自由の二律背反--カントにおける自由の問題 (一) --

Abstract

Kant is generally regarded as a philosopher of the Enlightenment. His philosophy intended indeed to solidify the foundation of human reason in order to develop its potentiality. On the other hand to solidify the foundation of human reason means to make its limitation clear, only on which the reason can stand as itself. From this viewpoint we must see in Kant a critic of the Enlightenment. His enlightenment was critical; the European Enlightenment became self-criticizing by Kant. His critical philosophy had an insight into the boundary of reason and aimed to define it. But in what point did he really see the boundary of reason? He saw it in the antinomy of pure reason, especially in the antinomy of freedom. In fact the human reason awakes to itself only through becoming conscious of its inner antinomic structure. The antinomy of freedom comes out first in the cosmological form. That is: the thesis says, "Freedom is necessary for the systematic unity of nature", and the antithesis says, "Apart from natural causality there is no causality". Kant solved the problem of this antinomy of freedom from the viewpoint of his transcendental idealism. The causality of nature and the causality through freedom differ dimensionally from each other; the former belongs to the dimension of intellect and the latter to the dimension of reason. Both causalities are therefore logically possible. Freedom is a self-caused causality and can generate a first beginning in time without breaking up the nexus of natural causes. So the antinomy of freedom is solved. But is that a true radical solution? Is that not a beginning of the authentic, more fundamental problem of freedom? In this article I tried to argue newly and radically the problem of freedom, especially of the cosmological and transcendental freedom in Kant.