Imagination and finitude: A comparison between Kant and Heidegger (original) (raw)

In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics-also referred to as the Kantbuch-Heidegger 1 continues his engagement with the philosophical project of his predecessor, a commitment already begun a couple of years before with the course he held on a phenomenological interpretation of Kant's first Critique. In the firstly mentioned treatise, in particular, Heidegger tries to demonstrate 2 how in the work of Kant there are already hints of a more fundamental role for temporality, although not as explicit as in his own philosophical account further developed in Being and Time. In order to demonstrate and support such a reasoning, Heidegger reads the Critique of Pure Reason in terms of a foundation [Grundlegung] for metaphysics. Subsequently, at this stage of his philosophical inquiry, Heidegger understands the problem of metaphysics as an issue concerning fundamental ontology, i.e., a fundamental account on 'what' we address when we state that 'something' is. In turn, fundamental ontology is interpreted qua an ontological analysis of the human beings acknowledged however not fixed in their finitude: only in a philosophical horizon 3 where the human being is understood as a subject of knowledge able to engage with knowable objects, in fact, metaphysics finds its sense, its scope, its reason to exist. In other words, only in the encounter with alterities intended in their discontinuity, in their separateness, human beings can experience their own limits, their finitude and, therefore, be in search of non physical explanations for the physical manifestation. Indeed, metaphysics was born as an exploration of causes, as we