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Kant’s Critical Theory of the Best Possible World

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2020

Maya Krishnan
Maya Krishnan*
Affiliation:
All Souls College, Oxford
*
Email: Maya.Krishnan@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

In this article I argue that the Critical Kant endorses the claim that God creates the best possible world, and that this claim is best understood as committing him to the view that God creates an infinitely valuable world. Kant’s understudied Critical theory of the best possible world differs significantly from his better-known quasi-Leibnizian pre-Critical account insofar as it uses an axiological rather than ontological metric for the goodness of worlds. The axiological metric introduces unique challenges for a Kantian account of the best possible world. These challenges are in turn resolved via an infinite value interpretation.

Keywords

Kanttheologybest possible worldLeibnizinfinity
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , March 2021 , pp. 27 - 51
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

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