Introduction
from Part II - Between the Critiques
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2025
One of the most significant philosophical events during the final decades of the eighteenth century was the so-called ‘pantheism controversy.’ An important event during the controversy was the initially anonymous publication of Thomas Wizenmann’s 1786 book entitled The Results of the Jacobian and Mendelssohnian Philosophy, Critically Examined by A Neutral Party. Kant responds to this book in his essay ‘What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?’. This chapter contains a complete translation of Wizenmann’s subsequent response to the ‘Orientation’ essay, written in the form of an open letter to Kant. The most important claim of the letter is Wizenmann’s example of the lover who infers the existence of their beloved’s reciprocal love, simply because the lover needs this to be the case. Kant responds to Wizenmann, and this example, primarily in the second Critique’s chapter ‘On Assent from A Need of Pure Reason’ (5:142–6)
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