Rethinking rational cosmology: Research on the pre -critical origins of Kant\u27s arguments in the antinomies

Anglo-American commentators of Kant are largely skeptical that the Antinomies of the first Critique accomplish their intended objective. Against Kant\u27s claim that there are “natural and unavoidable” questions about the structure of the universe, the nature of causality, and the existence of God, which inevitably lead human reason to paradox and contradiction, critics deny that the Antinomies are inevitable problems of reason. Typical objections levied against Kant are that the Antinomies are artificially generated from Kant\u27s (own) architectonic view of human reason and that the individual antinomy-proofs are philosophically indefensible. In this dissertation I present reasons for why the standard interpretations of the Antinomies should be called into question and I delineate a modest interpretation of Kant\u27s antinomy-doctrine that leads to a more charitable account of what Kant\u27s project is in the “Antinomy Chapter.” I argue, in broad outline, that past interpreters have misidentified the aim (or objective) of the Antinomies and they have radically misinterpreted the theoretical context in which the claims and terminology of the individual antinomy proofs are situated. It is my contention that much of the skepticism currently surrounding Kant\u27s Antinomies is principally due to textual misunderstanding and the fact that Kant\u27s commentators have not properly understood the meaning of “rational cosmology” that Kant identifies as the intended target of his arguments. Rational cosmology, as I attempt to define it, represents an actual (historically instantiated) philosophical tradition of the mid-eighteenth century. It is best regarded as a form of Newtonian metaphysics that emerged as a response to the challenges presented by scientific naturalism. Its list of practitioners include Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophers, such as the early Kant and Alexander Baumgarten, as well as Continental Newtonians, such as Leonard Euler and Pierre Maupertuis. After tracing the types of arguments and positions advanced by rational cosmologists during Kant\u27s pre-critical period, I suggest how the Antinomies of the first Critique are a set of arguments that are specifically designed to refute rational cosmology as an approach to metaphysical inquiry