Lea Ypi

This article defends the importance of the idea of historical progress for constructivist justifications of moral normativity inspired by Kant’s analysis of practical reason. Focusing on some key methodological requirements that must be satisfied for the constructivist vindication of practical normativity to succeed, the article focuses on the concept of purposiveness as it develops within Kant’s moral and political philosophy. It concludes that without a critical notion of ‘purposiveness’ and related philosophical analysis of history, the constructivist rejection of scepticism is at risk of circularity.

This chapter explores Kant’s analysis of systematic unity in relation to the question of whether there are any laws of nature and, if so, whether they can be known by us. The chapter begins by noting how Kant’s theory of systematic unity has inspired different accounts of the laws of nature and explores the relation between a necessitarian account of laws and a reflection-based one. Focusing in particular on the Critique of Pure Reason, I suggest that Kant’s analysis of systematic unity relies on a principle of purposiveness which is not based on the analogy with reason’s practical causality but on an assumption of natural purposiveness indebted to Kant’s earlier theory of germs and dispositions. The difficulty of reconciling his pre-critical views on natural purposiveness with the analysis of scientific laws put forward in the first Critique is, I suggest, what leads Kant to abandon the proto-necessitarian theory in favor of an alternative, reflection-based, account.

The Architectonic of Pure Reason, one of the most important sections of Kant's first Critique, raises three fundamental questions. What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? Taken together these questions converge on a fourth one, which is at the centre of philosophy as a whole: what is the human being? Lea Ypi suggests that the answer to this question is tied to a particular account of the unity of reason - one that stresses its purposive character. By focusing on the sources, evolution and function of Kant's concept of purposiveness, this book shows that the idea of purposiveness that Kant endorses in the Critique of Pure Reason is a concept of purposiveness as intelligent design, quite different from the concept of purposiveness as normativity that will become central to his later works. In the case of purposiveness as design, the relationship between reason and nature is anchored to the idea of God. In the case of purposiveness as normativity, it is anchored to the concept of reflexive judgment, and grounded on transcendental freedom. Understanding this shift has important implications for some of the most difficult questions that confront the Kantian system: the passage from the system of nature to that of freedom, the relation between faith and knowledge, the philosophical defence of progress in history, and the role of religion. It is also crucial to shed light on the way in which Kant's critique has shaped the successive German philosophical tradition.

The quote that inspires a part of my title will be familiar to most readers. In the concluding paragraphs of the Preface to his Philosophy of Right, Hegel examines the role of philosophy in prescribing principles on how the world ought to be. ‘When philosophy paints its grey in grey’, Hegel writes, citing a part of Goethe’s Faust, 'A shape of life has grown old, and it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized by the grey in grey of philosophy; the owl of Minerva begins its flight only when the shadows of night are gathering.'

Held every five years under the auspices of the Kant-Gesellschaft, the International Kant Congress is the world’s largest philosophy conference devoted to the work and legacy of a single thinker. The five-volume set Kant and Philosophy in a Cosmopolitan Sense contains the proceedings of the Eleventh International Kant Congress, which took place in Pisa in 2010. The proceedings consist of 25 plenary talks and 341 papers selected by a team of international referees from over 700 submissions. The contributions span 14 sections: Kant’s Concept of Philosophy; Theory of Cognition and Logic; Ontology and Metaphysics; Ethics; Law and Justice; Religion and Theology; Aesthetics; Anthropology and Psychology; Politics and History; Science, Mathematics, and the Philosophy of Nature; Kant and the Leibnizian Tradition; Kant and the Philosophical Tradition; Kant and Schopenhauer; and Kant’s Heritage. Thanks to cooperation from the Schopenhauer Gesellschaft, the 2010 conference was the first in the history of the International Kant Congress to include a session on Kant and Schopenhauer.

This chapter explores Kant’s analysis of systematic unity in relation to the question of whether there are any laws of nature and, if so, whether they can be known by us. The chapter begins by noting how Kant’s theory of systematic unity has inspired different accounts of the laws of nature and explores the relation between a necessitarian account of laws and a reflection-based one. Focusing in particular on the Critique of Pure Reason, I suggest that Kant’s analysis of systematic unity relies on a principle of purposiveness which is not based on the analogy with reason’s practical causality but on an assumption of natural purposiveness indebted to Kant’s earlier theory of germs and dispositions. The difficulty of reconciling his pre-critical views on natural purposiveness with the analysis of scientific laws put forward in the first Critique is, I suggest, what leads Kant to abandon the proto-necessitarian theory in favor of an alternative, reflection-based, account.

Matteo Bonotti’s book on Partisanship and Public Reason in Diverse Societies is grounded on a theory of partisanship that sees the demands of public reason as internal to the very definition of a party. Bonotti suggests that partisanship is not only compatible with but essential to the stability and legitimacy of a well-ordered liberal society. My paper aims to raise some questions internal to the liberal account of partisanship so as to probe the methodological foundations and plausibility of the liberal framework taken as a whole. My argument is that the assumption of a sufficiently just liberal society on which the book grounds its defence of partisanship makes us ill-equipped to face some of the most critical challenges that liberal societies face in the world that we live.

This article defends the importance of the idea of historical progress for constructivist justifications of moral normativity inspired by Kant’s analysis of practical reason. Focusing on some key methodological requirements that must be satisfied for the constructivist vindication of practical normativity to succeed, the article focuses on the concept of purposiveness as it develops within Kant’s moral and political philosophy. It concludes that without a critical notion of ‘purposiveness’ and related philosophical analysis of history, the constructivist rejection of scepticism is at risk of circularity.

This article aims to contextualise, explain and defend the relevance of Marx’s analysis of the dictatorship of the proletariat for contemporary debates on political legitimacy. I call my reconstruction of the Marxist contribution to this debate: the limited legitimacy theory of political authority. Such a theory, I contend, offers a plausible alternative to existing liberal and anarchist accounts and has important implications for a number of key debates in political theory, including the normative significance of the state, the relationship between authority and freedom, the role of democracy, and the meaning and relevance of communist utopia.

Written by an international team of leading political and legal theory scholars whose writings have contributed to shaping the field, Migration in Political Theory presents seminal new work on the ethics of movement and membership. The volume addresses challenging and under-researched themes on the subject of migration, and debates the question of whether we ought to recognize a human right to immigrate, and whether it might be legitimate to restrict emigration. The authors critically examine criteria for selecting would-be migrants, and for acquiring citizenship, as well as the tensions between the claims of immigrants and existing residents, and tackle questions of migrant worker exploitation and responsibility for refugees. All of the chapters illustrate the importance of drawing on the tools of political theory to clarifying, criticize and challenge the current terms of the migration debate