AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Rudolf Otto's principal aim was the elucidation of religious knowledge on its own terms. As a philosopher, he was part of the Neo-Friesian school of Kantian critical philosophy. As a philosopher of religion, he followed Luther and Schleiermacher principally. Otto made important changes in the epistemological theories of Kant, and the religious theories of Schleiermacher. These changes are not of uniform quality, however. Some are the outgrowth of Otto's Rationalistic use of the critical method, and some are upon religious antonomy. Within Otto's own system, there are indications of development of ideas over a period of years. His early work, Philosophy of Religion, was intended to lay a philosophical foundation for his whole system, and to treat the rational element in religious knowledge. His later work, The Idea of the Holy, was intended to build upon the philosophical foundation already laid, and to treat the non-rational, or non-conceptual, element in religious knowledge . Many concepts are carried over from the earlier work to the later, but many innovations are introduced in The Idea of the Holy which do not appear in the Philosophy of Religion. On the whole, it is fair to state that Otto's epistemology must be understood against the background of his Philosophy of Religion,but that his mature epistemological formulation is found in The Idea of the Holy. Otto bases his epistemology upon the rationalistic approach,using Kant's critical method. Pure Reason is his source of the conditions and possibility of knowledge, and also the source of conceptual, constitutive ideas. Otto breaks sharply with Kant upon the issues of the cognitive value of the a priori categories of knowledge, and the ideas of Pure Reason. Kant held that knowledge of spatio-temporal events is constituted according to the a priori principles of the understanding, and that the a priori nature of that knowledge is itself an indication of the ideality of that which is known. Otto, on the other hand, held that this inference is not warranted, that apriority is no indication of itself of ideality. He held, as do some other Kantian commentators, and following the Neo-Friesian interpretation of Kant, that a priori types of knowledge may refer to real, independent entities. The constitutive activity of the mind does not in itself render that to which it responds dependent upon the mind, existentially or essentially. Otto extends the possibility of cognitive experience to cover non-sensory awareness, while Kant insisted that only objects of sensory perception were cognitively valid. Kant had maintained that non-sensory, mental conceptions or ideas were not constitutive of knowledge, but regulative only. Otto holds, on the hand, that in the Idea of Pure Reason give the necessary conditions under which Reality exists. This brings him to the rational conclusion that the "principle of completeness" must be followed in the understanding of Real Existence. This principle of Rational Coherence gives the possibility and the necessity for the validity of…