Home Practical Faith and Theoretical Practice: The Single Logic Underlying Kant’s Deduction of Nature’s Purposiveness and the Deduction of the Highest Good
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Practical Faith and Theoretical Practice: The Single Logic Underlying Kant’s Deduction of Nature’s Purposiveness and the Deduction of the Highest Good

  • Khafiz Kerimov EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: November 26, 2025
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Abstract

The present article argues that a single logic underlies Kant’s deduction of nature’s purposiveness in the Critique of Judgment and the deduction of the highest good in the Critique of Practical Reason. Both deductions are, as I would term it, transcendental deductions of success: a “success” deduction establishes the conditions for the realizability of a goal or an activity. Kant’s first developed “success” deduction is the deduction of the highest good: if the promotion of the highest good is practically necessary, then the conditions for its possibility (the existence of God) must be postulated. In the third Critique, however, the same logic is applied to theoretical cognition of empirical nature: if cognition of nature’s forms is to be possible, then nature must be assumed as purposively designed (for human cognition). Thus, I argue that in the third Critique Kant treats theoretical cognition as a practical activity, or, pari passu, Kant employs the “success” deduction model in both practical and theoretical contexts. Finally, I consider Kant’s transcendental deduction of success against the backdrop of his transcendental deduction of the categories

Online erschienen: 2025-11-26
Erschienen im Druck: 2025-11-21

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