On the Transcendental Freedom of the Intellect

Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7:35-104 (2020)
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Abstract

Kant holds that the applicability of the moral ‘ought’ depends on a kind of agent-causal freedom that is incompatible with the deterministic structure of phenomenal nature. I argue that Kant understands this determinism to threaten not just morality but the very possibility of our status as rational beings. Rational beings exemplify “cognitive control” in all of their actions, including not just rational willing and the formation of doxastic attitudes, but also more basic cognitive acts such as judging, conceptualizing, and synthesizing.

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10.3998/ergo.12405314.0007.002

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Colin McLear
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Citations of this work

Transcendental Philosophy As Capacities‐First Philosophy.Karl Schafer - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (3):661-686.
Kant on Reason as the Capacity for Comprehension.Karl Schafer - 2023 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (4):844-862.
Kant’s Account of Epistemic Normativity.Reza Hadisi - forthcoming - Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie.
Kantian Conceptualism/Nonconceptualism.Colin McLear - 2020 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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Rationality Through Reasoning.John Broome (ed.) - 2013 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
The sources of normativity.Christine M. Korsgaard - 1996 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by Onora O'Neill.
Free Will, Agency, and Meaning in Life.Derk Pereboom - 2014 - New York: Oxford University Press.
An Essay on Free Will.Peter Van Inwagen - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Living Without Free Will.Derk Pereboom - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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