Dalla critica della metafisica alla metafisica critica nella riflessione epistemologica kantiana

In this paper, starting with a reconstruction of Kant’s theoretical research programme aimed at critically overcoming traditional ontological metaphysics, the decisive Kantian move from the “critique of metaphysics” to “critical metaphysics” is considered. The heart of this Kantian move is identified in the ‘Copernican revolution’ operated by Kant with the introduction of the heuristic concept of the transcendental. In fact, this new approach gives rise to Kant’s epistemology that understands the ‘object’ of scientific knowledge no longer in empiricist terms and mere inductive abstraction, but rather in the normative and deductivist framework proper and specific to an epistemology aimed at clarifying the specific nature of the mathematical reconstruction of phenomena. Indeed, the Kantian turn understands how phenomena themselves include the conditions of observation of reality precisely because the latter is characterised by its specific physical invariability. From this perspective springs the Kantian programme of a ‘critical metaphysics’ through which the normative and deductivist nature of scientific theories allows for the development of an innovative philosophical reflection based on meta-reflection that takes the different disciplines as its own privileged object of study and reflection. In this way, a new perspective horizon opens up, one that is able to envisage a new role and a new critical function for epistemological reflection and even for philosophy itself.