This is one reason why I spent so much effort in grasping Kant's Philosophy.
Discuss??Hanna Robert wrote:Relatedly, it’s a truth not generally acknowledged, that all Anglo-American- & European philosophy since Kant—i.e., since the end of the 18th century—is post-Kantian.
This is of course trivially true, in that all Anglo-American-&-European philosophy since the end of the 18th century literally temporally succeeds the publication and dissemination of Kant’s philosophical writings.
But it’s also profoundly true, in that all Anglo-American-&-European philosophy since the end of the 18th century falls within a single comprehensive Ur-framework, according to which Kant’s philosophy is either
- -(i) wholly accepted without revision-or-updating (ortho-Kantianism),
-(ii) at least partially accepted but also significantly revised-&-updated (quasi-Kantianism, crypto-Kantianism, and
-(iii) classical 19th and early 20th century neo-Kantianism, whose original rallying cry was: back to Kant!), or
-(iv) outright rejected (anti-Kantianism) (Hanna, 2008, 2020).
The paradigmatic example of ortho-Kantianism is mainstream late 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st century Kant-scholarship, allowing of course for many and various domestic or in-house scholarly disagreements about how best or correctly to interpret Kant’s writings.
Paradigmatic examples of quasi-Kantian philosophy include:
- -classical German idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc.);
-British neo-Hegelianism (Bradley, McTaggart, etc.);
-realistic phenomenology, transcendental phenomenology, and existential phenomenology (Brentano, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, etc.);
-other varieties of post-phenomenological “Continental” philosophy (existentialism, hermeneutics, post-structuralism, deconstructionism, postmodernism, etc.);
-New England transcendentalism (especially Emerson);
-classical American pragmatism (especially Peirce);
-process philosophy (especially Bergson and Whitehead); and
-Pittsburgh neo-Hegelianism (especially Sellars, McDowell, and Brandom).
The paradigmatic example of crypto-Kantianism is Wittgenstein’s philosophy, both early and late (Hanna, 2017c).
And obviously, classical 19th and early 20th century German and French neo-Kantianism are paradigmatic examples of neo-Kantianism.
As to anti-Kantian philosophy, paradigmatic examples are classical Analytic philosophy and postclassical Analytic philosophy (Hanna, 2001, 2006a, 2021b).
But whether Kant’s philosophy is wholly accepted, partially accepted, or outright rejected, it’s inescapable.
This is simply because Kant’s philosophy determines the total logical space of relevant philosophical options for all post-Kantian Anglo-American-&European philosophy.
In this sense, all post-Kantian Anglo-American-&-European philosophy, including of course all contemporary philosophy up to 6am this morning, has come out from under Kant’s wig, whether positively (pro-) or negatively (anti-).
Now, it must be admitted that it’s at least possible that some old or new non-Anglo-American-&-European philosophical framework will unexpectedly stride into the center of the global intellectual and sociocultural scene like an all-conquering Colossus, and henceforth dominate philosophy worldwide.
Let’s call this the extra-Kantian philosophy possibility.
But the extra-Kantian-philosophy possibility seems to me extremely unlikely, in view of the bumpy (to put it very mildly) yet relentless Americanization of world culture, driven by the USA’s militaristic adventures and misadventures, music, movies, television, and digital technology, and the correspondingly equally bumpy yet equally relentless neoliberalization of world politics, driven by technocratic capitalism, whether corporate capitalism or State-capitalism, and whether democratic or not-sodemocratic, since the end of World War II.
So, leaving aside the extra-Kantian-philosophy possibility, then all foreseeably future philosophy worldwide will be a series of positive or negative footnotes to Kant.
Moreover, as regards negative footnotes, the 140-year-long anti-Kantian tradition of Analytic philosophy is in fact now coming to an end, as post-classical Analytic philosophy finally goes down into the ash-heap of history, crashes, and burns.
And as regards positive footnotes, obviously ortho-Kantianism is historically and philosophically backward-looking, not forward-looking.
Therefore,
(i) the times they are a-changing, and
(ii) the near-future emergence of some or another creatively revised-&updated version of Kant’s philosophy, as the central and dominant world philosophy, is historically inevitable.
For all these reasons, forward to Kant! must be humankind’s philosophical futurist rallying cry.
Views??