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Kant is a key thinker in the emergence of our contemporary sense of what 'human freedom' is, and why it is important. This book shows that important features of Kant's philosophy were forged out of difficulties he had in reconciling his belief in God as creator with the concept of human freedom.
List of contents
- 1: Introduction
- 2: The Creation
- 3: Is God Free?
- 4: The Problem
- 5: The Solution
- 6: Incoherence
- 7: Belief
- 8: Creating the Kingdom of Ends
- 9: Concurrence
- 10: Legacy
About the author
Christopher J. Insole is a senior lecturer in Philosophical Theology and Ethics at the University of Durham, UK. His work is concerned with the relationship between fundamental metaphysical and doctrinal commitments, and patterns of thought in meta-ethics and practical reasoning. This interest underlies publications on realism and anti-realism, the relationship between theology and political liberalism, the place of natural law language in the work of Edmund Burke, and the role of theology within Kant's metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.
Summary
Kant is a key thinker in the emergence of our contemporary sense of what 'human freedom' is, and why it is important. This book shows that important features of Kant's philosophy were forged out of difficulties he had in reconciling his belief in God as creator with the concept of human freedom.
Additional text
Insole's project is tremendously important and provides an equally comprehensive, focused and illuminating take on familiar Kantian issues from what for many readers still is a thoroughly unfamiliar perspective. It is rare to see philosophers like Aquinas, Suárez and others along this line discussed in the context of Kant, and Insole's book shows that invoking this context has a clarifying effect on a large number of passages in Kant's uvre ... I should like to close by reiterating how deeply illuminating Insole's approach is and how he manages to shed light on a number of as yet largely unexplored aspects of Kant's thought. Moreover, he provides the resources for reassessing quite a few allegedly familiar claims by placing them in a context thoroughly unfamiliar and perhaps even alien to many quarters of contemporary Kant scholarship. He has done us all a great service by linking Kant to the Thomist tradition of scholasticism
