Rethinking Kant’s Fact of Reason

Ware, Owen

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Rethinking Kant’s Fact of Reason

Owen Ware

November 2014, Volume 14, No. 32, pp. 1-21

Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0014.032

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Abstract

Kant’s doctrine of the Fact of Reason is one of the most perplexing aspects of his moral philosophy. The aim of this paper is to defend Kant’s doctrine from the common charge of dogmatism. My defense turns on a previously unexplored analogy to the notion of ‘matters of fact’ popularized by members of the Royal Society in the seventeenth century. In their work, ‘facts’ were beyond doubt, often referring to experimental effects one could witness first hand. While Kant uses the German equivalent (‘Tatsachen’) in different contexts, I argue that the scientific analogy opens up a new framework for interpreting his strategy of justification in the Critique of Practical Reason. In the final section, I address a few possible objections to my reading, one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich (1989) and Ian Proops (2003), who have argued that Kant’s Fact of Reason is best understood under a legal analogy.

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In this paper, my aim is to offer a more charitable reading of Kant’s strategy of justification in the second Critique. I will do so, however, by taking what may seem to be an unlikely detour: working from the traditions of Romano-canon and English common law; to the works of the British experimentalists in the seventeenth century; and finally, to the German translation of Bishop Butler’s Analogy of Religion in 1756. While my ultimate concern here is to defend a new systematic reading of Kant’s Faktum (sections 3–4), I believe that tracing the history of “fact” through these phases is necessary for putting his argument in its proper context (sections 1–2). As we shall see, Kant’s Faktum shares the meaning of a “matter of fact” (Tatsache), referring to the reality of our moral consciousness; and like a “Tatsache”, it is something we can attest to with the aid of Kant’s thought experiments. Later on I will address a few possible objections to this reading (sections 5–6), one of which I anticipate coming from Dieter Henrich and Ian Proops, who have argued that Kant’s Faktum is best understood under a legal analogy.

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