This chapter documents the prima facie astonishing fact that the initial reception of the third Critique, in contrast to the other two Critiques, was mostly positive. The reason for this, I suggest, was that the results of Kant’s theory could be seen, even by enemies like Feder, Schulze, and Eberhard, as compatible with the views developed in the rationalist and popular-philosophical traditions. Kant’s insistence on both the novelty of his approach and that the Critique should be understood as the completion of the critical philosophical project, were thus underappreciated. The task for the following chapters is, first, to follow the ways in which Kant arrived at familiar-sounding results within a transcendental framework, and, second, to articulate the sense in which the Critique of Judgment served as the capstone of the other Critiques.

Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (1740–1821) was a well-respected and well-known professor of philosophy at the University of Göttingen, especially during the 1770s and early 1780s. A turning point took place in Feder’s life and career, however, when he edited the infamous Göttingen review of the first Critique, which was originally written by Christian Garve and to which Kant responds in the Prolegomena. This chapter contains a complete translation of Feder’s review of the second Critique, which therefore captures the opinion of one of Kant’s most well-known and infamous critics. Feder discusses a number of topics in the review, including: whether pure reason can be practical without the assistance of feeling and inclination, the nature of good and evil and their relationship to pleasure and displeasure, and the idea that respect for the moral law is respect for ourselves as legislators.