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The Concept of World from Kant to Derrida. By Sean Gaston. Pp. xiv, 241, London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013, £24.95.

The Concept of World from Kant to Derrida. By Sean Gaston. Pp. xiv, 241, London, Rowman &... Kant famously suggested that Western philosophy is built upon three indispensible concepts: God, the self, and the world. Sean Gaston expertly examines the fate of the third notion in post‐Kantian, continental philosophy. Standing behind Kant was, of course, our Greek inheritance. Aristotle's Physics was premised upon what Gaston calls ‘structures of containment’, the very foundation of the metaphysical world, which Christianity would subsume. There was ‘the universe (the uncontained that contains), the world (the contained that contains) and beings and things (the contained)’ (4). Kant's contribution was to challenge the notion of world itself as either a purely rationalist or entirely empirical concept. It certainly cannot be the latter, because no one has empirically explicated the entire world. And how can it be the former, when the very act of positing the conditioned (contained) is always against the background of the truly transcendent (the unconditioned that contains)? One cannot confuse the transcendental idea of a container for the sum total of what is contained. A universal set is not identical to the totality of its members. ‘The problem with the world as an idea of pure reason is then apparent’ Gaston writes, ‘it is an idea that can produce http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Heythrop Journal Wiley

The Concept of World from Kant to Derrida. By Sean Gaston. Pp. xiv, 241, London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013, £24.95.

Klein, Terrance
The Heythrop Journal , Volume 58 (4) – Jul 1, 2017
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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2017 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered
ISSN
0018-1196
eISSN
1468-2265
DOI
10.1111/heyj.12611
Publisher site
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Abstract

Kant famously suggested that Western philosophy is built upon three indispensible concepts: God, the self, and the world. Sean Gaston expertly examines the fate of the third notion in post‐Kantian, continental philosophy. Standing behind Kant was, of course, our Greek inheritance. Aristotle's Physics was premised upon what Gaston calls ‘structures of containment’, the very foundation of the metaphysical world, which Christianity would subsume. There was ‘the universe (the uncontained that contains), the world (the contained that contains) and beings and things (the contained)’ (4). Kant's contribution was to challenge the notion of world itself as either a purely rationalist or entirely empirical concept. It certainly cannot be the latter, because no one has empirically explicated the entire world. And how can it be the former, when the very act of positing the conditioned (contained) is always against the background of the truly transcendent (the unconditioned that contains)? One cannot confuse the transcendental idea of a container for the sum total of what is contained. A universal set is not identical to the totality of its members. ‘The problem with the world as an idea of pure reason is then apparent’ Gaston writes, ‘it is an idea that can produce

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The Heythrop Journal – Wiley

Published: Jul 1, 2017

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