Cosmological contradictions

pp. 279-299

in: Otfried Höffe, Kant's critique of pure reason, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

In the chapter on the "Paralogisms' reason turns within to focus upon the thinking ego, while in the chapter on the "Antinomies' it turns outwards and examines the possibility in principle of attaining complete knowledge of the world. It is true that the second antinomy also touches upon the question of the immortality of the soul, but it does so in a specifically cosmological rather than a psychological respect. Kant begins by presenting a complete list of the rational perspectives, or cosmological ideas, which allegedly facilitate an absolutely complete knowledge of the world, but then proceeds to show how every such attempt only entangles reason in unavoidable contradictions or antinomies. Finally, Kant undertakes to resolve the (fourfold) structure of contradiction in which reason here finds itself entangled.¹