ON THE ATTEMPT TO INTRODUCE THE CONCEPT OF NEGATIVE MAGNI- TUDES INTO THE TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY OF KANT

Abstract

This paper argues both a historical and a systematic thesis. In the historical sense, it is argued that Kant rehabilitates the concept of negative magnitudes between 1790 and 1792. In the systematic sense, it is argued that this rehabilitation is a transcen- dental rehabilitation. In the introduction, the place of the concept of negative magni- tudes in Kant’s career is presented. In the second section, its pre-critical significance is explained, emphasizing its ontological dimension. In the third, fourth and fifth sections, respectively, the psychological, cosmological, and moral significance of this concept is explained. In these sections, the explanation of these three different meanings follows the order of Kant’s publications between 1790 and 1792. Following this order, the con- cept of negative magnitudes is seen in the Analytic of the Sublime of the Critique of Judgment (1790), in the essay On the Failure of Every Philosophical Essay in Theodicy (1791), and in the essay On Radical Evil in Human Nature (1792). In the conclusion a general remark is made on the concept of the negative in Kant. Here it is argued that the transcendental rehabilitation of negative magnitudes is an exception in the development of his thought. | Keywords: evil, negation, negative magnitudes, sublime, theodicy, reality.