Questions tagged [kant]
Immanuel Kant was a German Enlightenment philosopher.
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For Kant, why does temporal synthesis need to happen?
Taking our experience of time... this is how I understand what Kant is saying.
There's this non-temporal manifold of sensation. I am picturing it like the pages of a flipbook. Images in succession ...
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A concept of strong free will that's able to be represented in category theory?
Are there any such things as category theories where the category is an indeterminist/postdeterminist form of free will? Let's say, maybe it is a category where each object is an object of choice, ...
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Where does the type of practical reason fit into Kant's layered terminology?
At one point in the first Critique, Kant shoots off this list of stipulative definitions:
We are in no want of words to denominate adequately every mode of representation, without the necessity of ...
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What did Kant have to say about atomism?
I've been trying to understand whether on not Kant accepts the atomic model (that matter is composed of smallest pieces) based on his writings in Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.
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Obligations to think well: are they to myself or for others?
Kant calls “the first command of all duties to oneself” – namely,
self-knowledge. Kant is concerned here not with knowing one’s
personality type, personal history, or potential talents. His concern
is ...
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Does Kant read the is/ought question in a way different from the "normal" reading?
First, to quote Hume:
In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the ...
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Is Kant speaking "in his own voice" or more "synoptically" in the casuistical sections of the Doctrine of Virtue?
Sometimes Kant is said to have held antiquated or at least weird views (and worse, to be honest) about various subjects, including things like certain sexual activities or perhaps more bizarre ...
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Having trouble understanding "not possible without" vs. "necessary for"
At face value for me these don't mean the same thing but I'm struggling to find if they are separate concepts. Are there examples where they differ? Are they or aren't they separate ideas? I can't ...
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Does (possibly) non-humans have a priori knowledge?
In the article “Absolute provability and the safe knowledge of axioms” by Timothy Williams
http://media.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/assets/pdf_file/0004/35338/provabilityfinal.pdf
The author notes
“However, ...
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What is the distinction between Gegenstand and Objekt?
In German philosophy (particularly Kant and Husserl), the concepts Gegenstand and Objekt (and their conjugations Gegenständlichkeit and Objektivität) are used to describe very different things while ...
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Help reconstructing argument
I saw the following argument in Paul Guyer's text "Kant" (Routledge). I am trying to reconstruct it, yet am not sure the of the form of the argument. Can anyone provide help?
If whenever ...
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Would the cofinitude relation be a more realistic parameter than the exclusivity one, in the formulation of the CI?
Since I read Gödel, Escher, Bach eleven years ago, in 2011, I figured that 2022 would be a poetic time for me to reread it. (If you’ve read the book, you should know what I mean, haha!) While I was ...
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Kant's transcendental apperception and 'ipseity' in phenomenology
In the writings of various phenomenologists, the concept of 'ipseity' is widely discussed. As far as I can make out from various sources (e.g. Zahavi, Subjectivity and Selfhood, esp. chapter 5), ...
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Kant's Critique of pure reason vs Aristotle's perfect spheres
The detailed reason in Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” is sometimes difficult to follow. I wonder if this is relevant:
According to Aristotle, the circles and the spheres are a perfect figures and ...
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What exactly does G. E. Schulze's critique of Kant's Thing-in-itself mean?
As I understood the Ding-an-Sich it is an unknowable object. All that we can perceive of it is its appearance. Schulze states that Kant said in his formulation of the thing-in-itself that it cannot ...
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Where did Kant's headstone go? [closed]
I recently attended a lecture on Kant where the lecturer told us he visited Kant's grave a few years back. Apparently the grave is still there in Königsberg, but the headstone was nowhere to be found. ...
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Misconception surrounding Kant's categorical imperative?
It is widely known that Kant's first formulation of the categorical imperative, in his Metaphysics of Ethics, is as shown:
Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that ...
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Confusion surrounding Kant's argument from geometry (Transcendental exposition of the concept of space)
In Max Muller's translation of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states, in "Transcendental exposition of the concept of space", that:
Space must originally be an intuition; for from a mere ...
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Non-Kantian answers to the Kantian question of representation
In his book “Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy” Robert Hanna says that the central concern of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is to answer the question of “how can the same judgment be at ...
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What is Quid Juris?
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant makes the famous distinction between quid facti and quid juris.
Can someone please explain to me the difference between the two? Also what is the ...
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What sort of logical relationship exists in Kant's idealism?
Space, time, and the categories are a priori intuitions/concepts of the mind. This entails the world we perceive is a world of mere appearance. Yet, I think I can also claim that the world being an ...
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Given that, according to Kant we can only know appearances, how can he claim that space and time are not determinations of things in themselves?
Given that Kant repeatedly stresses that we only have knowledge of appearances, and of their a priori conditions of possibility, with what right can Kant go on to assert that space and time can not be ...
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Kantian things in themselves not in space or time. How do we locate them?
I have one nagging question about things in themselves being outside of space and time. How do we locate objects in space and time? Why are some objects in our vicinity and others far away? The ...
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Why does Kant say that 'something possible is actual' is the same as 'much is possible that is not actual'?
Between B283-284 of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant says that 'something possible is actual' "seems to mean as much as" saying 'much is possible that is not actual'. It's been a while since ...
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In the Doctrine of Virtue, does Kant accidentally encode a solution to the redemption problem from his theory of radical evil?
The set-up. Having identified original sin as an inversion of our maxims vs. their intended order of priority, Kant goes on to note that the nature of radical evil makes it empirically impossible to ...
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Does the Fifth Antinomy involve the indefinite/infinite distinction, just like the theoretical antinomies do?
The Fifth Antinomy (FA) is the one from the second Critique, the one concerning the balance/harmony of virtue and happiness. As far as what I remember Kant saying goes, the FA doesn't pertain directly ...
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Can Kant's objective or universal judgments be subjective (in the ordinary sense)?
What inspired this question is Prolegomena §18, particularly this passage:
All of our judgments are at first mere judgments of perception; they
hold only for us, i.e., for our subject, and only ...
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Which of these distinctions in modal terms overlap each other (if any)?
Ori Simchen is an author who has published work on analysis of a difference (sustainable or not) between general and particular possibilities. Something is particularly possible when it is possible &...
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What is the relationship between Kant's idea of the "transcendental grounds of experience" and his " transcendental theory of cognition"
So I understand the former as simply being what must be the case for experience to be possible (the a priori forms), yet I am not so sure of the latter. Does it simply mean that an object always has ...
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Does Kant implicitly (or maybe even explicitly?) hold to a propositional-operator gloss of aesthetics?
Now sometimes it is said that knowledge is primarily knowledge-that, i.e. some elementary epistemic operator is a propositional operator/"attitude report". Or at least there is an invoked ...
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Do noumena exist only if we are modal nihilists?
At face value, it's difficult to translate the two discussions/terms, but is the "nothingness" of noumenon an empty world? Do noumenon exist only with modal nihilism,
the view that there is ...
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We-intentions and the kingdom-of-ends version of the categorical imperative
One of Allen Wood's most finely ground axes was his contention that, notwithstanding certain translations/interpretations of Kant's writings on categorical imperatives, the three primary formulations ...
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Kant's philosophy for analytic philosophers
Can someone explain the role of Kant's philosophy in analytic philosophy?
As an example, is the noumenon/phenomenon-distinction important for analytic philosophers? When we see a green tree, is the ...
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Kant and activities that are harmless only if few people perform them (not all people)
I'm trying to study Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and I have a question whose answer I couldn't find through google, perhaps because I'm misinterpreting something.
Wouldn't living as an ...
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Is it possible to do the right thing in the "wrong way"?
Definitions. Let the initial "objects" of moral judgment be moral problems. I don't want to say practical problems insofar as instrumental reasoning can be seen as solving practical problems ...
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What's the Kantian response to the idea of martyrdom?
What's the Kantian response to the idea of martyrdom? Say, for example, that a town is under a curse of misfortune and demise, but one of the shamans casts a spell on a child who's meant to experience ...
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Is Hume talking about noumena in section 12 of the Enquiry?
So I'm almost done with the Enquiry and came across something in this section that reminded me of Kant's phenomena and noumena. If this is the case, I'm just curious, why hadn't anyone made this ...
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Kant's intuition/concept distinction
I have a few interconnected questions related to Kant's terminology. I think I understand the basic idea of Kant's dichotomy between intuitions and concepts, but the details are very confusing. My ...
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Are categorical imperatives employed in non-Kantian ethical theories?
Are categorical imperatives employed in non-Kantian ethical theories?
For example, consider utilitarianism's principle "act so that the overall happiness is maximised". Is this not a ...
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Kant's categorical imperative and casual sex. Why does casual sex necessarily involve using someone as a mere means?
I am writing a paper on Kant's principle and test of universalizability. It seems that the test can allow for morally permissible casual sex (i.e., sex outside the Kantian marriage), e.g., consider ...
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Does Kant implicitly commit the paralogism of pure reason when saying that to have a representation it is necessary to accompany it with 'I think'?
In Caygill's Kant Dictionary entry of 'I Think' there is this part:
Kant further claims that 'I think' is the necessary vehicle/form/accompaniment of experience: to have a representation it is ...
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A "combining logic" moment in Kant
In "Ethical Theories and Moral Guidance", Pekka Väyrynen goes over proposals and arguments concerning the knowability of moral claims. Kant's relevant proposal (in the second Critique) is:
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Is "there are synthetic a priori truths" a synthetic a priori truth?
Disregarding any modern objections to the division of synthetic/analytic and a priori/a posteriori, how would one argue for or against this claim, using Kant's definitions and assumptions?
Also, is ...
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What does Kant refer to when writing about "dreaming (träumenden) idealism" and "visionary (schwärmenden) idealism"?
In Note III to §13 of the Prolegomena, Kant seems to be answering some critics that have compared his transcendental idealism to the philosophies of Descartes (at least the skeptical part of it) and ...
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In Kant, what would happen if singular objects that we perceive in space didn't necessarily have the spatial properties that we perceive them to have?
In Paul Guyer's Kant, section "Space and Time: the pure forms of sensible intuition", Guyer argues that "Kant’s argument for transcendental idealism is incomplete."
For that, he ...
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Kant's Prolegomena Note I - Geometry being an objective representation of nature
I'm trying to understand this part of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Note I to "How is pure mathematics possible?":
It would be completely different if the senses had to ...
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On Kant's third antinomy (CPR)
The thesis of Kant's third antinomy is based on the fact that, if the antithesis was true (i.e. there is no causality through freedom and thus only causality by natural laws) then, for any given ...
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Kant's Prolegomena §13 - triangle example argument
In Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant argues that space (and time) are not qualities of objects, but a priori intuitions that allow the concepts of objects in our minds.
To argue in favor of ...
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Why is the argument from synthetic a priori cognition to the subjectivity of what is cognized independent of the "appearance" premise?
In Paul Guyer's Kant, section "A Life in Work", the author claims this:
this argument from synthetic a priori cognition to the subjectivity of what is cognized is independent of the general ...
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Examples of "a priori knowledge" in Kant
What are some good examples of a priori knowledge that must exist independent of experience and transcend it? How can we be certain that such is indeed a priori?
The example Kant mentions in the ...
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