Freedom After Kant - by Joe Saunders (Paperback)

About the Book

Analysis of Kant's views on freedom, covering contemporaries, as well as successive philosophers and critics across the 19th and 20th centuries.

Book Synopsis

Freedom after Kant situates Kant's concept of freedom in relation to leading philosophers of the period to trace a detailed history of philosophical thinking on freedom from the 18th to the 20th century. Beginning with German Idealism, the volume presents Kant's writings on freedom and their reception by contemporaries, successors, followers and critics.

From exchanges of philosophical ideas on freedom between Kant and his contemporaries, Reinhold and Fichte, through to Kant's ideas on rational self-determination in Hegel and Schelling, we see Kant's original arguments transformed through concepts of autonomy, freedom and absolutes. The political aspect of Kant's freedom finds further articulation in chapters on Marx and Mill who developed their own notions of political freedom after Kant. Revealing how Kant's concept of freedom shaped the history of philosophy in the broadest sense, contributors chart the development of an ethics of freedom in the 20th century which brings Kant into conversation with Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Levinas and Murdoch.

This line of thinking on freedom signals a new departure for Kantian studies which brings his ideas into the present day and traverses major schools of thought including Idealism, Marxism, existentialism and moral philosophy.

Review Quotes

The essays in this collection trace the emergence and expression of Kant's own conception of freedom, its criticism and appropriation by his contemporaries, and its lasting influence on European philosophy. They are of uniformly high quality, and make important contributions to our understanding of this essential idea.
Timothy L. Brownlee, Professor of Philosophy, Xavier University, USA

This collection of exceptional essays on responses to Kant in his immediate successors, in German idealism, and in utilitarianism, pragmatism, and existentialism, focused on the issues of freedom, normativity, and their relations, is a major step in the neglected study of the influence of Kant's moral philosophy between his time and our own.
Paul Guyer, Jonathan Nelson Professor of Humanities and Philosophy, Brown University, USA

This outstanding collection of essays examines the rich legacy of Kant's conception of freedom in an impressive range of thinkers, from the German Idealists to Sartre, de Beauvoir and Murdoch. It is a very welcome contribution to the important ongoing debate about freedom, normativity and our relations to others.
Stephen Houlgate, Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick, UK

About the Author

Joe Saunders is Assistant Professor in Philosophy, Durham University, UK. He is the author of numerous articles on Kant and two co-edited books, Media Ethics, Free Speech, and the Requirements of Democracy (2019) and Wellbeing Economics: The Capabilities Approach to Prosperity (2018).