither in being nor in consciousness but in the union of

4  A A 4, 361; Kant 2004, 112. 5  A A 6, 440; Kant 1991, 235.

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both”; and further, “Truth and certainty in and for itself = A.”6 The principle of philosophy as that which binds together being and consciousness also refers to the intrinsic relationship between God as the absolute (or Being) and His appearance (that is, the image of Him). Secondly, as philosophy of the boundary and from the boundary the Wissenschaftslehre establishes an “analogical knowledge,” because it recognizes the principle of its own understanding as an absolute knowledge, insofar as knowledge is related to the absolute. In The Doctrine of Religion we see that “Ex-istence (Daseyn) must apprehend, recognise, and image forth itself as mere Ex-istence; and, opposed to itself, must assume and image forth an absolute Being (Seyn) whose mere Ex-istence it is.”7 This passage makes two things clear: first, that absolute knowledge as the principle of philosophy represents an appearance of God, which as such is in a relation of identity and difference to the absolute. Its nature as “Existence” shows that its appearance is in fact the appearance of the only possible being, of the absolute self. Second, that in order for the absolute to be something for us, it must appear (i.e., it must enter into a relationship with the finite). Thus, it is by the absolute that we know its appearance; we also know that the absolute does not exhaust itself in its appearance. The absolute is an “in itself, of itself, and through itself,” it is that “singularity [Singulum] of immediately living being“8 which maintains its own independence despite its relation to the finite. Of vital importance to my inquiry is the fact that the transcendence of the absolute is only identifiable by its immanence in absolute knowledge. Consequently, it can be determined from the knowledge proceeding from the boundary that the absolute is both knowledge (as it appears) and ignorance (inasmuch as it actually has a being which is not limited to the relative). The Wissenschaftslehre of 1805 clarifies knowledge’s function as “representation (Repräsentant) of the absolute.”9 This relation of “representation,” or the “substituting” of the absolute by its appearance, could be called a relation of higher representationalism. There are two reasons to do so: firstly, because it does not concern the lower relationship between the object and its appearance in consciousness, but rather the link between the absolute and the finite that grounds the first relationship. Secondly, the “representation” (Repräsentation) referred to is not simply that idea (Vorstellung) of any theory of representation (such as, for example, that of Karl Leonhard Reinhold), and it does not merely indicate the substitution relation of an original and its copy. The representing 6  G A II/8, 25; Fichte 2005, 30. 7  G A I/9, 88; Fichte 1849, 52. 8  G A II/8, 278, 242; Fichte 2005, 137, 121. 9  G A II/9, 242; my translation.

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element, that is, the image of the absolute, is not a copy but rather an original through which the absolute can be reached. It is important here to understand on what grounds Fichte establishes the relation (which we consider to be analogical) between the absolute and the concept. It is precisely in the concept that God exists, and in it He exists “insofar as He can exist; that is, the way in which He exists, because He is God, and exists.”10 Thus, that which exists corresponds to God in terms of content: “therefore, the concept has real content, posited through God’s inner being, and by no means through the concept.”11 This comprises the identity of absolute and concept. Since the concept represents the moment, however, in which God’s essence becomes fluid, it is not identical with God—otherwise it would not be the concept of God, but rather God Himself. Although in content it is identical with God, the concept of God is absolutely distinct, in the sense that through God’s becoming fluid this same content has assumed the other form of the concept. In this respect, Fichte claims, God’s inner essence should be understood as the “in tantum” and the concept as the “tantum.”12 In other words, God can exist insofar as His essence is that “tantum” of content which unites with the formal “tantum” of the concept. For Fichte, both moments arise “completely through each other; and it is truly the case that ideal=real, and real=ideal.”13 It must be said that such interpenetration of content and form is found in the concept as well as in the absolute. If this were not the case, there would be an absolute lacking either form or content. Both the concept as the sole appearance of the absolute and the appearing absolute are unities of form and content. Through appearing, the absolute loses its own form and takes on the form of knowledge: “inner absolute form: which God takes on simply by existing, because it is itself that which exists.”14 This identity of content in the non-identity of form underlies the analogical relationship between the absolute and its appearance.

2

For Hegel, an identity which in itself contains an opposing non-identity, or is part of an unresolved difference—whether in form or in content—does not 10  GA II/9, 260. 11  GA II/9, 260. 12  GA II/9, 260. 13  GA II/9, 260–261. 14  GA II/9, 261.

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constitute a true and actual identity, because it is still understood to be specifically in opposition to the other. Accordingly, while the Wissenschaftslehre is characterized by an analogical approach, Hegel rejects any such analogy of identity and non-identity. His positive theology, in which rational knowledge is knowledge of the absolute, is the opposite of a Thomistic negative theology according to which God remains completely hidden. In between these two is the analogical knowledge of the Wissenschaftslehre, which is neither absolutely complete nor absolutely empty knowledge of the absolute. This gap between Fichte and Hegel is reinforced by the ‘as’ category. For both thinkers this is a category of negation, in the sense that ‘as’ indicates that something is that thing as such, insofar as it is this and not that. The Wissenschaftslehre of 1805 designates ‘as’ as the category of knowledge that brings duality into unity, and therefore that which finds non-identity in identity: “How can two become one internally? Through an ‘as’.”15 Thus, the ‘as’ brings about a formal change within identity of content. The image, for example, is an image as such because it is seen in terms of a relation of identity and non-identity to the being of which it is an image: “Ex-istence (Daseyn) must apprehend, recognise, and image forth itself as mere Ex-istence; and, opposed to itself, must assume and image forth an absolute Being (Seyn) whose mere Ex-istence it is; it must thus, by its own nature, as opposed to another and an absolute existence, annihilate itself—which is precisely the character of mere image (Bild), representation (Vorstellung), or Consciousness of the “is” (Seyn).”16 Hegel also uses the ‘as’ category; for him it expresses the determination of something which, through this determination, negates and differentiates. According to Hegel, such determination (which must be concrete and not abstract) pertains to both form and content, and is thereby distinct from the ‘as’ of the Wissenschaftslehre, which only pertains to form. Thus, one is confronted with two alternative views of the principle of philosophy: the analogical metaphysics of the Wissenschaftslehre stands in opposition to Hegel’s metaphysics of absolute relationality. While in the first case the absolute and the concept are in a relation of immanence which does not exclude (but rather, implies) the transcendence of that which manifests itself in appearance, in the second case any residue of transcendence must be sublated in favor of an inclusive relation between the whole and moments of the whole, according to which totality is not outside of its moments, but rather is constituent of each of them. The Wissenschaftslehre of 1805 references foreignness in relation to this point, in order to describe the way in which the 15  GA II/9, 210. On Fichte’s concept of ‘as’ see Janke 1993, 337–345. 16  GA I/9, 88; Fichte 1849, 52; translation slightly modified.

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light of knowledge nullifies itself, “by making this act of generation the act of something foreign, of Being (Seyn) itself.”17 For Fichte, light is “fundamentally foreign to itself” because it is “God’s Existence.“18 Foreignness expresses the excendence of the absolute over the finite; it guarantees that no absolute interpenetration of the two occurs, and therefore that the finite is not the infinite, but ought to become it. I will return later to the ‘ought.’ Here I would like to touch upon Fichte’s conscious emphasis on the alternative character of his philosophy in comparison to every conception for which reason is regarded as absolute, because it is the reason of the absolute (as for Schelling and Hegel). In contrast to Hegel’s identity and non-identity, Fichte places “essential sameness in non-identity, and non-identity in identity, in absolute and indivisible unification.”19 Thus, the possibility emerges for a transcensive metaphysics in the manner of Hans Wagner, which grounds and justifies its claims transcendently, in the sense that it takes a position at the boundaries of knowledge.

3

Heinrich Rickert responded to the question of the purely logical object (that is, the question of the minimum of theoretical thinkability, or of the paradigm of ‘something in general’) through the heterothetic principle. When someone asserts something, one is thinking of content in the form of a unity. In making this claim, Rickert emphasizes the idea that content and form represent logical components without which it is impossible to conceive of objectivity. Accordingly, content should not be regarded as an alogical moment which supervenes upon logical form as something new. On the contrary, it must be seen as the logical location for the alogical, which necessarily belongs to “objectivity or the form of the theoretical object in general.”20 Thus, an object is never a particular individual, but rather a multiplicity of moments which Rickert calls “pre-objects.”21 It is a matter of the relation between identity and otherness: “objectively speaking, the moment consists merely of the one in relation to the other. Subjectively, the other always appears with the one.”22 Rickert sees this as an expression of the principle of relationality (Relationismus), by which the theoretical object is only intelligible as the relation of the relata. He 17  GA II/9, 223. 18  GA II/9, 223. 19  GA II/9, 257. 20  Rickert 1921, 52; my translation. 21  Rickert 1921, 54. 22  Rickert 1921, 56.

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also observes that the separation of form and content is only a special case of the general heterological principle, according to which the other of the one is not simply the negation of identity, as if negating the one would be enough to obtain the other. The negation of something does away with it, turns it into a not-something, or rather, a nothing. On the contrary, the other of the one must be seen as a positive not-one, that is, as a position which is always presupposed by negation. In thinking of the negation of the one, the difference of position (that is, of an other) is logically implied. As long as the nothing of something is only understood as a special case of the other, the principle holds that “otherness logically precedes negation.”23 Rickert’s groundbreaking reflection proves to be greatly significant to our current inquiry, since it offers the possibility of asking the double question of whether the Wissenschaftslehre can be interpreted according to the heterological principle of thought, and thus whether it is fundamentally an alternative to Hegel’s dialectic of negation. In order to answer both questions, we must first determine how the aforementioned relation between the absolute and absolute knowledge (upon which the Wissenschaftslehre depends) is connected to Rickert’s relationship between identity and otherness. Rickert sees the other of the one not only as different, but as different simply (nur-verschieden). Mere difference implies the inclusion of something in common “that indicates a foundation for sameness”; whereas that which is simply different “can never be the same.”24 Werner Flach appropriated this point in order to advance the thesis that otherness must be “as meticulously as possible” kept away from sameness.25 If one were to fail to do so, one could still (with Richard Kroner) uphold the Hegelian assertion that the other of the one is not just any arbitrary other, but rather “its other” which is directly opposed to it.26 In order to recognize the logical priority of heterothesis over antithesis, it is necessary that the difference between one and other is understood as simple difference (Nur-Verschiedenheit), in the sense that any structural “correspondence” between them is precluded. For Flach, simple difference flatly excludes precisely that common moment that sameness requires. The one and the other only agree in the sense that they are both moments, “which, however, does nothing for sameness, but rather establishes their dissimilarity.”27 Thus, Flach agrees with Rickert in asserting the pure heterogeneity of the absolute 23  Rickert 1921, 58. 24  Rickert 1924, 35; my translation. 25  Flach 1959, 33; my translation. 26  Kroner 1924/25, 110; my translation. 27  Flach 1959, 37.

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principle of philosophy: thought can be considered the absolute because, in its self-referentiality, it determines itself and thereby bestows upon itself its own validity and certainty. It can only do so, however, insofar as it represents an absolute relationship, in which the subject-predicate relation (obtainable through determinations of judgment) is already present from the beginning. In this way, thought as the absolute principle of philosophy proves to be a heterothetic relationship between the one and the other. Both moments of thought are fully heterogenous; in other words, thought is a simply different relationship: “in terms of predicate logic, the absolute subject and the absolute predicate; and indeed such that any mediation is precluded.”28

4

Here we return to our central question. In what sense can the Wissenschaftslehre be understood as heterothetic, if it originates, as a transcendental philosophy, from the analogical relation which connects absolute knowledge with the absolute as the image of the absolute? In what way is the otherness of the moments of this analogical relationship connected to the otherness of the moments (subject and object) that establish the heterothetic relation of absolute knowledge? Is not simple difference (Nur-Verschiedenheit) precluded by the analogical sameness of the absolute and absolute knowledge, thereby also precluding the heterothetic principle that both Rickert and Flach accept against Hegel’s antithetic dialectic? Consequently, to what extent can the claim that Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre thoroughly rebuts Hegel’s dialectic of antithesis be supported? It seems that it is only possible to answer such justifiable questions by returning to the ‘concept’ in Fichte’s transcendental philosophy that establishes the heterothetic relation of moments. The Wissenschaftslehre of 1804 calls it the “living ‘through’,” and it concerns the point of disjunction in every relation of knowledge. It is as a result of the living ‘through’ that thought is understood as the heterothetic principle, because it consists of the oneness of the subject and otherness of the object: that is, the one is possible through the other, and the other is possible through the one. This ‘through’ of absolute thought, which constitutes and justifies heterothesis in opposition to Hegel’s antithesis, is now also ‘through’ as the appearance, or rather the image, of the absolute. Fichte introduces the relation of the double ‘through’ with the question “How would it be if the internal life of the absolute light (= 0) were its life.” This question is 28  Flach 1959, 42.

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answered through the following explanation: “If there is to be an expression— an outward existence of the immanent life as such—then this is possible only with an absolutely existent ‘through’.”29 In this way, it also becomes possible to grasp the relation of the absolute to absolute thought through the previously introduced principle of analogy. The ensuing question about the logical order of the heterothetic and analogical principle of philosophy is answered by the fact that the principle of the analogy of the absolute and of the image is considered to be a determination of the principle of the heterothesis of thought. The heterothetic principle of thought proves also to be for Fichte’s transcendental philosophy—just as for Rickert and Flach—the absolute principle, the principle of all principles of knowledge in general.30 Since absolute knowledge itself only represents the absolute appearance of the absolute, however, the principle of analogy (which forms the basis for the relation of the absolute and thought) shows itself to be a determination of the heterothetic principle of thought. The simple difference of the one and the other as moments of heterothesis is therefore linked to the sameness and difference of the absolute and thought. Thus, a double sense of otherness is established: otherness in the ­context of the heterothesis of thought and otherness in the context of analogical sameness. These correspond to two different relations: in the first case to the horizontal relationship of constituting moments of thought, and in the second case to the vertical relationship of this same thought to the absolute. The latter can be seen as a determination of the former, which never allows otherness to become a non-identity in Hegel’s sense. The other of the absolute is certainly found in thought, though not in the sense of Hegel’s non-identity, but rather through an otherness that is not explainable through dialectic because it is heterothetic. Hegel places every relation of moments under the same principle of antithetic dialectic, thereby levelling the difference between the relation within thought and the relation between thought and the absolute. Thus, he misunderstands the twofold principle in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre of heterothesis and analogy. Conversely, Rickert and Flach confine themselves to the relationship of thought, thus rightly emphasizing only the heterothetic relationship of simple difference. They place in the background, however, the idea that there is another relationship of otherness—otherness of thought in relation to the absolute—for which otherness and sameness are not mutually exclusive. What are the consequences of this with respect to heterothetic thought itself? Rickert and Flach have shown that in Hegel’s approach the question 29  GA II/8, 154; Fichte 2005, 85. 30  On this point see Krijnen 2008, 129.

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of validity concerning thought, expressed through the heterothetic principle, is ultimately limited by the pronominal question (Bestimmungsfrage) represented by the antithetic principle. In other words, Hegel negates the idea that the heterothetic correlation between the one and the other can be considered logically prior to the determining relationship of identity and non-identity. In this regard, Fichte’s transcendental philosophy suggests that the heterothetic principle is the only principle of absolute thought on the basis of which positing, or rather thought, is possible at all. In the Wissenschaftslehre, however, one finds a transcendental principle of analogy that normalizes the relation between the absolute and thought, and at the same time determines the relation of otherness. In any case, it concerns itself with a determination that heterological otherness in no way sublates, and which therefore must not be confused with the dialectical determination that pertains to every type of relation for Hegel. If this is true, there are two significant differences that must not be overlooked between Fichte’s transcendental philosophy and that of Rickert and Flach. Insofar as the principle of analogy represents a determination of the heterothetic principle, one finds that the topic of determination is not only applicable to the relation of homogeneity, as it is for Rickert and Flach: namely, the absolute and absolute knowledge are in a relation of sameness of content and otherness of form. Even more importantly, the principle of analogy is not restricted to determining the heterothesis of thought with regard to the relation between knowledge and the absolute. It also indicates that the ‘through’ of heterothetic thought is not self-sufficient, precisely because it is the appearance of the absolute. One thereby stumbles upon the impassable limit of the heterothetic principle (in the sense of Rickert and Flach) in regard to absolute validity. Fichte maintains in the Wissenschaftslehre of 1804 that the dynamism of the ‘through’ is dead: “it has nearly all the natural tendencies of life, nevertheless in itself it is only death.”31 The ‘through’ of living thought that underlies the heterothetic relation is, in other words, simply life as an image; it carries out a life which doesn’t belong to it. “[H]ow should a dead ‘through’ […] come to life […], if only it is brought into play—because it has no basis in itself for coming to actualization?”32 In this way, it is established that the vitality of heterothetic thought depends upon the vitality of the absolute that thought grasps and identifies in the otherness of analogy, but which is actually the cause of all

31  GA II/8, 160; Fichte 2005, 87. 32  GA II/8, 154; Fichte 2005, 84–85.

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thought in the ‘through.’ “Result: the existence of a ‘through’ presupposes an original life, grounded not in the ‘through’ but entirely in itself.”33

5

The aforementioned connection between otherness and sameness affects the determination of freedom which is characteristic of the principle of philosophy. The difference between Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre und Hegel’s Science of Logic can be clarified by means of the previously established opposition of heterothesis and dialectic. Fichte establishes the analogical relationship of absolute knowledge to the absolute, which (as said above) can be viewed as a determination of the heterothetic principle, on the basis of the statement that transcendental knowledge is seen as reason and not as understanding. Here Fichte is clearly responding to Hegel’s objections to the Wissenschaftslehre. “Reason: recently you have not heard that word from me. I did not want to profane it; it is regularly confused with understanding. If done inconsistently this is the source of all error, and if done consistently the source of absolute skepticism.”34 Reason is understood to be absolute reflection, through which the absolute manifests itself as knowledge. The law of such reflection is a law of freedom: the act of absolute reflection does not represent a natural event, but rather an absolute self-positing. Rational knowledge is free knowledge in the image of the absolute; Fichte asserts in the Wissenschaftslehre of 1805 that the law of reflection is a law “of freedom as image of the absolute—for (an) freedom.”35 In other words, knowledge is “absolute self-creation” that takes place “in its fulfillment” and “in accordance with a law that lies in the absolute, but is otherwise unaccessible.” The law that normalizes the knowledge is a law for freedom, that is, “an ought.”36 Thus, the freedom of the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre is an analogical freedom, because it is a freedom of the image that understands itself as image of the absolute: it is the freedom of the image that represents the freedom of the absolute in a different form. Just as for the relation between absolute and concept, one can say here that the content of freedom is the same while the form differs: the independence (of itself, through itself, and from itself) of the existing absolute appears as an independence (of itself, through 33  GA II/8, 160; Fichte 2005, 87. 34  GA II/9, 305. 35  GA II/9, 308. 36  GA II/9, 308.

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itself, and from itself) of its image that ought to be. The freedom of the image is not the freedom of the absolute; it defines itself precisely through the unavailability of the freedom of the absolute. The transcendental philosophy of the Wissenschaftslehre, as the philosophy of the finite and from the viewpoint of the finite, is based on the sameness of content as well as the otherness of form which must be attributed to the freedom of the absolute and of the image. For Hegel, such freedom cannot be true freedom, because it is still determined by the otherness, or more specifically the exzendence, of the absolute with respect to the image. Conversely, concrete freedom is found in the speculative concept as the being-with-oneself (Bei-sich-sein) in the other. In other words, the concept is free because it enacts itself in its other. In the concept, all foreignness is sublated; every contradiction between the finite and the infinite is nullified. The finite contains contradiction and non-freedom in itself, because at the same time it corresponds to the concept and does not correspond to it. Thus, it can only be truly free insofar as it actually corresponds to the concept, and not as it should correspond (as for Fichte). This requires that the content of the finite be one and the same as the content of the speculative concept; however, this identity cannot be associated with any otherness of form in the manner of the Wissenschaftslehre. The content, determined by the form of the absolute, must be realized in the content of the finite. Only when the freedom of the absolute is completely in accord with the freedom of the finite can it be understood as the freedom, not of the image, but of the single unending actuality of the absolute itself. In this regard, Hegel writes in The Science of Logic that “[t]he universal is thus the totality of the concept; it is what is concrete, is not empty but, on the contrary, has content by virtue of its concept—a content in which the universal does not just preserve itself but is rather the universal’s own, immanent to it.”37 An absolute whose content is not determined by the form of its own concept—for Hegel, this is where the absolute of the Wissenschaftslehre reaches its limit.

6

There are two different conceptions of that free being-self (Selbstsein) which can be predicated of the principle of philosophy: while for Hegel the beingself exists in the correspondence of finite and infinite which comes about through their dialectical relationship, for Fichte the being-self belongs to the image that is the appearance of the absolute. The two concepts of moment 37  GW 12, 35; Hegel 2010, 532.

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and image that Hegel and Fichte use in reference to this relation express the aforementioned opposition between a philosophy of total correspondence and analogical correspondence. According to Hegel, the free principle of philosophy can only be the free and infinite concept; for Fichte, on the other hand, one can speak of the freedom of the concept as the freedom that belongs to the image of the absolute in a different way. Michael Theunissen has attempted to clarify Hegel’s view of the being-self by means of the notion of ‘overgrasping.’ The concept realizes itself inasmuch as it is capable of altering reality; however, such correspondence requires an activity by which the concept expands upon reality. The consequences of such a theory are, according to Theunissen, extremely significant: on the one hand, reality lacks self-subsistence insofar as it is reduced to the object of the dialectic overgrasping of the concept. On the other hand, it is consequently impossible to regard the relation between concept and reality as a reciprocal dialogue. The correspondence of concept and reality appears as the self-­realization of the concept itself. For Hegel it is ultimately a matter of infinite power through which reason is able to rule the world. Reality’s conforming to the concept depends upon the concept’s conforming to reality. “Only because the concept lifts reality up to itself in such a way is the latter at all capable of itself rising up to the former.” In this way, all activity that is proper to reality will be claimed by the concept, with the result that the correspondence is dependent upon the self-realization of the concept and is reinterpreted as the concept’s overgrasping of reality. “In its subsumption lies the underlying reason why dialectic is limited to a correspondence which excludes the possibility of dialogic reciprocity.”38 Theunissen quotes a passage from Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte which defines the power of the concept as not so weak that it “only reaches the point of the ideal, of the ought.”39 The irony of this passage is clearly aimed at Fichte’s conception of the principle of philosophy. Theunissen quite rightly refers to a passage in Wissenschaft der Logik in which it is asserted that the universal concept overgrasps its other “but without doing violence to it; on the contrary, it is at rest in its other as in its own.” Hegel calls such power “free love and boundless blessedness, for it relates to that which is distinct from it as to itself; in it, it has returned to itself.”40 Theunissen interprets this passage as a confirmation that Hegel sees the power of the concept as free; however, he also reads it as an indication that the concept’s overgrasping of reality leaves open the possibility for a dialog which goes 38  Theunissen 1975, 193; my translation. 39  Hegel 1994, 28; my translation. 40  GW 12, 35; Hegel 2010, 532.

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beyond the underlying model of correspondence. In order that this possibility may be realized, however, it is necessary that the relation between concept and reality no longer be understood as a dialectic that centers around the concept of power. It must be asked whether Theunissen’s interpretation of Hegel is ultimately defensible, and whether the passage mentioned above from the Wissenschaft der Logik should rather be read (as it is by Werner Flach) as the explication of the concept of mediation, through which the actual significance of negation unmistakably emerges for Hegel. The universal can therefore be understood as the free power that is not violent insofar as it remains itself in the other. According to Flach, this indicates that in Hegel’s system mediation takes on the role of the original synthetic unity, on the basis of which can be established an absolute logic which is prior to formal logic; a logic in which “the unity of reflective and objectifying thought” can be formulated. In this way, thought is understood as the principle “that is able to unfold as the meaning of meaning, and thereby as the meaning of Being.”41 Be that as it may, one thing seems to me to be clear: Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre offers a way out of Hegel’s dialectic of power in Theunissen’s sense, as well as Hegel’s dialectic of mediation in Flach’s sense. In order to ground such a proposal, it is first of all necessary to point out that the dialogical relation that Theunissen hopes for necessitates a primary duality that must be found, not in the identical and the non-identical, but rather in identity and otherness. A relation of this kind is not found in the absolute of Hegel, for whom the finite and the infinite are sublated as moments of it, but rather in Fichte’s analogical relationship between the absolute and its image. The freedom of the appearance of the absolute is simultaneously identical to and other than the absolute. The law of this freedom of the appearance always represents an ‘ought’ and never an ‘is’: thus, the image of the absolute is not free like the absolute, but rather should become so. A necessary condition, however, is the recognition of the independence (Selbständigkeit) and related otherness that is characteristic of the appearance in respect to the absolute. On the other hand, with regard to Flach and Rickert it is important to add that antithetic dialectic must indeed be replaced by the heterothetic principle of philosophy, but also that this already occurs in Fichte’s concept of the living ‘through’, which is the principiatum (Prinzipiat) of the living absolute as well as the principle of appearing life.

41  Flach 1959, 73.

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Bibliography Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1849. The Way Towards the Blessed Life; or, the Doctrine of Religion. Translated from the German by William Smith. London: John Chapman. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1985. J. G. Fichte-Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. II/8. Herausgegeben von Reinhard Lauth und Hans Gliwitzky unter Mitwirkung von Erich Fuchs, Erich Ruff und Peter K. Schneider. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. [GA II/8] Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1993. J. G. Fichte-Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. II/9. Herausgegeben von Reinhard Lauth und Hans Gliwitzky unter Mitwirkung von Josef Beeler, Erich Fuchs, Ives Radrizzani und Peter K. Schneider. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. [GA II/9] Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 1995. J. G. Fichte-Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. I/9. Herausgegeben von Reinhard Lauth und Hans Gliwitzky unter Mitwirkung von Josef Beeler, Erich Fuchs, Marco Ivaldo, Ives Radrizzani, Peter K. Schneider und Anna-Maria Schurr-Lorusso. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. [GA I/9] Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. 2005. The Science of Knowing; J. G. Fichte’s 1804 Lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre. Translated by Walter E. Wright. Albany: SUNY. Flach, Werner. 1959. Negation und Andersheit. Ein Beitrag zur Problematik der Letztimplikation. München/Basel: Reinhardt. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1981. Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 12: Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweiter Band. Die subjektive Logik (1816). Herausgegeben von Friedrich Hogemann und Walter Jaeschke. Hamburg: Meiner. [GW 12] Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1994. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte. Bd. 1: Die Vernunft in der Geschichte. Herausgegeben von Johannes Hoffmeister. Hamburg: Meiner. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 2010. The Science of Logic. Translated and edited by George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Janke, Wolfgang. 1993. Vom Bilde des Absoluten. Grundzüge der Phänomenologie Fichtes. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter. Kant, Immanuel. 1911. Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. Herausgegeben von der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. IV. Berlin: Reimer. [AA 4] Kant, Immanuel. 1914. Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. Herausgegeben von der Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bd. VI. Berlin: Reimer. [AA 6] Kant, Immanuel. 1991. The Metaphysics of Morals. Introduction, translation, and notes by Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 2004. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science, with Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Gary Hatfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Krijnen, Christian. 2008. Philosophie als System. Prinzipientheoretische Unter­ suchungen zum Systemgedanken bei Hegel, im Neukantianismus und in der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Kroner, Richard. 1924/25, “Anschauen und Denken. Kritische Bemerkungen zu Rickerts heterothetischem Denkprinzip.” Logos, XIII: 90–127. Rickert, Heinrich. 1921. System der Philosophie. Erster Teil: Allgemeine Grundlegung der Philosophie. Tübingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Rickert, Heinrich. 1924. Das Eine, die Einheit und die Eins. Zweite, umgearbeitete Auflage. Tübingen: Mohr (Paul Siebeck). Theunissen, Michael. 1975. “Begriff und Realität. Hegels Aufhebung des metaphysischen Wahrheitsbegriffs.” In Denken im Schatten des Nihilismus. Festschrift für Wilhelm Weischedel zum 70. Geburtstag. Herausgegeben von Alexander Schwan, 164–195. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Wagner, Hans. 1953. Existenz, Analogie und Dialektik. Religio pura seu transcendentalis. 1. Halbband. München/Basel: Reinhardt.

Chapter 11

Kant’s Conception of Cosmological Freedom and its Metaphysical Legacy Christian Krijnen 1

Kant’s Conception of Cosmological Freedom as a Problem

Freedom is the core topic of modern philosophy. Seen as a philosophical epoch, a new perspective arises of how humans conceive of themselves and their relationship to the world. From now on, human thought and action is no longer held to be determined by external factors (heteronomy) but selfdetermined (autonomy), and hence freed from external factors as grounds for its determination. The philosophical paradigm for mastering this impetus of freedom is reason. With his ‘Copernican’, i.e. transcendental turn, Immanuel Kant gave reason a form that suits the modern understanding of humans as self-determined agents. Reason transpires to be the source of all validity, of any normativity of human thought and action. Objectivity, whichever, is framed from the start by the conditions of reason, or as it is also called in the discourse, of ‘subjectivity’. While the German idealists were thrilled by this thought, they were unconvinced by Kant’s elaboration of the idea of transcendental philosophy did not really convince them. Thinkers as diverse as Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel were all of the opinion that Kant’s transcendental turn had unfettered a revolution in philosophical thought that should not so much be stopped but rather completed and this should be accomplished by addressing critically the presuppositions or ‘foundations’ of Kant’s philosophy itself. To these presuppositions belongs, without doubt, Kant’s architectonic of reason in general as well as the role the concept of freedom has within it in particular. The adventure of exploring Kant’s presuppositions from the start gave wings to the astonishing development of German idealist philosophy. The unity of reason now was to be conceived of as freedom. Already Fichte, with revolutionary pathos, qualified his Wissenschaftslehre (1794) as “the first system of freedom” (Fichte 1962 ff., III/2, 298), and subsequently the young Schelling proclaimed that the “Alpha and Omega of all philosophy is freedom” (Hoffmeister 1961, Vol. I, 22.). Hegel, as it seems in the most radical fashion,

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tried to conceive of reason and freedom as a unity from which everything else emerges and can be comprehended. Whereas for Kant freedom is not so much the origin of all philosophy and being but the “capstone” of the whole system of pure reason (CPrR, Ak 5, 3), for Hegel freedom makes up the beginning, the way and the end of philosophy. Kant’s architectonic of reason forms the starting point of the German idealist attempt at perfecting Kant’s transcendental philosophy. Referring to the history of philosophy, Kant divides philosophy continuously into theoretical and practical philosophy as well as categorizing the corresponding objects into nature and freedom.1 This reference to the history of philosophy, which for Kant is prominent especially as the so called Deutsche Schulphilosophie, i.e. the German metaphysics of his age, moreover informs the basic characteristics of Kant’s concept of freedom. For Kant, freedom is a causal power. Hegel, surprisingly enough, rejects as a general determination of freedom Kant’s cosmological or transcendental concept of freedom as a power to begin a series of effects “spontaneously” (CPR, B 561, cf. 474). For Hegel, freedom is not primarily a causal power; it is being with itself in its other. Hence, Kant’s cosmological concept of freedom is supposed to stem from more basic presuppositions, which remain unaddressed in Kant’s philosophy. Moreover, with his criticism of Kant’s cosmological concept of freedom, Hegel criticizes a conception of freedom that in one or another way guides much of the later transcendental philosophy. This still applies today with freedom being a causal power of the subject that determines itself in accordance with its own laws of validity. Hegel, by contrast, aims at establishing a more genuine concept of freedom. Obviously, this issue represents a major challenge for any modern transcendental philosophy. If reason or subjectivity is held to be the foundation of all objectivity, then the concept of freedom must play a prominent role. Kant’s concept of freedom, however, taken as a historical fact and not in its systematic possibilities, does indeed seem deficient. It is characterized by a practical profile. Already his concept of cosmological or transcendental freedom anticipates a metaphysics of the practical reason of finite subjects. In Kant’s demonstration of the possibility to conceive of a cosmological causality of freedom, it becomes apparent that Kant is concerned primarily with the possibility of moral freedom for our actions (the cosmological or transcendental freedom logically forgoes moral freedom [CPR, B 561 f., cf. 831]).2 In the third antinomy, Kant models freedom as a “power” to begin a series of effects 1  Cf. CPR, B 868 f., 830; CPrR, Ak 5, 15; CJ, Ak 5, 167 f., 171, 174, 178 f., 416, etc. See for Kant’s architectonic also Krijnen (2011; 2016b). 2  See on Kant’s focus on practical freedom also Fulda (1996) and Wagner (2008a; 2008b).

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“spontaneously.” This power-theoretical modelling enables Kant, who already within the cosmological context was focusing on freedom “in the practical sense,” to understand humans as agents of their actions, and hence as a subject, not merely as an effect of a natural cause, not as a mere object. This practical profile of the third antinomy, that is the freedom antinomy, stands in sharp contrast to the systematical problem it aims to deal with. Kant’s transcendental idealism and its two-world theory of the phenomenal and the noumenal makes the compatibility of nature and freedom plausible. At the same time, Kant clarifies their cosmological relationship: the phenomenal world is based upon the noumenal world. Hence, freedom is the cause of nature and hence the sensible world an effect of the intelligible world. Kant’s amalgamation of the cosmological and the practical dimensions of freedom is in need of elucidation. As far as I can see, the constellation described systematically leads to a burdensome legacy, which a Kantian type of transcendental philosophy still has to deal with—whereas Hegel has dealt with it already. Many Kant scholars accept Kant’s demonstration of the conceivability of freedom and concentrate on its ramifications in morals, right, and virtue. The South-West school of neo-Kantianism (inter alia Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, Bruno Bauch, Jonas Cohn) and contemporary transcendental philosophers like Hans Wagner and Werner Flach transformed Kant’s conception of freedom as a power of the active subject to determine itself according to its own laws into a fundamental axiotic (value-laden, normative) relation that functions as the foundation of the whole human world and specifies itself into several realms of culture or spheres of validity (knowledge, morals, right, art, etc.). Hegel, by contrast, criticizes Kant’s cosmological conception of freedom and qualifies it as insufficient. For Hegel, the concept is that which is primarily free, and the concept does not cause something other than itself but manifests itself in all that is: it is with itself in its other.3 Hegel reaches this result by, among others, taking very seriously both Kant’s cosmological impetus of freedom as the origin of the world of appearances and Kant’s highest principle of human knowledge, which is the synthetic unity of apperception. Apparently, Kant’s cosmological or transcendental freedom appears to be not so much a secure starting point for further elaborations but a problem on its own. Indeed, one wonders about all those determinations of freedom popping up in the third antinomy, even if from the perspective of a modern, 3  Hegel’s doctrine that the concept is that which is free has been neglected much too long. Only recently, it has turned into a major issue of study, see Fulda (2014), Knappik (2013), Krijnen (2016a).

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will-oriented conception of freedom, they possess a prima facie plausibility. Nevertheless, they should be revealed according to the standards of critical philosophy itself. This is all the more important, since Kant’s conception of freedom has a practical prefiguration. Regarding the goal of argumentation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, this might be of minor relevance. Nevertheless, the result of the third antinomy—the conceivability of freedom as independence of the determining causes of the phenomenal world and determinability by causes of the noumenal or intelligible world, that is self-determination instead of heteronomy—forms the starting point for the attempt to supply a critical foundation for practical reason:4 without the power of beginning a series of events in the world spontaneously, there remains strict determinism; hence, practical freedom as the power of self-determination of the will is terminated. Taking care of a critical justification of transcendental concepts in this respect involves in particular showing that freedom is indeed the constellation Kant makes use of when discussing his cosmological or transcendental concept of freedom. In the first instance, the determinacy of freedom, as the origin of the phenomenal world is, or should be, at issue. It is an essential part of my thesis that the profile of Kant’s critical conception of freedom in general and that of the third antinomy in particular becomes plausible by taking into account that it draws heavily upon the German metaphysical tradition of the 18th century.5 Without doubt, Kant’s profile of course also has a certain plausibility on its own. Nonetheless, it is very illuminating to consider Kant’s conception of cosmological freedom in the context of the discussions of his age. Several preliminaries and non-justified constellations come into view.6 From Hegel’s perspective, they cannot even be justified. Rather, getting to the bottom of them transcendentally would lead to a more general concept of freedom. First, I shall make some remarks on Kant’s German metaphysical background, then on Hegel’s transformation of the concept of freedom, and finally its consequences are illustrated by taking into consideration the fundamental 4  As Kant points out himself at the beginning of the Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR, Ak 5, 15). 5  Cf. on Kant’s key concepts ‘spontaneity‘ and ‘freedom of choice’ (Willkür) Kawamura (1996; 2008), Finster (1982; 1984), and Schwaiger (2011). 6  Although Geismann (2009) offers a thorough and illuminating account of Kant’s determination of transcendental and practical freedom, he does not take the development of Kant’s thought into account. Rather, he stresses the continuity. Therefore, the ‘uncritical’ character of, e.g., the practical concept of freedom of the Critique of Pure Reason and the significance of the Critique of Practical Reason in this respect remains unthematic.

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axiotic relation of transcendental philosophy as conceived of by Bruno Bauch, probably the best neo-Kantian Kant specialist. 2

Kant in the Context of German Metaphysics of the 18th Century

The focal point in this section is the (in)famous and highly influential debate on Spinozism, and hence on the issue of ‘freedom or fatalism?’.7 On the one hand, Kant’s antinomy of freedom is informed by it. On the other hand, in the dispute, a ‘fatalistic’ concept of unity is at stake, which Hegel appropriates and modifies speculatively, enabling him to surpass Kant’s conception of freedom by comprehending precisely that unity as freedom. Kant’s distinction between transcendental or cosmological freedom as “absolute spontaneity” (CPR, B 474) and practical freedom as “freedom of choice” or “arbitrium liberum” (CPR, B 561 f., 830, 836) is prefigured by German metaphysics. For my thesis it is important that not only do both concepts of freedom stem from different historical and systematical contexts but that already the concept of cosmological freedom is fed on two different constellations of problems. This seems to explain much of the practical profile of Kant’s cosmological freedom as absolute or unconditioned spontaneity. The one constellation concerns the practical context of philosophical reflections upon freedom of choice, especially the division of freedom into a) spontaneity as action, b) choice or arbitrium as action at will (nach Belieben, at one’s own discretion), and c) free choice or arbitrium liberum as action at rational will (nach vernünftigem Belieben). In the course of the development of German metaphysics, at Baumgarten, a division appears that shows to be of particular importance for Kant. Baumgarten (Metaphysica, §§ 712 with 719) distinguishes three levels of self-activity: a) spontaneity as an action that stems from an inner sufficient ground, b) choice or arbitrium as the power to desire at will, c1) either as a sensitive power of choice (arbitrium sensitivum), a power determined by sensuous drives, c2) or as a free power of choice (arbitrium liberum), a power to desire at rational will. The power of choice is conceived of here as a type of spontaneity and freedom as a type of capacity of choice. Despite the fact that Kant’s concept of cosmological or transcendental freedom is an innovation, like his predecessors, Kant conceives of it as a type of power of choice: an “unconditioned capacity of choice” (Refl. 3680, Ak 17, 316), 7  Cf. Beutel (2007), Bianco (1989), Kawamura (1996, 25 ff., 131 ff.), Schwaiger (2011, 79 ff.).

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or as it is put in the Critique of Pure Reason, as “absolute spontaneity” (CPR, B 474). Cosmological freedom is not, like practical freedom, just independence of sensuous drives and determinability by reason. It is independence of any external coercion, “unconditional” (Refl. 3680, Ak 17, 316), “original” (Refl. 4548, Ak 17, 589), “absolute,” (CPR, B 474), and therefore the power to begin a series of events spontaneously. The other constellation concerns the theoretical context of philosophical reflections on freedom or self-activity of humans within the whole of the events of the world, that is to say, within the context of cosmology. From this perspective, Kant’s concept of cosmological freedom presents a solution for the problem of the origin of those events of the world. As in his habilitation of 1755 Kant follows Wolff in conceptualizing cosmological freedom and correspondingly conceives of it as action from an inner ground that itself is the result of a series of preceding grounds, Kant’s deliberations on freedom are from the start freighted with the issue of the relationship between the principle of sufficient or determining reason (cause, ground) and freedom as emergence without a preceding reason, that is a strict first ground. In the course of his intellectual development, Kant finally reaches the distinction between a phenomenal and a noumenal world: the principle of sufficient reason applies to the phenomenal world as the “ground of possible experience” (CPR, B 246). Cosmological freedom, by contrast, is absolute spontaneity or transcendental freedom and therefore does not have any such preceding determining ground; quite the contrary, it is independent of such a ground, and hence intelligible in nature. This cosmological profile hangs together closely with the problem of human freedom. It emerges from the debate on fatalism. In German metaphysics from Wolff to Baumgarten, God functions as the truly first, unconditioned, extramundane and free-choosing cause or origin of the world and its, taken as a whole, contingent events. Hence, these are not grounded in a Spinozian type of necessary, infinite series of regression that causes itself: in a self-unfolding infinite substance. In the metaphysical debate, the conceivability or inconceivability of a series leading to an extra-mundane cause is heavily discussed. God is the origin, the unconditioned that has the power to begin a series of conditioned events. As a consequence, the issue of practical or psychological freedom slides into the background. Nevertheless, the debate does not succeed in reconciling the principle of sufficient reason and freedom as spontaneity; human freedom remains obscure. Kant’s third antinomy offers a cosmological solution for this practical problem. Reason in human subjectivity takes the place of the model ‘ens extramundanum—mundus’ or ‘unconditioned: God—conditioned: humans’. Whereas in German metaphysics the problem of spontaneity and preceding ground is solved by recourse to an ens extramundanum, that

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is God as a self-determining entity, for Kant reason is the unconditioned and hence absolute spontaneity or transcendental freedom. Transcendental freedom makes up the foundation of practical freedom. In Kant’s development, the concepts of spontaneity, transcendental freedom, and the power of choice as well as their relationships and distinctions arise in the sixties and seventies. Finally, freedom is conceived of as a transcendental and as a practical power of choice. In the third antinomy, Kant applies his distinctions for dealing with the problem of freedom as absolute spontaneity cosmologically. For German metaphysics, the existence of contingent, finite things in the world involves a necessary extra-mundane first cause, God (choosing freely the best, that is the best of all worlds). An infinite regress, by contrast, would make reference to an extra-mundane existence superfluous but a free capacity of choice too. Spinozism, as it functions in the debate, boils down to fatalism. Apparently, Kant’s concept of cosmological or transcendental freedom is prefigured by the model of a first cause, beginning an event or series of events spontaneously, on one’s own account, from one’s own law (the cosmological law of freedom: spontaneous causality). Kant, extremely familiar with Baumgarten, as early as in the sixties writes that the “highest principle (of the possibility) of coming into existence is freedom” (Refl. 4033, Ak 17, 392). There is a first effective cause, not mere Spinozist infinity, and the first cause transcends the series of appearances; it is located in reason, not in God. The essence of cosmological freedom as absolute spontaneity is to be truly first cause. Hence, freedom is the origin of the phenomenal world, for Kant an origin conceived of as a causal capacity of choice, absolute spontaneity, libertas transcendentalis or unconditional spontaneity of action. As in German metaphysics, an extra-mundane, unconditioned first cause of nature is a necessary concept. Nature itself is not, as in Spinozism, this unconditioned and necessary entity. However, for Kant, freedom does not only possess this cosmological dimension but always has a practical dimension too, based upon the cosmological foundation. According to Kant, the intelligible world is the basis for the sensible world. Phenomena are what they are only within the bounds of reason. 3

Hegel’s Speculative Transformation of Transcendental Freedom

Although Kant de-ontologizes the first cause in favor of reason as modern subjectivity, the practical profile remains: freedom is conceived of in terms of a causal power of choice of an originator of the phenomenal world. This spontaneous causality causes phenomena that despite their causation by reason

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are, as they are, contingent.8 However, if the ‘ground’ of caused appearances is conceived of as a spontaneous causality, then the relationship between cause and effect is and remains an external one. As a consequence, the original unity, the unity of origin, can no longer be conceived of as freedom. Freedom at most concerns the determinacy of the form of the relationship, not the content. The cosmological relationship between the phenomenal world and its transcendental source therefore cannot be a causality from freedom, conceptualized as analogous to a causality of natural laws. The relation of causality in neither sense is what Hegel calls an absolute relation. As in the relation of causality the relationship between cause and effect is external or formal, it is conceivable only on the basis of more original though not reflected presuppositions. Hegel addresses such presuppositions at the end of his Logic of Essence and hence in the context of cosmological constellations. The cosmological ground turns out to be the non-cosmologically conceived ‘concept’ in the speculative sense. It is an absolute relation qualified by its moments of universality, particularity, and singularity. Therefore, the concept in the speculative sense overcomes any recourse to external givens, or freedom that is mere spontaneity and hence a capability of choice or contingency. That what is primarily free turns out to be the concept (Enc. § 160; WL GW 12, 16). Hegel comes to this far-reaching insight, which is underestimated even in Hegel scholarship, by comprehending Kant’s cosmological concept of freedom and Spinoza’s concept of substance from their common origin, that is from the concept as that which is free. Whereas Kant, following the line of thought of German metaphysics, conceives of freedom as a ‘power of causality’, as a capability of beginning a series of events spontaneously, Hegel rejects such a general concept of freedom and hence a concept of freedom that underlies Kant’s practical philosophy. For Hegel, freedom is not a power of causality. Freedom, by contrast, is being with itself in one’s other (freedom as a power of intelligible causality would at most be a specification of this general concept of freedom; taken in itself it represents a conception of mere ‘understanding’ (Verstandesauffassung) of freedom).9 If the ‘ground’ of caused appearances is conceived of as a spontaneous causality, then the relationship between cause and effect is an external one. 8  Also see CPR, B 584 f. on the contingency of appearances. This issue leads to the much-discussed problem of ‘formalism’ in Kant’s philosophy ((Krijnen 2016a; 2018b (forthcoming)). 9  Freedom as a power or capability that is ‘applied’ to given material is, for Hegel, a conception of mere ‘understanding’ (Verstandesauffassung) freedom instead of comprehending it. In such a conception, the relationship between the power and the given material it is applied to remains external. This concerns, as Hegel also says, the conception of freedom typical of “reflective philosophy” (Kant), freedom conceived of as a “formal self-activity” (RPh § 15R).

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Seen from Hegel’s perspective, Spinoza’s philosophy of substance definitely offers a counter model. Instead of conceiving freedom comprehensively as a spontaneous cause and thereby as foundation for the world of appearances, Hegel appropriates Spinoza’s concept of substance and transforms it speculatively. His famous formula that the ‘substance’ is shown to be the ‘subject’ already indicates this. Spinoza’s substance has to be conceived of in a modern idealist way, or to put it another way, in the fashion of a philosophy of subjectivity. The ‘absolute power’ and ‘blind necessity’ that characterize Spinoza’s substance have thus to turn out to be the freedom that is thought, the concept, or the idea. The cosmological unity of ground (cause) and effect would then transpire to be the immanent necessity of comprehending thought itself. As Hegel formulates it, the absolute “expounds itself”—its “expositor” is the “absolute necessity.” Therefore, the determinations of the absolute are no longer “attributes” that emerge from an “external reflection” but the “identical positing of itself” (WL GW 11, 393; cf. 370 f., 375). Hegel renders this process of manifestation or self-expounding of the absolute in a way explicit that the truly absolute relation is the “posited unity of itself in its determinations,” that is the “concept” (WL GW 11, 393 f.; WL GW 12, 11 ff.). The self-referential unity of the absolute substance is the concept in general: a relation to itself that manifests itself—freedom. Hence, freedom, which is the concept, is the ground of actuality as appearance, not merely a spontaneous causality, nor a Spinozian substance. Hegel conceives of the cosmological relationship between cause and effect no longer, like Kant, in terms of laws of freedom analogous to laws of nature. Law-like necessity is no longer an explicans of freedom. The cosmological ground is neither law-like necessity nor law-less contingent spontaneity. By conceiving of freedom primarily as freedom of the concept, freedom remains, as for Kant, spontaneous activity. Nevertheless, this spontaneity is no longer originally characterized by notions like necessity, contingency, law, cause or effect. By contrast, it is the structure of the speculative concept that makes up its basic characteristics: universality, particularity, and singularity. That what is free remains in its activity continuously with itself and is at the same time a unity that is differentiated within itself in its other. Such being with oneself, and hence determining oneself spontaneously towards oneself, is true selfdetermination. This self-determination is a mediation of the moments of what is free with each other and with itself; it is therefore also a mediation according to one’s own (conceptual) law, ‘autonomy’, thus true self-mediation. Hegel no longer conceives of freedom as a ‘law’ that is ‘applied’ to ‘cases’. In his Logic, by passing through Rationalism and Empiricism (WL GW 11, 393 ff.), Hegel finally even sublates Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception

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in the freedom of the concept (WL GW 12, 17 ff.). Interestingly enough though. Kant’s cosmological foundation as spontaneity was itself an answer to problems virulent in the philosophical debate of his age. The transcendental unity of apperception is supposed to be the original principle of any objectivity. According to Hegel’s analyses, this principle remains formal or abstract. The concept, in the speculative sense, takes over its function as an ultimate origin. Hegel therefore also comes to a different conception of freedom than freedom in Kantian terms of power of choice and causality. For Hegel, as indicated, the latter is a subordinate concept in the philosophy of spirit. 4

The Fundamental Axiotic Relation of Transcendental Philosophy: A Causal-Theoretical Conception of Normativity

One remarkable consequence of Hegel’s criticism of Kant is that it equally applies to later conceptions of a Kantian type of transcendental philosophy. Despite many different accentuations, these conceptions have in common the idea that freedom is a power of auto-nomous causality of the active subject. South-West neo-Kantianism, a philosophy highly underestimated until today, paradigmatically shows that normative constraints are not only constitutive for the practical realm but make up the foundation of the whole human world, of both its theoretical and practical or whatever dimension. The distinguished realms of culture or validity all are specifications of the fundamental axiotic relation.10 The fundamental axiotic relation concerns a relationship between values (laws of validity, determinants of orientation), the valuing subject, and cultural goods. This value-determined self-formation of the subject finally concerns values intrinsically or immanently part of its own subjectivity, so called autonomous values. This, mutatis mutandis, also holds for the post-war transcendental philosophy of Wagner (1980) and Flach (1997). The human world is always conceived of in terms of cultural realms as specifications of the fundamental axiotic relation, culture always characterized by the structure of a subject that recognizes laws of validity and thereby produces culture. Hence, the conceptualization of freedom in terms of power, choice, and causality remains intact.11

10  See on the fundamental axiotic relation in detail: Krijnen (2001, Ch. 2.3, 6.3, 7.2 f.; 2008, Ch. 4.2.2; 5.4; 2015, Ch. 3 f.). 11  For a discussion of some problems concerning the concept of freedom in transcendental philosophy also see Krijnen (2014; 2016b; 2017a; Krijnen 2017b; 2018a; 2018b (forthcoming)).

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My concluding remark does not concern these contemporary conceptions of transcendental philosophy but the attempt of the neo-Kantian Bauch, who tries to clarify the relationship between nature and freedom in an explicit discussion with Kant. Nevertheless, the point I try to make may count as exemplary for any conception of unity in terms of the fundamental axiotic relation. Note, however, this relation is of eminent philosophical significance and, as far as I can see, only finds a serious alternative in Hegel’s philosophy. Bauch conceives of the unity of nature—causal necessity—and freedom— value-laden determinacy—as a unity of human action: the person actualizes values and hence unites what Bauch calls the causal and the teleological relation (Bauch 1935, Ch. VII, esp. 259–281).12 The consequence of this approach is that the unity involved is a unity of the person or concrete subject. This subject spontaneously directs itself immediately to values and in doing so mediately objectifies freedom, that is to say, it produces culture. Its activity is both determined by nature and values, by causality of nature and causality from freedom. However, for Bauch, nature and culture have their common foundation in the idea, as, to put it in terms of one of Bauch’s favorite Kant quotes, “the world must be represented as having originated from an idea” (Bauch 1935, 268, 271 f., 280; cf. CPR, B 843 f.). On the one hand and significantly, in Bauch’s synthesis practical or personal freedom takes center stage. The unity of nature and freedom he presents concerns the concrete subject, and hence human action or the facticity of reason. He does not conceive of the encompassing causality that grounds both specifications of causality as freedom. Strictly speaking, Bauch’s synthesis is not a synthesis of nature and freedom but of causality and freedom (Bauch 1935, 271 f., 275, 278): Bauch thinks of freedom in nature, not of nature as grounded in freedom. Bauch’s “original” (1935, 275) or “immediate” (1935, 272) synthesis is a synthesis of causality and freedom in the concrete subject, not of nature and freedom. On the other hand, for Bauch, the world has to be conceived of as originated from an idea, and hence as a world that develops in levels from inorganic nature to culture. This “self-unfolding” of the idea is supposed to overcome the conception of the two “separated” realms of nature and freedom in favor of their “co-existence.” Their respective laws of reason originate from an “overarching unity,” that is the idea as the origin and aim of the whole of reality (Bauch 1935, 271 f., 278–281). The world emerges from it, as we could say, like the world of phenomena does from Kant’s cosmological freedom. 12  See on Bauch’s concept of the person as the factor that actualizes validity or values Krijnen (2015, Ch. 4; 2018a).

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Nevertheless, in Bauch’s conception, freedom is not this origin. Although freedom for him is a “transcendental” predicate (1935, 283), he does not conceive of the original unity, which is the idea, in terms of this predicate. Culture is for Bauch the “logical place” (1935, 285) of freedom. Differing from both Kant and Hegel, although Bauch himself suggests identity, Bauch’s synthesis of nature and freedom is a synthesis of the acting and hence culture producing subject. Freedom, in essence, is practical freedom, not transcendental freedom in the cosmological sense. In sum, Bauch mixes up the unity as the idea from which the world emerges and the unity as concrete subjectivity that unites nature and culture. This is a consequence of the fundamental axiotic relation. The actualization of the idea is conceived of here as an activity of a concrete subject that directs itself to values belonging intrinsically to its own subjectivity, and hence, forms itself as a person and shapes reality as culture. Freedom is freedom of the concrete subject. Obviously, the Kantian model of freedom as causality is reproduced here. Freedom, by contrast, is not a Hegelian manifestation of the One idea that differentiates itself and is in all other with itself. Rather, it seems to presuppose such a unity. Bibliography Bauch, Bruno. 1935. Grundzüge der Ethik. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Baumgarten, Alexander G. 1910 ff. “Metaphysica: Ed. IV, 1757.” In Kants gesammelte Schriften: Bd. I–XXIX, edited by Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften et al. Berlin: de Gruyter. Beutel, Albrecht. 2007. “Causa Wolffiana: Die Vertreibung Christian Wolffs aus Preußen 1723 als Kulminationspunkt des theologisch-politischen Konflikts zwischen halleschem Pietismus und Aufklärungsphilosophie.” In Reflektierte Religion: Beiträge zur Geschichte des Protestantismus, 125–69. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Bianco, Bruno. 1989. “Freiheit gegen Fatalismus: Zu Joachim Langes Kritik an Wolff.” In Zentren der Aufklärung: I: Halle: Aufklärung und Pietismus, edited by Norbert Hinske, 111–55. Berlin: de Gruyter. Fichte, Johann G. 1962 ff. Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Edited by Reinhard Lauth and Hans Jacob. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt. Finster, Reinhard. 1982. “Spontaneität, Freiheit und unbedingte Kausalität bei Leibniz, Crusius und Kant.” Studia Leibnitiana 14: 266–77. Finster, Reinhard. 1984. “Spontaneität und Freiheit: Eine Untersuchung zu Kants theoretischer Philosophie unter Berücksichtigung von Leibniz, Wolff und Crusius.” Univ. Diss.

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Flach, Werner. 1997. Grundzüge der Ideenlehre: Die Themen der Selbstgestaltung des Menschen und seiner Welt, der Kultur. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Fulda, Hans F. 1996. “Freiheit als Vermögen der Kausalität und als Weise, bei sich selbst zu sein.” In Inmitten der Zeit. Beiträge zur europäischen Gegenwartsphilosophie (FS M. Riedel), edited by Thomas Grethlein and Heinrich Leitner, 47–63. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Fulda, Hans F. 2014. “Der eine Begriff als das Freie und die Manifestationen der Freiheit des Geistes.” In Hegel – 200 Jahre Wissenschaft der Logik, edited by Anton F. Koch, Friedrike Schick, Klaus Vieweg, and Claudia Wirsing, 15–41. Hamburg: Meiner. Geismann, Georg. 2009. “Kant über Freiheit in spekulativer und in praktischer Hinsicht.” In Kant und kein Ende: Band 1: Studien zur Moral-, Religions- und Geschichtsphilosophie, 119–42. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (WL): Wissenschaft der Logik. Erster Band. Die objective Logik (1812). GW 11. Wissenschaft der Logik. Zweiter Band. Die subjective Logik oder Lehre vom Begriff (1816). GW 12 (GW = Gesammelte Werke, 21 vols. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, with the Hegel-Kommission der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften and the Hegel-Archiv der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Hamburg: Meiner, 1968–). (Enc.): Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (1830). 8. Aufl., edited by Friedhelm Nicolin and Otto Pöggeler. Hamburg: Meiner, 1991 (= PhB Bd. 33). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (PG): Phänomenologie des Geistes, edited by Woflgang Bonsiepen and Reinhard Heede. In: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 9, edited by Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Hamburg: Meiner, 1968 ff. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (RPh): Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, edited by Johannes Hoffmeister. Hamburg: Meiner, 1955. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (TWA): Werke in zwanzig Bänden, edited by Eva Moldenhauer und Karl Markus Michel. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Hoffmeister, Johannes, ed. 1961. Briefe von und an Hegel: 4 Bd. 2nd ed. Hamburg: Meiner. Kant, Immanuel (Ak): Kants gesammelte Schriften. Bd. I–XXVI. Hg. v. KöniglichPreußische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin, 1910 ff. Kawamura, Katsutoshi. 1996. Spontaneität und Willkür: Der Freiheitsbegriff in Kants Antinomienlehre und seine historischen Wurzeln. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. Kawamura, Katsutoshi. 2008. “Eine begriffsgeschichtliche Skizze der “Willkür” im 18. Jahrhundert: Wolff, Wagner, Feder und Kant.” In Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. III, edited by Valerio Rohden, Ricardo Terra, Guido Almeida, and Margit Ruffing. 5 vols, 173–81. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

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Knappik, Franz. 2013. Im Reich der Freiheit: Hegels Theorie autonomer Vernunft. Berlin: de Gruyter. Krijnen, Christian. 2001. Nachmetaphysischer Sinn: Eine problemgeschichtliche und systematische Studie zu den Prinzipien der Wertphilosophie Heinrich Rickerts. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Krijnen, Christian. 2008. Philosophie als System: Prinzipientheoretische Untersuchungen zum Systemgedanken bei Hegel, im Neukantianismus und in der Gegenwartsphiloso­ phie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Krijnen, Christian. 2011. “Teleology in Kant’s Philosophy of Culture and History: A Problem for the Architectonic of Reason.” In The Sublime and its Teleology: Kant, German Idealism, Phenomenology, edited by Donald Loose, 115–32. Leiden: BRILL. Krijnen, Christian. 2014. “Das Dasein der Freiheit: Geltungsrealisierung bei Hegel und in der kantianisierenden Transzendentalphilosophie.” In Kulturphilosophie: Probleme und Perspektiven des Neukantianismus, edited by Christian Krijnen, Massimo Ferrari, and Pierfrancesco Fiorato, 35–84. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Krijnen, Christian. 2015. The Very Idea of Organization: Social Ontology Today: Kantian and Hegelian Reconsiderations. Leiden: BRILL. Krijnen, Christian. 2016a. “Freiheit als ursprüngliche Einheit der Vernunft: Hegels begriffslogische Lösung eines Kantischen Problems.” In Natur und Geist, edited by Wolfgang Neuser and Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, 25–52. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Krijnen, Christian. 2016b. “Kants Kategorien der Freiheit und das Problem der Einheit der Vernunft.” In Die „Kategorien der Freiheit“ in Kants praktischer Philosophie: Historisch-systematische Beiträge, edited by Stephan Zimmermann, 309–32. Berlin: de Gruyter. Krijnen, Christian. 2017a. “Freiheit und geltungsnoematische Struktur oder wie tief reicht das axiotische Grundverhältnis der Transzendentalphilosophie?” In Reflexion und konkrete Subjektivität: Beiträge zum 100. Geburtstag von Hans Wagner (1917– 2000), edited by Christian Krijnen and Kurt W. Zeidler, 205–43. Wien: Ferstl & Perz. Krijnen, Christian. 2017b. “Kants Konzeption kosmologischer Freiheit: ein metaphysischer Rest?” Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2: 179. Krijnen, Christian. 2018a. “Der „Kulturimperativ“ als Geltungsverwirklichungsforderung: Hegels Formalismusproblem im Gewand kantianisierender Kulturphi­ losophie.” In Kultur: Interdisziplinäre Zugänge, edited by Hubertus Busche, Thomas Heinze, Frank Hillebrandt, and Franka Schäfer, 419–452. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Krijnen, Christian. 2018b (forthcoming). “Die Wirklichkeit der Freiheit begreifen: Hegels Begriff von Sittlichkeit als Voraussetzung der Sittlichkeitskonzeption Kants.” Folia Philosophica.

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Schwaiger, Clemens. 2011. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten: Ein intellektuelles Porträt. Studien zur Metaphysik und Ethik von Kants Leitautor. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. Wagner, Hans. 1980. Philosophie und Reflexion. 3rd ed. München: Reinhardt. Wagner, Hans. 2008a. “Die kosmologische Antithetik und ihre Auflösung in Kants Kr.d.r.V.” In Zu Kants Kritischer Philosophie, edited by Bernward Grünewald and Hariolf Oberer, 82–97. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. Wagner, Hans. 2008b. “Kants ergänzende Überlegungen zur Möglichkeit von Freiheit im Rahmen der Auflösung der dritten Antinomie.” In Zu Kants Kritischer Philosophie, edited by Bernward Grünewald and Hariolf Oberer, 98–106. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.

Chapter 12

Hegel’s Concept of Recognition as the Solution to Kant’s Third Antinomy Arthur Kok 1 Introduction In his Lectures on the history of philosophy, when discussing Kant’s third antinomy, Hegel reproaches Kant for having “too much tenderness for the things”.1 In this contribution, I endeavor to explain what Hegel means by this criticism, and why it makes sense. Hegel values very much about Kant’s doctrine of the antinomies that it exposes the fundamental contradictions of reason. He calls this “the interesting side” of the antinomies.2 What is ‘interesting’ about them is that we cannot conceive of the absolute (uncaused) spontaneous origin of things, i.e. transcendental freedom, right away. The thesis that every causal chain of events presupposes a cause that is itself not caused contains the contradiction that an absolute spontaneity cannot take place according to rules, and hence cannot be understood in terms of causality.3 The antithesis, which rejects absolute spontaneity, makes this explicit, but it results in contradiction too: it is undeniable that every causal chain posits an uncaused origin. The complete problem of the third antinomy thus is that we are forced to accept the assumption of transcendental freedom, but by doing so we postulate a contradiction. Kant argues that his transcendental idealism can resolve this contradiction. We shall see that Hegel does not accept Kant’s solution. I argue, however, that Hegel’s refutation of transcendental idealism does not mean that he does not take seriously the distinction between appearances and the Thing-in-itself. By assessing Hegel’s concept of recognition in the self-consciousness chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, I show that Hegel develops another perspective on the relation between the appearances and the things in themselves.4 1  Lit.: “zuviel Zärtlichkeit für die Dinge”, Hegel, Werke 20, 500. 2  Idem, 499 (my translation, ak): “The necessity of these contradictions is the interesting side, which Kant has brought into consciousness.” 3  Cf. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (CPuR), B 474: “… transcendental freedom is contrary to the causal law …”. 4  Hegel, Werke 3.

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Kant develops his central thesis about transcendental idealism in the transcendental esthetics.5 He says about sensible intuition that it has an empirical side and a pure one. Intuition in general is the immediate relation of a subject to an object. It is pure insofar as the immediate relation implies a connection with the object, and it is a priori insofar as the relation is innate to the subject. In other words, pure intuition a priori articulates that the relatedness of the subject to the things in general. Furthermore, intuition can be defined as either intellectual or sensible. The sensible intuition implies that the object is not given a priori by intuition, but it exists independently from it. It is an otherness for the subject of intuition. Kant never doubts that the immediate relatedness, or intuition, of the subject to the things-in-themselves might be unreal or delusional, like for example solipsism does. His dualism should not be confused with Descartes’ dualism of mind and body. On the contrary, we can regard Kant’s claim that sensible intuition is nonetheless a pure intuition a priori exactly as a confirmation that the mind forms an integrated whole with the body. The transcendental character of the human mind has everything to do with the subject’s embodiment. For example, Kant derives his specification of the transcendental use of logic as distinct from its general use also from a distinction that follows from sensible nature of the human mind, viz. the distinction that objects are given either empirically or pure.6 Basically, Kant argues against empiricism that sensible intuition cannot provide any qualitative determination, unlike what Hume’s doctrine of 5  Kant, CPuR, B 31 ff. 6  In the introduction to the second part of the Transcendental doctrine of elements, viz. The idea of a transcendental logic, Kant explicitly refers back to the result of the transcendental aesthetics: “But now since there are pure as well as empirical intuitions (as the transcendental aesthetic proved), a distinction between pure and empirical thinking of objects could also well be found.” (CPuR, B 79–80) Following this remark, he argues that to understand the meaning of the distinction between a ‘general’ and a ‘transcendental’ logic, it is necessary to abstain from fully abstracting from objects, because we have to consider how objects are given. Whereas a general logic accounts for objects only as representations, a genuinely transcendental logic also has to account for the origin of the object (which is, according to Kant, twofold: it is either pure or empirical). Therefore, it makes perfect sense, when Kant says: “Hence neither space nor any geometrical determination of it a priori is a transcendental representation, but only the cognition that these representations are not of empirical origin at all and the possibility that they can nevertheless be related a priori to objects of experience can be called transcendental.” (CPuR, B 81) The very notion of a ‘transcendental representation’ contradicts the meaning of ‘transcendental’, viz. to be concerned with the origin of representations.

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impressions suggests. Unity cannot be observed. Instead, Kant develops the twofold meaning of the sensible intuition, being both empirical and pure, as a distinction between form and content. Here, the Aristotelian distinction between form and matter is, what its origin is concerned, attributed entirely to sensible intuition. According to Kant, sensibility means that the form of intuition is such that the materiality of the objects does not coincide with how these objects are given empirically. The materiality of that, which is given empirically, is its transcendental origin, without which the empirical could not be conceived of as something in which the subject transgresses itself. The transcendental meaning of what is given empirically, is the transgression of the subject: its openness to otherness, which Kant conceives of as the distinction between the empirical content and transcendental matter. 2.1 Transcendental Meaning of Space and Time The merely formal character of space and time is expressed as such in the impossibility to determine any object of intuition content-wise based on spatial and temporal determinations alone. The being-affected of the subject indeed expresses an immediate relation to an object, but this relation is not one of knowledge for a being with only sensible intuition. Affection expresses receptivity, the subject is being moved, it undergoes the affect. So, there is immediate relation to an object, simply because this is implied in the very definition of what intuition is, but the immediate relation does not immediately result in the identification of the object. Kant develops the fact that the object is not identifiable in space and time as the result of the “transcendental meaning” of space and time. First, the non-being-identifiability of the object—insofar as it is given in space and time—is expressed in the analysis that the being-in-space of an object implies nothing but that it is external to the subject. Hence it is mere externality, mere being-next-to-each-other, which is expressed in the multidimensionality of space. Kant takes Euclidian geometry, which distinguishes three dimensions, as an example, but his point is that there can be infinitely many dimensions. The many dimensions express the manifold without quality of the object, the pure manifold in opposition to its empirical manifold, viz. the many properties of the object. Second, there is time, which is only one dimension. Time takes together (comprehends) all spatial determinations at a certain time, and unites the many dimensions. The determination of a certain state at a certain moment does not result, however, in the identification of a given object, because the essence of time is change: time has no substance, only duration. Time is only

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the negative totality of a given object. It is easy to see that empirical thing is merely the abstract unity of its many properties. If we abstract from all these properties, the supposed concreteness of the thing is gone too. One option is to eliminate this consequence by positing a subject-independent nature behind the appearances. Yet this solution is problematic, because it is self-evident that we cannot say anything reasonable about a subject-independent nature from within our subjective relation to it. Kant offers a different solution. He straightforwardly accepts the nothingness into which the empirical thing dissolves when we try to grasp its unity. Therefore, the thing that Kant takes as the object of pure intuition a priori is not a supposed being behind the appearances, but the constant transition from being into nothingness, i.e. alteration rather than simple being. Based on this analysis of space and time, transcendental idealism claims that the appearance of objects in space and time tell us absolutely nothing about what things are in themselves. Kant emphasizes that this is not solipsism. Space and time, as the forms of the sensible subject, do have objective reality, but they have only transcendental ideality. The intriguing question is how Kant arrives at this distinction between objective reality and transcendental ideality, departing from his claim that the subject’s intuition is sensible. 2.2 Priority of Quantity in the Order of Knowledgeability My analysis has made clear that empirical determinations (color, taste, sound, etc.) do not tell us anything about the transcendental matter. The empirical quality of judgments cannot provide a starting point for judgments about the reality-in-itself. So how about quantity? Kant argues that quantity in sensible intuition is, as I have demonstrated above, the result of the structuring of intuitions in space and time: the thus created manifold is what Kant calls ‘pure manifold’. His idea behind calling this manifold pure is that regarding quantitative judgments we cannot find any empirical origin. Because defining quantity is a matter of counting objects, it is a matter of observation, and hence it requires intuition. However, there is nothing empirical about such a verification by the senses. A number has no positive empirical quality, but it is an abstract quantum. For Kant, this abstract quantum constitutes the genuine gateway to the transcendental matter of sensible intuition. The space-time structuring of the object, resulting in the abstract quantum, adequately expresses that the transcendental meaning of the given object is that it is otherness for the subject. Only then sensible intuition truly serves its role as a condition for the possibility of knowledge, viz. as the capacity of the subject to “go beyond these

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concepts”.7 The otherness for the subject is an absolute otherness, to which the subject nevertheless relates. In this way, the structuring in space and time is exclusively the activity of a sensible subject, but as a merely reactive activity, it is a positive relation to something that is absolutely different from its own subjectivity at the same time. We can only determine what this absolute otherness is in itself in distinction to any aspect of our relation to it. The otherness must be comprehended as otherness. However, obviously, any judgment about reality-in-itself that is not mediated by the specific nature of our relation to reality, lacks reasonable grounds. This is the general problem underlying the Kant’s quest for the conditions of possibility for knowledge. Kant wants to resolve this problem by containing the pure negation between the things as they appear and the things as they are in themselves as one single negation: the absolute nothingness of space and time in the light of what the things are in themselves. This is what Kant calls transcendental idealism. 2.3 Shortcomings of Transcendental Idealism Here, the great value of transcendental philosophy becomes visible, but also its fundamental flaw. On the one hand, the empirical object of experience, the thing, is separated from its real matter, its ‘thingness’, which then becomes the transcendental condition of the possibility of knowledge as a merely negative concept of the Thing-in-itself.8 This distinction makes sense. Properly conceived of, ‘thingness’ is indeed not an abstracting generalization of empirical things. The empirical things only exist insofar as they express thingness, which tells us that the most concrete empirical things are in fact the most abstract determinations, and that their apparently most abstract determination, to be thingness, is the most concrete, presents to us the contradiction of the empirical thing, viz. that it is a non-identity with itself. So, Kant may bring to light this absolute negation within the empirical thing, but on the other hand, however, he presents it as a contradistinction between the appearances and the Thing-in-itself—whereas in fact the negation is maintained because Kant challenges the objective validity of the empirical within sensible intuition, yet at the same he upholds sensibility’s pure element, viz. to be a relation to otherness. This means that the pure intuition a priori is not distinct from empirical quality insofar as the pure intuition a priori brings to light what the empirical quality of intuition in itself is, viz. non-identity or 7  Lit.: “über diese Begriffe hinausgehen”, Kant, CPuR, B 15. 8  Cf. Kant, CPuR, B 309: “… that which we call noumenon must be understood to be such only in a negative sense.”

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manifold. Therefore, the absolute nothingness that Kant only attributes to the pure forms of intuition, space and time, applies to the empirical quality of the judgment as well. Kant is not able to draw this conclusion without losing his essential point that we must conceive of the possibility of knowledge as a relation to absolute otherness. As a result, he does not reflect on the inner relation between the empirical quality and the pure quantity of sensible intuition. Furthermore, Kant ascribes this contradiction of empiricism, which his transcendental idealism should resolve, not to the things but to the subject. Precisely by his construction of the Thing-in-itself, the things in themselves are not burdened with it. For this reason, Hegel accuses Kant of having “a tenderness for the things”, which might not be so dramatic, Hegel adds, if it were not for the fact that Kant treats the subject without any such tenderness. Hegel emphasizes that the empirical and the pure are intrinsically related; importantly, however, he does not deny the core of the transcendental argument: the natural things are not how they appear to us and that the Thing-in-itself or thingness is not merely the abstraction of concrete objects. His point is, however, that the contradiction of the empirical not only applies to the subject but to the things as well. Already in the first chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit, on sense-certainty, Hegel argues that the aforementioned contradiction applies to empirical reality as such.9 The contradiction of sense-certainty is that the subject relates to the object, but insofar as the object indeed appears to the subject, the subject is not distinct from the object, which means that there isn’t a relation. In this contradiction—the empirical object is distinct and not distinct from the sensing subject—it already becomes clear that the separation between subject and object is problematic in general, and hence the contradiction applies to both. 3

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I will now go on to discuss how Hegel’s concept of recognition in the selfconsciousness chapter from the Phenomenology of Spirit can solve this contradiction.10 Hegel’s concept of self-consciousness reflects Kant’s transcendental subject insofar as Hegel too considers self-consciousness to be the presupposition of consciousness. However, whereas Kant understands the transcendental subject as categorical and distinct from the senses, Hegel systematically develops self-consciousness as the resolution to the 9  Hegel, Werke 3, 101 ff. / Miller 58 ff. 10  Idem, 183 ff. / Miller 104 ff.

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contradiction of the sensible things with themselves. His point of departure for thinking self-consciousness is the inner relation between subject and thing, which contains a contradiction, but one, which can neither be attributed onesidedly to the thing nor one-sidedly to the subject. Pushing the relation between consciousness and self-consciousness to its extreme, we could say that consciousness is the thing that is also a subject, and self-consciousness is the subject that is also a thing.11 On the one hand, in their immediate shape, i.e., consciousness as sense-certainty and self-­ consciousness as self-certainty, this other side—say, the subjectivity of the thing and the thingness of the subject—remains unarticulated. On the other hand, precisely in the reflection on the immediate shapes this other side is brought to light. In this way, consciousness experiences, in its fixation on the thing, that it is subject, and the self-certain self-consciousness experiences that it has thingness too. This latter experience is what Hegel calls “the fear of death”,12 which introduces the relation between lord and bondsman. In my view, the lord/bondsman-relation can be understood as Hegel’s solution to the contradiction that Kant’s antinomies have brought to light. Before I show how Hegel has done justice to what is at stake in transcendental philosophy, I give a concise presentation of the development from the pure (self-certain) self-­consciousness to the self-consciousness of the relation between lord and bondsman. 3.1 Pure Self-consciousness Hegel begins with positing the pure self-consciousness. It is pure because it stands in a purely negative relation to nature or thingness. As immediate selfdetermination, the self-certain self-consciousness believes that it exists as a substance independent from any relation to otherness. However, the proclaimed independency is deeply problematic, because here, self-consciousness can only determine itself by showing that sensible nature is nothing. Hegel calls this the satisfaction of needs: only if the needs of the subject are satisfied, the subject proves that nature has no independence but can be fully integrated in the self-determination of the subject. For this reason, Hegel calls the pure self-consciousness “desire”.13 The pure self-consciousness can only internalize an external nature if the essence of nature is subjectivity, in other words, if 11  My interpretation is deeply indebted to Cobben’s Nature of the Self (2008). In this book, Cobben convincingly argues that the most successful strategy for reading the Phenomenology is to conceive of it as Hegel’s solution to age-old problem of mind and body and their unity. 12  Hegel, Werke 3, 207 / Miller 117. 13  Idem, 186 / 109.

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nature has a self too. However, the negation of nature in the satisfaction of needs precisely proofs that nature is nothing and has no self. This results in the contradiction of desire: nature must be negated and not be negated at the same time. Hegel’s next step is, therefore, to posit that pure self-consciousness should not be understood as desire, but as the “pure Notion of recognition”.14 This means that we can only conceive of self-consciousness as a relation between a manifold of self-consciousnesses. A real self-consciousness can only have a relation to external nature if this external nature is a self-consciousness too. How is this a solution to the contradiction of desire? The problem of desire was that nature is independent but can also be negated. This is only possible when this nature has already negated itself within itself. In other words, nature that has an essence that is not opposed to the subject must be a self-negation. In terms of subject and thing, this means that the subject can negate the thing because the thing itself is a subject that already has negated its thingness all the time. The third step is that the relation of pure recognition makes explicit that the possibility of the negation of external nature (the satisfaction of needs) is tied to an inner negation: the subject has thingness, i.e., it has a body, but at the same time it transcends this body. When we look at it in this way, self-­consciousness is not an independent spiritual substance (like Descartes’ cogito) but essentially the unity of mind and body, which implicates both independency and dependency. It also means that the symmetry of pure recognition presupposes an asymmetry: the subject can only relate to another subject if it conceives of itself and the other as a unity of subject and thing. The unity of subject and thing however, has the form of an asymmetrical relation, because the mind is not immersed in the body, the subject is not immersed in thingness; it has a relation to it, because it can negate thingness. It is a relation of transcendence. This asymmetry is the presupposition of the symmetry of pure recognition, and it is explicated by Hegel in the relation between lord and bondsman. 3.2 Misunderstanding about Lord and Bondsman This is the right place to address what I think is a misunderstanding about the development from desire to the relation between lord and bondsman. Often, this development is presented as a linear process: two self-consciousnesses, existing in and for themselves, enter a relation of recognition, and 14  Idem, 199 / 112.

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a societal relation comes about.15 I disagree with this interpretation.16 Methodologically, the self-consciousness chapter develops, just like the rest of the Phenomenology, through the uncovering of hidden presuppositions. So, the immediate self-­certainty of self-consciousness turns out to be possible only under the condition of a pure symmetrical recognition between subjects, and this pure recognition in return turns out to be possible only under the condition of an asymmetrical recognition between subject and thing. In this picture, we should not even say, strictly speaking, that the lord/bondsman-relation is the ‘realization’ of the pure recognition. We should say, instead, that the pure recognition presupposes an asymmetry, and hence it can only exist as a relation that is both symmetrical and asymmetrical, which Hegel then calls the relation between lord and bondsman. Therefore, the lord/bondsman-relation is not so much the result of the submission of one self-consciousness by another self-consciousness, but it is the societal self-consciousness in which the negation of the thing by the subject is really executed. Hegel’s actual claim is, therefore, quite contrary to the common understanding that the lord/bondsman-relation is only the first still inadequate realization of pure recognition. His claim rather is that this societal self-consciousness understood as lord and bondsman is the first adequate realization of the pure recognition.17 3.3 Logical Development of Lord and Bondsman How is this possible? At first sight, it looks as if there exists a relation of inequality: the bondsman subjects himself to the lord. However, the inequality is not brought about by the subjection, but it further explains what the nature of the inequality is that conditions the pure recognition. What needs to be understood is how the negation of the thing by the subject does not remain abstract, but becomes real. For the subject, the thing must be real and unreal. Real, because otherwise there is nothing to be negated. Unreal, because its 15  To name a few influential studies, one can think of Kojève Introduction à la Lecture de Hegel (1947), Gadamer’s Fünf Hermeneutische Studien (1971), Habermas’ Arbeit und Interaktion (1967) and Honneth’s Kampf um Anerkennung (1992). 16  This is not merely my personal view. Recent scholarly studies (e.g. Josifovic 2008; Cobben 2009; Stekeler-Weithof 2014; Ikäheimo 2014) have pointed out that the common reading of the master/bondsman-relation is flawed on a fundamental level. I have contributed to this discussion by pointing that a different understanding of the lord/bondsman-relation rehabilitates it a serious contestant for contemporary contract theory (Kok 2015). 17  In fact, Hegel himself emphasizes that the “Spirit” is already present at the level of selfconsciousness: “It is in self-consciousness, in the Notion of Spirit, that consciousness finds its turning-point, where it leaves behind it the colourful show of the sensuous here-andnow and the nightlike void of the supersensible beyond, and steps out into the spiritual daylight of the present.” (Werke 3, 195 / Miller 110–111).

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reality can be negated. Hegel suggests that, to avoid contradiction, we should distribute this twofold relation between subject and thing over two uneven self-consciousnesses. He calls the self-consciousness, for whom the thing is real, the bondsman; the self-consciousness, for whom the thing is nothing, becomes the lord. Hegel notes that this division is somewhat artificial and provisional.18 In the end, the unity of self-consciousness must be understood. The point of the lord/ bondsman-relation is not, therefore, to draw a relation between two separate entities, but to explicate a twofoldness that is inherent to self-consciousness and constitutive for pure recognition. Hegel’s first step in the development from pure recognition to the lord/bondsman-relation is to present the two self-­ consciousnesses as being involved in a life-and-death struggle. In this struggle, we conceive of the self-consciousness as a subject that can negate its thingness: by fighting to the death, the subject ‘proves’ that his body means nothing to him, it has no substance. However, the ‘truth’ of this inner negation is only experienced in the death of the other. Only if the other is destroyed, the subject can reassure itself that the thing has no substance. In this relation, the other is not recognized as another self-consciousness, but a thingness that stands between self-consciousness and its realization. However, insofar as the inner negation is only possible as the negation of the other, the other is not alien to the subject, and hence not merely a thing. At the level of the life-and-death struggle, this twofoldness that the other, which must be destroyed, is both thing and subject, appears as an unsolvable contradiction. Therefore, the next step is that the other self-consciousness is recognized as another self-consciousness. According to Hegel, the very fact that such recognition could be possible at all implies that self-consciousness is both subject and thing, both mind and body. Only under the condition that we conceive of self-consciousness as this mind/body-unity, we can begin to make sense of the reality of self-consciousness. In the life-and-death struggle, it becomes clear that the inner negation is dependent on an external negation: the subject can only negate otherness if the otherness negates itself. We can only fight others to the death because they are mortal. The question is, however, how this inner and external negation can take place without losing self-consciousness. For Hegel, this is possible as a societal self-consciousness: the subject can negate nature (without dying) as a member of society. By living according to social 18  Cf. Hegel, Werke 3, 203 / Miller 115: “Both moments are essential. Since to begin with they are unequal and opposed, and their reflection into a unity has not yet been achieved, they exist as two opposed shapes of consciousness; one is the independent consciousness whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is the dependent consciousness whose essential nature is simply to live or to be for another. The former is lord, the other is bondsman.”

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rules instead of natural needs, urges and desires, individuals can hold back their natural inclinations. Now, this way of negating thingness is not directly a solution, because it establishes a circular argument, a petitio principii: the societal self-consciousness merely exists because its individual members are able to transcend their natural inclinations.19 The only way to break away from the circularity is to posit a negating selfconsciousness that conceives of itself as the expression of a self-consciousness that has already overcome nature. Such a self-consciousness can negate nature, because it recognizes itself in a being that already has negated nature all the time. So, the bondsman subjects himself to the lord because he recognizes his own essence in the lord. In other words, his ability to negate nature is objectified by the lord as the actuality of this ability. The subjection of the bondsman to the lord is not an act of powerlessness but one of freedom: only because he is intrinsically free and not determined by his inclinations, he can obey a social norm, represented here by the lord. 3.4 Fear of Death The experience that is linked to this realization is the ‘fear of death’, which has a twofold meaning.20 On the one hand, self-consciousness experiences, in the life-and-death struggle, that it can put its life at stake, but on the other hand, precisely by doing so, self-consciousness experiences that life is the necessary condition for being a self. So, in one and the same experience, selfconsciousness experiences that it needs life, but also that it can transcend life. It experiences that its true life is not its life within the natural realm, where death rules as the “absolute lord”,21 but that the realm of self-consciousness is a societal realm, a second nature. Again, this transition is not linear—it is a hidden presupposition becoming explicit. What becomes explicit is that the reality of self-consciousness is not a nature that stands in opposition to self-consciousness, but a nature that is self-conscious. The nature that is self-conscious is represented by the lord. In this way, the lord actualizes and grounds the relation of pure recognition. This actualization does not, however, make the recognition any less pure, because for the lord, there is no opposition between nature and self-consciousness whatsoever. Still, this is only one side of the lord/bondsman-relation. Because 19  The reference to the third chapter of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is no coincidence. I think that Kant and Hegel are dealing with the same problem here (cf. Kok 2016). 20  Cf. footnote 12. 21  Werke 3, 207 / Miller 117: “For this consciousness has been fearful, not of this or that particular thing or just at odd moments, but its whole being has been seized with dread; for it has the experienced the fear of death, the absolute Lord.”

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recognition essentially is a relation between self-consciousnesses, its purity can only exist as a relation. In other words, the bondsman might merely be the impure expression of what the lord is in a pure manner (because he is mediated by the experience of the fear of death), but the lord is only pure because the bondsman mediates nature for the lord. Hegel thus concludes that the truth of the lord/bondsman-relation is in the self-consciousness of the bondsman: the pure lord is merely the mirror-image of the pure freedom that allowed the bondsman to transcend nature in the first place. 3.5 Presupposition of Self-consciousness So, in the relation between lord and bondsman, or the capacity to transcend a given reality, is attributed to the bondsman, because the bondsman mediates between the lord and the thing. Now, returning to the general relation between consciousness and self-consciousness that we are discussing here, this conclusion sounds somewhat paradoxical. Hegel’s argument seems to be that real self-consciousness is possible, because thing and subject are, in the end, not in opposition: the subject is thing, and the thing is subject. This truth is not created by the pure recognition, or the societal self-consciousness of lord and bondsman, or the fear of death, but only made explicit by them. However, the mediation of the bondsman between the lord and the thing, further specified by Hegel as the activity of labor, i.e., the gradual negation of the thing so that the lord can merely consume and enjoy nature, suggests that there is a natural reality outside of self-consciousness. A sort of hidden Thing-in-itself. If this were truly the case, Hegel would not have genuinely considered Kant’s transcendental argument: The Thing-in-itself cannot be negated. This brings us back to the original question: what precisely is the relation between subject and thing? So far, it seems as if Hegel’s theory of self-­consciousness only answers this question one-sidedly by pointing out how the subject can transcend the realm of things; still, its presupposition, viz. that the things must allow for this, apparently remains unexplained. This presupposition must entail that the subject can only transcend things insofar as the subject already is the essence of the things all the time. As a result, the thing to which the bondsman relates directly, and the lord indirectly, cannot be a Thing-in-itself. In other words, it cannot be an otherness that is not subject. 4

The Thing as Force

Now, the thesis that the otherness of nature to which the bondsman relates in his labor activity must be subject, is not discussed in the self-consciousness chapter

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but in the preceding consciousness chapter: Force and the Understanding.22 This chapter discusses the third and final subjective certainty of empirical consciousness, and poses the question whether we can conceive of substance as ‘force’ or ‘a play of forces’. Hegel derives the representation of nature as a force from the natural sciences: we can intellectually grasp nature by taking it as a play of forces that works according to natural laws. In the end, Hegel indeed concludes that the reality of the concept cannot be conceived of as a play of forces, but only as subject. However, within the development of this insight, and this is crucial for my argument, Hegel argues that there are not one but two ways in which the understanding tries to find the concept in objective nature: the two truths of the understanding.23 The first truth of the understanding is to conceive of the concept as the supersensible unchanging essence of the manifold of appearances. In this conception, the natural law unifies a manifold given prior to its unification. This results in contradiction, because there are many natural laws. So, a particular law of nature (for example, the law of gravity) can never express the lawfulness of objective reality as such. In the second truth of the understanding, these opposites are brought together. The dynamic of the general lawfulness of nature expressing itself as a particular law of nature, and the return of this particular law to the generality, becomes the actual movement of the play of forces. Hegel calls it “the principle of alternation”: the movement in which that, which is equal, becomes unequal, and that, which is unequal, becomes equal again.24 Whereas in the first truth, the law form is the unmoving unity contrasting the changeable world of appearances, the second truth posits a law form that is dynamic change. 4.1 Second Truth of the Understanding Now, in the transition from the first truth to the second one, the Copernican Turn is already partly executed. Whereas Kant criticizes the paradigm of the natural sciences for not considering the distinction between appearances and the Thing-in-itself, Hegel’s second truth of the understanding straight-­ forwardly posits an understanding for which this distinction exists, but which still is an understanding that considers this distinction to be innate to 22  Werke 3, 140 ff. 23  Hegel speaks about “the first supersensible world” and “the second supersensible world.” (Werke 3, 170 / Miller 96). 24  Lit. “das Prinzip des Wechsels”, Werke 3, 170 / Miller 97; cf. idem, 169 / 96: “And thus we have a second law whose content is the opposite of what was previously called law, viz. difference which remains constantly selfsame; for this new law expresses rather that like becomes unlike and unlike becomes like.”

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objective nature rather than already attributing it to the subject. This position is a possibility that Kant never takes into consideration. For him, attributing an intelligible origin to any determination that is only made known to us empirically neglects the distinction between the appearances and the Thing-in-itself. However, Hegel does not bypass this distinction, but he takes the absolute difference of form and content as the intelligible self-differentiation of the play of forces. The inner unity of the pure intuition and empirical intuition, form and content, is conceived of as an absolute self-differentiation. This point can be clarified by taking a closer look at the relation between time and space again. We have learned from Kant that space and time are not equal, i.e. they constitute two distinct irreducible elements. So how precisely can we conceive of their equality? An example. In the conception of a falling object, there is one and the same object that appears in different places at different moments. From the perspective of natural science, the real object is not the falling object but the law that describes its movement of falling. This law is not an object in space and time but one that exists outside of space and time. Now, when we assume—as natural science does—that this law or these laws are the laws of a space-time continuum, we have to consider what the apparent relation between the laws and the space-time continuum precisely consists in. Whereas the law form generally stands for the principle of unity, the triangle of irreducible elements ‘space’, ‘time’ and ‘law’ cannot serve merely as the different ingredients of any possible synthesis, but their distinctness must be conceived of in an absolute way. A real law should also describe the process of becoming distinct. As a result, such a law must always be a law of movement. Movement is the absolute shape of alternation, it is the alteration that exists through itself. Hence we can only understand absolute differentiation as movement. In our discussion of Kant, we saw that space was distinctness in general, mere externality or multidimensionality, and time was the comprehension of all spatial distinctness in a negative totality, producing another sort of distinction, viz. succession or one-dimensionality. Then, the movement of the force exists in the force differentiating itself into many spatial determinations, which are then comprehended into the one dimension of time; and whereas this results in merely the totality of all spatial determinations at a certain moment in time, the merely temporal space-totality transgresses into a next one, and so forth, creating an infinite succession. Now, the third antinomy has pointed out that this infinite succession must have an absolute beginning, and that we cannot conceive of their unity because of an absolute beginning is spontaneous and a succession is according to rules. However, by positing that the law structure is a movement of self-differentiation, Hegel brings together

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these opposites: from the perspective of the second truth of the understanding, the ‘force’ becomes the structure of the concept represented a spontaneous creation. 4.2 Tautology of the Understanding Now, Kant’s third antinomy has pointed out that a causal succession must have, by principle, an absolute beginning. However, we cannot conceive of an absolute causation because it is spontaneous and we only understand causation that exists as a succession. By positing the law structure as a movement of absolute self-differentiation, Hegel brings together these opposites: from the perspective of the second truth of the understanding, the ‘force’ now becomes the concept as spontaneous causation. Again, by doing so, Hegel does not overstep the problem of the third antinomy. On the contrary, precisely by acknowledging this problem, Hegel shows that taking substance as a play of forces—i.e. as a natural occurrence—is, in the end, inadequate. The problem is that the law by which nature is understood as this absolute alternation must be an absolute law. As a law, it must be intelligible; as an absolute, it must be spontaneous. Yet a natural law can never be both at the same time. Hegel uses the example of the law of gravity. According to the first truth of the understanding, a falling object is a movement in space and time, which can be described with a mathematical formula. According to the second truth, however, the law of gravity does not describe a movement in space and time, but a movement that unifies space and time: It equates two essentially unequal forms. Here, the movement described by the law of gravity unifies space and time ‘spontaneously’, because it does so in a way that is not a logically deducible development. That means, however, that the intelligibility of the law is not proven but merely posited. The law-form does not grasp nature in-itself at all, but it is a merely posited unity; in other words, everything becomes tautological.25 The result is that the absolute distinction, which is projected in nature, into the object, as a play of forces, turns out to be only conceivable as the selfdistinction of a subject. 5 Conclusion Hegel’s development from consciousness to self-consciousness is a further reflection on transcendental freedom, because by conceiving of nature as a play of forces, we already begin to understand nature as a self. In the consciousness 25  Cf. Werke 3, 177 / Miller 100: “It is self-identical, for the differences are tautological; they are differences that are none.”

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chapter, there is already a conception of the self, viz. the force in the shape of spontaneous causation, posited as the unity of nature. Here, Kant’s antithesis to transcendental freedom that the idea of absolute causation evokes contradiction, is not denied by Hegel; on the contrary, he argues that transcendental freedom is still an empirical and natural representation of what is in truth a relation of spirit. The law which no longer contradicts the concept of selfrealization is not a natural law, but the law of self-consciousness. Hence the concept of recognition is not merely Hegel’s alternative to Kant’s transcendental idealism, but it carefully develops further transcendental idealism in a systematic and more reflective manner. I want to end by briefly taking us back to the thingness that is experienced in the fear of death. It is evident that in the fear of death, self-consciousness cannot experience a thingness that is external to what self-consciousness is in itself. I think Hegel himself expresses this when he says about the self-consciousness in the fear of death that it has “trembled in every fibre of its being”.26 The original German phrase for what is translated in the text as “every fibre” is “alles fixe”, which means, literary, “everything that is fixed”. My view is that this is not merely a manner of speaking for Hegel. The fear of death not only implies a confrontation between self-consciousness and its organic existence, but also that the thing cannot merely be this organic thing. By surviving its confrontation with the absolute power of death, self-consciousness shows to itself that it has to deal with death but is not confined by it. This learns us something about the nature of the body of self-consciousness, viz. that it is not simply organic life but always already self-conscious life. This realization, which Hegel seemed to have been aware of, has a double implication. Firstly, that which self-consciousness acquires through experiencing the fear of death is not the origin of self-consciousness, but only insight in its self-consciousness. Even though having insight is of course a necessary condition for being self-conscious, the philosophical question concerning the origin of things, as is central in the doctrine of the antinomies, must distinguish thoroughly between insight and its origin. Only a being capable of self-consciousness will be able to experience the fear of death. Secondly, the transgression of death as an innate quality of self-conscious life introduces a new existential horizon, which also requires a positive articulation. There is an actual insight about the absolute character of self-conscious life brought to light in the fear of death. Now this positive insight is put forward in Hegel’s claim that all fixations dissolve in the sense that self-conscious life has an element of absolute indeterminacy, which distinguishes it from animal and 26  Idem, 207 / 117: “In that experience it has been quite unmanned, has trembled in every fibre ofitsbeing, and everything solid and stable has been shaken to its foundations.”

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instinct-driven life. Therefore, in the end, the result of the labor of the bondsman, its attempt to transform the thing that he has experienced in the fear of death, it is not merely a finite product. It is also the making explicit of what the thing is in itself, viz. self-conscious life, an absolute content. Bibliography Cobben, Paul, “The logical structure of self-consciousness”, in: Denker, A. / Vater, M. (eds.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of spirit: New critical essays, New York: Amherst, 2003, 193–212. Cobben, Paul, The Nature of the Self: Recognition in the form of right and morality, Berlin: De Gruyter GmbH & Co, 2009. Gadamer, Hans Georg, Hegels Dialektik: Fünf hermeneutischen Studien, Tübingen: Mohr, 1971. Habermas, Jürgen, “Arbeit und Interaktion. Bemerkungen zu Hegels Jenaener ‘Philosophie des Geistes’” in: Braun, H. / Riedel, M. (eds.), Natur und Geschichte: Karl Löwith zum 70. Geburtstag, Stuttgart, Kohlhammer, 1967, 132–155.
 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Werke in 20 Bänden: Theorie-Werkausgabe, hg. v. E. Moldenhauer u. K. M. Michel, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich / Miller, Arnold Vincent (trans.), Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford: University Press 1977. Honneth, Axel, Kampf um Anerkennung: Zur moralischen Grammatik sozialer Konflikte, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1992. Josifovic, Sasa, Hegels Theorie des Selbstbewusstseins in der “Phänomenologie des Geistes”, Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2008.
 Kant, Immanuel, Werkausgabe in 12 Bände, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp 1974ff. Kant, Immanuel / Guyer, Paul (trans.) / Wood, Allen (trans.), Critique of Pure Reason, Cambridge: University Press 1998. Kojève, Alexandre, Introduction à la lecture de Hegel: Leçons sur la Phénomenologie de l’esprit, Paris: Gallimard, 1947. Kok, Arthur, Kant, Hegel, und die Frage der Metaphysik: Über die Möglichkeit der Philosophie nach der kopernikanischen Wende, München: Wilhelm Fink, 2013. Kok, Arthur, “Jenseits des Gewissens: Der Mensch als Endzweck der Schöpfung”, in: Josifovic, S. / Kok, A. (eds.), Der innere Gerichtshof der Vernunft: Rationalität, Normavität und Gewissen im deutschen Idealismus, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016, 154–169. Krijnen, Christian (ed.), Recognition—German Idealism as an Ongoing Challenge, Boston/Leiden: Brill 2013. Stekeler-Weithof, Pirmin, Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes: Ein dialogischer Kommentar, Hamburg: Felix Meiner 2014.

Chapter 13

Does Spontaneity have to be Naturalized? Freedom as Spontaneity—Today and in Kant Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz Spontaneity belongs to the most popular notions of late modernity. It is used, be it in psychological guidebooks or in commercials, as a positive category which is strongly connected with individual freedom. It is used so often that its usage may in the meantime be considered as fulfilling a purely ideological function. Day-to-day we are being made believe that we act spontaneously when we drive a particular car, enjoy a certain sort of ice-cream or choose certain holiday destinations. Being originally a legitimate right of an individual (to choose and to shape freely and creatively his life plans), spontaneity thereby transforms itself gradually into an expectation of the social system, which wants to see us as ‘spontaneous’ clients and citizens. Everyone is supposed to live and act spontaneously or at least to pretend to have spontaneous life and actions. Although this ‘spontaneous’ action is being reduced to a choice between pregiven options, it is constantly suggested that without it there is no possibility of self-realization understood as an autonomously shaped, felicitous life-project.1 As a philosopher, one could shrug his shoulders and simply state that this has nothing to do with philosophy. First of all, the notion of spontaneity used in those contexts is of a psychological nature and only for this reason it is distant from philosophical meaning of the notion, not to mention the Kantian understanding of it. Nevertheless, there are reasons for not ignoring (at least in a polemical stance) this type of ‘naturalized’ spontaneity in the framework of philosophy. Above all, the described, blurred and possibly ideologically misused notion of spontaneity does not renounce its claim to be strongly connected with freedom in its individual sense. Moreover, there were and there still are notable thinkers who advance this type of naturalizing spontaneity. They often depart from the Kantian understanding of this category; only later they refer to the alleged disadvantages of that understanding and propose a transformation of it. By examining the persuasive power of this line of argument, we can shed some new light on the ‘classical’ understanding of spontaneity. It may actually 1  A very similar diagnosis in reference to the notion of self-realization may be found in one of the essays of Axel Honneth, see: Honneth 2010, 214–215.

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become clear that this latter understanding has some advantages which could be lost through the proposed transformation. Even more: it could turn out that the criticized Kantian position on spontaneity can cope with many challenges of late modernity much better than the interpretations which are based on some anthropological assumptions. In the following article I shall try to formulate an apology of the ‘classical’ philosophical understanding of spontaneity. This apology does not claim to encompass all the possible positions on this issue. Instead, I shall limit myself to the analysis of the Kantian concept of spontaneity and of the argumentative strategies chosen by Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas, who depart from the Kantian-type understanding of spontaneity but later modify it in a crucial manner. By doing this, I shall face many important questions: Are proposed changes necessary at all? Do they accomplish the aim set by both mentioned authors? And, last but not least: do those proposed changes not threat the advantages of the Kantian spontaneity concept which make it so useful to face some of the challenges posed by the modern understanding of the individual freedom? To answer these questions I shall make three steps. First, I will try to reconstruct Kant’s understanding of spontaneity by placing it in the context of his transcendental and practical philosophy. We will see, for what reasons Kant gave his notion of spontaneity a moral connotation and what implications this moral concept of spontaneity has. In the second part of the article, I shall shortly depict the argumentative strategy which underlies the project of naturalization of spontaneity and of interpreting it in anthropological categories. In the last part, I shall dispute the main argument of such an anthropologically oriented project. This will also make it possible to work out the genuine Kantian position and to show its inclusivity. 1

Is Freedom Only a “Mirage”? The Defense against the Suspicion of Lawlessness of Free Action

The third antinomy of Kantian first Critique consists, as all other antinomies do, in two contradictory claims. The thesis reads as follows: “Causality in accordance with laws of nature is not the only one from which all the appearances of the world can be derived. It is also necessary to assume another causality through freedom in order to explain them“ (AA, A 444); the antithesis reads as follows: “There is no freedom, but everything in the world happens solely in accordance with laws of nature” (AA, A 445). What stands out in the proof of the thesis is in my opinion the defense against a possible regressus ad infinitum

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in the chain of “previous causes” (AA, A 446). And precisely here we find for the first time the fundamental definition of the “absolute causal spontaneity” which is being equated with transcendental freedom and described as the ability of “beginning from itself a series of appearances that runs according to natural laws” (AA, A 446). What makes this passage of the Critique so interesting is nevertheless the sense of one of the main arguments (if not: of the main argument) which is introduced in the proof of the antithesis. “Freedom (independence) from the laws of nature”—reminds Kant—“is indeed a liberation from coercion, but also from the guidance of all rules…. Thus nature and transcendental freedom are as different as lawfulness and lawlessness” (AA, A 447). The antithesis is indeed burdened with the necessity “of seeking the ancestry of occurrences ever higher in the series of causes”; it nevertheless “promises in compensation a thoroughgoing and lawful unity of experience“ (AA, A 447). The mirage of freedom (AA, A 447) would not only cause a certain gap in the unity of experience; it would also threaten to break the “guidance of all rules.” To put it another way: there is a suspicion that the assumption of the ability of absolute spontaneity implicates the acceptance of the lawlessness of the chain of phenomena and of the actions that generate it. On the assumption of this “lawless faculty of freedom, nature could hardly be thought any longer” and this would set aside the difference that delimits “experience from dreaming” (AA, A 451). According to a dictum of Heraclitus, “the awake share a common world, but the asleep turn aside into private worlds” (DK 22 B 89). By frivolously accepting the mirage of freedom together with the lawlessness of actions following from it we would lose the coherence of the world which is common to all the awake. It is also precisely here, in the above quoted Remark on the Third Antinomy, that Kant suggests the only possible condition which would avert the mentioned threat of the ‘loss of the world’ and deny the accusation on freedom to be a lawless break in the coherent realm of nature. “Moreover, even if a transcendental faculty of freedom is conceded in order to begin alterations in the world, then this faculty would in any case have to be outside the world” (AA, A 451). Already at this stage the status of freedom, as a transcendental idea, is being foreshadowed; the more detailed explanation of it we find first in the Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality of the derivation of occurrences in the world from their causes. We learn here without ambiguity that a hypothetical free intelligible cause, which would be able to initiate a chain of effects ‘from itself’, would have to be located “with its causality … outside the series” (AA, A 537). One has to take notice that the effects of the actions of such a free cause would still be submitted under the laws of nature: “The effect can therefore be regarded as free in regard to its intelligible cause, and

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yet simultaneously, in regard to appearances, as their result according to the necessity of nature” (AA, A 537). Still, there emerges an important question: for what reason are we being caused at all to come up with this idea of a free, intelligible cause although, as Kant remarks, it is a “real stumbling block for philosophy” (AA, A 448)? What leads us to introduce this type of cause which, being submitted to the laws of nature, still possesses the transcendental ability of spontaneity? And, furthermore, what motivates us to look for the law that this type of cause would be following in order to eliminate the suspicion of the lawlessness of its actions and effects? The answer to those questions is suggested by Kant already in his first Critique, but it is only in the second Critique where he explicates this answer in a more detailed manner. For this reason, I shall now make a digression by referring to the line of argument from the second Critique and afterwards I will return to the suggestions given by Kant in the passage from his first Critique entitled Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality of the derivation of occurrences in the world from their causes. Christine Korsgaard has once proposed the following interpretation: the pure theoretical reason is in possession of the concept of freedom, but it is only the pure practical reason that delivers the full-fledged conception of it (Korsgaard 1989, 26). Let us try to explain this interpretation in a more detailed manner. If we try to think a free cause, we are thinking about a cause that functions upon some law which we still do not know. The only thing we know about this law is that it cannot be the law of nature. For this, we are not able to encounter such a free cause in the realm of experience, i.e. it cannot constitute an object of perception. Nevertheless, we are still entitled to think this kind of cause. The difference between thinking and perceiving is possible due to the fact that in Kant it is the intellect (and not the experience) that constitutes the source of pure notions (including the notion of cause). Kant explains this crucial difference in the passage of his second Critique entitled On the Warrant of Pure Reason in its Practical Use to an Extension Which is Not Possible to it in its Speculative Use. In this passage he undertakes an important polemic against Hume who does not recognize this difference because, according to Kant, he assumes that phenomena are things in themselves. The core of this debate with Hume can be formulated in the following way: if all the notions of thinking had their source in experience, then all notions that refer to the objects not given in the experience would have to be empty. This would certainly also implicate the emptiness of the notion of free cause. Contrary to that, Kant admits another way of proving that a notion is not empty, other than referring those notions to some sensual intuition (Anschauung). This other possibility is provided for in the second Critique by the fact of reason: the very act of lawgiving of reason

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itself which appears to the individual as the consciousness of the moral law. To be sure: we do not encounter here an empirical fact (Tatsache), but a unique factum (the word has its roots in Latin facere: to perform something, to act). This factum is only possible due to a certain activity of a rational subject and it consists in a genuine reality constituted through this activity and given only in the framework of it: Consciousness of this fundamental law may be called a fact of reason because one cannot reason it out from antecedent data of reason, for example, from consciousness of freedom (since this is not antecedently given to us) and because it instead forces itself upon us of itself as a synthetic a priori proposition that is not based on any intuition, either pure or empirical. CPR, A 55–56

Later Johann Gottlieb Fichte tried to grasp this unique reality with his notion of Tathandlung. By referring to this unique factum, Kant points to the sought-after law which would be an alternative to the law of nature: it is the moral law. By ‘discovering’ the moral law as the sought-after ‘conception’ of freedom we also encounter the proof of transcendental freedom not being an empty notion. Here we also see that Kant has to give his notion of spontaneity a moral meaning, otherwise it would unmask itself as part of nature or fall into lawlessness. Kant claims that through the consciousness of the moral law reason expands itself, but not in the cognitive, only in the practical sense (CPR, A 93–100). The latter, important comment is reflected also in the realm of ethical experience: there is no specific class of real actions that could be theoretically proved to be free actions. To refer to one of Kant’s own examples: we cannot prove that a true friend has ever existed. Nevertheless, there exists a class of actions that can be interpreted from the standpoint of freedom, in the above described meaning. Thus we arrive at the answer to our first question: the sought-after subject that possesses the ability of spontaneity is precisely the subject which is able to act under the requirements of the moral law. This important insight we have to keep in mind in the course of subsequent argumentation. In this way we have already managed to answer two of three intriguing questions. The sought-after subject of spontaneity is the subject which is able to follow the moral law. The sought-after law which sets aside the suspicion of the lawlessness of the action of such a subject is precisely the moral law (with its inevitable Kantian features of universality and necessity). But we still have to answer the third question: why do we find ourselves tempted at all to confront the theoretical reason with such a concept of freedom which appears to be a

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real stumbling block for it? It is also here that the reflections from the second Critique prove to be very helpful. And thus, Kant proposes there a very useful metaphor with which he tries to describe the relation between elements that Korsgaard later called ‘concept’ and ‘conception’ of freedom. Kant claims in the second Critique that it is only due to the moral perspective that we come up with the idea of postulating the transcendental freedom at all: “One would never have ventured to introduce freedom into science had not the moral law, and with it practical reason, come in and forced this concept upon us” (CPR, A 54). In the framework of our moral reflection we assume the practical (moral) conception of freedom and thus we arrive at its transcendental concept. This is why Kant calls the moral law ratio cognoscendi (i.e. reason of knowing) of transcendental freedom. At the same time he realizes that without an uncontradicted notion of the transcendental freedom the moral (practical) freedom would not be possible at all. For this reason he calls the transcendental freedom ratio essendi (i.e. reason of existence) of the moral law. Consciousness departs from the positive conception of following the moral law and arrives at the negative concept of transcendental freedom as independence from empirical determinations of action. It is only in the framework of a transcendental reconstruction of the conditions of possibility of the moral (practical) freedom that we proceed contrariwise. Namely, we depart from the negative, uncontradicted notion of transcendental freedom and search for the positive fulfillment of this concept which we find in the conception of the moral (practical) freedom. “Now practical reason of itself, without any collusion with speculative reason, furnishes reality to a supersensible object of the category of causality, namely to freedom (although, as a practical concept, only for practical use), and hence establishes by means of a fact what could there only be thought” (CPR, A 9). By this means the reason obtains a practical ground to authorize the (theoretically) only problematic concept of transcendental freedom, conceived merely as an open possibility. Most of those detailed arguments presented in the Critique of practical reason are foreshadowed already in the first Critique. To start with the last mentioned point: Kant refers already in the Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality of the derivation of occurrences in the world from their causes to the circumstance that “it is this transcendental idea of freedom on which the practical concept of freedom is grounded” (AA, A 533) and that “the abolition of transcendental freedom would also simultaneously eliminate all practical freedom” (AA, A 534). It is already here that the above mentioned motive of ratio essendi (which we have identified with the method of reconstruction of the conditions of possibility of freedom) is being set. To be sure, in the first Critique it is not yet the moral law in its full (positive) clarity that is meant at this point.

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In accordance with this, the practical freedom is being defined rather negatively, as “independence of the power of choice from necessitation by impulses of sensibility” (AA, A 534). Human power of choice (Willkür), according to Kant, is “affected” through the “moving-causes of sensibility”, but nevertheless it is not “necessitated”, i.e. constrained (coerced) by them (AA, A 534). An insight that is important from the perspective of our subject is that already here the transcendental freedom is being clearly isolated from all physiological and psychological dimensions of human action and defined by Kant as a pure formal moment of it. This implies that spontaneity has nothing to do with temper, inclinations or traits of the actor, independently of whether his personality is supporting or perturbing from the standpoint of the realization of moral demands. The “happy constitution (merito fortunae)” (AA, A 551) of human nature plays no significant role for his spontaneity understood as transcendental freedom. This clear delimitation of spontaneity from all physiological, psychological, educational, cultural and even ethical dimension of action must be kept in mind in the following course of reflection. The above quoted passages also clearly sketch the reverse perspective of ratio cognoscendi. Kant introduces this motive with the keyword ‘imputability’ and resorts to the example of a “malicious lie” committed by a given individual. We can without doubt explain such action by referring to the circumstances, education and character traits of that individual; “one nonetheless blames the agent, and not on account of his unhappy natural temper, not on account of the circumstances influencing him, not even on account of the life he has led previously; for one presupposes that it can be entirely set aside” (AA, A 555). The imputability of an action (and the blame following from it) is possible here due to the fact that “this ‘ought’ expresses a possible action, the ground of which is nothing other than a mere concept” (AA, A 547). We are thus speaking about actions that are “declared” to be “necessary that yet have not occurred and perhaps will not occur” (AA, A 548). We “find a rule and order that is entirely other than the natural order [accentuation—J.K.-K.]” (AA, A 550). Following the line of argument of the second Critique, one could add: precisely because we treat the imputation mentioned above as obvious, we arrive at the idea of transcendental freedom. We also encounter here reflections upon the status of the subject of such a spontaneous action. Kant speaks about the human who, necessarily being an empirical cause, still encounters in his own person the above described ­spontaneity. “Yet the human being,” “who is otherwise acquainted with the whole of nature solely through sense, knows himself also through pure apperception, … he obviously is … in another part … a merely intelligible object” (AA, A 546). Kant emphasizes that human, understood as a pure intelligible

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cause, must be seen as standing beyond time-conditions. Otherwise, his transcendental ability of spontaneity would unmask itself as part of the order of nature. And it is precisely this emphatically repeated condition that has drawn so much criticism on Kant. We hear about timeless, monological, extramundane subject who has to be replaced under the conditions of history, society and culture. We shall refer shortly to this critique, but it has to be mentioned already here that we are facing a misunderstanding or even a categorical mistake which, as a matter of fact, can emerge because of some formulations of Kant. When he speaks about the “acting subject” who “in its intelligible character, would not stand under any conditions of time” (AA, A 539), her surely does not refer to some colorless shadow of an empirical human that would be different from the latter through the absence of life-story or of cultural, psychological and historical pre-conditions of his psyche. What Kant has in mind is the formally understood ability of the exclusively existing empirical human— his “faculty that is only intelligible” (AA, A 545). Homo noumenon is not a spiritual look-alike of homo phaenomenon, but rather an unconditional ability that is inherent in homo phaenomenon. More precisely: it is an unconditional ability that can and must be imputed to him from a certain perspective. It is not the human that stands ‘outside the series’, but his ability to act spontaneously. To this notion of spontaneity pertains substantially to the unpredictability of human actions, as far as they are looked upon from the perspective of transcendental freedom. This belief about the togetherness of unpredictability and freedom as spontaneity is common to Kant and many of his critics, including Arendt or Habermas. However, the crucial question is: which part of an action treated as spontaneous may be considered as unpredictable? If we study the Resolution of the cosmological idea … from the first Critique carefully, it becomes pretty clear that the actions, as far as they are being analyzed from the standpoint of the empirical character of the actor, appear to be eventually predictable. ‘Eventually’ means in this context: if it were possible for us, as observers, to indicate all the empirical determinations of human action, then every single action (looked upon from this perspective) would be predictable (see: AA, A 549–550). If we are not able to indicate those empirical determinations in their entire range, then what we face here is a technical problem and not a matter of principle. But the very same action, considered from the perspective of the intelligible character, also proves to be necessary; however, we deal here with another kind of necessity than the one we call necessity of (the laws of) nature. In other words: the necessity of ‘ought’ (Sollen) also leaves us no choice and demands from us certain action that must follow necessarily (from ‘mere concept’) (see: AA, A 547). This clearly implies that both moral

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and unmoral action is free. But it also implies that a dutiful action that follows from an (empirically understood) character of a given person that is inclined to fulfill the demands of the moral law may actually prove to be unmoral, as far as it results from the inclinations rooted in that empirical character. What, in that case, remains unpredictable in an action? Obviously, it must be the decision upon the art of ‘incentive’ (Triebfeder) of the power of human choice (Willkür) that an actor includes in the maxim of its action. Kant later gave this claim a detailed and clear formulation in his book on religion: “Freedom of the power of choice has the characteristic, entirely peculiar to it, that it cannot be determined to action through any incentive except so far as the human being has incorporated it into his maxim (has made it into a universal rule for himself, according to which he wills to conduct himself)” (REL 73). Henry Allison named this insight of Kant “incorporation thesis” (Allison 1990, 40) and considered it to be significant for the correct understanding of Kantian ethics. In any case, spontaneity manifests itself as the moral choice of the subject which decides upon the incentive he introduces into the maxim of his action. The Kantian spontaneity is thus of formal nature: it does not break the order of nature. It has nothing to do with spontaneity in the psychological meaning (in which we speak of somebody who has a ‘spontaneous personality’), nor does it have anything to do with spontaneity in ethical sense (in which we speak of somebody who freely and consciously sets his hierarchy of values or works upon his life-plan). And it is precisely this formality of Kantian position that appears to his later critics to be too scant. They want to dissolve the boundaries of its meaning; they tend to interpret it more widely. To put it in a metaphorical way: they want to replace the intelligible character in the context of the empirical world with its psychological, anthropological and social dimensions. This is one of the meanings of the project of “detranscendentalizing” of reason and of rational subject that we find, among others, in Habermas. 2

Expect the Unexpected, or: Do We Have to be Born Spontaneous to be Able to Act Spontaneously?

The impulse by which we insert ourselves into the human world … springs from the beginning which came into the world when we were born and to which we respond by beginning something new on our own initiative. To act, in its most general sense, means to take an initiative, to begin …, to set something into

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motion … Because [accentuation—J. K.-K.] they are initium, newcomers and beginners by virtue of birth, men take initiative, are prompted into action…. The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be expected from him. Arendt 1958, 176–178

This important passage in Hannah Arendt’s work The Human Condition was originally not intended as an allusion to the Kantian notion of spontaneity. Nevertheless, it is exactly the notion of spontaneity described above—spontaneity as the ability to initiate a new chain of occurrences—that Arendt seems to have in mind. Against the background of the reconstructed theory of Kant the reflection of Arendt may be interpreted as an attempt to tie the concept of spontaneity up to an empirically given occurrence—in this case: to the unpredictable birth of human being which always establishes a new beginning. As we have seen in the quoted passage, the act of birth is not only supposed to be a prefiguration of spontaneity. Something more is meant here: the birth, always breaking the hitherto course of things, is being even stylized as the condition of possibility of autonomy. The spontaneous appearance in the world of a newborn human actually constitutes the profound ground of all his further spontaneous actions. This concept is taken up by Jürgen Habermas in his book The Future of Human Nature. Habermas considers it to be a useful argument for his own theoretical aims. His main point there is that parents’ decision to apply genetic engineering to preprogram certain traits or talents of their future child destroys the symmetry of the communicative situation. In contrast to verbal expectations and demands formulated by its parents, in the case of its own preprogrammed traits and talents the child has no possibility to distance itself from its features and to acquire a negative position towards them. Even more: such a decision on the part of parents generates a situation in which problems with identification of the child with its own body may appear. This in turn may have as its effect some sort of disturbance of realization of autonomy which for Habermas always has to be based on the acceptance of one’s own body. By distinguishing the ‘natural’, given existence of human being from its socialization history (which is responsible for the development of his personality) Habermas resorts to the above mentioned argument of Arendt. Whoever is precluded from understanding himself as a new beginning (that falls into hitherto history and thus alters it in a unique manner), but is instead forced to interpret himself as a product of external decisions, may possibly be unable to understand himself as initiator of his own actions. Not seeing

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himself as a spontaneous beginning, he may not be able to recognize himself as the beginning of spontaneous chain of actions. Freedom as spontaneity—a notion crucial for Kantian understanding of autonomy—is obviously being tied up here to an anthropological occurrence, namely the birth of human being (see: Habermas 2003, 67). The notion of autonomy that has its prefiguration (or even: its necessary condition) in a natural fact (birth) clearly transcends the Kantian position. This strong contextualization of spontaneity and of autonomy based upon it goes along with their social reinterpretation. With reference to other authors (among others, Martha Nussbaum), autonomy is now interpreted as an unstable achievement of the empirical, bodily beings which always has to be gained in the framework of interpersonal relations. Detranscendentalizing of autonomy means in the first instance that autonomy (together with its basis, i.e. spontaneity) is not interpreted anymore as an allegedly timeless feature pertaining to the subject due to its supposedly ‘monological’ self-reference. There can be no autonomy without fundamental identification with one’s own body and there can be no autonomy without the reciprocal recognition in the framework of social processes. These claims could be seen as main pillars of the project of anthropologically oriented detranscendentalizing of autonomy and of spontaneity. 3

Why is the Kantian Notion of Spontaneity More Inclusive than Its Anthropologically Oriented Alternative?

In this article, I will not engage in a broadly based discussion with the above sketched project. It must also remain unresolved if Habermas’s arguments against certain uses of genetic engineering are indeed convincing. What I solely want to claim is that with the anthropological reorientation of the concepts of autonomy and spontaneity we may lose much more than we win. In spite of original intentions, the idea of tying spontaneity up to certain anthropological facts may actually prove to be dogmatical—especially if we consider the constant change of historical, cultural and technological conditions of human life. But what is even more important for me is that in the framework of the mentioned project spontaneity and autonomy are looked upon as some states or values which we are supposed to appreciate. As opposed to that, spontaneity according to Kant is neither state, nor value, but rather achievement, to which we are called upon. We ought to act spontaneously—but it may well be that until now we have never acted spontaneously at all! Spontaneity in the Kantian sense is never given, but always seen as a challenge.

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A question may arise how this understanding of the absolute spontaneity as an achievement that is demanded from us may be reconciled with the formerly discussed possibility of immutability of human actions.2 I think we have to distinguish two perspectives here. From the perspective that is external to the actor, the absolute spontaneity, or more precisely: his ability to act spontaneously, is being imputed to him. For this reason any conscious action can be externally attributed to the actor. As opposed to this, the above mentioned moment of ‘achievement’—the absolute spontaneity as a challenge—manifests itself to the actor only from his internal perspective. For the act of the external (meaning above all: legal) attribution, the possibility of absolute spontaneity of the actor (to which an action is being attributed) is fully sufficient. But for the actor himself—for his self-esteem—the actual (and not only possible) fulfillment of the conditions of absolute spontaneity is of essential (ethical) importance. It is important to notice that Kant does not deny anywhere that it is always a bodily, socially and emotionally determined human being which performs a concrete action resulting from spontaneity. As we have already seen, homo noumenon is not a look-alike of homo phaenomenon, but rather the ability of the latter to determine himself on its own to perform an action, independently of his natural setting and of his hitherto life-history. The Kantian spontaneity occurs in contexts which are determined by factors rooted in ethics, culture and Lebenswelt. However, it is fully independent from those factors which it does not try to set aside or to replace with some alternative factors. For this reason it may even prove that contextualizing of spontaneity which would be stronger than it already is could threat the very sense of it. It may convert spontaneity to a mere value which we are supposed to appreciate, as it were already given and determined. But what seems to be especially appealing in the Kantian understanding of spontaneity is precisely the fact that it is unthinkable without the practical moment of an individual decision. This is why spontaneity, from the Kantian point of view, can never be guaranteed. The practical, appellative, and not value-constituting sense of spontaneity (and of autonomy based upon it) is the Kantian intuition that seems to me of great importance. If we try to grasp this intuition correctly, than the inclusive, boundaryexpanding sense of the Kantian concept of spontaneity will become obvious to 2  I am very thankful for this comment to the participants of the symposium “Metaphysics of Freedom? Kant’s Concept of Cosmological Freedom in Historical and Systematic Perspective” which took place at the University of Amsterdam from 29. to 31. of April 2017.

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us. Spontaneity, as already seen, is clearly isolated from all psychological, cultural and time-related contexts. Although spontaneity does not render those contexts irrelevant, it constitutes a possibility which may basically be realized by all rational beings. We could say: maybe for some beings their ‘intangible’ birth is from their perspective a fortunate circumstance that helps them to act spontaneously. However, this (to name it after Kant) merito fortunae does not play—just as little as cheerful character or the inclination to sometimes act in an unplanned way—any significant role for the possibility to realize a spontaneous action. The life-story of the actor, his character traits or preferences do not count as important grounds in his moral decision to act spontaneously. The kingdom of ‘free causes’ is basically open to every single being who is able not to follow “the order of things as they are presented in intuition”, but to make “with complete spontaneity … its own order according to ideas” (AA, A 548). All beings that are capable of acting upon ‘mere concept’ are welcome, solely under this condition, as fellow citizens of this kingdom, independently of their hitherto life-story. If I understand Habermas and Arendt correctly on that point, they both want to show that autonomy and spontaneity constitute unlikely, instable occurrences. In my opinion, Kant rather wants to show that spontaneity and autonomy based upon it are always possible for rational beings, even under unlikely and instable conditions. The radical inclusivity of this concept is rooted precisely in the formalism of Kant’s position that has been criticized so often. And this radical inclusivity may make the Kantian concept of spontaneity very attractive in the face of challenges of the late modernity—with its pluralism of the forms of life, personal preferences and individual idiosyncrasies. Bibliography Allison, Henry E. 1990. Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Habermas, Jürgen. 2003. Przyszłość natury ludzkiej. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. Honneth, Axel. 2010. Organisierte Selbstverwirklichung. Paradoxien der Indivi­ dualisierung. In Das Ich im Wir. Studien zur Anerkennungstheorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Kant, Immanuel. 1996. Critique of practical reason. In Practical philosophy, translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Kant, Immanuel. 1996. Religion within the boundaries of mere reason. Translated by George di Giovanni. In Religion and Rational Theology, translated and edited by Allen W. Wood and George di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of pure reason. Translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Korsgaard, Christine. 1989. Morality as freedom. In Kant’s Practical Philosophy Reconsidered, edited by Yirmiyahu Yovel. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Index action 1–5, 8, 10, 13–14, 16, 18–20, 22, 24, 31, 33, 42, 44, 53, 74, 91–94, 96, 98–100, 102, 104, 105–106 n. 41, 108–112, 114, 117–118, 123–124, 127, 130, 132 n. 14, 133, 134, 138–139, 146, 149–150, 152–153, 173–175, 177–179, 183, 205, 207–217 Alexander of Aphrodisias 13, 18, 21, 24–25 analogical knowledge 159, 161 Anstoss 145, 146–147 antinomy antinomies 8, 188, 194, 203, 206 appearances  17 arbitrium liberum 62–63, 102, 104, 108, 177 Arendt 206, 212, 214, 217 Aristotle 14, 99 autonomy 1, 5–7, 17–19, 97, 101, 107, 109, 129, 138–141, 148–151, 153, 173, 181, 214–217 Bauch 7, 175, 177, 183, 184 Baumgarten 77, 177–179 Blumenbergian transpositions 28 categorical imperative 6, 17, 19, 75, 111 n. 52, 129, 133–135, 153 causality causality of freedom 16, 124, 174 immanent causality 44 intelligible causality 74, 180 natural causality 74, 111, 137, 139 power of causality 180 principle of causality 6, 109, 114–115, 117 character empirical character 74, 124, 212–213 intelligible 5–6, 18, 47, 71, 74–75, 95–96 n. 13, 100, 105, 108–109, 117, 124, 131, 133, 137–138, 141, 162, 175–176, 178–180, 201–202, 207–208, 211–213 Christianity 15, 18, 25 compatibilism 16, 21 complete concept 4, 69–71 consciousness absolute consciousness 158 self-consciousness 8, 69, 146–147, 188, 193–199, 202–203 Crusius 16, 21–22, 52, 56–57 n. 15, 63, 81–83

Descartes 4, 28–34, 39–41 n. 22, 45, 50, 52, 144, 189, 195 determinism 3, 6, 11, 13, 16, 18–19, 22–25, 95, 100, 110, 116–117, 140, 142, 176 dialectical principle 166, 168 end in itself 6, 134–135 fact of reason 6, 75, 127–129, 134, 208–209 Fichte 1, 6–7, 51, 53, 125, 137, 139–154, 157–162, 164–170, 173, 209 Flach 7, 163–166, 170, 175, 182 Frede 11, 14–15 freedom absolute freedom 5, 70, 97, 147 anti-indifferentist concept of freedom  28 categories of freedom 6, 98, 129, 131 n. 13, 132, 133 n. 17, 135 cosmological freedom 2–4, 6, 9, 137, 139–140, 146, 150, 153–154, 176–179, 183 intellectual freedom 35–36, 40 inter-individual freedom 40, 42–43, 45 laws of freedom 181 libertas spontaneitatis 4, 47–49, 52–57 n. 14, 59–60, 62, 64, 66 free agency 20, 142, 145, 149, 150–153 free choice 42, 100, 102–104 n. 34, 177 free will 3, 10–11, 15–25, 30, 33, 40, 42–43, 97, 101, 127 freedom of choice 2, 5, 107, 114, 117, 148, 176 n. 5, 177 freedom of the concept 169, 181–182 freedom of the will 5, 13–14, 16, 19, 30, 43, 71, 92–97, 99–100, 105, 107, 109–110, 128 moral freedom 140 n. 1, 152, 174 negative freedom 19 positive freedom 19, 94 practical freedom 2, 4–6, 74–75, 100–103, 106, 109–110, 138, 174 n. 2, 176, 177–179, 184, 210–211 theoretical freedom 2–3, 5, 28, 141, 174, 178

220 freedom (cont.) transcendental freedom 5, 7–8, 94–95, 100–101, 103–104, 106, 108, 123, 137–138, 145, 147, 174–175, 177–179, 184, 188, 202–203, 207, 209–212 Habermas 196 n. 15, 206, 212–215, 217 Hegel 1–2, 7–8, 28, 157, 160–170, 173–177, 179–184, 188, 193–203 heterological principle 7, 163 Hobbes 53, 91 n. 2, 92 n. 2 homo noumenon 216 homo phaenomenon 212, 216 Hume 11, 16, 22–24, 115, 189, 208 ideas of pure reason 5 image 7, 15, 34, 159–161, 164–170, 199 imputability 3, 6, 17–19, 123, 127, 129, 133–134, 211 intuition 15, 35, 38, 109, 113, 114 n. 65, 116, 124, 128, 146, 189, 190–193, 201, 208–209, 216–217 Jenaer Wissenschaftslehre 140, 141 n. 2, 142–143 lawfulness 116, 139, 144, 149, 152, 200, 207 lawlessness 117, 137–138, 207–209 Leibniz 4–5, 32, 51–55 n. 12, 57 n. 15, 58–62, 64, 68, 69, 72–73 Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy 4 deutsche Schulphilosophie 2, 174 German metaphysics 2, 5, 174, 177–180 Leone Ebreo 4, 28–29, 35 liberum arbitrium 4, 49–50, 52, 56, 60, 65 lord/bondsman 8, 194–199 love 13, 29, 35–44, 169 metaphysics ciscensive metaphysics 157 transcendental metaphysics 105, 174 transcensive metaphysics 7, 157–158, 162 modernity 11, 15, 205–206, 217 moral necessity 70 Neo-Kantianism 175, 182 Neoplatonism 4, 28 Nova dilucidatio 4, 56, 57, 59, 61, 97

Index otherness 7, 69, 162–168, 170, 189–194, 197, 199 Plato 11–13, 15, 36–37, 143 principle of philosophy 7, 158–159, 161, 164–165, 167–170 principle of sufficient reason 16, 178 ratio cognoscendi 210–211 ratio essendi 127, 210 rational will  177 recognition 8, 39, 73, 144, 170, 188, 193, 195–199, 203, 215 Reinhold 1, 17, 107, 159, 173 relation absolute relation 161, 164, 180, 181 axiotic relation 7, 177, 182, 183–184 Rickert 7, 162–166, 170, 175 Rousseau 28, 92 n. 3, 139 salvation/blessedness 28–29 sameness 162–168 Schelling 1, 27, 101, 162, 173 second analogy of experience 6, 109–111, 114–117 self-activity 150, 177–178, 180 n. 9 self-consciousness 8, 69, 146–147, 188, 193–199, 202–203 self-determinacy 6, 148, 150, 152–153 self-determination 4, 6, 97, 126, 129, 132, 133, 135, 139–140, 146, 148, 150–153, 176, 181, 194 self-legislation 126 n. 4, 129, 138, 153 self-positing I 6, 144, 146, 150, 154 speculative concept 7, 168, 181 Spinoza 3–4, 27–41, 43, 44–45, 51, 180–181 spontaneity absolute spontaneity 4, 6, 7, 31, 43, 49, 56, 59, 61-66, 108, 123, 126, 129, 132, 134, 137, 139, 146, 177–179, 188, 207, 216 unconditioned spontaneity 177 Stoicism 13, 25 subject 2, 4–6, 8, 22 n. 8, 68–74, 96–99, 106, 108, 110, 114, 117, 124, 127, 130, 134, 138–139, 144, 146 n. 4, 147, 149–150, 152, 154, 164, 174–175, 181–184, 189–202, 209, 211–213, 215

Index table of judgements 132 The System of Ethics 148 Theunissen 169–170 thing in itself things in themselves 5, 8, 17, 20, 73, 124, 141, 188, 193, 208 thingness 8, 192–195, 197–198, 203 training 41, 42 transcendental esthetics 189 transcendental idealism 8, 17, 20, 73, 125, 175, 188–189, 191–193, 203 transcendental philosophy 1–2, 7, 123, 137, 142, 157–158, 164–166, 168, 173–175, 177, 182, 183, 192, 194

221 understanding 1, 3–4, 7–8, 12, 15–16, 20, 33, 35, 37 n. 16, 70–71, 74, 94, 95 n. 12, 96 n. 13, 97 n. 18, 100, 107, 109, 111–113, 115–117 n. 76, 126, 128, 139, 141–142, 148, 153, 158–159, 167, 173, 180, 196, 200, 202, 205–206, 213–216 Wagner 7, 157, 162, 174 n. 2, 175, 182 Wille 78, 81, 105, 106, 128 n. 8 Willkür 5, 62, 77 n. 3, 100, 102–111, 114, 117–118, 176 n. 5, 211, 213 Wolff 5, 16, 57, 61 n. 20, 77, 78–86 n. 19, 88, 112 n. 56, 178