Kant, The Actualist Principle, and The Fate of the Only Possible Proof

Abaci, Uygar

doi:10.1353/hph.2017.0029

Cited by 26 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 19 publications

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“…Others have held that Kant comes to reject the argument in his critical philosophy. See, e.g., Chignell (2009) and, Boehm (2012) and Abaci (2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unity of Space in Kant’s Pre-Critical Philosophy

Heide

2022

Journal of Modern Philosophy

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Much recent attention has been paid to Kant's account of the unity of space in the Critique of Pure Reason, not least because of the significant implications of that view for other key critical-period doctrines. But far less attention has been paid to the development of Kant's account of the unity of space. This paper aims to offer a systematic account of Kant's precritical account of the unity of space. On the view presented herein, Kant's early account of the unity of space is deeply rooted in his pre-critical cosmological views. In particular, I argue that Kant sees the unity of space as grounded in the cosmological unity of the world of substances, which is itself rooted in the divine conservation of all substances in relations of mutual causal dependence. I contend that the seeds of this view are present in the late 1740s and 1750s, but that this view receives its fullest and most complete expression in the 1770 Inaugural Dissertation. The final section of the paper considers the fate of Kant's pre-critical account of the unity of space. I contend that the theory is excluded from the Critique of Pure Reason in light of the strict epistemological strictures adopted in that text. But considerable textual evidence shows that Kant continues to aver the theory throughout the 1770s and 1780s in the looser epistemic context of his lectures. I contend, then, that this theory is not abandoned at all. Rather, like Kant's 1763 proof of the existence of God, it is epistemically demoted: it is Kant's preferred view, but one that falls short of the demanding epistemic standards of the critical philosophy.

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“…Others have held that Kant comes to reject the argument in his critical philosophy. See, e.g., Chignell (2009) and, Boehm (2012) and Abaci (2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unity of Space in Kant’s Pre-Critical Philosophy

Heide

2022

Journal of Modern Philosophy

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The ‘Only Possible Argument’ of Kant: A Critical Reconstruction

Seel

2024

Log. Univers.

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Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics

Willaschek

2018

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In this chapter, I will offer a first and preliminary outline of Kant's accounts of reason and metaphysics and introduce various themes that will be developed further in later chapters. 1 Kant's Conception of ReasonReason, for Kant, is primarily a mental capacity, or 'faculty of the soul' (Seelenvermögen) (5:177)that is, an ability of thinking beings to be in mental states of different kinds. 2 More specifically, reason is a cognitive faculty (Erkenntnisvermögen) that allows one to have 'objective representations': mental states aimed either at truly representing things or at actively bringing things about (in the widest possible sense of 'things'). Human beings have various cognitive capacities, distinguished by the kinds of representations to which they give rise (or, more generally, by the cognitive functions they perform): sensibility, understanding, imagination, power of judgment, reason (and more). Kant has different ways of classifying these capacities depending on which of their features he is interested in. 3 With respect to reason, Kant employs two such classifications: on the one hand, cognitive capacities can be classified as resulting either in a priori or in empirical cognition (e.g. A835-6/ B863-4); on the other hand, they can be distinguished according to whether they represent things intuitively (in human beings this is the case with sensible From Reason to Metaphysics

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Kant, The Actualist Principle, and The Fate of the Only Possible Proof

Cited by 26 publications

References 19 publications

The Unity of Space in Kant’s Pre-Critical Philosophy

The Unity of Space in Kant’s Pre-Critical Philosophy

The ‘Only Possible Argument’ of Kant: A Critical Reconstruction

Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics

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