(2017) 'Interest and Agency', in Gabriel, Markus and Rasmussen, Anders Moe (eds.) German Idealism Today. De Guyter Verlag. -/- Abstract: Undeterred by Kant’s cautionary advice, contemporary defenders of free will advance substantive metaphysical theses in support of their views. This is perhaps unsurprising given the mixed reception of Kant’s solution of the conflict between freedom and natural necessity, which is supposed to vindicate reason’s withdrawal from speculation. Kant argues that neither libertarians nor determinists can win, because they deal with (...) concepts of unrestricted scope, and proposes instead to regiment the reference conditions of each concept and to specify the domain, ‘world’, proper to each. However, the precise character of this solution, its conceptual and metaphysical commitments, continues to be a matter of controversy among Kant scholars. In particular, there is ever-renewed concern about the incipient dualism of the position. Although I will be examining some of this material, my primary aim in this paper is not to make a contribution to the interpretative debate about the antinomy. Rather, I want to draw on two lessons from Kant’s treatment of the antinomy to argue for the importance of a certain way of putting the problem of human freedom. (shrink)

Freedom lies at the heart of Kant’s philosophy. Three recent edited collections explore this key idea in different ways, alongside other related concep...

This paper argues that the problem of the apparent conflict between freedom of action and natural causal determinism has not been properly framed, because the key premiss—the thesis of universal causal determinism—is, in the domain of human behaviour, an unjustified conjecture based on over-simplified, under-informed explanatory models. Kant's semantics of singular cognitive reference, which stands independently of his Transcendental Idealism, justifies and emphasises a quadruple distinction between causal description, causal ascription, true causal ascription and cognitively justified causal ascription. Contemporary (...) causal theories of mind, of action or of meaning do not suffice for causal ascription, and so cannot suffice for causal predication, and hence cannot justify causal determinism about human behaviour. More generally, the principle of universal causal determinism is a regulative principle governing causal inquiry and was so formulated by LaPlace. Only successful, sufficient causal explanation of particular events provides for causal knowledge of those events. Such knowledge we lack in the domain of human behaviour. Rational belief, including scientific belief, requires apportioning belief to justifying evidence; all else is conjecture or speculation, which do not justify premises of sound proofs. Causal determinism about human behaviour remains unjustified speculation, for sound Critical reasons Kant provided us in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. In these regards, contemporary debates about these issues remain decidedly pre-Critical. (shrink)

It is standardly assumed that, in Kant, “free agency” is identical to moral agency and requires the will or practical reason. Likewise, it is often held that the concept of “spontaneity” that Kant uses in his theoretical philosophy is very different from, and much thinner than, his idea of practical spontaneity. In this paper I argue for the contrary view: Kant has a rich theory of doxastic free agency, and the spontaneity in empirical thought (which culminates in (...) judgments of experience) is essentially the same sort of spontaneity found in the practical use of reason. Accordingly, the faculties of understanding and practical reason both possess genuine autonomy. (shrink)

I argue that Kant acknowledges two models of spontaneous self-determination that rational beings are capable of. The first model involves absolute unconditional necessity and excludes any form of contingency. The second model involves (albeit not as a matter of definition) a form of contingency which entails alternative possibilities for determining oneself. The first model would be exhibited by a divine being; the second model is exhibited by human beings. Human beings do, however, partake in the divine model up to an (...) extent, namely, as far as the legislative spontaneity of their law-giving faculties are concerned. I conclude by suggesting that for Kant, the mechanistic principle that we are exclusively determined by natural causes poses a twofold threat for human agency. In one respect (in relation to the second model), it threatens us with the obliteration of contingency, or with the universality of hypothetical necessity. But in another respect (in relation to the first model), it threatens us (and our putative "laws") with the obliteration of absolute necessity, or with the universality of contingency. (shrink)

In his reading of Kant’s moral philosophy and its grounding in freedom of the will, Allison is best know for giving an exclusively “practical” reading to doctrines about noumenal agency, so that they are taken to have none of the outlandish metaphysical implications often thought to be associated with the Kantian conception of freedom. The central feature of Allison’s interpretation is that Kant operates with a theory of agency in which, from the agent’s standpoint, reasons do not act (...) as causes, but operate only insofar as they are taken up by the agent into principles or “maxims.” According to this “Incorporation Thesis,” sensuous impulses or desires are not causes of an action. So there is no reason to regard the motive of duty as a “noumenal” cause competing with sensuous or “phenomenal” causes. Instead, Kant’s “two standpoints theory” is to be understood as distinguishing the action as viewed from the agent’s practical standpoint from causal conceptions governing the theoretical standpoint. (shrink)

I argue that Sartre's Transcendence of the Ego draws on Kant's theory of spontaneity to articulate its metaphysical account of consciousness's mode of being, to defend its phenomenological description of the intentional structure of self‐consciousness, and to diagnose the errors that motivate views of consciousness qua person or substance. In addition to highlighting an overlooked dimension of Sartre's early relation to Kant, this interpretation offers a fresh account of how Sartre's argument for the primacy of pre‐personal consciousness works, and (...) brings the extent of his proximity to idealist models of mind into greater relief. It also affords Sartre the resources to respond to criticisms that his account of self‐consciousness relies on a spurious distinction and that his view of freedom cannot explain how consciousness is conditioned by its world. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Spontaneity – understood as an action of the mind or will that is not determined by a prior external stimulus – is a theme that resonates throughout Immanuel Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. Though spontaneity and the concomitant notion of freedom lie at the foundation of many of Kant's most pivotal theses and arguments regarding cognition, judgment, and moral action, spontaneity and freedom themselves often remain cloaked in mystery, or accessible only via transcendental argument. This (...) volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars who explore the nature of freedom and spontaneity, the arguments Kant offers surrounding these concepts, and their place in Kant's larger philosophical system. The collection will be of interest to scholars interested in any aspect of Kant's philosophy, especially those who hope to gain a deeper insight into these fundamental Kantian ideas. (shrink)

This fine collection of essays is dedicated to Paul Guyer. It includes work by distinguished experts and younger scholars across a range of topics in Kant’s theoretical, moral, and political philosophy.Karl Ameriks’s “On the Many Senses of ‘Self-Determination’” responds to two misreadings of Kantian autonomy. One dismisses its notion of self-determination, the source of the auto-in autonomy, as an excessively subjective basis for morality; the other interprets its nomos as involving excessive determination of will by reason or sensibility. Ameriks responds (...) with careful analysis of Kant’s “provocative language” concerning the authorship and legislation of morality. This includes Kant’s famous description of... (shrink)

Michelle Kosch examines the conceptions of free will and the foundations of ethics in the work of Kant, Schelling, and Kierkegaard. She seeks to understand the history of German idealism better by looking at it through the lens of these issues, and to understand Kierkegaard better by placing his thought in this context. Kosch argues for a new interpretation of Kierkegaard's theory of agency, that Schelling was a major influence and Kant a major target of criticism, and that both the (...) theory and the criticisms are highly relevant to contemporary debates. (shrink)

In this paper, I give an explanation and defense of Kant’s claim that we cannot comprehend how freedom is possible. I argue that this is a significant point that has been underappreciated in the secondary literature. My conclusion has a variety of implications both for Kant scholars and for those interested in Kantian ideas more generally. Most notably, if Kant is right that there are principled reasons why freedom is beyond our comprehension, then this would release his ethical (...) views from an undesirable explanatory burden. It would be a boon for Kantians if they could ground their lofty claims about the unique, elevated status of rational agency without committing to an implausible view of libertarian freedom. I also suggest that there are certain debates concerning moral motivation and transcendental idealism that might have to change in response to Kant’s claims about the incomprehensibility of freedom. (shrink)

According to Kant, being purely rational or purely reasonable and being autonomously free are one and the same thing. But how can this be so? How can my innate capacity for pure reason ever motivate me to do anything, whether the right thing or the wrong thing? What I will suggest is that the fundamental connection between reason and freedom, both for Kant and in reality, is precisely our human biological life and spontaneity of the will, a conjunctive (...) intrinsic structural property of our animal bodies, which essentially constitutes human personhood and rational agency. I say ‘suggest’ because, obviously, no proper argument for such a conclusion could ever be worked out in a short essay. I would nevertheless like to motivate my suggestion by way of a commentary on the second part of Adrian Moore's extremely rich and interesting recent book, Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty. (shrink)

The following essay has three main objectives. (1) By arguing that the connection between Schelling’s reception of Plato and Kant’s conception of genius is relevant for Schelling’s early development, I show that Schelling’s early Idealism brings to the general problem that plagues German Idealists, i.e., the search for an unconditioned principle that unites theoretical and practical reason, the solution that is genuinely his own. This original solution consists in Schelling’s conception of “creative reason [schöpfersiche Vernunft].” Because the scholarship on German (...) Idealism has thus far been focused predominantly on the analysis of self-consciousness, Schelling’s conception of creative reason remained neglected. (2) I show that the theme of an absolutely free creative subjectivity is shared by many of Schelling’s early works and, hence, I argue that the early development of his Idealism can be interpreted as a beginning of a philosophical system or as a “proto-system” of what is later to become The System of Transcendental Idealism (1800). (3) I evaluate Schelling’s speculative extension of Kant’s notion of creative subjectivity and argue that, when compared to Kant’s notion of genius, Schelling’s ‘absolute I’ should be considered a regress rather than a progress. (shrink)

Henry Allison over the years has produced important work on Kant's transcendental idealism of the objects of our empirical knowledge as well as on Kant's conception and defence of the freedom of rational agency. He has done so both in two major books and in a string of articles. Most recently, his continuing refinements of a number of interrelated themes prominent in his two books, together with discussions of some other issues, have provided the material for the publication of (...) a collection of papers, Idealism and Freedom) Ten of the twelve essays included in this collection have already appeared elsewhere, but it is gratifying to have them, together with two additions, all available in their present form. Allison's debates, both with himself and with his critics, help increase our understanding of his views and hence of Kant's as well. (shrink)

This paper asks how Kant’s mature theory of freedom handles an objection pertaining to chance. This question is significant given that Kant raises this criticism against libertarianism in his early writings on freedom before coming to adopt a libertarian view of freedom in the Critical period. After motivating the problem of how Kant can hold that the free actions of human beings lack determining grounds while at the same maintain that these are not the result of ‘blind (...) chance,’ I argue that Kant’s Critical doctrine of transcendental idealism, while creating the conceptual space’ for libertarian freedom, is not intended to provide an answer to the problem of chance with respect to our free agency. I go on to show how the resources for a refutation of chance only come about in the practical philosophy. In the 2nd Critique, Kant famously argues for the reality of freedom on the basis of our consciousness of the moral law as the law of a free will. However, Kant also comes to build into his account of the will a genuine power of choice, which involves the capacity to deviate from the moral law. I conclude by showing that this apparent tension can be resolved by turning to his argument for the impossibility of a diabolical will. This involves a consideration of the distinct kind of grounding relationship that practical laws have to the human will, as well as the way that transcendental idealism makes this possible. (shrink)

In "Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency", I aim to give a comprehensive interpretation and a qualified defense of Kant’s doctrine of freedom as a systematic conception of rational agency. -/- Although my book follows Kant in focusing on the idea of free will as a condition of moral agency, it denies that moral freedom of will is the only relevant (transcendental) type of freedom. Human beings also exercise absolute freedom of thought (intellectual autonomy) in (...) their theoretical cognition. Moreover, our creation and appreciation of beauty requires our freedom of imagination. I consider these three varieties of free agency both in their own rights and in their systematic connections, by examining how they differ from and yet relate to each other. On this basis, my interpretation shows that and why for Kant transcendental freedom is the proper anchor ("cardinal point") of all meaningful, rational human activity: our moral efforts to become more virtuous and to make the world a better place; our theoretical efforts to understand, explain and predict the world; and our aesthetic engagement with the world of beauty, both artistic and natural. -/- Additionally, "Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency" illuminates Kant's intricate, multifaceted account by considering the various metaphysical, semantic, epistemological and normative dimensions of Kantian freedom and by revealing their systematic interconnections. One significant benefit of tracing these links is that by doing so we can arrive at a charitable view of how Kant seeks to justify the belief in moral freedom of will. -/- For many commentators, Kant's appeal to a moral ‘fact of reason’ as our basis for believing in supersensible free will is an abject philosophical failure or a lapse into dogmatic rationalism. By contrast, I show that Kant justifies our belief in free will through a rather powerful, two-pronged argumentative strategy. First, he constructs a practical-moral proof of free will via the fact of reason doctrine. Second, he provides a theoretical defense of this moral proof against challenges arising from a naturalistic worldview. The linchpin of this defense is his argument that naturalistic cognizers must presuppose their epistemic freedom of thought as a necessary condition of all objective theoretical (including naturalistic) cognition. Since epistemic freedom of thought and moral freedom of will are both species of transcendental freedom, naturalists cannot (coherently) debunk our practical self-conception as transcendentally free moral agents. The appeal to epistemic freedom of thought provides no positive grounds for believing in a free moral will; but it shields our moral self-awareness (which does provide such grounds) against its most prominent detractors. -/- This defense strategy (among other aspects of Kant’s view that I examine in my book) shows that a significant part of Kant’s legacy is his abiding potential to challenge and provide alternatives to a naturalistic philosophical worldview (held by the “defender of an omnipotent nature”) according to which the mechanistic order of nature engulfs all metaphysical reality and (thereby) our entire humanity. (shrink)

In this thesis I investigate the notion of experience in German Idealist Philosophy. I focus on the exploration of an alternative to the transcendental model notion of experience through Schelling's insight into the notion of logogrif. The structural division of this project into two sections reflects the two theoretical standpoints of this project, namely the logic and the logogrif of experience. The first section - the logic of experience - explores the notion of experience provided in Kant's Critique of Pure (...) Reason, Critique of Judgement and Fichte's Science of Knowledge. I argue that Kant's fundamental question about the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements succeeds in thematising the aporia of cognitive experience but results in a subject-oriented, representational model which radically confines the notion of experience to the constitutive laws of the understanding or to the normative precepts of Reason. Experience is founded upon a sharp division between faith and knowledge, will and logic, desire and reflection, absolute and finitude. Fichte's endeavour to articulate a non-representational account of experience, does not succeed in extricating itself from the representational model, so long as experience is reduced to the ever-producing deeds of the self-positing ego. Despite the serious differences between Kant's and Fichte's notions of experience, both accounts, so long as they unfold from a transcendental standpoint, attempt to resolve experience into conceptual laws or determinations of the ego's absolute will. Experience is transformed into an object of the subject's cognitive or volitional faculties. The paradoxes of man's interaction with the world are intended to be accommodated either by the law-giving spontaneity of the understanding and the Architectonic of Pure Reason or by the overpowerful primordial act of the self-positing ego. This implies the conceptualisation of the self in terms of constant identity-through-time, or sheer self-determination. However, this conceptualisation remains at the normative or prescriptive level, which in turn is projected upon the world. The latter, though appears as the subject's property, essentially remains alien and opaque, confirming the radical limitations of the ego rather than its order-giving authority. Moreover, this notion of experience is ultimately founded upon a radical expulsion of the divine from the world, the de-spiritualisation of the sensual and the de-sensualisation of the spiritual, the sharp juxtaposition between absolute and finitude. This results in a self-defeating subjectivity, whose firm identity and rule-giving authority does not rescue it from its perennial unattainability to 'organise the conditioned' or 'conquer the unconditioned'. In Kant's and Fichte's thought, however, I detect elements that potentially transgress their transcendental account of experience. These are found in Kant's concept of spontaneity and free play between understanding and imagination, and Fichte's concept of productivity. I argue that these elements lose their potential dynamism, so long as they are absorbed by the transcendental demands for the solution of the aporias of logic. However, these elements point to the need for a radical re-conceptualisation of the notion of experience. This is provided by means of Schelling's logogriflic approach, which constitutes the theme of the second section. The second section - the logogrif of experience - attempts to articulate a different approach towards the notion of experience, through an exploration of Schelling's versatile and provocative thought. This section focuses on Schelling's original insight into the notion and act of logogrif, which opens the dialogue between logos and mythos, cosmic becoming and human soul, cosmic imagination and human reflection, faith and knowledge. This section attempts to illuminate Schelling's fascinating philosophical investigations and discoveries that have been rather overlooked, possibly, due to Hegel's overwhelming critique. This section, after a brief critical examination of the Identity Philosophy, attempts to elucidate Schelling's notion of experience through his middle works, Of Human Freedom, Ages of the World, The Deities of Samothrace, which are treated as a self-developing trilogy. Schelling re-addresses the aporias of logic not as part of Reason's self-interrogation but as part of the cosmic paradoxes and living experiences. In this way, Schelling resets the scene of the debate on the conditions of possibility for cognitive experience by putting on the stage the enigmas of the cosmos and life rather than the Tribunal of Reason. Logic itself is conceived as a potency in the cosmic becoming, and consequently can no longer attempt to establish the transcendental conditions for the possibility of cognitive experience. Cosmic becoming, in which man is an active part, is conceived as the process of the movement, the interaction, the transformations and transmutations of multiple potencies. These, far beyond any mechanical conceptualisation, appear as self-moving and yet interdependent, unknown yet familiar, inscrutable and yet manifest powers, describing the mystery of life itself. The latter is depicted as an ever-recurrent act of longing for self-expression as active unity. Experience is conceived as the lived process of a network of living potencies, which may not only resist rational powers but may also puzzle and seize them. In this context, reflection acquires a plastic dimension, as opposed to its rigidity in the representational model of experience. Reflection depicts cosmic longing's self-formation, whose man is part. This self-bending formation partially illuminates the nature of longing, and from this standpoint is the logic of the longing. However, this formation is movable, transmutable and mostly ineffable, and from this standpoint is the logic of a riddle: a logogrif. Logogrif is the transitive term that attempts to describe the transition of experience from its enacted phase to its allusive conceptual utterance, and in this sense the term itself participates in both phases, as both form of thought and form of life. The logogrific approach to experience in turn transposes us as from the realm of pure concepts to the realm of the mystery of life, from pure thought to acts of longing, from the Architectonic of Pure Reason to Cosmic Theurgy. The latter term attempts to grasp the paradox and dynamism of cosmic and non-cosmic becoming by means of multiple, vanishing and ever-recurring, transmutable potencies, or in Schelling's terms 'the magic of insoluble life'. Schelling's logogrific account consists in a powerful voice for the re-enchantment of the world, the introduction into the notion of experience of the imminence of the divine. This is not suggested in terms of the adoption of old religious doctrines but by means of the discovery and re-discovery of the theurgy of life, through the intensification of our artistic mood, the creative expansion of our deeds. This notion of experience allows for the reconsideration of the notion of the self, in terms of a dynamic, conflictual process between conscious and unconscious powers and the critical revaluation of the accounts of subjectivity which reduce it to the sphere of self-consciousness. The thesis concludes with the need for an investigation into the relation between logos and mythos, which only tangentially has been introduced by the present project. In this context it will be possible to re-appraise the potential that the logogrific approach opens for an alternative to both logical and traditional mythological patterns of thinking. (shrink)

This is a very important book for Kantian practical philosophy, because it defends the essential consistency and coherence of Kant's transcendental idealism and his moral philosophy. At the same time, Allison's careful textual work along with his account of Kant's transcendental distinction between the intelligible and empirical character of human agency helps to clarify passages which have plagued some of the best interpreters of Kant's practical philosophy, such as Lewis White Beck and Allen Wood. Allison's primary objective is to give (...) a defense of Kant's incompatibilist conception of freedom which "constitutes the common thread running through all three critiques". Although he succeeds in this objective, because of his insightful and scholarly argumentation, one is still left with many questions concerning the relationship between the "two points of views" of freedom and mechanism in Kantian moral philosophy, and Allison admits he has not resolved this. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of the unity of Transcendental Idealism at the end of Eighteenth Century German philosophy, given that it circulated in different versions, Kant’s Critique [of humans’ rational powers] and Fichte’ System of Science [Wissenschaftslehre]. Both thinkers take the transcendental turn. They base conceptual investigations not on facts or empirical evidence, but on the possibility of a situation; they are idealists since they look inward to the spontaneity of the agent/knower for explanation, not the environment, stimulus, (...) or sensory given. Reason can fathom only what it has constructed. (shrink)

: This article argues that Kant’s doctrine of radical evil and the doctrine of conversion which is its consequent reflect developments in Kant’s thinking about moral agency and his realization that his theory of freedom was inadequate to the problem of moral evil; that the changes Kant makes to accommodate evil result in a significant though subterranean shift in his concept of agency, resulting in two incompatible concepts, one explicit but inadequate, the other implicit yet necessary; and that the (...) problems Kant encounters with radical evil and conversion and the concept of agency they push him towards provide an important link between Kant and German Idealism. (shrink)

I propose a new way of understanding Kant’s doctrine of freedom. My reading seeks to combine features of two popular opposed lines of interpretation, namely, of metaphysical and anti-metaphysical readings. I defend the view that Kant’s idealist attempt to ‘save’ human freedom involves substantive metaphysical commitments. However, I show that this interpretation can fruitfully integrate important insights that are standardly associated with deflationary readings: first, the idea that for Kant freedom and natural necessity can be ascribed to (...) one and the same human being; and second, the idea that for Kant the belief in freedom and the belief in natural necessity belong to two different standpoints. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the relation of Kant’s theory of free will to that of K.L. Reinhold. I argue that Reinhold’s theory addresses several problems raised in the reception of Kant’s practical philosophy, particularly the problem of accounting for free immoral acts. Focusing on Reinhold’s account of free will as a condition for the conceivability of the moral law shows that the historical focus on Reinhold’s break from Kant’s own account and his alleged reliance on facts of consciousness obscures Reinhold’s decidedly (...) ‘Kantian’ argument. This approach provides a new foundation for free will and demonstrates the significance of Reinhold’s practical philosophy as an attempted corrective to Kant. Chapter 1 examines the influence of Rehberg, Ulrich, and Schmid on Kant’s and Reinhold’s respective theories of free will. Chapter 2 investigates the epistemic foundation of Reinhold’s theory of free will and, contrary to the dominant view in scholarship, argues that his account is not based merely on facts of consciousness. Chapter 3 illuminates a tension between the phenomenology of moral agency and Kant’s account of free agency. It is argued that while Kant talks about overcoming inclinations and adopting maxims by virtue of their lawful form, which would seemingly have to take place at the phenomenal level and be available to consciousness, Kant’s account of free agency is restricted to the noumenal, which precludes availability to consciousness. Reinhold’s theory of free will avoids this tension by positing consciousness of possible courses of action as a necessary condition for self-determination to one such action. Chapter 4 discusses the relation of Reinhold’s theory of free will to Kant’s Religion, a text that Reinhold uses as a basis for his charge that Kant’s theory is either “unintelligible” or “untenable.” I argue that although Reinhold fundamentally misunderstands Kant’s doctrine of supreme maxim adoption, Reinhold is correct in his assertion that Kant is committed to the thesis that the free spontaneity of the power of choice is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Chapter 5 explicates the Kant-Reinhold Controversy to argue that given Kant’s own commitment to the conditions for moral responsibility, Reinhold was ultimately correct that free will ought to be defined as choosing for or against the moral law. (shrink)

이 연구에서 나는 칸트 철학에서 지성(Verstand)과 자유의 문제를 다룬다. 우선 나는 칸트에게서 지성의 자발성(die Spontaneität des Verstandes)은 몇몇 연구자들의 주장과 달리 상대적 자발성이 아니라 절대적 자발성이라고 주장한다. 그리고 나는, 기존의 연구들과 달리, 지성의 자발적 작용은 의지의 자유를 전제한다고 주장한다. 끝으로 나는 인식의 영역에서 지성의 자발성과 자유의지가 자유의 선험적 이념(die transzendentale Idee)에 의존한다고 주장한다. 칸트 철학에서 자발성은 이성적 존재자로서의 인간을 특징짓는 가장 중요한 개념이다. 인간의 행위가 자발적이라는 것은 인간의 행위의 근거가 인간 자신 안에 놓여 있다는 것을 의미한다. 이성적 존재자로서의 인간의 행위는 (...) 자기 규정적 활동이며 인간은 자발적 능력으로 인해 자신의 행위에 책임이 있는 일종의 자기원인(causa sui)이 된다. 나는 이 같은 자발성의 이론이 칸트의 인식 주체에게도 적용될 수 있다고 생각한다. (shrink)

Without denying the importance of a range of independent epistemic and metaphysical considerations, I argue that there is an irreducibly theological dimension to the emergence of Kant's transcendental idealism. Creative tasks carried out by the divine mind in the pre‐critical works become assigned to the human noumenal mind, which is conceived of as the source of space, time and causation. Kant makes this shift in order to protect the possibility of transcendental freedom. I show that Kant has significant theological (...) difficulties ascribing such transcendental freedom to creatures in relation to God, and that he intends transcendental idealism to be a solution to these difficulties. I explain how this provides Kant with a powerful motivation and reason for denying the so‐called “neglected alternative”, and conclude by suggesting that the nature of any theological response to Kant will depend upon some fundamental options about how to conceive of the relationship between the creator and creation. (shrink)

Many of us have experienced a peculiar feeling of freedom, of the world being open before us. This is the feeling that is captured by phrases like “the freedom of the open road” and “free spirits,” and, to quote Phillip Larkin, “free bloody birds” going “down the long slide / To happiness, endlessly.” This feeling is associated with the ideas that my life could go in many different directions and that there is a vast range of things that (...) I could become. It arises in concert with a wide range of human experiences, including experiences of artistic creation, play, fun, and resistance to authority. This freedom of openness and spontaneity, which I call spontaneous freedom, is central to our ordinary talk about freedom. Yet it is a phenomenon largely ignored in discussions of freedom in contemporary moral philosophy. This is because moral philosophers are primarily concerned to identify the sort of freedom that is a prerequisite for moral responsibility, and so focus on deliberate, voluntary action rooted in rational choice. When moral philosophers do discuss spontaneous freedom, it is often to disparage it as, in the words of Harry Frankfurt, the freedom of “the wanton” whose liberty is merely that of “anarchic impulsive behavior.” My dissertation develops a theory of spontaneous freedom and of the role it does and should play in our lives, including our moral and political lives. I argue that, to do full justice to the human aspiration for freedom, moral and political theory must recognize the value of spontaneity. Through a study of characters from stories and films by Virginia Woolf, Saki, Akira Kurosawa, and Aman Sethi, I develop a phenomenological account of the nature of spontaneous freedom. I argue that we experience spontaneous freedom when we experience our actions as arising out of ourselves but not fixed in advance either by the decisions of other agents or by our own preexisting commitments or plans. I further argue that spontaneous freedom is valuable because it allows for the distinctive pleasure of feeling that one’s life is unforetold and that one is among the sources of novelty in the world, a feeling that is central to artistic creativity. It also affords solace from the anxiety associated with the inevitability of death. As with many experiences, like falling in love or seeing an alpine lake, experiences of spontaneous freedom are most valuable when they are veridical. But even the subjective experience of spontaneous freedom, I suggest, activates our awareness of and openness to possibility. Achieving this awareness, at least on occasion, is valuable because it provides us with a sense of our own psychological potential and sharpens a skill that contributes to practical deliberation. My claim that spontaneous freedom is valuable conflicts with a popular account of the self. According to that account—endorsed by a number of moral philosophers but most famously associated with Christine Korsgaard—the ideal self is one that is well-ordered, actively constituted through rational deliberation. Such integrity theories of the self are attractive because they provide an account of agency according to which ideal moral agents invariably endorse their own actions and beliefs. Integrity theories view freedom as involving rational, deliberative control of one’s actions. But I argue that integrity theories forbid well-constituted moral agents to seek out experiences of spontaneous freedom: such agents must act in a manner that they antecedently and reflectively endorse, while spontaneous freedom requires acting in a manner not antecedently fixed by one’s own decisions. Insofar as spontaneous freedom is a kind of freedom that we do and should value, my account exerts pressure on this standard view of agency and the self. My account of spontaneous freedom also has important political implications. One version of liberal theory holds that the only sort of political freedom worth having is the freedom of each individual to effectively exercise choice compatibly with every other individual doing likewise. On this picture, I have all of the freedom that I could want if I am able to choose autonomously and act in accordance with my choices. But I argue that a community that secures this liberal variety of freedom does not yet provide its members with all the freedom for which people rightly yearn. When public and private institutions arrange our circumstances in ways that make the courses of our lives predictable, our own choices about how to act may be largely settled by the plans and decisions of other agents. This in turn makes it difficult for us to regard our futures as open in the way that is characteristic of experiences of spontaneous freedom. States should promote spontaneous freedom by providing the material and social preconditions for us to feel that our lives could head in radically different and unanticipated directions. (shrink)

The dissertation traces the approach to the problem of free will---in particular, the question of whether moral evil can be freely chosen---from Kant through Schelling to Kierkegaard. The goal is to clarify the historical transition from German idealism to the first version of existential philosophy, by showing the philosophical concerns of the latter to be implicit in unresolved problems in the former. I begin by examining Kant's attempt to reconcile what is essentially an incompatibilist notion of free will with the (...) claims of theoretical objectivity, and show that the only argument for the reality of human freedom this reconciliation allows him to give is one that connects freedom altogether too strongly with practical reason, threatening to render moral evil not simply irrational, but actually impossible. I then trace the development of Schelling's account of freedom, showing that the transformation in his view marked by the Freedom Essay of 1809 is motivated primarily by the goal of overcoming this difficulty in Kant's account. In his later work, I argue, Schelling's aim is to articulate a theory of knowledge consistent with this account of freedom. I then interpret Kierkegaard's critique of what he calls the "esthetic" and the "immanent ethical" standpoints and his account of the meta-ethical status of Christianity in light of this development. I argue that the standard interpretations of these aspects of Kierkegaard's position are mistaken, and that Kierkegaard's philosophical debt to Schelling has been seriously underestimated. His account of human agency as it is presented in The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death is founded upon the account presented by Schelling in the Freedom Essay, and his critique of idealist epistemology is based upon the position laid out in Schelling's late work. Finally, I contrast Schelling's and Kierkegaard's positive accounts of theoretical and moral objectivity, and point to some difficulties in Kierkegaard's view. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant, with his “brilliantly dry style” (Schopenhauer), expounds the notable theory that “objects are approaching to the mind” via the spectacle metaphor by addressing transcendental idealism in support of the mind as an active knower (mind-making nature), not passive in a realistic sense, while objects of knowledge conform to the mind begotten in categories of understanding. On Kant’s view, James Conant writes, “Kant’s term for this unity, considered at this level of abstraction, is the original synthetic unity of the (...) understanding. This admits of forms of further determination, one sensible and one intellectual. This form of unity – categorial unity – characterizes both the manner in which objects are given to us in intuition and the manner in which concepts are combined in judgments” (Conant 2016: 114). -/- Insofar the same pioneering stance is reflected in the Groundwork of Metaphysics of Morals (Kant 1972) and the Critique of Practical Reason (Kant 1996), where Kant underscores the accessible account of reason and freedom as the content of fundamental moral principle toward a kind of universalizable moral duty attuned with the formulation of categorical imperative. The justification and groundwork of these moral laws cannot be liaison in sensory experience but on pure reason, which Kant calls “a priori,” a conviction stems from the understanding of rational necessitation of moral obligation and free autonomous agency. This interpretation absorbs the practical principle that underlies the subjective maxim to justify the necessary and sufficient conditions for a universal moral law. Kant starts out saying that an act is morally right if it is performed for the sake of broadening the vista of maxim infused by goodwill consisting of the categorical imperative that sounds an exceptionless command, abstract law, and universally applicable normative principle as well. For Kant, the categorical imperative has many-sided structures: a. Ethical requirements are rational requirements of the moral agent. b. The rational requirement goes toward universal laws. c. These moral requirements must be followed by equality, freedom, and goodwill. (shrink)

Freedom after Kant situates Kant's concept of freedom in relation to leading philosophers of the period to trace a detailed history of philosophical thinking on freedom from the 18th to the 20th century. Beginning with German Idealism, the volume presents Kant's writings on freedom and their reception by contemporaries, successors, followers and critics. From exchanges of philosophical ideas on freedom between Kant and his contemporaries, Reinhold and Fichte, through to Kant's ideas on rational self-determination in (...) Hegel and Schelling, we see Kant's original arguments transformed through concepts of autonomy, freedom and absolutes. The political aspect of Kant's freedom finds further articulation in chapters on Marx and Mill who developed their own notions of political freedom after Kant. Revealing how Kant's concept of freedom shaped the history of philosophy in the broadest sense, contributors chart the development of an ethics of freedom in the 20th century which brings Kant into conversation with Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Levinas and Murdoch. This line of thinking on freedom signals a new departure for Kantian studies which brings his ideas into the present day and traverses major schools of thought including Idealism, Marxism, existentialism and moral philosophy. (shrink)

The first two sections of this paper are devoted respectively to the criticisms of my views raised by Stephen Engstrom and Andrews Reath at a symposium on Kant's Theory of Freedom held in Washington D.C. on 28 December 1992 under the auspices of the North American Kant Society. The third section contains my response to the remarks of Marcia Baron at a second symposium in Chicago on 24 April 1993 at the APA Western Division meetings. The fourth section deals (...) with some general criticisms of my treatment of Kant's theory of freedom and its connection with transcendental idealism that have been raised by Karl Ameriks, who was also a participant in the second symposium, in an earlier piece published in Inquiry and by Paul Guyer in a review. The paper as a whole is thus an attempt to reformulate and clarify some of the central claims of my book in light of the initial critical reaction. (shrink)

Henry Allison criticizes and rejects naturalism because the idea of freedom is constitutive of rational spontaneity, which alone enables and entitles us to judge or to act rationally, and only transcendental idealism can justify our acting under the idea of freedom. Allison’s critique of naturalism is unclear because his reasons for claiming that free rational spontaneity requires transcendental idealism are inadequate and because his characterization of Kant’s idealism is ambiguous. Recognizing this reinforces the importance of the (...) question of whether only transcendental idealism “can ground the right to the conceptual space” that we occupy when thinking spontaneously or acting under the idea of freedom. Only with a clear answer to this question can Kant’s idea of freedom provide a basis for assessing today’s naturalist orthodoxy. (shrink)

Ever since Kant and Hegel, the notion of autonomy—the idea that we are beholden to no law except one we impose upon ourselves—has been considered the truest philosophical expression of human freedom. But could our commitment to autonomy, as Theodor Adorno asked, be related to the extreme evils that we have witnessed in modernity? In Autonomy after Auschwitz, Martin Shuster explores this difficult question with astonishing theoretical acumen, examining the precise ways autonomy can lead us down a path of (...) evil and how it might be prevented from doing so. Shuster uncovers dangers in the notion of autonomy as it was originally conceived by Kant. Putting Adorno into dialogue with a range of European philosophers, notably Kant, Hegel, Horkheimer, and Habermas—as well as with a variety of contemporary Anglo-American thinkers such as Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, and Robert Pippin—he illuminates Adorno’s important revisions to this fraught concept and how his different understanding of autonomous agency, fully articulated, might open up new and positive social and political possibilities. Altogether, Autonomy after Auschwitz is a meditation on modern evil and human agency, one that demonstrates the tremendous ethical stakes at the heart of philosophy. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is among the most pivotal thinkers in the history of philosophy. His transcendental idealism claims to overcome the skepticism of David Hume, resolve the impasse between empiricism and rationalism, and establish the reality of human freedom and moral agency. A thorough understanding of Kant is indispensable to any philosopher today. The significance of Kant's thought is matched by its complexity. His revolutionary ideas are systematically interconnected and he presents them using a forbidding technical vocabulary. A careful investigation (...) of the key concepts that structure Kant's work is essential to the comprehension of his philosophical project. This book provides an accessible introduction to Kant by explaining each of the key concepts of his philosophy. The book is organized into three parts, which correspond to the main areas of Kant's transcendental idealism: Theoretical Philosophy; Practical Philosophy; and, Aesthetics, Teleology, and Religion. Each chapter presents an overview of a particular topic, while the whole provides a clear and comprehensive account of Kant's philosophical system. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant uses the notion of spontaneity to characterize both the ordinary epistemic activity of the understanding and the kind of causal activity required for transcendentally free agency. In spite of the obvious differences between these two conceptions of spontaneity, at one time Kant virtually identified them, since he licensed the inference from the spontaneity of thought manifest in apperception to the transcendental freedom of the thinker. By the mid-1700s, however, he (...) abandoned that view, affirming instead a sharp distinction between “logical freedom,” which pertains to acts of thought, and “transcendental freedom,” which supposedly pertains to acts of will. This distinction, if not the precise language in which it was originally expressed, remained an integral part of the “critical” philosophy. Moreover, although the topic of freedom is not discussed in the Paralogisms, Kant there insists on the illegitimacy of the attempt to derive any synthetic knowledge regarding the nature of the “thing which thinks” from the ‘I think’. (shrink)

I defend the claim that Kant is a moral antirealist, or (as he would state it) moral idealist. I first define moral realism and moral idealism, concluding that moral idealism requires that every moral property depend upon the minds of moral agents. Kant's metaethical theory is idealist regarding the nature of value, since it depends upon the voluntary choices of moral agents in pursuing particular ends, the nature of right, since the categorical imperative stems from moral agents' own reason, and (...) the nature of moral agency, since freedom is construed in terms of the use of reason. (shrink)

The claim that Rousseau's writings influenced the development of Kant's critical philosophy, and German idealism, is not a new one. As correct as the claim may be, it does not amount to a systematic account of Rousseau's place within this philosophical tradition. It also suggests a progression whereby Rousseau's achievements are eventually eclipsed by those of Kant, Fichte and Hegel, especially with respect to the idea of freedom. In this book David James shows that Rousseau presents certain challenges that (...) Kant and the idealists Fichte and Hegel could not fully meet, by making dependence and necessity, as well as freedom, his central concerns, and thereby raises the question of whether freedom in all its forms is genuinely possible in a condition of human interdependence marked by material inequality. His study will be valuable for all those studying Kant, German idealism and the history of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ideas. (shrink)

Kant wants to show that freedom is possible in the face of natural necessity. Transcendental idealism is his solution, which locates freedom outside of nature. I accept that this makes freedom possible, but object that it precludes the recognition of other rational agents. In making this case, I trace some of the history of Kant’s thoughts on freedom. In several of his earlier works, he argues that we are aware of our own activity. He later abandons (...) this approach, as he worries that any awareness of our activity involves access to the noumenal, and thereby conflicts with the epistemic limits of transcendental idealism. In its place, from the second Critique onwards, Kant argues that we are conscious of the moral law, which tells me that I ought to do something, thus revealing that I can. This is the only proof of freedom consistent with transcendental idealism, but I argue that such an exclusively first-personal approach precludes the recognition of other rational agents. I conclu.. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant uses the notion of spontaneity to characterize both the ordinary epistemic activity of the understanding and the kind of causal activity required for transcendentally free agency. In spite of the obvious differences between these two conceptions of spontaneity, at one time Kant virtually identified them, since he licensed the inference from the spontaneity of thought manifest in apperception to the transcendental freedom of the thinker. By the mid-1700s, however, he (...) abandoned that view, affirming instead a sharp distinction between “logical freedom,” which pertains to acts of thought, and “transcendental freedom,” which supposedly pertains to acts of will. This distinction, if not the precise language in which it was originally expressed, remained an integral part of the “critical” philosophy. Moreover, although the topic of freedom is not discussed in the Paralogisms, Kant there insists on the illegitimacy of the attempt to derive any synthetic knowledge regarding the nature of the “thing which thinks” from the ‘I think’. (shrink)

Beatrice Han argues that the theories of subjection (determinism: structure) and subjectivation (freedom: agency) are the “the blind spot of Foucault's work:” to the very end of his life, in being transcendental and historical theories, respectively, they were in irresolvable conflict. In part I, I have argued that Foucault encourages us to situate the theories of the subject in an un-thematized reach for a metaphysics of realism which, in effect, was to ground his uncertain complementary reach for a naturalist (...) conduct of research. In part II I also argue that it is this fundamental feature of Foucault's Foucault that drives his returns to Kant, the purpose of which is to resolve the conflicting theories of the subject, and thus to solve his Giddensian problem of structure and creativity. Locating the returns and their purpose in my context of Science for Humanism and the recovery of human agency, I ultimately argue that Foucault's two special returns to Kant in order to solve his structure/agency problem led to two unfortunate solutions. The resort to Baudelair's aesthetic subject is a failed solution in so far as it regresses to being a pre-noumenal conception of the subject. The subsequent mere reinstatement of Kant's subject as causally empowered, minus the noumenalism, is nothing more than a reclamation of Kant's conception. Only the reconstruction of Foucault's realism permits us to assert that he could have moved beyond the reclamation of human agency to its recovery. (shrink)

In his very rich and insightful book, Kant's Theory of Freedom, Henry Allison argues that in the first Critique Kant's reason for rejecting Humean compatibilism in favor of an incompatibilist conception of practical freedom stems, not from a specific concern to ground morality, as many have supposed, but from his general conception of rational agency, which Allison explicates in terms of the idea of practical spontaneity. Practically spontaneous rational agency is subject to imperatives and therefore distinct from (...) Humean agency. But it is not necessarily subject to the categorical imperative and hence is distinct from fully spontaneous (transcendentally free) moral agency. A conception thus emerges of an agent with limited spontaneity, subject to hypothetical but not categorical imperatives. A doubt may be raised, however, as to whether Kant's view can accommodate this conception of limited practical spontaneity. Reflection on Kant's notion of a hypothetical imperative suggests that the idea of limited spontaneity is in danger of either collapsing into the Humean picture or else turning out to be equivalent to the conception of full spontaneity appropriate to moral agency. There is thus reason to suppose that, for Kant, we would not be bound by imperatives at all if we were not bound by the categorical imperative. (shrink)

Henry Allison is one of the foremost interpreters of the philosophy of Kant. This new volume collects all his recent essays on Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. All the essays postdate Allison's two major books on Kant, and together they constitute an attempt to respond to critics and to clarify, develop and apply some of the central theses of those books. Two are published here for the first time. Special features of the collection are: a detailed defence of the author's (...) interpretation of transcendental idealism; a consideration of the Transcendental Deduction and some other recent interpretations thereof; further elaborations of the tensions between various aspects of Kant's conception of freedom and of the complex role of this conception within Kant's moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper aims to discern the limits of the highly influential Incorporation Thesis to give proper weight to our sensuous side in Kant’s theory of moral action. I first examine the view of the faculties underpinning the theory, which allows me to outline the passage from natural to rational action. This enables me to designate the factors involved in actual human agency and thereby to show that, contrary to what the Incorporation Thesis may tempt one to believe, we do not (...) always act on maxims. The result is a revised and more balanced view of how Kant sees the character of moral life. (shrink)

This paper draws attention to two problems with Kant's claim that transcendental freedom is timeless. The problems are that this causes conceptual difficulties and fails to vindicate important parts of our moral practices. I then put forward three ways in which we can respond to these charges on Kant's behalf. The first is to defend Kant's claim that transcendental freedom occurs outside of time. The second is to reject this claim, but try to maintain transcendental idealism. And the (...) third is to reject both Kant's claim about the timelessness of freedom and also transcendental idealism itself. (shrink)

In this comprehensive assessment of Kant's metaethics, Frederick Rauscher shows that Kant is a moral idealist rather than a moral realist and argues that Kant's ethics does not require metaphysical commitments that go beyond nature. Rauscher frames the argument in the context of Kant's non-naturalistic philosophical method and the character of practical reason as action-oriented. Reason operates entirely within nature, and apparently non-natural claims - God, free choice, and value - are shown to be heuristic and to reflect reason's ordering (...) of nature. The book shows how Kant hesitates between a transcendental moral idealism with an empirical moral realism and a complete moral idealism. Examining every aspect of Kant's ethics, from the categorical imperative to freedom and value, this volume argues that Kant's focus on human moral agency explains morality as a part of nature. It will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, German idealism and intellectual history. (shrink)

German idealist philosophers Kant and Hegel, who have had a significant influence on contemporary social and political theory, both insist on universal human freedom and dignity. However, they maintain teleological frameworks of human development which depend on distancing free and rational human agency from nature, leaving animality and “savageness” behind for a rational and spiritually developed future. This has implications for their implicit and explicit accounts of disability, which risk being reiterated today: insofar as disability is associated with being (...) a static product of nature, these frameworks situate it at best as that which must be overcome, and at worst as something that bars someone from full humanity. Recognizing and understanding the place of disability within their work is vital if we want to avoid their exclusions in our inherited ideas. (shrink)

This Element argues that Kant was a consistent proponent of the claim that the moral law is the causal law of a free will, and that the supposed ability of free will to choose indifferently between options is an empty concept.