Leuven Kant Conference 2025: Kant's Metaphilosophy

Whereas the quest for a new philosophical method was a goal shared by many modern philosophers, Kant was arguably among the first to take reflections on philosophy to be part of philosophy as such. He conceived of the Critique of Pure Reason as a court for settling philosophical controversies (Axi) and aimed to establish a new kind of philosophy, which he called transcendental philosophy. In another context, he termed this new philosophy a “metaphysics of metaphysics” (AA 10: 269). Kant further used the term “critical philosophy” (AA 05: 5) to denote his inquiries into both the theoretical and practical domains of human rationality. In addition, Kant distinguished between a scholastic and a cosmic concept of philosophy and conceived of the latter as “the science of the relation of all cognition to the essential ends of human reason” (A 839/B 867), thereby suggesting that philosophy is pertinent to existential questions. No less significantly, in the Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant claims that the concept of purposiveness is key to bringing together the theoretical and practical uses of reason, which suggests that teleological motives are central to Kant’s conception of philosophy as a whole. This raises the question as to whether these various accounts of philosophy are coherent. In view of this apparent plurality, the conference aims to foreground Kant’s views on the tasks and status of philosophy.