Heidegger

This chapter argues that Martin Heidegger can be read as providing a synthesis of sorts of the views considered in the previous chapters. Specifically, it focuses on Heidegger’s analysis of Being-guilty in his Being and Time and argues that while for Heidegger we are indeed not causa sui, as the naturalists hold, we are nevertheless guilty as such or are characterized by ontological guilt, as the metaphysicians hold, and this is because for Heidegger, not being causa sui is a condition of our ontological guilt. Moreover, it is our Being-guilty that makes our factical or empirical guilt possible. After introducing some of the main concepts and themes of Heidegger’s discussion, the chapter turns to reconstruct Heidegger’s transcendental argument to the effect that our Being-guilty is a necessary condition of the possibility of factical guilt. It then turns to discuss Heidegger’s concepts of the call of conscience and of wanting-to-have-a-conscience.

Schelling

In this chapter, Friedrich Wilhelm von Schelling’s thought on the phenomenon of guilt is examined. The main point established is that on the one hand, Schelling can be seen to follow in Kant’s footsteps in that he, too, sees guilt as ultimately grounded in a free, intelligible act. On the other hand, Schelling goes beyond Kant in that he holds that for guilt (empirical or ontological) to be justified, it is necessary that the human being constitute or choose his or her own being in a timeless and free deed. In other words, Schelling endorses a version of the transcendental argument for freedom where guilt implies that the human being is a free causa sui. Schelling’s conception of the human being as causa sui enables him to address the problem of infinite regress that beleaguers Kant’s view.

Schopenhauer

This chapter examines Arthur Schopenhauer’s views on guilt as well as his version of the transcendental argument found in Kant and Schelling. The chapter first provides an outline of Schopenhauer’s metaphysical view and then turns, in the second part, to examine the manner in which he understands the intelligible/empirical character distinction. Schopenhauer’s thoughts about guilt are then examined in the chapter’s third part. Here three conceptions of guilt in Schopenhauer are distinguished, and it is then shown that the conception of personal culpability is grounded for Schopenhauer by an eternal and free deed of self-constitution where an individual chooses his or her own intelligible being or character as causa sui.

Kant

This chapter’s argument is that for Immanuel Kant, empirical guilt requires determination of responsibility, where responsibility involves free agency. It argues that empirical guilt could only be justified for Kant in the final analysis if the agent is responsible and consequently guilty for his or her own “original sin” or radical evil (ontological guilt), where this responsibility and guilt imply an intelligible free deed, a position Kant defends in his Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. It is here that Kant can be seen to put forward a transcendental argument from (ontological) guilt to intelligible freedom. The chapter concludes by arguing that Kant, however, does not ultimately succeed in showing why guilt (empirical and ontological) is justified and that even though he can be seen to approach the idea of the subject as causa sui that later thinkers endorse, he does not embrace it fully.

Grice and Kant on Maxims and Categories

Apart from a passing reference to Kant, Grice never explains in his writings how he came to discover his conversational maxims. He simply proclaims them without justification. Yet regardless of how his ingenious invention really came about, one might wonder how the conversational maxims can be detected and distinguished from other sorts of maxims. We argue that the conversational maxims can be identified by the use of a transcendental argument in the spirit of Kant. To this end, we introduce Grice’s account of conversational maxims and categories and compare it briefly with Kant’s thoughts on categories. Subsequently, we pursue a thought experiment concerning what would happen if speakers constantly broke one or another of the maxims. It seems that it would not be possible for children to recognize a significant number of lexical meanings under such circumstances. Hence, the conversational maxims are rules whose occasional application is a necessary condition of language and conversation.

The kantian notion of freedom and autonomy of artificial agency

The objective of this paper is to provide critical analysis of the Kantian notion of freedom (especially the problem of the third antinomy and its resolution in the critique of pure reason); its significance in the contemporary debate on free-will and determinism, and the possibility of autonomy of artificial agency in the Kantian paradigm of autonomy. Kant's resolution of the third antinomy by positing the ground in the noumenal self resolves the problem of antinomies; however, it invites an explanatory gap between phenomenality and the noumenal self; even if he has successfully established the compatibility of natural causality and non-natural causality through his transcendental argument. This paper is also devoted to establishing the plausibility of the knowledge claim that Kantian reduction of phenomenality has served half of the purpose of the AI scientists on the possibility of Artificial Autonomous Agency.

The return of metaphysics as a subject matter of historical ontology: analytical review (ending)

The second part of the article continues the analytical and historiographical overview of the problems that are substantively related to the question of the role, meaning and historical fate of metaphysics. The author focuses on the phenomenon of the return of metaphysics to the philosophy of our time. The author traces the gradual rehabilitation of metaphysical problems in post-positivist studies of sci-ence. An attempt is made to differentiate these studies from the viewpoint of the opposition between internalism and externalism. The author shows the limits of this differentia-tion and highlights the mixed type of re-search, which focuses on the interaction of “external” and “internal” determinants of knowledge. It is shown that the postpositivist idea of the background knowledge extends not only to scientific (empirical) knowledge, but also to its philosophical (theoretical) justification, which is recognized by many re-searchers as historically and culturally conditioned. This opens up the possibility of a historical critique of the ontological presuppositions of the epistemological (transcendental) justification of science. Such presuppositions are considered in relation to the dis-course of negative ontology, which prohibits the cognitive experience of transcendent be-ing. The author shows that the criticism of these assumptions is carried out in the form of a regressive transcendental argument, which, comparing them with a new, philo-sophically revised scientific ontology, reveals their historically limited character. Thus, the regressive transcendental argument allows us to go beyond the negative ontology of the transcendental justification of science. This leads to the replacement of historical epistemology, whose subject matter is limited to knowledge and its historically mobile structures, with historical ontology, which returns to the description and explanation of reality. The author considers the concepts of new re-alism in the context of historical ontology and traces the connection of the new realism with the post-metaphysical and metametaphysical discourses.

Realist and antirealist interpretations of Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations

The sceptical paradox which Kripke found in Wittgenstein?s rule-following considerations threatens the very notion of meaning. However, Kripke also offered a sceptical solution to it, according to which semantic sentences have no truth conditions, but their meaning is determined by assertability conditions instead. He presented Wittgenstein?s development as the abandoning of semantic realism of the Tractatus in favour of semantic antirealism, characteristic of Philosophical Investigations. Crispin Wright, although at points critical of Kripke?s interpretation, also understood the rule-following considerations as containing a crucial argument for antirealism. Contrary to Wright, John McDowell maintained that they offer a transcendental argument for realism. In this paper, I will argue that neither the realist nor the antirealist reading is faithfull to Wittgenstein, as his important conceptual distinction between criteria and symptoms is not adequately recoverable in any of them. Hence the upshot of rulefollowing considerations is that the distinction between realism and antirealism should not be articulated in terms of truth/assertability conditions.

Gesetze des Denkens? Von Husserls und Freges Psychologismus-Kritik zu einem transzendentalen Kern der Logik

Husserl and Frege reject logical psychologism, the view that logical laws are psychological 'laws of thought'. This paper offers an account of these famous objections and argues that their crucial premise, the necessity of logical laws, is justified with reference to a problematic metaphysics. However, this premise can be established in a more plausible way, namely via a transcendental argument which starts from the practice of rational criticism. This argument is developed through a discussion of Quine's holism, which at first appears to make the idea of the necessity of logical laws even less plausible, but eventually turns out to speak in favor of this view.

The Moral Transcendental Argument against Skepticism

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.