The Teleology of Reason (eBook)

A Study of the Structure of Kant's Critical Philosophy

Courtney D. Fugate (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF | EPUB

2014
449 Seiten
De Gruyter (Verlag)
978-3-11-036791-1 (ISBN)

Infos

This work argues that teleological motives lie at the heart of Kant's critical philosophy and that a precise analysis of teleological structures can both illuminate the basic strategy of its fundamental arguments and provide a key to understanding its unity. It thus provides, through an examination of Kant's major writings, a detailed interpretation of his claim that philosophy in the true sense must consist of a teleologia rationis humanae.

Courtney D. Fugate, American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Inhalt

Abbreviations and the Use of Translations 15
Part I: Preliminary Investigations 17
Chapter 1. Motivations 19
Introduction 19
§. 1. Preliminary Sketch of the Telic Structure of Kant 
20 

21 
§. 
25 

29 
§. 1.4. Teleology and the 
31 
§. 1.5. The Unity of Reason 36
§. 2. The Teleological Tradition Before an d After Kant 40
§. 2.1. Teleology in the Philosophies of Kant’s German Predecessors 46
§. 2.2. The Legacy of Kant’s Teleology of Reason in Fichte 49
§. 3. Current Views on the Role of Teleology in Kant’s Cr itical Philosophy 58
§. 3.1. Reactions to the PopularView 63
§. 3.2. Teleology in special studies of Kant’s philosophy 67
Conclusion 72
Chapter 2. Teleology: Rudiments of a Theory 73
Introduction 73
Teleology: Not Reducible to a Pattern of Behavior 76
Two Examples of this Tendency in Studies of the History of Philosohpy: Bennett and Couturat 80

84 
§. 1.1. Teleological and Non-Teleological Inferences 88
§. 1.2. Traditional Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence 91
§. 1.3. Concluding Reflections 96

97 
§. 2.1. Maupertuis and the Universal Teleology of Nature 104
§. 2.2. Purposes as Laws of Behavior 111
§. 2.3. Skepticism Regarding Explanation 113
§. 2.4. Teleological Explanations: Concluding Reflections 115
§. 3. The Essential and Inessential Characteristics of Teleological Entities 119
Part II: The Teleology of Human Knowledge 125
Introduction to Part II 127
Chapter 3. The Historical Roots of Kant’s Concept of Exp 
129 
Introduction 129
§. 1. Wolff’s Ontological Logic and the “acumen pervidendi universalia in singularibus” 133
§. 1.1. Wolff’s Logic of Experience 135
§. 1.2. The Wolffian Roots of Kant’s Categories 139
§. 1.3. The Skill of Perceiving the Universal in the Particular 142
§. 1.4. Wolff and Kant on the Possibility of Experience 143
§. 2. Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann and Christian August Crusius 146
§. 2.1. The Logic of Experience According to Hoffmann and Crusius 153
§. 2.2. The Possibility of Experience and the Limits of Human Knowledge 157
§. 3. Anticipating Kant’s Account of Experience 159
Conclusion: The Nature of Kant’s Advance 163
Chapter 4. Teleology in the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic 164
Introduction 164
§. 1. The Problem of the “Critique”: How are Synthetic Judgments a priori Possible? 165
§. 1.1. The Need for Synthetic Judgments a priori and the Structure of Knowledge 168
§. 1.2. Preliminary Outline of the Argument of the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic 177
§. 2. Space and Time as Grounds of the Formal Perfection of Sensible Objects 183
§. 2.1. The Objective Formal Perfection of Space 187
§. 2.2. The Transcendental Aesthetic: Comments on the Text 191
§. 3. The Transcendental Analytic 193
§. 3.1. The Metaphysical Deduction 194
§. 3.2. The Transcendental Deduction 197
§. 3.3. The Deduction in the B-edition 201
§. 4. Summary 212
Chapter 5. Teleology in the Transcendental Dialectic 217
Introduction 217
§. 1. The Relation of the Analytic to the Dialectic 221
§. 2. The Ideas of Pure Reason 228
§. 3. The Regulative Principles of Pure Reason 240
§. 4. The Transcendental Death of Physico-Theology 251
Conclusion 254
General Conclusion to Part II 255
Part III: The Teleology of Freedom 257
Introduction to Part III 259
Chapter 6. The Teleology of Freedom: The Structure of Moral Self-Consciousness in the Analytic 264
Introduction 264
§. 1. Three Types of Freedom 270
§. 2. Our Three Wills 277
§. 3. Moral Self-Consciousness 292
§. 4. The To-and-Fro Structure of Moral Self-Consciousness in the GMS 294
§. 5. The To-and-Fro Structure of Moral Self-Consciousness in the KpV 301
Conclusion 306
Chapter 7. Kant on Rational Faith as an Expression of Autonomy 308
Introduction 308
§. 1. Problems and Previous Interpretations 311
§. 1.1. Beck’s Interpretation 312
§. 1.2. Wood’s Interpretation 
316 
§. 1.2.1. A First Difficulty with Wood’s Interpretation 317
§. 1.2.2. A Second Difficulty with Wood’s Interpretation 318
§. 1.2.3. A Third Difficulty with Wood’s Interpretation 320
§. 1.2.4. A Fourth Difficulty with Woods Interpretation 321
§. 2. Kant’s Argument 326
§. 2.1. Virtue as Moral Strength of Character 327
§. 2.2. How Rational Belief in God’s Existence Increases the Moral Incentive 331
§. 2.3. Textual Analysis 335
§. 2.3.1. The Highest Good in KpV 335
§. 2.3.2. The Highest Good in the KrV 343
§. 2.3.3. The Highest Good in the KU 344
§. 2.3.4. The Highest Good in TP 345
Summary of the Argument of this Section 346
§. 3. Practical-Dogmatic Metaphysics 347
Conclusion 351
Excursus: The Life of Reason 353
Introduction 353
§. 1. From Morality to Life: Three Conditions of the Possibility of the Realization of a Moral World 355
§. 2. Pure Aesthetic Pleasure as a Feeling of Life 361
§. 2.1. Kant’s Constitutive Concept of Life 363
§. 2.2. The Historical Roots of Kant’s Concept of Life 364
§. 2.3. Pure Aesthetic Pleasure as a Feeling of Life: How the Constitutive Concept of Life is Generalized to Include the Feeling of Beauty 369
Conclusion 373
Chapter 8. The Teleological Unity of Reason and Kant’s Idea of Philosophy 376
Introduction 376
§. 1. The Unity of Reason 378
§. 1.1. The Unity of Reason: First Reconstruction 382
§. 1.2. Regulative and Constitutive Principles 390
§. 1.3. The Unity of Reason: Second Reconstruction 396
§. 2. Kant’s Concept of Philosophy 403
§. 2.1. Philosophy “in sensu scholastico” and “in sensu cosmico” 406
§. 2.2. Unity of Reason and the History of Philosophy 409
Conclusion 412
Brief Outline of Kant’s Conception of Teleology 414
Bibliography 420
I. Translations Consulted 420
II. Primary Sources 420
III. Secondary Sources 426
Register 441

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.2.2015
• Reihe/Serie: ISSN
• Reihe/Serie: ISSN
• Reihe/Serie: Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte
• Reihe/Serie: Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte
• Verlagsort: Berlin/Boston
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Metaphysik / Ontologie
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie des Mittelalters
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie ► Philosophie der Neuzeit
• Schlagworte: Immanuel • Kant • Kant, Immanuel • reason • Teleologie • Teleology • Vernunft
• ISBN-10: 3-11-036791-2 / 3110367912
• ISBN-13: 978-3-11-036791-1 / 9783110367911