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6Transcendental IdealismIn John Shand (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy), Wiley-blackwell. 2019.Kant's particular philosophical position of transcendental idealism has been a less popular target for recovery than other broadly “Kantian” or “Critical” aspects of his thinking. This chapter outlines Kant's so‐called “Copernican Turn,” which is key to the methodological shift that makes transcendental idealism possible. It discusses the key terminologies of the Kantian project in the First Critique. The chapter then details how these concepts are put to positive use in validating certain tradi…Read more
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The boundary of pure reasonIn Peter Thielke (ed.), Kant's Prolegomena: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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7Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: An Edinburgh Philosophical GuideEdinburgh University Press. 2013.A step-by-step guide to Kant's first work on moral philosophy. Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is considered a standard text in the history of moral philosophy as well as a classic work of moral philosophy in its own right. This guide provides a paragraph-by-paragraph account of the main themes of Kant's moral philosophy and a clear statement of his overall philosophical aims and arguments.It is an essential toolkit for anyone approaching Kant for the first time.
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8Melissa Merritt, Kant on Reflection and Virtue Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018 Pp. xvi + 219 ISBN 9781108424714 (hbk) £75.00 (review)Kantian Review 25 (1): 149-153. 2020.
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17Kant on Misology and the Natural DialecticPhilosophers' Imprint 19. 2019.Towards the conclusion of the First Section of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant describes a process whereby a subject can undergo a kind of moral corruption. This process, which he calls a “natural dialectic”, can cause one to undermine one’s own or¬dinary grasp of the demands of morality. Kant also claims that this natural dialectic is the basis of the need for moral philosophy itself, since first-order moral reasoning is insufficient to protect against it. I show that this pas…Read more
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4Kantian Ethics: Value, Agency, and Obligation, written by Robert SternJournal of Moral Philosophy 16 (5): 671-674. 2019.
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3On Wayne Waxman's Kant's Anatomy of the Intelligent Mind (review)Critique 2018. 2018.Longer review of Waxman's recent book, Kant's Anatomy of the Intelligent Mind
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9Normativity and the Acquisition of the CategoriesHegel Bulletin 32 (1-2): 1-26. 2011.It is quite common when explicating the nature of Kant's break with the preceding Early Modern tradition to cite his attitude towards the acquisition and deployment of concepts. It is claimed that Kant sought to distinguish two tasks that had become unfortunately intertwined and conflated — explaining how we come to acquire our concepts on the one hand and showing how we are justified in deploying them in judgement on the other. This conflation can be expressed in terms of a conflation of the na…Read more
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12The Role of the Holy WillHegel Bulletin 35 (2): 163-184. 2014.It is well known that Kant uses the notion of the holy will in theGroundworkso as to contrast it with the finite wills of human beings. It is less clear, however, what function this contrast is supposed to perform. I argue that one role of the holy will is to illustrate transcendental idealism’s account of the relation between moral knowledge and moral practice. The position is one intended to negotiate between ostensibly competing traditions. Kant uses the holy will as a way of endorsing the me…Read more
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12Methodological conservativism in Kant and StrawsonBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (2): 422-442. 2019.I argue that Kant’s transcendental idealism and Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics are both examples of what I call methodological conservativism. Methodological conservativism involves the claim that a subset of common first-order beliefs is immune to revision. I argue that there are striking differences between their respective commitments to this position, however. For Kant, his conservativism is based upon a commitment to the reliability of particular results of the sciences of his day. For …Read more
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Mandeville on Pride and Animal NatureIn Edmundo Balsemão Pires & Joaquim Braga (eds.), Bernard de Mandeville's Tropology of Paradoxes: Morals, Politics, Economics, and Therapy, Springer International Publishing. 2015.
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5Kant’s Observations and Remarks: A Critical Guide ed. by Susan Meld Shell and Richard Velkley (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 52 (2): 380-381. 2014.
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10The poverty of conceptual truth: Kant’s analytic/synthetic distinction and the limits of metaphysics (review)British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (2): 415-417. 2017.
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28Kant on the Acquisition of Geometrical ConceptsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 44 (5-6): 580-604. 2014.It is often maintained that one insight of Kant's Critical philosophy is its recognition of the need to distinguish accounts of knowledge acquisition from knowledge justification. In particular, it is claimed that Kant held that the detailing of a concept's acquisition conditions is insufficient to determine its legitimacy. I argue that this is not the case at least with regard to geometrical concepts. Considered in the light of his pre-Critical writings on the mathematical method, construction …Read more
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9Kant and Animals (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2020.This volume is devoted entirely to exploring the role of animals in the thought of Immanuel Kant. Leading scholars address questions regarding the possibility of objective representation and intentionality in animals, the role of animals in Kant's scientific picture of nature, the status of our moral responsibilities to animals' welfare, and more.
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9Making Sense of Doubt: Strawson's Anti-ScepticismTheoria 77 (3): 261-278. 2011.Strawson's philosophical attitude towards scepticism is frequently thought to have undergone a significant shift from the “strong” or “robust” employment of transcendental arguments in Individuals to a more “modest” understanding of the efficacy of such arguments in Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. I argue that this interpretation is based upon a misunderstanding of the function of transcendental arguments in Strawson's earlier works. Examining the continuity of Strawson's modest natur…Read more
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8Kant on Innate Ideas: Another Look at B 167 –168In Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio La Rocca & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, De Gruyter. pp. 53-64. 2013.
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18Kant’s Transcendental StrategyPhilosophical Quarterly 56 (224). 2006.The interpretation of transcendental arguments remains a contentious issue for contemporary epistemology. It is usually agreed that they originated in Kant's theoretical philosophy and were intended to have some kind of anti-sceptical efficacy. I argue that the sceptic with whom Kant was concerned has been consistently misidentified. The actual sceptic was Hume, questioning whether the faculty of reason can justify any of our judgements whatsoever. His challenge is a sceptical argument regarding…Read more
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27Kant on the spontaneous power of the mindBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 25 (3): 565-588. 2017.It is well known that at the heart of Kant’s Critical philosophy is the claim that the mind possesses an essentially spontaneous power or capacity. It is also sometimes maintained that Kant’s appeals to this spontaneous power are intimately tied to his recognition of there being a fundamental and irreducible normative dimension to judgement. However, I attempt to complicate this picture by way of appeal to some less appreciated influences upon the development of Kant’s epistemology. A different …Read more
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10Contemporary Kantian Metaphysics: New Essays on Space and Time (review)International Journal of Philosophical Studies 22 (1): 144-148. 2014.A short review of Contemporary Kantian Metaphysics
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8Neil Gascoigne, Scepticism (review)Philosophy in Review 24 (2): 104-106. 2004.A short review of Gascoigne's Scepticism
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39Kant on Nativism, Scepticism and NecessityKantian Review 18 (1): 1-27. 2013.Kant criticizes the so-called ‘preformation’ hypothesis – a nativist account of the origin of the categories – at the end of the B-Deduction on the ground that it entails scepticism. I examine the historical context of Kant's criticism, and identify the targets as both Crusius and Leibniz. There are two claims argued for in this paper: first, that attending to the context of the opposition to certain forms of nativism affords a way of understanding Kant's commitment to the so-called ‘discursivit…Read more
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13Kant on analogyBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 16 (4). 2008.The role of analogy appears in surprisingly different areas of the first Critique. On the one hand, Kant considered the concept to have a specific enough meaning to entitle the principle concerned with causation an analogy; on the other hand we can find Kant referring to analogy in various parts of the Transcendental Dialectic in a seemingly different manner. Whereas in the Transcendental Analytic, Kant takes some time to provide a detailed (if not clear) account of the meaning of the term ‘anal…Read more
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1Nicholas Rescher, Epistemology: An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 24 (6): 433-435. 2004.A short review Rescher on Epistemology
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