The present article focuses on the antinomy of pure practical reason and the deduction of the Highest Good in the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason (in the second Critique). Although Kant claims that the Dialectic contains both the antinomy and the deduction, the boundaries dividing one from the other are at best vague. It is difficult to make out where the antinomy of practical reason ends and where the deduction begins. To locate both and to distinguish one (...) from the other (with special attention paid to the modality of the Highest Good) are the chief aims of this article. Additionally but no less importantly, I show, against the line of criticism originally traceable to Schopenhauer, that the antinomy of practical reason amounts to more than a reflection of Kant’s “architectonic obsession.” Not only does the antinomy of practical reason correspond to a genuine dialectical problem in the Critique of Practical Reason, but it also shares a fundamental (even if not immediately apparent) similarity with the antinomy of pure speculative reason. Finally, I consider Kant’s transcendental deduction of the Highest Good against the backdrop of his other deductions, especially the deduction of the categories in the Critique of Pure Reason, and defend it against the charge of potential circularity. (shrink)

The antinomy of teleological judgment is one of the most controversial passages of Kant’s "Critique of the Power of Judgment". Having developed the idea of an explanation of organized beings by mechanical and teleological natural laws in §§ 61-68, in §§ 69-78 Kant raises the question of whether higher order mechanical and teleological natural laws, which unify the particular empirical laws of organized beings, might pose an antinomy of conflicting principles within the power of judgment. I will argue (...) against alternative views that this antinomy is neither a conflict between objective constitutive principles of the determining power of judgment nor a conflict between an objective constitutive principle of the determining power of judgment and a subjective regulative maxim of the reflecting power of judgment nor does it consist in a confusion of a pair of subjective regulative maxims of the reflecting power of judgment with a pair of objective constitutive principles of the determining power of judgment, but does consist in an apparent conflict between mechanical and teleological natural laws as subjective regulative maxims of the reflecting power of judgment. I will further argue that Kant’s resolution of the antinomy consists in the regulative idea of a supersensible that represents the unity of both kinds of natural laws and justifies the unification of both kinds of natural laws in the human power of judgment. Kant uses three notions when he talks about the supersensible – the regulative idea of a divine artisan, the regulative idea of a divine intuitive understanding, and the regulative idea of an underdetermined, supernatural ground of nature. I will show how each of these notions accounts for the unity of both kinds of natural laws and will discuss possible correlations between them. I will then explain how the unity of both kinds of natural laws in the regulative idea of a supersensible accounts for the unification of both kinds of natural laws in the human power of judgment. While the divine intuitive understanding is perfect and uncreated and, thus, capable of a representation of the unity of both kinds of natural laws, the human discursive understanding is imperfect and created; it is capable only of the representation of the unification of both kinds of natural laws in form of a hierarchy of laws. (shrink)

Kit Fine has reawakened a puzzle about variables with a long history in analytic philosophy, labeling it “the antinomy of the variable”. Fine suggests that the antinomy demands a reconceptualization of the role of variables in mathematics, natural language semantics, and first-order logic. The difficulty arises because: (i) the variables ‘x’ and ‘y’ cannot be synonymous, since they make different contributions when they jointly occur within a sentence, but (ii) there is a strong temptation to say that distinct (...) variables ‘x’ and ‘y’ are synonymous, since sentences differing by the total, proper substitution of ‘x’ for ‘y’ always agree in meaning. We offer a precise interpretation of the challenge posed by (i) and (ii). We then develop some neglected passages of Tarski to show that his semantics for variables has the resources to resolve the antinomy without abandoning standard compositional semantics. (shrink)

The antinomy of teleological judgment has increasingly been understood as a conflict between regulative principles. But it is not clear why regulative principles can be in conflict at all, since Kant otherwise takes the realization that two conflicting principles are regulative to be sufficient to resolve an antinomy. I argue that in Kant’s view regulative principles do not conflict with one another only if they are reducible to reason’s interest in systematicity. Given that the principles of this (...) class='Hi'>antinomy do conflict, they must not be reducible to reason’s interest in systematicity. I argue that teleology is thus not reducible to reason’s interest because it is fundamentally unlawful. I then use this irreducibility to account for Kant’s appeal to the supersensible in this context. (shrink)

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that morality obliges us to believe in the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. I argue, however, that in two late essays – “The End of All Things” and “On the Miscarriage of all Philosophical Trials in Theodicy” – Kant provides moral counterarguments to that position: these beliefs undermine moral agency by giving rise to fanaticism or fatalism. Thus, I propose, the Kantian position on the justification of religious belief (...) is ultimately antinomial. One ought, moreover, to understand Kant’s considered position concerning the immortality of the soul and the existence of God to be similar to that he proposes concerning the theoretical ideas of reason in the Appendix to the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason: they are necessary as regulative ideas guiding moral action, not endorsed or even postulated as propositions. In other words, they are subject matters not of belief, but of hope. (shrink)

English summary: What minimal philosophical requirements must be considered in order to be able to arrive at an ontologically and epistemologically realist position, with which one is finally able to speak about something like objective empirical knowledge or even an objective science? On the basis of Schopenhauers antinomy of human cognition, and through an introduction and analysis of his philosophical system based on his chief work The World as Will and Representation, a philosophical path is pointed out in this (...) work, which presents the possibility that such an ontologically and epistemologically realist position can be created in the form of an evolutionary realism and representationism, so that one is able to argue under exact systemic requirements for the existence of objective empirical knowledge and with it, finally arrive at an objective science. German description: Welche philosophischen Minimalvoraussetzungen muss man in Betracht ziehen, um zu einer ontologisch- und epistemologisch-realistischen Position gelangen zu konnen, mit der man letztendlich von so etwas wie objektivem empirischem Wissen oder gar von objektiver Wissenschaft sprechen kann? Ausgehend von Schopenhauers Antinomie des menschlichen Erkenntnisvermogens wird durch eine Einfuhrung und Analyse seines philosophischen Systems anhand seines Hauptwerks "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" ein philosophischer Weg aufgezeigt, der die Moglichkeit darlegt, eine derartige ontologisch- und epistemologisch-realistische Position in Form eines evolutionaren Realismus und Reprasentationismus so ausformulieren zu konnen, dass man damit unter bestimmten Systemvoraussetzungen fur die Existenz von objektivem empirischem Wissen und damit letztendlich fur eine objektive Wissenschaft argumentieren kann. (shrink)

This dissertation is a historical and critical study of a controversy that raged among all the great figures of Enlightenment natural philosophy. The issue at stake is the structure or internal architecture of matter. One the one hand, an array of a priori arguments seems to show that matter must be fundamentally discrete in its fine structure: it must resolve to metaphysical atoms or monads. On the other hand, an opposing battery of a priori arguments seems to show that it (...) must be fundamentally continuous and altogether without simple first elements. ;The conflict between these rival sets of arguments deeply unsettled natural philosophers of the Enlightenment. Since both incompatible sets of arguments seemed compelling, the clash between them appeared to expose a paradox or antinomy in the new world view pioneered by Galileo and Newton. The new science's account of a fundamentally geometrical Creation, mathematicizable and intelligible to the human inquirer, seemed to be under threat. ;In this dissertation I present a rational reconstruction of the Enlightenment debate that challenges the standard interpretation in the secondary literature. Contra that standard interpretation, I argue that the debate turns crucially on substantive metaphysical theses about the 'filling' or 'stuffing' of matter, not just on theses about its mathematically tractable form or structure. The early moderns were committed to a particular metaphysical doctrine concerning the stuffing of matter and it is this doctrine that lies behind the paradoxes of material composition. Having set out this new metaphysical reading of the Enlightenment debate, I then mobilize it in order to reassess the various early modern responses to the paradoxes of material structure. (shrink)

The antinomy of future contingents is here understood as a trilemma whose horns are (a) the thesis of the closed past, (b) the thesis of the open future, and (c) the thesis that all events can be represented at any time. The latter thesis can take different forms, like the principle of bivalence or the thesis of divine foreknowledge. Different versions of (c) lead to different versions of the antinomy itself. The antinomy has been formalized. It hasbeen (...) proven that the theses (a), (b), and (c) make up an inconsistent set but are consistent with each other. Possible solutions have been considered. It has been argued that there are only two global solutions to the antinomy: radical determinism (fatalism) and retroactive causality. The latter solution has been recommended and developed. (shrink)

In my paper, I consider the holistic thought in Theodor W. Adorno’s Husserl-studies, and the epistemological possibility to know the “non-identical”. First, I discuss the phenomenological antinomy. This is not only the starting point of Adorno’s Husserl-studies, but also has his holistic thought in it. Adorno pointed out Husserl’s assumptions that our consciousness is directly related to objects and that our consciousness is always mediately or indirectly related to the objects. Second, I discuss Adorno’s solution of that antinomy. (...) He tried to carry out the thorough immanent phi-losophy with a gestalt theory. And he pointed out mediacy in the Husserl’s text and to find non-identity between our consciousness and objects. Third, I consider the relations between the thought of “non-identical” by Adorno and his holistic thought. The latter was influenced by Hans Cornelius, Adorno’s teacher. So I show that the thought of Cornelius is very significant for Adorno.En mi ponencia considero el pensamiento holista presente en los estudios sobre Husserl de Theodor W. Adorno y la posibilidad epistemológica de conocer la “no identidad”. En primer lugar, analizo la antinomia fenomenológica. No es solo el punto de arranque de los estudios sobre Husserl de Adorno, sino que también contiene su pensamiento holista. Adorno pone de manifiesto las asunciones de Husserl: de que nuestra conciencia está relacionada directmente con los objetos y de que nuestra conciencia está siempre relacionada de manera mediata o indirecta con los objetos. En segundo lugar, discuto la solución adorniana a esta antinomia. Su intento consistía en crear una filosofía íntegramente immanentista con ayuda de la teoría gestalt. Indica también la mediatez presente en los textos de Husserl, encontrando la no-identidad entre nuestra conciencia y objetos. En tercer lugar, considero la relación entre el pensamiento de la “no identidad” de Adorno y su pensamiento holista. El autor fue influido por Hans Cornelius, el profesor de Adorno. Muestro entonces que el pensamiento de Cornelius ha sido de gran importancia para Adorno. (shrink)

Few modern thinkers have been as convinced of the necessity of recovering the past in order to redeem the present as Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). Benjamin at once mourned and celebrated what he took to be an inevitable liquidation of traditional culture, and his determination to think both of these attitudes through to their conclusions lends his work its peculiar honesty, along with its paradoxical, antinomial coherence. In a landmark interpretation of the whole of Benjamin's career, John McCole demonstrates a way (...) of understanding Benjamin that both contextualizes and addresses the complexities and ambiguities of his texts. Working with Pierre Bourdieu's concept of the "intellectual field," McCole traces Benjamin's deep ambivalence about cultural tradition through the longterm project-an immanent critique of German idealist and romantic aesthetics-which unites his writings. McCole builds a sustained reading of Benjamin's intellectual development which sheds new light on the formative role of early influences—particularly his participation in the pre-World War I German youth movement and the orthodox discourse of German intellectual culture—and shows how Benjamin later extended the strategies he learned within these contexts during key encounters with Weimar modernism, surrealism, and the fiction of Proust. The fullest account of Benjamin available in English, this lucid and penetrating book will be welcomed by intellectual historians, literary theorists and critics, historians of German literature, and Continental philosophers. (shrink)

This article discusses the remarkable conversation between Ernst Bloch and Theodor W. Adorno regarding the relationship between utopia and death. It unpacks the antinomy of death and analyzes the m...

This essay discusses the main contentions of The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci by Perry Anderson in a critical reading of both the positions of the British historian, and of his critics among ‘Togliattian Gramscianists’.

L’articolo mostra come, nello sviluppo della Dialettica trascendentale, la sezione dedicata alle antinomie della cosmologia ci sembra costituire un punto centrale del discorso kantiano intorno alla metafisica. Al di là del risultato immediato e indiscutibile del fallimento della cosmologia razionale, le antinomie potrebbero essere lette anche in un’ottica che ne valorizzi l’apertura verso una riflessione sul “bisogno” della ragione, la quale – scossa nella sua falsa certezza di conoscere l’incondizionato – sente l’esigenza di un riorientamento verso un diverso modo di (...) guardare la realtà e l’essere, oltre i limiti che l’esperienza impone alla nostra facoltà teoretica. Lo spunto offerto dall’articolo del 1786 sul significato dell’orientamento nel pensiero dovrà poi condurre la nostra analisi, in un accenno finale, a intendere con nuovo slancio l’esortazione kantiana a vedere la natura nella più ampia luce della finalità teleologica come completamento, legittimato dal bisogno della ragione, della concezione meccanicistica dei fenomeni. (shrink)

This article builds on Arendt’s development of a Kantian politics from out of the conception of reflective judgment in the Critique of Judgment. Arendt looks to Kant’s analysis of the beautiful to explain how political thought can be conceived. And yet Arendt describes such Kantian reflection as an empirical undertaking that justifies itself only in relation to the abstract principle of the moral law. The problem for such an account is that the autonomy of the moral law appears to be (...) at odds with the social cohesion of Kantian political life. The ensuing contradiction can be deemed the antinomy of political judgment. Kant’s conception of reflective judgment offers such an inquiry considerably more to work with than Arendt uncovers. In particular, the regulative principle of the purposiveness of nature that is shown to direct all reflection can be seen to offer the solution to this antinomy. (shrink)

La philosophie pense non seulement en délivrant des pensées, mais en réfléchissant sur les manières de penser. Ce livre concerne deux manières de penser tantôt combinées, tantôt séparées : la dialectique et l'antinomie. Il étudie la dialectique de Hegel, en son unicité et sa radicalité, mais rappelle aussi ses origines, expose sa critique et considère sa régression à l'antinomie ou encore son fantasme qui ne cesse de hanter la philosophie. Ce débat mobilise, outre Aristote et Platon, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Lyotard, (...) Marx, Peirce et quelques autres ; il se prolonge dans l'examen de la figure du chiasme et débouche sur l'esquisse d'une dissertation sur le comment de la pensée. (shrink)

One thing this book attempts to show is that Kant's antinomies open a way towards an overcoming of that nihilism that is a corollary of the understanding of reality that presides over our science and technology. But when Harries is speaking of the antinomy of Being he is not so much thinking of Kant, as of Heidegger. Not that Heidegger speaks of an antinomy of Being. But his thinking of Being leads him and will lead those who follow (...) him on his path of thinking into this antinomy. At bottom, however, the author is neither concerned with Heidegger’s nor Kant’s thought. He shows that our thinking inevitably leads us into some version of this antinomy whenever it attempts to grasp reality in toto, without loss. All such attempts will fall short of their goal. And that they do so, Harries claims, is not something to be grudgingly accepted, but embraced as a necessary condition of living a meaningful life. That is why the antinomy of Being matters and should concern us all. (shrink)

Based on an analysis of the category of “infinite judgments” in Kant, we will introduce the logical hexagon of predicate negation. This hexagon allows us to visualize in a single diagram the general structure of both Kant’s solution of the antinomies of pure reason and his argument in favor of Transcendental Idealism.

The aim of this paper is to show that there is a genuine difficulty in Kant’s argument regarding the connection between mechanism and teleology. But this difficulty is not the one that is usually underlined. Far from consisting in a contradiction between the first and the third Critique, I argue that the genuine difficulty is intrinsic to the antinomy of reflective judgement: rather than having any hope of resolving anything, it consists in an inescapable conflict. In order to support (...) this claim, I show firstly why converting the thesis of the antinomy about mechanism into reflective judgement does not require renunciation of the universality of causality demonstrated in the first Critique. Then, I suggest that the actual difficulty with Kant’s argument is that there is a genuine conflict inherent in the reflective form of the antinomy. Finally, I examine in detail the antinomy of reflective judgement and compare it to the other Kantian antinomies in order to show that its uniqueness makes it uniquely troubling. This leads me to conclude that the Kantian resolution of the conflict between mechanism and teleology is unsatisfactory. (shrink)

본 논문은 플라톤의『프로타고라스』편에 있는 탁월함(aretē)의 교육 가능성에 대한 논쟁의 구도에서 리더십 교육(지도자 양성 교육)이 이율배반과 같은 상황에 놓여 있음을 밝히고자 한다. 프로타고라스가 가르칠 수 있다고 말한 탁월함은 어떤 직종에서나 필요한 “장인의 기술(dēmiourgikē technē)”이 아니라 공동체 혹은 나라를 잘 운영할 수 있는 “시민적 훌륭함(politikē aretē)” 또는 “정치적 기술(politikē technē)”을 의미한다. 그런데 소크라테스는 이러한 탁월함이 교육될 수 없다고 주장하면서 프로타고라스와 논쟁을 벌인다. 이 논쟁은 사실 결론을 내리지 못한 채로 마치게 된다. 그런데 오늘날 지도자를 교육으로 양성할 수 있다는 생각이 거의 일반화되어 있다. 따라서 (...) 다양한 종류의 지도자 양성 교육프로그램이 진행되고 있다. 그러나 지도자양성 교육은 프로타고라스와 소크라테스가 “시민적 훌륭함”을 교육할 수 있는지를 두고 논쟁한 것과 같은 문제에 빠질 수 있다. 그리고 본 필자는 이 문제가 마치 이율배반의 문제와 같다고 생각한다. 왜냐하면 “지도자를 교육으로 양성할 수 있다.”라는 주장도 가능하지만, 동시에 “지도자를 교육으로 양성할 수 없다.”라는 주장도 가능할 수 있기 때문이다. 이러한 이율배반의 문제를 해소하거나 제대로 성찰하지 않은 상태에서 지도자 양성교육을 수행하는 것은 일종의 독단이 될 수 있을 것이다. 이 글에서는 지도자 양성 교육의 이율배반 문제의 해소방안으로 지도자 양성 교육이 가능하다는 입장과 불가능하다는 입장의 부정적 자기 관계성을 제시한다. (shrink)

The essay considers three classic definitions of philosophy, namely those offered by Socrates, Boethius, as semantically enriched by Montaigne, and Kant, in order to reflected on individual and collective death. Kant’s philosophical tool of the antinomies of reason is deployed to think through the antinomies of our pandemic in order to make clear that in a pandemic there is only collective, and not individual or even national, inoculation. The false dichotomies of physical versus social, embodiment versus virtuality, nationalism versus planetarization, (...) and propaganda versus science, are discussed. Lady philosophy appears wearing blue plastic gloves. (shrink)

In this article "The antinomy "man-woman" in the personal perspective of the formation of the individual religiosity of the Orthodox believer" by Anna Kulagina-Stadnychenko explores the antinomy of the phenomenon of "manwoman" from the point of view of theology and secular science, examines the peculiarities of its functioning at the level of individual religiosity of the Orthodox believer and in the Ukrainian context. Attention is drawn to several challenges that have always been the cornerstone of the collision of (...) alternative thoughts in solving the antinomy "man-woman." The significance of the latter for the Orthodox believer in view of finding the meaning of life, which is due to awareness of the individual finale of the person. It is shown that the category of reciprocity remains universal for the phenomenological understanding of the meaning of gender. However, unlike secular approaches, apologists of Christianity prefer to talk about the formation of gender identity, and not to look for differences between sexes. Instead, a scientific approach clearly distinguishes the gender identities. It was investigated that the distribution of gender roles is significantly influenced by cultural and religious traditions. Regarding the influence of Orthodoxy on the solution of antinomy "man - woman" in the formation of the individual religious faith of a believer in Ukraine, here the author defines certain features. Finally, it is argued that religious pluralism, the temporary integration of certain parts of Ukraine into other Western European states, led to the inclusion of different ideological models into the individual religiosity of an Orthodox believer, practically made it impossible for a strict patriarchal dependence, and thus, reduced the relationship between "man-woman" through more partnerships. (shrink)

The critique of modernity was one of the important themes in philosophy in the 20th century. Theorists focused on the spiritual characteristics of modernity by which they tried to find a solution to the crisis of modernity, a solution beyond economics and politics. György Márkus, one of the members of the Budapest School, focused on the culture of modernity for 30 years. He presented a critical theory of modern culture. His theory had a clear logic and offered a compelling view. (...) At the core of his theory of cultural modernity was the idea of the ‘antinomies of culture’. These antinomies are of vital importance since the struggle and tension between the poles of culture provides, on his view, the energies and orientation required for the development of cultural modernity. In this essay, I will try to analyse the reality of cultural modernity in China employing Márkus’s ideas and evaluating the significance of his theory. (shrink)

Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment is unique in offering two pairs of oppositions, one of regulative maxims, and the other of constitutive principles. Here I defend a traditional interpretation of the antinomy— as proposed, for example, by Stadler (1874), Adickes (1925), and Cassirer (1921)—that the antinomy consists in an opposition between constitutive principles, and is resolved by pointing out their legitimate status as merely regulative maxims. I argue against recent interpretations—for example, in McLaughlin (1990), Allison (1991), and (...) Watkins (2009)—which treat the regulative pair as itself antinomial. I then address several textual worries having to do with reconciling the traditional interpretation within the overall structure of the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment that have led these scholars to espouse the new view. Throughout the paper, I emphasize hitherto neglected parallels with Kant’s treatment of the antinomy of taste, which sheds light on understanding the antinomy of teleology. (shrink)

This volume documents for the first time the enormous variety of diverging interpretations and presents a text-oriented analysis of antinomy and its resolution ...

English summary: The author posits that Nietzsche developed thinking that embraced antinomical associations, a thinking that does not add up opposites, nor eliminates one or the other, but surpasses them. French text.French description: "On sait ce que j'exige du philosophe : de se placer par-delà le bien et le mal, - de placer au-dessous de lui l'illusion du jugement moral." Se situer par-delà bien et mal, ce n'est pas adopter une posture immorale ou amorale, c'est comprendre qu'au principe de toute (...) antinomie se trouve une croyance à des valeurs dont la valeur éternelle et sacrée est garantie par son opposition à des contraires tenus pour être absolument mauvais. Le but de ce livre est de montrer comment Nietzsche s'y prend pour refuser l'alternative "morale" du pour et du contre et guérir la pensée de ces oppositions populaires "sur lesquelles les métaphysiciens ont apposé leur sceau", par exemple historique / éternel, expliquer / interpréter, être /devenir, réalité /apparence, volonté de vie /volonté de vérité. Dans la mesure où les falsifications et les mensonges dont ces couples procèdent sont des mensonges utiles et des falsifications nécessaires et non pas des erreurs, il ne suffit pas d'en prendre conscience pour les rectifier, il faut inventer les moyens d'en sortir, multiplier les perspectives et penser dynamiquement en termes de forces, de devenirs, d'advenirs. Dépasser ou surmonter, laisser derrière soi ou au-dessous de soi : il n'y a pas qu'une seule façon de se situer "par-delà". Mais chacune est l'exploration d'un dangereux peut-être. (shrink)

A new semantical antinomy, the antinomy of designation, is introduced into a metalanguage M with respect to a modal object language L. Carnap's device of restricting the principle of interchangeability for L does not suffice to prevent occurrence of this new antinomy. To achieve this result it seems most natural to replace the rules of designation for L by more complicated rules. This replacement suffices to prevent occurrence of the antinomy with respect to L. Moreover, it (...) seems likely that analogous replacement will suffice to prevent occurrence of the antinomy with respect to languages which in means of expression are richer than L. (shrink)

This book claims that the combined treatment of human freedom and divine creation in the third antinomy is crucial for Kant's solution of the freedom and determinism issue. The idea of the world originating in God's creative reason has a twofold task: (i) to justify the determinism thesis within the regulative use of theoretical reason, (ii) to establish a variant of compatibilism both similar and superior to Boethius's account. Kant's theory of time and his strictly moral conception of the (...) notion of the best possible world allows him to even grant the ability to do otherwise to human beings. (shrink)

The problem of the article is based on a long tradition of studying the category ‘antinomy‘ in the history of philosophy from antiquity until the early twentieth century. Antinomical thinking has particular importance for the spiritual life in the 20th century. The author draws attention to the fact that, for example, in the poetry of Thomas Stern Eliot antinomies and paradoxes are of philosophical and religious nature especially in then dealing with questions of reaching the Truth by rational way (...) exclusively. The basic material for studies are the works of modern Russian poets Olesya Nikolaeva, Sergei Kruglov, Timur Kibirov, Olga Sedakova and Helen Schwartz. It is shown how moral and philosophical themes and descriptions of the spiritual lives of the characters associated with the interpretation of ideas of compositions in the form of antinomies. The idea of the influence of the antinomies of thinking on aesthetics and system of images of Russian poets verses is justified. Article reveals the originality of each of the poets whose poems are analyzed in the work. The author concludes that modern poetry gives traditional antinomies personal psychological nature, but at the same time, problems and poetics of paradox are in tune with thinking of twentieth century as a whole - with its disastrous spirit, full of doubt and contradiction. (shrink)

Cornelius Castoriadis made a significant and distinctive contribution to the development of the notion of the dialectic of control. In the first instance, Castoriadis formulated an important reconceptualization and restatement of the Marxist conception of the central contradiction of capitalism. He argued that capitalism depended on the creativity of workers while excluding them from effective control. Similarly, Castoriadis sought to extend the Marxist analysis of those tendencies present within the structuration of the labour process that may prefigure a socialist reorganization (...) of production. Castoriadis’s analyses of capitalism during the phase of his involvement with Socialism or Barbarism are likewise informed by his assessment of state socialist regimes. In particular, this assessment provided important insights into the modalities of control in modern society and the complications of transcending forms of institutional domination in modernity. It will be argued that some of the distinctive intentions of Castoriadis’s later elucidation of the social imaginary can be traced to his interpretation of bureaucratic capitalism and that this is evident in his subsequent accounts of the capitalist imaginary. In his later theory, Castoriadis interprets the problem of the dialectic of control in terms of the relationship between instituting and instituted society. Castoriadis’s analysis of capitalism during the period of Socialism or Barbarism will be situated in the wider debates over capitalism at that time. Similarly, Castoriadis’s departure from some of the philosophical sources that influenced the development of the notion of the dialectic of control will be explored. (shrink)

This article argues that Robert Alexy's influential theory of balancing is affected by a contradiction that makes it unfeasible as an instrument by which to explain some aspects of law and legal reasoning it aims to clarify. In particular, I will show that one of the premises of Alexy's theory of balancing is incompatible with its conclusion. Alexy's theory is based upon a sharp distinction between rules and principles. However, as my analysis will demonstrate, its conclusion implies that it is (...) impossible to distinguish between rules and principles. This is because the so‐called weight formula and the law of colliding principles (i.e., the two main notions used by Alexy to explain balancing) cancel out any difference between these two types of norms. (shrink)

This paper presents hitherto unpublished writings of Kurt Gödel concerning logical, epistemological, theological, and physical antinomies, which he generally considered as “the most interesting facts in modern logic,” and which he used as a basis for his famous metamathematical results. After investigating different perspectives on the notion of the logical structure of the antinomies and presenting two “antinomies of the intensional,” a new kind of paradox closely related to Gödel’s ontological proof for the existence of God is introduced and completed (...) by a compilation of further theological antinomies. Finally, after a presentation of unpublished general philosophical remarks concerning the antinomies, Gödel’s type-theoretic variant of Leibniz’Monadology, discovered in his notes on the foundations of quantum mechanics, is examined. Most of the material presented here has been transcribed from the Gabelsberger shorthand system for the first time. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the presence, in the section of the Dialektikdedicated to the issue of the Seele and the psychological paralogisms, of an "antinomic" approach regarding, in particular, the debate on the simplicity of the soul. In the examination of Mendelssohn's thesis concerning the soul's incorruptibility, Kant shows that it is possible to assume, together with the "extensive" criterion, an "intensive" criterion which leads to admitting the "decomposability" of the soul and the possibility of its annihilatio per remissionem. Thus, (...) as happens in the antinomies, we are faced with two theses on the "simplicity" of the soul which are both non-contradictory, but, at the same time, opposed to each other. These reflections, proposed in the 1787 edition of the Kritik (and which seem to refer back to and refine the considerations in the 1781 edition on the simplicity of the "thinking subject" and Ich denke), play an important role and show their full value in the context of the second mathematical antinomy. (shrink)

Kant’s first antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason deals with the question of the size of the world. The temporal portion of the problem, on which I will focus in this paper, concerns the question of whether the world has a beginning in time or whether it exists eternally. Kant is sometimes understood as arguing that since neither one of the conflicting options can be confirmed, one needs to reject the common mistake of both opponents, namely, that we (...) know the world as a thing in itself, and embrace instead Kant’s transcendental idealism. In view of modern cosmology, Kant’s resolution of the first antinomy may appear outdated. Modern cosmological theories, after all, do suggest that the world evolved from a singular point by a big bang or through a cycle of successive expanding and contracting phases. I wish to argue in this paper that Kant’s analysis of the first antinomy does not involve questions of confirmability and that its lessons apply to modern cosmology as well. Kant’s analysis challenges the view that the world as a whole is a proper object for human investigation, but it does not reject the legitimacy of the cosmological project of explaining the current state of the universe and its evolution in terms of earlier events in the history of the world. It merely shows that modern theories are misguided only insofar as they attempt to affirm that the singular point is the absolute beginning of the world or that the cycle of expansion and contraction is ultimately infinite. Thus, Kant does not deny science as a legitimate avenue of research. He rather keeps cosmology from sliding into the dogmatic paths of traditional cosmological speculations, which purported to account for the absolute origin of the world by means of theological and metaphysical considerations. (shrink)

Kant’s first antinomy in the Critique of Pure Reason deals with the question of the size of the world. The temporal portion of the problem, on which I will focus in this paper, concerns the question of whether the world has a beginning in time or whether it exists eternally. Kant is sometimes understood as arguing that since neither one of the conflicting options can be confirmed, one needs to reject the common mistake of both opponents, namely, that we (...) know the world as a thing in itself, and embrace instead Kant’s transcendental idealism. In view of modern cosmology, Kant’s resolution of the first antinomy may appear outdated. Modern cosmological theories, after all, do suggest that the world evolved from a singular point by a big bang or through a cycle of successive expanding and contracting phases. I wish to argue in this paper that Kant’s analysis of the first antinomy does not involve questions of confirmability and that its lessons apply to modern cosmology as well. Kant’s analysis challenges the view that the world as a whole is a proper object for human investigation, but it does not reject the legitimacy of the cosmological project of explaining the current state of the universe and its evolution in terms of earlier events in the history of the world. It merely shows that modern theories are misguided only insofar as they attempt to affirm that the singular point is the absolute beginning of the world or that the cycle of expansion and contraction is ultimately infinite. Thus, Kant does not deny science as a legitimate avenue of research. He rather keeps cosmology from sliding into the dogmatic paths of traditional cosmological speculations, which purported to account for the absolute origin of the world by means of theological and metaphysical considerations. (shrink)