Carbon offsetting has been beset by problems and failures, and relies on the mobilisation of supportive discourses and knowledge-claims to retain a sense of credibility. Psycho-analytical ideology critique can help explain how these processes interact with questions of subjectivity. Analysis of interviews with carbon offset market practitioners suggests that identification with carbon offsetting is only partial, and that it is sustained through disavowal, through trust in the authority of the Other, and through desire for carbon offsetting's unrealisable promises. It is important to grapple with the fantasy that sustains carbon offsetting in order to better understand, and indeed contest, its enduring appeal and its continued inclusion in climate governance.

The subject of this article is a powerful objection to the non-conceptualist interpretation of Kant’s transcendental deduction of the categories. Part of the purpose of the deduction is to refute the sort of scepticism according to which there are no objects of empirical intuition that instantiate the categories. But if the non-conceptualist interpretation is correct, it does not follow from what Kant is arguing in the transcendental deduction that this sort of scepticism is false. This article explains and assesses a number of possible responses to this objection.

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When attempting to confront hostile Apache guerrillas in New Mexico between 1879 and 1881, the US Army encountered a style of warfare which took merciless advantage of its weaknesses. However, the failure of the army to defeat its enemies can be only partially ascribed to this factor. Its efforts were further hampered by the political context within which it had to operate. Nevertheless, these factors occasionally worked in the army’s favour. When these political constraints did undermine efforts to defeat the Apaches, the US Army demonstrated that it was sometimes capable of turning this political context to its advantage.