Uygar Abaci | Pennsylvania State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Uygar Abaci
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines Kant’s objection to the ontological argument, based on the thesis Kant intr... more This chapter examines Kant’s objection to the ontological argument, based on the thesis Kant introduces in The Only Possible Argument (1763), “Existence is not a predicate or determination of a thing” (Ak. 2:72), which means that existence cannot be contained in the intension of the concept of any object. However, the historical novelty of Kant’s conception of existence does not lie in this negative thesis but in his two positive theses, “Existence is a predicate not so much of the thing itself as of the thought which one has of the thing” (OPA, Ak. 2:72), and “Existence is the absolute positing of a thing” (OPA, Ak. 2:73). These theses point to a radical discovery: existence is to be reinterpreted as a feature of conceptual representations of things and in reference to a cognitive subject. Kant’s later realization of the groundbreaking implications of this discovery will ground his revolution in modality.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter focuses on Kant’s account of the modal functions of judgments in the Critique of Pur... more This chapter focuses on Kant’s account of the modal functions of judgments in the Critique of Pure Reason. There are two current strands of interpreting this account. The first understands the modality of a given judgment in terms of the judger’s attitude toward its content, based on their epistemic or psychological states. The second understands it solely in terms of its location in a syllogistic context. On the alternative interpretation defended in this chapter, Kant construes the modalities of judgments as instantiating relative logical modalities and expressing logical coherence relations between a judgment and a set of background judgments. This interpretation not only fits well with Kant’s revolutionary program of redefining modality as a feature of the relation between the conceptual representations of things and the cognitive faculty of the judger, but also captures the formal-logical infrastructure of his account of real modality in the rest of the Critique.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines the development of Kant’s conception of modality in the period between The ... more This chapter examines the development of Kant’s conception of modality in the period between The Only Possible Argument (1763) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). From the mid-1760s on, Kant interprets his discovery that existence involves a relation to the cognitive faculty as more broadly applying to modality in general, and adopts the epistemological interpretation of the actualist principle. This shift plays an essential role in Kant’s realization of the need for a ‘critical turn’ in philosophy, which Kant first formulates in his 1772 letter to Herz in terms of the question of how to cognize that our pure concepts do indeed represent really possible objects. What problematizes this question is the actualist principle, epistemologically interpreted as stating that the cognition of actuality is a prerequisite of cognition of real possibility. Kant’s emerging revolution in modality is thus constitutive of his critical turn rather than a consequence of it.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines the way Kant’s revolutionary theory of modality radicalizes his critique of... more This chapter examines the way Kant’s revolutionary theory of modality radicalizes his critique of ontotheology in the Ideal of Pure Reason. First it shows how Kant’s downgrading of his own precritical ‘only possible argument’ from an objectively valid demonstration of the real necessity of the existence of God to a subjectively valid demonstration of the necessity of assuming the idea of such a being is due to his shift from an ontological to an epistemological interpretation of the actualist principle. Second, it argues that Kant’s refutation of the traditional ontological argument in the Ideal follows a multilayered strategy, consisting of a combination of two historical lines of objection, only the second of which presupposes his negative thesis that existence is not a real predicate, as well as an additional, third objection based on his further thesis that all existential judgments are synthetic, albeit in a peculiar sense.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines the prevalent conception of modality in German rationalist school, by looki... more This chapter examines the prevalent conception of modality in German rationalist school, by looking at the modal version of the ontological argument, propounded by Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten, and these figures’ accounts of modality in other metaphysical contexts. It disputes two claims of a common narrative concerning the school metaphysicians: (i) they were committed to logicism, according to which claims about possibility and necessity are exhaustively explained through formal-logical principles, while Kant introduced a real or metaphysical account of modality, involving extra-logical truth-makers of modal claims; (ii) they were committed to the view that existence is a real predicate or determination, which Kant strongly rejected. This chapter demonstrates that contrary to the common narrative, Leibniz and Wolff had robust conceptions of real possibility and necessity, and did not commit to the conception of existence as a distinct determination of things and even anticipated...
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter reconstructs Kant’s revolutionary account of real modality as presented in the Schem... more This chapter reconstructs Kant’s revolutionary account of real modality as presented in the Schematism and the Postulates chapters of the Critique. Here we find his precritical theses on existence, both negative and positive, transform into a strong ‘peculiarity’ thesis about modal categories in general: “as a determination of the object they do not add to the concept to which they are ascribed in the least, but rather express only the relation to the faculty of cognition” (A219). Each of possibility, actuality, and necessity posits the conceptual representation of an object in a different relation to the background conditions of our empirical cognition of objects. Each such act of positing constitutes a peculiar, i.e. ‘subjective,’ type of synthetic judgment, where the intension of the subject-concept is not at all enlarged, but a relation with a distinct cognitive faculty (i.e. respectively, with understanding, perception, and reason) is added to it.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality, 2019
This chapter offers a general framework for reading ontotheology, according to which any version ... more This chapter offers a general framework for reading ontotheology, according to which any version of the ontological argument consists of two logical steps. First, it introduces existence into the concept of God in one way or another; second, it infers the existence of God from the concept of God and asserts identity between two distinct notions of God, viz. as the most real being and as the necessary being. With this framework in place, the chapter then examines the classical version of the ontological argument, introduced by St Anselm and popularized by Descartes. It demonstrates that while Kant’s primary objection, i.e. existence is not a real predicate, applies equally to both Anselm’s and Descartes’ arguments, Descartes importantly anticipates the actualist principle, i.e. facts about possibility must be grounded on facts about actuality, which will come to be a major insight in Kant’s theory of modality.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This final chapter focuses on the two theses Kant introduces in §76 of the Critique of the Power ... more This final chapter focuses on the two theses Kant introduces in §76 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment: the epistemic thesis that while it is a necessary feature of our discursive understanding to distinguish between the merely possible and the actual, an intuitive or divine understanding would cognize only actual objects, and the metaphysical thesis that things in themselves do not have modal properties. Both theses are rooted in Kant’s revolutionary theory of modality. Modal categories express only the various ways in which the representations of objects are related to the cognitive subject, and thus do not signify anything in isolation from this representational relation. Modalization is thus an exclusive feature of a discursive mind to which representations of objects can be related in various ways, as opposed to an intuitive mind which would represent the whole of everything all at once and thus only in one way.
Kant demonstrates that we can have rational grounds for holding a belief in the existence of supe... more Kant demonstrates that we can have rational grounds for holding a belief in the existence of supersensible things that we can never know with certainty. I argue that at the basis of this accomplishment lies a hitherto neglected part of Kant\u27s philosophy: the novel approach Kant brings to the understanding of modalities (possibility, actuality, and necessity). This approach consists in defining modalities in terms of theoretical and practical relations between objects and the subject rather than the ways objects are. Until the mid1760\u27s, Kant\u27s views on modalities do not display a deep breakthrough from the prevalent conception in the school metaphysics, but rather a revisionist approach. Not yet opposed to conceiving modalities in ontological terms, Kant rejects only the inclusion of modalities as predicates in the concepts of things. Yet, from the mid1760\u27s onwards, we see in Kant a shift toward an understanding of modalities in more epistemological terms, as pertaining...
The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds
Despite his well-known critical restriction of human cognition to the domain of objects of sense,... more Despite his well-known critical restriction of human cognition to the domain of objects of sense, Kant also repeatedly asserts in his various Critical period texts that we can attain “practical cognition” and knowledge of the cardinal supersensible objects of traditional metaphysics, i.e., freedom, God, immortality or the afterlife (A796/B824; KpV 5:5; FM 20:295–300; KU §§88–91). Kant’s account of the structure and limits of theoretical cognition as well as whether there is a sense in which we can have any theoretical insight into the supersensible have attracted significant scholarly attention. Excellent work has also been done on Kant’s approach to the supersensible objects as articles of practical postulation and practical (rational) belief. Yet, Kant’s conception of practical cognition, both in general and with regard to the supersensible objects in particular, has not enjoyed a proportionate interest, perhaps because Kant’s use of the term “cognition” in this context is regarde...
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality, 2019
This book offers a comprehensive study of Kant’s views on modal notions of possibility, actuality... more This book offers a comprehensive study of Kant’s views on modal notions of possibility, actuality or existence, and necessity. It aims to locate Kant’s views on these notions in their broader historical context, establish their continuity and transformation across Kant’s precritical and critical texts, and determine their role in the substance as well as the development of Kant’s philosophical project. It makes two overarching claims. First, Kant’s precritical views on modality, which appear in the context of his attempts to revise the ontological argument and are critical of the tradition only from within its prevailing paradigm of modality, develop into a revolutionary theory of modality in his critical period, radicalizing his critique of the ontotheological and rationalist metaphysical tradition. While the traditional paradigm construes modal notions as fundamental ontological predicates, expressing different modes or ways of being of things, Kant’s theory consists in redefining...
Kantian Review, 2014
Andrew Chignell recently proposed an original reconstruction of Kant's ‘Only Possible Argumen... more Andrew Chignell recently proposed an original reconstruction of Kant's ‘Only Possible Argument’ for the existence of God. Chignell claims that what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of Kant's proof, ‘real possibility must be grounded in actuality’, is the requirement that the predicates of a really possible thing must be ‘really harmonious’, i.e. compatible in an extra-logical or metaphysical sense. I take issue with Chignell's reconstruction. First, the pre-Critical Kant does not present ‘real harmony’ as a general condition of real possibility. Second, the real harmony requirement is not what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of the proof. Instead, this premise is sufficiently motivated by what Chignell labels the ‘content’ requirement. Finally, Kant's downgrading of the proof in his Critical period is not based on a concern regarding the real harmony of the predicates of God, but on his Critical restrictions on cognition in general and modal cognition in particular.
European Journal of Philosophy, 2014
Ameriks' latest volume represents yet another major contribution to our understanding of Kant and... more Ameriks' latest volume represents yet another major contribution to our understanding of Kant and his place within the history of philosophy. 1 Ostensibly, Kant's Elliptical Path is a scholarly treatment of the development of Kant's thought throughout his career. It assuredly is that, but it is also much more, since it plumbs the depths of Kant's entire Critical project by revealing the crucial systematic roles of freedom, reason, and religion, and shows their relevance both for the course of post-Kantian German philosophy throughout the nineteenth century and for our philosophical interests and ambitions today. Along the way, we are treated to an unusually broad range of kinds of discussion: detailed interpretations of particular passages that can appear problematic or are often misunderstood, remarks about the linguistic nuances of German terms which can easily get lost in translation, helpful interpretive hypotheses regarding Kant's views on crucial points, and, of course, broader considerations of Kant's overall project and commitments. Ameriks' book comprises an introduction and then fifteen substantive chapters, which are divided into three parts. The introduction offers an innovative narrative of Kant's overall development that provides an indispensible context for each of the parts and chapters that follow. Its defining claim is that once Kant was 'turned around' by reading Rousseau in 1763-4, his basic views, e.g., about the primacy of practical reason and the importance of absolute (libertarian) freedom, morality, and certain religious beliefs (involving God and immortality), did not change fundamentally, even if later developments (such as Transcendental Idealism) proved to be 'ideal means [.. .] to fill out a systematic defense that allows for a return to his deepest pre-systematic beliefs' (p. 1). Crucial to Ameriks' understanding of Kant's development, however, is not only that Rousseau was important and that there is a basic continuity to some fundamental aspects of Kant's thought, points on which many (if not all) scholars agree, but also that there is an elliptical movement to Kant's career, with the 'heavens above' and the moral 'law within' serving as distinct foci, that precludes either a simple linear or purely circular movement, because of various (theoretical and practical) complications that take Kant further away from his starting point before he is able to return to it. Further, late in the book Ameriks uses the image of an elliptical path to put much of post-Kantian philosophy into context, including figures such as Reinhold, the German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel), the early German Romantics (Novalis, Hölderlin, and Schlegel), Nietzsche, and various contemporary philosophers (such as MacIntyre, Cavell, Taylor, and Frank). Ameriks' narrative is thus not restricted to Kant, but provides a useful perspective well beyond, one that he even takes to recommend a certain conception of hermeneutical philosophy today. The first part, on Kant's pre-Critical period, has a first chapter, 'Kant, Human Nature, and History after Rousseau,' which describes various ways in which Rousseau influenced
European Journal of Philosophy, 2013
Dialogue, 2020
The extant attempts in the literature to refute the greatest difficulty argument in the Parmenide... more The extant attempts in the literature to refute the greatest difficulty argument in the Parmenides have focused on denying the parallelism between the pros relations among Forms and those among particulars. However, these attempts are unsatisfactory, for the argument can reach its conclusion that we cannot know any Forms without relying on this parallelism. I argue that a more effective strategy is to deny the more essential premise that the knowledge-object relation is a pros relation. This premise is false because pros relations require definitional and ontological codependence between the relata, and the knowledge-object relation does not satisfy this reciprocity condition.
Journal of the History of Philosophy
Kantian Review
Kant states in §76 of the third Critique that the divine intuitive intellect would not represent ... more Kant states in §76 of the third Critique that the divine intuitive intellect would not represent modal distinctions. Kohl (2015) and Stang (2016) claim that this statement entails that noumena lack modal properties, which, in turn, conflicts with Kant’s attribution of contingency to human noumenal wills. They both propose resolutions to this conflict based on conjectures regarding how God might non-modally represent what our discursive intellects represent as modally determined. I argue that (i) these proposals fail; (ii) the viable resolution consists in recognizing that we modalize human noumenal wills as a merely regulative-practical principle in our judgements of imputation.
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2017
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines Kant’s objection to the ontological argument, based on the thesis Kant intr... more This chapter examines Kant’s objection to the ontological argument, based on the thesis Kant introduces in The Only Possible Argument (1763), “Existence is not a predicate or determination of a thing” (Ak. 2:72), which means that existence cannot be contained in the intension of the concept of any object. However, the historical novelty of Kant’s conception of existence does not lie in this negative thesis but in his two positive theses, “Existence is a predicate not so much of the thing itself as of the thought which one has of the thing” (OPA, Ak. 2:72), and “Existence is the absolute positing of a thing” (OPA, Ak. 2:73). These theses point to a radical discovery: existence is to be reinterpreted as a feature of conceptual representations of things and in reference to a cognitive subject. Kant’s later realization of the groundbreaking implications of this discovery will ground his revolution in modality.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter focuses on Kant’s account of the modal functions of judgments in the Critique of Pur... more This chapter focuses on Kant’s account of the modal functions of judgments in the Critique of Pure Reason. There are two current strands of interpreting this account. The first understands the modality of a given judgment in terms of the judger’s attitude toward its content, based on their epistemic or psychological states. The second understands it solely in terms of its location in a syllogistic context. On the alternative interpretation defended in this chapter, Kant construes the modalities of judgments as instantiating relative logical modalities and expressing logical coherence relations between a judgment and a set of background judgments. This interpretation not only fits well with Kant’s revolutionary program of redefining modality as a feature of the relation between the conceptual representations of things and the cognitive faculty of the judger, but also captures the formal-logical infrastructure of his account of real modality in the rest of the Critique.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines the development of Kant’s conception of modality in the period between The ... more This chapter examines the development of Kant’s conception of modality in the period between The Only Possible Argument (1763) and the Critique of Pure Reason (1781). From the mid-1760s on, Kant interprets his discovery that existence involves a relation to the cognitive faculty as more broadly applying to modality in general, and adopts the epistemological interpretation of the actualist principle. This shift plays an essential role in Kant’s realization of the need for a ‘critical turn’ in philosophy, which Kant first formulates in his 1772 letter to Herz in terms of the question of how to cognize that our pure concepts do indeed represent really possible objects. What problematizes this question is the actualist principle, epistemologically interpreted as stating that the cognition of actuality is a prerequisite of cognition of real possibility. Kant’s emerging revolution in modality is thus constitutive of his critical turn rather than a consequence of it.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines the way Kant’s revolutionary theory of modality radicalizes his critique of... more This chapter examines the way Kant’s revolutionary theory of modality radicalizes his critique of ontotheology in the Ideal of Pure Reason. First it shows how Kant’s downgrading of his own precritical ‘only possible argument’ from an objectively valid demonstration of the real necessity of the existence of God to a subjectively valid demonstration of the necessity of assuming the idea of such a being is due to his shift from an ontological to an epistemological interpretation of the actualist principle. Second, it argues that Kant’s refutation of the traditional ontological argument in the Ideal follows a multilayered strategy, consisting of a combination of two historical lines of objection, only the second of which presupposes his negative thesis that existence is not a real predicate, as well as an additional, third objection based on his further thesis that all existential judgments are synthetic, albeit in a peculiar sense.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter examines the prevalent conception of modality in German rationalist school, by looki... more This chapter examines the prevalent conception of modality in German rationalist school, by looking at the modal version of the ontological argument, propounded by Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten, and these figures’ accounts of modality in other metaphysical contexts. It disputes two claims of a common narrative concerning the school metaphysicians: (i) they were committed to logicism, according to which claims about possibility and necessity are exhaustively explained through formal-logical principles, while Kant introduced a real or metaphysical account of modality, involving extra-logical truth-makers of modal claims; (ii) they were committed to the view that existence is a real predicate or determination, which Kant strongly rejected. This chapter demonstrates that contrary to the common narrative, Leibniz and Wolff had robust conceptions of real possibility and necessity, and did not commit to the conception of existence as a distinct determination of things and even anticipated...
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This chapter reconstructs Kant’s revolutionary account of real modality as presented in the Schem... more This chapter reconstructs Kant’s revolutionary account of real modality as presented in the Schematism and the Postulates chapters of the Critique. Here we find his precritical theses on existence, both negative and positive, transform into a strong ‘peculiarity’ thesis about modal categories in general: “as a determination of the object they do not add to the concept to which they are ascribed in the least, but rather express only the relation to the faculty of cognition” (A219). Each of possibility, actuality, and necessity posits the conceptual representation of an object in a different relation to the background conditions of our empirical cognition of objects. Each such act of positing constitutes a peculiar, i.e. ‘subjective,’ type of synthetic judgment, where the intension of the subject-concept is not at all enlarged, but a relation with a distinct cognitive faculty (i.e. respectively, with understanding, perception, and reason) is added to it.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality, 2019
This chapter offers a general framework for reading ontotheology, according to which any version ... more This chapter offers a general framework for reading ontotheology, according to which any version of the ontological argument consists of two logical steps. First, it introduces existence into the concept of God in one way or another; second, it infers the existence of God from the concept of God and asserts identity between two distinct notions of God, viz. as the most real being and as the necessary being. With this framework in place, the chapter then examines the classical version of the ontological argument, introduced by St Anselm and popularized by Descartes. It demonstrates that while Kant’s primary objection, i.e. existence is not a real predicate, applies equally to both Anselm’s and Descartes’ arguments, Descartes importantly anticipates the actualist principle, i.e. facts about possibility must be grounded on facts about actuality, which will come to be a major insight in Kant’s theory of modality.
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality
This final chapter focuses on the two theses Kant introduces in §76 of the Critique of the Power ... more This final chapter focuses on the two theses Kant introduces in §76 of the Critique of the Power of Judgment: the epistemic thesis that while it is a necessary feature of our discursive understanding to distinguish between the merely possible and the actual, an intuitive or divine understanding would cognize only actual objects, and the metaphysical thesis that things in themselves do not have modal properties. Both theses are rooted in Kant’s revolutionary theory of modality. Modal categories express only the various ways in which the representations of objects are related to the cognitive subject, and thus do not signify anything in isolation from this representational relation. Modalization is thus an exclusive feature of a discursive mind to which representations of objects can be related in various ways, as opposed to an intuitive mind which would represent the whole of everything all at once and thus only in one way.
Kant demonstrates that we can have rational grounds for holding a belief in the existence of supe... more Kant demonstrates that we can have rational grounds for holding a belief in the existence of supersensible things that we can never know with certainty. I argue that at the basis of this accomplishment lies a hitherto neglected part of Kant\u27s philosophy: the novel approach Kant brings to the understanding of modalities (possibility, actuality, and necessity). This approach consists in defining modalities in terms of theoretical and practical relations between objects and the subject rather than the ways objects are. Until the mid1760\u27s, Kant\u27s views on modalities do not display a deep breakthrough from the prevalent conception in the school metaphysics, but rather a revisionist approach. Not yet opposed to conceiving modalities in ontological terms, Kant rejects only the inclusion of modalities as predicates in the concepts of things. Yet, from the mid1760\u27s onwards, we see in Kant a shift toward an understanding of modalities in more epistemological terms, as pertaining...
The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds
Despite his well-known critical restriction of human cognition to the domain of objects of sense,... more Despite his well-known critical restriction of human cognition to the domain of objects of sense, Kant also repeatedly asserts in his various Critical period texts that we can attain “practical cognition” and knowledge of the cardinal supersensible objects of traditional metaphysics, i.e., freedom, God, immortality or the afterlife (A796/B824; KpV 5:5; FM 20:295–300; KU §§88–91). Kant’s account of the structure and limits of theoretical cognition as well as whether there is a sense in which we can have any theoretical insight into the supersensible have attracted significant scholarly attention. Excellent work has also been done on Kant’s approach to the supersensible objects as articles of practical postulation and practical (rational) belief. Yet, Kant’s conception of practical cognition, both in general and with regard to the supersensible objects in particular, has not enjoyed a proportionate interest, perhaps because Kant’s use of the term “cognition” in this context is regarde...
Kant's Revolutionary Theory of Modality, 2019
This book offers a comprehensive study of Kant’s views on modal notions of possibility, actuality... more This book offers a comprehensive study of Kant’s views on modal notions of possibility, actuality or existence, and necessity. It aims to locate Kant’s views on these notions in their broader historical context, establish their continuity and transformation across Kant’s precritical and critical texts, and determine their role in the substance as well as the development of Kant’s philosophical project. It makes two overarching claims. First, Kant’s precritical views on modality, which appear in the context of his attempts to revise the ontological argument and are critical of the tradition only from within its prevailing paradigm of modality, develop into a revolutionary theory of modality in his critical period, radicalizing his critique of the ontotheological and rationalist metaphysical tradition. While the traditional paradigm construes modal notions as fundamental ontological predicates, expressing different modes or ways of being of things, Kant’s theory consists in redefining...
Kantian Review, 2014
Andrew Chignell recently proposed an original reconstruction of Kant's ‘Only Possible Argumen... more Andrew Chignell recently proposed an original reconstruction of Kant's ‘Only Possible Argument’ for the existence of God. Chignell claims that what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of Kant's proof, ‘real possibility must be grounded in actuality’, is the requirement that the predicates of a really possible thing must be ‘really harmonious’, i.e. compatible in an extra-logical or metaphysical sense. I take issue with Chignell's reconstruction. First, the pre-Critical Kant does not present ‘real harmony’ as a general condition of real possibility. Second, the real harmony requirement is not what motivates the ‘Grounding Premise’ of the proof. Instead, this premise is sufficiently motivated by what Chignell labels the ‘content’ requirement. Finally, Kant's downgrading of the proof in his Critical period is not based on a concern regarding the real harmony of the predicates of God, but on his Critical restrictions on cognition in general and modal cognition in particular.
European Journal of Philosophy, 2014
Ameriks' latest volume represents yet another major contribution to our understanding of Kant and... more Ameriks' latest volume represents yet another major contribution to our understanding of Kant and his place within the history of philosophy. 1 Ostensibly, Kant's Elliptical Path is a scholarly treatment of the development of Kant's thought throughout his career. It assuredly is that, but it is also much more, since it plumbs the depths of Kant's entire Critical project by revealing the crucial systematic roles of freedom, reason, and religion, and shows their relevance both for the course of post-Kantian German philosophy throughout the nineteenth century and for our philosophical interests and ambitions today. Along the way, we are treated to an unusually broad range of kinds of discussion: detailed interpretations of particular passages that can appear problematic or are often misunderstood, remarks about the linguistic nuances of German terms which can easily get lost in translation, helpful interpretive hypotheses regarding Kant's views on crucial points, and, of course, broader considerations of Kant's overall project and commitments. Ameriks' book comprises an introduction and then fifteen substantive chapters, which are divided into three parts. The introduction offers an innovative narrative of Kant's overall development that provides an indispensible context for each of the parts and chapters that follow. Its defining claim is that once Kant was 'turned around' by reading Rousseau in 1763-4, his basic views, e.g., about the primacy of practical reason and the importance of absolute (libertarian) freedom, morality, and certain religious beliefs (involving God and immortality), did not change fundamentally, even if later developments (such as Transcendental Idealism) proved to be 'ideal means [.. .] to fill out a systematic defense that allows for a return to his deepest pre-systematic beliefs' (p. 1). Crucial to Ameriks' understanding of Kant's development, however, is not only that Rousseau was important and that there is a basic continuity to some fundamental aspects of Kant's thought, points on which many (if not all) scholars agree, but also that there is an elliptical movement to Kant's career, with the 'heavens above' and the moral 'law within' serving as distinct foci, that precludes either a simple linear or purely circular movement, because of various (theoretical and practical) complications that take Kant further away from his starting point before he is able to return to it. Further, late in the book Ameriks uses the image of an elliptical path to put much of post-Kantian philosophy into context, including figures such as Reinhold, the German Idealists (Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel), the early German Romantics (Novalis, Hölderlin, and Schlegel), Nietzsche, and various contemporary philosophers (such as MacIntyre, Cavell, Taylor, and Frank). Ameriks' narrative is thus not restricted to Kant, but provides a useful perspective well beyond, one that he even takes to recommend a certain conception of hermeneutical philosophy today. The first part, on Kant's pre-Critical period, has a first chapter, 'Kant, Human Nature, and History after Rousseau,' which describes various ways in which Rousseau influenced
European Journal of Philosophy, 2013
Dialogue, 2020
The extant attempts in the literature to refute the greatest difficulty argument in the Parmenide... more The extant attempts in the literature to refute the greatest difficulty argument in the Parmenides have focused on denying the parallelism between the pros relations among Forms and those among particulars. However, these attempts are unsatisfactory, for the argument can reach its conclusion that we cannot know any Forms without relying on this parallelism. I argue that a more effective strategy is to deny the more essential premise that the knowledge-object relation is a pros relation. This premise is false because pros relations require definitional and ontological codependence between the relata, and the knowledge-object relation does not satisfy this reciprocity condition.
Journal of the History of Philosophy
Kantian Review
Kant states in §76 of the third Critique that the divine intuitive intellect would not represent ... more Kant states in §76 of the third Critique that the divine intuitive intellect would not represent modal distinctions. Kohl (2015) and Stang (2016) claim that this statement entails that noumena lack modal properties, which, in turn, conflicts with Kant’s attribution of contingency to human noumenal wills. They both propose resolutions to this conflict based on conjectures regarding how God might non-modally represent what our discursive intellects represent as modally determined. I argue that (i) these proposals fail; (ii) the viable resolution consists in recognizing that we modalize human noumenal wills as a merely regulative-practical principle in our judgements of imputation.
Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2017