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)
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)
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).
The purpose of the Cambridge Edition is to offer translations of the best modern German edition of Kant's work in a uniform format suitable for Kant scholars. When complete the edition will include all of Kant's published writings and a generous selection from the unpublished writings such as the Opus postumum, handschriftliche Nachlass, lectures, and correspondence. This volume contains the first translation into English of notes from Kant's lectures on metaphysics. These lectures, dating from the 1760s to the 1790s, touch (...) on all the major topics and phases of Kant's philosophy. Most of these notes have appeared only recently in the German Academy Edition; this translation offers many corrections of that edition. As is standard with the volumes in the Cambridge Edition there is an extensive editorial apparatus, including extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, a detailed subject index, and glossaries of key terms. (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)
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)
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)
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)
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.
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.
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)
Alvin plantinga has presented various counterexamples to the argument from analogy for other minds. I argue that the implausibility of the counterexample inferences plantinga offers depends not on a weakness essential to the analogical argument but rather on features peculiar to the inferences he provides. My procedure is to establish a number of necessary conditions for any acceptable analogical argument and then to show plantinga's counterexamples fail to meet these conditions. I then construct an analogical argument for other minds which (...) meets all these conditions and hence appears acceptable and invulnerable to plantinga's objections. Other responses to plantinga are also criticized. (shrink)
