A survey of Kant's philosophical writings reveals an ongoing concern with the problem of moral motivation. The problem is expressed thusly: How can a judgment of the understanding provide a motive sufficient to move the will to an action? ;Kant provides one line of argument in his formal writings on moral theory. The feeling of respect that follows from the recognition of the nobility of the universal moral law provides the motivation or incentive. Through this feeling we are aware that (...) we are beings that belong to an intelligible world that is independent of the mechanism of the sensible world. We are made aware of a higher, supersensible vocation and thus the sublimity of our own nature. ;There is another line of argument, however. A survey of Kant's philosophical writings also reveals a connection between the moral and the aesthetic. In the second Critique duty is called sublime; in his lectures on Ethics from the mid-1760's the feeling that results from free moral action is described as beautiful or sublime. In the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime the sublime is described as a "finer" feeling that moves us as we see the dignity of our own nature displayed in presentations of virtue. In the Critique of Judgment the feeling of the sublime is an experience that makes us aware of our supersensible vocation. Awareness of our supersensible nature through the feeling of pleasure and displeasure provides additional moral motivation and supports the incentive provided by the cognitive faculty's formulation of the moral law. ;A survey of Kant's philosophical writings and especially the unpublished lectures on Ethics, Logic and Metaphysics reveals a continuity in Kant's thought in terms of the relation between the moral and the aesthetic and in terms of concern with the problem of moral motivation. The third Critique was intended as the "keystone of the critical arch," but Kant apparently was not satisfied. The Opus postumum reveals the unity Kant was seeking: the supersensible and the sensible are united in the human person through the feeling of pleasure and displeasure. (shrink)

This reissue of Kemal’s introduction to the first half of the Critique of Judgment, first published in 1992, adds a new five-page Preface to the otherwise unchanged text. The author discusses several works on Kant’s aesthetic theory that have been published since the first appearance of his book. The most extensive treatment is given to John H. Zammito’s “The Genesis of Kant’s Critique of Judgment” and Paul Guyer’s “Kant and the Experience of Freedom: Essays on Aesthetics and Morality”. In Kemal’s (...) view, Zammito is right in hypothesizing a cognitive turn that would have led Kant to explore the nature of reflective judgments and in interpreting Kant’s position on art as part of Kant’s concept of culture. On the other hand, Kemal reproaches Zammito for having fragmented the third Critique and for failing to resolve several philosophical issues such as the relation between the cognitive and ethical turns as hypothesized by Zammito, and the nature and promise of art, the close association between genius and the sublime, and the differences between Kant and Herder on genius and the sublime. Kemal’s conclusion is that Zammito has overemphasized the process of constructing the third Critique at the expense of the theory presented there. With respect to Guyer, Kemal argues that Guyer makes an unwarranted assumption, based on an overly narrow understanding of Kant’s use of the word “nature,” namely, that the “Analytic of the Beautiful” had to be cast in terms of natural beauty. Kemal’s view is that Kant’s explanations of the nature of beauty in the “Analytic of the Beautiful” cover the objects of our experience and therefore include both natural beauty and fine art. Kemal argues that this is the basis of a misconstrual on Guyer’s part of his explanation described in chapter 6 of the distinctive interests and values that should be ascribed to fine art and natural beauty. (shrink)

The book is a collection of twelve previously published essays with a selective bibliography and a new introduction by Guyer providing a brief, systematic overview of Kant’s book and the rationale governing the organization of the essays. Guyer’s introduction gives the reader an outline of Kant’s main arguments in the Groundwork by section and introduces some of the more basic issues at stake, for example, Kant’s need both to formulate the fundamental principle of morality and prove its practical as well (...) as its theoretical validity, Kant’s defense of freedom over determinism, as well as more abstract issues such as whether or not Kant’s method in the Groundwork is analytic or synthetic throughout. Each essay is introduced in relation to one of the issues raised, and the introduction is thus well suited to the college student, the target audience of the series, and at the same time of interest to more advanced scholars. (shrink)

This volume presents for the first time in English selections from eight sets of student notes taken during Kant’s courses on Metaphysics from approximately 1762 through 1795 based on Gerhard Lehmann’s edition of volumes 28 and 29 of the Academy edition of Kants Gesammelte Schriften. The selections are preceded by an extremely useful introduction and are followed by English-German and German-English glossaries, a list of Latin-German equivalents occurring in the text, a concordance of Baumgarten’s Metaphysics and Kant’s Metaphysics lectures, explanatory (...) notes with bibliography, and indexes. In addition, the non-German words and phrases used in the notes are given, following their English translations in the text. (shrink)