Kant on Judging and the Will

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Vance Buroker
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Voluntary Activity ◽  
The Will ◽  
Direct Use

Kant’s Critical philosophy depends on the distinction between theoretical and practical reason, which he borrowed from Aristotle. But unlike Aristotle Kant claims that theoretical reason is subordinate to practical reason. This raises the possibility that theoretical judging could be a voluntary activity. This chapter investigates Kant’s view of the relation between theoretical judgments and the will. Based on Andrew Chignell’s recent work, it is argued that Kant recognizes the legitimate direct use of the will only in judgments he labels Belief (Glaube). With respect to Knowledge, his position is identical to Descartes’s position on clear and distinct perception. An analysis of Kant’s voluntarism regarding the activities of theoretical reason provides a model for subordinating theoretical reason to practical reason.

scholarly journals Sensibility First

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Robert Hanna
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Human Heart ◽  
Practical Rationality ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Human Sensibility ◽  
Human Rationality

In the practical realm just as in the theoretical realm, everything comes down to human sensibility as an equally empirical and non-empirical primitive starting point that constitutively motivates, intentionally pervades, and intentionally structures our innately-specified yet also “human, all-too-human” capacities for theoretical and practical rationality, all the way up. Strong Kantian non-conceptualism says that according to Kant, the faculty of human intuition or Anschauung, that is, human inner and outer sense perception, together with the faculty of imagination or Einbildungskraft, jointly constitute this sensible starting point for objective cognition and theoretical reason; and Kantian non-intellectualism says that according to Kant, human affect, desire, and moral emotion—in a word, the human heart—jointly constitute this sensible starting point for free agency and practical reason. Conjoined, they provide what I call the Sensibility First approach, which, in a nutshell, says that human rationality flows from the groundedness of our discursive, intellectual, and embodiment-neutral powers in our sensible, non-intellectual, and essentially embodied powers, without in any way reducing the former to the latter. If I’m correct about all this, then the result is a sharply non-classical and unorthodox, hence “shocking,” nevertheless fully unified and textually defensible approach to Kant’s proto-Critical philosophy (i.e., from 1768 to 1772), Critical philosophy (i.e., from 1781 to 1787) and post-Critical philosophy (i.e., from the late 1780s to the late 1790s) that encompasses his theoretical philosophy and the practical philosophy alike.

Practical Reason

Philosophy ◽  
1942 ◽  
Vol 17 (68) ◽  
pp. 351-367
Author(s):  
Reginald Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
The Will

“The will is nothing but practical reason.” In other words choice, without being any kind of judgement, resembles inference in being either valid or invalid. Moral lightness is validity of choice.

scholarly journals Homoseksualiteit: Die kerk, die tradisie en die Bybel – homofobie en sarkofobie en die evangelie

2004 ◽  
Vol 60 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Psychological Phenomena ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Social ◽  
Dialectical Perspective ◽  
The Church ◽  
Church Tradition

Homosexuality: Church, tradition, and the Bible – homophobia, sarcophobia, and the gospelThe article demonstrates a trend in the current debate on the church’s attitude towards homosexuality, namely that exegetical results supersede authentic faith experiences of gays. It shows that this trend causes an untenable tension between the dialectical notions sola fidei and sola Scriptura. Such an unacceptable tension contributes to the social psychological phenomena of homophobia and sarcophobia. The article investigates this empirical approach (theoretical reason) to homo-sexuality from the dialectical perspective of a theological approach (practical reason). The latter includes an investigation of the epistemological processes behind exegetes’ diverse use of Scripture. The article aims to show that homophobia in society and church, and the sarcophobia of homosexuals can be challenged and healed if the church holds on to the dialectic between sola fidei and sola Scriptura and the dialectic between pastoral concerns and the engagement with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Morality within the limits of practical reason: a critique of Kant’s concept of moral virtue

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-216
Author(s):  
Edward Uzoma Ezedike
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Right ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Synthetic Application

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate Kant’s idea of grounding morality within the limits of practical reason. Kant argues that morality must be devoid of emotions if the authors must make the right decisions. His idea of morality is basically ratiocentric. This paper, therefore, seeks a justification of Kant’s ratiocentricism, which excludes subjective emotional dimensions in moral actions and judgements. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts a critical and analytic method of research. It is not empirical research, and hence, does not make use of tables and quantifiable data. The methodology is exclusively qualitative in nature. Findings The major finding of this research work is that an application of practical reason is necessary for the moral agency but it is not a sufficient condition for moral agency. The existential realities demand a synthetic application of reason and emotion in moral issues. So then, a good will is determined by the rational principle. The reason is an organic whole that is capable of functioning both practically and theoretically. The practical reason is not reasoned functioning to acquire knowledge but reason operating as a guide and as the directing force of the will. The application of pure, practical reason and relevant emotional considerations is both necessary and sufficient for moral agency. Originality/value This paper is the outcome of deep critical reflections on Kant’s moral philosophy by the author.

Cultural Crisis in the Mormon Kingdom: A Reconsideration of the Causes of Kirtland Dissent

1980 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-297
Author(s):  
Marvin S. Hill
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Land Values ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
Cultural Crisis ◽  
The Will ◽  
Gathering Place ◽  
The Church

Until the time that the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints left western New York (where the church had been founded in 1830) and moved en masse to Kirtland, Ohio and then Far West, Missouri (where a second gathering place was established), the Mormons constituted a close-knit and fairly harmonious group. At Kirtland, however, serious internal discontent developed. In the wake of the collapse of the Anti-Banking Society in 1837 came widespread apostasy of many Mormons, several apostles included, who challenged Joseph Smith's role as prophetic leader whose word was the will of the Lord in secular as well as spiritual affairs. According to the prevailing interpretation, the causes were essentially economic. Fawn Brodie maintains in her chapter on the “Kirtland Disaster” that the “toppling of the Kirtland bank loosed a hornet's nest.” Quoting Apostle Heber C. Kimball, she says that afterward “there were not twenty persons on earth that would declare that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.” Despite Smith's efforts to salvage his Ohio community, “with mercantile firms bankrupt, the steam mill silent, and the land values sinking to an appalling low, Kirtland was fast disintegrating.” In a recent work, Leonard J. Arrington and Davis Bitton repeat the generalization: “in Kirtland … Smith's failed bank led to internal dissension.”

Stephan Körner: Practical Reason

Dialogue ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 510-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gauthier
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Critical Philosophy ◽  
Pull Out ◽  
Fine Detail ◽  
Almost All

This interesting volume (published by Yale University Press, 1974) offers sustenance to almost all who have an appetite for the problems of practical reason. As the Proceedings of the First Bristol Conference on Critical Philosophy, it contains the five papers presented there, with the remarks of commentators and, in three cases, replies. First, the bill of fare.Roderick Chisholm opens with “Practical Reason and the Logic of Requirement”, about which I shall say no more than to quote the beginning of G.E.M. Anscombe's comment: “It is characteristic of Professor Chisholm to carry one always by a succession of small harmless-looking moves which then suddenly enable him to pull out some large kicking rabbits like a conjurer operating with a hat. This time he has produced the large kicking rabbits, but the initial movements do not seem as unsuspicious as usual.” (pp 17–18) Those who like what Chisholm does, will find fine detail in his paper, the comments, and his reply; unfortunately, for me Professor Chisholm's rabbits have the disconcerting invisibility of Harvey.

LICENSING, CENSORSHIP, AND RELIGIOUS ORTHODOXY IN EARLY STUART ENGLAND

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 625-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTHONY MILTON
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Government Control ◽  
Stuart Period ◽  
Important Means ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Government ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
The Church

This article engages with recent work on the nature of religious censorship in the early Stuart period that has emphasized that the government possessed neither the power nor the will to control systematically what was written. It is argued here, instead, that there is evidence of attempts to control the presses' output of religious materials during the Laudian period and earlier, by all parties within the Church of England. Nevertheless, the intention here is not to revive a simplistic view of government ‘control’, but rather to study the means by which licensers could exert an influence over what would be printed with an aura of mainstream legitimacy. Texts were often interfered with by official licensers with a variety of motives. Interference might sometimes be essentially ‘benign’, conferring legitimacy on marginal works by massaging their contents, or texts might be modified in order to make their authors appear to endorse the views of their opponents. The issue of whether it was practically possible to publish work clandestinely is here seen to be something of a red herring, since by publishing in this illicit fashion authors were effectively resigning their right to be considered as spokesmen of the orthodox mainstream. It is the control and manipulation of the licensing process which emerges as one important means by which the religious middle ground was defined and controlled in the early Stuart period.

scholarly journals On the Role of Gesinnung in Kant’s Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. Part II

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei N. Krouglov
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Free Expression ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
The Revolution

The sources of Kant’s term Gesinnung and a review of the problems of its translation into English were presented in the first part of this article; the second part examines the novel features that Kant brings to the interpretation of this concept in the critical period. In the Critique of Practical Reason these include the questions of manifestation of Gesinnung in the world, apprehended through the senses, the method of establishing and the culture of truly moral Gesinnung, as well as the problem of the immutability of Gesinnung in the progress towards the good. The new theses that appear in Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason are Gesinnung as the internal subjective principle of maxims, on virtue as evidence of the presence of Gesinnung, on act as a manifestation of Gesinnung, on the unintelligibility of Gesinnung in its noumenal, suprasensible character, on the innateness of Gesinnung in the sense that it exists not in time, but in the form of its acceptance by free expression of the will, on the singleness of Gesinnung and its indivisibility into periods, on revolution in Gesinnung as distinct from empirical reform, on the creation of the new human being as distinct from the ancient one as a result of the revolution of Gesinnung, on the link between the revolution in Gesinnung and “conversion” or second birth. After discussing the problem of distinguishing the terms Gesinnung and Denkungsart in translation as well as a review of all the existing variants of translating Kant’s concept of Gesinnung into Russian (aspiration, inclination, intention, virtue, virtuousness, conviction, attitude, mode of thinking, thoughts, mood, disposition and umonastroenie), the author comes to the conclusion that the uniform variant umonastroenie is best suited for Russian translations of Kant’s works.

scholarly journals Three interpretations of the Anthropocene

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 133-153
Author(s):  
Darrel Moellendorf
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Final Part ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Short Introduction

After a short introduction into the recent discourse on the Anthropocene, I will discuss three different interpretations of the Anthropocene: the Anthropocene as promethean, as destruction and as inegalitarian. These interpretations cannot simply be settled by the facts since they concern the direction in which things might develop. Therefore, I will argue, they are not mere predictions based on theoretical reason. Because of the very fact that they are bound up with fundamental human interests and human moral concerns, they involve prospection based on practical reason and prospection is itself deeply associated with hope. The final part of my paper aims to show that we are justified to hold hope in the epoch of the Anthropocene.

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