The ‘Two Experiments’ of Kant’s Religion: Dismantling the Conundrum

E-ISSN： 2044-2394|22|1|107-131

ISSN： 1369-4154

Source： Kantian Review, Vol.22, Iss.1, 2017-01, pp. : 107-131

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Abstract

The past decade has seen a sizeable increase in scholarship on Kant’s Religion. Yet, unlike the centuries of debate that inform our study of his other major works, scholarship on the Religion is still just in its infancy. As such, it is in a particularly vulnerable state where errors made now could hinder scholarship for decades to come. It is the purpose of this article to mitigate one such danger, a danger issuing from the widely assumed view that the Religion is shaped by ‘two experiments’. I will begin with a survey of the four current interpretations of the experiments, and then propose one further interpretation, one that hopefully will help dismantle this alleged ‘conundrum’ and thereby help scholarship on the Religion move beyond this early misstep.