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  1. Destigmatizing the Exegetical Attribution of Lies: The Case of Kant.Ian Proops & Roy Sorensen - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (4):746-768.
    Charitable interpreters of David Hume set aside his sprinkles of piety. Better to read him as lying than as clumsily inconsistent. We argue that the attribution of lies can pay dividends in historical scholarship no matter how strongly the theorist condemns lying. Accordingly, we show that our approach works even with one of the strongest condemners of lying: Immanuel Kant. We argue that Kant lied in his scholarly work and even in the first Critique. And we defend the claim that (...)
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  2. The new Wittgenstein: A critique.Ian Proops - 2001 - European Journal of Philosophy 9 (3):375–404.
    A critique of Cora Diamond's influential approach to reading Wittgenstein's Tractatus. According to Diamond, the Tractatus contains no substantive philosophical theses, but is rather merely an especially subtle and sophisticated exercise in the unmasking of nonsense. I argue that no remotely convincing case for this interpretive thesis has yet been made--either by Diamond herself, or by the numerous defenders of this so-called "resolute" reading (so-called by those who wish to style themselves as resolute; their opponents tend to reject this characterization (...)
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  3. Kant's Legal Metaphor and the Nature of a Deduction.Ian Proops - 2003 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 41 (2):209-229.
    This essay partly builds on and partly criticizes a striking idea of Dieter Henrich. Henrich argues that Kant's distinction in the first Critique between the question of fact (quid facti) and the question of law (quid juris) provides clues to the argumentative structure of a philosophical "Deduction". Henrich suggests that the unity of apperception plays a role analogous to a legal factum. By contrast, I argue, first, that the question of fact in the first Critique is settled by the Metaphysical (...)
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  4. Russellian Acquaintance Revisited.Ian Proops - 2014 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (4):779-811.
    It is sometimes claimed that in his 1912 work, "The Problems of Philosophy" (POP), and possibly as early as “on Denoting”, Russell conceives of the mind's acquaintance with sense-data as providing an indubitable or certain foundation for empirical knowledge. However, although he does say things suggestive of this view in certain of his 1914 works, Russell also makes remarks in POP that conflict with any such broadly "Cartesian" interpretation of this work. This paper attempts to resolve this apparent tension, while (...)
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  5. Kant’s Conception of Analytic Judgment.Ian Proops - 2005 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70 (3):588–612.
    In the 'Critique of Pure Reason' Kant appears to characterize analytic judgments in four distinct ways: once in terms of “containment,” a second time in terms of “identity,” a third time in terms of the explicative–ampliative contrast, and a fourth time in terms of the notion of “cognizability in accordance with the principle of contradiction.” The paper asks: Which of these characterizations—or apparent characterizations—best captures Kant’s conception of analyticity in the first Critique? It suggests: “the second.” It argues, further, that (...)
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  6. What is Frege's "Concept horse Problem" ?Ian Proops - 2013 - In Sullivan Michael Potter and Peter (ed.), Wittgenstein's Tractatus: History and Interpretation. Oxford University Press. pp. 76-96.
    I argue that Frege's so-called "concept 'horse' problem" is not one problem but many. When these different sub-problems are distinguished, some emerge as more tractable than others. I argue that, contrary to a widespread scholarly assumption originating with Peter Geach, there is scant evidence that Frege engaged with the general problem of the inexpressibility of logical category distinctions in writings available to Wittgenstein. In consequence, Geach is mistaken in his claim that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein simply accepts from Frege certain (...)
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  7. Kant's first paralogism.Ian Proops - 2010 - Philosophical Review 119 (4):449–495.
    In the part of the first Critique known as “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason” Kant seeks to explain how even the most acute metaphysicians could have arrived, through speculation, at the ruefully dogmatic conclusion that the self (understood as the subject of thoughts or "thinking I") is a substance. His diagnosis has two components: first, the positing of the phenomenon of “Transcendental Illusion”—an illusion, modelled on but distinct from, optical illusion--that predisposes human beings to accept as sound--and as known to (...)
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  8. Replies to Critics of the Fiery Test of Critique.Ian Proops - 2024 - Kantian Review.
    A set of replies to critics of my 2021 book 'The Fiery Test of Critique: A Reading of Kant's Dialectic' (OUP). -/- The criticisms are based on talks given at an Author-meets-critics symposium at Princeton University on April 22nd, 2023. The critics are: Beatrice Longuenesse, Patricia Kitcher, Allen Wood, Des Hogan, and Anja Jauernig.
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  9. (1 other version)Kant on the Ontological Argument.Ian Proops - 2013 - Noûs 49 (1):1-27.
    The article examines Kant's various criticisms of the broadly Cartesian ontological argument as they are developed in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is argued that each of these criticisms is effective against its intended target, and that these targets include—in addition to Descartes himself—Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten. It is argued that Kant's most famous criticism—the charge that being is not a real predicate—is directed exclusively against Leibniz. Kant's argument for this thesis—the argument proceeding from his example of a hundred (...)
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  10. Russell on substitutivity and the abandonment of propositions.Ian Proops - 2011 - Philosophical Review 120 (2):151-205.
    The paper argues that philosophers commonly misidentify the substitutivity principle involved in Russell’s puzzle about substitutivity in “On Denoting”. This matters because when that principle is properly identified the puzzle becomes considerably sharper and more interesting than it is often taken to be. This article describes both the puzzle itself and Russell's solution to it, which involves resources beyond the theory of descriptions. It then explores the epistemological and metaphysical consequences of that solution. One such consequence, it argues, is that (...)
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  11. The tractatus on inference and entailment.Ian Proops - 2002 - In Erich H. Reck (ed.), From Frege to Wittgenstein: Essays on Early Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    In the Tractatus Wittgenstein criticizes Frege and Russell's view that laws of inference (Schlussgesetze) "justify" logical inferences. What lies behind this criticism, I argue, is an attack on Frege and Russell's conceptions of logical entailment. In passing, I examine Russell's dispute with Bradley on the question whether all relations are "internal".
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  12. Wittgenstein on the substance of the world.Ian Proops - 2004 - European Journal of Philosophy 12 (1):106–126.
    The *Tractatus* contains an argument that there are simple, necessarily existent objects, which, being simple, are suited to be the referents of the names occuring in the final analysis of propositions. The argument is perplexing in its own right, but also for its invocation of the notion of "substance". I argue that if one locates Wittgenstein's conception of substance in the Kantian tradition to which his talk of "substance" alludes, what emerges is an argument that is very nearly--but not quite--cogent.
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  13. Russell and the universalist conception of logic.Ian Proops - 2007 - Noûs 41 (1):1–32.
    The paper critically scrutinizes the widespread idea that Russell subscribes to a "Universalist Conception of Logic." Various glosses on this somewhat under-explained slogan are considered, and their fit with Russell's texts and logical practice examined. The results of this investigation are, for the most part, unfavorable to the Universalist interpretation.
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  14. How does a tautology say nothing?Ian Proops - forthcoming - In Wittgenstein's pre-Tractatus writings: Interpretations and Reappraisals.
    In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein conceives of tautology as 'saying nothing'. More precisely, he holds -- or so this essay contends -- that it says nothing in virtue of possessing a zero quantity of sense. Insofar as it is the limit of a series of propositions of diminishing quantity of sense, tautology resembles a degenerate conic section. But it also resembles the result of a summing together of equal and opposite linear vector quantities. Both of these models shape Wittgenstein's conception of (...)
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  15. Kant on Enlightenment.Ian Proops - 2024 - In Andrew Stephenson & Anil Gomes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kant. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    Kant defines ‘enlightenment’ as ‘humankind’s emergence from its self-imposed immaturity’. This essay considers the meaning, role, and novelty of this definition, while also examining its relation to the Enlightenment slogans: ‘sapere aude’ (‘Dare to be wise!’) and ‘Think for yourself’. It is argued that there are two subtly different aspects to the ‘immaturity’ from which Kant, insofar as he endorses the transformative process of enlightenment, is urging us to ‘emerge’. These aspects correspond to his two images of immaturity: first, confinement (...)
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  16. Kant and the king: Lying promises, conventional implicature, and hypocrisy.Roy Sorensen & Ian Proops - 2024 - Ratio 37 (1):51-63.
    Immanuel Kant promised, ‘as Your Majesty's loyal subject’, to abstain from all public lectures about religion. All past commentators agree this phrase permitted Kant to return to the topic after the King died. But it is not part of the ‘at-issue content’. Consequently, ‘as Your Majesty's loyal subject’ is no more an escape clause than the corresponding phrase in ‘I guarantee, as your devoted fan, that these guitar strings will not break’. Just as the guarantee stands regardless of whether the (...)
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  17. Logical atomism in Russell and Wittgenstein.Ian Proops - 2011 - In Oskari Kuusela & Marie McGinn (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    An essay examining logical atomism as it arises in Russell and the early Wittgenstein.
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  18. Logical syntax in the tractatus.Ian Proops - 2001 - In Richard Gaskin (ed.), Grammar in early twentieth-century philosophy. New York: Routledge. pp. 163.
    An essay on Wittgenstein's conception of nonsense and its relation to his idea that "logic must take care of itself". I explain how Wittgenstein's theory of symbolism is supposed to resolve Russell's paradox, and I offer an alternative to Cora Diamond's influential account of Wittgenstein's diagnosis of the error in the so-called "natural view" of nonsense.
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