The Critique's Contradiction as the Key to Post-Kantianism: Longuenesse and the Collapse of Kant's Distinction Between Sensibility and the Understanding (New Studies in Idealism)

The Critique’s Contradiction brings the post-Kantian perspective to bear on current debates over Kant’s conception of sensibility. Its most central aim is to bring into view a hitherto unseen difference between the theoretical standpoint the post-Kantians adopt (“non-finitude”) and Kant’s standpoint (“finitude”). By bringing attention to this difference it aims to transform the nature of the debate over Kant’s conception of sensibility. The post-Kantians find a contradiction in Kant’s Critique. They find a “speculative” thought concluding his explanation of how the categories condition the possibility of experience. According to it, our reception of empirical content is conditioned by the understanding’s activity. If we’re affected by a thing in itself, however, our reception of empirical content is unconditioned by the understanding’s activity. According to Hegel, Kant adheres to such affection only because of his “standpoint of finitude,” his thought that things in themselves exist prior to the understanding’s activity. This book’s bold new historical thesis is that the three major post-Kantians abandon finitude to save Kant’s speculative thought: contra Kantian finitude, they all adopt “non-finitude,” the view whereby “the concept of existence is by no means considered to be a primary and original concept, but is… derived through its opposition to activity” (Fichte). Béatrice Longuenesse too sees Kant’s speculative thought, but unlike the post-Kantians, tries to think it from finitude. She thus retains the Critique’s contradiction, but can solve the problems uncovered in her view by adopting non-finitude. Allison’s critique confirms that non-finitude is her view’s natural home.