"In this reinterpretation of Kant and the post-Kantian response to his Critical philosophy, Karl Ameriks argues that such a view of Kant rests on a series of misconceptions. He demonstrates that the thought of Kant's successors (such as Fichte and Hegel) was determined by a radical Enlightenment conception of autonomy developed by Karl Reinhold, and that this conception entailed a serious distortion of Kant's more modest approach. The influence of Reinhold continues to mar current interpretation of Kant.

By providing the first systematic study of the underlying structure of the reaction of Kant's Critical philosophy in the writings of Reinhold, Fichte, and Hegel, Karl Ameriks challenges the presumptions that dominate popular approaches to the concept of freedom, and to the interpretation of the relation between the Enlightenment, Kant, and post-Kantian thought.".

"A landmark study, this book will be of particular interest to all students of Kant as well as those in fields such as intellectual history, political theory, and religious studies concerned with issues of autonomy and modernity."--BOOK JACKET.