Patrick Frierson

The Naked Self is a great book. It is good Kierkegaard scholarship and an excellent model of bringing history of philosophy to bear on contemporary metaphysics. After a stage-setting introduction, the book has eight main chapters and a conclusion including questions and answers from an imagined interlocutor. Stokes takes the reader from how “Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of self-experience may… be a useful resource for neo-Lockean metaphysics” to a sustained defense that “Kierkegaard himself is playing a different, and altogether more interesting, game”.Stokes’s boldness is evident in his title, which remains mysterious until late in the book. Stokes draws on two key passages...

Angaben zur Person Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was born in the Calvinist city-state of Geneva on June 28, 1712. The epoch-making moment” in Rousseau’s life came in 1749, when he fell across the question of the Academy of Dijon which gave rise to my first writing” OC I, 1135). The question was “Whether the restoration of the Sciences and Arts has contributed to the purification of morals.” Rousseau’s answer to that question – a decisive No – was his Discourse on the Origin of the Arts and Sciences , which won the prize for that year and set off firestorms in Europe with a ringing moral indictment of the Enlightenment. In succeeding years, Rousseau published several works, most notably his second Discourse (on inequality, 1755), his novel Julie (1760), his treatise on education Emile, 1762), the Social Contract (1762), and a series of more minor works (including important letters on theatre and on providence).

This book offers a comprehensive account of Kant's theory of freedom and his moral anthropology. The point of departure is the apparent conflict between three claims to which Kant is committed: that human beings are transcendentally free, that moral anthropology studies the empirical influences on human beings, and that more anthropology is morally relevant. Frierson shows why this conflict is only apparent. He draws on Kant's transcendental idealism and his theory of the will and describes how empirical influences can affect the empirical expression of one's will in a way that is morally significant but still consistent with Kant's concept of freedom. As a work which integrates Kant's anthropology with his philosophy as a whole, this book will be an unusually important source of study for all Kant scholars and advanced students of Kant.

Philosophers, anthropologists and biologists have long puzzled over the question of human nature. It is also a question that Kant thought about deeply and returned to in many of his writings. In this lucid and wide-ranging introduction to Kant’s philosophy of human nature - which is essential for understanding his thought as a whole - Patrick R. Frierson assesses Kant’s theories and examines his critics. He begins by explaining how Kant articulates three ways of addressing the question ‘what is the human being?’: the transcendental, the empirical, and the pragmatic. He then considers some of the great theorists of human nature who wrestle with Kant’s views, such as Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud; contemporary thinkers such as E.O.Wilson and Daniel Dennett, who have sought biological explanations of human nature; Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, and Clifford Geertz, who emphasize the diversity of human beings in different times and places; and existentialist philosophers such as Sartre and Heidegger. He argues that whilst these approaches challenge and enrich Kant’s views in significant ways, all suffer from serious weaknesses that Kant’s anthropology can address. Taking a core insight of Kant’s - that human beings are fundamentally free but finite - he argues that it is the existentialists, particularly Sartre, who are the most direct heirs of his transcendental anthropology. The final part of the book is an extremely helpful overview of the work of contemporary philosophers, particularly Christine Korsgaard and Jürgen Habermas. Patrick R. Frierson explains how these philosophers engage with questions of naturalism, historicism, and existentialism while developing Kantian conceptions of the human being. Including chapter summaries and annotated further reading, What is the Human Being? is an outstanding introduction to some fundamental aspects of Kant’s thought and a judicious assessment of leading theories of human nature. It is essential reading for all students of Kant and the philosophy of human nature, as well as those in related disciplines such as anthropology, politics and sociology

In 1773, Kant cancelled a course in theoretical physics – due to lack of enrollment – and taught “Anthropology” in its place. From that time, Kant taught Anthropology every winter semester until he retired in 1796. The anthropology course was one of two courses in “Weltkenntnis” that Kant taught every year. The other, physical geography, was taught in the Summer semester. When he retired, Kant compiled the notes from his anthropology lecture course into Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht, the last publication before his death in 1804. The book was meant both as a “Handbuch” (7:122) and as a popular work, that could “von jedermann selbst von der Dame bey der Toilette gelesen warden” (25: 856-7, cf. 25: 1213). 2000 copies of this work were published in its first printing, more that any of Kant’s previous works (cf. Brandt 1999), and the book was reviewed at least 11 times within two years of its publication, including a now famous review by Friedrich Schleiermacher (initially published in the Athaeneaum, reprinted in Vörlander 1980).

Through philosophical analysis of Montessori’s critiques of psychology, I aim to show the enduring relevance of those critiques. Maria Montessori sees experimental psychology as fundamental to philosophy and pedagogy, but she objects to the experimental psychology of her day in four ways: as disconnected from practice, as myopic, as based excessively on methods from physical sciences, and—most fundamentally—as offering detailed examinations of human beings (particularly children) under abnormal conditions. In place of these prevailing norms, Montessori suggests a model of the teacher-scientist in a specially prepared environment, who can engage in sustained and impassioned observation of “normalized” children. Drawing from a variety of texts and recently published lectures, this article lays out Montessori’s philosophy of experimental psychology and briefly discusses its relevance today.

In the first Critique, Kant says, “[A]ll the actions of a human being are determined in accord with the order of nature,” adding that “if we could investigate all the appearances . . . there would be no human action we could not predict with certainty.” Most Kantian treatments of human action discuss action from a practical perspective, according to which human beings are transcendentally free, and thus do not sufficiently lay out this Kant’s empirical, causal description of human action. Drawing on Kant’s lectures in empirical psychology and his anthropological writings, this paper offers a clear and detailed elucidation of Kant’s empirical account of human action. After explaining the connection between cognitions, feelings, desires, and actions, I show how the lower faculty of desire is governed by various instincts, inclinations, and propensities, and how the higher faculty of desire is governed by (empirical) character. I also discuss how character and inclinations arise from natural human propensities combined with other empirical causes. By looking at both Kant’s faculty psychology and his account of predispositions, I lay out an overall Kantian framework for explaining any kind of human action.

This article offers an explanation and analysis of Kant’s philosophy of religion. It starts with Kant’s criticisms of the ontological, cosmological, and physico-teleological arguments for the existence of God from the ’Critique of Pure Reason’. It then explains Kant’s moral arguments in the ’Critique of Practical Reason’ for the existence and nature of God and for humans’ personal immorality. Finally, it lays out the argument for the necessity of grace from Kant’s ’Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reaso.'

Patrick Frierson - Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 313-338 Learning to Love: From Egoism to Generosity in Descartes Patrick R. Frierson The whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphysics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medicine, mechanics, and morals. Descartes is well known for his metaphysics and physics, the roots and trunk of his philosophical project. But Descartes's morals are generally neglected, partly because they are so difficult to find. He does not dedicate a major published work to morality. His most direct comments on it are in letters to Princess Elizabeth and Pierre Chanut. The published work that most touches on moral issues is The Passions of the Soul, which is primarily a treatise on the relationship between mind and body. As a result of this lack of primary sources , there have been only a few significant studies of Descartes's moral philosophy in French, and only two major works devoted to it in English. This neglect of Descartes's ethics is unfortunate, not least since ethical concerns sometimes influence his work in other areas. This..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 292-294 [Access article in PDF] Secada, Jorge. Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 333. Cloth, $59.95. Descartes scholars can welcome this book. Secada supports trends in scholarship that criticize seeing Descartes as merely an anti-skeptical foundationalist, and he challenges many prominent interpretations of Descartes's metaphysics. In addition, Secada helpfully references Scholastic sources to provide context for Descartes's views. This book is also valuable for philosophers in contemporary metaphysics and epistemology. Secada uses the tools and idiom of analytic philosophy to explain and defend Descartes, and he is sympathetic to Descartes's project, even if he grants that aspects of it "are difficult to articulate clearly and convincingly" (174).The book's central theme is the contrast between Descartes's "essentialism" and the "existentialism" of Scholastics. Secada explains the distinction as follows: "Essentialism (existentialism) is the doctrine, first, that one cannot know the existence (essence) of any substance without first knowing its essence (existence), and, secondly, that one can know the essence (existence) of some substance without knowing its existence (essence)" (8). Cartesian Metaphysics interprets Descartes's corpus as a defense of essentialism in the light of Scholastic existentialism.The first three chapters set the stage. Chapter One distinguishes essentialism from existentialism. Chapter Two provides historical background necessary to understand the role of Scholasticism in Descartes's thought. Chapter Three discusses the role of Christian Platonism in both Descartes and the Scholastics, especially their shared Augustinian presupposition that knowledge of essences is of "how things are in themselves" (56).The next three chapters discuss the metaphysical status of ideas. In Chapter Four, Secada contrasts Descartes's "immanent" theory according to which "the immediate objects of ideas must exist in the mind" (85) with the "realist Scholastic" theory that "takes mental acts to be immediately directed towards things" (83). In Chapter Five, this account is applied to an interpretation of the Second Meditation as a defense of intellectualist essentialism against Scholastics and empiricists. "Contrary to the Scholastics and other empiricists, Descartes attributed to the intellect and not to the senses the power to reach the world of substances existing outside of the inner theatre of the mind" (116). Through comparing Descartes with Suarez and Gassendi, Secada argues that all the proofs of existence in the Meditations, including for the cogito, argue from [End Page 292] knowledge of essence to knowledge of existence. Chapter Six turns to Descartes's proofs for the existence of God. According to Secada, even for a posteriori proofs, knowledge of God's existence depends on knowledge of his essence.The last three chapters examine Descartes's theory of substance. Chapter Seven reconstructs Descartes's distinction between substances and properties. A substance is something that "exists without inhering" and "exists uncaused" (185). Secada discusses the nature of substance, how substances other than God can be "uncaused," and the plausibility of Descartes's sharp distinction between substances and properties. The chapter ends by arguing that Descartes's doctrine about the relationship between substances and properties inadvertently "heralds Spinoza's pantheism" (185). Chapter Eight examines real and essential properties in Cartesian metaphysics in contrast to Suarez and Fonseca, and ends with a partial defense of Descartes's ontological argument. Chapter Nine offers a detailed discussion of two fundamental substances in Descartes's metaphysics: body and mind. Secada argues that Descartes offers no satisfactory explanations of body, mind, or the relationship between the two.As is clear from this brief summary, Cartesian Metaphysics is a rich book. It presents important historical details without endless irrelevant details (see especially the sketch of Descartes's Scholastic background on 27-33). The exegetical arguments make strong cases for new interpretations of Descartes. Secada effectively shows that Descartes is more concerned with metaphysics than with refuting skepticism. Comparisons with Suarez and Fonseca shed new light on Cartesian arguments. Reconstructions of Cartesian arguments even tempt one to take Descartes seriously in contemporary metaphysics. And the criticisms of Descartes are thought-provoking.Unfortunately, the...

As J. Baird Callicott has argued, Adam Smith's moral theory is a philosophical ancestor of recent work in environmental ethics. However, Smith's "all important emotion of sympathy" (Callicott, 2001, p. 209) seems incapable of extension to entities that lack emotions with which one can sympathize. Drawing on the distinctive account of sympathy developed in Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, as well as his account of anthropomorphizing nature in "History of Astronomy and Physics," I show that sympathy with non-sentient nature is possible within a Smithian ethics. This provides the possibility of extending sympathy, and thereby benevolence and justice, to nature.

This article draws on Martha Nussbaum's distinction between basic, internal, and external capacities to better specify possible locations for children's ‘incapacity’ for autonomy. I then examine Maria Montessori's work on what she calls ‘normalization’, which involves a release of children's capacities for autonomy and self-governance made possible by being provided with the right kind of environment. Using Montessori, I argue that, in contrast to many ordinary and philosophical assumptions, children's incapacities for autonomy are best understood as consequences of an absence of external conditions necessary for children to exercise capacities they already have internally, rather than intrinsic limitations based on their stage of life. In a closing section, I show how Montessori proposes a model wherein both children and adults have autonomy, power, and responsibility, but over different spheres, and suggest implications of these differences for who has responsibility for establishing the conditions under which children can flourish.

Throughout his life, Kant was concerned with questions about empirical psychology. He aimed to develop an empirical account of human beings, and his lectures and writings on the topic are recognizable today as properly 'psychological' treatments of human thought and behavior. In this book Patrick R. Frierson uses close analysis of relevant texts, including unpublished lectures and notes, to study Kant's account. He shows in detail how Kant explains human action, choice, and thought in empirical terms, and how a better understanding of Kant's psychology can shed light on major concepts in his philosophy, including the moral law, moral responsibility, weakness of will, and cognitive error. Frierson also applies Kant's accounts of mental illness to contemporary philosophical issues. His book will interest students and scholars of Kant, the history of psychology, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of action

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.4 (2006) 623-634 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Character and Evil in Kant's Moral AnthropologyPatrick FriersonIn the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains that moral anthropology studies the "subjective conditions in human nature that help or hinder [people] in fulfilling the laws of a metaphysics of morals" and insists that such anthropology "cannot be dispensed with" (6:217).1 But it is often difficult to find clear evidence of this sort of anthropology in Kant's own works. In this paper, I discuss Kant's account of character as an example of Kantian moral anthropology.Kant's account of character is one of the most important parts of his Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View.2 Kant describes the character of the person, in particular, as the "distinguishing mark of the human being as a rational being endowed with freedom" and says that character "indicates what the human being is prepared to make of himself" (7:285). Recently, Kant commentators have gone even further. G. Felicitas Munzel, for example, claims that character is "the systematic link between the moral, aesthetic, and anthropological elements of Kant's works."3 This paper will not investigate the full richness of Kant's account of character. Instead, I focus on one particular problem that arises in Kant's discussion of character—an apparent conflict between the moral relevance of character and the possibility of evil character. By showing why there is an apparent conflict and why it is merely apparent, I show some of the ways in which a particular subjective condition in human nature can help, but not force, people to fulfill the laws of a metaphysics of morals. [End Page 623]1. The Problem: Moral Character and the Case of SullaWhen Kant introduces character in the Anthropology, he distinguishes between the character of the person, of the sex, of the nation, of the race, and of the species. Even within the character of the person, he distinguishes between "natural aptitude," "temperament," and "character purely and simply," all of which are different kinds of individual character. But only the last—the "character purely and simply"4 of a person—"is moral" and "shows what man is prepared to make of himself" (7:285).5 This paper focuses only on that general, moral character.At first, Kant seems to describe general character as morally good. Twice in his opening discussion of character, Kant describes "character" (Charakter) as "moral" (moralische) (7:285), and he insists that "character has an inner worth, and is beyond all price" (7:292). Though not decisive, these comments suggest that one with character has a good will. But Kant goes further, adding that the person with character "relies on principles that are valid for everyone" (7:293). This reference to universally valid principles is picked up later in a way that highlights its moral goodness.For character requires maxims that proceed from reason and morally-practical principles. Therefore one cannot rightly say that the malice of this human being is a quality of his character; for then it would be diabolic. The human being, however, never sanctions the evil in himself, and so there is actually no malice from principles; but only from the forsaking of them.(7:293–94)It seems that Kant could not be more explicit. Character seems to involve acting on the basis of principles that conform to and even flow from "morally-practical principles," which he seems to distinguish from anything evil. This seems quite close to Kant's account of the good will as a will "whose principle is the categorical imperative" (4:444). (Although Kant's precise account of the good will is complicated, for our purposes here it is sufficient to define a good will as a will that consistently acts out of respect for the moral law.6) To have character, it would seem, is to have a good will.But this apparent identification of character with good character does not fit the rest of...

This paper shows how Maria Montessori's thought can enrich contemporary virtue epistemology. After a short overview of her ‘interested empiricist’ epistemological framework, I discuss four representative intellectual virtues: sensory acuity, physical dexterity, intellectual love, and intellectual humility. Throughout, I show how Montessori bridges the divide between reliabilist and responsibilist approaches to the virtues and how her particular treatments of virtues offer distinctive and compelling alternatives to contemporary accounts. For instance, she emphasizes how sensory acuity is a virtue for which one can be responsible, highlights the embodied nature of cognition through a focus on physical dexterity, interprets intellectual love as a way of loving the world rather than as a love that takes knowledge as its object, and presents an alternative account of intellectual humility to contemporary emphases on the interpersonal dimensions of this virtue