Susanne Bobzien

NOTE: The English translation is listed separately. ABSTRACT: A general interpretation and close textual analysis of Kant’s theory of the categories of freedom (or categories of practical reason) in his Critique of Practical Reason. My main concerns in the paper are the following: (1) I show that Kant’s categories of freedom have primarily three functions: as conditions of the possibility for actions (i) to be free, (ii) to be comprehensible as free and (iii) to be morally evaluated. (2) I show that for Kant actions, although qua theoretical objects they are always already constituted by means of the theoretical categories, qua practical objects (objects of reason in its practical use, i.e. objects qua possibly good or bad) they are constituted by means of the categories of freedom; and that it is only in this way that actions, qua phenomena, can be a consequence of freedom, and can be understood and evaluated as such. (3) Since Kant's presentation of his theory of the Categories of Freedom is extremely brief, Kant's parallel theory of the theoretical categories in his Critique of Pure Reason is used as a guide for the interpretation of the practical categories and their systematic relevance.

ABSTRACT: Recently a bold and admirable interpretation of Chrysippus’ position on the Sorites has been presented, suggesting that Chrysippus offered a solution to the Sorites by (i) taking an epistemicist position1 which (ii) made allowances for higher-order vagueness. In this paper I argue (i) that Chrysippus did not take an epistemicist position, but − if any − a non-epistemic one which denies truth-values to some cases in a Sorites-series, and (ii) that it is uncertain whether and how he made allowances for higher-order vagueness, but if he did, this was not grounded on an epistemicist position.

ABSTRACT: In contemporary discussions of freedom in Stoic philosophy we often encounter the following assumptions: (i) the Stoics discussed the problem of free will and determinis; (ii) since in Stoic philosophy freedom of the will is in the end just an illusion, the Stoics took the freedom of the sage as a substitute for it and as the only true freedom; (iii) in the c. 500 years of live Stoic philosophical debate, the Stoics were largely concerned with the same philosophical problems of freedom. In this paper I argue that (i) can be upheld only in a very restricted way; (ii) is altogether untenable; and regarding (iii), that, although there may have occurred little change in the Stoic philosophical position on freedom over the centuries, we can detect more than one transformation of the philosophical problems that were at the forefront of the discussion. Moreover, that all the conceptions and problems of freedom were linked to Stoic ethics, and that the differences between them become transparent when one considers their various roles in this context.

ABSTRACT: For the most part, this paper is not a philosophical paper in any strict sense. Rather, it focuses on the numerous exegetical puzzles in Sextus Empiricus’ two main passages on time (M X.l69-247 and PH III.l36-50), which, once sorted, help to explain how Sextus works and what the views are which he examines. Thus the paper provides an improved base from which to put more specifically philosophical questions to the text. The paper has two main sections, which can, by and large, be read independently. Each is about a topic which, to my knowledge, has so far not been treated in detail. The first section is concemed with the argument structures of the two main passages on time in Sextus, pointing out various irregularities in the overall argument in both passages, as well as parallels and differences, and asks the question what kinds of scepticism and sceptical methods we find in the various parts of each passage. The second section focuses on the doxographical accounts of time in the two passages: what they are, how they compare with surviving parallels, to what philosophers we can attribute those accounts for which Sextus himself provides either no, or more than one, possible ascriptions, and how Sextus treats the doxographical material. This discussion is inspired by the contributions Michael Frede offered on this topic the day before his untimely death

ABSTRACT: This paper is distinctly odd. It demonstrates what happens when an analytical philosopher and historian of philosophy tries their hand at the topic of reception. For a novice to this genre, it seemed advisable to start small. Rather than researching the reception of an author, book, chapter, section or paragraph, the focus of the paper is on one sentence: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 3.5, 1113b7-8. This sentence has markedly shaped scholarly and general opinion alike with regard to Aristotle’s theory of free will. In addition, it has taken on a curious life of its own. Part one of the paper examines the text itself. Part two explores its reception from antiquity to the present day, including present-day popular culture, later ancient, Byzantine, Arabic, Latin Medieval, Renaissance, Victorian and contemporary scholarship. There are some surprises on the way. (The paper also serves as an introduction to the reception of the Nicomachean Ethics from its beginnings to the present.)