Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:19:40.213Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Leaving the Enchanted World Behind: Kant on the Order of Nature, Empirical Space and the Possibility of Miracles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2019

Pavel Reichl*
Affiliation:
University of Essex

Abstract

Despite relative neglect in the literature, Kant’s published and unpublished writings in theoretical philosophy reveal a sustained and at times ambivalent effort to come to terms with the problem of miracles. Because they entail a form of supernatural causation that undermines the law-governedness of the order of nature, miracles pose a significant problem for Kant’s metaphysics. I explore in detail Kant’s account of miracles in conjunction with the relevant aspects of his metaphysics of nature in order to establish in what sense miracles are possible, and how they fit into Kant’s architectonic more generally.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Carrier, M. (1992) ‘Kant’s Relational Theory of Absolute Space’. Kant-Studien, 83(4), 399416.Google Scholar
Chignell, A. (2014) ‘Can Kantian Laws Be Broken?’. Res Philosophica, 91(1), 103121.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. (2013) Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (2015) Leibniz: Philosophical Essays. Trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Nuyen, A. T. (2002) ‘Kant on Miracles’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 19(3), 309323.Google Scholar
Pollok, K. (2001) Kants Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft: Ein Kritischer Kommentar (Kant-Forschungen 13). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Watkins, E. (2009) ‘The Antinomy of Teleological Judgement’. In Dietmar Heidemann (ed.), Kant Yearbook, 1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter), 197221.Google Scholar