[2016]  Kant Bibliography 2017  [2018]

(under development; please send corrections,
missing entries and/or abstracts
or annotations to Steve Naragon)

A citation source key can be found at the bottom of this page.

[top]Kant    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Editions and translations of the writings of Immanuel Kant

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[See also the items listed under Collections]

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Die falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren erwiesen (1762)

 ——. “Falsa subtilitate a celor patru figuri silogistice.” [Romanian]  Translated by Alexandru Boboc. Revista de Filosofie 64.3 (2017): 413-24. [PW] [online]

Versuch den Begriff der negativen Gröβen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (1763)

 ——. “Încercare de a introduce în filosofie conceptul de mărimi negative.” [Romanian] Translated by Alexandru Boboc. Revista de Filosofie 64.1 (2017): 149-60. [PW] [online]

[Note] [Hide Note] Translation of Sections 1-2 (partial) (AA 2:165-88).

 ——. “Încercare de a introduce în filosofie conceptul de mărimi negative.” [Romanian] Translated by Alexandru Boboc. Revista de Filosofie 64.2 (2017): 275-88. [PW] [online]

[Note] [Hide Note] Translation of Section 2 (partial) to the end of the essay (AA 2:184-204).

“Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht.” (1784)

 ——. Tankar kring en universell historieskrivning för en kosmopolitisk plan. [Swedish] Translated by Rolan Poirier Martinsson.  Stockholm: Timbro förlag, 2017. [40 p.]

“Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?” (1784)

 ——. En defensa de la Ilustración. [Spanish] Translated by Javier Alcoriza and Antonio Lastra; introduction by José Luis Villacañas.  Barcelona: Alba, 2017. [406 p.]

 ——. Che cos'è l'illuminismo? [Italian] Translated and edited by Nicolao Merker.  Rome: Editori riuniti, 2017. [196 p.]

Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788)

 ——.  Crítica de la razón práctica. [Spanish] Translated by Emilio Miñana y Villagrasa and Manuel García Morente; edited by Maximiliano Hernández Marcos.  Madrid: Tecnos, 2017. [357 p.]

“Erste Fassung der Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft” (1789)

 ——. Primera introducción de la Crítica del juicio. [Spanish/German] Translated and edited by Nuria Sánchez Madrid.  Madrid: Escolar y Mayo, 2017. [352 p.]

Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790)

 ——. 판단력비판: 부록: 판단력비판 제1서론. [Korean; Critique of Judgment, with appendix: first introduction] Translated by Seok-yoon Lee.  Seoul: Bagyeongsa, 2017. [509 p.]

Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll” (1790)

 ——. E diénexe me ton Eberhard: Peri mia anakálypses sýmphona me ten opoía káthe néa kritike tu katharú lógu tha kathistatai peritte lógo mia palaióteres. [Greek] Translated and edited by Haris Tasakos.  Athens: Printa, 2017. [126 p.]

Metaphysics of Morals (1797)

 ——. The Metaphysics of Morals. [English] Translated and edited by Mary Gregor, introduction by Lara Denis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. [xlii, 264 p.] [WC]

Lecture Notes

 ——. Lecciones de filosofía moral. Mrongovius II. [Spanish] Translated by Alba Jiménez. Salamanca: Sígueme, 2017. [160 p.] [WC]

[Note] [Hide Note] Bi-lingual edition.

Miscellaneous

 ——. Benno Erdmann, Riflessioni sulla Critica della ragion pura: da annotazioni manoscritte. [Italian] Translated from the German by Raffaele Ciafardone. Naples/Salerno: Orthotes, 2017. [473 p.] [WC]

Collections

[Pelletier 2017] Principes métaphysiques de la science de la nature; suivi des Premiers articles sur la physique de la terre et du ciel. [French] Translated and edited by Arnaud Pelletier. Paris: Vrin, 2017. [403 p.] [WC]

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[top]A    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Abaci, Uygar. “Kant, The Actualist Principle, and The Fate of the Only Possible Proof.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.2 (2017): 261-91. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Commentators have repeatedly claimed that Kant offers a tacit restate- ment of his pre-critical “only possible proof” in the Critique of Pure Reason, downgrading its conclusion from the (objectively) necessary existence of God to the (subjectively) necessary presupposition of the idea of God, but none has successfully accounted for where and why exactly Kant thinks the proof fails as an objective demonstration. I suggest that (a) the proof fails because it mistreats the actualist principle, “every possibility must be grounded in actuality,” as an ontological principle applying to the real possibilities of things in general, whereas in its critically legitimate version this principle expresses an epistemological condition of our cognition of the real possibility of empirical objects; (b) this metaphysical error in the proof occurs due to a transcendental illusion.

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Modal Metaphysics, by Nicholas F. Stang (2016). Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.1 (2017): 169-70. [M]

Abin, Esther. “Making sense: The possibility of truthfulness in politics.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 109-21. [M]

Alberg, Jeremiah. “Kant’s Republican Cosmopolitanism.” European Legacy 22.3 (2017): 335-38. [PI]

Alican, Necip Fikri. “Kant’s Neglected Alternative: Neither Neglected nor An Alternative.” Philosophical Forum 48.1 (2017): 69-90. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article demonstrates that philosopher Immanuel Kant successfully confronts the allegedly neglected alternative in his formulation of transcendental idealism. Topics include the central thesis of Kant's transcendental idealism, distinction between problems in deduction and problems in consistency as two related objections inherent in the neglected alternative, and the tenability of the interpretive platform.

Allais, Lucy. “Transcendental Idealism and the Transcendental Aesthetic.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 46-63. [PW]

 ——. “Empirical Concepts, the Role of Intuition, and the Poverty of Conceptual Truth.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 99-114. [PW]

 ——. “Synthesis and Binding.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 25-45??. [WC]

Allessandro, Giuseppe d’. “L’histoire pour le philosophe et l’historien: Kant et Schlözer.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 139-47. [M]

Almeida, Pedro Jonas. “A razão e suas ideias.” [Portuguese; Reason and its Ideas]] Studia Kantiana 15.1 (2017): 123-52. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of the following article is to comment on what we shall call subjective deduction of the transcendental ideas of pure reason and to present the hypothesis that better seems to adjust with Kant’s objective in the Transcendental Dialectics: Claude Piché’s hypothesis. In order to fulfill this, it will be important to show the relation between general logic and transcendental logic and how the latter seems to subordinate the former when Kant formulates the problem of the clue to the derivation of the latter from the former.

Altman, Matthew C. “The Limits of Kant’s Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Practice, and the Crisis in Syria.” Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 179-204. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Although Kant defends a cosmopolitan ideal, his philosophy is problematically vague regarding how to achieve it, which lends support to the empty formalism charge. How Kant would respond to the crisis in Syria reveals that judgement plays too central a role, because Kantian principles lead to equally reasonable but opposite conclusions on how to weigh the duty of hospitality to refugees against a state’s duty to its own citizens, the right of prevention towards ISIS against the duty not to harm non-combatants, and the responsibility to protect the people of Syria against the duty of non-interference in its internal affairs.

 ——. “Introduction: Kant the Revolutionary.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 1-17. [M]

 ——. “A Practical Account of Kantian Freedom.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 211-42. [M]

 ——. “Conclusion: Kant the Philosopher.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 815-21. [M]

 ——, ed. The Palgrave Kant Handbook. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. [xliv, 851 p.] [M]

[Note] [Hide Note] Includes a chronology of Kant's life with a complete list of Kant's publications (xxxi-xliv).
Contents:
Matthew C. Altman (Introduction: Kant the Revolutionary),
Steve Naragon (Kant’s Life),
Manuel Sánchez-Rodríguez (Kant and His Philosophical Context: The Reception and Critical Transformation of the Leibnizian-Wolffian Philosophy),
Paul Guyer (Transcendental Idealism: What and Why?),
Alejandro Naranjo Sandoval and Andrew Chignell (Noumenal Ignorance: Why, for Kant, Can’t We Know Things in Themselves?),
Chong-Fuk Lau (Kant’s Concept of Cognition and the Key to the Whole Secret of Metaphysics),
Dennis Schulting (Apperception, Self-Consciousness, and Self-Knowledge in Kant),
Clinton Tolley (The Place of Logic within Kant’s Philosophy),
Ralph C. S. Walker (The Primacy of Practical Reason),
Matthew C. Altman (A Practical Account of Kantian Freedom),
David Zapero (Moral Skepticism and the Critique of Practical Reason),
Allen W. Wood (How a Kantian Decides What to Do),
Oliver Sensen (Duties to Oneself),
Kate Moran (Demandingness, Indebtedness, and Charity: Kant on Imperfect Duties to Others),
Helga Varden (Kant and Sexuality),
Carla Bagnoli (Kant in Metaethics: The Paradox of Autonomy, Solved by Publicity),
Fiona Hughes (Feeling the Life of the Mind: Mere Judging, Feeling, and Judgment),
Eli Friedlander (On Common Sense, Communicability, and Community),
Jennifer A. McMahon (Immediate Judgment and Non-Cognitive Ideas: The Pervasive and Persistent in the Misreading of Kant’s Aesthetic Formalism),
Melissa McBay Merritt (Sublimity and Joy: Kant on the Aesthetic Constitution of Virtue),
John H. Zammito (‘Proper Science’ and Empirical Laws),
Michael Bennett McNulty and Marius Stan (From General to Special Metaphysics of Nature),
Lawrence Pasternack (Kant on Faith: Religious Assent and the Limits to Knowlege),
Martin Moors (The Fate of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason),
Howard Williams (The Critical Legal and Political Philosophy of Immanuel Kant),
Soraya Nour Sckell (A Cosmopolitan Law Created by Cosmopolitan Citizens: The Kantian Project Today),
Benjamin Vilhauer (Kant’s Mature Theory of Punishment, and a First Critique Ideal Abolitionist Alternative),
Patrick R. Frierson (Denkungsart in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View),
Alix Cohen (Kant on Emotions, Feelings, and Affectivity),
Katerina Deligiorgi (The Philosopher as Legislator: Kant on History),
Robert B. Louden (Becoming Human: Kant’s Philosophy of Education and Human Nature),
Michael Vater (Kant after Kant: The Indispensable Philosopher),
Robert Hanna (Kant, the Copernican Devolution, and Real Metaphysics),
Michael Rohlf (Contemporary Kantian Moral Philosophy),
Matthew C. Altman (Conclusion: Kant the Philosopher).

Alves, Pedro M. S. “Kant’s Insight and Kant’s Concept of a Transcendental Logic.”  Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 295-304. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I examine the Kantian concept of a transcendental logic, stressing its novelty and richness. I discuss the relationship between logical form of judgments and pure concept of the understanding, trying to elucidate how the pure concept Is embedded in the form of judgments. Exploring this issue, I construe transcendental logic as a part of formal ontology, pointing at the end of the article to some limitations that hinder the Kantian concept of a formal theory of the “object In general”.

Amat, Matthieu. “La validité des idées régulatrices en histoire. La position de Georg Simmel entre néokantisme et «Philosophie du comme si».” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 237-46. [M]

Ameriks, Karl. “On Universality, Necessity, and Law in General in Kant.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 30-48. [M]

Anderson, John P. “Lw Beyond God and Kant: A Pragmatist Path.” Journal of Law and Religion 32.1 (2017): 98-122. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The liberal principle of reciprocity requires that states maintain neutrality with respect to their citizens’ competing comprehensive worldviews (both religious and secular) while officially justifying the law and while adjudicating under it. But the very possibility of such liberal neutrality has come under attack in a post-Enlightenment world in which even foundational arguments for the principle of reciprocity itself are no longer taken for granted. This article offers a pragmatist path to the resolution of this liberal dilemma. It recommends a “default and challenge” model for legal justification and legitimation that is rooted in social-linguistic practice. By rooting justification and legitimation in practice, it is argued liberal neutrality can be preserved without need for appeals to controversial foundational commitments at any level of public political justification. The article closes with a fictional case study concerning abortion to show how politicians and courts can apply this method to preserve liberal neutrality while addressing even the most controversial issues.

Anderson, Pamela Sue. “A Kantian rhetoric of sincerity: Politics, truth and truthfulness.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 92-108. [M]

Anderson, R. Lanier. Rev. of Manifest Reality: Kant's Idealism and His Realism, by Lucy Allais (2015). Philosophical Review 126.2 (2017): 277-81. [PI]

Ansell-Pearson, Keith, and Michael Ure. “Contra Kant: Experimental Ethics in Guyau and Nietzsche.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 257-89. [M]

Appelqvist, Hanne. “What Kind of Normativity is the Normativity of Grammar?” Metaphilosophy 48.1/2 (2017): 123-45. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The overall goal of this article is to show that aesthetics plays a major role in a debate at the very center of philosophy. Drawing on the work of David Bell, the article spells out how Kant and Wittgenstein use reflective judgment, epitomized by a judgment of beauty, as a key in their respective solutions to the rule-following problem they share. The more specific goal is to offer a Kantian account of semantic normativity as understood by Wittgenstein. The article argues that Wittgenstein's reason for describing language as a collection of language games is to allow for a perspective that shows those games as internally purposive without any extralinguistic purpose. This perspective also allows for that union of the general rule and its particular application in practice that the original paradox of rule-following is wanting.

Aramayo, Roberto Rodríguez. “Ideales platónicos y ensoñaciones rousseaunianas en el pensamiento político de Kant.” [Spanish; Platonic Ideals and Rousseauian Dreams in Kant’s Political Thought] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 236-60. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper tracks the influence that Plato and Rousseau had on Kant’s thinking, taking as key point the meaning given to ideals and revêries, moving from the idea that republican ideals of Plato were received by Kant’s practical philosophy through the mediation of Rousseau. I claim that the internal revolution that, according to Kant, each human being goes through around his 40es, was highly influenced by the reading of Rousseau, which Kant precisely endevours as one of his most close friends dies and he remains deeply shocked by the lost. In this context arises the till now less studied Kant’s concern with inequality and social injustice, analysed in spanish-speaking Kant scholarship by María Julia Bertomeu and Nuria Sánchez Madrid.

 ——. “A la búsqueda del sosiego interno: Una felicidad formal a priori e independiente de la fortuna Presentación a la Reflexión 7202 de Kant.” [Spanish; On Quest of Internal Appeasement: An a priori and Formal Happiness independent from Fortune Presentation of Kant’s Reflexion 7202] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 394-427. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In Reflexion 7202 (1775-1780) Kant outlines the guidelines of his ethical formalism. There he defines the internal peace as an autonomous happiness as necessary condition for becoming happy, insofar it yields a form of unity with universal validity that guarantees that our will meets itself. I claim that the interpreter finds in this Reflexion a kind of practical transcendental apperception.

 ——. “La perspective juridico-politique de l’usage pratique de la raison dans les opuscules kantiens de 1784.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 295-303. [M]

 ——. “El derecho como indicio de un quiliasmo filosófico: la libertad y su evolución en los opúsculos kantianos.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 173-88. [M] [online]

 ——, and Faviola Rivera Castro, eds. La filosofía práctica de Kant. [Spanish] Madrid: Ediciones Alamanda, 2017. [290 p.] [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contents:
Faviola Rivera Castro (Introducción),
Lisímaco Parra (Filosofía versus barroco en la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres de kant),
Faviola Rivera Castro (La primera fórmula del imperativo categórico),
Luis Eduardo Hoyos (Sobre el ideal kantiano del bien supremo y su significación moral),
Adela Cortina (La conciencia moral en La metafísica de las costumbres. Entre el trascendentalismo y el naturalismo),
Ileana P. Beade (En torno a dos concepciones diversas de la libertad en la filosofía político-jurídica kantiana),
Roberto Rodríguez Aramayo (El derecho como indicio de un quiliasmo filosófico: la libertad y su evolución en los opúsculos kantianos),
Efraín Lazos (Contextos del cosmopolitismo kantiano),
Nuria Sánchez Madrid (Huyendo de la nada. finitud y formas de sociabilidad en la antropología kantiana),
María Julia Bertomeu (Kant sobre libros, autores, editores y público (entre 1785 y 1797)).

Arango, Rodolfo. “Kant y el colonialismo. Hacia un cosmopolitismo republicano.” [Spanish; Kant and colonialism. Toward a republican cosmopolitism] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 316-43. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Theological and teleological foundations to justify colonialism, offered by Francisco de Vitoria and John Locke respectively, are refuted by Kant in his later writings. That refutation opens the way to a more ambitious understanding of Kantian cosmopolitanism. This is not limited to hospitality abroad but also demands respect to equal rights, cultural diversity and political autonomy of the peoples of the earth as necessary to preserve world peace. A systematic reading of Kant's thesis on colonialism allows us to affirm that theirs is a republican cosmopolitism and not a minimal one, which opens new perspectives for research of Kantian political, moral and legal philosophy.

Arias Albisu, Martín. “Acerca del alcance objetivo de las prescripciones metodológicas de la función regulativa de la razón teórica en la Crítica de la razón pura de Kant.” [Spanish; On the Objective Scope of the Methodological Prescriptions of the Regulative Function of Theoretical Reason in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 149-67. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic” of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant presents methodological prescriptions for empirical knowledge. I will expound the two most important sets of prescriptions of this methodology: a) the necessity of introducing “theoretical” concepts; b) the hypothetical use of reason and the demand for systematicity, which refer to empirical laws and to the concepts related to such laws. Each of these sets of prescriptions has its own objective dimension, that is, its application is a condition of the possibility of the formation and objective validity of determinate kinds of laws and/or concepts. My aim is to present the differences and mutual relations between these different objective dimensions.

 ——. “The Methodological Prescriptions of the “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic” of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and the Foundations of Improper Science.” Studia Kantiana 15.2 (2017): 5-26. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the Preface to his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant holds that empirical disciplines, such as – at least – chemistry, are improper natural sciences. What he has primarily in mind is the phlogistic chemistry mainly developed by Georg Stahl. Contrary to mathematical physics, phlogistic chemistry is not a proper natural science because it lacks a metaphysical pure part and mathematics cannot be adequately applied to its domain. The aim of this article is to show that the scientific character of improper sciences, such as – at least – phlogistic chemistry, depends on the application of two methodological prescriptions demanded by the regulative function of theoretical reason. These prescriptions are presented by Kant in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic of his Critique of Pure Reason. The first prescription requires the use of certain ideas of reason in empirical scientific laws. The second one consists in a demand of systematicity for those laws.

 ——. “¿Por qué la psicología empírica no es una ciencia natural? Una lectura del ‘Prólogo’ a los Primeros principios metafísicos de la ciencia de la naturaleza de Kant.” [Spanish; Why is Empirical Psychology not a Natural Science? A Reading of the “Preface” to Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 165-85. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the “Preface” to his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant holds that empirical psychology, in contrast to mathematical physics and phlogistic chemistry, is not a natural science. This article aims to offer an interpretation of the reasons why Kant assigns this status to empirical psychology. I will show, on the one hand, that empirical psychology does not have a proper scientific character like mathematical physics because inner phenomena cannot be presented a priori like movements in space; and, on the other hand, that this psychology does not have an improper scientific character like phlogistic chemistry because it is not possible to conduct experiments nor rigorous observations in the domain of inner sense. Empirical psychology is a mere systematic and classificatory natural description of the phenomena of inner sense.

Avci, Nil. “Inquiry into the Forms of Intersubjectivity in Kant’s Practical Philosophy with a View to the Cosmopolitan Ideal.” Dialogue and Universalism 27.1 (2017): 135-48. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My aim in this paper is to argue that the pursuit of the cosmopolitan ideal grounded on the subject’s absolute power of self-determination, which is inherited from the Enlightenment, is a futile project because this idea of subjectivity in its different forms cannot provide the self-other relation which allows the unconditioned openness to and responsibility for the other in its particular individuality, a necessary condition to originate the universal community of world citizens. With this aim, I will elaborate on three different forms of intersubjectivity in Kant’s practical philosophy which I take to be forming three different models of cosmopolitan community in accordance with the Enlightenment principles: the kingdom of ends, the just society and the league of nations.

[top] B    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Baciu, Claudiu. “The A priori as Bridge Between Kant’s Theoretical and Practical Philosophy.” Balkan Journal of Philosophy 9.2 (2017): 127-32. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s philosophy revolves around the concept of a priori, a term meaning not only that something happens before any experience, but that some cognitions of ours are necessary and universal. His fundamental question was in his first Critique of how synthetic a priori judgments are possible. The a priori also plays an essential role in the second Critique, such an important role that the idea of the categorical imperative is impossible to understand if one does not understand how the a priori is involved in Kant’s practical philosophy.

Bader, Ralf M. “The Refutation of Idealism.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 205-222. [PW]

 ——. “Inner Sense and Time.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 124-37. [WC]

Bagnoli, Carla. “Kant in Metaethics: The Paradox of Autonomy, Solved by Publicity.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 355-77. [M]

Baiasu, Sorin. “Political dissimulation à la Kant: Two limits of the sincerity requirement.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 139-55. [M]

 ——, and Sylvie Loriaux, eds. Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. London/New York: Routledge, 2017. [ix, 210 p.] [M]

[Contents] [Hide Contents]
PART I: Publicity
Glen Newey (Political deception: lowering the bar),
Enrico Zoffoli (The role of public reason’s principle of sincerity),
Mark Evans (Speaking on morality's behalf: when one should be silent and why),
Doron Navot (What can we learn about political corruption from Kant’s conceptions of honesty, publicity and truthfulness?),
PART II: Rhetoric
Anders Berg-Sørensen (The political rhetoric of administrative ethics: Obama vs. the cynics),
Pamela Sue Anderson (A Kantian rhetoric of sincerity: politics, truth and truthfulness),
Esther Abin (Making sense: the possibility of truthfulness in politics),
Simone Cheli (On doubt and otherness: deconstructing power and dissent),
PART III: Institutions
Sorin Baiasu (Political dissimulation à la Kant: two limits of the sincerity requirement),
Marguerite La Caze (Pretending peace: provisional political trust and sincerity in Kant and Améry),
Zsolt Boda (Governing by trust: sincerity as a procedural fairness norm),
Catherine Guisan (Truth-telling and right-speaking in European integration politics: from theory to practice and back).

Bailey, Tom. See: Constâncio, João, and Tom Bailey.

Balanovskiy, Valentin. “I. Kant and C.G. Jung on the Prospects of Scientific Psychology.”  Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 375-89. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This study aims to show a similarity of Kant’s and Jung’s approaches to an issue of the possibility of scientific psychology, hence to explicate what they thought about the future of psychology. Therefore, the article contains heuristic material, which can contribute in a resolving of such methodological task as searching of promising directions to improve philosophical and scientific psychology.
To achieve the aim the author attempts to clarify an entity of Kant’s and Jung’s objections against even the possibility of scientific psychology and to find out ways to overcome those objections in Kant’s and Jung’s works. The main methods were explication, reconstruction and comparative analysis of Kant’s and Jung’s views.
As a result it was found, that Kant and Jung allocated one and the same obstacles, which, on their opinion, prevent psychology to become a science in the strict sense. They are: 1) coincidence of subject and object in psychology; 2) impossibility to apply quantitative mathematic methods in psychology; 3) pendency of the issue of psychophysical parallelism. However, Kant and Jung indicated ways to resolve formulated by them fundamental difficulties. All those ways lay through the searching a principle of interaction and connection between the psychic and the physical.

Barattero, Alberto. “Fabrian Analysis of the ‘Ich Denke überhaupt’ of Immanuel Kant.” The Incarnate Word 4.2 (2017): 15-30. [PW]

Barbieri Durão, Aylton. “A doutrina penal republicana de Kant.” [Portuguese; Kant’s republican criminal law] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 125-41. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The Kantian foundation of criminal doctrine seems problematic because the republican political-juridical idea indicates that no penalty will be necessary because no crime will be committed, whereas the republic’s ethical-religious idea establishes that it is a duty for humanity to enter into an ethical community according to Laws of virtue. But precisely because the idea of republic is an idea of why mankind must constantly approach without ever attaining it, practical reason must ground a criminal doctrine. Criminal law based on practical reason is a categorical imperative that requires treating humanity as an end in itself and never merely as a means, so the legislator, who according to the republican constitution is the united people, can only make laws according to The principle that anyone who legislates on behalf of another may be unjust against him, therefore, only the people united to the legislature cannot be unjust against anyone, but this implies that the crime constitutes an act of the subject against his own will Legislator, therefore, every crime committed against another is committed against itself, which is expressed by the law of talion.

Barnes, Adrian Darnell. “A Philosophy of Music Education according to Kant.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 51.2 (2017): 33-39. [M]

Basile, Giovanni Pietro. “L’idée kantienne de l’Université et le progrès des Lumières.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 121-29. [M]

Bauch, Nicholas. “Practicing Spatial Epistemology with Immanuel Kant’s ‘Physical’ Classification.” International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing 11.1 (2017): 55-67. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Practicing cultural geography in a web-based digital medium has led to the possibility of resurrecting early-twentieth-century ideas about the primacy of space in organizing information. In this article I discuss the philosophical underpinnings that drove the creation of my digital monograph . Different than a spatial narrative that associates data points with their attendant cartographic representations, I use space — and specifically landscape — to order my information. Spatial proximity bundles and orders items on its own, a priori giving meaning to things existing next to one another in a landscape. Using space as a way to forge topical relevancy appears to be an uncommon approach, but in fact is paramount for a more productive and holistic ecological practice. The digital medium of the interactive web application makes this spatial epistemology possible.

Baumann, Charlotte. “Kant, Neo‐Kantians, and Transcendental Subjectivity.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.3 (2017): 595-616. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article discusses an interpretation of Kant's conception of transcendental subjectivity, which manages to avoid many of the concerns that have been raised by analytic interpreters over this doctrine. It is an interpretation put forward by selected C19 and early C20 neo‐Kantian writers. The article starts out by offering a neo‐Kantian interpretation of the object as something that is constituted by the categories and that serves as a standard of truth within a theory of judgment (I). The second part explicates transcendental subjectivity as the system of categories, which is self‐referential and constitutes objects (II), in order to then evaluate this conception by means of a comparison with Hegel's absolute subject (III). Rather than delineating the differences between neo‐Kantian writers, the article systematically expounds a shared project, which consists in providing the ultimate foundation for judgments by means of an anti‐psychologist and non‐metaphysical interpretation of transcendental subjectivity.

Baumann, Lutz. “Qu’est-ce que les lumières? (1784) et la pensée transcendantale. Un petit tour d’horizon.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 131-38. [M]

Baxley, Anne Margaret. “Why Even Kantian Angels Need the State: Comments on Robert Hanna’s “Exiting the State and Debunking the State of Nature”.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 321-28. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Against a widely-held interpretation of Kant’s political philosophy, according to which Kant holds that all finite rational beings have an innate right to freedom as well as a duty to enter into a civil condition governed by a social contract in order to preserve that freedom, Robert Hanna contends that Kant is in fact an anarchist. Hanna’s argument for his novel thesis that Kant ultimately views the State as an unjustifiably coercive institution that should be eliminated depends heavily on the claim there is an outright conflict between Kant’s political theory in The Doctrine of Right and Kant’s ethics. I argue that we should resist Hanna’s provocative claim that Kant’s ethics directly falsifies his official political theory. Further, I suggest that even morally autonomous Kantian angels need the State to guarantee the protection of their external freedom and to promote justice.

Beade, Ileana P. “Conversación con Roberto R. Aramayo con motivo de su 60 cumpleaños.” [Spanish; Talking about Kant with… Roberto R. Aramayo] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 366-80. [M] [online]

 ——. “En torno a dos concepciones diversas de la libertad en la filosofía político-jurídica kantiana.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 137-72. [M] [online]

Beauron, Eric. “La fonction épistémologique du jugement réfléchissant chez Kant.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 186-206. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper analyzes the epistemological function of the reflective judgement, which principle is brought out in the two introductions of the Critique of Judgement. The analysis of § 62 of the Critique of Judgement, in conjunction with the § 38 of the Prolegomena and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, reveals the heuristic role of the principle of formal purposiveness and the affinity in the scientific procedures, especially in the Newtonian invention of the law of universal gravitation. The aim is to expose the functioning of the reflective judgement in an epistemological context in which the functions of the understanding can no longer operate, since the empirical data escape the transcendental principles of the Analytic of Principles. The functioning of an epistemological "as if" is brought to light to create the architectonical link between the technique of nature and its mechanical necessity.

Beizaei, Banafsheh. “Kant on Perception, Experience and Judgements Thereof.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 347-71. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is commonly thought that the distinction between subjectively valid judgements of perception and objectively valid judgements of experience in the Prolegomena is not consistent with the account of judgement Kant offers in the B Deduction, according to which a judgement is ‘nothing other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of apperception’. Contrary to this view, I argue that the Prolegomena distinction maps closely onto that drawn between the mathematical and dynamical principles in the System of Principles: Kant’s account of the Prolegomena distinction strongly suggests that it is the Analogies of Experience that make it possible for judgements of perception to give rise to judgements of experience. This means that judgements of perception are objectively valid with regard to the quantity and quality of objects, and subjectively valid with regard to the relation they posit between objects. If that is the case, then the notion of a judgement of perception is consistent with the B Deduction account of judgement.

Benétreau-Dupin, Yann. See: Smeenk, Chris J., and Yann Benétreau-Dupin.

Bento, Silvia. “A interpretação heideggeriana da Crítica da Razão Pura: a questão da imaginação.” [Portuguese; A Heideggerian Interpretation of the “Critique of Pure Reason”: the Question of the Imagination] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 121-37. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The analysis of Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik by Heidegger constitutes the aim of our paper. Published in 1929, the year of the “Heidegger-Cassirer debate” in Davos, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics offers a controversial and peculiar interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. By dwelling upon the first edition (1781) of Kant’s Critique, Heidegger presents an ontological interpretation of the Kantian transcendental subjectivity. Against the neo-Kantian focus on logics and subjective spontaneity, Heidegger aims to throw light on the finite and receptive determinations of the Kantian subjectivity by emphasizing the preponderance of the imagination as fundamental faculty and possibility of human subjectivity. The close elucidation of these Heideggerian positions on Critique of Pure Reason constitute the object of our paper.

Benvenuto, Rodrigo Miguel. “El concepto de fe racional (Vernunftglaube): su desarrollo desde la Crítica de la razón pura y su exposición en el contexto de la ‘polémica del spinozismo’.” [Portuguese; The concept of rational faith (Vernunftglaube): its development from the Critique of the pure reason and his exhibition in the context of the spinozism controversy] Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 67-77. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The present work will try an approximation to the concept of rational faith in Immanuel Kant’s work, giving a special attention to the development of the same one in the context of the spinozism controversy between 1785-1786 and his intervention in the same one with the text What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking?

Berg-Sørensen, Anders. “The political rhetoric of administrative ethics: Obama vs. the cynics.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 77-91. [M]

Bertomeu, María Julia. “Kant sobre libros, autores, editores y público (entre 1785 y 1797).” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 261-83. [M] [online]

Biener, Zvi, and Eric Schliesser. “The Certainty, Modality, and Grounding of Newton’s Laws.” The Monist 100.3 (2017): 311-25. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Newton began his Principia with three Axiomata sive Leges Motus. We offer an interpretation of Newton’s dual label and investigate two tensions inherent in his account of laws. The first arises from the juxtaposition of Newton’s confidence in the certainty of his laws and his commitment to their variability and contingency. The second arises because Newton ascribes fundamental status both to the laws and to the bodies and forces they govern. We argue the first is resolvable, but the second is not. However, the second tension shows that Newton conceives laws as formal causes of bodies and forces. This neo-Aristotelian conception goes missing in Kantian accounts of laws, as well as accounts that stress laws’ grounding in powers and capacities.

Bird, Graham. “The Antinomies.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 223-42. [PW]

 ——. “Henry Allison’s Survey of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 171-90. [PW]

Birrer, Matthias. Kant und die Heterogeneität der Erkenntnisquellen. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, 2014. [ix, 327 p.] [WC]

[Note] [Hide Note] Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte, Band 195. This is a revised Ph.D dissertation (University of Luxemburg, 2016).

Biss, Mavis. “Avoiding Vice and Pursuing Virtue: Kant on Perfect Duties and ‘Prudential latitude’.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98.4 (2017): 618-35. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] To fulfill a perfect duty an agent must avoid vice, yet when an agent refrains from acting on a prohibited maxim she still must do something. I argue that the setting of morally required ends ought to consistently inform an agent's judgment regarding what is to be done beyond compliance with perfect, negative duties. Kant's assertion of a puzzling version of latitude of choice within his discussion of perfect duties motivates and complicates the case I make for a more expansive interpretation of the duty to pursue virtue.

Bjorndahl, Adam, Alex John London, and Kevin J.S. Zollman. “Kantian Decision Making Under Uncertainty: Dignity, Price, and Consistency.” Philosophers’ Imprint 17.7 (2017): 1-22. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The idea that there is a fundamental difference in value between persons and things, and that respecting this difference is an important moral requirement, has strong intuitive appeal. Kantian ethics is unique in placing this requirement at the center of a moral system and in explicating the conditions for complying with it. Unlike challenges to Kantian ethics that focus on tragic cases that pit respect for one person against respect for another, this paper focuses on the question of how we can respect the value distinction between persons and things under conditions of uncertainty. After exploring why decision making under uncertainty is a neglected topic among Kantians and demonstrating how uncertainty challenges our ability to comply with this norm, we propose a notion of morally insignificant risk within a framework that allows agents to navigate real-world decisions involving material benefit and some risk to dignity without violating the Kantian’s core commitments. We conclude by exploring some of the challenges facing this approach.

Bocca, Francisco Verardi. “Das leis naturais ao entusiasmo pela República.” [Portuguese; From natural laws to the enthusiasm for the Republic]] Studia Kantiana 15.1 (2017): 87-121. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article assumes that in all the works in which Kant built his view of the philosophy of history, despite its fragmentary form, it can be pointed out the equivalent of what would be his fourth criticism to the research of a historical a priori. We see in this construction a series of theoretical concepts driven by a focus dislocation, initially put in a God creator of natural mechanical laws, then in the intentions of nature that offers a civilizing plan to men and finally the man himself and his sensification over his imperative rational history. Such dislocation redefined the initial inexorability regarding the purpose and destination of mankind, contingent in the later texts. This is the culmination in which the man, self-producer of his history, from himself and in consideration of himself promotes his improvement and makes use of nature, thus serving himself as purpose.

Boda, Zsolt. “Governing by trust: Sincerity as a procedural fairness norm.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 173-88. [M]

Boehm, Omri. “Reply to Sebastian Gardner and Nick Stang.” Critique (blog posted: 7 Jan 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Bojanowski, Jochen. “Kant on the Justification of Moral Principles.” Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 55-88. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In Groundwork III, Kant attempts to give a deduction of the categorical imperative. There is widespread disagreement as to how Kant’s argument is supposed to proceed. Many commentators believe that Kant’s deduction fails because some of its argumentative moves are unjustified. In particular, Kant makes a mistaken inference from theoretical freedom to practical freedom, and his axiological ‘superiority claim’ regarding the noumenal world’s priority over the sensible world is unjustified. According to the standard incompatibilist story, Kant came to see that his deduction was flawed by the time he wrote the Critique of Practical Reason, at which point he claimed that the truth of the moral law does not require a deduction since it is a “fact of pure reason”. The moral law is no longer the conclusion of his argument; instead, it functions as the premise of an argument that establishes our freedom. Other commentators endorse a compatibilist reading, according to which the justifications of the moral law in Groundwork III and the second Critique are compatible because Kant never attempted to give the strong kind of deduction that he rightly rejects in the second Critique. On the view I develop here, the particular argumentative moves that the standard incompatibilist takes issue with are not flawed and incompatible with Kant’s second Critique. I argue for a compatibilist reading of these moves. I think the compatibilist is right to claim that the deduction Kant considered impossible in both the Groundwork and the second Critique is what I call a strong deduction. I also agree with compatibilists that the deduction he actually delivers in Groundwork III is only a weak deduction that makes use of a merely problematic conception of transcendental freedom. However, I do think that Kant’s argument in Groundwork III remains question begging in the final analysis. The facticity claim in the second Critique, by contrast, can provide a non-question-begging account of moral obligation. Here, I agree with the optimistic incompatibilist, who views the argument in the second Critique as an improvement on his argument in the Groundwork. However, in my novel account of Kant’s argument, I endorse what I call ‘radical incompatibilism’ because it concerns the roots of Kant’s approach to the justification of the moral law. What is novel about my account is the claim that the deduction in Groundwork III rests on the false assumption that practical cognition, like theoretical cognition, requires a critique of pure reason. In the second Critique, Kant revised his argument because he realized that, in contrast to synthetic a priori judgments of theoretical cognition, the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments of practical cognition can be derived from the actuality of a “deed”. With respect to pure practical reason, the second Critique proceeds metaphysically ‒ i. e. dogmatically ‒ rather than critically. Hence Kant came to view a deduction of the categorical imperative as unnecessary and abandoned the project of a critique of pure practical reason. We should, for this reason, resist the generality of Kant’s claim in the first Critique to the effect that, for all synthetic judgments a priori, “if not a proof then at least a deduction of the legitimacy of its assertion must unfailingly be supplied” (KrV, B 286).

 ——. “Naturalism and Realism in Kant’s Ethics.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 463-74. [PW]

Bonaccini, Juan Adolfo. “Two Recent Accounts of Kant’s Conception of Miracles.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 155-68. [PW]

Boot, Eric. “Kant and the In(ter)dependence of Right and Virtue.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 395-422. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper aims to clarify how Kant understood the relation between the two spheres of morals (Right and virtue). Did he, as O’Neill claims, acknowledge the need for civic virtue as necessary for maintaining a liberal state? Or did he take the opposite view (shared by many contemporary liberals) that citizens’ virtuous dispositions are irrelevant and that all that matters is the justice of institutions? Though The Metaphysics of Morals gives the impression that Kant shared the latter position, I will argue that, in fact, Kant held a position somewhere between the Rousseauian view (which O’Neill believes Kant endorsed) that the essential difficulty of politics concerns the cultivation of civic duty in citizens, and contemporary liberals’ exclusive focus on the justice of institutions, by arguing that it is the laws themselves that foster respect for the laws. In short, Kant views virtue as the felicitous by-product of legality.

Borges, Maria de Lourdes Alves. “O mal e a coerência do sistema kantiano.” [Portuguese; The evil and the coherence of the kantian system] Studia Kantiana 15.1 (2017): 57-66. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article, I aim atanalyzing the coherence of the concept of evil regarding the Kantian system. First, I show the surprise of having a work on Religion in a philosophy that aimed at eliminating God from the realm of critical philosophy. Second I show that some commentators try to solve this problem showing that there is a coherence among the many aspects of Kantian philosophy. However, the relation between the concept of radical evil and his analogous original sin made some commentators to refuse the thesis of coherence.

 ——. “The Metaphysics of Morals: Between the a priori and a Practical Anthropology.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 423-36. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper, I analyze the place of the Metaphysics of Morals in the Kantian system. I claim that this work is the passage between a pure part of ethics and a practical anthropology. Although this book was first conceived to be a pure moral theory - moralia pura -, it ended up dealing with principle of applications of the moral law to sensible moral beings - philosophia moralis applicata. I also hold that the Doctrine of Virtue presents some sensible elements that are important to understand how morality affects us.

 ——. “Pleasure and motivation in Kant’s practical philosophy.”  Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 99-105. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article, I analyse the theory of motivation in Kant`practical philosophy. I begin by asking if there is motivation without a sensible incentive. I show that Kant offers different answers to this question in different works. In the Groundwork, the answer is positive, not only one can act morally without any senible incentive, but one should act without it. In the Doctrine of Virtue, however, Kant claims that there are some feelings which are subjective conditions of receptiveness of the concept of duty. I examine the sensible aspects of the feeling of respect and moral feeling, showing their relation to pleasure and displeasure. I also present the intellectualist-affectionist debate among Kant scholars.

Bornmüller, Falk. Rev. of Affektivität und Ethik bei Kant und in der Phänomenologie, edited by Inga Römer (2014). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 162-66. [PW]

Brady, Emily. Rev. of Duties Regarding Nature: A Kantian Environmental Ethic, by Toby Svoboda (2015). Ethics 127.4 (2017): 967-72. [PW]

Bragantini, Attilio. “«Une histoire de l’humanité dans le tout de sa destination»: Kant contre Herder.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 247-55. [M]

Bravo Zamora, Damián. “On Guido Kreis’s Negative Dialektik des Unendlichen.” Critique (blog posted: 29 Sep 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Breitenbach, Angela. “Laws in Biology and the Unity of Nature.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 237-55. [M]

 ——, and Yoon Choi. “Pluralism and the Unity of Science.” The Monist 100.3 (2017): 391-405. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This essay argues for a conception of the unity of science that is of distant but distinct Kantian provenance. We first review some of the challenges that undermined two influential predecessor conceptions of the unity of science. Many of these criticisms were raised by pluralists, who found them reason enough to embrace the disunity of science. We propose an alternative response. We argue that the epistemic advantages of pluralism arise only when it is combined with a limiting constraint: when it is what we call unified pluralism. Moreover, once we accept unified pluralism, an ideal emerges of a pluralist unity of science. We argue that we have good reason to adopt this ideal as regulative of scientific inquiry, and as guiding discovery of the laws of nature when and where they exist.

 ——,ed. See: Massimi, Michela, and Angela Breitenbach, eds.

Brielmann, Aenne A. “Beauty Requires Thought.” Current Biology 27.10 (2017): 1506-13. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The experience of beauty is a pleasure, but common sense and philosophy suggest that feeling beauty differs from sensuous pleasures such as eating or sex. Immanuel Kant [1, 2] claimed that experiencing beauty requires thought but that sensuous pleasure can be enjoyed without thought and cannot be beautiful. These venerable hypotheses persist in models of aesthetic processing [3–7] but have never been tested. Here, participants continuously rated the pleasure felt from a nominally beautiful or non-beautiful stimulus and then judged whether they had experienced beauty. The stimuli, which engage various senses, included seeing images, tasting candy, and touching a teddy bear. The observer reported the feelings that the stimulus evoked. The time course of pleasure, across stimuli, is well-fit by a model with one free parameter: pleasure amplitude. Pleasure amplitude increases linearly with the feeling of beauty. To test Kant’s claim of a need for thought, we reduce cognitive capacity by adding a “two-back” task to distract the observer’s thoughts. The distraction greatly reduces the beauty and pleasure experienced from stimuli that otherwise produce strong pleasure and spares that of less-pleasant stimuli. We also find that strong pleasure is always beautiful, whether produced reliably by beautiful stimuli or just occasionally by sensuous stimuli. In sum, we confirm Kant’s claim that only the pleasure associated with feeling beauty requires thought and disprove his claim that sensuous pleasures cannot be beautiful.

Brun Bicalho, Vanessa. “Notas sobre a liberdade na Dialética e no Cânon: uma nova leitura.” [Portuguese; Notes on freedom in the Dialectic and the Canon: a new reading] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 263-83. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This text discusses the supposed contradiction about the admission of the two dimensions of the concept of freedom in KrV, that of transcendental freedom and that of practical freedom, in the chapters of Transcendental Dialectic and the Canon of Pure Reason. Regarding this debate, there are, on the one hand, interpreters who consider the doctrines of freedom exposed in the Dialectic and in the Canon incompatible, by admitting a conception of pre-critical morality and, therefore, disassociated from what was to be developed in GdMS and KpV. On the other hand, there are interpreters who claim that the supposed incompatibility between the two sections of the First Critique refers to a merely exegetical problem, finding in it subsidies in defense of the compatibility between the two concepts of freedom in KrV, in harmony with what was exposed by Kant, on the role of freedom, in the foundation of morality in GdMS and KpV. In the light of these interpretations of the supposed incompatibility between the Dialectic and the Canon, with respect to the concepts of practical and transcendental freedom, we will show that there is no contradiction, since they are chapters dedicated to solving different problems and, for that reason, should not be read unilaterally.

Brusotti, Marco. “Spontaneity and Sovereignty: Nietzsche’s Concepts and Kant’s Philosophy.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 219-56. [M]

 ——, and Herman Siemens. “Introduction.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 1-26. [M]

 ——, and Herman Siemens, eds. Nietzsche’s Engagements with Kant and the Kantian Legacy. Volume I: Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. [xix, 298 p.] [M]

[Contents] [Hide Contents]
Brusotti, Marco and Herman Siemens (Introduction),
Richardson, John (Nietzsche, Transcendental Argument and the Subject),
Zavatta, Benedetta (From Pure Reason to Historical Knowledge: Nietzsche’s (Virtual) Objections to Kant’s First Critique),
Mattioli, William (The Thought of Becoming and the Place of Philosophy: Some Aspects of Nietzsche’s Reception and Criticism of Transcendental Idealism via Afrikan Spir),
Constâncio, João (The Consequences of Kant’s First Critique: Nietzsche on Truth and the Thing in Itself),
Itaparica, Luís Mota (Nietzsche and the Thing in Itself),
Riccardi, Mattia (Nietzsche on Kant’s Distinction between Knowledge (Wissen) and Belief (Glaube)),
Himmelmann, Beatrix (On Teleological Judgement: A Debate between Kant and Nietzsche),
Stegmaier, Werner (‘Resolute Reversals’: Kant’s and Nietzsche’s Orienting Decisions Concerning the Distinction between Reason and Nature),
Doyle, Tsarina (The Kantian Roots of Nietzsche’s Will to Power),
Pichler, Axel (‘Kant: or cant as intelligible character’: Meaning and Function of the Type ‘Kant’ and his Philosophy in Twilight of the Idols),
Lupo, Luca (Nietzsche, Kant and Self-Observation: Dealing with the Risk of ‘Landing in Anticyra’).

Bubbio, Paolo Diego. “Organicism and Perspectivism from Leibniz to Hegel: On Mensch’s Kant’s Organicism.” Philosophy Today 61.3 (2017): 785-91. [PW]

Buckman, Christopher. “A Kantian Analytic of the Ugly.” International Philosophical Quarterly 57.4 (2017): 365-80. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s theory of taste, as expounded in the Critique of Judgment, deals exhaustively with judgments of beauty. Rarely does Kant mention ugliness. This omission has led to a debate among commentators about how judgments of ugliness should be explained in a Kantian framework. I argue that the judgment of ugliness originates in the disharmonious play between the faculties of imagination and understanding. Such disharmony occurs when the understanding finds that it cannot in principle form any concept suitable to a representation as it is presented by the imagination.

Buday, Maroš. Rev. of Poetic Force: Poetry after Kant, by Kevin McLaughlin (2014). [English] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.1 (2017): 54-56. [M] [online]

Burks, Deven. “Usage public normalisé ou anormal - Kant et les Lumières face à Jeffrey Stout.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 423-32. [M]

Buroker, Jill Vance. “Kant on Judging and the Will.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 189-203??. [WC]

[top] C    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Caimi, Mario. “Das Prinzip der Apperzeption und der Aufbau der Beweisführung der Deduktion B.” Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 378-400. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The present article offers a reconstruction of the argument of the Transcendental Deduction in the second edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (the so-called B-Deduction), highlighting the unity of Kant’s argumentation. Such unity becomes manifest once we acknowledge that the B-Deduction is built as a progressive development of the Principle of Apperception, a development that implies a synthetical enrichment of the concepts which are the components of the formula of the Principle. The author discusses some current interpretations of the B-Deduction.

Calábria Pimenta, Olavo. “Intuições cegas são aparecimentos.” [Portuguese; Blind intuitions are appearances] Studia Kantiana 15.2 (2017): 63-85. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I seek to determine what we should understand by a intuition that is blind by the absence of concept. For this, I initially identify the several meanings in which Kant uses the term “intuition” and, then, I inquire whether there is in any of these cases some blindness, and how this could be understood. I conclude that the blindness of intuition without concepts properly concerns itself to appearances (Erscheinungen), understood as “indeterminate objects of empirical intuition” (A20/B34). Secondly, I realize that it is also possible to attribute a blindness, albeit with less property, to the act of intuition (the intuiting), although only so long as this act corresponds to the production of appearances. Regarding the intuition in the meaning of mental representation, whether they are disconnected (such as sensations and pure multiplicity originating in the senses) or gathered together in a whole (like empirical and formal intuitions), I have found no justification for assigning them some kind of blindness that corresponded to the lack of intervention of conceptual representations.

 ——. “Ensaio sobre a unidade sintética meramente sensível.” [Spanish; Essay on Merely Sensible Synthetic Unity] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 265-81. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I present the essay of my critique to the interpretation that the synthetic unity of intuition in Kant can only result from the effective participation of intellectual faculties. For this, I maintain that the objects of intuition are constructed not only by means of the understanding (lato sensu), but also by the simple imagination, by means of a synthetic unit of the multiple of the intuition given to the sense, without it being necessary the direction or conduction of discursive units, but respecting only autochthonous rules. Thus these objects of intuition contain a unity originated only from the sensibility (merely sensible synthetic unit), for they are produced only by the imagination, under the only condition of obtaining the disconnected manifold of sensible representations from the collaboration of the senses. The faculty of imagination is apt to produce these conceptually indeterminate objects of the empirical intuition called “appearances” [Erscheinungen], because it is a spontaneous sensible capacity with duplicity of character, impulses and aptitudes (Calabria: 2012, 115-167, 2015 and 2016). In addition to showing that appearances, while blind intuitions containing a subjective unity, nevertheless provide an objective reference to empirical intuitions (as mind modi- fications), I explain in what sense Kant considers appearances to be transformed into objects of experience called «phenomena» [Phaenomena], when they receive the intellectual unit from the application of conceptual representations.

 ——. “Os significados de “intuição”, suas subdivisões e objetos.” [Portuguese; The meanings of “intuition”, their subdivisions and objects] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 50-67. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The present paper seeks to identify the most basic set of meanings in which Kant uses the term “intuition”, specifying the multiple subdivisions of each of them and their connection in an ordered set, to finally determine how the objects of our intuition are referred to such meanings and subdivisions.

Callanan, John J. “Kant on the Spontaneous Power of the Mind.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.3 (2017): 565-88. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is well known that at the heart of Kant’s Critical philosophy is the claim that the mind possesses an essentially spontaneous power or capacity (Vermögen). It is also sometimes maintained that Kant’s appeals to this spontaneous power are intimately tied to his recognition of there being a fundamental and irreducible normative dimension to judgement. However, I attempt to complicate this picture by way of appeal to some less appreciated influences upon the development of Kant’s epistemology. A different conception of the role of spontaneity in judgement has clear precedents, I claim, in the works of Cudworth and Rousseau. There the imagined role for the active power of the mind is not to identify criteria that might serve as norms for epistemically responsible judgement. Rather the spontaneous power of the mind is cited as the source of representational contents that secure the truth conditions of our everyday claims to empirical knowledge.

 ——. “The Ideal of Reason.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 243-58. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of The Poverty of Conceptual Truth: Kant’s Analytic/Synthetic Distinction and the Limits of Metaphysics, by R. Lanier Anderson (2015). British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 415-17. [PW]

Calori, François. “Des plaisirs et douleurs. Approche empirique et perspective transcendantale (Verri, Burke et Kant).” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 75-96. [M]

Calovi, Gustavo Ellwanger. Rev. of A civilização como destino: Kant e as formas da reflexão, by Nuria Sánchez Madrid (2016). Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 113-16. [M] [online]

Caranti, Luigi. Kant’s Political Legacy: Human Rights, Peace, Progress. Cardiff: University of Wales, 2017. [xii, 303 p.] [WC] [review]

Cardani, Michele, and Marco Tamborini. “Italian New Realism and Transcendental Philosophy: A Critical Account.” Philosophy Today 61.3 (2017): 39-54. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] By recognizing Immanuel Kant as the founder of the so-called being-knowing fallacy, the Italian new realism proposed and defended by Maurizio Ferraris argues for the autonomy of ontology from epistemology. The dependence of reality on our conceptual framework would in fact transform our world in a system of beliefs that loses its connection with the “hardness” of the given data. This paper discusses Ferraris’s claims by maintaining that they are based upon an insufficient reading of history of philosophy, particularly, upon a misinterpretation of Kant’s philosophy. Firstly, we shortly analyze the relationship between transcendental philosophy and post-modernism through a comparison with Friedrich Nietzsche: we criticize their conflation. Secondly, we take into consideration Kant’s arguments about science and answer a particular objection of Ferraris by investigating how we can legitimately acquire knowledge in the deep past without contradicting Kantianism. In this sense, we believe that the new realism presents inconsistent arguments.

Carl, Wolfgang. Rev. of Kant-Lexikon, 3 vols., edited by Marcus Willaschek, Jürgen Stolzenberg, Georg Mohr and Stefano Bacin (2015). Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 295-99. [PW]

Carrano, Antonio. “À propos de l’origine de l’histoire: entre Kant et Schiller.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 257-65. [M]

Carson, Emily.  “Synthesis, Number and the Mathematical Model.”  Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism: Logik/Logic, eds. Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick. 12 (2017): 53-74. [PW]

Casimiro Elena, César. Rev. of The Highest Good in Aristotle and Kant, edited by Joachim Aufderheide and Ralf M. Bader (2015). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 39096. [M] [online]

Castillo, Monique. “Comment l’Idée kantienne d’histoire prévoit-elle, en 1784, sa propre réalisation?” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 15-26. [M]

Chaly, Vadim. “Denying Liberty in Order to Make Room for Freedom: Liberalism, Conservatism, and Kant’s Political Philosophy.” Contemporary Studies in Kantian Philosophy 2 (2017): 55-66. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant is often listed among the classics of liberalism. However, this treatment omits several important features of Kant’s political anthropology. It also runs into problems trying to explain away some non-liberal theses of his political philosophy. Just as Kant’s theoretical philosophy is an impressive attempt to transcend and sublate the opposition of rationalism and empiricism, his political philosophy, although not as fully articulated, can be seen as an attempt to navigate between the extremes of conservatism and liberalism.

Chaouli, Michel. Thinking with Kant’s Critique of Judgment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017. [312 p.] [WC][review]

Charpenel, Eduardo E. Rev. of Duty, Virtue and Practical Reason in Kantʼs Metaphysics of Morals, by Vicente de Haro Romo (2015). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 93-95. [M] [online]

Cheli, Simone. “On doubt and otherness: Deconstructing power and dissent.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 122-36. [M]

Chignell, Andrew. “Kant on Cognition, Givenness, and Ignorance.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.1 (2017): 131-42. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My goal in this paper is to examine two central aspects of Kant’s theory of cognition (Erkenntnis) in the context of the account offered by Eric Watkins and Marcus Willaschek. I first focus on what it is for an object to be “given” to the mind and how such “givenness” (allegedly) underwrites both mental representation and reference. I then consider Watkins and Willaschek’s interpretation of Kant’s claim that we cannot cognize things-in-themselves, and conclude by sketching an alterna- tive (and less empiricistic) account of that claim.

 ——. “Knowledge, Discipline, System, Hope.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 259-79. [PW]

 ——. “Can’t Kant Cognize Himself? Or, a Problem for (Almost) Every Interpretation of the Refutation of Idealism.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 138-57. [WC]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Modal Metaphysics, by Nicholas F. Stang (2016). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Sep 2017, #6). [M] [online]

 ——. See: Naranjo Sandoval, Alejandro, and Andrew Chignell.

Choi, Yoon. See: Breitenbach, Angela, and Yoon Choi.

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Theory of Normativity: Exploring the Space of Reason, by Konstantin Pollok (2017). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Jul 2017, #20). [M] [online]

Cicatello, Angelo. “The Spherical Shape of Reason: Theoretical Implications in Kant’s Cosmopolitan Right.” Studia Kantiana 15.1 (2017): 7-26. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] What is the meaning of the Kantian “right to visit”? What role does it play in his cosmopolitan project of peace? Kant scholars answer differently. Two opposite interpretive tendencies can be traced paradigmatically. One position points out freedom of circulation of the stranger as a condition of communication and peaceful coexistence between peoples. The other sees the constitutional limitation of the right to visit as a starting point for the creation of a global society. Kant’s philosophy offers elements that go beyond both interpretations. However, this only becomes apparent when the right to visit is read from a new perspective that goes beyond the specific space of the Kantian doctrine of right. The right to visit and the difference from the right to inhabit should be considered in connection with the broad architectural design of Kant’s thought. There is a deep connection between the right to visit as founded on common possession of the Earth, and the nature of reason as a field that only becomes our property insofar as we make ourselves able to grant others the same right to enter it. From this point of view we must all be at once hosts and guests.

Clinger, James. “The Kantian Publicity Principle and the Transparency Presumption in Public Affairs: When Private Citizens’ Participation Becomes Public Knowledge.” Public Integrity 19.4 (2017): 394-403. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article applies Immanuel Kant’s “publicity principle” to several issues that involve citizen participation in public affairs, including open records laws, campaign finance disclosure, and the confidentiality of private organization membership and donor lists. The Kantian principle is premised on the belief that informed people will rise up in opposition to actions incompatible with “the transcendental concept of public right.” However, in many controversies, publicity may serve to threaten — rather than protect — segments of the citizenry who support causes that are not popular with other portions of the populace. The article concludes that the publicity principle applies reasonably well to actions of public officials, but is a less useful guide when applied to the participatory acts of private individuals.

Cohen, Alix. “Kant on Emotions, Feelings, and Affectivity.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 665-81. [M]

Cohen-Halimi, Michèle. “La mutation du concept de moeurs dans la définition de la loi morale comme Sittengesetz.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 94-115. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article aims to show how, under the guise of a suspension of any reference to manners, the Kantian project of a "Metaphysics of morals" reserves a new future for manners from a decisive function granted to the Kultur. The Kantian paradox, often unnoticed, which consists in naming Sittengesetz, that is to say "law of manners," a law which does not proceed from manners but produces them, is here enlightened under its twofaces, inventive with the Kultur, dangerous (according to the diagnosis of Hegel and Rousseau) by the risk that Kant takes to begin by breaking with the given manners, peculiar to each people.

Conant, James. “Kant’s Critique of the Layer-Cake Conception of Human Mindedness in the B Deduction.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 120-39. [PW]

Conceição, Jorge Vanderlei Costa da. “Geografia física e História natural em Kant: uma releitura semântica.” [Portuguese; Physical geography and history in Kant: a semantic rereading] Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 23-42. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The objective of this work is to demonstrate that the distinction proposed by Kant between physical geography and natural history (as found in Physische Geographie and other works of 1770) can be interpreted as the establishment of two distinct areas of problem resolution of reason as the thesis of decidability developed by Loparic (See 2005). This interpretation is valid insofar as the elements of the geographical propositions relate to events occurred spatially at the same time, while in the case of natural history, they refer to the facts occurred temporally one after the other. So we will rebuild here this distinction presented by the author investigated from the logical-semantic bias interpretation because the distinction developed by Kant between these delimits disciplines how the propositions of Physical geography and natural history can be satisfied by given objects or built in sensitivity.

Constâncio, João. “The Consequences of Kant’s First Critique: Nietzsche on Truth and the Thing in Itself.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 103-38. [M]

 ——. “‘Who is Right, Kant or Stendhal?’ On Nietzsche’s Kantian Critique of Kant’s Aesthetics.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 63-98. [M]

 ——, and Tom Bailey, eds. Nietzsche’s Engagements with Kant and the Kantian Legacy. Volume II: Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. [xix, 329 p.] [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contents:
João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (Introduction),
Paul Katsafanas (The Problem of Normative Authority in Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche),
Simon Robertson (Normativity and Moral Psychology: Nietzsche’s Critique of Kantian Universality),
Robert Guay (Kant, Nietzsche and the Discursive Availability of Action),
Herman Siemens (Kant’s ‘Respect for the Law’ as the ‘Feeling of Power’: On (the Illusion of) Sovereignty),
David Owen (Freedom as Independence: Kant and Nietzsche on Non-Domination, Self-Love and the Rivalrous Emotions),
Frederick Neuhouser (Autonomy, Spiritual Illness and Theodicy in Kant and Nietzsche),
Robert B. Louden (Phantom Duty? Nietzsche versus Königsbergian Chinadom),
Marco Brusotti (Spontaneity and Sovereignty: Nietzsche’s Concepts and Kant’s Philosophy),
Keith Ansell-Pearson and Michael Ure (Contra Kant: Experimental Ethics in Guyau and Nietzsche),
Paul van Tongeren (Question or Answer? Kant, Nietzsche and the Practical Commitment of Philosophy).

 ——, and Tom Bailey. “Introduction.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 1-18. [M]

Cooper, Andrew. “Kant and Experimental Philosophy.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 265-86. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] While Kant introduces his critical philosophy in continuity with the experimental tradition begun by Francis Bacon, it is widely accepted that his Copernican revolution places experimental physics outside the bounds of science. Yet scholars have recently contested this view. They argue that in Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant’s engagement with the growing influence of vitalism in the 1780s leads to an account of nature’s formative power that returns experimental physics within scientific parameters. Several critics are sceptical of this revised reading. They argue that Kant’s third Critique serves precisely to deflate the epistemological status of experimental physics, thereby protecting science from the threat of vitalism. In this paper I examine Kant’s account of science in the context of the experimental tradition of philosophy, particularly in relation to the generation dilemma of the eighteenth century. I argue that Kant does not deflate the epistemological status of experimental physics but rather introduces systematicity to the experimental tradition. By identifying the reflective use of reason to organize laws of experience into a systematic whole, Kant aims to ground experimental inquiry on the secure course of a science, opening a conception of science as a research programme.

 —— Rev. of Kants Theorie der Biologie: Ein Kommentar. Eine Lesart. Eine Historische Einordnung, by Ina Goy (2017). British Journal for the History of Philosophy (Online: 4 Sep 2017): 1-6. [PW]

 ——. “The Representation of an Action: Tragedy between Kant and Hegel.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.3 (2017): 573-94. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Hegel's theory of tragedy has polarized critics. In the past, many philosophers have claimed that Hegel's theory of tragedy removes Kant's critical insights and returns to pre‐critical metaphysics. More recently, several have argued that Hegel does not break faith with tragic experience but allows philosophy to be transformed by tragedy. In this paper I examine the strength of this revised position. First I show that it identifies Hegel's insightful critique of Kant's theoretical assumptions. Yet I then argue that it fails to note the practical importance of Kant's separation of knowledge and aesthetics. I propose an alternative approach to tragedy that builds from the revised view and yet maintains the autonomy of aesthetics. Tragedy represents an action, a set of events that are internally unified and yet cannot be reduced to theory. This is to say that tragedy confronts us with an aesthetic sphere of making and doing that, while constrained, is incessantly open and free.

Corradetti, Claudio. “Constructivism in cosmopolitan law: Kant’s right to visit.” Global Constitutionalism 6.3 (2017): 412-41. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant is regarded as one of the most influential cosmopolitan thinkers. Indeed his legacy still influences the contemporary legal and philosophical debate on this issue. But what is the Kantian conception of cosmopolitan law? In which terms does it arise out of his notion of a ‘right to visit’? How does it contribute to the construction of a ‘cosmopolitan constitution’? In this article the view is advanced that Kant was a legal constructivist. The argument assumes also that within Kant’s view of an ‘original community of interaction’, the justification of a cosmopolitan notion of authority allows exercises of freedom under a general scheme of right. Kant’s ‘cosmopolitan constitution’ depends therefore upon such rationale, as well as on the jurisdictional link that the right to visit determines in allowing individuals with the possibility to have a ‘place on earth’.

 ——. “Thinking with Kant beyond Kant: Actualizing Sovereignty and Citizenship in the Transnational Sphere.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 59-82. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the following essay, I attempt to reactualize some of Kant’s most fundamental conceptions of a state’s sovereignty and the legitimacy of the cosmopolitan order. To this end, I provide what appears as a viable solution to Kant’s “sovereignty dilemma”; that is, the reconciliation between state sovereignty and the international enforceability of laws. I consider that a key component of the overall Kantian cosmopolitan project is the role played by the transcendental notion of an “originally united will” in its validation of constituencies. I emphasize the view that for Kant state-citizens are also, as he says, “citizens of the world” (Weltbürger) or “citizens of the earth” (Erdbürger). I argue, furthermore, that a state’s sovereignty must comply with a number of different constitutional wholes. I then proceed by confronting the Kantian notion of a general united will with the Habermasian conception of “double sovereignty.” I conclude by suggesting a fusion/synthesis between the two views, one which would require endorsing the idea of cosmopolitan constitutionalism as a meta-framework for interpreting the legitimacy of member states’ compliance with policy indications of transnational constituencies.

Corradetti, Claudio. “Thinking with Kant ‘beyond’ Kant. Actualizing Sovereignty and Citizenship in the Transnational Sphere.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 59-82. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the following essay, I attempt to reactualize some of Kant’s most fundamental conceptions of a state’s sovereignty and the legitimacy of the cosmopolitan order. To this end, I provide what appears as a viable solution to Kant’s “sovereignty dilemma”; that is, the reconciliation between state sovereignty and the international enforceability of laws. I consider that a key component of the overall Kantian cosmopolitan project is the role played by the transcendental notion of an “originally united will” in its validation of constituencies. I emphasize the view that for Kant state-citizens are also, as he says, “citizens of the world” (Weltbürger) or “citizens of the earth” (Erdbürger). I argue, furthermore, that a state’s sovereignty must comply with a number of different constitutional wholes. I then proceed by confronting the Kantian notion of a general united will with the Habermasian conception of “double sovereignty.” I conclude by suggesting a fusion/synthesis between the two views, one which would require endorsing the idea of cosmopolitan constitutionalism as a meta-framework for interpreting the legitimacy of member states’ compliance with policy indications of transnational constituencies.

Cortina, Adela. “La conciencia moral en La metafísica de las costumbres. Entre el trascendentalismo y el naturalismo.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 105-35. [M] [online]

Costa Rego, Pedro. “O “eu penso” e o método da Dedução transcendental.” [Portuguese; The “I think” and the method of the Transcendental Deduction] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 193-217. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The study that this paper partly presents is divided into two sections, one objective and one methodological, that follow a syntactic-semantic analysis of the inaugural thesis of section 16 of the Critique of Pure Reason (1787): “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations”, and its subsequent explanation. Here I focus only on the second one. It consists in an analysis of the grammatical subject of this proposition that stresses the methodological relevance of the I think as a reflexive judgment, which is more than a mere spontaneous connection of an intuitive manifold and less than the deployment of the objective unity of apperception in judgments of experience. I shall argue that only so understood is the I think able guarantee the logical inference from the empirical consciousness of a manifold, named by Kant “subjective unity of apperception”, towards the certainty of the possibility of objective knowledge.

Cottingham, John. Rev. of The Intolerable God: Kant’s Theological Journey, by Christopher J. Insole (2016). Times Literary Supplement (20 Oct 2017): 33. [M]

Croitoru, Rodica. “Comment cette «langue morte et savante» nous a aidé dans la traduction de la Critique de la raison pure en langue roumaine.” Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 134-45. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The study focuses on some pair of concepts, such as Gemüt – Seele, Gegenstand – Object, Sache – Ding, Erkenntnisvermögen – Erkenntniskraft, Gedanke – Idee, and on the possibility of translating them into Romanian. At the same time, there are comparatively presented possibilities of equivalence of some meaningful terms of the Critique of Pure Reason, in French, English, Romanian, emphasizing the importance of Latin to it. Peculiarities of the Kantian phrase are to be taken into consideration with a view of making whole the translation with elements of style.

 ——. “Al XIII-lea Congres internaţional al Societăţii de Studii Kantiene de Limba Franceză (SEKLF). Kant şi umanul: Geografie, Psihologie, Antropologie, Porto, 13–15 septembrie, 2017.” [Romanian] Revista de Filosofie 64.5 (2017): 759-62. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Les Lumières et l’insatisfaction sceptique de la raison pure.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 433-38. [M]

 ——. “Categoria de tranziție în Opus Postumum.” [Romanian] Studii de istoria filosofiei universale 25 (2017): pages. [PW]

Cubo Ugarte, Óscar. “Julius Ebbinghaus y la filosofía del derecho de Kant.” [Spanish; Julius Ebbinghaus´s interpretation of Kant´s philosophy of law] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 335-54. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper outlines Julius Ebbinghaus´s interpretation of Kant´s philosophy of law. In the first place, he exposes the famous "thesis of independence" (Unabhängigkeitsthese) presented in numerous works by J. Ebbinghaus. Secondly, he focuses his attention on the diagnosis made by J. Ebbinghaus of the cases of "extreme injustice" and establishes a relationship between the Formula of Radbruch and Kant’s philosophy of law. Finally, and against legal positivism, J. Ebbinghaus places the boundaries of political domination in the law of humanity. The normative consequences of this law are evident in cases of extreme injustice, National Socialist Germany is a paradigmatic example. Based on the law of humanity, Julius Ebbinghaus offers a Kantian justification of the concept of crimes against humanity.

Cunha, Bruno. “A demanda racional da ética de Kant no início de 1760.” [Portuguese; The rational demand of Kant’s ethics in the beginning of 1760] ethic@ 16.2 (2017): 219-42. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My aim in this paper is to present a distinct interpretation of the moral problem in young Kant's major writings, namely, Preisschrift and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. In contrast to the traditional reading, I will try to stress, that from analysis of the relation between the formal and material aspects of morality, we are able to verify that there is, indeed, underlying these writings, a rational demand of ethics. Therefore, we can remark that these writings, more than a mere reproduction of British morality, represent a moment of transition in which Kant frees himself from scholastic influence, to investigate in another way the primary concept of moral obligation.

[top] D    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Dall'Agnol, Darlei. “Respect in Kant’s Tugendlehre and its place in contemporary ethics.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 437-58. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper examines Kant’s conception of respect, especially in his work Metaphysical first principles of the doctrine of virtue (briefly Tugendlehre or Doctrine of Virtue), the second part of his The Metaphysics of Morals, and its place in contemporary ethics. The main question it asks is this: is respect just a feeling, a particular virtue or a moral duty/right? The initial hypothesis is that, in the relevant sense, respect is so to speak a “dutright,” that is, a duty that is at the same time a right. It leads to a fundamental principle, namely respect for persons, defining ‘person’ as a bearer of rights/obligations. Leaving Kant’s metaphysical commitments aside, it shows that this is one of the most important Kantian contributions to contemporary ethics

Danilkina, Natalia. “Nouvelles Lumières et néo-kantisme juridique en Russie.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 439-46. [M]

Danisch, Robert. “ Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 103.1/2 (2017): 195-98. [PI]

Danko, Christina. “Hume, Kant and Kierkegaard.” Philotheos 17 (2017): 84-88. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] At a time when certain scholars insist that the self does not exist and is not worth discussing, a return to the work of Kierkegaard proves valuable insofar as he considers this topic without appeal to abstractions and instead by way of lived experiences. My paper argues that we gain crucial insights into what constitutes Kierkegaard’s lived self by considering the trajectory of a debate between two of his most prominent predecessors, Hume and Kant. From Hume we gain an account of the problem of thinking the self abstractly (i.e., the paradox of the bundle of perceptions having to be itself a perception) and how this problem vaguely connects to the passions. From Kant we gain an account of the psychological morality framing the self and the radical evil at its heart. I suggest that Kierkegaard builds on these accounts by synthesizing their abstract components in an embodied, dynamic context, showing (not telling) how the self can be presented in everyday experiences.

Dawson, Josh. Rev. of Images of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom, and the Human Subject, by Richard Eldridge (2016). Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie 56.3 (2017): 597-98. [PW]

De Oliveira, Carlos Moisés. Rev. of The Typic in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: Moral Judgment and Symbolic Representation, by Adam Westra (2016). [Portuguese] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 471-79. [M] [online]

Deimling, Wiebke. “Hutcheson’s and Kant’s Critique of Sympathy.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 55-70. [M]

Deligiorgi, Katerina. “The Philosopher as Legislator: Kant on History.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 683-703. [M]

 ——. Rev. of Immanuel Kant: The Very Idea of a Critique of Pure Reason, by Colin J. McQuillan (2016). Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 338-40. [PW]

Demiray, Mehmet Ruhi. “Public Religion & Secular State: A Kantian Approach.” [English] Diametros 54 (2017): 30-55. [PW] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper argues that Kant’s distinction between “civil union” (i.e., the state) and “ethical community” can be of great value in dealing with a problem that causes considerable trouble in contemporary political and social philosophy, namely the question of the normative significance and role of religion in political and social life. The first part dwells upon the third part of Kant`s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason with the intention of exposing the general features of ethical community. It highlights the fact that Kant considers publicity, and indeed public authority, to be constitutive of the ethical community. The second part discusses his argument that we have a unique ethical duty to enter into an ethical community. This discussion clarifies the constitutive purpose of ethical community and sets forth why Kant thought that the ethical community should have a religious form. The third part presents an account of the constitutive purpose of the state (i.e. the political-legal community) in light of the Doctrine of Right. Throughout these steps, as is concluded, the essentials of a model for the relations between law, ethics, and religion emerge, which shows the way in which both religious and secularist worries can be met on a principled basis.

Dennis, Matthew. “On the Role of Maxims: Nietzsche’s Critique of Kant’s Philosophical Anthropology.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 251-72. [M]

Díaz, David Puche. “From Kant’s Critique of Judgement to The Birth of Tragedy: The Meaning of the ‘Aesthetic’ in Nietzsche.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 113-32. [M]

Dörflinger, Bernd. “Los deberes del amor en la doctrina kantiana de la virtud.” Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 125-34. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Der vorliegende Beitrag ist als Versuch zu betrachten, den im Begriff der Liebespflicht enthaltenen Liebesbegriff, der von Kant nicht detailliert entfaltet und also höchst erklärungsbedürftig ist, so zu verstehen, dass er immer eine Gefühlsbedeutung hat und dass er mit dem Pflichtbegriff, der immer eine intellektuelle Bedeutung hat, synthetisch verbunden ist, dass es sich also um eine widerspruchsfreie Korrelation handelt. Diese beruht auf dem nie suspendierten Verhältnis zwischen dem Begehrungsvermögen, hier dem oberen, dem intellektuellen, das eine Pflicht statuiert, und dem Vermögen der Lust und Unlust, das eine Gefühlsreaktion zeigt.

 ——. “Les aspects juridiques et éthiques de l’idée kantienne de la paix.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 27-39. [M]

Doude van Troostwijk, Chris. “L’herméneutique critique de Kant dans l’histoire universelle: entre sémiologie et théologie protestante.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 149-57. [M]

Doyle, Tsarina. “The Kantian Roots of Nietzsche’s Will to Power.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 205-32. [M]

Drogalis, Christina. “On Stephen Palmquist’s Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s «Religion».” Critique (blog posted: 13 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Duarte Fonseca, Renato. “Percepção objetiva, espaço egocêntrico e não-conceitualismo kantiano: uma primeira aproximação.” [Portuguese; Objective perception, egocentric space, and Kantian nonconceptualism: a first aproximation] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 104-30. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kantian strict nonconceptualism take Kant as defending that our basic form of perception of objects, or empirical intuition, is independent of any actualization of conceptual capacities. Hanna and Allais, in particular, claim that the pure intuition of space, as described in the Transcendental Aesthetic, provides for an egocentric framework of perceptual awareness without requiring any sort of synthesis governed by concepts. In order to critically evaluate their approach in a way that bypass the fluctuations in Kant‟s use of „perception‟ (Wahrnehmung), I introduce the notion of objective perception: attention through the senses to objects as such, without recognition of them under empirical concepts. I try to indicate that, from a Kantian point of view, our original representation of space is indeed egocentrically-oriented; this, along with other reasonable considerations, entails that there is objective perception; such an egocentric structure presupposes apperception, thus a synthesis according to the categories.

Duncan, Samuel. “Constructivism, Moral Realism, and the Possibility of Kant’s Rational Religion.” Religious Studies (Online: 24 Apr 2017). [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article I challenge Kantian constructivism both as an interpretation of Kant's own philosophical commitments and on its own merits as a moral theory, and argue in favour of a moral realist interpretation of Kant. I do so by focusing on Kant's own religious views and the question of whether a Kantian moral theory can be religiously neutral. I show that constructivist readings have severe problems on both fronts, while realist readings of Kant do not. This provides strong evidence that realist forms of Kantian ethics are preferable both as readings of Kant and as approaches to moral theory.

Dunlop, Katherine. “Understanding Non-Conceptual Representation of Objects: Empirical Models of Sensibility’s Operation.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 46-66??. [WC]

Duque Acosta, Carlos Andrés. “¿Es la filosofía kantiana individualista?” [Spanish; Is Kant’s philosophy individualistic?] Kant e-Prints 12.1 (2017): 37-55. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This reflection expects to advance in a response to the question that interrogates for the degree of ―Individualism‖ of the Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, checking some of his more important works in ethics, political philosophy and philosophy of history.

Dutra, Delamar Volpato. “Criticar e obedecer versus mordaça e desobediência: críticas de Kant a Hobbes.” [Portuguese; Criticize and obey versus gag and disobedience: critiques of Kant to Hobbes] Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã: Crítica e Modernidade 22.4 (2017): 43-61. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The text compares Hobbes's and Kant's views on freedom of expression. Hobbes feared for the destabilizing effects of such freedom, whereas Kant defined it as the most innocent of the liberties, therefore, Kant can mobilize it against certain acts of the sovereign, because of its innocence. The expression of thoughts would be no more than an appeal to the sovereign to reform the law. The text further emphasizes that the reasons for Hobbes to defend censorship are of public order and not the wandering of forbidden doctrines.

 ——, and Nythamar de Oliveira. “Moral Cognitivism and Legal Positivism in Habermas’s and Kant’s Philosophy of Law.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 533-46. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The hypothesis of this paper is that legal positivism depends on the non plausibility of strong moral cognitivism because of the non necessary connection thesis between law and morality that legal positivism is supposed to acknowledge. The paper concludes that only when based on strong moral cognitivism is it consistent to sustain the typical non-positivistic thesis of the necessary connection between law and morality. Habermas’s Philosophy of law is confronted with both positions.

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Ebbinghaus, Julius. “La ley de la humanidad y los límites del poder estatal.” [Spanish; The Law of Humanity and the Limits of State Power] Translated from the German by Cristina Gómez Baggethun and Ócar Cubo Ugarte. Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 355-65. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper offers the first Spanish version of “The Law of Humanity and the Limits of State Power” and is translated from the edition of the publishing house Bouvier: Julius Ebbinghaus, Sittlichkeit und Recht. Praktische Philosophie 1929-1954 (367 – 376). Our translation is preceded by a study of Ebbinghaus´s interpretation of Kant´s Philosophy of Law. This classical essay published by Ebbinghaus in 1953 provides a clear articulation of the outlines of Kant´s Doctrine of Right. He articulates the idea of political freedom and Kant´s argument that it can only be guaranteed by a legal system. He then contrasts this view with a version of legal positivism and places the limits of political domination in the law of humanity. The normative consequences of this law are evident in cases of extreme injustice, that have their paradigmatic example in National Socialist Germany. Based on the law of humanity, Julius Ebbinghaus offers a Kantian justification of the concept of crimes against humanity.

Echarri, Javier. “¿Cuál es el dominio de una antropología pragmática? Un análisis de las propuestas de Daniel Omar Pérez en torno a la antropología kantiana.” [Spanish; What is the dominion of a pragmatic anthropology? An analysis of the Daniel Omar Pérez’s proposals about Kantian anthropology]Kant e-Prints 12.3 (2017): 31-53. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper, I will discuss some of Daniel Omar Pérez’s ideas about Kant’s Anthropology defended in two of his articles: “A Antropologia pragmática como parte da razão prática em sentido kantiano” and “A proposição fundamental da antropologia pragmática e o conceito de cidadão do mundo em Kant”. I will specially evaluate the appropriateness of the idea that the pragmatic anthropology belongs to the practical sphere and I will intend to demonstrate that empirical research possesses more of an outstanding role in pragmatic anthropology than that indicated by Pérez. I will propose that the task of anthropology from a pragmatic point of view be found in an empirical research guided by the concept of “citizen of the world” used as a heuristic idea of this research. Thus, I arrive to the conclusion that the domain of anthropology is not the theoretical or the practical but the sphere defined by Hanna Arendt for the Critic of Judgment.

Ehrsam, Raphaël. “Approche épistémique vs approche génétique des connaissances a priori. Vers une relecture empiriste de la philosophie kantienne?” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 173-93. [M]

Eleonora Oggionni, Eva Marta. “Kantische Antworten auf Kants kasuistische Fragen, die vollkommenen Pflichten gegen sich selbst betreffend.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 38-57. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper engages with the Casuistic questions posed in the book on the Perfect Duties to Oneself, in the Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue of the Metaphysic of Morals. It investigates whether it is possible to identify Kant’s literal answers to the casuistic questions that Kant himself poses, concluding that it is not. Therefore, Kantian answers rather than Kant’s answers are discussed. The paper’s outcome supports a rigorist interpretation of Kant’s ethics.

Ellis, Addison. “The Case for Absolute Spontaneity in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 138-64. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant describes the understanding as a faculty of spontaneity. What this means is that our capacity to judge what is true is responsible for its own exercises, which is to say that we issue our judgments for ourselves. To issue our judgments for ourselves is to be self-conscious – i.e., conscious of the grounds upon which we judge. To grasp the spontaneity of the understanding, then, we must grasp the self-consciousness of the understanding. I argue that what Kant requires for explaining spontaneity is a conception of judgment as an intrinsic self-consciousness of the total unity of possible knowledge. This excludes what have been called ‘relative’ accounts of the spontaneity of the understanding, according to which our judgments are issued through a capacity fixed by external conditions. If so, then Kant conceives of understanding as entirely active. Or, to put it another way, he conceives of this capacity as absolutely spontaneous.

Engelland, Chad. Heidegger’s Shadow: Kant, Husserl and the Transcendental Turn. New York/London: Routledge, 2017. [xiv, 275 p.] [WC] [review]

Englert, Alexander T. “Dutifully Wishing: Kant’s Re-evaluation of a Strange Species of Desire.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 373-94. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] For Kant, ‘wish’ is a technical term denoting a strange species of desire. It is an instance in which someone wills something that she simultaneously knows she cannot bring about. As a result, it is, in one sense, antithetical to morality, which deals with ‘ought implies can’. I will argue that Kant re-evaluated wishing as (to some extent) causally efficacious and, further, of moral relevance. This re-evaluation has not been discussed in the literature, yet has been lurking in plain sight in a subtle shift in two versions of a footnote from the Critique of the Power of Judgement.

Engstrom, Stephen. “Knowledge and Its Object.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 28-45. [PW]

Ertl, Wolfgang. “On Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Creation of Freedom.” Critique (blog posted: 28 Jun 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Evans, Mark. “Speaking on morality’s behalf: When one should be silent and why.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 46-59. [M]

[top] F    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Failla, Mariannina. Existencia, necesidad, libertad: En camino hacia la crítica. [Spanish] Translated from the Italian by Antonio José Antón Fernández, with a prologue by Nuria Sánchez Madrid. Madrid: Ediciones Alamanda, 2017. [208 p.] [M] [online]

Falcato, Ana. Rev. of Comparing Kant and Sartre, edited by Sorin Baiasu (2016). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 487-93. [PW]

Falduto, Antonio. “Los conceptos kantianos de “facultad” y de “mente” frente a la lectura epigenética.” [Spanish; Kant’s concepts of “faculty” and “mind” versus epigenetic reading] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 20-28. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper, I will study the radical innovation of Kant’s concepts of ‘faculty’ and ‘mind’ in the history of philosophy. With this aim, I will focus on the discussion concerning the debate on the faculties during the Eighteenth Century in Europe in general and particularly in Germany. I will end my analysis by noting how the term ‘faculty’ can be rightly interpreted only in connection with Kant‘s pure philosophical treatment of the concept of Gemüt, which will be distinguished from an epigenetical, empirically characterized analysis of the human mind.

 ——. “Nécessité partout? Kant et Ulrich sur la liberté de l’action et le déterminisme.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 267-72. [M]

Feldhaus, Charles. “Kant, Schiller, Obligation and Chimerical Ethics.” Studia Kantiana 15.2 (2017): 111-20. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This study analyzes the debate between Kant and Schiller about the role of feelings in the moral sphere based on the concept of obligation (Verbindlichkeit) and the concept of chimerical ethics. The concept of obligation is a central concept in all development of ethics of Kant from the Prize Essay (1763) on. The notion of obligation plays an important role in the debate between Kant and Schiller, since Kant said the concept of duty and the concept of grace could not be harmonized as Schiller thought with the figure of the beautiful soul in Grace and Dignity (1793). Kant discusses the notion of the chimerical ethics in the Lectures on Ethics based on the Baumgarten and Meier. One main characteristic of a chimerical ethical is imposed to human beings to perform an obligation that exceeds the human capacity. One could say that the concept of chimeric ethics influences the conception of moral fanaticism of the Critique of Practical Reason of Kant and the refusal of the ideal of perfection of Stoic ethics. In the debate between Kant and Schiller, the main point of divergence between them is about the possibility of realizing the ideal of moral perfection contained in the concept of the beautiful soul.

Feloj, Serena. Rev. of The Powers of Pure Reason. Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy, by Alfredo Ferrarin (2015). [English] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 429-34. [M][online]

Fernández, José Luis. “Bridging the Gap of Kant’s ‘Historical Antinomy’.” Southwest Philosophy Review 33.1 (2017): 215-23. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In his influential work on Kant and history, Yirmiyahu Yovel identifies a problem which he terms ‘the historical antinomy.’ The problem states that no possible mediation can take place between the atemporal realm of pure reason and the empirical realm of human history. In this paper, I aim to bridge this gap based on a two-aspect reading of the faculty of reason, and then proceed to show reason’s ability to apply transcendental ideas on empirical history for the sake of grasping a rational idea of history in a single, mediated process.

Ferrari, Jean. “Ordre de la nature et désordres de l’histoire.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 41-58. [M]

Ferrarin, Alfredo. “A Reply to Serena Feloj on The Powers of Pure Reason.” [English]  Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 435-39. [M] [online]

Ferreira Perez, André Rodrigues. “Unidade e objetividade entre a Dedução transcendental e as Analogias da experiência.” [Portuguese; Unity and objectivity between the Transcendental Deduction and the Analogies of Experience] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 131-60. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Abstract: I intend to present an interpretation according to which the sensible objects must be “constructed” in order for them to be represented as objects. In this way, I shall attempt in the light of both the Transcendental Deduction and the Analogies of Experience to identify which are the necessary conditions as to establish an objective representational relation. The fundamental notion for this hypothesis is that of unity. Therefore, I‟ll try to show that no isolated item from a certain “class” of representations can be said to be objective. That means that neither the binding nor the terms bound therein preexist the unity of the binding act, which is to say that objectivity should only be attributed to bound representations. Beginning from the unity of synthesis and attempting to lead it back to the unity of apperception, my aim is to point out that an isolated perception can be identified as such only if it is first constituted in a pre-propositional manner as part of a whole, so that it can attributed to an object or to a singular event.

Ferrer, Diogo. “Tornar-se Kant: a crítica da razão representativa em Diferença e Repetição de Deleuze.” [Portuguese; Becoming Kant: The Critique of Reason as Representation in Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 351-66. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Gilles Deleuze’s work Difference and Repetition may be included, notwithstanding significant transformations, in the reception of Kant’s thought. This paper examines the hypothesis that Difference and Repetition should be considered as a reshaping of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in which a philosophy of difference takes the place of a philosophy of representation.
A series of themes are studied in which Difference and Repetition reinterprets the Critique of Pure Reason’s main guidelines, showing thus the structural and critical relation between the two works. It is studied, first, the manifold of sensibility as pure difference; secondly, the relation between the concept, as repetition, with the sensibility; third, the synthesis of imagination in its connections with time and with the I. As an architectonic conclusion, it is presented the Deleuzian theory of the Idea in its relation to Kant.

Ferrera Da Silva, Fernando Manuek. “Um ‘secreto procedimento da alma dos homens’: Kant sobre o problema das representações obscuras.” [Portuguese; A ‘secret procedure of the soul of men’: Kant on the problem of obscure representations Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 190-215. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The following essay aims at discerning the new point of view and the new line of thought Kant inaugurates on the most original of the topics of the faculty of human representation: that of obscure representations; a topic until then was almost completely neglected, or even expressly negated, due to its connection with sensibility, but a topic which, according to the philosopher, was not only a topic of great philosophical pertinence, but it contained new, until then unheard-of potentialities which Kant brings to word for the first time in his Lectures on Anthropology. Hence, it is our aim to prove Kant’s original cosmological matrix of the problem of obscure representations; to bring to evidence the embryonic form of consciousness which is that of obscure representations, and consequently their relation with clear knowledge (the process of intellectualization of sensible representations); and finally, to underscore how the topic of obscure representations is at the origin of a process of re-proportion of all inferior and superior faculties of the soul – the same which Kant envisaged with poetry, of which obscure representations are after all a part.

Ferry, Jean-Marc. “Pour une critique reconstructive de la raison historique.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 59-72. [M]

Filieri, Luigi. Rev. of Il pensare e l’io. Hegel e la critica di Kant, by Alfredo Ferrarin (2016). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 200-4. [M] [online]

 ——. See: Guyer, Paul, and Luigi Filieri.

Finkelde, Dominik, ed. Excessive Subjectivity — Kant, Hegel, Lacan, and the Foundations of Ethics., transl. by Deva Kemmis and Astrid Weigert. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. [xv, 340 p.] [WC] [review]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Original title: Exzessive Subjektivität. Eine Theorie tathafter Neubegründung des Ethischen nach Kant, Hegel und Lacan (Freiburg 2015).

Fisher, Naomi. “Kant on Animal Minds.” Ergo v.15 (2017): 441-62. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s Critical philosophy seems to leave very little room to account for the mental lives of animals, since the understanding, which animals lack, is required for expe- rience and cognition. While Kant does not regard animals as Cartesian machines, he leaves them few resources for getting around in the world in a coherent and re- sponsive way. In this paper I present Kant’s account of animal minds. according to this picture, animals have representations of which they are not conscious, and these representations can give rise to inclinations through a form of reflection. While this account faces difficulties in accounting for the variety and complexity of animal behavior, it is impressive in its ingenuity, and it clarifies the role of various faculties and terms in the Critical philosophy.

Flikschuh, Katrin. “Kant’s Nomads: Encountering Strangers.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 346-48. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] There is a tendency within the literature to decry Kant as either a proto-imperialist or as a proto-democrat in relation to his views on distant strangers. I here take an alternative view, arguing that Kant’s cosmopolitan morality is considerably more context-sensitive than is often assumed. More specifically, I argue that Kant’s encounter with American nomads on the final pages of his Doctrine of Right reflects a nuanced reading of European settlers’ requisite comportment towards them: Kant neither endorses a universal duty of state entrance nor does he place nomads beyond all possible moral engagement with European settlers.

Forgione, Luca. “Kant and the Simple Representation ‘I’.” International Philosophical Quarterly 57.2 (2017): 173-94. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this paper is to focus on certain characterizations of “I think” and the “transcendental subject” in an attempt to verify a connection with certain metaphysical characterizations of the thinking subject that Kant introduced in the critical period. Most importantly, two distinct meanings of “I think” need be distinguished: (1) in the Transcendental Deduction “I think” is the act of apperception; (2) in the Transcendental Deduction and in the section of Paralogisms “I think” is taken in its representational nature. It proves helpful to interpret the “transcendental subject” in formal terms as a concept that, mutatis mutandis, has the same function of the concept of the “transcendental object.”

 ——. “Kant on the Reflecting Power of Judgment and Nonconceptual Content.” Philosophical Inquiry 41.4 (2017): 35-53. [PW]

Forst, Rainer. “Noumenal Alienation: Rousseau, Kant and Marx on the Dialectics of Self-Determination.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 523-51. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article argues that alienation (as Entfremdung) should be understood as a particular form of individual and social heteronomy that can only be overcome by a dialectical combination of individual and collective autonomy, recovering a deontological sense of normative authority. If we think about alienation in Kantian terms, the main source of alienation is a denial of standing or, in the extreme, losing a sense of oneself as a rational normative authority equal to all others. I call the former kind of alienation, where persons deny others equal standing as a normative authority in moral or political terms, first order noumenal alienation, as there is no proper mutual cognition and recognition of each other in such a social context. I call the latter kind of alienation, where a subject does not consider themselves an equal normative authority – or an ‘end in oneself’ – second order noumenal alienation (again, in a moral and a political form). In this sense, alienation violates the dignity of humans as moral and political lawgivers – a dignity seen by Rousseau, Kant and Marx as inalienable: It can be denied or violated, but it cannot be lost.

 ——. “Political Liberalism: A Kantian View.” Ethics 128.1 (2017): 123-44. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article suggests a Kantian reading of Rawls’s Political Liberalism. As much as Rawls distanced himself from a presentation of his theory in terms of a comprehensive Kantian moral doctrine, we ought to read it as a noncomprehensive Kantian moral-political theory. According to the latter approach, the liberal conception of justice is compatible with a plurality of comprehensive doctrines as long as they share the independently defined and grounded essentials of that conception of justice—that is, as long as they are “reasonable,” to use the term that does most of the Kantian work.

Friebe, Cord. “Kant’s Rejection of Leibniz’s Principle and the Individuality of Quantum Objects.” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 1-18. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant rejects Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII). In quantum mechanics, Leibniz’s principle is also apparently violated. However, both ways of rejecting the PII differ significantly. In particular, Kant denies that spatiotemporal objects are unique individuals and establishes appearances as merely singular ones. The distinction between ‘unique’ and ‘singular’ individuals is crucial for the role that intuition plays in cognition: it will be shown that Kant’s way of rejecting the PII goes against the standard versions of conceptualism and non-conceptualism which, in turn, points out the relevance of this issue for the understanding of transcendental idealism. Finally, the systematic relevance will be checked by defending a Kantian interpretation of quantum individuality.

Friedlander, Eli. “On Common Sense, Communicability, and Community.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 407-24. [M]

Friedman, Michael. “Kant’s Conception of Causal Necessity and its Legacy.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 195-213. [M]

Frierson, Patrick R. “Denkungsart in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 643-64. [M]

Fuentes González, Javier. “Conexiones entre Kant, Proclo y Euclides, a partir de una interpretación de Hintikka.” [Spanish; Connections Between Kant, Proclus and Euclid, from an Interpretation of Hintikka]  Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 261-77. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this text a basis for an interpretation of intuition and construction in Kant is searched. In order to accomplish that goal, Hintikka’s renowned interpretation is analized. This analysis shows that this interpretation exhibits some weaknesses, however, it is adopted from it that an understanding of intuition and construction can be reached by linking them to some ideas of ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians, above all Proclus and Euclid. More specifically, it is shown that a reasonable starting point to develop an interpretation of intuition and construction consists in linking them to the two conclusions which Proclus mentions in his Commentary on Book I of Euclid’s Elements. However, it must be taken into account that such links are only reasonable within the domain of proofs, since Kant states that construction is also present in definitions and theorems.

Furner, James. “Kant’s Contradiction in the Will Test: An Extravagant Imperfect Nature Interpretation.” Philosophical Forum 48.3 (2017): 307-23. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article discusses on the contradiction of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the will test (CW test). It cites on the CW test that has received less attention than the conception test (CC test), citing the false promising maxim. The article also discusses on the three main ideas of literature that have been used to interpret a notion of an agent's will.

 ——. “Kant’s Contradiction in Conception Test: A Causal-Teleological Version of the Logical Contradiction Interpretation.” Theoria 64.152 (2012): 1-23. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The contradiction in conception test (CC test) is one of two tests posed by Kant’s Formula of the Law of Nature. This article proposes a new interpretation of this test: a causal-teleological version of the Logical Contradiction Interpretation (LCI). Its distinctive feature is that it identifies causal and teleological implications in the thought of a universal law of nature. A causalteleological version of LCI has two advantages. While the established view of the Groundwork’s applications of the CC test is a hybrid view that treats the Groundwork’s arguments as different in kind, a causal-teleological version of LCI unifies the Groundwork’s applications of the CC test. Relatedly, a causal-teleological version of LCI provides a solution to the problem of how the CC test can confirm the impermissibility of a self-directed maxim.

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García Gómez del Valle, Jose María. “Arqueología filosófica y hermenéutica. Apuntes sobre la interpretación de la historia de la filosofía en Kant.” [Spanish; Philosophical Archaeology and Hermeneutics. Remarks on Kant’s Interpretation of the History of Philosophy] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 29-47. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this paper is to provide an aproximation to a possible “hermeneutics of the history of philosophy” in Kant, situating the discussion in the context of the reception of Kant's thought by the Philosophical Hermeneutics of the 20th Century and presenting a set of Kantian principles for the interpretation of past philosophies.

Gardner, Sebastian. “The Metaphysics of Human Freedom: From Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.1 (2017): 133-56. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Schelling’s 1809 Freiheitsschrift (Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom), perhaps his most widely read work, presents considerable difficulties of understanding. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of the work in relation to Kant. My focus is on the relation in each case of their theory of human freedom to their general metaphysics, a relation which both regard as essential. The argument of the paper is in sum that Schelling may be viewed as addressing and resolving a problem which faces Kant’s theory of freedom and transcendental idealism, deriving from the challenge posed by Spinozism. One major innovation in Schelling’s theory of human freedom is his claim that it presupposes the reality of evil. I argue that Schelling’s thesis concerning evil also provides a key to the new and highly original metaphysics of the Freiheitsschrift. The relation of Schelling’s theory of freedom to his general metaphysics is therefore complex, for it goes in two directions: the metaphysics are not simply presupposed by the theory of freedom but are also in part derived from it. These new metaphysics also, I argue, allow Schelling to resolve a problem which his own earlier Spinozistic system had left unresolved.

 ——. “Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology in the light of Kant’s Third Critique and Schelling’s Real-Idealismus.” Continental Philosophy Review 50.1 (2017): 5-25. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper I offer a selective, systematic rather than historical account of Merleau-Ponty’s highly complex relation to classical German philosophy, focussing on issues which bear on the question of his relation to transcendentalism and naturalism. I argue that the concerns which define his project in Phenomenology of Perception are fundamentally those of transcendental philosophy, and that Merleau-Ponty’s disagreements with Kant, and the position he arrives at in The Visible and the Invisible, are helpfully viewed in light of (1) issues which Merleau-Ponty identifies as raised by Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement, and (2) Schelling’s conversion of Kantian idealism into a Real-Idealismus. Finally I address the question of whether, and on what basis, Merleau-Ponty’s claim to have surpassed systematic philosophy can be defended.

Garrett, Aaron. “Hutcheson on the Unity of Virtue and Right.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 19-35. [M]

Gatto, Alfredo. “La maschera cartesiana: René Descartes nella Critica della ragion pura di Kant.” [Italian; The Cartesian Mask: René Descartes in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 138-49. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article aims to analyze the presence of Descartes in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, with particular attention to the Paralogisms of Rational Psychology and to the Refutation of Idealism. The most significant aspect of Kant’s analysis does not concern the interpretation of Cartesian thought provided by the German philosopher, given the lack of knowledge Kant had of Descartes’ works. The most important issue, on the contrary, especially if it is considered in the light of the following reception of Cartesian reflection, has to do with the image of Descartes that emerges from the pages of the Critique. In this respect, it is possible to affirm that Kant has contributed to the return to the scene of the metaphysical Descartes in German thought, a philosophical mask that will play a central role in the reconstruction of the history of the philosophy proposed by the post-Kantian idealism.

Geiger, Ido. “Kant on the Analytic-Synthetic or Mechanistic Model of Causal Explanation.” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 19-42. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the Critique of Teleological Judgment, Kant endorses a distinct model of causal explanation. He claims that we explain natural wholes as the causal effect of their parts and the forces governing them, i. e., we explain mechanistically or following the analytic-synthetic method of modern science. According to McLaughlin’s influential interpretation, Kant endorses in this, without argument, the predominant scientific method of his time. The text suggests, however, that we explain mechanistically according to the constitution of our discursive understanding. The paper attempts to reconstruct the argument establishing this claim.

Gentili, Carlo. “Nietzsche and ‘the Great Chinese of Königsberg’.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 179-94. [M]

Geonget, Brigitte. “Progrès et perfectionnement dans l’Idée. Au-delà de la détermination naturaliste de l’humanité.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 159-68. [M]

Gerlach, Burkhard. Rev. of Kant’s Lectures on Ethics. A Critical Guide, edited by Lara Denis and Oliver Sensen (2015). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 477-80. [PW]

Giamario, Patrick T. “Making Reason Think More.” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 22.4 (2017): 161-76. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article explores the surprisingly decisive role that Kant’s “incongruity theory” of laughter plays in his aesthetic and broader critical philosophy. First, laughter constitutes a highly specific form of aesthetic judgment in Kant. Laughter involves a discordant relation between the cognitive faculties characteristic of the sublime, but this relation obtains between the understanding and the imagination, the two faculties at play in judgments of taste on the beautiful. Second, laughter is the transcendental condition of possibility for both the beautiful and the sublime. While most commentators dismiss laughter as an afterthought of Kant’s aesthetics, laughter in fact constitutes the most basic aesthetic judgment in Kant. Third, an account of aesthetic judgment that begins with laughter transforms how we understand Kant’s argument that judgment unites nature and freedom. Namely, it reveals how an empirical world at odds with the subject’s purposes can nevertheless advance the subject’s rational vocation to think and act beyond the empirical. I conclude by arguing that Kantian critical philosophy is itself a philosophy of laughter.

Gilabert, Pablo. “Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 553-77. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article offers an account of human dignity based on a discussion of Kant’s moral and political philosophy and then shows its relevance for articulating and developing in a fresh way some normative dimensions of Marx’s critique of capitalism as involving exploitation, domination and alienation, and the view of socialism as involving a combination of freedom and solidarity. What is advanced here is not Kant’s own conception of dignity, but an account that partly builds on that conception and partly criticizes it. The same is the case with the account of socialism in relation to Marx’s work. As articulated, Kantian dignity and Marxian socialism turn out to be quite appealing and mutually supportive.

Giladi, Paul. “On Schulting on Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Subjectivism in the Transcendental Deduction.” Critique (blog posted: 10 Nov 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Ginsborg, Hannah. “Why Must we Presuppose the Systematicity of Nature?” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 71-88. [M]

Gironi, Fabio, ed. The Legacy of Kant in Sellars and Meillassoux: Analytic and Continental Kantianism. London: Routledge, 2017. [248 p.] [WC][review]

Girotti, Marcio Tadeu. “Ilusão transcendental e ilusão de ótica: a genealogia da ilusão nas obras kantianas em 1766 e 1787.” [Portuguese; Transcendental illusion and optical illusion: the genealogy of illusion in the Kantian works in 1766 and 1787] Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 43-65. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is about understanding the illusion in Kant's works in 1766 and 1787 from Kant's critique of traditional metaphysics and the characterization of transcendental illusion in the Critique of Pure Reason (1787) and the illusion of optics in the Dreams of a Visionary explained by dreams of metaphysics (1766). Having as research axis the genealogy of the German term Schein from the Transcendental Dialectic of Criticism and its meanings in the Portuguese translation of the Brazilian, that translates Schein by illusion, and the Portuguese of Portugal that translates Schein by appearance. Supported in the dreams of a visionary and in the Reflections, we will verify the terms that want to designate, in Portuguese, the sense of illusion when, in German, such terms have other meanings. With this, we want to understand why Kant uses several words in German to express the same context of illusion, deception, error, madness or even fantasy.

Goldberg, Nathaniel. “Kant on Demarcation and Discovery.” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 43-62. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant makes two claims in the Critique of Pure Reason that anticipate concerns of twentieth-century philosophy of science. The first, that the understanding and sensibility are constitutive of knowledge, while reason is responsible for transcendental illusion, amounts to his solution to Karl Popper’s “problem” of demarcating science from pseudoscience. The second, that besides these constitutive roles of the understanding and sensibility, reason is itself needed to discover new empirical knowledge, anticipates Hans Reichenbach’s distinction between the “contexts” of justification and discovery. Unlike Reichenbach, however, who thinks that there can be a “logic” only of justification, Kant provides what amounts to a logic of discovery. Though Kant’s broader concerns are not Popper’s or Reichenbach’s, using theirs as framing devices reveals two otherwise unnoticed things about the Critique of Pure Reason. First, besides its general epistemological and metaphysical aims, the Critique lays groundwork for the twentieth century’s specialized field of the philosophy of science. Second, Kant’s solution to the demarcation problem contradicts his logic of discovery, so in this instance the Critique is too ambitious.

Goldberg, Zachary J. “Can Kant’s Theory of Radical Evil Be Saved?” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 395-419. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article, I assess three contemporary criticisms levelled at Kant’s theory of evil in order to evaluate whether his theory can be saved. Critics argue that Kant does not adequately distinguish between evil and mundane wrongdoing, making his use of the term ‘evil’ emotional hyperbole; by defining evil as the subordination of the moral law to self-love his analysis is seemingly overly simplistic and empirically false; and by focusing solely on the moral character of the perpetrator of evil, Kant’s theory apparently ignores the most salient aspect of evil – the suffering of victims. While I will not claim that Kant provides us with a fully adequate theory of evil, I respond to each of these criticisms and conclude that Kant’s theory can still provide significant insight into both the nature of evil and the moral psychology of perpetrators of evil.

Golob, Sacha. “The Separability of Understanding and Sensibility: A Reply to James Conant.” Critique (blog posted: 18 Sep 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction, by Henry Allison (2015). Mind 126.501 (2017): 278-89. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of Heidegger’s Shadow: Kant, Husserl and the Transcendental Turn, by Chad Engelland (2017). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Jul 2017, #14). [M] [online]

Gomes, Anil. “Naïve Realism In Kantian Phrase.” Mind 126.502 (2017): 529-78. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Early twentieth-century philosophers of perception presented their naïve realist views of perceptual experience in anti-Kantian terms. For they took naïve realism about perceptual experience to be incompatible with Kant’s claims about the way the understanding is necessarily involved in perceptual consciousness. This essay seeks to situate a naïve realist account of visual experience within a recognisably Kantian framework by arguing that a naïve realist account of visual experience is compatible with the claim that the understanding is necessarily involved in the perceptual experience of those rational beings with discursive intellects. The resultant view is middle way between recent conceptualist and non-conceptualist interpretations of Kant, holding that the understanding is necessarily involved in the kind of perceptual consciousness that we, as rational beings, enjoy whilst allowing that the relations of apprehension which constitute perceptual consciousness are independent of acts of the understanding.

 ——. “Kant, the Philosophy of Mind, and Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 5-24??. [WC]

 ——, and Andrew Stephenson, eds. Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. [xiv, 283 p.] [WC]

[Contents] [Hide Contents]
Anil Gomes (Kant, the Philosophy of Mind, and Twentieth-Century Analytic Philosophy),
Lucy Allais (Synthesis and Binding),
Katherine Dunlop (Understanding Non-Conceptual Representation of Objects: Empirical Models of Sensibility’s Operation),
Stefanie Grüne (Are Kantian Intuitions Object-Dependent?),
Colin McLear (Intuition and Presence),
Andrew Stephenson (Imagination and Inner Intuition),
Ralf M. Bader (Inner Sense and Time),
Andrew Chignell (Can’t Kant Cognize Himself? Or, a Problem for (Almost) Every Interpretation of the Refutation of Idealism),
Patricia Kitcher (A Kantian Critique of Transparency),
Jessica Leech (Judging for Reasons: On Kant and the Modalities of Judgment),
Jill Vance Buroker (Kant on Judging and the Will),
Ralph C.S. Walker (Self and Selves),
Tobias Rosefeldt (Subjects of Kant’s First Paralogism),
Paul F. Snowdon (The Lessons of Kant’s Paralogisms).

 ——. “On David Landy’s Kant’s Inferentialism.” Critique (blog posted: 28 Feb 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

González, Catalina. “Secularización e infinito en Pascal y Kant.” [Spanish; Secularisation and Infinite in Pascal and Kant] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 296-315. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article, I examine the concept of infinity in Pascal and Kant, within the context of H. Bumenberg and H. Arendt’s contemporary analysis of Modern secularization. The main aspects of my analysis are: first, the transformation of the meaning of the term ‘infinite’, moving from the realm of the transcendent to the realm of the immanent. Second, the understanding of secular Modernity as unworldly worldliness. Third, the secular application of the concept of infinity to history, in the Modern ideal of historical progress. In my view, these traits of Modern secularization may be clearly observed in Pascal and Kant’s concept of infinity.

González Fisac, Jesús. “La libertad pragmática en Metaphysik der Sitten. Libertad y dependencia en el derecho personal de carácter real.” [Spanish; The pragmatic freedom in Metaphysik der Sitten. Freedom and dependence in the personal right of a real kind] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 116-37. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The purpose of this paper is to recognize the pragmatic freedom in the personal right of a real kind, and more particularly in the domestic community of marriage. This right seems inmediately to be a paradox, for in it man is possessed as a thing and is used as a person. Kant's solution to this apparent contradiction within the marriage community is mutual aid. The reciprocal use which each spouse makes of the other’s sexual organs founds a peculiar domestic community. It is a community of freedom to use the other in which human beings dispose of one another without pursuing the natural purpose; but it is also a community for dependence, since humanity is also based on the need of the influence (the need of passivity or receptivity) of other beings and not only on moral personality (practical freedom).

 ——. Rev. of The Bounds of Freedom: Kant’s Causal Theory of Action, by Robert Greenberg (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 497-502. [M] [online]

González Porta, Mario Ariel. “La crítica al psicologismo en Frege y Windelband: una contribución a la clarificación de las relaciones entre Frege y el neokantismo.” [Portuguese; The criticism to the psychologism in Frege and Windelband: a contribution to the clarification of the relationship between Frege and Neokantism] Studia Kantiana 15.1 (2017): 27-56. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Even though it is correct to draw attention to the fact that Frege’s thinking develops in contact with its historical-philosophical context, and that inside this context the Neokantian Baden school deserves a particular emphasis, it isn’t correct to claim that Frege belongs to this school. If there are contact points between Frege and the Baden school, there are however no less important differences between them. Such is the case of the criticism towards psychologism.

Gottschlich, Max. “Pensar como operación – Acerca de los presupuestos e implicaciones de la lógica formal moderna.” [Spanish; Thinking as an Operation – About the Presupositions and Implications of Modern Formal Logic] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 9-19. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Formal logic cannot claim to represent a presuppositionless science. In fact, its account of logical form rests upon a set of presuppositions, which is not justified within logic itself.This article shall elaborate on this in two steps. First,we shall highlight the primaldeterminations in formal logic‘s account of logical form. Second, we shall deepen this with regard to the account of the concept. In doing so, we will encounter systematic problems, the resolution of which necessarily gives rise to a genuine self-reflection of logical form, which is transcendental logic in terms of Kant.

Goy, Ina. Kants Theorie der Biologie: Ein Kommentar. Eine Lesart. Eine Historische Einordnung. Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, 2017. [xix, 420 p.] [WC]

[Note] [Hide Note] Kantstudien Ergänzungshefte, vol. 190.

Grandjean, Antoine. “La politique empiriste de la raison. Anarchisme ou despotisme?” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 15-38. [M]

 ——, ed. Kant et les empirismes. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2017. [223 p.] [M] [review]

[Contents] [Hide Contents]
CONCEPTS, PROBLÈMES, TRADITIONS
Antoine Grandjean (La politique empiriste de la raison. Anarchisme ou despotisme?),
Pascal Taranto (Kant et la défense de la «bonne cause». La «conséquence» de l'empirisme),
Matthieu Haumesser (Le jeu du «Je pense» dans Locke et Kant. L’entrecroisement des facultés dans l’aperception empirique),
François Calori (Des plaisirs et douleurs. Approche empirique et perspective transcendantale (Verri, Burke et Kant)),
LE TRANSCENDANTAL ET L'EMPIRIQUE
Günter Zöller (Possibiliser l’expérience. Kant sur la relation entre le transcendantal et l’empirique),
Mai Lequan (Empirie et expérience selon Kant. Une épistémologie de l’hypothèse à l’épreuve des écrits scientifiques),
Michel Malherbe (Kant et le réel de la sensation),
L'EMPIRIQUE DU TRANSCENDANTAL
Olivier Tinland (Hegel critique de Kant. Éléments pour la généalogie d’un empirisme de la raison),
Raphaël Ehrsam (Approche épistémique vs approche génétique des connaissances a priori. Vers une relecture empiriste de la philosophie kantienne?),
Claudia Serban (A priori, nécessité, facticité, ego. Husserl critique de Kant).

Grapotte, Sophie. Rev. of Alexander Baumgarten: Metaphysics. A Critical Translation with Kant’s Elucidations. Selected Notes, and related Materials, edited and translated by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers (2013). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 152-55. [PW]

 ——. “La notion de «fin en soi» (Zweck an sich) en 1784.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 363-72. [M]

 ——, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing, eds. L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Paris: J. Vrin, 2017. [469 p.] [M]

[Note] [Hide Note] Proceedings of 12th Congrès international de la Société d'études kantiennes de langue française (September 28-October 1, 2015).
CONFÉRENCES PLÉNIÈRES
Monique Castillo (Comment l’Idée kantienne d’histoire prévoit-elle, en 1784, sa propre réalisation?)
Berd Dörflinger (Les aspects juridiques et éthiques de l’idée kantienne de la paix)
Jean Ferrari (Ordre de la nature et désordres de l’histoire)
Jean-Marc Ferry (Pour une critique reconstructive de la raison historique)
Dietmar Heidemann (Finalité et historicité de la raison dans la philosophie de l’histoire de Kant)
Mai Lequan (La critique kantienne de la fiction trompeuse des bergers d’Arcadie dans l’Idée de 1784)
Gianluca Sadun Bordoni (1784 - l’année fatidique)
PHILOSOPHIE DE L’HISTOIRE
Giovanni Pietro Basile (L’idée kantienne de l’Université et le progrès des Lumières)
Lutz Baumann (Qu’est-ce que les lumières? (1784) et la pensée transcendantale. Un petit tour d’horizon)
Giuseppe d’Alessandro (L’histoire pour le philosophe et l’historien: Kant et Schlözer)
Chris Doude van Troostwijk (L’herméneutique critique de Kant dans l’histoire universelle: entre sémiologie et théologie protestante)
Brigitte Geonget (Progrès et perfectionnement dans l’Idée. Au-delà de la détermination naturaliste de l’humanité)
Dieter Hüning (Esprit de commerce, droit et paix dans la philosophie de l’histoire de Kant)
Mauricio Keinert (L’Idée d’une histoire: les conflits de la raison)
Guillaume Lejeune (L’immortalité de l’espèce peut-elle valoir comme postulat de la raison pure pratique?)
Helke Panknin-Schappert (Le spectateur de la grande scène du monde. Fil conducteur a priori et preuve historique)
Claude Piché (La philosophie kantienne de l’histoire et la ruse des Lumières)
Nuria Sanchez Madrid and Macarena Marey (Kant et le droit en 1784: la formation de l’obligation juridique dans le cours Naturrecht Feyerabend)
Diogo Sardinha (Nature, action et émancipation dans la Réponse à la question: Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?)
PERSPECTIVES KANTIENNES
Matthieu Amat (La validité des idées régulatrices en histoire. La position de Georg Simmel entre néokantisme et «Philosophie du comme si»)
Attilio Bragantini («Une histoire de l’humanité dans le tout de sa destination»: Kant contre Herder)
Antonio Carrano (À propos de l’origine de l’histoire: entre Kant et Schiller)
Antonio Falduto (Nécessité partout? Kant et Ulrich sur la liberté de l’action et le déterminisme)
Marco Rampazzo Bazzan (Sapere aude et Doctrine de la science. Les résurgences de la devise kantienne des Lumières dans les cours de Fichte à l’Université de Berlin)
Frédéric Seyler (La médiation du droit: Le «modèle de 1784» (Kant) et le «modèle de 1806» (Fichte))
PHILOSOPHIE DU DROIT ET PHILOSOPHIE POLITIQUE
Roberto Aramayo (La perspective juridico-politique de l’usage pratique de la raison dans les opuscules kantiens de 1784)
Monique Hulshof (Le concept de «souverain» dans les Fondements et les leçons Naturrecht Feyerabend)
Paulo Renato Jesus (La construction du «règne des fins»: épigénèse infinie de la liberté et de la justice)
Danielle Lories (De l’«insociable sociabilité» au sensus communis)
Gualtiero Lorini (Le dialogue entre droit et religion dans la conception kantienne de l’État. Un regard diachronique)
Maria Lucia Mello e Oliveira Cacciola (Les limites des Lumières: politique et liberté chez Kant)
Günter ZôLLER («Lois de la liberté». Autonomie et conformité à la loi dans le Naturrecht Feyerabend de Kant)
KANT SUR LE PROGRÈS DE L’HUMANITÉ
Sophie Grapotte (La notion de «fin en soi» (Zweck an sich) en 1784)
Maria Hotes (La face cachée du progrès: amitié et sociabilité chez Kant)
Dimitri Lang (La Civitas Dei ou l’idéal d’une société au-delà du droit chez Kant)
Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet (Kant et Mendelssohn sur la question «Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?»)
Charlotte Sabourin (Les critiques au service du progrès: Kant et l’usage public de la raison en politique)
Stephan Schlüter (L’actualité du programme cosmopolitique de l’histoire de l’éducation de Kant et son lien avec la Stoa)
KANT ET LES LUMIÈRES – ASPECTS ANTHROPOLOGIQUES
Deven Burks (Usage public normalisé ou anormal - Kant et les Lumières face à Jeffrey Stout)
Rodica Croitoru (Les Lumières et l’insatisfaction sceptique de la raison pure)
Natalia Danilkina (Nouvelles Lumières et néo-kantisme juridique en Russie)
Élisabeth Lefort (Penser un humanisme critique (vide) avec et contre Kant: lecture croisée de Kant et de Lefort)
Leonardo Rennó Ribeiro Santos (À propos d’une source négligée de la notion kantienne des Lumières: la Leçon Menschenkunde sur l’anthropologie)

Green, Jonathan. “Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus: Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Gentz, and the Possibility of Prudential Enlightenment.” Modern Intellectual History 14.1 (2017): 35-65. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Since the early twentieth century, historians of political thought have read Immanuel Kant's interventions into debates over the French Revolution—his essay on “Theory and Practice” (1795), and his tract on Perpetual Peace (1793)—against Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Kant is said to have upheld the sovereignty of pure reason for political practice, over and against Burke's stubborn traditionalism. What this dichotomy ignores, however, is that Kant's first public comments on the Revolution were directed not against Burke's Reflections, but against a heavily edited German version of the text published in 1793 by Kant's former student, Friedrich Gentz (1764–1832). The central thrust of Gentz's translation was that while Kant's normative theory of politics was admirable, it needed to be complemented with a prudential grasp of statecraft in order to be made practicable. Without prudence, the rights of man would remain an empty ideal. In responding to Gentz, Kant entered into a debate over whether philosophical reason and political prudence are mutually compatible. His dogmatic refusal to endorse such an alliance, even in the face of the Terror, places his political thought in an unfavourable light.

Green, Ronald. “On Stephen Palmquist’s Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s «Religion».” Critique (blog posted: 18 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Greer, Erin. “‘A Many-Sided Substance’: The Philosophy of Conversation in Woolf, Russell, and Kant.” Journal of Modern Literature 40.3 (2017): 1-17. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] One of the most striking features of Virginia Woolf’s fiction is her representation of what Julia Briggs has called “the conversation behind the conversation.” These prominent non-verbal “conversations” evoke the word’s archaic sense, still visible in its roots of con and vertĕre: a relation of “turning together.” Woolf’s experimental “playpoem,” The Waves (1931), may be read as an extended exploration of this sort of nonverbal “conversation.” The text’s depiction of two crucial scenes of dinner table conversation moreover sketches a subtle dialogue between Bertrand Russell’s epistemology and Immanuel Kant’s aesthetics. The Waves reframes and integrates both philosophical inquiries in terms of conversation, proposing a theory by which collaborative aesthetic conversation transforms the given world into what Rhoda calls a “dwelling-place.” The resultant philosophy of conversation offers an original account of the sensus communis, in which the feeling of commonality underlying aesthetic judgment may itself be produced by a particularly aesthetic mode of conversation.

Grenberg, Jeanine M. Rev. of Means, Ends, and Persons: The Meaning and Psychological Dimensions of Kant’s Humanity Formula, by Robert Audi (2015). Ethics 127.2 (2017): 466-70. [PW]

Gressis, Robert. “Why Is Kant Noncommittal About Grace?.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 272-84. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, Kant claims that we may need to invoke divine aid in order to explain how a person can change from evil to good. Kant’s language is a bit curious; why does he not more clearly assert, either that we must posit divine grace, or that we may not? The explanation is this: if we affirm that God grants aid, then this could convince people to passively await it or to think, upon becoming good, that they are part of a special elect. On the other hand, if we affirm that God does not help, then some may despair of ever becoming good while those who successfully change could become arrogant. Thus, Kant is noncommittal about grace because it allows the morally timorous to have hope that they can change, and the morally successful to avoid hubris.

Grüne, Stefanie. “Givenness, Objective Reality, and A Priori Intuitions.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.1 (2017): 113-30. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] According to Eric Watkins and Marcus Willaschek, cognition (in the nar- row sense), that is, a conscious representation of a given object and of its general features, has to fulfill two conditions: the ‘givenness’ and ‘thought’ conditions. Ad- ditionally, they argue that the givenness of an object implies that the object exists. In this paper, I will focus exclusively on their conception of the givenness condition. For Watkins and Willaschek, the reason why cognition in the narrow sense has to fulfill the givenness condition is that it has to “latch onto the world.” I will try to show that Kant’s account of cognition, in the narrow sense, only requires a relation to really possible objects; that is, a relation to objects whose existence is really possible. It does not require a relation to actually existing objects.
In the first section, I will argue that the reason why cognition in the narrow sense requires the givenness of objects in intuition is not that cognition has to “latch onto the world” in the sense of referring to existing particulars. In the second section, I will try to show that, at least in the case of a priori intuitions, givenness does not imply existence. Given this result, a priori intuitions do not latch onto the world in the sense of referring to existing particulars. In the third section, I will argue that a priori cognitions furthermore do not latch onto the world in a weaker sense.

 ——. “Are Kantian Intuitions Object-Dependent?” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 67-85??. [WC]

Grusea, Dragoş. “Interpretarea transcendentală a artei la Kant şi Schelling. De la Critica facultăţii de judecare la Sistemul idealismului transcendental.” [Romanian] Studii de istoria filosofiei universale 25 (2017): pages. [PW]

Guay, Robert. “Kant, Nietzsche and the Discursive Availability of Action.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 91-108. [M]

Guisan, Catherine. “Truth-telling and right-speaking in European integration politics: From theory to practice and back.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 189-204. [M]

Guyer, Paul. “Alva Noë, Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature.” Philosophy & Phenomenological Research 94.1 (2017): 230-37. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] A literary criticism of the book Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature by Alva Noë is presented. It examines the monistic and reductionist definitions of art reflecting on the free play of cognitive powers of imagination by philosopher Immanuel Kant. It notes that the generalization of art by the author has been influenced by paradigmatic cases of nineteenth and twentieth century and Euro-American avant-garde art.

 ——. “Transcendental Idealism: What and Why?” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 71-90. [M]

 ——. “The Bounds of Sense and the Limits of Analysis.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.3 (2017): 365-82. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] By interpreting Kant’s central argument in the Critique of Pure Reason as an extended analysis of the concept of self-conscious experience and the conditions for the possession of this concept, Peter Strawson’s seminal work, The Bounds of Sense, sought to enlist Kant in his own defense of the possibility of analytical philosophy against Quine’s attack upon the dogma of analyticity. A Kantian analysis could be defended, Strawson maintained, without Kant’s own doctrines of transcendental idealism and transcendental psychology, the former the doctrine that spatio-temporality is not a real feature of objects as they are in themselves, and the latter the inference that it can only be the form that we impose upon the appearances of objects in our synthesis of our representations of them. I argue that Strawson’s central criticism, that Kant is only entitled to infer some degree of regularity in the objects of our experience, follows from his analytical interpretation of Kant; such a premise suffices to explain our mere possession of the concept of the self, but fails to do justice to Kant’s own more ambitious approach to self-knowledge. I also argue that Strawson’s basically sound criticism of transcendental idealism does not entail his total rejection of transcendental psychology, since even an analysis of the conditions of the possibility of self-consciousness entails certain general claims about our mental abilities insofar as we do have self-consciousness, which claims may be considered to comprise transcendental rather than empirical psychology.

 ——. “Taste, Morality, and Common Sense: Kant and the Scots.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 108-24. [M]

 ——. “What does the Transcendental Deduction prove, and when does it prove it? Henry Allison on Kant’s Transcendental Deduction.” Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 589-600. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Henry Allison’s recent book on the Transcendental Deduction complements his long-term emphasis on the “discursivity” thesis: having separated intuitions and concepts, Kant intends the Transcendental Deduction to re-connect them by demonstrating that the categories must apply to all intuitions that are possible for us. In Allison’s view, Kant successfully argues for this conclusion in the final stage of the second-edition Deduction, when he shows that our representations of space and time have a synthetic “unicity” that embraces all the intuitions we may ever have and depends on the use of the categories. I question whether Kant can justifiably introduce a synthetic representation of space or time that comes between the pure forms of intuition and the empirically-dependent representation of a world of objects in space and time.

 ——. “Imperfect Knowledge of Nature: Kant, Hume and Laws of Nature.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 49-67. [M]

 ——. “Seventy-Five Years of Kant ... and Counting.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 75.4 (2017): 351-62. [WC]

 ——, and Luigi Filieri. “Kant and the Autonomy of Reason. An Interview by Luigi Filieri.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 9-26. [PW]

[top] H    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Haag, Johannes. “Analytic Kantianism: Sellars and McDowell on Sensory Consciousness.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 18-41. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Wilfrid Sellars and John McDowell can both be read as proponents of Analytic Kantianism. However, their accounts differ in important detail. In particular, McDowell has criticized Sellars’s account of sensory consciousness in a number of papers (most notably in LFI and SC), both as a reading of Kant and on its systematic merits. The present paper offers a detailed analysis of this criticism and a defense of Sellars’s position against the background of a methodology of transcendental philosophy.

Hakim, David. “Kant on Moral Illusion and Appraisal of Others.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 421-40. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s accounts of moral education, appraisal respect and gratitude each depend on the assumption that human beings see and judge each other’s actions to be morally good. This assumption appears to stand in tension with the Opacity Thesis, Kant’s claim that we can never know if an action is morally good. This paper examines Kant’s discussion of moral illusion to relieve this tension. It is argued that we are required to uphold moral illusion, i.e. to represent others’ actions to be morally good (while knowing that we may be mistaken), due to the duty of beneficence for others’ moral well-being.

Hall, Bryan. “Hume and Kant on Space, Divisibility, and Antinomical Conflict.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 212-29. [M]

Hämäläinen, Hasse. “Aristotle and the Dilemma of Kantian Autonomy.” International Philosophical Quarterly 57.3 (2017): 331-45. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Autonomy was an important political concept in ancient Greece. Kant made it the ground of morality: only acting motivated by autonomous reason is moral. But he admits that reason does not have a power to motivate us: desires can always override it. Thus it seems that human reason is not autonomous. The principle of autonomy, however, is an intrinsic part of Kant's "Copernican Revolution" and his rationalism about the grounding of morality. Questioning the former would lead to fideism or to skepticism while rejecting the latter to reductionism. Neither course is less problematic for grounding morality than the principle of autonomy is. I suggest that Aristotle can help us to see how this dilemma can be avoided. Unlike Kant and many others, he does not seek to ground morality beyond our experience. The Aristotelian understanding of human beings as capable of evaluating one another's actions with the language of purposefulness can explain which actions are moral without falling into the dilemma implied by the Kantian principle of autonomy.

Hamm, Christian. “‘Jogo livre’ e ‘sentido comum’ na teoria estética kantiana.” [Spanish; “Free play” and “common sense” in Kantian aesthetic theory] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 69-80. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Among the many problems to be solved on the basis of Kant ́s main thesis, according to which the specific aesthetic nature of an object solely consists of what is “merely subjective”, that means, only of what “constitutes its relation with the subject” [KU, XLII], there are two questions in particular which turn out to be absolutely crucial for the justification of judgments of taste, that is to say: the foundation of a genuine aesthetic satisfaction (i.e., of simple reflection), and the justification of its pretended universality. Among the various points of the first part of Critique of Judgment where we can localize the structural components that contribute to the foundation and consolidation of these two doctrines, the most important ones are, in my view, the few paragraphs where Kant introduces e discusses his key concept of a “free play of the faculties of cognition” (§9) and, directly associated with this by the “idea” of a “universal voice” (§8), the further issue of a “sensus communis aestheticus” (§§ 20-22). My purpose is to show that – despite the adequate clarification of the specific “state of mind” which has to be adopted in order to realize any aesthetic judgment – it is also necessary take into account the specific feasibility conditions of such judgment, and that it seems to be exactly in this respect that the concept of the sensus communis aestheticus may be systematically relevant.

Hanley, Ryan Patrick. “Rethinking Kant’s Debts to Rousseau.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 99.4 (2017): 380-404. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] That Kant owed much to Rousseau has long been known. Yet some of Kant’s most significant debts to Rousseau still await appreciation. This paper offers an examination of two key understudied writings from the 1760s in order to provide a more comprehensive account of Kant’s debts to Rousseau. In focusing on these texts, it particularly aims to supplement the existing accounts of Kant’s debts to Rousseau which have largely focused on concepts of human dignity and human equality or on concepts of gender and gender relations, and to demonstrate the degree to which Kant read Rousseau as a theorist of epistemic development. In so doing it offers a reconsideration of Kant’s own philosophical development, and a reconsideration of the philosophical significance of Rousseau’s epistemology.

Hanna, Robert. “Kant, Radical Agnosticism, and Methodological Eliminativism about Things in Themselves.” Contemporary Studies in Kantian Philosophy 2 (2017): 38-54. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kantian Radical Agnosticism (KRA) says that we can and do know a priori that we cannot know either the nature of things in themselves or whether things in themselves exist or do not exist. Kantian Methodological Eliminativism (KME) about things in themselves says that for the purposes of the theory of real (i.e., anthropocentric, “human-faced”) transcendental idealism we can completely ignore things in themselves. In this paper I unpack and defend both KRA and KME.

 ——. “Kant, the Copernican Devolution, and Real Metaphysics.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 761-89. [M]

 ——. “Richer Than You Think: Kant, Conceptual Truth, and the Discursive Structure of the Manifest World.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 115-22. [PW]

 ——. “Exiting the State and Debunking the State of Nature.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 167-89. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contrary to the belief of most Kantians and Kant scholars, Kant is in fact an anarchist. In this paper, I distinguish sharply between two concepts of enlightenment, enlightenment lite and heavy duty or radical enlightement; show how there is an unbridgeable gap between Kant’s official political theory in The Doctrine of Right and his ethics; show how Kant’s real political theory is worked out in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, and is in fact a heavy-duty, radically enlightened version of anarchism; refute and debunk widely-believed Hobbesian assumptions about human nature, which are in fact nothing but cognitive illusions; and propose a de-biasing strategy in political aesthetics for ridding ourselves of these Hobbesian cognitive illusions.

 ——. “Why The Better Angels of Our Nature Must Hate the State.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 329-34. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this brief reply to Anne Margaret Baxley’s comments on my paper, “Exiting the State and Debunking the State of Nature,” I respond to her two critical worries about my thesis that there is an unbridgeable gap between Kant’s political theory, which is classically liberal, and his ethics/theory of enlightenment/moral theology, which is anarchist: (i) that Kant’s strong moral epistemic skepticism in the Groundwork about knowing the true motives of our choices and actions, requires coercive State intervention in order to ensure that we heed mutual relations of external freedom and do our juridical duties, and (ii) that the overall crookedness of the human timber, i.e., our almost inevitable empirical tendency to fall short of autocracy, requires the very same State interventions for the very same moral-political straightening purposes. I argue that (i*) Kant isn’t the moral epistemic skeptic he’s standardly taken to be—on the contrary, we have veridical, direct, occurrent, essentially non-conceptual, non-empirical awareness of autonomous choices and actions, via The Fact of Reason, and (ii*) that coercing people to be morally good necessarily undermines the moral worth of their choices and actions and turns them into nothing but well-oiled, law-abiding robots of the State—so we must exit the State in order to belong to an ethical community instead, i.e., Kantian anarchism; hence my unbridgeable-gap thesis still stands. I end by self-advertising for existential Kantian cosmopolitan anarchism.

 ——. “Reply to David Landy.” Critique (blog posted: 6 Jan 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Reply to Dennis Schulting.” Critique (blog posted: 28 May 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Haumesser, Matthieu. “Le jeu du «Je pense» dans Locke et Kant. L’entrecroisement des facultés dans l’aperception empirique.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 57-73. [M]

Havana dos Reis Pasqualatto, Tamara. “Entre a oratória e a poesia: o gênio em Kant.” [Portuguese; Between oratory and poetry: the genius in Kant] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 249-62. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Retaking the question put by Kant, in the Critique of Judgement, to know which is more important to the fine arts: the genius or the taste, the present text limits this problem from the function performed by the genial figure in the use of its faculties, imagination and understanding. The poetic art and the rhetoric art are presented as possibilities of the use of those faculties, showing at the same time how the contrast between both ideas of art throw light on the kantian proposition of existing genius without a taste or a taste without a genius.

Hay, Katia. “Reason and Laughter in Kant and Nietzsche.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 197-217. [M]

 ——. See: Mayer Branco, Maria João, and Katia Hay.

 ——, ed. See: Mayer Branco, Maria João, and Katia Hay, eds.

Heidemann, Dietmar. “Finalité et historicité de la raison dans la philosophie de l’histoire de Kant.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 73-87. [M]

Heinz, Marion. Rev. of Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1748–1800). Eine Begriffsgeschichte, by Laura Anna Macor (2013). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 158-62. [PW]

Herrero Olivera, Laura. Rev. of Die Kategorien der Freiheit in Kants Praktischer Philosophie, edited by Stephan Zimmermann (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 404-9. [M] [online]

 ——. Rev. of Der sensus communis bei Kant. Zwischen Erkenntnis, Moralität und Schönheit, by Zhengmi Zhouhuang (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 465-70. [M] [online]

Herszenbaun, Miguel. “La solución de la antinomia y el peligro del escepticismo.” [Spanish; The Solution of the Antinomy and the Danger of Skepticism] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 150-66. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The antinomy of pure reason is an important passage of the Critique of Pure Reason, as long as it reveals the inherent contradictions of pure reason and, therefore, leads to the need of carrying out a trial that establishes the wide and legitimacy of the aptitudes of the epistemological faculties. In this paper I analyze Kant’s solution to the antinomy and consider some other possible solutions. I claim that the decisive factor that leads Kant to choosing the solution he finally accepts is the risk of falling into a skeptical position that may extend to all theoretical knowledge, while the other solutions cannot avoid this menace.

 ——. Rev. of Diccionario de la filosofía crítica kantiana, edited by Mario Caimi, Ileana Beade, José González Ríos, Macarena Marey, Fernando Moledo, Mariela Paolucci, Hernán Pringe, and Marcos Thisted (2017). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 205-9. [M] [online]

Hiltscher, Reinhard. Rev. of Kant zu Geschichte, Kultur und Recht, edited by Werner Flach (2015). Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 650-59. [PW]

Himmelmann, Beatrix. “On Teleological Judgement: A Debate between Kant and Nietzsche.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 167-79. [M]

Höntsch, Andeas. Rev. of Technische Vernunft. Kants Zweckbegriff und das Problem einer Philosophie der technischen Kultur, by Stefan Klingner (2013). Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 283-88. [PW]

Hoesch, Matthias. Rev. of Geschichte, Ethik und Religion im Anschluss an Kant. Philosophische Perspektiven „zwischen skeptischer Hoffnungslosigkeit und dogmatischem Trotz“, 2 vols., by Rudolf Langthaler (2014). Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 288-95. [PW]

Holberg, Erica A. “Kant, Oppression, and the Possibility of Nonculpable Failures to Respect Oneself.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 55.3 (2017): 285-305. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I argue that Kant's ethical framework cannot countenance a certain kind of failure to respect oneself that can occur within oppressive social contexts. Kant's assumption that any person, qua rational being, has guaranteed epistemic access to the moral law as the standard of good action and the capacity to act upon this standard makes autonomy an achievement within the individual agent's power, but this is contrary to a feminist understanding of autonomy as a relational achievement that can be thwarted by the systematic attack on autonomy that occurs within oppressive social conditions. Insofar as Kant's negative duty of self-respect is unable to accommodate the ways immersion in oppressive social environments can warp an individual's understanding of what she is owed and capable of as a moral agent, it perpetuates the cruelty of unjust social systems in the guise of respecting individual autonomy. I conclude by considering Carol Hay's argument that those who are oppressed have an obligation to themselves to resist their own oppression, in order to explore how this limitation in how Kant conceives of the duty to respect the self may reach expression in contemporary ethical theory inspired by Kant.

Holland, Ben. “The Perpetual Peace Puzzle.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 43.6 (2017): 599-620. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant described the state as a ‘moral person’, and did so when dealing with international relations. For all the interest in his contribution to the theory of global politics, the locution according to which Kant characterized the state has received very little attention. When notice has been taken of it, the moral personality of the state has moved arguments in opposing directions. On one recent reading, when Kant called the state a moral person he intended to indicate that it possessed certain duties to itself and to others, for the sake of which it could be coerced to leave the international state of nature. On another, the juridical compulsion of states to join a state of nations or world republic is categorically ruled out because this would impair their moral personality. Both cannot be right. In this article, I analyse Kant’s notion of moral personhood, contextualizing it within his wider philosophical concerns. On the basis of this groundwork I put forward an argument about Kant’s theory of the moral person of the state which allows me to show how he in fact was able coherently to incorporate two seemingly contradictory arguments about the state as an international actor in a single argument, and present this as my solution to what I call the Perpetual Peace Puzzle.

Hotes, Maria. “La face cachée du progrès: amitié et sociabilité chez Kant.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 373-81. [M]

Howard, Stephen. Rev. of Immanuel Kant: The Very Idea of a Critique of Pure Reason, by J. Colin McQuillan (2016). Continental Philosophy Review 50.3 (2017): 403-10. [PW]

Hoyos, Luis Eduardo. “Sobre el ideal kantiano del bien supremo y su significación moral.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 83-103. [M] [online]

Huber, Jakob. “Theorising from the Global Standpoint: Kant and Grotius on Original Common Possession of the Earth.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 231-49. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper contrasts Kant's conception of original common possession of the earth with Hugo Grotius's superficially similar notion. The aim is not only to elucidate how much Kant departs from his natural law predecessors—given that Grotius's needs-based framework very much lines in with contemporary theorists’ tendency to reduce issues of global concern to questions of how to divide the world up, it also seeks to advocate Kant's global thinking as an alternative for current debates. Crucially, it is Kant's radical shift in perspective—from an Archimedean ’view from nowhere‘, to a first-personal standpoint through which agents reflexively recognise their systematic interdependence in a world of limited space—that provides him with the more thorough and ultimately convincing global standpoint. This standpoint does not come with ready-made solutions to shared global problems, but provides a promising perspective from which to theorise them.

 ——. “Cosmopolitanism for Earth Dwellers: Kant on the Right to be Somewhere.” Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 1-25. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper provides a systematic account of Kant’s ‘right to be somewhere’ as introduced in the Doctrine of Right. My claim is that Kant’s concern with the concurrent existence of a plurality of corporeal agents on the earth’s surface (to which the right speaks) occupies a rarely appreciated conceptual space in his mature political philosophy. In grounding a particular kind of moral relation that is ‘external’ (as located in bounded space) but not property-mediated, it provides us with a fundamentally new perspective on Kant’s cosmopolitanism, which I construe as a cosmopolitanism for ‘earth dwellers’.

Hughes, Fiona. “Feeling the Life of the Mind: Mere Judging, Feeling, and Judgment.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 381-405. [M]

Hughes, Samuel. Rev. of The Possibility of Culture: Pleasure and Moral Development in Kant’s Aesthetics, by Bradley Murray (2015). The British Journal of Aesthetics 57.3 (2017): 334-37. [PW]

Hulshof, Monique. “Le concept de «souverain» dans les Fondements et les leçons Naturrecht Feyerabend.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 305-11. [M]

Huneman, Philippe. “Kant’s Concept of Organism Revisited: A Framework for a Possible Synthesis between Developmentalism and Adaptationism?” The Monist 100.3 (2017): 373-90. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contemporary biology is affected by a controversy between the adaptationist viewpoint, central to the neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis (MS), and the developmentalist viewpoint, central in Evo-Devo. The possibility of a synthesis between those viewpoints, as granting unity between the laws of form and the laws of function in biology, is therefore currently hotly debated. Kant’s concept of organism is often seen as the philosophical precursor of developmentalism. Yet this view is incomplete, and Kant’s unique regulative notion of purposiveness relies on two criteria in order to capture organisms as natural purposes: a design criterion and an epigenesis criterion. While the former is fulfilled within MS, the latter is satisfied by organisms from the developmentalist viewpoint. Under some conditions, Kant’s notion of organism can thus allow for a synthesis of developmentalism and adaptationism.

Hüning, Dieter. “Esprit de commerce, droit et paix dans la philosophie de l’histoire de Kant.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 169-76. [M]

Huseyinzadegan,Dilek. Rev. of Images of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom, and the Human Subject, by Richard Eldridge (2016). The Review of Metaphysics 70.4 (2017): 769-71. [PW]

[top] I    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Indregard, Jonas Jervell. “Kant’s Causal Power Argument Against Empirical Affection.” Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 27-51. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] A well-known trilemma faces the interpretation of Kant’s theory of affection, namely whether the objects that affect us are empirical, noumenal or both. I argue that, according to Kant, the things that affect us and cause representations in us are not empirical objects. I articulate what I call the Causal Power Argument, according to which empirical objects cannot affect us because they do not have the right kind of power to cause representations. All the causal powers that empirical objects have are moving powers, and such powers can only have spatial effects. According to Kant, however, the representations that arise in us as a result of the affection of our sensibility are non-spatial. I show that this argument is put forward by Kant in a number of passages, and figures as a decisive reason for rejecting empirical affection and instead endorsing affection by the things in themselves.

Insole, Christopher. “Reply to David Sussman.” Critique (blog posted: 20 Jun 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Reply to David Sussman.” Critique (blog posted: 30 Jun 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Reply to Wolfgang Ertl.” Critique (blog posted: 29 Jun 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Israelsen, Andrew. Rev. of The Intolerable God: Kant’s Theological Journey, by Christopher Insole (2016). The Review of Metaphysics 71.2 (2017): 382-83. [PW]

Itaparica, André Luís Mota. “Nietzsche and the Thing in Itself.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 139-51. [M]

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Jackson, Mark. “Knowledge, Education and Aesthetics.” Educational Philosophy & Theory 49.13 (2017): 1267-76. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The philosophy of Immanuel Kant has been important in education theory, especially in the historical context of the Enlightenment and its legacies on contemporary understandings of global education. Particular reference is given to Kant’s writing on Enlightenment thinking and especially to his 1803 Über Pädagogik/Lectures on pedagogy whose groundwork tends to be thought from an empirical anthropology. This paper aims to question education, though from the perspective of a Kantian understanding of aesthetic experience, a perspective developed initially from my reading of Denis J. Schmidt’s Lyrical and Ethical Subjects (2005). In the Critique of Judgement (1986), Kant develops an ‘Analytic of the Beautiful’ that offers transcendental grounds for the possibility of aesthetic experience. In doing so, he discusses, somewhat briefly, training in the fine arts and even more briefly offers, somewhat indirectly, a far-reaching transcendental ground for pedagogy. It is these two brief accounts that form the substance of this paper, requiring a somewhat extended introduction to Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgement in order to develop its analysis. From this analysis, two key questions arise: if fine art cannot be learned, and if imitation would ultimately aim at producing an objectively determinable rule — via a determinable concept — for the production of art works, how does one proceed with education in the fine arts? And, secondly, as a corollary, if genius is reserved for precisely what cannot be learned but yet can be conceived and communicated, what possible purpose is served by aesthetic ideas with respect to cognition itself?

Jacobsen, Mogens Chrom. “An Apparent Paradox: To Establish a Legal State is a Loose Duty.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 46-58. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Taking our point of departure in Kant’s book Zum ewigen Frieden, we note a seeming paradox which we believe has a wider application to legal states as such: while a legal state is supposed to impose strict duties, we only appear to have a loose duty to establish such a state. In order to investigate this seeming paradox, we will recapitulate what Kant says about strict and loose duties and examine in which terms he describes the perpetual peace. We will thus argue that perpetual peace is a loose duty. We will consider Kant’s reasons for this and endeavour to show through his parallel between individuals and states that the duty states have to enter a legal state is the same duty individuals have to enter this state. Finally, we will consider in what ways the above-mentioned paradox is only apparent and what this means for Kant’s philosophical position.

James, David. “Practical Necessity and the Fulfilment of the Plan of Nature in Kant’s Idea for a Universal History.” Journal of the Philosophy of History (published online: Mar 2017). [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I explore the role of practical necessity in Kant’s essay Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. This form of necessity arises on the basis of social and interstate antagonism and Kant appeals to it with the aim of avoiding the introduction of a standpoint that is external to the agents whose attitudes and actions are being described. In connection with the role that Kant accords to practical necessity in the establishment of the legal and political conditions required to fulfil the ‘plan of nature’ in the course of history, I argue that in this essay he fails to identify a mechanism that would explain a fundamental moral change in that which motivates human beings once these conditions have been established. This in turn invites questions concerning the kind of universal history that Kant proposes. In particular, I argue that the choice of historical material that it demands could, in certain circumstances, be regarded as counterpurposive in relation to the aim of nature of which Kant speaks in the same essay.

Jankowiak, Tim. “Kantian Phenomenalism Without Berkeleyan Idealism.” Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 205-31. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Phenomenalist interpretations of Kant are out of fashion. The most common complaint from anti-phenomenalist critics is that a phenomenalist reading of Kant would collapse Kantian idealism into Berkeleyan idealism. This would be unacceptable because Berkeleyan idealism is incompatible with core elements of Kant’s empirical realism. In this paper, I argue that not all phenomenalist readings threaten empirical realism. First, I distinguish several variants of phenomenalism, and then show that Berkeley’s idealism is characterized by his commitment to most of them. I then make the case that two forms of phenomenalism are consistent with Kant’s empirical realism. The comparison between Kant and Berkeley runs throughout the paper, with special emphasis on the significance of their theories of intentionality.

 ——. “On David Landy’s Kant’s Inferentialism.” Critique (blog posted: 1 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Jensen, Anthony K. “Teleological Judgement and the End of History.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 157-78. [M]

Jesus, Paulo Renato. “La construction du «règne des fins»: épigénèse infinie de la liberté et de la justice.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 313-22. [M]

Jiménez, Alba. Rev. of Le problème du Langage chez Kant, by Raphaël Ehrsam (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 410-14. [M] [online]

Johnston, James Scott. “Recursive Justification and Kant’s Civil Condition: Some Comments on Flikschuh’s Account of Nomadic Rights.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 369-74. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Katrin Flikschuh presses Karl Amerik’s notion of recursive justification into service with respect to the question whether nomads have an obligation to enter statehood. Flikschuh answers in the negative, and claims that nomads, who have not entered into the civil condition, cannot be expected to conform to the obligations of statehood. I agree with Flikschuh’s claim, and provide further support through Kant’s arguments in the Lectures on Logic that such obligations as statehood are objective criteria of judging, and require the raising of subjective claims to practical reality—a condition that cannot be meet on the part of settlers alone.

Jorge Filho, Edgard José. “Kant e os Deveres para com as Gerações Futuras.” [Portuguese] Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 73.1 (2017): 379-404. [PW]

Justo, José Miranda. “Hannah Arendt leitora de Kant: imaginação, comunicabilidade, sentido, linguagem.” [Portuguese;; Hannah Arendt reading Kant: imagination, communicability, sense, language] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 321-38. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In her The Human Condition Hannah Arendt is particularly critic towards what she considers to be Kant’s «utilitarianism» and «anthropocentrism». Later, however, Arendt will draw on Kant’s Critique of Judgment to construct her political theories and to discuss themes such as imagination, communicability, sense, language and especially metaphor.

[top] K    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Kahn, Samuel. “Defending Kant’s Conception of Matter from the Charge of Circularity.” Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 195-217. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (MFNS) Kant develops a conception of matter that is meant to issue in an alternative to what he takes to be the then reigning empiricist account of density. However, in recent years commentator after commentator has argued that Kant’s attempt on this front is faced with insuperable difficulties. Indeed, even Kant seems to have thought that his theory of density is circular, and some of these commentators argue that this is, at least in part, what spurred Kant on to develop the theory of matter found in the Opus Postumum. Against this growing tide (and even, it seems, against Kant himself) I defend Kant’s theory of density. I shall not take a stand on whether the circularity problem played a role in the development of the Opus Postumum theory of matter – my point is simply that if the circularity problem was the sole trigger for that move, then the move was unwarranted.

Kannisto, Toni. “Kant on the Necessity of Causal Relations.” Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 495-516. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] There are two traditional ways to read Kant’s claim that every event necessarily has a cause: the weaker every-event some-cause (WCP) and the stronger same-cause same-effect (SCP) causal principles. The debate on whether and where he subscribes to the SCP has focused on the Analogies in the Critique of Pure Reason (Guyer, Allison, and Watkins) and on the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Friedman). By analysing the arguments and conclusions of both the Analogies and the Postulates, as well as the two Latin principles non datur casus and non datur fatum that summarise their results, I will argue that the SCP is actually demonstrated in the Postulates section of the First Critique.

Karatani, Kojin. Nation and Aesthetics: On Kant and Freud. Translated by Jonathan E. Abel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. [xlii, 165 p.] [WC]

Kaśkiewicz, Kinga. “Fenomén vznešenosti u Kanta a Lyotardova estetika ‘po vznešenosti’.” [Slovak; The Phenomenon of Sublimeness in Kant and Lyotard’s Aesthetics “After the Sublimeness”] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.1 (2017): 19-28. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper consists of two parts: the first introduces main points of Kantian theory of the sublime, and the second focuses on the importance of this theory on later Lyotard’s concept that directly refers to the theory of the philosopher from Königsberg. The second part of the paper is based on two short texts of the French philosopher: first describing contemporary aesthetics after the sublime, and second representing a theoretical introduction to the exhibition curated in 1985 by Lyotard at the Centre Pompidou in Paris describing the concept of immateriality (Les Immatériaux). The paper aims to introduce the way how contemporary trend of perception of the work of art as an immaterial existence (e.g. Sartre’s analogon) has influenced the Kantian idea of sublimeness.

 ——. Rev. of Klugheit bei Kant, by Claudia Graband (2015). [German] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 460-64. [M] [online]

Katsafanas, Paul. “The Problem of Normative Authority in Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 19-50. [M]

Kauark-Leite, Patricia. “On the Epistemic Status of Absolute Space: Kant’s Directions in Space Read from the Standpoint of his Critical Period.” Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 175-94. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contrary to what is usually assumed, I argue that the concept of absolute space at work in Kant’s 1768 pre-Critical text, Directions in Space, is closer to the transcendental notions presented in his Critical period from 1781 onwards, particularly in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, than to the Newtonian realistic conception of absolute space as a noumenal entity. Kant’s distinction between four notions of space – space as a pure form of intuition, the geometric conception of space, the empirical conception of space, and space as an idea of reason – is brought to bear in analyzing the conception of absolute space operative in this pre-Critical text.

 ——. “Kant, ciência e sensus communis.” [Spanish; Kant, science and sensus communis] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 283-94. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this paper is to think about the transcendental conditions of validation of scientific objectiv- ity from a perspective broadened by the Critique of the Power of Judgment, especially the “Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment”, by the Logic texts, as well as by some Kant’s writings after 1781, which seek to emphasize the reason of the sensus communis. My point is that this broadened perspective on the nature of reason, emphasizing its communicative and communal character, can help us to understand philosophically relevant problems concerning the abstract objectivity of microphysics.

Keinert, Maurício. “L’Idée d’une histoire: les conflits de la raison.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 177-83. [M]

Kemp, R. S. “How to become an idealist: Fichte on the transition from dogmatism to idealism.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.6 (2017): 1161-79. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Kant claims that all human beings are originally and radically evil: they choose to adopt a ‘supreme maxim’ that gives preference to sensibility over the moral law. Because Kant thinks that all agents have a duty to develop good character, part of his task in the Religion is to explain how moral conversion is possible. Four years after Kant publishes the Religion, J. G. Fichte takes up the issue of conversion in slightly different terms: he is interested in how people he characterizes as ‘dogmatists’ (those who minimize or deny their status as free agents) become ‘idealist’ (those who recognize and exercise their freedom). Against recent interpreters, I argue that Fichte characterizes the choice to convert from dogmatism to idealism as one that is grounded in a non-rational choice. Along the way, I consider Daniel Breazeale and Allen Wood’s recent arguments to the contrary, alternative accounts of what it might mean for a conversion to count as ‘rational’, and how well my conclusion harmonizes with Fichte’s views on education.

Kennett, Jeanette. “The Cost of Conscience: Kant on Conscience and Conscientious Objection.” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 26.1 (2017): 69-81. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The spread of demands by physicians and allied health professionals for accommodation of their private ethical, usually religiously based, objections to providing care of a particular type, or to a particular class of persons, suggests the need for a re-evaluation of conscientious objection in healthcare and how it should be regulated. I argue on Kantian grounds that respect for conscience and protection of freedom of conscience is consistent with fairly stringent limitations and regulations governing refusal of service in healthcare settings. Respect for conscience does not entail that refusal of service should be cost free to the objector. I suggest that conscientious objection in medicine should be conceptualized and treated analogously to civil disobedience.

Ketsemanian, Varak. Rev. of The Enlightenment: History of an Idea, by Vincenzo Ferrone, transl. by Elisabetta Tarantino (2015). Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 165-67. [PW]

Kisilevsky, Sari, and Martin J. Stone, eds. Freedom and Force: Essays on Kant’s Legal Philosophy. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017. [#, # p.] [WC]

Kitcher, Patricia. “A Kantian Argument for the Formula of Humanity.” Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 218-46. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Although many take the formula of humanity to be Kant’s best formulation of the CI, there is no agreement on his argument for it. Kant says that the argument comes in GMM3, but that section is difficult to interpret. I draw on his remarks about cognizing other minds in the Paralogisms to interpret the argument of sub-section 2 of GMM3, the argument that rational beings must “lend” the idea of freedom to all rational beings. Kant later rejects his attempt to establish the CI in GMM3 and tries again in the fact of reason passages of the Second Critique. I follow Willaschek’s reading of these texts: Humans can cognize their freedom by performing a Gedankenexperiment where they experience their wills being moved through the moral law. Kant tries to move from that demonstration to the claim that pure reason gives the moral law to all humans, but his argument fails. Appealing again to his theory of other minds, I argue that he could have offered a cogent argument that all humans have an efficacious moral law within.

 ——. “A Kantian Critique of Transparency.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 158-72??. [WC]

 ——. “Kant on the Faculty of Apperception.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.3 (2017): 589-616. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Although I begin with a brief look at the idea that as a faculty of mind, apperception must be grounded in some (noumenal) power of the soul, my focus is on claims about the alleged noumenal import of some of Kant’s particular theses about the faculty of apperception: it is inexplicable, immaterial, and can provide evidence that humans are members of the intelligible world (and so possess the noumenal freedom required for morality). I argue that when the claim of inexplicability is placed in the context of Kant’s standards for transcendental psychological explanation, it has no noumenal implications. Similarly, when understood in the context of his views about scientific explanations, Kant’s claim that the faculty of apperception cannot be understood in materialist terms has no important metaphysical payoff. The case of freedom is different, because for a long time, Kant believed that he could establish the freedom required for morality by appealing to the freedom required for thought. In the end, however, he abandoned this hoped for noumenal implication of the faculty of apperception.

 ——. “The Critical and ‘Empty’ Representation ‘I Think’.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 140-62. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of I, Me, Mine: Back to Kant, and Back Again, by Béatrice Longuenesse (2017). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Oct 2017, #12). [M] [online]

Klein, Joel Thiago. “A questão da teleologia: Kant leitor de Rousseau.” [Portuguese; The question of teleology: Kant, a reader of Rousseau] Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã: Crítica e Modernidade 22.1 (2017): 51=70. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper analyzes the influence of Rousseau's philosophy on the development of Kant’s thought regarding the issue of the conflict between nature and culture. It is argued that Kant overcomes what he considers to be the paradoxes in Rousseau's thought by introducing a teleological theory within the context of the historical development of perfectibility.

 ——. “Prudência e moral na filosofia política de Kant.” [Portuguese; Prudence and Morality in Kant’s Political Philosophy] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 159-77. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this paper is to present a suggestion for solving the conflicts between prudential and moral acting in the context of Kant’s political philosophy. In order to do so, this paper will distinct and consider three different types of relationship between prudence and morality, which are: a relation of unification; a relation of subordination; and a relation of association.

 ——. “Kant’s Idea of a Universal History as an Answer to the Question of Hope.” Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.1 (2017): 3-18. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper I defend the thesis that Kant’s philosophy of history is systematically integrated into transcendental philosophy as it represents the project of a narrative that answers the question of the legitimate hope of pure reason.

Kleingeld, Pauline. “Contradiction and Kant’s Formula of Universal Law.” Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 89-115. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s most prominent formulation of the Categorical Imperative, known as the Formula of Universal Law (FUL), is generally thought to demand that one act only on maxims that one can will as universal laws without this generating a contradiction. Kant’s view is standardly summarized as requiring the ‘universalizability’ of one’s maxims and described in terms of the distinction between ‘contradictions in conception’ and ‘contradictions in the will’. Focusing on the underappreciated significance of the simultaneity condition included in the FUL, I argue, by contrast, that the principle is better read as requiring that one be able to will two things simultaneously without self-contradiction, namely, that a maxim be one’s own and that it be a universal law. This amounts to a new interpretation of the FUL with significant interpretive and philosophical advantages.

 ——. Rev. of Kant-Lexikon, edited by Markus Willaschek, Jürgen Stolzenberg Georg Mohr, and Stefano Bacin (2015). Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 65.2 (2017): 391-94. [PW]

Knappik, Franz, Damián. “On Guido Kreis’s Negative Dialektik des Unendlichen.” Critique (blog posted: 25 Sep 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Kohl, Markus. “Radical Evil as a Regulative Idea.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.4 (2017): 641-73. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I argue that Kant’s doctrine of the radical evil in human nature does not involve the claim that all human beings are evil as a matter of fact. Such a claim would conflict both with the boundaries of human knowledge and with Kant’s doc- trine of moral freedom. On my reading, Kant holds that every human agent ought to adopt the presupposition that she has an evil character, not because we know this presupposition to be true, but because this presupposition plays a crucial role in our quest for moral progress and greater virtue.

 ——. “The Normativity of Prudence.” Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 517-42. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s account of “precepts of prudence” raises a striking interpretive puzzle. On the one hand, he presents such precepts as normative-practical rules; on the other hand, he relegates them to theoretical philosophy. I argue that to render these two strands coherent, we must assume that our empirical nature is a “source of normativity” for us: prudence is normative for us just because we have an “unconditional” empirical desire for obtaining happiness, a maximum of pleasant sensations. Since rules of prudence cognize the means for causing a state of affairs that we desire and value insofar as we are receptive natural beings, these rules do not presuppose the active self-legislation of practical reason. Hence they belong to the theoretical cognition of nature.

Kraus, Katharina, and Thomas Sturm. “«An Attractive Alternative to Empirical Psychologies Both in His Day and Our Own»? A Critique of Frierson’s Kant’s Empirical Psychology.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 203-223. [PW]

Kravitz, Amit. “Geht die Physikotheologie der Ethikotheologie vorher? Ein Blick auf Kants Prioritätsthese.” Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 568-88. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Two kinds of natural theology discussed by Kant have thus far been intensively investigated: physicotheology and ethicotheology. However, the question concerning their precise relation to each other has been ignored. As I argue, understanding the way in which Kant conceived of this relation is crucial for understanding his approach to natural theology as a whole. In this paper I illuminate this relation in light of Kant’s priority thesis, according to which physicotheology precedes ethicotheology, and I show that the prevalent view, according to which physicotheology and ethicotheology are two separate kinds of theologies, must be revised.

Kreines, James. “Kant on the Laws of Nature: Restrictive Inflationism and Its Philosophical Advantages.” Monist 100.3 (2017): 326-41. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant has a distinctive account of the particular laws of nature, such as the laws concerning what causes what. His account is a surprising package-view: restrictive inflationism. It includes a simple inflationary account of what particular laws of nature are: they are ways in which the natures of different kinds of things necessitate what the things do. And it restricts our knowledge: outside of a special kind of exceptional case, we cannot achieve knowledge but can only increasingly approximate knowledge of the particular laws of nature. I argue that this unusual combination brings some surprising philosophical advantages from which we can learn about otherwise hidden features of the philosophical terrain underlying continuing debates about the laws of nature.

Krijnen, Christian. “Theology in Kant's Philosophy of Culture and History: A Problem for the Architectonic of Reason.” Value Inquiry Book Series 299 (2017): 115-32. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article discusses the contemporary relevance of the culture and history philosophy of Immanuel Kant in the architectonic of reason in his practical and theoretical divisions. Topics include the Kant theory on teleology of nature in his Kritik der Urteilskraft (KdU), transcendental esthetics of knowledge in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (KrV) and the unity of freedom and nature. Also mentioned are the basis of esthetical judgment and culture as the end-purpose of nature.

 ——. “Kants Konzeption kosmologischer Freiheit – ein metaphysischer Rest?” Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 179-95. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Die deutschen Idealisten waren der Auffassung, Kant habe mit seiner transzendentalen Umwälzung der Begründungsproblematik eine Revolution in der philosophischen Denkungsart in Gang gesetzt, die es weniger aufzuhalten als vielmehr dadurch zu vollbringen gelte, daß die Voraussetzungen oder‚Fundamente‘ der Kantischen Philosophie selbst kritisch in den Blick genommen würden. Zu diesen Voraussetzungen gehört zweifelsohne Kants Architektonik der Vernunft im allgemeinen und die Stellung, die dem Freiheitsbegriff dabei zukommt, im besonderen. Es wird gezeigt, daß Kants Bestimmung kosmologischer oder transzendentaler Freiheit nicht so sehr einen sicheren Ausgangspunkt für Erkundungen im Rahmen der praktischen Philosophie etabliert als vielmehr zunächst eigens zum Thema gemacht werden sollte. Dann wird sichtbar, daß das Profil der kritischen Freiheitskonzeption Kants stark durch die deutsche Schulmetaphysik des 18. Jh.‘s geprägt ist. Damit geraten allerlei Vorentscheidungen und unausgewiesene Konstellationen dieses Profils betreffend in den Blick; Vorentscheidungen und Konstellationen, die sich gemäß Hegels Analyse auch gar nicht ausweisen lassen, sondern den Übergang zu einem allgemeineren Freiheitsbegriff als dem transzendentalen oder kosmologischen Kants erforderlich machen. Die Folgen dieses Sachverhalts werden abschließend illustriert durch eine Betrachtung der Transzendentalphilosophie Bruno Bauchs, des wohl besten Kant-Kenners des Neukantianismus.

Kryluk, Michael. “Gallows Pole: Is Kant’s Fact of Reason a Transcendental Argument?” The Review of Metaphysics 70.4 (2017): 695-725. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This essay examines one of the most obscure and controversial tenets of Kant’s critical philosophy, his claim in the Critique of Practical Reason that the moral law is immediately and unquestionably valid as an a priori fact of reason (Factum der Vernunft). This argument curiously inverts Kant’s earlier stance in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, in which he justifies the reality of the categorical imperative through a much more cautious and qualified authentication of transcendental freedom. Against constructivist readings, which tend to downplay the justificatory burden of the Factum, the author claims that Kant’s position is best understood as a transcendental argument. In other words, Kant argues from a given or assured conditioned, consciousness of binding moral obligation, to the sole condition of its possibility in transcendental freedom. In order to rebut the standard objections prompted by this line of interpretation, the author emphasizes the technical function of Kant’s Factum as both a deed (Tat) and product (Tatsache) of practical reason.

Kuehn, Manfred. “Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment: An Introduction.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 1-18. [M]

Kyslan, Peter. “Kantovo svetoobčianstvo ako výzva pre súčasnostˇ.” [Slovak; Kant’s Cosmopolitanism as a Challenge for Today] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.1 (2017): 29-39. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant uses the term culture in two contexts – in the sense of cultivation as a process, i.e. culture of human species, and in the sense of culture in plural. It is important to follow Kant’s interest in differences and diversity of cultures that naturally implies today’s use of the term in the sense of several cultures and related terms. The paper focuses on philosophical interpretation of the concept of multiculturalism. On the basis of criticism of this tendency, it is paradigmatically confronted with Kant’s cosmopolitan theory with the requirement of hospitality.

[top] L    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

La Caze, Marguerite. “Pretending peace: Provisional political trust and sincerity in Kant and Améry.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 156-72. [M]

Land, Thomas. Rev. of Kant’s B Deduction, by Mario Caimi (2014). Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 509-14. [PW]

Landy, David. “On Robert Hanna’s Cognition, Content, and the A Priori.” Critique (blog posted: 1 Jan 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Reply to Anil Gomes and Tim Jankowiak.” Critique (blog posted: 2 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Lang, Dimitri. “La Civitas Dei ou l’idéal d’une société au-delà du droit chez Kant.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 383-91. [M]

Lange, Marc. “Is Kantian Projectivism the Only Hope for Grounding the Principal Principle? (No.).” The Monist 100.3 (2017): 422-36. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant saw science as presupposing that the natural laws bring maximal diversity under maximal unity. Many philosophers, such as David Lewis, have regarded objective chances as upshots of science’s aim at systematic unity—as ideal credences projected onto the world. This Kantian projectivism has seemed the only possible way to account for the rational constraint (codified by the ‘Principal Principle’) that our credences about chances impose on our credences regarding what they are chances of. This paper examines three ways of elaborating Lewis’s Kantian strategy for explaining this rational constraint. After arguing that none of these three approaches is unproblematic, the paper proposes a non-Kantian alternative account according to which a chance measures the strength of a causal tendency.

Lanier Anderson, R. “On the Two-Step Interpretation of Kant’s Dialectical Strategy in Theoretical Philosophy: Replies to Allais, Hanna, and Motta.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 129-51. [PW]

Lau, Chong-Fuk. “Kant’s Concept of Cognition and the Key to the Whole Secret of Metaphysics.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 117-37. [M]

Lazos, Efraín. “Contextos del cosmopolitismo kantiano.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 189-222. [M] [online]

Lee, Hoon. Rev. of Johann August Eberhard and Immanuel Kant, Preparation for Natural Theology: With Kant’s Notes and the Danzig Rational Theology Transcript, edited and translated by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers (2016). Reviews in Religion & Theology 24.1 (2017): 76-78. [PI]

Leech, Jessica. “On Nicholas Stang’s Kant’s Modal Metaphysics.” Critique (blog posted: 4 Jul 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Judging for Reasons: On Kant and the Modalities of Judgment.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 173-88??. [WC]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Modal Metaphysics, by Nicholas F. Stang (2016). Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 341-46. [PW]

Lu-Adler, Huaping. “Kant and the Normativity of Logic.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 207-30. [PW]

Lefort, Élisabeth. “Penser un humanisme critique (vide) avec et contre Kant: lecture croisée de Kant et de Lefort.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 447-55. [M]

Lehtonen, Kelly. Rev. of The Theory of the Sublime from Longinus to Kant, by Robert Doran (2015). Comparative Literature Studies 54.1 (2017): 249-52. [M]

Lejeune, Guillaume. “L’immortalité de l’espèce peut-elle valoir comme postulat de la raison pure pratique?” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 185-93. [M]

Lemos, Joâo. Se e como poderá uma obra de arte ser bela. Acerca das condições de possibilidade da noção de bela arte na Crítica da Faculdade do Juízo de Immanuel Kant. [Portuguese] Madrid: Ediciones Alamanda, 2017. [286 p.] [M] [online]

 ——. “From Beautiful Art to Taste.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 216-35. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The first part of the following text does make the map of an answer to the question of knowing if and how it is possible to speak of beautiful art in the context of Immanuel Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. There is an appeal to the conditions of the freedom of the imagination, to an interpretation of representation as exemplification and to a reference to aesthetic purposes and constraints. This way it will be made evident it is possible to think the judgment by means of which one declares a work of art a beautiful one as a pure judgment of taste and the artistic beauty as free beauty.
Starting from a reflection on what it does mean to speak of aesthetic purposes and constraints, it will be put at stake, in the second part of the text, the univocity of meaning of the notion of taste in Kant’s third Critique. Perhaps in the case of the pure judgment of taste by means of which one declares a work of art a beautiful one it is mandatory to appeal not only to taste as aesthetic power of judgment, but to another taste: a corpus which is narrowly connected with the mechanical, compulsory and academic side of beautiful art.

Lequan, Mai. “Empirie et expérience selon Kant. Une épistémologie de l’hypothèse à l’épreuve des écrits scientifiques.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 113-32. [WC]

 ——. “La critique kantienne de la fiction trompeuse des bergers d’Arcadie dans l’Idée de 1784.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 89-102. [M]

 ——, ed. See: Grapotte, Sophie, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing, eds.

Lerussi, Natalia. “Continuidad y novedad en la concepción histórica de Kant en El conflicto de las facultades.” [Spanish; Continuity and Novelty in Kantʼs Historical Conception in The Conflict of the Faculties]Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 48-59. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the paper I analize some fundamental lines of continuity and novelties in Kant´s conception of history in the text The Conflict of the Faculties (1798) in comparison with hisprevious historical perspective, specially in Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Purpose. I show that Kant keeps the theoretical framework through which he explains historical development in his earlier works, that is to say, the concepts of human dispositions and external circumstances. However in 1798 he modifies the kind of dispositions that have the explanatory role in history since now the moral disposition and not like before, the no moral onesis that which motorizes human progress.

Leyva, Gustavo. Rev. of Virtud, Felicidad y Religión en la Filosofía Moral de Kant, by Faviola Rivera Castro (2014).[Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 91-92. [M] [online]

Liang, Yibin. “Kant on Consciousness, Obscure Representations and Cognitive Availability.” Philosophical Forum 48.4 (2017): 345-68. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] A literary criticism of the book Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant is presented. Topics discussed include analysis of different types of consciousness depicted in the book by Kant; identification of an apperception as an approach for consciousness along with an implicit doctrine; and illustration of obscure perception relationship with subliminal inference conditions.

Lobeiras, Maria Xesús Vázquez. “Kant como interlocutor en el ámbito de la bioética y la biojurídica: el problema de la autonomía.” [Spanish; Kant as an interlocutor in the field of bioethics and biolaw: the problem of autonomy] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 179-97. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Immanuel Kant’s name is frequently invoked in discussions on bioethics and biolaw in relation to fundamental concepts such as human dignity or autonomy. In this paper we present a reconstruction of the use of the concept of autonomy in both spheres of bioethics and biolaw, as well as in Kant’s thinking. There are very significant distortions in the use and application of concepts of a Kantian order in the context of these debates, ex., the distinction made by Diego Gracia between pure freedom and empirical freedom. Concepts such as “autonomous act”, “freedom” and “free will” are clarified and the limited scope of Kant’s notion of autonomy, of a clearly ontological nature, is examined for its application in the field of biolaw.

London, Alex John. See: Bjorndahl, Adam, Alex John London, and Kevin J.S. Zollman.

Longuenesse, Béatrice. I, Me, Mine: Back to Kant, and Back Again. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. [xviii, 257 p.] [WC] [review]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Beatrice Longuenesse presents an original exploration of our understanding of ourselves and the way we talk about ourselves. In the first part of the book she discusses contemporary analyses of our use of 'I' in language and thought, and compares them to Kant's account of self-consciousness, especially the type of self-consciousness expressed in the proposition 'I think.' According to many contemporary philosophers, necessarily, any instance of our use of 'I' is backed by our consciousness of our own body. For Kant, in contrast, 'I think' just expresses our consciousness of being engaged in bringing rational unity into the contents of our mental states. In the second part of the book, Longuenesse analyzes the details of Kant's view and argues that contemporary discussions in philosophy and psychology stand to benefit from Kant's insights into self-consciousness and the unity of consciousness. The third and final part of the book outlines similarities between Kant's view of the structure of mental life grounding our uses of 'I' in 'I think' and in the moral 'I ought to', on the one hand: and Freud's analysis of the organizations of mental processes he calls 'ego' and 'superego' on the other hand. Longuenesse argues that Freudian metapsychology offers a path to a naturalization of Kant's transcendental view of the mind. It offers a developmental account of the normative capacities that ground our uses of 'I', which Kant thought could not be accounted for without appealing to a world of pure intelligences, distinct from the empirical, natural world of physical entities.

 ——.  “Kant and Freud on Morality.”  Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 91 (2017): 215-30. [M]

Loriaux, Sylvie, Glen. “Introduction.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 1-14. [M]

 ——, ed. See: Baiasu, Sorin, and Sylvie Loriaux, eds.

Lories, Danielle. “De l’«insociable sociabilité» au sensus communis.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 323-31. [M]

Lorini, Gualtiero. Fonti e lessico dell’ontologia kantiana. I Corsi di Metafisica (1762-1795). Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2015. [270 p.] [WC] [review]

 ——. “Le dialogue entre droit et religion dans la conception kantienne de l’État. Un regard diachronique.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 333-42. [M]

 ——. “O papel da afinidade transcendental entre os fenômenos na teoria do conhecimento kantiana.” [Portuguese; The Role of the Transcendental Affinity between Phenomena in Kant’s Theory of Knowledge] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 215-29. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article focuses on a concept placed at the core of the A-Deduction, of which the B-Version provides a different but not necessarily better exposition. It is the concept of “transcendental affinity” [transcendentale Affinität] (A 144). This concept is not present in the whole B-Edition of the KrV, and even the term “Affinity” does not appear in the B-Deduction, but only four times in the Transcendental Dialectic, and twice in the Discipline of the Pure Reason. In the economy of the A-Deduction, the concept of “transcendental affinity” plays a central role. It represents indeed the “thoroughgoing connection according to necessary laws” of all the possible phenomena. This connection is presupposed by transcendental consciousness insofar as it has a representation of these phenomena and their relationships, since what all the possible phenomena share is their determination in space and time according to the synthetic unity of the apperception. The concept of transcendental affinity between all the possible phenomena is intimately linked to imagination, which makes this affinity arise by reproducing a phenomenon in space and time according to the a priori laws of understanding. The necessary link between transcendental affinity and imagination represents an important passage in this paper. One goal is to point out that the implications of transcendental af- finity are not rejected but rather deepened in the B-Deduction. On these assumptions, we consider the role of the “I think” in the B-Deduction, in order to claim that it implicitly relies upon the concept of transcendental affinity too. The last part of the paper aims to point out that the transcendental affinity between the phenomena described in the A-Deduction is particularly apt to understand the unity of the representation of nature. To shed light on this point, we will deal with some significant passages from the Opus postumum.

 ——. Rev. of Zur Bedeutung des Begriffs Ontologie bei Kant. Eine entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, by Gabriel Rivero (2014). Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 659-64. [PW]

Louden, Robert B. “‘Wretched Subterfuge’? Comments on Frederick Rauscher’s Naturalism and Realism in Kant’s Ethics.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 475-81. [PW]

 ——. “Becoming Human: Kant’s Philosophy of Education and Human Nature.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 705-27. [M]

 ——. “A Writer More Excellent than Cicero: Hume’s Influence on Kant’s Anthropology.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 164-80. [M]

 ——. “Phantom Duty? Nietzsche versus Königsbergian Chinadom.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 193-218. [M]

Love, S. M. “Kant After Marx.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 579-98. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] While there are many points of opposition between the political philosophies of Marx and Kant, the two can greatly benefit from one another in various ways. Bringing the ideas of Marx and Kant together offers a promising way forward for each view. Most significantly, a powerful critique of capitalism can be developed from their combined thought: Kant’s political philosophy offers a robust idea of freedom to ground this critique, while Marx provides the nuanced understanding of social and political power structures under capitalism that allows this idea of freedom to be properly applied.

Lu, M. T. “Love, Freedom, and Morality in Kant and Dietrich von Hildebrand.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 91.4 (2017): 703-17. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Modern commentators like Allen Wood have noted that for Kant there “is a basic tension in human nature between loving people and respecting them.” Love is a threat to pure morality insofar as love is an empirical inclination and any will determined by such an inclination is unfree. In this paper, I begin by exploring why Kant thinks that love is a threat to moral freedom. Drawing on the insights of Dietrich von Hildebrand, I propose instead an analysis of love as “value-response.” I argue that a more complete phenomenological analysis of the nature of human affectivity (as fundamentally intentional and responsive) exposes a serious defect in Kant’s moral psychology, particularly his unreasonable denial of the compatibility of higher-order affectivity and human freedom. Drawing on von Hildebrand’s notion of “cooperative freedom,” I argue that not only is a higher-order spiritual affectivity compatible with freedom and morality, but it is essential to it.

Lu-Adler, Huaping. “Kant and the Normativity of Logic.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 207-30. [PW]

Lueck, Bryan. “Contempt, Community, and the Interruption of Sense.” Critical Horizons 18.2 (2017): 154-67. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the early modern period, contempt emerged as a persistent theme in moral philosophy. Most of the moral philosophers of the period shared two basic commitments in their thinking about contempt. First, they argued that we understand the value of others in the morally appropriate way when we understand them from the perspective of the morally relevant community. And second, they argued that we are naturally inclined to judge others as contemptible, and that we must therefore interrupt that natural movement of sense-bestowal in order to value others in the morally appropriate way. In this paper I examine in detail the arguments of Nicolas Malebranche and Immanuel Kant concerning the wrongness of contempt, emphasising the ways in which they depend on conceptions of community and of the interruption of moral sense-bestowal. After showing how each of these arguments fails to comprehend the nature and the wrongness of contempt, I argue that we can find the resources for a more adequate account in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, and specifically in his reflections on ontology and on the meaning of community.

Lupo, Luca. “Nietzsche, Kant and Self-Observation: Dealing with the Risk of ‘Landing in Anticyra’.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 255-73. [M]

[top] M    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Machado, Lucas Nascimento. Rev. of Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1748-1800): Eine Begriffsgeschichte, by Laura Anna Macor (2013). [English] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 444-58. [M][online]

Madore, Joël. “A Discussion Around Katrin Flikschuh’s Kant’s Nomads: Encountering Strangers.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 344-45. [M] [online]

 ——. “Unsettling Encounters: A response to Katrin Flikschuh’s ‘Kant’s Nomads.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 375-83. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In her thought-provoking article: “Kant’s Nomads: Encountering Strangers”, Katrin Flikschuh pursues three aims: I- to loosen the noose of the Kantian duty of state entrance against the repeated allegations of its inflexible universality; II- to rescue Kant from a certain “belligerent” liberal discourse that has overlooked his ambivalence on the question, at the expense of his potentially constructive insights; III- to articulate the possibility of an encounter with deep and permanent differences in culture or a “reflexive openness” that can help us face the “culturally unfamiliar”. Its success relies upon reading Kant’s philosophy as proceeding from a first-personal experiential standpoint, that is, a regressive strategy of justification. Though sympathetic to Flikschuh’s project, this paper wishes to examine to what extent it is compatible with the Kantian theory of the State, on the one hand, and his transcendental idealism, on the other. In the end, it may be that Kant’s openness to the other (i.e. the nomad), however sincere, remains transitory at best.

Malherbe, Michel. “Kant et le réel de la sensation.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 133-51. [M]

Mancuso, Giuliana. “Etica come guida per l'azione ed etica come conoscenza.” [Italian] Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 45-62. [PW]

Marey, Macarena. “A Political Defence of Kant’s Aufklärung: An Essay.” Critical Horizons 18.2 (2017): 168-85. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this essay is to analyse the potential for political emancipation that lies within Kant’s conception of Aufklärung, in critical dialogue with enlightenment critics and specialised Kantian literature. My thesis is that Kant’s concept of enlightenment is intrinsically political and so it must be studied from the point of view of his political philosophy, which was fully developed in the decade of the 1790s. From this standpoint, I propose we study the role and place of Aufklärung within Kant’s central political thesis, to wit: that only the united will of the people can be a legitimate authority.

 ——. See: Sánchez Madrid, Nuria, and Macarena Marey.

Mariña, Jacqueline. “Kant’s Robust Theory of Grace.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 302-20. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper I argue against two prevailing views of Kant’s Religion. Against commentators such as Michalson and Quinn, who have argued that Kant’s project in Religion is riddled with inconsistencies and circularities, I show that a proper understanding of Kant’s views on grace reveals these do not exist. And contra commentators that attribute to Kant at best a minimalist conception of grace (e.g., Wood 1991 and Pasternack 2014), I show that Kant’s view of it is remarkably robust. I argue that Kant works with three different conceptions of grace. These are: a) grace and the God within, b) grace and the transformation of the fundamental orientation, and c) grace that can be laid hold of; the first and the last play a significant role in his philosophy of religion.

Marino, Stefano. “Adorno über Kant und das Verhältnis von Ästhetik und Metaphysik.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 65.1 (2017): 67-88. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article I inquire into the interpretation of Kant’s philosophy provided by Theodor W. Adorno. In particular, I move from a few key concepts of his philosophy (dialectics, aesthetics, non-identity, transcendence, appearance, truth, hope, utopia) and attempt to show that such a conceptual constellation testifies to how much Adorno was theoretically indebted to the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of the Power of Judgment. Specifically, Kant’s conception of aesthetics and dialectics is crucial to Adorno’s conception of those same concepts and problems.

Marques, António. “Notas sobre figuras da mediação na terceira Crítica de Kant.” [Portuguese; Notes on Figures of Mediation in Kant’s Third Critique] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 59-68. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The present text aims to identify in Kant’s third Critique some main figures of mediation between morals and aesthetics. In the kantian system, not only nature and reason are separated by an unbridgeable gap, but also morals and aesthetics are different domains of the rationality, which are grounded on different principles. Nevertheless the third Critique explores the possibility of some mediation figures, that can overcome the mentioned gap. This is the task of the reflexive aesthetic judgment and its systematic work. In this process of the aesthetic judgment, the figures of a universal agreement among subjectivities and the moral value of the aesthetic symbol, seem to acquire a central systematic role.

Marshall, Colin. “Kant on Impenetrability, Touch, and the Causal Content of Perception.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.4 (2017): 1411-33. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is well known that Kant claims that causal judgments, including judgments about forces, must have an a priori basis. It is less well known that Kant claims that we can perceive the repulsive force of bodies (their impenetrability) through the sense of touch. Together, these claims present an interpretive puzzle, since they appear to commit Kant to both affirming and denying that we can have perceptions of force. My first aim is to show that both sides of the puzzle have deep roots in Kant's philosophy. My second aim is to present three potential solutions to the puzzle and show that each faces problems.

 ——. See: Simon, Jonathan, and Colin Marshall.

Martínez, Luciana. Rev. of Kant and Social Policies, edited by Andrea Faggion, Alessandro Pinzani, and Nuria Sánchez Madrid. (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 381-83. [M] [online]

 ——. “¿Por qué no es posible definir las categorías, de acuerdo con la Crítica de la Razón Pura?” [Spanish; Why isn’t it possible to define the categories, according to the Critique of Pure Reason?] Kant e-Prints 12.3 (2017): 6-18. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper we study the indications found in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason that explain the reasons why the philosopher omits the definition of categories in this text. We are considering three reasons for this omission. The first one is that this task is not for the critic’s enterprise. The second reason is that the way Kant displays the elements in his text hardens the possibility of those definitions. The third reason is that, according to Kant, the categories cannot be defined.

 ——. Rev. of Anthropologie und Moral. Affekte, Leidenschaften und Mitgefühl in Kants Ethik, by Anna Wehofsits (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 452-56. [M] [online]

Martínez Neira, Tomás Z. Rev. of La Crítica de la razón pura de Kant, by Theodor W. Adorno (2015). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 439-47. [M] [online]

Massimi, Michela. “Kant on the Ideality of Space and the Argument from Spinozism.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 64-82. [PW]

 ——. “What is this Thing Called ‘Scientific Knowledge’? – Kant on Imaginary Standpoints And the Regulative Role of Reason.” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 63-84. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this essay I analyse Kant’s view on the regulative role of reason, and in particular on what he describes as the ‘indispensably necessary’ role of ideas qua foci imaginarii in the Appendix. I review two influential readings of what has become known as the ‘transcendental illusion’ and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indispensably necessary for scientific knowledge by making inter-conversational agreement possible. Thus, I characterise scientific knowledge as a distinctive kind of perspectival knowledge. This novel reading can illuminate the role of reason in complementing the faculty of understanding and sheds light on the apparent dichotomy between the first and the second part of the Appendix. More to the point, this novel reading takes us right to the heart of what scientific knowledge is, according to Kant, and how it differs from bogus knowledge and opinion.

 ——. “Grounds, Modality, and Nomic Necessity in the Critical Kant.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 150-70. [M]

 —— and Angela Breitenbach, eds. Kant and the Laws of Nature. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. [xii, 288 p.] [M]

[Contents] [Hide Contents]
Part I: The Lawfulness of Nature
Eric Watkins (Kant on the Unity and Diversity of Laws),
Karl Ameriks (On Universality, Necessity, and Law in General in Kant),
Paul Guyer (Imperfect Knowledge of Nature: Kant, Hume and Laws of Nature),
Part II: The Systematicity of Nature
Hannah Ginsborg (Why Must we Presuppose the Systematicity of Nature?),
Rachel Zuckert (Empirical Scientific Investigation and the Ideas of Reason),
Thomas Teufel (Kant’s Transcendental Principle of Purposiveness and the ‘Maxim of the Lawfulness of Empirical Laws’),
Part III: Nomic Necessity and the Metaphysics of Nature
James Messina (Kant’s Necessitation Account of Laws and the Nature of Natures),
Michela Massimi (Grounds, Modality, and Nomic Necessity in the Critical Kant),
Daniel Warren (Kant on Mathematical Force Laws),
Part IV: Laws in Physics
Michael Friedman (Kant’s Conception of Causal Necessity and its Legacy),
Marius Stan (Metaphysical Foundations of Neoclassical Mechanics),
Part V: Laws in Biology
Angela Breitenbach (Laws in Biology and the Unity of Nature),
Catherine Wilson (The Building Forces of Nature and Kant’s Technology of the Living).

Matherne, Samantha. Rev. of The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of Judgement, by Hannah Ginsborg (2015). Philosophical Review 126.2 (2017): 281-85. [PI]

 ——. Rev. of Thinking with Kant’s Critique of Judgment, by Michel Chaouli (2017). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (May 2017, #3). [M] [online]

 ——. Rev. of Art and Ethics in a Material World: Kant’s Pragmatist Legacy, by Jennifer A. McMahon (2014). The Philosophical Quarterly 67.266 (2017): 189-92. [PW]

Mattana Ereño, Leonardo. Rev. of Il fenomeno e il rimando. Sul fondamento kantiano della finitezza della ragione umana, by Giulio Goria (2014). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 415-20. [M] [online]

 ——. Rev. of Kant e la possibilità dell’etica. Lettura critico-sistematica dei Primi principi metafisici della dottrina della virtù, by Carmelo Alessio Meli (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 485-96. [M] [online]

Mattioli, William. “The Thought of Becoming and the Place of Philosophy: Some Aspects of Nietzsche’s Reception and Criticism of Transcendental Idealism via Afrikan Spir.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 71-102. [M]

Mayer Branco, Maria João. “‘jeder Geist hat seinen Klang’: Kant and Nietzsche on the Sense of Hearing.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 219-49. [M]

 ——, and Katia Hay. “Introduction.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 1-12. [M]

 ——, and Katia Hay, eds. Nietzsche’s Engagements with Kant and the Kantian Legacy. Volume III: Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. [xvii, 286 p.] [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contents:
Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (Introduction),
On the Third Critique
Herman Siemens (Nietzsche Contra Kant on Genius, Originality and Agonal Succession),
Ekaterina Poljakova (Art beyond Truth and Lie in a Moral Sense),
João Constâncio (‘Who is Right, Kant or Stendhal?’ On Nietzsche’s Kantian Critique of Kant’s Aesthetics),
Barbara Stiegler (Beyond the Beautiful and the Sublime? Nietzsche, Aesthetics and the Question about the Subject),
David Puche Díaz (From Kant’s Critique of Judgement to The Birth of Tragedy: The Meaning of the ‘Aesthetic’ in Nietzsche),
Elaine P. Miller (Aesthetic Quantity, Aesthetic Acts and Willed Necessity in Nietzsche’s Engagement with Kant’s Critique of Judgement),
Anthony K. Jensen (Teleological Judgement and the End of History),
Carlo Gentili (Nietzsche and ‘the Great Chinese of Königsberg’),
On the Anthropology
Katia Hay (Reason and Laughter in Kant and Nietzsche),
Maria João Mayer Branco (‘Jeder Geist hat seinen Klang’: Kant and Nietzsche on the Sense of Hearing),
Matthew Dennis (On the Role of Maxims: Nietzsche’s Critique of Kant’s Philosophical Anthropology).

McHugh, John. “Adam Smith’s Kantian Phenomenology of Moral Motivation.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 286-303. [M]

McLear, Colin. “Intuition and Presence.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 86-103??. [WC]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction: An Analytical-Historical Commentary, by Henry Allison (2015). European Journal of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 546-54. [PW]

McMahon, Jennifer A. “Immediate Judgment and Non-Cognitive Ideas: The Pervasive and Persistent in the Misreading of Kant’s Aesthetic Formalism.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 425-46. [M]

McNulty, Michael Bennett. “What is Chemistry, for Kant?” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 85-112. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s preoccupation with architectonics is a characteristic and noteworthy aspect of his thought. Various features of Kant’s argumentation and philosophical system are founded on the precise definitions of the various subdomains of human knowledge and the derivative borders among them. One science conspicuously absent from Kant’s routine discussions of the organization of knowledge is chemistry. Whereas sciences such as physics, psychology, and anthropology are all explicitly located in the architectonic, chemistry finds no such place. In this paper, I examine neglected passages from Kant’s corpus as well as texts regarding chemistry that Kant himself read in order to unveil his views on the definition of chemistry and its relations with the other sciences. These considerations reveal chemistry to be the science that studies the changes of matter into new kinds. Yet Kant idiosyncratically believes that such a change requires an infinite division of matter, effected by chemical forces. Although this understanding of chemical change dovetails with Kant’s dynamical, continualist theory of matter, it implies that chemistry cannot be reduced to physics. Thus, although chemistry stands alongside empirical physics as an applied natural science in Kant’s architectonic, it remains a distinct, independent science.

 ——, and Marius Stan. “From General to Special Metaphysics of Nature.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 493-511. [M]

McQuillan, J. Colin. “Outer Sense, Inner Sense, and Feeling: Hutcheson and Kant on Aesthetic Pleasure.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 90-107. [M]

 ——. “Kant on the Science of Aesthetics and the Critique of Taste.” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 113-32. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article considers the reasons Kant rejects the possibility of a science of aesthetics throughout his career. It begins by surveying the background of Kant’s denial, focusing first on the introduction of aesthetics as a new science in the works of Alexander Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier. After showing that there are numerous ambiguities in the way Baumgarten and Meier present their new science, the article considers Kant’s account of the differences between aesthetics and logic in the transcripts of his Lectures on Logic. Because Kant uses the differences between aesthetics and logic to explain why logic is and aesthetics is not a science, these discussions provide a great deal of insight into his conception of science as well as his views on aesthetics. Finally, the article addresses the reasons Kant continues to insist that aesthetics is not a science but “a mere critique of taste” after he announces his discovery of the a priori principles of aesthetic judgment.

 ——. “Response to Jose Luis Fernandez, ‘Bridging the Gap of Kant’s Historical Antinomy’.” Southwest Philosophy Review 33.2 (2017): 103-6. [PW]

Mello e Oliveira Cacciola, Maria Lúcia. “Les limites des Lumières: politique et liberté chez Kant.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 343-50. [M]

Mensch, Jennifer. “Neither Ghost Nor Machine: Kant, Epigenesis, and the Life of the Mind.” Philosophy Today 61.3 (2017): 811-14. [PW]

Merritt, Melissa McBay. “Practical Reason and Respect for Persons.” Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 53-79. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My project is to reconsider the Kantian conception of practical reason. Some Kantians think that practical reasoning must be more active than theoretical reasoning, on the putative grounds that such reasoning need not contend with what is there anyway, independently of its exercise. Behind that claim stands the thesis that practical reason is essentially efficacious. I accept the efficacy principle, but deny that it underwrites this inference about practical reason. My inquiry takes place against the background of recent Kantian metaethical debate — each side of which, I argue, correctly points to issues that need to be jointly accommodated in the Kantian account of practical reason. The constructivist points to the essential efficacy of practical reason, while the realist claims that any genuinely cognitive exercise of practical reason owes allegiance to what is there anyway, independently of its exercise. I argue that a Kantian account of respect for persons (“recognition respect”) suggests how the two claims might be jointly accommodated. The result is an empirical moral realism that is itself neutral on the received Kantian metaethical debate.

 ——. “Love, Respect, and Individuals: Murdoch as a Guide to Kantian Ethics.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.4 (2017): 1844-63. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I reconsider the relation between love and respect in Kantian ethics, taking as my guide Iris Murdoch's view of love as the fundamental moral attitude and a kind of attention to individuals. It is widely supposed that Kantian ethics disregards individuals, since we don't respect individuals but the universal quality of personhood they instantiate. We need not draw this conclusion if we recognise that Kant and Murdoch share a view about the centrality of love to virtue. We can then see that respect in the virtuous person cannot be blind to the individual, as critics of Kantian ethics contend. My approach contrasts recent efforts (Velleman and Bagnoli) to assimilate Kantian respect to Murdochian love, which overlook Murdoch's distinctive claims about the singularity of moral activity. This idea is not as un‐Kantian as it seems, and it should inform any Kantian ethics that aims to address the charge about individuals.

 ——. “Sublimity and Joy: Kant on the Aesthetic Constitution of Virtue.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 447-67. [M]

 —— and Markos Valaris. “Attention and Synthesis in Kant’s Conception of Experience.” Philosophical Quarterly 67 (2017): 571-92. [PI]

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

Mertens, Thomas. “Emergencies and Criminal Law in Kant’s Legal Philosophy.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 459-92. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Despite Kant's explicit statement that every murderer must suffer death, there are at least four situations to be found in Kant's work in which the killing of a human being should not lead to the death penalty: when too many murderers are involved; when a mother kills her illegitimate child; when one duellist kills the other; when one person pushes another off a plank in order to save his life. This paper discusses these situations and concentrates on the last situation - Kant's interpretation of the plank of Carneades – with an eye to what they teach us about Kant's understanding of the law. Does Kant acknowledge a legal vacuum? In order to come to a conclusion, Kant's 'solution' of the plank is compared with those suggested by other authors, such as Cicero, Pufendorf and Lon Fuller in his famous 'speluncean explorers' case.

Messina, James. “The Relationship Between Space and Mutual Interaction: Kant contra Newton and Leibniz.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47.1 (2017): 43-65. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant claims that we cannot cognize the mutual interaction of substances without their being in space; he also claims that we cannot cognize a ‘spatial community’ among substances without their being in mutual interaction. I situate these theses in their historical context and consider Kant’s reasons for accepting them. I argue that they rest on commitments regarding the metaphysical grounding of, first, the possibility of mutual interaction among substances-as-appearances and, second, the actuality of specific distance-relations among such substances. By illuminating these commitments, I shed light on Kant’s metaphysics of space and its relation to Newton and Leibniz’s views.

 ——. “Kant’s Necessitation Account of Laws and the Nature of Natures.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 131-49. [M]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide, edited by James R. O’Shea (2017). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Nov 2017, #18). [M] [online]

Messina, JP. “Kant, Smith, and the Place of Virtue in Political and Economic Organization.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 267-85. [M]

Miguens, Sofia. “Apperception or Environment. J. McDowell and Ch.Travis on the nature of perceptual judgement.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 79-92. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Within current philosophy of perception John McDowell has for quite some time been defending a view inspired by Kant (McDowell 1994, McDowell 2009, McDowell 2013). Charles Travis opposes such view and counters it with his own, Frege-inspired, approach (Travis 2013, Travis 2014, Travis forthcoming). By analysing the clash between Travis’ idea of the silence of the senses and McDowell’s idea of intuitional content, the present article aims to characterize the core of their divergence regarding the nature of perceptual judgement. It also aims at presenting their engagement as a reformulated version of the debate around conceptual and nonconceptual content of perception, bringing forth some of its stakes. Such reformulated version of the debate makes it possible to bring out what a Kantian position on representation, consciousness and appearances ultimately amounts to, as well as to identify a particular angle of criticism to it.

Mihina, František. Rev. of Theories of Dynamic Cosmopolitanism in Modern European History, by Georg Cavallar (2017). [Slovak] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.2 (2017): 78-82. [M] [online]

Mikalsen, Kjartan Koch. “No Cosmopolitan Morality Without State Sovereignty.” Philosophy & Social Criticism 43.10 (2017): 1072-94. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article takes issue with the common view that cosmopolitan normative commitments are incompatible with recognition of state sovereignty as a basic principle of international law. Against influential cosmopolitans, who at best ascribe a derivative significance to the sovereignty of states, the article argues that state sovereignty is not only compatible with, but also essential to the recognition of individuals as units of ultimate concern. The argument challenges a problematic distributive conception of justice underlying many cosmopolitans’ support for reforms of the international legal order towards a system where respect for basic human rights is the only criterion for political legitimacy. An alternative relational conception of justice makes it possible to see why there is an internal connection between the rights of individuals and the rights of states. The argument adds up to a novel defence of the so-called domestic analogy, which regards the territorial integrity of states as an international parallel to the bodily integrity of individuals.

Miller, Elaine P. “Aesthetic Quantity, Aesthetic Acts and Willed Necessity in Nietzsche’s Engagement with Kant’s Critique of Judgement.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 133-55. [M]

Mills, Charles W. “Black Radical Kantianism.” Res Philosophica 95.1 (2017): 1-33. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This essay tries to develop a “black radical Kantianism”—that is, a Kantianism informed by the black experience in modernity. After looking briefly at socialist and feminist appropriations of Kant, I argue that an analogous black radical appropriation should draw on the distinctive social ontology and view of the state associated with the black radical tradition. In ethics, this would mean working with a (color-conscious rather than colorblind) social ontology of white persons and black sub-persons and then asking what respect for oneself and others would require under those circumstances. In political philosophy, it would mean framing the state as a Rassenstaat (a racial state) and then asking what measures of corrective justice would be necessary to bring about the ideal Rechtsstaat.

Milstein, Brian. “Perpetual Peace and Cosmopolitical Method. The Systematic Grounds of Kant’s Cosmopolitan Vision.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 107-31. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article explores the bases of Kant’s cosmopolitanism in his more systematic writings on freedom, judgment, and community. My argument is that, if we peer beneath his more explicitly normative prescriptions for achieving “perpetual peace,” we find the tools not just of a cosmopolitan vision but what we might call a “cosmopolitical method.” While many assume Kant’s political thought descends directly from his moral philosophy, a look back at relevant passages in the first Critique reveals an alternative reading that points toward his theory of reflective judgment, which combines practical freedom with judgments based on theoretical concepts. Of particular importance is Kant’s conception of community as commercium, through which Kant discerns all matters of right to concern the way free actors are constrained to share the earth in common. These considerations allow for a broader way of thinking about Kantian cosmopolitanism, one that is responsive to the reflective judgment of world citizens as they encounter new challenges.

Miner de Oliveira, Danilo Fernando. “Espaço, intuição e fenômeno na Estética transcendental.” [Portuguese; Space, intuition and phenomenon in Transcendental aesthetics] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 28-49. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper shows that the notion of space in Kant is developed in close connection with the controversy over the nature of space conducted around the conceptions endorsed by Newton and Leibniz. It discusses the nature of space 1) as dependent on the relations of external objects, where its configuration as an apparition arises from the sensibility and 2) as not only independent of these objects, but also as the condition of their possibility, and by those means as absolute, universal and independent of all matter. These two opposing theses are debated on the Critique of Pure Reason and better articulated in two exhibitions that support the notion of space: besides a pure intuition, the space must be also the subjective form of all external intuition. Only after these formulations it is possible to understand 1) the distinction employed by Kant between phenomena and noumena; 2) the split between philosophy and science; and 3) the foundation of so-called transcendental idealism.

Monyer, Hannah. See: Schwarzkopf, Grit, and Hannah Monyer.

Moors, Martin. “The Fate of Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 539-64. [M]

Moran, Kate A. “Neither Justice Nor Charity? Kant on ‘General Injustice’.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47.4 (2017): 477-98. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] We often make a distinction between what we owe as a matter of repayment, and what we give or offer out of charity. But how shall we describe our obligations to fellow citizens when we are in a position to be charitable because of a past injustice on the part of the state? This essay examines the moral implications of past injustice by considering Immanuel Kant’s remarks on this phenomenon in his lectures and writings. In particular, it discusses the role of the state and the individual in addressing the problem.

 ——. “Demandingness, Indebtedness, and Charity: Kant on Imperfect Duties to Others.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 307-29. [M]

Moscón, Pablo. “La pregunta por la posibilidad de los juicios sintéticos a priori prácticos y el ‘factum de la razón’ en la interpretación semántica de Kant.” [Spanish; The question about the possibility of practical synthetic a priori judgments and the ‘factum of reason’ in Kant's semantic interpretation] Kant e-Prints 12.3 (2017): 54-70. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper I will review the Zeljko Loparic's interpretation of the “factum of reason” in order to evaluate some of his main theses. In particular, I will focus on two controversial aspects of his interpretation that have been especially discussed by its detractors. First, I will critically discuss Loparic's claim that the purpose of KpV can be expressed in the question of how practical synthetic a priori judgments are possible and if the “factum of reason” introduced by Kant is the main key to answer it. Second, I will consider the value of Loparic’s suggestion to comprehend the “factum of reason” as a “moral feeling” and the relevance of the reasons he gives to justify it.

Motorina, Lyubov E. “Kant’s Anthropology as a Coherent Doctrine of Man.” Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.2 (2017): 20-29. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper attempts to reveal conceptual items that can define the profile of Kantian anthropology as a comprehensive study of man. It also points out that anthropological subject is present in all Kantian works, including the fact that it is explicitly and implicitly identified in his early drafts, essays, and personal correspondence. The paper analyses four basic concepts: man as a unity of both worlds, man and nature, the role of unconscious perceptions in cognition and “live intuition” as anthropological method. The author investigates further development of Kantian ideas, findings, and conclusions and emphasises their significance and contribution in the development of anthropological principle in the modern philosophy.

Motta, Giuseppe. “One Step? Two Steps? Reflections on R. L. Anderson’s The Poverty of Conceptual Truth.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 123-28. [PW]

Muchnik, Pablo, and Lawrence Pasternack. “A Guide to Kant’s Treatment of Grace.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 256-71. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This Guide is designed to restore the theological background that informs Kant’s treatment of grace in Religion to its rightful place. This background is essential not only to understand the nature of Kant’s overall project in this book, namely, to determine the “association” or “union” between Christianity (as a historical faith) and rational religion, but also to dispel the impression of “internal contradictions” and “conundrums” that contemporary interpreters associate with Kant’s treatment of grace and moral regeneration. That impression, we argue, is the result of entrenched interpretative habits that can be traced back to Karl Barth’s reading of the text. Once we realize that such a reading rests on a mistake, much of the anxiety and confusion that plague current discussions on these issues can be put to rest.

 ——. Rev. of Kant and the Promise of Rhetoric, by Scott R. Stroud (2014). Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 665-71. [PW]

Mudd, Sasha. “The Demand for Systematicity and the Authority of Theoretical Reason in Kant.” Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 81-106. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s notoriously unclear attempt to defend the regulative principle of systematic unity as the supreme principle of theoretical reason in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic has left its status a source of controversy. According to the dominant interpretation, the principle ought to be understood as a methodologically necessary device for extending our understanding of nature. I argue that this reading is flawed. While it may correctly affirm that the principle is normative in character, it wrongly implies that it binds with mere hypothetical necessity. I offer novel grounds for thinking that if reason’s principle is normative, then it binds agents categorically instead.

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Nahra, Cinara. “A atualidade de Kant: um diálogo com Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos.” [Portuguese; The philosophy of Kant nowadays: a dialogue with Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos]  Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 13-24. [M] [online]

Naragon, Steve. “Kant’s Life.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 21-47. [M]

Naranjo Sandoval, Alejandro, and Andrew Chignell. “Noumenal Ignorance: Why, for Kant, Can’t We Know Things in Themselves?” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 91-116. [M]

Nassar, Dalia. “The Critical Function of the Epigenesis of Reason and Its Relation to Post-Kantian Intellectual Intuition.” Philosophy Today 61.3 (2017): 801-9. [PW]

Navot, Doron. “What can we learn about political corruption from Kant’s conceptions of honesty, publicity and truthfulness?” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 60-73. [M]

Nemeth, Thomas. Kant in Imperial Russia. Cham: Springer, 2017. [ix, 389 p.] [WC]

Neuhouser, Frederick. “Autonomy, Spiritual Illness and Theodicy in Kant and Nietzsche.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 159-91. [M]

Newey, Glen. “Political deception: Lowering the bar.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 17-31. [M]

Newton, Alexandra. “Kant on Animal and Human Pleasure.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47.4 (2017): 518-40. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Feeling, for any animal, is a faculty of comparing objects or representations with regard to whether they promote its vital powers (pleasure) or hinder them (displeasure). But whereas these comparisons presuppose a species-concept in non-rational animals, nature has not equipped the human being with a universal principle or life-form that would determine what agrees or disagrees with it. As humans, we must determine our mode of life for ourselves. Contrary to other interpretations, I argue that this places the human capacity for pleasure and displeasure outside of nature and in a realm of spirit.

 ——. “The Analytic Proposition Underlying Kantian Hypothetical Imperatives.” Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 543-67. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant maintains that it is easy to see how hypothetical imperatives are possible, because the following proposition is analytic: “Whoever wills the end also wills (in so far as reason has decisive influence on his actions) the indispensably necessary means to it that is within his control” (GMS, AA 04: 417). I distinguish three readings of the analytic proposition, which correspond to three ways of understanding how it reveals hypothetical imperatives to be possible. The first reads it as a theoretical proposition about constitutive features of an ideal agent. I argue that this fails to do justice to the first-personal character of the analytic proposition, as a proposition about the general practical concept ‘I will’ (or more generally, ‘I intend’). The second reading extracts actual imperatives from the concept of ‘willing an end’ by means of analysis. Against this, I argue that the derivation of an imperative from an act of willing an end is an act of synthesis, and that analysis of the concept of ‘my willing an end’ merely yields the possibility of hypothetical imperatives.

Nielsen, Carsten Fogh. “Kant and the Practical Man. Reinterpreting the Appendix to Toward Perpetual Peace.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 132-56. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The Appendix to Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace is commonly viewed as an explication of the systematic relations between political practice and normative political theory. This paper provides an alternative interpretation of Kant’s main aim in the Appendix which is to provide an argument against the so-called “practical man.” The practical man believes that human nature precludes normative political ideals from ever playing a significant role within political practice. Drawing on the 1793 text “On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but is of no use in practice,” the paper argues that Kant’s argument against the practical man is based on a proto-phenomenological analysis of moral experience. The practical man’s attempt to describe political practice in purely non-normative terms is, Kant believes, necessarily self-undermining because it denies one of the most basic aspects of human life; the inherent and inescapable normativity of practical reason.

Niesen, Peter. “What Kant Would Have Said in the Refugee Crisis.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 83-106. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper starts out from a debate that occurred in Germany in 2015, where interpreters claimed to be able to divine Immanuel Kant’s views of the contemporary refugee crisis. It does not attempt to give a substantive answer to the title question, i.e. it does not try to specify the conclusive extension of cosmopolitan right. In contrast, it outlines the systematic work that would have to be done in order to be able to answer the title question. I start from cosmopolitan right as natural right and ask what kinds of transformations cosmopolitan right would have to undergo to form a legitimate part of public international law, in parallel to Kant’s move from provisional private law to peremptory public law in his Doctrine of Right. For that purpose, I introduce distinctions between trivial and non-trivial transformation, between strong (i.e. property-related) and weak (property-unrelated) transformation, and between transformation based on historically blameworthy and historically blameless action.

Noller, Jörg. Rev. of Willensstruktur und Handlungsorganisation in Kants Theorie der praktischen Freiheit, by Saša Josifović (2014). Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 280-83. [PW]

Nyholm, Sven. “Do We Always Act on Maxims?” Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 233-55. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is commonly thought that on Kant’s view of action, ‘everyone always acts on maxims’. Call this the ‘descriptive reading’. This reading faces two important problems. First, the idea that people always act on maxims offends against common sense: it clashes with our ordinary ideas about human agency. Second, there are various passages in which Kant says that it is ‘rare’ and ‘admirable’ to firmly adhere to a set of basic principles that we adopt for ourselves. This article offers an alternative: the ‘normative reading’. On this reading, it is a normative ideal to adopt and act on maxims: it is one of the things we would do if our reason were fully in control of our decision-making.

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Oberst, Michael. “Kant über Substanzen in der Erscheinung.” Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 1-18. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] There is a disagreement in Kant scholarship concerning the question whether phenomenal substance contains a substantial that is the first subject of all accidents and relations. I would like to argue in this paper that the disagreement stems from the overlooking of a development of Kant’s views. Having abandoned his Physical Monadology, Kant first rejected the substantiality of matter because of its infinite divisibility. But in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science his view is that matter is substance and at the same time infinitely divisible.

Olivares, Cristóbal. Rev. of Forzados a ser libres. Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho, edited by Juan Ormeño Karzulovic and Miguel Vatter (2017). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 212-14. [M] [online]

Oliveira, Nythamar de. See: Dutra, Delamar José Volpato, and Nythamar de Oliveira.

Olson, Michael J. “The Metaphysics of the Epigenesis of Reason: On Jennifer Mensch’s Kant’s Organicism.” Philosophy Today 61.3 (2017): 793-99. [PW]

O'Neill, Onora. “Warum nach dreihundert Jahren immer noch Kant lesen?” Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 270-79. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper was presented at a symposium entitled “300 Years of Immanuel Kant – The Road to the Jubilee” (300 Jahre I. K. – der Weg zum Jubiläum), held on 6 June 2016 in Berlin. Professor Monika Rüttgers, Beauftragte der Bundesregierung Kultur und Medien (Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media), and the Bundesinstitut für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen im östlichen Europa (Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe) invited renowned Kant researchers and political representatives to speak on various themes at a meeting that demonstrated the importance and continued relevance of Kant’s thinking. The symposium launched a series of public events in preparation of Kant’s tercentenary in 2024.

Ormeño Karzulovic, Juan, and Miguel Vatter, eds. Forzados a ser libres: Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho. [Spanish] Santiago: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2014. [243 p.] [WC]

Oroño, Matías Hernán. “Lo sublime dinámico en la tercera crítica de Kant.” [Spanish; The Dynamic Sublime in Kant’s Third Critique] Eidos 27 (2017): 199-223. [PI] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The main aim of this study is to analyze the link between the dynamic sublime and the morality in the framework of Kant's critical thought. Our study will be restricted to the analysis of the dynamic sublime. We will defend the thesis according to which the feeling of the dynamic sublime is irreducible to the morality even if this feeling necessarily supposes the morality. Subsidiarily, we will try to indicate that the dynamic sublime implies a necessary reference to the own corporeality. Likewise, we will outline a hypothesis concerning the possibility of thinking the role of the own corporeality in the framework of the Kantian moral theory. The main conclusions of our analysis are the following: 1. the dynamic sublime and the morality are clearly differentiated spheres in Kant's thought; 2. the dynamic sublime supposes the morality.

 ——. “El (no)-conceptualismo de Kant y los juicios de gusto.” [Spanish; Kant’s (Non)-conceptualism and judgments of taste] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 93-105. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] There is a tendency within the debate on Kantian conceptualism and nonconceptualism to overlook the importance of Kant’s aesthetics. The main goal of this paper is to offer an analysis of Heidemann’s nonconceptualist interpretation of the Kantian theory about judgments of taste. First, I discuss Heidemann’s arguments about the cognitive character of judgments of taste. Secondly, I analyse the supposed nonconceptual character involved in the aesthetic experience of beauty. Third, I offer an alternative interpretation of the link between Kant’s theory of judgments of taste and the debate about (non)-conceptualism. I defend the thesis that judgments of taste lack cognitive value, but they allow us to understand central aspects of the Kantian theory of knowledge.

 ——. “Formas de autoconciencia en la ‘Reflexión de Leningrado’.” [Spanish; Forms of self-awareness in the “Leningrad Reflection”] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 168-78. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The main aim of this paper is to point out that the novel aspects of the manuscript known as “Leningrad Reflection” are neither in the treatment of self-affection nor in the arguments against Cartesian idealism, but in the development of different forms of self-awareness that are closely linked to the awareness of the own embodiment.

 ——. Rev. of Kants Theorie der Biologie. Ein Kommentar. Eine Lesart. Eine historische Einordnung, by Ina Goy (2017). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 421-26. [M] [online]

Osborne, Nicolas. “Kant on Modalities and Justification.” Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 315-37. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper studies the Kantian conception of modality of judgement. After making some general considerations about the text following the table of the forms of judgement, I will take an historical perspective which will point out that the central concept for the definition of the modality of judgement is the copula. Then, after explaining the distinction between two conceptions of the copula, namely the formal conception and the transcendental one, I will argue for the second one. Finally, I will define each of the three modalities of judgement in relation to the justification the judger is able to give for her judgement.

O’Shea, James R., ed. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. [297 p.] [PW][review]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Contents:
Eric Watkins (Kant on the Distinction between Sensibility and Understanding), Stephen Engstrom (Knowledge and Its Object), Lucy Allais (Transcendental Idealism and the Transcendental Aesthetic), Michela Massimi (Kant on the Ideality of Space and the Argument from Spinozism), Michael Wolff (How Precise Is Kant's Table of Judgments?), Barry Stroud (Kant's ‘Transcendental Deduction’), James Conant (Kant's Critique of the Layer-Cake Conception of Human Mindedness in the B Deduction), Patricia Kitcher (The Critical and ‘Empty’ Representation ‘I Think’), Lisa Shabel (Kant's Mathematical Principles of Pure Understanding), Kenneth R. Westphal (Kant's Dynamical Principles), Ralf M. Bader (The Refutation of Idealism), Graham Bird (The Antinomies), John J. Callanan (The Ideal of Reason), Andrew Chignell (Knowledge, Discipline, System, Hope).

Ostaric, Lara. “The Free Harmony of the Faculties and the Primacy of Imagination in Kant's Aesthetic Judgment.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.4 (2017): 1376-1410. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This essay argues that, contrary to the prevailing view according to which reflection in Kant's aesthetic judgment is interpreted as ‘the logical actus of the understanding’, we should pay closer attention to Kant's own formulation of aesthetic reflection as ‘an action of the power of imagination’. Put differently, I contend in this essay that the rule that governs and orders the manifold in aesthetic judgment is imagination's own achievement, the achievement of the productive synthesis of the ‘fictive power’ (Dichtungsvermögen), entirely independent of the understanding. While this view does not entail that the faculty of the understanding is not necessary in aesthetic reflection, a stronger emphasis on the role of imagination in aesthetic reflection allows us to realize that its schematizing and interpretive activity, while consistent with, goes well beyond the discursive demands of the understanding insofar as it intimates the supersensible ground of freedom that manifests itself as ‘the feeling of life’. Therefore, I show in this essay that the imagination's unique interpretive power has a special role in completing Kant's critical system by facilitating the connection of the sensible to the supersensible, which further helps us appreciate imagination's practical as opposed to merely cognitive significance.

Owen, David. “Freedom as Independence: Kant and Nietzsche on Non-Domination, Self-Love and the Rivalrous Emotions.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 137-57. [M]

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Palmer, Eric. See: Sweet, Alec Stone, and Eric Palmer.

Palmquist, Stephen. “Reply to Green, Drogalis, Shell & Rossi.” Critique (blog posted: 18 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Trinta e cinco anos de pesquisas sobre Kant: uma panorâmica em retrospectiva.” [Portuguese; Thirty-five Years of Research on Kant: A Retrospective Overview] Kant e-Prints 12.1 (2017): 56-73. [M] [online]

 ——. “Kant’s Model for Building the True Church: Transcending “Might Makes Right” and “Should Makes Good” through the Idea of a Non-Coercive Theocracy.” [English] Diametros 54 (2017): 76-94. [PW] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s Religion postulates the idea of an ethical community as a necessary requirement for humanity to become good. Few interpreters acknowledge Kant’s claims that realizing this idea requires building a “church” characterized by unity, integrity, freedom, and unchangeability, and that this new form of community is a non-coercive version of theocracy. Traditional (e.g., Jewish) theocracy replaces the political state of nature (“might makes right”) with an ethical state of nature (“should makes good”); non-coercive theocracy transcends this distinction, uniting humanity in a common vision of a divine legislator whose legislation is inward: the law of love binds church members together like families.

 ——. Rev. of Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: An Interpretation and Defense, by Lawrence R. Pasternack (2014). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 467-71. [PW]

Panknin-Schappert, Helke. “Le spectateur de la grande scène du monde. Fil conducteur a priori et preuve historique.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 195-203. [M]

Parmigiani, Matías. “Is it ‘impossible to will to be punished’? Exploring a consensual way out of the kantian dilemma.” Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 60-88. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the Metaphysics of Morals Kant wrote that “it is impossible to will to be punished”. The main goal of the present paper is to challenge this idea. In contemporary literature, a similar challenge was attempted by assigning a pivotal role to the notion of ‘consent‘. Therefore, focused on these antecedents, what I will try to do in this paper is to determine whether the notion of consent is capable of playing any role whatsoever in a justificatory theory of punishment.

Parra, Lisímaco. “Filosofía versus barroco en la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres de kant 19 faviola rivera castro, la primera fórmula del imperativo categórico.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 19-54. [M] [online]

Pascoe, Jordan. “Working Women and Monstrous Mothers: Kant, Marx, and the Valuation of Domestic Labour.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 599-618. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this article, I compare Kant’s and Marx’s analysis of women and domestic labour in their mature political works, and argue that Kant offers more analytic tools for understanding the social and economic role of domestic labour than does Marx. While domestic labour becomes visible to Marx only as it is outsourced, Kant develops a clear account of the specific rules governing domestic labour in the emerging bourgeois household. Because of his commitment to the domestic realm as a core feature of the just state, however, much of Kant’s account of domestic labour should be challenged by contemporary Kantian feminists.

Pasternack, Lawrence. “Restoring Kant’s Conception of the Highest Good.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.3 (2017): 435-68. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Since the publication of Andrews Reath's 'Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant," most scholars have come to accept the view that Kant migrated away from an earlier 'theological' version to one that is more 'secular.' The purpose of this paper is to explore the roots of this interpretative trend, reassess its merits, and then examine how the Highest Good is portrayed in Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. We will see that it is in this text, more so than any other, that Kant develops his most philosophically sophisticated account of the Highest Good. Because of the central significance of Kant's doctrine of the Highest Good for both his ethical theory and philosophy of religion, this paper therefore seeks to provide an important corrective to the current received views.

 ——. “The ‘Two Experiments’ of Kant’s Religion: Dismantling the Conundrum.” Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 107-31. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The past decade has seen a sizeable increase in scholarship on Kant’s Religion. Yet, unlike the centuries of debate that inform our study of his other major works, scholarship on the Religion is still just in its infancy. As such, it is in a particularly vulnerable state where errors made now could hinder scholarship for decades to come. It is the purpose of this article to mitigate one such danger, a danger issuing from the widely assumed view that the Religion is shaped by ‘two experiments’. I will begin with a survey of the four current interpretations of the experiments, and then propose one further interpretation, one that hopefully will help dismantle this alleged ‘conundrum’ and thereby help scholarship on the Religion move beyond this early misstep.

 ——. “Kant on Faith: Religious Assent and the Limits to Knowlege.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 515-38. [M]

 ——. “Hume’s Principle and Kant’s Pure Rational System of Religion: Grace, Providence, and the Highest Good.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 142-63. [M]

 ——. Rev. of The Intolerable God: Kant’s Theological Journey, by Christopher J. Insole (2016). Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 518-22. [PW]

Patton, Lydia. “Kantian Essentialism in the Metaphysical Foundations.” The Monist 100.3 (2017): 342-56. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Ott (2009) identifies two kinds of philosophical theories about laws: top-down, and bottom-up. An influential top-down reading, exemplified by Ernst Cassirer, emphasized the ‘mere form of law’. Recent bottom-up accounts emphasize the mind-independent natures of objects as the basis of laws of nature. Stang and Pollok in turn focus on the transcendental idealist elements of Kant’s theory of matter, which leads to the question: is the essence of Kantian matter that it obeys the form of law? I argue that Kant has an independent theory of matter in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, one that gives what Kant himself calls a “real definition” of matter as a theory-independent (if not mind-independent) entity. I argue that this matter theory underpins physical arguments about inertia and impenetrability which resemble Einstein’s arguments about the unification of fields in general relativity.

Pavão, Aquinaldo. “Filosofia moral sem antropologia.” [Portuguese; Moral philosophy without anthropology] Kant e-Prints 12.3 (2017): 19-30. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this text, I intend to present, in a very concise manner, the reasons that I believe I have not convinced for myself of the importance of anthropology in Kant’s (critical) moral philosophy. The reasons I present here relate to Kant’s understanding of duty in GMS and KpV. Finally, I make some observations about how I interpret the role of anthropology in Kantian moral philosophy. It is important to clarify that this text was originally written on the occasion of a salutary discussion that I had with Daniel Omar Perez a few years ago, from his article entitled “A antropologia pragmática como parte da razão prática em sentido kantiano”, published in the journal Manuscript in 2009. Although I do not dwell on the details of Perez’s instigating reading, I consider that the substance of this article can be read as a response to it, or as a simple presentation of an alternative reading. Perez argues that anthropology in Kant aims to answer questions that lie on the plane of transcendental philosophy. Kant’s anthropology, taking man as object, would promote an essentially critical reflection on the possibility of synthetic a priori proposition “man is a citizen of the world.” Thus, Perez emphasizes the role that anthropology would play in Kant’s moral philosophy, giving it an excessive importance. Keywords: moral philosophy; anthropology; duty; categorical imperative.

Paytas, Tyler. “God’s Awful Majesty Before Our Eyes: Kant’s Moral Justification for Divine Hiddenness.” Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 133-57. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The problem of ‘divine hiddenness’ arises from the lack of an explanation for why an all-loving God would choose not to make his existence evident. I argue that Kant provides a compelling solution to this problem in an often overlooked passage located near the end of the second Critique. Kant’s suggestion is that God’s revealing himself would preclude the development of virtue because we would lose the experience of conflict between self-interest and the moral law. I provide a reconstruction and defence of Kant’s argument, and I explain why it is consistent with his overall position in the second Critique.

 ——. See: Muchnik, Pablo, and Lawrence Pasternack.

Pearce, Kenneth L. “What Descartes Doubted, Berkeley Denied, and Kant Endorsed.” Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review (Online: 19 Dec 2017): 1-33. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] According to Kant, there is some doctrine, which he sometimes calls ‘empirical realism,’ such that it was doubted by Descartes, denied by Berkeley, and endorsed by Kant himself. The primary aim of this paper will be to reconstruct Kant’s own narrative of the historical relationship between Descartes, Berkeley, and himself, in order to identify the doctrine Kant calls ‘empirical realism.’ I argue that the empirical realism that Descartes doubted, Berkeley denied, and Kant endorsed is the doctrine that the concept of extended substance has legitimate application.

Pendlebury, Michael. “A Kantian Account of Animal Cognition.” Philosophical Forum 48.4 (2017): 369-93. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article focuses on analysis of philosophy towards animal cognition by philosopher Immanuel Kant. topics discussed include observation of difference in human cognition and an animal cognition abilities; illustration of animal cognition's relationship with animal consciousness; and analysis of perception among animals that discusses their approach for thinking.

Peres, Daniel Tourinho. “Reflexão e normativismo em Kant.” [Portuguese; Reflection and Normativism in Kant] Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã: Crítica e Modernidade 22.4 (2017): 103-13. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper aims to question Kant's normativism, taking as a starting point the criticisms of Bernard Williams and Raymond Geuss to the normative perspective in political philosophy, and discussing two normative interpretations of Kant, one of them presented by J-F Kervégan and another by J. Waldron. The idea is to emphasize the reflective dimension of Kantian political idealism, its metaphysical elements, but pointing to its link with the historical, real dimension of the political

Perez, Daniel Omar. “Los límites de la psicología como ciencia y la posibilidad de su uso en la antropología en Kant.” [Portuguese; The limits of psychology as science and the possibility of its use in Kant’s anthropology] Studia Kantiana 15.2 (2017): 51-61. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This work aims to demonstrate that psychology in Kant can be constituted as a knowledge that contributes to the study of man as a citizen of the world. In this sense, we will differentiate the empirical knowledge of the objects of nature from a pragmatic knowledge of the human being. Within this picture we will separate the psychology of physics and approach it to anthropology. Once the field of psychology is defined, we will present its task within anthropology.

Perin, Adriano. “Sobre a metáfora da liberdade como ‘pedra angular’ (Schlußstein) do sistema da razão pura.” [Portuguese; On the metaphor of freedom as the ‘keystone’ (Schlußstein) of the system of pure reason] Studia Kantiana 15.2 (2017): 87-109. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The metaphor of freedom as “keystone” (Schlußstein) is given by Kant in the first lines announcing his final critical solution to the establishment of the second domain of his philosophy, i.e., the practical rational determination of action (KpV, A 04). As its consequence, one finds as inviting – and, even as compelling – a reading carrying out a solution which would set forth the whole structure of Kant´s critical enterprise. The thesis sustained in this paper is that the Critique of Practical Reason does not assure such a reading, due to the prevalence given in this work to the self-sufficient justification of the theoretical and practical domains of reason vis-à-vis an idealist proposal establishing a system of reason. In order to do that, the translation of “Schlußstein” is taken into account, some critical distinctions assumed in the referred metaphor are pointed out, and, finally, Dieter Henrich’s interpretation, in what matters to its premises text of the second Critique, is brought into discussion.

Piché, Claude. “La philosophie kantienne de l’histoire et la ruse des Lumières.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 205-14. [M]

Pichler, Axel. “‘Kant: or cant as intelligible character’: Meaning and Function of the Type ‘Kant’ and his Philosophy in Twilight of the Idols.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 233-54. [M]

Pickering, Mark. “Hume and Kant on Identity and Substance.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 230-44. [M]

Pinheiro Walla, Alice. Rev. of Kant’s Politics in Context, by Reidar Maliks (2014). The Philosophical Quarterly 67.266 (2017): 207-9. [PW]

Pinto Freire, Jesús, and Adrián Santamaría Pérez. Rev. of Immanuel Kant, Lecciones de filosofía moral. Mrongovius II, translated and edited by Alba Jiménez Rodríguez (2017). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 448-51. [M] [online]

Pinzani, Alessandro. “Beati Possidentes? Kant on Posssession and Inequality.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 475-92. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper starts from an expression used by Kant in the Doctrine of Right: Beati possidentes. It then discusses Kant’s arguments for justifying the possession of land by individuals and by political community. Its main hypothesis is the following: If we consider unacceptable the application of the Beati possidentes principle on a global level, then we have a good reason to reject it also on the domestic level. It reaches this conclusion not by pointing out the undesirable consequences of the principle, for this would be an empirical argument resulting from a consequentialist approach. Rather, it chooses a procedimental approach, showing that the way in which land was initially distributed was neither rightful on the domestic nor on the global level.

 ——. “Honra e honestidade na Metafísica dos Costumes.” [Spanish; Honour and Honesty in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 107-23. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper discusses some central notions of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals. It claims that – although they are innate – dignity, external freedom and life are not something that ought to be granted unconditionally to individuals; rather individuals themselves should prove that they deserve to keep them, by acting in such a way that allows them to maintain their innate honesty and honour. In order to defend this interpretation, the paper analyses especially the connection between these two last concepts (in German: Ehre and Ehrbarkeit) both in the Doctrine of Law and in the Doctrine of Virtue.

Pissis, Jannis. Rev. of Immanuel Kant, Metaphysiki ton ithon [Metaphysics of Morals], edited and translated into Greek by Kostas Androulidakis (2013). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 155-58. [PW]

Placencia, Luis. “Descartes y Kant sobre la conciencia. Observaciones sobre un olvidado punto de contacto sistemático entre Kant y Descartes.” [Spanish; Descartes and Kant on conscientia. Observations on a Forgotten Systematic Contact Point Between Kant and Descartes Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 278-95. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this text I present - following the recent investigations of B. Hennig - some aspects of Descartes’ conception of conscientia. Hennig’s interpretation of Descartes’ conscientia allows an interesting connection to Kant’s concept of Gewissen. As a consequense of this unexpected connection between Kant and Descartes, it will be shown that both Descartes and Kant sustain views that are opposed to the so called “philosophy of consciousness”. It will by show that both cartesian and kantian philosophy are opposed to the project of the so called “philosophy of consciousness”.

Poljakova, Ekaterina. “Art beyond Truth and Lie in a Moral Sense.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 43-62. [M]

Pollok, Anne. Rev. of Kant and Rational Psychology, by Corey w. Dyck (2014). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 454-57. [PW]

Pollok, Konstantin. Kant’s Theory of Normativity: Exploring the Space of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. [xv, 326 p.] [WC] [review]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Publisher’s Description: Konstantin Pollok offers the first book-length analysis of Kant's theory of normativity that covers foundational issues in theoretical and practical philosophy as well as aesthetics. Interpreting Kant's 'critical turn' as a normative turn, he argues that Kant's theory of normativity is both original and radical: it departs from the perfectionist ideal of early modern rationalism, and arrives at an unprecedented framework of synthetic a priori principles that determine the validity of our judgments. Pollok examines the hylomorphism in Kant's theory of normativity and relates Kant's idea of our reason's self-legislation to the 'natural right' tradition, revealing Kant's debt to his predecessors as well as his relevance to contemporary debates on normativity. This book will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, early modern philosophy and intellectual history.

 ——. “Is Kant’s Ethics Metaphysically Naturalistic? Comments on Frederick Rauscher’s Naturalism and Realism in Kant’s Ethics.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 483-94. [PW]

Porcheddu, Rocco. Rev. of Kants Begründung von Freiheit und Moral in Grundlegung III. Neue Interpretationen, edited by Dieter Schönecker (2015). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 473-77. [PW]

Posesorski, Ezequiel L. “Maimon’s Late Ethical Skepticism and the Rejection of Kant’s Notion of the Moral Law.” International Philosophical Quarterly 57.2 (2017): 141-54. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper discusses a set of arguments launched in Salomon Maimon’s 1800 Der moralische Skeptiker against Kant’s notion of the moral law. Apart from being an almost overlooked chapter in the history of post-Kantian ethics, this work is one in which Maimon takes issue with four related aspects of the ethical thesis and methodology presented in Kant’s second Kritik. At the core of the discussion is Maimon’s emphasis on a major incongruity in the correlation of Kant’s notions of theoretical and practical reason: objectively valid statements in ethics should not qualitatively diverge from those in theoretical science. It is in this context that the paper discusses the late Maimonian thesis that Kant’s factual notion of the moral law cannot be reconciled with his notion of theoretical rigor. It also shows why, for Maimon, the highest principle of Kantian ethics should reveal itself to be theoretically untenable and dogmatic, and hence lead to skepticism.

Pozzo, Riccardo. “Ein grosses Beinhaus. La biblioteca dei filosofi.” [Italian; Ein grosses Beinhaus. The Library of Philosophers] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 367-74. [M] [online]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Embedded Cosmopolitanism: History, Philosophy, and Education for World Citizens, by Georg Cavallar (2015). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 457-59. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of The Powers of Pure Reason: Kant and the Idea of Cosmic Philosophy, by Alfredo Ferrarin (2015). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 471-72. [PW]

Prunea-Bretonnet, Tinca. “Kant et Mendelssohn sur la question «Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?»” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 393-400. [M]

[top] Q    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

[top] R    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Rainsborough, Marita. “Freiheit, Natur und Geschichte. Zum Verhältnis von Natur und Geschichte bei Kant und Foucault.” [German; Freedom, Nature and History. The Relationship between Nature and History in Kant and Foucault] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 339-50. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] While Kant views nature as being anchored in the historical process, with historical progress only possible in combination with the teleology of nature, in Foucault’s work nature loses its fundamental role and, consequently, the concept of nature its central position in the overall philosophical concept. History, posits Foucault, undergoes a process of detachment from nature, and is seemingly transformed into a series of random events. While he also views history as representing a human task whose concern is to shape the world; the social community and the self – a process which presupposes human liberty – this is, however, not understood as the autonomy of the self-legislation of human practical reason and moral improvement within the scope of the historical process, as in Kant’s work, but rather in the sense of self-forming as an ethical stance which is, in particular, equated with self-liberation from power contexts. In the case of Foucault it is thus possible to refer not only to the ‘death of the human’ and ‘the death of the subject’ but also to the ‘death of nature’, since he ignores the agentialism of nature and matter. Foucault’s tendency to materialize the cultural, however, creates a possible bridge back to nature. The path leading away from nature could, in a renewed shift, quite possibly lead back to it. This is comparable with Foucault’s philosophical development with regard to the subject. Foucault himself was, however, no longer able to follow this path.

Raiva, Suma. “The Value of Difference: Kantian Hospitality and Flikschuh’s Rethinking of Nomadic Encounters.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 384-93. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this essay I discuss the issue of Kantian hospitality and how Katrin Flikschuh’s arguments in “Kant’s Nomads: Encountering Strangers” offer us a framework for dealing with certain problems that seem to arise out of the Kantian account, namely, problems of dealing with cultures unlike modern liberal states, such as nomadic and indigenous communities. I look at some criticisms of Kant’s position on hospitality and cosmopolitan right and on how Flikschuh’s discussion helps to resolve these criticisms. I focus especially on her discussion of respectful interaction and openness in the course of encountering cultural others, encounters that inherently and positively contain a large element of unexpectedness.

Ramos de Souza, Luís Eduardo. “Notas sobre a Estética transcendental de Kant: intuição e aparecimento, forma e matéria.” [Portuguese; Notes on Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic: intuition and appearance, form and matter] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 68-103. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The general problem that this paper seeks to investigate is this: are space and time really the pure forms of sensibility? Two opposing hypotheses will be analyzed, depending on whether an affirmative or negative answer to this question is considered. In the first (affirmative) hypothesis the concept of intuition and appearance in Kant's Aesthetics will be discussed, taking as a reference the Calabria's thesis (2017) that appearance depends on imagination and empirical intuition, as opposed to it will be shown that it is possible to conceive the appearance without the imagination and as a product only of pure and empirical intuition. In the second (negative) hypothesis will be shown several old and new arguments to question the limits and conditions under which space and time can be admitted to belong to human sensibility, whose main criticisms are scientific in general logical, physical-mathematical, biological, robotic). At the end of the paper some lines of reflection on sensitivity will be presented.

Rampazzo Bazzan, Marco. “Sapere aude et Doctrine de la science. Les résurgences de la devise kantienne des Lumières dans les cours de Fichte à l’Université de Berlin.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 273-81. [M]

Rauscher, Frederick. “Human Morality: Replies to Pollok, Bojanowski and Louden.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 495-507. [PW]

Rego, Pedro Costa. “Kant contra o silogismo da idealidade: notas sobre a Refutação de 1781.” [Portuguese; Kant against the Syllogism of Ideality: Notes on the Refutation of 1781] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 305-19. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper is a commentary on Kant`s general enterprise of a refutation of idealism and its chief focus is the Fourth Paralogism of both first and second editions of the Critique of Pure Reason. I argue that, in contrast to the mainstream interpretation and even to what Kant explicitly states on his account of the kinds of “objection” laid out at the section of the First Critique entitled “Observation on the sum of the pure doctrine of the soul, following these Paralogisms”, the Critique`s objection to the author of the Fourth Paralogism is not, without restriction, a critical objection. More precisely, considering the ensemble of Kant`s reflection on the main subject of the Fourth Paralogism, Kant`s objection to its author, named Cartesian – or problematic idealist, is a dogmatic objection. In other words, Kant never meant to prove only the inconsistency of the proof of the idealistic thesis. Moreover, not only the refutation that takes place at the Fourth Paralogism, but also the whole set of Kant` arguments against idealism are committed to the explicit contention that the idealistic thesis about the existence of the external world is a proposition endowed with a determinable truth-value. Namely, it is in a sense true, and in a sense false, depending on the text under consideration – whether the 81's or the 87's refutation – as well as on the sense in which the expressions “external world” and “things outside us” are taken in the first text. In any event, it is never an undecidable proposition. The reason why Kant cannot suspend the judgment contained in the conclusion of the idealistic syllogism is that this conclusion, depending on the sense in which its terms are taken, either denies or directly confirms the crux of the objectivity theory of transcendental idealism.

Reider, Patrick J. “Does Philosophy Require a Weak Transcendental Approach?” Metaphilosophy 48.4 (2017): 550-71. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Despite any shortcomings of Kant's transcendental philosophy, the spirit (rather than the letter) of Kant's approach is correct. In particular, Kant is correct to believe (1) an accurate account of the types of 'access' humans possess to internal and empirical content should form the groundwork for epistemic and ethical investigation and (2) epistemic and ethical investigations cannot successfully circumvent this groundwork. In this context, the term 'access' concerns the mental processes that render internal and external experience possible. In supporting the above claims, this article outlines and defends what can be considered a weak version of Kant's transcendental approach. This weaker approach does not require the achievement of synthetic a priori judgments, which permit deductive conclusions concerning possible experience (as opposed to a strong approach, which maintains these requirements).

Rennó Ribeiro Santos, Leonardo. “À propos d’une source négligée de la notion kantienne des Lumières: la Leçon Menschenkunde sur l’anthropologie.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 457-64. [M]

Rescher, Nicholas. “Kant’s Platonism.” Philosophical Inquiry 41.1 (2017): 2-10. [PW]

Ribeiro Vollet, Lucas. “Foundationalist or Fallibilist: the epistemological ambiguity of Kant’s theory and an answer against fallibilist oppositions to Kant.” Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 97-112. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The following article argues for four main points: 1. Kant’s epistemological thesis about the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments is neither a fallibilist nor a fundationalist stance on the nature of knowledge. 2. The inevitable epistemological ambiguity between fallibilism and foundationalism follows from a) Kant’s in-between metaphysical thesis that mixes empirical realism and transcendental idealism, b) Kant’s blended empiricism, that demands formal elements of subjectivity in order to authorize possible experience and c) the creation of an ‘in-between’ rhetoric that allows Kant to (c.1) transit between the best features of seemingly opposite philosophies, and (c.2) allows him to preserve his set of problems from being kidnapped by technical approaches or empirical science methodologies 3. Kant’s answer to the question of knowledge and empirical validity only acquires meaning inside the rhetorical structure of a transcendental problem that involves the linking of the problem of knowledge (and empirical validity) to the practical-human problem and its post-metaphysical residues. 4.The impossibility to place Kant in one or another side of the debate between fallibilists and foundationalists (being the same valid for the conflict between realists and idealists) shows an incorrigible

Riccardi, Mattia. “Nietzsche on Kant’s Distinction between Knowledge (Wissen) and Belief (Glaube).” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 153-66. [M]

Richardson, John. “Nietzsche, Transcendental Argument and the Subject.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 27-44. [M]

Rimkus, Edvardas. “Some Remarks on the Criticism of Kant’s Theoretical Philosophy in the Vilnius Epistemological School.” Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.2 (2017): 3-19. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Janas Sniadeckis and Angelas Daugirdas were professors at Vilnius University and paid a great deal of attention to Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Interpretations and critical evaluations of some of Kant’s theories done by these academics are surveyed and analyzed in this article. Both thinkers represent Lithuanian Enlightenment philosophy, and are the most famous representatives of the so- called Vilnius epistemological school, which emerged at the beginning of the 19th century in Lithuania. Current research focuses mainly on two fundamental philosophical distinctions apparent in Kant’s theoretical philosophy: the distinction between thing-in-itself and appearance, expressing Kant’s view on the limits of metaphysical and empirical cognition, and also on the difference between the form and matter of cognition which grounds Kant’s epistemological apriorism. The author seeks to assess the interpretational and critical positions of these key aspects of Kant’s theoretical philosophy as presented by Vilnius thinkers. The reconstructed and interpreted critical arguments of Sniadeckis and Daugirdas are compared with the philosophical theories of Kant. The author shows, and philosophically reflects upon, the conflict of different philosophical paradigms represented by Kant and the Vilnius philosophers, as well as highlighting the basic incompatibility of empiricism and transcendentalism as methodologies of epistemology, as seen in the early critical reception of Kant’s theoretical philosophy by the Vilnius epistemological school.

Rivera Castro, Faviola. “Introducción.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 7-15. [M] [online]

 ——. “La primera fórmula del imperativo categórico.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 55-82. [M] [online]

 ——, ed. See: Aramayo, Roberto Rodriguez, and Faviola Rivera Castro, eds.

Rivera de Rosales, Jacinto. Rev. of The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism, edited by Matthew C. Altman (2014). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 172-74. [PW]

Robertson, Simon. “Normativity and Moral Psychology: Nietzsche’s Critique of Kantian Universality.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 51-89. [M]

Robinson, Elizabeth. “Kant and Hume on Marriage.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 181-96. [M]

 ——, and Chris W. Surprenant, eds. Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. New York/London: Routledge, 2017. [xiv, 367 p.] [M] [review] [review]

[Contents] [Hide Contents] Festschrift for Manfre Kuehn.
Manfred Kuehn (Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment: An Introduction),
Aaron Garrett (Hutcheson on the Unity of Virtue and Right),
Michael Walschots (Hutcheson and Kant: Moral Sense and Moral Feeling),
Wiebke Deimling (Hutcheson’s and Kant’s Critique of Sympathy),
Reed Winegar (Kant and Hutcheson on Aesthetics and Teleology),
J. Colin McQuillan (Outer Sense, Inner Sense, and Feeling: Hutcheson and Kant on Aesthetic Pleasure),
Paul Guyer (Taste, Morality, and Common Sense: Kant and the Scots),
Oliver Sensen (Kant and Hume on Feelings in Moral Philosophy),
Lawrence Pasternack (Hume’s Principle and Kant’s Pure Rational System of Religion: Grace, Providence, and the Highest Good),
Robert B. Louden (A Writer More Excellent than Cicero: Hume’s Influence on Kant’s Anthropology),
Elizabeth Robinson (Kant and Hume on Marriage),
Frank Schalow (Hume and Kant on Imagination: Thematic and Methodological Differences),
Bryan Hall (Hume and Kant on Space, Divisibility, and Antinomical Conflict),
Mark Pickering (Hume and Kant on Identity and Substance),
Alexander Schaefer (An Alternative to Heteronomy and Anarchy: Kant’s Reformulation of the Social Contract),
JP Messina (Kant, Smith, and the Place of Virtue in Political and Economic Organization),
John McHugh (Adam Smith’s Kantian Phenomenology of Moral Motivation),
Jack Russell Weinstein (Kant and Smith on Imagination, Reason, and Personhood),
Scott Stapleford (Seeing a Flower in the Garden: Common Sense, Transcendental Idealism),
Brigitte Sassen (Kant’s Heuristic Methods: Feeling and Common Sense in Orientation and Taste).

Rockmore, Tom. “Hegel and Husserl: Two Phenomenological Reactions to Kant.” Hegel Bulletin 38.1 (2017): 67-84. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The widespread tendency to understand phenomenology on a Husserlian model makes it incomparable with other views. I will use the term ‘phenomenology’ in a wider sense to refer to approaches to cognition based on phenomena. From the latter angle of vision, ’phenomenology’ includes not only Husserl and the Husserlians but also a wider selection of thinkers stretching back to early Greece. Although this will enlarge the scope of what counts as phenomenology, I will not be claiming that everyone is a phenomenologist. I will, however, be arguing that Kant, Hegel and Husserl are phenomenologists, or again phenomenological thinkers, and that Hegel and Husserl can be understood through their different reactions to Kantian phenomenology.

Rodríguez Duplá, Leonardo. “El Cristo de Kant.” [Spanish] Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 75-95. [PW]

Rohlf, Michael. “Contemporary Kantian Moral Philosophy.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 791-813. [M]

Rojek, Tim. Rev. of Vernunft und Vorsehung. Säkularisierte Eschatologie in Kants Religions- und Geschichtsphilosophie, by Matthias Hoesch (2014). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 459-63. [PW]

Rollmann, Veit Justus. Rev. of The Post-Critical Kant. Understanding the Critical Philosophy through the Opus postumum, by Bryan Wesley Hall (2014). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 166-70. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Theory of Biology, edited by Ina Goy and Eric Watkins (2014). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 171-72. [PW]

Rosales, Jacinto Rivera de. “Attempt to introduce the concept of body into the Critique of Pure Reason.”  Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 231-49. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The body of the subject should be considered as a transcendental element for all objective cognition and must play an essential role in the third Analogy of experience. For that it is necessary to understand that both the outer and inner appearances have their own specific spatiality and temporality. The starting point is the Kantian reflections in his “Refutation of Idealism” and its consequences.

Rosales Sánchez, Juan José. “La epistemología kantiana y el contenido no conceptual.” [Spanish; Kantian Epistemology and Non-Conceptual Content] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 106-20. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] John McDowell holds that the content of experience is completely conceptual; hence anything as non-conceptual content could ever exist. This philosopher argues that the basis which backs up this unique content could be found in Kant works, specifically in the Critique of Pure Reason. Thus, this paper begins at the direct readings of this Kantian work, Logic Lectures well-known as Jäsche, and the indirect reading of Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space as well, so we argue in favor of an interpretation of skills and practices as possible expressions of non-conceptual content in Kant Epistemology.

Rosenkoetter, Timothy.  “The Logical Home of Kant’s Table of Functions.”  Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism: Logik/Logic, eds. Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick. 12 (2017): 29-52. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Inferentialism: The Case Against Hume, by David Landy (2015). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Jul 2017, #12). [M] [online]

Ros Velasco, Josefa. Rev. of A civilização como destino. Kant e as formas da reflexão, by Nuria Sánchez Madrid (2016). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 100-2. [M] [online]

Rosefeldt, Tobias. “Subjects of Kant’s First Paralogism.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 221-44??. [WC]

Rossi, Philip J., SJ. “On Stephen Palmquist’s Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s «Religion».” Critique (blog posted: 17 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Rovira, Rogelio. “Mendelssohn’s Refutation of Kant’s Critique of the Ontological Proof.” Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 401-26. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In his Morning Hours, a mere four years after the publication of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Moses Mendelssohn provided an accurate and complete refutation of Kant’s criticism of the ontological argument. In this paper, I expound the way in which both Kant and Mendelssohn conceive of the ontological proof. Later, I analyse Mendelssohn’s discussion of the three possible forms in which Kant’s main objection to the argument can be presented, as identified by Mendelssohn himself. I conclude that Mendelssohn’s defence of the ontological proof, far from being an attempt to reduce the question to a mere verbal dispute, seems to succeed in drastically limiting the value and scope of Kant’s criticism of speculative theology.

Ruffing, Margit. “Kant-Bibliographie 2015.” Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 601-49. [PW]

 ——, ed. See: Grapotte, Sophie, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing, eds.

[top] S    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Sabourin, Charlotte. “Les critiques au service du progrès: Kant et l’usage public de la raison en politique.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 401-9. [M]

Sadun Bordoni, Gianluca. “1784 - l’année fatidique.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 103-18. [M]

Sánchez Madrid, Nuria. “Huyendo de la nada. finitud y formas de sociabilidad en la antropología kantiana.” [Spanish] La filosofía práctica de Kant. Eds. Roberto Rodriguez Aramayo and Faviola Rivera Castro (op cit.). 223-59. [M] [online]

 ——, and Macarena Marey. “Kant et le droit en 1784: la formation de l’obligation juridique dans le cours Naturrecht Feyerabend.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 215-23. [M]

 ——. “La Primera Introducción de la Crítica del Juicio: las bases emocionales de la teoría en Kant.” [Spanish; The First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment: the Emotional Basis of Theory in Kant] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 25-42. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper tackles the function that the First Introduction of the Critique of Judgment fulfils for gaining a sound understanding of Kant’s transcendental philosophy, taking into account the emotional grounding of any production of knowledge and the experience of happiness that it furnishes to the subject. The bulk of my remarks are indebted to Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos’ reading of this writing, a key text for explaining how Kant views the last ground of reason. The goal of the paper is to highlight the intertwining between the process of knowledge and anthropology, as the conquer of objectivity means for the subject the fulfilment of the purposes of reason.

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Politics in Context, by Reidar Maliks (2014). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 427-30. [M] [online]

Sánchez-Rodríguez, Manuel. “Kant and His Philosophical Context: The Reception and Critical Transformation of the Leibnizian-Wolffian Philosophy.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 49-68. [M]

Sandford, Stella. Rev. of Kant’s Organicism: Epigenesis and the Development of Critical Philosophy, by Jennifer Mensch (2013). Critical Philosophy of Race 3.1 (2015): 167-70. [MUSE]

Santamaría Pérez, Adrián. See: Freire, Jesús Pinto, and Adrián Santamaría Pérez.

Santos, Robinson dos. “Kant e a metaética contemporânea.” [Portuguese; [Kant and the contemporary metaethics] Studia Kantiana 15.1 (2017): 67-86. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My purpose in this essay is to characterize and analyze some controversy around a possible meta-ethical interpretation of Kant's moral philosophy. On the one hand, Kant is understood as a moral realist insofar as he argues in defense of the objectivity, necessity and universal validity of the moral law. On the other hand, he is also understood as a moral anti-realist, since his ethics, based on the conception of practical reason, is interpreted as constructivist, in which moral can’t be seen as something independent of the human mind, as if it belonged to a sui generis sphere. It is necessary to clarify what moral realism and moral anti-realism are and analyze the arguments of both interpretations. I want to argue that, strictly speaking, Kant can’t simply be included into either sides without problems.

Sá Pereira, Roberto de. “A Non-Dual Epistemic Phenomenalist Reading of Kant’s Idealism.” Contemporary Studies in Kantian Philosophy 2 (2017): 1-22. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this paper is to present a new reading of Kantian idealism. Lacking a better name, I call my interpretation 'non-dual-epistemic-phenomenalism'. It is 'non-dual' because, from a strictly metaphysical viewpoint, my reading rules out the metaphysical mind-world dualism (one-world view). However, I prefer to call it non-dual rather than two-aspect because it does not reduce the transcendental divide between noumena and phenomena to the mere opposition between two ways of considering the same reality. The noumenon functions to limit our cognitive claims (Grenzbegriff), but also signifies the underlying nature of reality. Even assuming that noumenon and phenomenon are numerically identical entities, I reject the associated claim that the phenomenon is the intentional object of the sensible intuition and of human cognition in general. The intentional object of our sensible intuition is what Kant calls a transcendental object in the first edition and noumenon in the negative sense in the second edition. Thus, according to the reading that I am proposing, the phenomenon is nothing but the way that the noumenon in the negative sense (or the transcendental object) appears to our human sensibility or exists inside our human sensibility as a mere representation. Therefore, I also call it 'phenomenalism' because we can only cognize things mind-dependently insofar as they appear to us as mere representations inside our minds. However, those things are nothing but mind-independently existing noumena. Finally, I also call it 'epistemic phenomenalist' because I reject both Berkeleian ontological phenomenalism (according to which reality is a logical construction of mind-dependent representations) and non-reductionist two-worlds-plus-phenomenalist views.

Sardinha, Diogo. “Nature, action et émancipation dans la Réponse à la question: Qu’est-ce que les Lumières?” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 225-33. [M]

Sassen, Brigitte. “Kant’s Heuristic Methods: Feeling and Common Sense in Orientation and Taste.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 342-60. [M]

Savino, Daniele. Rev. of Kant e la scienza (1755-1760), by Paolo Grillenzoni (2016). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 96-99. [M] [online]

Scaglia, Lara. Rev. of Erkenntnis und Funktion. Zur Vollstandigkeit der Urteilstafel und Einheit des Kantischen Systems, by Martin Bunte (2016). [English] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 401-3. [M] [online]

 ——. Rev. of Versinnlichung. Kants transzendentaler Schematismus und seine Revision in der Nachfolge – Actus et Imago, by Lidia Gasperoni (2016). [English] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 457-59. [M] [online]

Schaefer, Alexander. “An Alternative to Heteronomy and Anarchy: Kant’s Reformulation of the Social Contract.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 245-66. [M]

Schalow, Frank. “Hume and Kant on Imagination: Thematic and Methodological Differences.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 197-211. [M]

Scheerlinck, Ryan. “Enthusiasmus und Ekel: Ein posthumer Dialog zwischen Kant und Lyotard.” Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 427-53. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The interpretation of the second treatise of the Conflict of the Faculties constitutes the basis and the core not only of Lyotard’s understanding of Kant’s thought, but equally of his self-understanding. As I will try to show, Lyotard’s interpretation proves to be highly selective in that it mainly focuses on Kant’s remarks on enthusiasm and on the concept of a sign of history. The blind spot of Lyotard’s reading seems largely due to the fact that he ignores the motive that forces the philosopher to confront the challenge of history as well as the dialogical situation which Kant sets up in this text. A confrontation of Lyotard’s interpretation with Kant’s text might thus contribute to a better understanding of the unity underlying Lyotard’s thought as well as of the specific character of Kant’s Political Philosophy.

Schepelmann, Maja. Kants Gesamtwerk in neuer Perspektive. Münster: Mentis, 2017. [530 p.] [WC]

Scherer, Fábio César. “Da garantia do progresso do gênero humano no Kant tardio.” [Portuguese; The guarantee of human progress in late Kant] Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 5-21. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The question for the legal-political and moral progress of mankind according to an idea of which direction the world should go, in case it was adequated for certain rational purposes, is established by Kant in 1784. Later, it was discussed in different texts, particularly in 1798. In these, it was addressed the "approximation of the most perfect legalpolitical state to men" as a way for humankind moral development, being the first one the means to reach the second one. Such linearity, however, is not found when one asks about the mechanism that propels and guarantees this progress. In the first writing on philosophy of history of the critical phase (1784), the antagonistic dispositions of "unsociable sociability" imposed by nature in the human nature are presented as the driving force for the development of human potentialities. Nevertheless, in the last critical text devoted to the philosophy of history (1798), Kant introduces a positive aspect in human nature, not addressed until then, the moral tendency of mankind, as responsible for such progress. In the present article, it will be identified some elements that help explain this change in the mechanism of guaranteeing the progress of mankind in late Kant. It will be sustained, basically, that there is a transition from the philosophy of history based on a hetero-imposed structure (driven by nature and providence) to a self-imposed one - being one of the reasons to the resumption of the question of the possibility of a a priori history in 1798.

Schliesser, Eric. See: Biener, Zvi, and Eric Schliesser.

Schlüter, Stephan. “L’actualité du programme cosmopolitique de l’histoire de l’éducation de Kant et son lien avec la Stoa.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 411-19. [M]

Schönecker, Dieter. See: Smith, Elke Elizabeth, and Dieter Schönecker.

Schubbach, Arno. “Kants Konzeption der geometrischen Darstellung.” Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 19-54. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The crucial role played by intuition in Kant’s theory of geometry has been widely discussed. Largely unacknowledged, however, is the fact that Kant here introduces a far-reaching concept: the construction (or Darstellung) of concepts in intuition. ‘Darstellung’, for Kant, refers to the practical use the geometer makes of intuition: starting with a concept like ‘triangle’, he/she (1) constructs a figure in order to (2) reflect on the act and the rule of construction, such that (3) this figure delineates the general concept and exhibits some of its properties (e. g. the sum of the inner angles equals two right angles). In this reflective use of intuition, the single figure does not represent in the manner of an arbitrary sign; rather, it allows us to grasp the general concept by engaging with a singular instance of it.

Schulting, Dennis. Kant’s Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. [xvi, 442 p.] [M]

 ——. “Apperception, Self-Consciousness, and Self-Knowledge in Kant.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 139-61. [M]

 ——. “Kant’s Idealism and Phenomenalism. Critical Notice of Lucy Allais’s Manifest Reality. Kant’s Idealism & His Realism.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 191-202. [PW]

 ——. “On Robert Hanna’s Cognition, Content, and the A Priori.” Critique (blog posted: 27 May 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “The Unity of Cognition and the Subjectivist vs. “Transformative” Approaches to the B-Deduction—Comments on James Conant.” Critique (blog posted: 4 Oct 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——. “Reply to Watt: Epistemic Humility, Objective Validity, Logical Derivability.” Critique (blog posted: 11 Nov 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Schwab, Daniel. Rev. of Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1748-1800). Eine Begriffsgeschichte., by Laura Anna Macor (2013). [German] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 103-8. [M] [online]

Schwartz, Jeremy. “Was Kant a ‘Kantian Constructivist’?” Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 257-80. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Both metaethicists and Kant scholars alike use the phrase ‘Kantian constructivism’ to refer to a kind of austere constructivism that holds that substantive ethical conclusions can be derived from the practical standpoint of rational agency as such. I argue that this widespread understanding of Kant is incompatible with Kant’s claim that the Categorical Imperative is a synthetic a priori practical judgement. Taking this claim about the syntheticity of the Categorical Imperative seriously implies that moral judgements follow from extra-logical but necessary principles. These principles have to do not with the laws of practical thinking but the laws of practical thought about an object. I conclude that historical Kant was not what has come to be called a ‘Kantian constructivist’.

Schwarzkopf, Grit, and Hannah Monyer. “Das kantische Raummodell in der Neurobiologie.” Kant-Studien 108.2 (2017): 247-69. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The neurobiological findings of the Nobel laureates John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser have been widely discussed in the context of a “Kantian View of Space”. Thus, spatially tuned cells have been considered the physiological substrate of Kant’s a priori representation of space. Based on neuroscientific and philosophical considerations, the authors maintain that such an interpretation is misleading. Referring to Kant’s own arguments in dealing with Soemmerring’s assertion according to which the cerebral fluid of the ventricles constitutes the physiological substrate of the soul, the authors argue that attributing epistemic functions to a physiological substrate constitutes a vitium subreptionis. However, when used as an analogy, the transfer of concepts from one discipline to another can promote the interdisciplinary dialogue, as shown here on the example of the a priori representation of space.

Sckell, Soraya Nour. “A Cosmopolitan Law Created by Cosmopolitan Citizens: The Kantian Project Today.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 593-615. [M]

 ——. “O cosmopolitismo de Kant: direito, política e natureza.” [Portuguese; Kant’s Cosmopolitanism: Law, Politics, and Nature] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 199-213. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this essay, I present the concept of cosmopolitan law by Kant as the law that considers the human being as a citizen of the world, regardless of her/his state. I analyze how international law currently protects freedom formally at the cosmopolitan level in the case of two instruments: the individual petition on human rights and labor rights issues and the individual responsibility for international crimes (which Kant had in mind with his concept of “cosmopolitan law“). I then analyze how the protection of freedom in two international fora requires the development of specific policies for the protection of certain groups, which is largely motivated by monitoring the work of these forums by NGOs and other civil associations. From this analysis, I show that the Kantian concept of cosmopolitan law must be intrinsically linked to questions of identity (analysis of social inequalities and how roles and social stereotypes are constructed) and to the concept of cosmopolitan citizenship as a practice of cross-border associations in political struggles (rather than concepts such as “world society” or “collective consciousness”). A necessary path to follow is the connection, developed by Professor Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos, between cosmopolitanism and the cosmos.

Seide, Ansgar. “How the Understanding Prescribes Form without Prescribing Content – Kant on Empirical Laws in the Second Analogy of Experience.” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 133-58. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant claims that the understanding prescribes the existence and necessity of empirical laws to nature, while it does not prescribe which particular empirical laws hold. That is to say, the understanding prescribes the general form of nature (lawfulness) and the form of the empirical laws (necessity) without prescribing the material content. But how is this possible? How can the understanding guarantee that there are necessary empirical laws without prescribing particular empirical laws to nature? In this paper, I want to answer this question by analyzing Kant’s argument for the Second Analogy of Experience in combination with an analysis of his conception of actuality. As I want to show, an application of Kant’s conception of actuality to the argument for the Second Analogy not only fills a gap in this argument, but also leads to an explanation of how the understanding can prescribe lawfulness to nature without prescribing particular laws.

Séguy-Duclot, Alain . “Derrida et le Parergon: une lecture critique.” Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 116-33. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The theory of the parergon, presented by Kant in § 14 of the Analytic of the Beautiful in the Critique of Judgment (1791), was the subject of a detailed critique by Derrida in The Truth in Painting (1978). The Kantian theory is based on a distinction between the intrinsic production (the ergon) and the extrinsic production (the parergon) of a work. Studying the examples of painting, sculpture and even architecture put forward by Kant, Derrida concluded that it was impossible to distinguish between the interior and the exterior of a work. We move beyond the often inaccurate translations to conduct a close examination of Kant’s German text. Not only does this clarify the meaning of the theory of the parergon, but it also reveals implicit conceptual distinctions that allow us to challenge Derrida’s critique.

Seneda, Marcos César. “Teoria crítica da sensibilidade e contrapartidas incongruentes em Kant.” [Portuguese; Kant’s critical theory of sensibility and incongruent counterparts] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 10-27. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The Transcendental Aesthetics is a key piece in the research program that Kant developed and that he named as transcendental philosophy. It is announced in the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770 and it is very explicitly described in the Critique of Pure Reason, first published in 1781. As conceived by Kant, the aesthetics allowed him to radically separate intellect and sensibility, but we also think that it would be important to understand the root of this separation. In this paper we try to show that the little 1768 text, that was titled "Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space", has quite decisive characteristics for the aesthetics proposed in the critical period. To illustrate this, we presented central ideas from the text about the incongruent counterparts. Our purpose will be to compare them with items 3 and 4 of the Metaphysical Exposition of the concept of space and with items 4 and 5 of the Metaphysical Exposition of the concept of time.

Sensen, Oliver. “Duties to Oneself.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 285-306. [M]

 ——. “Kant and Hume on Feelings in Moral Philosophy.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 125-41. [M]

 ——. Rev. of Kantian Ethics: Value, Agency, and Obligation, by Robert Stern (2015). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Jan 2017, #17). [M] [online]

Serban, Claudia. “A priori, nécessité, facticité, ego. Husserl critique de Kant.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 195-212. [M]

Seyler, Frédéric. “La médiation du droit: Le «modèle de 1784» (Kant) et le «modèle de 1806» (Fichte).” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 283-91. [M]

Shabel, Lisa. “Kant’s Mathematical Principles of Pure Understanding.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 163-83. [PW]

Shaddock, Justin B. “Recent Work on Kant’s Transcendental Deduction.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.2 (2017): 401-10. [PW]

Shell, Susan Meld. “On Stephen Palmquist’s Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s «Religion».” Critique (blog posted: 13 Mar 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Shepherdson, Charles. “Aesthetic ‘Sense’ in Kant and Nancy.” New Literary History 48.2 (2017): 197-221. [M]

Shields, Jon Kara. “The Intolerable God: Kant's Theological Journey.” Anglican Theological Review 99.2 (2017): 397-99. [PI]

Shimony, Idan. “What Was Kant’s Contribution to the Understanding of Biology?” Kant Yearbook 9 (2017): 159-78. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s theory of biology in the Critique of the Power of Judgment may be rejected as obsolete and attacked from two opposite perspectives. In light of recent advances in biology one can claim contra Kant, on the one hand, that biological phenomena, which Kant held could only be explicated with the help of teleological principles, can in fact be explained in an entirely mechanical manner, or on the other, that despite the irreducibility of biology to physico-mechanical explanations, it is nonetheless proper science. I argue in response that Kant’s analysis of organisms is by no means obsolete. It reveals biology’s uniqueness in much the same way as several current theorists do. It brings to the fore the unique purposive characteristics of living phenomena, which are encapsulated in Kant’s concept of “natural end” and which must be explicated in natural terms in order for biology to become a science. I maintain that Kant’s reluctance to consider biology proper science is not a consequence of his critical philosophy but rather of his inability to complete this task. Kant lacked an appropriate theoretical framework, such as provided later by modern biology, which would enable the integration of the unique features of biology in an empirical system. Nevertheless, as I show in this paper, the conceptual problems with which Kant struggled attest more to the relevance and depth of his insights than to the shortcomings of his view. His contribution to the biological thought consists in insisting on an empirical approach to biology and in providing the essential philosophical underpinning of the autonomous status of biology.

Siemens, Herman. “Kant’s ‘Respect for the Law’ as the ‘Feeling of Power’: On (the Illusion of) Sovereignty.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 109-36. [M]

 ——. “Nietzsche Contra Kant on Genius, Originality and Agonal Succession.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 15-42. [M]

 ——, ed. See: Brusotti, Marco, and Herman Siemens, eds.

Silva Cortes, Rafael da. “Looking for Kant: considerações sobre o sentimento de respeito kantiano do ponto de vista da neurociência contemporânea.” [Portuguese; Looking for Kant: considerations on the kantian feeling of respect from a contemporary neuroscience point of view] Studia Kantiana 15.3 (2017): 79-95. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this paper we analyze the Kantian concept of feeling of respect for the law (Achtung vor dem Gesetz) in the light of the studies and reflections on contemporary neuroscience. Our goal is to understand to what extent it is legitimate to consider respect for the moral law a real feeling, although it originates in reason. For this, in this paper we use the Kant's work on the grounds of morality, in which the author explains the characteristics of that feeling and its importance to the moral law. Put these considerations, we focus in Antonio Damasio`s research on feelings, exposed in his work called Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, 2003. So we focus on the author's thoughts on the origin and relationship of feelings with the mind, the brain and the human body. Finally, we propose a semantic revision of the Kantian concept of feeling of respect, based on the results obtained by Damasio`s research on feelings.

Simon, Jonathan, and Colin Marshall. “Mendelssohn, Kant, and the Mereotopology of Immortality.” Ergo 4.29 (2017): 821-44. [M][online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the first Critique, Kant claims to refute Moses Mendelssohn’s argument for the immortality of the soul. But some commentators, following Bennett (1974), have identified an apparent problem in the exchange: Mendelssohn appears to have overlooked the possibility that the “leap” between existence and non-existence might be a boundary or limit point in a continuous series, and Kant appears not to have exploited the lacuna, but to have instead offered an irrelevant criticism. Here, we argue that even if these commentators are correct, an argument against the leap-as-limit possibility is implicit in claims that Mendelssohn accepts. Moreover, Kant’s criticism of Mendelssohn adapts naturally into a response to this argument, though Mendelssohn endorses further claims which enable him to address this Kantian response. To illustrate the philosophical issues in play, we conclude by noting the affinity between the Mendelssohnian argument we develop and several prominent arguments in contemporary metaphysics: David Lewis’s argument from vagueness for unrestricted composition, Ted Sider’s argument from vagueness for perdurantism, and Peter Unger’s argument from the problem of the many for substance dualism. In short, we argue that the philosophical issues involved in the Mendelssohn-Kant exchange are much richer than previous commentators have believed, and that there is a Mendelssohnian argument for the immortality of the soul (or anyway, the permanence of simples) that does not suffer from any obvious flaw.

Sims, Stephen. “Political Philosophy and the Problems of International Order: Machiavelli, Kant, and Aristotle.” Perspectives on Political Science 46.2 (2017): 127-36. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Although international order is a consistent concern for both statesmen and citizens, it has received only rare attention from political theorists. In this essay I evaluate the contemporary international order in light of political thought, specifically with reference to Machiavelli, Kant, and Aristotle. Contemporary international order and its historical roots in the Peace of Augsburg find theoretical expression in the writings of Machiavelli, especially insofar as he advocates for overturning classical political thought. By rejecting classical political thought and the notion of natural right, along with Christian doctrine, Machiavelli set the stage for the political absolutism that underlies the concept of state sovereignty, as it was expressed at Augsburg. Kant, in rejecting Machiavelli's political absolutism, prepared the ground for international human rights. In doing so he provided theoretic ground for the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But while human rights may provide a welcome balance to state sovereignty, they undermine international order insofar as international order relies on state sovereignty. I suggest that the current theoretical and legal inconsistencies that come about from making room for both state sovereignty and human rights may have their origins in modern political theory's rejection of Aristotelian political thought.

Sirovátka, Jakub. Rev. of Kant on Emotion and Value, edited by Alix Cohen (2014). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 464-67. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of Kant’s Theory of Emotion. Emotional Universalism, by Diane Williamson (2015). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 484-87. [PW]

 ——. Rev. of The Faculties of the Human Mind and the Case of Moral Feeling in Kant’s Philosophy, by Antonino Falduto (2014). Kant-Studien 108.4 (2017): 672-75. [PW]

Skorupski, John. “Reply to Kurt Sylvan: Constructivism? Not Kant, not I.” Philosophical Quarterly 67.268 (2017): 593-605. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kurt Sylvan’s generous discussion of my book, The Domain of Reasons, argues that its account of reason relations would be strengthened if I accepted some version of ‘Kantian constructivism’, and that that would, moreover, bring me closer to Kant. I argue against both these claims. I do not agree that ‘Kantian constructivism’, understood in its contemporary sense, would strengthen my account of normativity. Nor do I agree that adopting it would make me more Kantian. On the contrary, I believe that my cognitivist but irrealist account is closer to Kant than is anything that could be called ‘constructivism’ about reason.

Slowik, Edward. “Kantian Absolute Space in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science from a Huygensian Frame.” Journal of Early Modern Studies 6.2 (2017): 119-41. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This essay explores Kant’s concept of absolute space in the Metaphysical Foundations from the perspective of the development of the relationist interpretation of bodily interactions in the center-of-mass reference frame, a strategy that Huygens had originally pioneered and which Mach also endorsed. In contrast to the interpretations of Kant that stress a non-relationist, Newton-inspired orientation in his critical period work, it will be argued that the content and function of Kant’s utilization of this reference frame strategy places him much closer to Huygens’ relationism than the absolute notions of space and motion favored by Newton and Euler.

Smeenk, Chris J., and Yann Benétreau-Dupin. “The Cosmos as Involving Local Laws and Inconceivable without Them.” Monist 100.3 (2017): 357-72. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Traditional debates, such as those regarding whether the universe is finite in spatial or temporal extent, exemplified, according to Kant, the inherent tendency of pure reason to lead us astray. Although various aspects of Kant's arguments fail to find a footing in modern cosmology, Kant's objections to the search for a complete objective description of the cosmos are related to three intertwined issues that are still of central importance: the applicability of universal laws, the status of distinctively cosmological laws, and the explanatory sufficiency of laws. We will advocate a broadly Kantian position on these three issues as part of a critical response to a prevalent strain of Leibnizian rationalism in contemporary cosmology.

Smith, Elke Elizabeth, and Dieter Schönecker. “O amor em Kant e na filosofia analítica.” [Portuguese; Love According to Kant and the Analytic Philosophy] Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 75-93. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is a wide-spread prejudice among contemporary scholars that Kant's practical philosophy does not take into consideration human feelings and emotions. A careful analysis of Kant’s writings reveals however the central role played by feelings in his ethics. In this paper, we address Kant’s account on love and relate it to the latest discussions on love in the analytic tradition, especially to Harry Frankfurt’s philosophy of love.

Smith, John. “You Are What You Will: Kant, Schopenhauer, Facial Expression of Emotion, and Affective Computing.” German Life & Letters 70.4 (2017): 466-77. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Recent developments in the cognitive sciences have advanced the techniques of reading emotions on the human face. Paul Ekman has formalised the study of 'micro-expressions', universal ways in which emotions are embedded and expressed in the human face, and the field of 'affective computing' has employed software to allow facial expressions of emotion to be read and evaluated by digital technology. Such developments raise fundamental philosophical issues concerning the relationship between external physical signs on the body and internal, otherwise invisible characteristics of human nature. While this relationship lies at the heart of the centuries-old field of physiognomy in general, this essay explores discussions of it by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).

Smith, Steven G. “Meaningful Moral Freedom.” International Philosophical Quarterly 57.2 (2017): 155-72. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s central notion of a “causality of freedom” seems inconsistent with his theoretical analysis of causation. Because of its detachment from any reference to time, it is also seriously in tension with ordinary moral ideals of individuality, efficacy, responsiveness, and personal growth in the exercise of freedom. I suggest a way of conceiving moral freedom that avoids the absurdity of practical timelessness while preserving the main strengths of Kant’s theories of theoretical and practical meaning, including his refusal to specify the content of human fulfillment. Much as Kant’s ideal of the highest good combines the supreme good of moral virtue with its necessarily desired complement of worthy happiness, a Kantian ideal of the fullest freedom can combine the transcendental freedom of the moral disposition with individual exercises of freedom in the dramatic interaction of actual moral community.

Smith, Suzanne E. “Before Hegel and Beyond Kant: Risto Saarinen’s Recognition and Religion.” Harvard Theological Review 110.2 (2017): 301-13. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Extract: When religious tolerance appears in the literature on ecumenicism, religious pluralism, and other modes of peaceful coexistence, it is frequently juxtaposed with the words “beyond,” “more than,” and “is not enough.” To be sure, it is generally conceded in these contexts, tolerance is an improvement on intolerance, and, relatively speaking, then, a fine thing, as far it goes. For many, however, it does not go very far. “Religious tolerance,” we are told, “however virtuous, does nothing to remove our ignorance of one another.” It is thought to lack strenuousness, and hence, to be unsuited for modern moral conflicts, which tend increasingly toward the polarity characteristic of war: “Tolerance, especially of the knee-jerk variety. . . works as long as people can slink off by themselves, avoiding contact, and never facing up to what they truly believe.” No one says, “I am fighting for [fill in the blank] with all the toleration I can muster.”

Snowdon, Paul F. “The Lessons of Kant’s Paralogisms.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 245-61??. [WC]

Soboleva, Maja. “How we read Kant: an Empiricist and a Transcendental Reading of Kant’s Theory of Experience.” Philosophia 45.3 (2017): 1331-44. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The issue of the nature of cognitive experience has been a subject of lively debate in recent works on epistemology, and the philosophy of mind. During this debate, the relevance of Kant to contemporary theories of cognition has been re-discovered. However, participants in this debate disagree whether Kant was a conceptualist or a non-conceptualist, with regard to the character of intuitions. The central point of controversy concerns whether or not Kant’s sensible intuitions involve understanding and have a conceptual content. In this paper, I show that, despite their disagreements, both sides share a number of common presuppositions, which have determined a biased framework for the reading of Kant. My principal aim in this article is to reconcile the case for conceptualism with those interpretations which argue that intentionality and conceptuality can be separated. To achieve it, I present my own reconstruction of Kant’s theory of cognition, relying essentially on Kantian considerations found in the B-version of the Transcendental Deduction, and offer a new interpretation of Kantian conceptualism.

Sørensen, Asger. “Introducing Theme and Articles.” Danish Yearbook of Philosophy 50.1 (2017): 7-45. [PW]

[Note] [Hide Note] This issue of the Danish Yearbook of Philosophy is focused on Kant’s Perpetual Peace.

Sorensen, Kelly, and Diane Williamson, eds. Kant and the Faculty of Feeling. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. [x, 276 p.] [WC]

Sošková, Jana. “Kantovská estetika o perspektívach a „koncoch“ umenia alebo génius verzus remeselník.” [Slovak; Kantian Aesthetics on Perspectives and „Ends“ of Art or Genius versus Craftsman] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.2 (2017): 30-38. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Questions of the future of art and its meaning are a constant problem of philosophical and aesthetic theories. The paper focuses on the principles and implications of Kant’s and Kantian thinking about the perspectives and possible “ends” of art. The author concentrates on the problem of nature, form, and validity of aesthetic judgements, Kant’s understanding of art, Kant’s understanding of artist, and the implications of his thinking in future thought, as well as the “end” of art in subsequent aesthetic theories.

Sperber, Peter. “Solving the Regress Puzzle: J. F. Fries’s Psychological Reconstruction of Kant’s Transcendental Methodology.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.4 (2017): 675-91. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Many commentators have noted that Kant’s transcendental methodology seems to be in danger of infinite regress. This paper discusses an early and much-neglected attempt to resolve this Regress Puzzle. Jakob Friedrich Fries, one of the most prominent Kantians during the first decades of the nineteenth century, argued that in order to avoid the Regress Puzzle, Kant’s transcendental methodology had to be reconstructed on empirical-psychological premises. As part of this argument, Fries developed a subtle and original account of the importance of psychology for pure philosophy, and of the proper relationship between the two disciplines, that remains of interest.

Stacho, Kristián. “Od Kantovej etiky k jeho praktickej filozofii.” [Slovak; From Kant’s Ethics to his Practical Philosophy] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.1 (2017): 40-53. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of the paper is to clarify Kant’s ethical attitude in relation to society. On one hand, it requires an explanation of his ethical doctrine, on the other hand, a clarification of the character of interpersonal relations. Both of these aspects are closely connected as their common feature is represented by human nature. Analysis of this nature uncovers human rationality as well as it explains the unconditionality and necessity of Kant’s ethics for mutual social relations. In this context, the paper focuses on the relationships human – society, and human – nature. Analysis of these relationships shows a way of direction of humanity to a moral unit.

 ——. Rev. of Kant and Social Policies, edited by Andrea Faggion, Nuria Sánchez Madrid,and Alessandro Pinzani (2016). [Slovak] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.1 (2017): 57-67. [M] [online]

Stachoň, Marek. “Kant a problém spoločnosti.” [Slovak; Kant and the Problem of Society] Studia Philosophica Kantiana 2017.2 (2017): 39-60. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant was working on the assumption of basic need to respect man, and thus his social philosophy is directed to the demand for the restoration of human rights. It specifically addresses the need to ensure the protection of people in general, as well as their basic social rights (requirements), which consist of law, economy, and politics. What drives man to society is an emergency that literally forces him to associate with other people for a given purpose. These purposes may be different, may come from different affinities that differ from one another, so Kant aims to provide a legal framework to define the influence and legitimacy of these different individual claims. In this sense, the character of the idea of the social contract decides. The problem is the leadership of a good and active life, in which a person’s self-realization occurs. Kant searches for the causes that would hinder the development of the individual, of the development that brings positive development and progress to society, and therefore advocates active modelling of social reality and represents the idea of the so-called political community, the community of citizens involved in public affairs. In the field concerning the issues of law and politics, several distinct social-philosophical outcomes are brought about by problems such as the problem of justice, which is considered to be the priority principle of a civil society, and the problem of social order. Kant is convinced that law occupies first place. In this respect, he reveals a priori basics of law. At the end of human social organization, a completely just civic establishment and the emergence of a moral unit are expected.

Stan, Marius. “Metaphysical Foundations of Neoclassical Mechanics.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 214-33. [M]

 ——. See: McNulty, Michael Bennett, and Marius Stan.

Stang, Nick. “On Omri Boehm’s Kant’s Critique of Spinoza.” Critique (blog posted: 2 Jan 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Stapleford, Scott. “Seeing a Flower in the Garden: Common Sense, Transcendental Idealism.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 326-41. [M]

Stegmaier, Werner. “‘Resolute Reversals’: Kant’s and Nietzsche’s Orienting Decisions Concerning the Distinction between Reason and Nature.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 181-204. [M]

Stepanenko, Pedro. Rev. of Immanuel Kant, La Deducción trascendental y sus inéditos, 1772-1788, edited and translated by Gonzalo Serrano (2014). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 215-19. [M] [online]

Stephenson, Andrew. “Imagination and Inner Intuition.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 104-23. [WC]

 ——. “On Nicholas Stang’s Kant’s Modal Metaphysics.” Critique (blog posted: 2 Jul 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

 ——, ed. See: Gomes, Anil, and Andrew Stephenson, eds.

Sticker, Martin. “Kant’s Criticism of Common Moral Rational Cognition.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.1 (2017): 85-108. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] There is a consensus that Kant's aim in the Groundwork is to clarify, systematize and vindicate the common conception of morality. Philosophical theory hence serves a restorative function. It can strengthen agents' motivation, protect against self-deception and correct misunderstandings produced by uncritical moral theory. In this paper, I argue that Kant also corrects the common perspective and that Kant's Groundwork shows in which senses the common perspective, even considered apart from its propensity to self-deception and without being influenced by misleading theory, is deficient. Critical practical philosophy needs to set right agents about the stringency of some of their duties, and agents need to be made aware that they have certain other duties. I discuss how Kant corrects the common agent's notion of the stringency of the duty to not make false promises and how Kant corrects the common agent's notion of duties to self. I finally discuss how his critical practical philosophy can become popular and achieve the correction of the common perspective. I stress the role of education informed by philosophical theory for this and contrast it with so called ‘popular philosophy’.

Stiegler, Barbara. “Beyond the Beautiful and the Sublime? Nietzsche, Aesthetics and the Question about the Subject.” Nietzsche and Kant on Aesthetics and Anthropology. Eds. Maria João Mayer Branco and Katia Hay (op cit.). 99-111. [M]

Stiening, Gideon. Rev. of Johann Nicolaus Tetens, Metaphysik, edited by Michael Sellhoff (2015). Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 480-84. [PW]

Stobbe, Emanuel Lanzini. “Pode um construtivismo moral justificar o respeito por seres humanos? Considerações kantianas.” [Portuguese; Can a moral constructivism justify the respect for human beings? Kantian remarks] Kant e-Prints 12.1 (2017): 6-36. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper aims to present and discuss kinds of moral constructivism with Kantian influence, particularly regarding the justification problem concerning the requirement to respect human beings. In that regard, I shall consider three kinds of constructivism, being the first somehow a basis to the two following. First, I consider John Rawls’ interpretation of Kant’s moral philosophy as a moral constructivism, such as presented in his Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (2000). Second, from that interpretation, as well as its implications, I shall consider Onora O’Neill’s constructivism – in Constructions of Reason (1989) –, and Christine Korsgaard’s – in Creating the Kingdom of Ends (1996) and The Sources of Normativity (1996) – both considering to some extend Rawls’ interpretation as a starting point. Thus, this paper is divided in the following: (1) exposing Rawls’ main notions regarding “Kant’s” constructivism (procedures of construction, conceptions of person and society); (2) presenting O’Neill’s (concerning a possible agency of a plurality of distinct, but interrelated rational beings) and Korsgaard’s main arguments (her so-called “procedural realism”, and the value we confer upon our own humanity); and (3) discussing advantages concerning the kinds of moral constructivism here considered, especially with regard to the question about the requirement to respect human beings. My hypothesis is that the three kinds of constructivism are interesting from the point of view of providing an alternative justification to moral requirements (such as the requirement of respect), notably by means of a procedure of construction of moral principles.

Stone, Martin J., ed. See: Kisilevsky, Sari, and Martin J. Stone, eds.

Stoner, Samuel. “Kant on the Power and Limits of Pathos: Toward a ‘Critique of Poetic Rhetoric’.” Philosophy and Rhetoric 50.1 (2017): 73-95. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article gives an account of the nature and purpose of Kant’s poetic rhetoric in Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics. I argue that Kant employs a poetic mode of rhetoric in order to provoke a passionate, enthusiastic response in his audience. I go on to show that Kant became increasingly skeptical of poetic rhetoric’s pathetic power after publishing Dreams. Ultimately, I demonstrate that Kant’s confrontation with the Sturm und Drang led him to formulate a moral critique of poetic rhetoric and its tendency to undermine its audience’s rational autonomy. I conclude by highlighting the significance of this critique in and for the development of Kant’s mature rhetorical theory.

Stovall, Preston. Rev. of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction and Interpretation, by James R. O’Shea (2014). Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 162-64. [PW]

Stroud, Barry. “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 106-19. [PW]

Sturm, Thomas. See: Kraus, Katharina, and Thomas Sturm.

Summa, Michela. “Toward a Transcendental Account of Creativity. Kant and Merleau-Ponty on the Creative Power of Judgment and Creativity as Institution.” Continental Philosophy Review 50.1 (2017): 105-26. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Several works published in the last decades defend the claim that the concept of creativity should be demystified. With the aim of showing that creativity is not an obscure power owned by only few individuals and free from constraints, authors working at the intersection field between philosophy and cognitive science have notably focused on the structure and evolution of cognitive mechanisms underlying our creative capacities. While taking up the suggestion that we should try not to mystify creativity, this article argues that what is required for such demystification is primarily a transcendental and phenomenological inquiry. Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s works are here discussed in order to develop such a transcendental inquiry into creativity. Both Kant and Merleau-Ponty bring to the fore the conditions of possibility for creative acts, and highlight fundamental role of creativity itself in the formation of meaningfulness. The keystone of both philosophers’ inquiries is the emphasis on the interdependence between creativity and rules. Yet, due to the different approaches to the transcendental, Kant’s and Merleau-Ponty’s accounts do not fully converge, but should rather be considered as complementary.

Sussman, David. “On Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Creation of Freedom.” Critique (blog posted: 29 Jun 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Sutherland, Daniel. “Kant's Conception of Number.” Philosophical Review 126.2 (2017): 147-90. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article discusses philosopher Immanuel Kant's conception of number and his claims that mathematical cognition requires intuition. Topics discussed include arithmetic and natural number at the foundation of mathematics, roles of space and time to attribute a conception of number, and understanding of cardinality and ordinality prior to Kant.

Sweet, Alec Stone, and Eric Palmer. “A Kantian system of constitutional justice: Rights, trusteeship, balancing.” Global Constitutionalism 6.3 (2018): 377-411. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article develops a Kantian account of constitutional justice: the explication of those structural features of a legal system whose purpose is to optimise a polity’s capacity to achieve a Rightful condition. The People, in enacting a rights-based constitution, have placed their freedom in trust. Rights ground a system of reciprocal freedom among individuals, while conferring on officials the authority to make and enforce law, subject to constraints laid down by the Universal Principle of Right [UPR]. A constitutional court, the trustee of the regime, supervises the rights-regarding acts of all other officials, assesses the reasons officials give when they take decisions that burden rights, and invalidates those acts when reasons given to justify such burdens fail to meet the demands of the UPR. Although some rights will be expressed in absolute terms, most will be qualified by a limitation clause. In adjudicating qualified rights, the court can do no better than to adopt the proportionality principle. The UPR, operationalised through proportionality analysis, lays down a basic criterion for the legitimacy of all law. Because Public, International, and Cosmopolitan Right share certain micro-foundations in common, we can extend the analysis to transnational systems of rights protection.

Sweet, Kristi. “What is Philosophical about Kant’s Anthropology?” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 25.3 (2017): 336-47. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this essay, I argue that Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is fundamentally about the sphere of civilization, and, with this, a particular kind of philosophical self-understanding. By civilization, Kant means to indicate the process by which human beings transform their inner natures based on pragmatic or prudential considerations born of our living together. Civilization is what we do to ourselves in order to get along with others with whom we share the earth. In the Anthropology, what we come to understand about ourselves is the possibility of transforming our inner natures based on our will.

[top] T    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Tadeu Girotti, Marcio. “Dissertação de 1770: novidade ou pré-crítica da razão pura?” [Portuguese; Dissertation of 1770: novelty or pre-criticism of pure reason?] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 218-35. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the historical and conceptual scope of Kantian philosophy, the Dissertation of 1770 occupies a prominent place, or as a novelty, for its conceptual charge representing the maturing of Kant's philosophy, with the presentation of an argument that begins the presupposition of a transcendental philosophy, or, as a pre-announcement of his major work: the Critique of pure reason. Novel or pre-critical, the work represents the great step towards the characterization of critical philosophy, drawing a critique of dogmatic rationalism, with the determination of the limits of human knowledge. In addition, the Dissertation of 1770 inaugurates the conception of space and time as pure and a priori intuition, faculty representative of the subject, which allows the construction of knowledge from the representation of the subject. In this article we will see the result of the Dissertation of 1770 for the Kantian corpus.

Tamborini, Marco. See: Cardani, Michele, and Marco Tamborini.

Taranto, Pascal. “Kant et la défense de la «bonne cause». La «conséquence» de l'empirisme.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 39-56. [M]

Teles, Manuela. “Frege sobre Kant: uma motivação filosófica do logicismo.” [Portuguese; Frege on Kant: A Philosophical Grounding of Logicism] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 207-36. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In 1882, Frege wrote to Anton Marty that his project was to prove that the fundamental laws of arithmetic are analytical in Kant's sense. The answer to this letter was signed by Carl Stumpf, who advised Frege to write about his motivations for the creation of the formal language he had introduced in his Begriffsschrift, written three years before. The Grundlagen der Arithmetik, that Frege published two years after, may be seen as his result for following Stumpf's advice. In it, Frege mentions Kant again, both as a motivation for his logicist program and as an opposer to it. In this paper, I aim to understand this two-sided influence of Kant in Frege's purposes. To do that, I present and discuss excerpts of the Grundlagen where Frege talks about Kant. I show that, after rejecting Kant's proposal that numerical judgements (like 7+5=12) are synthetic a priori, Frege has an insight on Kant's definition of analytical according to which it is possible through reason alone to achieve knowledge about objects that are neither perceived by the senses nor intuitions. It is this insight that rests on Frege's motivation for his logicist program. According to Frege's logicist program, numbers are objects known exclusively by their properties, with no connection to any representation (either sensorial or intuitional). Frege's insight allow us to think that Kant could have come to this result with his notion of analytical were he not compromised with a notion of concepts as representations that are the building blocks of thoughts. Instead, Frege proposes that new concepts can be discovered in the decomposition of thoughts, and this discovery is a task for logic alone. Being a task for logic alone is precisely Kant's sense of analytical. What Frege's insight adds to Kant's notion of analytical is, thus, that it may be a source of knowledge.

Terra, Constanza. Rev. of Kant y el Criticismo: pasado, presente, y ¿futuro?, by Paula Órdenes Azúa and Daniela Alegría (2015). [Spanish] Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 210-11. [M] [online]

Teufel, Thomas. “Kant’s Transcendental Principle of Purposiveness and the ‘Maxim of the Lawfulness of Empirical Laws’.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 108-27. [M]

T ——. Rev. of The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, by Hannah Ginsborg (2015). Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism: Logik/Logic, eds. Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick. 12 (2017): 341-46. [PW]

Thiel, Detlef. Rev. of Kants „Opus postumum“ und seine Rezeption, by Giovanni Pietro Basile (2013). Kant-Studien 108.1 (2017): 146-52. [PW]

Thisted, Marcos. Rev. of Kant und die Heterogeneität der Erkenntnisquellen, by Mathias Birrer (2017). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 384-89. [M] [online]

 ——. Rev. of A civilizaçao como destino: Kant e as formas da reflexão, by Nuria Sánchez Madrid (2016). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 503-7. [M] [online]

Thomason, Krista K. “A Good Enough Heart: Kant and the Cultivation of Emotions.” Kantian Review 22.3 (2017): 441-62. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] One way of understanding Kant’s views about moral emotions is the cultivation view. On this view, emotions play a role in Kantian morality provided they are properly cultivated. I evince a sceptical position about the cultivation view. First, I show that the textual evidence in support of cultivation is ambiguous. I then provide an account of emotions in Kant’s theory that explains both his positive and negative views about them. Emotions capture our attention such that they both disrupt the mind’s composure and serve as a surrogate for reason. As such, Kant cannot recommend that we cultivate our emotions.

Tinland, Olivier. “Hegel critique de Kant. Éléments pour la généalogie d’un empirisme de la raison.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 155-72. [M]

Tinnevelt, Ronald. “The Implications of Being Implicated. Individual Responsibility and Structural Injustice.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 493-518. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Within the global justice debate the demandingness objection is primarily aimed at utilitarian theorists who defend a version of the ‘optimizing principle of beneficence’ to deal with the problem of global poverty. The problem of demandingness, however, is hardly ever raised within the context of the dominant institutional theories of global justice that see severe poverty as a human rights violation. Nor are the fundamental underlying questions posed by many of these theorists. Which specific responsibilities do individual moral agents have regarding institutional and structural forms of injustice (1)? Which political spheres, organized public spaces, or political practices are necessary to create a setting in which these responsibilities can be discharged (2)? Does a ‘defensible and psychologically feasible conception of responsibility’ (Scheffler 2002, 62) exist that is restrictive – yet demanding – enough to deal with the complex challenges of our globalizing age (3). This paper addresses questions (1) and (3) on the basis of a critical analysis of Iris Marion Young’s social connection theory of responsibility.

Tolley, Clinton. “The Place of Logic within Kant’s Philosophy.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 165-87. [M]

 ——. “Kant on the Place of Cognition in the Progression of our Representations.” Synthese (posted: 24 Nov 2017). [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I argue for a new delimitation of what Kant means by ‘cognition [Erkenntnis]’, on the basis of the intermediate, transitional place that Kant gives to cognition in the ‘progression [Stufenleiter]’ of our representations and our consciousness of them. I show how cognition differs from mental acts lying earlier on this progression—such as sensing, intuiting, and perceiving—and also how cognition differs from acts lying later on this progression—such as explaining, having insight, and comprehending. I also argue that cognition should not be confused with ‘knowledge [Wissen]’, insofar as knowledge represents the culmination of a separate orthogonal progression of acts of ‘holding-true’. Along the way, I show how having in focus the specific progression from representation, to consciousness, to cognition (and beyond) allows us to better appreciate the architectonic significance of the progression of Kant’s analysis in the first Critique (and beyond), and also helps to illuminate the unity of Kant’s account of cognition itself across its variety of (empirical, mathematical, philosophical) forms.

 ——.  “The Relation between Ontology and Logic in Kant.”  Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism: Logik/Logic, eds. Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick. 12 (2017): 75-98. [PW]

Tomasi, Gabriele. “L’oggettivismo debole di Kant in estetica.” [Italian; Kant’s Weak Objectivism in Aesthetics] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 81-98. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant claims that the determining basis of a judgment of taste is merely subjective, i.e., it is a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. While I take into account the distinction Kant makes between feelings and other representations, such as colours, and acknowledge the textual supports for a subjectivist reading of Kant’s position, I suggest that having a subjective basis does not make the judgment of taste subjective. By distinguishing different meanings of ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’, I try to show that to attribute to Kant a subjectivist conception of taste has undesirable consequences for his position. In particular, it does not allow to make sense of the possibility of discussions about taste, that Kant seems to acknowledge. Therefore I conclude that Kant’s conception is best described as a form of weak, not world-directed objectivism. My main reason for this conclusion is that Kant admits an ideal norm – the common sense – that put a constraint on our judgments of taste.

Tomassini, Fiorella. Rev. of Forzados a ser libres. Kant y la teoría republicana del derecho, edited by Juan Ormeño Karzulovic and Miguel Vatter (2017). [Spanish] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 397-400. [M] [online]

Tonetto, Milene Consenso. “Kant’s Concept of Indirect Duties and Environmental Ethics.” ethic@ 16.3 (2017): 519-32. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The aim of this paper is to assess whether Kant’s moral theory is suitable to deal with our obligations to take care of nonhuman animals and the environment. Kant’s ethics distinguishes persons, that is, rational beings with unconditional values who are considered as ends in themselves, from things, which have only relative worth. In relation to nature as a whole and to nonrational beings, Kant argues that we have only indirect duties or duties with regard to them. According to some philosophers, Kant’s ethics has anthropocentric starting points which lead to speciesist conclusions. This paper will argue that indirect duties can be in accordance with nonhuman interests, such as the suffering of nonhuman animals, the preservation of species and ecosystems, and so on. Thus Kant’s moral philosophy may contribute to environmental ethics because it justifies at least animal welfare and environmental protections as constraints on unrestricted human action.

Tongeren, Paul van. “Question or Answer? Kant, Nietzsche and the Practical Commitment of Philosophy.” Nietzsche and Kantian Ethics. Eds. João Constâncio and Tom Bailey (op cit.). 291-311. [M]

Torres, João Carlos Brum. “Esquematismo e indexalidade. Uma nota de aproximação entre esses dois conceitosã.” [Portuguese; Schematism and Indexicality. A Note on the Approximation of these two Concepts] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 251-64. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s doctrine of categories can be questioned from three points of view. From the first and better known of these perspectives the object of appraisal is the validity of the news and audacious philosophical claims presented in it. Kant names this problem the quid juris question and composes the Transcendental Deduction to offer a positive answer to it, his conclusion being that the pure concepts of the understanding do have objective reality. The second way of discussing the doctrine of categories is found in the controversy with Eberhard. There the inquisition is about the origin of such concepts, Kant’s analisys trying to explain how these a priori and transcendental concepts are originnaly acquired. The third interpretative approach to Kantian categories, which is the only one treated in this paper, has in view the use of them, and cares about how they acquire application to objects. Even whether this point appears in the Analytic of Concepts, it is in the Analytic of Principles that it is systematically considered. The difficulty and obscurity of Kantian lesson on that part of CPR, namely of the Schematism chapter, have been frequentely noted. What is tentatively attempted in what follows is to explore if comparing the schemata of pure concepts of pure understanding with the modern theory of indexicality can be a better way to explain their function. This move implies, in a very reconstructive mode, taking the schema of a categorie, for example, of the category of reality and of its pair, negation – which are distinguished as Kant says by a filled or an empty time – as functionning as a semantical instrument allowing the contextual application of these categories to a given object.

Trevisan, Diego Kosbiau. “Volonté générale e a autonomia da vontade. A presença de Rousseau na origem político-jurídica da filosofia moral de Kant.” [Portuguese; 129Volonté générale e a autonomia da vontade. A presença de Rousseau na origem político-jurídica da filosofia moral de Kant] Cadernos de Filosofia Alemã: Crítica e Modernidade 22.3 (2017): 129-42. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper explores the influence of Rousseau’s political philosophy in the emergence of the concept of autonomy of the will in Kant’s moral philosophy. Taking the decade of 1770 as the chronological basis in the development of Kant's thought, it will be argued that the notion of an absolutely binding moral principle takes as a model – whose origin is a juridical and rousseauist one – a community of rational beings governed by autonomous laws which harmonize the freedom and the will of each individual

Tunhas, Paulo. “Da afinidade à acção.” [Portuguese; From Affinity to Action] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 237-55. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] From the very beginning of his philosophical work Fernando Gil looked for a harmony between the Kantian project and certain pre-Kantian modes of thinking, such as the Leibnizian. In his later work he also searched for harmony with the post-Kantian philosophy of Fichte. Such is the double origin of his deeply original philosophy of knowledge, which I analyze in this article.

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Ure, Michael. See: Ansell-Pearson, Keith, and Michael Ure.

Utteich, Luciano Carlos. “A aparência (Schein) estética desde um estatuto crítico-transcendental.” [Portuguese; The aesthetic Appearance (Schein) since a transcendental and critical statute] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 161-92. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant has contrasted in KrV two ways to treat the object, take it as a phenomenon (Erscheinung) or as a noumenon. The first is determined by the faculty of judgment for the knowledge and the second appoints the form of the laws of reason that leads to the necessary organizer and systematizer thought. In this second the reason can apprehend it without noticing that it is an object of the simple thinking, admitting the appearance of something cognizable, receiving then the title of delusive appearance (Schein), for being a structure of judgment influenced by the sensitivity. In an aesthetical level in the KU Kant has pointed to a not uniquely negative sense behind the notion of mere appearance at poetry’s sense. We will expose this debate and present the way through which Schiller’s notion of aesthetical appearance (ästhetischer Schein) complements the meaning of this increase of shading to the notion of “Schein”, with emphasis in liberty and autonomy of an appearance regarded since the transcendental statute.

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Vaha, Milla. Rev. of Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism, by Lucy Allais (2015). [English] Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 480-84. [M] [online]

Valaris, Markos. See: Merritt, Melissa, and Markos Valaris.

Valdez, Inés. “It's Not about Race: Good Wars, Bad Wars, and the Origins of Kant’s Anti-Colonialism.” American Political Science Review 111.4 (2017): 819-34. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article offers a new interpretation of Kant's cosmopolitanism and his anti-colonialism in Toward Perpetual Peace. Kant's changing position has been the subject of extensive debates that have, however, not recognized the central place of colonialism in the political, economic, and military debates in Europe in Kant's writings. Based on historical evidence not previously considered alongside Perpetual Peace, I suggest that Kant's leading concern at the time of writing is the negative effect of European expansionism and intra-European rivalry over colonial possessions on the possibility of peace in Europe. Because of the lack of affinity between colonial conflict and his philosophy of history, Kant must adjust his concept of antagonism to distinguish between war between particular dyads, in particular spaces, and with particular non-state actors. I examine the implications of this argument for Kant's system of Right and conclude that his anti-colonialism co-exists with hierarchical views of race.

Valore, Paolo. “Ontologia e strategie di ordinamento: una soluzione kantiana.” [Italian] Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 63-73. [PW]

Van Eekert, Geert. “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Self-Expression, and Kant’s Public Use of Reason.” [English] Diametros 54 (2017): 118-37. [PW] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article turns to early modern and Enlightenment advocates of tolerance (Locke, Spinoza, John Stuart Mill) in order to discover and lay bare the line of argument that informed their commitment to free speech. This line of argument will subsequently be used to assess the shift from free speech to the contemporary ideal of free self-expression. In order to take this assessment one step further, this article will finally turn to Immanuel Kant’s famous defense of the public use of reason. In the wake of Katerina Deligiorgi’s readings of Kant, it will show that the idea of free speech requires a specific disposition on behalf of speakers and writers that is in danger of being neglected in the contemporary prevailing conception of free speech as freedom of self-expression.

Vanden Auweele, Dennis. The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism. New York/London: Routledge, 2017. [xiii, 242 p.] [WC] [review]

 ——. “Kantian Grace as Ethical Gymnastics.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 285-301. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s concept of grace in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason is a difficult topic, exegetically speaking. Obviously enough, Kant subscribes positively to a notion of divine assistance. This appears awkward given his rationalist ethics rooted in personal autonomy. This has given cause to interpreters of Kant’s philosophy of religion – both early commentators and today – to read Kant’s account of grace is uniquely rationalist. This would make grace a rational expectation given personal commitment to good works. The argument of this paper is that grace is a hyperrationalist element in Kant’s practical philosophy because of the potentially problematic consequences of Kant’s views of human nature. Human nature is namely not particularly prone to be responsive to the rational moral law and therefore requires a number of pedagogical tools that facilitate moral agency.

 ——. Rev. of Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason, by Stephen R. Palmquist (2016). British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25.4 (2017): 841-44. [PW]

Varden, Helga. “Kant and Sexuality.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 331-53. [M]

 ——. “Kant and Women.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98.4 (2017): 653-94. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant's conception of women is complex. Although he struggles to bring his considered view of women into focus, a sympathetic reading shows it not to be anti-feminist and to contain important arguments regarding human nature. Kant believes the traditional male-female distinction is unlikely to disappear, but he never proposes the traditional gender ideal as the moral ideal; he rejects the idea that such considerations of philosophical anthropology can set the framework for morality. This is also why his moral works clarifies that all citizens, including women have the right, and should be encouraged to strive towards an active condition.

Vater, Michael. “Kant after Kant: The Indispensable Philosopher.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 731-60. [M]

Velkley, Richard. Rev. of Images of History: Kant, Benjamin, Freedom and the Human Subject, by Richard Eldridge (2016). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Feb 2017, #10). [M] [online]

Veraza Tonda, Pablo. Rev. of Immanuel Kant, Lecciones de filosofía moral Mrongovius II, translated by Alba Jiménez (2016). Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.1 (2017): 89-90. [M]

Veríssimo Serrão, Adriana. “Pensar a paisagem. Interpelações à estética de Kant.” [Portuguese; Thinking the Landscape interpellations to Kant’s Aesthetics] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 43-57. [M] [online]

Vidmar, Iris. Rev. of The Possibility of Culture: Pleasure and Moral Development in Kant’s Aesthetics, by Bradley Murray (2015).Croation Journal of Philosophy 17.3 (2017): 453-59. [PW]

Vilhauer, Benjamin. “Kant’s Mature Theory of Punishment, and a First Critique Ideal Abolitionist Alternative.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 617-40. [M]

Villarán, Alonso. “Kant’s Highest Good: The ‘Beck-Silber Controversy’ in the Spanish-Speaking World.” Faith and Philosophy 34.1 (2017): 57-81. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the 1960s Lewis White Beck criticized Kant’s highest good as a moral concept. In 1963 John Silber responded. Thus, the “Beck-Silber controversy.” This paper explores such controversy in the Spanish literature. It begins identifying four criticisms: the problems of heteronomy, derivation, impossibility, and irrelevance. It then identifies a new problem rescued from the Spanish literature: dualism. After categorizing, following Matthew Caswell, the Spanish defenses into revisionists, secularizers, and maximalists, this paper assesses these defenses. The paper also translates sections of such literature into English and leaves us closer to a complete defense of the highest good by salvaging what it can of the Spanish literature’s unique points.

Villinger, Rahel. “Recovering the ‘True Meaning’ of the Pre-Established Harmony: On a Neglected Key to Kant’s Theory of Intuition.” Kant-Studien 108.3 (2017): 338-77. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The paper discusses Kant’s enigmatic claim that his critical philosophy succeeds in articulating a philosophical insight at which Leibniz’s pre-established harmony was ‘truly’ aimed. Kant makes the claim in response to Salomon Maimon’s (mis)reading of his Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, which involves, in Kant’s words, the untenable assumption of a capacity of divine (intuitive) understanding in humans. The paper argues that Maimon’s misreading of Kant’s account of human intuition has found influential followers in contemporary Kant scholarship and that it is based on a failure to distinguish between what Kant calls “mere sensible appearances” and real phenomena of nature. While the former are entirely sensible singularities without unity, the latter are units composed of infinitely many sensible appearances, and their unity requires understanding. Kant thus appeals to a refurbished version of Leibniz’s pre-established harmony of mind and world, which takes the form of an immanent, indubitable, but ultimately inexplicable harmony of the faculties of sensibility and understanding. The paper includes a reconstruction of both the B-Deduction’s argument and the role of transcendental imagination in the proof.

Vinci, Thomas. Rev. of Kant’s Inferentialism: The Case Against Hume, by David Landy (2015). Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 331-38. [PW]

Volpato Dutra, Delamar José. “Críticas de Kant a Hobbes: fim real ou princípios a priori.” [Portuguese; Kant’s Criticisms to Hobbes: real end or a priori principles] Studia Kantiana 15.2 (2017): 27-49. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The text argues that the major differences between Hobbes and Kant in relation to natural law reside less in their content and more in their status: for Kant, they are a priori principles; For Hobbes, dictates of reason for self-preservation. Finally, the text argues that self-preservation, like happiness, is a real end, but, unlike happiness, it is a real end with determined content. Now, the role of natural laws in Hobbes is precisely to determine the content of the purpose of self-preservation of the multitudes.

 ——. “Liberalismo, democracia e totalitarismo.” [Portuguese; Liberalism, Democracy, and Totalitarism] Estudos Kantianos 5.1 (2017): 143-58. [M] [online]

Vorpagel da Silva, Luciano. “Da causalidade segundo a natureza às pretensões dialéticas da razão para além da natureza.” [Portuguese; Of causality according to nature to dialectical pretensions of reason beyond nature] Kant e-Prints 12.2 (2017): 236-48. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant discusses the limits of possible experience with the obsession of magnitude of pure reason, where you can check the concept of causation from two points of view: from the perspective of nature as a concept restricted to the empirical use, according to the limits of sensitivity, in which it determines the relation of cause and effect of the phenomena; and from a dialectical-transcendental point of view, when reason removes that concept from its immanent use to transcend it and determine the unconditioned, and thus forge concepts without any empirical correspondence, giving rise to ideas. This article proposes to investigate this problem.

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Walker, Ralph C. S. “The Primacy of Practical Reason.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 191-209. [M]

name. “title.” Journal vol (2012): pages. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract]

. “Self and Selves.” Kant and the Philosophy of Mind. Perception, Reason, and the Self. Eds. Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson (op cit.). 204-20??. [WC]

Walschots, Michael. “Kant on Moral Satisfaction.” Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 281-303. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper gives an account of Kant’s concept of self-contentment (Selbstzufriedenheit), i.e. the satisfaction involved in the performance of moral action. This concept is vulnerable to an important objection: if moral action is satisfying, it might only ever be performed for the sake of this satisfaction. I explain Kant’s response to this objection and argue that it is superior to Francis Hutcheson’s response to a similar objection. I conclude by showing that two other notions of moral satisfaction in Kant’s moral philosophy, namely ‘sweet merit’ and the highest good, also avoid the objection.

 ——. “Hutcheson and Kant: Moral Sense and Moral Feeling.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 36-54. [M]

Ware, Owen. “Kant’s Deductions of Morality and Freedom.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47.1 (2017): 116-47. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] It is commonly held that Kant ventured to derive morality from freedom in Groundwork III. It is also believed that he reversed this strategy in the second Critique, attempting to derive freedom from morality instead. In this paper, I set out to challenge these familiar assumptions: Kant’s argument in Groundwork III rests on a moral conception of the intelligible world, one that plays a similar role as the ‘fact of reason’ in the second Critique. Accordingly, I argue, there is no reversal in the proof-structure of Kant’s two works.

Warren, Daniel. “Kant on Mathematical Force Laws.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 171-92. [M]

Watkins, Eric. “Kant on the Distinction between Sensibility and Understanding.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 9-27. [PW]

 ——. “Kant on the Unity and Diversity of Laws.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 11-29. [M]

 ——, and Marcus Willaschek. “Givenness and Cognition: Reply to Grüne and Chignell.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.1 (2017): 143-52. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] We are grateful to Stefanie Grüne and Andrew Chignell for their thoughtful commentaries on our paper. Both focus their remarks on the issue of ‘givenness,’ which could seem like a relatively narrow topic within the much broader subject matter of cognition that we have attempted to describe in our paper. However, we think that givenness, properly understood, plays an important role in Kant’s account of cognition, since it is central to both of the conditions that Kant places on cognition (which we call the ‘givenness condition’ and the ‘thought condition’). In particular, we maintain that givenness is an independent condition on cognition, one that has a meaning and function distinct from what it contributes to the thought condition. Full consideration of the givenness condition allows one to see more clearly how it gives expression to one of Kant’s most fundamental concerns in the first Critique. For, in our view, the primary role of givenness is to help to explain how it is that representations can refer, or fail to refer, to objects in a specific, cognitively significant way, an achievement that Kant is marking with the term ‘cognition.’ To make good on these claims and to substantiate this picture of the broader significance of givenness within Kant’s account of cognition, we address Grüne’s paper first, then Chignell’s.

 ——. See: Willaschek, Marcus, and Eric Watkins.

Watt, Robert. “The Location of Kant's Refutation of Idealism.” European Journal of Philosophy 25.4 (2017): 1640-59. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Many philosophers have been puzzled by Kant's decision to insert the Refutation of Idealism into the second edition of the first Critique at the end of his elucidation of the Second Postulate. This article proposes a solution to the puzzle. It defends an explanation for the location of Kant's Refutation of Idealism that is plausibly expressed by Kant's claim at the end of his elucidation of the Second Postulate that the Refutation of Idealism is ‘here in its right place’ because ‘[a] powerful objection against these rules for proving existence indirectly is made by idealism’ (B274). According to this explanation, the Refutation of Idealism is Kant's response to the objection that the Second Postulate must be false since otherwise idealism is true. This article also considers and rejects a number of alternative explanations for the location of Kant's Refutation of Idealism.

 ——. “On Dennis Schulting’s Kant’s Radical Subjectivism.” Critique (blog posted: 7 Nov 2017) n.p. [PW] [online]

Wehofsits, Anna. “Mitgefühl in Kants Ethik.” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 65.5 (2017): 830-50. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] According to Kant, building moral character is not limited to developing rational capacities but also includes developing emotional capacities as well as responsibly managing and deliberately cultivating emotional dispositions. Kant assigns central importance specifically to the cultivation of sympathy. This paper first distinguishes three levels on which sympathy is significant in Kant’s ethics. Referring to recent philosophical and psychological research, it then aims to reconstruct the process of cultivating sympathy in a way that is persuasive both as an interpretation of Kant and as a systematic account. Contrary to what Kant’s brief comments on this process seem to suggest, cultivating sympathy does not consist in a mere stimulation of a natural emotional mechanism – this, I argue, would be inconsistent with central concerns of Kantian ethics. Rather, it consists in a morally motivated, reflexive transformation of a natural disposition that aims to make us responsive to the needs of others.

Weinstein, Jack Russell. “Kant and Smith on Imagination, Reason, and Personhood.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 304-25. [M]

Wellmann, Gesa. “Towards a new conception of metaphysics: Lambert’s criticism on Wolff’s mathematical method.” Revista de Estudios Kantianos 2.2 (2017): 135-48. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper discusses Lambert’s criticism of Wolff’s mathematical method. I take this criticism to consist of two main aspects. Lambert tries on the one hand to revise Wolff’s idea of fundamental concepts by providing what he takes to be a more profound theory of concepts. On the other hand, Lambert introduces postulates that regulate the connection between fundamental concepts and account for their application to experience. Both transformations allow Lambert to put forward a novel approach to metaphysics which is essentially oriented towards experience.

Westphal, Kenneth R. “Kant’s Dynamical Principles.” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 184-204. [PW]

 ——. “How Kant Justifies Freedom of Agency (without Transcendental Idealism).” European Journal of Philosophy 25.4 (2017): 1695-1717. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This paper argues that the problem of the apparent conflict between freedom of action and natural causal determinism has not been properly framed, because the key premiss—the thesis of universal causal determinism—is, in the domain of human behaviour, an unjustified conjecture based on over‐simplified, under‐informed explanatory models. Kant's semantics of singular cognitive reference (explained herein), which stands independently of his Transcendental Idealism, justifies and emphasises a quadruple distinction between causal description, causal ascription (predication), (approximately) true causal ascription (accurate predication) and cognitively justified causal ascription. Contemporary causal theories of mind, of action or of meaning do not suffice for causal ascription, and so cannot suffice for causal predication, and hence cannot justify causal determinism about human behaviour. More generally, the principle of universal causal determinism is a regulative principle governing causal inquiry and was so formulated by LaPlace. Only successful, sufficient causal explanation of particular events provides for causal knowledge of those events. Such knowledge we lack in the domain of human behaviour. Rational belief, including scientific belief, requires apportioning belief to justifying evidence; all else is conjecture or speculation, which do not justify premises of sound proofs. Causal determinism about human behaviour remains unjustified speculation, for sound Critical reasons Kant provided us in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In these regards, contemporary debates about these issues remain decidedly pre‐Critical.

 ——. “Kant, Causal Judgment & Locating the Purloined Letter.” Con-Textos Kantianos 6 (2017): 42-78. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s account of cognitive judgment is sophisticated, sound and philosophically far more illuminating than is often appreciated. Key features of Kant’s account of cognitive judgment are widely dispersed amongst various sections of the Critique of Pure Reason, whilst common philosophical proclivities have confounded these interpretive difficulties. This paper characterises Kant’s account of causal-perceptual judgment concisely to highlight one central philosophical achievement: Kant’s finding that, to understand and investigate empirical knowledge we must distinguish between predication as a grammatical form of sentences, statements or (candidate) judgments, and predication as a (proto-)cognitive act of ascribing some characteristic(s) to some localised particular(s). With Kant’s finding in view, I then elucidate how we have occluded his achievement. My results are not merely interpretive, but philosophical, because they show that Kant’s account of perceptual judgment accords with – and indeed justifies – a central and sound point regarding language, thought and reference advocated by apparently unlikely philosophical comrades. These finding highlight some methodological cautions which require re-emphasis today.

Wicks, Robert. Rev. of The Kantian Foundation of Schopenhauer’s Pessimism, by Dennis Vanden Auweele (2017). The Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (Dec 2017, #12). [M] [online]

Willaschek, Marcus. “Kant on Real Conditioning.” Studi Kantiani 30 (2017): 29-44. [PW]

 ——, and Eric Watkins. “Kant on Cognition and Knowledge.” Synthese (posted: 29 Nov 2017). [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Even though Kant’s theory of cognition (Erkenntnis) is central to his Critique of Pure Reason, it has rarely been asked what exactly Kant means by the term “cognition”. Against the widespread assumption that cognition (in the most relevant sense of that term) can be identified with knowledge or if not, that knowledge is at least a species of cognition, we argue that the concepts of cognition and knowledge in Kant are not only distinct, but even disjunct. To show this, we first (I) investigate Kant’s explicit characterizations of the nature of cognition. As it turns out, he introduces several different notions that must be carefully distinguished before identifying the one that is central to his project in the first Critique. We then (II) consider the basic features of Kant’s conception of knowledge, indicating both how it involves assent and objective justification and how it relates to our contemporary conception. Next (III), we compare and contrast Kant’s understanding of cognition and his conception of knowledge in a way that allows us to present their fundamental differences and connections. We argue that while cognition, in the most relevant sense, is a species of representation that differs from other representations in that it involves the conceptual determination of a sensibly given object, knowledge (for Kant) is a kind of assent to a judgment that requires consciousness of a sufficient epistemic ground. Finally (IV), by appreciating the differences between cognition and knowledge, we explain several of the implications this conception of cognition has for some of Kant’s main claims in the Critique of Pure Reason as a whole. Among other things, we show how Kant can deny cognition of specific things in themselves while allowing philosophical knowledge about things in themselves in general (e.g. that they exist, are not in space and time, etc.).

 ——, Jürgen Stolzenberg, Georg Mohr, and Stefano Bacin, eds. Kant-Lexikon. Berlin / Boston: Walter de Gruyter, 2017. [xi1, 745 p.] [PW]

[Note] [Hide Note] This is a one-volume student edition of the 2015 three-volume Kant-Lexikon.

 ——. See: Watkins, Eric, and Marcus Willaschek.

Williams, Howard. “The Political Philosophies of Kant and Marx.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 619-40. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Whilst acknowledging that there are several major differences in the approach which Kant and Marx take to political philosophy this article argues that there are also several common themes. These common themes of commitment to critique, freedom, equality, human betterment and cosmopolitanism are first highlighted. Subsequently the most marked contrasts in their approaches are examined and evaluated. Although Kant demonstrates greater political wisdom and a greater respect for law, Marx shows greater insight into social and political forces. Taken together Kant and Marx present an as yet unrealized, powerful programme for political and social improvement.

 ——. “The Critical Legal and Political Philosophy of Immanuel Kant.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 567-91. [M]

 ——. “Kantian Human Rights or How the Individual Has Come to Matter in International Law.” Moral and Political Conceptions of Human Rights: Implications for Theory and Practice. Eds. Reidar Maliks and Johan Karlsson Schaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). 125-54. [PW]

Wilson, Catherine. “The Building Forces of Nature and Kant’s Technology of the Living.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 256-74. [M]

Wilson, Donald. “Balancing Commitments: Own-Happiness and Beneficence.” Contemporary Studies in Kantian Philosophy 2 (2017): 23-37. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] There is a familiar problem in moral theories that recognise positive obligations to help others related to the practical room these obligations leave for ordinary life, and the risk that open-ended obligations to help others will consume our lives and resources. Responding to this problem, Kantians have tended to emphasise the idea of limits on positive obligations but are typically unsatisfactorily vague about the nature and extent of these limits. I argue here that aspects of Kant’s discussion of duties of virtue owed to ourselves suggest a useful metric we can use in discussing these limits and that generalising this account and combining it with elements of Barbara Herman’s view, offers us an attractive model of moral deliberation with the resources we need to engage the critic’s challenge properly.

Wilson, Eric Entrican. Rev. of Kantian Ethics: Value, Agency, and Obligation, by Robert Stern (2015). Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 167-72. [PW]

Wilson, Holly. “Freedom and Klugheit in Kant’s Anthropology Lectures.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 26-37. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant holds in his works on morality that prudence is not free, because only action under the moral law is free. He also holds that acting on prudent reasons is incompatible with the moral law. If one explores his lectures on anthropology, however, one has reason to believe that not only is prudent action free in some sense as freedom of choice, but it is also not incompatible with moral action, since it does not necessitate using other human beings as mere means, even though it is about using other human beings as ends to one’s happiness. This article will show how Kant holds these positions in his lectures on anthropology.

Wilson, Sue. “Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape: Remembering Kant, Forgetting Proust.” Modern Drama 60.1 (2017): 46-68. [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article draws on Samuel Beckett's recently published letters and archival scholarship to consider the place of Immanuel Kant's critical epistemology within Beckett's early thinking and his subsequent works. Beginning from Beckett's engagement with Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, demonstrated by notes taken from Wilhelm Windelband's A History of Philosophy between 1932 and 1933, excerpts from Jules de Gaultier's From Kant to Nietzsche in the "Whoroscope" Notebook, and Beckett's acquisition of Immanuel Kants Werke in 1938, I offer a close analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of Beckett's parody of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu in Krapp's Last Tape. The larger purpose of this article is to argue that a critique of metaphysical thought can be found in Beckett's work and to demonstrate that Kant's influence as a philosophical source of this critique has been largely overlooked in Beckett criticism.

Winegar, Reed. “Kant on God’s Intuitive Understanding: Interpreting CJ §76’s Modal Claims.” Kantian Review 22.2 (2017): 305-29. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In §76 of the third Critique, Kant claims that an intuitive understanding would represent no distinction between possible and actual things. Prior interpretations of §76 take Kant to claim that an intuitive understanding would produce things merely in virtue of thinking about them and, thus, could not think of merely possible things. In contrast, I argue that §76’s modal claims hinge on Kant’s suggestion that God represents things in their thoroughgoing determination, including in their connection to God’s actual will. I conclude by using my interpretation to argue that §76’s modal claims do not entail Spinozism.

 ——. “Kant and Hutcheson on Aesthetics and Teleology.” Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Eds. Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Surprenant (op cit.). 71-89. [M]

Wolff, Michael. “How Precise Is Kant’s Table of Judgments?” Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Guide. Ed. James O’Shea (op cit.). 83-105. [PW]

Wood, Allen. Formulas of the Moral Law. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. [83 p.] [M]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This Element defends a reading of Kant’s formulas of the moral law in Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. It disputes a long tradition accepted both by Kant’s critics and defenders, concerning what the first formula (Universal Law/Law of Nature) attempts to do. But the reading proposed here is the only one that agrees with both what Kant says about these formulas and with what he actually does with them in his discussion of the four famous examples – which are also discussed here at some length. The Element also expounds the Formulas of Humanity, Autonomy and the Realm of Ends, arguing that it is only the Formula of Humanity from which Kant derives general duties, and that it is only the third formula (Autonomy/Realm of Ends) that represents a complete and definitive statement of the moral principle as Kant derives it in the Groundwork. The Element also disputes the common claim that the various formulas are “equivalent,” arguing that this claim is either false or else nonsensical because grounded on a false premise about what Kant thinks a moral principle is for.

 ——. “Marx and Kant on Capitalist Exploitation.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 641-59. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Marx holds that capitalism is exploitative, but not unjust. Kant crafted a theory of right that explains why human beings are treated unjustly when the social system deprives them of the conditions of a free life. This essay attempts to relate Kant’s and Marx’s views to one another and to the capitalist social system, which these two thinkers studied at different stages of development. The economic and social theories of Fichte and Hegel are also employed to help make sense of the points of agreement and of disagreement between Kant and Marx concerning the ways modern capitalism deprives workers of freedom and whether this deprivation should be condemned as unjust.

 ——. “How a Kantian Decides What to Do.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 263-84. [M]

Wunderlich, Falk. Rev. of Kant and Rational Psychology, by Corey W. Dyck (2014). Kantian Review 22.1 (2017): 159-61. [PW]

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Yost, Benjamin S. “Kant’s Theory of Motivation: A Hybrid Approach.” Review of Metaphysics 71.2 (2017): 293-319. [PI]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The article discusses aspects of Immanuel Kant's theory of moral motivation. It states that Kant's morality places stringent demands on agents and require that they act independently of self-interest. It also mentions that his attempt to vindicate morality also requires him to elaborate how people could act on moral grounds and of abiding self-interest.

Ypi, Lea. “From Revelation to Revolution: The Critique of Religion in Kant and Marx.” Kantian Review 22.4 (2017): 661-81. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article examines Kant’s and Marx’s analysis of religion in its relation to human emancipation. It highlights some important affinities in their accounts of human nature and their critique of religious authority including: the emphasis on freedom as distinguishing human beings from other species, the relation between moral and political progress, the critique of revealed religion, the role of political community and the importance of ethical community to achieve moral emancipation.

 ——. “The Transcendental Deduction of Ideas in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 117.2 (2017): 163-85. [PW]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This article explores the problem of the transcendental deduction of ideas in the controversial pages of the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. It suggests that Kant’s difficulties with the deduction can be explained in light of a tension between two notions of purposiveness: purposiveness as design and purposiveness as normativity. While the latter is shaped by the practical demands of reason, the former relies on an argument about the teleological structure of nature. The article further shows that although the Critique of Pure Reason tries to ground the unity of reason in a notion of purposiveness as normativity, it lacks the resources to do so. The result is an attempt which collapses the demand for the unity of reason into a demand for the unity of nature, and which grounds the unity of nature on a notion of purposiveness as design. This outcome challenges not only Kant’s unifying project but the success of the entire critical enterprise. Explaining how it unfolds by considering Kant’s analysis in the first Critique, and in minor writings of the same period, provides the most textually accurate account of Kant’s oscillations in the Appendix, whilst also doing justice to its future developments.

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Zammito, John H. “‘Proper Science’ and Empirical Laws.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 471-92. [M]

Zapero, David. “Moral Skepticism and the Critique of Practical Reason.” The Palgrave Kant Handbook. Ed. Matthew C. Altman (op cit.). 243-60. [M]

Zavatta, Benedetta. “From Pure Reason to Historical Knowledge: Nietzsche’s (Virtual) Objections to Kant’s First Critique.” Nietzsche, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Eds. Marco Brusotti and Herman Siemens (op cit.). 45-70. [M]

Zhouhuang, Zhengmi. “The Development of Kant’s Theory of Moral Feeling.” Con-Textos Kantianos 5 (2017): 58-74. [M] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Kant’s critical theory on moral feeling can be divided into two stages: early and late. In the early stage, Kant was committed to accepting and transforming the traditional concept of moral feeling, while in the later stage he turned to developing his own unique theory on the topic. His beliefs about moral feeling changed between these two stages, both regarding the basic meaning of moral feeling (from intuitive empirical feelings to a priori feelings based on rationality) and the function of moral feeling in moral philosophy (from the basis of moral law to the motivation of moral action). This paper argues that these shifts help clarify the framework of Kant’s moral philosophy and introduce a new dimension to Kant’s definition of feelings and the relationship between sensibility and intellectuality. Namely, sensibility is not only determined by intellectuality but also has its unique initiative. Through acting on the body, intellectuality generates intellectual feelings, which in turn assist humans in realizing their intellectual purpose as a limited rational being.

Zöller, Günter. “Possibiliser l’expérience. Kant sur la relation entre le transcendantal et l’empirique.” Kant et les empirismes. Ed. Antoine Grandjean (op cit.). 99-112. [M]

 ——.  “Conditions of Objectivity. Kant’s Critical Conception of Transcendental Logic.”  Internationales Jahrbuch des Deutschen Idealismus/International Yearbook of German Idealism: Logik/Logic, eds. Dina Emundts and Sally Sedgwick. 12 (2017): 3-28. [PW]

 ——. “«Lois de la liberté». Autonomie et conformité à la loi dans le Naturrecht Feyerabend de Kant.” L’année 1784 – Kant. Droit et philosophie de l’histoire. Eds. Sophie Grapotte, Mai Lequan, and Margit Ruffing (op cit.). 351-59. [M]

Zoffoli, Enrico. “The role of public reason’s principle of sincerity.” Sincerity in Politics and International Relations. Eds. Sorin Baiasu and Sylvie Loriaux (op cit.). 32-45. [M]

Zollman, Kevin J.S. See: Bjorndahl, Adam, Alex John London, and Kevin J.S. Zollman.

Zuckert, Rachel. “Empirical Scientific Investigation and the Ideas of Reason.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Michela Massimi and Angela Breitenbach (op cit.). 89-107. [M]

[top] Dissertations    [ Kant  —  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z  —  Dissertations ]

Amoroso, Justin. Kant on the Beautiful. Master’s thesis. University of Maine, 2017. [152 p.] Advisor: Michael Howard. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This thesis looks at Kant’s question about the antagonism between freedom and determinism and how he tried to reconcile them through aesthetics. I begin the thesis by sketching the influences on Kant’s aesthetics, by looking at the problem that arose after he completed his first two critiques, and by defining his three faculties. From there I examine his four moments of beauty. Next, I ask how beauty symbolizes morality. In the conclusion I submit a possible answer how beauty can resolve the antagonism between freedom and determinism. The tentative answer is as follows. According to Kant, beauty doesn’t require us to look at a thing through determinate concepts. In those moments we see a thing as an appearance and other than its appearance (as free). We then come closest to seeing a thing-in-itself because we see the thing as other than its label—we see it as purposive and not as a purpose to be used. When Kant said beauty is a symbol of morality, perhaps he meant absolute freedom can’t have a direct representation outside of an aesthetic experience. If Kant is right that beauty bridges determinism and freedom, Kant makes a case for beauty’s importance.

Arnecillo, Fidel A., Jr. Kant’s Refutation of the Ontological Proof. Ph.D. diss. The Claremont Graduate University, 2017. [201 p.] Advisor: Patricia Easton. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] I argue that Kant’s main problem with the ontological proof in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) is epistemological in nature as opposed to the standard or Fregean reading that treats it as primarily about the logical function of “exist.” According to Frege, existence is a second-order property of concepts, rather than a first-order property of individuals. But the ontological proof presupposes that existence is a property of individuals. So, the ontological proof fails. Close readings of relevant sections in Kant’s corpus reveal that Kant’s problem with the ontological proof primarily has to do with the use of reason, independently of the understanding, in extending what we can claim to exist beyond the scope of possible experience. The lack of any sensible or experiential ground for any cognition of God’s existence makes the ontological proof impossible. Existence claims, for Kant, must be about something that can be represented through sensible intuition and understanding. God, as a mere idea, cannot be represented in such a way. Many contemporary defenders of the ontological proof, critics of Kant’s refutation, and supporters of Kant’s refutation accept the standard reading (SR). But, considering that SR is inadequate, there is a need to correct it. It is important to correct the standard reading not only for a proper reading of Kant’s refutation but also and more importantly for a proper estimation of its philosophical and historical reach, notably its possible refutation of the classic formulations of the ontological proof.
In chapter 1, I attempt to establish the relation of what Kant says about the ontological proof in one of his lectures on natural theology to Descartes, Leibniz, Crusius, and Baumgarten. Chapter 1 addresses the issue about Kant’s actual target in his refutation of the ontological proof. It should at least help us determine the kind of ontological proof that Kant has in mind. In chapter 2, I address Kant’s view of reason and reason’s vulnerabilities to different sorts of illusions, especially theistic illusion. I am primarily concerned with the role of reason in the formation of theistic illusion. For Kant, the faculty of reason, as distinguished from the faculty of understanding, is responsible for the transcendental illusion. Such illusion, for Kant, is natural, unavoidable, and inextinguishable. It arises as reason, due to its distinctive functions, naturally and inevitably extends its reach beyond the scope of possible experience. It pretentiously determines the objective existence of some things (including God) outside the bounds of possible experience. Considering the lack of direct relation between reason and the realm of possible experience, reason cannot make judgments about existence. Chapter 2 should help us understand what exactly is Kant’s problem with the ontological proof by situating what he said about it in the context of his argument in Transcendental Dialectic.
Chapter 3 analyzes relevant passages in Kant’s corpus with particular attention to the specific section of CPR that directly addresses the ontological proof. It highlights the advantages of my reading of Kant’s refutation of the ontological proof over SR. By using SR as the account of Kant’s refutation of the ontological proof in CPR, the richness, effectiveness, and coherence of Kant’s refutation are undermined, since SR fails to account for its multifaceted nature, its compelling force independently of one’s view about the non-predicative nature of existence, and its continuity with Kant’s argument in Transcendental Dialectic. My reading of Kant’s refutation aims to show that it is much more complex than SR, it does not rise or fall based on the truth of Kant’s controversial claim about existence, and it is an outgrowth of Kant’s argument in Transcendental Dialectic.

Bardell, Dohrea. A Kantian Normative Model for Peace. Ph.D. diss. Fielding Graduate University (Human and Organization Development), 2017. [387 p.] Advisor: Dorothy Agger-Gupta. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The Kantian normative model for peace is a theory that is built for practice. Peace flourishes in the Kantian's enlightened communities when human rights are enacted according to the categorical imperative doctrines of right and virtue. Peace does mean the absolute lack of wars between people or states. As an egalitarian phenomenon for the global community, peace is a categorical imperative, a normative law in itself. Practical reason as a categorical imperative is not a rigid system of moral — political codes but a developmental process of humanity toward maturity, which for Kant, as a state of aware consciousness, includes the ability to understand and enact peace. This is the argument and lesson of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. The categorical imperative as a synthetic a priori principle is a normative guidance system that promotes freedom for all citizens of the world; it is also Kant’s starting point for his analysis of the condition of peace, which must begin with human rights. These rights serve as laws to guide societies into building an enlightened global community; a kingdom of ends. The five formulas of the categorical imperative comprise and inhabit the wills of individuals; hence, human beings are autonomous, equal, worthy, and able to form egalitarian just laws of right and virtue. A Kantian blueprint for peace models human development through history. It is a maturing journey of awakening into peace, which for Kant is the categorical imperative’s ultimate call of duty. The enlightened society of the Metaphysics of Morals is built as a normative model that expands its understanding of practical reason and the exercise of duty toward the other, worldwide. Perpetual Peace is in fact a direct duty issued from “the throne of the highest morally legislative power”—the categorical imperative.

Berg, Anastasia Netta Artemyev. Freedom, Feeling and Character: The Unity of Reason and Sensibility in Kant's Practical Philosophy. Ph.D. diss. University of Chicago, 2017. [141 p.] Advisor: Robert B. Pippin. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The dominant reception of Kant accords him the view that our capacity for feeling and our capacity for self-determination are essentially independent of one another: feelings, therefore, are essentially un-free. The negative aim of the dissertation is to argue against this standard interpretation; the positive aim is to offer an alternative.
I demonstrate that the standard interpretation is not only alien to our ordinary ways of self-understanding but that it moreover threatens the internal coherence of the Kantian account itself. I develop an alternative by examining Kant’s account of how reason motivates the agent: first, in the account of the feeling of moral respect, and, second, in the account of moral character. I argue that moral respect does not name one particular feeling among many but that implicit in Kant’s account is the previously unrecognized idea that human feeling is a unique mode of self-consciousness—disclosing the subject to herself as rational and efficacious, i.e., as a moral agent. The distinctively human capacity for feeling emerges as the form of self-consciousness constitutive of practical agency, i.e., of freedom. This understanding of feeling allows us to reevaluate Kant’s account of moral character. Drawing on an Aristotelian understanding of the logical structure of capacities and activities I argue that character is the activity of maintaining one’s identity as a practical agent—an activity that consists in maintaining the agent’s structure of motivation. I then attend to the apparent tension between Kant’s rigorism — the claim that an agent is of either wholly good or wholly evil character — and his nuanced account of the grades of moral imperfection. In addition to good and bad character, I claim, we must find room for moral immaturity, or the partial acquisition of moral character. To do this we must recognize the acquisition of moral character as a form of rational accomplishment: the development and determination of our rational capacities for feeling. Thus, on this alternative interpretation of Kant’s account, feeling and character do not oppose, but are rather the constitutive conditions of freedom.

Bhardwaj, Kiran. Reason, Emotion, and Consequence: Moral Psychology and Kantian Ideals. Ph.D. diss. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017. [186 p.] Advisor: Thomas E. Hill, Jr. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This project is a study of moral ideals, and particularly moral ideals as they play a role in Kantian ethics. It takes Kant’s discussions of what he identified as ideals (the virtuous person, the ethical community, the highest good, and friendship) and uses those discussions to argue that Kantian ideals help Kantians respond to various features of our moral lives: as a concrete representation of the consequences of following the moral law (elicited through the imagination) that engages the emotions in a morally appropriate way.
The chapters of this dissertation provide: first, a general account of what ideals are and how they function, thanks to their employment of the imagination—explaining precisely how ideals orient and inspire us. Then within the domain of Kantian ethics, it reviews the Kantian debate about the supererogatory and provides a new account using Kantian ideals as a way to explore beyond the traditional explanation of actions that are good to do but not required. Chapters 3 through 5 each explore three of the Kantian ethical ideals: the ideal of self-perfection, the ideal of the kingdom of ends, and the ideal of friendship. These important themes in ethics—what it is to be a good individual, relationship, and community—are interestingly understood in the role of ideals, rather than solely in terms of duty.

Cooper-Simpson, Franklin Charles Owen. The Idealism of Life: Hegel and Kant on the Ontology of Living Individuals. Ph.D. diss. University of Toronto, 2017. [243 p.] Advisor: Rebecca Comay. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My dissertation, The Idealism of Life: Hegel and Kant on the Ontology of Living Individuals, investigates the significance of the concept of life for Kant’s and Hegel’s respective forms of idealism. In Chapter 1, I argue that Kant’s account of the subjective origin of the a priori forms of cognition requires that when we judge something to be a living individual, we only suppose it to be so (or, in other words, that these judgments do not determine anything in the object being judged). In the remaining chapters, I argue that Hegel’s account of life as objectively real (i.e. rather than a supposition we make) depends on his development of the concept of the individual as self-determining self. I trace this development in the Science of Logic through three stages. In Chapter 2, I argue that any minimal notion of self depends on Hegel’s logic of the Infinite as described in the Doctrine of Being. In Chapter 3, I argue that this minimal account of selfhood is possible only if that self is immanently, rather than externally, determined—that is, that a self cannot be defined from without—by tracing Hegel’s account of ‘Determining Reflection’. In Chapter 4, I show how, for Hegel, the logic of self-determination gives us the resources to describe the concept of individuality, which Hegel develops as the ‘Concept’. In Chapter 5, I conclude that Hegel’s account of life depends on the claim that the ideal relations immanent to it (relations between, e.g., self and other, or organism and organ) both constitute and are constituted by the material determinations of the living thing. This, in turn, suggests that any idealism that attributes ideal forms and material determinations to distinct sources will be unable to describe life as objectively real.

Cote, Sophie. Making ‘Cinnabar’: Kant on Made A Posteriori Concepts. Master’s thesis. University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, 2017. [28 p.] Advisor: Willam Bristow. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The topic of this paper is Kant’s distinction between given and made concepts. A made concept is ‘created by us arbitrarily’, while a given concept is ‘produced either through the nature of our understanding or through experience’ (24:131). Kant’s most frequent examples of made concepts are mathematical concepts, such as ‘triangle’. But mathematical concepts exemplify just one kind of made concepts, namely made a priori concepts. Concepts can also be made a posteriori. The question ‘What is a made a posteriori concept?’ has received little attention. The purpose of this paper is to address this question. I argue that made a posteriori concepts are representations of real essences. As such made a posteriori concepts serve to explain—or grant ‘insight’ into the causes of—observable properties of objects. I show further that made a posteriori concepts are not abstracted from experience. Rather, they are posited as hypotheses in the course of scientific investigation and are for this reason ‘created by us arbitrarily’. Hypotheses are justified by their explanatory power in relation to observable properties of objects and are for this reason a posteriori. In closing I suggest that my reading helps account for the connection between making a concept and making an object which Kant draws, not just in mathematics, but also in the empirical sciences.

Cressotti, Josef. Reading Kant’s Third Critique: What the Beautiful Can Teach Us about Judgment. Ph.D. diss. University of California, Riverside, 2017. [249 p.] Advisor: Pierre Keller. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In the Critique of Judgment, Kant argues that judgment, our faculty for thinking particulars under universals, is governed by what he calls the “principle of purposiveness.” This principle states that we must look at the world as if it were made for our faculty of cognition. The purpose of this principle is not merely that we increase the systematicity of our knowledge, but that we achieve our highest end as rational agents. For Kant, this is the realization of a world in which happiness perfectly accords with morality. Ultimately, all of our activity—including our theoretical scientific pursuits—is directed toward this end. Poor judgment is not a matter of representing something that fails to correspond with the way the world is independent of our point of view. Rather, poor judgment consists in our engaging in the world in such a way that we fail to notice its relevance to any of the ends a human being could justifiably pursue for the sake of our ultimate end. To improve our judgment, we must learn to free ourselves from our particular, and often private, ends in order to see the full significance of objects. This principle of purposiveness is best illustrated by our judgments of taste, which we cannot justify on the basis of articulable rules. Careful analysis of these judgments shows how we must rely on a fundamental capacity to determine what is significant to other points of view, what Kant calls the “common sense.” The normativity of this faculty comes from our shared commitment to the highest end of reason, which compels us to consider how other people see the world. It finds its fulfillment not in our thinking something true about an object but in our taking pleasure in an object that is universally shareable. This experience is made possible not through the perfection of our faculty of cognition, but, as Kant says, “the way of thinking needed to make a purposive use of it.” This “broad-mindedness,” so apparent in our evaluations of beauty in art and nature, is equally necessary for sound theoretical and practical judgment.

Eleanor Davis, Karen. Aesthetic Play as Ethical Practice: Rethinking Moral Life Through Kant, Schiller, Gadamer, and Prison Theater. Ph.D. diss. Texas A&M University, 2017. [251 p.] Advisor: Kristi Sweet. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This dissertation investigates how aesthetic play supports moral life, with the Shakespeare Behind Bars (SBB) prison theater program as its centerpiece. This project responds to the ascendancy of instrumental rationality and technological thinking in ethical reasoning, as diagnosed by Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and others. I argue that moral life patterned after aesthetic play rehabilitates practical wisdom and interpretation in our age while also cultivating our capacity to make contextualized moral judgments.
I understand aesthetic play through the heritage of Kant’s aesthetics and suggest that play between reason and imagination teaches us to accommodate both universality and particularity in moral judgments. The ethical potential of Kant’s third Critique is unfolded in my analysis of Schiller and Gadamer, followed by a turn to theater studies and field research into the SBB program.
For Kant, aesthetic judging is analogous to moral judging, and so aesthetic experience is preparatory for moral life. For Schiller, aesthetic play unifies the rational and sensuous aspects of human being, allowing us to realize the highest expressions of morality and freedom. For Gadamer, aesthetic play models the way we engage with others in all contexts. Play means engaging with others, letting them ask questions and make demands, and responding by playing along. I suggest that these characterizations of aesthetic play model a view of moral life that resists instrumentalization.
Acting theory after Stanislavski emphasizes truthfulness on stage and integrity to the character. Furthermore, many theater theorists understand their work to be ethical, as theater helps us understand a broader range of possibilities for human experience. The role of play and improvisation in theater further develops our moral aptitude to adapt and exercise wisdom in our interactions with others. SBB demonstrates how the ethical aims of theater can be implemented. SBB boasts a recidivism rate 60 percentage points below the national average, suggesting that collaborative creative play might indeed transform our character.
I conclude that aesthetic play helps us reimagine ethical life and cultivates our capacities for good judgment, interpretation, genuine listening, and practical wisdom in responding to a changing situation—the very moral aptitudes that calculative moral reasoning suppresses.

Gungor, Tolga. Nothing: Kant’s Analysis and the Hegelian Critique. Ph.D. diss. University of Essex (Philosophy and Art History, 2017. [215 p.] Advisor: ??. [PQ] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This thesis aims to throw an illuminating light on the as yet neglected concept of nothing in Kant’s system, a concept which is taken into consideration, by Kant, in accordance with the guiding thread of the categories of the understanding. My main argument is that Kant has a fourfold division of nothing and each has a transcendental function in his system. This function is basically a limiting one; setting up negative determinations without which Kant’s system would have never been constituted as it is now. It is shown in the thesis that the concept of nothing is divided basically into four: first, nothing as ens rationis that limits and thereby protects knowledge, secondly nothing as nihil privativum that defines the boundaries of phenomenal reality, thirdly nothing as ens imaginarium that makes possible the unity of experience and finally, nothing as nihil negativum that draws the lines of logical thinking. All make, in the last resort and by being the concepts of the opposite, experience possible. The thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter is an exposition of all four divisions of nothing, the second is the display specifically of the concepts of ens rationis and nihil negativum, and the third is of the concepts of ens imaginarium and nihil privativum. The auxiliary argument of the thesis is that while Hegel makes a strong charge of externality against and thereby severely criticizes the Kantian concept of the thing-in-itself, - the concept of which I propose to be contained under the concept of ens rationis- Kant has equally convincing arguments against such a charge. This is the topic of the fourth and final chapter which has an implicit aim of creating the image of a powerful critical Hegel but on the other hand an equally enduring and war-like Kant. Kant is presented as a philosopher who has powerful responses to institute a balance between himself and his opponent. When Kant’s differing concepts of nothing are taken into account, Hegel’s attack of externality, it is maintained, appears not to have taken into account the full measure of the resources of the Kantian position. Even when it is said that the attack is against one specific concept of the thing-in-itself alone, Kant still seems to have enough resources for toleration and defence indeed.

Hoffer, Yaron Noam. Kant's Theoretical Conception of God. Ph.D. diss. Indiana University, 2017. [200 p.] Advisor: Allen W. Wood. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My dissertation argues for the conceptual unity and historical continuity of Kant’s theoretical conception of God. It shows both the importance of the conception of God for understanding the development of Kant’s thought from the pre-critical onto the critical philosophy, and its significant role in the Kantian account of theoretical rationality. I maintain that there is a single idea that guided Kant in construing the metaphysical conception of God traceable early on from the pre-critical philosophy, that of grounding the unity and necessity of the laws of nature. I examine how Kant’s critical adaptation of this prevalent early modern rationalistic position enables him to transform the conception of God from an object of metaphysical inquiry into a regulative idea of reason. My interpretation thus explains the connection, mostly ignored in the literature, between the rationalist metaphysical conception of God and the regulative role it affords in the critical system.

Howard, Stephen. Kant and Force: Dynamics, Natural Science and Transcendental Philosophy. Ph.D. diss. Kingston University, 2017. [251 p.] Advisor: Howard Caygill. [PQ] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This thesis presents an interpretation of Immanuel Kant’s theoretical philosophy in which the notion of ‘force’ (Kraft) is of central importance. My analysis encompasses the full span of Kant’s theoretical and natural-scientific writings, from the first publication to the drafts of an unfinished final work. With a close focus on Kant’s texts, I explicate their explicit references to force, providing a narrative of the philosophical role and significance of force in the various periods of the Kantian oeuvre. This represents an intervention into Kant scholarship that seeks to correct the marginal role accorded to ‘force’. The central problem that emerges through the thesis’ attention to force is: how to interpret the simultaneous separation and connection of physical and psychological forces in Kant’s mature, critical philosophy? Physical and psychological forces are strictly separated, and yet a common, ontological conception of force underpins these two domains. I show that this issue has its basis in a tradition of philosophical ‘dynamics’ stemming from Leibniz, which is examined in part one. The three parts of the thesis proceed chronologically through the Kantian oeuvre. Part one reconstructs the historical context of Leibnizian and Newtonian conceptions of force, and presents a narrative of the employment of force in Kant’s pre-critical writings, in their relation to the broad problematic of Leibniz’s dynamics. Part two explores the account of physical and psychological forces, and the common, ontological notion of force, in the major critical-period discussions. Part three presents the late works, namely the third Critique and the Opus postumum, as a ‘philosophy of force’, in which force, with all its necessary ambiguities, plays central roles in Kant’s late systematising endeavours. I conclude that the perspective of this thesis makes possible a new understanding of the nature and unity of Kant’s philosophical project.

Israelsen, Andrew. Kant and the Unity of Nature. Ph.D. diss. Purdue University, 2017. [217 p.] Advisor: Christopher Yeomans. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This dissertation is an investigation into Kant’s theoretical philosophy, in particular his conception of nature, and our knowledge of it. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously claims to deduce certain pure a priori concepts that hold of all objects of a possible experience. He further claims that these concepts are always operative in human cognition, and shape the world of experience with necessity and universality. Despite this wide-reaching claim, Kant recognizes in one of his late works, The Critique of the Power of Judgment, that nature in its material diversity might resist our attempts to cognize and describe it, as it might be populated by an infinitely diverse range of objects.
In order to address this threat, of infinite empirical diversity, which he claims would entail the impossibility of any systematic empirical cognition, he posits a new principle, the principle of reflecting judgment, which he holds to be a necessary supposition of judging subjects in their cognitive interactions with the world.
In this dissertation I defend Kant’s new principle of reflecting judgment as a necessary element of his critical philosophy, which properly ‘finishes’ that project. I examine the claims to knowledge formulated in the first Critique and Kant’s later worries about their adequacy, concluding that his worries are well-placed, and that his adoption of a new principle, of reflection, is the only way to make sense of material diversity, and to safeguard the possibility of unified empirical cognition. I interpret both the first and third Critiques according to this fundamental question, utilizing the pioneering work of Béatrice Longuenesse in order to attempt to synthesize the philosophical positions of both texts into a single, cohesive whole.

Little, David H. Aristotle and Kant on the Noble and the Good. Ph.D. diss. Baylor University, 2017. [198 p.] Advisor: Dwight D. Allman. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this dissertation, I examine and compare the moral and political thought of Aristotle and Kant using the ancient Greek concepts of the noble (to kalon) and the good (to agathon). Kant has been accused of being a rationalist who neglects the importance of emotions and prudence. I argue that Kant recognizes that moral and political progress depends on prudence and a commitment of the emotions, which is achieved in part through a recognition of the moral as beautiful. Kant describes himself as breaking with all previous moral philosophy, arguing that so-called eudaimonism reduces morality to self-interest. I contend that Aristotle uses the noble and the good to describe the virtuous person as someone who pursues his own good in an elevated sense by aiming at the noble. Aristotle depicts moral virtue as both an end in itself and constitutive of happiness, understood as flourishing rather than an emotive state. Moreover, he connects noble action to prudential judgment, which involves an assessment of the good achieved in a particular circumstance. Examining the moral and political thought of Aristotle and Kant in terms of the noble and the good reveals a surprising point of concord between two figures who are often portrayed as opposite one another.

Moffat, Luke Robert. Subjects of the Unconditioned: Kant’s Critical Metaphysics and Aesthetics and their Reconstruction in Schelling’s Identity-Philosophy. Ph.D. diss. University of Kent at Canterbury, 2017. [vii, 256 p.] Advisor: Edward Kanterian. [PQ] [online]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] My thesis examines Kant's metaphysics and its critical appropriation by Schelling, particularly in his early identity-philosophy. My first two chapters focus on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of the Power of Judgement, wherein I discuss core themes in Kant's metaphysics and aesthetics. In the first chapter these themes include intellectual intuition, the ideas of reason, and das Unbedingte (the unconditioned or absolute). In the second chapter I deal with aesthetic judgment, aesthetic ideas and genius. In chapter three and four I offer a critical analysis of Kant's ideas and Schelling's identity-philosophy, defending the powerful, if little known arguments Schelling formulates to overcome the limitations Kant imposes upon metaphysics. I relate this analysis to three central themes common to Kant and Schelling; intellectual intuition, aesthetic experience, and the unconditioned. I argue that Schelling struggles to overcome Kant's critical limitations, particularly with regard to the status of intellectual intuition for human cognition. My discussion of Schelling focuses on two of his essays; Presentation of my system of philosophy (1801), and Further presentations from the system of philosophy (1802). These texts consolidate Schelling's identity-philosophy in the wake of his more well known work, System of transcendental idealism from 1800. In addition, I examine Schelling's Philosophy of art lectures from 1804. These are all crucial texts in the history of German idealism which are rarely discussed. In the course of my thesis I engage and respond to recent research by Paul Guyer, Dalia Nassar, Daniel Whistler, Manfred Frank, Karl Ameriks, Dieter Henrich, and others.

Peng, Bo. Kant’s Theory of Duty and Conflict of Rights. Ph.D. diss. Rutgers University, 2017. [184 p.] Advisor: Stephen Eric Bronner. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] In this dissertation, first, I suggest that many debates among rights theorists, including Nozick, Thomson, Dworkin, Rawls, Nagel, and Susan Wolf on the topic of conflicts of rights and consequences and issues of social justice hinge on two important questions: How to define humans' true needs; How to find a proper balance between one's true needs and others'. Thus, the study on duties to oneself and duties to others in Kant's ethic theory of duty is much needed. I then analyze Kant's concepts of four categories of duties, compare them pairwise, and determine the indications from the comparisons. The imperfect duty to others commands that one shall try to treat others' ends as one's own, which seems demanding. But one also has the perfect duty to oneself to not be a mere means to others' ends. Therefore, we shall never give up our basic good living and our own life goals in order to help others. And when our time and resources are limited, we can choose freely which following imperfect duties to perform: whether to develop our physical and intellectual powers or to help others. Hence, I conclude that Kant prioritizes an individual's own true needs over one's duties to others, and his moral principles do not demand too much from individuals, unlike many ethic theorists claim. Based on this, his theory can give us good persuasion power against overwhelming demands from the community, and against manipulative totalitarian leaders who urge their citizens to be moral saints and alienate their individual rights. His theory can also offer good guidance to democratic governments when they decide how to prioritize their budget spending. It indicates that basic education, basic housing, and basic health care should take priority over higher education and foreign aid.

Pereira Di Salvo, Carlos. Reconstructing the Kantian Cosmopolitan Project. Ph.D. diss. Northwestern University, 2017. [328 p.] Advisor: Cristina Lafont. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The processes unleashed by globalization make global governance increasingly necessary. But the legitimacy of the emerging institutional arrangements is increasingly contested. There is thus, today, a renewed impetus for the philosophical project of justifying the reform of global governance institutions in a democratic direction. My central concern is to understand what it takes for political philosophy to carry out this project successfully. I develop a framework for analyzing, categorizing, and assessing efforts by political philosophers to justify action-guiding institutional prescriptions. I then apply this framework to debates about global governance among the central figures within the Kantian tradition. I focus on the complex role that judgments about feasibility play in those debates, and show that this focus is necessary for any adequate understanding of them. Finally, I use the framework to motivate a way of building upon the existing debates in order to articulate a compelling sketch of the Kantian cosmopolitan project for our time.

Perry Slavens, Jesse David. Tracking Kant's Bête Noire: The Significance of Hegel's Emptiness Critique for Contemporary Kantianism. Ph.D. diss. Rice University, 2017. [339 p.] Advisor: H. Tristam Engelhardt. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] The animating contention of this dissertation is that Hegel’s emptiness critique remains relevant for Kantian moral philosophy. The significance of Hegel’s critique is both broad and severe. However, the relevance of Hegel’s emptiness critique has been challenged on two fronts: first, that Hegel’s emptiness objection misunderstands Kant’s position regarding the Formula of Universal Law and the functional role of the universalization procedure; second, that Hegel’s objection is limited to the Formula of Universal Law, and the content-full Formula of Humanity undermines any charges of general emptiness. Both challenges are erroneous, and the specific objective of the dissertation is to show how.
The dissertation proceeds in three parts corresponding to these rebuttals: First, in chapter 1 I provide an alternate interpretation of Hegel’s emptiness objection that contextualizes the objection, thereby showing how it is an element of a larger emptiness critique. Second, in chapters 2 and 3 I consider and defend the applicability and severity of the emptiness critique for the Formula of Universal Law. Lastly, in chapters 4 and 5 I argue that Hegel’s critique is not limited to the Formula of Universal Law, but can be extended to the Formula of Humanity, and is thus broadly relevant for Kantian moral philosophy. These arguments are all framed in terms of Hegel’s general contention that Morality cannot furnish an immanent doctrine of duties unless empirical content is imported: when a determination or derivation or duty works, it works by importing illicit content; when illicit content is not imported, the determination or derivation of duty fails. With the introduction of subjective, contingent, or empirical content as foundational to moral theory, however, the supremacy, objectivity, and universality of the moral theory is undone. Such content is for Kant antithetical to true morality; it is Kant’s adversary and bête noire.

Reckner, William Leland. The Form of Law: Practical Principles and the Foundations of Kant's Moral Theory. Ph.D. diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 2017. [340 p.] Advisor: Barbara Herman. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] Immanuel Kant argued that morality requires us to act on principles that we can will as universal laws. However, there has always been profound disagreement about how to apply this requirement, and about why this demand should be morally fundamental. This dissertation offers new answers to these questions by developing a deeper understanding of the “practical” principles that Kant wants us to be able to will as universal laws.
My primary thesis is that practical principles state three things: a reason to act, the end or goal that this reason requires us to accomplish, and the means that we must use to achieve that end. Several crucial lines of Kant’s thought require this structure for practical principles, I argue. Primarily: practical principles, as principles for action, must also be causal principles, and Kant’s views on causation require practical principles to have the structure I propose.
I use this structure to answer some venerable problems: first, why can’t we will any principle whatsoever as a universal law, especially if we make each principle unique to each case? Because Kant requires causal relations to be rule-governed, I argue, in a way that prevents practical principles from being unique to each situation.
Next, why isn’t morality satisfied when everyone could follow our principles? Under my interpretation, practical principles say how we are required to act. As rational beings, though, we cannot be required to contradict ourselves. Everyone could contradict themselves in order to follow a principle, but we cannot be required to do so. So I argue that “willing” our principles as universal laws is supposed to capture how principles cannot require us to contradict ourselves.
Last, why must we act on principles that we can will as universal laws? Kant answers: to act that way is to give laws to ourselves, and we must think of ourselves as laws to ourselves. That is autonomy. But if I give a law to myself, couldn’t I release myself from that law, too? I conclude by using my interpretation to explain how laws that we give to ourselves can also impose genuine requirements on us.

Smith, Catherine Mary Mathie. Self-Respecting Animals: Three Papers on Kant’s View of Human Nature and Morality. Ph.D. diss. Cornell University, 2017. [121 p.] Advisor: Michelle Kosch. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This dissertation takes the form of three papers. Each one can be read on its own, and I present them here in a format that lends itself to such reading. However, they also center around a common topic: how Immanuel Kant conceives of immorality and how this theory informs his understanding of morality.
In the first paper, I argue that Kant does not think immorality in human beings is always interpersonally arrogant, focusing in particular on what Kant means by “self-conceit.” I argue that self-conceit is a happiness-emphasizing conception of self, in which one overvalues the inclinations. When life goes well, this self-conception and the standard of assessment it implies do lead to the opinion that one is worth more than others. When life goes badly, however, they lead to the opposite (and no less harmful) misunderstanding.
In the second paper, I address another motivation for the claim that Kant thought interpersonal arrogance was the central moral problem for human beings: Kant’s theory of happiness. Kant held that human beings are competitive, as can be seen in several of his doctrines about how human beings conceive of and pursue happiness. I show how Kant explains this competitive bent in human nature while maintaining the thesis that human beings are interested in happiness only because it promises to be satisfying. I argue that Kant’s understanding of human rationality and of human interdependence result in competitiveness without the assumption that human beings are arrogant.
In the third paper, I turn to Kant’s theory of self-respect, using my understanding of Kant on immorality and arrogance to explain the importance of self-respect in his moral theory. I argue that self-respect is significant specifically because it is a way of valuing oneself that acknowledges the disharmony between one’s desire for happiness and one’s commitment to morality.

Tizzard, Jessica. Sense-Dependent Rationalism: Finding Unity in Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Ph.D. diss. The University of Chicago, 2017. [255 p.] Advisor: Robert B. Pippin. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] No issue has more wide-ranging implications for Kant’s practical philosophy than that of how our active rational and receptive sensible capacities of mind relate to one another. How we interpret this relationship fixes our understanding of Kant’s relation to his predecessors; his view of human nature; his account of the will, motivation, and virtue; and his conception of moral faith. I argue that the vast majority of commentators adopt an untenably dualistic reading of the relationship between reason and sensibility that cannot be representative of Kant’s actual view. Instead, I suggest a unified account of these capacities that takes reason and sensibility to stand to one another as form to matter. The result can be described as a cognitivist reading of Kant’s practical philosophy, one which emphasizes that the objective representational content of our reasoning and the subjective motivation felt by the subject must be understood as inseparable from one another. This novel view of practical reasoning has important implications for established interpretive issues that I develop throughout, touching upon debates concerning the concept of respect for the moral law, moral motivation, the possibility of evil, the concept of the highest good, and the role of religion in Kant’s philosophical system.

York, Thomas Paul. Kant's Philosophy of Religion and Climate Change. Ph.D. diss. University of Toronto, 2017. [466 p.] Advisor: James J. DiCenso. [PQ]

[Abstract] [Hide Abstract] This thesis argues that Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793) may be applied to climate change issues. This thesis makes use of James DiCenso’s interpretation of Kant’s philosophy of religion (2011, 2012), which argues that Kant’s key text on religion conveys a social and political vision. This thesis addresses both traditional religious worldviews and secular political movements engaged in climate politics. It argues for the need to ethically assess these social formations’ evolving responses to the climate crisis. The failure (to date) of religious traditions to adequately address the climate crisis, and possible reasons for this, are addressed. Examples of social formations, ideologies, and religious responses examined include consumerism, environmental theology, religiously motivated climate change denial and dispensationalist theology, as well as the secular climate justice movement. Kant locates the source of many of our problems in the power of choice and determining ground of morality. In this sense, his ethical system is distinct from the neo-Marxist interpretation of “systems of power.” The theory of what DiCenso refers to as “shared representations” of “supersensible” cognition is helpful for understanding the dynamics of belief that inform complex social and political formations. Kant’s philosophy of religion may be of value for those trying to understand how religions and political ideologies that employ powerful symbols and ideals play a role in the unfolding of historical events.

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