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Kant's moral arguement and the problem of evil : authentic theodicyand the sincerity of faithIn Ina Goy (ed.), Kant on Proofs for God's Existence, De Gruyter. 2023.
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44The Postulate of Immortality in the Critique of Practical Reason(and Beyond)Kantian Review 29 (1): 19-38. 2024.It is widely claimed that the second Critique’s argument for the postulate of immortality is relevantly different from the first Critique’s argument for the postulate. It is also widely claimed that after the second Critique, Kant distances himself from its particular version of the argument, and even the postulate altogether. It is the purpose of this article to challenge these claims, arguing instead that (a) there is overwhelming textual evidence showing that Kant did not abandon the postulat…Read more
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Hope for divine aid in Kant's religionIn Katerina Mihaylova & Anna Ezekiel (eds.), Hope and the Kantian Legacy: New Contributions to the History of Optimism, Bloomsbury Academic. 2023.
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38Pascal’s Wager (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2018.In his famous Wager, Blaise Pascal offers the reader an argument that it is rational to strive to believe in God. Philosophical debates about this classic argument have continued until our own times. This volume provides a comprehensive examination of Pascal's Wager, including its theological framework, its place in the history of philosophy, and its importance to contemporary decision theory. The volume starts with a valuable primer on infinity and decision theory for students and non-specialis…Read more
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Kant on Knowledge, Opinion, and the Threshold for AssentIn Pablo Muchnik Oliver Thorndike (ed.), Rethinking Kant Volume 4, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 55-74. 2015.The purpose of this short paper is to lay the foundations for a more comprehensive analysis of Kant's Normative Epistemology. In particular, this paper will examine the claims made regarding the threshold between knowledge and opinion, the scope of content germane to the latter, and more broadly, the place of opinion within Kant’s general taxonomy of propositional attitudes. We shall begin with an overview of the knowledge-belief-opinion triad and its governing nomenclature. We shall then turn t…Read more
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17What is Wrong with the Recent Semiological Interpretation of Kant’s ReligionKantian Review 27 (1): 91-99. 2022.In this article, I challenge the semiological interpretation of Kant’s Religion, particularly as advanced in recent years by James DiCenso and Allen Wood. As I here argue, their interpretations are neither compatible with broader aspects of Kant’s positive philosophy of religion, nor with how Kant himself describes the project of the Religion. Kant wrote the Religion in order to explore the compatibility between his theologically affirmative pure rational system of religion and Christian doctrin…Read more
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25Allen W. Wood, Kant and Religion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, Pp. 270, ISBN 9781108422345 (hbk) $89.99Kantian Review 26 (2): 357-361. 2021.
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19The Ethical Community in Kant’s Pure Rational System of Religion: Comments on Rossi’s The Ethical Commonwealth in HistoryPhilosophia 49 (5): 1901-1916. 2021.This commentary on Rossi’s The Ethical Commonwealth in History will address three points of interpretation related to Kant’s conception of the ethical community/commonwealth. First, I will raise a number of concerns related to Rossi’s use of Kant’s concept of the highest good. Second, I will examine the relevance of the overall project of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason to his discussion of the ethical community, a matter that Rossi does not take up. Third, I will challenge …Read more
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26Immediate Experience, Mystical ‘Encounters’ and the ‘Voice’ of God: Palmquist’s Critical Mysticism and Kant’s Theory of ExperienceKantian Review 26 (1): 129-135. 2021.In this brief commentary, I focus on Part II of Kant and Mysticism, where Stephen Palmquist explores the space for mystical experience in Kant. In particular, I focus on what Palmquist calls ‘immediate experience’ or ‘encounters’; what he calls the ‘supervening’ of religious experience on ordinary experience; and moral conscience as the ‘voice’ of God.
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44On the Alleged Augustinianism in Kant’s ReligionKantian Review 25 (1): 103-124. 2020.Both critics and defenders of Kant’sReligion within the Boundaries of Mere Reasonhave raised worries about its alleged employment of an ‘Augustinian’ conception of moral evil as well as the accounts of grace and moral regeneration consequent to it. Combined, these aspects of theReligionare often seen as responsible for its principal ‘wobble’, ‘conundrum’ or ‘internal contradiction’, and are likewise among the key reasons why theReligionis commonly seen as at odds with the epistemic strictures an…Read more
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59The Highest Good in Kant’s Philosophy. Ed. by Thomas Höwing. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. 294 p. ISBN 978-3-11-036900-7 (review)Kant Studien 109 (3): 477-482. 2016.Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 3 Seiten: 477-482.
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74Chris Firestone, Kant and Theology at the Boundaries of Reason, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2009, Pp. 194 + x, hbk, ISBN: 978-0-7546-6130-6; £65 (review)Kantian Review 16 (3): 495-498. 2011.
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68Predication and Modality in Kant’s Critique of the Ontological ArgumentKant Yearbook 10 (1): 149-170. 2018.There is perhaps no more famous objection to the Ontological Argument than Kant’s contention that existence is not a predicate. However, this is not his only objection against the Ontological Argument. It is rather part of a more comprehensive attack on the OA, one that contains at least four distinct arguments, only one of which involves. It is the purpose of this paper to explore Kant’s case for, consider three contemporary strategies used to reinforce it, assess their merits, and then finally…Read more
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35Christopher J. Insole, The Intolerable God: Kant’s Theological Journey Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge UK: Eerdmans, 2016 Pp. 186 ISBN 9780802873057 $30.00 (review)Kantian Review 22 (3): 518-522. 2017.
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835Restoring Kant's Conception of the Highest GoodJournal of the History of Philosophy 55 (3): 435-468. 2017.Since the publication of Andrews Reath's “Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant” (Journal of the History of Philosophy 26:4 (1988)), most scholars have come to accept the view that Kant migrated away from an earlier “theological” version to one that is more “secular.” The purpose of this paper is to explore the roots of this interpretative trend, re-assess its merits, and then examine how the Highest Good is portrayed in Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. As will be argu…Read more
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146Kant on Opinion: Assent, Hypothesis, and the Norms of General Applied LogicKant Studien 105 (1): 41-82. 2014.Kant identifies knowledge [Wissen], belief [Glaube], and opinion [Meinung] as our three primary modes of “holding-to-be-true” [Fürwahrhalten]. He also identifies opinion as making up the greatest part of our cognition. After a preliminary sketch of Kant’s system of propositional attitudes, this paper will explore what he says about the norms governing opinion and empirical hypotheses. The final section will turn to what, in the Critique of Pure Reason and elsewhere, Kant refers to as “General…Read more
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26Preface to Preparation for Natural Theology by Johann August EberhardIn Lawrence Pasternack & Pablo Muchnik (eds.), Preparation for Natural Theology, Bloomsbury Academic. 2016.In this paper, I develop a quasi-transcendental argument to justify Kant’s infamous claim “man is evil by nature.” The cornerstone of my reconstruction lies in drawing a systematic distinction between the seemingly identical concepts of “evil disposition” (böseGesinnung) and “propensity to evil” (Hang zumBösen). The former, I argue, Kant reserves to describe the fundamental moral outlook of a single individual; the latter, the moral orientation of the whole species. Moreover, the appellative “e…Read more
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7Throughout his career, Kant engaged with many of the fundamental questions in philosophy of religion: arguments for the existence of God, the soul, the problem of evil, and the relationship between moral belief and practice. _Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason_ is his major work on the subject. This book offers a complete and internally cohesive interpretation of _Religion_. In contrast to more reductive interpretations, as well as those that characterize _Religion_ as internally inco…Read more
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316A Guide to Kant’s Treatment of GraceCon-Textos Kantianos 6 256-271. 2017.This Guide is designed to restore the theological background that informs Kant’s treatment of grace in Religion to its rightful place. This background is essential not only to understand the nature of Kant’s overall project in this book, namely, to determine the “association” or “union” between Christianity (as a historical faith) and rational religion, but also to dispel the impression of “internal contradictions” and conundrums” that contemporary interpreters associate with Kant’s treatment of…Read more
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2Rational Faith and the Pantheism Controversy: Kant's "Orientation" Essay and the Evolution of his Moral ArgumentIn Daniel O. Dahlstrom (ed.), Kant and His German Contemporaries: Volume 2, Aesthetics, History, Politics, and Religion, Cambridge University Press. 2018.In this chapter we explore the importance of the Pantheism Controversy for the evolution of Kant’s so-called “Moral Argument” for the Highest Good and its postulates. After an initial discussion of the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, we move on to the relationship between faith and reason in the Pantheism Controversy, Kant’s response to the Controversy in his 1786 “Orientation” Essay, Thomas Wizenmann’s criticisms of that essay, and finally to the Critique of Practical Reason. We argue t…Read more
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2Baumgarten and Kant on Rational Theology: Deism, Theism, and the Role of AnalogyIn Courtney D. Fugate (ed.), Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. 2019.In both his published works and lecture notes Kant distinguishes between Transcendental and Natural Theology, associating the former with Deism and the latter with Theism. The purpose of this paper is to explore these distinctions, particularly as they are shaped by Kant’s engagement with Baumgarten’s Philosophical Theology.
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16Intrinslc value and overridingness in kant’s groundworkSouthwest Philosophy Review 18 (1): 113-121. 2002.
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80Can Self-Deception Explain Akrasia in Kant’s Theory of Moral Agency?Southwest Philosophy Review 15 (1): 87-97. 1999.
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45This book offers a complete and internally cohesive interpretation of Religion. In contrast to the interpretations that characterize Religion as a litany of “wobbles”, fumbling between traditional Christianity and Enlightenment values, or a text that reduces religion into morality, the interpretation here offered defends the rich philosophical theology contained in each of Religion’s four parts and shows how the doctrines of the “Pure Rational System of Religion” are eminently compatible with th…Read more
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125Regulative principles and ‘the wise author of nature’: Lawrence PasternackReligious Studies 47 (4): 411-429. 2011.There is much more said in the Critique of Pure Reason about the relationship between God and purposiveness than what is found in Kant's analysis of the physico-theological argument. The ‘Wise Author of Nature’ is central to his analysis of regulative principles in the ‘Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic’ and also appears in the ‘Canon’, first with regards to the Highest Good and then again in relation to our theoretical use of purposiveness. This paper will begin with a brief discussion o…Read more
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58Internal Realism and Twin EarthIdealistic Studies 31 (1): 73-80. 2001.This paper is structured as follows. First, it offers a brief presentation of the Twin Earth thought experiment. Second, it offers an interpretation of Putnam'santi-realism. Third, it argues for the incompatibility of anti-realism and the semantic role of extension that Twin Earth is supposed to establish.
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150The Development and Scope of Kantian Belief: The Highest Good, The Practical Postulates and The Fact of ReasonKant Studien 102 (3): 290-315. 2011.This paper offers an account of the historical development of Kant's understanding of belief ( Glaube ) from its early ties to George Friedrich Meier's Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre through various stages of refinement. It will be argued that the Critique of Pure Reason reflects an important but not final stage in Kant's understanding of belief. Its structure is further refined and its scope narrowed in later works, including the Critique of Practical Reason and Critique of Judgment . After chart…Read more
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5Kant’s Doctrinal Belief in GodIn Oliver Thorndike (ed.), Rethinking Kant: Volume 3, Cambridge Scholars Press. 2011.In the Canon of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant endorses both a Moral Belief in God as well as what he there calls Doctrinal Belief. The former mode of belief is well known and can be found throughout the Kantian Corpus. The latter, however, is far more obscure and thus far has not been carefully studied. Doctrinal Belief only appears explicitly in the Canon, but is related to a number of issues in the Transcendental Dialectic as well as the Critique of Judgment. This paper will provide an…Read more
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31Excerpt from the Doctrine of Reason (edited book). 2016.The aim of Kant’s Sources in Translation is to retrieve the rich intellectual world that influenced Kant’s philosophical development. In its first stage, the series makes available the most important textbooks Kant used throughout his long teaching career. Many of these textbooks are in Latin or in German and remain inaccessible to Anglophone readers. Lacking this material, however, it is difficult to appreciate Kant’s originality and process of philosophical maturation, for readers are unable t…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Philosophy of Religion |
Immanuel Kant |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Immanuel Kant |
PhilPapers Editorships
Kant: Philosophy of Religion |