Emotion

Author(s):  
Gopal Sreenivasan

This chapter talks about Ronald de Sousa's dramatic claim that emotions are species of determinate patterns of salience among objects of attention, lines of inquiry, and inferential strategies. It provides an adequate background on emotion and arguments on the integral view of the role of emotion in virtue. It also analyzes the psychology of emotion, a judicious smattering of philosophy that harness Christine Tappolet's overview. The chapter investigates the biological hypothesis on the function of emotion in solving the philosopher's frame problem, meaning the problem of how to make use of just what is needed from the stupendous quantity of knowledge and how not to retrieve what is not needed. It narrates a story from Daniel Dennett about a robot that is informed a bomb is set to go off in its vicinity that resents a moral that pure reason is not sufficient to solve de Sousa's problem.

Author(s):  
Jessica Leech

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.


Author(s):  
Tim Henning

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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Sebastian Gałecki

Although the “frame problem” in philosophy has been raised in the context of the artificial intelligence, it is only an exemplification of broader problem. It seems that contemporary ethical debates are not so much about conclusions, decisions, norms, but rather about what we might call a “frame”. Metaethics has always been the bridge between purely ethical principles (“this is good and it should be done”, “this is wrong and it should be avoided”) and broader (ontological, epistemic, anthropological etc.) assumptions. One of the most interesting meta-ethical debates concerns the “frame problem”: whether the ethical frame is objective and self-evident, or is it objective but not self-evident? In classical philosophy, this problem takes the form of a debate on the first principles: nonprovable but necessary starting points for any practical reasoning. They constitute the invisible but essential frame of every moral judgment, decision and action. The role of philosophy is not only to expose these principles, but also to understand the nature of the moral frame.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gualtiero LORINI

The article focuses on a concept placed at the core of the A-Deduction, of which the B-Version provides a different but not necessarily better exposition. It is the concept of “transcendental affinity” [transcendentale Affinität] (A 144). This concept is not present in the whole B-Edition of the KrV, and even the term “Affinity” does not appear in the B-Deduction, but only four times in the Transcendental Dialectic, and twice in the Discipline of the Pure Reason. In the economy of the A-Deduction, the concept of “transcendental affinity” plays a central role. It represents indeed the “thoroughgoing connection according to necessary laws” of all the possible phenomena. This connection is presupposed by transcendental consciousness insofar as it has a representation of these phenomena and their relationships, since what all the possible phenomena share is their determination in space and time according to the synthetic unity of the apperception. The concept of transcendental affinity between all the possible phenomena is intimately linked to imagination, which makes this affinity arise by reproducing a phenomenon in space and time according to the a priori laws of understanding. The necessary link between transcendental affinity and imagination represents an important passage in this paper. One goal is to point out that the implications of transcendental affinity are not rejected but rather deepened in the B-Deduction. On these assumptions, we consider the role of the “I think” in the B-Deduction, in order to claim that it implicitly relies upon the concept of transcendental affinity too. The last part of the paper aims to point out that the transcendental affinity between the phenomena describedin the A-Deduction is particularly apt to understand the unity of the representation of nature. To shed light on this point, we will deal with some significant passages from the Opus postumum.


Problemos ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 84 ◽  
pp. 153-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jūratė Baranova

Straipsnyje nagrinėjama Kanto nužymėtos ir Deleuze’o eksperimentiniame mąstyme rekonstruotos vaizduotės kaip vieno iš trijų proto gebėjimų raiškos lauko alternatyvos. Siekiama atsakyti į paties Deleuze’o išsikeltą kantišką klausimą: kokia yra giliausia paslaptis? Aptinkamos kelios atsakymo alternatyvos. Šiame tyrime paaiškėjo, kad Deleuze’o atsakymai į paties išsikeltą klausimą „kokia yra giliausia vaizduotės paslaptis?“ patiria metamorfozes, kurios apsuka ratą. Nuo pradinės pozicijos, kai vaizduotė veikia tik paklusdama intelektui ar protui, ji juda link laisvo trijų nepriklausomų sugebėjimų – intelekto, proto, vaizduotės atitikimo, paskui – link jų nedarnios dermės, jų kovos, kuri skatina kiekvienos naują atsiskleidimą, galiausiai – prie vaizduotės anihiliacijos, kuri leidžia užgimti naujai minčiai, taigi, ratas apsisuka ir grįžtama prie jų dermės naujame lygmenyje, moderuojant filosofiniam skoniui. Tačiau visas šias metaformorfozes jungia viena bendra Kanto suformuluota prielaida: vaizduotė niekada neišvengia triadinės priklausomybės, ji neveikia viena; ji galima tik santykyje su intelektu ir protu, t. y. kitais trimis jai paraleliais ir simultaniškais sugebėjimais.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Kantas, Deleuze’as, vaizduotėKant and Deleuze: What is the Deepest Secret of Imagination? Jūratė Baranova Abstract The paper discusses the problem of possible philosophical understanding of imagination from the Kantian-Deleuzean point of view. At the begining of his philosophical carreer, one can say, “early Deleuze” in 1963 published the book „Kant’s Critical Philosophy“ (La philosophie critique de Kant). The same year he wrote an essay “The Idea of Genesis in Kant’s Esthetics”. In both texts returning to Kant’s book Critique of Pure Reason, Deleuze notices, that it is widely acknowledged that schematizing is an original and irreducible act of imagination: only imagination can and knows how to schematize. Nevertheless, the imagination does not schematize of its own accord, simply because it is free to do so. It schematizes only for a speculative purpose, in accordance with the determinate concepts of the understanding; when the understanding itself plays the role of legislator. This is why it would be misguided to search the mistery of schematizing for the last word on the imagination in its essence or in its free spontaneity. “Schematizing is indeed a secret, but not the deepest secret of imagination,” – writes Deleuze. Some questions arise at this point. The first one – who speaks here: Kant or Deleuze? The second one – what is this deepest secret of imagination, as an intrigue of this kantian-deleuzean voice? How many possible answers to this question one can discern passing from “early Deleuze” to “late Deleuze”? In this article the author discoved some possible metamorphosis or twists of imagination in the experimental reading of Deleuze. It starts from the submissive position being directed by Understanding or Reason, to the free accord of three independent faculties, towards their discord, even fight, even death of the imagination for the sake of the thought and at least – the whirl closes and comes to the same point but from a different point of view: imagination, together with understanding and reason participate as an integral part of philosophical taste in later Deleuze. But one point united all these different adventures of imagination. Imagination always acts only in relation to the understanding and reason, it never plays free. It could never be able to play alone. Keywords: Kant, Deleuze, imagination.


1996 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Clark

Language, according to Jackendoff, is more than just an instrument of communication and cultural transmission. It is also a tool which helps us to think. It does so, he suggests, by expanding the range of our conscious contents and hence allowing processes of attention and reflection to focus on items (such as abstract concepts and steps in chains of reasoning) which would not otherwise be available for scrutiny. I applaud Jackendoff s basic vision, but raise some doubts concerning the argument. In particular, I wonder what it is about public language that uniquely fits it to play the functional role which Jackendoff isolates — why couldn't expression in a private inner code induce the same computational benefits? I suggest a weaker position in which the communicative role of public language moulds it into a suitably expressive resource, such that natural language emerges as the logically and technologically contingent filler of a functional role which could, in principle, be filled by other means. I also compare and contrast Jackendoff's position with some related ideas due to Daniel Dennett and others, concluding with a sketch of my own view of language as an external artifact whose computational properties complement those of the basic biological brain.


Author(s):  
Walter Van Herck

Clarity concerning what kind of knowledge a religious person possesses is of the utmost importance. For one thing, J. Whittaker remarks that believers must have some knowledge that enables them to make the distinction between literal and non-literal descriptions of God. (1) In the believer's perception 'God is a rock', but not really a rock. God however really is love. Whittaker suggests that making this distinction requires knowledge that cannot be metaphysical or experiential, but a more basic form which he terms 'practical' knowledge. Without going into his discussion of the metaphysical and experiential view, I would like to elaborate on this notion of knowledge in three steps. Firstly, I want to consider a short passage in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (A 132-3 / B 171-2) on judgment. This passage points out that we necessarily know more than we can say or state. Secondly, Michael Polanyi's account of tacit knowledge will be introduced to see what 'religious tacit knowledge' could mean to be. Thirdly, analysis of a text from Meister Eckhart's Reden der Unterweisung will aim to show the relevance of this notion of practical (or tacit) knowledge in religious contexts.


1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-572
Author(s):  
CAROL A. L. PRAGER

In his 1995 BISA lecture Philip Allott undertakes a ‘[reconciliation of] philosophy and international studies’ arguing that internationalists are the obvious leaders of the fifth historical moral enlightenment. Their role would be to envision worlds that transcend the prevailing ‘naturalistic’ view of international phenomena, which mires humankind in morally unacceptable states of affairs. A ‘naturalistic’ approach misconceives the proper role of academics for whom the sky is the limit. Inspired by Kant's three Critiques, Allott declares ‘The mind of pure reason is the mind in wonderland . . . We are all Mad Hatters conceptualizing together.’


2006 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Robert Greenberg

The role of transcendental idealism in Kant's theory of knowledge has been both deliberately underrated1 and inadvertently exaggerated. If conceivably not necessary, its role in Kant's explanation of the possibility of a priori knowledge in the Critique of Pure Reason is at least pivotal to the success of the explanation. On the other hand, though transcendental idealism depends on Kant's epistemological criterion of an existing object, or, simply, his criterion of existence, the criterion for its part is actually independent of the idealism. In fact, it may be because this independence has hardly been recognized that commentators have been unaware of the role the criterion may actually be playing in the continuing controversy over the correct interpretation of the idealism. Altogether, this article addresses both shortcomings – the underestimation and the exaggeration of the role of the idealism in Kant's epistemology. While it places the idealism at the centre of the epistemology, it also separates the criterion of existence from the idealism. In highlighting this contrast, the article explains how the criterion may actually be contributing to the persistence of the ongoing dispute over the correct interpretation of the idealism.


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