Kant and the Claims of Knowledge

Kant and the Claims of Knowledge
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 504
Release: 1987-12-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521337724

This book offers a radically new account of the development and structure of the central arguments of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: the defense of the objective validity of such categories as substance, causation, and independent existence. Paul Guyer makes far more extensive use than any other commentator of historical materials from the years leading up to the publication of the Critique and surrounding its revision, and he shows that the work which has come down to us is the result of some striking and only partially resolved theoretical tensions. Kant had originally intended to demonstrate the validity of the categories by exploiting what he called 'analogies of appearance' between the structure of self-knowledge and our knowledge of objects. The idea of a separate 'transcendental deduction', independent from the analysis of the necessary conditions of empirical judgements, arose only shortly before publication of the Critique in 1781, and distorted much of Kant's original inspiration. Part of what led Kant to present this deduction separately was his invention of a new pattern of argument - very different from the 'transcendental arguments' attributed by recent interpreters to Kant - depending on initial claims to necessary truth.

Kant and the Claims of Taste

Kant and the Claims of Taste
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 456
Release: 1997-05-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521576024

The book offers a detailed account of Kant's views on judgments of taste, aesthetic pleasure, imagination and many other topics.

Knowledge, Reason, and Taste

Knowledge, Reason, and Taste
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2013-12-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691151172

Immanuel Kant famously said that he was awoken from his "dogmatic slumbers," and led to question the possibility of metaphysics, by David Hume's doubts about causation. Because of this, many philosophers have viewed Hume's influence on Kant as limited to metaphysics. More recently, some philosophers have questioned whether even Kant's metaphysics was really motivated by Hume. In Knowledge, Reason, and Taste, renowned Kant scholar Paul Guyer challenges both of these views. He argues that Kant's entire philosophy--including his moral philosophy, aesthetics, and teleology, as well as his metaphysics--can fruitfully be read as an engagement with Hume. In this book, the first to describe and assess Hume's influence throughout Kant's philosophy, Guyer shows where Kant agrees or disagrees with Hume, and where Kant does or doesn't appear to resolve Hume's doubts. In doing so, Guyer examines the progress both Kant and Hume made on enduring questions about causes, objects, selves, taste, moral principles and motivations, and purpose and design in nature. Finally, Guyer looks at questions Kant and Hume left open to their successors.

Kant and the Claims of the Empirical World

Kant and the Claims of the Empirical World
Author: Ido Geiger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2022-04-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1108998607

Kant announces that the Critique of the Power of Judgment will bring his entire critical enterprise to an end. But it is by no means agreed upon that it in fact does so and, if it does, how. In this book, Ido Geiger argues that a principal concern of the third Critique is completing the account of the transcendental conditions of empirical experience and knowledge. This includes both Kant's analysis of natural beauty and his discussion of teleological judgments of organisms and of nature generally. Geiger's original reading of the third Critique shows that it forms a unified whole - and that it does in fact deliver the final part of Kant's transcendental undertaking. His book will be valuable to all who are interested in Kant's theory of the aesthetic and conceptual purposiveness of nature.

Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge

Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge
Author: Robert Greenberg
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2001-03-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0271040475

The prevailing interpretation of Kant’s First Critique in Anglo-American philosophy views his theory of a priori knowledge as basically a theory about the possibility of empirical knowledge (or experience), or the a priori conditions for that possibility (the representations of space and time and the categories). Instead, Robert Greenberg argues that Kant is more fundamentally concerned with the possibility of a priori knowledge—the very possibility of the possibility of empirical knowledge in the first place. Greenberg advances four central theses:(1) the Critique is primarily concerned about the possibility, or relation to objects, of a priori, not empirical knowledge, and Kant’s theory of that possibility is defensible; (2) Kant’s transcendental ontology must be distinct from the conditions of the possibility of a priori knowledge; (3) the functions of judgment, in Kant’s discussion of the Table of Judgments, should be seen according to his transcendental logic as having content, not as being just logical forms of judgment making; (4) Kant’s distinction between and connection of ordering relations (Verhaltnisse) and reference relations (Beziehungen) have to be kept in mind to avoid misunderstanding the Critique. At every step of the way Greenberg contrasts his view with the major interpretations of Kant by commentators like Henry Allison, Jonathan Bennett, Paul Guyer, and Peter Strawson. Not only does this new approach to Kant present a strong challenge to these dominant interpretations, but by being more true to Kant’s own intent it holds promise for making better sense out of what have been seen as the First Critique’s discordant themes.

Introducing Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Introducing Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2021-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1108899838

This Element surveys the place of the Critique of Pure Reason in Kant's overall philosophical project and describes and analyzes the main arguments of the work. It also surveys the developments in Kant's thought that led to the first critique, and provides an account of the genesis of the book during the 'silent decade' of its composition in the 1770s based on Kant's handwritten notes from the period.

Kant's Power of Imagination

Kant's Power of Imagination
Author: Rolf-Peter Horstmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2018-05-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1316997774

This Element is a study of how the power of imagination is, according to Kant, supposed to contribute to cognition. It is meant to be an immanent and a reconstructive endeavor, relying solely on Kant's own resources when he tries to determine what material, faculties, and operations are necessary for cognition of objects. The main discourse is divided into two sections. The first deals with Kant's views concerning the power of imagination as outlined in the A- and B- edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. The second focuses on the power of imagination in the first part of the Critique of Judgment.

Kant's Theory of Knowledge

Kant's Theory of Knowledge
Author: Justus Hartnack
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2001-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780872205062

A reprint of the Macmillan edition of 1968. While most interpretive studies of the Critique of Pure Reason are either too scholarly or too superficial to be of practical use to students, Hartnack has achieved a concise comprehensive analysis of the work in a lucid style that communicates the essence of extraordinarily complex arguments in the simplest possible way. An ideal companion to the First Critique, especially for those grappling with the work for the first time.

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics

Conversations on Art and Aesthetics
Author: Hans Maes
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2017-05-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191509620

What is art? What counts as an aesthetic experience? Does art have to beautiful? Can one reasonably dispute about taste? What is the relation between aesthetic and moral evaluations? How to interpret a work of art? Can we learn anything from literature, film or opera? What is sentimentality? What is irony? How to think philosophically about architecture, dance, or sculpture? What makes something a great portrait? Is music representational or abstract? Why do we feel terrified when we watch a horror movie even though we know it to be fictional? In Conversations on Art and Aesthetics, Hans Maes discusses these and other key questions in aesthetics with ten world-leading philosophers of art: Noël Carroll, Gregory Currie, Arthur Danto, Cynthia Freeland, Paul Guyer, Carolyn Korsmeyer, Jerrold Levinson, Jenefer Robinson, Roger Scruton, and Kendall Walton. The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas and intellectual development. They also offer new insights into, and a deeper understanding of, contemporary issues in the philosophy of art.

Kant

Kant
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 520
Release: 2014-03-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1135015635

In this updated edition of his outstanding introduction to Kant, Paul Guyer uses Kant’s central conception of autonomy as the key to his thought. Beginning with a helpful overview of Kant’s life and times, Guyer introduces Kant’s metaphysics and epistemology, carefully explaining his arguments about the nature of space, time and experience in his most influential but difficult work, The Critique of Pure Reason. He offers an explanation and critique of Kant’s famous theory of transcendental idealism and shows how much of Kant’s philosophy is independent of this controversial doctrine. He then examines Kant’s moral philosophy, his celebrated ‘categorical imperative’ and his theories of duty, freedom of will and political rights. This section of the work has been substantially revised to clarify the relation between Kant’s conceptions of "internal" and "external" freedom. In his treatments of Kant’s aesthetics and teleology, Guyer focuses on their relation to human freedom and happiness. Finally, he considers Kant’s view that the development of human autonomy is the only goal that we can conceive for both natural and human history. Including a chronology, glossary, chapter summaries and up-to-date further reading, Kant, second edition is an ideal introduction to this demanding yet pivotal figure in the history of philosophy, and essential reading for all students of philosophy.