A Critical Analysis of Immanuel Kant's Notion of Freedom (original) (raw)

Freedom on This and the Other Side of Kant Unabridged August 2019

represent a tendency to trace the "archaeology" of the notion of freedom either to G.W.F. Hegel's Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts 4 or to Isaiah Berlin's "Two Concepts of Liberty. 5 " Without claiming to be an exhaustive investigation of the discussion of freedom since or prior to Immanuel Kant, this paper proposes, however, that the meaning of freedom since Kant has for all intents and purposes overlooked the tradition of autonomous freedom prior to Kant that stems from Pico della Mirandola and influenced Leibniz, Sulzer, and Tetens-all of whom shaped Kant's understanding of freedom. 1 Many thanks to James Cochrane for the careful reading and helpful suggestions for improving an earlier draft of this paper! All errors, of course, are my mistakes.

Freedom Immediately after Kant

European Journal of Philosophy, 2019

Kant's effort to defend the coexistence of transcendental freedom and natural necessity is one of the crowning achievements of the first Critique. Yet by identifying the will with practical reason in his moral philosophy, he lent support to the view that the moral law is the causal law of a free will-the result of which, as Reinhold argued, left immoral action impossible. However, Reinhold's attempt to separate the will from practical reason generated difficulties of its own, which Maimon was quick to point out. By identifying freedom with indifferent choice, Maimon argued, Reinhold had no resources to explain why a free will acts at all. My aim in this article is to show how Fichte's theory of freedom seeks to reconcile these two commitments: The key lies in what I call Fichte's Genetic Model, according to which indifferent choice is the original condition of the will, but a condition we must actively overcome.

Kant and the creation of freedom: a response to Terry Godlove

In his review of my book, Terry Godlove raises some robust objections to the exegesis of Kant that I present in my recent book, Kant and the Creation of Freedom: a Theological Problem (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). I respond to these criticisms in this article. Properly to locate Godlove's exegetical objections, I dedicate the first section to setting out the arc of the argument I trace. I then set out and treat in turn Godlove's main objections to my exegesis: that it depends upon an interpretation of transcendental idealism which makes the doctrine 'flatly inconsistent and probably just silly'; that I neglect the most plausible account interpretation of Kant's various statements about transcendental idealism; and that I 'pick and choose' supporting texts too narrowly, leading to an unbalanced presentation, which is too convenient to my thesis. I conclude with some general methodological reflections— stimulated by Godlove, but not aimed at him—about how historical philosophical texts are often treated. I express some anxieties about the principle of charity that underlies much current exegesis, and 'rational reconstruction' of historical texts, and I propose a case for what might be called 'creative decomposition' (not of the text, but of the self).

Bolstering the Keystone: Kant on the Incomprehensibility of Freedom

Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 2020

In this paper, I give an explanation and defense of Kant's claim that we cannot comprehend how freedom is possible. I suggest that this is a significant point that has been underappreciated in the secondary literature. My conclusion has a variety of implications both for Kant scholars and for those interested in Kantian ideas more generally. Most notably, if Kant is right that there are principled reasons why freedom is beyond our comprehension, then this would lift an undesirable explanatory burden off the shoulders of his ethical and metaethical views. It would be a boon for Kantians if they could ground their lofty claims about the unique, elevated status of rational agency without committing to an implausible view of libertarian freedom. On the negative side, there are certain debates concerning moral motivation and transcendental idealism that might have to change in response to Kant's claims about the incomprehensibility of freedom.