Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Kant, Real Possibility, and the Threat of Spinoza.Andrew Chignell - 2012 - Mind 121 (483):635-675.
    In the first part of the paper I reconstruct Kant’s proof of the existence of a ‘most real being’ while also highlighting the theory of modality that motivates Kant’s departure from Leibniz’s version of the proof. I go on to argue that it is precisely this departure that makes the being that falls out of the pre-critical proof look more like Spinoza’s extended natura naturans than an independent, personal creator-God. In the critical period, Kant seems to think that transcendental idealism (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Kant on Proofs for God's Existence.Ina Goy (ed.) - 2023 - Boston: De Gruyter.
    The essay collection "Kant on Proofs for God's Existence" provides a highly needed, comprehensive analysis of the radical turns of Kant's views on proofs for God's existence.— In the "Theory of Heavens" (1755), Kant intends to harmonize the Newtonian laws of motion with a physico-theological argument for the existence of God. But only a few years later, in the "Ground of Proof" essay (1763), Kant defends an ontological ('possibility' or 'modal') argument on the basis of its logical exactitude while he (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Kant on Modality.Colin Marshall & Aaron Barker - 2024 - In Andrew Stephenson & Anil Gomes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kant. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    This chapter analyzes several key themes in Kant’s views about modality. We begin with the pre-critical Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God, in which Kant distinguishes between formal and material elements of possibility, claims that all possibility requires an actual ground, and argues for the existence of a single necessary being. We then briefly consider how Kant’s views change in his mature period, especially concerning the role of form and thought in defining modality. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Kant's Panentheism: The Possibility Proof of 1763 and Its Fate in the Critical Period.Andrew Chignell - 2023 - In Ina Goy (ed.), Kant on Proofs for God's Existence. Boston: De Gruyter.
    This chapter discusses Kant's 1763 "possibility proof" for the existence of God. I first provide a reconstruction of the proof in its two stages, and then revisit my earlier argument according to which the being the proof delivers threatens to be a Spinozistic-panentheistic God—a being whose properties include the entire spatio-temporal universe—rather than the traditional, ontologically distinct God of biblical monotheism. I go on to evaluate some recent alternative readings that have sought to avoid this result by arguing that the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Existence and Modality in Kant: Lessons from Barcan.Andrew Stephenson - 2023 - Philosophical Review 132 (1):1-41.
    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, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Knowledge, Anxiety, Hope: How Kant’s First and Third Questions Relate (Keynote address).Andrew Chignell - 2021 - In Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), The Court of Reason: Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress. De Gruyter. pp. 127-149.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Moses Mendelssohn's Original Modal Proof for the Existence of God.Noam Hoffer - 2023 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 61 (2):237-256.
    Abstractabstract:In Morning Hours (1785), Moses Mendelssohn presents a proof for the existence of God from the grounding of possibility. Although Mendelssohn claims that this proof is original, it has not received much attention in the secondary literature. In this paper, I analyze this proof and present its historical context. I show that although it resembles Leibniz's proof from eternal truths and Kant's precritical possibility proof, it has unique characteristics that can be regarded as responses to deficiencies Mendelssohn identified in these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • On the Necessity of the Categories.Anil Gomes, Andrew Stephenson & Adrian Moore - 2022 - Philosophical Review 131 (2):129–168.
    For Kant, the human cognitive faculty has two sub-faculties: sensibility and the understanding. Each has pure forms which are necessary to us as humans: space and time for sensibility; the categories for the understanding. But Kant is careful to leave open the possibility of there being creatures like us, with both sensibility and understanding, who nevertheless have different pure forms of sensibility. They would be finite rational beings and discursive cognizers. But they would not be human. And this raises a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • The real problem of pure reason.T. A. Pendlebury - 2022 - European Journal of Philosophy 30 (1):45-63.
    The problem of Kant's first Critique is the problem of pure reason: how are synthetic judgments possible a priori? Many of his readers have believed that the problem depends upon a delimitation within the class of a priori truths of a class of irreducibly synthetic truths—a delimitation whose possibility is doubtful—because absent this it is not excluded that all a priori truths are analytic. I argue, on the contrary, that the problem depends on nothing more than the human knower's everyday (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Kant’s Account of Real Possibility and the German Philosophical Tradition.Michael Oberst - manuscript
    Kant’s postulate of possibility states that possible is whatever agrees with the formal conditions of experience. As has often been noted, this is a definition of real possibility. However, little attention has been paid to the relation of Kantian real possibility to the German philosophical tradition before him. I discuss three kinds of possibility present in this tradition – internal, external, and (Crusian) real possibility – and argue that Kant endorses internal and external possibility. Furthermore, I show, specifically with respect (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Kant’s Regulative Metaphysics of God and the Systematic Lawfulness of Nature.Noam Hoffer - 2019 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 57 (2):217-239.
    In the ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’ of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant contends that the idea of God has a positive regulative role in the systematization of empirical knowledge. But why is this regulative role assigned to this specific idea? Kant’s account is rather opaque and this question has also not received much attention in the literature. In this paper I argue that an adequate understanding of the regulative role of the idea of God depends on the specific (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • How is Metaphysics Possible? Kant's Great Question and His Great Answer.Nicholas Stang - 2017 - In Stephen Hetherington (ed.), What Makes a Great Philosopher Great? Thirteen Arguments for Twelve Philosophers. New York: Routledge.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The relationship between space and mutual interaction: Kant contra Newton and Leibniz.James Messina - 2017 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (1):43-65.
    Kant claims that we cannot cognize the mutual interaction of substances without their being in space; he also claims that we cannot cognize a ‘spatial community’ among substances without their being in mutual interaction. I situate these theses in their historical context and consider Kant’s reasons for accepting them. I argue that they rest on commitments regarding the metaphysical grounding of, first, the possibility of mutual interaction among substances-as-appearances and, second, the actuality of specific distance-relations among such substances. By illuminating (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Relation between God and the World in the Pre-Critical Kant: Was Kant a Spinozist?Noam Hoffer - 2016 - Kantian Review 21 (2):185-210.
    Andrew Chignell and Omri Boehm have recently argued that Kant’s pre-Critical proof for the existence of God entails a Spinozistic conception of God and hence substance monism. The basis for this reading is the assumption common in the literature that God grounds possibilities by exemplifying them. In this article I take issue with this assumption and argue for an alternative Leibnizian reading, according to which possibilities are grounded in essences united in God’s mind (later also described as Platonic ideas intuited (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Kant's Only Possible Argument and Chignell's Real Harmony.Uygar Abaci - 2014 - Kantian Review 19 (1):1-25.
    Andrew Chignell recently proposed an original reconstruction of Kant's ‘Only Possible Argument’ for the existence of God. Chignell claims that what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of Kant's proof, ‘real possibility must be grounded in actuality’, is the requirement that the predicates of a really possible thing must be ‘really harmonious’, i.e. compatible in an extra-logical or metaphysical sense. I take issue with Chignell's reconstruction. First, the pre-Critical Kant does not present ‘real harmony’ as a general condition of real possibility. Second, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Kant and the ‘Monstrous’ Ground of Possibility: A Reply to Abaci and Yong.Andrew Chignell - 2014 - Kantian Review 19 (1):53-69.
    I reply to recent criticisms by Uygar Abaci and Peter Yong, among others, of my reading of Kant's pre-Critical of God's existence, and of its fate in the Critical period. Along the way I discuss some implications of this debate for our understanding of Kant's modal metaphysics and modal epistemology generally.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • God, Totality and Possibility in Kant's Only Possible Argument.Peter Yong - 2014 - Kantian Review 19 (1):27-51.
    There has been a groundswell of interest in the account of modality that Kant sets forth in his pre-Critical Only Possible Argument. Andrew Chignell's reconstruction of Kant's theistic argument in terms of what he calls has a prima facie advantage in that it appears to be able to block the plurality objection (namely, that even if every modal fact presupposes some ground, this does not entail that all modal facts share the same ground). I argue that it is both textually (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Kant on Perceptual Content.Colin McLear - 2016 - Mind 125 (497):95-144.
    Call the idea that states of perceptual awareness have intentional content, and in virtue of that aim at or represent ways the world might be, the ‘Content View.’ I argue that though Kant is widely interpreted as endorsing the Content View there are significant problems for any such interpretation. I further argue that given the problems associated with attributing the Content View to Kant, interpreters should instead consider him as endorsing a form of acquaintance theory. Though perceptual acquaintance is controversial (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   39 citations  
  • Intellectualism, Relational Properties and the Divine Mind in Kant's Pre-Critical Philosophy.Christopher Insole - 2011 - Kantian Review 16 (3):399-427.
    I demonstrate that the pre-Critical Kant is essentialist and intellectualist about the relational properties of substances. That is to say, God can choose whether or not to create a substance, and whether or not to connect this substance with other substances, so as to create a world: but God cannot choose what the nature of the relational properties is, once the substance is created and connected. The divine will is constrained by the essences of substances. Nonetheless, Kant considers that essences (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Leibniz and the Ground of Possibility.Samuel Newlands - 2013 - Philosophical Review 122 (2):155-187.
    Leibniz’s views on modality are among the most discussed by his interpreters. Although most of the discussion has focused on Leibniz’s analyses of modality, this essay explores Leibniz’s grounding of modality. Leibniz holds that possibilities and possibilia are grounded in the intellect of God. Although other early moderns agreed that modal truths are in some way dependent on God, there were sharp disagreements surrounding two distinct questions: (1) On what in God do modal truths and modal truth-makers depend? (2) What (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Leibniz and Kant on Possibility and Existence.Ohad Nachtomy - 2012 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (5):953-972.
    This paper examines the Leibnizian background to Kant's critique of the ontological argument. I present Kant's claim that existence is not a real predicate, already formulated in his pre-critical essay of 1673, as a generalization of Leibniz's reasoning regarding the existence of created things. The first section studies Leibniz's equivocations on the notion of existence and shows that he employs two distinct notions of existence ? one for God and another for created substances. The second section examines Kant's position in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • (1 other version)Kant-Bibliographie 2009.Margit Ruffing - 2011 - Kant Studien 102 (4):499-540.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Kant and the Explanatory Role of Experience.Anil Gomes - 2013 - Kant Studien 104 (3):277-300.
    We are able to think of empirical objects as capable of existing unperceived. What explains our grasp of this conception of objects? In this paper I examine the claim that experience explains our understanding of objects as capable of existing unperceived with reference to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I argue that standard accounts of experience’s explanatory role are unsatisfactory, but that an alternative account can be extracted from the first Critique – one which relies on Kant’s transcendental idealism.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • The Idea of God and the Empirical Investigation of Nature in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.Lorenzo Spagnesi - 2022 - Kantian Review 27 (2):279-297.
    This article aims to justify the positive role in the empirical investigation of nature that Kant attributes to the idea of God in the Critique of Pure Reason. In particular, I propose to read the Transcendental Ideal section and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic together to see whether they can reciprocally illuminate each other. I argue that it is only by looking at the transcendental deduction of the ideas of reason and the resulting analogical conception of God that a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • The Possibility Proof is Not What Remains from Kant's Beweisgrund.Michael Oberst - 2020 - Kantian Review 25 (2):219-242.
    The so-called ‘possibility proof’ in Kant's pre-CriticalBeweisgrundhas been widely discussed in the literature, and it is a common view that he never really abandoned it. As I shall argue, this reading is mistaken. I aim to show that the natural illusion in theCritique of Pure Reason, which is usually taken to be the possibility proof turned into a transcendental illusion, has both a different conclusion and a different argument than the possibility proof. Rather, what remains fromBeweisgrundis what I will call (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • God, Powers, and Possibility in Kant’s Beweisgrund.Michael Oberst - manuscript
    This paper proposes a novel reading of Kant’s account of the dependence of possibility on God in the pre-Critical Beweisgrund. I argue that Kant has a theistic-potentialist conception of the way God grounds possibility, according to which God grounds possibility by his understanding and will. The reason is that Kant accepts what I call the Principle of Possible Existence: If something is possible, then it is possible that it exists. Furthermore, I explore the connection between causal powers and possibility, the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Bloomsbury Companion to Kant.Gary Banham, Nigel Hems & Dennis Schulting (eds.) - 2015 - London: Bloomsbury Academic.
    A comprehensive and practical study tool, introducing Kant's thought and key works and exploring his continuing influence.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Coextensiveness Thesis and Kant's Modal Agnosticism in the ‘Postulates’.Uygar Abaci - 2013 - European Journal of Philosophy 24 (1):129-158.
    In the Critique of Pure Reason, following his elucidation of the ‘postulates’ of possibility, actuality, and necessity, Kant makes a series of puzzling remarks. He seems to deny the somewhat metaphysically intuitive contention that the extension of possibility is greater than that of actuality, which, in turn, is greater than that of necessity. Further, he states that the actual adds nothing to the possible. This leads to the view, fairly common in the literature, that Kant holds that all modal categories, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Logic and the Limits of Philosophy in Kant and Hegel by Clayton Bohnet. [REVIEW]Simon Wimmer & Tristan Kreetz - 2016 - Kant Studies Online 2016 (1).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Backing into Spinozism.Samuel Newlands - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 93 (3):511-537.
    One vexing strand of Spinozism asserts that God's nature is more expansive than traditionally conceived and includes properties like being extended. In this paper, I argue that prominent early moderns embrace metaphysical principles about causation, mental representation, and modality that pressure their advocates towards such an expansive account of God's nature in similar ways. I further argue that the main early modern escape route, captured in notions like “eminent containment,” fails to adequately relieve the metaphysical pressures towards Spinozism. The upshot (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations