The primary aim of this volume is to explore Kant's philosophy of religion firmly inside the context of his political-ethical thought and restrictive epistemology. DiCenso develops at great length an entirely and exclusively anthropological reading along the lines of Allen Wood and Gordon Michalson, in opposition to recent ‘affirmative’ interpreters who argue that there is space for at least the vestiges of the supersensible within Kant's treatment of faith and religion.

After an introductory chapter that briefly introduces the project and the structure of the argument, the second chapter begins the argument proper by discussing Kant's ethical-political conception of the Critical project, formed through the influence of Rousseau's political philosophy and Hume's scepticism, construed as an anti-authoritarian stance against received structures of power and tradition (p. 33). With regard to the first Critique, DiCenso emphasizes the deep connection between epistemology and politics for Kant, placing the Critical method as part of a wider Enlightenment project of encouraging autonomy and social progress towards justice. For Kant, even the more abstract elements of his system were understood as possible engines for social change. Religion as a political institution already figures very strongly here – religious ‘enthusiasm’ and superstition can help fuel political despotism by generating the acceptance of structures of authority in society that are unjust (p. 40). The centrality of the notion of ‘universalizability’ also becomes clear early on, characterized as ‘an interactive process requiring a principled assessment of one's own perspectives and priorities in relation with others’ (p. 61). The Kantian system is taken to encourage the widening of perspectives through interpersonal engagement and critique.

In the following chapter, DiCenso develops his reading of the first Critique, delving more deeply into Kant's epistemology. Aspects of the Kantian epistemology, DiCenso argues, reveal a thinker that always has an eye upon the social impact of his work. One particular position that Kant is attempting to move decisively away from is Cartesian foundationalism, which tends towards dogmatism and heteronomy, through the positing of a closed system (p. 69). Connected to this, a further crucial discussion is found here regarding the way in which outer sense is prioritized over inner sense in Kant's epistemology, particularly in the B edition. By offering, in the newly added Refutation of Idealism, ‘an important criticism of solipsistic models of subjectivity … [Kant] strengthens the interconnection between self-knowledge and public experience’ (p. 78). It is this possible impact of the outer sense upon our inner experience that gives Kant the conceptual space to allow social conditions and other factors in the natural world to have a real impact, for example, upon the exercise of our autonomy. DiCenso very convincingly argues that the Refutation of Idealism in the B edition is a hugely significant passage for understanding the later developments in Kant's political and ethical thought, and much of the rest of the work is taken up exploring the possible impact upon the inner life of the individual that this passage allows.

DiCenso continues to expound his reading of the first Critique in the fourth chapter, which contains an exposition of Kant's critique of ‘traditional’ metaphysics and theology, grounded on the core concepts of God, immortality and the soul. This is mostly very well-worn ground, charting how the natural workings of reason can easily lead into ‘dialectical illusion’ and other errors, such as the postulation of an entity that conforms to our rationally generated idea of God. Such an analysis, though very detailed, does not add much to what is distinctive about DiCenso's claims in this work, and so I shall skip over this chapter.

The final two chapters see DiCenso move on to Kant's ethical works, in particular the Groundwork, the Critique of Practical Reason and Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason. We are offered a particularly illuminating account of how social conditions can come to have a decisive impact upon the ability of the human moral agent to act autonomously – for example, it is vital that there be ‘an open public space of information in which competing ideas can be assessed fairly’ (p. 176) if one is to be able to practise the right application of the categorical imperative to varying circumstances, both individually and collectively. Without the opportunity for such moral development, we are unable to ensure that we keep heteronomous influences away from our decision-making; thus, freedom of speech and the press in the phenomenal world can positively encourage autonomous action on the part of the moral agent. Such an analysis ties into DiCenso's illuminating explication of the fundamental continuity between the two aspects (intelligible and phenomenal) of the self, and the way this impacts upon Kant's ideas regarding politics and moral development. Diluting the disjunction between the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of the self allows political and social conditions to become much more central to the more abstract parts of Kant's ethical thought (p. 137), with the lack of direct correlation between empirical and intelligible character not ruling out interconnections between the two, with the effect that the former aspect of character no longer appears as secondary as it might have done before.

Whilst DiCenso's analysis is very illuminating, at times one feels that he is somewhat too keen to reject any supernatural elements of Kant's thought at any point he can. One particular example of perhaps drawing more from the material than is warranted is found in a discussion of God as an ideal legislator with rights and no duties (p. 199). DiCenso states that such a view of God ‘is not compatible with theological voluntarism which … makes laws secondary to the arbitrary will of the sovereign’, and argues that this forms part of Kant's conscious project to ‘[resist] literal interpretations’ of religious and theological discourse. However, it should be clear that the one does not necessarily follow from the other. What Kant is claiming regarding the proper understanding of God in relation to the moral law is fully consistent with him operating within a traditional Christian theological discourse, which is open to a number of understandings regarding such a relation. We could, for example, claim that the moral law should not be understood as dependent upon God's will, but as entirely non-arbitrary, perhaps because it should be seen as flowing from God's very being as a perfectly good entity. Such is a major pattern of interpretation in this work – theological claims made by Kant, which could be taken as being made in the context of traditional Christian theology, are assumed as being made entirely outside such a context, indeed as positively rejecting such a context. It is certainly a live option, though, that Kant is operating within a theological and philosophical context that takes account of our limited, postlapsarian faculties and the intrinsic moral goodness (as part of the imago dei?) that is imprinted upon us at creation. Christian theology is a much wider and more varied field than DiCenso seems to think. Certainly, such a so-called ‘affirmative’ interpretation of Kant's philosophy of religion is very controversial, but should be positively attacked if it is going to be rejected, and not simply assumed to be wrong.

The final chapter foreshadows a number of themes from DiCenso's commentary on Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason (Reference DiCenso2012), and offers in effect a short introduction to the later work. Of particular interest here are the sections covering the final two parts of Religion, which can often be relatively overlooked in comparison with the discussions of radical evil and christology. DiCenso explores in great detail the ways in which Kant's ethical and political theory impacts upon his ecclesiology, in particular his ambivalent stance towards the Christian authorities of the time – believing that it was ultimately governed by self-love (p. 266), yet containing the seeds of true faith (p. 264).

Before I conclude, I would like to raise a final worry. It is, of course, entirely uncontroversial that Kant, in addition to undertaking the typically philosophical pursuits of formulating an epistemology, an ethical theory and so forth, is a socially conscious thinker who is fully aware of the importance of ‘impure’ ethics and the possible impact of his philosophical work upon the development of society. There is something of an open question, though, regarding how closely intertwined these two strands of Kant's thought are, and DiCenso at points seems to suggest that they are very closely linked. Indeed, DiCenso seems to suggest that Kant formed his philosophical theories in response to social conditions and inequalities, as part of his drive for social progress. It seems, for example, that Kant critiques the cosmological argument primarily because it engenders a heteronomous, necessitarian view of the world. Such a picture of Kant's Critical philosophy, as shot through with social concern, does not entirely square with the pure philosophical passion for truth that he had. I believe we must question, therefore, whether DiCenso is slightly overstating his case for the importance of social issues to Kant. One feels sometimes that this volume is so keen to stress the political aspects of Kant's thought, and the complete reduction of religion to morality in the Critical system, that it begins to make the philosopher look more like a self-help guru (albeit on a grand scale), carefully constructing his statements so as to have the greatest ethical and political impact, rather than the seeker after truth that Kant undoubtedly was. For example, on p. 80, DiCenso notes Kant's faculty-based theory of mind, which through the proliferation of different perspectives ‘resists tendencies to locate agency, or truth, or reality in a single source or ground, offsetting models of a self-contained subject that ignore the communicative and interpersonal nature of knowledge’. Such a view seems to represent Kant's faculty-based theory as deriving from a primary anti-foundationalist standpoint, a position seemingly confirmed when DiCenso writes that such ‘categorizations should be taken heuristically, i.e., as a way to organize our various mental activities and abilities’. We have to be careful not to lose sight of the fact that Kant, like most others at the time, really did think that the mind has various faculties – not just that such a theory would have the most useful political and social consequences for him.

To conclude, there are a number of strands to DiCenso's argument in this volume, some of which are pursued more fruitfully than others. We are offered an undoubtedly superb analysis of how Kant's epistemology and ethics point to a philosopher with a great concern for political and social change, in contradiction with the traditional caricature of Kant as an overly formalistic and abstract thinker. DiCenso is also due praise for his analysis of faith and religion as key constituents of Kant's philosophical and ethical thought. However, the rejection of any other aspects lying behind Kant's religious thought, especially any vestiges of the supersensible that recent ‘affirmative’ interpreters have argued for, is less successful. The main problem with such a line of argument in this volume is that DiCenso does not ultimately offer any new arguments against ‘affirmative’ interpreters, and indeed seems to assume that he requires this strand of argument to firmly establish the claims he is making regarding the ethical-political implications of religion and faith for Kant, an assumption that seems erroneous to me. This work would have been much more focused and effective if DiCenso had concentrated on a single strand of the argument, without trying to take on Kant's affirmative interpreters at the same time. As it is, we can sometimes be distracted from the many interesting claims DiCenso makes regarding the political considerations that were certainly in Kant's mind when putting forward his account of faith and religion. However, this is still a very accomplished work that all scholars interested in Kant's philosophy of religion in relation to his ethical and political thought will have to take account of in the future.Footnote ¹