Stephan Zimmermann

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant formulates the principle of causality both nomologically and non-nomologically. One formulation says that everything happens in accordance with laws, the other that everything that happens has a cause. Geert Keil has claimed that Kant actually holds the nomological version, but that he omits or neglects to justify it. I will argue that Keil is right with his claim, but that he wrongly accuses Kant of a lack of justification. For Kant holds something that he can only hold at the price of self-contradiction: the nomological version of the causal principle, as I will show, contradicts Kant’s own thinking and therefore cannot be justified by him at all.

In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant explains a perfect duty as one that “admits no exception in favor of inclination”. An imperfect duty must then, in turn, be one which does admit such exceptions. However, according to Kant, all duties are valid without exception, and so there has been broad agreement among Kantians and Kant interpreters from the beginning that perfect duties cannot be characterized by exceptionless validity. I would thus like to argue in favor of a different reading of Kant’s explanation. My thesis is that he uses the term ‘exception’ in quite different ways, as can be documented, for instance, in the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Pure Reason. The term then has another meaning, and this is also the case in the passage in question in the Groundwork.

The state of recent as well as older research on social ontology suggests a paradigmatic approach according to which it is our consciousness that must provide the framework for conceptualizing the social in one way or another. I argue, however, that Wittgenstein’s treatment of rule-following opens up a new horizon for the ontology of the social. The fact that the rules of our language are social in nature, and that we need not be aware of them in order to follow them, shifts the problem of social ontology away from consciousness to what lies behind it. The result is that being social is not a function of our consciousness. The ontological conceptualization of the social must focus on our implicit knowledge instead, which is always an enabling condition for consciousness. For, we share some of this implicit knowledge with others, as can be seen from the case of language.

Das Verhaltnis von Dichten und Denken hat in seiner Geschichte viele unterschiedliche Bestimmungen erfahren. Schon immer war der Philosophie das Phanomen des Asthetischen eine eigentumliche Herausforderung, sei es, dass die Kunst als ein vorzuglicher Gegenstand galt, an dem eine ihrer selbst bereits bewusste Philosophie ihre Konzeptualisierungskraft bestatigt, sei es, dass sie als Medium diente, in dem die Philosophie sich allererst ihrer selbst zu vergewissern sucht, oder aber, dass die Philosophie um ihrer Selbstbehauptung willen den Wahrheitswert der Kunst im Ganzen disqualifizierte. Die im vorliegenden Band versammelten Beitrage spuren diesem Verhaltnis von Dichten und Denken auf unterschiedliche Weise nach, seiner Geschichte und seinen Moglichkeiten unter gegenwartigen Bedingungen.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant discusses the ideas in the context of the conception of reason in terms of formal logic according to which it is the faculty of inferring mediately. By this, the impression widespread in secondary literature arises that the pure concepts of reason according to Kant have a syllogistic sense, i. e. are either based on syllogisms or stand otherwise in relation with them. This paper argues instead: that Kant derives the ideas – similar to the pure concepts of understanding – by means of a metaphysical deduction from the functions of all thinking in the so-called table of judgements; that accordingly – as the categories – they demand a consequent judgement-theoretical explanation; yet, that here the thinking functions that fall under the title of relation find a different employment; and that therefore the judgements which result from this possess the status of final principles for human experience wherein the conception of reason in terms of transcendental logic consists.

As the »key to the critique of taste« in §9 of his Critique of Judgement Kant offers the well-known doctrine of a »free play of the cognitive faculties«. What exactly this play consists in is still much discussed in the literature. Kant describes it as a state of harmony between imagination and understanding, for which the reflecting judgement, which mediates between the two, is responsible. This paper turns against the popular interpretation that considers »free play« as an exceptional state of the mind in which the said faculties are relieved from their actual cognitive activity. This view, however, creates a number of inconsistencies. Above all, Kant explicitly speaks against it. The paper therefore argues for an alternative reading that is able to take these objections into account.

At the end of the Critique of Judgement, Kant returns to his discussion of the doctrine of the postulates of pure practical reason. He there describes the justification for these judgements of faith as ›moral arguments‹. In the course of this, he resolves a hitherto unanswered question, namely what exactly the ›increment‹, as it is already mentioned in the Critique of Practical Reason, consists in, when the immortality of the human soul, the freedom of our will and the existence of God are postulated. The paper shows that the underlying ideas of pure theoretical reason shed their subjectivity in the postulates and extend to a certain objectivity. And it explains how this objectivity has to be understood in opposition to that of judgements of experience.

Talk of value can be documented in various of Kant's writings. It sometimes appears frequently, and some of the basic concepts of Kant's moral philosophy are even sometimes explained with the help of the concept of a moral value. The paper examines the question what this talk means. Kant himself does not make this an issue, and even the secondary literature has so far hardly investi- gated what he understands by a valueas such. From there, it is then possible to develop the meaning that talk of amoralvalue must have. Neither does Kant address this issue, and the secondary literature has hardly approached the talk of a special value, namely the moral one, from Kant's general understanding of value, although this provides deep insights.

The state of recent as well as older research on social ontology suggests a paradigmatic approach, according to which it is our consciousness that must provide the framework for conceptualising the social. I, however, argue that Wittgenstein’s treatment of rule-following opens up a new horizon for the ontology of the social. The fact that the rules of our language are social in nature and that we need not be aware of them in order to follow them shifts the problem to what lies behind consciousness. The ontological conceptualisation of the social must focus on our implicit knowledge instead, which is always an enabling condition for our consciousness: for we share some of this implicit knowledge with others, as can be seen from Wittgenstein and the case of language.

Kant’s repeated statement in the Critique of Pure Reason that the so-called table of judgements and, as a consequence, the table of pure concepts of the understanding or categories, is fully exhaustive is well-known. This ambitious assertion has worried and challenged generations of authors. However, thus far the entire discussion has completely disregarded the fact that in his Critique of Practical Reason Kant undertakes a coordinate venture. For the “Table of the Categories of Freedom”, which he sets out, with only a few explanations, in the “Second Chapter” of the Critique, Kant makes, when looked at more closely, the very same claim to completeness. This article shows that this same claim is made, even though Kant does not state this assertion as explicitly as one might have expected. And it poses the question, which underlying, yet concealed assumptions this view might appeal to. Or is it that Kant has merely failed to provide the evidence in this case?

Die Ontologie des Sozialen fragt nach der irreduziblen Verfassung der gesellschaftlichen Dimension menschlichen Daseins. Vor das Problem ihrer begrifflichen Bestimmung sahen sich im 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert naturgemäß schon die theoretischen Grundlegungsversuche zur Soziologie als einer eigenständigen wissenschaftlichen Disziplin gestellt. Die gegenwärtige Debatte kommt jedoch über weite Strecken hinweg ohne jede historische Bezugnahme aus. Die mangelnde Berücksichtigung geschichtlicher Zusammenhänge allerdings bedroht die Reflexion hier wie sonst mit sachlichen Einseitigkeiten; muss sich doch jedes ernsthafte Nachdenken mit einschlägigen Meinungen der Vergangenheit gleichzeitig und durch sie ebenso herausgefordert wie belehrbar wissen. Der vorliegende Band erweitert darum die Quellenlage. Er versammelt Beiträge von einschlägig ausgewiesenen Experten und Nachwuchswissenschaftlern, welche die verschiedenen Konzeptualisierungsstrategien, die bereits im Umfeld der klassischen deutschen Philosophie entwickelt worden sind, aufgreifen und systematisch nutzbar machen. Insbesondere Kant, Fichte und Hegel werden als gewinnbringende Anlaufstellen für sozialontologische Überlegungen erschlossen.

© CERN for the benefit of the ATLAS collaboration 2011.We present first measurements of charged and neutral particle-flow correlations in pp collisions using the ATLAS calorimeters.Data were collected in 2009 and 2010 at centre-of-mass energies of 900 GeV and 7 TeV.Events were selected using a minimum-bias trigger which required a charged particle in scintillation counters on either side of the interaction point.Particle flows, sensitive to the underlying event, are measured using clusters of energy in the ATLAS calorimeters, taking advantage of their fine granularity.No Monte Carlo generator used in this analysis can accurately describe the measurements.The results are independent of those based on charged particles measured by the ATLAS tracking systems and can be used to constrain the parameters of Monte Carlo generators.