Kant and the antinomy of the actually existing thing

FERREIRO, HÉCTOR

The Court of Reason

DeGruyter

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2021; p. 485 - 494

The thesis that existence is radically different from the determinacy of an actually existing thing -Kant considers this thesis to be the unsurmountable objection against the cosmological and the ontological argument- is the same thesis that demands a specific explanation of the existence of that actually existing thing. The notion of existence that results from its complete exclusion from the realm of the contents thoroughgoing determined by real predicates requires, thus, precisely because this thoroughness excludes it, a specific reason that explains that in the actually existing thing its own actual existence is in fact united with its own determinacy; that notion of existence, however, cancels at the same time the requirement of a sufficient reason of the existence of what actually exists, and again for the same reason, namely, because since existence is as such excluded from the determinacy of the existing things, it radically differs from the specific realm where determinacy is constituted (that is why existing things are thoroughgoing determined as possible), and, therefore, it invalidates any application to itself of the logical laws that are valid only for the merely possible domain of determinacy.