This interview with Professor Dr Jürgen Stolzenberg, board member of the Kant-Gesellschaft and co-editor of the Kant-Lexikon (2015), explores a wide range of topics — from Leibniz and Wolff to Heidegger and Husserl. The leading idea of Stolzenberg’s philosophical research is the justification of the principle of modern subjectivity in Kant’s philosophy and its transformations until our days. He discusses the meaning and development of the concept of self-consciousness and the understanding of subjectivity in Kant’s (...) ethics as well as in Fichte’s philosophy. Stolzenberg shows the significance of Heidegger’s philosophical relations with Kant, Fichte, and the Neo-Kantians. He outlines the reasons which explain the different structures of the philosophical theories after Kant in comparison with the structure of Kant’s philosophy itself. Answering the question of Kant’s role in affirming the value of human dignity, he emphasises the non-empirical essence of this concept as it is presented in Kant’s ethics and as it should be defended against recent critics. According to Stolzenberg, the principle of modern subjectivity proves to be fruitful in understanding the development of the history of modern music, too. (shrink)

Publications in the Kant-Studien have a dual focus: firstly contributions to the interpretation, history and editorial questions of Kant’s philosophy, and secondly systematic debates on transcendental philosophy. In addition, there are investigations on Kant’s precursors and on the effects of his philosophy. The journal also contains a documentation section, in which the current state of research is indicated by means of a continually updated bibliography with reviews and references.

Der Rezension versucht den Versuch des Autors zu bewerten, die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen gegenwärtigen philosophischen Systemdenkens aufzuzeigen. Dabei wird einerseits der Ansatz sowie die Auswahl der Schwerpunkte in die Kritik genommen, während andererseits eine Einordnung dessen erfolgt, was der Autor hätte untersuchen können, um seine vorgeschlagene Idee in die richtige Richtung zu lenken.

This study examines the place of the Philosophical Society of the University of Vienna (1888-1938) in the evolution of the history of philosophy in Austria up to the establishment of the Vienna Circle in 1929. I will examine three aspects of the relationship between the Austrian members of the Vienna Circle and the Philosophical Society which has been emphasized by several historians of the Vienna Circle: the first aspect concerns the theory of a first Vienna Circle formed mainly by H. (...) Hahn, P. Frank and O. Neurath; the second aspect is the contention that the missing link between the Vienna Circle and the Bolzano tradition in Austria is Alois Höfler, a student of Brentano and Meinong; I will finally examine the link they established between the annexation of the Philosophical Society to the Kant-Gesellschaft in 1927 and the founding of the Vienna Circle in 1929. I will argue that this institution played a key role in the history of philosophy in Austria and is partly responsible for the formation of the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

Book synopsis: Held every five years under the auspices of the Kant-Gesellschaft, the International Kant Congress is the world’s largest philosophy conference devoted to the work and legacy of a single thinker. The five-volume set Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense contains the proceedings of the Eleventh International Kant Congress, which took place in Pisa in 2010. The proceedings consist of 25 plenary talks and 341 papers selected by a team of international referees from (...) over 700 submissions. The contributions span 14 sections: Kant’s Concept of Philosophy; Theory of Cognition and Logic; Ontology and Metaphysics; Ethics; Law and Justice; Religion and Theology; Aesthetics; Anthropology and Psychology; Politics and History; Science, Mathematics, and the Philosophy of Nature; Kant and the Leibnizian Tradition; Kant and the Philosophical Tradition; Kant and Schopenhauer; and Kant’s Heritage. Thanks to cooperation from the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft, the 2010 conference was the first in the history of the International Kant Congress to include a session on Kant and Schopenhauer. (shrink)

Sektion Erkenntnistheorie, 29.09.2014, XXIII. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Philosophie 2014 in Münster. -/- The problem of synthetic judgments touches upon the question whether philosophy is in fact capable of making independent truth statements. According to Kant, synthetic judgments formulate the conditions for the possibility of objectively valid knowledge a priori. As far as empirical attempts at reinterpretation of the aprioristic fall short of this ambition, Kant’s a priori goes deeper. This is because modern science strives towards (...) objective knowledge, although its statements are fundamentally fallible. The topic of synthetic a priori thus continues to be relevant. -/- This paper will show that, in order to be viable at all, a modernized version of transcendental philosophy must ‘depart from’ the concepts of “independence from empirics” and/or the “purity” of the aprioristic. Kant’s reflections on non-pure synthetic a priori knowledge already contain attempts at this. Furthermore, the aprioristic validity of knowledge does not exclude the possibility, that it can be discovered empirically. Fries and, subsequently, Nelson proceeded with this separation (initially ascribed to Reichenbach) between the contexts of validity and discovery of knowledge, pointing out that the a priori can indeed be discovered empirically, yet never be proven. -/- Currently, there are still a number of valid reasons for arguing that concepts from transcendental philosophy continue to be of fundamental importance for the modern sciences. However, it must not be neglected that, even within a modernized framework of transcendental philosophy various unsolved problems remain and/or are created (such as the unfeasibility of the aprioristic claim to general validity and necessity, the problem of drawing a clear boundary between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds). Moreover, the “beautiful structure” of the Kantian system, which constitutes much of its persuasive strength, is lost. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger as Interrogator: The Final Paradigm By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright©2024 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2024. All Rights are reserved. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content and must include my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Enjoying reading and disagreeing. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Language: English and German. Includes bibliographical references and an index. Pages 1-316. Index total pages is 524. Ontology. (...) 2. Metaphysics. 3. Philosophy, German. 4. Thought and thinking. 5. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. 6. Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 1775-1854. 7. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. 10. Philosophy, Modern -- 20th century. 11. Philosophy, Modern -- 19th century. 12. Practice (Philosophy). 13. Philosophy and civilization. 14. Postmodernism. 15. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900. 16. Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976. 17. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel. Table of Contents Mottos Division I. Discussion of the title pages 2-6 Prologue pages 7-14 Heidegger, what do we know about him? page 15-22 Early Heidegger pages 23-41 What are the periods in Heidegger’s thought? pages 42-51 Preface and Setting the Stage pages 52-65 Introduction pages 66-82 Heidegger on Questioning pages 83-94 The Crisis or Krisis in philosophy? pages 95-106 Does Heidegger have a philosophy? pages 107-127 Heidegger about the Nature of Teaching pages 128-132 Heidegger against philosophy as a worldview or the standpoint of standpointlessness pages 133-137 Heidegger’s world-famous book Being and Time (Sein und Zeit, SuZ, 1927) pages 138-153 Heidegger’s second attempt Beiträge zur Philosophie (Vom Ereignis) (1936-1938) pages 154-162 Heidegger on the image of the Bridge pages 163-170 Conclusion pages 171-188 -/- Division II. Engagement with Heidegger on history of philosophy (metaphysics). Reinigung as cleaning, purifying pages 189-191 What is Heidegger’s Metahistory of philosophy? pages 192-243 Appendix A. Reconstruction of a partial letter from Martin Heidegger to Dieter Sinn. Dated. 24 August 1964. pages 244-248 Appendix B. Martin Heidegger's Dialogue and Critical Debate with Hegel. pages 249-253 Appendix C. Heidegger on Pain (Schmerz) pages 254-257 Appendix D. Update: 2023 Oct 24. Daniel Fidel Ferrer replies to Professor Thomas Sheehan (Sein question) pages 258-269 Appendix E. Five Habilitations done with Martin Heidegger. Habilitationsschrift pages 270-272 Heidegger Bibliography Individual Lectures Vortrag or Vorträge. Detailed pages 273-294 Heidegger‘s Gesamtausgabe (HGA or GA). Note GA 72 has yet to be published (2024). pages 295-299 Letters. Briefe. Briefwechsel. Not complete pages 300-303 Heidegger Studies / Heidegger Studien / Etudes Heideggeriennes (list of Heidegger texts) pages 304-305 Jahresgaben der Martin-Heidegger-Gesellschaft (from the internet) (list of Heidegger texts) pages 306-308 Additional References (bibliographies) pages 309-310 Heidegger Index Projects by Daniel Fidel Ferrer page 311 -/- Martin Heidegger Audio Recordings pages 312-313 -/- Additional acknowledgements pages 314-315 -/- Letter from Hermann Heidegger to Daniel Ferrer den 5.2.2002. In German. Hermann Heidegger’s response to the Barbara Fiand collection being in the USA. -/- One of the thesis: there is no Heidegger philosophy. Read more… -/- “What always counts in the lecture-courses is the manner of proceeding - the sequence of steps - not a claim to final truths. The lecture-courses never wrap up in a completeness and in seemingly "finishing off" the works interpreted, but rather in the inner fullness of the hidden dynamics of questioning.” GA 66. Besinnung (1938/39). GA 66: 421. (shrink)

In seiner ‘Existenzerhellung der Freiheit’ reflektiert Jaspers, das Problemfeld der Freiheit in einem Kontrast zu den Begriffen, Phänomenen und Bedingungen der Unfreiheit und der Grenzen der Freiheit. Dem Problemfeld der Freiheit kann man im Denken und Handeln nur dann gerecht werden, wenn man nicht nur zwischen den verschiedenen Begriffen und Phänomenen der Freiheit unterscheidet, sondern auch zwischen den verschiedenen Begriffen und Phänomenen von Grenzen der Freiheit, wie z.B. durch die allgemeine Naturgesetzlichkeit und die menschliche Natur, durch besondere Bedingungen in Natur, (...) Kultur und Gesellschaft, durch gesundheitliches Befinden und individuelle Persönlichkeit, durch situative Begrenzungen, normative Forderungen und konkrete Grenzsituationen, wie z.B. von Leiden, Kampf, Schuld, Wagnis und Tod zeigen. Jaspers hat sich zum Problemfeld der Freiheit sowohl in seiner Allgemeinen Psychopathologie, in seinen pathographischen Untersuchungen, in seiner Psychologie der Weltanschauung und in einigen seiner philosophischen Schriften geäußert. Im zweiten Band seines frühen Hauptwerkes Philosophie mit dem Titel Existenzerhellung hat er jedoch eine umfassende Abhandlung zu dem komplexen Problemfeld der Freiheit verfasst. Dort behandelt Jaspers fast alle wesentlichen Begriffe und Phänomene der Freiheit bis hin zu seiner Konzeption einer existenziellen Freiheit. Jaspers geht anfangs von einem unbestimmten Begriff der Freiheit aus, dem kein bestimmtes Phänomen entspricht und der deswegen nur Illusionen erzeugen und einem ideologischem Denken dienen kann. Dann aber unterscheidet Jaspers zwischen verschiedenen Begriffen und Phänomenen der Freiheit. Dabei scheint er nicht nur wie die meisten zeitgenössischen Philosophen an Locke und Hume, Kant und Brentano, Wilhelm von Humboldt und John Stuart Mill anzuknüpfen, sondern auch an die Konzeptionen des Selbstbewusstseins bei Hegel, Fichte und Schelling. Da sich Jaspers nicht zuletzt auch mit den Schriften von Kierkegaard und Nietzsche auseinandergesetzt hat, gelangt er zu einer besonders umfangreichen und differenzierten Diskussion des ganzen Problemfeldes der Freiheit in der Moderne. Jaspers hat jedoch nicht nur verschiedene Freiheitsbegriffe und -phänomene unterschieden, sondern er hat auch zu den überlieferten Denkweisen im Form einer existenzphilosophischen Erhellung der Freiheit Stellung genommen. Dabei hat Jaspers’ Stellungnahme anders als viele zeitgenössische Beiträge über Freiheit und Determinimus den deutlichen und bewahrenswerten Vorzug, dass sie die unverfügbare und irreduzible Subjektivität der Willensfreiheit anerkennt. Damit knüpft Jaspers an Kants Einsicht an, dass der Freiheit des menschlichen Willens und ihrer praktischen Wirksamkeit immer nur die subjektive Evidenz inneren Erlebens zukommen kann. Dies unterscheidet sie von der Wahl- und Handlungsfreiheit, die man auch in konkreten Handlungssituationen objektiv feststellen kann. Der Freiheit des menschlichen Willens kommt damit weder die Objektivität empirischer Erkenntnis noch metaphysische Notwendigkeit zu. Die subjektive Evidenz des Erlebens eines freien Willens spricht nach Jaspers jedoch auch gegen einen weltanschaulichen, methodischen oder metaphysischen Determinismus, der sie aufgrund seiner Annahme einer kausal geschlossenen Wirklichkeit leichtfertig für eine bloße Illusion hält. Eine deterministische Weltanschauung oder Philosophie kann der condition humaine zumindest dann nicht gerecht werden, wenn sie die evidente Subjektivität eines freien Willens nicht auf eine plausible Art und Weise integriert. Jaspers’ wird der potentiellen Freiheit des menschlichen Willens dadurch gerecht, dass er ihre unverfügbare und irreduzible Subjektivität versteht und akzeptiert und erst gar nicht den abwegigen Versuch macht, sie durch eine objektivierende Einstellung zu objektivieren, wissenschaftlich zu erklären oder gar zu beweisen. (shrink)

There are different narratives on mathematics as part of our world, some of which are more appropriate than others. Such narratives might be of the form ‘Mathematics is useful’, ‘Mathematics is beautiful’, or ‘Mathematicians aim at theorem-credit’. These narratives play a crucial role in mathematics education and in society as they are influencing people’s willingness to engage with the subject or the way they interpret mathematical results in relation to real-world questions; the latter yielding important normative considerations. Our strategy is (...) to frame current narratives of mathematics from a virtue-theoretic perspective. We identify the practice of mathematizing, put forward by Freudenthal’s ‘Realistic mathematics education’, as virtuous and use it to evaluate different narratives. We show that this can help to render the narratives more adequately, and to provide implications for societal organization. (shrink)

Translation from German to English by Daniel Fidel Ferrer -/- What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? -/- German title: "Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren?" -/- Published: October 1786, Königsberg in Prussia, Germany. By Immanuel Kant (Born in 1724 and died in 1804) -/- Translation into English by Daniel Fidel Ferrer (March, 17, 2014). The day of Holi in India in 2014. -/- From 1774 to about 1800, there were three intense philosophical and theological controversies underway (...) in Germany, namely: Fragments Controversy, the Pantheism Controversy, and the Atheism Controversy. Kant’s essay translated here is Kant’s respond to the Pantheism Controversy. During this period (1770-1800), there was the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Urge (stress)) movement with thinkers like Johann Hamann, Johann Herder, Friedrich Schiller, and Johann Goethe; who were against the cultural movement of the Enlightenment (Aufklärung). Kant was on the side of Enlightenment (see his Answer the Question: What is Enlightenment? 1784). -/- What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking? / By Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). [Was heißt: sich im Denken orientieren? English]. (shrink)

This paper analyses the hidden use of new axioms in set-theoretic practice with a focus on large cardinal axioms and presents a general overview of set-theoretic practices using large cardinal axioms. The hidden use of a new axiom provides extrinsic reasons in support of this axiom via the idea of verifiable consequences, which is especially relevant for set-theoretic practitioners with an absolutist view. Besides that, the hidden use has pragmatic significance for further important sub-groups of the set-theoretic community---set-theoretic practitioners with (...) a pluralist view and set-theoretic practitioners who aim for ZFC-proofs. By describing this, the paper gives a more complete picture of new axioms in set-theoretic practice. These observations, for instance, show that set-theoretic practitioners interested in ZFC-proofs use tools that go beyond ZFC. The analysis is based on empirical data that was collected in an extensive interview study with set-theoretic practitioners. (shrink)

Obwohl Jaspers in seiner Philosophie Methoden und Motive der Phänomenologie Husserls und der Hermeneutik Diltheys aufgenommen hatte, hat er sich nicht besonders für die Leibphilosophie interessiert. Das bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass der menschliche Leib in seinem Denken gar nicht vorkommt. Aber es handelt sich bei ihm jedoch nicht um ein Schlüsselthema, sondern um ein randständiges Phänomen. Der menschliche Leib ist bei Jaspers die vitale Basis der überlieferten Trias von Leib, Seele und Geist. Damit steht Jaspers in der klassischen Traditionslinie des (...) europäischen Denkens von Platon und Aristoteles bis zu Descartes und Kant. Anders als beim platonischen Sokrates gibt es bei Jaspers jedoch keine Herabsetzung des Körpers oder Abwertung des Leiblichen. Und anders als in der subversiven Tradition der empiristischen Skepsis gibt es bei ihm aber auch keine Vernachlässigung des Geistes. Im Vergleich des Menschen mit den Tieren ist der Geist nicht nur irgendein beliebiges, auf Sprache, Denken und Vernunft basierendes Merkmal, das den Menschen zufällig von den Tieren unterscheidet, sondern die wesentliche menschliche Eigenart, die es zu verstehen gilt, wenn man die spezifisch menschliche Art und Weise des Daseins in der Welt verstehen möchte, die Jaspers 'Existenz' nennt. Existenz zu verstehen ist die eigentliche Aufgabe der Philosophie, zumal die Wissenschaften dies nicht leisten können. (shrink)

In § 6 of his General Psychopathology (1st edition 1913) Jaspers distinguished between drives, wants and volitions as three different and irreducible kinds of motivational phenomena which are involved in human decision making and which may lead to successful actions. He has characterized the qualitative differences between volitions in comparison with basic vital drives and emotional wants such as being (a.) intentional, (b.) content-specific and (b.) directed towards concrete objects and actions as goals. Furthermore, Jaspers has presented and discussed three (...) kinds of pathological problems about motivation and willing. (1.) The first kind is impulsive action or impulsive behaviour, as e.g. in psychoses or personality disorders, which he compares with instinctive action which are both without any previous hesitation, deliberation and reflection of any presumable consequences, but still very different with respect to their motivational content. (2.) The second kind of pathological problems about motivation and willing are the inhibitions of the will and Jaspers is discussing two major kinds of them: (a.) the energetic or motivational inhibition of the will which is an inability of willing due to the mere lack of any drives and motives, as in the case of any severe and pathological depression; (b.) the cognitive inhibition of the will which is due to the pathological inability to be aware of and understand properly the complexity and difficulty of real life situations in order to solve some given tasks by appropriate decision making, as e.g. in some cases of schizophrenia. (3.) The third kind is a pathological weakness of the will which is extraordinary and not familiar to normal human adults. This pathological kind of weakness of the will consist in the complete causal ineffectiveness of the subjectively felt impulse of willing which is not leading to any inward and outward observable action, such as e.g. as a movement of the limbs or some verbal utterance. This pathological weakness of the will is a complete ineffectiveness of the volitional impulse and therefore different from what philosophers discuss under the heading of weakness of the will which presuppose some evaluation of the intended resp. realized action as ethically, morally or religiously right or wrong. Finally, there are three kinds of normal or non-pathological weakness of the will, as discussed by philosophers: (A.) ethical weakness of the will as in Aristotle’s disagreement about akrasia with the Platonic Socrates; (B) moral weakness of the will as in Kant’s analysis of the absence or failure of any specific moral reasoning by pure practical reason as opposed to mere strategic and pragmatic reason or as the occurrence of a self-deceptive “dialectics of the exception“; (C.) religious weakness of the will as in Pauls personal insight about the incoherence between his high spiritual aspirations and his factual ethical achievements. (shrink)

English translation of Kant's Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (Königsberg in Prussia, 30 September 1784).

There can sometimes be weariness surrounding coordinated efforts to induce inclusion. Detractors of certain such efforts may cite coercion or a loss of autonomy as a concern. In their book Nudge, Thaler and Sunstein presented the idea of the “nudge.” Nudges change the context in which a decision is made to increase the likelihood that a certain choice is made by the decision maker. However, nudges are designed to be easy to avoid. Thaler and Sunstein laid out criteria such that (...) nudges can remain ethical. In this paper, I show that certain nudges that greatly increased inclusion in their respective communities do follow these criteria. In fact, subjected even to the relatively tighter constraints imposed by a prominent critic of Thaler and Sunstein’s philosophy, Wilkinson, these nudges remain unscathed. Thus, inclusion-promoting nudges are not necessarily unethical from the standpoint of manipulation or autonomy. (shrink)

Penelope Maddy’s Second Philosophy is one of the most well-known ap- proaches in recent philosophy of mathematics. She applies her second-philosophical method to analyze mathematical methodology by reconstructing historical cases in a setting of means-ends relations. However, outside of Maddy’s own work, this kind of methodological analysis has not yet been extensively used and analyzed. In the present work, we will make a first step in this direction. We develop a general framework that allows us to clarify the procedure and (...) aims of the Second Philosopher’s investigation into set-theoretic methodology; pro- vides a platform to analyze the Second Philosopher’s methods themselves; and can be applied to further questions in the philosophy of set theory. (shrink)

I argue that Kant has developed a broad systematic account of the architectonic functionality of pure reason that can be used and advanced in contemporary contexts. Reason, in the narrow sense, is responsible for the picture of a well-ordered universe of science consisting of architectonic ideas of science, sciences and parts of sciences. In the first section (I), I show what Kant means by the architectonic ideas by explaining and interrelating the concepts of (a) the faculty of reason, (...) (b) ideas (as principles), (c) method, and (d) sciences of reason. Thereafter (II), I think through his holistic understanding of science and scientific progress and suggest differentiating between four levels of use of architectonic ideas, drawing on the metaphor of a well-structured universe as imagined by Kant in his work on the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens. I also claim that each possible idea of reason can be (apart from its primary function) additionally regarded as a fourth-level architectonic concept when explicitly conceived as an object of (e. g. philosophical) studies, i. e. from a mere methodological perspective. In the final section (III), I unveil the potential of Kant’s theory by pointing out how this architectonic methodological function of pure reason is tacitly used in Karl-Otto Apel’s contemporary philosophical research programme. You can get the official version of the paper and the whole issue (open access) by clicking on the attached link. (shrink)

The public health crisis is started with emergence of new coronavirus on 11 February 2020 which triggered as coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemics. The causative agent in COVID-19 is made up of positively wrapped single-stranded RNA viruses ~ 30 kb in size. The epidemiology, clinical features, pathophysiology, and mode of transmission have been documented well in many studies, with additional clinical trials are running for several antiviral agents. The spreading potential of COVID-19 is faster than its two previous families, the severe (...) acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). Apart from clinical manifestation, comorbid status is playing key role for prevalence of COVID-19 infection and mortalities. The comorbid effects associated with COVID-19 are diabetes, cardiovascular, digestive, hepatitis-B, cerebrovascular, hypertension, liver injury, coronary heart disease, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and neurological impairment. Antimalarial drugs (chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine), remdesivir, Tocilizumab, clopinavir/ritonavir, convalescent plasma therapy, spike protein-angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) inhibitors, human monoclonal antibodies, mRNA-1273, mesenchymal stem cells, Indian and Chinese traditional medicine, small molecules antioxidant, natural products and dietary supplements, high doses of vitamin-E, -C, -D, minerals, flavonoids,and IFN-beta are therapeutic intervention running to develop treatment against COVID-19. Although clinical usage of these therapeutic agents against COVID-19 is well documented, cytokine storms, absence of appropriate animal model have limited its therapeutic use. This review explores the clinical information currently available on COVID-19 on the mechanisms of infection, prevention, management, comorbid status, and current drug treatment options. (shrink)

In the Doctrine of Virtue Kant divides duties of love into three categories: beneficent activity , gratitude and Teilnehmung – commonly referred to as the duty of sympathy . In this paper I will argue that the content and scope of the third duty of love has been underestimated by both critics and defenders of Kant's ethical theory. The account which pervades the secondary literature maintains that the third duty of love includes only two components: an obligation to (...) make use of our natural receptivity to sympathetic feelings as a means to fulfilling other duties of love, and an indirect duty to cultivate these feelings. As a result, Kant's duty of sympathy has been widely regarded as a duty whose value is derived from the way in which it serves other duties, in particular, the duty of beneficent activity, which obliges agents ‘to promote according to one's means the happiness of others in need’ . Teilnehmung has thus assumed something of a second-class status among the duties to others. My aim in this paper is to demonstrate that the prevailing account of Kant's third duty of love is incomplete. (shrink)

This paper investigates conceptions of explanation, teleology, and analogy in the works of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Richards (2000, 2002) and Zammito (2006, 2012, 2018) have argued that Kant’s philosophy provided an obstacle for the project of establishing biology as a proper science around 1800. By contrast, Russell (1916), Outram (1986), and Huneman (2006, 2008) have argued, similar to suggestions from Lenoir (1989), that Kant’s philosophy influenced the influential naturalist Georges Cuvier. In this article, (...) I wish to expand on and further the work of Russell, Outram, and Huneman by adopting a novel perspective on Cuvier and considering (a) the similar conceptions of proper science and explanation of Kant and Cuvier, and (b) the similar conceptions of the role of teleology and analogy in the works of Kant and Cuvier. The similarities between Kant and Cuvier show, contrary to the interpretation of Richards and Zammito, that some of Kant’s philosophical ideas, whether they derived from him or not, were fruitfully applied by some life scientists who wished to transform life sciences into proper sciences around 1800. However, I also show that Cuvier, in contrast to Kant, had a workable strategy for transforming the life sciences into proper sciences, and that he departed from Kant’s philosophy of science in crucial respects. (shrink)

In juxtaposition with the myth and tragedy of Ovid’s Medea, this paper investigates the possibility within the Kantian conception of agency of understanding moral evil as acting against one’s better judgment. It defends the thesis that in Kant self-deception, i. e. the intentional untruthfulness to oneself, provides the fundamental structure for choosing against the moral law. I argue that, as Kant’s thought progresses, self-deception slowly proceeds to become the paradigmatic case of moral evil. This is discussed with regard (...) to two important topics in his later moral philosophy: the doctrine of radical evil and the crucial role of the duty of truthfulness in ethics. The inquiry into Kant’s theory of conscience unfolds both against this theoretical background and in light of its historical roots in the polemic against casuistry and probabilism. This contribution closes with a brief look at the tools Kant implements to counter this tendency to self-deception in moral judgment and particularly at the role casuistry plays within his conception of moral education. (shrink)

One of the more notorious passages in Kant occurs in the Doctrine of Right where he claims that ‘bloodguilt’ will cling to members of a dissolving society if they fail to execute the last murderer (MM, 6: 333). Although this is the most famous, bloodguilt appears in three other passages in Kant’s writings. These have received little attention in Kant scholarship. In this article, I examine these other passages and argue that bloodguilt functions as a symbol for (...) the demandingness of justice. I then offer a sympathetic interpretation of the passage from the Doctrine of Right. (shrink)

Newton had a fivefold argument that true motion must be motion in absolute space, not relative to matter. Like Newton, Kant holds that bodies have true motions. Unlike him, though, Kant takes all motion to be relative to matter, not to space itself. Thus, he must respond to Newton’s argument above. I reconstruct here Kant’s answer in detail. I prove that Kant addresses just one part of Newton’s case, namely, his “argument from the effects” of rotation. (...) And, to show that rotation is relative to matter, Kant changes the meaning of ‘relative motion.’ However, that change puts Kant’s doctrine in deep tension with Newton’s science. Based on my construal, I correct earlier readings of Kant by John Earman and Martin Carrier. And, I argue that we need to revise Michael Friedman’s influential view of Kant. Kant’s struggle, I conclude, illustrate the difficulties that early modern relationists faced as they turned down Newtonian absolute space ; and it typifies their selective engagement with Newton’s case for it. (shrink)

Freedom lies at the heart of Kant’s philosophy. Three recent edited collections explore this key idea in different ways, alongside other related concep...

According to commentators like Rosalind Krauss, Briony Fer, Caroline Jones, and Michael Fried, Clement Greenberg’s formalist/positivist device of “medium-specificity” debars errant affective aesthetic experiences that are embodied; despite significant differences in how these theorists arrive at this conclusion, one shared point of emphasis is Greenberg’s inheriting Kant’s disinterested conception of pleasure in reflective judgments of beauty. Offering a textualist review of Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful, I seek to demonstrate that neither Greenberg, nor Greenberg’s critics, are correct in (...) their account of Kant’s judgments of beauty.1 Specifically, I argue that Greenberg conflates Kant’s conception of judgments of free beauty (pulchritudo vaga) with merely adherent beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens). In formulating a rejoinder to Greenberg and the misplacement of Greenberg as a Kantian, and following Diarmuid Costello, I hope to save a path for a Kantian aesthetics of the present, much in the spirit of other broadly Kantian art historians and philosophers of art/aesthetics (e.g., Thierry de Duve, Paul Guyer, Ido Geiger, etc.). (shrink)

In an intriguing but neglected passage in the Transcendental Deduction, Kant appears to link the synthetic activity of the understanding in experience with the phenomenon of attention (B156-7n). In this paper, we take up this hint, and draw upon Kant's remarks about attention in the Anthropology to shed light on the vexed question of what, exactly, the understanding's role in experience is for Kant. We argue that reading Kant's claims about synthesis in this light allows us (...) to combine two aspects of Kant's views that many commentators have thought are in tension with one another: on the one hand, Kant's apparent commitment to naïve realism about perception and, on the other, his apparent commitment to the necessity of synthetic activity by the understanding for any kind of cognitive contact with external objects. (shrink)

I suggest that looking at how Kant’s arguments relate to the stand of the discussion on the relationship between right and ethics in his times contributes to a better understanding of his own position in this matter. I contrast the terms of the pre-Kantian debate with Kant’s take on the matter, in order to point out how Kant gains a new perspective concerning the rela- tionship between ethics and right. While the most prominent pre-Kantian view construed right (...) and ethics as either resulting from the application of a general principle to di erent domains or reciprocally independent, Kant’s own account centres on the difference between outer and inner freedom. I argue that Kant thereby only differentiates two relations of freedom to different hindrances, without implying any separation. This distinction allows him to construe right and ethics as sharing the same normative force of moral obligation. Therefore I suggest that Kant’s view understands the relationship between right and ethics neither as dependence nor as independence, but highlights the normative continuity throughout morals. (shrink)

I seek to show in this paper how, in addressing the concept of “I” and the question of self-knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason, one encounters a paradox, which is essentially a consequence of the doctrine of transcendental idealism. I point to Kant's concept of “I” and its three co-constitutive perspectives. The importance of the concept of subject and its intertwining with the concept of reason is pointed out, as also how these two concepts appear in the text (...) of the Critique of Pure Reason as presuppositions. Subsequently, I deal with some basic questions of transcendental idealism. Finally, I briefly present the three perspectives of the "I": as a phenomenon, as a transcendental structure, and as a noumenon. I conclude by bringing back what Kant himself conceives as a paradox, which is the subject’s self-affection, and the relation between the subject as noumenon and as inner sense. (shrink)

This paper proposes a novel reading of Kant’s account of the dependence of possibility on God in the pre-Critical Beweisgrund. I argue that Kant has a theistic-potentialist conception of the way God grounds possibility, according to which God grounds possibility by his understanding and will. The reason is that Kant accepts what I call the Principle of Possible Existence: If something is possible, then it is possible that it exists. Furthermore, I explore the connection between causal powers (...) and possibility, the influence of Crusius on Kant, and the significance of the distinction between internal and external possibility. (shrink)

The focus of this chapter will be Kant’s understanding of Hume, and its impact on Kant’s critical philosophy. Contrary to the traditional reading of this relationship, which focuses on Kant’s (admittedly real) dissatisfaction with Hume’s account of causation, my discussion will focus on broader issues of philosophical methodology. Following a number of recent interpreters, I will argue that Kant sees Hume as raising, in a particularly forceful fashion, a ‘demarcation challenge’ concerning how to distinguish the legitimate (...) use of reason in (say) natural scientific contexts from the illegitimate use of it in (say) dogmatic metaphysics. I will then go on to argue that Kant sees Hume’s tendency to slide into more radical forms of skepticism as a symptom of his failure to provide a systematic or principled account of this distinction. This failure, I argue, can be traced (according to Kant) to Hume’s impoverished, non-hylomorphic account of our faculties – which both robs Hume of the materials necessary to construct a genuinely systematic philosophy as Kant understands this, and makes it impossible for Hume to clearly conceive of what Kant calls ‘Formal Idealism.’ In this way, the failings of Hume’s account of causation are (for Kant) symptoms of more fundamental limitations within Hume’s philosophy. I close by briefly discussing the similarities between Hume and Kant’s understanding of the relationship between, first, philosophical methodology and, second, the nature of our faculties. (shrink)

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.

The analysis of the structure of the I-thoughts is intertwined with several epistemic and metaphysical questions. The aim of this paper is to highlight that the absence of an identification component does not imply that the “I" doesn’t perform a referential function, nor that it necessarily involves a specific metaphysical thesis on the nature of the self-conscious subject. Particularly, as far as the Cartesian illusion concerning the thinking subject’s immaterial nature is concerned, Kant and Wittgenstein seem to share the (...) same philosophical concerns and focus on the same type of reference involved in the “I", obviously via different philosophical paths and antipodal metaphysical assumptions. (shrink)

Dans l’histoire de la métaphysique, l’époque initiée par Descartes se caractérise par le projet de tirer toute connaissance de son propre fonds. C’est ce que Kant a exprimé par la révolution copernicienne : les structures universelles des objets de l’expérience (temporalité, spatialité, grandeur, force, mathématisabilité, etc.) se règlent sur les structures a priori impliquées dans la constitution du sujet transcendantal (les facultés et leurs formes pures). Par là, toute l’ontologie de l’objet d’expérience possible trouve son fondement dans une présupposition (...) transcendantale : celle de la préconstitution invariante du sujet transcendantal, caractérisée par un système de facultés (sensibilité, imagination, entendement, raison) et de formes pures (intuitions, schèmes, concepts et Idées pures). N’est-il pas possible d’élaborer une philosophie transcendantale qui fasse l’économie d’un tel présupposé ? Tel est le projet que l’auteur voit dans la phénoménologie husserlienne : un dépassement de la révolution copernicienne, dont le but n’est nullement de restaurer une ontologie réaliste, mais d’élucider l’essence du sujet transcendantal sans en présupposer l’identité, ni les facultés invariantes. En voici le principe : toute catégorie d’objets prescrit au sujet transcendantal une structure régulatrice, de sorte que le système des facultés du sujet peut être réélaboré au fil conducteur des types d’objets possibles. Dès lors se présente un cercle apparemment insoluble : l’essence du sujet pur se lit à partir des catégories d’objets, mais ces mêmes objets sont constitués par l’activité synthétique du sujet. Or, comment peut-on admettre le paradoxe selon lequel le sujet serait le produit de ses produits ? (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to show that it’s a serious mistake to construe the role of sensible representation in Kant’s work as a nonconceptual content (in the contemporary and technical sense of “content”), which, like a mental indexical would refer to what appears in space and time in the so-called de re form. The interpretation I advance and further support is this: without possessing a representational content, sensible representation must be understood as the basic epistemic relation between the (...) subject and the physical entities in space and time she is acquainted with. Immediate reference of sensible intuition to their respective objects is to be understood as a form of knowledge by acquaintance. I call my own interpretation relationalism. (shrink)

Studies of the origins of Mikhail Bakhtin’s thought have tended to either follow a traditional intellectual history paradigm—where establishing the presence of an influence is taken to be a sign of Bakhtin’s identity as a thinker—or to view terminological and conceptual borrowings in Bakhtin’s work as mere veneer in which he dressed his own ideas to make them publishable or acceptable to his peers in a hostile political and intellectual environment. And while Bakhtin did absorb some genuine formative influences, and (...) did use some terms and ideas as mere masks, a much more interesting and unusual pattern of appropriating others’ voices is evident in, and typical of, Bakhtin’s writings. -/- In this talk I illustrate this pattern of appropriation by looking at three examples, all related to Bakhtin’s early philosophy (where the use of “masked” writing was not yet necessary), and both involving Kantianism and neo-Kantianism (cited by many as major influences, in the traditional sense, on Bakhtin). The first of these examples is the way in which Bakhtin reinterprets Kant’s “Copernican revolution”. The second is the way in which Herman Cohen’s account of God’s uniqueness in monotheism is reflected in Bakhtin’s early ethics. The third involves a passage in Paul Natorp’s book Sozial-Idealismus as anticipating Bakhtin’s views on language and dialogue, but within a philosophical context Bakhtin rejected. All these examples (and many others) demonstrate the way Bakhtin, from the outset, works with the voices and ideas of others. Bakhtin’s approach—I shall argue—is not so much that of a scholar examining the claims made by his predecessors, accepting some and rejecting others, but rather, is akin to that of a composer, who integrates and combines motifs and passages adopted from others’ works into the fabric of his symphony, where they acquire new meaning in a new context. (shrink)

This paper examines Du Châtelet’s and Kant’s responses to the famous vis viva controversy – Du Châtelet in her Institutions Physiques (1742) and Kant in his debut, the Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746–49). The Institutions was not only a highly influential contribution to the vis viva controversy, but also a pioneering attempt to integrate Leibnizian metaphysics and Newtonian physics. The young Kant’s evident knowledge of this work has led some to speculate about his (...) indebtedness to her philosophy. My study corrects such speculations as well as misunderstandings of the Living Forces. This corrective result has implications for how to investigate Kant’s relation to the ever-evolving landscape of Leibniz exegeses. (shrink)

In der Dissertation "Kausalität und Naturgesetze bei Hume und Kant" wird die These vertreten, dass sich in der Werken Kants vielfältige Antworten auf den Skeptizismus David Humes finden lassen. Kants Position zu Naturgesetzen und Kausalität wird insbesondere anhand seiner Theorien zu besonderen Naturgesetzen in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, den Prolegomena, den Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft und in der Kritik der Urteilskraft untersucht. Geleitet wird die Untersuchung von der Frage, wie empirische Gesetze in Kants Philosophie gerechtfertigt werden. In diesem (...) Zusammenhang wird nicht nur gezeigt, wie Kants Transzendentalphilosophie ein Fundament für die Einzelwissenschaften bietet und diese legitimiert, sondern auch der epistemologische Aufbau von apriorischen zu empirischen Gesetzen und ihre Einordnung in Systeme. (shrink)

In the Refutation of Idealism, Kant aims to defeat the Cartesian radical skeptical hypothesis that empirical reality might not exist and we cannot have knowledge of it. Kant intends to demonstrate that conscious experience presupposes direct experience of empirical reality. This paper presents new challenges to the conclusions Kant reaches in the Refutation. Kant’s argument turns on the claim that the past must exist, and my challenges concern the possibility that there is no past.

Master's Dissertation -/- (Awarded Distinction from Warwick University – assessed by Professors Stephen Houlgate and Christine Battersby, 2002).

ABSTRACT: Sellars once remarked on the “astonishing extent to which in ethics as well as in epistemology and metaphysics the fundamental themes of Kant’s philosophy contain the truth of the variations we now hear on every side” (SM x). Also astonishing was Sellars’ 1970 Presidential Address to the American Philosophical Association (APA), which borrowed its title from the phrase in Kant’s Paralogisms, “...this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks...” (B404). In its compact twenty-five pages Sellars (...) managed to sketch novel yet plausible reconstructions of central aspects of Kant’s views on self-knowledge, persons, freedom, and morality, along the way suggesting how all of those Kantian views could plausibly be rendered consistent with a naturalistic ontology. In this chapter I focus on Sellars’ APA address as an occasion for reflection on how both Kant and Sellars offer insights into how we ought best to conceive the nature of and the relationships between our thinking selves, our practical agency, and our entirely natural, material embodiment. (shrink)

In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant declares that virtue “can and must be taught.” This claim raises two problems. First, it is in tension with Kant’s emphasis on the absolute moral responsibility that each individual agent owes to her transcendental freedom. Second, it raises the question of how the empirical events that constitute moral education can have an impact on atemporal moral choices. Concerning the second issue, I argue that Kant has a coherent framework for representing how (...) empirical conditions can influence (“affect”) the noumenal will without determining it to action. Regarding the first problem, I argue that although a good moral education is mostly only a facilitating rather than a strictly necessary condition for moral virtue, there is one moral capacity that does require good moral teaching: namely, the practical power of judgment that correctly applies wide, general duties of virtue to particular cases. (shrink)

On 18th century Kant found the Swedenborg's writings, and then wrote an aggressive refutation titled "The dream of a visionary". But Kant did not understand the Swedenborg experience and theories really. Because his rationalism he was unable to do that. This paper analyse the Kant's argumentation and shows its weak points and his inadequacy.

Arthur Schopenhauer's “The World as Will and Representation” is a continuation and completion of the Kantian philosophical project. Schopenhauer proposes that rather than causality being an empirical consequence, as Kant implies in his Critique of Pure Reason, causality is an a priori phenomenon, happening independent of any knowledge of causality itself. Therefore, he challenges Kantian rationalism with pessimism. To begin this work stating the stark contrast between Kant’s epistemology and Schopenhauer’s, I note the few yet crucial characteristics to (...) consciously consider from Schopenhauer’s aesthetics: (1) there is no rationality to nature; (2) there is no ‘purposeness’ in life; and (3) human beings are not fundamentally rational. These each are expanded upon and discussed in unison with Kant's sentiments. In describing Schopenhauer's philosophy of the human experience, it is useful to refer to his interest in Indian philosophies and religions, which is briefly mentioned in this work by way of the famous paradox proposed by Nāgārjuna. The major point of divergence, it appears, between the two great minds reveals itself in their conception of the human experience and perception. Kant describes a reality consisting of mental representations whose nature is suggested to be a posteriori, Schopenhauer understands reality to be noumenal and its perception by sentient life to be indirect, subject-dependent, and consequently a priori. (shrink)

This is a system of pure speculative reason in answer to the challenge issued by Immanuel Kant, in his "Critique of Pure Reason," with regard to metaphysics; the challenge being clearly mentioned in the Appendix to his "Prolegomena..." wherein he asks his Reviewer to take any one of his four sets of contradictory propositions, and offer an a priori judgment/proposition of his own that would overturn the antinomy, and thus, allow room for the possibility of raising metaphysics to the (...) level of a science, meaning a synthesis of judgments, from pure reason, self-evidently a priori, therefore, necessary; and that as a synthesis of pure understanding, would relate to and help us make sense of reality, that is, the world of our experience. (shrink)

This dissertation aims at forging an archetectonic link between Kant's first and third Critiques within a cognitive-semantic framework. My aim is to show how the major conceptual innovations of Kant’s third Critique can be plausibly understood in terms of the theoretical aims of the first, (Critique of Pure Reason). However, unlike other cognition-oriented approaches to Kant's third Critique, which take the point of contact between the first and third Critique's to be the first Critique's Transcendental Analytic, I (...) link these two works via the first Critique's Transcendental Dialectic, specifically its discussions of the "ideas of pure reason." -/- According to Kant, the “ideas of pure reason” (IPRs) — viz., the notions of self, world-whole, and God — are innate content-bearing entities representing three types of transempirical object, none of which are possible objects of cognition. However, although Kant denies that these rather unique content-bearers can be used for purposes of “speculative cognition,” he does think that they have an internal functional value for human cognitive systems. Although under my analysis of their functional value the IPRs subserve a highest-order aim which derives from theoretical reason — namely, to ground and optimize cognitive systematicity — their directive content in fact renders their implementation(thus their form of intentionality) more characteristic of practical reason. Kant’s positive account of reason’s “interest” in and use of the IPRs exhibits a kind of cognitive pragmatism. -/- Of utmost concern to the cognitive-semantic enterprise, as I conceive it, is the development of (what might be called) a metaphysics of intentionality. A `metaphysics of intentionality', as I use the term, refers to a coherent set of postulative propositional cognitions (or, at any rate, content-bearing entities) implemented, first, for the sake of rationally explaining the phenomenological unity and object-directed character of our perceptual states and, second, to explain why the objects represented in such states are, or must be, law-governed and thus necessarily amenable to scientific investigation. On my view, the discussions in Kant’s third Critique nontrivially contribute to the development of a metaphysics of intentionality and thus to the larger cognitive-semantic enterprise of Kant's first Critique, and it is this link that lends Kant's third Critique a cognitive significance. -/- . (shrink)