IntroductionIn November of 1785, Kant published a highly unsympathetic review of the second part of Johann Gottfried Herder's Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. Herder had once been Kant's pupil, and had greatly admired his teacher, but the content of this review shows how profound the philosophical differences between them had by then become. A central area of dispute emerging from the review concerns the nature of happiness, and its place within the ‘destiny’ or ‘vocation’ of the (...) human race. Kant is responding, in particular, to a section of the Ideas entitled: ‘The happiness of human beings is everywhere an individual good; consequently, it is everywhere climatic and organic, a child of practice, tradition, and custom.’ Although Kant is not mentioned by name in this section, it clearly contains critical rejoinders, often quite harsh in tone, to aspects of his practical philosophy and philosophy of history, as Herder understands them. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to examine the possible relationships between the different dimensions of aesthetics on the one hand, and medical practice and medical ethics on the other hand. Firstly, I consider whether the aesthetic perception of the human body is relevant for medical practice. Secondly, a possible analogy between the artistic process and medical action is examined. The third section concerns the comparison between medical ethical judgements and aesthetic judgement of taste. It is concluded that the mutual (...) relevance between the aesthetic sphere, moral judgement and medical practice can be understood only if we recognize these spheres as distinct. (shrink)

Shows the relevance of Schiller’s thought for contemporary philosophy, particularly aesthetics, ethics, and politics. This book seeks to draw attention to Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) as a philosophical thinker in his own right. For too long, his philosophical contribution has been neglected in favor of his much-deserved reputation as a political playwright. The essays in this collection make two arguments. First, Schiller presents a robust philosophical program that can be favorably compared to those of his age, including Rousseau, Kant, Schelling, and (...) Hegel, and he proves to be their equal in his thinking on morality, aesthetics, and politics. Second, Schiller can also guide us in our more contemporary philosophical concerns and approaches, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, aesthetics, and politics. Here, Schiller instructs us in our engagement with figures such as Walter Benjamin, Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Roberto Esposito, and others. María del Rosario Acosta López is Associate Professor of Philosophy at DePaul University. She has published several books, including La tragedia como conjuro: el problema de lo sublime en Friedrich Schiller. Jeffrey L. Powell is Professor of Philosophy at Marshall University and the editor of Heidegger and Language. (shrink)

The paper examines Schiller’s argument concerning the subjective experience of adopting a morality based on Kantian principles. On Schiller’s view, such experience must be marked by a continuous struggle to suppress nature, because the moral law is a purely rational and categorically commanding law that addresses beings who are natural as well as rational. Essential for Schiller’s conclusion is the account he has of what it takes to follow the law, that is, the mental states and functions that encapsulate the (...) idea of moral self contained in Kant’s ethics. Focusing on the fundamental psychological elements and processes to which Kant’s theory appeals and on which it depends to have application, the paper defends an alternative idea of moral self to the one Schiller attributes to Kant. (shrink)

This introduction briefly lays out the basics of Kant’s concept, transcendental freedom, and some of its discontents. It also provides an overview of the dossier itself, introducing Katerina Deligiorgi’s discussion of ought-implies-can, Patrick Frierson’s account of degrees of responsibility, and Jeanine Grenberg’s treatment of the third-person.

In his early writings, Kant says that the solution to the puzzle of how morality can serve as a motivating force in human life is nothing less than the “philosophers’ stone.” In this dissertation I show that for years Kant searched for the philosophers’ stone in the concept of “respect” (Achtung), which he understood as the complex effect practical reason has on feeling. -/- I sketch the history of that search in Chapters 1-2. In Chapter 3 I show that Kant’s (...) analysis in Groundwork I is incomplete because it does not explain how respect functions as a feeling in motivating choice. In Chapter 4 I argue that Kant’s subsequent attempt to sidestep this explanation in Groundwork III is unsuccessful, and that his position remains open to a skeptical threat. The argument in the second Critique, which I reconstruct in Chapters 5-6, overcomes this threat, and in doing so explains how the feeling of respect is both painful and pleasurable. -/- In the course of defending these claims, I provide an alternative reading of the shift in Kant’s ethical project from the Groundwork of 1785 to the second Critique of 1788 Against a common view in the literature, I argue that the shift does not concern the direction of Kant’s deduction (from freedom to morality, or morality to freedom); rather, it concerns his view of human sensibility and the resources he thinks we have to make our practical self-understanding intelligible. In the second Critique, I argue, Kant develops a novel approach to moral feeling from the perspective of the human agent; and this in turn clears room in his ethics for a new kind of a priori knowledge—namely, knowledge of what the activity of practical reason must feel like. By way of conclusion, I offer a few reasons for why the form of Kant’s argument in the second Critique is still relevant today, as it shows why we can only address moral skepticism from a first-personal perspective. (shrink)