The Revolutionary Shift in Kantian Modality Prior to the Critique

2019 ◽  
pp. 135-144
Author(s):  
Uygar Abacı
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
Cognitive Faculty ◽  
Critical Turn

This chapter examines the development of Kant’s conception of modality in the period between The Only Possible Argument (1763) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). From the mid-1760s on, Kant interprets his discovery that existence involves a relation to the cognitive faculty as more broadly applying to modality in general, and adopts the epistemological interpretation of the actualist principle. This shift plays an essential role in Kant’s realization of the need for a ‘critical turn’ in philosophy, which Kant first formulates in his 1772 letter to Herz in terms of the question of how to cognize that our pure concepts do indeed represent really possible objects. What problematizes this question is the actualist principle, epistemologically interpreted as stating that the cognition of actuality is a prerequisite of cognition of real possibility. Kant’s emerging revolution in modality is thus constitutive of his critical turn rather than a consequence of it.

Kant’s Material Condition of Real Possibility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Leech
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
Material Condition

In the Postulates of Empirical Thinking, a section of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant presents an account of the content and role of our concept of real possibility in terms of formal conditions of experience. However, much later in the Critique he introduces the idea of a material condition of possibility. What is this material condition of possibility, and how does it fit with the conception of possibility in terms of formal conditions? This essay argues that the key to answering these questions—as well as to understanding Kant’s criticism of rational theology, in which the discussion of the material condition of possibility appears—is Kant’s account of how we can individuate objects.

The Modality of Judgments

2019 ◽  
pp. 145-165
Author(s):  
Uygar Abacı
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Psychological States ◽  
Cognitive Faculty ◽  
Conceptual Representations ◽  
Coherence Relations

This chapter focuses on Kant’s account of the modal functions of judgments in the Critique of Pure Reason. There are two current strands of interpreting this account. The first understands the modality of a given judgment in terms of the judger’s attitude toward its content, based on their epistemic or psychological states. The second understands it solely in terms of its location in a syllogistic context. On the alternative interpretation defended in this chapter, Kant construes the modalities of judgments as instantiating relative logical modalities and expressing logical coherence relations between a judgment and a set of background judgments. This interpretation not only fits well with Kant’s revolutionary program of redefining modality as a feature of the relation between the conceptual representations of things and the cognitive faculty of the judger, but also captures the formal-logical infrastructure of his account of real modality in the rest of the Critique.

From “Possible Worlds” to “Possible Experience”. Real Possibility in Leibniz and Kant

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Osvaldo Ottaviani
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Short Account ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
The Real ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Metaphysics Of Modality

AbstractThis paper moves from a disagreement with those interpreters who explain Kant’s doctrine of real possibility in terms of possible worlds. It seems to me that a possible world framework is too much indebted to the Leibnizian metaphysics of modality and, therefore, cannot serve to make sense of Kant’s theses. Leibniz’s theory of possibility, indeed, has been deeply criticized in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (CPR). Interestingly enough, however, Kant’s principal argument for rejecting that the field of what is possible is greater than the field of what is real was already anticipated by Leibniz. However, Leibniz employed it to demonstrate that there cannot be more than one actual world only (the others being purely possible ones). Moving from this fact, I argue that there is a certain tension between what Leibniz says about the actual world and his commitment to a plurality of possible worlds conceived as ideas in God’s mind. The first part of my paper is devoted to show that such a tension can be traced back to Leibniz’s claims about the relation between the possible and the real. In the second part, then, I maintain that Kant’s theory of real possibility grows from a dissatisfaction with (and a rejection of) Leibniz’s attempted solution to the problem of characterizing a kind of possibility narrower than the merely logical one and, nonetheless, not identical with existence. Finally, I present a short account of Kant’s theory of real possibility, based on the notion of transcendental conditions as conditions of possibility of experience, showing how it works in the case of the forms of intuition.

scholarly journals ATTEMPT TO INTRODUCE THE CONCEPT OF BODY INTO THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacinto Rivera de ROSALES
Keyword(s):  
Essential Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Third ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism

The body of the subject should be considered as a transcendental element for all objective cognition and must play an essential role in the third Analogy of experience. For that it is necessary to understand that both the outer and inner appearances have their own specific spatiality and temporality. The starting point is the Kantian reflections in his “Refutation of Idealism” and its consequences.

Kants kritische Psychologie als Aufklärung

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-273
Author(s):  
Hyeongjoo Kim ◽  
Carina Pape
Keyword(s):  
Important Change ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment

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.

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?

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document