For the Love of Metaphysics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
The Third ◽  
Irreducible Elements ◽  
Temporal Dimensions

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.

Why Is There a Realm of Experience at All?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Adequate Explanation ◽  
Philosophical Investigations ◽  
Irreducible Elements ◽  
The World ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
Temporal Dimensions ◽  
Fundamental Entity

This chapter shows that both Schelling’s Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and his Ages of the World fragments are motivated by an attempt to explain the relation between subject and object that characterizes all states of human consciousness. Fichte’s notion of the self-positing subject issues in the view that there is a single fundamental entity (the “absolute I”), which is constituted by two forms of activity, real and ideal activity; and, on Fichte’s view, the relation between real and ideal activity is the relation between subject and object that characterizes all states of human consciousness. Yet, in the Jena period, Fichte does not provide an adequate explanation for the basic relational structure of human consciousness. Schelling hopes to explain the structure of human consciousness by developing the view that human experience is grounded in three irreducible elements—God, the natural world, and human beings—which relate to one another in three temporal dimensions: creation, revelation, and redemption.

Transhumanists’ Informational View of Being and Knowledge

2021 ◽  
pp. 191-231
Author(s):  
Susan B. Levin
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
World War ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
Concept Of Information

What transhumanists see as context-independent truths involving knowledge and reality are actually holdovers from World War II and its aftermath: prior to the 1940s and 1950s, the informational view of reality and knowledge that soon appeared self-evidently true did not exist. The concept of information emerged unscathed by the failure of the earliest attempts to apply information theory to biology, firmly attaching to DNA, and human biology was deemed highly manipulable. Transhumanism channels this perspective on human biology, one that science itself shows increasingly to be outdated. Beyond their problematic informational frame, transhumanists fail to appreciate what it means for us to think or experience anything at all as human beings. Though Immanuel Kant is cited as a backdrop for their focus on humanity’s self-transcendence via rationality, extrapolation from his Critique of Pure Reason shows their confidence that human reason will spur the creation of posthumanity to be irrational.

Beck, Jacob Sigismund (1761–1840)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eckart Forster
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
Kantian Philosophy ◽  
Theoretical Philosophy

Beck played a brief but important role in the development of post-Kantian philosophy. A former student of Kant, he published at his teacher’s instigation three volumes of ‘Explanatory Abstracts’ of Kant’s major writings. In the third volume Beck presented what he regarded as the ‘Only Possible Standpoint’ from which Critical Philosophy had to be judged if misunderstandings of Kant’s work were to be avoided. His ‘Doctrine of the Standpoint’ involved a ‘reversal’ of the method of the Critique of Pure Reason and the elimination of the ‘thing-in-itself’ from Kant’s theoretical philosophy.

scholarly journals Reflections on Kant’s View of the Imagination

2015 ◽  
Vol 64 (157) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Tugba Ayas Onol
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Judgment ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
The Third ◽  
And Performance

<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>

scholarly journals Transcendental Philosophy as a Research Programme

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-126
Author(s):  
Michael Lewin
Keyword(s):  
Research Programme ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Third ◽  
Definite Form ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
Clear Idea ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Insight Into

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.

Immanuel Kants transzendentaler Kritizismus und die Frage nach Gott

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Mugerauer
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Thinking

For those who are interested, the study of Kant's relevant writings is facilitated here, especially that of the ´Critique of Pure Reason´. Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy and criticism of reason has left a lasting mark on modern thinking. The author gives an overview of Kant´s criticism. The focus is on Kant's philosophical treatment of the subject of God and his criticism of affirmative rational theology. If one wants to understand Kant, the God theme is of outstanding importance. Moreover, it is gaining increased philosophical interest nowadays. The author concludes with an outlook on the philosophical theologies in German idealism.

Kant and the Art of Schematism

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha Matherne
Keyword(s):  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Judgment ◽  
The Third ◽  
Insight Into

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.

Kant on the Philosopher’s Proper Activity

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-113
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Stoner ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Ways Of Thinking

This essay investigates Kant’s understanding of the philosopher’s proper activity. It begins by examining Kant’s well-known claim in the Critique of Pure Reason that the philosopher is the legislator of human reason. Subsequently, it explicates Kant’s oft-overlooked description of the transcendental philosopher as an admirer of nature’s logical purposiveness, in the ‘First Introduction’ to the Critique of the Power of Judgment. These two accounts suggest very different ways of thinking about the philosopher’s character and concerns. For, while Kant’s philosopher-legislator pursues the practical, world-transformative task of furthering reason’s moral vocation, the transcendental philosopher’s admiration of nature’s purposiveness is a form of a contemplative openness to the contingent but wonderful orderliness of things. I conclude that Kant ultimately recognizes that the tension between legislation and admiration is characteristic of the philosopher and that it is the heart of philosophy’s vitality.

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