On Kant's philosophical authorshi

This dissertation explores Kant's understanding of philosophical communication and his understanding of his own philosophical authorship. The dissertation as a whole has two overarching goals. To start with, it aims to demonstrate that Kant did, in fact, reflect on the nature and purpose of philosophical communication and on his own philosophical authorship throughout his career. I argue that, early in his career, Kant self-consciously employed a poetic mode of writing in order to inspire his audience and to provoke an enthusiasm for philosophical inquiry within his readers (Chapters 1-2), that Kant eventually rejected this poetic philosophizing in favor of clear and distinct logical argumentation because of the former's tendency to undermine rational autonomy (Chapter 3), that, in large part due to the poor reception of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant came to question his one-sided emphasis on logic (Chapter 4), and that this ultimately led Kant to reconsider the relationship between philosophy and poetry (Chapters 5-12).;In addition to demonstrating that Kant was concerned with philosophical communication and his own philosophical authorship throughout his career, this dissertation attempts to locate and articulate Kant's mature understanding of philosophical communication and of his own philosophical authorship. After laying the conceptual foundation for this project by examining Kant's accounts of the communicability of cognition, common-sense, and genius (Chapters 6-8), I argue that Kant gains crucial insight into the nature and meaning of philosophical communication and, by implication, his own philosophical authorship, in and through his fundamental investigation human communication in the Critique of the Power of Judgment, especially his investigation of genius's distinctive mode of communication in and through beautiful art. Specifically, I argue that Kant's exploration of genius's distinctive mode of communication reveals to Kant that philosophers must supplement their logical arguments with poetic images in order to communicate philosophical doctrines to their audience while simultaneously provoking individual audience members to think for themselves about these doctrines (Chapters 9-11). I conclude by exploring how Kant's mature understanding of philosophical communication informs his own practice of writing works of philosophy for public consumption (Chapter 12).