Between Baumgarten and Hume: on the status of miracles in Kant’s "Metaphysics lectures"

Abstract

Kant´s position concerning the status of miracles is not entirely clear and seems rather to present a somewhat controversial idea. One of the many issues that remain unclear is whether Kant took miracles to be "impossible" as violations of natural laws or not. To answer to this question I point out, first, that Kant addressed the issue throughout his Lectures on Metaphysics by commenting on Baumgarten´s cosmology. Then I track down several lectures, analyze and compare them with the Metaphysica, the Enquiry and other sources to present a reconstruction of Kant´s conception. I maintain that Kant took miracles to be possible to the extent that they are not incompatible with the order of nature, but only with the course of nature as expected from past experience and observation. Moreover, I show that in the Lectures Kant holds a conception that explicitly allows for the possibility of miracles and presents a criterion for assuming miracles under very exceptional circumstances from the practical point of view. In the concluding remarks I defend that Kant´s account of miracles is different from Baumgarten´s and Hume´s, and still compatible with Transcendental Idealism.