This paper offers a contextual, textual and conceptual study of Kant’s notion of humanity and its current interpretations. Its argument is directed against the interpretation of humanity as merely “the capacity to set oneself an end - any end whatsoever”. Kant’s sources, his usage of the word ‘ Menschheit ’ and its conceptual functions suggest a more complex reading that includes not only individualist, but also collectivist, essentialist and personalist meanings. These four meanings are separated – and brought together – (...) by insurmountable metaphysical divides between the phaenomenal and the noumenal, as well as between part and whole. The paper begins by a survey of recent interpretations, then proceeds to explicate the contextual background for Kant’s concept, then draws attention to various use ‘ Menschheit ’ finds in Kant’s texts. The conclusion points at the potential Kant’s substantial and complex notion of humanity has for enriching our understanding of many pressing issues of today. (shrink)

O objetivo do artigo consiste em analisar, a partir dos parágrafos 34 a 38 da obra Kant e o problema da metafísica e segundo a exegese heideggeriana, o sentido e pertinência da inserção da problemática antropológica anteposta às três questões fundamentais expostas na Crítica da razão pura. Heidegger converte um rol exaustivo, delimitado pelas três perguntas, em um rol exemplificado, ao colocar a indagação da antropologia filosófica como pressuposto e consequência necessária das três interrogações kantianas. Heidegger recorre ao conceito de (...) finitude, para validar a importância e para fundamentar a primazia da questão antropológica sobre as demais: a interrogação “que é o homem” transforma-se na primeira que dispensa, a partir de si, as três restantes. Na finitude estão circunscritas as discussões sobre o tempo, a autoafecção pura, a imaginação e o tempo originário. É na finitude que estão os verdadeiros sinais ou ecos da antropologia filosófica kantiana. (shrink)

Review of: Rudolph A. Makkreel, Kant’s Worldview. How Judgment Shapes Human Comprehension, Chicago, Northwestern University Press, 2021, 288 p. ISBN: 9780810144316.

Taking Kant’s suspicion of the morality as a simple phantom of the mind as a departing point, we are intending to investigate the central role of the moral consciousness, taken here both as the possible source of this illusion so much as the premise through which one can infer the normativity of reason and assure the reality of duty and of our moral experience. Despite the fact this suspicion be somehow inevitable and remains in the philosopher’s mind as a kind (...) of threat, it has been contrasted with a factual perspective of morality – according to which the experience of morality as an unconditional obligation is by itself an evidence of its intrinsic origin in reason. (shrink)

En la presente investigación propongo el concepto de prudencia epistémica. La prudencia epistémica es la habilidad social para influir en los demás para fines socio-cognitivos. Como habilidad pragmática, la prudencia epistémica consiste no sólo en una descripción de los orígenes empíricos del error, sino en la habilidad social para evitar el error y otros males cognitivos frutos del egoísmo lógico y otros vicios epistémicos.

Kant sobre el método matemático, de Jaakko Hintikka.

En este texto se desarrollan algunas ideas que Kant plantea sobre la ontología de los objetos geométricos. En primer lugar, una vez que se abstraen ciertos componentes de la intuición empírica, queda como resultado la intuición pura. Aquello ocurre porque la intuición pura es la forma de la intuición empírica, es decir, no corresponde a un componente que podría presentarse al margen de aquella. En segundo lugar, las partes del espacio son posteriores a éste, dado que éstas son limitaciones del (...) mismo. A partir de ello, puede afirmarse que las partes del espacio comparten el mismo estatus ontológico que éste. En tercer lugar, el espacio propiamente no existe, aunque se le atribuye una cierta forma de realidad, el ser un ens imaginarium, en virtud de ser forma de los fenómenos, de los cuales sí es posible afirmar que realmente existen. Por lo tanto, a partir de lo anterior puede afirmarse que los objetos geométricos son entia imaginaria. (shrink)

Sobre el “triángulo general” de Locke, de Evert Willem Berth.

Dossier La filosofía de las matemáticas de Kant. Perspectivas actuales y clásicas. Introducción.

I propose a method of assessing the degree of enlightenment of a society based on its discourses. My hypothesis is that the more objectivity prevails in a society’s spheres of discourse, the more enlightened it is; the more subjectivity dominates, the more unenlightened. This relationship can be made evident through the reconstruction of Kant’s Theory of Prejudice by taking into account the handwritten notes and fragments and the lectures on logic. First, I will discuss some key aspects of Kant’s concept (...) of prejudice. Secondly, I will address the epistemological function of the public sphere in order to show what conditions it must satisfy to fulfil its function. Thirdly, I will argue that not only Selbstdenken but also participatory reason, and therefore the public sphere itself, are both fundamental elements of enlightenment in that they function as counter-maxims against prejudice. (shrink)

Review of: Robert Louden, Johann Bernard Basedow and the Transformation of Modern Education: Educational Reform in the German Enlightenment, London, Bloomsbury, 2021, 225 p. ISBN: 9781350163669.

In this paper, I address the relationship between Lyotard’s account of the sublime in art and Kant’s own attempt at considering sublime art as a possible counterpart to fine art. Lyotard recognises the roots of modern art - and avant-garde particularly -in Kant’s account of the sublime. This is interesting, forit is generally assumed that Kant didn’t devise the notion to be applied to art as such. In the lack of any explicit consideration of artistic sublime in Kant’s text, what (...) could be the background for Lyotard’s analysis? My contention is that this reading of the Third Critique is only partially correct. Unlike what is commonly believed, much room is left in Kant’s text for consideration of the sublime in art. Kant himself envisages the possibility that the sublime be found in art and considers artistic representations of the sublime possible for art-forms. How can twentieth-century art be sublime in a Kantian way? And what role does Kant’s notion of aesthetic ideas play in Lyotard’s own account? (shrink)

Construcción, esquematismo e imaginación, de J. Michael Young.

En este artículo examino el soporte textual para la hipótesis de que, dentro del marco de la teoría estética de Kant, la belleza artística no es necesariamente de tipo adherente –y puede ser, por consiguiente, de tipo libre. Tal examen está dividido en dos partes: en la primera parte cito y reflexiono en base a pasajes de la Crítica del juicio que sugieren que la belleza artística no es necesariamente una belleza adherente. En la segunda parte presento tres lecturas emprendidas (...) por intérpretes de Kant que proponen, las primeras, que la belleza artística puede ser de tipo libre, mientras la última, que la belleza artística, si es de arte bello, del arte del genio que se trata, es una belleza libre. (shrink)

En este artículo se examina la noción de analogía en la filosofía de Kant. Excluido el significado coloquial del término, se identifican tres ámbitos de uso de esa noción. Se trata del ámbito de la lógica, el de la matemática y el de la filosofía crítica. Se sostiene que el uso de analogías en la filosofía crítica se vincula con la noción matemática de analogía, pero no se identifica con esta.

El presente artículo se propone analizar el concepto de entendimiento infinito tal como es presentado por Salomon Maimon en el Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie y por Kant en los parágrafos §§76-78 de la Crítica de la facultad de juzgar. Nos guiará la hipótesis de que Kant pudo haberse visto influenciado por Maimon, tanto en la formulación de dicho concepto como en el modo de abordar el problema que este viene a resolver, a saber, el de la indeterminación material de los (...) objetos de la filosofía trascendental. La comparación entre los planteos de ambos filósofos servirá para poner de relieve una problemática común. Sostendremos que, mientras que Kant ya había considerado un concepto de entendimiento infinito en la primera Crítica, es solo a partir del problema de la indeterminación que defenderá, luego de leer el manuscrito de Maimon, un uso crítico de dicho concepto. (shrink)

Review of: Varden, Helga, Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, 337 p. ISBN: 978-0198812838.

Kant sobre las definiciones matemáticas, de Mirella Capozzi.

Este artículo pretende ofrecer una visión alternativa tanto de la lectura conceptualista tradicional de Kant como de la nueva lectura no conceptualista. En contra de las lecturas conceptualistas tradicionales sostengo que confunden las condiciones para la representación sensible de los objetos con las condiciones para el reconocimiento de que representamos objetos mediante intuiciones sensibles. En contra de las lecturas no conceptualistas sostengo que no distinguen el no conceptualismo -propio de la filosofía contemporánea de la mente- de las tesis antiintelectualistas de (...) Kant. Tales lecturas fracasan porque se equivocan al atribuir un contenido representacional a las intuiciones sensibles de Kant. Las intuiciones sensibles, según Kant, no presentan el mundo según ciertas condiciones de satisfacción que podrían o no ser satisfechas por el mundo. Por lo tanto, no son ni verídicas ni non verídicas. Se limitan a presentar el mundo de una manera directa, independiente de los conceptos, lo que llamaré aquí la presentación de re de los objetos. En mi lectura, la oposición entre intuiciones y conceptos es la oposición entre la presentación de re de um objeto y el reconocimento proposicional de dicto de que representamos algo como um objeto. (shrink)

In this text I shall explore the meaning of the concept “exponent” in the first Critique by resorting to its provenience. Beginning with a brief analysis of the two meanings Kant ascribes to it the Critique, the exponent of a series and the exponent of a rule, I intend to point out that by means of Kant’s concept of analogy, intimately linked with proportion, we can find a route into some of the mathematics textbooks of the 18 th century, which (...) shed great light in the matter. Thereafter, as a transition for returning to the Critique, we shall see how, in the Duisburgscher Nachlass, the exponent plays a central role for Kant as he thinks the emergency and necessity of rules in Philosophy, in comparison to Mathematics. In this way I hope to show how the “exponent” is taken up by Kant and made fruitful, especially for the Analogies of experience. (shrink)

Recensione di: Francesca Fantasia e Carmelo Alessio Meli, Ragione ed effettività nella tarda filosofia di Kant. Libertà e doveri alla luce dei «lose Blätter» e dei testi a stampa, Madrid, Ediciones Alamanda, 2021, 285 pp., ISBN: 978-84-949436-6-9.

One thing to expect from a theory of absolute music is that it explains what makes it so significant to us. Kant rightly observes that the essence of absolute music is our affective response to it. Yet none of the standard 18 th century theories, arousal theory and aesthetic rationalism, can explain both the universality of a judgment of taste and its subjective emotional content. The paper argues that Kant’s own aesthetic theory of aesthetic ideas is on the right path (...) for explaining the emotive significance of music, but that Kant does not further pursue this route because his interest in a “theory of music” is only peripheral to his systematic interest as a transcendental philosopher. For both philosophical and historical reasons, Kant does not have a “theory of music.” Nevertheless, if we free Kant’s conception of aesthetic idea and its restriction to Geist from the background of its 18th century humanism, then Kant’s aesthetics of free play becomes a good theory to account for the broad variety of emotions in absolute music as a fine art proper. (shrink)

La Filosofía de la Aritmética de Kant, de Charles Parsons.

El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar las diferencias y relaciones entre las concepciones kantianas de dos disciplinas. La primera es la psicología empírica contenida en la Metafísica de Baumgarten, que Kant empleaba para dar sus lecciones de antropología. Consideraremos principalmente la interpretación kantiana de esta psicología. La segunda es la antropología pragmática. Con respecto a esta última disciplina, tendremos en cuenta las lecciones de antropología de Kant y la publicada Antropología en sentido pragmático. Mostraremos que, aunque las concepciones kantianas (...) de la psicología empírica y la antropología pragmática son esencialmente diferentes, hay relaciones entre las mismas. Nuestra conclusión es que la psicología empírica permanece como un cierto enfoque metodológico dentro de la antropología pragmática. Tal enfoque consiste en la consideración de los fenómenos internos, y es uno, entre otros, de los recursos metodológicos empleados por la antropología pragmática. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze Kant’s ideas about eating and drinking. First, I show that gluttony and drunkenness are considered ways to oppose to the duty to oneself as an animal being. Second, I claim that for Kant there is a healthy way of having meals, which consists in eating together with friends. Then I indicate that Kant accepts that one can drink at dinner parties but has to avoid drinks that lead to drunkenness and unsocial behavior. In this sense, (...) he draws a classification of the various kinds of alcoholic drinks, according to their potential harm. Afterwards, I illustrate how Kant’s own intimate life was a daily practice of his thoughts on dietetic conceptions and on what is better for digestion and health. To conclude, I mention the idea of a philosopher’s medicine of the body and why a strict diet should be avoided. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide an original account of the distinction between the spheres of Sitten that goes beyond the traditional one based on the nature of incentives, since this underestimates some of their characteristics. First, the paper identifies in obligatio a common source between Ethics and Right. Then, it explores how in the Metaphysics of Morals the connection between law and incentive constitutes a more relevant criterion to distinguish ethical lawgiving from juridical lawgiving. Specifically, it demonstrates (...) that such connection: to be ethical should be linear, understood as a necessary self-determined process of connecting law to incentive; to be juridical should be mediated, namely it comprises an inclusive disjunction between two modalities of connecting law to incentive: a non-necessary linear and a divergent one. It concludes by exploring the implications of such perspective on the notions of internalisation and externalisation associated to each lawgiving. (shrink)

This paper is inspired by one of Freud’s last notes, which is famous for its astonishing conclusion: “Psyche is extended; knows nothing about it,” which describes the perception of space as a product of the extension of the psychic apparatus, and compares it with Kant’s a priori categorie s. The Author reconstructs the historical background of this idea as part of a long discussion between Freud and his pupil Marie Bonaparte in the second half of 1938, and shows how the (...) relationship between body and psychic functions in Freud’s thought was influenced by his intellectual debt to Kant. Through an outline of the influence of Kantian philosophy on the emerging Naturphilosophie in fin de siècle Vienna, the Author aims to show the profound influence of Kantian philosophy on the development of Freu d’s thought. By committing to a modern and non -dualistic conception of the relationship between body and mind, Freud conceives an indissoluble bond between the mind and, not only the brain, but the whole body and its spatial extension. The Author concludes by identifying a close link between the aphorism of 1938 and Kantian pre-Critique thought, and, more generally, highlighting the influence of the Königsberg philosopher on the relationship between mind and body and on the perception of time and space in Freudian thought. (shrink)

In the following reflection Claudio Corradetti and Allen Wood engage in a controversy concerning the possibilities and the limits of textual interpretation. Should an interpreter still be authorized to call an author’s interpretation the logical stretch of text beyond its black printed letters? The authors offer two different standpoints on what can still be defined as textual interpretation. Whereas for Allen Wood a clear-cut separation must be kept between what a text shows and what an interpreter argues starting from the (...) text, for Claudio Corradetti such distinction remains internal to textual exegesis in so far as the interpreter’s conclusions follow a logical pattern of jus tification starting from evidential hints. (shrink)

In this paper, I first examine the classification of mental derangements contained in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, in order to highlight the role played by imagination in their pathogenesis. Later, on the basis of this examination, I reflect on the origins of critical philosophy, which can be seen as an attempt to construct a control device for the imagination structured as a systematic, organic space.

Este artículo pretende indagar en la concepción de la locura desarrollada por el filósofo Immanuel Kant a lo largo de su trayectoria intelectual. Para llevar a cabo esta indagación el autor adopta una interpretación naturalizada del transcendentalismo kantiano desarrollada por Eugenio Moya Cantero en sus trabajos sobre el pensador alemán. Se pretende con ello conciliar dos planos de la investigación kantiana que han sido tradicionalmente contrapuestos: facticidad y transcendentalidad, quid facti y quid juris. Este planteamiento ofrece una razón humana situada (...) en el seno de la naturaleza y de su historia y constituida como entidad compleja, heterogénea y dinámica, concepción desde la que la locura aparece como un conflicto de la propia razón consigo misma. El artículo concluye exponiendo el concepto kantiano de sinrazón positiva como la forma más grave de locura y mostrando la influencia y utilidad que dicho concepto ha tenido en otras disciplinas científicas como la psiquiatría contemporánea. (shrink)

The introduction to the Dossier on mental disorder in the work of Kant considers the relationship between philosophy and medicine. Its brief suggestions are linked to only one form of pathology: hypochondria, on the one hand; and a highly particular aspect of mental disorder: its relationship with criminal accountability or, if we wish, the legitimacy of punishment, on the other hand.

Melancholy occupies a privileged place in the Kantian taxonomy of temperaments since the pre- critical phase, but it is in the Nineties that it reveals its philosophical fecundity. Melancholy becomes, in fact, an interesting notion not so much because of its relationship with Kantian biography, nor because of its presence in the description of psychopathies, but because it lies, unique in this, on the borderline between pathology and sanity. Melancholy thus provides an opportunity to show the topicality of Kantian reflection (...) on mental illness since it underlines the continuity, and not the rupture, between the healthy mental state and that affected by illness, in line with today's most widespread tendencies to consider mental illness as a privileged observatory of the subject. (shrink)

The paper discusses some thematic issues that emerge from the Kantian study of diseases of cognition and volition, taking into consideration his anthropological works and some problems emerging from his main critical works. Starting from the explanation of the taxonomy of the main mental illnesses, some epistemological themes will be illustrated, linked to the fallible relationship between transcendental truths and the empirical dimension of knowledge and to the Kantian concept of error. Subsequently, the study of affects and passions, conceived as (...) illnesses of volition, will show the difficulties linked to a total involvement of reason in moral action, concerning the shortcomings of human action with respect to the principle of responsibility. Finally, the paper will focus on the role of legal imputability in relation to moral responsibility and to mental diseases. (shrink)

El artículo reconstruye tres estratos de un concepto de lo social que puede encontrarse en la filosofía práctica de Immanuel Kant sin recurrir a sus textos de antropología e historia. Para ello se especifican las nociones de coexistencia humana y coacción recíproca universal que describe en su Metafísica de las costumbres, con el fin de indicar que con ellas no cabe referirse a una sociedad, sino a la forma de una. Posteriormente se reconstruyen algunas coordenadas de la “comunidad ética” presentes (...) en La religión..., para argumentar, por una parte, que aquí puede hablarse de una sociedad como tal, y por otra, que esta puede conformar un puente entre la forma de la sociedad jurídica y la formación ética de las personas, i.e., entre el uso externo de la libertad y su uso interno, al socializar máximas morales y abrigar estas una peculiar normatividad intrínseca. (shrink)

In this essay, I apply the Kantian interpretation of enlightenment as radical enlightenment to the enterprise of philosophy within the context of our contemporary world-situation, and try to answer this very hard quest ion: “As radically enlightened Kantian philosophers confronted by the double-whammy consisting of what I call The Hyper-State, together with the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic, what should we dare to think and do?” The very hard problem posed by this very har d question is what I’ll call The New (...) Conflict of the Faculties. By way of a direct answer to this very hard question and by way of an effective solution to this very hard problem, I provide seven recommendations. (shrink)

With this brief text I introduce the homonymous dossier. The idea of the dossier was to compile texts on matters that are not usually studied in the literature, written from original and polemical perspectives. These papers focus on subjects like the extraterrestrial perspective on humans, the a priori character of political conflict, drinking alcohol with friends and political philosophy of the mind.

El texto es una reflexión dividida en 28 secciones que, a través de diversas resonancias y evocaciones entrelazadas que parten del texto “Duelo y Melancolía” de Sigmund Freud, propone concebir la razón pura como la sede de una melancolía auto-infligida, de un “yo pienso” estructuralmente “pobre y vacío”, haciendo por el camino escala en las ramificaciones y el potencial de la melancolía frente al duelo.

En este artículo recorro algunas de las páginas de la obra kantiana que introducen la problemática de los otros seres racionales, me centro para ello en Historia universal de la naturaleza y Teoría del cielo, la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres y la Antropología en sentido pragmático. Mi propuesta es que la hipótesis de la existencia de otras formas de racionalidad, que en algunos textos Kant sitúa en otros planetas, nos proporciona una perspectiva necesaria para poder dar alguna (...) respuesta a la cuestión ¿qué es el ser humano? Si bien Kant aborda en textos muy relevantes la forma de tener por verdad la existencia de tales seres, lo realmente importante es el ser capaces de asumir esa perspectiva para reflexionar en torno a nuestra racionalidad. (shrink)

La presente investigación trata de los conceptos de reflexión entre Kant y Hegel, y sobre cómo su tratamiento hegeliano conduce sus teorías del concepto y de la subjetividad. Partiendo de la diferencia entre inicio y principio de la filosofía propuesta por Hegel, trata de exponer su continuación y crítica del proyecto kantiano. Hegel delimitará, denunciará y expondrá las carencias teoréticas kantianas y, simultáneamente, propondrá la superación de estas mediante el movimiento inmanente de los objetos, aprehensible mediante la reflexión inmanente, que (...) termina por diluir la distinción kantiana entre razón y sujeto, y su escisión entre pensar y ser. (shrink)

Readings of Kant’s Critique as endorsing phenomenalism have occupied the spotlight in recent times: ontological phenomenalism, semantic phenomenalism, analytical phenomenalism, epistemological phenomenalism, and so on. Yet, they raise the same old coherence problem with the Critique : are they compatible with Kant’s Refutation of Idealism? Are they able to reconcile the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition with the Refutation of the second, since Kant repeatedly claimed that he never changed his mind in-between the two editions of his Critique? This (...) paper addresses the key question: was Kant a phenomenalist and, if he was, in which precise sense? I propose a metaphysical but not ontologically reductionist reading of Kant as a phenomenalist. I argue for the following claims. To be sure, for Kant appearance is mere representation. Yet, appearance is representation only insofar as we take “appearance” in the empirical sense, namely the way that the mind-independent existing noumenon appears in space and, crucially, when we take “representation” in the transcendental sense, namely the mind -dependent way that we can cognize the same mind-independent existing noumenon. How shall I argue in defense of my alternative reading? First, I argue that my reading is pretty much compatible with Kant’s Refutation. Second, I argue that my reading reconciles the causal with the intentional readings of the Refutation. Third, I argue that my reading makes the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition and the Refutation of Idealism of the second completely compatible. (shrink)

La Reflexión de Leningrado, desde su publicación en 1986, ha llamado la atención principalmente por la introducción de la apercepción cosmológica, cuya función en el sistema kantiano no es del todo clara. Usualmente, la interpretación del concepto ha sido condicionada por la lectura de la Reflexión como una modificación de la Refutación del Idealismo, de lo que es buen ejemplo el trabajo de Claudia Jáuregui. En este ensayo, argumento que esta lectura no puede dar cuenta de todas las innovaciones a (...) las que Kant parece estar apuntando en este texto y que, por el contrario, relacionarlo con ciertos avances en el Opus Postumum con respecto a la auto-afección lleva no sólo a una comprensión más rica de la apercepción cosmológica, sino también a un argumento innovador frente al idealismo. (shrink)

This essay traces the influence of Carl Schmitt on an interpretative tendency found in a number of contemporary readings of Kant’s political philosophy. This influence can be traced back to two basic commitments: the idea that Kant’s philosophy seeks to defend a pacifist and humanitarian ideal of history and progress, and that political conflict must, for this reason, be somehow pacified or eradicated. I argue that these ‘anti-conflict’ readings of Kant go astray in ignoring the systemic role conflict plays in (...) Kant’s understanding of agency and freedom on the one hand, and in overlooking that this conflict is not empirical but normative, and thereby, unavoidable. In light of this ‘agential conflict’, Schmitt’s critique to Kant begins to lose all its force. (shrink)

Kant’s chapter “On the Typic of the Pure Practical Power of Judgement” is one of the most obscure passages of the Critique of Practical Reason and it has often been regarded as a mere appendix. However, it deals with a fundamental question, namely, how can the pure practical law be applied to particular cases. In this paper, I would like to make an original contribution towards a better understanding of this chapter by comparing it to the Schematism chapter on the (...) basis of their analogical relation and suggesting how the reference to a sensus communis could help in solving the aim of the Typic chapter. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to an ongoing and controversial debate about non-conceptuality in Kantian aesthetics. It is a replica on a paper of Dietmar Heidemann in Con-Textos Kantianos N.° 12, to which I do consent, but I’d like to give some additional comments on a specific issue: I show in this paper that the problem about whether or not the understanding contributes to aesthetic judgment can be elucidated by means of a revaluation of the imagination’s capacity of formal representation (...) and the subsuming activity of the power of reflective judgment. I argue that the understanding is considered by the power of reflective judgment merely in his lawfulness in order to find a universal under which the imagination’s particular, the formal representation of the beautiful shape, can be subsumed. (shrink)