The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds

The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds
Author: Karl Schafer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2022-06-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192689908

The Sensible and Intelligible Worlds represents a new wave of interest in 'the metaphysical Kant'. In recent decades Kant scholars have increasingly become skeptical of interpreting Kant as a philosopher who wished to truly "leave metaphysics behind". The contributors to this volume share a common commitment to the idea that Kant's philosophy cannot be properly understood without careful attention to its metaphysical presuppositions and, in particular, to how those metaphysical presuppositions are compatible with Kant's critique of more "dogmatic" forms of metaphysical thought. The authors approach Kant's thought from a wide variety of different perspectives - emphasizing not just the familiar Leibnizian background to Kant's metaphysics, but also its broadly Aristotelian underpinnings and its relationship with metaphysical themes in post-Kantian German Idealism. Similarly, although most of the essays in this volume relate in some way to the familiar question of how best to interpret Kant's transcendental idealism, they also deal with a wide range of other topics, including Kant's modal metaphysics, his views on the continuum, his epistemology of the a priori, and the foundations of his "metaethical" views.

Plotinus on Consciousness

Plotinus on Consciousness
Author: D. M. Hutchinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2018-04-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1108627137

Plotinus is the first Greek philosopher to hold a systematic theory of consciousness. The key feature of his theory is that it involves multiple layers of experience: different layers of consciousness occur in different levels of self. This layering of higher modes of consciousness on lower ones provides human beings with a rich experiential world, and enables human beings to draw on their own experience to investigate their true self and the nature of reality. This involves a robust notion of subjectivity. However, it is a notion of subjectivity that is unique to Plotinus, and remarkably different from the Post-Cartesian tradition. Behind the plurality of terms Plotinus uses to express consciousness, and behind the plurality of entities to which Plotinus attributes consciousness (such as the divine souls and the hypostases), lies a theory of human consciousness. It is a Platonist theory shaped by engagement with rival schools of ancient thought.

Plotinus on Self

Plotinus on Self
Author: Pauliina Remes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-03-03
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521204989

Plotinus, the founder of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy, conceptualises two different notions of self (or 'us'): the corporeal and the rational. Personality and imperfection mark the former, while goodness and a striving for understanding mark the latter. In this text, Dr Remes grounds the two selfhoods in deep-seated Platonic ontological commitments, following their manifestations, interrelations and sometimes uneasy coexistence in philosophical psychology, emotional therapy and ethics. Plotinus' interest lies in what it means for a human being to be a temporal and a corporeal thing, yet capable of abstract and impartial reasoning, of self-government and perhaps even invulnerability. The book argues that this involves a philosophically problematic rupture within humanity which is, however, alleviated by the psychological similarities and points of contact between the two aspects of the self. The purpose of life is the cultivation of the latter aspect, the true self.

Kant's Theory of Action

Kant's Theory of Action
Author: Richard McCarty
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2009-06-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019160996X

The theory of action underlying Immanuel Kant's ethical theory is the subject of this book. What 'maxims' are, and how we act on maxims, are explained here in light of both the historical context of Kant's thought, and his classroom lectures on psychology and ethics. Arguing against the current of much recent scholarship, Richard McCarty makes a strong case for interpreting Kant as having embraced psychological determinism, a version of the 'belief-desire model' of human motivation, and a literal, 'two-worlds' metaphysics. On this interpretation, actions in the sensible world are always effects of prior psychological causes. Their explaining causal laws are the maxims of agents' characters. And agents act freely if, acting also in an intelligible world, what they do there results in their having the characters they have here, in the sensible world. McCarty additionally shows how this interpretation is fruitful for solving familiar problems perennially plaguing Kant's moral psychology.

Imagination and Depth in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Imagination and Depth in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
Author: Bernard Freydberg
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
Total Pages: 144
Release: 1994
Genre: Bibles
ISBN:

The Kerygma of the Wilderness Traditions in the Hebrew Bible examines biblical writers' use of the wilderness traditions in the books of Exodus and Numbers, Deuteronomy, the Prophets, and the Writings to express their beliefs in God and their understandings of the community's relationship to God. Kerygma is the proclamation of God's actions with the purpose of affirming faith/or appealing to an obedient response from the community. The experiences of the wilderness community, who rebelled and refused to live according to God's purposes, serve as a polemic against disbelief in God and the refusal to embrace Israel's religious heritage. In the Writings, more than in the Prophets, the wilderness traditions are remembered with a notable resemblance to the traditions in Exodus and Numbers, which reflects a heightened interest in the ancient traditions in the closing turbulent period of Israelite history. Recollections of Israel's beginnings in the wilderness address problems associated with faith, obedience, and ultimately, the nature of the Israelite community.

The Concept of World from Kant to Derrida

The Concept of World from Kant to Derrida
Author: Sean Gaston
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2013-09-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1783480025

In the mid-eighteenth century metaphysics was broadly understood as the study of three areas of philosophical thought: theology, psychology and cosmology. This book examines the fortunes of the third of these formidable metaphysical concepts, the world. Sean Gaston provides a clear and concise account of the concept of world from the mid-eighteenth century to the end of the twentieth century, exploring its possibilities and limitations and engaging with current issues in politics and ecology. He focuses on the work of five principal thinkers: Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger and Derrida, all of whom attempt to establish new grounds for seeing the world as a whole. Gaston presents a critique of the self-evident use of the concept of world in philosophy and asks whether one can move beyond the need for a world-like vantage point to maintain a concept of world. From Kant to the present day this concept has been a problem for philosophy and it remains to be seen if we need a new Copernican revolution when it comes to the concept of world.

Kant's Mathematical World

Kant's Mathematical World
Author: Daniel Sutherland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2021-10-28
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1108429963

An explanation of the foundations of Kant's philosophy of mathematics and its connection to his account of human experience.

The Categorical Imperative

The Categorical Imperative
Author: H. J. Paton
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1971-10-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780812210231

A classic exposition of Kant's ethical thought.

Kant's Conception of Freedom

Kant's Conception of Freedom
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 557
Release: 2020-01-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1108775799

Although a good deal has been written about Kant's conception of free will in recent years, there has been no serious attempt to examine in detail the development of his views on the topic. This book endeavours to remedy the situation by tracing Kant's thoughts on free will from his earliest discussions of it in the 1750s through to his last accounts in the 1790s. This developmental approach is of interest for at least two reasons. First, it shows that the path that led Kant to view freedom as a transcendental power that is both radically distinct from and compatible with the causality of nature was a winding one. Second, it indicates that, despite the variety of views of free will that Kant held at various times, the concept occupied a central place in his thought, because it was the point of union between his theoretical and practical philosophy.