Kant’s “Categories of Freedom” as the Functions of Willing an Object
This paper deals with the “Table of the Categories of Freedom” in the second main chapter of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. It provides an account of the role these categories are supposed to play and also of their conceptual content. The key to a proper understanding lies in the realisation that they are derived from the socalled table ...
Pure and Impure Philosophy in Kant’s Metaphilosophy
Kant’s metaphilosophy has three main parts: (1) an essentialist project (“What is philosophy?”); (2) a methodological project (“How do we do philosophy?”); and (3) a taxonomic project (“What are the different parts of philosophy, and how are ...
Kant and Covid Ethics
Despite the popularity of many of Kant’s ethical notions, such as autonomy, dignity and respect for persons, there is a perception, even among Kant scholars themselves, that one cannot reliably derive concrete duties from Kant’s moral philosophy. Against this, I shall argue that — ...
The Concept of Moral Sense in Kant’s Ethics
The concept of “moral sense”, introduced into the philosophical lexicon by Ashley-Cooper Shaftesbury and Francis Hutcheson, has found a place in the teachings of many thinkers. Immanuel Kant was one of them. The position of the theory of moral sense, which exerted a formative influence on Kant’s moral philosophy, varied as it evolved from the pre-critical to the critical period of Kant’s work. In order to find out what this influence ...
Kant on Enthusiasm
Kant’s theory of enthusiasm has received relatively little attention in Kant studies. This is surprising in view of the fact that Kant was preoccupied with the theme of enthusiasm throughout his life. One of the reasons may be that for Kant enthusiasm ...
Principles of Adjudication (diiudicatio) and Execution (executio) in Kant’s Practical Philosophy (Based on Feyerabend’s Natural Right and Lectures on Ethics)
This paper is concerned with the principles of adjudication (diiudicatio, Beurteilung) and execution (executio, Ausübung) in the notes of Kant’s lectures on natural right (“Feyerbend’s Natural Right”). In this manuscript these principles are used as a binary scheme twice, each time in the introduction to the first chapter. To explain the meaning of these concepts I use other cases ...
Kant and Gender Oppression: Privileged Eighteenth-Century Women, ‘Indirect Domination’ and Gender Emancipation
This paper critically addresses the unwitting gender oppression underpinning Kant’s anthropological and legal approach to domestic labour, highlighting the helpfulness of his analysis of reproductive tasks for casting light on some of the historical causes behind the current view of such labour. With this general aim in mind,...
Kant’s Philosophy of Chemistry and Nietzsche’s Cosmology: On the Material Hermeneutics of Alchemy and Cinnabar. Part I
By reading Kant on chemistry as a science, including his definition of science as such, this essay reviews Kant and the history of chemistry. Kant’s Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens is read in terms of contemporary axiomatic systems, via the ...
“The Great Rationalist”: Alexey Vvedensky on Kant in the Context of Russian Kantiana
In 1904, the last January issue of the newspaper “Moskoskiye vedomosti” carried an article by Alexey I. Vvedensky, philosopher and theologian, Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, entitled “The Great Rationalist. On the Centenary of Kant’s Death”. Although the publication could hardly be called unique for its time, as many Russian philosophers and journalists commented on this date, the article merits attention because of the way it represents Kant, and the fact that it sheds ...
Kant and “Seasickness” of Modernity
On the eve of the tercentenary of Kant’s birth, just as it was a hundred years ago, Kantianism is simultaneously on the receiving end of the blows of history and attacks by rival philosophical parties, both progressivist and reactionary. The radical wings of both parties perceive modernity ...
Wanderings in Syllogistic Figures: On Kant’s Possible Cognitive Syllogistics
Kant’s treatise “The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures” has logical, epistemological, and cognitive-psychological implications. These three perspectives on his conclusions are practically undifferentiated. The first part of this article ...
The Boundaries of Ecological Ethics: Kant’s Philosophy in Dialog with the “End of Human Exclusiveness” Thesis
... that the rationale of anthropocentrism is false. Its main message is that natural complexes and resources exist to be useful to the human being who sees them only from the perspective of using them and does not take into account their intrinsic value. Kant’s anthropocentric teaching argues that the instrumental attitude to nature has its limits. These limits are hard to determine because the anthropocentrists claim that the human being is above nature. Indeed, the “human exclusiveness thesis” ...
The Transcendental Deduction of Categories as Philosophical Proof
My aim is to reconstruct the basic steps and the fundamental idea of Kant’s transcendental deduction of categories as well as Hegel’s interpretation and reframing of Kant’s idea. Hegel’s reading is crucial for two reasons: first, for fixing the basic form of the Kantian argument and secondly, for understanding ...
