At the limits of knowledge: Philosophy and religion in Southwestern Neo-Kantianism

Abstract

The present paper investigates the essential tenets of the Southwestern Neo-Kantians’ take on the philosophy of religion. Specifically, I concentrate on two diverse aspects of Windelband and Rickert’s approaches to religion. In the first place, I look at the way in which they determine religious values. In the second place, I focus on the manner in which they confront religion with the systematic structure of culture. As a result of the analysis of the texts of both authors, we see that it is possible to detect at least three possible roads to elaborate a philosophy of religion. In spite of this plurality of paths, I argue that they exhibit a similar underlying problem, namely, the problematic relationship between transcendental philosophy and metaphysics. It is for this reason that the philosophy of religion takes the form of a reflection on the limits of knowledge, and with it, on the limits of transcendental philosophy.

Keywords

• windelband
• rickert
• holy
• religious values
• transcendental philosophy