Theory as Praxis in Kant

Abstract

This title is meant to indicate the doctrine which Kant’s “Copernican turn” in epistemology actually amounts to: knowledge cannot simply consist in the objectification of something that is always already actual, as presumed by pre-Kantian epistemology, which was a theory of natural consciousness. Rather, our knowing must consist precisely in the attempt to actualize for the first time something that is always already objective, and ultimately, to do this in action. For in fact when we have a concept of something in action, this something is, as such, always already an object, though not one which is thereby already actual, but that which we are trying to actualize for the first time through our action. In principle, only that which is not yet actual can meaningfully become an object for action, because were it already actual, action would be meaningless, that is, superfluous.