Kant and the Art of Schematism

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Matherne

AbstractIn theCritique of Pure Reason, Kant describes schematism as a ‘hidden art in the depths of the human soul’ (A141/B180–1). While most commentators treat this as Kant's metaphorical way of saying schematism is something too obscure to explain, I argue that we should follow up Kant's clue and treat schematism literally asKunst. By letting our interpretation of schematism be guided by Kant's theoretically exact ways of using the termKunstin theCritique of Judgmentwe gain valuable insight into the nature of schematism, as well as its connection to Kant's concerns in the thirdCritique.

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-126
Author(s):  
Michael Lewin

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects.


2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (157) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Tugba Ayas Onol

<p>The paper elaborates the theory of imagination in Immanuel Kant’s <em>Critique of Pure Reason</em> and <em>Critique of Judgment</em>. From the first <em>Critique</em> to the third <em>Critique</em>, the imagination emerges under different titles such as reproductive, productive or transcendental imagination. The paper shall try to decide whether its <em>functions</em> suggested in the first <em>Critique</em> and its performance in the third <em>Critique</em> are <em>contradictory or developmental</em> with respect to Kant’s critical philosophy. Thus, it will examine of the power and the scope of the imagination in the first<em> Critique</em> and of its status and performance in the third <em>Critique. </em></p><p> </p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-273
Author(s):  
Hyeongjoo Kim ◽  
Carina Pape

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.


Antiquity ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 87 (338) ◽  
pp. 1104-1123 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.A.E. Coningham ◽  
K.P. Acharya ◽  
K.M. Strickland ◽  
C.E. Davis ◽  
M.J. Manuel ◽  
...  

Key locations identified with the lives of important religious founders have often been extensively remodelled in later periods, entraining the destruction of many of the earlier remains. Recent UNESCO-sponsored work at the major Buddhist centre of Lumbini in Nepal has sought to overcome these limitations, providing direct archaeological evidence of the nature of an early Buddhist shrine and a secure chronology. The excavations revealed a sequence of early structures preceding the major rebuilding by Asoka during the third century BC. The sequence of durable brick architecture supplanting non-durable timber was foreseen by British prehistorian Stuart Piggott when he was stationed in India over 70 years ago. Lumbini provides a rare and valuable insight into the structure and character of the earliest Buddhist shrines.


Author(s):  
Carlos Mendiola

The central thesis is that already in the Critique of Pure Reason does the need for the distinction between determining and reflecting uses of Judgment arise, although its nominal formulation appears only later in the second introduction to the Critique of Judgment. The interpretative importance of this thesis lies in that, contrary to most interpretations, which claim that the distinction lies in the nature of such judgments, the author thinks of it as differentiated exercises of an identical capacity of judgment, and even as a difference that must be appreciated in the products of such capacity. Thus, any judgment of objects may at once be determining and reflecting, according to the kind of application of the concepts involved in each case. In brief, although reflection does not properly belong in the conditions of possibility of objective judgment, it is indispensable to fix the conceptual place of the particular in judgment


Philosophy ◽  
1938 ◽  
Vol 13 (49) ◽  
pp. 40-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. C. Ewing

Nobody interested in philosophy need be deterred by Kant's reputation for difficulty from familiarizing himself with his ethics. While the Critique of Pure Reason and his other non-ethical works are very hard to follow, the first two chapters of the Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals at least are clear and straightforward and presuppose little previous acquaintance with philosophy. The third chapter is not about ethics as such but about the metaphysical problem of freedom and should be omitted by anyone who is not familiar with Kant's general philosophy, but the first two


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer

AbstractMarcus Willaschek’s new book Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics: The Dialectic of Pure Reason (Cambridge University Press, 2018) is a penetrating analysis of the Transcendental Dialectic of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. In his comments, the author first raises some questions concerning the structure of the Transcendental Dialectic (and Willaschek’s reconstruction of it) and then proposes that looking at the second Critique and continuing on into the third Critique will reveal more roles for the idea of God in Kant’s reconstruction of traditional metaphysics than Willaschek’s treatment suggests.


Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argued that human reason is inherently conflicted, because it demands a form of unconditioned knowledge that transcends its capacity; his solution to this conflict of reason relies on the idea that reason’s quest for the unconditioned can only be realized practically. This book proposes to view the conflict of reason, and Kant’s solution to this conflict, as the central problem shaping the contours of post-Kantian German Idealism. I contend that the rise and fall of German Idealism is to be told as a story about the different interpretations, appropriations, and radicalization of Kant’s prioritizing of the practical. The first part of the book explains why Kant’s critics and followers came to understand the aim of Kant’s critical philosophy in light of the conflict of reason. I argue that F. H. Jacobi and Salomon Maimon set the stage for the reception of Kant’s critical philosophy by conceiving its aim in terms of meeting reason’s demand for unconditioned knowledge, and by understanding the conflict of reason as a conflict between thinking and acting, or knowing and willing. The manner in which the post-Kantian German Idealists radicalized Kant’s prioritizing of the practical is the central topic of the second part of the book, which focuses on works by J. G. Fichte and F. W. J. Schelling. The third part of the book clarifies why, in order to solve the conflict of reason, Schelling and Rosenzweig developed the view that human experience is grounded in three irreducible elements—God, the natural world, and human beings—which relate in three temporal dimensions: Creation, Revelation, and Redemption.


Kant Yearbook ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan W. Hall

AbstractIn Two Dogmas of Empiricism W.V. Quine begins his attack on the analytic/ synthetic dogma by criticizing Immanuel Kant’s conception of analyticity. After dismissing Kant’s interpretation as well as others, he articulates a view of the analytic/synthetic distinction that connects it to the other dogma of empiricism, reductionism. Ultimately, Quine rejects both dogmas in favor of a new form of empiricism which subscribes to neither one. Just as Quine believes it is possible to accept empiricism without the dogmas, I will argue that the Kantian can accept both dogmas while avoiding the forms of empiricism that Quine considers in his article. The paper is broken into four sections. First, I offer a brief overview of the two dogmas and their relationship to one another before examining Quine’s argument against ‘radical reductionism’, i.e., the position that every meaningful sentence is translatable into a sentence about immediate experience that is either true or false. The second section shows how one of Kant’s arguments from the Critique of Pure Reason anticipates the crux of Quine’s argument against radical reductionism. What is left after this argument is only an ’attenuated form’ of reductionism that Quine believes is identical to the analytic/synthetic distinction. In the third section, I explain how Kantians can draw the analytic/ synthetic distinction in a way that is consistent with this attenuated form of reductionism while avoiding the objections that Quine lodges against the two dogmas. I argue that this allows the Kantian to accept the dogmas while avoiding both the radically reductive form of empiricism as well as the form of empiricism that Quine endorses (web-of-belief holism). Finally, I will consider how this Kantian version of the analytic/synthetic distinction can be extended beyond the theoretical domain to practical and aesthetic sentences


Author(s):  
Juan Adolfo Bonaccini

In the present paper is analyzed the relationship between Kant's theses concerning unknowability and non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves. First of all, it is argued that even by taking for granted that the Unknowability Thesis does not contradict the Non-Spatiotemporality Thesis, because the former can be thought as a consequence of the latter, this is not enough to avoid another problem, namely, that the Non-Spatiotemporality Thesis is not sufficient to abolish the possibility of thinking consistently of space and time as empirical or material. It is also remembered that this point has already been partially envisaged for the first time by H.A. Pistorius (and later by A. Trendelenburg) and raised as the objection of the "third possibility" or "neglected alternative." Furthermore, it is maintained that although Kant tries to eliminate this possibility in the Metaphysical Expositions of Space and Time (but not in the Antinomies), by attempting to prove that space and time are only formal necessary conditions of sensibility, he cannot do it successfully. Hereafter it is argued that his circumstance is not due to the above objection itself, but to another difficulty that can only be grasped through the analysis of Kant's main argument in the Metaphysical Expositions of Transcendental Aesthetic. Ultimately, in order to show this difficulty, it is argued first that insofar as the Non-spatiotemporality Thesis supposes the validity of the Singularity Thesis, and this supposes the validity of the Apriority Thesis, the whole force of proof reposes on this latter. Secondly, it is shown that, despite his effort, Kant could not justify satisfactorily his claim to the formal apriority of space and time because of his failure to demonstrate necessarily the Apriority Thesis.


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