This essay considers Kant’s theory of modality in light of a debate in contemporary modal metaphysics and modal logic concerning the Barcan formulas. The comparison provides a new and fruitful perspective on Kant’s complex and sometimes confusing claims about possibility and necessity. Two central Kantian principles provide the starting point for the comparison: that the possible must be grounded in the actual and that existence is not a real predicate. Both are shown to be intimately connected to the Barcan formulas, (...) and Kant’s views on what he distinguishes as three different kinds of modality are then considered in light of this connection. (shrink)

I respond to objections from three rigorous readers challenging me to detail in what sense Sellars is a transcendental philosopher, as well as to defend the claim that ‘picturing’ is crucial to his account of intentionality. This further involves defending the tenability of transcendental phenomenalism and arguing against scepticism about picturing. Finally, this involves the question of whether the results of transcendental analyses undermine the legitimacy of the Manifest Image, and, consequently, to say what knowledge about phenomena can mean in (...) the succession of conceptual frameworks. (shrink)

There is a confounding issue at the very heart of philosophical reflection. It is the question of where, and in what sense, the bounds of intelligible thought, knowledge, and speech are to be drawn. To inquire into these limits is to acknowledge that we are “finite thinking beings,” as Kant puts it. Indeed, one way of understanding our essentially problematic position in the world which leads us into philosophy is to view it as a position of being fated to the (...) perpetual attempt to reckon with the limits of intelligibility: we are creatures for whom it can become a live question how to make sense of thought, action, knowledge, the good life, the nature of self-consciousness, mortal existence, and so forth – and where this sense-making gives out. This introductory essay puts special emphasis on the ways in which we might fall prey to a confused and pernicious kind of self-deception or self-alienation in seeking a philosophical remedy to the limits of intelligibility. In modern times, no other thinkers have faced up to this troubling possibility of self-alienation with the same rigor and in such depth as Kant and Wittgenstein. (shrink)