Abstract
In this article, we will examine the notions of system and freedom in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in the light of their later idealist development, leading to the absolute idealism of Schelling and Hegel, and its subsequent dissolution, we hypothesise, in Schelling's middle metaphysics. Our hypothesis is that a return of Schelling to Kant in his late philosophy refers to the methodological and metaphysical dualism that the latter posits between theoretical and practical reason, between being and becoming, and on which the possibility and reality of human freedom, as Schelling thinks it from 1809 onwards, is based.
Here we will show the preconditions of Schelling's return to Kant in two moments. First ( 1), we will analyse the concepts of system and philosophy that Kant introduces at various points in the Critique of Pure Reason, and we will briefly show how their subsequent idealistic development represents a move away from Kant's own cosmic and practical concept of philosophy towards a notion of logical or ideal perfection of knowledge.
Second ( 2), we review the various meanings of Kant's concept of freedom in his critical works in the light of the dualism of Schelling's middle metaphysics, and we suggest that it is only in a dualistic system that does not abolish the difference between Sein and Sein-soll, there can be true human freedom