Kant: Rational Cosmology

For Kant, both morality and the possibility of objective knowledge presuppose freedom. His theory of freedom is based on the distinction between phenomena and noumena, concepts which represent two different ways of viewing things. The question, however, is whether it is justified to take the noumenal perspective in addition to the phenomenal one. Isn’t freedom an illusion, if we regard ourselves as free, while in fact we are not? The crux of the problem lies in recognizing that there is no (...) objective fact as far as freedom is concerned, for objective fact is a category that belongs to the phenomenal world. Nevertheless, it is argued that freedom must be presupposed in order to account for the objectivity of the phenomenal world as a whole. (shrink)

A common reaction to Hegel’s suggestion that we collapse Kant’s distinction between form and content is that, since such a move would also deprive us of any way of distinguishing the merely logical from the real possibility of our concepts, it is incoherent and ought to be rejected. It is true that these two distinctions are intimately related in Kant, such that if one goes, the other does as well. But it is less obvious that giving them up as Kant (...) conceives them is as incoherent a proposal as many of Hegel’s critics think. It has been the point of a recent account of Hegel’s idealism to demonstrate that his critique of Kant’s dichotomy between form and content or concept and intuition does not commit him to the view that human cognition is materially creative of its content in the manner of a God-like or intuitive intellect—does not, in other words, signify a return to a pre-Critical metaphysics. This is the interpretative stance I adopt here as well, in hope of giving defenders of Kant reasons for taking Hegel more seriously. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, in a chapter of the Transcendental Dialectic entitled "The Antinomy of Pure Reason," Kant addresses the question whether a thoroughgoing mechanistic determinism is reconcilable with the ascription of free agency to human beings. In the third antinomy, reason is shown to be divided against itself insofar as both of two competing, and seemingly irreconcilable claims, can be justified on independent grounds; on the one hand, the claim that everything in nature proceeds according to the (...) law of causality - that every event is determined by antecedent events and causal laws; on the other hand, the claim that agents act freely, i.e., that there are some occurrences, namely human actions, which cannot be accounted for by antecedent states or events and causal laws. (shrink)

In this chapter, I explore the connections between Spinoza’s philosophy and Immanuel Kant's. I begin by considering whether Kant engaged with Spinoza's actual views, and conclude that he did not. Despite that, I argue that there some philosophically-striking points of near-convergence between them. In addition to both privileging substance monism over other traditional metaphysical views, both Spinoza and Kant advance arguments for (a) epistemic humility based on the passivity of our senses and for (a) the timelessness of the mind based (...) on the content of our intellectual representations. (shrink)

I examine the extent to which God is inscrutable to human reason in Kant's critical philosophy. I argue that Kant's view here is much more radical than the rationalist commonplace that we cannot grasp how divine perfection is compatible with the existence of (apparent) imperfections. In Kant's considered view, we are absolutely incapable of accurately representing God's nature in any minimally determinate way: when we try to go beyond the empty idea of a mere 'something', we inevitably distort the nature (...) of God in an anthropomorphic fashion. The reason for this radical inscrutability of God is that our discursive intellect with its finite conceptual resources cannot capture the nature of a supremely perfect being. Our only way to form a legitimate, positive notion of God is by means of an analogy with the features that we objectively cognize in finite beings. (shrink)

The central questions in this study are: What does Kant consider the essence of the dispute between Rationalists and Realist Empiricists which he titles the “Second Conflict of the Transcendental Ideas?” Why does he believe it supports such wider aims of the Critical Philosophy as: showing the impossibility of a Transcendental Realist explanation of the spatiotemporal world, which amounts to an indirect proof of Transcendental Idealism ; being the only means for detecting the transcendental illusion which leads to Transcendental Realism (...) and convincing us to give it up ); demonstrating the defeat of theoretical reason in its highest aim – the systematization of knowledge under one concept – thus turning us toward practical reason as the only venue where reason's demand for the unconditioned can be satisfied? (shrink)

This major study of Kant provides a detailed examination of the development and function of the doctrine of transcendental illusion in his theoretical philosophy. The author shows that a theory of 'illusion' plays a central role in Kant's arguments about metaphysical speculation and scientific theory. Indeed, she argues that we cannot understand Kant unless we take seriously his claim that the mind inevitably acts in accordance with ideas and principles that are 'illusory'. Taking this claim seriously, we can make much (...) better sense of Kant's arguments and reach a deeper understanding of the role he allots human reason in science. (shrink)

To many readers, it has seemed that Kant's discussion of the relation between practical and transcendental freedom in the Transcendental Dialectic is inconsistent with his discussion of the same relation in the Canon of Pure Reason. In this paper I argue for a novel way of preserving the consistency of Kant's view: in both the Dialectic and the Canon, 'transcendental freedom' requires the absence of determination by all natural causes, whereas 'practical freedom' requires the absence of determination by, specifically, sensuous (...) incentives. However, I argue that the defense of freedom presented in the Canon is abandoned by Kant in the Groundwork when he first develops his conception of the absolute purity of moral motivation. (shrink)

Hegel famously criticizes Kant’s resolution of the antinomies. According to Sedgwick, Hegel primarily chastises Kant’s resolution for presupposing that concepts are ‘one-sided’, rather than identical to their opposites. If Kant had accepted the dialectical nature of concepts, then (according to Sedgwick) Kant would not have needed to resolve the antinomies. However, as Ameriks has noted, any such interpretation faces a serious challenge. Namely, Kant’s first antinomy concerns the universe’s physical dimensions. Even if we grant that the concept of the finite (...) is necessarily related to that of the infinite, the physical universe cannot both have and lack a temporal beginning. I argue that Hegel neither adopts Sedgwick’s view that Kant’s antinomies require no resolution nor absurdly accepts that the physical universe both has and lacks a temporal beginning. Instead, Hegel proposes a sophisticated resolution of Kant’s first antinomy (including its physical aspect) that depends on Hegel’s theory of the Absolute. (shrink)

Available for the first time in English, this critical translation draws from the original seven Latin editions and Georg Friedrich Meier's 18th-century German translation. Together with a historical and philosophical introduction, extensive glossaries and notes, the text is supported by translations of Kant's elucidations and notes, Eberhard's insertions in the 1783 German edition and texts from the writings of Meier and Wolff. For scholars of Kant, the German Enlightenment and the history of metaphysics, Alexander Baumgarten's Metaphysics is an essential, authoritative (...) resource to a significant philosophical text. (shrink)

I pursue a suggestion by Kreimendahl according to which it was Hamann's translation of Section I.4.7 of Hume's "Treatise" which triggered Kant's critical turn in 1768/69. In the section Hume put forward the idea that the principles at work in the human mind might be radically at odds with each other, i.e., that there might be an "antinomy" in the original meaning of the word. My claims are (i) that in his dissertation Kant attempted to solve the problem of antinomy (...) and (ii) that the question as to how categories can refer to objects was raised by the strategy adopted there. (shrink)

Elaborating on the substantial parallels between Molina’s and Kant’s attempts to reconcile human freedom with divine foreknowledge and natural causal determinism respectively, my aim is to establish a proper historical connection as well. Leibniz is shown to be the crucial mediator in two respects: (i) Kant knew Molina’s account of divine knowledge in general in its Leibnizian version through Baumgarten’s Metaphysica. In this work, scientia media plays no role in the explication as to how God knows absolute future contingents. (ii) (...) In the Critique of Practical Reason Kant resorted to doctrines similar to Molina’s in his criticism of Leibniz’s alternative explication which drew on complete concepts of monads. (shrink)

A clear and concise account of the metaphysical concept of world, its possibilities and limitations, from Kant to Derrida.

In this paper it is argued that the _Physical Monadology of 1756 has to be seen as an attempt to evade the same paradox as the one given in the second antinomy of the _Critique of Pure Reason. Since this attempt presupposes the claim that space rests upon relations between substances, it contradicts the thesis that it is a mere form of intuition, presented by Kant in his dissertation of 1770. Therefore, at least since 1770 the paradox of the divisibility (...) of matter rose up again so that Kant had to deal with it once again in his first _Critique. Remarkably, his key to solve the second antinomy is the same which ruled out his earlier solution of 1756 and gave rise to the paradox again, i.e., the ideality of space and time. But, contrary to the dissertation, in the _Critique it is substituted by the doctrine that our knowledge of objects depends on and is restricted to intuitively given objects and this is crucial to the solution of the second antinomy. Finally, it will be shown how Kant deals with the problem of the divisibility of matter in the _Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to confirm that it was Hamann's translation of Hume's "Treatise" (I.4.7) which triggered Kant's critical turn in 1768/69. If this is indeed so, then Kant's inaugural dissertation must be reassessed, in particular the doctrine, to be found there, that we have cognitive access to the intelligible world. This doctrine is part of a strategy for tackling the problem highlighted by Hume; that there may be conflicting principles at work in the human mind, i.e., an (...) antinomy. The dissertation's strategy failed and so raised the question of how categories can refer to objects. (shrink)

This paper discusses an apparent contrast between Kant’s accounts of the mathematical antinomies in the first Critique and in the Prolegomena. The Critique claims that the antitheses are infinite judgements. The Prolegomena seem to claim that they are negative judgements. For the Critique, theses and antitheses are false because they presuppose that the world has a determinate magnitude, and this is not the case. For the Prolegomena, theses and antitheses are false because they presuppose an inconsistent notion of world. The (...) paper argues that the contrast between the two works is only apparent, and provides an interpretation which removes it. (shrink)

Kant says patently conflicting things about infinity and our grasp of it. Infinite space is a good case in point. In his solution to the First Antinomy, he denies that we can grasp the spatial universe as infinite, and therefore that this universe can be infinite; while in the Aesthetic he says just the opposite: ‘Space is represented as a given infinite magnitude’ (A25/B39). And he rests these upon consistently opposite grounds. In the Antinomy we are told that we can (...) have no intuitive grasp of an infinite space, and in the Aesthetic he says that our grasp of infinite space is precisely intuitive. (shrink)

Hume’s account of causation is often regarded a challenge Kant must overcome if the Critical philosophy is to be successful. But from Kant’s time to the present, Hume’s denial of our ability to cognize supersensible objects, a denial that relies heavily on his account of causation, has also been regarded as a forerunner to Kant’s critique of metaphysics. After identifying reasons for rejecting Wayne Waxman’s recent account of Kant’s debt to Hume, I present my own, more modest account of this (...) debt, an account that seeks to unite the two very different pictures of Kant’s relationship to Hume sketched above. (shrink)

The interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In his The Revolutionary Kant, Graham Bird engages in a systematic and thorough (...) evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant. (shrink)

Scholars commonly assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism. However, in his later writings Kant argues several times that Spinozism is the most consistent form of transcendental realism. In the first part of the paper, I argue that the first Antinomy, debating the age and size of the world, already reflects Kant's confrontation with Spinozist metaphysics. Specifically, the position articulated in the Antithesis ? according to which the world is infinite and uncreated ? is Spinozist, not Leibnizian, (...) as commonly assumed. In the second part of the paper, I raise the chief Spinozist challenge to the Antinomy, arising from Spinoza's reliance on a cosmological `totum analyticum' ? an infinite whole which is prior to its parts. In conclusion, I begin to elaborate a defence of the Kantian position, confronting Spinoza's infinite whole with Kant's account of the absolutely infinite in his discussion of the sublime. (shrink)

In his Critique of Pure Reason Immanuel Kant presents four antinomies. In his attempt to solve the first of these antinomies he examines and analyzes "thesis" and "antithesis" more thoroughly and employs the terms `part', `whole' and `boundary' in his argumentation for their validity. According to Kant, the whole problem surrounding the antinomy was caused by applying the concept of the world to nature and then using both terms interchangeably. While interesting, this solution is still not that much more than (...) a well thought out idea if it does not also include an adequate formal explication. Since the aforementioned terms all have counterparts in modern mereotopology, a discipline that has seen significant progress in recent times, we will apply these concepts to Kant's analysis in an attempt to evaluate Kant's solution in light of modern analytic philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I will show to what extent we can use our modern understanding of the Square of Opposition in order to make sense of Kant 's double standard solution to the cosmological antinomies. Notoriously, for Kant, both theses and antitheses of the mathematical antinomies are false, while both theses and antitheses of the dynamical antinomies are true. Kantian philosophers and interpreters have criticized Kant 's solution as artificial and prejudicial. In the paper, I do not dispute such claims, (...) but I show that our modern understanding of the Square of Opposition enables us to more naturally deliver the result Kant was aiming at. Accordingly, the paper does not pretend to be exegetically accurate. It is an attempt to revise the antinomies with the help of standard classical logic. And although such a revision entails some re-interpretation, in the end, it will actually help to unveil some of Kant 's thoughts. (shrink)

This paper describes a “double move“ made by Maimonides, Kant, and Hermann Cohen when they simultaneously dismiss and resolve the cosmological problem of the origin of the universe in time in order to represent creation as a moral issue. Maimonides claims to lack a compelling metaphysical argument regarding creation. However, a reading of Maimonides inspired by the views of Hermann Cohen finds him to be a Platonist who accepts creation from absolute privation so as to establish a moral world in (...) which revelation establishes a correlation between humans and God. For Kant, metaphysics also cannot address the origin of the universe, but he positively describes the regress towards the origin as indeterminately large to derive the unconditioned ideal of reason that supports the regulative use of reason. Cohen, therefore, follows the precedents set by Maimonides and Kant when he claims that the Jewish concept of creation is an ethical and logical problem rather than a cosmological one, even though his account of creation presupposes his era's dominant scientific model of the eternity of the universe. (shrink)