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I critically examine the plausibility of Kant’s conception of rationalising, a form of self-deception that plays a crucial role for Kant’s moral psychology and his conception of the functions of critical practical philosophy. The main problem I see with Kant’s conception is that there are no theory-independent criteria to determine whether an exercise of rational capacities constitutes rationalising. Kant believes that rationalising is wide-spread and he charges the popular philosophers and other...

Reconstructing the evolution of Gramsci’s judgement about the Russian Revolution implies an overall rethinking of his own relation to Marx as well as to Kant. Already in the spring of 1917, Gramsci foresaw that the February Revolution could become a proletarian revolution and that this would realise in fact Kant’s moral: only a society completely freed from oppression and exploitation would allow people to be free and autonomous. After the fall of the Winter Palace, Gramsci wrote that the revolution...

Both the categories and principles of understanding as well as the ideas and principles of reason build transcendental elements to conceive transcendental philosophy as a philosophical system. Accordingly, in addition to the “Transcendental Analytic”, Kant develops in the “Transcendental Dialectic” an expanded concept of the transcendental. The transcendental ideas do not denote object-constitutive principles but, in a weaker sense, conditions of the possibility of experience. The relation between...

The 13th International Kant Congress was held on August 6-9, 2019 in Oslo, Norway. The main tasks of this review are to analyse the central theme of the Congress, “The Court of Reason”, the related spheres of philosophical inquiry such as metaphilosophy and philosophical methodology, as well as to reveal the main approaches and development trends of transcendental philosophy in “theoretical” and “practical” fields and modern Kant studies, notably transcendental philosophy of language and consciousness...

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the question of whether humans should reproduce. Some say human life is too punishing and cruel to impose upon an innocent. Others hold that such harms do not undermine the great and possibly unique value of human life. Tracing these outlooks historically in the debate has barely begun. What might philosophers have said, or what did they say, about human life itself and its value to merit reproduction? Herein it is useful to look to Kant, who wrote much...

An unrecognised copy (1665) in Kant’s private library of Michael Piccart’s Isagoge (1605), an introduction to the system of Aristotelian philosophy together with Kant’s own remarks on this author (Refl 4160, AA 17, p. 439) can be established as an original source for the Kantian ‘ideosphere’. First, I point out contexts and consequences of Piccart’s Altdorfian Aristotelianism, in contrast to the Königsbergian Aristotelianism (emphasised by Tonelli’s research). To further check the quality of Piccart...

The aim of this research is to explore what relations self-affection bears to the intuitions of inner sense. I propose that self-affection makes some contribution to formal intuitions and empirical consciousness by arguing that the functions of self-affection consist respectively in conceptualising and conscious-making. I begin by examining Kant’s concept of inner sense and point out that inner sense as a receptive faculty depends on self-affection. In so doing, I emphasise that self-affection includes...

The problem of rationality today means the problem of the inner unreasonableness of reasonableness in the sense of its inner limit. Even the humanistic revolution of the Renaissance gradually led to the replacement of the power of omnipotent faith by faith in the omnipotence of power. It is this general orientation towards power and the cult of power, this new belief in power, that revealed itself more and more sharply in the course of European history and eventually led to extreme forms of expression...

This review of contemporary discussions of Kantian philosophy of mathematics is timed for the publication of the essay Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics. Volume 1: The Critical Philosophy and Its Roots (2020) edited by Carl Posy and Ofra Rechter. The main discussions and comments are based on the texts contained in this collection. I first examine the more general questions which have to do not only with the philosophy of mathematics, but also with related areas of Kant’s philosophy, e. g. the question:...

This article assesses the role of Immanuel Kant’s ideas in the historical philosophy of Gustav Shpet (1879—1937). This theme has been largely ignored by Shpet scholars who have concentrated on comparing his logical-methodological theories with the ideas of representatives of phenomenology (E. Husserl, R. Ingarden and others) and hermeneutics (F. Schleiermacher, W. Dilthey, H. Lipps, H.-G. Gadamer and others). Accordingly, the authors consistently reconstruct “the sphere of conversation” within which...

The hypothetical approach to the supersensible developed by Kant in his three Critiques, exemplified by his analysis of the aesthetic and reflective judgment in his third Critique, with their principle fortuitous purposiveness, can be considered as the basis for a new foundation of metaphysics. According to Kant’s limitation of cognition to the realm of sense intuition, theoretical knowledge of God, the subject, things-in-themselves, transcendental ideas is impossible. This leads to a kind of “negative...

The positions of Christian Wolff and Im­manuel Kant on the possibility of proving the existence of God require some examination. Wolff’s critique of the physical-theological proof and his proposed ways of improving it are here analysed. God is central to Wolff’s philosophical system and the fundamental prerequisite of his theoretical and practical philosophy. Although Wolff insists that the natural law is inherent in human nature and can therefore be comprehended by human reason without turning to...

Kant’s turn to the subject has changed the epistemological conditions for theology. Four intellectual backgrounds of objections are examined: an Aristotelian and Thomistic teleological order of nature (1); Augustinianism based on original sin in which human agency is completely attributed to God’s grace (2); a Hegelian critique of the deontological conception of an “unconditional ought” which also puts Kant’s postulate of the existence of God into question (3); the combination in Radical Orthodoxy...

The cultural movement known as “humanism” has unfortunately not received a clear and careful definition. Historians and philosophers have lumped together their various understandings of outlooks that stress the value and importance of human life under the collective term “humanism.” This essay sets out to contrast, in particular, three types of humanism, all of which attracted attention at overlapping times in Imperial Russia and then the Soviet Union. The youngest of the three, Marxist humanism...

The early decades of the last century saw European philosophical thought becoming increasingly interested in the sociological extension of the idea of law. From the viewpoint of the sociology of law, law is formed in the process of social interactions and is not sanctioned by the state. Sergey Hessen and Georges Gurvitch base their conceptions of social law on the sociology of law in the 1920s and 1930s. They start a polemic in the pages of the journal Sovremenniye zapiski (Contemporary Notes). Although...

Kant’s deduction of the Christian doctrine of justification, respectively the doctrine of grace, leads to the question in what sense philosophy can deal with God’s grace without falsely replacing it with its own arguments. Kant’s answer (a) is that the imputation of evil without attempt to justify it by means of one’s own resources requires thinking of God as the external judge in the internal court of justice, respectively as one’s conscience. This reference to God implies that one makes oneself...

My aim is to prove that Hermann Cohen was not only a philosopher of dialogue but has played an exceedingly important role in the history of that current of thought. His books Ethics of Pure Will (1904) and Religion of Reason out of the Sources of Judaism (1919) offer a detailed analysis of the relationships between I and Thou, I and It, I and We. In the first book these relationships are considered from the ethical-legal point of view and in the second from the viewpoint of religious anthropology...

The text of Kant’s first dissertation is a translation from Latin from an academic publication of a collection of Kant’s works: Kant, I. Meditationum quarundam de igne succincta delineatio... In: Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed., 1910. Kants Gesammelte Schriften. 1. Abhandling: Werke. Band I: Vorkritische Schriften I, 1747-1756. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1910, pp. 369-384. The publication is available at https://korpora.zim.uni-duisburg- essen.de/kant/aa01/ [Accessed 10 March 2019]...

I proceed from the hypothesis that the difficulties in Kant’s presentation of his plan and, accordingly, the implicit reason for the critical attitude to this plan on the part of many contemporary philosophers stem from the fact that he had no theoretical link at his disposal which would offer a more solid scientific grounding for his entire system. I believe that Darwinism is such a link which bolsters the central but ungrounded thesis of the Critique of Pure Reason on the existence of a priori...

The period between the late 1910s and early 1920s saw the emergence of onto-epistemological philosophical projects in Russia that was determined by criticism and attempts to overcome the domination of epistemology in philosophy which was the result of the intensive development of Neo-Kantianism and the influence of Husserl’s phenomenology. Attempts to turn towards ontology were made both by Russian religious philosophers and by Russian Neo-Kantians. I look at the little-studied philosophical projects...

The aim is to examine Alois Riehl’s contribution to the “culture war” (Kulturkampf) in the second half of the nineteenth century. We show that he used Kant’s autonomy principle to argue against the idea that religious dogmatism is a fundament of morality. We prove this thesis by focusing on the forgotten historical background, which is important for an understanding of Morals und Dogma. Originally this essay was an expert opinion for the court case of the socialist H. Tauschinski who was accused...

n this article, which completes a two-part series on the problem of optimism in Kant’s works, I explore in detail the arguments advanced by the Crusians A. F. Reinhard and D. Weymann against the actual world as the best of all possible worlds and in favour of the actual world as one of the good worlds, Kant’s counterarguments put forward in the mid-1750s drafts and in An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism (1759), and further polemical attacks on this topic against Kant by D. Weymann in his works...

The study of the “first wave” of reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason in Germany from the second half of the 1780s until the beginning of the nineteenth century reveals the paradoxical status of the Kantian transcendental subject. While the existence of the transcendental subject, whatever the term means, is not open to question since it arises from the very essence of critical philosophy, the fundamental status of the subject is sometimes questioned in this period. Although the meaning of the...

Carl Arnold Wilmans received his degree of doctor in philosophy in Halle in 1797 for a bold thesis. He claimed a latent similarity between Kant’s enlightened philosophy of religion and the pure mysticism of some so-called separatists — and sent his work to Kant. The fact that and how the latter re­acted to it, makes the matter all the more interesting. Could Kant have been a secret mystic? The following study attempts to give a differ­entiated presentation of Kant’s intellectual relationship with...

Numerous passages in the context of Kant’s philosophy of religion show without doubt his acquaintance with Lessing. But apart from the obvious affinity and agreement between Kant and Lessing with regard to many substantial questions, serious differences cannot be overlooked; the frequently diagnosed closeness and widely suspected “harmony” between the two is probably also the primary reason why important factual differences and controversial aspects have so far usually been neglected or ignored in...

Anhand einer Analyse von Kants Religionsschrift wird ein Nachweis versucht, in der Kantischen Religionsphilosophie, neben der Perspektive einer autonomistischen Vernunftreligion, auch eine transzendental konforme Grundlage zur christlichen Geistesphilosophie, im Sinne der sittlichen Lebensganzheit, und auch für eine Philosophie der Offenbarung, vorhanden ist. Kant hat die Religionsphilosophie im Neuen Europa sowohl möglich, als auch fast ebenso unmöglich gemacht. 1. Кант И. Религия в пределах только...

The text is devoted to the influence of Kant’s personality and philosophical ideas on the Russian thought. Kant considered as the great philosopher, who was the bright spokes of German spirit, the creative genius and genius loci of Königsberg, which has been the town of dramatic historical fate. 1. Абрамов А. И. Кант в русской духовно-академической философии // Абрамов А. И. Сборник научных трудов по истории русской мысли. М., 2005. С. 118—150. 2. Абрамов А. И. О русском кантианстве и неокантианстве...

The paper focuses on the problem of anthropodicy in the philosophical system of Hermann Cohen and its interpretation by Jacob Gordin (1896—1947). Gordin was one of the last followers of Cohen in Russia. He developes his interpretation in the lecture “Anthropodicy”, which was given in the Philosophical Circle at the Petrograd University in December 1921. For the study of the problem of anthropodicy he was apparently inspired by the discussions at the Free Philosophical Association in 1919—1921. Gordin...

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the notion of optimism as it was interpreted by the Königsbergian philosopher in the mid-18th century. The notion originates from Leibniz’s Theodi­cy and from debates over whether the actual world is the best of all possible worlds. The first of a two-part series, this article studies the historical context in which appeared Kant’s 1759 lecture advertisement leaflet entitled An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism. The study describes the requirements of the...

In this article, I consider Kant’s dichotomy between general and transcendental logic in light of a retrospective reconstruction of two approaches originating in 14th century scholasticism that are used to demarcate formal and material consequences. The first approach (e. g., John Buridan, Albert of Saxony, Marsilius of Inghen) holds that a consequence is formal if it is valid — because of its form only — for any matter. Since the matter of a consequence is linked to categorematic terms, its formal...

The origin of science and the demarcation between science and metaphysics are the main features of early modern period. This demarcation faces a particular problem with conceptualisation of body, which can be considered both as just physical body and as closely bound up with spirit. Different ways of explaining the interaction between mind and body form the complex tradition, which significantly influenced Kant’s precritical writings. Limitation of the crucial distinction between these two substances...

This paper deals with the forms of satisfaction in the Critique of Judgement — disinterested affection for a beautiful form in a pure feeling, vital love for something sensorily pleasant, rational respect for unconditioned good, and non-self-regarding love for humanity. A synthetic union of the above gives the conceptual key to the critical philosophy of love, which was never fully articulated in Kant’s lectures or published works. Moral love and legal awareness prevent the encroachment of vital...

In modern theoretical analytical philosophy, the interest in Kant is primarily due to discussions on the nature of sensory perceptions, on the epistemological status of experience, and on the so-called ‘constructivism’. The conflict of interpretations goes so far that some consider Kant to be a conceptualist, while others consider him an anti-conceptualist. For some, he is an internalist and, for others, an externalist. For some, he is a constructivist and, for others is a realist. This paper develops...

... well-founded is the comparison of the ideas of Kant’s essay «Towards Perpetual Peace», written in late XVIII century, with the implementation of nowadays project of European Union 2) If such parallels are possible, to what extent the structure of the EU corresponds to Kant’s vision? 3) Which Kantian ideas are of the foremost importance to future development of the EU? Basing on the analysis of Kant’s treatise and of the current structure of the EU, the author arrives to the conclusion that the ...

This article considers the major references to Kant’s works in the texts of an authoritative Russian thinker Nikolai Strakhov (1828—1896), whose legacy has been revised in recent historical and philosophical studies. The author of the article analyses the materials of Strakhov’s works ‘The key feature of thinking’, ‘On time’, ‘On objectives of history of philosophy’, ‘On key concepts of psychology’, his many years’ correspondence with L. N. Tolstoy and A. A. Fet, who expressed keen interest in the...

This paper is devoted to investigation of destination of religion in the process of forming of the concept of law in determined cultural circumstances. This study is actualizes the essential link between comprehension of content of domain of law and concept of subjectivity. Nikolay Alexeev overcomes concept of subjectivity represented in philosophy of early modern period of European history, (primarily in the rationalistic tradition of Rene Descartes). The crucial significant in his concept of law...

This article considers the ideas of the Russian Neo-Kantianist Vasily Sesemann (1884—1963) in comparison with the idealism of the Marburg School. The author analyses the key Russian phi-losopher’s works on the topic: ‘The problem of idealism in philosophy’, ‘Theoretical philosophy of the Marburg School’, etc. The article focuses on Sesemann’s interest in the concept of the ‘irra¬tional’ and explains his understanding of Neo-Kantianism and the idea of infinity (fieri). Sesemann is interested in the...

C. S. Peirce is a prominent figure in the nineteenth-century American philosophy. His contribution to philosophy and logic is enormous. The significance of some of his ideas was not realized until today. As a philosopher, Peirce was shaped by Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason he knew almost by heart. Peirce was fascinated by the German thinker, who literally opened for him the philosophy of modern era and introduced him to the problem of cognition and increment of knowledge. Peirce was never a...

This article is devoted to the correlation between liberal and socialist ideas in the social and philosophical conception of the prominent methodologist of social sciences and a Neo-Kantian legal theorist Bogdan Kistyakovsky. The author stresses the uncertainty of both the definition of liberalism and the principles behind attributing concrete thinkers to this movement. The article emphasises the inconsistency of classifying Kistyakovsky’s socio-philosophical concept as liberal. The analysis performed...

Many scholars and practitioners in the sphere of the public education and upbringing in Russia addressed themselves to the philosophical-pedagogical ideas of German philosopher of Neo- Kantian movement Paul Natorp. These ideas were formulated mainly in his fundamental work “Social Pedagogy”. Vladimir Dinze relies on Natorp’s thesis of the national school as the way of accustoming “the all people to the national culture”, actualizes the heritage of Russian and Western pedagogues and philosophers and...

Kant’s transcendental philosophy (transcendentalism) focuses on both the human method of cognition in general [CPR, B 25] and certain types of cognition aimed at justifying their objective significance. This article aims to explicate Kant’s understanding (resp. justification) of the abstract nature of mathematical knowledge (cognition) as the “construction of concepts in intuition” (see: “to construct a concept means to exhibit a priori the intuition corresponding to it”; [CPR, A 713/В 741], which...

This paper deals with the methodological and ontological significance of transcendentalism. The author advocates the understanding of transcendental philosophy as ontology and presents a critique of the interpretation given by David Carr, who attached a merely methodological significance to the concept of the ‘transcendental’. Within this interpretation, this paper considers the problem of differences between the ontological aspects of Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy and Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology...

This paper analyzes receptions of phenomenological and neo-Kantian axiology trends in the interpretation of the concept and status of value in N. N. Alekseev’s philosophy of law. The author identifies the role of Neo-Kantian nomothetic—idiographic division of sciences proposed by the Southwest German school of Neo-Kantianism in interpreting the essence of law within Aleseev’s philosophy. It is shown that Alekseev uses Windelband's distinction between the due and the existing as a convenient methodological...

This article analyses the historical and philosophical critique of A. I. Vvedensky’s ‘new psychophysiological’ law. The author examines the most substantial commentaries, namely, those by P. E. Astafyev, N. Y. Grot, L. M. Lopatin, E. L. Radlov, and S. N. Trubetskoy. At the end of the 19th century, these authors contributed to an active discussion in the pages of scientific journals. The discussion focused on the ideas expressed in the work On the Limits and Characteristics of Becoming Conscious,...

A reflection on the meaning of Kant’s manuscript where he uses the expression ‘metaphysics of science’. 20th century philosophy of science acknowledged empiricism and it was anti-metaphysic and positivistic. However, all forms of empiricism and positivism lead to a negation of philosophy, replacing it with logical, methodological, historical, sociological, psychological, cultural, and other studies. In effect, philosophy is the cognition of the absolute universal in both theoretical (the true being)...

The category of power is one of ontological predicates discussed by Kant in lectures on metaphysics. This concept expresses relation of substance to its attributes and plays an important role in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Law is a simple form of unity incorporating an idea of the play of powers, whereas power is a category that makes it possible to understand the supersensible as a realm of laws. This interpretation is inherent in the system of not only theoretical but also practical reason...

Kant’s treatises on political problems form a loosely structured text corpus. However, due to its passionate polemic, it can be rewritten in the form of dialogues. The most dramatic instalment is the authoritative treatise Toward Perpetual Peace, which is full of memorable phrases that used to excite the very first readers. Kant’s opponents are both concrete authors — either living or dead contemporaries (Garve, Mendesohn, Frederick the Great) — and generalised characters representing entire classes...

By the end of the 19th century, after three partitions of Rzeczpospolita by the neighbouring powers, about half of its territory became part of the Kingdom of Prussia. These geopolitical changes had significant social implications for the Polish population.Jan Swiecicki was one of many Polish students to be sent to German-speaking gymnasia. Some of them continued their education at the oldest Prussian university, the Albertina. Selected pas¬sages from letters dated 1802—1806 give an idea of the organisation...

This articles sets out to give an overview as to how Russian thought was influenced by the ideas and personality of Kant — a bright exponent of German spirit, the genius loci of Königsberg — a city of calamitous history. 1. Абрамов А. И. Кант в русской духовно-академической философии // Абрамов А. И. Сборник научных трудов по истории русской мысли. М., 2005. С. 118—150. 2. Абрамов А. И. О русском кантианстве и неокантианстве в журнале «Логос» //Там же. С. 343—363. 3. Абрамов А. И. Кантианство...

... well-founded is the comparison of the ideas of Kant's treatise «Towards Perpetual Peace», written in late XVIII century, with the implementation of nowadays project of European Union? 2) If such parallels are possible, to what extent the structure of the EU corresponds to Kant's vision? 3) Which Kantian ideas are of the foremost importance to future development of the EU? Basing on the analysis of Kant's treatise and of the current structure of the EU, the author arrives to the conclusion that the two ...