The Method of Metaphysics and the Architectonic: Remarks on Gava’s Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics

Abstract

The article addresses some aspects of Gava’s book, highlighting two main points: (1) the notion of philosophy in a cosmic sense; (2) its connection with the meaning of the concept of method. Regarding (1) I show how Gava’s interpretation of the systematic concept of philosophy does not account adequately for the scholastic concept. This has consequences for the notion of philosophy in a cosmic sense itself; its nature as an objective archetype and its personification in the ideal of a master of wisdom are not properly emphasized. These features are closely related to Kant’s claim that philosophy cannot be learned, which is connected with Kant’s peculiar idea of method. Regarding (2), I argue that ‘method’ for Kant does not concern only the construction of scientific systems, but also the establishment of a way of thinking, a stance embracing thought and action. The meaning of the postulates and the notion of ‘faith’ thus acquire a ‘weaker’ connotation, as an attitude, habitus, aimed at the establishment and promotion of a ‘life-structuring’ rationality, and not as an alternative route to a theoretical ‘commitment’.