James Scott Johnston

James Scott Johnston's incisive study draws on a holistic reading of Kant: one that views him as developing and testing a complete system (theoretical, practical, historical and anthropological) with education as a vital component. As such, the book begins with an extensive overview of Kant's chief theoretical work (the Critique of Pure Reason), and from that overview distils crucial discussions (the role of practical reason; the claims of the third antinomy) for his moral theory. An extended discussion of Kant's moral and political theories and the place of pedagogy in it follow, with attention to all of Kant's important moral works as well as his chief religious work, Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason. A discussion of culture and character follows, chiefly through a discussion of Kant's Critique of the Power of Judgment and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Standpoint, together with certain lectures and published essays on history and politics. Finally, an extensive discussion of Kant's published works on education, together with only recently published letters and announcements (in English), is provided. This culminates in Johnston's estimation of what a Kantian education, systematically conceived, might look like: an education that is attentive to theoretical, moral, cultural-historical, and pedagogic domains of Kant's thinking.

In this article I examine Dewey's critique of Kant in light of recent interpretations of Dewey's early works, as well as of his 1915 work, German Philosophy and Politics. My aim is to bring the earlier criticisms of Kant in line with the later ones. I make three claims in this paper: first, that Dewey's critique of Kant was indebted to Hegel as much as to the neo-Hegelians; second, that there is a continuous thread between the early criticisms and the later ones, as represented by German Philosophy and Politics; third, that Dewey's critique of Kant portrays Kant as more of a transitional philosopher, one wedded to experience over and against absolute idealism, than is commonly recognized.

My task in this paper is to demonstrate, contra Nel Noddings, that Kantian ethics does not have an expectation of treating those closest to one the same as one would a stranger. In fact, Kantian ethics has what I would consider a robust statement of how it is that those around us come to figure prominently in the development of one's ethics. To push the point even further, I argue that Kantian ethics has an even stronger claim to treating those closest to oneself as imperative than Noddings and sentiment-based ethical theory in general, proposes.