Scholars have failed to adequately distinguish Kant’s grades of evil: frailty (weakness of will), impurity, and depravity. I argue that the only way to distinguish them is, f irstly, to recognize that frailty is explicitly, practically irrational and not caused by any sort of self-deception. Instead, it is caused by the radical evil that Kant finds within the character of all persons. Secondly, impurity can only be understood to be self-deception either about the nature of the act itself, which results (...) in an epistemic error, or about one’s motivations for following a properly reasoned, moral conclusion, which results in a motivational error. Thirdly, depravity is self-deception about morality itself, by which the agent believes that it is morally right to follow self-love. (shrink)

Kant’s objection to the ontological argument in the first Critique is thought to be contained within the claim that ‘existence is not a predicate’. This article maintains that this ‘digression’ on existence is not Kant’s main objection. Instead, Kant argues within the first eight paragraphs of this fourteen paragraph section that there is no meaningful predication – either logical or real – without a synthetic, existential judgment concerning the subject of predication. Thus, the very subject of predication of the proof (...) (God) is an empty concept and an indeterminate nominal definition (rather than a real possibility) that allows for neither meaningful predication nor the generation of a contradiction. I argue that this objection is significantly different than classical objections that are often identified with it and from Kant’s objection in 1763. I also argue that Kant’s target is not simply the Cartesian argument but is also his own pre-critical onto-theological argument. There is little evidence that Kant continues to accept the a priori onto-theological argument, and, in fact, he rejects its core claims in his discussion of the ontological argument and in the final paragraphs of the section on the Ideal of Reason. (shrink)

The Preface to Leibniz's famous Theodicy offers a perspective on the work that has been insufficiently studied. In this paper, I ask that we step back from the main text of the Theodicy and attend to its Preface. I show that the latter performs two crucial preparatory tasks that have not been properly appreciated. The first is to offer a public declaration of what I call Leibniz’s radical rationalism. The Preface assumes that any attentive rational being is capable of divine (...) knowledge. The basic idea is that it is knowledge about a divine perfection that can be understood more or less completely. In the Preface, Leibniz entices his readers to seek such knowledge and explains why doing so has been so difficult before now. What makes this rationalism radical is that divine knowledge is severed from any religion or set of religious beliefs. While some Christian doctrines make it easier to approach God, they are neither necessary nor sufficient to do so. The author of the Theodicy thereby informs his readers that they have access to divine perfections, regardless of religious affiliation. To acquire such knowledge, they need only work through his book. The second task of the Preface is closely related to the first. It invites readers to seek divine love and virtue. To set themselves on the path to virtue, they need only avoid the pitfalls of religion and use reason in the right way to grasp a divine perfection. Once they enter the main text of the Theodicy, they have begun that journey. (shrink)

Though Kant is best known for his strictly philosophical works in the 1780s, many of his early publications in particular were devoted to what we would call 'natural science'. Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) made a significant advance in cosmology, and he was also instrumental in establishing the newly emerging discipline of physical geography, lecturing on it for almost his entire career. In this volume Eric Watkins brings together new English translations of Kant's first publication, (...) Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746-1749), the entirety of Physical Geography (1802), a series of shorter essays, along with many of Kant's most important publications in natural science. The volume is rich in material for the student and the scholar, with extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, editorial introductions and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

1. Einleitung Kants Aufsatz: „Über das Mißlingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodizee” wird in der Forschungsliteratur sowohl sachlich als auch historisch diskutiert. In philosophiegeschichtlicher Perspektive steht zum einen das Verhältnis der Auffassung Kants zur Theodizee des 18. Jhdts., insbesondere zu Leibniz' Theodizee zur Debatte, zum anderen aber die Frage nach der Stellung des Theodizee-Aufsatzes im Werk Kants selbst, insbesondere im Vergleich zu früheren Äußerungen Kants zum Theodizee-Thema. Daß die Entwürfe der vorkritischen Zeit von denen der kritischen Phase zu trennen (...) seien, behauptete schon die ältere Literatur. Im jüngerer Zeit wurde jedoch argumentiert, in puncto Theodizee falle die entscheidende Grenzlinie nicht mit derjenigen zwischen vorkritischer und kritischer Philosophie zusammen. So meinen Chr. Schulte und G. Cavallar, daß die Vorlesungen über Rationaltheologie, obwohl nach Erscheinen der Kritik der reinen Vernunft gehalten, noch der älteren Phase des Theodizee-Denkens zuzurechnen seien, weil ihnen zufolge Theodizee gelinge, während erst mit dem Theodizee-Aufsatz die neue Phase beginne, für die die These vom Mißlingen der Theodizee kennzeichnend sei. Ausschlaggebend für die Entwicklung der neuen Position mit ihrer Leugnung der Möglichkeit einer Rechtfertigung Gottes könne somit nicht die Vernunftkritik als solche gewesen sein, sondern nur die kritische Reflexion auf das teleologische Denken, wie sie sich in der Kritik der Urteilskraft, also zeitlich in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft zum Theodizee-Aufsatz findet. Die Ablehnung der Physikotheologie und die Verlegung des Endzwecks der Schöpfung in die Moralität des Menschen reißt Schulte zufolge eine Kluft auf „zwischen der intelligiblen Welt göttlicher Theologie und den Mißständen in der empirischen Welt”, deren Überbrückung mit den Mitteln endlicher Vernunft unmöglich werde. Dementsprechend verabschiede Kant im Theodizee-Aufsatz die Theodizee aus der Philosophie und verweise sie in das Feld des Glaubens. Damit ist über die Frage nach der historischen Einordnung hinaus die viel weiter reichende Frage nach der sachlichen Aussage des Theodizee-Aufsatzes gestellt. Versucht Kant zu zeigen, wie eine philosophische Theodizee mit Aussichtauf Erfolg zu argumentieren habe, oder will er nachweisen, daß nicht nur alle bisherigen Theodizeeversuche gescheitert seien, sondern daß auch alle nur denkbaren zukünftigen Ansätze ihr Ziel verfehlen müssen? (shrink)

Kant and the Unity of Reason is a comprehensive reconstruction and a detailed analysis of Kant's Critique of Judgment. In the light of the third Critique, the book offers a final inter­pretation of the critical project as a whole. It proposes a new reading of Kant's notion of human experience in which domains, as different as knowledge, morality, and the experience of beauty and life, are finally viewed in a unified perspective. The book proposes a reading of Kant's critical project (...) as one of the most sophisticated attempts in the history of philosophy to articulate a complex notion of human "sensi­bility" as an alternative to both eighteenth-century empiricism and rationalism. The fun­damental contribution of rationality to human experience cannot be fully appreciated if the sensuous component of experience is not adequately taken into account. For Kant, "sensibility" includes functions as different as sensation, intuition, perception, emotion, passion, drive, moral feeling, and feeling of pleasure and displeasure. Kant's idea of "reflective" judgment is the peculiar discovery of the third Critique. Re­flective judgment articulates the interplay between sensibility and rationality, the world of nature and the human mind, in order to constitute human experience and the sphere of human intersubjective relationships. In the act of reflection, Kant's philosophy fi­nally comes to reflect upon itself and the meaning of its critical endeavor. (shrink)

Anthropology, History, and Education contains all of Kant's major writings on human nature. Some of these works, which were published over a thirty-nine year period between 1764 and 1803, have never before been translated into English. Kant's question 'What is the human being?' is approached indirectly in his famous works on metaphysics, epistemology, moral and legal philosophy, aesthetics and the philosophy of religion, but it is approached directly in his extensive but less well-known writings on physical and cultural anthropology, the (...) philosophy of history, and education which are gathered in the present volume. Kant repeatedly claimed that the question 'What is the human being?' should be philosophy's most fundamental concern, and Anthropology, History, and Education can be seen as effectively presenting his philosophy as a whole in a popular guise. (shrink)

The essays in this volume, including two published here for the first time, explore various aspects ofKant's conception of the system of nature, the system of ...

The Critique of the Power of Judgment (a more accurate rendition of what has hitherto been translated as the Critique of Judgment) is the third of Kant's great critiques following the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason. This entirely new translation of Kant's masterpiece follows the principles and high standards of all other volumes in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. This volume includes: for the first time the indispensable first draft of Kant's (...) introduction to the work; the only English edition notes to the many differences between the first (1790) and second (1793) editions of the work; and relevant passages in Kant's anthropology lectures where he elaborated on his aesthetic views. All in all this new edition offers the serious student of Kant a dramatically richer, more complete and more accurate translation. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of all of Kant's writings on moral and political philosophy collected in a single volume. No other collection competes with the comprehensiveness of this one. As well as Kant's most famous moral and political writings, the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals, the Critique of Practical Reason, the Metaphysics of Morals, and Toward Perpetual Peace, the volume includes shorter essays and reviews, some of which have never been translated before. The volume has been furnished (...) with a substantial editorial apparatus including translator's introductions and explanatory notes to each text by Mary Gregor, and a general introduction to Kant's moral and political philosophy by Allen Wood. There is also an English-German and German-English glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This volume collects for the first time in a single volume all of Kant's writings on religion and rational theology. These works were written during a period of conflict between Kant and the Prussian authorities over his religious teachings. His final statement of religion was made after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797. The historical context and progression of this conflict are charted in the general introduction to the volume and in the translators' introductions to particular texts. (...) All the translations are new with the exception of The Conflict of the Faculties, where the translation has been revised and re-edited to conform to the guidelines of the Cambridge Edition. As is standard with all the volumes in this edition, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes, and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

This is the first volume of the first ever comprehensive edition of the works of Immanuel Kant in English translation. The eleven essays in this volume constitute Kant's theoretical, pre-critical philosophical writings from 1755 to 1770. Several of these pieces have never been translated into English before; others have long been unavailable in English. We can trace in these works the development of Kant's thought to the eventual emergence in 1770 of the two chief tenets of his mature philosophy: the (...) subjectivity of space and time, and the phenomena-noumena distinction. The volume has been furnished with substantial editorial apparatus, including a general introduction to the main themes of Kant's early thought, introduction to the individual works and re;sume;s of their contents, linguistic and factual notes, bibliographies, a glossary of key terms, and biographical-bibliographical sketches of persons mentioned by Kant. (shrink)

This essay is based on a double perspective provided by literary reading and philosophy for approaching the problem of evil through a critical analysis of certain texts and characters constructed and represented in them, particularly Kant’s theodicy essay and its most important pre-text, the Book of Job. This methodology yields a novel approach to the familiar issue of theodicy vs. anti-theodicy. Our methodology differs from the more standard ways of examining philosophical ideas expressed in literature. In the case discussed here, (...) the use of literary figures... (shrink)

This Volume contains seven works of Kant, newly translated and edited, with Introductions. What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? 1786 (Allen Wood) On the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in theodicy. 1791 (George di Giovanni Religion within the boundaries of mere reason. 1793 (George di Giovanni) The end of all things. 1794 (Allen Wood) The conflict of the faculties. 1798 (Mary J. Gregor & Robert Anchor) Preface to Reinhold Bernhard Jackmann's examination of the Kantian Philosophy of Religion. (...) 1800 (Allen W. Wood) Lectures on the philosophical doctrines of religion (1817) (Allen W. Wood -/- . (shrink)

The book is written with grace and wit; again and again, Neiman writes the kind of sentences we dream of uttering in the perfect conversation: where every mot is bon. This is exemplary philosophy.

In his mature period Kant maintained that human beings have never devised a theory that shows how the existence of God is compatible with the evil that actually exists. But he also held that an argument could be developed that we human beings might well not have the cognitive capacity to understand the relation between God and the world, and that therefore the existence of God might nevertheless be compatible with the evil that exists. At the core of Kant’s position (...) lies the claim that God’s relation to the world might well not be purposive in the way we humans can genuinely understand such a relation. His strategy involves demonstrating that the teleological argument is unsound - for this argument would establish that the relation between God and the world is purposive in a way we can grasp - and showing that by way of a Spinozan conception we can catch an intellectual glimpse of an alternative picture of the relation between God and the world. (shrink)

Designed as a textbook for use in courses on natural theology and used by Immanuel Kant as the basis for his Lectures on The Philosophical Doctrine of Religion, Johan August Eberhard's Preparation for Natural Theology (1781) is now available in English for the first time. -/- With a strong focus on the various intellectual debates and historically significant texts in late renaissance and early modern theology, Preparation for Natural Theology influenced the way Kant thought about practical cognition as well as (...) moral and religious concepts. Access to Eberhard's complete text makes it possible to distinguish where in the lectures Kant is making changes to what Eberhard has written and where he is articulating his own ideas. Identifying new unexplored lines of research, this translation provides a deeper understanding of Kant's explicitly religious doctrines and his central moral writings, such as the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. -/- Accompanied by Kant's previously untranslated handwritten notes on Eberhard's text as well as the Danzig transcripts of Kant's course on rational theology, Preparation for Natural Theology features a dual English-German / German-English glossary, a concordance and an introduction situating the book in relation to 18th-century theology and philosophy. This is an essential contribution to twenty-first century Kantian studies. (shrink)

This intellectual biography of Immanuel Kant's early years--from 1747 when his first book was published, to 1770 when his Critique of Pure Reason was about to be printed--makes an outstanding contribution to Kant scholarship. Schonfeld meticulously examines almost all of Kant's early works, summarizes their content, and exhibits their shortcomings and strengths. He places the early theories in their historical context and describes the scientific discoveries and philosophical innovations that distinguish Kant's pre-critical works. Schonfeld argues that these works were all (...) aspects of a single project carried out by Kant to reconcile metaphysical and scientific perspectives and combine them into a coherent model of nature. (shrink)

The Unity of Reason is the first major study of Kant's account of reason. It argues that Kant's wide-ranging interests and goals can only be understood by redirecting attention from epistemological questions of his work to those concerning the nature of reason. Rather than accepting a notion of reason given by his predecessors, a fundamental aim of Kant's philosophy is to reconceive the nature of reason. This enables us to understand Kant's insistence on the unity of theoretical and practical reason (...) as well as his claim that his metaphysics was driven by practical and political ends. Neiman begins by discussing the historical roots of Kant's conception of reason, and by showing Kant's solution to problems which earlier conceptions left unresolved. Kant's notion of reason itself is examined through a discussion of all the activities Kant attributes to reason. In separate chapters discussing the role of reason in science, morality, religion, and philosophy, Neiman explores Kant's distinctions between reason and knowledge, and his difficult account of the regulative principles of reason. Through examination of these principles in Kant's major and minor writings, The Unity of Reason provides a fundamentally new perspective on Kant's entire work. (shrink)

Kant's views on logic and logical theory play an important role in his critical writings, especially the Critique of Pure Reason. However, since he published only one short essay on the subject, we must turn to the texts derived from his logic lectures to understand his views. The present volume includes three previously untranslated transcripts of Kant's logic lectures: the Blumberg Logic from the 1770s; the Vienna Logic (supplemented by the recently discovered Hechsel Logic) from the early 1780s; and the (...) Dohna-Wundlacken Logic from the early 1790s. Also included is a new translation of the Jasche Logic, compiled at Kant's request and published in 1800 but which also appears to stem in part from a transcript of his lectures. Together these texts provide a rich source of evidence for Kant's evolving views on logic, on the relations between logic and other disciplines, and on a variety of topics (e.g. analysis and synthesis) central to Kant's mature philosophy. They also provide a portrait of Kant as lecturer, a role in which he was both popular and influential. This volume contains substantial editorial apparatus: a general introduction, linguistic and factual notes, glossaries of key terms (both German/English and English/German) and concordances relating Kant's lectures to Georg Frederich Meier's Excerpts from the Doctrine of Reason, the book on which Kant lectured throughout his life and in which he left extensive notes. (shrink)

This new translation is an extremely welcome addition to the continuing Cambridge Edition of Kant’s works. English-speaking readers of the third Critique have long been hampered by the lack of an adequate translation of this important and difficult work. James Creed Meredith’s much-reprinted translation has charm and elegance, but it is often too loose to be useful for scholarly purposes. Moreover it does not include the first version of Kant’s introduction, the so-called “First Introduction,” which is now recognized as indispensable (...) for an understanding of the work. Werner Pluhar’s more recent translation, which does include the First Introduction, is highly accurate when it confines itself to rendering Kant’s German. However, it is often more of a reconstruction than a translation, containing so many interpretative interpolations that it is often difficult to separate out Kant’s original text from the translator’s contributions. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews have provided a translation that compares to or exceeds Pluhar’s in its literal approach to the German, but that confines all interpretative material to footnotes and endnotes, so that the text itself, with all its unclarities and ambiguities, lies open to view. In addition, Guyer, as editor of the volume, has provided a great deal of valuable supplementary material. This includes an introduction with an outline of the work and details of the history of its composition and publication, and a wealth of endnotes offering clarifications of the text, background information, and, most strikingly, many references to related passages in Kant’s voluminous writings, particularly in connection with Kant’s earlier writings related to aesthetics. The edition also records differences among the first three editions of the work, and—of particular interest—erasures from and additions to Kant’s manuscript of the First Introduction. Although the introduction and endnotes reflect interpretative views that are sometimes disputable, this supplementary material makes the present edition into a valuable resource even for those able to read the text in German. (shrink)

Applying the new perspectival method of interpreting Kant he expounded in earlier works, Palmquist examine a broad range of Kant's philosophical writings to present a fresh view of his thought on theology, religion, and religious experience. He defends a number of innovative theses, including how re.

This book explores the main stages and key concepts in the development of Kant's critical philosophy, from the early 1760s to the 1790s. Karl Ameriks provides a detailed and concise account of the main ways in which the later critical works provide a plausible defense of the conception of humanity's fundamental end that Kant turned to after reading Rousseau in the 1760s. Separate essays are devoted to each of the three Critiques, as well as to earlier notes and lectures and (...) several of Kant's later writings on history and religion. A final section devotes three chapters to post-Kantian developments in German Romanticism, accounts of tragedy up through Nietzsche, and contemporary philosophy. The theme of an elliptical path is shown to be relevant to these writers as well as to many aspects of Kant's own life and work. The topics of the book include fundamental issues in epistemology and metaphysics, with a new defense of the Amerik's 'moderate' interpretation of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is often thought of as a great skeptic of religion. His onslaught against the traditional arguments for the existence of God in the Critique of Pure Reason is considered decisive evidence of his efforts to destroy theology. This text demonstrates that such an interpretation is mistaken. When Kant attacks the traditional arguments for the existence of God, he is doing so in order to clear the ground, as it were, in anticipation of a more convincing, moral apologetic.

Immanuel Kant spent many of his younger years working on what are generally considered his masterpieces: the three _Critiques_. But his work did not stop there: in later life he began to reconsider subjects such as anthropology, and topics including colonialism, race and peace. In _Late Kant_, Peter Fenves becomes one of the first to thoroughly explore Kant's later writings and give them the detailed scholarly attention they deserve. In his opening chapters, Fenves examines in detail the various essays in (...) which Kant invents, formulates and complicates the thesis of 'radical evil' - a thesis which serves as the point of departure for all his later writings. _Late Kant_ then turns towards the counter-thesis of 'radical mean-ness', which states that human beings exist on earth for the sake of another species or race of human beings. The consequences of this startling thesis are that human beings cannot claim possession of the earth, but must rather prepare the earth for its rightful owners. _Late Kant _is the first book to develop the 'geo-ethics' of Kant's thought, and the idea that human beings must be prepared to concede their space for another kind of human. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the later works of Immanuel Kant. (shrink)

In _Freedom and the End of Reason_, Richard L. Velkley offers an influential interpretation of the central issue of Kant’s philosophy and an evaluation of its position within modern philosophy’s larger history. He persuasively argues that the whole of Kantianism—not merely the Second Critique—focuses on a “critique of practical reason” and is a response to a problem that Kant saw as intrinsic to reason itself: the teleological problem of its goodness. Reconstructing the influence of Rousseau on Kant’s thought, Velkley demonstrates (...) that the relationship between speculative philosophy and practical philosophy in Kant is far more intimate than generally has been perceived. By stressing a Rousseau-inspired notion of reason as a provider of practical ends, he is able to offer an unusually complete account of Kant’s idea of moral culture. (shrink)

Kant proclaimed that all theodicies must fail in ?On the Miscarriage of All Philosophical Trials in Theodicy?, but it is mysterious why he did so since he had developed a theodicy of his own during the critical period. In this paper, I offer an explanation of why Kant thought theodicies necessarily fail. In his theodicy, as well as in some of his works in ethics, Kant explained moral evil as resulting from unavoidable limitations in human beings. God could not create (...) finite beings without such limitations and so could not have created humans that were not prone to committing immoral acts. However, the work of Carl Christian Eberhard Schmid showed Kant that given his own beliefs about freedom and the nature of responsibility one could not account for moral evil in this way without tacitly denying that human beings were responsible for their actions. This result is significant not only because it explains an otherwise puzzling shift in Kant's philosophy of religion, but also because it shows that the theodicy essay provides powerful evidence that Kant's thinking about moral evil and freedom underwent fundamental shifts between early works such as the Groundwork and later works like the Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. (shrink)

This book is the latest addition to the Odeon series, a multidisciplinary series devoted to original works and translations by European writers in the areas of literature, criticism, philosophy, history and politics. An English translation of the German best-seller Abschied vom Prinzipiellen, the book offers a series of essays that present a philosophy of human morality critical of philosophical utopianism. Marquard, widely considered the heir of Gadamer, Habermas, and Blumenberg, describes his role as "skeptical philosopher" and discusses the 18th-century formation (...) of such themes and disciplines as aesthetics, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of history, the nature of myth and attempts to account for it, and hermeneutics. (shrink)

The title of Hare’s book refers to the gap between the demand that morality places on us and our natural capacity to live by it. Such a gap is paradoxical if we accept the “‘ought’ implies ‘can”’ principle. The solution, Hare argues, is that the gap is filled by the Christian God. So we ought to be moral and can do so—with divine assistance. Hare’s statement and defense of the existence of the gap combines a rigorously Kantian notion of the (...) moral demand with a rigorously Calvinist notion of human depravity. As such, many readers will find the gap exaggerated, but most people will admit that there is some sort of gap here to be faced, and any gap at all is a problem. (shrink)

This book provides an analytical interpretation of Leibniz's 'Essais de Théodicée' with wide-ranging references to all his works. It shows and upholds many thesis: Leibniz's rational conception of faith, his rational notion of mystery, the reformation of classical ontology, and the importance of Leibniz's thought in the tradition of the critical idealism. In his endeavor to formulate a theodicy, Leibniz emerges as a classic exponent of a non-immanentist modern rationalism, capable of engaging in a close dialogue with religion and faith. (...) This relation implies that God and reason are directly involved in posing the challenge and that the defence of one is the defence of the other. Theodicy and logodicy are two key aspects of a philosophy which is open to faith and of a faith which is able to intervene in culture and history. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 98 Heft: 8 Seiten: 89-105.

Le texte publié par Kant en 1791, ayant comme thème l’insuccès de toutes les tentatives en matière de théodicée, suscite en général peu d’intérêt. Cet article cherche à montrer que ce texte en particulier et le problème de la théodicée en général, gardent tout leur intérêt au sein de la philosophie kantienne, malgré la révolution copernicienne et peut-être en raison d’elle. Nous voudrions montrer que ce texte permet de lier la philosophie théorique — le criticisme — et la philosophie pratique, (...) et cela, autour de l’idée du mensonge, paradigme de ce qui deviendra, dans la philosophie kantienne de la religion, le mal radical. Il est alors aisé de constater que cette dernière, contrairement à une lecture tenace qui en fait une partie marginale au sein du kantisme, est indispensable pour donner du sens au projet kantien, et que la théodicée, sous sa forme authentique, réhabilitée, constitue une pièce maîtresse de cet édifice. Kant’s short text about the failure of all attempted philosophical theodicies is generally considered as a minor text. Our paper tries to show that the problem of theodicy, despite the Copernican Revolution and the condemnation of philosophical dogmatism it involves, and maybe because of this condemnation, remains a main interest in Kant, an interest which explains why this the 1791’s text should be carefully read, in order to understand the place that the new and authentic theodicy plays in Kant’s practical philosophy. Through this text, one can see the original way in which Kant manages to use the insincere character of Job’s friends in order to show how the epistemological error denounced by the first Critique becomes a moral failure, an idea which prepares the famous notion of radical evil, a central notion in Kant’s philosophy of religion. Theodicy in particular, philosophy of religion in general, can, under these considerations, be seen as important pieces in Kant’s philosophy, as important weapons against this deep pessimism, involved by the radical evil in human nature. (shrink)