-
128Character and evil in Kant's moral anthropologyJournal of the History of Philosophy 44 (4): 623-634. 2006.In 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.
-
125Kant's empirical account of human actionPhilosophers' Imprint 5 1-34. 2005.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. Drawin…Read more
-
112Kant's Empirical PsychologyCambridge University Press. 2014.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 In this book Patrick R. Frierson uses close analysis of relevant texts, including unpublished lectures and notes, to study Kant's account.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 …Read more
-
106Adam Smith and the possibility of sympathy with naturePacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (4). 2006.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 sym…Read more
-
105Maria Montessori’s Philosophy of Experimental PsychologyHopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 5 (2): 240-268. 2015.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 …Read more
-
105Kant, Individual Responsibility, and Climate ChangeEthics, Policy and Environment 17 (1): 35-38. 2014.In ‘Climate Change and Individual Duties’, Christian Baatz draws on two important features of Kant's moral philosophy: his principle that ‘ought implies can’, and his distinction between perfect an...
-
102Making Room for Children's Autonomy: Maria Montessori's Case for Seeing Children's Incapacity for Autonomy as an External FailingJournal of Philosophy of Education 50 (3): 332-350. 2016.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, chi…Read more
-
101Learning to love: From egoism to generosity in DescartesJournal of the History of Philosophy 40 (3): 313-338. 2002.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…Read more
-
91The moral importance of politeness in Kant's anthropologyKantian Review 9 105-127. 2005.In his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant explains that ethics, like physics, ‘will have its empirical part, but it will also have a rational part, … though here [in ethics] the empirical part might be given the special name practical anthropology’ . In the Groundwork, Kant suggests that anthropology, or the ‘power of judgment sharpened by experience’, has two roles, ‘to distinguish in what cases [moral laws] are applicable’ and ‘to gain for [moral laws] access to the human will’ . T…Read more
-
91Maria Montessori's EpistemologyBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 22 (4): 767-791. 2014.This paper lays out the epistemology of Maria Montessori . I start with what I call Montessori's ‘interested empiricism’, her empiricist emphasis on the foundational role of the senses combined with her insistence that all cognition is infused with ‘interest’. I then discuss the unconscious. Partly because of her emphasis on early childhood, Montessori puts great emphasis on unconscious cognitive processes and develops a conceptual vocabulary to make sense of the continuity between conscious and…Read more
-
86Two Standpoints and the Problem of Moral AnthropologyIn Benjamin J. Bruxvoort Lipscomb & James Krueger (eds.), Kant's Moral Metaphysics: God, Freedom, and Immortality, De Gruyter. pp. 83. 2010.
-
82Providence and Divine Mercy in Kant’s Ethical CosmopolitanismFaith and Philosophy 24 (2): 144-164. 2007.For Kant, cosmopolitan ethical community is a necessary response to humans’ radical evil. To be cosmopolitan, this community must not depend on particular historical religions. But Kant’s defense of ethical community uses Christian concepts such as providence and divine mercy. This paper explores two ways—one more liberal and the other more religious—to relate the theological commitments underlying ethical cosmopolitanism with the non-dogmatic nature of Kantian religion.
-
80Empirical psychology, common sense, and Kant’s empirical markers for moral responsibilityStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 39 (4): 473-482. 2008.This paper explains the empirical markers by which Kant thinks that one can identify moral responsibility. After explaining the problem of discerning such markers within a Kantian framework, I briefly explain Kant’s empirical psychology. I then argue that Kant’s empirical markers for moral responsibility—linked to higher faculties of cognition—are not sufficient conditions for moral responsibility, primarily because they are empirical characteristics subject to natural laws. Next, I argue that t…Read more
-
71The Virtue Epistemology of Maria MontessoriAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (1): 79-98. 2016.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 compell…Read more
-
60Freedom and Anthropology in Kant’s Moral PhilosophyCambridge University Press. 2003.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 …Read more
-
53The Moral Philosophy of Maria MontessoriJournal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (2): 133-154. 2021.This paper lays out the moral theory of philosopher and educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952). Based on a moral epistemology wherein moral concepts are grounded in a well-cultivated moral sense, Montessori develops a threefold account of moral life. She starts with an account of character as an ideal of individual self-perfection through concentrated attention on effortful work. She shows how respect for others grows from and supplements individual character, and she further develops a notion of…Read more
-
53Discipline and the cultivation of autonomy in Immanuel Kant and Maria MontessoriJournal of Philosophy of Education 55 (6): 1097-1111. 2021.Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.
-
48Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform, by Laura PapishMind 128 (512): 1344-1355. 2019.Kant on Evil, Self-Deception, and Moral Reform, by PapishLaura. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xvii + 257.
-
46What is the Human Being?Routledge. 2013.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 …Read more
-
46Maria Montessori's metaphysics of lifeEuropean Journal of Philosophy 26 (3): 991-1011. 2018.This paper elucidates the core principles of Maria Montessori's metaphysics. Her attention to embryological, evolutionary, and educational development led to her teleological metaphysics of life. Individual organisms are governed by internally driven, perfectionist, discontinuous teleology. And this individual teleology is integrated into a holistic, ecological context whereby individuals' striving towards perfection works for the increased ordered complexity of the systems of which they are par…Read more
-
43Corruption, Non‐ideal Theory, and Grace: A Response to Kant and the Ethics of HumilityPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (3): 624-631. 2007.
-
41The Naked Self: Kierkegaard and Personal Identity by Patrick StokesJournal of the History of Philosophy 54 (4): 685-686. 2016.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 pl…Read more
-
39In 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 Hinsich…Read more
-
36As 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: 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 sympat…Read more
-
35Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860–1900 by Frederick C. BeiserJournal of the History of Philosophy 56 (1): 180-181. 2018.Frederick Beiser continues to unfold the German philosophical tradition, refusing to let a static and narrowly construed canon of "big names" obscure important philosophical debates in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany. Weltschmerz focuses on the pessimism controversy, the debate over "the thesis that life is not worth living, that nothingness is better than being, or that it is worse to be than not be".The most important philosopher in the book is Arthur Schopenhauer. Chapters 1–4 are …Read more
-
34Symbolic Representation in Kant’s Practical Philosophy (review)Faith and Philosophy 23 (2): 232-238. 2006.
-
32A wealthy eccentric bought a house in a neighborhood I know.  The house was surrounded by a beautiful display of grass, plants, and flowers, and it was shaded by a huge old avocado tree. But the grass required cutting, the flowers needed tending, and the man wanted more sun. So he cut the whole lot down and covered the yard with asphalt. After all it was his property and he was not fond of plants. (Hill 1983: 98).
-
32Metastandards in the Ethics of Adam Smith and Aldo LeopoldEnvironmental Ethics 29 (2): 171-191. 2007.Adam Smith is not an environmentalist, but he articulated an ethical theory that is increasingly recognized as a fruitful source of environmental ethics. In the context of this theory, Smith illustrates in a particularly valuable way the role that anthropocentric, utilitarian metastandards can play in defending nonanthropocentric, nonutilitarian ethical standpoints. There are four roles that an anthropocentricmetastandard can play in defending an ecocentric ethical standpoint such as Aldo Leopol…Read more
-
32Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (1): 125-126. 2000.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.1 (2000) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Margaret Dauler Wilson. Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xx + 524. Cloth, $70.00. Ideas and Mechanism is a record of remarkable scholarship. It collects thirty-one essays by one of the most influential scholars in early modern philosophy. (Wilson herself did most of the editing, thou…Read more
-
30Angaben 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 S…Read more