Search

“Central Airport THF” is a documentary film about the temporary housing of refugees in the halls of the former Tempelhof Airport, located at the edge of Berlin’s Tempelhofer Feld. As if by accident, the director contrasts the arrested life in the adapted shelter to the mobility of life in the politically contested Tempelhof Park adjacent to it. Beginning with the specific locality of Central Airport Tempelhof, its architecture, history, and current use as refugee housing, the film employs aesthetic means to render an affectively knowable violence that extends to the very ground of what we call ‘infrastructure.’ The analysis of these aesthetic moments leads to questions that are only rarely addressed in the context of displacement and asylum, but are no less central to the relationship between displacement and mobility: What is common possession? Who owns the world? Does the world fall—can it even fall—under the categories of property or ownership?

This paper comments on Richard Bourke's Hegel and World Revolutions, focusing on its analysis of Hegel's relevance for debates on revolution, freedom, and the Enlightenment. While agreeing with Bourke's call for critically engaging with Hegel's ideas rather than dismissing them outright, the paper raises some questions concerning Bourke's reconstruction of Hegel's interpretation of Kant, his account of the French Revolution, and the impact of Hegel's work on contemporary debates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant’s Beweisgrund criticizes the Cartesian ontological argument while promoting another ontological argument – the ‘possibility proof’. It is widely recognized that Hume’s reflections on ‘existence’ are a precursor to the Beweisgrund’s objections to the Cartesian proof, but there is scepticism about whether the former influenced the latter. This is because it is believed that Hume reflects upon ‘existence’ only within the Treatise and not the Enquiry, and that Kant read only the latter and not the former. This paper argues that the objection that existence is not a predicate is contained within the Enquiry, that the Beweisgrund was influenced by the latter, and that the ‘possibility proof’ is intended to answer the Enquiry’s claims about the indemonstrability of existence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do normative ideals play in politics? Since Rawls, many political philosophers have advocated what they take to be a Kantian answer to this question. Normative ideals organize and guide political decision-making and action, and a major task of political philosophy is to generate them. Recently, this position has come under renewed scrutiny among political thinkers identifying as realists and nonideal theorists. These critics argue that ideal theory is too remote from empirical politics. This article turns to Kant for an alternative conception of ideals that is both distinct from the Rawlsian account and better withstands the critiques of realists and nonideal theorists. It argues that, for Kant, ideals are aids to freedom; their aim is to guide us towards forms of autonomy we have yet to fully realize. This leaves us with a much stronger view of ideals than does ideal theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to apply the methodology of minimal ontological commitments to moral and political philosophy. As minimal metaphysics in the philosophy of science endorses scientific realism, so we subscribe to moral realism, arguing that the presumption of liberty is the fundamental assumption defining a person. What needs to be justified then are restrictions to liberty and, in particular, the application of coercion upon persons. In examining knowledge claims about normative facts going beyond the presumption of liberty, such as, for instance, facts about a common good, we show that an ontological commitment to such normative facts is at odds with minimal metaphysics. We thus show how minimal metaphysics vindicates a Kantian deontological stance in moral and political philosophy: moral realism is limited to the obligations that follow from extending the presumption of liberty to all human beings in virtue of them being rational animals, hence to respect every person as an end in itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perception, according to advocates of the predictive processing (PP) framework in cognitive science, is a kind of controlled hallucination. Philosophers interested in PP, however, differ on how best to interpret this slogan. Does it suggest a new kind of idealism about perceptual objects or is it just a useful metaphor, illustrating something about how PP systems work without entailing a radical shakeup of mainstream realist views in the philosophy of perception? In this paper, I take a historically informed approach to this question, drawing on the Kantian roots of the contemporary framework. What perception reveals, according to PP, is a world shaped by the neurocomputational capacities and limitations of perceiving creatures. This means that the properties of perceived objects are, in an important and surprising sense, perceiver-dependent. Nonetheless, thanks to the integration of perceptual and agential capacities envisioned by PP, we should also accept a central claim of realism: in encountering this world we also encounter—come to be acquainted with—mind-independent particulars. PP thus supports a promising next step in the development of a Kantian argument linking the unity of agency to the objectivity of perception. The argument was advanced in its modern form by P.F. Strawson and has later been developed by Susan Hurley and others. In the revised form presented here, it says that PP-perceivers must be practically self-aware agents and that practically self-aware agents embedded in an environment can be acquainted with objects it contains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Comparative Literature is the property of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman, Department of Persian Language & Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

AbstractAfter showing that there is room in Kant’s account for doxastic responsibility, this paper sets out to explore the form it takes as well as the demands it makes on doxastic agents. To do so, I begin by showing that Kant’s account of cognition allows for an indirect form of doxastic voluntarism that pertains to the will’s capacity to influence the exercise of our cognitive faculties. I then argue that it would be a mistake to conclude on this basis that Kant reduces doxastic agency to the realm of the voluntary, whether indirect or not. In fact, on the Kantian picture of everyday cognition as I interpret it, we don’t relate to our doxastic activity as something that we should or even can control, intend, or choose. In this sense, Kant isn’t a direct doxastic voluntarist. I show that instead, he provides us with the resources to think about doxastic agency in a more fundamental way; namely, the sense in which we are agents of our cognitive lives pertains to what I call our doxastic way of thinking as it is defined by our epistemic maxims and ultimately our logical character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nietzsche's declaration of "God is dead" signifies not only the collapse of classical metaphysical systems in philosophy but also shifts in the psychological structure of individuals and society after the secularization of Christianity. A philosophical reading is crucial to understanding its whole process and real-world ramifications. We first delineate the fundamental meanings and historical context of the term "God" or "Absolute" and expound upon the mechanisms of spiritual functioning under it, highlighting the significance of God, or the Absolute, as the highest object of spiritual operation. Next, we analyze the death of God, i.e., the retreat of the Absolute, in the realms of reason and faith, exploring its causes and repercussions, particularly the disruption of the operation of the spirit. Then, building upon this analysis, we conclude that the metaphysical life supported by Kant and Hegel faces failure in the present age, because the Absolute has ceased to be the foundation. The roots of spiritual operation are no longer secure; the return to the Absolute points to emptiness, and exit without return creates disruptive division between subject and substance, essence and phenomenon, reason and reality. Meanwhile, the departure of God and the development of capitalism are intertwined, calling for a resurgence in the form of secularization, heralding a renewed human judgment of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that the interpretations we develop through the activity of reflection have a share of the truth. I argue this, first, by outlining the relationship of concepts to intuitions in Kant's theory of cognition, which presents the measure for truth in his philosophy. I turn, second, to explicate in detail the relation of the faculties in Kant's descriptions of the free play between the imagination and the understanding in judgments of taste. Here, we find that concepts relate to what appears in a partial but also multiple way, leading to a conclusion that our reflective judgments share in the truth. This is important, I note, for the need we have to inhabit a shared world where we can communicate with each other about the way that things are, even about things that are not objects of 'knowledge' proper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A woman's right to a safe legal abortion in South Africa conflicts with a health care professional's freedom of conscience. Conscientious objection or treatment refusal on the basis of conscience may be protected by the constitution but its morality has not been explored. This study uses Kantian Deontology to elucidate the ethical duties of health care professionals based on the Physician's Pledge. It concludes that conscience is morally empty and that health care professionals have a duty to treat all patients equally irrespective of the condition they present. Drawing on Kantian promise keeping, the study also concludes that health care professionals should place patients health and wellbeing above all other considerations. Using the categorical imperative, the study shows that health care professionals have a perfect duty not to refuse treatment. The study recommends that conscientious objection be rejected in all circumstances except where the psychological wellbeing of the health care professional will be affected. This can be achieved through legislative and professional body regulation of conscientious objection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kant-Studien is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we elaborate a conception of what we call integrational creativity, which aims both to capture the richest kinds of human creativity and to bring together certain existing conceptions of creativity in a way that we hope will resonate with what people have had in mind in talking of creativity. These conceptions are those offered by Arthur Koestler, Margaret Boden, and two conceptual blending theorists, Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner; and we show how these conceptions and the criticisms that have been made of them can be accommodated within our integrational account. We also argue, drawing on the work of Immanuel Kant and Hartmut Rosa, that the integrating character of creativity is complemented by the resonating character of its appreciation. On our view, the heart of creativity lies in its integrating–resonating structure, and in the final part we note some of the implications for recent debates about creativity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leibniz's metaphysics already justifies evil not only through the normative power of God, assuming that it is simultaneously the omnipotence of reason. For Kant, evil becomes definitively the sole problem of the rational being, human. While for Leibniz, the divine will had organized all practical relations of humans and movements of the physical world in such a way that the practical reason of all individuals is metaphysically constituted and evil is justified, Kant shifts the focus to the practical reason of humans as autonomous subjects. In this paradigm, God loses his metaphysical power, retaining only a moral role. Nietzsche and Musil build upon this context, yet surprisingly, they do not further advance this development. Instead, they reject the power of pure reason, which becomes absolute for Kant. Simultaneously, they draw on God's metaphysical power over evil to formulate their concept of the new evil that confronts us in the practical contexts of modern life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines possible reasons as to why Plato wrote dialogues. Hypotheses raised include the notion that dialogues were designed for public consumption, Plato's Idea of the Good and his protection of himself from the power elite. It describes the features of each variety of Platonic dialogues and discusses the essence of human wisdom, knowledge acquisition and the theoretical pessimism embedded in Plato's book "The Apology of Socrates."

The nature and practice of Christianity is a major, if not the primary, topic in Kierkegaard's authorship. What it means to live a Christian life is a persistent topic in many of his major works, and yet, he spends most of his authorship criticizing traditional ways of practicing Christianity. While his critique of institutionalized Christianity and merciless unmasking of the hypocrisy of self-proclaimed Christians is rather clear, namely that they are not actually Christian, it is more difficult to get a clear idea of Kierkegaard's alternative. What is a true and sincere Christian life for Kierkegaard? The argument of this article is that Kierkegaard's famous existential approach to Christianity amounts to a secularization of Christianity and as such can be seen as a critical development of and not a rejection of the Enlightenment critique of religion. The article uses Kant as an advocate of the Enlightenment critique of religion that Kierkegaard inherits and develops critically, and after having examined Kierkegaard's existential dialectics, an outline of Kant's transcendental approach is, presented against which Kierkegaard's existential alternative is examined in more detail. Kierkegaard's existential approach is radical with its insistence on "that single individual" and on the existential challenges of human freedom that Kant banned from his analysis of both morality and faith. While Kant presents us with the transcendental possibility of faith, Kierkegaard is concerned with the existential reality of faith. It is argued that Kierkegaard's existential analysis of faith helps us to find the connection between radical individual choice and the rational morality that is not always evident in Enlightenment—and especially Kantian—accounts of morality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent essentialist approaches to Kant’s laws of nature, it is unclear whether Kant’s critical philosophy is compatible with core tenets of essentialism. In this paper, I first reconstruct Kant’s position by identifying the key metaphysical and epistemological features of his notion of ‘nature’ or ‘essence’. Two theses about natures can be found in the literature, namely that they are noumenal in character (noumenal thesis) and that they guide scientific investigation as regulative ideas of reason (regulative thesis). I argue that Kant’s notion of nature does not entail the noumenal thesis and, based on his model of causal explanation, I propose a novel, phenomenal thesis, that allows for a better understanding of the function of natures as regulative ideas. In the last part of the paper, I show that Kant’s ‘essentialism’ is a genuine form of essentialism committed to de re modality, although it differs in several respects from major contemporary essentialist accounts. I conclude by suggesting that Kant’s essentialism (if appropriately updated) can be relevant to the contemporary debate, which has so far been dominated by Humean and Aristotelian proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mange kristne anser den gylne regel som en nyttig guide i etiske spørsmål. Innenfor nordatlantisk moralfilosofi og teologisk etikk, derimot, gikk den gylne regel av moten i kjølvannet av Immanuel Kants kritikk av regelen formulert på slutten av 1700-tallet. Denne artikkelen diskuterer rekkevidden av hans kritiske bemerkninger. Kants kritikk var rettet mot en bestemt tolkning av den gylne regel. En vurdering av kritikken vil derfor måtte diskutere denne tolkningen. Jeg bruker Derek Parfit sin diskusjon av Kants tolkning som en ansats til å formulere en tolkning av den gylne regel som jeg mener vi fortsatt kan gjøre konstruktiv bruk av i kristen etikk. Jeg argumenterer for at den gylne regel bør forstås som et metaetisk multipartiskhetsprinsipp som pålegger oss å vurdere handlinger med hensyn til enhver posisjon som er berørt.

The paper defends that it is possible to offer a Kantian argument for justifying the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It first briefly presents Philippe van Parijs’ argument for UBI based on the concept of real freedom for all. In doing so, it will focus on its general structure and central insight, without entering too much into other issues like the economic feasibility of UBI. It second briefly presents Kant’s concept of external freedom and especially focuses on some of its components to assess whether there is some closeness to van Parijs’ concept of real freedom. It further considers whether UBI is not only compatible with a Kantian position, but can be justified from such a position because it represents a tool for concretely realizing external freedom as presented in the Doctrine of Right and for attaining the ethical ideal of virtuosity presented in the Doctrine of Virtue.

The reception of Kant’s transcendental philosophy in Russia over two and a half centuries was characterised by various criticisms with the aim of supplementing, extending, correcting or refuting it. In addition to this academic dispute, there were several episodes of rude government interference in philosophical polemics. It entailed administrative restrictions ranging from the expulsion from Russia of J. W.L. Mellmann to the deprivation of the Stalin Prize for the third volume of the “History of Philosophy” accompanied this interference. The first significant administrative intervention with political consequences was a fierce struggle against Kantian natural law. The campaign began under the influence of M. L. Magnitsky and D.P. Runich in Russian universities and other educational institutions in the twenties of the 19th century. The Kantian-oriented natural law, endowed with “devilish attributes”, was accused of refusing to derive the legal foundation from Revelation, inconsistency with the Evangelical teaching, consideration of fallen reason as an independent source of legislation, and immorality of law and undermining autocracy and Orthodoxy. Although the natural law was not completely abandoned, many of his proponents, such as A.P. Kunitsyn, G.I. Solntsev, P.D. Lodi, etc., were expelled from universities or persecuted. The struggle to ban the natural law was a prologue to prohibit the teaching of philosophy in Russian universities, which occurred in 1850. Today, there are senior Russian military officers and officials who give similar ignorant assessments of Kantian philosophy as being invaded by “evil force” and offered militaristic interpretations of the categorical imperative. They follow the same sad path that is already well-known in Russian philosophy. Their statements do not yet entail administrative restrictions, but they already have undoubted political consequences.

There have been numerous studies on Kant's concept of the 'Fact of Reason', drawing on various intellectual resources, ranging from metaphysics to psychology, from Aristotle to Mencius, from analytic philosophy to phenomenology, and beyond. How should we evaluate these studies? Is it possible that these studies can contribute both to an understanding of Kantian philosophy and to an understanding of Western philosophy as a whole, as well as shed light on the development of philosophy after Kant and on the philosophical questions of our own era? In order to at least partially clarify the above questions, this article will draw on the work of philosohers such as Karl-Otto Apel, Jürgen Habermas, C.I. Lewis, Jin Yuelin and Feng Qi, and discuss how certain presuppositions of communicative action can be both regulative and constitutive, how the same propositions can be both empirical and a priori, how the same concepts can both describe reality and regulate it, and how the 'Fact of Reason' can be understood as the 'Fact of Learning', in order to offer a new interpretation of Kant's concept of the 'Fact of Reason'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I consider the principle of sufficient reason (henceforth, PSR) as it functions in both Leibniz and Kant. The issue separating these thinkers is a modal status of absolute contingency, which is exempt from PSR insofar as it is neither logically necessary, nor does it necessarily follow from the given causal series. Leibniz’s ambitious metaphysics applies PSR even to God’s choices, which, since they must rest on a reason that makes sense of them, necessarily tend to the creation of the best of all possible worlds. Through PSR, the exercise of human freedom represents the unfolding of a concept God already has chosen, with an eye to the best possible world aligned with the universal intelligibility enjoined by PSR. PSR, in Kant’s critical period, is not a principle of being, but one of mere experience, since any extension of thought beyond possible experience can yield no knowledge. Human agency, for Kant, has an intelligible aspect that is beyond possible experience. Since PSR is only a principle of experience for Kant, the agent in its intelligible aspect is not subject to it. Human free will introduces a special modal category of absolute contingency. Kant provides impetus for a humanism that makes the absolute freedom of the human will a competitor with the sovereignty of God, and also liberates the human will from contemporary ideologies that would subordinate it to natural determinism or group dynamics.

I argue in the essay that the conceptualist understanding of the mind-world relation ultimately leads to the kind of view that Panayot Butchvarov calls conceptual or linguistic creationism. According to this view, “there is nothing we have not conceptualized”. In addition to being an antithesis of metaphysical realism, which maintains that there is a reality independent of us, the term refers to the kind of thinking that sees human cognitive experience (and reality itself) as thoroughly constituted according to our concepts. While it might be easy to attribute this kind of position to Kant as well, especially when read through a conceptualist lens, I argue that such a position is not in accord with Kant’s philosophical intentions. Using the Deduction and Schematism chapters of the Critique of Pure Reason as examples, I also argue that on the conceptualist understanding of the mind-world relation too much is read into Kant’s idea that sensibility and understanding must be cognitively compatible with one another.

This paper corrects a historical injustice that has been perpetrated against Kant for some time now. Mostly on good grounds, Kantian ethics has been accused of neglecting the role played by the emotions in moral deliberation and in morally informed action. However, the contemporary moral philosophers who have put forth such a claim tend to bypass textual sources, on the one hand, and to downplay the role played by the anthropological writings on Kant’s practical philosophy as a whole, on the other. Relying on highly relevant pre-critical texts in which Kant sketches future argumentative patterns and discusses the role of a negative emotion like shame on the improvement of the human species, I address a mistaken conclusion about Kantian ethics as a whole that is common in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. I also raise paradoxical conclusions that follow from Kant’s argument, once its implicit premises have been brought to light. I conclude that Kant did indeed think seriously about a so-called ‘shame-instinct’, however much his central ideas diverge from contemporary readings of the emotion, and fall short of fulfilling the ultimate target one can assume his insights would be drawing at

In the history of philosophy, the concept of the self has long been a subject of intense debate and scrutiny. Within Kant's critical philosophy, the self holds a significant position and is deemed essential for the very notion of experience. This article aims to clarify Kant's viewpoint on the concept of self. Kant posits the existence of an inner sense faculty, through which he introduces the empirical or phenomenal self, a concept that aligns with Hume's stance on the self. Furthermore, Kant introduces the idea of a noumenal self through the faculty of understanding and apperception, suggesting that this noumenal self is the foundation upon which all our experiences are made possible. Our primary objective is to clarify the distinctions between the two forms of self, which will be succeeded by an assessment of each. Although numerous scholars tend to view Kant's perspective on the self as a negative concept, an alternative viewpoint emerges, proposing a potential positive interpretation of Kant's concept of the self. Subsequently, we present Gallagher's Pattern theory of the self and conduct a comparative analysis between the Kantian self and the components that constitute the self.

Bell’s theorem is based on the assumptions of local causality and measurement independence. The last assumption is identified by many authors as linked to the freedom of choice hypothesis. In this sense the human free will ultimately can ensure the measurement independence assumption. The incomplete experimental conditions for supporting this assumption are known in the literature as “freedom-of-choice loophole” (FOCL). Although there is no consensus among the scientists that the measurement independence is linked to human choices, in a recent paper, published in a prestigious journal, signed by more than a hundred authors, this assumption was seriously taken for the first time in an experiment known as Big Bell Test (Abellán et al. 2018). Using photons, single atoms, atomic ensembles and superconducting devices, this experiment was performed in five continents, and involved twelve laboratories, adopting human choices to close the FOCL. Nevertheless, the possibility of human freedom of choice has been a matter of philosophical debate for more than 2000 years, and there is no consensus among philosophers on this topic. If human choice is not free, this solution would not be sufficient to close FOCL. Therefore, in order to support the basic assumption of this experiment, it is necessary to argue that human choice is indeed free. In this paper, we present a Kantian position on this topic and defend the view that this philosophical position is the best way to ensure that Big Bell Test can in fact close the loophole.

The future of philosophy and the future of humankind-in-the-world are intimately related, not only (i) in the obvious sense that all philosophers are “human, all-too-human” animals—i.e., members of the biological species Homo sapiens, and also finite, fallible, and thoroughly normative imperfect in every other way too—hence the natural fate of all human animals is also the natural fate of all philosophers, but also (ii) in the more profound and subtle sense of what I’ll call philosophical futurism. Philosophical futurism is a critical, synoptic, and speculative reflection on the fate of humankind-in-the-world, with special attention paid not only to what humankind-in-the-world (including philosophy itself) will most likely be, if things continue to go along in more or less the same way as they have been and are now going, or could conceivably be, as in science fiction or other forms of imaginative projection, but also to what what humankind-in-the-world (including philosophy itself) ought to be, and therefore (assuming that “ought” entails “can”) can be, as the direct result of our individual and collective free agency, for the purpose of rationally guiding humankind in the near future. In my essay, I very briefly present, defend, and strongly recommend a version of philosophical futurism that I call Kantian futurism.

Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers (BSP) has been widely influential well beyond Thomistic circles, but its modern historical sources and logical consequences call for further investigation. The first part of this two-part article explores three modern semantic assumptions or principles without which BSP’s innovated theory of existential judgment cannot be fully appreciated: the existential neutrality of the copula ubiquitous among modern logicians; Kant’s introduction of a positing or “thetic” function of judgment, the understanding of which evolved in nineteenth-century logic; and the distinction between predication and assertion, generally accepted by late nineteenth century logicians. Part two of this paper offers a rereading of Gilson’s BSP as an implicit critique of and alternative to Maritain’s synthesis of Aquinas with these modern developments.

The investigation into the foundations of social critique has increasingly gained importance in the tradition known as Critical Theory. In this context, I will analyze Lukács’ work, particularly History and Class Consciousness, to comprehend the foundation he provides for social critique, rooted in the adoption of Marxism as a method. I posit that the escalating disjunction between the critique of the object and the critique of theory is attributable to the deepening social fragmentation engendered by capitalist structures. This inherent characteristic underscores the imperative for a cohesive amalgamation of epistemic and socio-ontological critique. To elucidate Lukács’ model of critique, I will give particular attention to the chapter “What Is Orthodox Marxism?”. By doing this, I aim to elucidate Lukács’ assertion that the Marxist method facilitates a harmonious integration between the epistemic and socio-ontological dimensions of life, once it incorporates crucial categories such as historicity, totality, reciprocal action, and mediation. Furthermore, his method underscores the symbiotic relationship between some elements of the political economy and the German philosophical tradition, which shapes Lukács’ conceptualization of critique.

The paper presents an analysis and interpretation of axiology and ethics as seen by the writer and philosopher Ayn Rand. The author follows the assumption that, in a situation where indifference is observed with regard to values (cf. Simmel, Sloterdijk), a return of philosophical reasoning to the idea of objectivity of values could be worthwhile. Therefore, he examines a specific type of axiological objectivism that can be found in Rand’s work. In the present paper, the suggested comparison with Baden neo-Kantism as well as phenomenological axiology serves to capture the specifics of Rand’s axiological approach. These lie in placing emphasis on such a relationship between facts and values in which values result from the facts of reality, as well as in the very understanding of the objectivity of values that Rand identifies with long-term life goals and identifies them as an objective necessity for an individual’s life. Following the analysis of Rand’s axiology, the author focuses on her understanding of ethics, which he places in contrast to Kant’s deontology, as well as morality, which he views through the prism of a business relationship based on the exchange of values. The aim of the paper is to, by means of an analysis and interpretation of Rand’s ideas, show that objective values can be understood as a necessary prerequisite for consequential ethics and an individual living a happy life without being anchored in transcendence or social consensus.

Germany’s content moderation law—NetzDG— is often the target of criticism in English-language scholarship as antithetical to Western notions of free speech and the First Amendment. The purpose of this Article is to encourage those engaged in the analysis of transatlantic content moderation schemes to consider how Germany’s self-ideation influences policy decisions. By considering what international relations scholars term ontological security, Germany’s aggressive forays into the content moderation space are better understood as an externalization of Germany’s ideation of itself, which rests upon an absolutist domestic moral and constitutional hierarchy based on the primacy of human dignity. Ultimately, this Article implores American scholars and lawmakers to consider the impact of this subconscious ideation when engaging with Germany and the European Union in an increasingly multi-polar cyberspace.

Kant’s philosophy directly addresses theological issues, one of which is the question of love for one’s neighbour. Its philosophical interpretation makes it possible not only to soften the rigorism of Kantian ethics, but also to resolve some of its characteristic paradoxes and to clarify the question of the concrete application of the categorical imperative. The article considers, in particular, the “paradox of method” used by Kant to define good and evil: evil is defined as reason’s abuse of its own freedom. It is precisely because of this understanding of evil that confidence in the moral quality of one’s own judgment becomes impossible. Kant even strengthens this point by introducing the notion of conscience as a self-judging reason, the latter being the strictest judge, whose verdict will always be accusatory. In order to avoid such undesirable conclusions, which leave no hope of justification in the face of the moral law, Kant introduces the concept of love for one’s neighbour as “a necessary addition to the imperfection of human nature”. True, such love, according to Kant, is impossible in respect to all people. But it is its presence in relation to some that allows us to overcome our own imperfection. Love for one’s neighbor precisely means voluntary recognition of the objective imperfection of one’s own subjective judgment about the morality and reasonableness of other people. And this recognition itself allows a person to rise to a moral height that would otherwise be inaccessible. In interpreting Kant’s ethics and, in particular, his concepts of reason and judgment, the author of the article relies on the concept of Joseph Simon, one of the leading modern German scholars of Kant studies in recent decades.

The article explores the applicability of Kant’s ethics, which prohibited the use people as mere means, in solutions to various Trolley problem scenarios. Based on the distinction between notions ‘using as mere means’ and ‘treating as mere means’, the precise requirements of Kant’s prohibition are reconstructed.

The article examines the key principles of François Laruelle’s non-philosophical project and analyzes it comparatively with the Kantian categories of a priori, a posteriori, analytical and synthetic. It discovers certain parallels between the a priori and transcendental account of non-philosophy, its theory of subjectivity and autistic perception of the real.

In this article I set out to demonstrate that Michel Foucault tries to construct a philosophical archaeology as a way to access history from the realm of freedom. I will present the development of this philosopher's thought about the possibilities of making history up to the point where archaeology needs to work jointly with genealogy. We will also see that together, archaeology and genealogy are seen by Foucault as a way to continue down the critical route of philosophy that Immanuel Kant himself refers to in "History of Pure Reason," at the heart of Critique of Pure Reason. In addition, I will look at the way this critical route is also guided by practical principles, as stipulated by the philosophical archaeology that Kant defines in a fragment written between 1793 and 1795. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant distinguishes cognition and thought. Mere thoughts do not conform to the conditions that Kant places on cognition and hence do not represent objects of experience. They are, nevertheless, intelligible, and play a vital role in our mental and moral lives. I offer the beginnings of an account of mere thought using Kant's resources. I consider four key cases of intelligible representations that lack objective validity: unschematized categories; transcendental ideas; philosophical concepts; thoughts that violate principles of the understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little consensus about whether Kant intends his Critique of Pure Reason to change the mind of a skeptical empiricist such as Hume. I challenge a common assumption made by both sides of the debate. This is the thought that Kant can convince skeptics only if he does not beg the question against them. Surprisingly, I argue, that is not how Kant sees things. On Kant's view, skeptical empiricism is an inherently unstable and unsatisfying position, which skeptics cannot help wanting to escape. Kant's Critique , and especially its Transcendental Deduction, offers thinkers like Hume an appealing means of escape, by explaining a possible relation of the mind to the objects of knowledge that skeptics have overlooked. On Kant's view of skeptics as inherently dissatisfied with their position, the offer of an explanation can change their minds while neither refuting nor appealing to their skeptical empiricism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In What Is Enlightenment ? and What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking ? Kant champions the right of all citizens to make public use of their reason and condemns any form of state censorship. However, according to the prevalent reading, in The Conflict of the Faculties , Kant seems to adjust to absolutism by reserving the public use of reason for university teachers and subjecting all other citizens to state censorship. In contrast to this reading, I argue that the concessions to absolutism that Kant makes are aimed at defying absolutism on its own ground and that the public use of reason is fully reaffirmed in its scope, requirements, and function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to determine to what extent clinical research meets moral criteria. We will briefly present virtue ethics, duty ethics, utilitarian ethics, human rights theory, and end we will end with a few words about moral bioimprovement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two popular views regarding the origin of critical thinking: (1) The concept of critical thinking began with Socrates and his Socratic method of questioning. (2) The term 'critical thinking' was first introduced by John Dewey in 1910 in his book How We Think. This paper argues that both claims are incorrect. Firstly, critical reflection was a distinguishing characteristic of the Presocratic philosophers, setting them apart from earlier traditions. Therefore, they should be recognized as even earlier pioneers of critical thinking. Secondly, John Dewey not only used the term 'critical thinking' before 1910, but there were also other authors who used it before him. The meaning of 'critical thinking' at the turn of the twentieth century was shaped by various traditions of linguistic usage, including literary criticism, science and medicine, and Kantian philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being a prominent and influential figure in the German and Jewish Enlightenment, Salomon Maimon's skeptical standpoint seems to veer towards radical and unsustainable assertions, denying the validity of any knowledge—including natural science—except for mathematics. This paper seeks to demonstrate that Maimon's skepticism concerning non-mathematical knowledge does not propose an incoherent skepticism nor contradict the enlightened perspective of developing natural sciences. To achieve this, I aim to show that (1) Maimon's radical claim originates from the radical nature of the question he answers, and (2) the key to understanding it lies in grasping the concept of synthesis in his philosophy, from which different meanings of knowledge follow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Iskolakultúra is the property of University of Szeged, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Filosofía (0185-3481) is the property of Universidad Iberoamericana Cuidad de Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article seeks to decentre the proprietary author in copyright law by attending to some peripheral matters of Immanuel Kant's periodical essay, 'On the Wrongfulness of Reprinting' (1785), as indices of its medial-material conditions of possibility. We consider not only the epitextual background of the German Enlightenment in which the Berlinische Monatsschrift was produced, but also the peritextual specimens of catchwords, signature marks, and various front matter of Kant's essay. This medial reading suggests the periodical to be deeply involved in the operations of a print machinery preceding the authorial figure, the existence of which perturbs copyright law's attachment to original authorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a translation of selections from Part One, Chapter One of Rehberg's Investigations, which contains his critique of the philosophical principles animating the French Revolution. No English translation of the text currently exists. The Investigations was one of the most influential philosophical treatments of the Revolution in eighteenth-century Germany and remains an important specimen of ‘Kantian’ political theory from the 1790s. The Investigations had a clear impact on Kant's political philosophy and the work of the early Fichte. The translation is accompanied by an editorial introduction that introduces the reader to Rehberg and outlines his core arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

McDowell’s “Avoiding the Myth of the Given” (2008, 2009) attempts to reconcile two claims: 1) what we most fundamentally experience is a fundamental level of invariable simple objects and their sensible properties; experience of these objects and properties is the ultimate ground of our knowledge of the world; 2) experience is through-and-through conceptually structured. This leads McDowell to endorsing the incoherent notion of intuitional content – necessary and thus irrevisable basic empirical conceptually structured contents or empirical categories. The notion requires the necessity and irrevisability of purely formal concepts and the on-going responsiveness to experience of empirical concepts. This reveals a dilemma: If the fundamental objects of experience are invariable then they cannot have empirically conceptual form; for revisability is a mark of the empirically conceptual. But purely formal concepts cannot give us the fundamental empirical structure of the world. The dilemma forces us to choose between claiming that the fundamental objects of experience are invariable and claiming that they are conceptually formed. I conclude by briefly describing how Kant successfully faces the challenge of accounting for the most fundamental invariable level of objects of experience without yielding to the myth of the given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Catholics condemn Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) as a fanatic; he fails to cushion ‘Never lie' with a distinction between venial and mortal sin. But Kant has secular substitutes: lie/mislead, candor/honesty, commission/omission, deception/illusion, discursive/pictorial. Kant weaves these distinctions into a safety net for polite society, business, politics, and religion. Kant's break-away disciple, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) removes this safety net. Any intentional propagation of error suffices for lying. Ditto for refraining to correct a remedial error. Why? Because we all have a duty to perfect each other. This moral development requires rational informed choice. Being misinformed subverts freedom. The medium of misinformation is irrelevant: utterances, silences, pictures, music, dance, private thoughts, telepathy. To Fichte's relief, Kant overcame the temptation to save an innocent man from murder by lying. But Fichte still thought Kant manifested a corrupt mind by merely considering lying! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While positive appraisals of testimonial knowledge by Enlightenment thinkers have recently begun to receive more attention, such discussions often operate at a very general level, leaving out much of the context and dynamics of specific types of testimonial interactions. Drawing on extended passages from Georg Friedrich Meier and Immanuel Kant, the present paper looks at the specific case of scholarly testimony and the various epistemic dangers that can befall the interaction between scholars (or, in modern parlance, ‘experts’) and lay audiences. While Kant recognises the imperfections of many expert testifiers (and pays special attention to the figure of the ‘pedant’), he is keenly aware of the – greater – risk of what may be called ‘epistemic populism’, which seeks ‘to make imperceptible the blatantly obvious inequality between loquacious ignorance and thorough science’ (AA, XI, 141). Furthermore, Kant suggests, those with superior epistemic authority can justifiably disengage from interactions with those who, as laypersons, arrogate to themselves equal epistemic standing and are unwilling to appreciate the rational force of evidence and argumentation. Prolonging interaction in such a scenario would be futile and may well be ‘contrary to the dignity of reason’ (AA, XI, 143). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper corrects a historical injustice that has been perpetrated against Kant for some time now. Mostly on good grounds, Kantian ethics has been accused of neglecting the role played by the emotions in moral deliberation and in morally informed action. However, the contemporary moral philosophers who have put forth such a claim tend to bypass textual sources, on the one hand, and to downplay the role played by the anthropological writings on Kant's practical philosophy as a whole, on the other. Relying on highly relevant pre-critical texts in which Kant sketches future argumentative patterns and discusses the role of a negative emotion like shame on the improvement of the human species, I address a mistaken conclusion about Kantian ethics as a whole that is common in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. I also raise paradoxical conclusions that follow from Kant's argument, once its implicit premises have been brought to light. I conclude that Kant did indeed think seriously about a so-called 'shame-instinct', however much his central ideas diverge from contemporary readings of the emotion, and fall short of fulfilling the ultimate target one can assume his insights would be drawing at. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]