Explores the relationship between technics and humanity, tracing the emergence of a bio-technical conception of existence in contemporary continental philosophy.

An enduring source of skepticism towards Kant’s practical philosophy is his deep conviction that morality must be understood in terms of universality. Whether we look to Kant’s fundamental moral principle (the Categorical Imperative) or to his fundamental principle of right (the Universal Principle of Right), universality lies at the core of the analyses. A central worry of his critics is that by making universality the bedrock of morality in these ways, Kant fails to appreciate the importance of difference in individual (...) lives, societies, and legal-political institutions when these are realized well. Below I argue that Kant’s philosophy neither advocates moralized hyper-reflective, alienating ways of being nor seeks to justify Kant’s own and others’ prejudices in the name of morality’s universality. To see this, we need to understand both Kant’s account of human nature – of the predisposition to good and the propensity to evil – and how Kant’s theory of freedom sets the moral framework within which important non-moralizable concerns of human nature are accommodated. We can then appreciate the ways in which Kant sees both unreflective and reflective normative elements as working together as an integrated whole in emotionally healthy, morally good human beings, historical cultures, and legal-political institutional systems. (shrink)

Kant begins his Lectures on Pedagogy by stating, “[t]he human being is the only creature that must be educated” (Kant, 2007, 9:441), and he argues that it is through education that we can transform our initial “animal nature into human nature” (ibid. 2007, 9:441). Kant understands education as involving an ordered process of care, discipline, instruction and formation through enculturating, civilizing and moralizing (Formosa 2011). Further, Kant envisages that we should pursue as a species the “moral perfection” that is the (...) “final destiny of the human race” through education (Collins, 1997, 27:470; see Dean, 2014). However, to engage in this pursuit Kant believes that, through education and social change, we have to regulate our “animal nature” and counter the moral corruption of our species, which he calls the “radical innate evil in human nature (not any the less brought upon us by ourselves)” (Kant, 1998, 6:32). If humanity is to pursue its final destiny of moral perfection, then education will need to respond responsibly to the propensity to evil that is deeply rooted in us as finite and imperfect rational beings living in imperfect and at times even in morally corrupted social conditions. This paper outlines some of the relevant issues. (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)

In this paper, I give a Kantian answer to the question whether and why it would be inappropriate to blame people suffering from mental disorders that fall within the schizophrenia spectrum. I answer this question by reconstructing Kant’s account of mental disorder, in particular his explanation of psychotic symptoms. Kant explains these symptoms in terms of various types of cognitive impairment. I show that this explanation is plausible and discuss Kant’s claim that the unifying feature of the symptoms is the (...) patient’s inability to enter into an exchange of reasons with others. After developing a Kantian Quality of Will Thesis, I analyze some real life cases. Firstly, I argue that delusional patients who are unable to enter into an exchange of epistemic reasons are exempted from doxastic rather than moral responsibility. They are part of the moral community and exonerated from moral blame only if their actions do not express a lack of good will. Secondly, I argue that disorganized patients who are unable to form intentions and to make plans are exempted from moral responsibility because they do not satisfy the conditions for agency. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo consiste em analisar, a partir dos parágrafos 34 a 38 da obra Kant e o problema da metafísica e segundo a exegese heideggeriana, o sentido e pertinência da inserção da problemática antropológica anteposta às três questões fundamentais expostas na Crítica da razão pura. Heidegger converte um rol exaustivo, delimitado pelas três perguntas, em um rol exemplificado, ao colocar a indagação da antropologia filosófica como pressuposto e consequência necessária das três interrogações kantianas. Heidegger recorre ao conceito de (...) finitude, para validar a importância e para fundamentar a primazia da questão antropológica sobre as demais: a interrogação “que é o homem” transforma-se na primeira que dispensa, a partir de si, as três restantes. Na finitude estão circunscritas as discussões sobre o tempo, a autoafecção pura, a imaginação e o tempo originário. É na finitude que estão os verdadeiros sinais ou ecos da antropologia filosófica kantiana. (shrink)

En la presente investigación propongo el concepto de prudencia epistémica. La prudencia epistémica es la habilidad social para influir en los demás para fines socio-cognitivos. Como habilidad pragmática, la prudencia epistémica consiste no sólo en una descripción de los orígenes empíricos del error, sino en la habilidad social para evitar el error y otros males cognitivos frutos del egoísmo lógico y otros vicios epistémicos.

Realism has been a central object of attention among analytical philosophers for some decades. Starting from analytical philosophy, the return of realism has spread into other contemporary philosophical traditions and given birth to new trends in current discussions, as for example in the debates about “new realism.” Discussions about realism focused on linguistic meaning, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of action and ethics. The implications for politics of discussion about realism in action theory and in ethics, however, are not much discussed.

This paper explores the implications of Manfred Kuehn’s observation that Kant’s claim in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason that the ethical community must be a community under God seems “a bit strained.” After clarifying Kant’s train of thought that results in his conception of the ethical community in the form of the “visible church,” the paper argues that the seemingly strong religious dimension may be misleading. If we understand the ethical community to be the development of the kingdom (...) of ends in the Groundwork, it becomes apparent that Kant’s notion of God’s “sovereignty” over the ethical community is a shared sovereignty lodged in rationality and not in God’s own will. The “strain” that Kuehn senses thus suggests the potentially gratuitous nature of Kant’s references to God’s sovereignty over the ethical community. Despite the initial appearances, Kant’s account of the ethical community in the form of the visible church is, over the long term, closer to a secularizing move than to a robustly religious one. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to analyse the influence of Johann Bernhard Basedow and Rousseau on Kant’s cosmopolitanism and concept of cosmopolitan education. It argues that both Basedow and Kant defined cosmopolitan education as non-denominational moral formation or Bildung, encompassing—in different forms—a thin version of moral religion following the core tenets of Christianity. Kant’s encounter with Basedow and the Philanthropinum in Dessau helps to understand the development of Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism and educational theory ‘in weltbürgerlicher Absicht’. Rousseau’s role (...) is more complex: he clearly influenced Kant; he is usually considered a precursor of modern nationalism and national education; and recent studies have stressed the cosmopolitan dimension of his educational programme. I claim that the dilemma of education according to Rousseau is that one has to choose between education of homme or education of citoyen, and that there is no way to avoid or go beyond this stark alternative. Kant’s reinterpretation of Rousseau is favourable and creative and has found many followers up to the present, but is misleading, as he ignores the dilemma and imposes his own conception of cosmopolitanism, of cosmopolitan education and of (possible) progress in history on Rousseau while claiming that this was actually Rousseau’s message. (shrink)

In this essay I offer a new interpretation of Kant’s discussion of “the old formula of the schools” in the Critique of Practical Reason – “nihil appetimus, nisi sub ratione boni; nihil aversamur, n...

In this essay, I try to make sense out of Kant’s unusual concept of grace, particularly as regards its uneasy relationship to education within the context of the effort to overcome evil. Th...

In this essay, I try to make sense out of Kant’s unusual concept of grace, particularly as regards its uneasy relationship to education within the context of the effort to overcome evil. Th...

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)

Calling Kant a liberal philosopher requires important qualifications. Much like his theoretical philosophy, his political transcendentalism was and remains a great enterprise of navigating between the extremes of liberalism and conservatism, of balancing the “empirical” and the “pure” in human society, as well as in human mind. Of all the attempts to enlist Kant among the classics of liberalism, John Rawls’ is the most impressive and thorough. However, it is hardly a success. The reason for this lies in a profound (...) difference in their answering the fundamental question “What is Man?”. This paper is an attempt to revise the debate about the extent of Rawls’ Kantianism and to compare the meanings of basic concepts of what could be called “pure political anthropology” in Kant and in Rawls. (shrink)

While the critically oriented writings of Immanuel Kant remain the key theoretical grounds from which universalists challenge reduction of international rights law and protection to the practical particularities of sovereign states, Kant’s theory can be read as also a crucial argument for a human rights regime ordered around sovereign states and citizens. Consequently, universalists may be tempted to push Kant’s thinking to greater critical examination of ‘the human’ and its properties. However, such a move to more theoretical rigour in critique (...) only solidifies the subversive statism of Kant’s apparent universalism, as long as it remains embedded in his prior theory of critical philosophy that privileges a singular form of reason. Universalist theories of human rights can break with this contradiction only insofar as they also displace the right to philosophy from the subject and site of ‘civil’ man to a politics of theory where no such subject or site is guaranteed. (shrink)

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, I shall expound the kantian concept of paradox and its three different senses, the anthropological, the rhetorical and the metaphysical. In the second part, I shall examine the presence of these senses of paradox in Kant’s texts about Enlightenment. The paradox of immaturity consists of the fact that we are responsible, as human beings, and non-responsible, as subjects of a State, of the exit from it. Another formulation of the same (...) paradox, but in dynamical and metaphysical terms, is that of heautocracy, the paradox of self-constraint, which implies that the subject is at the same time active and passive. Finally, the opposition between public and private use of reason also seems paradoxical, since private use seems to be a prejudiced use while public use seems to be free and reasonable as such. (shrink)

O presente artigo visa analisar os significados dos conceitos de conhecimento do mundo e de Cosmotheoros em Kant, a fim de defender a tese de que ambos indicam uma metodologia investigativa da natureza humana. Essa metodologia visa evidenciar que o ser humano é o único ser racional conhecido capaz de produzir o seu próprio caráter e uma visão própria do mundo. Isso é possível, uma vez que a natureza humana é pensada como o efeito dos fins que ele cria para (...) si mesmo a fim de se aperfeiçoar. Em outras palavras, a natureza humana é o efeito daquilo que o homem faz de si mesmo como um ser moral e habitante da terra. (shrink)