DISCIPLINE AS NEGATIVE EDUCATION OF PURE REASON. ON THE POSSIBLE INFLUENCE OF ROUSSEAU IN THE FORMATION OF CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF KANT

In opposition to a certain reading of the Discipline of Pure Reason that interprets it merely in the light of the Kantian reception of the German logic tradition of the 18th century (Reimarus, Baumgarten, Wolff and Meier), it is argued in this paper that the Kantian concept of discipline should be understood as a sort of negative and preventive education which is preparatory to a positive, autonomous and emancipated use of reason. This concept of discipline can be traced back to the reception of Rousseau by Kant in the 1760s and especially in the 1770s, when the idea of a Critique of Pure Reason was beginning to take shape in Kant's intellectual development