Pre-critical Period Research Articles

Human Life Obligations According To Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who put forward the idea of ​​rational ethical philosophy. He is also a philosopher who succeeded in interpreting ethics in terms of moral imperatives, not only in terms of efforts to achieve happiness. He also proposed a rational transcendental philosophy as opposed to a speculative metaphysical-dogmatic philosophy. The purpose of this research study is an attempt to study the inherent structure of the mind or the inherent laws of thought. In the context of rational transcendental philosophy, Kant directed his ethical or moral philosophy to religion, even though religion was not directly used as the basis for religion. The research method used in this research is Kant analyzing the nature of human knowledge, especially in his discussion of Transcendental Analytics. Kant applied the Analytical Method by asking three basic things. The result of this research is that Kant's life as a philosopher is divided into two periods. First, the precritical period was passed by adopting the rationalistic attitude launched by Leibniz and Wolff. Second, critical period. This second period was a time when Kant gradually abandoned rationalism because he was influenced by Hume. In this second period Kant began to change the face of philosophy radically. The research conclusion is that the highest goal of Kant's ethical philosophical thought is the social goal or essential social good (summum bonum).

Early retinal deprivation crossmodally alters nascent subplate circuits and activity in the auditory cortex during the precritical period.

Sensory perturbation in one modality results in the adaptive reorganization of neural pathways within the spared modalities, a phenomenon known as "crossmodal plasticity," which has been examined during or after the classic "critical period." Because peripheral perturbations can alter the auditory cortex (ACX) activity and functional connectivity of the ACX subplate neurons (SPNs) even before the critical period, called the precritical period, we investigated if retinal deprivation at birth crossmodally alters the ACX activity and SPN circuits during the precritical period. We deprived newborn mice of visual inputs after birth by performing bilateral enucleation. We performed in vivo widefield imaging in the ACX of awake pups during the first two postnatal weeks to investigate cortical activity. We found that enucleation alters spontaneous and sound-evoked activities in the ACX in an age-dependent manner. Next, we performed whole-cell patch clamp recording combined with laser scanning photostimulation in ACX slices to investigate circuit changes in SPNs. We found that enucleation alters the intracortical inhibitory circuits impinging on SPNs, shifting the excitation-inhibition balance toward excitation and this shift persists after ear opening. Together, our results indicate that crossmodal functional changes exist in the developing sensory cortices at early ages before the onset of the classic critical period.

Этикотеология Канта и его понятие высшего блага

The article concerns key aspects of Kant's views on theology, namely the possibility of theology as a science, the degree of certainty in knowledge achievable for it, the features of its subject, method and structure. The article shows that this problematic was of interest to Kant even in the pre-critical period, later, already in the critical period, this problematic was systematically developed. The author of the article examines the similarities and differences in the approach to theology (and, above all, to the proofs of the existence of God) between the writings of the critical and pre-critical periods. Ethicotheology is at the center of consideration. It is shown that it is ethicotheology that in the critical period is called upon to play the role of the foundation of all theological constructions. It is established that ethicotheology has two main tasks – to verify the existence of God and to deduce his inalienable attributes. Both of these tasks could be realized solely through the practical application of reason. The only one method used by ethicotheology is the method of postulation. The basis for postulating the existence of God and his moral attributes is the concept of the highest good, for the assumption of the realizability of which it becomes necessary to assume the existence of such a moral essence as God. At the same time, it is shown that for all its dominant significance, it is not considered even in the critical period (contrary to the idea of many historians of philosophy) the only way of knowing God.

Kant's Transcendental Deduction by Alison Laywine

Reviewed by: Kant's Transcendental Deduction by Alison Laywine Katherine Dunlop Alison Laywine. Kant's Transcendental Deduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. iv + 318. Hardback, $80.00. Alison Laywine's contribution to the rich literature on Kant's "Transcendental Deduction of the Categories" stands out for the novelty of its approach and conclusions. Laywine's declared "strategy" is "to compare and contrast" the Deduction with the Duisburg Nachlaß, an important set of manuscript jottings from the 1770s (10). But her approach is also deeply informed by Kant's writings on metaphysics from the 1750s and 1760s; moreover, she gives attention to ancient Greek geometry and its importance for Kant's thought. I believe Laywine's most important interpretative claim is that the Transcendental Deduction's "final step" addresses "the question of how nature is possible" (210). Here, 'nature' is understood in what Kant calls the "formal sense," as "the totality of rules under which appearances must stand if they are to be thought as joined in one experience" (Prolegomena, §36; cf. B 165). This constitutes a novel answer to the problem posed in Dieter Henrich's landmark 1969 paper "The Proof Structure of the Transcendental Deduction" (Review of Metaphysics 22 [1969]: 640–59): how to understand §§21–26 of the (B-edition) Deduction as proving more than the thesis already stated in §20 (that the manifold in an intuition necessarily stands under the categories). Crucial support for Laywine's interpretation comes from §26 of the Deduction, which claims the possibility of cognizing objects "a priori through categories . . . as far as the laws of their combination are concerned, thus the possibility of as it were prescribing the law to nature and even making [nature] possible," is now "to be explained" (B 159). Kant does not use the term 'world' in this passage (as he does in Prolegomena §36). But Laywine contends that here the word 'nature' "has unmistakable, deliberate, cosmological connotations," and in fact "means 'world' in the sense of Kant's early cosmology": roughly, a whole unified by means of laws (12–13). The "cosmological" language of §26 does not recur in the following, officially concluding, section of the Deduction. So, we might ask whether Kant's explanation of how the understanding prescribes laws to nature is integral to the Deduction; Henry Allison, for instance, describes this explanation as an "appendix" (Kant's Transcendental Deduction: An Analytical-Historical Commentary [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015], 9). The question of whether it belongs integrally has bite because, as Laywine makes clear in her "Conclusion," the universal laws at issue are just the Analogies of Experience. Thus, the passage could be read as the "promissory note with a forward-looking reference to the System of Principles" that she finds missing from the Deduction (289). Laywine meets such worries by arguing that "the reappropriation [from the pre-Critical period] of the general cosmology is actually [End Page 162] doing . . . a lot of hard work" in the Deduction (13). This sustained argument comes to a head in chapter 4, which contends that each of the two steps into which Laywine divides the first half of the (B-edition) Deduction, treated in chapters 2 and 3 (respectively), relies on cosmological presuppositions. Chapter 2 analyzes the conception of knowledge as relation to an object that is asserted (in §17) to rely on the synthetic unity of apperception. Laywine traces this conception to the Duisburg Nachlaß's account of "exposition," which relates concepts a priori to appearances, in something like the way that geometrical construction relates them to pure intuition. (Laywine further connects the Latin term expositio to the Greek ekthesis, which expositio translates in the context of geometrical proof. She thereby gives the notion of ekthesis broader importance than does Jaakko Hintikka, who noted its relevance to Kant's philosophy of mathematics in "Kant on the Mathematical Method" [Monist 51 (1967): 352–75]. Laywine claims that Borelli's edition of Euclid could have been Kant's source for the term, but I doubt it was known to Kant and his contemporaries, since it is not among the editions cited by Christian Wolff; Commandino seems likelier to me. Chapter 2 is concerned to articulate the notion of...

Kant’s anti-humanism: An outline

Kantian ethics is widely associated with a dictum stating that the human being possesses an absolute value. This position is famously articulated by Kant in the formula of the categorical imperative which states that each person should always be treated as an ultimate end – not as a mere means. Arguably, we face here a good prima facie case for reckoning Kant among the humanists. In spite of this, I argue – contrary to the popular view – that Kant’s ethical theory should be understood as “nomocentric”, and to that extent as anti-humanistic. Obviously, human beings are special for Kant in a morally important way, but their unique significance is not due to their nature as such, but consists solely in their capacity to fulfil the demands imposed on them by the moral law. While establishing this thesis, I discuss various examples of anti-humanistic pronouncements from Kant’s texts, ranging from the pre-critical period up to the late writings, and thereby show that e.g. Kant’s (in)famous insistence on the claim that saving an innocent human life does not justify a white lie (On the Right to Lie From Philanthropy, 1797) is anything but a slip of the pen on Kant’s part. In thecourse of the argument I also emphasise the subjective component to all teleology in Kant including the teleological account of the categorical imperative, and suggest that Kant’s apparent ambivalence towards humanism is rendered intelligible by paying close attention to his dualistic anthropology.

Einbildungskraft Kavramının Türkçe Felsefe Sözlüklerindeki Yolculuğu ve Kant’ın I. Kritiği’nden Hareketle Muhayyile Melekesi Üzerine Düşünmek

Bu çalışma, Einbildungskraft teriminin Türkçe felsefe sözlüklerindeki Fransızca karşılığından hareketle imagination terimi üzerinden bir soruşturma gerçekleştirir. Kant’ın eleştirel felsefesi içerisinde terimin kullanım alanlarına işaret etmeyi amaçlar. Bu yönde, felsefenin yapıtaşı sayılan kavramlar ve bunların zihnî bir geleneğin sürdürülebilmesi adına taşıdığı anlamları bir arada tutan felsefe sözlüklerinden bazıları çalışmaya konu edilmektedir. Felsefenin kavramlarıyla teşekkül eden kültürel hafızanın aktarımı ve terimsel ihyâ faaliyetinin önemi üzerinde durulmaktadır. Bu çalışma ile geçmişten günümüze felsefe ıstılâhına hâkim olmanın, Kant’ın eleştirel felsefesindeki kavramların Türkçede yeniden inşa edilmesin-deki önemine işaret edilmektedir. Böylelikle, Einbildungskraft terimi üzerinden, Kant’ın verdiği manalar ve Türkçeye çevrimde tercih edilen kelimeler üzerinde durulmaktadır. Dilde ıslâh faaliyetinin değeri ve düşünce geleneğine bağlanma ihtiyacının önemi vurgulanmaktadır. Bu manada Kant’ın, kendi eserlerindeki terimsel tutumu ve kavram seçimleri ele alınmaktadır. Kant’ın, kavram inşasına dair eleştirel felsefesi içerisindeki değinilerine yer verilmektedir. Diğer yandan felsefî bir kavramın taşıdığı anlam yükünü en iyi karşılayacak terimin seçimi hususunun önemi üzerinde durulur. Kant’ın Einbildungskraft teriminin Türkçedeki karşılıkları ve bu kelimelerin, kavramın karşılığı olarak yeterliliklerine işaret edilmiştir. Kavramın kendi içerisinde taşıdığı nüansların ayırt edilmesi adına eleştiri öncesi dönem ve eleştirel dönemdeki kullanımları üzerinde durulmuştur.

Kant, Bergson, and Iqbal on the Concept of Time and its Effect on Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Freewill

Philosophy should be understood with its accumulative structure. Thus, when one strives to understand a philosopher’s thoughts, he/she should not isolate the philosopher from the previous and contemporary theories in his/her era; and should take into account this accumulative and continuous structure. In this context, Kant’s, Bergson’s, and Iqbal’s understandings of time seem to have continuity in themselves, even if they might be seen as having incompatible points. Kant’s understanding of time can be considered in two periods as pre-Critical and Critical. In the former, Kant accepts the own-reality and existence of time itself, outside of the human mind. But he also sows the seed of an understanding of time as a prior intuition to all sensations, while he is still in his pre-critical period. Hence, his focus seems to have shifted to a subject-centred approach. In his critical period, subject-centrality becomes more obvious and Kant claims that time is prior to any externality. According to him, time locates things in simultaneity and succession for the perception of mind as a sensible intuition. Bergson, on the other hand, clearly exploits Kant, even though he criticizes Kant in many aspects. Bergson’s understanding of time is comprised of two components: Pure duration and homogenous time. Pure duration is affected by the Kantian conception of time in the sense of being subject-centred. It is the time that each consciousness has individually as a combination of one’s past and present in a whole; and it is, in its essence, heterogeneous, unorderly successive, and indivisible. Homogenous time has its roots, again, in Kant’s thoughts in the sense of being serial and simultaneous. It is the impersonal common ground for individuals on which pure durations can work in a harmony. When it comes to Iqbal, he benefits from both Kant’s time as a form of sensible intuition and Bergson’s pure duration. Iqbal, by using both of these concepts of time, reconstructs the Divine Time in Islamic thought, and thus, freewill. By means of pure duration and creativity, mechanical understanding of the universe is refused by Bergson and Iqbal. By doing so, Iqbal allows freewill to permeate through pure duration of the God, namely the Divine Time, and to penetrate into pure durations of all egos. Throughout this article, we mainly intend to retrace Iqbal’s reconstruction of freewill by having use of the concept of pure duration, and the Divine Time as pure duration of the God.

Ocular dominance columns in V1 are more susceptible than associated callosal patches to imbalance of eye input during precritical and critical periods.

In Long Evans rats, ocular dominance columns (ODCs) in V1 overlap with patches of callosal connections. Using anatomical tracers, we found that ODCs and callosal patches are present at postnatal day 10 (P10), several days before eye opening, and about 10 days before the activation of the critical period for ocular dominance plasticity (~P20). In rats monocularly enucleated at P10 and perfused ~P20, ODCs ipsilateral to the remaining eye desegregated, indicating that rat ODCs are highly susceptible to monocular enucleation during a precritical period. Monocular enucleation during the critical period exerted significant, although smaller, effects. Monocular eye lid suture during the critical period led to a significant expansion of the ipsilateral projection from the nondeprived eye, whereas the contralateral projection invaded into, and intermixed with, ipsilateral ODCs innervated by the deprived eye. We propose that this intermixing allows callosal connections to contribute to the effects of monocular deprivation assessed in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the nondeprived eye. The ipsilateral and contralateral projections from the deprived eye did not undergo significant shrinkage. In contrast, we found that callosal patches are less susceptible to imbalance of eye input. In rats monocularly enucleated during either the precritical or critical periods, callosal patches were maintained in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the remaining eye, but desegregated in the hemisphere ipsilateral to the enucleated orbit. Callosal patches were maintained in rats binocularly enucleated at P10 or later. Similarly, monocular deprivation during the critical period had no significant effect on callosal patches in either hemisphere.

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 and Theodicy: A Search for an Answer to the Problem of Evil by George Huxford

Reviewed by: Kant and Theodicy: A Search for an Answer to the Problem of Evil by George Huxford Matthew C. Altman George Huxford. Kant and Theodicy: A Search for an Answer to the Problem of Evil. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020. Pp. xxiii + 149. Cloth, $90.00. A theodicy attempts to reconcile the existence of evil (or really any imperfection) with the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God. Hume, among others, thought that they were incompatible, and he used it as an argument against God's existence. Leibniz claimed that this was the best of all possible worlds because metaphysical evil is unavoidable and moral and physical evil lead to greater goods. Kant, however, has mostly been left out of the conversation. George Huxford seeks to correct this. The problem of evil is as difficult as it sounds. In the first place, there are several kinds of evil that would seem to need explanation, including physical or natural evil (suffering), metaphysical evil (limitation), moral evil (sin), and injustice (the fact that evil people often thrive and good people often suffer). There are at least three different kinds of responses to the problem. One approach is a theoretical, speculative, "doctrinal" (123), or "philosophical" theodicy (xviii–xix), which attempts to infer knowledge of God's reasons for acting. Another response is fideism, which appeals to nonrational faith that God must know best. A third approach is practical or "authentic" theodicy (124), which derives God's existence and ultimate justice on moral grounds. The most common philosophical theodicies include the limited-view defense (we cannot know God's purposes); the instrumental, net-good, postponement, or higher-purpose defense (something good comes from evil); and the free-will defense (we, not God, are responsible for sin). Huxford's attempt to explain these varied approaches, combined with the fact that Kant's theodical positions change throughout his career, lead to a dense and sometimes confusing exegesis. Huxford explains and evaluates Kant's different answers to the problem in the pre-Critical, early Critical, and late Critical periods. In the pre-Critical period, Kant defends a philosophical theodicy and adopts a Leibnizian approach. Suffering is not evil per se, because it does not involve judgment or desert; it is rather the result of natural law. Metaphysical evil is merely limitation, not positive evil. And moral evil is attributable not to God but to human beings' misuse of their freedom. Huxford says that this argument [End Page 333] does not succeed in answering the problem of evil, since God is still indirectly responsible for evil in deciding to create a finite world, one in which God knows we will act wrongly. In the early Critical period, Kant does not explicitly defend a philosophical theodicy, but his writings, especially unpublished lecture notes, seem to indicate that he continued to believe in the best possible world approach (with some elements of the limited-view and instrumental defenses), even though such a claim transcends the limits on human knowledge that Kant establishes in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787). In the late Critical period, especially in "On the Failure of All Attempted Philosophical Theodicies" (1791), Kant argues against many different philosophical theodicies. According to Huxford, not every argument succeeds, but he says that Kant can rule out speculative theodicies as a class because they are predicated on insight into God's reasoning based on our experience of the world. Since we can have no knowledge regarding noumena, that is impossible. Instead, Kant proposes his authentic theodicy: we can rationally justify practical faith in God as a holy being, acting necessarily in accordance with what reason and morality require. Although we cannot know why God acts, we can trust in God's moral wisdom to do what is best. Huxford concludes that Kant's mature view fails as a theodicy because it does not actually explain the compatibility of God and evil. Huxford's limited focus on theodicy, his frequent use of textual evidence, and his division of the book into Kant's three periods provide good insights into Kant's philosophical development. Huxford often relies on minor texts and texts that were unpublished during Kant's lifetime...

Noise exposure alters MMP9 and brevican expression in the rat primary auditory cortex

BackgroundThis study aimed to investigate the changes in molecules related to perineuronal nets (PNNs) and synaptic transporters in the primary auditory cortices of rats with noise-induced hearing loss. Female Sprague–Dawley rats at postnatal day 7 were divided into the noise and control groups. Four hours of 115 dB SPL white noise was delivered for 10 days to the noise group. Thirty days after noise exposure, the primary auditory cortex and the inferior colliculus were harvested. The expression levels of vesicular glutamatergic transporter (VGLUT)1, VGLUT2, vesicular GABA transporter (VGAT), glutamate decarboxylase (GAD)67, brevican, aggrecan, MMP9, and MMP14 were evaluated using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction or western blot. An immunofluorescence assay was conducted to assess parvalbumin (PV), Wisteria floribunda agglutinin (WFA), and brevican. The immune-positive cells were counted in the primary auditory cortex.ResultsThe expression level of VGLUT1 in the primary auditory cortex was decreased in the noise group. The expression level of VGLUT2 in the inferior colliculus was elevated in the noise group. The expression levels of brevican and PV + WFA in the primary auditory cortex were decreased in the noise group. The expression level of MMP9 in the primary auditory cortex was increased in the noise group.ConclusionNoise-induced hearing loss during the precritical period impacted PNN expression in the primary auditory cortex. Increased MMP9 expression may have contributed to the decrease in brevican expression. These changes were accompanied by the attenuation of glutamatergic synaptic transporters.

Kant and the Science of Logic by Huaping Lu-Adler

Reviewed by: Kant and the Science of Logic by Huaping Lu-Adler J. Colin McQuillan LU-ADLER, Huaping. Kant and the Science of Logic. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. 272 pp. Cloth, $74.00 Huaping Lu-Adler's Kant and the Science of Logic represents the very best that contemporary Kant scholarship has to offer. Lu-Adler's book combines analytical rigor, sensitivity to the historical context in which Kant thought and wrote, and mastery of an extensive body of scholarly literature with methodological insight and clarity of presentation. It is essential reading for Kant scholars, historians of logic, and other historians of philosophy. The structure of Kant and the Science of Logic is straightforward. In the first chapter, Lu-Adler surveys the sources and materials that are necessary to reconstruct Kant's views on logic and explains how they are to be evaluated. She is rightfully suspicious of the textbook published as Kant's Logic (1800) by Gottlob Benjamin Jäsche. While Jäsche's logic can be helpful, it should never be read apart from Kant's Reflexionen, the transcripts of his lectures, and his other published works. It is only when these sources are compared, using what Lu-Adler calls a "perspectival approach," that Kant's distinctive views on logic can be understood. Once this approach has been adopted, Lu-Adler argues, the "critical eclecticism" of Kant's approach to logic becomes apparent. According to Lu-Adler, Kant's conception of logic is both critical and eclectic, because it begins [End Page 375] with "a constructive analysis of how past philosophers might have sought to build and support their systems." However, this is merely a preliminary phase in the construction of a system, in which one must evaluate one's own opinions and those of one's contemporaries, in order to arrive at sound principles and architectonic unity. Lu-Adler thinks this approach helps to avoid the problems of uncritical syncretism and dogmatic system-building, while connecting fruitfully with "Kant's view of what it means to become a genuinely independent thinker," which can be achieved only within "a community of autonomous truth-seekers, through an honest exchange of ideas and perspectives." Chapters 2 and 3 reconstruct the problems that Kant's conception of logic was meant to address. Lu-Adler surveys, in chapter 2, the history of logic from antiquity to the renaissance, highlighting the place logic was thought to occupy within philosophy as well as the utility it was thought to have. Lu-Adler's chapter brings into sharp relief the ambiguous place logic has occupied in the history of European philosophy, showing that it is by no means clear, within that history, whether logic was a science; whether it is a theoretical or practical discipline; whether it has its own subject matter; whether it is merely an aid to grammar, ethics, or metaphysics; and whether the development of a technical, formal logical is to be celebrated or condemned. In chapter 3, she extends this inquiry into the early modern period. Lu-Adler argues that early modern European philosophers faced many of the same problems as their medieval and renaissance predecessors, though their views on logic were also affected by the new methods being developed in the natural sciences (Bacon), a new emphasis on intellectual freedom (Locke), as well as a desire to formalize the rules of thinking and explain their relation to mathematics (Leibniz and Wolff). In chapter 4, Lu-Adler identifies two "breakthroughs" in Kant's philosophy of logic during the pre-critical period. The first is a distinction between (1) the logic of the common understanding and (2) the logic of learned understanding, which corresponds, roughly, to the distinction between pure and applied general logic. Kant insists in the transcripts of some of his logic lectures that the logic of the learned understanding is a science, because it is grounded in a priori principles, but he denies that the logic of the common understanding is a science, because it is grounded in empirical principles. The second breakthrough is the development of Kant's conception of transcendental logic, which Lu-Adler traces back to Kant's characterization of ontology as a subjective...

Predicting remaining lifetime of drill pipes basing upon the fatigue crack kinetics within a pre-critical period

he research results are obtained without any support in the form of grants or projects. The authors express their gratitude to the Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Professor Ye.I. Kryzhanivskyi for his specialized consultations and discussions of the research result.

THE ORIGINS OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL JUSTIFICATION OF TASTE: KANT’S SEVERAL VIEWS ON THE STATUS OF BEAUTY

The article follows Kant’s different views on aesthetics ranging from the pre-critical period to the Critique of the Power of Judgement. It argues that John Zammito’s psychological explanation of why Kant in the third Critique developed an argument for the transcendental justification of judgements of taste is unconvincing. As an alternative, the article shows how Kant in his published pre-critical discussions of aesthetics was relying upon empiricist sources while he in private comments turned to consider the culture critique of Rousseau. Kant’s preoccupation with questions of culture critique, it is argued, was an important reason to enlarge the doctrines of transcendental philosophy with a third Critique containing a transcendental aesthetics of beauty. Additionally, it is pointed out an interesting similarity throughout the development of Kant’s philosophy. In 1765 and in the third Critique Kant was concerned to keep philosophy and judgements of taste apart from science

Кант в споре с крузианцами об оптимизме

In this article, which completes a two-part series on the problem of optimism in Kant’s works, I explore in detail the arguments advanced by the Crusians A. F. Reinhard and D. Weymann against the actual world as the best of all possible worlds and in favour of the actual world as one of the good worlds, Kant’s counterarguments put forward in the mid-1750s drafts and in An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism (1759), and further polemical attacks on this topic against Kant by D. Weymann in his works of 1759—1760. I trace the evolution of Kant’s views on optimism from the mid- to the late-1750s, when this concept — once characteristic of the partly unacceptable position that G. W. Leibniz defended in the Theodicy — came to describe Kant’s own views. Leaving aside Voltaire’s resonating works on the Lisbon earthquake, the generic opponent to Kant’s position is an amalgam of Crusians (C. A. Crusius, A. F. Reinhard, D. Weymann, and others), reduced to a caricature with regards to certain theses. I address Weymann’s polemic with Kant to show that, in the pre-critical period, the early Kant advocated beliefs in sphere of practical philosophy that he later radically changed in the critical period, in particular those with regards to freedom and human dignity. The obvious bias of most Kantian scholars against Kant’s opponents prevented researchers from seeing the validity of Weymann’s criticism of Kant for ignoring the problem of freedom. To prove his point, Weymann addressed the difference between the freedom of contradiction (libertas contradictionis) and the freedom of contrariety (libertas contrarietatis). Apparently, Kant himself noticed to a certain degree the validity of Weymann’s criticism, since, after 1759, he abandoned the term “optimism” and, in his later years, distanced himself from his early work An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism.

The Relation between God and the World in the Pre-Critical Kant: Was Kant a Spinozist?

AbstractAndrew Chignell and Omri Boehm have recently argued that Kant’s pre-Critical proof for the existence of God entails a Spinozistic conception of God and hence substance monism. The basis for this reading is the assumption common in the literature that God grounds possibilities by exemplifying them. In this article I take issue with this assumption and argue for an alternative Leibnizian reading, according to which possibilities are grounded in essences united in God’s mind (later also described as Platonic ideas intuited by God). I show that this view about the distinction between God’s cognition of essences as the ground of possibility and the actual world is not only explicitly stated by Kant, but is also consistent with his metaphysical picture of teleology in nature and causality during the pre-Critical period. Finally, I suggest that the distinction between the conceptual order of essences embodied in the idea of God and the order of the objects of experience plays a role in the transition into the Critical system, where it is transformed into the distinction between the intelligible and the sensible worlds.

Die Projektion des Schematismus in den vorkritischen Schriften Kants: Das Problem der mathematischen Konstruktion

Abstract:This essay aims to provide a reconstruction of the antecedents to Kant’s doctrine of transcendental schematism in the pre-critical period. To this end, the work’s common thread is based on an analysis of the following issues: the delimitation of a jurisdiction of metaphysics, the transition from the concept of construction in the mathematical context to the constructive processes of the imagination, subsequently applied to all pure concepts, the difference between the

Harmonia in commercio vs Harmonia absque commercio. Kant’s eclectical dealing with causality.

The present paper aims to provide an overview on Kant’s dealing with the main theories of causality which were proposed and discussed in his time. The goal is to show that, since the pre-critical period, he has never simply accepted the theories of causality that he could find in second-scholastic sources, but has always tried to develop an original position. Starting from a general acceptance of the theory of the “physical influx”, Kant tries to amend this theory, as it had been roughly provided by Knutzen and Crusius. This emendation is carried out through elements coming from the Leibnitian tradition. But neither in this field Kant totally embraces the Wolffian, as well as the Baumgartenian model. The paper tries also to shed light on the way in which the critical conception of space allows Kant to fulfill his original theory of causality as an amended version of the physical influx.

Reduced Cortical Activity Impairs Development and Plasticity after Neonatal Hypoxia Ischemia.

Preterm birth and term birth asphyxia result in brain injury from inadequate oxygen delivery and constitute a major and growing worldwide health problem. Poor outcomes are noted in a majority of very premature (<25 weeks gestation) newborns, resulting in death or life-long morbidity with motor, sensory, learning, behavioral, and language disabilities that limit academic achievement and well-being. Limited progress has been made to develop therapies that improve neurologic outcomes. The overall objective of this study is to understand the effect of early brain injury on activity-dependent brain development and cortical plasticity to develop new treatments that will optimize repair and recovery after brain injury.

Kant's Elliptical Path, by KarlAmeriks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012, xiv + 365 pp. ISBN 978‐0‐19‐969369‐6 pb $45

Reviews Kant’s Elliptical Path, by Karl Ameriks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012, xiv + 365 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-969369-6 pb $45 Ameriks’ latest volume represents yet another major contribution to our understanding of Kant and his place within the history of philosophy. 1 Ostensibly, Kant’s Elliptical Path is a scholarly treatment of the development of Kant’s thought throughout his career. It assuredly is that, but it is also much more, since it plumbs the depths of Kant’s entire Critical project by revealing the crucial systematic roles of freedom, reason, and religion, and shows their relevance both for the course of post-Kantian German philosophy throughout the nineteenth century and for our philosophical interests and ambitions today. Along the way, we are treated to an unusually broad range of kinds of discussion: detailed interpretations of particular passages that can appear problematic or are often misunderstood, remarks about the linguistic nuances of German terms which can easily get lost in translation, helpful interpretive hypotheses regarding Kant’s views on crucial points, and, of course, broader considerations of Kant’s overall project and commitments. Ameriks’ book comprises an introduction and then fifteen substantive chapters, which are divided into three parts. The introduction offers an innovative narrative of Kant’s overall development that provides an indispensible context for each of the parts and chapters that follow. Its defining claim is that once Kant was ‘turned around’ by reading Rousseau in 1763–4, his basic views, e.g., about the primacy of practical reason and the importance of absolute (libertarian) freedom, morality, and certain religious beliefs (involving God and immortality), did not change fundamentally, even if later developments (such as Transcendental Idealism) proved to be ‘ideal means [. . .] to fill out a systematic defense that allows for a return to his deepest pre-systematic beliefs’ (p. 1). Crucial to Ameriks’ understanding of Kant’s development, however, is not only that Rousseau was important and that there is a basic continuity to some fundamental aspects of Kant’s thought, points on which many (if not all) scholars agree, but also that there is an elliptical movement to Kant’s career, with the ‘heavens above’ and the moral ‘law within’ serving as distinct foci, that precludes either a simple linear or purely circular movement, because of various (theoretical and practical) complications that take Kant further away from his starting point before he is able to return to it. Further, late in the book Ameriks uses the image of an elliptical path to put much of post-Kantian philosophy into context, including figures such as Reinhold, the German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel), the early German Romantics (Novalis, Holderlin, and Schlegel), Nietzsche, and various contempo- rary philosophers (such as MacIntyre, Cavell, Taylor, and Frank). Ameriks’ narrative is thus not restricted to Kant, but provides a useful perspective well beyond, one that he even takes to recommend a certain conception of hermeneutical philosophy today. The first part, on Kant’s pre-Critical period, has a first chapter, ‘Kant, Human Nature, and History after Rousseau,’ which describes various ways in which Rousseau influenced European Journal of Philosophy ••:•• ISSN 0966-8373 pp. ••–•• © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd