Kant scholars have rarely addressed the centuries-old tradition of casuistry and the concept of conscience in Kant’s writings. This book offers a detailed exploration of the period from Pascal’s Provincial Letters to Kant’s critique of probabilism and discusses his proposal of a (new) casuistry as part of an moral education. / Trotz der Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kantforschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in (...) ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Eingehend untersucht wird in diesem Buch insbesondere der Zeitabschnitt von Pascals »Briefen in die Provinz« bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer (neuen) Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre. (shrink)

This article aims to highlight the extent to which Kant’s account of belief draws on the views of his contemporaries. Situating the non-evidentialist features of Crusius’s account of belief within his broader account, I argue that they include antecedents to both Kant’s distinction between pragmatic and moral belief and his conception of a postulate of pure practical reason. While moving us closer to Kant’s arguments for the first postulate, however, both Crusius’s and Meier’s arguments for the immortality of the soul (...) fail to anticipate the most important aspect of their Kantian counterparts. Developing the non-evidentialist features of Basedow’s account of belief, I distinguish it from its Pascalian and Jamesian relatives and argue that it is the clearest antecedent to Kant’s arguments for the first and second postulates. Finally, I consider the development of Kant’s account of belief after the first Critique in light of the foregoing, and discuss the broader implications of my analysis. (shrink)

Kant’s account of practical justification for belief has attracted much attention in the literature, especially in recent years. In this context, scholars have generally emphasized the originality of Kant’s thought about belief (Glaube), and Kant indeed offers a definition of belief that is very different from views that were prevalent in eighteenth-century Germany. In this article, however, I argue that it is very likely that Christian August Crusius exerted influence on Kant’s definition of belief and his account of practical justification. (...) In turn, acknowledging this influence has relevant consequences for how we understand the phenomenology of Kantian belief. (shrink)

An essay on Kant's theory of justification, where by “justification” is meant the evaluative concept that specifies conditions under which a propositional attitude is rationally acceptable with a moderate-to-high degree of confidence. Kant employs both epistemic and non-epistemic concepts of justification: an epistemic concept of justification sets out conditions under which a propositional attitude is rationally acceptable with a moderate-to-high degree of confidence and a candidate (if true and Gettier-immune) for knowledge. A non-epistemic concept of justification, by contrast, sets out (...) conditions under which attitudes are rationally acceptable with a moderate-to-high degree of confidence but not candidates for knowledge (even if true). The latter conditions will typically be “pragmatic” or “practical,” and thus license acceptance from a “practical” point of view. For Kant, only broadly-speaking practical reasons can provide adequate motivation for adopting a positive attitude towards a proposition (rather than suspending judgment) in the absence of sufficient epistemic grounds. -/- . (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Jahrgang: 101 Heft: 1 Seiten: 92-134.

Kant’s revolutionary new approach to philosophy was accompanied by the introduction of a largely novel terminology. With the Kant-Lexikon, a lexical reference gives the modern reader access to his work on the basis of present-day editions and takes into account 20th century and contemporary research and advances in lexicology. The Kant-Lexikon includes 2395 entries authored by 221 scholars.

Most work in Kant’s epistemology focuses on what happens “upstream” from experience, prior to the formation of conscious propositional attitudes. By contrast, this essay focuses on what happens "downstream": the formation of assent (Fuerwahrhalten) in its various modes. The mode of assent that Kant calls "Belief" (Glaube) is the main topic: not only moral Belief but also "pragmatic" and "doctrinal" Belief as well. I argue that Kant’s discussion shows that we should reject standard accounts of the extent to which theoretical (...) reason can provide justified assent about things-in-themselves, in favor of one that is much more liberal. Interpretive benefits are not the only results of the discussion, however. I also hope it will become clear along the way that there is such a thing as Kantian Belief, and that we often have quite a lot of it. -/- . (shrink)

This paper offers an account of the historical development of Kant's understanding of belief ( Glaube ) from its early ties to George Friedrich Meier's Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre through various stages of refinement. It will be argued that the Critique of Pure Reason reflects an important but not final stage in Kant's understanding of belief. Its structure is further refined and its scope narrowed in later works, including the Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment . After charting (...) these stages, an analysis of how belief relates to the Fact of Reason will be presented. (shrink)

The chapter first discusses the general meaning of a 'doctrine of method' in Kant’s work, as well as the specific goals of the Doctrine of Method of the second Critique. The central section, then, focuses on the notion of 'receptivity to morality', which here has a central role and a quite distinct meaning. I argue that Kant’s main point in his account of how to 'make objective practical reason subjectively practical' (5:151) is that one ought to lead the individual agent (...) to become aware of his own dignity as a moral being. In Kant’s view, recognition of this point is relevant to the overall aim of the second Critique – to show that pure reason is practical – and of moral theory itself. The task of the Doctrine of Method is to show how it is possible to make agents aware of their basic moral capacities, and through that awareness to instil genuine moral dispositions. Accordingly, the Doctrine of Method is the completion of the Critique, confirming the conclusions of the Analytic through the common use of pure practical reason and connecting them with the experience of every moral agent. (shrink)

Kant identifies knowledge [Wissen], belief [Glaube], and opinion [Meinung] as our three primary modes of “holding-to-be-true” [Fürwahrhalten]. He also identifies opinion as making up the greatest part of our cognition. After a preliminary sketch of Kant’s system of propositional attitudes, this paper will explore what he says about the norms governing opinion and empirical hypotheses. The final section will turn to what, in the Critique of Pure Reason and elsewhere, Kant refers to as “General Applied Logic”. It concerns the “contingent (...) conditions of the subject, which can hinder or promote” good inquiry; and, though rarely mentioned in the secondary literature, it offers Kant’s methodological alternative to the traditional epistemological goal of finding “a sufficient and at the same time general criterion of truth”. (shrink)

Trotz der Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kantforschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Eingehend untersucht wird in diesem Buch insbesondere der Zeitabschnitt von Pascals "Briefen in die Provinz" bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre.