Kant: la loi et ses ricochets

Abstract

In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant introduces the postulate of the immortality of the soul, arguing that it is a necessary condition of »continuous and unending progress from lower to higher stages of moral perfection«. Yet, if the soul is immortal, it is -upon the death of the body - no longer a denizen of the world of space and time; and if the soul is no longer under the temporal condition, how are we to understand »continuous and unending progress«? Is it not that Kant actually needs to postulate the immortality of the body, rather then the immortality of the soul? - A body which exists and changes in time, yet approaches its end, its death, in »endless« asymptotic movement. The paper deals with this and other paradoxes of the Kantian theory of the postulates - in relation to the moral law.