Kant's Radical Subjectivism

Kant's Radical Subjectivism
Author: Dennis Schulting
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2017-06-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319438778

In this book, Dennis Schulting presents a staunch defence of Kant’s radical subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge. This defence is mounted by means of a comprehensive analysis of what is arguably the centrepiece of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, namely, the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. Radical subjectivism about the possibility of knowledge is to be understood as the thesis that the possibility of knowledge of objects essentially and wholly depends on subjective functions of thought, or the capacity to judge by virtue of transcendental apperception, given sensory input. Subjectivism thus defined is not about merely the necessary conditions of knowledge, but nor is it claimed that it grounds the very existence of things. Novel interpretations are provided of such central themes as the objective unity of apperception, the threefold synthesis, judgement, truth and objective validity, spontaneity in judgement, figurative synthesis and spatial unity, nonconceptual content, idealism and the thing in itself, and material synthesis. One chapter is dedicated to the interpretation of the Deduction by Kant’s most prominent successor, G.W.F. Hegel, and throughout Schulting critically engages with the work of contemporary readers of Kant such as Lucy Allais, Robert Hanna, John McDowell, Robert Pippin, and James Van Cleve.

Images of History

Images of History
Author: Richard Eldridge
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2017-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0190847360

Human subjects are both formed by historical inheritances and capable of active criticism. Insisting on this fact, Kant and Benjamin each develop powerful, systematic, but sharply opposed accounts of human powers and interests in freedom. A persistent constitutive tension between Kantian and Benjaminan ideals is woven through human life. By examining the two philosophers through this volume, Richard Eldridge attempts to make better sense of the commitment forming, commitment revising, anxious, reflective and acculturated human subjects we are.

Excessive Subjectivity

Excessive Subjectivity
Author: Dominik Finkelde
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 387
Release: 2017-09-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231545770

How are we to conceive of acts that suddenly expose the injustice of the prevailing order? These acts challenge long-standing hidden or silently tolerated injustices, but as they are unsupported by existing ethical rules they pose a drastic challenge to dominant norms. In Excessive Subjectivity, Dominik Finkelde rereads the tradition of German idealism and finds in it the potential for transformative acts that are capable of revolutionizing the social order. Finkelde's discussion of the meaning and structure of the ethical act meticulously engages thinkers typically treated as opposed—Kant, Hegel, and Lacan—to develop the concept of excessive subjectivity, which is characterized by nonconformist acts that reshape the contours of ethical life. For Kant, the subject is defined by the ethical acts she performs. Hegel interprets Kant's categorical imperative as the ability of an individual's conscience to exceed the existing state of affairs. Lacan emphasizes the transgressive force of unconscious desire on the ethical agent. Through these thinkers Finkelde develops a radical ethics for contemporary times. Integrating perspectives from both analytical and continental philosophy, Excessive Subjectivity is a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the ethical subject.

Without Criteria

Without Criteria
Author: Steven Shaviro
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2012-08-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262517973

A Deleuzian reading of Whitehead and a Whiteheadian reading of Deleuze open the possibility of a critical aesthetics of contemporary culture. In Without Criteria, Steven Shaviro proposes and explores a philosophical fantasy: imagine a world in which Alfred North Whitehead takes the place of Martin Heidegger. What if Whitehead, instead of Heidegger, had set the agenda for postmodern thought? Heidegger asks, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” Whitehead asks, “How is it that there is always something new?” In a world where everything from popular music to DNA is being sampled and recombined, argues Shaviro, Whitehead's question is the truly urgent one. Without Criteria is Shaviro's experiment in rethinking postmodern theory, especially the theory of aesthetics, from a point of view that hearkens back to Whitehead rather than Heidegger. In working through the ideas of Whitehead and Deleuze, Shaviro also appeals to Kant, arguing that certain aspects of Kant's thought pave the way for the philosophical “constructivism” embraced by both Whitehead and Deleuze. Kant, Whitehead, and Deleuze are not commonly grouped together, but the juxtaposition of them in Without Criteria helps to shed light on a variety of issues that are of concern to contemporary art and media practices.

Understanding Hegel's Mature Critique of Kant

Understanding Hegel's Mature Critique of Kant
Author: John McCumber
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0804788537

Hegel's critique of Kant was a turning point in the history of philosophy: for the first time, the concrete, situated, and in certain senses "naturalistic" style pioneered by Hegel confronted the thin, universalistic, and argumentatively purified style of philosophy that had found its most rigorous expression in Kant. The controversy has hardly died away: it virtually haunts contemporary philosophy from epistemology to ethical theory. Yet if this book is right, the full import of Hegel's critique of Kant has not been understood. Working from Hegel's mature texts (after 1807) and reading them in light of an overall interpretation of Hegel's project as a linguistic, "definitional" system, the book offers major reinterpretations of Hegel's views: The Kantian thing-in-itself is not denied but relocated as a temporal aspect of our experience. Hegel's linguistic idealism is understood in terms of his realistic view of sensation. Instead of claiming that Kant's categorical imperative is too empty to provide concrete moral guidance, Hegel praises its emptiness as the foundation for a diverse society.

How is Nature Possible?

How is Nature Possible?
Author: Daniel N. Robinson
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2012-02-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1441148515

A concise commentary on Kant's aims and arguments in his celebrated First Critique, within the context of the dominant schools of philosophy of his time.

Kant and the Concept of Community

Kant and the Concept of Community
Author: Charlton Payne
Publisher: University Rochester Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 1580463878

An interdisciplanary collection of essays focused on Kant's work on the concept of community. The concept of community plays a central role in Kant's theoretical philosophy, his practical philosophy, his aesthetics, and his religious thought. Kant uses community in many philosophical contexts: the category of community introduced in his table of categories in the Critique of Pure Reason; the community of substances in the third analogy; the realm of ends as an ethical community; the state and the public sphere as political communities; the sensus communis of the Critique of Judgment; and the idea of the church as a religious community in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. Given Kant's status as a systematic philosopher, volume editorsPayne and Thorpe maintain that any examination of the concept of community in one area of his work can be understood only in relation to the others. In this volume, then, scholars from different disciplines -- specializing in various aspects of and approaches to Kant's work -- offer their interpretations of Kant on the concept of community. The various essays further illustrate the central relevance and importance of Kant's conception of community to contemporary debates in various fields. Charlton Payne is postdoctoral fellow at Plattform Weltregionen und Interaktionen, Universität Erfurt, Germany. Lucas Thorpe is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy atBogaziçi University, Turkey. Contributors: Ronald Beiner, Jeffrey Edwards, Michael Feola, Paul Guyer, Jane Kneller, Béatrice Longuenesse, Jan Mieszkowski, Onora O'Neill, Charlton Payne, Susan M. Shell, Lucas Thorpe, Eric Watkins, Allen W. Wood

Kantian Subjects

Kantian Subjects
Author: Karl Ameriks
Publisher:
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2019-11
Genre:
ISBN: 019884185X

In this volume, Karl Ameriks explores "Kantian subjects" in three senses. In Part I, he first clarifies the most distinctive features-such as freedom and autonomy-of Kant's notion of what it is for us to be a subject. Other chapters then consider related "subjects" that are basic topics inother parts of Kant's philosophy, such as his notions of necessity and history. Part II examines the ways in which many of us, as "late modern," have been highly influenced by Kant's philosophy and its indirect effect on our self-conception through successive generations of post-Kantians, such asHegel and Schelling, and early Romantic writers such as Holderlin, Schlegel, and Novalis, thus making us "Kantian subjects" in a new historical sense. By defending the fundamentals of Kant's ethics in reaction to some of the latest scholarship in the opening chapters, Ameriks offers an extensiveargument that Holderlin expresses a valuable philosophical position that is much closer to Kant than has generally been recognized. He also argues that it was necessary for Kant's position to be supplemented by the new conception, introduced by the post-Kantians, of philosophy as fundamentallyhistorical, and that this conception has had a growing influence on the most interesting strands of Anglophone as well as Continental philosophy.

Kantian Nonconceptualism

Kantian Nonconceptualism
Author: Dennis Schulting
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2016-12-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1137535172

This book offers an array of important perspectives on Kant and nonconceptualism from some of the leading scholars in current Kant studies. As well as discussing the various arguments surrounding Kantian nonconceptualism, the book provides broad insight into the theory of perception, philosophy of mind, philosophy of mathematics, epistemology, and aesthetics. His idealism aside, Kantian nonconceptualism is the most topical contemporary issue in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. In this collection of specially commissioned essays, major players in the current debate, including Robert Hanna and Lucy Allais, engage with each other and with the broader literature in the field addressing all the important aspects of Kantian nonconceptualism. Among other topics, the authors analyse the notion of intuition and the conditions of its generation, Kant’s theory of space, including his pre-Critical view of space, the relation between nonconceptualism and the Transcendental Deduction, and various challenges to both conceptualist and nonconceptualist interpretations of Kant. Two further chapters explore a prominent Hegelian conceptualist reading of Kant and Kant’s nonconceptualist position in the Third Critique. The volume also contains a helpful survey of the recent literature on Kant and nonconceptual content. Kantian Nonconceptualism provides a comprehensive overview of recent perspectives on Kant and nonconceptual content, and will be a key resource for Kant scholars and philosophers interested in the topic of nonconceptualism.