Published by De Gruyter

Volume 103 Issue 3

October 2012

Issue of Kant-Studien

Contents
Journal Overview

October 25, 2012

A Draft of Kant’s Reply to Hufeland: Key Questions of Kant’s Dietetics and the Problem of Its Systematic Place in His Philosophy

Yvonne Unna,

Page range: 271-291

Abstract

Abstract: The article provides an introduction to an autograph draft of a letter on dietetics Kant wrote to the physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland and uses it as a springboard for the critical discussion of Kant’s dietetics as well as its systematic place in his philosophy. The final draft of Kant’s letter to Hufeland became the third part of The Conflict of the Faculties . The article argues that Kant (1) assigns dietetics, understood as the regulation of the traditional nonnaturals, to philosophy and not to medicine; (2) that he regards moral health as the basis for physical health; and (3) that his view of the systematic place of dietetics in his philosophy is inconsistent.

October 25, 2012

Kant’s Regulative Spinozism

Omri Boehm,

Page range: 292-317

Abstract

Abstract: The question of Kant’s relation to Spinozist thought has been virtually ignored over the years. I analyze Kant’s pre-critical ‘possibility-proof’ of God’s existence, elaborated in the Beweisgrund , as well as the echoes that this proof has in the first Critique , in beginning to uncover the connection between Kant’s thought and Spinoza’s. Kant’s espousal of the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR] for the analysis of modality during the pre-critical period committed him, I argue, to Spinozist substance monism. Much textual evidence suggests that he was aware of this commitment. However, by transforming the PSR into a regulative principle the critical Kant has transformed his pre-critical proof into a regulative ideal. He is thereby (consciously) committed, I argue, to regulative Spinozism.

October 25, 2012

Principled and Unprincipled Maxims

David Forman,

Page range: 318-336

Abstract

Abstract: Kant frequently speaks as if all voluntary actions arise from our maxims as the subjective principles of our practical reason. But, as Michael Albrecht has pointed out, Kant also occasionally speaks as if it is only the rare person of “character” who acts according to principles or maxims. I argue that Kant’s seemingly contradictory claims on this front result from the fact that there are two fundamentally different ways that maxims of action can figure in the deliberation of the agent: an agent can act on a maxim either because it promises agreeable results or because he deems it to be an intrinsically correct principle of action. Kant describes a maxim of the latter sort as “firm” and as indicative of “character” in the honorific sense. If the agent’s commitment to his maxim is instead conditional on its agreeable results, we can say he does not act “on principle” and in that sense does not act on maxims at all: rather than aiming at a set of results because the action that produces them conforms to his maxim, he acts according to his maxim because doing so promises (and only as long as it promises) the results he desires. Such an agent thus lacks the principled maxims of a person of character since his maxims are always for sale to the highest bidder. Kant allows that an evil person can approximate the ideal of a principled indifference to results, but claims that only morally good action can be wholly principled. This is also why maxims of action in conformity with duty can be acquired gradually through habituation whereas an authentically moral maxim must instead arise from a “revolution” in thought.

October 25, 2012

Self-Determination and the Categories of Freedom in Kant’s Moral Philosophy

Seung-Kee Lee,

Page range: 337-350

Abstract

Abstract: Kant speaks of our capacity to be “self-determining […] in certain […] laws holding firm a priori ” (KrV, B 430). Here the “laws” refer to the categories of freedom introduced in KpV. The categories of freedom, then, are necessary for self-determination. I first explain how Kant employs the notion of determination in his theoretical philosophy. I then explain how the notion is utilized also in his practical philosophy, particularly in connection to the act of determining the forms of willing that make morality possible. I conclude by answering the question, Why are the categories of freedom necessary for self-determination? Understanding why the categories of freedom are required for self-determination will also help clarify the nature and function of Kant’s categories of freedom, which have puzzled many scholars.

October 25, 2012

Kant’s Ideality of Genius

Robert J. M. Neal,

Page range: 351-360

Abstract

Abstract: To say that a work of fine art is beautiful because it has been produced by a genius introduces a determinate concept precluding a judgment of the work’s beauty by way of a pure judgment of taste. What Kant in fact proposes is that we judge a work to be the product of genius as a consequence of our judgment of its beauty. As Kant explains in KU §58, when we judge the beautiful in fine art it is the indeterminacy of the mode of mental activity in which aesthetic ideas arise which permits us to interpret idealistically the purposiveness in the work, on which account we regard it as the product of genius. This article examines in particular KU §50 concerning the combination of genius and taste, and the puzzling assertion in KU §51 that all beauty is the expression of aesthetic ideas.

October 25, 2012

Le Kant de Foucault, une lecture téléologique de l’anthropologie

Diogo Sardinha,

Page range: 361-369

Abstract

Abstract: Foucault’s main thesis in his Introduction to Kant’s Anthropology is that the meaning of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View can only be entirely grasped in the light of certain notes concerning the human being, assembled in the Opus Postumum . He asserts that the discourses held on human beings in the Anthropology and the introduction to the Logic are temporary – though necessary – moments in the transition from the critical to the transcendental philosophy: the latter is the accomplishment of Kantian philosophy, to which the former was only a Propädeutik . In this paper I call this a ‘teleological reading’ of the Anthropology , one which certainly has the merit of integrating this book in the evolution of Kant’s thought, but which can also be misleading, since it rarely considers the book Anthropology in itself. Hence, Foucault carries out what is more of a study of ‘Kant’s philosophy from an anthropological point of view’ rather than a study of the Anthropology . In the end, I also indicate the way in which this method enables us to distinguish his philosophical position both from Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant and from Sartre’s humanism.

October 25, 2012

Was ist der Mensch? – Das Gehirn-Geist-Problem aus kantischer Sicht Plädoyer für eine transzendentale Anthropologie

Thorsten Streubel,

Page range: 370-376

Abstract

Abstract: It is the aim of the following considerations to use Kantian epistemology to advance the current debate about the relation between mind and brain. First of all the naturalistic assumption that all mental phenomena are based on neuronal processes is called into question. Secondly it is shown (by discussing the philosophical conclusions of Gerhard Roth’s book The Brain and its Reality ) that naturalism leads necessarily to an absurd constructivism that is very similar to Kant’s transcendental position, but which conflicts with naturalism’s empirical premise. In spite of the progress in brain research Kant’s transcendental approach is still a promising attempt to treat philosophical problems, especially the problem about the relation between mind, brain and world.

October 25, 2012

„Kants Projekt des ewigen Friedens im Kontext der modernen Politik“

Alexey Salikov,

Page range: 377-379

October 25, 2012

Buchbesprechungen

Page range: 380-393

October 25, 2012

Zum Tod von Wladimir Brjuschinkin (Vladimir Bryushinkin)

Alexey Salikov,

Page range: 394-395

October 25, 2012

Zur Kantforschung in Usbekistan

Mirsali Akbarov,

Page range: 396-396

About this journal

Publications in the Kant-Studien have a dual focus: firstly contributions to the interpretation, history and editorial questions of Kant’s philosophy, and secondly systematic debates on transcendental philosophy. In addition, there are investigations on Kant’s precursors and on the effects of his philosophy. The journal also contains a documentation section, in which the current state of research is indicated by means of a continually updated bibliography with reviews and references.

Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte (corresponding book series): https://www.degruyter.com/serial/KSEH-B/html