Reason and Experience in Kant: Having Your Cake and Eating It Too vs. Splitting the Difference
Abstract
Kant tried to supersede the distinction between rationalism and empiricism with his own combination of rational and empirical elements. This can take two different forms, one when Kant tries to preserve separable truths in rationalism and empiricism in the theses and antitheses of his antinomies, and the other where he tries to show that neither rationalism nor empiricism by itself can capture the whole truth about theoretical knowledge, practical reasoning, or aesthetic judgment (in all these cases knowledge, reasoning, and judgment must combine rational and empirical elements). Since Kant’s first strategy depends upon his problematic doctrine of transcendental idealism, it is of primarily historical interest. But his strategy of showing how theoretical knowledge, practical reasoning, and even aesthetic judgment all involve both rational and empirical or intellectual and sensory elements, and his conclusion that they are all for that reason necessarily open-ended or never completed, is of enduring philosophical importance.
Abstract
Kant tried to supersede the distinction between rationalism and empiricism with his own combination of rational and empirical elements. This can take two different forms, one when Kant tries to preserve separable truths in rationalism and empiricism in the theses and antitheses of his antinomies, and the other where he tries to show that neither rationalism nor empiricism by itself can capture the whole truth about theoretical knowledge, practical reasoning, or aesthetic judgment (in all these cases knowledge, reasoning, and judgment must combine rational and empirical elements). Since Kant’s first strategy depends upon his problematic doctrine of transcendental idealism, it is of primarily historical interest. But his strategy of showing how theoretical knowledge, practical reasoning, and even aesthetic judgment all involve both rational and empirical or intellectual and sensory elements, and his conclusion that they are all for that reason necessarily open-ended or never completed, is of enduring philosophical importance.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Preface IX
- Abbreviations of Kant’s Works XI
-
Section I: Problems of Reason – Kant’s Philosophy and His Predecessors
- Reason and Experience in Kant: Having Your Cake and Eating It Too vs. Splitting the Difference 1
- Our Difficult Relationship with Truth: Critical Reason in the Real World 23
- Sapere aude: Understanding or Reason? 43
- Kant on Schematism and the Faculties: An Outline Straddling between the First and the Third Critique 57
- Perfection and Reality in The Only Possible Argument 81
- Kant and Hutcheson on the Psychology of Moral Motivation 101
- A Credential for the Moral Law? On the Alleged Coherentism of the Critique of Practical Reason 127
- The Difficulty of Deriving Autonomy from Pure Self-Activity: On Kant’s Solution to the Circularity between Freedom and Morality 135
- Achenwall’s iura connata and Kant’s “Only One Innate Right:” On Kant’s (Partial) Departure from Natural Law Theory 153
- Poetry as Knowledge: On Baumgarten’s and Kant’s Aesthetic Cognitivism 165
- Aesthetic Ideas and Hypotyposis: Artistic Expression without Aesthetic Attributes 195
-
Section II: Problems of Reason – Kantian Heritage
- A Problem of Reason: The Immortality of the Soul in the aetas kantiana 217
- Kant on the Supposed Incapacity to Transgress the Moral Law Freely 231
- Kant’s Doctrine of Right between Conservatives and Radicals 251
- Fichte as a Philosopher of Communication 267
- Intellectual Intuition as New Practical Reason? Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Ethics Reconsidered 277
- The Origin of the Actual in Hermann Cohen’s Logik 291
- Encounters of Judgement: Gadamer, Arendt, and Kant’s Take on Social Philosophy 307
- On the Finitude of Life: Bernard Williams from a Kantian Standpoint 347
-
Concluding Paper
- Critique in Crisis: Rationality in Kant and Husserl 373
- Notes on Contributors 389
- Index of Persons 393
- Index of Subject 395
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Table of Contents V
- Preface IX
- Abbreviations of Kant’s Works XI
-
Section I: Problems of Reason – Kant’s Philosophy and His Predecessors
- Reason and Experience in Kant: Having Your Cake and Eating It Too vs. Splitting the Difference 1
- Our Difficult Relationship with Truth: Critical Reason in the Real World 23
- Sapere aude: Understanding or Reason? 43
- Kant on Schematism and the Faculties: An Outline Straddling between the First and the Third Critique 57
- Perfection and Reality in The Only Possible Argument 81
- Kant and Hutcheson on the Psychology of Moral Motivation 101
- A Credential for the Moral Law? On the Alleged Coherentism of the Critique of Practical Reason 127
- The Difficulty of Deriving Autonomy from Pure Self-Activity: On Kant’s Solution to the Circularity between Freedom and Morality 135
- Achenwall’s iura connata and Kant’s “Only One Innate Right:” On Kant’s (Partial) Departure from Natural Law Theory 153
- Poetry as Knowledge: On Baumgarten’s and Kant’s Aesthetic Cognitivism 165
- Aesthetic Ideas and Hypotyposis: Artistic Expression without Aesthetic Attributes 195
-
Section II: Problems of Reason – Kantian Heritage
- A Problem of Reason: The Immortality of the Soul in the aetas kantiana 217
- Kant on the Supposed Incapacity to Transgress the Moral Law Freely 231
- Kant’s Doctrine of Right between Conservatives and Radicals 251
- Fichte as a Philosopher of Communication 267
- Intellectual Intuition as New Practical Reason? Hegel’s Critique of Kant’s Ethics Reconsidered 277
- The Origin of the Actual in Hermann Cohen’s Logik 291
- Encounters of Judgement: Gadamer, Arendt, and Kant’s Take on Social Philosophy 307
- On the Finitude of Life: Bernard Williams from a Kantian Standpoint 347
-
Concluding Paper
- Critique in Crisis: Rationality in Kant and Husserl 373
- Notes on Contributors 389
- Index of Persons 393
- Index of Subject 395
