It is commonly assumed that Kant is indebted to Aristotle not to Plato. In this paper we argue, however, that the following four central topics in Kant's philosophy must be recognized as having Platonic roots. 1. The idea that metaphysics is a system of synthetic apriori judgements and the idea that such judgments require pure intuition. 2. The idea that geometrical objects have a certain purposiveness. 3. The notion of dialectic. 4. The notion of ideas and their role in the sphere of cognition and morality.
While the first part of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, that is, the Analytic, has been subject to a vast number of interpretations, the second part of the work, that is, the Dialectic, has received far less attention. Proops' choice of focus on the latter is therefore in itself a welcoming enrichment to Kant scholarship. But his choice of topic is certainly not the only laudable fact about this book. In my view, it is for several reasons a masterpiece. First, the scope of Proops' approach is admirable. He offers a reading of almost all of the Dialectic and most of the time he does not shy away from apparently hopelessly vague and confusing passages that would have been very tempting to skip. Second, Proops draws on an impressive breadth of philosophical material. He not only engages with most of Kant's corpus and a number of other Kant scholars, but he is also very well-read in the historically relevant texts and brings to light Kant's engagement with and reactions to his predecessors. Third, Proops manages to use the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy in a way that sharpens and clarifies Kant's reasoning without reducing his originality. This brings me to the fourth point. The book is a remarkably lucid read. Proops has put a lot of effort into defining his terms and explaining his choice of concepts, which I found by and large very helpful. Kant's texts are hard enough and one really should not have to spend time trying to understand what the interpreter wants to argue, which alas happens far too often in Kant scholarship. Before I present some of my more critical remarks and questions to the book, let me give a brief presentation of its aims and content.In the Introduction Proops outlines no less than six goals (3-7). The first and most obvious goal is to scrutinize Kant's critique of speculative metaphysics as presented in the Dialectic. The second goal is to argue that despite his critique, Kant 'nonetheless endorses certain theoretically grounded arguments concerning the supersensible' (4). Such 'doctrinal beliefs' include (as a minimum) beliefs in a human afterlife and a god. This implies that Kant is not simply arguing against speculative metaphysics as such, but against certain brands of it which Proops dubs dogmatism. This leads naturally to a third goal, namely to survey and understand the philosophical terrain within which Kant's philosophy is situated. A fourth goal of the book is to understand Kant's famous claim: 'I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith' (B xxx). The fifth goal is to argue that Kant's notion of 'critique' covers not only an investigation of the limits of our ability to acquire a priori knowledge but also a test for 'separating the wheat of good speculative metaphysics from the chaff of the bad' (7). One of several original moves in this book is Proops' attempt to argue for this reading by carefully analyzing Kant's metaphor of the fiery test. According to Proops Kant is not alluding to the medieval tradition of proving someone'...
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