Questions tagged [kant]
Immanuel Kant was a German Enlightenment philosopher.
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What would Kant do when two categorical imperatives conflict? Could he ever justify lying?
Suppose a German SS officer knocked on my door, asking me whether I had any Jews. And suppose further that I had two Jews in a secret compartment in the attic that he'd never be able to find. ...
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Why aren't pure apperception and empirical apperception structurally identical, even though they are functionally identical in Kant's Anthropology?
I can't be the only one who finds this strange. Section 7 of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Perspective, entitled "On Sensibility in contrast to understanding", reads as follows:
In regard ...
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Is it ethical to convince someone to get vaccinated?
I'm currently writing about the ethics of vaccinations, and I have two long-standing concerns about the matter. "Is refusing vaccination a morally justifiable position?" will be my question. ...
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Is there a parallel between Hegelian "essence" and Kantian "concept"?
I think I've found a paralelism between these two notions, at least to some extent. For Kant defines (in Logic, I, I, §1, also translated) concept as "an universal representation"
Every ...
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What was Kant's view on lies by omission?
I was going to ask this question as a comment in response to @Chad's answer to What would Kant do when two categorical imperatives conflict? Could he ever justify lying?, however I figured it merits ...
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Why were Kant's categories used in the mathematical category theory?
I am curious exactly how mathematical categories were inspired by Kant's categories. The SEP article on category theory says:
In order to give a general definition of the [natural transformation], ...
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What are examples of analytic a posteriori knowledge?
There is the analytic/synthetic distinction and the a priori/a posteriori distinction. These two distinctions form four types of knowledge:
analytic a priori
synthetic a priori
analytic a posteriori
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What did Kant say on the invention of new terms?
I remember I once read in Kant's "Kritik der Reinen Vernunft" about the tendency to come up with or invent new terms/words, about which he was quite "critical" (pun intended). I need the exact quote, ...
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Are we born with Kantian Categories?
Following this question; given that Kantian Categories are required to sythesise Concepts and for the conditions of experience; does this mean that we are born with them?
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Can we fit non-euclidean geometry into Kant's theory?
If one assumes that the geometry of pure intuition is something other than Euclidean, how does that damage anything in the Critique?
I mean can we still have a grasp of space-time both as an ...
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Why does Popper think there are no a priori synthetic statements?
Lately I´ve been reading Poppers "Logic of Scientific Discovery" and I am especially interested in his critics of induction as a scientific method. When he trys to show that a principle of induction ...
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How did Kant define knowledge?
A recent question about the Plato's formula K=JTB (knowledge is justified true belief) made me curious as to what Kant thought on the matter. In the prefaces and the Introduction to the first Critique ...
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How does Kant assert existence of the noumena, if indeed he does?
According to Kant the thing-in-itself or noumena is strictly hidden from us and phenomena are conditioned by the categories of the mind such as time, space, causality amongst others. These categories ...
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A Neo-Kantian View on Causality?
Quantum non-determinism seems incompatible with Kant’s defense of causality in his Second Analogy.
Stephen R. Palmquist however provides an interesting and appealing case against this supposition, ...
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In what fundamental ways, if any, does Husserl break with Kant?
I've read only slim secondary works on Husserl some time ago, and recently started "The Crisis in the European Sciences." So far, the framework seems faithfully Kantian. Husserl, for example, ...
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Was Kant anticipating Gödel's incompleteness in his antinomies?
Kant's attempts to prove that there's a limit to pure reason based on the existence of antinomies, i.e. pairs of propositions where each one is rational, but the propositions contradict each other. ...
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What was the impact of the discovery of non-euclidean geometry on Kantian thought?
This is mainly a historical question. In Gary Hatfields introduction to Kants Prologomena, he says:
After the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry, Kant’s claims for the synthetic a priori status of ...
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Deontology: Perfect vs. Imperfect Duties
I have a question regarding Kant's deontological Maxim of both Perfect and Imperfect duties.
What I know about them is that Perfect duties require a person to perform a certain "action" all the time, ...
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Are the first and second forms of the categorical imperative actually equivalent?
I will put aside any question of possible imprecision of the formulations, I will assume that the Kant's intentions can be understood intuitively reasonably precisely.
Kant gives two forms of the ...
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What gives the Categorical Imperative moral weight?
After reading The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, I'm still unsure why human beings have a duty to obey the Categorical Imperative. I understand Kant's argument why a rational will ...
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Is there a connection between Kants thought & the observer-dependent interpretation of quantum mechanics?
Kants copernican revolution placed the observer squarely back into universe. The universe wasn't just an objective reality out there, but also entangled up in our own ways of knowing and perceiving at ...
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A companion or guide to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Which companion, or guide, would you recommend to someone trying to read and understand the original work, The Critique of Pure Reason? Why?
I'm inclined towards these two, The Cambridge Companion to ...
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Identifying three kinds of "unity" in Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"
After reading about transcendental Aesthetics and transcendental logic, I perceive three kinds of unity in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason:
Unity of properties of an object which is sensed through ...
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How does Kant's moral philosophy define "goodness" and evaluate the moral worth?
Philosophy.SE, this is my first time being here, hence please pardon my inexperience of phrasing the question.
I was discussing the moral philosophy of Kant vs the moral philosophy of the Christian ...
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What does Kant mean by "Existence is not a predicate"?
What does Kant mean by "Existence is not a predicate"?
How does that invalidate the ontological arguments? and how can he show that it's not a predicate?
By predicate, I think he means a "property"...
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What is Kant's effect on modern culture, beyond philosophy?
It is fairly easy to argue that the ideas of the most notable philosophers in history (those whose names are familiar to laymen) have had effects on society beyond just their influence on other ...
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Which of Kant's writings would be a good introduction to his work?
I've been planning to read some of Kant's work for a while, but have no idea where to start. Which of his writings would be a good initial introduction to his philosophical views?
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What was Kant's argument for absolute space from a single hand being necessarily either left or right?
In their book "Von Glückzahl bis Geheimzahl" Christian Hesse and Karsten Schwanke write:
As far as the absoluteness of space is concerned, Kant gave the
so-called argument from the first ...
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How can Hegel call philosophy a science?
At the tail end of Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason Gardner discusses Kant's influence on his successors. He claims---and I'm paraphrasing here---Hegel wanted his metaphysics to be scientific, i.e....
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Why do philosophy of mind courses tend to bypass Kant?
All of the philosophy of mind courses I've seen seem to follow a basic pattern:
Start with Descartes and substance dualism
Jump to the 20th century and discuss behaviorism, functionalism, identity ...
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A contradiction in Kant's Universalizability Principle
I figured a contradiction in Kant's Universalizability principle, but I'm very surprised that it was so easy to prove that wrong, so I think that I might be wrong somewhere.
Let us first begin with a ...
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Moral Duty and Happiness: Are Both Achievable?
I have studied a little Philosophy and done a lot of thinking about moral duty, individualism and communities. I have come to the belief that it is one person's duty to assist the community event at ...
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What is "intuition" for Kant?
Intuition appears to be a relatively abstract concept, an incomplete cognition, and thus not directly experienceable. Kant says that all knowledge is constituted of two parts: reception of objects ...
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What is Kant's argument about the relationship between logic and reason?
At Wikipedia, I read:
Logic arose (see below) from a concern with correctness of argumentation. Modern logicians usually wish to ensure that logic studies just those arguments that arise from ...
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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 ...
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Did Kant come to believe that we have access to things-in-themselves after all?
Kant's position on things-in-themselves is often described Socratically, of them we know only one thing, that they are. However, in an old but apparently still popular history of philosophy book I ...
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What are the more complex/interesting examples of synthetic a priori statements?
The usual examples of synthetic a priori statements are – it seems at least since Kant:
"Nothing can be simultaneously red and green all over"
7 + 5 = 12 (or any other basic arithmetic statements).
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Is my understanding of the Transcendental Deduction correct?
I don't want to misinterpret this important philosophy of Kant, so I need to ask here whether my interpretations are in accordance with what is generally accepted.
Transcendental deduction implies ...
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How much is our understanding of Kant's Categorical Framework (published in German in 1781) obscured by translation and basic semantics?
Upon reading about and later researching [1] Kant's famous Categorical Framework, which is included as a key part of his classic Critique of Pure Reason (1781), I am struck by aspects that are quite ...
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Would Kant choose to sacrifice one life to save another?
If what I know about Kant is correct- watching the Harvard Justice series on Kant and some summaries of his work- then Kant believes in an absolute morality where everything is either right or wrong ...
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How would Kant have responded to Darwin's conception of human evolution?
How would Kant have responded to Darwin? That is, how would Kant's theory on the individual as being comprised of a unity of consciousness (in his critique on pure reason), with the theory of Darwin's ...
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Does Sartre imitate Kant in moral philosophy?
This is not originally my question but someone deleted their question while I was typing an answer to it. Consequently, I'm reposting the question and then my answer -- n.b., I've changed the title ...
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What are the counterexamples to Kant's argument that existence is not a predicate?
Kant argued that considering existence as a predicate is wrong. A predicate is a feature or characteristic of an object. But logically, existence adds nothing to the characteristics of that object, ...
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What would it mean for time not to be real?
According to Kant, time is a pure intuition, meaning (in part) that its existence depends on the nature of human cognition. According to this doctrine, Other beings could in principle not experience ...
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How does Darwin's Theory of Evolution complicate a reading of Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysic of Morals?
Darwins Theory of Evolution states that the evolution of life underlies processes like selection, reproduction and variation. I think, essentially he says, that the occurences of any ability or ...
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Who first proposed the homogeneity of physical law?
Its taken as granted that physical law does not vary in space and time; everywhere and at everytime it is the same.
When was this properly suggested? My first inclination would be Newtons physical ...
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Why shouldn't you lie to the future murderer of your children?
I've heard two versions of this anecdote about Kant's ethics:
You are at home and a man with an axe rings the bell. He asks where your children are so that he can kill them. It is, according to ...
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Did the Logical Positivists accept synthetic a priori knowledge?
My understanding of Logical Positivists is that, following Wittgenstein, they accepted only 2 types of proposition as meaningful:
Propositions based on formal logic (i.e. tautologies)
Empirically ...
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How does Kant respond to Hume's problem of induction?
It's generally well-known that Kant was responding, amongst other influences, to Hume's critique of the empirical method on purely logical grounds. One could consider him as a modern-day Pyrrhonniste.
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What are the similarities/differences between how Kant thinks 'noumenon' limits understanding compared to C.S. Peirce?
Kant stated in Critique of Pure Reason, pg. 273:
What our understanding acquires through this concept of a noumenon, is a negative extension; that is to say, understanding is not limited through ...
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