Kant on complete explanation and self-grounding things: from the pre-critical <i>New Elucidation</i> to the <i>Critique of Pure Reason</i>

Many of Kant’s rationalist predecessors held that there must be something self-grounding to serve as the ultimate ground of all dependent things. In the pre-Critical New Elucidation, however, Kant argues that self-grounding plays no legitimate role in metaphysical explanation. I argue in this paper that Kant’s position in the New Elucidation is best understood as an expression of his distinctive conception of complete explanation. According to Kant (and contra his opponents as he understood them), an explanation of a grounded thing is complete just in case it cites all the grounds of the grounded thing, and an ungrounded ground can completely explain something grounded. I also argue that this conception of complete explanation stays with Kant throughout his career, and it contributes to several of his most important metaphysical positions in both the pre-Critical and Critical periods. It drives his argument that the Principle of Sufficient Reason must be restricted in scope; it lies at the heart of his views about the kind of intelligibility reason demands as our highest faculty; and it reveals neglected aspects of his conception of the unconditioned and his critique of traditional metaphysics in the Critique of Pure Reason.