What is possible and why? What is the difference between the merely possible and the actual? In Kants Modal Metaphysics Nicholas Stang examines Kants lifelong engagement with these questions and their role in his philosophical development. This is the first book to trace Kants theory of possibility all theway from the so-called pre-Critical writings of the 1750s and 1760s to the Critical system of philosophy inaugurated by the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. Stang argues that the key (...) to understanding both the change and the continuity between Kants pre-Critical and Critical theory of possibility is his transformation of the ontological question about possibility-what is it for a being to be possible?-into a question in transcendental philosophy-what is it to represent an object as possible? (shrink)

Definition of the problemAdvance directives involve evaluative assumptions about the further course of one’s life that can be more or less appropriate and thus call for ethical reflection. This contribution focuses on the basis and criteria of such assumptions. We argue that considerations regarding the temporal structure of a good life constitute a particularly relevant perspective in this context.ArgumentsEmpirical studies on the individual composition of advance directives point to the important role of personal values and life plans that can change (...) over time. Therefore, we first contextualize advance directives from the perspective of an ethics of the good life and then discuss their implications with regard to different levels of temporality, comprising fundamental parameters of human existence in time, cultural models of the life course, as well as narratives of the individual trajectory of life.ConclusionConceptions of a good life and its temporal structure represent an important perspective for drafting and interpreting advance directives. Their consideration provides a more nuanced understanding of the evaluative implications of advance care planning. This can benefit individual patients, service providers, as well as policy makers. (shrink)

Håkon Evju demonstrates how history and historical writing were at the centre of debates over monarchy and monarchical reform politics in Denmark-Norway during the Enlightenment.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

It is commonly accepted by Kant scholars that Kant held that all necessary truths are a priori, and all a priori knowledge is knowledge of necessary truths. Against the prevailing interpretation, I argue that Kant was agnostic as to whether necessity and a priority are co-extensive. I focus on three kinds of modality Kant implicitly distinguishes: formal possibility and necessity, empirical possibility and necessity, and noumenal possibility and necessity. Formal possibility is compatibility with the forms of experience; empirical possibility is (...) compatibility with the causal powers of empirical objects; noumenal possibility is compatibility with the causal powers of things in themselves. Because we cannot know the causal powers of things in themselves, we cannot know what is noumenally necessary and what is noumenally contingent. Consequently, we cannot know whether noumenal necessity is co-extensive with a priority. Therefore, for all we know, some a priori propositions are noumenally contingent, and some a posteriori propositions are noumenally necessary. Thus, contrary to the received interpretation, Kant distinguishes epistemological from metaphysical modality. (shrink)

The aim of the Schematism chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason is to solve the problem posed by the “inhomogeneity” of intuitions and categories: the sensible properties of objects represented in intuition are of a different kind than the properties represented by categories. Kant's solution is to introduce what he calls “transcendental schemata,” which mediate the subsumption of objects under categories. I reconstruct Kant's solution in terms of two substantive premises, which I call Subsumption Sufficiency (i.e., that subsuming an (...) object under a transcendental schema is sufficient to subsume it under the corresponding category) and Real Possibility (i.e., that it is really possible to subsume objects under each of the transcendental schemata). These two principles, together with a trivial modal one (the Subsumption-Possibility Link), entail that it is possible to subsume objects under categories; in other words, the argument of the Schematism is valid. The main work of the paper consists in reconstructing Kant's arguments for, and explanations of, these premises. I argue that they hinge on Kant's claim that transcendental schemata are “time-determinations,” which I interpret to mean: rules for reflexively representing the temporal relations among our own representational states. On the basis of this reading, I reconstruct Kant's argument for Subsumption Sufficiency, category by category. I also explain why Real Possibility follows almost immediately. Granting Kant the argument up to this point in the Critique, the argument of the Schematism is sound. (shrink)

Mind, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzab001.

Ce livre étudie le paradigme musical qui traverse le romantisme allemand, le symbolisme français et le formalisme de la fin du xixe siècle. Sous l'hypothèse de la musicalité, il propose un modèle transversal d'analyse des arts et replace le symbolisme dans le cadre d'une histoire des formes esthétiques.

Hermann Cohen’s 1871 classic, Kants Theorie der Erfahrung, had a formative influence, not only on the Marburg school’s reading of Kant, but on their entire conception of philosophy. This influence was further magnified by the substantially revised and expanded second edition of 1885 and the yet further expanded third edition of 1918. Neo-Kantianism was the dominant philosophical movement in Germany in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which means that a work, ostensibly, of Kant scholarship had an influence on the (...) development of German philosophy that few works of secondary literature can claim. (shrink)

The article investigates how national and international measures to protect wolves turned the whole of Norway into a field of study for wildlife biologists, and how the extensiveness of this “field” prompted a transformation in the methods employed to count and monitor wolves. As it was not possible to conduct traditional field studies throughout the whole of Norway, the biologists constructed an extensive infrastructure, which I have termed a “counting complex,” in order to count wolves from a distance. The article (...) identifies three decisive periods in the construction of this complex: the 1960s, the 1980s, and the first decade of the new millennium. During the first two periods, biologists used the infrastructure to mobilize ordinary people’s observations; they did this by first searching through newspaper notes, then enrolling people more directly through local committees of game management. However, the public’s observations often turned out to be unreliable, and, in the 2000s, molecular biologists helped to incorporate genetic techniques into the counting complex. By using the infrastructure to mobilize wolf scat, rather than observations, and by constructing DNA profiles for individual wolves, the molecular biologists enabled research that I have termed “nationwide field studies in absentia.” The article argues that the biologists’ main motive for constructing and refining the counting complex was to make wolves amenable to government, as they considered this a vital premise for the successful practice of protecting wolves. The increased intensity in monitoring in the last period, however, was also driven by international conventions and detailed regulations. (shrink)

According to the ‘One Object’ reading of Kant's transcendental idealism, the distinction between the appearance and the thing in itself is not a distinction between two objects, but between two ways of considering one and the same object. On the ‘Metaphysical’ version of the One Object reading, it is a distinction between two kinds of properties possessed by one and the same object. Consequently, the Metaphysical One Object view holds that a given appearance, an empirical object, is numerically identical to (...) the thing in itself that appears as that object. I raise various indiscernibility arguments against that view; because an appearance has different spatiotemporal and modal properties than a thing in itself, no appearance can be identical to a thing in itself. I point out that these arguments are similar to arguments against Monism, the view that material objects are numerically identical to the matter of which they are made. I outline some strategies Monists have developed to respond to these indiscernibility arguments and then develop parallel responses on behalf of the Metaphysical One Object view. However, I then raise another indiscernibility argument, to which, I argue, the Metaphysical One Object view cannot respond, even using the resources I have developed thus far. I develop a modified version of the Metaphysical One Object view that can respond to this new indiscernibility argument, but, I argue, this modified version of the One Object view is only a terminological variant of the Two Object view. When the Metaphysical One Object view is fully thought through it becomes the Two Object view. I conclude that Kantian appearances are not numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear to us. (shrink)

This article discusses the fairness of geographically targeted vaccinations (GTVs). During the initial period of local and global vaccine scarcity, health authorities had to enact priority-setting strategies for mass vaccination campaigns against COVID-19. These strategies have in common that priority setting was based on personal characteristics, such as age, health status or profession. However, in 2021, an alternative to this strategy was employed in some countries, particularly Norway. In these countries, vaccine allocation was also based on the epidemiological situations in (...) different regions, and vaccines were assigned based on local incidence rates. The aim of this article is to describe and examine how a geographical allocation mechanism may work by considering Norway as a case study and discuss what ethical issues may arise in this type of priority setting. We explain three core concepts: priority setting, geographical priority setting and GTVs. With a particular focus on Norway, we discuss the potential effects of GTV, the public perception of such a strategy, and if GTV can be considered a fair strategy. We conclude that the most reasonable defence of GTV seems to be through a consequentialist account that values both total health outcomes and more equal outcomes. (shrink)

In his recent book, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: An Introduction to Absolute Idealism, Sebastian Rödl aims to transform our understanding, not only of th.

The other chapters in this volume discuss the important, but neglected, topic of systematicity in metaphysics. In this chapter I begin by taking a step back and asking: why is systematicity important in metaphysics? Assuming that metaphysics should be systematic, why is this the case? I canvas some answers that emerge naturally within contemporary philosophy and argue that none of them adequately explains why metaphysics should be systematic. I then turn to Kant’s account of systematicity for his explanation. I argue (...) that, while Kant’s explanation of the systematicity of metaphysics rests on a host of additional weighty philosophical commitments that many philosophers would rather do without (e.g., transcendental idealism), he is not alone in this. The contemporary answers I earlier found wanting can be transformed into satisfying explanations, I argue, but only at the cost of philosophical commitments at least as weighty as Kant’s. I conclude on a note of agnosticism: it is far from clear whether contemporary philosophy has done, or can do, better than Kant at explaining the role of systematicity in metaphysics. (shrink)

Concepts in Action focuses on what to do with theoretical concepts, rather than providing conveyed definitions. The book covers a variety of examples what to do, how to think, in order to develop and use concepts in the social sciences.

"Music before all else..." yes, but what music, when the last century focused on discussing the very concept itself? This work studies the passage from modern art to contemporary art while considering the fundamental transformations of the musical paradigm.

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. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Ideal Kant discusses the principle of complete determination: for every object and every predicate A, the object is either determinately A or not-A. He claims this principle is synthetic, but it appears to follow from the principle of excluded middle, which is analytic. He also makes a puzzling claim in support of its syntheticity: that it represents individual objects as deriving their possibility from the whole of possibility. This raises a puzzle about why Kant regarded it as (...) synthetic, and what his explanatory claim means. I argue that the principle of complete determination does not follow from the principle of excluded middle because the externally negated or ?negative? judgement ?Not (S is P)? does not entail the internally negated or ?infinite? judgement ?S is not-P.? Kant's puzzling explanatory claim means that empirical objects are determined by the content of the totality of experience. This entails that empirical objects are completely determinate if and only if the totality of experience has a completely determinate content. I argue that it is not a priori whether experience has such a completely determinate content and thus not analytic that objects obey the principle of complete determination. (shrink)

While scholars have extensively discussed Kant’s treatment of the Principle of Sufficient Ground in the Antinomies chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason, and, more recently, his relation to German rationalist debates about it, relatively little has been said about the exact notion of ground that figures in the PSG. My aim in this chapter is to explain Kant’s discussion of ground in the lectures and to relate it, where appropriate, to his published discussions of ground.

In this paper, I examine Kant's famous objection to the ontological argument: existence is not a determination. Previous commentators have not adequately explained what this claim means, how it undermines the ontological argument, or how Kant argues for it. I argue that the claim that existence is not a determination means that it is not possible for there to be non-existent objects; necessarily, there are only existent objects. I argue further that Kant's target is not merely ontological arguments as such (...) but the larger ‘ontotheist’ metaphysics they presuppose: the view that God necessarily exists in virtue of his essence being contained in, or logically entailed by, his essence. I show that the ontotheist explanation of divine necessity requires the assumption that existence is a determination, and I show that Descartes and Leibniz are implicitly committed to this in their published versions of the ontological argument. I consider the philosophical motivations for the claim that existence is a determination and then I examine Kant's arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason against it. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Desmond Hogan aims to explain how Kant could have consistently held that noumenal affection is not only compatible with noumenal ignorance but also with the claim that experience requires causal affection of human cognitive agents by things in themselves. Hogan's argument includes the premise that human cognitive agents have empirical knowledge of one another's actions. Hogan's argument fails because the premise that we have empirical knowledge of one another's actions is ambiguous. On one reading, the argument (...) is valid but its conclusion trivial. On the other, it is unsound on Kant's own view.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.Freedom, Knowledge and Affection: Reply to HoganVolume 18, Issue 1Nicholas Stang DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415412000301Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. Freedom, Knowledge and Affection: Reply to HoganVolume 18, Issue 1Nicholas Stang DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415412000301Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. Freedom, Knowledge and Affection: Reply to HoganVolume 18, Issue 1Nicholas Stang DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415412000301Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

Emotive Interjections in British English: A corpus-based study on variation in acquisition, function and usage constitutes the first in-depth corpus-based study on the use of emotive interjections in Present Day British English. In a novel approach, it systematically distinguishes between child and adult speakers, providing new insights into how they use Ow!, Ouch!, Ugh!, Yuck!, Whoops!, Whoopsadaisy! and Wow! in everyday spoken language. It studies in detail their acquisition by children and pinpoints changes and developments in their use throughout early (...) childhood. The study highlights particularities displayed by child and adult speakers in general and identifies crucial differences regarding how adults use emotive interjections depending on whether they are interacting with children or other adults. This book thus offers an exhaustive overview on the functions of emotive interjections based on thorough empirical research and will appeal to linguists concerned with pragmatics, child language acquisition, the expression of emotion and interjections. (shrink)

There is substantial textual evidence that Kant held the doctrine of double affection: subjects are causally affected both by things in themselves and by appearances. However, Kant commentators have been loath to attribute this view to him, for the doctrine of double affection is widely thought to face insuperable problems. I begin by explaining what I take to be the most serious problem faced by the doctrine of double affection: appearances cannot cause the very experience in virtue of which they (...) have their empirical properties. My solution consists in distinguishing the sense of ‘experience’ in which empirical objects cause experience from the sense of ‘experience’ in which experience determines empirical objects. I call the latter “universal experience”. I develop my conception of universal experience, and then I explain how it solves the problem of double affection. I conclude by addressing several objections. (shrink)

When immigrant children are separated from their parents, inexorable medical and legal harms result. Family separation violates a fundamental right of parents to participate in medical decisions involving their children. This paper reviews and contributes to evolving analyses of the public health, legal, and ethical consequences of immigration policy.

I begin by considering a question that has driven much scholarship on transcendental idealism: are appearances numerically identical to the things in themselves that appear, or numerically distinct? I point out that much of the debate on this question has assumed that this is equivalent to the question of whether they are the same objects, but go on to provide textual, historical, and philosophical evidence that “object” (Gegenstand) and “thing” (Ding) have different meanings for Kant. A thing is a locus (...) of intensively gradable causal force, reality. I argue that appearances and things in themselves are not identical as objects, because the very concept of object-identity is tied, for Kant, to the concept of an intellect that would cognize the numerical identity of the objects in question. Because no intellect can be both discursive and intellectual, no intellect could cognize the numerical identity of objects across the phenomenal/noumenal divide, and thus the claim that they are identical has no content. However, the very same things, the same reality, can be given to our sensible intellects, and to divine intuitive intellect, as two non-overlapping domains of objects. Identity readers are thus shown to be right about the same thing relation, while non-identity readers are vindicated on the numerical identity of objects. (shrink)

In this paper I address a structurally similar tension between phenomenalism and realism about matter in Leibniz and Kant. In both philosophers, some texts suggest a starkly phenomenalist view of the ontological status of matter, while other texts suggest a more robust realism. In the first part of the paper I address a recent paper by Don Rutherford that argues that Leibniz is more of a realist than previous commentators have allowed. I argue that Rutherford fails to show that Leibniz (...) is any less an idealist than his main target, Robert Merrihew Adams, does. I distinguish various kinds of idealism about bodies that Leibniz might have held, and attempt to determine which package of views represents his considered view. In the second part of the paper I situate Kant’s idealism within the same coordinates. I argue that, abstracting from deep differences in their metaphysics and epistemology, Kant and Leibniz have structurally very similar views on the ontological status of matter and bodies. I conclude that the key to understanding the realist strand in their ontology of matter is understanding the way in which, for both thinkers, the forces in bodies are appearances of forces of more fundamental entities, either monads or things in themselves. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This essay is an attempt to explain Kantian transcendental idealism to contemporary metaphysicians and make clear its relevance to contemporary debates in what is now called ‘meta-metaphysics.’ It is not primarily an exegetical essay, but an attempt to translate some Kantian ideas into a contemporary idiom.

Lucy Allais’s anti-phenomenalist interpretation of transcendental idealism is incomplete in two ways. First of all, like some phenomenalists, she is committed to denying the coherence of claims of numerical identity of appearances and things in themselves. Secondly, she fails to explain adequately what grounds the actuality of appearances. This opens the door to a phenomenalist understanding of appearances. View HTML Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail (...) List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.Appearances and Things in Themselves: Actuality and IdentityVolume 21, Issue 2Nicholas F. Stang DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415416000078Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. Appearances and Things in Themselves: Actuality and IdentityVolume 21, Issue 2Nicholas F. Stang DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415416000078Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. Appearances and Things in Themselves: Actuality and IdentityVolume 21, Issue 2Nicholas F. Stang DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415416000078Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)