Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics

369 Pages·2014·2.471 MB·English

by  Julian Wuerth

Title Pages
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics
Julian Wuerth
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587629
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2014
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587629.001.0001
Title Pages
Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics
(p.iv)
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Dedication
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics
Julian Wuerth
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587629
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2014
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587629.001.0001
Dedication
(p.v) For Ingrid, Silas, Emma, and Eva
Acknowledgments
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics
Julian Wuerth
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587629
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2014
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587629.001.0001
(p.x) (p.xi) Acknowledgments
This book has grown out of the conviction that there is a serious gap in our
understanding of Kant’s philosophy. Kant’s philosophy is a system; and as the author of a
Copernican revolution in philosophy, Kant grounds this system in his account of the self.
Nonetheless, this account—of the ontology of the self, the mental powers of this self, and
the interrelations of these powers—remains an enigma. This shortcoming in our
understanding of this account reflects a tendency in Kant scholarship, even among some
leading scholars, to study narrow areas of Kant’s philosophy in isolation from the broader
whole. By considering a wide range of Kant’s recorded thought from across his
philosophical corpus, this book rejects this isolationist approach to Kant scholarship and
the tired haggling over the same limited sources and issues that tends to accompany it, in
favor of something new and positive: (a) a positive interpretation of Kant’s account of the
self and an overview of the philosophical system that Kant builds around this account of
the self; (b) new insights into key parts of this system, including Kant’s transcendental
idealism, his metaphysics, his critique of existing rational psychology, his theory of action,
and his ethics; and (c) increased familiarity with seldomly discussed material, which will
position readers to critically assess the interpretations here offered (rather than asking
readers to accept these views in large part on faith) and support future research into a
broad range of topics in Kant’s philosophy. Moreover, when we consider more rather
Acknowledgments
than less of Kant’s philosophy and in turn come to recognize the place of his individual
works and doctrines within the context of his broader system of philosophy, we tend to
find that these works and doctrines become not only clearer, but also more consistent
and compelling.
Portions of this book have appeared in print before, and I am grateful to the publishers of
this material for permission to reuse it. Parts of Chapters 1 and 2 appeared in “Kant’s
Immediatism, Pre-Critique,” in the Journal of the History of Philosophy, 44 (2006): 489–
532. Chapter 5 makes use of materials from “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason,” published
in Paul Guyer ed., The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 210–244. Parts of Chapters 6 and 7 are
found in “Moving Beyond Kant’s Account of Agency in the Grounding,” in Lawrence Jost
and Julian Wuerth eds., Perfecting Virtue: New Essays on Kantian Ethics and Virtue
Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 147–163. And some material
from Chapters 8 and 9 overlaps with “Sense and Sensibility in Kant’s Practical Agent:
Against the Intellectualism of Korsgaard and Sidgwick,” in the European Journal of
Philosophy, 21 (2013): 1–36.
This book is the result of many years of labor, and during these years I have enjoyed the
support of numerous institutions. I am grateful to the Charles Phelps (p.xii) Taft
Research Center for its award of a Taft Center Fellowship for 2005–6 and a Taft Summer
Research Fellowship and Taft Travel for Research Grant in summer 2007. I would also
like to thank the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akademischer
Austausch Dienst) for a Research Grant in fall 2007. Finally, my thanks to Vanderbilt
University for a research leave in spring 2011.
I am also pleased to acknowledge my debt to many people over the years. I am especially
grateful to Paul Guyer, for his generous support and friendship over the past two
decades. He has read multiple drafts of this book and related work and has provided
valuable feedback in conversation and in writing. I also benefitted a great deal from
having Paul as my dissertation advisor and as my professor for many courses on Kant
during my time as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. I was also very
fortunate to take courses on Kant taught by Rolf-Peter Horstmann at the University of
Pennsylvania and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and, before that, to take two
courses on Kant taught by Christine Korsgaard during my time as an undergraduate at
the University of Chicago. I would also like to thank Onora O’Neill for her gracious
support of my earliest interest in Kant. For their helpful feedback at different stages and
on various parts of this book, whether in written comments or conversations, I would
also like to thank Karl Ameriks, Andrew Brook, Volker Gerhardt, Rolf-Peter Horstmann,
Rae Langton, Alison Laywine, Tobias Rosefeldt, Werner Stark, Jens Timmermann, and
Eric Watkins. Many thanks also to the anonymous reviewers at Oxford University Press
for their thorough feedback and to Peter Momtchiloff for his fine stewardship of this
project. I have also been blessed over the years with wonderful colleagues at the
University of Cincinnati and Vanderbilt University: many thanks to all of them.
On a personal note, I would also like to thank my parents, Hans Wuerth and Ursula
Acknowledgments
Mörike Wuerth, and my sisters, Andrea Wuerth and Heidi Mitchell. My thanks also go to
my good friends, Larry Jost and Kevin Wiliarty. Finally, I would like to express my
deepest gratitude of all to my wife, Ingrid, and to my children, Silas, Emma, and Eva, for
their love and patience.
Sources and Abbreviations
University Press Scholarship Online
Oxford Scholarship Online
Kant on Mind, Action, and Ethics
Julian Wuerth
Print publication date: 2014
Print ISBN-13: 9780199587629
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2014
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587629.001.0001
(p.xiii) Sources and Abbreviations
Citations to Kant’s works are inserted parenthetically in the text and, except for those to
the Critique of Pure Reason, refer to the title of the work with an abbreviation listed here
and include a volume and page number from Kant’s gesammelte Schriften,
herausgegeben von der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
[formerly the Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin and before that the
Königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften], 29 volumes (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter [and predecessors], 1900–). Translations from the German are often my own,
unless a translation of the source is listed here, in which case I tend to follow the
published translation. All translations by David Walford are found in The Cambridge
Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992). All translations by Karl Ameriks and Steve Naragon
are found in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Lectures on
Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). The translation by Robert
Louden is from The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, Anthropology,
History, and Education (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), as is the Mary
Gregor translation of On the Philosopher’s Medicine of the Body. Citations to the Critique
of Pure Reason are, as is common practice, to the pagination of the first edition, A, and/or
to the second edition, B, and the translation I generally use is The Cambridge Edition of
Sources and Abbreviations
the Works of Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, eds. and trans. Paul Guyer and
Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
A
Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (7). Anthropology from a Pragmatic
Point of View, trans. Victor Dowdell (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1978).
AB
Anthropologie-Busolt (25). Anthropology Busolt.
AC
Anthropologie-Collins (25). Anthropology Collins.
AF
Anthropologie-Friedländer (25). Anthropology Friedländer.
AM
Anthropologie-Mrongovius (25). Anthropology Mrongovius.
APa
Anthropologie-Parow (25). Anthropology Parow.
APh
Anthropologie-Philippi (25). Anthropology Philippi.
APi
Anthropologie-Pillau (25). Anthropology Pillau.
C
Kants Briefwechsel (10–13). Philosophical Correspondence, 1755–99, trans.
Arnulf Zweig (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).
CBHH
Mutmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte (8). Conjectural Beginning of
Human History.
(p.xiv) CF
Der Streit der Fakultäten (7). The Conflict of the Faculties.
CPJ
Kritik der Urteilskraft (5). Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul
Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
CPrR
Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (5). Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis
White Beck (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1956).
DSS
Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (2).
Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics, trans.
Walford.
EMH
Versuch Über die Krankheiten des Kopfes (2). Essay on the Maladies of the
Head, trans. Holly Wilson.
FS
Die Falsche Spitzfindigkeit der vier syllogistischen Figuren (2). The False
Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures, trans. Walford.
Sources and Abbreviations
G
Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (4). Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals.
IC
Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen
Theologie und der Moral (2). Inquiry concerning the Distinctness of the
Principles of Natural Theology and Morals, trans. Walford.
ID
De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis (2). Concerning the
Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World (The Inaugural
Dissertation), trans. Walford.
LePe
Immanuel Kant über Pädagogik (9). Lectures on Pedagogy, trans. Louden.
LJ
Jäsche Logik (9). Jäsche Logic.
Me
Menschenkunde (25).
MD
Metaphysik Dohna (28), trans. Ameriks and Naragon.
MH
Metaphysik Herder (28, 29), trans. Ameriks and Naragon, 28:39–53.
MK
1
Metaphysik K (28).
1
MK
2
Metaphysik K (28), trans. Ameriks and Naragon.
2
ML
1
Metaphysik L (28), trans. Ameriks and Naragon, 28:195–301.
1
ML
2
Metaphysik L (28), trans. Ameriks and Naragon.
2
MFNS
Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (4). Metaphysical
Foundations of Natural Science (4), trans. Ellington.
MM
Die Metaphysik der Sitten (6). The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Gregor.
MMr
Metaphysik Mrongovius (29), trans. Ameriks and Naragon.
MVi
Metaphysik Vigilantius (K3) (29), trans. Ameriks and Naragon.
MVo
Metaphysik Volckmann (28), trans. Ameriks and Naragon.
(p.xv) MvS
Metaphysik v. Schön (28).
MoCo
Moral Collins (27).
MoHe
Sources and Abbreviations
Moral Herder (27).
MoMr
Moral Mrongovius (27).
MoPo
Moral Powalski (27).
MoVi
Moral Vigilantius (27).
NE
Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova delucidatio (2). New
Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition, trans. Walford.
NM
Versuch den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen
(2). Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into
Philosophy, trans. Walford.
OCS
Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber
nicht für die Praxis (8). On the Common Saying: That may be correct in
Theory, but it is of no use in Practice.
OD
Über eine Entdeckung, nach der all neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch
eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll (8). On a Discovery whereby Any
New Critique of Pure Reason Is to Be Made Superfluous by an Older One.
OFBS
Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (2).
Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, trans. Guyer.
ORPT
Von einem neuerdings erhobenen vornehmen Ton in der Philosophie (8). On
a Recently Prominent Tone of Superiority in Philosophy.
PE
Philosophische Enzyklopädie (29).
PMB
De Medicina Corporis, quae Philosophorum est (15). On the Philosopher’s
Medicine of the Body, trans. Gregor.
Pr
M. Immanuel Kants Nachricht von der Einrichtung seiner Vorlesungen in dem
Winterhalbenjahre von 1765–1766 (2). M. Immanuel Kant’s Announcement of
the Programme of his Lectures for the Winter Semester 1765–6, trans.
Walford.
Pro
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. Ellington.
R
Reflexionen (15, 17, 18, 19, 23).
Rel
Die Religion Innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (6). Religion within
the Boundaries of Mere Reason.