Immaturity and the objective of a true reform in ways of thinking. Part II
The originality of Kant’s answer to the question of the Enlightenment in a 1784 article consisted not in addressing the words of Horace, but in linking it to the revised legal notion of immaturity, which is now interpreted from the philosophical and theological perspective and has become one of key philosophical notions. However, Kant’s view is fraught with certain complications: firstly, it is dominated by negative characteristics; secondly, unlimited use of one’s understanding can lead to...
Kant and the Problem of Optimism: The Origin of the Debate
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...
Some Remarks about the Difference between Überzeugung and Überredung
According to several passages in the available sources, Kant developed some ideas about the difference between being persuaded and being convinced which have antecedents in the German tradition, but with regard to which he developed ideas of his own. It is my intention to examine precisely some of these passages. I will explain how the philosopher understood this difference, what its relevance is and why the figure of the other is necessary to determine it. For this purpose, texts published in the...
On Kant’s Remarks on Ludwig Heinrich Jakob's Examination of Men-delssohn's Morgenstunden (preface to the publication)
This article considers the circumstances of the appearance of Kant’s remarks on the last book of M. Mendelssohn Morgenstunden… in relation to its analysis in L. G. von Jakob’s work. It is explained why Kant had to participate in debates with his opponents, despite the resolution to avoid them and concentrate on constructing a consistent and thus solid and effective system of philosophy. The significance of Kant’s small polemic works lies in that they explain the key elements of his system...
Watershed or Cul-de-Sac? Disputes in the Theological Reception of Kant’s Philosophy
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...
The concept “people” in the modern European political thought: Hobbes, Spinoza, Pufendorf
The author considers the evolution of the concept “people” in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf and Benedict Spinoza. The political thought of Europe in the 17th century demonstrates a conscious turn from the medieval scholastic tradition of thinking about people and power. Politics begins to be thought of as a complex of human actions aimed at achieving certain human goals. This, in turn, leads to the rationalisation of politics and, as a consequence, to the rejection...
Kant als Mystiker? Zur These von Carl Arnold Wilmans’ dissertatio philosophica
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...
On the Role of Gesinnung in Kant’s Ethics and Philosophy of Religion. Part II
The sources of Kant’s term Gesinnung and a review of the problems of its translation into English were presented in the first part of this article; the second part examines the novel features that Kant brings to the interpretation of this concept in the critical period. In the Critique of Practical Reason these include the questions of manifestation of Gesinnung in the world, apprehended through the senses, the method of establishing and the culture of truly moral Gesinnung, as well as the problem...
Kant als metaphilosophischer Skeptizist?
Throughout history, both philosophers and non-philosophers have doubted that philosophical positions qua philosophical positions are justified and that philosophy is a rational enterprise. Today, such doubts are grouped under the term “Metaphilosophical Skepticism”. Nicholas Rescher, in his book Strife of Systems, includes Kant among the proponents of this kind of skepticism. I want to argue that while Rescher is wrong, Kant has contributed to a new version of such skepticism. In the first...
The Problem of Being: Kant and Heidegger
My task is to demonstrate substantial differences in the views of Kant and Heidegger on being. To this end I analyse Heidegger’s work Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics which Heidegger was writing intermittently during the period from 1927 to 1964. It deals not only with the ideas of the Critique of Pure Reason but also with Kant’s pre-critical work, The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763), in which Kant explicitly addressed the question of being...
Von der mathematischen zur kritischen Metaphysik der Natur. Lambert und Kant
In the mid-1760s, Johann Heinrich Lambert wrote a letter to Kant who offered cooperation with a view to reforming metaphysics. Based on the short correspondence between the two philosophers, it can be shown that this cooperation could never really come about. Nevertheless the thesis was sometimes put forward in research that Lambert had a defining influence on Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, also, and above all, with regard to the Newton-critical moments of this natural theory...
Trägheit und Raum: Kant und Euler
Kant’s natural philosophy in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is heavily influenced by Newton’s Principia. However, a closer look makes it clear that Kant’s project has also been influenced by other thinkers. One of these thinkers is Leonard Euler. His work was of great influence for Kant, not only with regards to his view on space and inertia but on the relation between metaphysics and natural science in general. Even though Euler’s Physics built on Newton’s work, he differs...
Digital Technology: Reflections on the Difference between Instrumental Rationality and Practical Reason
Are computers on the way to acquiring “superintelligence”? Can human deliberation and decision-making be fully simulated by the mechanical execution of AI programmes? On close examination these expectations turn out not to be well-founded, since algorithms (or, in Kantian terms, “imperatives of skill” that are implemented by technological means) do, ultimately, have “heteronomous” characteristics. So-called AI-“autonomy” is a sensor-directed performance automatism, which — compared...
Who is Rationalising? On an Overlooked Problem for Kant’s Moral Psychology and Method of Ethics
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...
Agglomerations management practices abroad
The practice of managing large urban agglomerations in the status of metropolitan areas is underrepresented in modern Russian conditions. Spatial planning documents concerning agglomerations usually do not reflect the realities and relations within these formations, which have de facto existed for a long time. Moreover, the experience in managing such forms of settlement is accumulated abroad, where active reorganization of the management system is regularly taking place, the paradigms and principles...
Transformationen der Kantischen Postulatenlehre im „Cambridge Pragmatism“ (Charles S. Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce)
The “Cambridge pragmatists”, Charles S. Peirce, William James and Josiah Royce, are at least in two respects significantly indebted to Kant: first, as von Kempski, Apel and Murphey have shown, with regard to the epistemological issues investigated in pragmatism; secondly, with regard to the various pragmatic approaches to religion, something which has been long overlooked. These approaches are best understood as innovative re-readings of Kant’s postulates of freedom, immortality, and God. Since...
Immanuel Kant’s House in Königsberg: Attempt at a 3D Reconstruction
The house which Immanuel Kant bought in Königsberg in 1783 has not survived, having been pulled down in the late nineteenth century. Likewise, hardly any of the great philosopher’s personal belongings have survived. Many pieces of furniture and household utensils were auctioned off after his death. So the Kant museum had few original exhibits from the Königsberg thinker’s house, and almost all these artefacts were lost during the Second World War. Today, digital technologies make it possible...
The Embodied Practical Ideal: Kant’s Ethicotheology and Godmanhood
The metaphysical layer of what can be called philosophical Christology in Kant’s treatise on religion reflects his idea of the embodiment of the archetype of moral perfection. Kant raises the problem of the ontology of the ideal in the shape of the question about the conditions that make actual experience possible: the ideal of holiness resides in reason, i. e. in the human being, but the dominance of radical evil over the human will puts it out of human reach either in thought or in practice....
Transzendentalphilosophie als kritische Bestimmung des Standpunkts. Eine wissenschaftstheoretische Annäherung
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...
The Place of Hermann Cohen’s Ideas in the Philosophy of Dialogue
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...
On Fire. Dissertation for the Master’s Degree. Translation from the Latin into Russian, Preface and Notes by S. V. Lugovoy
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...
Kants Denkraum: Subjektivität als Prinzip. Interview mit Prof. Dr. Jürgen Stolzenberg
This interview with Professor Dr Jürgen Stolzenberg, board member of the Kant-Gesellschaft and co-editor of the Kant-Lexikon (2015), explores a wide range of topics — from Leibniz and Wolff to Heidegger and Husserl. The leading idea of Stolzenberg’s philosophical research is the justification of the principle of modern subjectivity in Kant’s philosophy and its transformations until our days. He discusses the meaning and development of the concept of self-consciousness and the understanding...
Verb collocations of the semantic field «Memory» with the component ‘Vergangenheit’ in the German media
The article analyzes verb collocations of the semantic field “Memory” with the component ‘Vergangenheit’, which are commonly used in German media; it describes structural, semantic and syntagmatic characteristics of the verb collocations. The source of the research data is newspaper texts corpus DWDS. The keyword "Vergangenheit" (past) can be characterized by a high syntagmatic potential that indicates the importance of the denoted concept for memory processes comprehension. The...
Unvergängliche Bedeutung des philosophisch-pädagogischen Schaffens Kants
The article is meant for teachers and everyone interested in the problems of upbringing and self-upbringing. The major incentive for all works of the great scientists was the desire to reveal the extent of possibility and necessity of dignity for a person pursuing their vocation. Kant showed the world as the world should be in accordance to the sensible disposition of the human being. The author analyses the main concepts of Kant's rational ethics and attempts to classify his pedagogical ideas, which...
Die Grenze zwischen Glauben und Wissen: Zur Wirkungsgeschichte und aktuellen Bedeutung von Kants Religionsphilosophie
Der Autor des Artikels analysiert zunächst den Inhalt der Kantschen Religionsphilosophie (Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft), um dann ihre Wirkungsgeschichte zu verfolgen und ihre Aktualität aufzuzeigen. In groben Zügen, aber doch ausführlicher als andere Lehren, betrachtet er in diesem Zusammenhang die philosophischen Ansichten von Hegel, Schleiermacher und Kierkegaard. Habermas schlägt vor, Kants Moralphilosophie insgesamt als Versuch anzusehen, das kategorische Sollen göttlicher...
The concept of body and the problem of demarcation in new European metaphysics: from Descartes to Kant
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...
Hermann Cohens Konzept der Anthropodizee in der Sicht Jacob Gordins
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...
Aspects of the ‘transcendental’ according to Kant and Husserl: Logos, matheme, metaphor
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...
Picaresque motifs in Thomas Brussig's “Heroes Like Us”
The article analyses the peculiarities of picaresque storytelling in Thomas Brussig's novel “Heroes Like Us”.
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Key actors of German ‘soft power’ in the Baltics
This article focuses on Germany’s key ‘soft power’ actors promoting the country’s interests in the Baltics. The authors analyse the policies of ‘soft power’ aimed to create a positive image of Germany in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The article examines the activity of German political foundations, research institutions, communities, language centres, and scientific and cultural organisations. It is stressed that Germany makes use of the Baltics’ historical familiarity with German...
The thinking of nature and the nature of thinking — Cohen on Spinoza
The author tries to prove the thesis that Cohen's reception of Spinoza's thought is character-ized by a sequence of what we can find in the whole philosophical system of Marburg Neo-Kantian. Fluctuations in Cohen's interpretation of Spinoza's theoretical constructs correspond to a progres-sive refinement of his own philosophical system project. This research does not aim to shed new light on the wide panorama presented approaches and points of view on the attitude of Cohen to Spinoza, which has not...
Kant’s transcendentalism as a transcendental paradigm of philo¬so¬phiz¬ing
This paper considers Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a special transcendental paradigm (a special type of philosophical research) differing from both the "objective" metaphysics of Antiquity and the "subjective" metaphysics of Modernity (the metaphysics of an object (transcendent metaphysics; meta—physics) — experience (transcendental metaphysics) — the metaphysics of the subject (immanent metaphysics; meta—psychology)). For this purpose, the author introduces suchnew...
Kant and the “internal colonisation of Russia” (on the book In¬ternal Colo-nisation. Russia’s Imperial Experience by A. Etkind)
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2. Александр Эткинд: Кант под российским правлением. URL: http://gefter.ru/ archive/7025 (дата обращения: 10.12.2012)
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Kant on evil in the human nature
This article focuses on the analysis of the problem of evil in Kant’s works. The author attempts at reconstructing the key stages of Kant’s logic of ethics and, on this basis, reconstructs his idea of evil. Of special importance is the analysis and criticism of the anthropology-focused study of the sources of good and evil in the work Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. The author sees the key to understanding Kant’s approach to the problem of evil in the differentiation of the levels...
Kant’s perpetual peace project and the project of the European Union
The article examines the following problems: 1) How 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...
Organisation of scientific research in Germany
This article considers the structure of research system in Germany. It describes the federal and state levels of research management. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) bears primary responsibility for science and technology policy at the federal level. At the state level, this responsible is shared by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Economy. The author emphasizes the role of the National Academy of Sciences “Leopoldina”, whose principal objective...