Focusing on Immanuel Kant's lectures on anthropology, the essay endeavors to address long-standing concerns regarding both the relationship between these empirical investigations and Kant's better known universalism, and more pressingly, between Kant's own racism on display in the lectures, and his simultaneous promotion of a universal moral theory that would unhesitatingly condemn such attitudes. -/- Reprinted in: 'Philosophies of Difference: Nature, Racism, and Sexuate Difference' edited by R. Gustafsson, R. Hill, and H. Ngo (Routledge, 2019), pp. 125-144.

Why does Kant say that a “skeptical satisfaction of pure reason” is “impossible” (A758/B786)? I answer this question by giving a reading of “The Discipline of Pure Reason in Respect of Its Polemic Employment.” I explain that Kant must address skepticism in this context because his warning against developing counterarguments to dogmatic attacks encourages a comparison between the critical and the skeptical methods. I then argue that skepticism fails to “satisfy” [befriedigen] reason insofar as it cannot “pacify” reason’s tendency to (...) go beyond its own boundaries. The skeptical method reveals the past failures of dogmatic metaphysics but cannot rule out future successes. Only critical knowledge of reason’s proper bounds can do this, thereby pacifying our restless reason. I close by arguing that Kant’s discussion implies that a skeptic must feel dissatisfied with her renunciation of metaphysics, and that this dissatisfaction can lead her to take interest in Kant’s critical philosophy. (shrink)

Thus the enormous value of a philosophy of life that weakens the feeling for our individuality by constantly referring to universal laws, that teaches us to lose our miniscule selves in the context...

Drawing on Merleau-Ponty, I contend that emotions should be regarded as emerging from our “vital communication” with the solicitations of our physical and social surroundings. My intention is to present emotions as unitary phenomena arising from an incessant flow of motivations that can be later articulated in terms of reasons (in cognitive theories of emotions) or in terms of causes (in affective neuroscience). I further suggest that emotions should be considered a specific kind of conducts, since the way in which (...) a person acts out her emotions shapes their content, regulates their intensity and transforms the amorphous flow of felt motivations into a recognizable emotional stance for which she is held accountable. In conclusion, I put forward a series of arguments explaining why emotion tends toward its expression in conduct as if towards its completion. (shrink)

This paper discusses Heller’s aesthetic ethics in her feeling theory. ‘Feeling’ is an aesthetic problem as well as an ethical problem. Heller discusses the important role of emotions in modern life. ‘Housekeeping of feelings’ is the key category of Heller’s ethical aesthetics, which is related to one’s self-realization. It is beneficial to the formation of individual value and helps to reconstruct an increasingly atomized community. The housekeeping of feelings is some kind of care, which is important both ethically and aesthetically. (...) Heller’s feelings theory is based on human value itself, which is of great methodological significance for the reconstruction of the broken emotional community in the post-epidemic era. (shrink)

Smells are often said to be ineffable, and linguistic research shows that languages like English lack a dedicated olfactory lexicon. Starting from this evidence, I propose an account of how we talk about smells in English. Our reports about the way things smell are comparative: When we say that something smells burnt or like roses, we characterise the thing's smell by noting its similarity to the characteristic smells of certain odorous things (burnt things, roses). The account explains both the strengths (...) and limitations of our smell discourse, and has implications for philosophical discussions of the relation between language and appearances. (shrink)

In Kant’s “Doctrine of Right” there is a philosophical and interpretive puzzle surrounding the translation of a key concept: Gewalt. Should we translate it as “force,” “power,” or “violence”? This raises both general questions in Kant’s legal-political philosophy as well as puzzles regarding Kant’s definitions of “barbarism,” “anarchy,” “despotism,” and “republic” as the four possible political conditions. First, I argue that we have good textual reasons for translating Gewalt as “violence”—a translation which has the advantage that it answers these questions (...) and puzzles convincingly. Translating Gewalt as “violence” has two further, somewhat surprising advantages. It allows us to explain how human beings can be caught in situations with no morally good ways out, and it gives us an ideal Kantian refutation of the death penalty. I then explore Kant’s account of the establishment of public authorities by means of an analogy between the birth and development of a natural person (a human being) and an artificial one (a state). This analogy helps to clarify the difference between the necessary coercive element involved in ideally establishing a state and the likely violence involved in actually establishing one. The third and final section uses the ideas of barbarism, anarchy, despotism, and republic to identify four different types of political forces operating at any given time in actual historical societies. Once we use Kant’s theory to improve our understanding of the various challenges our historical societies present, we also realize the importance and usefulness of philosophical precision when we translate Gewalt as “violence” and correctly define barbarism, anarchy, despotism, and republic. (shrink)

This book argues that it can be both reasonable and appropriate to adopt a certain kind of misanthropy. The author defends a cognitivist version of misanthropy, an attitude whose central feature is the judgment that humanity is morally bad. Misanthropy is often dismissed on moral grounds. Many people hold that malice toward human persons is problematic and vulnerable to moral objections. In this book, the author advocates for cognitivist misanthropy. He defends an Asymmetry Thesis, according to which a morally bad (...) deed carries more weight than a morally good deed, even if the harm of the former is exactly equal to the benefit of the latter. He makes the case that being misanthropic in the cognitivist sense is morally permissible and compatible with a broad range of moral reasons for action. He also considers the role of misanthropy in environmental thought, arguing that charges of misanthropy against certain "non-anthropocentric" views do not have the force they are typically thought to carry. Finally, the author investigates the practical implications of adopting cognitivist misanthropy, asking what living with such an attitude would involve. A Philosophical Defense of Misanthropy will appeal to researchers and advanced students working in ethics and the philosophy of human nature. (shrink)

This chapter offers non-retributive, broadly Kantian justifications of punishment and remorse which can be endorsed by free will skeptics. We lose our grip on some Kantian ideas if we become skeptical about free will, but we can preserve some important ones which can do valuable work for free will skeptics. The justification of punishment presented here has consequentialist features but is deontologically constrained by our duty to avoid using others as mere means. It draws on a modified Rawlsian original position (...) in which we assume we are just as likely to be among the punished when the veil of ignorance is raised as we are to be among those protected by the institution of punishment. The justification of remorse presented here is care-based, and draws on the value of sympathizing with people we have wronged, which has a Kantian ground in the duty to take others’ ends as our own. (shrink)

Although the literature on Nietzsche is now voluminous one area where there has surprisingly been very little research concerns Nietzsche on the passions. This essay aims to correct this neglect. My focus is on illuminating Nietzsche on the passions in relation to his primary teaching on self-cultivation. To illuminate his position, I focus attention on examining his relation to Stoic teaching on the passions. If for Nietzsche the Christian mind-set involves a disturbing pathological excess of feeling, the Stoic way of (...) living results for him in a petrified of life devoid of movement and growth. After a consideration of his relation to Stoic teaching I then examine his relation to Spinoza on the emotions or affects. Whilst I acknowledge the affinities between the two thinkers and their criticisms of Stoic teaching, I maintain that it is an error to seek to construe Nietzsche and Spinoza as having an identical teaching on the passions. In the final section of the essay, I provide an appreciation of Nietzsche’s recommendation that instead of demonising the passions in the manner of the Christian psyche and its legacy, or extirpating our passions as recommended by the Stoics, we need to learn how to transform them into joys or delights. (shrink)

In this chapter, we start by spelling out three important features that distinguish expressives—utterances that express emotions and other affects—from descriptives, including those that describe emotions (Section 1). Drawing on recent insights from the philosophy of emotion and value (2), we show how these three features derive from the nature of affects, concentrating on emotions (3). We then spell out how theories of non-natural meaning and communication in the philosophy of language allow claims that expressives inherit their meaning from specificities (...) of emotions—namely, from being felt, evaluative attitudes toward propositional or non-propositional contents (4). (shrink)

An important aspect of moral expertise is moral sensitivity, which is the ability to be sensitive to the presence of morally salient features in a context. This requires being able to see and acquire the morally relevant information, as well as organise and interpret it, so that you can undertake the related work of moral judgement, focus (or motivation) and action. As a distinct but interrelated component of ethical expertise, moral sensitivity can and must be trained and educated. However, despite (...) its importance to moral education, there has been comparatively little discussion about the role of ethical sensitivity and the ways that it can be trained within the context of Kant’s, and Kantian, ethics. This paper seeks to address this gap. While Kant does not explicitly focus in detail on moral sensitivity, by breaking sensitivity down into seven distinct aspects through drawing on the Four Component Model, we are able to identify a wealth of resources in Kant’s work from which we can con- struct an account of moral sensitivity education that draws on his underlying moral theory. (shrink)

Ask most philosophers for an example of a moral rationalist, and they will probably answer “Kant.” And no wonder. Kant’s first great work of moral philosophy, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, opens with a clarion call for rationalism, proclaiming the need to work out for once a pure moral philosophy, a metaphysics of morals. That this metaphysics includes the first principle of ethics, the moral law, is obvious. But what about the second principles, particular moral laws, such as duties (...) of truthfulness, beneficence, etc.? Are these principles metaphysical too? Many have thought not, since they make essential use of empirical and anthropological considerations. I argue otherwise; the second principles are metaphysical and this matters. I do this by taking seriously the metaphysics of the metaphysics of morals—more specifically, by understanding the metaphysics of morals alongside the metaphysics of nature. For, qua metaphysics, both employ a common two-stage methodology, the first stage of which is wholly a priori but the second stage of which is partly empirical. As I explain, appreciating this common methodology sheds new light on how the second principles are to be established, as well as on the reach of Kant’s rationalism. (shrink)

This dissertation may be divided into two parts. The first part is about the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission. This model, introduced here, is meant to better explain how humans communicate and understand each other. It has been developed to apply to cases that were left unexplained by the two main models of communication found in contemporary philosophy and linguistics, i.e. the Gricean (pragmatic) model and the code (semantic) model. In particular, I show that these latter two models cannot (...) apply to cases where one communicate through spontaneous emotional expressions and how the Extended Gricean Model of information transmission does. The second part of the dissertation is about what emotional signs mean, in various senses of the term ‘mean'. I review existing theories of meaning and see how they apply to emotional signs, i.e. signs which give us information about the affective state of the sign producer. (shrink)

In ‘What is Enlightenment?’, Kant claims that no women are currently enlightened. Here I argue that this exclusion is due to certain legal restrictions guiding Kant’s conception of enlightenment. As enlightenment is intended to take place in society, it appears that Kant has a specific legal context in mind that affects its enactment. His twofold conception of citizenship and the dimension of subordination he puts forward by restricting the private use of reason will prove useful in clarifying those legal restrictions. (...) It thus seems unlikely that Kant intended women to take an active part in enlightenment. (shrink)

The primary objective of this paper is to review the notions of Umwelt and Functional Cycle from semiophilosophical and cybersemiotic perspectives and to propose new ways of reading these concepts. We consider that Umwelt theory is framed within “cryptosemiotics” as a field of knowledge, since it establishes an explanatory field capable of putting new paths for research on the table while allowing the elaboration of theoretical foundations for the understanding of semiosis. In addition, it is possible to establish a cybernetic (...) view on the idea of the functional cycle as a pre-requisite for meaning and communication, which entails a cybersemiotics point of view of meaning emergence. Then, in this paper, we propose a philosophical, cybernetic, and cybersemiotics reading of von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory. (shrink)

Some comments on Quassim Cassam’s Self and World written for a conference at the Institute of Philosophy in 2017. I consider the objection that Cassam raises to Strawson’s argument from unity to objectivity in The Bounds of Sense and raise some general questions about Cassam’s problem of misconception and its application to transcendental arguments.

Political theorists have traditionally grappled with laughter by posing a simple, normative question: ‘What role, if any, should laughter play in the polis?’ However, the outsized presence of laughter in contemporary politics has rendered this question increasingly obsolete. What good does determining laughter’s role in the polis do when the polis itself is to a large extent shaped by laughter? The present essay argues that Kant’s aesthetic investigations of laughter in the Critique of Judgment and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point (...) of View offer a much needed alternative to the normative discourse. Kant theorizes laughter as an intensely dialectical experience — at once an aesthetic judgment and an affect. Laughter in Kant enacts dissensus: it disrupts and transforms sensus communis, or the ways subjects see and hear the world in common that organize and structure a political community. The essay illustrates the advantages of a Kantian conception of the politics of laughter over the normative discourse by examining Dave Chappelle’s controversial 2019 stand-up comedy special Sticks & Stones. It concludes that the dissensus enacted by laughter, while not necessarily democratic, provides a privileged opening for democratic politics. (shrink)

PLEASE NOTE: This is the corrected 2nd eBook edition, 2021. ●●●●● _Critique of Impure Reason_ has now also been published in a printed edition. To reduce the otherwise high price of this scholarly, technical book of nearly 900 pages and make it more widely available beyond university libraries to individual readers, the non-profit publisher and the author have agreed to issue the printed edition at cost. ●●●●● The printed edition was released on September 1, 2021 and is now available through (...) all booksellers, including Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and brick-and-mortar bookstores under ISBN 978-0-578-88646-6. ●●●●● In light of the length of this book, readers who would like to have a more detailed description of the book's objectives and method may find it helpful to read the detailed and clearly written Wikipedia entry about this work: From the Wikipedia search page, use the search phrase "Critique of Impure Reason". At least at the time of this writing (11/29/2021), the Wikipedia entry is well-researched and accurate. ●●●●● In addition, a "Primer on Bartlett's CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON" has been made available by the author. It is available under its title through PhilPapers and other philosophy online archives. ●●●●● COMMENDATIONS OF THIS WORK, from the back cover of the published edition: ●●●●● “I admire its range of philosophical vision.” – Nicholas Rescher, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, author of more than 100 books. ●●●●● “Bartlett’s _Critique of Impure Reason_ is an impressive, bold, and ambitious work. Careful scholarship is balanced by original analyses that lead the reader to recognize the limits of meaning, knowledge, and conceptual possibility. The work addresses a host of traditional philosophical problems, among them the nature of space, time, causality, consciousness, the self, other minds, ontology, free will and determinism, and others. The book culminates in a fascinating and profound new understanding of relativity physics and quantum theory.” – Gerhard Preyer, Professor of Philosophy, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, author of many books including _Concepts of Meaning_, _Beyond Semantics and Pragmatics_, _Intention and Practical Thought_, and _Contextualism in Philosophy_. ●●●●● “[This work’s] goal is of a unique and difficult species: Dr. Bartlett seeks to develop a formal logical calculus on the basis of transcendental philosophical arguments; in fact, he hopes that this calculus will be the formal expression of the transcendental foundation of knowledge.... I consider Dr. Bartlett’s work soundly conceived and executed with great skill.” – C. F. von Weizsäcker, philosopher and physicist, former Director, Max-Planck-Institute, Starnberg, Germany. ●●●●● “Bartlett has written an American “Prolegomena to All Future Metaphysics.” He aims rigorously to eliminate meaningless assertions, reach bedrock, and place philosophy on a firm foundation that will enable it, like science and mathematics, to produce lasting results that generations to come can build on. This is a great book, the fruit of a lifetime of research and reflection, and it deserves serious attention.” — Martin X. Moleski, former Professor, Canisius College, Buffalo, NY, studies of scientific method, the presuppositions of thought, and the self-referential nature of epistemology. ●●●●● “Bartlett has written a book on what might be called the underpinnings of philosophy. It has fascinating depth and breadth, and is all the more striking due to its unifying perspective based on the concepts of reference and self-reference.” – Don Perlis, Professor of Computer Science, University of Maryland, author of numerous publications on self-adjusting autonomous systems and philosophical issues concerning self-reference, mind, and consciousness. ●●●●● ●●●●● The _Critique of Impure Reason: Horizons of Possibility and Meaning_ comprises a major and important contribution to philosophy. Thanks to the generosity of its publisher, this massive 885-page volume has been published as a free open access eBook (3.75MB) as well as an open access printed edition. It inaugurates a revolutionary paradigm shift in philosophical thought by providing compelling and long-sought-for solutions to a wide range of philosophical problems. In the process, the work fundamentally transforms the way in which the concepts of reference, meaning, and possibility are understood. The book includes a Foreword by the celebrated German philosopher and physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. ●●●●● In Kant’s _Critique of Pure Reason_ we find an analysis of the preconditions of experience and of knowledge. In contrast, but yet in parallel, the new _Critique_ focuses upon the ways—unfortunately very widespread and often unselfconsciously habitual—in which many of the concepts that we employ _conflict_ with the very preconditions of meaning and of knowledge. ●●●●● This is a book about the boundaries of frameworks and about the unrecognized conceptual confusions in which we become entangled when we attempt to transgress beyond the limits of the possible and meaningful. We tend either not to recognize or not to accept that we all-too-often attempt to trespass beyond the boundaries of the frameworks that make knowledge possible and the world meaningful. ●●●●● The _Critique of Impure Reason_ proposes a bold, ground-breaking, and startling thesis: that a great many of the major philosophical problems of the past can be solved through the recognition of a viciously deceptive form of thinking to which philosophers as well as non-philosophers commonly fall victim. For the first time, the book advances and justifies the criticism that a substantial number of the questions that have occupied philosophers fall into the category of “impure reason,” violating the very conditions of their possible meaningfulness. ●●●●● The purpose of the study is twofold: first, to enable us to recognize the boundaries of what is referentially forbidden—the limits beyond which reference becomes meaningless—and second, to avoid falling victims to a certain broad class of conceptual confusions that lie at the heart of many major philosophical problems. As a consequence, the boundaries of _possible meaning_ are determined. ●●●●● Bartlett, the author or editor of more than 20 books, is responsible for identifying this widespread and delusion-inducing variety of error, _metalogical projection_. It is a previously unrecognized and insidious form of erroneous thinking that undermines its own possibility of meaning. It comes about as a result of the pervasive human compulsion to seek to transcend the limits of possible reference and meaning. ●●●●● Based on original research and rigorous analysis combined with extensive scholarship, the _Critique of Impure Reason_ develops a self-validating method that makes it possible to recognize, correct, and eliminate this major and pervasive form of fallacious thinking. In so doing, the book provides at last provable and constructive solutions to a wide range of major philosophical problems. ●●●●● CONTENTS AT A GLANCE ▪▪▪▪▪ Preface ▪▪▪▪▪ Foreword by Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker ▪▪▪▪▪ Acknowledgments ▪▪▪▪▪ Avant-propos: A philosopher’s rallying call ▪▪▪▪▪ Introduction ▪▪▪▪▪ A note to the reader ▪▪▪▪▪ A note on conventions ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART I ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ WHY PHILOSOPHY HAS MADE NO PROGRESS AND HOW IT CAN ▪▪▪▪▪ 1 Philosophical-psychological prelude ▪▪▪▪▪ 2 Putting belief in its place: Its psychology and a needed polemic ▪▪▪▪▪ 3 Turning away from the linguistic turn: From theory of reference to metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 4 The stepladder to maximum theoretical generality ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART II ▪▪▪▪▪ THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE ▪▪▪▪▪ A New Approach to Deductive, Transcendental Philosophy ▪▪▪▪▪ 5 Reference, identity, and identification ▪▪▪▪▪ 6 Self-referential argument and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 7 Possibility theory ▪▪▪▪▪ 8 Presupposition logic, reference, and identification ▪▪▪▪▪ 9 Transcendental argumentation and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 10 Framework relativity ▪▪▪▪▪ 11 The metalogic of meaning ▪▪▪▪▪ 12 The problem of putative meaning and the logic of meaninglessness ▪▪▪▪▪ 13 Projection ▪▪▪▪▪ 14 Horizons ▪▪▪▪▪ 15 De-projection ▪▪▪▪▪ 16 Self-validation ▪▪▪▪▪ 17 Rationality: Rules of admissibility ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART III ▪▪▪▪▪ PHILOSOPHICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE METALOGIC OF REFERENCE ▪▪▪▪▪ Major Problems and Questions of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science ▪▪▪▪▪ 18 Ontology and the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 19 Discovery or invention in general problem-solving, mathematics, and physics ▪▪▪▪▪ 20 The conceptually unreachable: “The far side” ▪▪▪▪▪ 21 The projections of the external world, things-in-themselves, other minds, realism, and idealism ▪▪▪▪▪ 22 The projections of time, space, and space-time ▪▪▪▪▪ 23 The projections of causality, determinism, and free will ▪▪▪▪▪ 24 Projections of the self and of solipsism ▪▪▪▪▪ 25 Non-relational, agentless reference and referential fields ▪▪▪▪▪ 26 Relativity physics as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 27 Quantum theory as seen through the lens of the metalogic of reference ▪▪▪▪▪ 28 Epistemological lessons learned from and applicable to relativity physics and quantum theory ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ PART IV ▪▪▪▪▪ HORIZONS ▪▪▪▪▪ 29 Beyond belief ▪▪▪▪▪ 30 _Critique of Impure Reason_: Its results in retrospect ▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪ SUPPLEMENT ▪▪▪▪▪ The Formal Structure of the Metalogic of Reference ▪▪▪▪▪ APPENDIX I ▪▪▪▪▪ The Concept of Horizon in the Work of Other Philosophers ▪▪▪▪▪ APPENDIX II ▪▪▪▪▪ Epistemological Intelligence ▪▪▪▪▪ References ▪▪▪▪▪ Index ▪▪▪▪▪ About the author. 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This first part of a two-part series exploring implications of the natural differences between the sexes for the cultural evolution of marriage assesses whether Kant should be condemned as a sexist due to his various offensive claims about women. Being antithetical to modern-day assumptions regarding the equality of the sexes, Kant’s views seem to contradict his own egalitarian ethics. A philosophical framework for making cross-cultural ethical assessments requires one to assess those in other cultures by their own ethical standards. Sexism (...) is inappropriate if it exhibits or reinforces a tendency to dominate the opposite sex. Kant’s theory of marriage, by contrast, illustrates how sexism can be egalitarian: given the natural differences between the sexes, different roles and cultural norms help to ensure that females and males are equal. Judged by the standards of his own day and in the context of his philosophical system, Kant’s sexism is not ethically inappropriate. (shrink)

This second part of a two-part series exploring implications of the natural differences between the sexes for the cultural evolution of marriage considers how the institution of marriage might evolve, if Kant’s reasons for defending monogamy are extended and applied to a future culture. After summarizing the philosophical framework for making cross-cultural ethical assessments that was introduced in Part I and then explaining Kant’s portrayal of marriage as an antidote to the objectifying tendencies of sex, I summarize Kant’s reasons for (...) rejecting polygamy and for viewing monogamy as the only ethically acceptable form of marriage. Finally, I argue that if we apply Kantian principles to the real situation of marriage in many modern cultures, and if we wish to maintain a legitimate place for marriage in the future evolution of human culture, then the future evolution of marriage laws must recognize polyfidelity (i.e., plural marriages for both men and women) as being just as legitimate as monogamy. (shrink)

Acts of violence and murder have historically proved difficult to accommodate in standard accounts of the formula of universal law (FUL) version of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (CI). In “Murder and Mayhem,” Barbara Herman offers a distinctive account of the status of these acts that is intended to be appropriately didactic in comparison to accounts like the practical contradiction model. I argue that while Herman’s account is a promising one, the distinction she makes between coercive and non-coercive violence and her response (...) to concerns with the classification of the latter as imperfect duties raise significant questions about the status of some duties. I suggest that we look, instead, to Kant’s treatment of suicide in The Metaphysics of Morals for an account of norms of non-violence and, in particular, to the connection between this duty and concerns with inner freedom and moral health. I argue that we can use this account to inform our general understanding of duties prohibiting killing and violence, and that the resulting account is a promising one. (shrink)

I show that Kant’s depiction of the christic figure in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason is not contingent but explains how this figure functions in two essential ways: as a representation of a maximum of morality that can ground our moral disposition and in so doing acts as a stan­dard for morality. More precisely, the following argument is made: 1) the sublime nature of the image of Christ — as an image of universal respect for the law — (...) awakens the moral feeling of subjects in the sense of the possibility of overcoming one’s perverted nature; 2) as moral perfection it provides immediate transparency to the end goal of morality; 3) just as in the case of associative construction of empirical concepts, the sublime provides the prototype for association through which empirical acts are determined as moral ones; 4) the image of Christ also acts as motivator by encompassing said trans­parency and standard in the idea of moral perfection. These four points show that the image of Christ functions in a dual manner. Points 1) to 3) address Christ as a prototype/archetype (Urbild) — awakening and making possible a moral redefinition of the subject — while point 4) addresses Christ as an example (Vorbild) — sustaining and entertaining the moral redefinition as a motivating model. (shrink)

ABSTRACTKant is concerned to give meaning, depth and veracity to the notion of the subject, which he does on transcendental grounds, and also to shift it beyond purely cognitivist formulations. He opens the subject up to other dimensions of the world that he or she establishes – not only the cognitive, but also the political – ethical and the aesthetic. He does this by constructing and denoting different faculties and their principles that ought to be employed in the distinct domains (...) – the understanding, reason in its pure and practical orientations, and the imagination. Whilst practical reason is Kant’s main focus, the imagination is Kant’s unfinished business and is not limited to the issue of aesthetics. It is both reason’s “other”, and “an indispensable dimension of the human soul”, equal in power and capacity to the other faculties. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that there are at least two essential traits that commonly define being an I: self-identity and self-consciousness. I argue that they bear quite an odd relation to each other in the sense that self-consciousness seems to jeopardize self-identity. My main concern is to elucidate this issue within the range of the transcendental philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. In the first section, I shall briefly consider Kant’s own rendition of the problem of the Egosplitting. (...) My reading of the Kantian texts reveals that Kant himself was aware of this phenomenon but eventually deems it an unexplainable fact. The second part of the paper tackles the same problematic from the standpoint of Husserlian phenomenology. What Husserl’s extensive analyses on this topic bring to light is that the phenomenon of the Ego-splitting constitutes the bedrock not only of his thought but also of every philosophy that works within the framework of transcendental thinking. (shrink)

In Chapter 9 of The Practice of Moral Judgment and her later article Making Room for Character, Barbara Herman offers a distinctive response to a familiar set of concerns with the room left for character and personal relationships in Kantian ethics. She begins by acknowledging the shortcomings of her previous response on this issue and by distancing herself from a standard kind of indirect argument for the importance of personal commitments according to which these have moral weight in virtue of (...) their connection with the psychological health of individuals. Agreeing with an imagined critic’s concern that Kantian ethics must do more than merely tolerate motives of connection, she proposes that we adopt a deliberative field account of practical deliberation incorporating a developmental model of desire formation. I argue that, while this is a subtle and interesting account of desire development, it is not one that will satisfy the critic and should not satisfy the Kantian. I claim that the Kantian cannot forgo instrumental arguments for the importance of personal relationships and commitments and that they should not be shy of endorsing these arguments. (shrink)

This essay, the last in a series, focuses on the relationship between Nietzsche’s mental illness and his philosophical art. It is predicated upon my original diagnosis of his mental condition as bipolar affective disorder, which began in early adulthood and continued throughout his creative life. The kaleidoscopic mood shifts allowed him to see things from different perspectives and may have imbued his writings with passion rarely encountered in philosophical texts. At times hovering on the verge of psychosis, Nietzsche was able (...) to gain access to unconscious images and the music of language, usually inhibited by the conscious mind. He reached many of his linguistic, psychological and philosophical insights by willing suspension of the rational. None of these, however, could have been communicated had he not tamed the subterranean psychic forces with his impressive discipline and hard work. (shrink)

In her thought-provoking article: “Kant’s Nomads: Encountering Strangers”, Katrin Flikschuh pursues three aims: I- to loosen the noose of the Kantian duty of state entrance against the repeated allegations of its inflexible universality; II- to rescue Kant from a certain “belligerent” liberal discourse that has overlooked his ambivalence on the question, at the expense of his potentially constructive insights; III- to articulate the possibility of an encounter with deep and permanent differences in culture or a “reflexive openness” that can help (...) us face the “culturally unfamiliar”. Its success relies upon reading Kant’s philosophy as proceeding from a first-personal experiential standpoint, that is, a regressive strategy of justification. Though sympathetic to Flikschuh’s project, this paper wishes to examine to what extent it is compatible with the Kantian theory of the State, on the one hand, and his transcendental idealism, on the other. In the end, it may be that Kant’s openness to the other, however sincere, remains transitory at best. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss Kant’s views on the “American race.” Robert Bernasconi has pointed out that more research on the sources of Kant’s ideas on non-white races is needed in order to have a better understanding of his racism. This essay responds to that call in order to show how Kant contributed to on-going discussions on the causes and meaning of human differences. However, I will also focus on his influence on his contemporaries. The reason for doing so is (...) two-fold. Firstly, I will question Irene Tucker’s recent attempt to show that skin color was considered a racial sign because of its supposed self-evidence and immediate legibility. By way of a presentation of Kant’s views on the “American race,” I will show that race mixing formed the core of Kant’s racial theory and not the alleged immediacy of racial sight. Secondly, I will focus on his influence in order to question the popular idea that Kant had in his late work developed second thoughts on his racial hierarchy. His appraisal of the work of one of his contemporaries clearly shows that the matter is far more complicated than suggested in these interpretations of Kant’s racial work. (shrink)

Many hold that theoretical reasoning aims at truth. In this paper, I ask what it is for reasoning to be thus aim-directed. Standard answers to this question explain reasoning’s aim-directedness in terms of intentions, dispositions, or rule-following. I argue that, while these views contain important insights, they are not satisfactory. As an alternative, I introduce and defend a novel account: reasoning aims at truth in virtue of being the exercise of a distinctive kind of cognitive power, one that, unlike ordinary (...) dispositions, is capable of fully explaining its own exercises. I argue that this account is able to avoid the difficulties plaguing standard accounts of the relevant sort of mental teleology. (shrink)

There is a familiar problem in moral theories that recognize positive obligations to help others related to the practical room these obligations leave for ordinary life, and the risk that open-ended obligations to help others will consume our lives and resources. Responding to this problem, Kantians have tended to emphasize the idea of limits on positive obligations but are typically unsatisfactorily vague about the nature and extent of these limits. I argue here that aspects of Kant’s discussion of duties of (...) virtue owed to ourselves suggest a useful metric we can use in discussing these limits and that generalizing this account and combining it with elements of Barbara Herman’s view, offers us an attractive model of moral deliberation with the resources we need to engage the critic’s challenge properly. (shrink)

Henri Bergson is one of the few philosophers who both explicitly and extensively discusses the phenomenon of habit. In view of his engagement with habit, does Bergson develop a philosophically robust account of the phenomenon? Most commentary on his account of habit refers to his early work, Matter and Memory. In this paper, I begin by arguing that Bergson's treatment of habit in Matter and Memory is problematic because it does not adequately differentiate between habit and material nature. Despite its (...) neglect in secondary literature, Bergson also discusses habit in the first part of his final book, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. With respect to this book, I subsequently show how Bergson deploys Ravaisson's distinction between instinct and habit to reconceptualize habit as the second of our two natures, our social nature. Lastly, I reconstruct Bergson's late contribution to the philosophy of habit: rather than a tendency that is hard to resist, habit is a resistance to which we tend to submit. By shedding light on the effort that we expend to adhere to them, Bergson's resistance account of habit advances an original and productive perspective on our social habits. (shrink)

1. Kantian moral theories have been criticized for their inability to make sense of the phenomenology and propriety of regret in the face of difficult moral choices. As Bernard Williams puts it, re...

According to Friedrich Schlegel: “The Romantic imperative demands [that] all nature and science should become art [and] art should become nature and science”; “[P]oetry and philosophy should be made unified”, and “life and society [should be made] poetic”. The aim of this paper is to explain why Schlegel believes that this is an imperative that constrains philosophy and ordinary life. I argue that the answer to this question requires that we regard the Romantic imperative as a response to the skeptical (...) worry that was introduced by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi as nihilism. The aspect of nihilism that I discuss concerns the worry that we are incapable of experiencing individuals qua individuals. According to Schlegel, this skeptical threat requires a reorientation in thought and philosophical method, one that must be modeled on the aesthetic orientation towards the world. More precisely, the experience of individuals qua individuals, which is called into question by the nihilist, depends on the special normative structure of the creative and critical attitude towards art and beauty that Schlegel called Romantic Poesie. Kant failed to address nihilism because he failed to recognize that the normative structure that he himself ascribed to the judgment of taste is required also for experiencing individuals as individuals, and for being properly responsive to persons. (shrink)

This paper examines an issue of recent Kant scholarship on education: the supposed disconnect between his theory of morals and his theory of character. While the debate is often couched in terms of Kant’s ‘phenomenal–noumenal’ distinction, or the distinction between moral theory and culture, I follow scholarship suggesting the best way to understand Kant’s distinction is by following his account of the ‘conduct of thought.’ Doing so demonstrates the Lectures on Logic and particularly, his account of prejudice, as playing a (...) large role in the articulation of what it is to think subjectively. We also see the importance of conducting our thinking from the subjective standpoint to an objective (moral) one in order to fulfill our obligations to both think and act morally. (shrink)

Argues for a form of humanism on which we have reason to care about human beings that we do not have to care about other animals and human beings have rights against us other animals lack. Humanism respects the equal worth of those born with severe congenital cognitive disabilities. I address the charge of 'speciesism' and explain how being human is an ethically relevant fact.

We often come to value someone or something through experience of that person or thing. You may thereby come to embrace a value that you did not grasp prior to the experience in question. Moreover, it seems that in a large and important subset of cases you could not have fully appreciated that value merely by considering a report of the reasons or arguments that purport to establish that it is valuable. Despite its ubiquity, this phenomenon goes missing in a (...) great deal of contemporary work in ethics and political philosophy. In this paper I further specify the phenomenon of interest by developing a series of examples. Then I support the claim that philosophers routinely overlook it by surveying several significant philosophical positions that do so. (shrink)

In his critical and his later work, Kant recommends apathy to the moral agent faced with pathological phenomena. Notoriously, Kant even rejects compassion (Mitleiden) as pathological. A deconstruction of Kant's 'apathology', i.e. of his systematic treatment of compassion, reveals disgust as quasi-transcendental affect at the roots of the moral agent's apathy.

Is the sense of smell a source of aesthetic perception? Traditional philosophical aesthetics has centered on vision and audition but eliminated smell for its subjective and inherently affective character. This article dismantles the myth that olfaction is an unsophisticated sense. It makes a case for olfactory aesthetics by integrating recent insights in neuroscience with traditional expertise about flavor and fragrance assessment in perfumery and wine tasting. My analysis concerns the importance of observational refinement in aesthetic experience. I argue that the (...) active engagement with stimulus features in perceptual processing shapes the phenomenological content, so much so that the perceptual structure of trained smelling varies significantly from naive smelling. In a second step, I interpret the processes that determine such perceptual refinement in the context of neural decision-making processes, and I end with a positive outlook on how research in neuroscience can be used to benefit philosophical aesthetics. (shrink)

In his influential work on Kant and history, Yirmiyahu Yovel identifies a problem which he terms ‘the historical antinomy.’ The problem states that no possible mediation can take place between the atemporal realm of pure reason and the empirical realm of human history. In this paper, I aim to bridge this gap based on a two-aspect reading of the faculty of reason, and then proceed to show reason’s ability to apply transcendental ideas on empirical history for the sake of grasping (...) a rational idea of history in a single, mediated process. (shrink)

Anthropology was a new field of study when Kant first began lecturing on it in 1772, and Kant himself was the first academic to teach regular courses in this area. As is well known, his own approach to anthropology is self-described as ‘pragmatic’, and Kant’s pragmatic anthropology differs markedly from the anthropologies that other early contributors to the new discipline were advocating. In this essay I focus on a fundamental feature of Kant’s anthropology that has been under-appreciated in previous discussions; (...) namely, the particular conception of human nature that he believes anthropology, when pursued properly, leads to. I call this conception a cosmopolitan conception of human nature. In addition to establishing the central importance of this idea for Kant’s project in anthropology, I also try in this essay to unravel some of its ambiguities and tensions as well as to highlight its underlying moral motives. The cosmopolitan conception of human nature that is central to Kant’s anthropology is a further indication of the significance of his anthropology for ethics.Keywords: Immanuel; Kant; Anthropology; Pragmatic; Cosmopolitan; Human nature. (shrink)

This essay accounts for the notion of _Lebensform_ by assigning it a _logical _role in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Wittgenstein’s additions of the notion to his manuscripts of the _PI_ occurred during the initial drafting of the book 1936-7, after he abandoned his effort to revise _The Brown Book_. It is argued that this constituted a substantive step forward in his attitude toward the notion of simplicity as it figures within the notion of logical analysis. Next, a reconstruction of his later (...) remarks on _Lebensformen_ is offered which factors in his reading of Alan Turing’s “On computable numbers, with an application to the _Entscheidungsproblem_“, as well as his discussions with Turing 1937-1939. An interpretation of the five occurrences of _Lebensform_ in the PI is then given in terms of a logical “regression” to _Lebensform_ as a fundamental notion. This regression characterizes Wittgenstein’s mature answer to the question, “What is the nature of the logical?”. (shrink)

This philosophical anthropology tries to explore the basic categories of man’s being in the worlds using a special quantum meta-ontology that is introduced in the book. Quantum understanding of space and time, consciousness, or empirical/nonempirical reality elicits new questions relating to philosophical concerns such as subjectivity, free will, mind, perception, experience, dialectic, or agency. The authors have developed an inspiring theoretical framework transcending the boundaries of particular disciplines, e.g. quantum philosophy, metaphysics of consciousness, philosophy of mind, phenomenology of space and (...) time, and ontological relativity. (shrink)

Kant's conception of women is complex. Although he struggles to bring his considered view of women into focus, a sympathetic reading shows it not to be anti-feminist and to contain important arguments regarding human nature. Kant believes the traditional male-female distinction is unlikely to disappear, but he never proposes the traditional gender ideal as the moral ideal; he rejects the idea that such considerations of philosophical anthropology can set the framework for morality. This is also why his moral works clarifies (...) that all citizens, including women have the right, and should be encouraged to strive towards an active condition. (shrink)

Ever since Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense, the transcendental apperception device has become a theoretical reference point to shed light on the criterionless selfascription form of mental states, reformulating a contemporary theoretical place tackled for the first time in explicit terms by Wittgenstein’s Blue Book. By investigating thoroughly some elements of the critical system the issue of the identification of the transcendental subject with reference to the I think will be singled out. In this respect, the debate presents at least (...) two diametrically opposed attitudes: the first – exemplified in the works by Hacker, Becker, Sturma and McDowell – considers the features of the I think according to Wittgenstein’s approach to the I as subject while the second, exemplified by Kitcher and Carl, criticizes the various commentators who turn to Wittgenstein in order to interpret Kant’s I think. The hypothesis that I will attempt at articulating in this paper starts off not only from the transcendental apperception form, but also from the characterizations of empirical apperception. It may be assumed that Kant’s reflection on the problem of self-identification lies right here, truly prefiguring some features of Wittgenstein’s uses of I, albeit from different metaphysical assumptions and philosophical horizons. (shrink)

Kant’s most canonical argument against suicide, the universal law argument, is widely dismissed. This paper attempts to save it, showing that a suicide maxim, universalized, undermines all bases for practical law, resisting both the non-negotiable value of free rational willing and the ordinary array of sensuous commitments that inform prudential incentives. Suicide therefore undermines moral law governed community as a whole, threatening ‘savage disorder’. In pursuing this argument, I propose a non-teleological and non-theoretical nature – a ‘practical nature’ or moral (...) law governed whole – the realization of which morality demands. (shrink)

A “no ethics” principle has long been prevalent in science and has demotivated deliberation on scientific ethics. This paper argues the following: An understanding of a scientific “ethos” based on actual “value preferences” and “value repugnances” prevalent in the scientific community permits and demands critical accounts of the “no ethics” principle in science. The roots of this principle may be traced to a repugnance of human dignity, which was instilled at a historical breaking point in the interrelation between science and (...) ethics. This breaking point involved granting science the exclusive mandate to pass judgment on the life worth living. By contrast, respect for human dignity, in its Kantian definition as “the absolute inner worth of being human,” should be adopted as the basis to ground science ethics. The pathway from this foundation to the articulation of an ethical duty specific to scientific practice, i.e., respect for objective truth, is charted by Karl Popper’s discussion of the ethical principles that form the basis of science. This also permits an integrated account of the “external” and “internal” ethical problems in science. Principles of the respect for human dignity and the respect for objective truth are also safeguards of epistemic integrity. Plain defiance of human dignity by genetic determinism has compromised integrity of claims to knowledge in behavioral genetics and other behavioral sciences. Disregard of the ethical principles that form the basis of science threatens epistemic integrity. (shrink)