Kant’s Concept of Thing in itself, Substance and Transcendental Object

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Ki-Ho Nahm ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Thing In Itself ◽  
Transcendental Object

Kant's conception of the Noumenon

Dialogue ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 516-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sadik J. Al-Azm
Keyword(s):  
Thing In Itself ◽  
Transcendental Object ◽  
The Relationship

In treating of our subject three notions stand out prominently: the noumenon, the thing-in-itself and the transcendental object = X. In his commentary on The Transcendental Analytic, Robert P. Wolff has studied very carefully the question of the relationship between the notion of a transcendental object and that of the thing-in-itself. He noted and explained the passages of The Critique in which Kant means by the transcendental object simply the thing-in-itself and the passages in which he means by it something different such as “the concept of the ground of the unity of a manifold of representations in one consciousness.” There is little to be added, at this time, to Wolff's thorough investigations of this aspect of the problem.

scholarly journals The Paradox of Kant’s Transcendental Subject in German Philosophy in the Late Eighteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
M. V. Rouba
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Transcendental Object ◽  
Subject Of Cognition ◽  
Relationship Of

The study of the “first wave” of reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason in Germany from the second half of the 1780s until the beginning of the nineteenth century reveals the paradoxical status of the Kantian transcendental subject. While the existence of the transcendental subject, whatever the term means, is not open to question since it arises from the very essence of critical philosophy, the fundamental status of the subject is sometimes questioned in this period. Although the meaning of the concept of transcendental subject seems obvious today (the subject of cognition, bearer of transcendental conditions of experience) it lends itself to various interpretations in the late eighteenth century. To achieve my goal I have undertaken a textological analysis of the works of the earliest opponents and followers of the Kantian critique and a reconstruction of the conceptual field in the midst of which the transcendental subject has been planted. Among others I draw on the works of J. S. Beck, J. A. Eberhard, J. G. Hamann, F. H. Jacobi, S. Maimon, K. L. Reinhold, G. E. Schulze and A. Weishaupt. The authors of the period are grouped depending on the common themes and questions that prompted them to turn to the concept of the transcendental subject, even though the results of their reflections did not always coincide. These authors think of the transcendental subject in its relationship to the transcendental object, or as “something = х”, and in terms of the relationship of representation to the object. It is characterised sometimes as something absolutely hollow, and sometimes as the fullness of true reality. The status ascribed to the transcendental subject is sometimes that of a thing-in-itself and sometimes that of a “mere” idea. Finally, Kant’s transcendental subject was sometimes seen as something to be overcome and sometimes as an infinite challenge to understanding.

The Revolutionizing of the Revolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
French Government ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The French Revolution ◽  
The Revolution

In 1792, the French Revolution became a thing in itself, an uncontrollable force that might eventually spend itself but which no one could direct or guide. The governments set up in Paris in the following years all faced the problem of holding together against forces more revolutionary than themselves. This chapter distinguishes two such forces for analytical purposes. There was a popular upheaval, an upsurge from below, sans-culottisme, which occurred only in France. Second, there was the “international” revolutionary agitation, which was not international in any strict sense, but only concurrent within the boundaries of various states as then organized. From the French point of view these were the “foreign” revolutionaries or sympathizers. The most radical of the “foreign” revolutionaries were seldom more than advanced political democrats. Repeatedly, however, from 1792 to 1799, these two forces tended to converge into one force in opposition to the French government of the moment.

Schopenhauer’s Understanding of Schelling

2020 ◽  
pp. 48-66
Author(s):  
Judith Norman ◽  
Alistair Welchman
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Intuition ◽  
Thing In Itself

Schopenhauer is famously abusive toward his philosophical contemporary and rival, Friedrich William Joseph von Schelling. This chapter examines the motivations for Schopenhauer’s immoderate attitude and the substance behind the insults. It looks carefully at both the nature of the insults and substantive critical objections Schopenhauer had to Schelling’s philosophy, both to Schelling’s metaphysical description of the thing-in-itself and Schelling’s epistemic mechanism of intellectual intuition. It concludes that Schopenhauer’s substantive criticism is reasonable and that Schopenhauer does in fact avoid Schelling’s errors: still, the vehemence of the abuse is best perhaps explained by the proximity of their philosophies, not the distance. Indeed, both are developing metaphysics of will with full and conflicted awareness of the Kantian epistemic strictures against metaphysics. In view of this, Schopenhauer is particularly concerned to mark his own project as legitimate by highlighting the manner in which he avoids Schelling’s errors.

Force in Nature

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-160
Author(s):  
David Carus
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Core ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Will ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter explores Schopenhauer’s concept of force, which lies at the root of his philosophy. It is force in nature and thus in natural science that is inexplicable and grabs Schopenhauer’s attention. To answer the question of what this inexplicable term is at the root of all causation, Schopenhauer looks to the will within us. Through will, he maintains that we gain immediate insight into forces in nature and hence into the thing in itself at the core of everything and all things. Will is thus Schopenhauer’s attempt to answer the question of the essence of appearance. Yet will, as it turns out, cannot be known immediately as it is subject to time, and the acts of will, which we experience within us, do not correlate immediately with the actions of the body (as Schopenhauer had originally postulated). Hence, the acts of will do not lead to an explanation of force, which is at the root of causation in nature. Schopenhauer sets out to explain what is at the root of all appearances, derived from the question of an original cause, or as Schopenhauer states “the cause of causation,” but cannot determine this essence other than by stating that it is will; a will, however, that cannot be immediately known.

The absolute that is not absolute: an alchemical reflection on the caput mortuum, the dark other of logical light

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanton Marlan
Keyword(s):  
Dark Light ◽  
Object A ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Absolute

ABSTRACTThis paper challenges Wolfgang Giegerich’s sometimes sophisticated and at other times sophistic notion of absolute negative interiority. In contrast to his uroboric view of ‘psychology proper’, this author resists the successionist ideas of a post-Jungian, trans-human perspective and asserts the notion of an unassimilable and unsurmountable ‘not’. In this paper, the author revisions the traditional divide between Kant and Hegel, taking the ‘thing-in-itself’ as truly other than existing only for consciousness and arguing against privileging theunityof unity and difference. This paper entertains the alchemical ideas of a residue, acaput mortuum, and an archetypally cumbersome object, a real limit, which remains and unhinges the elevating process of spirit on its path to return to itself in absolute interiority. Rather, it acknowledges an abyss ‘behind the back of consciousness’, a non-reified living unconscious – a dark light, an absolute that is not absolute, but rather a gateway back to the beyond, at the root of imagination, wonder, and transformation.

MORAL OBLIGATION AFTER THE DEATH OF GOD: CRITICAL REFLECTIONS ON CONCERNS FROM IMMANUEL KANT, G. W. F. HEGEL, AND ELIZABETH ANSCOMBE

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Tristram Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Moral Pluralism ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Status

AbstractOnce God is no longer recognized as the ground and the enforcer of morality, the character and force of morality undergoes a significant change, a point made by G.E.M. Anscombe in her observation that without God the significance of morality is changed, as the word criminal would be changed if there were no criminal law and criminal courts. There is no longer in principle a God's-eye perspective from which one can envisage setting moral pluralism aside. In addition, it becomes impossible to show that morality should always trump concerns of prudence, concerns for one's own non-moral interests and the interests of those to whom one is close. Immanuel Kant's attempt to maintain the unity of morality and the force of moral obligation by invoking the idea of God and the postulates of pure practical reason (i.e., God and immortality) are explored and assessed. Hegel's reconstruction of the status of moral obligation is also examined, given his attempt to eschew Kant's thing-in-itself, as well as Kant's at least possible transcendent God. Severed from any metaphysical anchor, morality gains a contingent content from socio-historical context and its enforcement from the state. Hegel's disengagement from a transcendent God marks a watershed in the place of God in philosophical reflections regarding the status of moral obligations on the European continent. Anscombe is vindicated. Absent the presence of God, there is an important change in the force of moral obligation.

The Kantian Thing-in-Itself as a Philosophical Fiction

1966 ◽  
Vol 16 (64) ◽  
pp. 233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Schaper
Keyword(s):  
Thing In Itself

If Art is Knowledge, Then …

1979 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-294
Author(s):  
John H. Chambers
Keyword(s):  
Visual Art ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Verbal Communication ◽  
The World ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Way

It is argued that visual art makes statements analogous to the statements of science, morals, etc. Such art statements are provided by entities like Guernica, The Fighting Temeraire, and pictures on the walls of the local gallery, and concern themselves with things-in-themselves. The whole point of art criticism is to make clearer this thing-in-itself. In the way that other sorts of statement shape the world, so art statements shape the world. We do not know the world and then superimpose art statements upon it; we know the world through the art statements. This thesis has curriculum implications. It indicates the need for art encounters and techniques of various sorts, since the knowledge of art statements can only be apprehended through engaging in art and from intense verbal communication with teachers about art and its qualities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document