Kant: Metaphysics

The closing paragraph of Kant’s 1764 essay, Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality, is widely regarded as his first contribution to moral theory. This article offers an interpretation of the text, comparing Kant’s position with the prevailing moral theories of German rationalism. In particular, the article deals with Kant’s criticism of the way they conceive the moral certainty in relation to the concept of obligation. Kant argues that conceiving this certainty as cognitive evidence contradicts (...) the very necessity of obligation. To this kind of evidence, Kant opposes an obligation based on feeling, showing at the same time the difficulties related to this solution. The article also contends that this approach is not new, but that it can be seen as a confirmation of what Kant argued in his 1755 dissertation Nova dilucidatio. The conclusion is that the Inquiry does not represent a departure from Kant’s alleged previous Wolffianism and can be read as a reassesement of his own theory. (shrink)

According to an increasingly dominant interpretation of Kant, empirical laws are grounded in causal powers exercised by things, in accordance with their (essential) natures. By emphasizing the natures of things, such an interpretation is in principle amenable to a comparatively realist–– within the constraints of a Kantian framework––approach, which views Kantian things in themselves, i.e., the mind-independent world, as the (ultimate) ground of empirical laws. In this paper ––to appear in the edited collection "Laws and Powers in the Metaphysics of (...) Science: Historical and Scientific Themes", Routledge, eds.: Vanessa Seifert, Stathis Psillos, Stavros Ioannidis––, I formulate a number of positive considerations, and touch upon a (major) challenge, in the spirit of explicitly defending a comparatively realist, “noumenal” version of this type of reading of Kant. (shrink)

This monograph articulates the Tautology Praxis—a hierarchical, dual-track evaluative architecture asserting the absolute supremacy of logical structure over empirical science. We establish four foundational tenets of this epistemological system: First, logic is the foundation of all knowledge, including science; science cannot exist without logic, but logic can exist without science. Second, the truth value of scientific claims derives from their correspondence to logical structure, not the other way around. Third, when empiricism demands evidence for non contingent claims, it commits a (...) category error—not merely an overgeneralization, but a fundamental mistake about the architecture of knowledge itself. Fourth, certainty is attainable through tautological reasoning without any empirical test. By dismantling the self-referential collapse of Strict Empiricism, we demonstrate that any monistic attempt to demand an empirical tribunal for non-contingent claims commits a catastrophic category error and collapses into skepticism or incoherence (Hall & Bulaqueña, 2024; Quine, 1951). In response, the Tautology Praxis subordinates empirical inquiry to the sovereignty of formal systems. Under this rigorous hierarchy, Track 1 (The Analytical Protocol) governs necessary, structural relations. By establishing that logical, mathematical, and conceptual tautologies are performatively undeniable, we bypass Agrippa’s trilemma and establish an unassailable bedrock of structural certainty. Crucially, we demonstrate that certainty requires no observational validation because rational inference is the prior condition of all observation (Kant, 1781; Leibniz, 1714). Underneath this logical architecture, Track 2 (The Contingent Protocol) governs empirical claims. Rather than an equal partner, Track 2 functions as the subordinate space of applied logic. The truth value of the scientific method does not arise from raw observation itself, but is derived from how closely its procedures match applied logic. When scientific models face experience, they do so under the jurisdiction of the multi-dimensional PRISM appraisal protocol (evaluating Pragmatic utility, Rational coherence, Empirical support, Informational elegance, Systematic scope, and Methodological fruitfulness), which operates as an applied-logic decision procedure (Lakatos, 1970; Popper, 1934). Ultimately, we extend this hierarchical epistemology of logical supremacy to paraconsistent logics, dialetheism, and automated cognitive intelligence. We demonstrate that the scientific enterprise possesses rational authority only to the extent that it conforms to the prior and superior constraints of logical structure. The Tautology Praxis thus provides a robust fallibilist realism where the crystalline sovereignty of necessary truth stands absolute and superior, dictating the very rules of inference by which the contingent cosmos is interpreted (Hall & Bulaqueña, 2024; Worrall, 1989). (shrink)

The Critique of Pure Reason begins with a question that transformed philosophy: how are synthetic a priori judgements possible? The force of that question lies not only in its technical precision but in the displacement it introduces. Instead of asking directly about things, Kant asks about the conditions under which a subject can have objective experience of them. The centre of gravity of the problem of knowledge shifts from the isolated object to the subject who makes its appearance as object (...) possible. That displacement was not a local correction within modern philosophy; it was a reconfiguration of its entire architecture. This treatise inherits that question and, at the same time, reformulates it. Not because the Kantian question was wrong, but because it stopped one step short of where we must now arrive. Kant asked what must be true of experience for knowledge to be possible. This treatise asks what must be true of the agent for him to be able to commit genuine epistemic error. The difference seems minor only if formulated in haste. In reality, it displaces the problem from the theory of experience toward the ontology of the knower. The result is not a variant of Kantianism but a different philosophical project, though one born within its orbit. The need for that reformulation does not stem solely from an academic quarrel with Kantian exegesis. It stems from a concrete historical transformation. For the first time, systems exist that produce discourse with the appearance of knowledge at industrial scale without any agent having thought, evaluated, or signed it. Language models generate answers that look like judgements, analyses that look like reasoning, and explanations that look like comprehension. If knowledge were solely a correct relation between proposition and world, it would suffice for the output to coincide with the truth to grant it full epistemic status. But we do not grant it. And that fact obliges us to ask what is missing where the form of knowledge appears without its substance. That absence cannot be identified simply with consciousness, or with semantic comprehension, or even with the capacity to produce convincing inferences. What is missing, this treatise will argue, is a structure of exposure: someone who can suspend the automatic response, evaluate under criteria he recognises as his own, and sign what he affirms exposing himself to error. That structure is not a moral ornament added after knowledge; it is its condition of possibility. Where it is absent, there can be calculation, correlation, optimisation, or simulation of judgement. There is no knowledge in the strong sense. The inaugural thesis of the chapter can be formulated thus: Kant saw that knowledge demands conditions contributed by the subject; he did not see with sufficient clarity that those formal conditions presuppose a free, indigent, and embodied agent. His Copernican revolution remains indispensable, but it no longer suffices. The problem of the present is not only how an objective world can appear to a subject; it is what type of being that subject must be for the objectivity he produces to be knowledge and not mere structuring of inputs. The entire treatise is born from that difference. (shrink)

Kant frequently states that ‘appearances’ (Erscheinungen) are mere ‘representations’ (Vorstellungen), a claim we can call AR. AR is typically understood as a substantive thesis. This paper argues for a claim that has not been explored at length elsewhere: that AR is an analytic truth, so it does not imply phenomenalism and can be affirmed by a moderate realist reader. I argue that appearances are mental contents directed towards things. Hence, appearances are not themselves the things our minds represent, which exist (...) outside of minds. This reading permits us to accept insights from phenomenalists about Kant’s philosophy of mind, while saving the realists’ metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper argues that, far from supporting, an oft-cited passage of the Phenomena and Noumena chapter (A247/B303) instead belies, Allison’s influential thesis that Kant’s transcendental idealism is not an ‘alternative ontology’ but a methodological or meta-epistemological ‘alternative to ontology’ that is devoid of specific metaphysical content. Following a programmatic sketch of Kant’s system of principles as a regional ontology of nature, it is argued that the precise wording and original punctuation of that passage suggest that the transcendentally realist ontologies of (...) the past are to ‘give way’ to just such an immanent ontology of the world of outer experience. (shrink)

This article seeks to demonstrate that Kant throughout the Critique of Pure Reason employs a type of analogical reasoning that belongs to the methodical backbone of the work. More specifically, I take him to draw on disciplines such as mathematics, general logic, and empirical psychology to expose the a priori features of human cognition at stake in his analyses. After examining Kant’s own comments on the use of analogies in the Critique of Pure Reason, the Prolegomena, the Critique of Judgment (...) and relevant lecture transcripts, I outline the predicative type of analogical reasoning I take to be employed in the Critique of Pure Reason itself. Turning from theory to practice, I analyze Kant’s use of (1) metaphors, (2) analogical inferences intended to clarify concepts such as transcendental illusion, and (3) analogical inferences that inform key arguments, namely, the metaphysical deduction and the so-called subjective deduction contained in the 1781 edition of the Critique. In each case, I argue, Kant’s sustained attempt to illuminate the a priori dimension of the human mind by means of analogical inferences is akin to the use of analogical inferences in former natural theology to obtain cognitions of God. (shrink)

In section two of the Ideal of Pure Reason in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant provides an intricate attempt to ground possibility in the idea of “all of reality” (omnitudo realitiatis). The section begins with two principles, 1) the principle of determinability and 2) the principle of thoroughgoing determination. How the two principles work and relate to each other has been a matter of scholarly debate. The paper contributes to this debate first by outlining Kant’s different senses of ‘determination’. (...) It then uses the senses to suggest a distinction between thoroughgoing determination and complete determination. The distinction enables a reading of the first moves of Kant’s argument in the section. Then the paper places Kant’s use of complete determination in the context of his theory of cognition and criticism of the Leibnizian rationalist tradition. (shrink)

The paper deals with the concept of ‘reality’ in Kant’s early writings, especially in his Latin dissertation A new Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition, in The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God, and in his Attempt to introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitude in Philosophy. ‘Reality’ is considered in the two parts of the paper as a concept of ontology and as a concept of natural philosophy, respectively. I argue that (...) Kant’s definition of reality is based on his peculiar demonstration of the principle of sufficient reason and the related theory of ‘internal possibility of things’. Moreover, I argue that these ontological tenets are consistent with Kant’s concept of physical reality and his early acceptance of Newton’s third Law of motion. Aim of my analysis is to show how a unified theory of reality allows Kant to formulate in a new way a grounding principle of cosmology, i.e. the principle of conservation. (shrink)

La concepción de la existencia como enteramente ajena a los predicados reales del concepto de una cosa no es una concepción original y exclusiva de Kant; es, en rigor, una variación de una concepción posible sobre la existencia que fue ya advertida por la Escolástica medieval y moderna. Recurrir a los debates de la metafísica escolástica sobre el ser y la esencia permite comprender mejor el sentido de las distintas posturas posibles sobre el problema general de la relación entre lo (...) determinado y lo existente. Sobre este trasfondo histórico y conceptual deviene posible abordar con nuevas herramientas teóricas la tesis de Kant sobre la existencia y delimitar con mayor precisión su sentido y su diferencia no sólo respecto de la tesis de autores como Wolff y Baumgarten, sino también respecto de la de los sucesores inmediatos del propio Kant. Éstos criticaron expresamente la postura de Kant sobre la existencia recurriendo, por su parte, a argumentos que en no pocos casos también habían sido reconocidos y parcialmente desarrollados ya por la metafísica escolástica. (shrink)

In this paper, a hylomorphic reading of Kant’s account of laws of nature is discussed. It is argued that existing interpretations cannot make sense of Kant’s commitment to empirical laws of nature, because they construe matters in such a way that there is an opposition between the necessity that comes with lawhood and the empiricality—and hence contingency—of empirical laws of nature. It is laid out how a hylomorphic reading does not come with said opposition and is thus a promising candidate (...) for making sense of Kant’s commitment to empirical laws of nature. Furthermore, the distinction between two senses of necessity that are in play regarding empirical laws of nature is proposed: for one, the necessity of the causal connection and, then, the necessity of a specific law’s being a law. Clearly distinguishing these two senses of necessity removes interpretative pressure towards the existing interpretations and thus opens up the possibility of a hylomorphic reading. It is further shown how such a reading, including its connection to Kant’s account of cognitive capacities, allows one to comprehend many passages in which Kant employs hylomorphic vocabulary. Indeed, Kant is arguing in these passages for a hylomorphic account. (shrink)

The Preisfrage proposed by the Berlin Academy in 1788 on the progress of metaphysics in Germany reflected, to some extent, the endeavor of certain academics who sought to reform Leibnizian monadology. This intention was also present in Kant’s Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft, durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll and in the drafts in which he would address the Academy’s question. This article aims to analyze Nicolas de Béguelin’s critical interpretation of the concept (...) of monads, understood as representing the elements of natural reality beyond phenomena. In two of his memoirs published in the Academy’s yearbooks, Béguelin resolved this issue through an analogical use of the connotations of organic teleology, in order to formulate a hypothesis that would prove consonant with the requirements of experience-bound knowledge. Certain limited convergences between Béguelin’s views and Kant’s are then described and assessed. (shrink)

This article examines the reception of Kant’s theoretical philosophy at the Berlin Academy during the 1790s, with particular attention to two central themes: philosophical method and the status of metaphysics. I argue that Kant’s ideas were received at a moment when academic philosophy had already emerged as an autonomous current within the late German Enlightenment. The philosophers of the Academy actively engaged with his writings, using them as a catalyst to refine and radicalize their own views on the practice of (...) philosophy and the role of metaphysics. The analysis focuses on the memoirs of J.-B. Merian (1723–1807) and L. F. Ancillon (1740–1814), who sought to counter what they perceived as Kant’s dismantling of metaphysics. I contend that, despite earlier opposition to Wolff’s system within the Academy, the members of the speculative philosophy class strove to reassert the value of metaphysics, gravitating toward a more Wolffian perspective. Thus, by the end of the 1790s, earlier pluralistic conceptions of metaphysics had largely given way to a foundational approach aimed at countering Kant’s critique. (shrink)

In this article, I study the development of German metaphysics from Daniel Cramer's Isagoge in metaphysicam Aristotelis to Kant's Critical Philosophy. While most seventeenth-century Lutheran authors conceive of metaphysics as atheoretical or purely speculative science of being in its most general terms, later authors, especially, Wolff, Meier and Kant raise the question of how metaphysics can be reformed in more practical terms. They struggle to articulate what this practical reform should actually amount to. At least two options are on the (...) table: (1) metaphysics as an operative discipline à la Bacon; or (2) metaphysics as the foundation of moral philosophy. (shrink)

Detailed analysis of the expression ‘things in general and in themselves’ reveals two further uses of ‘noumenon’ (and ‘thing in itself’) in addition to the ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ senses distinguished by Kant himself. It follows (pace various ‘reductive’ interpretations) that Kant’s transcendental distinction comprises four different contrasts. On a new resolution of the long-running ‘one or two objects?’ dispute, there follows a complete re-interpretation of Kant’s transcendental distinction as a meta-metaphysical thought experiment. It has the ‘metaphysical density’ necessary to forestall (...) charges of ‘innocuousness’ without giving purchase to the well-known objections that have dogged Kant’s transcendental distinction from its inception. (shrink)

The pre-Critical Kant holds that God is the ground of the possibility of all predicates. Yet it is not clear how God does this. A common approach is to distinguish between fundamental predicates, which God grounds directly by instantiating them, and derivative predicates, which God grounds indirectly. This essay argues that we should not distinguish between two sorts of predicates, some grounded directly and some grounded indirectly. We should distinguish between two sorts of grounding relations. As I will show, this (...) dualism about grounding is both justified by the text and gives a satisfactory solution to the ‘how’ question. (shrink)

This essay is intended as a brief introduction on Kant’s views on time and the theoretical contexts he presents them in. The idea is to sketch out Kant’s views as I see them in such a manner that it would be easy to build upon the discussed themes on a later occasion. I start by listing the key Kant texts that concern the notion of time. Then I investigate the theoretical contexts where time plays a prominent role in Kant’s critical (...) philosophy. Finally, I take a somewhat more detailed look at the Transcendental Aesthetic, in which Kant supposedly claims that time is nothing but a subjective way of representing things in temporal order. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between three meanings of “identity”: logical identity, identity of self-consciousness, and personal identity. It raises the question of how these three meanings are related to one another and reconstructs Kant’s, Fichte’s and Hegel’s answers to this question. Kant conceives of logical identity and the identity of self-consciousness as two different species of the genus “identity”. Fichte holds that logical identity is to be deduced from the identity of self-consciousness. Nevertheless, Kant and Fichte agree that “personal identity” is (...) homonymous with these two meanings of identity. Hegel objects to this, arguing that identity of self-consciousness is only conceivable as an aspect of personal identity and that logical identity is an abstraction of the understanding. (shrink)

The term ‘miracle’ generally refers to events that are not explicable by natural causes alone. Kant’s notion of miracles is usually understood along these lines. However, Kant’s occupation with miracles should be understood in a practical context. Belief in miracles plays a constitutive role in Kant’s philosophy of religion concerning the need to strengthen the will both before and after departing from original evil. I demonstrate how my argument sheds new light on Kant’s claim that theoretical reason precludes the possibility (...) of material miracles. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) is a towering figure of Western philosophy, someone whose work continues to exert an influence across all areas of the discipline. His work is characterized by both breadth and unity: he writes powerfully about mind, epistemology, metaphysics, logic, mathematics, natural science, ethics, politics, religion, history, aesthetics, education, and more. And across those areas, he is concerned to work out and defend a view of human beings and their place in nature according to which our own reason enables (...) us to discover and uphold the laws of nature and freedom—that is, to think for ourselves. The newly commissioned essays which make up this Handbook collectively present a picture of where the study of Kant’s philosophy finds itself, at this point in the twenty-first century. They are organized around the four questions which Kant said unite all interest of our reason: (1) What can I know? (2) What ought I to do? (3) What may I hope? and (4) What is the human being? Their aim is to help students and scholars of Kant’s philosophy think for themselves about the topics about which he wrote with such insight. (shrink)

On an influential reading, Leibniz's eighteenth-century followers, such as Wolff and Baumgarten, were proto-logicists who sought to transform all propositions into analytic truths. Kant's main innovation, on this reading, lies in asserting that there are synthetic a priori truths. Against this, I establish the importance of a line of thought in Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten that stresses the role of perception for determinate knowledge of magnitudes, such as the objects of geometry. (I also consider Crusius, who hews much closer to (...) an analytic or conceptual account of magnitude.) I argue that these thinkers fail to solve a family of philosophical problems arising from a conflict between (1) their commitment to the objectivity and necessity of mathematics, and (2) their view that a determinate grasp of magnitude partly depends on relations to a perceiver. I then contend that Kant is also a participant in the debate about these problems, that he is closer to his predecessors than usually assumed (though partly rejecting their emphasis on empirical perception), and that at least two problems for his account remain unsolved. (shrink)

En este artículo haré una revisión sumaria a la relación de la filosofía analítica anglosajona con Kant, vista a través de algunos de sus más conspicuos representantes. Con fines expositivos los agruparé en dos períodos históricos. Dicha agrupación, muy genérica, sólo pretende destacar a algunos autores y temas, sin que pretenda ser exhaustiva ni taxativa. Por las razones indicadas excluiré a la multitud de destacados filósofos analíticos que han escrito en idiomas distintos al inglés, así como a figuras menos conocidas (...) del ámbito anglosajón. (shrink)

Main description: Angesichts der zunehmenden Zerstörung der Natur durch den Menschen und der technischen Fortschritte in den Biowissenschaften ist die Frage nach dem Verhältnis des Menschen zu seiner natürlichen Umwelt von höchster Aktualität. Ausgehend von der Philosophie Kants, nach der die Betrachtung der Natur wesentlich in einer Analogie mit der Vernunft des Menschen gründet, entwickelt Angela Breitenbach einen Ansatz zu einer modernen Umweltphilosophie, die einen wichtigen Beitrag zu aktuellen Debatten in der Umweltethik und der Philosophie der Biologie liefert.

This article examines Kant's treatment of nostalgia through two analytical categories: explicit reflections, in which Kant directly addresses and analyzes the term das Heimweh ; and implicit reflections, which involve three concepts closely connected to his descriptions and definitions but not systematically examined within the explicit framework— memory, longing, and imagination. The paper concludes by engaging with Edward Casey's proposed solution to the question of which type of imagination ( productive or reproductive ) Kant employs in his definition of nostalgia, (...) while introducing a novel interpretation of this theoretical issue. (shrink)

This chapter examines Kant’s theory of the relation between God’s causal activity in the world and so-called “secondary” causation, the causality of created beings. The central question he faces here is the traditional one for a theistic metaphysics: How does the activity of God viewed as primordial creator and conserver of the world relate in general to the causal activity, if any, of created beings? His own evolving account of the divine causal role is shaped by his ongoing engagement with (...) three competing theories of divine causation distinguished in late scholastic philosophy, and vigorously debated in the modern period by Malebranche and Leibniz. It is shown here that the most significant milestone in the emergence of Kant’s mature account does not lie in his transition from pre-Critical to Critical philosopher, but in an earlier one from necessitarian to libertarian on human agency. (shrink)

Nomic essentialism is the surprising view that properties of particulars are importantly dependent on laws. In this paper, I consider what I call a moderate nomic essentialist reading of Kant, on which the thesis of dependence on law is restricted to properties of empirical objects. I argue that this reading is more plausible than it might seem, and can be textually motivated by the relational character of empirical objects, the role of laws in determinism, and Kant’s laws-first account of what (...) it is to be a material particular. I also compare this reading with more familiar contemporary arguments for nomic essentialism. Finally, I consider two problems for nomic essentialism—the problem of circularity and the problem of nomic governance—and outline some possible responses on Kant’s behalf. (shrink)

I address a longstanding problem in Kant scholarship: how is Kant’s use of the term ‘mechanism’ to be understood? It seems that Kant uses that term in a variety of ways, from a narrow sense (“motion communicated between matter”) to a very wide sense (“any causation that is not noumenal”). I argue that Kant has a unified conception of mechanism, where the wider senses are to be understood in light of a conception of nature according to which all of nature (...) is purely mechanistic in the narrow sense. In contrast to his mechanistic predecessors, Kant holds that this conception of nature is an idea, an imaginary end-point of science that we need for orientation but can only approach asymptotically. (shrink)

Review of Gabriele Gava's Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics.

Nesta edição especial, O Corpo é discurso apresenta os resultados do Curso A construção do sujeito em Kant - As luzes de Foucault, organizado pelo professor Nílton Milanez e por Jamille Silva Santos, integrante do Labedisco e mestranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística, pela Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia.

El presente escrito traza el camino del logos en tres figuras centrales de la filosofía clásica alemana. Luego de recorrer el problema de los antecedentes, es planteada la querella ante la cual quedó puesto el logos moderno. Se trata, en primer lugar, de poner de manifiesto la función del logos en la respuesta kantiana a la cuestión del fundamento del saber, tematizada principalmente en los Paralogismos de la segunda edición de la Crítica de la razón pura. En segundo lugar, será (...) reconstruida la respuesta de Fichte a dicha pregunta, desarrollada de manera específica en la Primera y Segunda Introducción a la Doctrina de la Ciencia. En tercer lugar, será tematizado el sentido del logos expuesto en la Introducción y la División General de la Ciencia de la lógica de Hegel. A lo largo de este derrotero, será formalizada de tres modos la energía fundante de toda objetividad. (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)

For Kant, inquiry into nature properly requires seeking to explain all material wholes merely mechanically, in terms of their parts. There is no consensus on how he justifies this Principle of Mechanism. I argue that Kant seeks to derive this claim about part and wholes neither from his laws or mechanics, nor from the mere discursivity of our understanding (two standard options in the literature), but instead from a priori principles laid out in the first Critique, which govern parts, wholes, (...) and magnitudes. These principles are also fundamental to Kant’s account of mathematics. Therefore, Kant’s Principle of Mechanism and his philosophy of mathematics have common foundations. (shrink)

My response to Gabriele Gava’s Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Method of Metaphysics (2023) focuses on Kant’s conception of the role of critique in the Critique of Pure Reason. On my account, Gava’s emphasis on the constructive elements of the Critique downplays the critique of former metaphysics elaborated in all three parts of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements. After some comments on Kant’s conception of the Critique as a doctrine of method, I support this view by discussing the (...) relation between transcendental philosophy and transcendental critique, Kant’s analysis of the faculties, and his transcendental deduction of space. (shrink)

The article addresses some aspects of Gava’s book, highlighting two main points: (1) the notion of philosophy in a cosmic sense; (2) its connection with the meaning of the concept of method. Regarding (1) I show how Gava’s interpretation of the systematic concept of philosophy does not account adequately for the scholastic concept. This has consequences for the notion of philosophy in a cosmic sense itself; its nature as an objective archetype and its personification in the ideal of a master (...) of wisdom are not properly emphasized. These features are closely related to Kant’s claim that philosophy cannot be learned, which is connected with Kant’s peculiar idea of method. Regarding (2), I argue that ‘method’ for Kant does not concern only the construction of scientific systems, but also the establishment of a way of thinking, a stance embracing thought and action. The meaning of the postulates and the notion of ‘faith’ thus acquire a ‘weaker’ connotation, as an attitude, habitus, aimed at the establishment and promotion of a ‘life-structuring’ rationality, and not as an alternative route to a theoretical ‘commitment’. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the following two related claims. First, the science of phoronomy from Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is grounded in the duplication of space. Second, this duplication is made possible through the self-localization of the subject, as Kant shows in the "Gegnden-Schrift". The thesis of this paper is that the self-localization transforms space into an object that can be cinematically moved and that this action sets the ground for a science of phoronomy, which presupposes (...) the existence of at least two spaces. In the end, the other endpoint of the Kantian determination of space is discussed, namely space understood as an idea of reason. (shrink)

Der Kosmologe von Königsberg Vor 300 Jahren wurde Immanuel Kant geboren. Der Philosoph war auch ein kühner Vordenker in den Naturwissenschaften. Schon 1755 schrieb Kant über Gezeitenreibung, Saturns Ringpartikel, ferne Planeten und außerirdische Intelligenzen. Er spekulierte über die Entstehung von Planetensystemen, über andere Galaxien und Universen. Kosmologie und Hirnforschung lassen seine Philosophie von Raum und Zeit heute in neuem Licht erscheinen.

Hinging on a metaphysical examination of the concept of newness and Paul Guyer’s notion of the temporally extended self, this article analyzes what it means that we are a temporally extended being that is fashioned in time, which is none other than a transcendental object = newness, and argues that (fashioned) bodies can be things in themselves and mere phenomena simultaneously. Kant’s doctrine of self-positing assists us in decoding how the subject obtains an embodied experience while a thing in itself, (...) as well as how both a non-empirical affection and an empirical affection are at play, casually affecting the subject. By looking into how double affection is in operation, this article aims to broaden our understanding of Kant’s theory of self-consciousness. (shrink)

This paper examines the development of the modern concept of substance from Leibniz to Hegel. I will focus primarily on the problem of the inner and outer nature of substance. I will show that if one considers Hegel’s discussion of substance against the background of the controversy between Leibniz and Kant about the inner and outer nature of substance, it becomes clear that for Hegel both Leibniz and Kant grasped the whole concept of substance only partially and in its abstract (...) moments. This is because they both concentrate on one aspect of substance and absolutize it. Hegel, on the other hand, not only overcomes the fundamental difference between the inner and outer of substance, but also develops the connection between the different moments of substance, causality and interaction from the rationalist concept of substance itself. (shrink)

The Latin American philosopher Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla published the first study of Kant's concept of nothingness in 1965. This translation of Mayz Vallenilla's ground-breaking work makes it available in English for the first time. -/- Mayz Vallenilla's interpretation is deeply informed by Heidegger's reading of Kant, against the background of the early 20th century neo-Kantian tradition. He offers a detailed interpretation and critique of “nothing” as it appears in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason and presents an (...) analysis of Kant's Table of Nothing which understands temporality as the horizon of all possible cognition, including cognition of real nothings. -/- Accompanied by translator's notes and a glossary, Addison Ellis' translation includes extensive commentary and an introduction providing historical context and references to the original sources in German. He preserves key terminology and phrasing from the original text and allows an often-neglected connection to be made between the Kantian tradition in Latin America and the tradition in the Anglophone world. (shrink)

본 연구는 칸트의 선험철학에 대한 체계론적 방법론으로 ‘사이로서의 형식’을 제안한다. 요컨대 사이로서의 형식은 규정들의 병존 관계에 대한 반성을 유기적으로 수행할 수 있는 사유 조건이다. 사이로서의 형식은 규정 관계들의 간격을 통일성 있게 반성할 (reflektierend) 수 있다는 점에서 하나의 ‘인식원리’로 작용한다. 사이성 형식을 매개로 칸 트의 주요 개념들이 임의적 간극을 형성하는 가운데 ‘공존’에 관한 규정문제가 앎의 인식 론적 지평에서 재고되고 숙고될 수 있다. 구체적으로 본 연구는 ‘칸트의 사이와 공존’을 불일치 개념들의 사이성 속에서 논한다. 칸트의 주요 철학 개념들 간에 환치될 수 없는 규정들의 (...) 경계들을 찾아, 그 사이에 ‘공존’의 의미를 체계론적으로 재사유한다. 첫 번째로 다룰 개념들은 칸트의 1770년 『교수 취임논문』에서의 ‘감성계’와 ‘지성계’의 사이성이다. 이 두 규정항들의 불일치하는 지점들 을 분석하여, 양자의 벌어진 거리 속에 공존의 가능 조건들을 반성한다. 다음으로 칸트의 ‘형이상학’과 ‘순수이성’ 간의 사이성과 공존에 관해 논구한다. 『순수이성비판』을 토대로 두 규정항들의 간극을 분석하고, 그 불일치의 사이에서 공동체 앎에 관한 인식론적 의미를 반추한다. 마지막은 ‘선험철학’과 ‘아프리오리’의 불일치와 공존이다. 마찬가지로 『순수이 성비판』에 기반하여 양자의 사이성을 고찰하고 공존의 현대적 의미를 재확립한다. (shrink)

Kant criticizes Plato for his interest in positing ideas that are entirely purified from any sensible elements, but which, nonetheless, exist in some supra-sensible reality. I argue that Kant’s criticism can be repositioned and even countered if, in our assessment of Plato, we assign a wider scope of significance and greater value to the senses. In order to lend focus to my article, I analyze Socrates’ presentation of what I translate as the “look of the Good” (τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέαν, 508e) (...) in theRepublicso as to show the proximity between Plato and Kant on the question of sensibility. I also draw on thePhaedoand extant literature that goes against the traditional view regarding the status of Ideas or Forms, including the Idea of the Good. I further discuss an affinity between the Good that is “beyond being” (ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας, 509c) in theRepublicand Kant’s view of God as an Ideal of Reason. Given my articulation of the importance of the sensible dimension in Plato, there is a continuity between Kant and Plato on the question of the illegitimacy of certain ideas. In other words, in my reading (and contrary to Kant’s view of Plato), Kant does not so much overturn Plato’s metaphysics, but develops further the view that is already inscribed in Plato. (shrink)