Hegel attacks Kantian morality most often without stating an opposing moral theory, tending to subsequently take up discussion of religion or the state. Commentators have variously suggested the logical consequence of Hegel's position is "the dissolution of ethics in sociology" without "room for personal morality of any kind" or that Hegel's argument is against Kantian <i>Moralitat</i>, which allows the private individual to appeal beyond social mores to universal moral standards, with Hegel insisting that concrete values come instead from (...) <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, the social order. If thinking of morality as a purely private matter of the individual's conscience seems too abstract, the Hegelian criticisms should show that moral reflections are vacuous unless they take account of the social world in which they will be realized as concrete actions. From the Hegelian's perspective on morality as seen from the more inclusive context of <i>Sittlichkeit</i>, social action that is also moral will not need to be analyzed in terms of Kant's metaphysical dualisms between reason and inclination, intentions and consequences, or the sensible and the intelligible realms. Whereas Kant thinks moral theory leads directly to religious and metaphysical postulates, Hegel deliberately leads it in another direction. He can be understood historically as going beyond Kant's effort to secularize moral philosophy. Kant begins this process by grounding moral philosophy in reason alone, not in religion. Religious postulates may follow from moral beliefs, says Kant, but morality is not derived from religious premisses. In going from private moral conscience not to religious beliefs but to social, political, and historical considerations (which could include religion seen as a social institution), Hegel extends the process of secularizing moral philosophy." Marcuse and Knox could thus both be right, since Hegel's goal is not to replace Kant's moral philosophy with another, competing moral philosophy, but to accept it, while recognizing its limitations, as a special case of a larger theory of social action. In the Hegelian jargon, from a standpoint recognizing Sittlichkeit, Moralitdt is thus <i>aufgehoben</i>, that is, Kant's formal procedures will be both "negated" (criticized for their limitations) and "preserved" (embedded in a more inclusive philosophy). (shrink)

This chapter examines Hegel’s conception of philosophical critique in order to shed light on the force and limits of the method that has become known as immanent critique. At least in modern philosophy, it was Kant who first conceived of critique as a form of reflection that draws its criterion from reason itself. As I argue, Hegel is deeply indebted to Kant in this respect. The chapter begins with an analysis of Hegel's seminal essay (...) ‘On the Essence of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and its Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy in Particular’, published in 1802. After a brief discussion of the Phenomenology, I turn to his Philosophy of Right. These texts make clear, I argue, that the criterion from which immanent critique takes its bearings is necessarily tainted with a particularity that it cannot affirm without losing its force. According to this account, immanent critique comes to refer to a form of reflection that is more complicated and more precarious than Kant and Hegel seem to have assumed. (shrink)

This article challenges the prevailing interpretations of Hegel's account of the concept "contradiction" in the Science of Logic by arguing that it is concerned with the principle of Hegel's method rather than with the classical law of non-contradiction. I first consider Hegel's Doctrine of Essence in view of Kant's discussion of the concepts of reflection in the first Critique. On this basis, I examine Hegel's account of the logical principles based on the concepts "identity," (...) "opposition," and "contradiction." Finally, I point out how the principle Hegel derives from the concept of contradiction actually informs his own method. (shrink)

The concept of autonomy, once central to the self-understanding of modern philosophy, is under attack from at least two sides: (1) on the one side, there is a reawakened interest in naturalist philosophy, questioning the hybris of human self-understanding as being “above nature” and essentially free and rational; (2) on the other side, there is the feminist critique of autonomy as the wrongful generalization of a certain masculine/western understanding of the subject as independent person. Both aim at the core (...) of what the term “autonomy” normatively stands for: the capacity for rational self-determination. We inherit this concept of autonomy from Kant and encounter a variety of post-Kantian variations of it. In my paper, I will turn to Hegel in order to show that, although conceptualizing autonomy as rational self-determination, in his Philosophy of Nature, he incorporates elements of both naturalism and relational autonomy. Under revision, his concept of spirit provides us with a picture of the human as self-conscious animal or nature grasping itself. His notion of autonomy then turns out to be surprisingly fruitful for current debates, enabling us to understand our animalistic nature and our fundamental interdependency in a way that is not opposed to such concepts as rationality, freedom, and autonomy. As I will try to show, re-reading Hegel thus allows us to reconceptualize autonomy in a way that accords with its critics. (shrink)

Engaging with Kant’s transcendental logic seems to be a question of mere scholarly historical interest today. It is most commonly regarded a mixture between logic and psychology or epistemology, and by that, not a serious form of logic. Transcendental logic seems to be of no systematical impact on the concept of logic. My paper aims to disclose a different account on the endeavour of Kant’s transcendental logic in particular and of the “Critique of Pure Reason” (CPR) in (...) general. Kant’s fundamental question is in a revolutionary way aiming to ground the character of necessity of knowledge, which means to justify the claim that thinking in accordance with the forms and principles of formal logic does not lead to sheer tautologies or an unsolved contradiction, but to knowledge that is objectively valid. In a first part, I shall demonstrate the necessity and the significance of this new fundamental question of the CPR with respect to its genesis out of pre-Kantian metaphysics. A brief outline of Kant’s answer to this question, with special emphasis on his revolutionary new comprehension of logical form, will be given as well. A second part shall open up a perspective that lies beyond Kant’s standpoint with reference to Nietzsche and eventually to Hegel. I will answer the question: What knowledge do we achieve about being or actuality by means of formal logic? I will argue that Kant shows that formal logic is the logic of all technical-practical conduct but also, at least indirectly, the limitation of the technical-practical knowledge and its legitimate sphere of application. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I seek to explain G.W.F. Hegel’s view that human accessible conceptual content can provide knowledge about the nature or essence of things. I call this view “Conceptual Transparency.” It finds its historical antecedent in the views of eighteenth century German rationalists, which were strongly criticized by Immanuel Kant. I argue that Hegel explains Conceptual Transparency in such a way that preserves many implications of German rationalism, but in a form that is largely compatible with Kant’s (...) criticisms of the original rationalist version. After providing background on Hegel’s relationship to the traditional rationalist theory of concepts and Kant’s challenge to it, I claim that Hegel’s central task is to provide a theory of conceptual content that allows a relationship to the objective world without being dependent on the specifically sensory aspect of the world, which Kant’s theory of concepts required. Since many interpreters deny that Hegel’s use of the term “concept” is comparable to other historical philosophers (or our own), I first show that Hegel’s critique of standard conceptions of concepts presupposes an agreement of subject matter. I then show how Hegel’s account of the “formal concept” provides the skeleton for a view of conceptual content that relies on negative relations between terms, rather than a relation to sensibility, to provide content. Hegel’s account of conceptual content is completed when he shows how a universal term is further specified so that it can determine singular objects. This occurs in its adequate form in a teleological process. I argue that Hegel’s account of teleology in the Science of Logic is an attempt to explain how and where Conceptual Transparency obtains. A teleological process is one in which a concept constitutes an object, and this means that a concept is perfectly adequate to express that thing’s nature and not merely to represent it. However, in the final chapter, I show that Hegel’s concept of teleology is meant paradigmatically to illuminate how human purposive processes have constituted a social world that is conceptually accessible to us. In this way, the primary “province” of Hegel’s rationalism is the human constructed world. (shrink)

Hegel's critique of the Early German Romantic figures of Fr. Schlegel, Novalis and Schleiermacher resonates to the very core of his work and is as essential to understanding his vision of Science as Plato's polemic against the Sophists is to comprehending his philosophy. Hegel's presentation of romantic irony may not be faithful to its Romantic conception but it is deeply insightful in apprehending irony's postmodern threat to systematic philosophy.

Parmenides plays an important role in the first section of Hegel’s Science of Logic due to his definition of being as a pure thought-determination. This article investigates, first, how Hegel conceives the Parmenidean being. Secondly, by discussing Hegel's logical analysis of pure being and pure nothing, it aims to show why and how such conception of being, according to Hegel, provides a crucial insight into the function of the understanding.

This paper investigates the argument that substantiates Nietzsche's refusal of teh Kantian concept of thing in itself. As Maudmarie Clark points out, Nietzsche dismisses this notion because he views it as self-contradictory. The main concern of the paper will be to account for this position. In particular, the two main theses defended here are that the argument underlying Nietzsche's claim is that the concept of thing in itself amounts to the inconsistent idea of a propertyless thing and that this argument (...) is a sound one. Finally, I will show that the reading proposed allows a deflationary response to the objection that Nietzsche's will to power is simply a new version of the post-Kantian thing in itself.Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die Argumentation, die Nietzsches Zurückweisung des kantischen Begriffs des Dings an sich untermauert. Wie Maudmarie Clark betont, berwift Nietzsche diesen Begriff als selbstwidersprüchlich. Hauptanliegen des Aufsatzes ist, dies deutlich zu machen. Insbesondere werden folgende zwei Thesen vertrenen: dass das Nietzsches Position zugrundeliegende Argument darin besteht, der Begriff des Dings an sich sei der inkonsistente Begriff eines eigenschaftslosen Dings; dass dieses Argument stichhaltig ist. Schließlich wird gezeigt, dass diese Interpretation eine delfationäre Antwort auf den Einwand ermöglicht, Nietzsches Wille zur Macht sei einfach eine neue Variante des postkantischen Dings an sich. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Kant's conception of the history of pure reason and its relation to his metaphilosophy as it is presented in the Critique of Pure Reason [Kritik der reinen Vernunft] (KrV). In particular, I will attempt to answer the following question: why did Kant conclude the KrV with the history of pure reason and why did he insist that, without it, a gap would remain in his system? In the course of attempting to answer (...) this question, I will argue that Kant chose to conclude the KrV with a sketch of the history of pure reason because he took his ability to provide the history of pure reason to be a mark of the adequacy and success of his own philosophical system, in so far as it is the system which comprehends the nature of human reason, specifically the teleological nature of human reason (i.e., the system that recognizes that reason has intrinsic, self-imposed interests and goals) and insofar as it is the only system which, as the culmination of all the past systems of philosophy, is in a position to identify and satisfy all of the interests of human reason. (shrink)

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason - Irfan Ajvazi.

In Chapter 8 of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics, one of Gabriele Gava’s aims is to argue that Kant’s critique of Wolff’s dogmatic method has two levels: one directed against Wolff’s metaphilosophical views and one attacking his actual procedures of argument. After providing a brief summary of the main claims Gava makes in Chapter 8 of his book, in this paper I argue two things. First, I argue against Gava’s claim that (...) the two forms of dogmatism he distinguishes between are incompatible. Second, I suggest, contrary to Gava, that Kant’s critique of these two forms of dogmatism both operate on the metaphilosophical level in the sense that they both target the dogmatist’s beliefs or theory about the method they take themselves to be following. (shrink)

Gabriele Gava's new monograph makes sense of Kant's obscure claim that the Critique of Pure Reason is a "doctrine of method" for the science of metaphysics. Gava does this by offering a reading of the whole Critique as aiming to show that metaphysics can become an "architectonic" science. The book shows impressive range; it covers diverse topics throughout the Aesthetic, Analytic, Dialectic, and Method, brings out appealing parallels between them, and relates them to the task of exhibiting (...) metaphysic's architectonic unity. But, I argue, it stops short of a full explanation of how the Critique is meant to outline or anticipate the whole of metaphysics in advance of actually completing that science. (shrink)

This article discusses a crucial question through an analysis of Adorno's critique of Kant's moral philosophy: can human beings live a good life? Kant optimistically argues that human beings as rational beings have transcendental freedom and can autonomously formulate and follow universal moral laws without any empirical conditions. Therefore, human beings can always act morally and live a good life. Adorno, on the other hand, argues that there is no right life in a wrong life. Adorno, who (...) was at a different time in history from Kant, criticized Kant's philosophy of transcendental freedom, moral imperative, and identity, and proposed new moral imperatives. I think Adorno's critique of Kant's conception of freedom failed, but his critique of the moral imperatives and identity shows a complex and profound philosophical reflection and practical concern. (shrink)

This paper delves into Hegel's critique of Kantian ethics, focusing on the accusation that Kant's Categorical Imperative (CI) represents an abstract ethical philosophy. Hegel argues that Kantian ethics relies on an unproductive form of abstract thinking, exemplified in Kant's emphasis on universalizing maxims without considering the concrete particularities of situations. The author contends that Hegel's critique remains valid even when considering Christine Korsgaard's responses. The paper unfolds by elucidating Hegel's notion of "abstract thinking" (...) and explaining how the CI's emphasis on formal principles leads to abstract ethical judgments. It critically analyzes Korsgaard's defense, asserting that her responses do not sufficiently address Hegel's concerns. The paper underscores Hegel's claim that the CI lacks concrete content, rendering it unable to accommodate the complexities of real-world ethical situations. Furthermore, this analysis explores how the inheritance of abstract thinking from Kantian ethics continues to detrimentally impact contemporary approaches to ethical challenges. Ultimately, the paper upholds Hegel's assertion that the CI's abstract nature hinders its effectiveness as a comprehensive ethical framework and that any abstract approach to ethics is destined to fail when it comes to teaching someone how one ought to act. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Kant's famous critique of the Ontological Argument largely begs the question against that argument, and is no better when supplemented by the modern quantificational analysis of "exists." In particular, I argue that the claim, common to Hume and Kant, that conceptual truths can never entail substantive existential claims is false,and thus no ground for rejecting the Ontological Argument.

This essay offers an account of Kierkegaard’s view of the limits of thought and of what makes this view distinctive. With primary reference to Philosophical Fragments, and its putative representation of Christianity as unthinkable, I situate Kierkegaard’s engagement with the problem of the limits of thought, especially with respect to the views of Kant and Hegel. I argue that Kierkegaard builds in this regard on Hegel’s critique of Kant but that, against Hegel, he develops a radical distinction (...) between two types of thinking and inquiry: the ‘aesthetic-intellectual’ and the ‘ethico-religious’. I clarify this distinction and show how it guides Kierkegaard’s conception of a form of philosophical practice that involves drawing limits to the proper sphere of disinterested contemplation. With reference to two rival interpretations of Kierkegaard’s approach to the limits of thought—which I call ‘bullet-biting’ and ‘relativizing’—I further show how my ‘disambiguating’ account can better explain how, and why, his work courts a form of self-referential incoherence, in which it appears that certain limits of thought are at once affirmed and violated. (shrink)

Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–68) was not a philosopher. In fact, Winckelmann had a strong interest in distancing himself from academic philosophy as he knew it. As Goethe reports, Winckelmann “complained bitterly about the philosophers of his time and about their extensive influence.” Still less was Winckelmann a Kantian philosopher; the first edition of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason did not appear until 1781, thirteen years after the fifty-year-old Winckelmann was shockingly murdered in Trieste. Nevertheless, many of Winckelmann’s (...) ideas were philosophically rich and suggestive and interestingly relevant to the philosophical problems that were later to be addressed by Kant and his philosophical contemporaries. It is no wonder, then, that Winckelmann’s influence can be detected in the works of some of the most important philosophically oriented thinkers of Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In addition to Kant himself, these thinkers included Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81), Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). (shrink)

According to the transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of pure reason, there are two properties of time that cannot be intellectualized: passage and infinitude. This study tries to show that these essential properties of time come to light in Kant’s Critique of Judgment. The contemplation of beauty will be understood as a non-successive time and the wonder that we experience in seeing the sublime will be understood through Kant’s concept of infinite moment. These two aesthetic concepts (...) of time will be integrated into Kant’s broader view of time as developed in the first Critique. (shrink)

Judgment has two functions therefore: determining and reflecting. Determining involves finding the right 'universal', that is concept or word for the situation at hand. Thus this function covers the choice of rule or aesthetic, that is, the metric of measurement. Reflective judgment is particularly relevant to the related activities of aesthetic choice and purposeful behaviour. It is the source of what Kant calls 'empirical concepts', that is, for my purposes, the range of aesthetic rules or metrics that one has (...) at one's disposal. Kant's ideas about beauty, although stimulating for my purposes, are not directly relevant to the issues of measurement. But his concept of the Sublime is. \"The experience of the sublime consists in a feeling of the superiority of our own power of reason, as a supersensible faculty, over nature.\" The specific category of the 'mathematically sublime' appears especially important for empirical measurement. (shrink)

The role and nature of imagination in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is intensively examined. In addition, the text of Kant's Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View will also be considered because it helps illustrate this issue. Imagination is the fundamental power of the mind responsible for any act of forming and putting together representations. A new interpretation of imagination in Kant is given which recognizes its necessary roles as the factor responsible for producing space (...) and time, as an essential component in perception, as the mediator of concepts and intuitions, and as the synthesizing agent which groups together representations into categories. ;The work is divided basically into two parts. The first part looks at the imagination in the Transcendental Aesthetic. It will be shown that space and time themselves are products of imagination. As pure and a priori intuitions space and time are objects of thought and thus are conditioned by the synthetic power of imagination. Moreover, as forms of intuitions space and time are also conditioned by imagination; hence, imagination is a necessary factor in spatial and temporal perception. ;The second part of the thesis concerns the role of imagination in the Transcendental Analytic. Here the role of the imagination is more pervasive. In the Metaphysical Deduction the thesis argues that the imagination is responsible for uniting representations into twelve categories which are the conditions of thinking in general. Therefore the categories themselves owe their origins to imagination. This interpretation hinges on Kant's distinction between transcendental and general logic, which the thesis will discuss in detail. In the Transcendental Deduction the imagination is responsible for taking up representations in such a way that results in their belonging to a single framework of consciousness, thus showing that the categories apply to a posteriori representations. In the Schematism the imagination is necessary in forming the schemata, which join together concepts and intuitions so that both empirical and transcendental judgments are produced. Finally, a critique of Heidegger's idea on imagination as the "common root" of sensibility and understanding will be offered. (shrink)

[The review is in German] Theunissen has developed an interesting account of metaphilosophy that–as a discipline–does not start in 1960s, but already and especially with Kant, Fichte and Hegel. The constant growth of philosophical theories around 1800 (what Koselleck called “Sattelzeit”) made metaphilosophical constructions necessary. He reads–and is not the first author who does so–Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit as a metaphilosophical theory. Although I like and share many ideas with Theunissen, there are three objections that I raise in my (...) review: (i) His account of isosthenia as a basic problem behind all philosophical positions (which makes metaphilosophy necessary) undermines the importance of dissent, dogmatism and intra-philosophical struggles; (ii) Theunissen’s understanding of metaphilosophy is not neutral (just as any account of metaphilosophy): it is predetermined by Hegel’s thought and the author’s understanding of Phenomenology of Spirit; (iii) Therefore, it fits well to this particular work of Hegel, but not (a) to the overall system of Encyclopedia and (b) Kant’s metaphilosophical deliberations (which Theunissen misses). I end the review with the statement that we need to ask ourselves how metaphilosophy is possible as a unified discipline despite of different philosophical backgrounds of authors–we need a meta-metaphilosophy or a critique of metaphilosophical reason. (shrink)

One of Bolzano’s objections to Kant’s way of drawing the analytic-synthetic distinction is that it only applies to judgments within a narrow range of syntactic forms, namely, universal affirmative judgments. According to Bolzano, Kant cannot account for judgments of other syntactic forms that, intuitively, are analytic. A recent paper by Ian Proops also attributes to Kant the view that analytic judgments beyond a limited range of syntactic forms are impossible. I argue that, correctly understood, Kant’s conception (...) of analyticity allows for analytic judgments of a wider range of syntactic forms. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to critiques of my book Kant’s Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). I address issues that are raised concerning objectivity, the nature of the object, the role of transcendental apperception and the imagination, and idealism. More in particular I respond to an objection against my reading of the necessary existence of things in themselves and their relation to appearances. I also briefly respond to a question that relates to the (...) debate on Kantian nonconceptualism, more in particular, the question whether Kant allows animals objective intentionality. Lastly, I respond to one objection against my reading of Hegel’s critique of Kant. (The copy uploaded here is an English translation of the original Dutch version that is published in the journal.). (shrink)

On the one hand, Scheler's critique of Kant's concept of a priori benefits from Husserl to a large extent, and it complements and deepens Husserl's. On the other hand, Scheler also critiques Husserl's definition of a priori. Husserl's material a priori as ideal object primarily thanks to his so-called "Bolzano- turn". In this connection, Scheler grabs hold of the relation of Husserl to Bolzano from the very beginning. For Scheler, Husserl thinks in a "platonic" way, and still falls (...) in a new type of "Platonism", or rather, logical Platonism, although he correctly refuses the ordinary Platonism. In Scheler's view, Husserl's phenomenological reduction is "not purely" executed, and therefore his phenomenological experience is problematic, or more precisely, the relation between categorial intuition and sensuous intuition is problematic. The final aim of Scheler's critique of Husserl's phenomenological understanding of "objective a priori" is to win the primary position of categorial intuition and its content , ethical insight and its correlate , and ultimately of phenomenological ethics of material value.Einerseits nimmt Schelers Kritik an Kant bezüglich des Begriffs des Apriori die Einsichten Husserls in großem Umfang auf. Schelers Kritik an Kant ergänzt und vertieft die Husserlsche Kant-Kritik. Andererseits kritisiert er aber auch Husserls Bestimmung des Apriori. Vor allem verdankt sich das materiale Apriori als idealer Gegenstand bei Husserl der sogenannten “Bolzano’schen Wendung”. Von Anfang an kritisiert Scheler Husserl in diesem Punkt, indem er dem Verhältnis zwischen Bolzano und Husserl immer präziser nachging. Für Scheler unterliegt Husserl mit Recht keinem platten Platonismus. Aber dennoch verfahre Husserl immerhin “platonistisch”, er unterliege einem “Neoplatonismus”, bzw. einem logischen Platonismus. Weil die phänomenologische Reduktion bei Husserl nach Schelers Meinung “nicht reinlich” durchgeführt wird, ist die phänomenologische Erfahrung bei Husserl problematisch, genauer gesagt ist das Verhältnis zwischen der kategorialen Anschauung und der sinnlichen Anschauung problematisch. Der Endzweck von Schelers Kritik an der phänomenologischen Auffassung des gegenständlichen Apriori bei Husserl besteht darin, die primäre Stelle der kategorialen Anschauung und ihrer Gehalte , sowie der sittlichen Einsicht und ihrer Korrelate und zuletzt der phänomenologisch materialen Wertethik zu gewinnen.S jedne strane, Schelerova kritika Kantova pojma a priori u velikoj mjeri duguje Husserlu, te dopunjuje i produbljuje Husserlovu. S druge strane, Scheler kritizira i Husserlovu definiciju apriorija. Husserlov materijalni a priori kao idealni predmet prvenstveno proizlazi iz njegova takozvanog bolzanovskog obrata. Prema Scheleru, Husserl razmišlja na "platonski" način te upada u novi tip "platonizma" ili, točnije, logičkog platonizma, iako s pravom odbacuje obični platonizam. Scheler smatra da Husserlova fenomenološka redukcija nije izvedena "čisto" te da je stoga njegovo fenomenološko iskustvo proble- matično ili, točnije, problematičan je odnos između kategorijalnog zora i osjetilnog zora. Krajnji cilj Schelerove kritike Husserlova fenomenološkog shvaćanja "objektivnog a priori" jest zadobivanje primarne pozicije kategorijalnog zora i njegova sadržaja , etičkog uvida i njegova korelata te, na koncu, fenomenološke etike materijalne vrijednosti. (shrink)

In the final book of Logical Investigations from 1901, Husserl develops a theory of knowledge based on the intentional structure of consciousness. While there is some textual evidence that Husserl considered this to entail a critique of Kantian philosophy, he did not elaborate substantially on this. This paper reconstructs the covert critique of Kant’s theory of knowledge which LI contains. With respect to Kant, I discuss three core aspects of his theory of knowledge which, as Husserl’s (...) reflections on Kant indicate, Husserl was familiar with. These are the cooperation of two faculties for the justification of beliefs; the concept of a priori structures of knowledge Kant operated with; and the delivered transcendental proof of these structures. Regarding Logical Investigations, I first briefly outline the intentional structure of consciousness as presented in the fifth book and then turn to the theory of knowledge in the sixth book. I then clarify, partially on the basis of manuscripts and lecture notes, the covert critique of the three core aspects of Kant’s theory which the sixth book contains. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to trace one of the deepest roots of Hegel's concept of history within Kant's doctrine of schematism. I propose to draw a line of continuity between Kant's Einbildungskraft and Hegel's Selbstbewusstsein. The concept of Selbstbewusstsein of the young Hegel is to be understood, in my view, as the moment when the extreme and radical consequences are drawn from the schematism of the first Critique, revised in the light of (...) class='Hi'>Kant's reflections on teleology developed in the Critique of Judgment. In this sense, Hegel can be seen as the 'solution' to the rift that opened up in the heart of Western culture during the Enlightenment. (shrink)

The story of eternity is not as simple as a secularization narrative implies. Instead it follows something like the trajectory of reversal in Kant’s practical proof for the existence of god. In that proof, god emerges not as an object of theoretical investigation, but as a postulate required by our practical engagement with the world; so, similarly, the eternal is not just secularized out of existence, but becomes understood as an entailment of, and somehow imbricated in, the conditions of (...) our practical existence. -/- The sections that follow discuss some of those central figures in modern European philosophy whose views prominently feature some consideration of eternity. I start with Kant in section I. Kant’s critique of speculative theology is well-known, and this hostility would appear to make it unlikely that the eternal, with all its theological baggage, would feature prominently in Kant’s critical philosophy. But in fact Kant’s transcendental idealism endorses no fewer than three different concepts of the eternal, including what turns out to be the most historically influential idea: that practical reason involves a kind of eternal, non-temporal action. Kant shifts this notion of a non-temporal act from its original theological context of god’s actus purus to a practical context, setting the stage for Schelling’s and Kierkegaard’s later development of this theme. Before detailing this trajectory however, section II is devoted to Hegel, the philosopher whose radical historicism is perhaps more than any other thinker responsible for making “the nineteenth century preeminently the historical century.”4 Hegel is not fertile soil for the concept of the eternal, but his historicism does turn out, at a crucial moment in the philosophy of nature, to presuppose a certain conception of eternity as an eternal present. Perhaps more importantly for the further development of eternity in nineteenth century thought however is that both Schelling and Kierkegaard situate their views of the eternal in the context of a collective rejection of Hegel. Section III discusses Schelling, who returns to Kant’s conception of non-temporal choice, seeing human capacities for free eternal self-creation as rivaling god’s. Such powers are required, Schelling argues, to resist the sublimation of the individual human person into the blankness of the Absolute. Section IV briefly consider Schopenhauer’s view that the in-itself of everything is an endlessly striving will. Section V concerns Kierkegaard who is strongly committed to the eternal, and indeed criticizes Hegel for compromising his conception of the eternal by thinking it temporally; but he is obsessed by the paradoxical question of our practical “access” to the eternal within a particular temporal moment: the decisive moment, imbued with significance that can turn life around and create a new person, pushing Schelling’s concerns even further. The remaining, shorter sections, present briefer accounts of more recent figures who make important use of some conception of the eternal: Nietzsche’s eternal return (section VI), Agamben’s (1942-) theory of sovereignty (section VII) and finally Alain Badiou’s unapologetic attempt to resuscitate eternity as the condition of revolutionary political change (Section VIII). I end with a concluding meditation (Section IX). (shrink)

I raise a problem about the possibility of metaphysics originally raised by Kant: what explains the fact that the terms in our metaphysical theories (e.g. “property”) refer to entities and structures (e.g. properties) in the world? I distinguish a meta-metaphysical view that can easily answer such questions (“deflationism”) from a meta-metaphysical view for which this explanatory task is more difficult (which I call the “substantive” view of metaphysics). I then canvass responses that the substantive metaphysician can give to this (...) Kantian demand for an explanation of reference in metaphysics. I argue that these responses are either inadequate, or depend, implicitly or explicitly, on the idea of “joint carving”: carving at the joints is part of the explanation of reference-facts quite generally and our metaphysical terms in particular refer because they carve at the joints. I examine Ted Sider’s recent work on joint carving and structure and argue that it cannot fill the explanatory gap. I conclude that this is reason ceterus paribus to reject the substantive view of metaphysics. Kant’s critique, far from being obsolete, applies to the most cutting-edge of contemporary meta-metaphysical views. (shrink)

This paper claims that Kant’s conception of culture provides a new means of understanding how the two parts of the Critique of Judgment fit together. Kant claims that culture is both the ‘ultimate purpose’ of nature and to be defined in terms of ‘art in general’ (of which the fine arts are a subtype). In the Critique of Teleological Judgment, culture, as the last empirically cognizable telos of nature, serves as the mediating link between nature and (...) freedom, while in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment, the connection between art and morality passes through culture. In either case, Kant offers distinct, yet interdependent, arguments for how culture demonstrates the amenability of nature to its supersensible ground: the central question Kant claims in the Introduction that the work seeks to answer. Thus, not only does this account advance a concept essential to both parts of the work; it also demonstrates how the two parts can be conceived as complementary, with each supplementing the other to solve Kant’s central question. As such, understanding the Critique of Judgment in terms of culture enables us to see how the two parts of the work do not merely share points of similarity or common themes, but presuppose one another in order to understand how nature is amenable to freedom. (shrink)

Repeating Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

The core of Kant’s criticism of the ontological argument is the thesis that existence is not a real predicate capable of being added to the concept of an object. The concept of the most perfect or the most real being is a subjective content that is as such completely determined, that is to say, that already has all the determinations that define that concept as such. Therefore, to know if that object also exists in the real world is indispensable (...) that the subject has an intuition of it. The absence of such intuition is, according to Kant, an insuperable obstacle for the different attempts to prove the existence of God. Although Hegel agrees in principle with Kant´s claim that existence must not be conceived as a real predicate, he considers, however, that to understand it as the position of the already exhaustively determined concept of the object does not imply a true overcoming of the particular notion of existence that is at the base of the ontological argument. In this article I defend the claim that Hegel´s counter-criticism of Kant´s criticism of the ontological argument is actually a radicalization of Kant´s general critique of metaphysics. (shrink)

In Glauben und Wissen, Hegel criticizes Kant for drawing a deep division between sensibility and understanding. Hegel suggests that Kant’s faculty of productive imagination is a step toward uniting intuition and concept in an original unity out of which the two arise, but this requires him to treat the productive imagination in ways Kant would not approve. I argue that Kant’s doctrine of the schematism offers an advance on the productive imagination when it comes to solving (...) the intuition/concept dualism Hegel critiques, although there remain serious problems with which Hegel would take issue. Although the schematism might answer some of the criticisms Hegel aims at the intuition/concept dualism, it does not solve the related problem Hegel finds in Kant, namely the dualism of cognition and thing-in-itself. (shrink)

In Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (CUP 2023), I argue that the first Critique is not only a ‘propaedeutic’ to metaphysics, but actually already establishes parts of metaphysics. These parts belong to what Kant calls transcendental philosophy. Additionally, I also provide an account of Kant’s critique of dogmatism and Wolff as its main defender. In this paper, I take up Luigi Filieri’s and Davide Dalla Rosa’s invitation to further develop (...) my characterization of transcendental philosophy and I respond to Michael Walschots’s objections against my interpretation of Kant’s critique of Wolff’s dogmatism. (shrink)

Due to his theory of deontological ethic, Kant is regarded, in the history of philosophy, as one of the cornerstones of ethics, and it is said, as a rule, that he has an original theory of ethics in that he posited the idea of free and autonomous individual. However, when dug deeper into Kant‟s ethics, and also if it is ex-actly compared with theological ethic, it is clearly seen that all he has accomplished was to make a copy (...) of the theological ethic and to use such secular terms as reason, conscience, good will, moral law, categorical imperative, universalizability, summum bonum, ethico-civil state/universal religion of mere reason as a substitute for such key terms of religious ethics as God, prophet, for God‟s sake, the Golden Rule, Divine command, Heaven, Kingdom of God without modifying the wording, content and logic of theolog-ical ethics. So, the notion of a subject or reason which pretends to be God has no sign of originality. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the connection between happiness and reason in the work of Herder, Kant, and Hegel. First, I consider Herder’s integration of satisfaction and rationality and Kant’s complete separation of rational imperatives from particular experience. I discuss Kant’s critique of Herder as arbitrary and overly reliant on analogy. I then turn to Hegel’s response to this debate. I argue that Hegel’s Phenomenology provides an integration of happiness and reason that is not subject to (...) the same pitfalls as Herder’s solution. I examine two examples of rational critique in the Phenomenology and conclude with brief remarks about happiness and the rational society in Hegel’s work. (shrink)

Kant has traditionally been viewed as an unhelpful resource for environmental concerns, despite his immensely influential moral and political philosophy. This paper shows that Kant’s Critique of Judgment can be a valuable resource for environmental ethics, with methodological implications for political action and environmental policy. I argue that Kant’s Analytic of the Beautiful and Critique of Teleological Judgment provide philosophical tools for valuing nature aside from interest and for developing forms of environmental protectionism. My approach (...) differs from other Kantian accounts that discuss our moral relations to nonrational nature, since these usually rely on Kant’s limited statements about flora and fauna in his Lectures on Ethics, Metaphysics of Morals, and the Analytic of the Beautiful. Though we can defend indirect duties toward animals and beautiful plants, as these accounts convincingly show, they rarely engage with the possibility of us having moral views of ecosystems. Moral views of nature can be useful as methodological heuristics for mobilizing and instituting environmental policies regarding climate change such as biodiversity loss, and this paper will provide a defense of a Kantian moral view of nature from which subsequent climate-related actions can be motivated. (shrink)

This paper attempts a reconstruction of reason’s contribution to empirical truth in connection with Kant’s definition of truth as the agreement of cognition with its object. I argue that Kant’s treatment of truth in the Transcendental Analytic gets completed in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic with an often neglected but compelling argument (what I shall call the Variety Argument). This argument postulates such a variety in the appearances as to undermine any attempt at formulating empirical truths. Crucially, (...) I argue that this variety does not depict an extreme-case scenario, but our own epistemic situation without reason. Reason completes Kant’s theory of truth by allowing the understanding (i.) to form empirical concepts and (ii.) approximate to empirical truth. (shrink)

The present paper aims to trace back Kant’s account of the schematism of the pure understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason to the Dissertation. I do so by discussing Kant’s understanding of sensible cognition in view of his assessment of metaphysics. I argue, first, that Kant in both texts aims to defend metaphysics against skeptical attacks by discarding those of its elements he considers unwarranted and, second, that this undertaking hinges on his account of concepts (...) that function as the sensible condition of cognition. Yet whereas Kant argues in 1770 that metaphysics must be purely intellectual, he in 1781 draws on his earlier account of sensible concepts to argue, against the Wolffians, that determining intelligible objects by purely intellectual means does not amount to cognition proper. (shrink)

German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Nietzsche, and Heidegger By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. -/- Includes bibliographical references. Index. 1. 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. 8. Philosophy, Asian. 9. Philosophy, Indic. 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. Nagarjuna, 2nd cent. I. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. -/- Table of Contents -/- Preface (page 4). -/- 1). Heidegger and the Purpose of Kanťs Critique of Pure Reason (p. 5 to p. 29). 2). Martin Heidegger's Encounter Methodology: Kant (p. 31 to p. 44). 3). Metahistories of philosophy: Kant and Nietzsche (p. 45 to p. 63). 4). Martin Heidegger and Hegeľs Science of Logic (p. 64 to p. 79). 5). Heidegger and Purpose of Hegeľs Phenomenology of Spirit (p. 80 to p. 102). 6). Analysis of the "Preface" to Hegeľs Phenomenology of Spirit (p. 103 to p. 110). 7). Hegeľs Dialogue with Lesser Known Philosophers (p. 111 to p. 121). 8). Heidegger's Encounter with F.W.J. Schelling: The Questions of Evil and Freedom, and the end of Metaphysics (p. 123 to p. 135). 9). Martin Heidegger contra Nietzsche on the Greeks (p. 136 to p. 148). 10). Martin Heidegger and Nietzsche on Amor Fati (p. 149 to p. 156). (1 1). Martin Heidegger's ontotheological problems and Nägärjuna solutions: Heidegger's Presuppositions and Entanglements in Metaphysics (p. 157 to p. 165). Index (p. 166 to p. 235). (shrink)

Scholarly debates on the Critique of Pure Reason have largely been shaped by epistemological questions. Challenging this prevailing trend, Kant's Reform of Metaphysics is the first book-length study to interpret Kant's Critique in view of his efforts to turn Christian Wolff's highly influential metaphysics into a science. Karin de Boer situates Kant's pivotal work in the context of eighteenth-century German philosophy, traces the development of Kant's conception of critique, and offers fresh and in-depth (...) analyses of key parts of the Critique of Pure Reason, including the Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism Chapter, the Appendix to the Transcendental Analytic, and the Architectonic. The book not only brings out the coherence of Kant's project, but also reconstructs the outline of the 'system of pure reason' for which the Critique was to pave the way, but that never saw the light. (shrink)

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

Resumen: En este trabajo examino la concepción hegeliana del límite intentando clarificar sus principales características.Comienzo ubicando la filosofía hegeliana en el contexto filosófico más general del idealismo alemán, entendiendoeste movimiento como aquel comprometido en el proyecto de proporcionar una deducción trascendental de loabsoluto. Dado este contexto, procedo a examinar las críticas de Hegel a a la filosofía de Kant, principalmente en la“introducción a la Fenomenología del espíritu . El artículo concluye evaluando la adecuación de la elucidación deltratamiento hegeliano del (...) problema del límite mostrando como esta noción funciona en la interpretación del tratamiento hegeliano de la certeza sensorial en la fenomenología. -/- The problem of limit according to Hegel. In this paper I focus Hegelian conception of limit trying to clarify its main features. I begin locating Hegel’s philosophy in the broader philosophical context of German Idealism, understanding it as the intellectual movementconcerned with the project of providing a transcendental deduction of the Absolute. Having this as a background, Iexamine Hegelian critique of Kantian philosophy, mainly in the “Introduction” of Phenomenology of Spirit, and I conclude the paper testing the way I elucidated the problem of limit in this paper showing how this notion can beused to interpret the treatment of “sense certainty” in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. (shrink)

This essay examines Wolff’s science of teleology, which has historically been dismissed as a crude physico-theology resting on a simple confusion between uses and purposes. Focusing especially on his two German volumes (German Teleology, 1723, and German Physiology, 1725), I argue that, first, Wolff never intended teleology to be a self-standing theology; and second, that teleology, as a part of physics, is primarily an applied or practical discipline. In its theological function, teleology presupposes the ontological and cosmological arguments for the (...) being and attributes of God rendered in rational theology. As a part of physics, meanwhile, teleology presupposes the inert-mechanical view of nature which had emerged in the seventeenth century, and builds upon mechanistic physics by providing a perspective on nature as consisting of relations of benefit and advantage. The physiological part of teleology, or the study of plant and animal bodies, occupies a special place, for which Wolff deploys notions of health and sickness consistent with the mechanistic physics he accepts. With this in view, I argue that Wolff’s teleology could not be the proper target of Kant’s critique of physico-theology. Yet, there remain deeper differences between Wolff and Kant on the topic, which have to do with the sources and limits of teleological reasoning in general. (shrink)

I consider a complaint about Kantian ethics that has become increasingly prominent in contemporary debate. This worry centers on the idea that Kantian ethics cannot do full justice to the social or intersubjective dimensions of human life – that, unlike Fichte, Hegel, or Marx, Kant remains trapped within a fundamentally individualistic perspective on practical or moral questions, which cannot satisfactorily account for the intersubjective dimensions of moral normativity. In this way, the objection continues, Kantian ethics ultimately leaves the Kantian (...) moral agent fundamentally alienated from those around them, and from the larger community of which they are one part. As we will see, such concerns are not unnatural. But I argue that they rest on a fundamental mischaracterization of where the most serious problems in this region for Kant lie. Far from being too individualistic, the real worry about Kantian moral theory here is that it may not be individualistic enough. Thus, if there is a worry for Kantian ethics in this region, it has a very different shape that many contemporary critiques of Kant or Kantianism assume. (shrink)

The importance of the pure concepts of the understanding (i.e. the categories) within Kant’s system of philosophy is undeniable. As I hope to make clear in this essay, however, the categories are also an essential part of Kant’s critique of Christian Wolff. In particular, I argue that Kant’s development of the categories represents a decisive break with the Wolffian conception of the understanding and that this break is central to understanding the task of the Transcendental Analytic. (...) This break, however, is not merely that Kant affirms while Wolff and his followers deny a sharp distinction between sensibility and the understanding, which is the aspect of Kant’s rejection of Wolff that scholars most frequently note. Rather, this break concerns differences in their views about the understanding itself. For while Wolff conceives of the understanding as a mental capacity to extract and make distinct content already present in the senses, Kant conceives of the understanding in its “real use” as a capacity to produce purely intellectual content. (shrink)

To highlight the promise of Jordan Pascoe’s Kant’s Theory of Labour, my comments concern the diagnostic and prescriptive dimensions of the book’s excellent intersectional critique of dependent labour relations. The diagnostic dimension of Pascoe’s critique establishes that the organisation of dependent labour relations is a neglected problem of Kantian justice. The prescriptive dimension offers solutions to this problem but is underdeveloped. To enhance the book’s prescriptive dimension, I draw on the noted Africana philosopher W. E. B. Du (...) Bois for guidance. For Du Bois, a constitutional republic ought to strive for the abolition of a ‘second’ slavery following the abolition of de jure black chattel slavery with the end of the American Civil War. Given Du Bois’ call for meaningful Emancipation, I argue that philosophers should reinterpret the Kantian normative ideal of freedom as universal independence to uproot the postbellum conditions of second slavery. (shrink)