Kant’s Deduction of Freedom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
One Step

The aim in this chapter and in chapter 4 is to explain how the post-Kantian German Idealists radicalized Kant’s prioritizing of the practical. This chapter brings into focus the performative and first-personal aspect of transcendental arguments. I present a Fichtean interpretation of Kant’s Deduction of Freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason. This interpretation shows that a transcendental argument always involves at least one step that cannot be established by logical means alone, but requires that the reader freely adopt a philosophical system or standpoint. By offering this Fichtean interpretation of Kant’s Deduction of Freedom, I also clarify the view that a form of self-relation that Fichte calls self-positing is the ground of moral obligation.

Transcendental arguments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Do So

Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by a sceptic are in fact preconditions for the scepticism to make sense. Hence the scepticism is either meaningless or false. A transcendental argument works by finding the preconditions of meaningful thought or judgment. For example, scepticism about other minds suggests that only the thinker themselves might have sensations. A transcendental argument which answered this scepticism would show that a precondition for thinking oneself to have sensations is that others do so as well. Expressing the scepticism involves thinking oneself to have sensations; and the argument shows that if this thought is expressible, then it is also false. Arguments with such powerful consequences have, unsurprisingly, been much criticized. One criticism is that it is not possible to discover the necessary conditions of judgment. Another is that transcendental arguments can only show us how we have to think, whereas defeating scepticism involves showing instead how things really are.

Transcendental Arguments and Idealism

1982 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 211-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Causal Order ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Form

‘Metaphysics’, said Bradley, ‘is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.’ This idea that reasoning is both instinctive and feeble is reminiscent of Hume; except that reasons in Hume tend to serve as the solvent rather than the support of instinctive beliefs. Instinct leads us to play backgammon with other individuals whom we assume inhabit a world which exists independently of our own perception and which will continue to exist tomorrow in a similar fashion to today. However, when instinct leads us also to reason about these beliefs they are all subject to sceptical attack. Their defence provides a challenge, a challenge which in thumbnail histories of the subject is met by Kant. He does this by use of a powerful new form of argument which he calls transcendental argument and which, in my opinion, provides not only reasons but also good reasons for the defence of some of our most central instinctive beliefs. The strategy involved in this kind of argument is to reflect on the necessary preconditions for comprehensible experience. In this way, some beliefs which are subject to sceptical attack, such as that there is a causal order between objects which exist independently of our experience of them, can be found to be the essential preconditions for having comprehensible experience at all. The reason for accepting them is, therefore, that they are the necessary preconditions of having any beliefs at all; and this provides a good, rather than a bad, reason for accepting these particular instinctive beliefs.

The Radical Demand in Løgstrup's Ethics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Social Norms ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Second Person ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Stephen Darwall ◽  
Ethical Demand

This book focuses on the ethics of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Løgstrup (1905–81), and in particular on his key text The Ethical Demand (1956). The first part of the book provides a commentary on The Ethical Demand. The second part contains chapters on Løgstrup as a natural law theorist; his critique of Kant and Kierkegaard; his relation to Levinas; the difference between his position and the second-person ethics of Stephen Darwall; and the role of Luther in Løgstrup’s thinking. Overall, it is argued that Løgstrup rejects accounts of ethical obligation based on the commands of God, or on abstract principles governing practical reason, or on social norms; instead he develops a different picture, at the basis of which is our interdependence, which he argues gives his ethics a grounding in the nature of life itself. The book claims that Løgstrup offers a distinctive and attractive account of our moral obligation to others, which fits into the natural law tradition.

The Moral Transcendental Argument against Skepticism

2020 ◽  
pp. 333-352
Author(s):  
Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Practical Rationality ◽  
External World ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Rational Agency ◽  
Skeptical Argument ◽  
Skeptical Hypothesis ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism ◽  
The Subject

Transcendental arguments against skepticism claim that the skeptical argument depends on the falsehood or the unbelievability of the skeptical hypothesis. This chapter argues that the skeptic needs to presuppose the moral or practical rationality of the subject, requiring the existence of an external world with certain features (strongest arguments), the falsehood of the skeptical hypothesis (strong arguments), or the subject’s belief in such a world (weak arguments). The argument starts with rational agency and investigates the sense of moral obligation, moral motives, and virtues that would exist in “vat morality,” arguing that although the skeptic needs to presuppose the rational and moral agency of the subject, the skeptical hypothesis denies or undermines the subject’s agency. The chapter ends by considering whether the skeptic can retreat to Pyrrhonian skepticism to save the skeptical project, concluding that he cannot.

Practical Reason and the Status of Moral Obligation

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 197-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
External World ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Adequate Account ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Moral Skepticism ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Status ◽  
Moral Claims

The power of skepticism depends on the apparent possibility of rationally asking, for virtually any kind of proposition commonly thought to be known, how it is known or what justifies believing it. Moral claims are among those commonly subjected to skeptical challenges and doubts, even on the part of some people who are not skeptical about ordinary claims regarding the external world. There may be even more skepticism about the possibility of justifying moral actions, particularly if they are against the agent's self-interest. Both problems-how to justify moral claims and how to justify moral action - come within the scope of the troubling question “Why be moral?” Even a brief response to moral skepticism should consider both kinds of targets of justification, cognitive and behavioural, and should indicate some important relations between the two types of skeptical challenge. I will begin with the cognitive case- with skepticism about the scope of theoretical reason in ethics - proceed to practical skepticism, which concerns the scope of practical reason, and then show how an adequate account of rationality may enable us to respond to moral skepticism.

scholarly journals Taylor, Transcendental Arguments, and Hegel on Consciousness

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Classic Article

AbstractIn this paper, I consider Charles Taylor's classic article ‘The Opening Arguments of thePhenomenology’, in which Taylor presents an account of the Consciousness chapter of thePhenomenologyas a transcendental argument. I set Taylor's discussion in context and present its main themes. I then consider a recent objection to Taylor's approach put forward by Stephen Houlgate: namely, that to see Hegel as using transcendental arguments would be to violate Hegel's requirement that his method in thePhenomenologyneeds to bepresuppositionless. I concede that Houlgate's criticism of Taylor has some force, but argue that nonetheless Taylor can suggest instead that although Hegel is not offering transcendentalargumentshere, he can plausibly be read as making transcendentalclaims, so that perhaps Houlgate and Taylor are not so far apart after all, notwithstanding this disagreement.

McDowell on Transcendental Arguments, Scepticism and “Error Theory”

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Alan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Error Theories ◽  
Philosophical Scepticism

John McDowell has recently changed his line of response to philosophical scepticism about the external world. He now claims to be in a position to use the strategy of transcendental argumentation in order to show the falsity of the sceptic’s misrepresentation of our ordinary epistemic standpoint. Since this transcendental argument begins from a weak and widely shared assumption shared with the sceptic herself the falsity of external world scepticism is now demonstrable even to her. Building on the account of perceptual intentionality defended in the Woodbridge lectures, McDowell argues that the idea of narrow perceptual content is unavailable to anyone, including the sceptic. This argument is assessed by drawing out an analogy with parallel responses to error theories in ethics.

scholarly journals Van Til versus Stroud: Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-160
Author(s):  
Bálint Békefi
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Strategy I ◽  
Van Til

In this paper I introduce the transcendental argument for Christian theism in the context of Reformed theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til’s thought. I then present the critique proffered by Barry Stroud against ambitious transcendental arguments, and survey various formulations of transcendental arguments in the literature, seeking how the objection bears upon them. I argue that Adrian Bardon’s (2005) interpretation is the most helpful in understanding the Stroudian objection. From this interpretation, two types of possible rebuttals are deduced. Proceeding to survey the responses offered by Van Tillians to this objection in the recent literature, I discern two general strategies pursued in these responses, which map onto the previously deduced types of rebuttals: the Biblical justification strategy and the objection-undermining strategy. I argue that all the specific attempts to answer Stroud which I examine here (those of Butler, Bosserman, and Fluhrer) are inadequate and that these two strategies, in general, face serious problems. I conclude with considering the options before the proponent of the transcendental argument for Christian theism and with offering a new objection to the argument, which focuses on its inconsistency with the implications of Christian theism itself.

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