Con-Textos Kantianos. International Journal of Philosophy

Kant's Revolution of Thought

2023-10-10T16:47:20+00:00

La normatività antropologica in Kant

2023-07-04T10:54:24+00:00

Letture contemporanee della teoria kantiana della conoscenza scientifica

2023-10-16T09:30:58+00:00

Law and Freedom in Julius Ebbinghaus’ Kantian Philosophy of Law

2023-06-22T09:18:05+00:00

THE EXCEPTION THESIS

2023-12-12T13:18:18+00:00

Notes on the Cambridge translation of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

2023-12-12T13:18:14+00:00

This article mainly discusses translation issues in the two Cambridge editions of Kant’s Religion, while engaging in a briefer discussion of Pluhar’s translation of the same work. The aim is to correct single errors as well as patterns of questionable translation, and to do so guided by criteria of consistency in relation to Kant’s use of key terms. I argue that the English translations have contributed to misinterpretations of Kant’s philosophy of religion, although I make only passing references to the secondary scholarship.

Kant, Global Politics and Cosmopolitan Law. A Reply to G. Geismann

2023-12-12T13:18:37+00:00

In this reply I rebut Mr Geismann’s unproved charges to my work on Kant’s cosmopolitanism. In my study I argue for a novel reading for the ‘world republic’ (Weltrepublik) in regulative terms. I defend also a non-perfectionist model of politics which for Kant brings us to a continuous normative striving for improvement. Unfortunately, Geismann has deliberately misunderstood the distinctive proposal I advance. The dismissive attitude towards my thesis reveals also discriminatory structural problem of certain Kantian conservative scholarship towards innovative proposals coming from academically not-aligned interpreters.

Kant and “tabula Russia”

2023-12-12T13:17:58+00:00

The article offers an attempt to understand the present state of Kant’s legacy in Russia on the threshold of the Tercentenary. An explanans is found in the metaphors of “tabula rasa” and “unplowed virgin soil,” first used by Leibniz in relation to Russia in his letters and memoranda addressed to tsar Peter I and other members of the Russian elite, which became the country’s “absolute metaphors to live by” up to present time. Several known and unknown episodes from the history of the reception of Kantian ideas, his followers in Russia, and the transformation of the urban environment of Kant’s life in Königsberg, as it was becoming Kaliningrad, are presented through the prism of this metaphor. Without hoping to make specific recommendations of any use from such metaphorical grounds, this study aims to emphasize the depth, interconnectedness, and basic, metaphysical tension of the relationship between Europe and Russia, which cannot be terminated at will by either side, or by a third party. In a situation where the sides are doomed to dialog, Kant, appropriated by Russia as its “subject,” occupies the unique position of mediator of philosophical understanding and peaceful action.

The Material Conditions of Thought. Body, force, and faculty in the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte

2023-12-12T13:18:02+00:00

The contribution examines the third part of the Allgemeine Naturgeschichte, written by Kant in 1755, and focuses in particular on the mind-body relationship. In particular, the contribution highlights the presence of two layers in Kantian discourse. In the first one, the body is considered a limitation of the spirit, which would fully develop its cognitive faculties if it were not tied to a matter. In the second one, on the contrary, the body, or rather the material quality of the body, gives the spirit the ability to exercise the power of thought.

Kant on Philosophy as Conceptual Analysis

2023-12-12T13:18:05+00:00

For Kant, philosophical investigations are inherently analytic. The proper method of philosophy is analysis, and the object of analysis are concepts. Hence, Kant’s short description of philosophy as “rational cognition […] from concepts” (KrV, A 837/B 865) can be substituted by “philosophy is conceptual analysis”. The article shows that Kant follows a representationalism about concepts and a combination of intensional and extensional feature semantics. Against the claim that Kant is a proponent of the concept-judgement-inversion, it is argued that concepts are being articulated in form of singular terms, propositions, and sets of propositions alike. Kant interlinks different kinds of concepts with different kinds of definitions, as the reconstruction of his theory of definitions reveals. Philosophy foremost deals with what Kant calls “given” empirical and pure concepts. Such concepts are object of analysis, i.e., explication and exposition. The article ends with answers to five possible objections. Is philosophy all about analysis?

The Intrinsic and Extrinsic Proprieties of Things. Is Kant a Structural Realist?

2023-12-12T13:18:08+00:00

In current debates on scientific realism, it is common to characterize Kant as an idealist for whom reality of things, as it is in itself, is outside our scope of knowledge. The article locates transcendental idealism against a realistic position called structural realism, via the interpretation given by Rae Langton in her text Kantian Humility, where the author tries to respond to the problem of double affection, considering two types of properties of things: the intrinsic and the relational, which will make it possible to establish a bridge between said interpretation and structural realism. The conclusion is that, given this interpretive path, it is possible to locate Kant in the debate on scientific realism, despite the charge that this does not go through idealism.

The Earliest Kant in the Face of Metaphysics: a Historical Approach to the Origins of an Intellectual Attitude. —II. Intellectual Environments—

2023-12-12T13:18:40+00:00

This paper continues the effort of contributing, from the Kantforschung perspective and using methodological principles of the intellectual history, to the knowledge of the immediate and general contexts in which flow the different metaphysical doctrines that Kant could know during the years of his university formation, doctrines that could influence his first attitudes in the face of metaphysics. First, it reconstructs his immediate intellectual environment making an approach to the professors that dictated metaphysics courses when Kant was student at the Albertina; then, it deals with the situation of the main metaphysics doctrines in Prussia during eighteen-century first half, particularly to face to development of modern natural science; finally, in contrasting characteristics of both immediate and general intellectual environments, it suggests an account on how young Kant’s profile could be shaped as an anti-Wolffian independent eclectic.

The Necessity of the Discipline of Pure Reason for the Systematicity of the Practical Use of Reason in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

2023-12-12T13:18:00+00:00

Kant’s critical philosophy cannot realize its stated purpose to make metaphysics systematic unless it makes all metaphysical uses of reason, including the practical use of reason, systematic. Yet Kant’s account of the systematicity of the practical use of reason is not entirely clear. In particular, none of the variations of his account of the systematicity of the practical use of reason explicitly discusses the role of the discipline of pure reason in making the practical use of reason systematic. The apparent absence of the discipline from Kant’s account is contrary to indications in his writings indirectly suggesting that the discipline plays an indispensable role in the systematicity of the practical use of reason. This discrepancy remains unaddressed in the scholarship. Most interpreters reconstruct Kant’s account of the systematicity of the practical use of reason without attributing any role to the discipline. This article aims to make explicit the role of the discipline in Kant’s account of the systematicity of the practical use of reason. Specifically, it suggests that the discipline of pure reason is the first necessary condition for the systematicity of the practical use of reason: it prepares the ground for a justifiable conception of the ideal of the highest good and for legitimate postulates regarding the immortality of the soul and the existence of God.

El problema del mal en el ensayo sobre el uso filosófico del concepto de las magnitudes negativas

2023-08-23T08:09:07+00:00

Este trabajo presenta una reconstrucción del problema del mal en el Intento de introducir el concepto de magnitudes negativas en la filosofía. En primer lugar, explico los aspectos sistemáticos e históricos de este ensayo. En segundo lugar, expongo el significado del mal según el concepto de magnitudes negativas. En tercer lugar, presento el argumento de Kant para defender la sabiduría suprema de Dios frente a la negatividad del mal. En cuarto lugar, doy las claves principales para interpretar el problema del mal radical según el concepto de magnitudes negativas. En definitiva, argumento que el mal moral, como algo real, positivo y con fundamento ontológico propio, puede aniquilar la realidad del bien y, por tanto, la moralidad.

Kant, Anthropocentrism, and Animal Welfare

2023-12-12T13:18:11+00:00

Abstract: This paper will argue six reasons why Kant is an anthropocentric, but not an anthropo-supremacist. It will lay out Kant’s case against animal egalitarianism, and how Kant’s moral theory nevertheless provides sufficient obligations not to be cruel to other animal species and to care about their welfare. This paper will show how Kant’s moral theory will apply in concrete detail with one species of non-human animal, namely the dairy cow. A dairy farmer who is also motived by Kantian virtue will have enough moral incentive to care about their dairy cows even though Kant’s duties to other animal species are indirect and not direct.

Persons, Bodily Awareness and Personal Identity in Kant

2023-12-12T13:18:43+00:00

In this paper, I will explore a concept of person in Kant based on two features: the unity of consciousness and the consciousness of the numerical identity of one's body in time. The reason for choosing these features is that I take as my starting point the notion of personhood from rational psychology that appears in the major premise of the third paralogism (A361). I will focus on the second feature in order to show that since Kant it is possible to think of the body not merely as an object, but as a subject, i.e., that bodily awareness is self-awareness. I will explain this on the basis of what I will denominate the thesis of corporeality. To develop this thesis, I will draw on passages from Kant's work and contemporary considerations of bodily awareness, specifically the immunity to error through misidentification.

Correspondentist truth in kantian practical philosophy, as a criteria for analysis of the fake news phenomenon

2023-12-12T13:18:21+00:00

This article aims to discuss the complex phenomenon of fake news, defining it, establishing its main characteristics and consequences, whether for the individual in their daily lives, as a consequent harm to their education and moral construction, or for society, reflecting on the impacts they can have on large groups. To analyze this issue, we anchor ourselves in Kantian philosophy, using his epistemology to investigate the meaning of truth and how it was articulated in his theoretical corpus; in the practical field, we understand the implication of his concept of truth in law, politics and moral action. As a result, we gained an understanding of the impact of fake news and its ability to create moral chaos, while slowly undermining concepts and institutions indispensable for the maintenance of civilization, as well as the path of reason taking place in history.

Forced to be truthful. On the Essay on the lie and public communications in Kant's Philosophy of Right.

2023-12-12T13:18:30+00:00

In the essay On a supposed right to lie from philanthropy, Kant discusses the unconditional duty of truthfulness, which has posed challenges for Kantian philosophy. This duty appears to compel individuals to always be truthful, regardless of whether their statements are public or private. I will refer to the interpretation that supports the obligation to be truthful in all statements as the extensive interpretation. I will demonstrate that this interpretation leads to inconsistencies with the Doctrine of Law. These inconsistencies can be resolved by adopting a restrictive interpretation of this duty, which states that the obligation of truthfulness only applies to public communications. If my interpretation is correct, it means that all public communications, whether from citizens or officials, must be truthful. Although my interpretation contradicts Kant's writings regarding the legal responsibility of lying, it is consistent not only with the Doctrine of Law but also with other texts where Kant discusses public communication.

The Concept of Teleology in Kant, Hegel, and Marx

2023-12-12T13:18:32+00:00

Breaking with Aristotle’s Physics, Kant effects a theoretical reconception of teleology. It is this paper’s contention that the truth of the Kantian conception of teleology as ‘a purposiveness of nature in behalf of our faculty for cognizing it’ is not that of being a solution to Hume’s problem of induction or the condition for the possibility of subjective cognition of the empirical, but that it is a theoretical means of the subjective domination over the objective. A materialist reading of Hegel’s criticism of Kant’s antinomy of teleological judgment in the Science of Logic is then proposed. Finally, the non-teleological nature of capital is demonstrated.