Kant is often accused of bringing an end to metaphysics. He didn’t think so:
“Metaphysics, with which it is my fate to be in love, although only rarely can I boast of any favours from her, offers two advantages. The first is that it serves to solve the tasks which the questioning mind sets itself when by means of reason it inquires into the hidden qualities of things. But here the result only too often falls below expectation . . .
“The other advantage is more adapted to human reason, and consists in recognizing whether the task be within the limits of our knowledge and in stating its relation to the conceptions derived from experience, for these must always be the founda­tion of all our judgments. In so far metaphysics is the science of the boundaries of human reason. And . . . this use of metaphysics . . . is at the same time the least known and the most important, and . . . is obtained only late and by long experi­ence.”
And again, “I am far from regarding metaphysics itself, objectively considered, to be trivial or dispensable; in fact I have been convinced for some time now that I understand its nature and its proper place in human knowledge and that the true and lasting wel­fare of the human race depends on it.”
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
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