The Principle of Sufficient Reason in Kant and Meillassoux: On the Reason and Unreason of Post-metaphysical Thought
Abstrakt
The aim of this book is to probe the alleged grounds of post-metaphysical thought in order to unearth its foundations. This genetic-systematic inquiry thus not only aims to scrutinize possible interpretations of the judgment the tribunal of reason is said to have passed on itself qua reason, but, more importantly, to revise the very judgment itself and to question the legitimacy of the tribunal.
Apart from the fact that self-administered justice rarely results in convictions, the process seems ill-conceived from the start. The thesis sets in with an analysis of Quentin Meillassoux's recent invigorating and highly original re-discovery of post-metaphysical thought's unreason and a close reading of Kant's relevant pre-critical and critical works: while judgment was indeed passed in the name of "pure reason", it was not passed on reason itself but merely on its "logical" use.
Only reason's usus logicus, not its usus realis were indicted by reason. In other words, the judgment has been misunderstood.
The reason for this misunderstanding is located in Kant's philosophical presuppositions, which thus emerge as the very unreason of post-metaphysical thought. Since such unreason cannot offer any argument for the denunciation of reason and thus metaphysics per se, this treatise rehabilitates and attempts to do justice to both and, concomitantly, the principle of sufficient reason.