The Place of the Emotions in Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the place that Kant assigns to the emotions within the framework of his transcendental philosophy. I shall take the endpoint and culmination of the critical project, that is, the 1790 Critique of Judgment as my text of reference in order to re-visit from the standpoint of the power of judgment the role that the emotions have in our cognitive and moral life. The chief issue regards the relation that emotions entertain with the cognitive faculties that appear in the geography of the mind sketched out by Kant as he introduces and justifies the new transcendental realm proper to the faculty of judgment as an independent power distinct from understanding and reason, yet fundamentally connected to both as their mediating link. However, given the longstanding and deeply rooted assumptions generally made on Kant’s transcendental philosophy, the preliminary question to be addressed concerns the very claim that emotions do, in fact, play a positive role within the critical geography of the mind that appears in the third Critique, the claim that emotions do, in fact, have a positive function within Kant’s transcendental philosophy and not just in his applied practical philosophy. Moreover, as it is often the case when a discussion of the emotions in Kant is at stake, a preliminary remark on terminology is in order since Kant uses a wide range of technical terms to indicate the problematic realm that the contemporary discussion covers with the term ‘emotions’.