In many histories of modern ethics, Kant is supposed to have ushered in an anti-realist or constructivist turn by holding that unless we ourselves 'author' or lay down moral norms and values for ...ourselves, our autonomy as agents will be threatened. In this book, Robert Stern challenges the cogency of this 'argument from autonomy', and claims that Kant never subscribed to it. Rather, it is not value realism but the apparent obligatoriness of morality that really poses a challenge to our autonomy: how can this be accounted for without taking away our freedom? The debate the book focuses on therefore concerns whether this obligatoriness should be located in ourselves (Kant), in others (Hegel) or in God (Kierkegaard). Stern traces the historical dialectic that drove the development of these respective theories, and clearly and sympathetically considers their merits and disadvantages; he concludes by arguing that the choice between them remains open.
Jaime Rubio Ángulo, una remembranza González, Leonardo Tovar
Cuadernos de filosofía latinoamericana,
01/2020, Volume:
41, Issue:
122
Journal Article
Open access
Por la factura de su escritura, la agudeza de sus análisis y la profundidad de sus tesis, sin duda los textos de Jaime Rubio respondían a esta concepción estética del mismo ejercicio filosófico, en ...que la intervención del auditorio debe limitarse a aplaudir en reconocimiento del brillo de la interpretación. Egresado de las primeras generaciones de filósofos de la recién restaurada Facultad de Filosofía y Humanismo de la usta, podemos rememorar a Jaime Rubio como el estudiante y el maestro que los antecedió a ustedes y nos anticipó a nosotros, en el interés por el devenir filosófico latinoamericano. Allí, esto es, en el curso y en el libro de antropología, aprendí con Rubio que Ricoeur nos enseñó que "el símbolo da qué pensar", por lo que nos corresponde ahora desentrañar el símbolo envuelto en la postulación de su nombre para nuestro coloquio, iniciativa de un servidor que respaldó con entusiasmo nuestra gentil directora de la aestría. Valiéndome de una tipología kantiana esbozada por él mismo, hablaré de una arquitectónica y de una histórica de la razón latinoamericana, expuestas por Rubio respectivamente en la conferencia inaugural que dictó en 1980 en la apertura del "I Congreso Internacional de Filosofía Latinoamericana" y en el primer capítulo de su texto, también de la colección "Flecha roja", "Historia de la Filosofía Latinoamericana- I", apartado reproducido en el artículo que en 1979 abrió el primer número de "Cuadernos de Filosofía Latinoamericana". Luego de repasar los antecedentes del problema de la "historia de las ideas" con Ortega y Gasset, Gaos, Romero, Roig y Dussel, el autor anuncia que combinará criterios temporales y geográficos en la exposición de la historia filosófica latinoamericana, que en aquel primer tomo incorporó el pensamiento anterior al llamado descubrimiento y la filosofía desarrollada en el continente durante la dominación hispánica. Con la sobriedad característica del estilo filosófico de nuestros tiempos, insisto en que hoy no podríamos suscribir este tipo de enunciaciones, pero sin duda el enunciado posee plena vigencia, y por eso hoy proseguimos aquí en el estudio, investigación y difusión del pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano.
Lively debates about narratives of historical progress, the conditions for international justice, and the implications of globalisation have prompted a renewed interest in Kant's Idea for a Universal ...History with a Cosmopolitan Aim. The essays in this volume, written by distinguished contributors, discuss the questions that are at the core of Kant's investigations. Does the study of history convey any philosophical insight? Can it provide political guidance? How are we to understand the destructive and bloody upheavals that constitute so much of human experience? What connections, if any, can be traced between politics, economics, and morality? What is the relation between the rule of law in the nation state and the advancement of a cosmopolitan political order? These questions and others are examined and discussed in a book that will be of interest to philosophers, social and political theorists, and intellectual and cultural historians.
This open access book revises Kant’s ethical thought in one of its most notorious respects: its exclusion of animals from moral consideration. The book gives readers in animal ethics an accessible ...introduction to Kant’s views on our duties to others, and his view that we have only ‘indirect’ duties regarding animals. It then investigates how one would have to depart from Kant in order to recognise that animals matter morally for their own sake. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s ‘Formula of Humanity,' the role of autonomy and the moral law, as well as Kant’s notions of practical reason and animal instinct. The result is a deliberately amended version of Kantianism which nevertheless remains faithful to central aspects of Kant’s thought. The book’s final part illustrates the framework’s use in applied contexts, addressing the issues of using animals as mere means, the ethics of veganism and vegetarianism, and environmental protection. Nico Dario Müller shows how, when furnished with duties to animals, Kant's moral philosophy can be a powerful resource for animal ethicists.
IX—How Is Metaphysics Possible? Stang, Nicholas F
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
10/2023, Volume:
123, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Abstract
In the Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason Kant raises a famous question: how is metaphysics possible as a science? Kant posed this question for his predecessors in early modern ...philosophy. I raise this question anew for the resurgence of metaphysics within analytic philosophy. I begin by dividing the question of the possibility of metaphysics into separate questions about its semantic and epistemic possibility, and translate them into contemporary terms as: (1) Why do terms in metaphysical theories refer? (2) How do we have knowledge in metaphysics? I then argue that the inflationary conception of metaphysics cannot explain the semantic possibility of metaphysics and, consequently, cannot explain its epistemic possibility. I then argue, more briefly, that a deflationary conception cannot satisfactorily answer the Kantian questions either. The critical path alone remains open.
This volume contains a collection of seventeen essays which have been previously published on Kant and an addendum to one of these essays that is here published for the first time. Although these ...essays cover virtually the full spectrum of the author's work on Kant, ranging from his epistemology, metaphysics, and moral theory to his views on teleology, political philosophy, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of religion, most of them revolve around three basic themes: the nature of transcendental idealism, freedom of the will, and the purposiveness of nature. The first two of these have been the foci of the author's work on Kant since its inception and the essays dealing with them in this volume are intended as clarifications, elaborations, and further developments of what the author has said on these topics elsewhere. Among their major new elements is the introduction of a significant comparative dimension, which is intended both to place Kant's views in their historical context and to explore their contemporary relevance. To this end, Kant's views are contrasted with those of his major predecessors and immediate successors, as well as present‐day philosophers. The concept of the purposiveness of nature is the major contribution of the third Critique (Critique of the Power of Judgment) to Kant's “critical” philosophy and one the main concerns of the essays dealing with it is to demonstrate its central place in Kant's thought.
This book introduces Immanuel Kant's masterwork, the Critique of Pure Reason, from a ‘relaxed’ problem-oriented perspective which treats Kant as an especially insightful practising philosopher, from ...whom we still have much to learn, intelligently and creatively responding to significant questions that transcend his work's historical setting. The book's main project is to command a clear view of how Kant understands various perennial problems, how he attempts to resolve them, and to what extent he succeeds. The constructive portions of the First Critique—the Aesthetic and Analytic—are explored in detail; the Paralogisms and Antinomies more briefly. At the same time the book is an introduction to the challenges of reading the text of Kant's work and, to that end, selectively adopts a more rigorous historical and exegetical stance.
