Questions tagged [kant]
Immanuel Kant was a German Enlightenment philosopher.
5
votes
1answer
46 views
Aesthetically judging without concepts?
In the Second Moment of the Critique of Judgement, Kant writes about how the universality of the judgment of beauty is without concepts. I understand what he is doing here, but keep wondering whether ...
8
votes
1answer
70 views
Kant and the ornament
I am getting somewhat confused about Kant's stance about ornaments. In the Critique of Judgement, Kant seems to make a strict distinction between parergon (the add-ons to say cruely) and ergon (the ...
4
votes
2answers
66 views
Is ethics the primary purpose of Kant's philosophy?
My professor said that he believes the primary purpose behind Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is to respond to the empiricist view that morals are ultimately subjective.
He believes that the primary ...
5
votes
2answers
83 views
Does Kant think it's okay to lie to kids?
If Kant doesn't believe that kids are completely rational then would he say that it is okay to tell them a white lie?
1
vote
0answers
12 views
Kant and Theodicy
I am looking for some general overview on Immanuel Kant's theodicy.
I need resources, such as an SEP page, on the topic of Kant's theodicy.
[1] Did Kant discuss theodicy at all?
[2] What possible ...
3
votes
1answer
33 views
How does the phenomenon of moral luck pose a problem for Kantian ethical theories?
I was reading the paper "Moral luck" by Thomas Nagel which left me rather confused. In the paper, he describes four different kinds of moral luck:: constitutive luck, resultant luck, circumstantial ...
2
votes
1answer
66 views
Kant: 7 + 5 = 12 and concepts
I have already read several posts on this topic but I have some other questions.
According to Kant,
5 + 7 = 12
is synthetic a priori judgement. I want to know what the judgement really is. Is it ...
2
votes
1answer
64 views
How similar are Kantian Ethics to Virtue Ethics?
I am writing an essay for the question 'Critically evaluate the view that ethics should be more concerned with who you are than what you do'.
I have done some of Kant's ethics and some virtue ethics,...
1
vote
1answer
68 views
What would Kant do in this situation of a drowning child in the pond? [closed]
Suppose you see a drowning child in a pond and there is no one else around except you. You want to save the child, but you know you cannot swim. And there is no other means other than swimming in the ...
2
votes
0answers
33 views
Superiority of the concept as opposed to synthetic apperception
In The Foundations of Arithmetic (§ 48, p. 61), after maintaining that statements of numbers are indeed statements of fact, Frege asserts that:
The concept has a power of collecting together far ...
2
votes
1answer
86 views
Is globalization immoral? [closed]
My question pertains to when Morality becomes so defined and homogenous to the entire population if this isn’t immoral to the diversities that it umbrellas. In a world that now demands membership as ...
6
votes
3answers
100 views
Does a priori knowledge exist and can we prove objectivity through it?
My friend and I got into an argument around Kant's categorical imperative. Eventually, ignoring all of that rigmarole, he argued that a priori knowledge was subjective. Things like 4 > 3 don't have to ...
2
votes
1answer
96 views
Does it matter if we never achieve the results of our being good? [closed]
I mean "good" broadly speaking. That could mean anything. It seems like we are bombarded with people who live, at least overtly, moral lives but who are somehow fake. The word "result" reminds me of ...
2
votes
0answers
66 views
Schopenauer's critique of Kant: the distinction between knowledge of perception from abstract knowledge
I am reading "The World as Will and Representation" by Arthur Schopenhauer (Norman, J., Welchman, A., & Janaway, C. (Eds.). (2010). Schopenhauer: 'The World as Will and Representation'). In the ...
3
votes
1answer
51 views
Why did Hegel consider Kant's definition of marriage crude and shameful?
Why did Hegel* consider Kant's definition of marriage crude and shameful?
Kant** defines marriage as:
the union between two persons of opposite sex with a view to the lifelong reciprocal ...
5
votes
1answer
215 views
How does autonomy as defined by Kant relate to respect for others?
I understand what Autonomy means. However, I fail to understand how it maps on to respect for others.
1
vote
1answer
26 views
What is the relationship between Autonomy and Virtue for Kant?
I understand autonomy to me decisions made through reasons and Kant defines virtue as “the moral strength of a human being's will in fulfilling his duty”.
How is autonomy related to virtue?
3
votes
1answer
45 views
How is Kantian's Universality Formulation identical to his Humanity Formulation (Principle of Ends)?
Kant states that the humanity formulation was substantively identical with his first formulation of the categorical imperative (universal law of nature), but I do not see how he came to that ...
0
votes
0answers
57 views
Explain kant's conception of causality as an a priori category prescribed by the understanding to all possible objects of experience?
How does causality relate to the a priori and experience? I am having trouble connecting the dots. Any help would be great!
6
votes
2answers
265 views
Why does Russell's writing suggest that Kant was right about mathematics being synthetic a priori?
As I was reading "The problems of philosophy" by Bertrand Russell I got the impression that Kant was right and Hume was wrong in the case of a priori knowledge of synthetic mathematic nature and I'm ...
3
votes
1answer
45 views
In the Critique of Pure Reason, what is the difference between “schema” and “synthesis”?
I don't understand the difference between Schema and Synthesis. I have read the First Critique and I see Kant is using the words "schema" and "synthesis" as "intermediate" between intuitions and ...
4
votes
1answer
72 views
What exactly is Kant's argument for the universality of judgements of beauty?
Why am I allowed to demand that everyone agree with me when it comes to judgement of beauty?
I see two places in the critique where Kant answers this:
The first place is in section 6 (second moment)...
2
votes
1answer
29 views
First Critique Edition with both Akademie numbers and A/B numbers?
Most of the editions of the first Critique give the A/B numbers for the text, which is very useful. But some editions, especially the online edition of the Akademie edition of Kant use the Akademie ...
0
votes
1answer
81 views
Is it an issue to not have read major works when going into Philosophy graduate school (history of ideas)
I am currently doing an undergraduate degree in philosophy and I want to study history of ideas in graduate school. I'm planning to apply to programs in UK/Europe or history of ideas focused ...
0
votes
0answers
47 views
What did Kant think about The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity?
In 1777, Joseph Priestley wrote a major philosophical work called The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, and according to Wikipedia:
Philosophical Necessity influenced the 19th-century ...
2
votes
3answers
131 views
Is it possible to make sense of reality that is independent 'our understanding'
Kant has a famous quote;
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind
This suggests we can't understand anything without (independently of) the use of concepts, which ...
1
vote
1answer
134 views
What (who) to read before reading Kant
I am going to be taking an undergraduate course with a prof who marks quite severely. She mentioned that the course expects a working knowledge of Early Modern Philosophy, and specifically to read the ...
3
votes
4answers
118 views
What good is it to ground morality?
What good is it to ground morality? It's a somewhat bad question. Philosophers like proving things. But, specifically, does it make me more moral if I can ground my moral values?
What generated the ...
2
votes
2answers
98 views
Categorical imperative defeating division of labor?
Suppose the following maxim.
Goal: satisfy basic needs: food, water, sleep, etc.
Method: having a specialization, getting money for work, spend money to satisfy basic needs.
Conditions: capitalism, ...
-1
votes
1answer
59 views
Can “knowledge” only be synthetic according to Kant?
I have read secondary sources claiming that Kant conceives of knowledge as a strictly synthetic affair, and that analytic judgments are thus not knowledge. This is relatively consistent with what Kant ...
11
votes
2answers
614 views
Where did Kant say that “happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination”?
Can somebody tell me where this famous quote comes from?
I mean in which book and on which page. I want to find this in German. If someone can provide the quote in German the way Kant wrote it, I ...
2
votes
0answers
28 views
Would the opacity of everyday motivations seriously undermine Kantian CI?
Would the opacity of everyday motivations seriously undermine Kantian categorical imperative (CI)?
I tend not to use the CI when deciding what is moral, and partly because I'm not sure I know what my ...
1
vote
0answers
30 views
Account of Priori knowledge in Critique of Reason
As I understand, a priori statements are propositions that are conceived independently of one's experience.
However, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that
The sensible world, or ...
1
vote
1answer
51 views
“Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics” - any future metaphysics except Kant's?
The title to one of Kant's most famous books is "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science", where he presents the outlines of his metaphysical theory ...
4
votes
1answer
61 views
Kant's tables, were they ever extended?
Were Kant's tables of judgements and categories ever extended beyond the 12 sub-classes by anyone?
Kant himself wrote the project would be easy so he didn't bother to extend to sub-sub-categories or -...
2
votes
1answer
90 views
Universalizability reductio ad absurdum
My 13-year-old son is attending philosophy camp and one of his homework assignments is to come up with some objections to Kantianism. In a previous conversations I suggested a ridiculous counter-...
4
votes
1answer
108 views
Are Hume's 'impressions' Kant's 'phenomena'?
Why do some philosophers like Carl Stumpf or Immanuel Kant use the word 'Phenomena', whereas British empiricist philosophers, like Locke and Hume, or even Kant, use the word 'Impressions'?
2
votes
1answer
278 views
How does Descartes' “cogito, ergo sum” affect Hume's experienced based epistemology and Kant's transcendental philosophy?
My attempts so far:
Descartes, being a rationalist, used "cogito, ergo sum" to lead to
the concept of innate ideas.
Hume, being a radical empiricist, believed in experience based
epistemology.
Kant ...
0
votes
0answers
41 views
Does Kant consider extendedness metaphysically (analytic) a priori?
In Kant's famous division between a priori vs a postriori, and synthetic vs analytic, Kant's example for a priori analytic proposition is:
All bodies are extended.
Without immediately delving ...
0
votes
0answers
84 views
The analytic a priori
Generally, the analytic a priori according to Kant is taken to be empty, tautological, unremarkable. The stock example is 'all bachelors are unmarried' or 'all triangles have three sides,' in other ...
5
votes
2answers
119 views
Is Kant's noumenon very small or very big?
I've not read any full chapters on Kant, and even less of his work. Am just familiar with the idea that, for Kant, things as they really are in themselves, noumenal reality, is unknowable. I was just ...
7
votes
1answer
136 views
The Moral Law and the Categorical Imperative in Kant
In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant begins his task by developing, through analysis of ordinary moral concepts, a theory of the 'supreme principle of morals,' the criteria for a ...
2
votes
1answer
150 views
Are propositions in mathematics synthetic or analytic?
I'm reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and I understand that he thought that "Mathematical Judgements are all synthetic". I would like to know where does this debate lies or if it is of interest ...
1
vote
2answers
166 views
What is the use of analytic propositions?
[Note: I'm using Kant's terms.]
Analytic proposition, for example "all bodies are extended", or "a=a", seems like an unhelpful type of proposition (contra to the synthetic a priori and a postriori ...
1
vote
1answer
167 views
Is Reality an intersection of Incompatible Ontologies?
Empiricists do not ask questions about the ontological status of mathematical or logical structures. Idealists don't explain how Ideas are developed, or how technological advancement in general takes ...
0
votes
0answers
56 views
Utilitarian Morality vs Kantian Morality
Does Utilitarian or Kantian Morality Approve :
1) Capital Punishment
2) Use of torture in interrogation of known terrorists
5
votes
2answers
140 views
Can a Kantian bluff in poker?
Kantians aren't allowed to lie---if it were a universal law of nature that everyone lied all the time, no communication would be possible at all, no words would have meaning, and lying itself would ...
1
vote
0answers
37 views
Is Kant's postulate of the existence of God a metaethical assumption?
Also, I would like to get some bibliographical reference about Kantian metaethics.
1
vote
1answer
161 views
How does Kant actually resolve the free will / empirical causality contradiction? [duplicate]
I'm reading through the Critique of Pure Reason and I'm stuck on the section Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality of the derivation of occurrences in the world from their causes and ...
4
votes
2answers
130 views
What was the popular moral philosophy at the time when Kant lived?
On Wikipedia it is said:
In Section II, Kant starts from scratch and attempts to move from popular moral philosophy to a metaphysics of morals.
Therefore, there was some kind of popular moral ...
