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28EditorialBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 32 (3): 387-387. 2024.Volume 32, Issue 3, May 2024, Page 387-387.
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39Kant and the Human Sciences: Biology, Anthropology and HistoryPalgrave-Macmillan. 2009.Kant famously identified 'What is man?' as the fundamental question that encompasses the whole of philosophy. Yet surprisingly, there has been no concerted effort amongst Kant scholars to examine Kant's actual philosophy of man. This book, which is inspired by, and part of, the recent movement that focuses on the empirical dimension of Kant's works, is the first sustained attempt to extract from his writings on biology, anthropology and history an account of the human sciences, their underlying …Read more
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14Thinking About the Emotions: A Philosophical History (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2017.Philosophical reflection on the emotions has a long history stretching back to classical Greek thought, even though at times philosophers have marginalized or denigrated them in favour of reason. Fourteen leading philosophers here offer a broad survey of the development of our understanding of the emotions. The thinkers they discuss include Aristotle, Aquinas, Ockham, Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, James, Brentano, …Read more
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Kant on the moral cultivation of feelingsIn Alix Cohen & Robert Stern (eds.), Thinking About the Emotions: A Philosophical History, Oxford University Press. 2017.
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313Feeling, Orientation and Agency in Kant: A Response to Merritt and EranKantian Review 26 (3): 379-391. 2021.On my interpretation of Kant, feeling plays a central role in the mind: it has the distinct function of tracking and evaluating our activity in relation to ourselves and the world so as to orient us. In this article, I set out to defend this view against a number of objections raised by Melissa Merritt and Uri Eran. I conclude with some reflections on the fact that, despite being very different, Merritt and Eran’s respective views of Kantian feelings turn out to have something potentially proble…Read more
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212Kant on Evolution: A Re-evaluationIn John J. Callanan & Lucy Allais (eds.), Kant and Animals, Oxford University Press. pp. 123-135. 2020.Kant’s notorious remark about the impossibility of there ever being a Newton of a blade of grass has often been interpreted as a misguided pre-emptive strike against Darwin and evolutionary theories in general: 'It would be absurd for humans even to make such an attempt or to hope that there may yet arise a Newton who could make comprehensible even the generation of a blade of grass according to natural laws that no intention has ordered; rather, we must absolutely deny this insight to human bei…Read more
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60Feeling and Life in Kant’s Account of the Beautiful and the SublimeIn Manja Kisner & Jörg Noller (eds.), The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy: Between Biology, Anthropology, and Metaphysics, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 169-189. 2021.This chapter explores what Kant means by “life”, the “feeling of life”, the “feeling of the promotion of life”, and related notions, such as the idea of a “vital power”, through the contrast between Kant’s account of the beautiful and his account of the sublime. We argue that it is significant that Kant characterizes the feeling of the beautiful as a feeling of the promotion of life but the feeling of the sublime in terms of vital powers. We account for this difference by showing that in experie…Read more
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11EditorialBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 30 (1): 1-2. 2022.We would like to start by thanking all those who have contributed to the smooth running of the Journal over the last year in what remain challenging circumstances due to Covid-19: all our Associate...
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255Kant on Epistemic AutonomyIn Camilla Serck-Hanssen & Beatrix Himmelmann (eds.), The Court of Reason: Proceedings of the 13th International Kant Congress, De Gruyter. pp. 687-696. 2021.The aim of this paper is to defend the claim that epistemic autonomy plays a central role in Kant’s account of epistemic normativity. Just as the formula of autonomy ought to regulate the activity of the will, I argue that our epistemic activity, and in particular our beliefs (‘holding to be true’, Fürwahrhalten) ought to be regulated by an epistemic version of this formula. To support this claim, I show that while believing and willing are different kinds of activities, they are subject to the …Read more
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30EditorialBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (1): 1-3. 2021.In taking over as Co-Editors of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, we are conscious that we have an incredibly hard act to follow. When Mike Beaney officially became Editor in April...
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716A Kantian Account of Emotions as Feelings1Mind 129 (514): 429-460. 2020.The aim of this paper is to extract from Kant's writings an account of the nature of the emotions and their function – and to do so despite the fact that Kant neither uses the term ‘emotion’ nor offers a systematic treatment of it. Kant's position, as I interpret it, challenges the contemporary trends that define emotions in terms of other mental states and defines them instead first and foremost as ‘feelings’. Although Kant's views on the nature of feelings have drawn surprisingly little attent…Read more
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709‘The Ultimate Kantian Experience: Kant on Dinner Parties’, History of Philosophy Quarterly 25(4): 315-36, 2008.History of Philosophy Quarterly 25 (4): 315-36. 2008.As one would expect, Kant believes that there is a tension, and even a conflict, between our bodily humanity and its ethical counterpart: ‘Inclination to pleasurable living and inclination to virtue are in conflict with each other’ (Anthropology, 185-86 [7:277]). What is more unexpected, however, is that he further claims that this tension can be resolved in what he calls an example of ‘civilised bliss’, namely dinner parties. Dinner parties are, for Kant, part of the ‘highest ethicophysical goo…Read more
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1Enabling the Realization of Humanity: The Anthropological Dimension of EducationIn Klas Roth & Chris W. Surprenant (eds.), Kant and Education: Interpretations and Commentary, Routledge. pp. 152-62. 2011.The aim of this paper is to argue that Kant’s philosophy of education should be interpreted as showing that education can be morally relevant despite the fact that it cannot make the child moral. To support this claim, I suggest that it is necessary to focus on the connection between Kant’s account on education and his views on moral anthropology. For it brings to light that education cannot but work with nature (and in particular human nature, natural feelings and predispositions) rather than a…Read more
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Physiological vs. Pragmatic Anthropology: A Response to Schleiermacher’s Objection to Kant’s AnthropologyIn Valerio Rohden, Ricardo Terra, Guido Antonio Almeida & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Recht und Frieden in der Philosophie Kants: Akten des X. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, De Gruyter. pp. 3-14. 2008.
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165Kant’s ‘curious catalogue of human frailties’: The Great Portrait of NatureIn Patrick Frierson & Paul Guyer (eds.), Critical Guide to Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, Cambridge University Press. pp. 144-62. 2012.As has been noted in the recent literature on Kant’s ethics, Kant holds that although natural drives such as feelings, emotions and inclinations cannot lead directly to moral worth, they nevertheless play some kind of role vis-à-vis morality. The issue is thus to understand this role within the limits set by Kant’s account of freedom, and it is usually tackled by examining the relationship between moral and non-moral motivation in the Groundwork, the Critique of Practical Reason, and more recen…Read more
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167Kant on Epigenesis, Monogenesis and Human Nature: The Biological Premises of AnthropologyStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 37 (4): 675-93. 2006.The aim of this paper is to show that for Kant, a combination of epigenesis and monogenesis is the condition of possibility of anthropology as he conceives of it and that moreover, this has crucial implications for the biological dimension of his account of human nature. More precisely, I begin by arguing that Kant’s conception of mankind as a natural species is based on two premises: firstly the biological unity of the human species (monogenesis of the human races); and secondly the existence o…Read more
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192‘The Anthropology of Cognition and its Pragmatic ImplicationsIn Kant's Lectures on Anthropology: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. 2014.The aim of this paper is to bring to light the anthropological dimension of Kant’s account of cognition as it is developed in the Lectures on Anthropology. I will argue that Kant’s anthropology of cognition develops along two complementary lines. On the one hand, it studies Nature’s intentions for the human species – the “natural” dimension of human cognition. On the other hand, it uses this knowledge to help us realise of our cognitive purposes – the “pragmatic” dimension of human cognition. In…Read more
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222Rational feelingsIn Diane Williamson & Kelly Sorensen (eds.), Kant and the Faculty of Feeling, Cambridge University Press. pp. 9-24. 2017.While it is well known that Kant’s transcendental idealism forbids the transcendent use of reason and its ideas, what had been underexplored until the last decade or so is his account of the positive use of reason’s ideas as it is expounded in the “Appendix” of the Critique of Pure Reason. The main difficulty faced by his account is that while there is no doubt that for Kant we need to rely on the ideas of reason in order to gain knowledge of the empirical world, the justificatory grounds for o…Read more
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245Kant on Beauty and Cognition: The Aesthetic Dimension of CognitionIn Kant on Beauty and Cognition: The Aesthetic Dimension of Cognition, Routledge. pp. 140-154. 2017.Kant often seems to suggest that a cognition – whether an everyday cognition or a scientific cognition – cannot be beautiful. In the Critique of Judgment and the Lectures on Logic, he writes: ‘a science which, as such, is supposed to be beautiful, is absurd.’ (CJ 184 (5:305)) ‘The expression "beautiful cognition" is not fitting at all’ (LL 446 (24:708)). These claims are usually understood rather straightforwardly. On the one hand, cognition cannot be beautiful since on Kant’s account, it is al…Read more
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23Kantian philosophy and the human sciences: introduction to issue 4Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (4): 459-461. 2008.
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507Kant on Moral Feelings, Moral Desires and the Cultivation of VirtueIn Sally Sedgwick & Dina Emundts (eds.), Begehren / Desire, De Gruyter. pp. 3-18. 2018.This paper argues that contrary to what is often thought, virtue for Kant is not just a matter of strength of will; it has an essential affective dimension. To support this claim, I show that certain affective dispositions, namely moral feelings and desires, are virtuous in the sense that they are constitutive of virtue at the affective level. There is thus an intrinsic connection between an agent’s practice of virtue and the cultivation of her affective dispositions.
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365Kant on science and normativityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 1 6-12. 2018.The aim of this paper is to explore Kant’s account of normativity through the prism of the distinction between the natural and the human sciences. Although the pragmatic orientation of the human sciences is often defined in contrast with the theoretical orientation of the natural sciences, I show that they are in fact regulated by one and the same norm, namely reason’s demand for autonomy.
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38The Natural, the Pragmatic and the Moral in Kant’s Anthropology: The Case of TemperamentsEarly Science and Medicine 22 (2-3): 253-270. 2017.
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62The Notion of Moral Progress in Hume's Philosophy: Does Hume Have a Theory of Moral Progress?Hume Studies 26 (1): 109-127. 2000.This paper aims to show that the notion of moral progress makes sense in Hume’s philosophy. And even though Hume suggests that this question is not central, in showing why it is not the case, I will conclude that, in concentrating on the question of the progress of civilisation, Hume was expressing a view on moral progress. To support this claim, I will begin by defending the claim that the notion of moral progress itself is consistent within Hume’s philosophical principles. In brief, I will sug…Read more
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426Kant on Doxastic Voluntarism and its Implications for Epistemic ResponsibilityKant Yearbook 5 (1): 33-50. 2013.This paper sets out to show that Kant’s account of cognition can be used to defend epistemic responsibility against the double threat of either being committed to implausible versions of doxastic voluntarism, or failing to account for a sufficiently robust connection between the will and belief. To support this claim, I argue that whilst we have no direct control over our beliefs, we have two forms of indirect doxastic control that are sufficient to ground epistemic responsibility: first, the ca…Read more
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42From Faking It to Making It: The Feeling of Love of Honor as an Aid to MoralityIn Robert R. Clewis (ed.), Reading Kant's Lectures, De Gruyter. pp. 243-256. 2015.This paper begins by examining the natural function of the feeling of love of honor. Like all natural drives, it has been implanted by nature to secure the survival and progress of the human species. However, mechanically, through the interplay of social forces, it soon turns into a competitive drive for superiority, what Kant calls “love of honor in a bad sense” (V-MS/Vigil 27: 695). This drive, which also enables the progress of human civilization, brings with it all the “vices of culture” (RG…Read more
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351Kant's Antinomy of Reflective Judgment: A Re-evaluationTeorema: International Journal of Philosophy 23 (1): 183. 2004.The aim of this paper is to show that there is a genuine difficulty in Kant’s argument regarding the connection between mechanism and teleology. But this difficulty is not the one that is usually underlined. Far from consisting in a contradiction between the first and the third Critique, I argue that the genuine difficulty is intrinsic to the antinomy of reflective judgement: rather than having any hope of resolving anything, it consists in an inescapable conflict. In order to support this claim…Read more
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118Kant’s Concept of Freedom and the Human SciencesCanadian Journal of Philosophy 39 (1). 2009.The aim of this paper is to determine whether Kant’s account of freedom fits with his theory of the human sciences. Several Kant scholars have recently acknowledged a tension between Kant’s metaphysics and his works on anthropology in particular. I believe that in order to clarify the issue at stake, the tension between Kant’s metaphysics and his anthropology should be broken down into three distinct problems. First, Kant’s Anthropology studies the human being ‘as a freely acting being.’5 This a…Read more
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The making of a philosophical classic: The reception of david hume in europeRivista di Storia Della Filosofia 62 (3): 457-468. 2007.
University of Cambridge
Alumnus, 2005
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Immanuel Kant |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Emotions |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Social Sciences |