Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism

Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism
Author: Kenneth R. Westphal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2004-12-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1107320593

This book is the first detailed study of Kant's method of 'transcendental reflection' and its use in the Critique of Pure Reason to identify our basic human cognitive capacities, and to justify Kant's transcendental proofs of the necessary a priori conditions for the possibility of self-conscious human experience. Kenneth Westphal, in a closely argued internal critique of Kant's analysis, shows that if we take Kant's project seriously in its own terms, the result is not transcendental idealism but (unqualified) realism regarding physical objects. Westphal attends to neglected topics - Kant's analyses of the transcendental affinity of the sensory manifold, the 'lifelessness of matter', fallibilism, the semantics of cognitive reference, four externalist aspects of Kant's views, and the importance of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations for the Critique of Pure Reason - that illuminate Kant's enterprise in new and valuable ways. His book will appeal to all who are interested in Kant's theoretical philosophy.

Kant's Transcendental Idealism

Kant's Transcendental Idealism
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 564
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780300102666

This landmark book is now reissued in a rewritten & updated edition that takes account of recent Kantian literature. It includes a new discussion of the 'Third Analogy', an expanded discussion of Kant's 'Paralogisms' & new chapters on Kant's theory of reason, theology & the 'Appendix to the Dialectic'.

The Cambridge Companion to Kant

The Cambridge Companion to Kant
Author: Paul Guyer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 500
Release: 1992-01-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139824899

The fundamental task of philosophy since the seventeenth century has been to determine whether the essential principles of both knowledge and action can be discovered by human beings unaided by an external agency. No one philosopher contributed more to this enterprise than Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason (1781) shook the very foundations of the intellectual world. Kant argued that the basic principles of the natural science are imposed on reality by human sensibility and understanding, and thus that human beings are also free to impose their own free and rational agency on the world. This 1992 volume is the only systematic and comprehensive account of the full range of Kant's writings available, and the first major overview of his work to be published in more than a dozen years. An internationally recognised team of Kant scholars explore Kant's conceptual revolution in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, moral and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion.

Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism

Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism
Author: Kenneth R. Westphal
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2004-12-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0521833736

Kenneth Westphal offers a detailed study of Kant's method of 'transcendental reflection' and its use in the Critique of Pure Reason. His book will be of interest to all who are interested in Kant's theoretical philosophy or in contemporary epistemology.

Essays on Kant

Essays on Kant
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-06-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019964702X

Essays on Kant contains a collection of seventeen essays written by Henry E. Allison, one of the world's leading scholars on Kant. Although these essays cover virtually the full spectrum of Allison's work on Kant, most of them revolve around three basic themes: the nature of transcendental idealism and its relation to other aspects of Kant's thought; freedom of the will; and the concept of the purposiveness of nature. The first two themes are intended asclarifications, elaborations, and further developments of Allison's previous work on Kant, while the essays on the third theme demonstrate the central place of Kant's 'critical' philosophy in his thought.Allison places Kant's views in their historical context and explores their contemporary relevance to present day philosophers.

Kant’s Critical Epistemology

Kant’s Critical Epistemology
Author: Kenneth R. Westphal
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2020-08-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000173410

This book assesses and defends Kant’s Critical epistemology, and the rich yet neglected resources it provides for understanding and resolving fundamental issues regarding human experience, perceptual judgment, empirical knowledge and cognitive sciences. Kenneth Westphal first examines Kant’s methods and strategies for examining human sensory-perceptual experience, and then examines Kant’s central, proper, and subtle attention to judgment, and so to the humanly possible valid use of concepts and principles to judge particulars we confront. This provides a comprehensive account of Kant’s anti-Cartesianism, the integrity of his three principles of causal judgment, and Kant’s account of disciminatory perceptual-motor behaviour, including both sensory reafference and perceptual affordances. Westphal then defends the significance of Kant’s subtle and illuminating account of causal judgment for three main philosophical domains: history and philosophy of science, theory of action and human freedom, and philosophy of mind. Kant’s Critical Epistemology will appeal to researchers and advanced students interested in Kant and the relations of his thought to contemporary philosophical debates and to the sciences of the mind.

Kant's Critique of Spinoza

Kant's Critique of Spinoza
Author: Omri Boehm
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 287
Release: 2014
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199354804

Contemporary philosophers frequently assume that Kant never seriously engaged with Spinoza or Spinozism-certainly not before the break of Der Pantheismusstreit, or within the Critique of Pure Reason. Offering an alternative reading of key pre-critical texts and to some of the Critique's most central chapters, Omri Boehm challenges this common assumption. He argues that Kant not only is committed to Spinozism in early essays such as "The One Possible Basis" and "New Elucidation," but also takes up Spinozist metaphysics as Transcendental Realism's most consistent form in the Critique of Pure Reason. The success -- or failure -- of Kant's critical projects must be evaluated in this light. Boehm here examines The Antinomies alongside Spinoza's Substance Monism and his theory of freedom. Similarly, he analyzes the refutation of the Ontological Argument in parallel with Spinoza's Causa-sui. More generally, Boehm places the Critique of Pure Reason's separation of Thought from Being and Is from Ought in dialogue with the Ethics' collapse of Being, Is and Ought into Thought.

The Post-Critical Kant

The Post-Critical Kant
Author: Bryan Hall
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2014-10-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317624041

In this book, Bryan Wesley Hall breaks new ground in Kant scholarship, exploring the gap in Kant’s Critical philosophy in relation to his post-Critical work by turning to Kant’s final, unpublished work, the so-called Opus Postumum. Although Kant considered this project to be the "keystone" of his philosophical efforts, it has been largely neglected by scholars. Hall argues that only by understanding the Opus Postumum can we fully comprehend both Kant’s mature view as well as his Critical project. In letters from 1798, Kant claims to have discovered a "gap" in the Critical philosophy that requires effecting a "transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics"; unfortunately, Kant does not make clear exactly what this gap is or how the transition is supposed to fill the gap. To resolve these issues, Hall draws on the Opus Postumum, arguing that Kant’s transition project can solve certain perennial problems with the Critical philosophy. This volume provides a powerful alternative to all current interpretations of the Opus Postumum, arguing that Kant’s transition project is best seen as the post-Critical culmination of his Critical philosophy. Hall carefully examines the deep connections between the Opus Postumum and the view Kant develops in the Critique of Pure Reason, to suggest that properly understanding the post-Critical Kant will significantly revise our view of Kant’s Critical period.

Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics

Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics
Author: Marcus Willaschek
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2018-10-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 110859607X

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously criticizes traditional metaphysics and its proofs of immortality, free will and God's existence. What is often overlooked is that Kant also explains why rational beings must ask metaphysical questions about 'unconditioned' objects such as souls, uncaused causes or God, and why answers to these questions will appear rationally compelling to them. In this book, Marcus Willaschek reconstructs and defends Kant's account of the rational sources of metaphysics. After carefully explaining Kant's conceptions of reason and metaphysics, he offers detailed interpretations of the relevant passages from the Critique of Pure Reason (in particular, the 'Transcendental Dialectic') in which Kant explains why reason seeks 'the unconditioned'. Willaschek offers a novel interpretation of the Transcendental Dialectic, pointing up its 'positive' side, while at the same time it uncovers a highly original account of metaphysical thinking that will be relevant to contemporary philosophical debates.

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.