Kant’s dissertation for the Master’s degree Succinct Exposition of Some Meditations on Fire was written in Latin in 1755 as a sample (specimen) preceding a Master’s exam, but its first printing did not appear until 1838. What is the relevance of this Master’s dissertation for historical and philosophical studies? To answer this question I analyse the structure and give a brief summary of the dissertation, look at the history of its writing and try to identify the place of this work (...) among Kant’s other papers on natural philosophy. I then demonstrate that Kant’s concept of ether as an elastic matter of fire, heat and light containing the forces of attraction and repulsion originates in the dissertation On Fire. I identify the provisions in Kant’s early works which he later develops in the Master’s dissertation and establish continuity between the text of On Fire and the so-called Physical Monadology, draw parallels between the ideas enunciated by Kant in his first dissertation and the interpretation of ether in the printed works that followed. Finally, I put forward the hypothesis of the heuristic potential of the On Fire treatise for the analysis of Kant’s manuscript legacy. Perhaps this dissertation will enable researchers to clear up some tangled propositions in Kant’s Opus Postumum. However, a series of further studies is needed to verify the hypothesis. (shrink)

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series (...) of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects. (shrink)

In the current dialogue between two authors with different views on analysis, philosophy, and the use of labels, the leading question is: How should one understand the expression ‘analytic philosophy’? Lewin argues that as there are no generally agreed tenets and methods of what is being called ‘analytic philosophy’, the name is to be replaced by a more specific one or abandoned. Williamson defends the use of this phrase, claiming that it is quite serviceable, as it relates to a broad (...) tradition of influence, while it is not even required to adhere to the method of analysis in any distinctive sense. Lewin counters that, in this case, ‘analytic philosophy’ is too empty. One could heal this by conceptual analysis of ‘analytic philosophy’ — but then Kant, for whom philosophy is inherently analytic, would be a proponent of analytic philosophy. Another option is to follow Ryle’s ideal of a label-free, coherent and honest thinking. As Lewin argues, Williamson’s views seem at least partially to agree with Kant’s conception of the difference between philosophy and history of philosophy as well as empirical analysis and the underlying empirical realism. Williamson replies that he uses ‘analytic philosophy’ in its current meaning, which is not composed of the meanings of ‘analytic’ and ‘philosophy’. The current use is different from the earlier ones and not applicable to Kant. He argues against the transcendental idealism and the coarse-grained distinction between analytic and synthetic and a priori and a posteriori that requires an update. (shrink)

The positions of Christian Wolff and Im­manuel Kant on the possibility of proving the existence of God require some examination. Wolff’s critique of the physical-theological proof and his proposed ways of improving it are here analysed. God is central to Wolff’s philosophical system and the fundamental prerequisite of his theoretical and practical philosophy. Although Wolff insists that the natural law is inherent in human nature and can therefore be comprehended by human reason without turning to divine revelation, in reality God (...) is the creator of this natural law and the cause of its perfection. Accordingly, faith in the true God in Wolff’s philosophy is obligatory for achieving the supreme degree of virtue, whereas pagans and atheists can achieve only its lowest degree. Kant criticises traditional proofs of the existence of God both in his pre-critical and critical periods. The author looks at the role God plays in Kant’s practical philosophy. Comparing the positions of Kant and Wolff, the author finds many similarities between them. Chief of them is that although both thinkers saw the moral/natural law as universal and obligating regardless of a person’s faith in God, in fact faith in God turned out to be an inevitable consequence of the true moral attitude of the individual. (shrink)

Kant’s ‘Newtonianism’ has been rightly highlighted by figures like Friedman. The follow-up debates led to a more adequate view on Kant’s natural philosophy and in particular his relation towards Newton. But the discussion that evolved did not point to the asynchronicity that takes place in Kant’s struggle with the central Newtonian concepts. Newtonian space and gravity, in revised form, are of central concern to Kant’s critical philosophy. But Kant adapted and re-evaluated these two concepts in an asynchronous way. While Kant (...) tries to integrate a notion of gravity into his theory of matter in his very first published writing, he has at this stage no adequate notion of space. At this time, as in regard to space, he can neither be called a Newtonian nor a proper Leibnizian and misconceives the necessity of an independent space for the foundations of physics. This perspective changes under the influence of Euler at the end of the fifties of the eighteenth century and finally leads to his writing of 1768 and the adoption of transcendental idealism in 1770. In the following, I depict this asynchronicity by taking central pre-critical writings into account while discussing Kant’s concept of space and gravity. This sharpens the picture of Kant’s work and the different stages his philosophy of nature went through. Further, it helps to understand the influence of Euler on Kant’s development in natural philosophy and his critical philosophy in general, as Kant under the influence of Euler formed deeper-going reflections on Newton’s theory of space and these mark turning points of his development. (shrink)

Kant’s metaphilosophy has three main parts: (1) an essentialist project (“What is philosophy?”); (2) a methodological project (“How do we do philosophy?”); and (3) a taxonomic project (“What are the different parts of philosophy, and how are they related?”). This paper focuses on the third project. In particular, it explores one of the most intriguing yet puzzling aspects of Kant’s philosophy, viz. the relationship between what Kant calls ‘pure’ philosophy vs. ‘applied’, ‘empirical’ or what we can broadly refer to as (...) ‘impure’ philosophy. (As we shall see, in order to be able to address this third project, we shall also need to examine the other two projects in detail.) My plan is as follows. First, I discuss four main areas of pure vs. impure philosophy: (i) ‘pure logic’ vs. ‘applied logic’; (ii) ‘rational psychology’ vs. ‘empirical psychology’; (iii) ‘pure metaphysics of nature’ vs. ‘physics’ and (iv) ‘pure morality’ or a ‘metaphysics of morals’ vs. ‘moral anthropology’, ‘practical anthropology’ or ‘applied moral philosophy’. Based on this, I identify four key differences between pure and impure philosophy. Second, I critically examine four different readings of Kant’s views about the status of ‘impure’ philosophy: (a) that it is not genuine philosophy; (b) that it is bad or inferior philosophy; (c) that it is instrumentally valuable; and (d) that it constitutes an indispensable part of Kant’s philosophy, both in a theoretical and practical sense. I argue that Kant is best interpreted as endorsing readings (c) and (d). Third, I offer some concluding remarks. (shrink)

It is necessary to reconsider P. M. S. Hacker’s assessment of Kant and Wittgenstein’s philosophical affinities and the question concerning Wittgenstein’s alleged use of “transcendental arguments”. First, Alfred Norman’s reading of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus as a thought experiment receives revision to develop a view of the Critique of Pure Reason as a large-scale thought experiment that shares important logical features with the Tractatus. Then the question is addressed whether the middle Wittgenstein and the pre-critical Kant employed any thought experiments that (...) could be equally characterised as “transcendental arguments”. A rational reconstruction of both thinkers’ arguments is carried out in the light of the contemporary literature on thought experimenting. The novelty and relevance of this approach is the emphasis laid upon a largely neglected affinity between Kant and Wittgenstein, namely the systematic use of thought experiments in their epistemological pursuits. The conclusions are: i) Wittgenstein’s and Kant’s magna opera can be seen as philosophical thought experiments that attempt to try out the limits of language and the limits of possible experience respectively; ii) Both philosophers developed arguments that can be designated as transcendental if only from a methodological standpoint; and iii) some key arguments put forward by the middle Wittgenstein in the determination of the structure of visual space could be characterised better as thought experiments than transcendental arguments. (shrink)

This review of contemporary discussions of Kantian philosophy of mathematics is timed for the publication of the essay Kant’s Philosophy of Mathematics. Volume 1: The Critical Philosophy and Its Roots (2020) edited by Carl Posy and Ofra Rechter. The main discussions and comments are based on the texts contained in this collection. I first examine the more general questions which have to do not only with the philosophy of mathematics, but also with related areas of Kant’s philosophy, e. g. the (...) question: What is intuition and singular term? Then I look at more specific questions, e. g.: What is the subject of arithmetic and what is the significance of diagrams in mathematical reasoning? As a result, the reader is presented with a fairly complete overview of modern discussions which can be used as an introduction to the problem field of Kant’s philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

My task is to demonstrate substantial differences in the views of Kant and Heidegger on being. To this end I analyse Heidegger’s work Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics which Heidegger was writing intermittently during the period from 1927 to 1964. It deals not only with the ideas of the Critique of Pure Reason but also with Kant’s pre-critical work, The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763), in which Kant explicitly addressed the (...) question of being for the first time. Heidegger focuses on the transcendental power of imagination not only as the “common root” of sensibility and understanding, but also as the fundamental faculty of ontological cognition. He links it with the phenomenon of time, arguing that the object of knowledge as such is also linked with this phenomenon. True, for Heidegger what matters is not a singular empirical object, but the universal noumenal object, including being. Consequently, Heidegger draws a distinction between empirics and sensibility: all empirics is sensible, but not all sensibility is empirical. A triangle in general, a dog in general, etc. have an image, but it is not a singular image, but a schema. Heidegger argues that time as pure intuition is the “field” in which the imagination faculty draws its image schemas. This field is the horizon of objectness, i.e. the possibility of emergence of non-empirical objects, including being. Being, then, is not a Kantian noumenon, not an X, but a sensible, albeit non-empirical, object created by the power of imagination, a correlate of everything cognisable. So understood, being is created by the human, therefore it is not transcendent but immanent to him/her. I also note that in characterising being Heidegger gradually moves from “time” to “work of art” in the frame of which the power of imagination does not simply reflect reality, but creates multiple diverse worlds. (shrink)