Karl Ameriks here collects his most important essays to provide a uniquely detailed and up-to-date analysis of Kant's main arguments in all three major areas of his work: theoretical philosophy (Critique of Pure Reason), practical philosophy (Critique of Practical Reason), and aesthetics (Critique of Judgment). Guiding the volume is Ameriks's belief that one cannot properly understand any one of these Critiques except in the context of the other two. The essays can be read individually, but read together they offer a (...) comprehensive guide to the main themes of the most influential of all modern philosophical systems. (shrink)
It has been argued that Kant's all-consuming efforts to place autonomy at the center of philosophy have had, in the long-run, the unintended effect of leading to the widespread discrediting of philosophy and of undermining the notion of autonomy itself. The result of this 'Copernican revolution' has seemed to many commentators the de-centring, if not the self-destruction, of the autonomous self. In this major reinterpretation of Kant and the post-Kantian response to his critical philosophy, Karl Ameriks argues that such a (...) view of Kant rests on a series of misconceptions. By providing the first systematic study of the underlying structure of the reaction to Kant's critical philosophy in the writings of Reinhold, Fichte and Hegel, Karl Ameriks challenges the presumptions that dominate popular approaches to the concept of freedom, and to the interpretation of the relation between the Enlightenment, Kant and post-Kantian thought. (shrink)
This seminal contribution to Kant studies, originally published in 1982, was the first to present a thorough survey and evaluation of Kant's theory of mind. Ameriks focuses on Kant's discussion of the Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason, and examines how the themes raised there are treated in the rest of Kant's writings. Ameriks demonstrates that Kant developed a theory of mind that is much more rationalistic and defensible than most interpreters have allowed.
Major recent interpretations of Kant's first "critique" (wolff, Strawson, Bennett) have taken his transcendental deduction to be an argument from the fact of consciousness to the existence of an objective world. I argue that it is unclear such an argument can succeed and there are overwhelming reasons to believe kant understood his deduction as having a very different form, namely as moving from the premise that there is empirical knowledge to the conclusion that there are universally valid pure categories. Detailed (...) support for this contention is offered in an analysis of the second edition version of the deduction. (shrink)
Immanuel Kant's work changed the course of modern philosophy; Karl Ameriks examines how. He compares the philosophical system set out in Kant's Critiques with the work of the major philosophers before and after Kant. Individual essays provide case studies in support of Ameriks's thesis that late 18th-century reactions to Kant initiated an "historical turn," after which historical and systematic considerations became joined in a way that fundamentally distinguishes philosophy from science and art.
This paper analyzes hegel's critique of kant's theoretical philosophy in terms of three specific objections to kant's transcendental deduction (concerning the representation of the i, The necessity of the categories, And the problem of a preliminary epistemology) and three specific objections to kant's transcendental idealism (concerning the thing in itself, The antinomies, And other specific problems of the transcendental dialectic).
Like many other recent Hegelian accounts, Stephen Houlgate's severe critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy contends that, in contrast to Hegel, Kant's Critical system, especially because of its doctrine of transcendental idealism, presupposes a subjectivist and therefore inadequate position. On the basis of a moderate interpretation of Kant's idealism and his general Critical procedure, I defend Kant from the charge of subjectivism, and also give an account of how subjectivist interpretations in general can arise from a series of understandable misunderstandings of (...) difficult passages in Kant's first Critique. (shrink)
The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism offers a comprehensive, penetrating, and informative guide to what is regarded as the classical period of German philosophy. Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling are all discussed in detail, together with a number of their contemporaries, such as Hölderlin and Schleiermacher, whose influence was considerable but whose work is less well known in the English-speaking world. The essays in the volume trace and explore the unifying themes of German Idealism, and discuss their relationship to Romanticism, (...) the Enlightenment, and the culture of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. The result is an illuminating overview of a rich and complex philosophical movement, and will appeal to a wide range of readers in philosophy, German studies, theology, literature, and the history of ideas. (shrink)
Provides a thorough background study of the postmodern assault on the standpoint of the subject as a foundation for philosophy, and assesses what remains today of the philosophy of subjectivity.
Can Kant's theory of freedom be defended in contemporary "incompatibilist" terms, as Henry Allison believes, or is it vulnerable to Hegelian criticisms of the "compatibilist" sort that Allen Wood presents? I argue that the answer to both of these questions is negative, and that there is a third option, namely that Kant's real theory of freedom is not as well off as Allison contends, nor as weak as Wood claims. Allison tries to save Kant's theory of freedom from both what (...) he takes to be traditional and improper interpretations, notably including Hegel's and Wood's, of what that theory means, as well as from traditional and improper objections to its defensibility. I argue in part with Wood (and Hegel) against Allison on the issue of the meaning of Kant's theory, and in part with Allison against Wood (and Hegel) on the issue of the defensibility of Kant's theory. (shrink)
Recently, much discussion of Hegel has focused on the nature of his idealism, and especially on its relation to Kant’s transcendental idealism—a doctrine whose meaning is itself still much in dispute. It is clear enough that Hegel calls himself an “absolute idealist,” and that he is a major figure in the “German idealist” tradition, but the precise meaning and value of falling under the idealist label is not so clear. Moreover, some recent interpretations have suggested ways in which Hegel can (...) be termed a realist, and for all interpreters it is conceded that there is a peculiarly “objective” nature to Hegel’s idealism that serves to set it apart from most other versions. (shrink)
This paper focuses largely on a set of recent books in English that have attempted to defend the theoretical validity of Hegel's system, and in particular its relevance to current discussions in epistemology. T Rockmore, K Westphal, M Forster, R B Pippin, and T Pinkard each fasten on different aspects (respectively: Hegel as pragmatist, coherentist, anti-skeptic, transcendentalist, or category theorist) and periods of Hegel's theoretical philosophy. I argue that their analyses have significantly raised the level of discussion here, but they (...) do not yet establish that Hegel's theoretical philosophy can be saved from the traditional objection of being overly dogmatic. (shrink)
Problems from Kant is distinctive in the way that it combines the crisp and often extremely critical style of argumentation found in Jonathan Bennett’s work with a very helpful grasp of the much more metaphysical character of the leading trends in current systematic philosophy. Although the book defends a phenomenalist reading of Kant's transcendental idealism that is not far from Bennett's empiricist interpretation, it also stresses many points that derive mostly from a philosophical and interpretative sympathy for the rationalist tradition (...) and a revival of modal considerations in the spirit of David Lewis and Alvin Plantinga. Since there is not enough room here to go into the many points on which I very much agree with the rationalist side of Van Cleve’s reading, I will take this occasion to play the role of critic and concentrate on one of the few areas in which it appears we have some serious disagreements. These disagreements are worthy of special attention because they arise in the chapter that overlaps the least with Van Cleve’s earlier publications, and they concern a topic that all would agree is at the very center of the Critique, namely Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the categories. (shrink)
This paper focuses largely on a set of recent books in English that have attempted to defend the theoretical validity of Hegel's system, and in particular its relevance to current discussions in epistemology. T Rockmore, K Westphal, M Forster, R B Pippin, and T Pinkard each fasten on different aspects (respectively: Hegel as pragmatist, coherentist, anti-skeptic, transcendentalist, or category theorist) and periods of Hegel's theoretical philosophy. I argue that their analyses have significantly raised the level of discussion here, but they (...) do not yet establish that Hegel's theoretical philosophy can be saved from the traditional objection of being overly dogmatic. (shrink)
After tracing the rise in interest in the phenomenon of interpretation to events in the early post-Kantian period, I argue that this development is highly relevant to understanding contemporary philosophy's methodological status and its relation to fields such as science and literature. I argue that much of recent philosophy is best understood in terms of an "interpretive turn" that has now provided philosophy with a modest but valuable and distinctive role. I illustrate the procedure of philosophy in this key by (...) critically appropriating ideas about interpretation advanced by Harold Bloom and Richard Rorty, and by using hints about the role of history that arise from discussions of Kant's notion of genius. (shrink)
This volume brings to English readers the finest postwar German-language scholarship on Kant's moral and legal philosophy. Examining Kant's relation to predecessors such as Hutcheson, Wolff, and Baumgarten, it clarifies the central issues in each of Kant's major works in practical philosophy, including The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Metaphysics of Morals. It also examines the relation of Kant's philosophy to politics. Collectively, the essays in this volume provide English readers with a (...) direct view of how leading German philosophers are now regarding Kant's revolutionary practical philosophy, one of the outstanding achievements of German thought. (shrink)
I defend the claim that bodily continuity is the primary criterion of personal identity by arguing there is an important sense in which it (unlike rival criteria) is a necessary condition of such identity. This claim is shown to be misunderstood in recent discussions because of a confusion of it with the claim that bodily continuity is a sufficient condition of personal identity. In the course of my argument, I criticize williams, Shoemaker, Puccetti, Quinton, Miri, And others.
Prior to this work, Prauss has already become well known as a Kant commentator and also as one of the most distinguished systematic philosophers in Germany today. This book extends his work in both directions. First, although it appears to treat just one issue, freedom, it uses this issue to give Prauss's broadest interpretation of Kant to date, one which includes coverage of all three Critiques and many lesser known texts. Secondly, the work brings together and significantly refines many of (...) the main arguments of Prauss's earlier books. The emphasis on the theory/praxis relation that surfaced in Erkennen und Handeln in Heideggers "Sein und Zeit" is integrated here with the epistemology articulated in Einführung in die Erkenntnistheorie, and all this is built on to the analysis of Kant's theory of judgment explicated in Erscheinung bei Kant and the connections between aprioricity, subjectivity, and actuality developed in Kant und das Problem der Dinge an sich. This implicit dependence on so many earlier results might give some readers trouble, but on the whole the present book is probably one of Prauss's most accessible ones. It has a relatively leisurely style, it begins with a helpful introduction that surveys all the main points, and it repeats important themes at appropriate intervals. As for readers already familiar with Prauss, they will find not only the subtlety, carefulness, and precise documentation they have come to expect, but also some explicit modifications of earlier views. (shrink)
The central project of the Critique of Pure Reason is to answer two sets of questions: What can we know and how can we know it? and What can't we know and why can't we know it? The essays in this collection are intended to help students read the Critique of Pure Reason with a greater understanding of its central themes and arguments, and with some awareness of important lines of criticism of those themes and arguments.
