Kantian Subjects

In this volume, Karl Ameriks explores 'Kantian subjects' in three senses. In Part I, he first clarifies the most distinctive features-such as freedom and autonomy-of Kant's notion of what it is for us to be a subject. Other chapters then consider related 'subjects' that are basic topics in other parts of Kant's philosophy, such as his notions of necessity and history. Part II examines the ways in which many of us, as 'late modern,' have been highly influenced byKant's philosophy and its indirect effect on our self-conception through successive generations of post-Kantians, such as Hegel and Schelling, and early Romantic writers such as Hölderlin, Schlegel, and Novalis, thus making us 'Kantian subjects' in a new historical sense. By defending the fundamentals ofKant's ethics in reaction to some of the latest scholarship in the opening chapters, Ameriks offers an extensive argument that Hölderlin expresses a valuable philosophical position that is much closer to Kant than has generally been recognized. He also argues that it was necessary for Kant's position to be supplemented by the new conception, introduced by the post-Kantians, of philosophy as fundamentally historical, and that this conception has had a growing influence on the mostinteresting strands of Anglophone as well as Continental philosophy.

Ameriks's book, apart from the fine-grained detail of his defense of Kant against misinterpreting critics, is a statement of desiderata for philosophy in the late modern era, as well as an argument against any global skepticism about the prospects of such a historically self-conscious program. . . . a must-read for anyone interested in such issues.

Karl Ameriks is the McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. He specializes in the history of modern philosophy, continental philosophy, and modern German philosophy. Much of his research is dedicated to the study of Immanuel Kant about whom he has published multiple books, including Kant's Elliptical Path (Oxford 2012) and Kant's Moral and Legal Philosophy (Cambridge 2009). He has served as a member of theBoard of Directors for the Journal of the History of Philosophy and on the editorial boards of Critical Horizons, Kant Yearbook, Oxford Philosophical Concepts, and Philosophisches Jahrbuch.