7 - Tragedy, empirical history and finality

Summary

As the last chapter concluded we saw that in Kant, for the first time, we could speak of engaging in genuinely metaphysical enquiry in a way that preserves and protects both the integrity of the empirical world and the integrity of reason. Our findings with regard to each of these three terms can be briefly summarized as follows. First, the term metaphysical is demystified in that it no longer purports to identify any sort of purely rational foundational structures of reality, existing ‘out there’ somehow beyond the possibility of all experience, or beyond space and time; but rather now, more simply, the possibility of genuine a priori cognition (necessary and universal knowledge) in rational enquiry into the empirical world (i.e., in synthetic reasoning). Secondly, the preservation of empirical integrity means essentially an acknowledgement by reason that the empirical world fundamentally reflects ‘extensive magnitudes’ which do not fall under the jurisdiction of reason, but which stand over against reason as realities that reason cannot at bottom account for, or that reason can not ‘give to itself’ but that are given to reason through intuition. (Whenever reason presumes that it can do so it engages in dogmatism.) Thirdly, the preservation of rational integrity means essentially that, precisely in taking care to protect the empirical integrity of the world in this way, reason's rightful analytical claims to necessity and universality can also be sustained, and reason itself thereby brought to a maximum unity in synthetic enquiry.