Kantian Idea Research Articles

Idea Boga w późnych pismach Immanuela Kanta

Kant’s position on the problem of God is radicalized under the influence of transcendental philosophy’s evolving project. The weakening position of physico-theology and the growing importance of moral theology are possible ways of describing the shift in perspective between the pre-critical period writings and the critical period writings. The separation of the area of cognition and action excludes the possibility of formulating theodicy in a classical form. God, as only a conceived idea, and its meaning is firmly grounded in practical philosophy, in which the presentation of the law is a sufficient condition for moral behaviour. In such a model, God is only an idea, but a fully functional one. This could be noticed mostly in the Opus postumum, where in analogy to God’s practical idea, Kant deduces the transcendental ether’s existence. Ether is not just a hypothesis for Kant; it is not just a ‘temporary’ or ‘contingent’ assumption made ad hoc to explain a particular experience. Still, it is a fundamental and indelible condition, a conditio sine qua non of experience in general. The non-hypothetical matter of heat (ether) is the transcendental condition of all experience, though it does not cease to be an ‘intelligible thing’, an ‘idea’. The status of this idea is entirely ‘non-theoretical’. Kant writes about the ether similarly as he writes about the idea of God, which is only conceivable but at the same time it maintains a strong ‘non-theoretical’ status. The Kantian idea of God is strongly objectified. It is not a ‘product’ of reason, but rather something ‘perceived’ by reason, a strictly theistic idea (as Erich Adickes claims). Kant’s statements, characteristic for the Opus postumum, in which God is identified with moral law, of course give grounds to suppose that the deification of practical reason can be understood as a final stage in the long process of anthropologizing God. However, these statements also allow us to consider practical reason as a new source of what is given.

Kant ve Hegel’in Felsefesinde Özgürlük

The main objective of this article is to understand Hegelian understanding of freedom through a comparison of its Kantian counterpart. I set up this investigation with a consideration of the debate between liberals and communitarians. In the history of political thought, many political thinkers have been occupied by the questions about the priority of right over good and of universal over particular. In order to answer these questions, one needs to have a clear conception of freedom since the claims of freedom and equality are universally accepted political values which should reflect our political institutions contextually. To accomplish this task, first, I will introduce a brief account of Kant’s idea of freedom. It is crucial to know Kantian idea of freedom and how this idea reflects to his political philosophy to understand Hegel’s emphasis on ethical order and particularly state institutions. Second, I will give a brief account of Hegel’s idea of freedom by giving references to his book titled Philosophy of Right. Third, I will introduce two major criticisms that Hegel poses to the Kantian idea of freedom. Finally, I will introduce how Hegel tries to overcome the problems of Kantian idea of freedom through the dialectical construction of the concepts of spirit, freedom and ethnical order.

¿Es la libertad el presupuesto sobre el que se construye el edificio de la responsabilidad civil?

This article deals with the idea of free will, from the constitutive philosophical bases, in the field of tort law. When exploring in the idea of free will the basis of the regime are found and freedom underlies in the idea of free will. From its foundations in Aristotle and then referring to the historical tradition, it is explained how the idea of free will was established in modern dogmatics, based on Kantian (and, in short, neo-naturalist) ideas. As a consequence of this conception, the differences in liability regimes are explored, explaining them from their bases and the impact that such conception has had on the idea of the functions of the regime.

Wittgenstein and Meaning

AbstractThe subject of this paper is something very general – namely, Wittgenstein’s conception of meaning. The concept of meaning necessarily brings with it other concepts, such as ‘subject’, ‘rule’, ‘language’ and ‘system’, and so we shall be concerned in one way or another with all of these too. However, our direct focus will be on the concept of the proposition, and our primary aim will be to clarify various category distinctions which determine this concept. The overall thesis which we shall argue towards is that there is more of a common conception of meaning between early and later Wittgenstein than is generally acknowledged, and that this common conception can be elucidated through the application of Kantian ideas.

Автономия метафизики: Онтология кантианства в работах философов аналитической традиции

The article presents a critical analysis of the influence of I. Kant's ideas on the work of analytical philosophers. It is substantiated the thesis on the independence of Kantian ontology from transcendental epistemology. The article investigated possible areas of integration for various aspects of Kantian ontology and epistemology in the theories of a number of analytical philosophers (P. F. Strawson, W. V. O. Quine), who were directly influenced by I. Kant's ideas. A semantic analysis of the concepts they use does not confirm the hypothesis about the evolutionary influence of Kantian transcendental epistemology on the ontological aspects of the works of analytical philosophers (ontology of language, logical-semantic concepts, notions of proposition and modality, categories of particulars and universals)

Число и кантианская исследовательская программа в современной нейронауке

The article presents the attempt to consider the Kantian research program in modern neuroscience in its part, which relates to the representation of the “number” and the mechanisms for processing numerical information by neu­ral structures. We claim that Kantian ideas about the a priori nature of certain mathematical categories related to the status of space and time [geometry and arithmetic], which were subjected to doubt as a result of the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries, proved to be highly demanded and reassessed as a result of the intensive progress of modern cognitive and cultural neuroscience. The dis­covery of the subitizing phenomena, “sense of number” and “sense of place” (analogous to the navigation system of the brain) push us to recall the old Kan­tian judgments concerning certain a priori constructions of mathematics. The on­togenetic foundations of such phenomena, their conditionality by the features of the functioning of the brain, reveal not the metaphorical, but the strategic nature of the Kantian research program in modern neuroscience. In the context of these studies, it also turned out that in the case of living systems, one can speak about their proto-arithmetic traits, and in the case of humans, mathematical abilities that are largely independent of the language, and their systematic development from an early age significantly increases the likelihood of successful mathemati­cal activity in future. Attention drawn to the interdependence of the activity of the developing brain, social and cultural contexts, which intersects and expressed in the process of acculturation of the brain and vice versa – neural determination of culture. This kind of interaction support the idea of the possibility of expand­ing original Kantian idea and introducing the idea related to the transcendental­ism of the activity type

Kant’s Concept of Space and Time in the Light of Modern Science

Although the name of Immanuel Kant has survived in the history of culture as the name of one of the greatest philosophers of modern times, Kant's role as a scientist is also very important. His work in the field of cosmology and physics is directly related to philosophy. Kant's development of the transcendental method was a direct result of thinking about the relationship between mathematics and experiment. Transcendentalism and Kant's theory of subjectivity continue the development of physics from Galileo to Newton and Leibniz. This is especially true of his theory of space and time. All this should have turned transcendental aesthetics into a turning point in the development of mathematical natural science. However, in practice, the alienation of the natural sciences from philosophy has only intensified. An analysis of the scientific revolution at the beginning of the 20th century shows the enormous role of Kant's ideas in it in repulsing scientists from Kantianism. Weinert, a researcher of the relationship of 20th century physics to Kant's philosophy, shows that Einstein, being a Kantian as a philosopher, opposed Kantianism as a physicist. He enthusiastically accepted the Kantian idea of the autonomy of theoretical knowledge, but did not accept the concept a priori. An approach in which experience and theory do not precede each other, but are in constant interaction, is defined in the article as experimental transcendentalism. With the methodological difference between physics and philosophy, the concept of space and time in modern physics has a deep similarity with the transcendental doctrine. The definition of the qualitative structure of space (Analysis Situs), including the theoretical substantiation of its three dimensions, was the subject of reflections of scientists from Galileo, Leibniz and Kant to Einstein and Poincaré.

Being Inclined: Félix Ravaisson’s Philosophy of Habit by Mark Sinclair

Reviewed by: Being Inclined: Félix Ravaisson’s Philosophy of Habit by Mark Sinclair Leonard Lawlor Mark Sinclair. Being Inclined: Félix Ravaisson’s Philosophy of Habit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 229. Cloth, $60.00. Being Inclined is erudite, clearly written, and well-argued. It is rich in the history of philosophy and in philosophical ideas. It is not an exaggeration when Sinclair says that “philosophy advances, and can only advance, by means of a living dialogue with the past” (18). This short review cannot do the book justice. Being Inclined is divided into six chapters. From a historical viewpoint, chapters 1 and 2 are revelatory for the Anglophone reader of the last two hundred years of French philosophy. Sinclair is a master at assembling all the texts that influenced Ravaisson and all the texts [End Page 157] on which he had an influence. However, in the first two chapters, Sinclair also presents the basics of Ravaisson’s philosophy of habit, which is based on his 1838 dissertation, Of Habit. For Ravaisson, as Sinclair shows repeatedly in the opening chapters, habit is “continuous” with will and reflection. It is an “obscure activity” that is “pre-voluntary” (neither involuntary nor voluntary). In fact, the phrases that define Ravaisson’s philosophy of habit are ‘more and more’ and ‘less and less.’ Through these differences of degree, Sinclair shows that Ravaisson’s philosophy consists in an attempt to overcome traditional philosophical dualisms such as the mind-body dualism. Thus, as we see in chapter 3, habit, for Ravaisson, is the organon for philosophy itself. In this chapter, Sinclair provides an interesting comparison between Ravaisson and Schelling. But the most interesting comparison between Schelling on art and Ravaisson on habit occurs through the Kantian idea of “purposiveness without a purpose.” As Sinclair says, “For Ravaisson, this purposiveness without a purpose . . . expresses itself as grace, which . . . can be understood as a certain artful effortlessness” (121). In the effortless gracefulness of a dancer, we see the dualism of the mind and body overcome: the will pushing the body but the body not resisting the push, but also the will following the body and not resisting its draw. In this way, habit’s “law of grace” puts us in touch with “first nature” (67). Chapter 3 is the pivot in Being Inclined from the history of philosophy to philosophy as such. Like chapters 1 and 2, chapters 4–6 are revelatory, but they seem to be revelatory more in relation to Sinclair’s developing his own ideas. In chapter 4, especially in its fourth section, Sinclair shows that Ravaisson’s philosophy of habit is a thoroughgoing ontology. In this regard, one has to hear the title of the book—Being Inclined—in two registers. On the one hand, being inclined describes the basic characteristic of habit: a tendency or tending to and toward. Yet the title also indicates that habit provides the door through which we can enter into the meaning of being in general: being inclined. By means of an analogy with habit, we come to see that all of nature is a tendency: to be is to tend. Here Sinclair mentions Heidegger explicitly, and because tendency has a temporal dimension (tending toward the future), he even makes use of Heidegger’s phrase ‘being and time’ (181). Also in these final chapters, and this is already indicated in the book’s introduction, Sinclair argues that inclination or tendency (these terms are not exactly synonymous, with tendency being more fundamental than inclination [51]) is not reducible to reasons or to mechanical causality (3). This “neither-nor” sets up the overarching theme of the whole book: the modal character of habit. At first, these later chapters (4 through 6) attempt to show that when Ravaisson speaks of necessity in Of Habit and in later writings when he speaks of moral necessity, he actually means contingency. But, as we progress further into chapter 6, I think we see something else. Here, Sinclair turns to contemporary philosophies of causality. This chapter takes up a prior debate between Sinclair and certain philosophers of causality, Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum. Like Mumford and Anjum, Sinclair wants to show...

Changing hearts and minds: Cristina Lafont on democratic self-legislation

Lafont argues for a participatory version of deliberative democracy that shares key features with other contemporary approaches, while departing from them in decisive ways. It is based on the Rousseauian–Kantian idea of democratic self-legislation, interpreted as the idea that citizens must be able to see themselves as the authors of the laws and public policies to which they are subject. She insists that her specification of the ideal of democratic self-legislation is a general one, aiming to appeal to readers with different understandings of the core democratic values of equality, freedom and democratic control. This is questionable. I show that she interprets the democratic ideal of freedom as a distinctive, normatively robust conception of citizen self-determination. Those drawn to travel with her on the long participatory road should be aware of this and ready to explore the implications. By downplaying the distinctiveness and normative robustness of her idea of freedom, she does her model a disservice.

Chapter 3 Kant as a Revolutionary

In the previous chapters of Interpreting Kant in Education, some different understandings of Kant's key terms were contrasted in order to begin to bring a more favourable picture of Kant into view. This third chapter continues the process through a discussion of Kant's ‘Copernican revolution’. Most in education will be familiar with Kant's idea that objects conform to our knowledge, but this can be understood in different ways. Typically read as a subjectivist ‘mind makes nature’ move, Kant is widely characterised in educational theory as a constructivist, with mind often reified as ordering and structuring the sense data of experience, or imposing meaning and principles. Here Kant's Copernican insight is considered in relation to the prevailing metaphysics of his time, emphasising his rejection of this and showing how original his thinking is. Addressing the question of just what is mind-dependent on Kant's mind-dependent view involves considering the conceptions of the relation between subject and object, mind and world, that underlie different interpretations. The idea of objective constraints is introduced to begin to emphasise the objectivity of Kant's Copernican insight, which tends to be obscured in ‘mind imposes meaning’ portrayals in education.

Preface

There is perhaps no thinker in the modern world who has laid the way for the development of philosophy so influentially as Immanuel Kant. He is the towering figure in the wake of whose work philosophy finds its different directions. And it is hard to think of the philosophy of education, especially in its modern incarnations, without some sense of Kant in the background, whether as the pillar of reason, the supreme proponent of deontological ethics, or the philosopher who leads Michel Foucault to raise the question again: ‘What is enlightenment?’ Yet for many, both enthusiasts and detractors, Kant's ideas are encountered indirectly, with over-reliance on dominant interpretations and acquiescence in received ideas. Encyclopaedia entries, simplified exegesis, and synoptic accounts abound, and the general effect is to provide an image of the man and his ideas that readily succumbs to caricature. It is against this background that Sheila Webb has been motivated to write the remarkable monograph that follows. On the strength of a growing suspicion of the shortcomings of so much that has been written and said about this great philosopher, and conscious also of the new waves of Kantian scholarship that have recently been challenging received views, she has embarked on a ground-breaking study. Her targets are familiar interpretations in both philosophy and education, but her purpose is certainly not exclusively critical. As her main title, Interpreting Kant in Education, indicates, her intention is to provide a more accurate interpretation, dispelling barriers to understanding, but also revealing Kant's special relevance to thinking well about education. Indeed, the motivation for the book is by no means narrowly scholarly: its author is struck by the impoverishment of so much policy and practice in education today, mired as it is in a culture of performativity and accountability, both of which are pervasive threats to what might truly be quality in education; and she is committed to the view that a new reading of Kant can do much to remedy this. As the book's subtitle—Dissolving Dualisms and Embodying Mind—indicates, the dismantling of the ways of thinking that have sanctioned these harmful practices involves release from the sclerotic dualisms of fact and value, subject and object, and body and mind. Through a spiralling series of arguments, the book leads the reader to an appreciation of ways in which Kant's philosophy can provide this release.

On the Problems of Periodization and Features of the Russian Enlightenment

In connection with the concept of the "new Enlightenment" formulated in the recent anniversary report of the Club of Rome, the author of the article analyzes the phenomenon of the Enlightenment in Russia. The points of view of domestic and foreign researchers on the positive and negative aspects of the Enlightenment, the reasons for the crisis of the "classical" Enlightenment and the need for its renewal are considered. One of the most important problems of the European Enlightenment of the 18th century - the crisis of public morality. The enlighteners borrowed the norms and values of traditional morality from religious consciousness, but sought to combine them with the guidelines for the rationalization and secularization of society and man. In Russia, this trend also took place, but the Russian Enlightenment is characterized by a more expressed axiologism, an orientation towards the mutual complementarity of moral values, scientific knowledge and socio-political progress.
 The author also refers to the discussion about the chronological framework of the Russian Enlightenment, highlighting its three stages: Christianization of Ancient Rus; Europeanization of the Russian Empire in the 18th century; the formation of an independent science, culture and philosophy since the 1830s. In addition, the article talks about the dialectical unity and struggle of cultural and civilizational paradigms in the Enlightenment of Russia. It is concluded that the Russian philosophy, created in the polemics of Slavophiles and Westernizers, realized Kant's idea of the essence of Enlightenment -the ability to use one's own mind.

Human and the State before the Alternative Kantian or Hegelian Idea of Law

The political and legal institutions of the modern Western world received their justification and justification in the idea of law, which is embedded in the philosophical systems of Kant and Hegel. Both of these thinkers are unanimous in that freedom is the regulatory principle of law, but it is interpreted in significantly different ways. In the Kantian version, freedom is the basis of the individual’s rights, which is reflected in the legal system of Western societies, in the theory of “natural rights” and in the political principles of liberalism. In the Hegelian system, freedom is predominantly a public domain, personified by the state in its specific forms of realization of the common good. It is Hegel who gives the systemic justification of the state-centric model of society. The Western world went mainly along the path of implementing the Kantian idea of law, during which it achieved high perfection in regulating civil relations. At the same time, this model encountered fundamental difficulties in regulating the relations of social (religious, ethnic and other) communities and groups, including the relations of nation states. The Hegelian philosophy of law was to a large extent perceived by Russian legal theorists as corresponding to the political traditions of imperial Russia. However, the problem with this model is that, in its apology of centralization, it creates bureaucratization of state life and eliminates developed forms of self- government. The political history of Russia is indicative of the fact that in it the clash of the Kantian, in essence, idea of sovereign human rights and the Hegelian idea of the sovereign rights of the state gave rise to specific political and legal (constitutional) insolubility. In theoretical and methodological terms, the way out is the need to establish a mediating link between the private and the universal, between man and the state. It is this link that sees the idea of civil (civilian) property, which is justified by the theory of civilism.

람베르트의 현상학과 칸트의 일반현상학의 이념

이 논문은 람베르트의 현상학과 칸트의 일반현상학의 관계를 그들의 편지와 저작을 통해 가능한 구체적으로 고찰하려는 시도이다. 칸트에게 보낸 1770년의 편지에서 람베르트는 당시 칸트가 제시한 개념인 ‘현상’이 그의 현상학의 개념인 ‘순전한 가상’이라고 비판했고, 칸트도 비판의 그 내용을 언젠가 인지했던 것으로 보인다(2장). 그런데 그에 앞서 보낸 편지에서 칸트가 자신의 입장을 람베르트에게 ‘일반현상학’이라고 표현했으므로, 칸트가 편지 이전부터 현상학을 알고 심지어 현상학을 고려하여 일반현상학을 구상했을 수 있다. 칸트가 밝힌 일반현상학의 주요 내용은 그가 『교수취임논문』에서 말한 ‘사취의 오류’를 방지하는 것이다(3장). 이와 마찬가지로 람베르트의 현상학도 사취의 오류를 방지하려 하는데, 이는 ‘초월적 투시법’이라는 방법 내지는 태도의 한 부분이다(4장). 주목할 점은 칸트가 일반현상학의 이념을 가졌던 시기에 초월적 투시법에 가까운 태도를 취했고, 특히 시령자의 꿈에서는 초월적 투시법과 상당히 유사한 방법을 사용했으며, 내용상 사취의 오류를 문제 삼았다는 것이다. 우리는 이와 같은 현상학에 대한 선행적 고려로부터 일반현상학이 귀결되었을 것으로 파악한다(5장). 그러나 다른 한편 일반현상학이 내용상 람베르트의 초월적 철학에 대립된다는 것을 고려하면, 사실관계가 단순하지 않고 일반현상학을 이해하기 위한 과제들이 여전히 남아 있음을 알 수 있다(6장).

Motion as a Concept, an Insufficient Element in the Kantian Philosophy

This article examines the Kantian ideas on motion in his work Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. In that essay, Kant holds that motion as a concept—from its connotation as elemental and fundamental predicament of the material reality—mobilises in matter all the characteristics of its essence as a property. Nevertheless conceiving motion as a concept does not enable us to confirm the existence of motion itself in the natural world because ‘the possibility of specific natural things can’t be discovered from their mere concepts.’ (Kant in Principios metafisicos de la ciencia de la naturaleza. Tecnos, Madrid, 7. 1991). Therefore, the concept of movement does not evidence the existence of the movement or its characteristics and properties. Such claim would imply that motion as a concept is not evidence of the existence of motion as such and, therefore, the properties of matter cannot be mobilised based on that concept because they are characteristics of the essence of motion. Then, how does Kant intend to denote motion? Why pretend to explain matter form the concept of motion if a pure concept is, by definition, independent of the data obtained from the sensibility? (Colomer in El pensamiento aleman. De Kant a Heidegger. Herder, Tomo I. Barcelona, 114. 1986). Therefore, we will demonstrate that such weakness is the breaking point of the Kantian concept of motion in his “dynamic-metaphysical” model.

The Celestial’s Position, or Over Barriers. Boris Pasternak and Fyodor Stepun

ABSTRACT In this article, the author examines the work of Boris Pasternak, primarily his novel Doctor Zhivago, in the context of his Marburg experience and Kantian ideas as the basis of his moral-aesthetic position. Pasternak tried to live and write over the barriers that a totalitarian era had erected in human life. His late novel managed to tell Russia and the rest of humanity about this tragic century in Russian history, using as the basis of his reflections a Russian intellectual who grew up on the pathos of a Christianity rethought in early twentieth-century Russia. What happened in Russia in 1917 was not only a social pogrom, but also an intellectual one. Pasternak’s novel was a unique attempt to cope with this intellectual catastrophe by relying on Christianity. The very name of the protagonist, Zhivago, has a rhyme in the Gospels. It was not by chance that Pasternak shared with the Christian thinker Fyodor Stepun that he had written about Doctor Zhivago while working on a translation of Goethe’s Faust, that great mystery-drama. He recounted Russia’s historical tragedy through the fate of a single man, a doctor and poet. Pasternak won the battle against the darkness that had engulfed his homeland, preserving a soul capable of grieving for loved ones despite restrictive barriers, for the starry heavens above and the moral law within made the core of his personhood.

Kants kritische Psychologie als Aufklärung

In his famous essay from 1784, Kant denied that we "live in an enlightened age"; yet he claimed that we "live in an age of enlightenment". If we should answer the question if we live in an enlightened age now, we could basically give the same answer. The enlightenment as an ongoing process can be found throughout Kant's whole work. This article focuses on how the concept of enlightenment can be applied to the Kantian psychology, which marks an important change of theory of the soul within modern western metaphysics. Kant's idea of enlightenment and 'critique' will be illustrated with reference to the "Paralogisms" of the Critique of Pure Reason. Finally, an analysis of some passages of the "Paralogisms" shall demonstrate that Kant's critique of the previous metaphysical doctrine of the human soul should not be understood as a complete rejection of this doctrine; rather, Kant's critique of what is called rational psychology should be understood as a critical transformation.

Bolstering the Keystone: Kant on the Incomprehensibility of Freedom

Abstract In this paper, I give an explanation and defense of Kant’s claim that we cannot comprehend how freedom is possible. I argue that this is a significant point that has been underappreciated in the secondary literature. My conclusion has a variety of implications both for Kant scholars and for those interested in Kantian ideas more generally. Most notably, if Kant is right that there are principled reasons why freedom is beyond our comprehension, then this would release his ethical views from an undesirable explanatory burden. It would be a boon for Kantians if they could ground their lofty claims about the unique, elevated status of rational agency without committing to an implausible view of libertarian freedom. I also suggest that there are certain debates concerning moral motivation and transcendental idealism that might have to change in response to Kant’s claims about the incomprehensibility of freedom.

Evaluating the Redistribution Policy and the Right to Social Welfare in Kant’s Philosophy

The notion of social welfare was created by the paradigm shift from duty‐based to right‐based morality, in which the satisfaction of human needs is a right in line with preserving human dignity. This paper investigates Kant’s view on social welfare in light of redistribution policy. Kant bases his political philosophy on external freedom. Notwithstanding the ethical principles of his philosophy, he is the first prominent thinker to clearly emphasize the necessity of a redistribution policy by the government toward providing for the needs of the poor and the needy. The important question remaining is whether or not the Kantian ideas of external freedom and redistribution for the sake of satisfying the right to social welfare can reach a compromise. It seems that Kant believes the redistribution policy to be not the right of the poor to be provided welfare by the state, but the right of the state, and as such, the states' right to task the people with providing for the welfare of the poor. Such a policy challenges the freedom of the wealthier class and apparently leads to an inconsistency between the two pillars of Kant’s sociopolitical philosophy. The current paper aims to find Kant’s response to this challenge by referring to his scattered arguments.

Associative Solidarity, Relational Goods, and Autonomy for Refugees: What Does it Mean to Stand in Solidarity with Refugees?

Associative Solidarity, Relational Goods, and Autonomy for Refugees: What Does it Mean to Stand in Solidarity with Refugees?