stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

problem of freedom is as simple as that. But there is a good reason why such simplicity escapes
theoretical philosophy. We do not know our character in theory. “How, a law can be of itself and
immediately a determining ground of the will (though this is what essential in all morality) is for
human reason an insoluble problem and identical with that of how a free will is possible” (CPrR
5:72). But we do know our character in practice. “However, in order to avoid misinterpretation in
regarding this law as given, it must be noted carefully that it is not an empirical fact but the sole
fact of pure reason which, by it, announced itself as originally lawgiving” (CPrR 5:31). We reach
a point where theoretical philosophy must take the form of tautology. That I am free is a fact to
the extent that I am free. Allison recognizes this point: “when Kant calls the moral law a fact he
is not implying its self-evidence. On the contrary, the moral law is a fact for reason only because
it is the expression of the fact of pure reason. Thus, the moral law is not justified by intuition, but
by volition, by pure practical reason itself” (Allison 1990 271). Transcendental freedom is not a
problem for practical knowledge because practical knowledge is the name for the actualization of
transcendental freedom. “The practical idea is, therefore, always in the highest degree fruitful,
and in its relation to our actual activities is indispensably necessary. Reason is here, indeed,
exercising causality, as actually bringing about that which its concept contains; and of such
wisdom we cannot, therefore, say disparagingly it is only an idea” (CPR B385/A329). There is a
different way of saying this. Theoretical knowledge knows freedom not in any one of its
theories, but only in the act of theoretical knowing, behind its own back as it were.
I have argued that Kant’s practical philosophy begins with action. I hope that so far I
have explained what this means. The first principle of Kant’s philosophy is the actualization of
the ability to reason as the activity of the rational-will in opposition to the feeling-will. In this
sense, I hope to have explained my controversial claim that Kant’s practical philosophy does not
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