Will Durant on Kant

From Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, p. 380 (or p. 265 of this Google Books edition).

THE Kantian philosophy which announced itself as “prolegomena to all future metaphysics,” was, by malicious intent, a murderous thrust at traditional modes of speculation; and, contrary to intent, a damaging blow to all metaphysics whatsoever. For metaphysics had meant, throughout the history of thought, an attempt to discover the ultimate nature of reality; now men learned, on the most respectable authority, that reality could never be experienced; that it was a “noumenon,” conceivable but not knowable; and that even the subtlest human intelligence could never pass beyond phenomena, could never pierce the veil of Maya.

The strong rhetoric fits with these assessments:

* Was Kant Really that Skeptical? (Quee Nelson’s collection of quotations from Kant)

* Kleist: How Kant ruined my life (along with a quotation from Nietzsche about Kant)

* John Dewey on Kant and the causes of World War I.

* Kant’s non-defense of classical liberalism (my article for Cato Unbound)

(Thanks to John Enright, Phil Danneskjold, Kevin Hill, and Mark Goodkin who pointed me to sources for Durant’s text.)