Mathematician and philosopher Hermann Weyl had our subject dead to rights.

This Volume contains seven works of Kant, newly translated and edited, with Introductions. What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? 1786 (Allen Wood) On the miscarriage of all philosophical trials in theodicy. 1791 (George di Giovanni Religion within the boundaries of mere reason. 1793 (George di Giovanni) The end of all things. 1794 (Allen Wood) The conflict of the faculties. 1798 (Mary J. Gregor & Robert Anchor) Preface to Reinhold Bernhard Jackmann's examination of the Kantian Philosophy of Religion. (...) 1800 (Allen W. Wood) Lectures on the philosophical doctrines of religion (1817) (Allen W. Wood -/- . (shrink)

: The question of Kant’s relation to Spinozist thought has been virtually ignored over the years. I analyze Kant’s pre-critical ‘possibility-proof’ of God’s existence, elaborated in the Beweisgrund, as well as the echoes that this proof has in the first Critique, in beginning to uncover the connection between Kant’s thought and Spinoza’s. Kant’s espousal of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR] for the analysis of modality during the pre-critical period committed him, I argue, to Spinozist substance monism. Much textual evidence (...) suggests that he was aware of this commitment. However, by transforming the PSR into a regulative principle the critical Kant has transformed his pre-critical proof into a regulative ideal. He is thereby committed, I argue, to regulative Spinozism. (shrink)

Kant's attack on metaphysics consists in large part in his attack on a principle that he names the Supreme Principle of Pure Reason. This principle, it is not often noticed, is the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR]. In interpreting this principle as such, I argue that Kant's attack on the PSR depends on Kant's claim that existence is not a first-order predicate. If existence isn't what Kant calls a real predicate, the PSR is false. While this constitutes a powerful Kantian (...) argument against dogmatic rationalism, it also poses a problem for Kant. For, as I argue, if the PSR is true, Kant's argument that existence isn't a first-order predicate is false. In this sense, Kant's attack on the PSR is begging the question vis-á-vis radical metaphysicians. Concluding the paper I suggest relying on Kant's 'is'/'ought' distinction in avoiding this circularity, thereby reinforcing the Kantian critique. (shrink)

Reason is precariously positioned in the Critique of Pure Reason. The Transcendental Analytic leaves no entry for reason in the cognitive process, and the Transcendental Dialectic restricts reason to noncognitive roles. Yet, in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant contends that the ideas of reason can be used in empirical investigation and eventually knowledge acquisition. Given what Kant has said, how is this possible? Kant attempts to answer this in A663–A666/B691–B694 in the Appendix, where he argues that principles of (...) reason “have objective but indeterminate validity.” In Part I of this paper, I explain the full motivation behind this section. In Part II, I provide an exegesis of it. In particular, to reach his conclusion that principles of reason have objective but indeterminate validity, I interpret Kant as making three arguments from analogy. Finally, in Part III, I show that the first and third arguments fail—and what this means for Kant’s project. (shrink)

My purposes in this paper are to explain the constitutive-regulative distinction as set out by Kant in the Dialectic and Methodology, and to note its reappearance in contemporary philosophy.