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Work #1538 · Late

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Immanuel Kant
1793 (2nd ed. 1794) · German
Philosophical-religious treatise · Critical-philosophical religion / Enlightenment rationalism

Kant's 1793 'Religion within Mere Reason' — radical evil and moral religion within Critical bounds

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Late)
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Emergent
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Emergent
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Finite
Matter · Ontological Status Emergent
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Immediate
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Active
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency Personal
Observer · Moral Authority Reason
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Finite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Emergent
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

1793 (first edition); 1794 (second edition with additional preface and footnotes). The book was composed in the years after the third Critique (1790) and immediately preceded the 1794 Prussian censorship order.

Space

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Königsberg — Kant's permanent residence and the immediate Prussian-Lutheran context in which the book's interpretive engagement with Christianity is situated.

Matter

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Four-book philosophical-religious treatise. The form is more architectural than dialectical: each book takes one of the four traditional Christian dogmatic loci (original sin, atonement, ecclesiology, sacrament) and reconstructs it within Critical-rational bounds.

Observer

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Late Kant. The observer-philosopher is positioned within the Lutheran-Pietist Christianity of his upbringing while pursuing the Critical question of what survives that upbringing under rigorous philosophical scrutiny.

Energy

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Critical-philosophical-religious energies. The book's risk lay precisely in proposing that core Christian doctrines could be rationally reconstructed (the orthodox could agree with the reconstruction; or, alternatively, see it as eliminating what mattered).

Information

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Single late-Critical volume in four books. Each book contains numbered sections and 'General Remarks' that extend the philosophical-theological reconstruction.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

Kant's mature statement on religion within Critical bounds — provoked Prussian censorship and the post-1794 ban on his religious writing. The book has been read variously: Hegel saw it as the principal target of his religious-philosophical project; Schleiermacher as inadequate to the religious affections; Barth as the high-water mark of theological-philosophical liberalism Karl Barth's neo-orthodoxy was sworn against.