Spontaneity and Self-Consciousness in theGroundworkand the B-Critique

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 936-955
Author(s):  
Yoon Choi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
First Time

AbstractAccording to some influential readings of theGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the view presented there of the kind of spontaneity we are conscious of through theoretical reason and the significance of such self-consciousness is irremediably at odds with the Critical theory, and thus roundly and rightly rejected in the second edition of theCritique of Pure Reasonand theCritique of Practical Reason. This paper argues, on the contrary, that theGroundworkcan be read as articulating for the first time the account of self-consciousness and spontaneity that Kant goes on to develop in the B-Critique, especially the B-Transcendental Deduction.

Kant's Conceptus Cosmicus

Dialogue ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-300
Author(s):  
J. Ralph Lindgren
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals

“Odd though it may be” writes Lewis White Beck, “The Critique of Practical Reason is a neglected work. There is no study of it in any language that can compare favorably with the commentaries on the Critique of Pure Reason. …” This remark reveals a striking condition within Kantian studies. For more than a century and a half scholars have devoted their efforts to the first and third Critiques to the neglect of the second. Professor Beck suggests two reasons for this condition. First, that the Practical Reason is, relative to the Pure Reason and the Judgment, simple and straightforward. Second, that most scholars prefer, when treating Kant's ethical doctrine, the shorter Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Henning
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction

This brief chapter summarizes central findings regarding the role of parenthetical sentences in practical discourse. But it also provides historical context. It suggests that a precursor of parentheticalism may be found in Kant, especially in Kant’s views about the “I think,” especially as they are expressed in the B-Version of the “Transcendental Deduction” and the B-Version of the chapter on Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Das Recht in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-149
Author(s):  
Reinhard Brandt
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Introductory Note ◽  
Pure Intuition

AbstractRecent publications (Henrich, Seeberg) claim that Kant has been profoundly influenced by contemporary publications on juridical deductions. I try to show, that this cannot be right. The introductory note of the “Transcendental Deduction” (Critique of Pure Reason A 84) poses two questions: “quid facti?” and “quid juris?”. The first is answered by the demonstration of the possibility of relations between pure concepts and pure intuition und sensations, the second by the implicit refutation of David Hume. Kant and his interpreters sustain the possibility of using juridical concepts, that are neither related to real juridical facts nor are only metaphers, but have a special philosophical signification. But what should that be?

scholarly journals 'Critique' as Technology of the Self

2005 ◽  
pp. 97-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Sharpe
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
The Self ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
The Status ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
The Subject

This inquiry is situated at the intersection of two enigmas. The first is the enigma of the status of Kant's practice of critique, which has been the subject of heated debate since shortly after the publication of the first edition of The Critique of Pure Reason. The second enigma is that of Foucault's apparent later 'turn' to Kant, and the label of 'critique', to describe his own theoretical practice. I argue that Kant's practice of 'critique' should be read, after Foucault, as a distinctly modern practice in the care of the self, governed by Kant's famous rubric of the 'primacy of practical reason'. In this way, too, Foucault's later interest in Kant - one which in fact takes up a line present in his work from his complementary thesis on Kant's Anthropology - is cast into distinct relief. Against Habermas and others, I propose that this interest does not represent any 'break' or 'turn' in Foucault's work. In line with Foucault's repeated denials that he was interested after 1976 in a 'return to the ancients', I argue that Foucault's writings on critique represent instead both a deepening theoretical self-consciousness, and part of his project to forge an ethics adequate to the historical present.

From A to B: On “Critique and Morals”

2019 ◽  
pp. 36-52
Author(s):  
Karl Ameriks
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Nature And Grace ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals

This chapter gives an account of the transition from Kant’s publishing of the first edition (“A”) of his Critique of Pure Reason and his decision to focus on the topic of morals by suddenly writing a book called the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. The interpretation of this transition contrasts with the stress on Christian Garve in recent work by Eckart Förster, in a chapter called “Critique and Morals,” but it agrees with him about the significance in this era of the project of establishing philosophy as a science. A special emphasis is placed on Kant’s intense concern with absolute freedom during this period and with his desire to show that he can present a better account of the realms of “nature” and “grace” than can other philosophers.

The Non-Moral Element in Kant's ‘Moral Proof’ of the Existence of God

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-516
Author(s):  
Gordon E. Michalson
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Certainty

In a discussion in this journal of Kant's ‘moral proof’ of the existence of God Peter Byrne describes what he takes to be the ‘fundamental incoherence’ of Kant's position. Kant, it is well known, wishes to hold together two claims concerning our epistemological relationship to God: the claim that we can have no ‘theoretical knowledge’ of God's existence; and the claim that we nonetheless have ‘moral certainty’ of God's existence. The first claim arises out of the Kantian criticism of the pretensions of speculative metaphysics, a criticism developed most rigorously in the Critique of Pure Reason. The second claim, in turn, arises out of Kant's so-called ‘moral proof which appears in skeletal form in the firstCritique and acquires more detail edelaboration in the Critique of Practical Reason.

scholarly journals Darwinism as the Missing Link in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 51-80
Author(s):  
Igor K. Kalinin
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Entire System ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Critical Attitude ◽  
Logical Functions

I proceed from the hypothesis that the difficulties in Kant’s presentation of his plan and, accordingly, the implicit reason for the critical attitude to this plan on the part of many contemporary philosophers stem from the fact that he had no theoretical link at his disposal which would offer a more solid scientific grounding for his entire system. I believe that Darwinism is such a link which bolsters the central but ungrounded thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason on the existence of a priori synthetic judgments. The synthesis of Darwinism and critical philosophy dictates, however, a substantial restructuring of the latter since some of its key elements prove to be weak in the light of modern studies and need to be revised or even reversed. The first reversal explored in this article determines the origin of the categories which are now revealed not “from the top down” where Kant sought them, i. e. not in logical functions in accordance with metaphysical deduction and not in self-consciousness as transcendental deduction claims, but “from the bottom up” if one considers things in the evolutionary dimension, i. e. in the instincts. The second reversal shifts the freedom of will which Kant placed in the same ontological basket with things in themselves at “the top,” to another level of the pyramid of ontologies, by changing dualism to pluralism because dualism is too narrow to accommodate all the autonomous components of critical philosophy. Thus spirit and freedom find a new place separate from the sphere of physical nature; the category of adaptation explains how different ontologies can coexist; while the problem of two interpretations of transcendental idealism (two-world vs. two-aspect interpretation) finds a solution through their reconciliation.

Kant's Transcendental Deduction

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Laywine
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Human Thought

The Transcendental Deduction in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason tries to show that all human thought and knowledge depend on the categories of the understanding and that these categories can apply only to appearances. If it works as an argument, it implies that metaphysics as a science of non-sensible things is impossible. The author of this book argues, however, that the Transcendental Deduction reflects Kant’s long engagement with the branch of special metaphysics called ‘general cosmology’: the doctrine of a world as such. General cosmology was supposed to be a science of non-sensible things. That is how Kant treated it in his early metaphysical writings. But the author argues that Kant later adapted it for the purposes of the Transcendental Deduction. He extracted from it a purely formal characterization of a world, stripped of any commitment to non-sensible things, and repurposed it as a characterization of experience. The author argues that Kant’s formal cosmology of experience is at the heart of the Transcendental Deduction: it informs the aim of the Deduction and the details of its argument—even those that appear remote from anything cosmological.

Cartography and Autobiography

2020 ◽  
pp. 263-288
Author(s):  
Alison Laywine
Keyword(s):  
Special Problem ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Inner Sense ◽  
Empirical World ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Special Case

This chapter completes the examination, started in Chapter Four, of the second half of the Transcendental Deduction, as found in the second edition of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The focus of this chapter is §24 and §25. The special problem of these sections is empirical self-knowledge. The author argues that Kant treats self-knowledge as a special case of the cosmology of experience: the problem is how I situate myself in the empirical world. The solution to the problem is to build up in thought an understanding of the world by legislating universal laws to nature by means of the categories and to map my geographical and historical place in the world by means of the cartographic resources available to the productive imagination. The chapter has two parts. The first part is devoted to a paradox Kant claims to be associated with self-affection. It tries to understand his claim as a reflection on his own views in the mid-1770s about self-apprehension by inner sense and apperception. The second part of the chapter is devoted to the specialized cartography Kant takes to be involved in empirical self-knowledge and considers how Kant distinguishes between biography and autobiography.

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