Overview

The book offers a definitive study of the development of Kant's conception of the highest good, from his earliest work, to his dying days. Insole argues that Kant believes in God, but that Kant is not a Christian, and that this opens up an important and neglected dimension of Western Philosophy. Kant is not a Christian, because he cannot accept Christianity's traditional claims about the relationship between divine action, grace, human freedom and happiness. Christian theologians who continue to affirm these traditional claims (and many do), therefore have grounds to be suspicious of Kant as an interpreter of Christian doctrine. As well as setting out a theological critique of Kant, Insole offers a new defence of the power, beauty, and internal coherence of Kant's non-Christian philosophical religiosity, 'within the limits of reason alone', which reason itself has some divine features. This neglected strand of philosophical religiosity deserves to be engaged with by both philosophers, and theologians. The Kant revealed in this book reminds us of a perennial task of philosophy, going back to Plato, where philosophy is construed as a way of life, oriented towards happiness, achieved through a properly expansive conception of reason and happiness. When we understand this philosophical religiosity, many standard 'problems' in the interpretation of Kant can be seen in a new light, and resolved. Kant witnesses to a strand of philosophy that leans into the category of the divine, at the edges of what we can say about reason, freedom, autonomy, and happiness.

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9780191887932

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Reviews

Christopher Insole's Kant and the Divine is a magisterial study of Kant's inseparable philosophy of religion and moral philosophy. Against recent fashion, Insole argues that Kant is a deeply religious thinker, but by no means a conventional Christian. For Kant, what is divine is above all autonomous human freedom, the capacity of human beings to set their own ends within the framework of reason, although it is also rational for humans to believe that God makes it possible for them to do this harmoniously and thus achieve the highest good on their own. This book is a landmark. -- Paul Guyer, Brown University This is a major contribution to the study of Kant and indeed to the philosophy of religion more broadly. It is the definitive study, and one with which its successors must contend. There is nothing like this in print, either in breadth or in detail. It will require subsequent scholars of Kant, and in the philosophy of religion more widely, to raise their game. -- Nicholas Adams, University of Birmingham This is a comprehensive and compelling account of Kant's philosophical theology. Insole offers an interpretation of the trajectory of Kant's thought, from Kant's early discussions regarding the harmony and perfection of the created order, to Kant's critical emphasis on autonomy and its implications for his understanding of God. He is master of a broad swath of Kant's texts, from the pre-critical to the critical period and is also in command of the secondary literature... [H]is thesis is a bold and imaginative one for which he makes a good case, and his work will certainly generate many scholarly responses. -- Jacqueline Mari a, Purdue University

"""Christopher Insole's Kant and the Divine is a magisterial study of Kant's inseparable philosophy of religion and moral philosophy.� Against recent fashion, Insole argues that Kant is a deeply religious thinker, but by no means a conventional Christian.� For Kant, what is divine is above all autonomous human freedom, the capacity of human beings to set their own ends within the framework of reason, although it is also rational for humans to believe that God makes it possible for them to do this harmoniously and thus achieve the highest good on their own.� This book is a landmark."" -- Paul Guyer, Brown University ""This is a major contribution to the study of Kant and indeed to the philosophy of religion more broadly. It is the definitive study, and one with which its successors must contend. There is nothing like this in print, either in breadth or in detail. It will require subsequent scholars of Kant, and in the philosophy of religion more widely, to raise their game."" -- Nicholas Adams, University of Birmingham ""This is a comprehensive and compelling account of Kant's philosophical theology. Insole offers an interpretation of the trajectory of Kant's thought, from Kant's early discussions regarding the harmony and perfection of the created order, to Kant's critical emphasis on autonomy and its implications for his understanding of God. He is master of a broad swath of Kant's texts, from the pre-critical to the critical period and is also in command of the secondary literature... [H]is thesis is a bold and imaginative one for which he makes a good case, and his work will certainly generate many scholarly responses."" -- Jacqueline Mari�a, Purdue University"

Author Information

Christopher J. Insole, Professor of Philosophical Theology and Ethics, University of Durham After teaching at the Universities of London and Cambridge, Christopher Insole took up his post at Durham in 2006, becoming Professor of Philosophical Theology and Ethics in 2013. He has published extensively on realism and anti-realism, religious epistemology, the relationship between theology, metaphysics, and political philosophy, and on the thought of Immanuel Kant. His books include his major study of Kant's philosophy of religion (Oxford, 2013).

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