Rethinking Kant Volume 7 1527556247, 9781527556249

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Rethinking Kant Volume 7

Rethinking Kant Volume 7 Edited by

Edgar Valdez

Rethinking Kant Volume 7 Series: Kantian Questions Edited by Edgar Valdez This book first published 2024 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2024 by Edgar Valdez and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-5624-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5624-9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................. vii Abbreviations .......................................................................................... viii Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Edgar Valdez Part I: Critical Philosophy Kant on the Transparency of Experience.................................................. 20 Tim Jankowiak Kant on Aesthetic Normativity ................................................................. 41 Ted Kinnaman Kant’s Postulate that God Exists .............................................................. 51 Ian Blecher Part II: Moral Judgment Kant on Moral Feeling and Practical Judgment........................................ 72 Nicholas Dunn Affects, Choice, and Kant’s Incorporation Thesis .................................... 97 Martina Favaretto The Self-Binding Self: Phenomena and Noumena in Kant’s Practical Philosophy .............................................................................................. 122 Nataliya Palatnik Part III: Kant and the History of Philosophy Kant on Friendship ................................................................................. 140 Allen Wood

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Table of Contents

Kant’s Teleology as the True Apology to Leibniz’s Pre-Established Harmony ................................................................................................. 159 Noam Hoffer Kant’s Pietism: Religiously Vague Yet Philosophically Profound? ....... 184 Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, O.P. Nietzsche Versus Kant on the Possibility of Rational Self-Critique....... 214 Markus Kohl Contributors ............................................................................................ 249

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When the early stages of the pandemic disrupted every facet of our daily lives, academic conferences were put on hold and cancelled. The academy responded with resolve and ingenuity in developing different models and formats for conferences. The hosts and organizers of the study groups of the North American Kant Society are no exception and they should be commended for maintaining an essential component of the academic engine. As this volume will indicate, Kant scholarship remains robust and in conversation with all areas of intellectual pursuit. I am grateful to the community of Kant scholars for its willingness to engage with all areas and examine its place among them. I am thankful to everyone who participated in these study groups and I am especially grateful to all the contributors to this volume. Pablo Muchnik’s vision for this series has become a cornerstone of North American Kant scholarship. He remains a steadfast mentor for whom I am continually grateful. —Edgar Valdez

ABBREVIATIONS

All references to Kant’s works are in accordance with the Akademie-Edition Vol. 1-29 of Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1900–. References to the Critique of Pure Reason follow the customary pagination of the first (A) and second (B) edition. Unless otherwise indicated, the English translations are from the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–). The following abbreviations are used throughout the book: AA

Immanuel Kants Schriften. Ausgabe der Königlich Preussischen (Deutschen) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1900–)

Anth

Anthropologie in Pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), AA 7 Anthropology from a Pragmatic Standpoint

BGSE

Bemerkungen in den Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (1764), AA 20 Notes inserted in the Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime

BM

Bestimmung des Begriffs einer Menschenrace (1785), AA 8 Determination of the Concept of a Human Race

Br

Briefe, AA 10-13 Correspondence

EEKU

Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA 20 First Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment

FM

Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Leibnizens und Wolf’s Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? (written 1793-1794, published 1804), AA 20 What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?

GMS

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785), AA 4 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

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GSE

Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen (1764), AA 2 Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime

GUGR

Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden im Raume (1768), AA 2 Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space

IaG

Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (1784), AA 8 Idea toward a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim

KpV

Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788), AA 5 Critique of Practical Reason

KrV

Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781, 1787). Cited by A/B pagination. Critique of Pure Reason

KU

Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), AA 5 Critique of the Power of Judgment

LK

Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte und Beurtheilung der Beweise, deren sich Herr von Leibniz und andere Mechaniker in dieser Streitsache bedient haben, nebst einigen vorhergehenden Betrachtungen, welche die Kraft der Körper überhaupt betreffen (1747), AA 1 Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces

Log

Jäsche Logik, AA 9 The Jäsche Logic

MAM

Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte (1786), AA 8 Conjectural Beginning of Human History

MAN

Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (1786), AA 4 Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science MpVT Über das Mißlingen aller philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee (1791), AA 8 On the Failure of all Philosophic Attempts in Theodicy

Abbreviations

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MS

Metaphysik der Sitten (1797-1798), AA 6 Metaphysics of Morals

MSI

De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis (1770), AA 2 On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World

NG

Versuch den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (1763), AA 2 Attempt to Introduce the Concept of Negative Magnitudes into Philosophy

NL

Neuer Lehrbegriff der Bewegung und Ruhe und der damit verknüpften Folgerungen in den ersten Gründen der Naturwissenschaft (1758), AA 2 New Theory of Motion and Rest, and the Connected Consequences in the First Principles of the Natural Sciences

NTH

Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels oder Versuch von der Verfassung und dem mechanischen Ursprunge des ganzen Weltgebäudes, nach Newtonischen Grundsätzen abgehandelt (1755), AA 1 Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, or Essay on the Constitution and Mechanical Origin of the Entire Universe, Treated in Accordance with Newtonian Principles

Op

Opus postumum, AA 21, 22 Opus postumum

Päd

Pädagogik, AA 9 Pedagogy

PG

Physische Geographie, AA 9 Physical Geography

PM

Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam (1756), AA 1

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The Employment in Natural Philosophy of Metaphysics Combined with Geometry, of which Sample I Contains the Physical Monadology PND

Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (1755), AA 1 A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition

Prol

Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (1783), AA 4 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

Refl

Reflexion, AA 14-19 Reflection

RGV

Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (17931794), AA 6 Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason

SF

Streit der Fakultäten (1798), AA 7 Conflict of the Faculties

TG

Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik (1766), AA 2 Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics

TP

Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793), AA 8 On the Common Saying: That May Be Correct in Theory But It Is of No Use in Practice

ÜE

Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll (1790), AA 8 On a Discovery whereby Any New Critique of Pure Reason Is to Be Made Superfluous by an Older One

ÜGTP

Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Principien in der Philosophie (1788), AA 8 On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy

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Abbreviations

VAMS

Vorarbeiten zur Metaphysik der Sitten, AA 23 Preliminary Works for the Metaphysics of Morals

VAnth

Vorlesungen über Anthropologie, AA 25 Lectures on Anthropology

VE

Vorlesungen über Ethik, AA 27 Lectures on Ethics

VL

Vorlesungen über Logik, AA 24 Lectures on Logic

VM

Vorlesungen über Metaphysik, AA 28, 29 Lectures on Metaphysics

VPE

Vorlesung philosophische Enzyklopädie, AA 29 Lectures on the Philosophical Encyclopaedia

VPG

Vorlesungen über Physische Geographie, AA 26 Lectures on Physical Geography

VRML

Über ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe zu lügen (1797), AA 8 On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy

VRL

Vorlesungen über Religion, AA 28 Lectures on Religion

VvRM

Von den verschiedenen Racen der Menschen (1775), AA 2 Of the Different Races of Human Beings

WA

Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung? (1784), AA 8 An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?

WDO

Was heißt: Sich im Denken orientieren? (1786), AA 8 What does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?

ZeF

Zum ewigen Frieden: Ein philosophischer Entwurf (1795), AA 8 Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Project

INTRODUCTION EDGAR VALDEZ

The essays in this series treat a broad range of questions that arise in Kant scholarship and in philosophy more broadly. The rethinking involved calls both for re-examining interpretations of Kant and re-situating Kant in the landscape of philosophy. The contributions in this volume are grouped into three broad themes. The first theme concerns Kant’s idea that reason must critique itself. The second theme concerns Kant’s understanding of our moral judgment. The third theme concerns how we understand Kant in relationship to other figures in the history of philosophy.

Part I- Critical Philosophy A distinguishing feature of Kant’s contribution to philosophy is that it is what Kant calls a critical philosophy. Importantly, Kant sees himself as directing reason to ask about the capabilities of reason. For Kant there are certain things reason simply cannot do and part of employing reason correctly requires understanding what reason can and cannot do. Here reason is both the subject and object of critique. The hope is certainly that in determining the limits of reason, those things that reason cannot do, and the bounds of reason, those things reason can do, that it would open up the possibility of secure knowledge of the world. Along the way this selfexamination also yields knowledge about our own cognitional structure, what we contribute to knowledge and what sorts of things we must hold to be true that are beyond the bounds of reason. One such product of this self-examination of reason concerns our cognitive contribution to sensory experience. Tim Jankowiak explores this in “Kant on the Transparency of Sensory Experience.” In contemporary debates transparency is the idea that we are not aware of our experiential states while experiencing and are only attuned to the content or objects of our experience. So that while we may otherwise examine or situate the mental states that condition our experience, we are not aware of those mental states during experience. Jankowiak argues that Kant must be seen as denying the transparency of experience. While some hold that we cannot

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at the same time be aware of our mental states and the content of our experience others argue that since we are sometimes aware of non-object elements we must recognize their constant presence in our experience. Such thinkers Jankowiak calls mental paint theorists. Though there are some distinctions between Kant and contemporary mental paint approaches, for Jankowiak Kant is committed to such a view. In this sense he is using the contemporary transparency debate to explore a tension found in Kant scholarship regarding empirical intuition. In the contemporary debate, direct realists hold experience to involve an immediate presentational “acquaintance” with external objects. Representationalists hold experience to involve representations that are intentionally directed towards objects. Both groups defend or rely on a version of the transparency thesis. Those who deny the transparency of experience hold experience to involve not just representational content aimed at an object, but also some kind of awareness of features of the experience itself. Here Jankowiak is pointing toward mental or cognitive states that constitute the experience and bring a quality to the experience, what he calls mental paint. The direct realist says that the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by the properties of the objects with which we’re acquainted; the phenomenal redness in my experience of the apple is the redness on the apple. The representationalist says that the phenomenal character of experience is reducible to intentional representational content; the phenomenal redness in my experience of the apple is a matter of representing, by way of some intentional content, that the apple is a certain way, viz., (this particular shade of) red. And the mental paint theorist says that the phenomenal character of experience is a matter of being aware of the introspectively accessible qualitative character of mental states; the phenomenal redness encountered in my experience is literally a property of my experience. (22)

These three views in the transparency debate correlate to different ways of reading Kant’s take on empirical intuition. The direct realist views concepts and intuitions as radically different from one another with intuition having a direct or immediate relation to external objects. The representationalist views intuitions as representations of external objects. The mental paint interpretation requires that the matter or content of empirical intuition, Empfindungsmaterial, be combined with categorial determinations. Jankowiak thinks that while views on Kant that embrace the transparency thesis have spread recently, transcendental idealism requires a mental paint outlook. In the contemporary debate on perception, the fallibility of the senses provides several examples that resist the transparency thesis. “In particular, after-images, the “phosphenes” and roiling tessellations that can

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result from pressure on the eyeballs, orgasms, tinnitus, blurry vision, and double vision are often presented as cases where our experiential states themselves are brought to conscious attention.” (24) With regard to Kant, Jankowiak views the a priori spatial ordering of sense perception to be a constitutive part of empirical intuition. Kant’s own discussion of the senses gives us occasion to deny the transparency of experience. Though Kant considers some senses to be more subjective than others, they each have a subjective element, that is, they represent not just objects but how we are affected by objects. Kant’s claims about the subjective senses representing the effects of objects on the senses are his account of the non-transparency of experience. Another dimension of reason’s self-critique deals with aesthetic judgment. Kant’s critical philosophy is considering what judgments reason has license to make, be they theoretical, practical, or aesthetic. In such an examination there are differing grounds for making such judgments but there is a unity to be found in them all in virtue of which they can be considered judgments. This tension between the differences and similarities of such judgments is explored by Ted Kinnaman in “Kant on Aesthetic Normativity.” Kinnaman’s aim is to identify the basis on which we have grounds to appeal to an aesthetic normativity given that aesthetic feeling is not to be communicated. For Kant only cognitions can be universally communicated so we might worry that we have no such basis in the case of aesthetic judgments. Put another way, such framing might suggest that aesthetic judgments have only a subjective ground. Kinnaman holds that all judgments are under the same imperative “namely the imperative to represent the world accurately.” (43) The challenge then is to hold all judgments under such an imperative of accurate representation while still allowing for the differences between the different kinds of judgments. Though we may allow for being convinced of a theoretical matter or moral choice, such persuasion appears to have limits in the context of aesthetic judgments, “in judging the beauty of objects, we do not allow anyone to argue us into finding something beautiful, but rather each of us ‘wants to submit the object to his own eyes,’ presumably because it is at least conceivable that we might not feel disinterested pleasure with regard to the same objects as others have.” (KU 216 50) That is two agents may be in the presence of the same stimuli and have different aesthetic reactions or assessments and we would think it odd that one agent could convince the other. As Kinnaman points out, however, Kant’s aim is to establish an entire system of judgment and such systematicity calls for a deep unity. The use of empirical concepts requires a systematic unity in which concepts can be situated. Such a system would also allow for a determination of sciences

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Introduction

and approaches and would be “a rational reconstruction of the structure of natural science, which works to subsume observed phenomena under broader and broader empirical laws. A complete system would entail a complete science, which Kant envisions as a goal that we can approach ‘asymptotically’ but never entirely reach.” (44) This systematic unity of empirical concepts grounds a sense of cognition in a sense robust enough that for aesthetic judgments to be included in ‘cognition in general’ is to imbue it with the normativity of cognition. This is because for Kant to form an empirical concept is not only to synthesize a manifold but also to determine how that concept fits with other concepts. So cognition requires being integrated within this unified system. Kinnaman suggests that the purposiveness we encounter in nature supports this aim of integration. One way to resolve this tension between the subjective determining grounds of aesthetic judgments and the generality of judgments is to take every aesthetic judgment to also implicitly make a universal judgment. This is the view attributed to Hannah Ginsborg, who holds aesthetic judgments to be making claims about universal validity. That is, a claim about the beauty of an object implicitly holds that it is universally valid that the object is beautiful. For Kinnaman this view encounters the difficulty that objects do not equally give rise to the harmony of the faculties that produces the subjective determining grounds of beauty. This not only accords with our common sense understanding of beauty but seems to be something to which Kant himself is committed when he holds that poetry takes the highest rank of the beautiful arts because it lets the mind “feel its capacity to consider and judge of nature, as appearance, freely, self-actively, and independently of determination by nature” and music the lowest because it merely plays with sensations. (KU 326) Ginsborg’s view is seeking to ground the normativity of aesthetic judgment in the same ground of normativity in general, but “insofar as Ginsborg’s account neglects sensitivity to the object judged, the normativity of aesthetic judgment in fact rests on a different basis than does (for Kant) cognition in general. Empirical judgments, even more obviously than judgments of taste, are supposed to be sensitive to differences in the objects. Indeed, that is the very point of empirical judgment.” (51) When such sensitivity to objects is absent, normativity is compromised. One of the most important results of reason’s inquiry into its own limits is the conclusion that there are some objects we cannot cognize. God, freedom, and immortality—what Kant calls the traditional objects of metaphysics—are not objects of possible experience and so we cannot set them as objects of theoretical investigation. In setting these objects beyond our reach Kant famously claims to “deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.” (Bxxx) This is because these objects for Kant are of practical

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necessity and so he claims that we postulate them as a foundation of a moral point of view. And yet, the practical necessity of believing that God exists in order to be moral is quite different from the practical necessity of extending a line to construct a geometrical object, another instance of a postulate. Kant also goes to great lengths to deny the possibility of proofs for God’s existence so the notion that we must postulate God’s existence requires further elaboration. In “Kant’s Postulate that God Exists,” Ian Blecher explores the particularities of this claim. One distinction that is often recognized in the secondary literature is that between different forms of holding true, Fürwahrhalten. Kant distinguishes between opinion, belief, and knowledge. Here the distinction draws not on the conviction with which we hold something to be true but rather on what grounds. If the subjective grounds of a conviction are insufficient to be sustained indefinitely then the conviction is one that Kant calls opinion. If its subjective grounds are sufficient the conviction is either belief or knowledge. Belief lacks objective sufficiency while knowledge can be objectively sustained. That is, the truth of the conviction can be established. For Blecher, it is misleading to read the lack of objective sufficiency as always owed to the strength or quality of the grounds of conviction, “In this passage, [Kant] is speaking of the distinction between belief and opinion rather than belief and knowledge. But the point generalizes. When belief ‘is considered as restricted to a special kind of object,’ it is a ‘complete holdingas-true’, and so no less certain than knowledge (Log 9:72).” (61) When restricted to this special kind of object, this belief is the foundation of the moral point of view, the faith for which Kant has made room, “Kant really seems to have thought that a belief in the existence of God can motivate us to virtue -- if only by enabling us to maintain our respect for the moral law against the evidence of its uselessness on Earth.” (59) In this sense, our lack of objective sufficiency better reflects the moral point of view. Our belief in the existence of God is not forced or constrained by objective conditions. Instead, it springs forth from our subjective condition. The faith for which Kant has made room is the special possession of the righteous (those he calls “der Rechtschaffene”). It is they who will see the divine in things on the infinite strength of moral feeling. For everyone else (and here I would include myself) there remains the possibility -- sometimes the danger -- of a theistical persuasion, and maybe in the best cases, a pious hope that could be called the true religion. But it is not to them that the divine shows itself. 68

Genuine objects of faith are those for which holding-as-true is necessarily free, rather than determined by objective grounds. In this sense the postulate

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of God’s existence is available to those who have freely chosen the moral point of view not those who have simply come upon the difficulty of theoretical cognition of God.

Part II Moral Judgment In his moral philosophy, Kant is famously committed to acts done from a sense of duty. The categorical imperative can generate such duties for us while feeling and inclination can yield only hypothetical imperatives. And so even an action consistent with what duty requires but done from inclination is not an act with moral worth. This broad view is well known in Kant scholarship. Kant does also say that inclination and feeling are part of our phenomenal experience and so the susceptibility to the draw of inclination is there for all of us. So much is to be determined about what role feeling and affect play in our moral decision making and how we subject ourselves to the moral law. One view of the role that moral feeling and affect play is found in Nicholas Dunn’s “Kant on Moral Feeling and Practical Judgment.” Dunn argues that practical judgment fundamentally involves a kind of feeling. The role for feeling, according to Dunn, is broader than moral motivation, “Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do.” (74) For Dunn, all judgment involves reflection and feeling plays an important role in reflection. Kant defines judgment as the power to subsume under rules. Subsuming under rules cannot be guided by rules since such guidance would require an infinite regress. Thus, the activity of judgment involves “the faculty for thinking of the particular as contained under the universal” (KU 5:179). For Dunn, this means that while reason may be able to generate maxims for us, we need the faculty of judgment to determine that a particular action falls under the general rule that our maxims call for. For Kant we need the power of judgment to apply the moral law to specific circumstances. Reason may determine the moral law for us, but judgment is required to apply it. What sets the power of judgment apart from reason (as well as the understanding, which provides its own kinds of universals in the case of theoretical judgment) is its ability to bring general representations to bear on particular ones. Just as there can be no rules for the application of rules ad infinitum, there can be no principles for the applications of principles. This being the case, we can think of determining judgment as a matter of

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the reflecting power of judgment assisting, or cooperating with, another faculty (in this case, reason) in applying its laws or principles. 79

To help make this point Dunn distinguishes between act-types and acttokens. The former are types of actions generated by maxims or rules while the latter are individual actions that meet the criteria of these act-types, that is act-tokens are subsumed under act-types. While we can use reason to generate act-types, we must use judgment to subsume act-tokens under those act-types. These are different activities and good practical reason does not imply or require good practical judgment. For Dunn, a central difference between these activities is that while reasoning to produce an act-type can be without feeling or affect, judging an act token to be of a particular type requires a kind of affect or feeling. This of course is not the same feeling involved in an agent’s respect for the moral law. It is rather an intellectual kind of feeling that one can cultivate. Such cultivation would not be a matter of better understanding the moral law or deepening our commitment to it. Rather it would involve improving our ability to determine which actions instantiate the moral law. This reconstruction of the role of feeling helps unite determining and reflective judgment and introduces moral feeling much earlier in Kant’s ethics. The question of affect is also at issue when considering our moral choices. Because for Kant a moral choice involves choosing to incorporate a certain motivation into our maxim, affect and moral choice appear incompatible. Referred to as the incorporation thesis, Kant holds, “freedom of the power of choice has the characteristic, entirely peculiar to it, that it cannot be determined to action through any incentive except so far as the human being has incorporated it into his maxim (has made it into a universal rule for himself, according to which he wills to conduct himself)” (RGV 6:23–4). On this view, we can either act from a reasoned maxim or we can act from affect or inclination, but we cannot choose to act from affect. In “Affects, Choice and Kant’s Incorporation Thesis,” Martina Favaretto challenges this view and works to make room for a kind of unreflective choice in Kant’s ethics. Kant holds that affect and passion are obstacles to reflection, “[i]t is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure or displeasure)” (Anth 7:254). With our reflection incomplete we may respond to lower desires like stimuli or impulses rather than to higher desires like motives or motive grounds. The distinguishing feature of the rational agent is that she is always capable of resisting the lower desires,

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Introduction while human beings’ acts of the power of choice can either stem from the sensitive or intellectual power of choice – i.e., either from the lower or the higher faculty of desire – all these acts of the power of choice always presuppose the agent’s capacity to refrain from being compelled to action, even though the extent according to which one is successful in exercising this capacity may vary. 108

It is in this way that the freedom of choice is viewed as so fundamentally at odds with acting from affect. To have responded to the lower stimuli is to have failed to do the characteristically rational thing. Favaretto’s point is that we must understand this failure in normative terms rather than modal terms. when one is subject to an affect and chooses to act in a certain way, affects get in the way of meeting some normative standards of rationality, where these standards could be either prudential, or moral. What the text establishes is that one in a state of affect cannot carry out either a morally sound choice or a prudentially sound choice. But while the agent in a state of affects cannot make a sound choice, it is clear that she could still be able to make a choice that is neither morally nor prudentially sound. 114

Only by recognizing this distinction is there room for an agent to make a bad choice. Otherwise, the agent would be limited to making a good choice, or not making a choice at all. This bad or deficient choice can occur in two ways. One can either act on an explicitly bad reason or one can act on an implicit reason. In the former case, the failure of comparison is that we have done so incorrectly. In the latter case, the failure is that we have not completed the comparison. Both cases can be the result of affect impeding such comparison. In order to consider an unreflective choice that responds to affect as incorporated into one’s maxim, Favaretto says it is necessary to clarify the sometimes varied use of the term maxim in Kant. Kant sometimes refers to a maxim as a higher order principle or “life rule” and these notions of maxim are understood in such a way as to require the kind of deliberation and rationality that is lacking in unreflective choice. But Kant also uses a notion of maxim in a thin sense where he is thinking merely of the subjective principle for action. In these cases, Favaretto thinks that we can incorporate an unreflective choice to act from affect. Affect and moral freedom are also in tension in that they seem to be on opposite sides of the phenomenal-noumenal divide. This is often understood by situating affect in the noumenal world and free moral agency in the noumenal world. The phenomenal self seems bound by the laws of nature and behaves deterministically in accordance with causal laws while the

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noumenal self turns to reason to set moral ends. This framing would seem to set one self as bound by the law and the other as lawgiver. And yet it would be difficult for a moral law to bind the phenomenal self given its causal determinism. In “Self-Binding Self: Phenomena and Noumena in Kant’s Practical Philosophy,” Nataliya Palatnik makes the case that the distinction between the phenomenal self and noumenal self does not correspond neatly to a separation between a self that is bound by the law and a self that gives the moral law. One reason to resist this dichotomy is that it conflates ontological and normative considerations. Put another way, the ontological view describes the kinds of laws one is subject to while the normative view derives or determines those laws. It would be odd to think of the addressee of the law as being strictly in the world of sense or phenomena because that would compromise her ability to respond to the law or see herself as bound by it. And it would be likewise odd for a morally free agent to attempt to give moral legislation to a being whose actions are mechanistically determined by nature. To clear up this confusion, Palatnik distinguishes between two senses of the phenomenal. On the one hand, homo phaenomenon is a concept of the self as a natural rational being who “has reason” (MS, 6:418); a being who acts (and regards herself as acting) on incentives she takes to be reasons. Taken in this sense, the concept of a homo phaenomenon is morally undetermined, since it leaves open the possibility that the agent’s actions are fully determined by natural causes. On the other hand, from the practical standpoint, from which the agent is able to cognize herself as a freely acting intelligence, the concept of homo phaenomenon acquires new content. An agent is now regarded not merely as a natural being with reason, but also as receptive to unconditional moral requirements; as possessing the kind of sensibility that makes her capable of moral feeling and of acting for genuinely moral reasons. That is, from the practical point of view, the concept of homo phaenomenon becomes morally determined. 130

Thus, we can think of homo phaenomenon as the object of phenomenal inquiry and investigation. Such a being would seem to take reasons as incentives, but it would be an open question as to whether such incentives would be moral ones. We can also think of homo phaenomenon as the subject of phenomenal experience. This agent would consider herself free to act on moral reasons. This morally determined sense of homo phaenomenon. is receptive to requirements of the moral law. For Palatnik, this leads to a kind of dual self-conception in which we place ourselves under moral obligations. This self-binding is necessary because duties to oneself are in a sense original. Reason yields all duties but

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Introduction

if we could not bind ourselves to duties to ourselves we could not bind ourselves to duties to others. When we bind ourselves to duties to ourselves we recognize the humanity in ourselves. Now the human being as a natural being that has reason (homo phaenomenon) can be determined by his reason, as a cause, to actions in the sensible world, and so far the concept of obligation does not come into consideration. But the same human being thought in terms of his personality, that is, as a being endowed with inner freedom (homo noumenon), is regarded as a being that can be put under obligation and, indeed, under obligation to himself (to the humanity in his own person). So the human being (taken in these two different senses) can acknowledge a duty to himself without falling into contradiction (because the concept of a human being is not thought in one and the same sense). MS, 6:418

So in this dual self-conception we must regard ourselves as sensibly affected rational beings who can be motivated by moral concerns. For Palatnik, this bridges the seeming divide between the noumenal and phenomenal self because “ the same act of reason that allows her to think of herself as a homo noumenon confers further content on her self-conception as a rational natural being.” (132) The tension is only there if we take the morally determined sense of noumenal self to be prescribing moral incentives for the morally undetermined sense of phenomenal self. Palatnik’s point is that the moral agent can no longer think of her phenomenal self as subject only to the laws of nature. Rather the moral agent must think of her phenomenal self as morally determined and thus receptive to moral incentives in the world of sense.

Part III- Kant and the History of Philosophy Kant’s importance in the Western canon cannot be overstated. Even for many contemporary debates, one can identify a defensible category of Kantian perspectives or solutions. Thus a field or problem could be understood by how Kant might respond and stand in relation to other prevailing approaches. Another way to understand how we might rethink Kant is to revisit how he stands in relation to other important thinkers or movements in the history of philosophy. In “Kant on Friendship,” Allen Wood does just that by examining Kant’s views on friendship and its importance for the moral project. Wood argues for an underappreciated discussion of friendship in Kant. While friendship serves as an important element of a good life in the Ancient view, few modern thinkers give friendship the consideration it merits. Given his many significant contributions to ethics, Kant’s discussion of friendship can go overlooked,

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though it plays an important role in the path to the moral life. Kant draws heavily on Montaigne’s treatment of friendship. Importantly though, unlike Montaigne, Kant emphasizes the inadequacy of actual friendship, highlighting its importance as a moral idea. In his moral theory, Kant divides the duties we owe to others into duties of respect and duties of love and these kinds of duties can even seem at odds with one another when considering what moves us to recognize them. “‘The principle of mutual love admonishes them constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another;’ yet both are necessary, for ‘should one of these great moral forces fail, “then nothingness (immorality), with gaping throat, would drink up the whole kingdom of ‘(moral) beings like a drop of water”’’.” (MS 6:449) (149) In friendship, mutual love and respect are in balance. Love and respect are of course not opposites, but the tension rests in how we view ourselves in relation to the object of love or respect. According to Wood, “we tend to love that to which we feel superior, which does not threaten our selfesteem…. Respect, however, is a feeling that combines positive valuation with infringement of our self-love, and humiliation of our self-conceit” (150) The importance of friendship is that Kant believes we need both dispositions, toward positive and negative self-evaluation, for our moral relationships toward others. It is not only that morality calls for both respect and love, but that respect and love are each diminished if they are not in balance with the other. This requires a harmony or balance that is dynamic. That makes friendship the ideal model for the balance of respect for the law and the internalizing of the realm of ends “In the realm of ends, as in friendship, there is a union of rational beings, and there is also the combination of love (mutual sharing of ends) with respect (for each member as an end in itself).” (151) In this sense, friendship serves as a model for the ideal ethical community. The question of comparison that quickly arises is how Kant’s discussion of the moral idea of friendship stands in relation to that of Aristotle. Kant has a tripartite division of friendship analogous to that of Aristotle dividing friendship along the lines of needs, tastes, and moral friendships. There are, however, two key differences. The first difference concerns the ranking or relative value of the lesser forms of friendship. For Aristotle it is utility that is not really friendship and pleasure that starts to look like friendship while for Kant need can form the basis of friendship, but taste cannot. Each thinker’s imperfect version of friendship hints at the second difference between them, namely the key features of their perfect version of friendship. “For Kant, however, the basic thing in true or complete friendship is not mutual admiration and shared excellence, but rather mutual benevolence

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Introduction

and shared thoughts and feelings.” (154) Morality is needed for friendship in order to sustain the trust that makes intimate communication possible, and the good will toward each other that constitutes their shared ends and feelings: “Each participating and sharing sympathetically in the other’s well-being through the morally good will that unites them” (MS 6: 469). With Aristotle, moral virtue enters into friendship first through the fact that you must be virtuous in order for me to have a reason to wish you well. For Kant, however, it is just the opposite: the need for virtue is fundamentally my need to be virtuous and to act virtuously in relation to you in order to be worthy of the trust and benevolence I hope you will show me as my friend (MS 6:469, VE Collins 27:429). True friendship then has five features in Kant: wellwishing love, equality, reciprocal possession of one another, intimate communication and love toward reciprocal well-liking. Though only the last is enough to make friendship an ethical duty. While friendship does not on its own produce complete happiness, adopting the ideal of friendship is a moral duty because it makes one deserving of happiness. Another figure that looms large in situating Kant is Leibniz. A prevailing view is that Leibniz has too much confidence in what rationalism can say about the world drawing only on a priori principles and Kant’s critical turn seeks to understand the limits and bounds of such principles. Such a view often takes Kant to be generous and even falsely humble when he defers to or credits the wisdom of Leibniz. In “Kant’s Teleology as the ‘True Apology’ to Leibniz’s Pre-Established Harmony,” Noam Hoffer argues that we can take Kant at his word when he claims to be offering a defense of a Leibnizian view. Hoffer shows how Kant’s view of teleology stems from an understanding of Leibniz’s pre-established harmony. Of course, Kant himself tells us that he thinks of his work as a true apology, but he then goes on to break from Leibniz in many significant ways, as well as criticizing the Rationalist philosophy that springs from Leibniz through Wolff. Kant sees an error in each of what he identifies as the three main elements of Leibniz’s metaphysics: the principle of sufficient reason, the doctrine of monads, and the doctrine of pre-established harmony. Yet each element also possesses a redeeming quality. The idea of reason for instance points to a normative dimension of metaphysics by identifying a standard of perfection. Though such a standard is only a regulative ideal, it identifies an end set by reason. As such it expresses a need to presuppose a single intelligent ground I am quite convinced that Leibniz, in his pre-established harmony (which he, like Baumgarten after him, made very general), had in mind not the harmony of two different natures, namely, sense and understanding, but that of two faculties belonging to the same nature, in which sensibility and understanding

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harmonize to form experiential knowledge. If we wanted to make judgments about their origin - an investigation that of course lies wholly beyond the limits of human reason - we could name nothing beyond our divine creator. Br11:52

While Kant rejects the idea of a kind of harmony between the internal states of substances, this notion of harmony Kant reinterprets as one between different explanatory principles. Though Kant mentions this true apology to Leibniz in the first Critique, Hoffer argues that it is in the Critique of Judgment where Kant offers the true apology because it is there that purposiveness becomes explicit as a regulative principle. As such purposiveness is not a harmony of causal laws. “Instead of harmony between the internal states of distinct substances, e.g., the perception of bodies and their motion, Kant reinterprets pre-established harmony as a harmony between different explanatory principles (or the cognitive faculties governing them).” (171) For Hoffer, this shift is helped along by Kant’s reading of Maupertuis. While Leibniz sees a harmony between the kingdoms of causation and wisdom, Maupertuis helps Kant identify the deeper unity This acute and learned man immediately sensed that, in having thus introduced unity into the infinite manifold of the universe and created order in what was blindly necessary, there must be some single supreme principle to which the totality of things owed its harmony and appropriateness. He rightly believed that such a universal cohesiveness in the simplest natures of things afforded a far more fitting foundation for the indubitable discovery, in some perfect and original being, of the ultimate cause of everything in the world, than any perception of various contingent and variable arrangements. BDG 2:98-9

According to Hoffer, this allows Kant to recognize this unity as regulative for our understanding of nature, “[a]ttributing purposiveness to nature does not mean that we know its divine purpose, but only that for assuming the systematic unity of the laws of nature as ‘discernible by us’ we assume a supreme intelligent being as the ground for their unity. Thus, we should understand purposiveness here as the way human thought can make the unity of the laws of nature palpable when applying it to the system of empirical concepts.” (181) Thus in the third Critique Kant arrives at a teleology that does not require a supernatural being interfering or playing dice with the universe but that allows us to use necessary laws to explain specific operations. This harmony extends to sensibility and understanding in aesthetic judgments as well as to mechanism and teleology in organic nature. While the critical project is certainly not a Leibnizian one, Kant has

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Introduction

transformed pre-established harmony into a regulative idea and offered a defense of Leibniz. Scholars often invoke this assumption of a supremely intelligent being to point to one of Kant’s unacknowledged influences, namely, his Pietist upbringing. For many, that Kant’s ethics yield prescriptions that resemble Christian imperatives with a worldview that necessitates—while unable to prove—the existence of a supreme being is evidence that Kant was unable to shed the Pietist influence on his thinking. Fr. Bonaventure Chapman argues that Pietism, rather than keep him tied to certain religious or theological commitments that compromise his philosophical thinking, actually brings Kant to a kind of philosophical criticism of Wolff and Leibniz. In “Kant’s Pietism: Religiously Vague Yet Philosophically Profound?” he identifies Christian August Crusius as the figure whose influence best exhibits Kant’s relationship with Pietism. Though many suggest that Kant’s pietism influenced his thinking, few of the theological or religious commitments of Pietism emerge in Kant. In a general sense he is committed to a kind of theism, but few if any of the features of his theism can be attributed to Pietism. This is not to deny influence entirely. For Chapman the important distinction to be made is between a religious or theological Pietism that calls for certain faith commitments and a philosophical Pietism that offers criticism of Wolffian philosophy. “Metaphysically speaking, the Pietists argued that Wolffianism was deterministic. Morally speaking, the Pietists argued for what is now called “incompatibilism,” where determinism is incompatible with human freedom, moral imputation, morality itself, and the justice of God in his eternal judgment of individuals. These matters served as the core concerns of Pietism.” (197) These concerns brought Piestists like Crusius to shift away from philosophy as a mathematical or strictly logical science to recognize a form of philosophical analysis that was more than strictly deductive. This yields a kind of German modal metaphysics that separates logic and ontology. Kant’s initial reaction to Crusianism is largely negative. As he takes the critical turn he is drawn more toward Crusius. Chapman identifies three structural elements in Crusian thought that he finds echoed in Kant’s critical philosophy. The first structural element is what Chapman calls an epistemologized metaphysics in which metaphysics requires an epistemological ground to justify its claims. The second structural element is a commitment to material first principles of inseparability (What we cannot think without the other is in reality combined) and uncomposability (What we cannot think together is in reality not combined together). (203) These material commitments show the incompleteness of the principles of

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non-contradication and sufficient reason. The third structural element concerns what Chapman calls a metametaphysical commitment, the justification of the first principles of metaphysical cognition, best characterized in the Architectonic of Pure Reason Now the philosophy of pure reason is either propaedeutic (preparation), which investigates the faculty of reason in regard to all pure a priori cognition, and is called critique, or second, the system of pure reason (science), the whole (true as well as apparent) philosophical cognition from pure reason in systematic interconnection and is called metaphysics; this name can also be given to all of pure philosophy including the critique, in order to comprehend the investigation of everything that can ever be cognized a priori as well as the presentation of that which constitutes a system of pure philosophical cognitions of this kind but in distinction from all empirical as well as mathematical use of reason (A841/B869).

With respect to this distinction, Kant sees Crusius as making a similar distinction Crusius indeed contested such a unified effect of the soul on the body, which Leibniz assumed by virtue of the harmonia praestabilita, but decreed on the contrary that the criterion of truth is to be sought for only in the ideas which the creator has placed in us, just because he could not trust it to our reason that it would find these ideas itself ; he thus assumed an inner revelation with human beings, and with the necessity of this for bringing one to conviction (VM 29:959).

The difference here is that where Crusius turned to God in his metametaphysics, Kant turns to reason. In this respect, the influence of Pietism in rejecting the Leibnizian or Wolffian tradition is not one that imports theological commitments and obstructs the critical project but is rather an influence consistent with the critical turn that seeks something more than German rationalism can offer. For many who come after him in the Western canon, Kant is a thinker one must come to terms with and respond to. A defensible position in most contemporary philosophical debates must often situate itself in relation to Kant (or Kantianism of some kind, e.g. O’Neill, Rawls etc.) regardless of whether one is embracing or rejecting him. Nietzsche, of course, is noted for forcefully rejecting Kant and embracing a different “a priori.” Nietzsche views himself as diametrically opposed to Kant and the scholarship on this opposition usually focuses on moral imperatives and the concomitant metaphysical commitments like moral responsibility and free will. In “Nietzsche versus Kant on the Possibility of Rational Self-Critique” Markus Kohl centers the question of reason’s examination of its own limits. While

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Introduction

this capacity seems to be the bedrock of Kant’s critical philosophy, Nietzsche is suspicious of any attempts of rational agents examining their own rational capacities. That is, for Kant we can engage in such rational assessment whereas for Nietzsche we cannot. Kant is concerned with correcting the misuse of epistemically inadequate principles, “principles, which reason has been using for a long time without first inquiring in what way and by what right it has obtained them”, when one follows “the dogmatic procedure of pure reason, without an antecedent critique of its own capacity” (Bxxxv).” For Kohl, it is no surprise that Kant and Nietzsche would come up with different answers to the question, but recognizing their different approaches offers us insights into their conceptions of the task of philosophy. Kant views his critical philosophy as unique at that point for asking about its own limits and bounds. By turning this critique on itself reason can be sure that it is equipped to take on the questions it asks. Transcendental philosophy is thus one of the “sciences whose nature entails that every question occurring in them must absolutely be answerable from what one knows, because the answer must arise from the same source as the question” (A476/B504). (224) For Nietzsche, to use reason to inquire about reason’s capacity is already to take reason’s capacity for granted. It is to assume that reason is capable of addressing the question of what reason’s capacities are. Kohl terms this the circularity argument in Nietzsche. The risk philosophers run when thinking through what reason or human cognition is like, according to Nietzsche is that they take the particular and idiosyncratic features of their own circumstances and extrapolate them to everyone. This gives a non-cognitive contribution to one’s conception. In Kant’s case it would be his adherence to the moral and religious system he is trying to justify, “to assert on the whole the existence of things about which we cannot know anything at all, precisely because there is an advantage in not being able to know anything about them, was a naivete of Kant, consequence of a refill (Nachschlags) of needs, namely moral-metaphysical ones” (NF 1887, Group 10 §205). This moral commitment led to a kind of metaphysical assumption on his part, “Kant believed in the fact of cognition…The rightfulness of the faith in cognition is always being presupposed: just like the rightfulness in the feeling of the judgment of conscience is being presupposed. Here the moral ontology is the reigning prejudice” (NF 1886, Group 7 §4). For Nietzsche Kant’s assumption that reason can answer the question of its own capacity is no less spurious than the assumption that reason can answer questions about the traditional objects of metaphysics.

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This impasse may turn out to be a matter of thinkers talking past one another as Kant will see Nietzsche’s criticism as requiring some kind of commitment to truth and Nietzsche will see Kant’s commitment to truth as evidence of his bias. Kant argues that anyone who partakes in a truth-oriented thought process must place a robust trust in our purely rational capacities. Thus, for Kant Nietzsche’s objections against the project of rational self-critique fail since they incur a commitment to the cognitive authority and standards of pure reason which they purport to deny or doubt. However, Nietzsche emphatically disavows a preoccupation with rationality, truth, and knowledge: in his view, dispositions such as valuing truth over everything else, favoring dialectical procedures of giving and weighing reasons or arguments, and seeking out objective knowledge for its own sake betray a deeply problematic mindset. This mindset results from and manifests an impoverished psycho-physical life form which involves thinned, frigid passions as well as the corresponding loss of any deeper sense of meaning, orientation, and purpose. 247

This fundamental disagreement, Kohl argues, points to a fundamental difference in the conception of philosophy and its task. Kant sees philosophy as tasked with truth and knowledge which rely on the scrutiny and assent of other rational thinkers with universal intersubjective validity as an aim. Nietzsche on the other hand views such commitments as part of the problem of our current descent into nihilism. Philosophy in turn must create the new values reinvigorate human passions.

PART I: CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY

KANT ON THE TRANSPARENCY OF EXPERIENCE TIM JANKOWIAK

In contemporary philosophical discussions of sensory perception, the notion of experiential “transparency” is the idea that we never seem to take notice in experience of our experiential states themselves. This paper makes the case that the contemporary debate about transparency can shed some light on Kant’s theory of experience, especially with regard to his account of sensation’s contribution to experience. At issue is the question whether Kant would accept a “transparency thesis,” according to which all experience is transparent: in experience, we are only aware of the objects of experience, and we are never aware of any mental states that constitute the experience itself. On the contemporary scene, proponents of direct realism and representationalism often appeal to versions of the transparency thesis in support of their respective positions (details below); by contrast “qualia,” “sense data,” or (as I’ll call them) “mental paint”1 theorists often point out counterexamples to the transparency thesis in support of their own views. The rough idea from the latter sort of theory is that, since (1) we sometimes take notice of our own sensory states as the bearers of phenomenal qualities, it is reasonable to infer that (2) all phenomenal character is constituted (in part, at least) by some manner in which the qualities of sensory states are presented to consciousness (even though the experiencing subject does not typically take notice of this fact). While Kant never explicitly made the inference from (1) to (2), I think there is strong textual evidence that he accepted both claims. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the first of 1

I prefer this term because it doesn’t bring along as much historical baggage as the terms “sense data” or “qualia.” The term “mental paint” has been popularized most notably by Block (1996), though he credits the metaphor to Harman (1990; see Block 2010, 23). I should note, however, that the specific mental paint view that I’ll be attributing to Kant differs in important respects from Block’s: his view involves a physicalist account of sensation (see Block 2010, 56 note 2), in contrast to Kant’s psychological account, and I will not be appealing to Block’s (1996) distinction between “mental paint” and “mental latex.”

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them: Kant’s rejection of universal experiential transparency. I want to show that Kant’s appraisal of the phenomenology of perception leads him to claim that experience is rife with non-transparent sensory episodes. This puts him in close company with contemporary “mental paint” theorists. While I will not have the space here to present a full defense of a mental paint interpretation of Kant’s theory of sensation and intuition,2 I will at least be able to argue that his rejection of experiential transparency is one piece of strong evidence that this was indeed his view. I proceed as follows. In section 1, I briefly survey the contemporary debate about experiential transparency among direct realists, representationalists, and mental paint theorists. In section 2, I show how the disagreement between these views mirrors the on-going interpretive debate about Kant’s account of empirical intuition. Section 3 is the heart of the paper. Here I appeal to Kant’s lectures on metaphysics and anthropology to show that he acknowledges the existence of non-transparent experiences, and that he even thinks that all experiences are non-transparent to some degree. Finally, in section 4, I consider a couple potential objections from direct realist and representationalist interpreters, which will give me the opportunity to further defend and motivate my reading.

I. Phenomenal Character and Experiential Transparency Since around the turn of this century, philosophers working on theories of the phenomenal character3 of experience have focused much of their discussion on the so-called “transparency thesis.” According to this claim, experience is “diaphanous” in the sense that, when experiencing, one is only ever aware of what is experienced and one never takes notice of the experience itself. When I perceive the colors and shapes of the objects in the room, I may have the belief (perhaps because I’ve read some philosophy on the subject) that my experience involves a mental state which represents the colors, shapes, and other features of the objects in the room. But, try as I might, no amount of introspection or focused attention can make accessible to me my experiential states themselves. Rather, as Martin puts 2

I present a partial defense of such a view in Jankowiak (2014), and a fuller defense in a forthcoming paper. 3 By “phenomenal character” I mean the basic sensory qualities that are presented in our experience of the world, e.g., the redness in my visual experience of an apple, the sound of the crunch as I bite it, or the sweetness I experience when I taste it. I take this characterization to be theory-neutral, and the debate between the three theories discussed here has to do (in part) with how to account for phenomenal character.

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it, “introspection of one’s perceptual experience reveals only the mindindependent objects, qualities and relations that one learns about through experience” (2022, 378). If there are representational mental states at work at all, I see through them without notice as though they were museum-grade glass. The interest in this aspect of perceptual phenomenology stems from the belief that it might be leveraged to adjudicate one of the most fundamental debates about the nature of perception, viz., the question whether perception in general and phenomenal character in particular should be explained in terms of direct realism, representationalism (a.k.a. intentionalism), or some kind of qualia or “mental paint” theory. According to direct realists, experience essentially involves an immediate presentational “acquaintance” with external objects. According to representationalists, experience essentially involves representations that are intentionally directed towards objects by way of intentional contents. And according to mental paint theorists, experience essentially involves not just representational content aimed at an object, but also some kind of awareness (though not necessarily an explicit or represented awareness) of features of the experience itself, i.e., of some kind of quality-bearing sensory states which partially constitute the experience (“mental paint”). These three theories give different explanations of the phenomenal character of experience. The direct realist says that the phenomenal character of experience is constituted by the properties of the objects with which we’re acquainted; the phenomenal redness in my experience of the apple is the redness on the apple.4 The representationalist says that the phenomenal character of experience is reducible to intentional representational content; the phenomenal redness in my experience of the apple is a matter of representing, by way of some intentional content, that the apple is a certain way, viz., (this particular shade of) red.5 And the mental paint theorist says that the phenomenal character of experience is a matter of being aware of the introspectively accessible qualitative character of mental states; the phenomenal redness encountered in my experience is literally a property of my experience.6 4

See Campbell (2002), Martin (2002), and Fish (2009). Complicated stories need to be told about how the view can handle secondary qualities like color, but many direct realists think that it’s possible to grant that secondary qualities have a kind of minddependent (or at least appearance-dependent or subject-relational) status, while still insisting that the qualities that we perceive are qualities of objects, not mental states; see Fish (2009, 150ff.) and Allais (2015, Chs. 5-6). 5 See Tye (1995), Dretske (2003), and Schellenberg (2018). 6 See Block (1996 and 2010), Kind (2003), Loar (2003), and most of the papers in Wright (2008) for views along these lines.

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What does experiential transparency have to do with the debate between these views? Both direct realists and representationalists claim experiential transparency as evidence in favor of their views, and against any kind of mental paint theory. The direct realist argues that if experience involved any kind of representational intermediary between subject and object, then we would expect this intermediary to “show up” in experience, such that we could at least take notice of it if we cared to look for it. The fact that we don’t find any such intermediary representational layer in experience can be taken to imply that perception involves the subject experiencing the world itself directly.7 Representationalists, however, are quick to point out that their view predicts experiential transparency too. Although they claim (contrary to the direct realist) that the mind-world relation is mediated by representational states, they also distinguish the representational vehicle (i.e., the representational state itself) from representational content, arguing that we are only ever aware of the latter (i.e., what is represented rather than the vehicle itself that does the representing), which explains why experience is transparent.8 Despite their various disagreements with each other, direct realists and representationalists both think that the transparency thesis can be leveraged against mental paint views. For the latter have it that experience does involve awareness of the qualities of experience itself (representational vehicles, not just contents). But again, if this were true, one would expect this fact about experience to be salient in experience, such that nontransparent experiences would be common or even the norm. As Martin (2002, 378) puts it, a mental paint theorist is asking us to condemn the introspective reports of perceptual phenomenology as “incorrect, or at best seriously misleading.”9

7

See Martin (2002). See Tye (1995), Dretske (2003), and Speaks (2009). 9 Martin (2002) gives the classic direct realist statement of the argument. For representationalist perspectives, see Tye (2000 and 2002), Dretske (2003), and Pace (2007). Responses on behalf of mental paint views tend to take either of two strategies: Some argue (as I discuss next) that the transparency thesis isn’t true in the first place; see Block (1996), Loar (2003), Maund (2008), Kind (2003 and 2008), and Nida-Rümelin (2008). Others argue that, even if some version of the transparency thesis is true, it doesn’t speak against mental paint views, since, as Smith puts it, “phenomenology is in fact the last place to look for sense-data”, since “there is no reason why one should not be aware of them while failing to be aware of them as sense-data” (Smith 2008, 197-8); see also Maund (2008), Molyneaux (2009) and Frey (2013). 8

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Of course, all of the above presumes that the transparency thesis is actually true, viz., that we never take notice in experience of the features of any mental experiential state.10 The defenders of the transparency thesis seem to take it as an incontrovertible, obvious, and universal phenomenological datum. But is it really? Proponents of mental paint-type views argue that counterexamples to the transparency thesis abound, and that even if experience is usually transparent, the counterexamples provide cases where we are explicitly aware of the qualities that we experience as qualities of the experience. In particular, after-images, the “phosphenes” and roiling tessellations that can result from pressure on the eyeballs, orgasms, tinnitus, blurry vision, and double vision are often presented as cases where our experiential states themselves are brought to conscious attention.11 To take one example, consider double vision. You let your eyes unfocus so that you see two of your friend sitting across from you. There is no pretense in the experience that there really are two people across from you, nor that if you reached out you’d feel two distinct bodies in distinct places. It’s obvious that the doubling in the experience is the result of how you are (mis)using your eyes. Nevertheless, there really is a clear and apparent “twoness” in the experience, and it seems plausible to interpret this phenomenology in terms of you being aware of your visual experience as an image in which the doubling occurs. The transparency thesis skeptic claims experiences like this as instances of non-transparent experience, i.e., experience in which we explicitly take notice of the sensory states by which we perceive the world. Similar remarks could be made about afterimages and phosphenes, where it’s obvious that something colored is appearing in the visual field, even though it is in no way presented as a feature of the environment; what one sees, claims the transparency skeptic, is a state of one’s own visual system.

10 As Kind (2008, 287) points out, the representationalist’s appeal to transparency depends on this strong reading of the transparency thesis: “on their [i.e., representationalists like Harman and Tye] view, it is not simply difficult but impossible to attend directly to our experience.” 11 For discussion of these and other purported counterexamples to the transparency thesis, see Boghossian and Velleman (1989), Block (1996 and 2010), Smith (2002, 129ff. and 2008), Loar (2003), Pace (2007), Nida-Rümelin (2008), and Kind (2008). To these examples, I’d add a few that I haven’t seen discussed in the literature: the streaks and squiggles of light that one sees when squinting with watery eyes at a distant light source at night; the undulating rainbows one sees when under the influence of psychedelics; the “staticky” grey one sees when one atrophies one’s retinae by staring fixedly at the same spot without moving one’s eyes.

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If the transparency thesis is false, and it is possible after all to be aware of our experiential states, at least some of the time, then it would mark a dramatic turning of the tables. For while the truth of the transparency thesis might be taken to speak against mental paint views,12 its falsity would speak strongly in favor of them (and against its rivals). For if we are “nontransparently” aware of our sensory states some of the time (as in the counterexamples discussed above), then it opens the possibility that the rest of the time, when experience is transparent, we are even then conscious of those same kinds of sensory states, though without noticing this fact about our experience (in the same way that when looking at a trompe l’oeil painting, one is “conscious” of the paint, though without necessarily being aware of the paint qua paint).13 While this reasoning is unlikely to persuade direct realist and representationalist defenders of the transparency thesis (because they will want to describe the phenomenology in fundamentally different terms), it does at least make clear that if one thinks that the relevant phenomenology speaks against the transparency thesis, then that gives one good reason to take a mental paint theory of experience seriously. And more generally, the kind of theorist who interprets their phenomenology as in accord with the transparency thesis tends to be more inclined towards either direct realism or representationalism, while the kind of theorist who interprets their phenomenology in terms of occasionally non-transparent experience tends to be more open to mental paint-type theories. In the remainder of the paper, I’ll be arguing that Kant is the latter kind of theorist.

II. The Debate About Empirical Intuition The contemporary debate between direct realism, representationalism, and mental paint views is mirrored in some of the debate about how to interpret Kant’s account of empirical intuition. Many interpret Kantian intuition along representationalist lines (I take this to be the standard view).14 According to this sort of reading, an empirical intuition is a representational vehicle whose content establishes singular and immediate 12

Though see note 9 above. See Kind (2008) and Smith (2008) for arguments along these lines. 14 While not all proponents of representationalist interpretations of intuition describe their views as such, as McLear (2016, 100ff.) points out, wide-swaths of the literature assume that intuitions have representational content, and then the debate is focused only on what kind of content it is (e.g., conceptual or non-conceptual, object-dependent or not). For explicitly representationalist interpretations, see Watkins and Willashek (2017) and Shahmoradi (2021). 13

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reference to an object. On these sorts of views, intuitions differ from concepts and other representations primarily with respect to the kind of content by which they represent extra-mental objects.15 Recently, direct realist interpretations of empirical intuition have become fashionable. These views construe the distinction between intuition and concept along more radical lines: empirical intuition’s relation to the object is established not by intentional content but by an immediate “acquaintance” with or “presence to consciousness” of the object (though it’s open to the direct realist to claim that intuitions involve intentional content in addition to the acquaintance relation). That is, intuitions are not merely a matter of representations bearing mental content directed at extramental objects; instead, intuitions are first and foremost relations to these objects themselves, such that the object or its properties are partially constitutive of the intuition (though a complicated story must be told to render the account consistent with transcendental idealism, given that none of the phenomenal properties that appear to us are properties that the appearing thing has in itself).16 Lastly, while representationalist and direct realist readings have been the two main interpretive options of late, there has always been a contingent of commentators who read Kant as holding (what I’m calling) a kind of mental paint view. On these views, empirical intuitions involve some sense in which we are presented with the qualities of the sensations (Kant’s “Empfindungen”) that constitute the “matter” of experience. Vaihinger (1892, 30ff.) put this in terms of an “Empfindungsmaterial,” which is combined with categorial determinations to yield objective cognition. Sellars (2007) put it in terms of sense-impressions that are constructed into “image-models,” and which serve as “proxies” for represented objects.17 And George (1981) argues for a “sensationist” reading, according to which our representations are constructed out of non-intentional sensations that are brought to conscious awareness. I have previously argued (Jankowiak 2014) 15 For instance, see Watkins and Willashek (2017, 88) for a clear expression of this point. 16 For views along these lines, see Allais (2015), McLear (2016), and Gomes (2017). Of these three, only Allais has taken on the difficult task of combining direct realism with Kant’s transcendental idealism. For an argument against the combination of direct realism and transcendental idealism, see Stephenson (2016). Kant’s transcendental idealism is outside the scope of this paper. 17 Several others have followed Sellars in describing sensations in these terms, including Landy (2015, Ch. 3), Stephenson (2015, 494) and myself (Jankowiak 2014). However, I don’t claim that all of them would describe their views as “mental paint” interpretations.

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that a view like this is necessary for making sense of Kant’s claims that sensation is the matter of empirical intuition (A167/B209, FM 20:266, Prol 4:306, V-Met/Mron 29:795), that empirical intuition involves sensations being “ordered and placed” in space (A20/B34, A23/B38), and that sensations even constitute the matter of appearance (A129, B207, Prol 4:284, V-Met/Mron 29:829, Refl 18:617). On the version of the mental paint reading that I favor, an empirical intuition is materially constituted by collections of sensations that are given a formal ordering within the mind’s a priori representation of space.18 Moreover, I hold that experience is partly constituted by a consciousness of the sensory qualities instantiated in these “spatialized” sensations, and that this consciousness is what gives experience its phenomenal character. In other words, I take Kant’s sensations to function as mental paint with which the mind forms perceptual images of the sensed environment. So we have three interpretations of Kantian intuition that correspond to three contemporary views on perception. I want to suggest that the debate about transparency in the contemporary philosophy of perception might be brought to bear on the Kant scholar’s interpretive question. For as we saw, those who accept the transparency thesis tend to accept either representationalism or direct realism, while simultaneously rejecting mental paint views. Conversely, those who find the transparency thesis phenomenologically inaccurate tend to be more open to mental paint views. With this in mind, we can ask what Kant might have thought about the transparency thesis. If we see evidence that he embraced a strong version of the transparency thesis, this would provide some evidence against a mental paint model of empirical intuition, in favor of either a direct realist or representationalist reading. However, if Kant repeatedly and in different contexts says things that are contrary to the transparency thesis, but which make perfect sense on a mental paint reading, then it would be good reason to take such a reading seriously. I present textual evidence to this effect in the next section.

18

The idea that sensations – mere mental states – could have any kind of spatiality is prima facie odd, and some take it to be incoherent (e.g., Bennett 1966, 29 and Watkins and Willashek 2017, 94). Coherent or not, however, Kant does make the claim repeatedly (see A20/B34, A23/B38, V-Met/Mron 29:795, Refl 15:276, Refl 17:643), and it is thus incumbent on any interpretation of the role of sensation in intuition to explain what Kant means by this claim. I sketch my reading of these claims in (Jankowiak 2014), and I present a more detailed interpretation in a work in progress.

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III. Kant on Non-Transparent Experiences Since Critique of Pure Reason is concerned with the a priori, transcendental conditions on the possibility of experience, his account of sensation there is almost entirely abstract and formal. He is interested in sensations considered generally as modifications of the subject (A19/B34, A28, A29/B45) which vary in intensity (A165/B207ff.), and which function as the matter of empirical intuition (A167/B208, Prol 4:283, Prol 4:306, MAN 4:481), of appearances (A92/B125, B207, A167/B209, Prol 4:284, Prol 4:307), and of experience generally (A50/B74, A167/B209, A218/B266, A223/B270). But he is not terribly concerned with the phenomenological characteristics and peculiarities of the different specific sensory modalities that humans find themselves with (vision, touch, etc.), nor the specific sensations that they deliver, since those specifics cannot be “anticipated” a priori (A167/B209). While this restriction in scope is natural, given Kant’s project in the Critique, it means that we don’t get to hear much about how his transcendental psychological account of empirical cognition can be related to the lived phenomenology of everyday experience. Fortunately, although Kant is silent on such issues in the Critique, his lecture transcripts19 reveal that he had quite a bit to say about perceptual phenomenology and its relation to empirical cognition. In particular, his accounts of the “fixed” or “organic,” “outer” senses,20 and the sensations that they produce, strongly suggest a theory of perception according to which non-transparent experiences are fairly common. 19

I will be drawing on Kant’s discussions of the senses as conveyed in anthropology and metaphysics lecture transcripts from the 1770s through the published version of the Anthropology. Although there are some important differences between the presentations of his view in the pre-critical and critical periods (especially regarding his use of the term “sensation”/”Empfindung”), the general outline of his account seems to have remained relatively stable. For Kant’s discussions of the organic senses, and the distinction between objective and subjective senses and sensations (which I’ll be focusing on), see: V-Met-L1/Pölitz 28:231-232 (1770s); V-Anth/Fried 25:492-499 (1770s); V-Met/Mron 29:282-283 (1780s); V-Anth/Mron 25:1241-1248 (1780s); V-Met-L2/Pölitz 28:585 (1790s); V-Met/Dohna 28:672-3 (1790s); Anth 7:153-161. 20 Kant divides the senses into inner and outer, and he divides the outer senses into the “fixed” senses, and a “vital” or “vague” sense that is not associated with any particular sensory organ. The latter seems to have been a miscellaneous category for sensory experiences that aren’t localizable in any one organ, e.g., “the shudder that seizes the human being himself at the representation of the sublime” (Anth 7:154), “mild well-being” (V-Met/Mron 29:882), and “the sixth sense of the French, namely the sensation of lust in sexual relations” (ibid.).

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Among the organic senses, Kant lists the usual five: touch, hearing, sight, taste, and smell, and he typically introduces these five in terms of a distinction between the “objective” senses (touch, hearing, and sight) and the “subjective” senses (taste and smell).21 Here is a characteristic expression of the distinction: a.) Objective senses, which represent to us the objects more than the way in which we are affected by them, and b.) Subjective – which represent to us more the way in which the objects affect us than the objects themselves. (V-Anth/Mron 25:1242; see also V-Met/Mron 29:882, V-Met-L1/Pölitz 28:231-2, V-Anth/Fried 25:493ff., V-Met/Dohna 28:672, V-Met-L2/Pölitz 28:585, Anth 7:154ff.)

To a certain degree, this distinction is fairly straightforward. The senses which function primarily to direct our attention to sensible objects in our perceptible environment are objective, while those which direct our attention to our own affected state are subjective. But he also makes clear that this distinction describes a continuum rather than a sharp dichotomy: Some of the senses are objective, others subjective. The objective senses are at the same time connected with the subjective; thus the objective senses are not only objective, but also subjective. Either the objective is greater in the senses than the subjective, or the subjective is greater than the objective. (VMet-L1/Pölitz 28:231) All organic senses have something subjective and objective, but some are more subjective than objective, and vice versa. That is: with some we represent more alterations of the subject than the object. (V-Met/Mron 29:882)

Thus Kant’s view is not that some senses are exclusively objective and thus only represent objects, while others are exclusively subjective and only represent the subject’s own states. Rather, all the senses are subjective to at least some degree.

21

It’s worth noting that while much of Kant’s discussion of the senses follows Baumgarten’s discussion of that topic (in §§534-556 of his Metaphysica (1757), which Kant used as a textbook), the distinction between the objective and subjective senses (and the specific ways in which the five senses are objective or subjective) seems to have been Kant’s addition. This is noteworthy because it justifies us in attributing these ideas to him, rather than wondering whether he may have simply been parroting Baumgarten’s theory to his students without necessarily endorsing those ideas himself.

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What I want to focus on in these passages is Kant’s description of the subjective senses in terms of a representation of “the way in which the objects affect us” (V-Anth/Mron 25:1242) or of “alterations of the subject” (V-Met/Mron 29:882). These phrases should call to mind Kant’s definition of “sensation/Empfindung” as “the effect of an object on the capacity for representation, insofar as we are affected by it” (A19/B34; see also A28, A29/B45, A320/B377, KU 5:302, V-Anth/Mron 25:1229, and Refl 18:241). If a sensation is the effect of an object on the senses, then Kant’s claims in his lectures about the subjective senses representing such effects should be read as the claim that the subjective senses represent one’s own sensations. In other words, Kant is describing the experiences that result from the subjective senses as non-transparent. In such experiences, we are made aware of our own sensory states, and we are not exclusively aware only of the objects that caused them (contrary to the transparency thesis). Furthermore, since Kant holds that all of the senses are subjective to at least some degree, it follows that he takes all experience to be non-transparent to some degree. And thus it seems that, on this issue at least, Kant is siding with the qualiaphiles against the direct realists and representationalists. To bolster this reading, let’s look more closely at his remarks about some of the specific sensory modalities. Let’s start with vision, which Kant typically22 identifies as the most objective of the five senses, because “in the case of the other senses, the subject is more intense than the object” (V-Anth/Fried 25:495) and “one cannot look at something without observing it” (V-Anth/Mron 25:1243). Now, when contemporary defenders of the transparency thesis attempt to motivate their view, they tend to rely almost entirely on visual examples.23 And indeed it must be granted that in the vast majority of cases, vision does seem to present only objects and properties “out there” in the environment. Kant, it would seem, is in agreement with the transparency advocates on this narrow point. In the published Anthropology, he contrasts sight with the other senses, claiming that it “comes nearer to being a pure intuition24 (the immediate representation of the given object, without admixture of noticeable [merkliche] sensation)” (Anth 7:156). This claim can naturally 22

Though at one point he calls touch, rather than vision, “closest to objective,” since “it is the surest and the best means to acquaint oneself with the object” (VAnth/Mron 25:1242). 23 See for instance Tye’s (1992, 160) oft-cited description of gazing at the blue Pacific Ocean. 24 This is an unusual use of the phrase “pure intuition,” since the official doctrine from the first Critique is that pure intuitions involve no sensation at all, not just no “noticeable” sensation (A50/B74).

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be read as the assertion that visual experiences are generally transparent. However, note that Kant is not quite saying that such experiences are completely transparent, since in saying that sight is “nearer to pure intuition,” he’s implying that one barely notices one’s own visual sensations. (Elsewhere, he suggests that vision can become more overtly non-transparent when a stimulus is too intense (Anth 7:156-7), or in aesthetic contexts (V-Anth/Fried 25:496-7).) Moreover, since Kant is here contrasting vision with the other senses, the claim implies that the others do involve “noticeable” sensations to varying degrees. When we turn to Kant’s remarks on hearing, his divergence from the defenders of transparency becomes more apparent. On the one hand, hearing is consistently classified among the “objective” senses (V-Met-L1/Pölitz 28:232, V-Anth/Fried 25:493, V-Anth/Mron 25:1245, Anth 7:154), indicating that its primary function is to direct the subject’s attention to the object that one hears, rather than the hearing itself. However, he also notes that hearing’s relation to the object is much less direct than with vision. He claims that hearing cannot “represent to us the shape of an object” nor even “reveal any objects,” but can instead represent “only that an object is there,” which is why sound “can at best be taken as an arbitrary sign of objects” (V-Anth/Mron 25:1243; see also Anth 7:155 and V-Anth/Fried 25:494). For instance, as I write this from my patio (with my eyes on the screen), I can hear the sounds of passing cars off to my right, various birds exchanging pleasantries in the branches above me, and a squirrel scampering across the fence behind me. But without the supplement of visual access to these things, I could not tell you where exactly they are, nor even how many there are, and certainly not their specific geometrical properties. Thus, while it seems natural to say that hearing is objective in the sense that it directs our attention to objects in the environment, it does so by way of a separate attention to the sound as a sign or indication of the object. In other words, Kant seems to be saying that such experiences implicitly represent a distinction between the object itself and the sign of the object, such that one recognizes that what one auditorily experiences – the sound – is not the object whose presence the sound indicates. What, then, is the sound itself of which one is aware? One might naturally presume that Kant would identify sound with physical compression waves in the air. While he does grant that, in hearing, objects affect me “through the air” (V-Anth/Mron 25:1242; see also Anth 7:155), his view seems to be that the immediate object of hearing is not this physical event but rather my own affected state. He says that although hearing is an objective sense, it is “nevertheless also [occupied] with our own condition” and even “shares in the feeling of one’s entire life” (V-Anth/Mron 25:1243). Elsewhere, he claims that hearing “does not

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present an object but only an impression of it” and is “a play of sensation” (V-Anth/Fried 25:493) and even “pure sensation” (V-Anth/Fried 25:498). In the first Critique, sound itself is explicitly characterized as a sensation (B44). So Kant’s position seems to be that the immediate object of hearing is sound, and that sounds are sensations. I take it that implicit here is the distinction (familiar to contemporary philosophers of perception) between “sound” construed as the phenomenal character presented in an auditory experience, and “sound” construed as the physical phenomenon that causes the experience (I’ll have more to say about this in the next section); Kant is identifying the former rather than the latter as the “sign of the object” of which we are immediately aware when hearing. All of this strongly suggests that hearing in general is not entirely transparent. In auditory experiences, I am simultaneously representing the object that produced a sound and the sensation that the object produces in me. That is, my attention is split between the situation “out there” and the situation “in here.” Lastly, what should we make of Kant’s claims about smell and taste? Unfortunately, contemporary philosophers of perception have very little to say about these neglected sensory modalities,25 but the case could be made that a more careful reflection on them would reveal further skepticism about the transparency thesis. Kant seemed to have appreciated as much. He argues that although these senses are very important for our ability to detect harmful or healthful objects in our environment (see V-Anth/Fried 25:499), sensory episodes of taste or smell do not directly present these objects. Rather, they only “make me sensible of my own state” such that “the subject is more intense than the object” (V-Anth/Fried 25:495). They are “senses of sensation” that have to do with the “change [to] our state” (ibid. 494).26 This strikes me as a plausible interpretation of gustatory and olfactory phenomenology. For on the one hand, our colloquial language typically ascribes smells and tastes to the objects that cause our experiences of them, such that we say, for instance, the candy is sweet and the grass smells like it was freshly cut. But at the same time, it’s also clear that there is a fundamental phenomenological difference between ascribing greenness to the grass by way of vision and ascribing that freshly-cut smell to the grass by way of olfaction. In the former case, the greenness is presented as “out there” on the surface of the object, while in the latter case, the smell is 25

Though see Barwich (2020) and for a recent detailed treatment of olfaction. Kant doubles down on this point when he emphasizes the connection between the subjective senses and enjoyment and displeasure (see V-Anth/Fried 25:493-5, VAnth/Mron 25:1245-6, Anth 7:157). Kant treats most smells as intrinsically pleasurable or displeasurable, and one’s own pleasures/displeasures are surely never represented as properties of objects outside me.

26

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presented as something “here,” in my experience, that I can dwell on and appreciate as a feature of my present sensory state. When we say that the grass possesses a certain smell, what we really mean is something to the effect that cut grass emits certain particles into the air which provoke certain olfactory sensory states in me. Summarizing, Kant’s view is that vision (and touch, which I haven’t said much about) is almost entirely objective (but not completely so), while smell and taste are almost entirely subjective, and hearing is somewhere in the middle. As I read Kant’s various remarks about these senses, his view is that any particular sensory episode is subjective to the degree that it involves an awareness of one’s own sensorily modified state, i.e., one’s sensation. Now as I remarked earlier, among contemporary theorists, those who interpret their phenomenology as in accord with the transparency thesis tend to be attracted to either representationalist or direct realist accounts of perception. By contrast, those who interpret their phenomenology as inconsistent with the transparency thesis tend to be attracted to views that countenance a role for qualia or “mental paint.” The textual evidence presented so far27 in this section should make it clear that Kant sides with the latter camp, at least on the phenomenological question. I take this to be strong circumstantial evidence that Kant also would have sided with them on the broader question of the nature of sensory representation in general (even in transparent experiences): sensory experience is partially constituted by a consciousness of our own sensory states, even though we typically are not explicitly aware of this fact about our perception. A full defense of a “mental paint” interpretation of Kant’s theory of intuition is beyond the scope of this paper, since my primary ambition here is only to show that Kant would have rejected the transparency thesis. However, in the final 27

In addition to Kant’s lengthy discussions of the objective and subjective senses, there are other scattered remarks in his empirical psychological writings that are naturally interpreted as examples of non-transparent experience. For instance, Section 3 of the published Anthropology is titled “On the voluntary consciousness of one’s representations,” and Kant lauds the ability not to be aware of sensory representations (Anth 7:131), which suggests that non-transparent experiences are common. In his account of inner sense, he describes it as “a consciousness of what [one] undergoes, insofar as he is affected by a play of his own thoughts” (Anth 7:161), which can be read as a claim of non-transparency in inner sense. And lastly, Kant also remarks that the degree to which one is conscious of sensation is a function of how varied or monotonous one’s recent sensations have been: “when sensations of exactly the same kind persist for a long time without change and draw one’s attention away from the senses, one is barely conscious of them anymore” (Anth 7:148); by contrast, when one enjoys varied stimuli, there is a “vital energy” that “stirs up the consciousness of sensations” (Anth 7:164).

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section, I will consider a couple objections from direct realists and representationalists, which will allow me to at least gesture at why I think that such an interpretation is strongly supported by the text.

IV. Objections As we saw in section 2, according to direct realists, intuitions refer to objects by way of an immediate “acquaintance” or “presence to consciousness” of the object, while according to representationalists, intuition’s reference is secured by way of intentional content. Both views reject any role in experience for “mental intermediaries” between the conscious subject and the perceived object.28 I am aware of the apple, not a mere sensory state functioning as an image or sign of the apple. My interpretation of the passages discussed in the previous section is in serious tension with these views, since I’ve argued that, according to Kant, (1) subjective sensory experiences involve an awareness of one’s own sensory state, and (2) all sensory experiences are subjective to some degree. In other words, I’m claiming that Kant thinks that all sensory experience involves an awareness of our own sensory states, to at least some degree. How might a direct realist or representationalist dispute this interpretation of the passages discussed in the previous section? One plausible strategy involves rejecting my claims about what Kant is referring to with phrases like “the way in which the objects affect us” or “alterations of the subject,” when he describes what the subjective senses represent. I’ve argued that those phrases refer to sensations, which I take to be mental states. It could be argued instead that the relevant “alterations of the subject” are bodily effects on the physical sensory organs (and not the mental faculty of sensibility). Thus, the direct realist will say that, in subjective sensory episodes, we are directly acquainted with states of our bodies (not mental states), and the representationalist will say that such episodes involve representations with contents describing bodily states (again, not mental states).

28

This is a point that Allais insists on repeatedly, in her defense of direct realism (2015, 25, 115, 154-8). I suspect, however, that a weak version of representationalism is compatible with the mental paint view being described here, since one could claim that intuitions essentially involve intentional content, but that this does not exhaust their representational function, since they also involve a role for sensations as objects of consciousness. The “representationalism” discussed in this section is the strong version that does not acknowledge any such role for sensation. I defend a version of the weaker view in a forthcoming work.

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It must be granted that this objection is not without wheels, since there are a few passages where Kant describes subjective experiences in terms of a representation of the state of one’s sensory organ. For instance, regarding smell and taste, he says that “the effect on the body is chemical” (VAnth/Fried 25:494) and that with those senses I “pay attention to the modification, how my body is affected” (495). And in the published Anthropology, he discusses cases where the normally objective senses of sight or hearing become temporarily subjective due to a stimulus that is too intense. In such cases, The sensation becomes so strong that the consciousness of the movement of the organ becomes stronger than the consciousness of the relation to an external object, [and] the external representations are changed into internal ones. [… B]ecause of the intensity of the sensations, one’s attention is fixed merely on the subjective representation, namely the change of the organ. (Anth 7:156-7)

Passages like this might make it appear that the subjective senses direct one’s attention not to one’s mental sensory state, but to one’s physical sensory state. If this is true, then perhaps Kant is not rejecting the transparency thesis in the passages under consideration after all. In response, I think we should grant that at least some non-transparent experiences do involve attention to one’s sensory organ, especially experiences that are painful due to being too intense. But to say that subjective sensory episodes in general are directed exclusively at bodily states rather than mental sensory states simply cannot be Kant’s view. This is partly because the passages that mention attention to the body are strongly counterbalanced with passages that associate subjective sensory episodes with mental events and states like sensation (V-Anth/Fried 25:493ff., VAnth/Mron 25:1242, V-Met/Mron 29:882, V-Met-L2/Pölitz 28:585, Anth 7:156), pleasure and pain (V-Met-L1/Pölitz 28:231, Anth 7:154ff.), even “the feeling of one’s entire life” (V-Anth/Mron 25:1243). Even in the 7:1567 passage just quoted, he describes the experience in terms of attention to a “subjective representation.” More to the point though, claiming that subjective experiences involve an acquaintance with or representation of one’s bodily state would lead to a confused and implausible account of such experiences. For I take it that, even if a particular visual or auditory experience is subjective, it is still a visual or auditory experience. And I take it that what makes an experience visual is the fact that it involves a sensing of colors in various shapes and motions. And what makes an experience auditory is the fact that it involves hearing sounds. Thus even in a subjective visual or auditory experience, it must be colors or sounds that one

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experiences (even if pain associated with a sensory organ is also involved). And clearly the eye does not turn bright yellow when I look at the sun, nor do I represent the intense brightness as a property of my eye. Likewise, I do not experience the shriek as a property of the eardrum itself in subjective auditory experiences, nor do I take myself to be smelling my nose in subjective olfactory experiences. In short, since in subjective sensory episodes we do not experience the eye, ear, or nose as bright, loud, or stinky, it follows that we should not identify states of those organs with the targets of subjective experiences. Now one might retort here that my own account is equally implausible, since I am claiming that subjective experiences are directed at one’s own sensory states, even though they are also directed at colors, sounds, odors, etc. These qualities, it will be objected, are physical properties that cannot be instantiated in a mere mental state, and thus it’s not possible for an experience to simultaneously be of a color or sound and also of a mental state.29 Now to be sure, if by “color” we mean something like surface reflectance profiles, by “sound” we mean compression waves in the air, or “odor” we mean vaporized molecules, then we are certainly describing nonmental phenomena. But I take it that the “colors,” “sounds,” and “odors” that Kant thinks we experience in subjective experiences (and in experiences in general, as I’ll soon suggest) are the sensations that correspond to these physical phenomena. And in fact, there is very strong textual support for this move. For Kant frequently claims in explicit terms that sensible qualities like colors, sounds, tastes, even “hardness and impenetrability” (A20/B35) are sensations and not properties of physical bodies. For instance, he says that colors are “only modifications of the sense of sight” (A28), which he clarifies in the 1787 edition with the claim that “colors, sounds, and warmth […] are merely sensations” (B44). These sensible qualities “belong to sensation” (A21/B35) and are “mere alterations of our subject” (A29/B45) which are “not properties of bodies, but rather only the manner in which we are affected by objects” (V-Met-L1/Pölitz 28:207; see also A374, A175/B217). Thus, given that Kant identifies sensible qualities like color and taste with sensations, it will make perfect sense on his account to say that subjective experiences involve an awareness of such sensible qualities while simultaneously involving awareness of sensory states, simply because those qualities are ultimately qualities of sensory states (even when they are not explicitly represented as such in objective/transparent experiences).

29

See Falkenstein (1995, Ch. 3) for an argument along these lines.

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Here’s another objection. I’ve argued that subjective experiences involve an attention to one’s own sensory states. However, when direct realists and representationalists deny any role for “mental paint” in our cognition of objects, they are talking about (outer) intuitions specifically, not necessarily experience generally. Thus, one might concede that subjective experiences, considered in full, involve attention to one’s sensory states, but then deny that this pertains to the intuitive part of the experience. This would allow them to stick to their core interpretive thesis that the relation to the object secured by the intuition does not involve any intermediary awareness of a sensory state. Now, I am happy to agree that when one is aware of one’s own sensory state in a subjective experience, one is not having an intuition of an object. Kant clearly describes such experiences as intentionally directed towards one’s own state, rather than the object that caused it. Notice, however, that this reply involves granting that such experiences are non-transparent, and thus that it is at least sometimes possible to be aware of our own sensory states as such. Now as I argued a moment ago, such experiences still involve the usual set of sensible qualities (colors, sounds, tastes, etc.) and that, moreover, Kant identifies these qualities with sensations. Thus, such experiences involve the recognition that the color patches, tones, tastes, etc. that I experience are states of my own mind. Now, even if we grant that such experiences are not intuitions of outer objects, what does Kant’s account of those experiences imply about intuitions? In an objective and transparent visual intuition, our attention is fixed on the object. But again, what makes the experience distinctly visual (as opposed to, say, tactile) is that it involves the perception of color (rather than hardness). And as we saw above, Kant identifies color (and other sensible qualities) with sensations. Thus, if I am aware of color even in transparent, objective visual intuitions, and if colors are sensations, then such intuitions involve an awareness of sensation. In other words the difference between transparent/objective and nontransparent/subjective experiences is not that only the latter involves a consciousness of the phenomenal qualities of sensations, as the objection would have it. Rather, the difference is that only the latter involves attention to or noticing that the qualities one experiences are ultimately qualities of sensations. Which brings us back to the “mental paint” interpretation of intuition that I declared myself for at the beginning of the paper. Again, a full defense of such an interpretation is beyond the scope of this paper, since it would require going into detail on the representational function of sensation as well as the relationship between sensation and the representation of space (which are respectively the matter and form of empirical intuition). However, I can

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at least conclude with a brief sketch of the general reasons why I think we should attribute to Kant the claim that all sensory experience (not just subjective episodes) involves a consciousness of sensation. For one, there is the argument alluded to a moment ago that since (1) Kant identifies sensible qualities like color or sound with sensations, and since (2) we are conscious of sensible qualities like color and sound in transparent as well as non-transparent experiences, it follows that (3) all experiences involve a consciousness of sensation. Furthermore Kant’s claims about “perception” provide strong textual support that this is indeed his view. For he often defines “perception/Wahrnehmung” as “sensation of which one is conscious” (A225/B272) or as sensation “conjoined with consciousness” (FM 20:276; see also B207, A378, Anth 7:128, V-Met/Mron 29:882, Br 11:315). Combined with Kant’s claims that “experience is cognition through connected perceptions” (B161; see also B218-9, V-Met/Mron 29:794-5), it follows that all experience involves a consciousness of sensation. Moreover, I think that these claims are wrapped up with Kant’s remarks about sensations being “ordered and placed” in space (A20/B34), and being represented as “outside and next to one another” (A23/B38) in experience. For obviously we don’t see colors simpliciter; rather we see them in various shapes, locations, and movements. If colors are ultimately sensations, then there must be some way in which these sensations are given a formal ordering so as to present the three-dimensional layout of one’s sensory purview. On my view, empirical intuitions involve a presentational acquaintance30 with such formally ordered sensations. But again, a full defense of such a reading is outside the scope of this paper. The main claim that I have wanted to focus on here is that Kant would not have sided with contemporary direct realists and representationalists on the question of experiential transparency. On this phenomenological question, Kant sides with the qualiaphiles, and I take this to be one important piece of the broader case for a “mental paint” reading of Kant’s theory of sensation’s contribution to experience.

30 In this respect, I am in agreement with the direct realists, since I’m claiming that an intuition’s relation to the object involves more than just representational content. That being said, the difference between those views and my own is major, since they claim that we are acquainted with external objects in the environment, while I claim that we are acquainted with internal mental states.

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Works Cited Allais, Lucy. Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and His Realism. Oxford University Press UK, 2015. Barwich, S.A. Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind. Harvard University Press, 2022. Baumgarten, Gottlieb. Metaphysica, Edito iiii. Hale Magdeburgicae: Carol Herman Hemmerde, 1757. Bennett, Jonathan. Kant’s Analytic. Cambridge University Press, 1966. Block, Ned. “Mental Paint and Mental Latex.” Philosophical Issues 7 (1996): 19-49. Block, Ned. “Attention and Mental Paint.” Philosophical Issues 20.1 (2010): 23-63. Boghossian, Paul A., and J. David Velleman. “Color as a Secondary Quality.” Mind 98.389 (1989): 81-103. Campbell, John. Reference and Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 2002. Dretske, Fred. “Experience as Representation.” Philosophical Issues 13.1 (2003): 67-82. Falkenstein, Lorne. Kant’s Intuitionism: A Commentary on the Transcendental Aesthetic. University of Toronto Press, 1995. Fish, William. Perception, Hallucination, and Illusion. Oxford University Press, 2009. Frey, Christopher. “Phenomenal Presence.” In Phenomenal Intentionality. Ed. Uriah Kriegel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. 71-92. George, Rolf. “Kant’s Sensationism.” Synthese 47.2 (1981): 229 - 255. Gomes, Anil. “Naïve Realism in Kantian Phrase.” Mind 126.502 (2017): 529-78. Harman, Gilbert. “The Intrinsic Quality of Experience.” Philosophical Perspectives 4 (1990): 31-52 Jankowiak, Tim. “Sensations as Representations in Kant.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 22.3 (2014): 492-513. Jankowiak, Tim. “Kant on the Spatial Ordering of Sensations” (ms.) Kind, Amy. “What’s So Transparent About Transparency?” Philosophical Studies 115.3 (2003): 225-44. Kind, Amy. “How to Believe in Qualia.” The Case for Qualia. Ed. Edmond Wright. MIT Press, 2008. 285-285. Loar, Brian. “Transparent Experience and the Availability of Qualia.” Consciousness: New Philosophical Perspectives. Ed. Quentin and Jokic Smith, Aleksandar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 77-96.

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Martin, Michael G. F. “The Transparency of Experience.” Mind and Language 17.4 (2002): 376-425. Maund, Barry. “A Defense of Qualia in the Strong Sense.” The Case for Qualia. Ed. Edmond Wright. MIT Press, 2008. 269-269. McLear, Colin. “Kant on Perceptual Content.” Mind 125.497 (2016): 95144. Molyneux, Bernard. “Why Experience Told Me Nothing About Transparency.” Noûs 43.1 (2009): 116-36. Nida-Rümelin, Martine. “Phenomenal Character and the Transparency of Experience.” The Case for Qualia. Ed. Edmond Wright. MIT Press, 2008. 309-309. Pace, Michael. “Blurred Vision and the Transparency of Experience.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 88.3 (2007): 328-54. Schellenberg, Susanna. The Unity of Perception: Content, Consciousness, Evidence. Oxford University Press, 2018. Sellars, Wilfrid. “The Role of Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience.” In the Space of Reasons. Ed. Robert Brandom. Harvard University Press, 2007. Shahmoradi, Ayoob. “A Representationalist Reading of Kantian Intuitions.” Synthese 198.3 (2021): 2169-91. Smith, A. D. “Translucent Experiences.” Philosophical Studies 140.2 (2008): 197-197. Speaks, Jeff. “Transparency, Intentionalism, and the Nature of Perceptual Content.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79.3 (2009): 539-73. Stephenson, Andrew. “Relationalism About Perception Vs. Relationalism About Perceptuals.” Kantian Review 21.2 (2016): 293-302. Tye, Michael. “Visual Qualia and Visual Content.” The Contents of Experience. Ed. Tim Crane. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. 158-76. Tye, Michael. Ten Problems of Consciousness: A Representational Theory of the Phenomenal Mind. Vol. 282 MIT Press, 1995. Vaihinger, Hans. Commentar Zu Kants Kritik Der Reinen Vernunft. Vol. 2 Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1892. Watkins, Eric, and Marcus Willaschek. “Kant’s Account of Cognition.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 55.1 (2017): 83-112. Wright, Edmond L. The Case for Qualia. MIT Press, 2008.

KANT ON AESTHETIC NORMATIVITY TED KINNAMAN

From Kant’s point of view, the puzzle about judgments of taste is that they make a claim to normativity—in Kant’s terms, to intersubjective validity or communicability—but nevertheless have only a subjective basis or “determining ground [Bestimmungsgrund].” The task of §9 of the Critique of Judgment in particular is to delineate an account of aesthetic response that accommodates Kant’s solution to this puzzle. If the aesthetic pleasure “precedes” the judgment—in other words, if the judgment is about the pleasure—then the judgment of taste would be merely private, like other judgments about things that cause us pleasure. So the judgment must precede the pleasure. But “nothing… can be universally communicated except cognition, and representation so far as it belongs to cognition. (5:217)1 Therefore, the determining ground of the judgment of taste must be “the state of mind that is encountered in the relation of the powers of representation to each other insofar as they relate a given cognition to cognition in general.” (5:217) A bit later, he calls this state of mind a “feeling of the free play of the powers of representation in a given representation for a cognition in general.” The appeal to ‘cognition in general’ can do what Kant needs it to do only if it conveys the normativity of cognition simpliciter but not its conceptual determinacy. What can Kant mean by cognition in general, such that he can hope to solve the problem of aesthetic normativity by means of it? I want to propose that we take ‘cognition in general’ to mean ‘integration into a unified system of empirical cognition.’ If I am successful, it will have the consequence that the basis for the normativity of taste— that is, the expectation that others

1 References to Kant’s work indicate the volume number in the Akademie-Ausgabe and the page number in the volume, except in the case of the Critique of Pure Reason, where I follow the standard practice of referring to the first and second editions with A and B respectively. The English rendering of the Critique of Pure Reason follows the translation of Paul Guyer and Allen Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); for the Critique of Judgment I follow Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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ought to agree with our judgments-- is the same as the basis for the normativity of cognitive judgments. The account I am offering requires a balancing act of sorts. On the one hand, Kant’s claim that only cognitions can be “universally communicated” makes it clear that ‘cognition in general’ must be cognition in a very robust sense. My proposal is to read the text literally, which means taking the normativity at work in aesthetic judgment to have the very same basis as the normativity of cognitive judgments, namely the imperative to represent the world accurately. On the other hand, interpreting the text this way invites objections to the effect that this erases the important difference between aesthetic and cognitive judgment2. In the latter part of the paper I respond, albeit briefly, to two such objections: That this reading is incompatible with Kant’s well-known doctrine of the subjectivity of taste, and that it has the consequence that all objects are beautiful. And so to my first claim, that the systematic unification of empirical concepts constitutes cognition in a sense robust enough that ‘cognition in general’ conveys the normativity of cognition to judgments of taste. The key point is that on Kant’s view, forming an empirical concept involves not just synthesizing a manifold but also weighing how that concept fits with other concepts. In the Jäsche Logic, for example, he says that [t]o make concepts out of representations one must be able to compare, to reflect, and to abstract, for these three logical operations of the understanding are the essential and universal conditions for generation of every concept whatsoever. I see, e.g., a willow, and a linden. By first comparing these objects with one another I note that they are different from one another in regard to the trunk, the branches, the leaves, etc., but next I reflect on that which they have in common among themselves… and I abstract from the quantity, the figure, etc., of these; thus I acquire the concept of a tree. (94-5)

The concept of ‘tree’ thus involves a relation to concepts of narrower scope, e.g. ‘linden,’ and, at least potentially, to broader concepts such as ‘plant.’ All of this reflecting, comparing, and abstracting culminates in the construction of a system of empirical concepts. In the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant says that “just as the understanding unites the manifold into an object through concepts, so reason on its side unites the manifold of concepts through ideas by positing a certain collective unity as the goal of the understanding’s actions.” (A644/B672) The systematization of empirical cognition described 2

I am grateful to Eliza Little for her comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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here involves a hierarchy of concepts, proceeding from relatively narrow concepts at the bottom to very general concepts at the top. The most general concepts of all Kant calls ideas of pure reason. The goal is a twodimensional field of concepts in which every concept has a vertical and horizontal location—the vertical indicating its level of generality, the horizontal its relation to other concepts of similar generality. Lower concepts are supposed to be deducible from the higher. The system of empirical cognition is a rational reconstruction of the structure of natural science, which works to subsume observed phenomena under broader and broader empirical laws. A complete system would entail a complete science, which Kant envisions as a goal that we can approach “asymptotically” but never entirely reach. Fitness for inclusion in a system—what Kant calls ‘purposiveness’—is the criterion for the truth of empirical propositions (A60/B85), and thus for theory choice in science. In the Transcendental Dialectic Kant says that the “hypothetical [i.e. system-building] use of reason is… directed at the systematic unity of the understanding’s cognitions, which, however, is the touchstone of truth for its rules.” (A647/B675) Kant is referring back to a passage near the beginning of the Transcendental Logic, in “On the division of transcendental logic into the transcendental analytic and dialectic.” His question there concerns the “criterion of truth.” He defines truth as “the agreement of cognition with its object” (A58/B82). On the basis of this definition, he then argues that there can be no “general criterion of truth.” His reasoning is that such a criterion would necessarily abstract from all content of cognition; but because truth concerns precisely the content of cognition, the idea of such a criterion is “self-contradictory.” The role of a transcendental logic is to provide “general and necessary rules of understanding [the categories],” which are criteria of truth: “that which contradicts these is false, since the understanding thereby contradicts its general rules of thinking and thus contradicts itself.” He notes, however, that this is a “merely logical” criterion, and thus a “negative condition” of all cognition: “Further, however, logic cannot go” (A59/B84). Because [t]he mere form of cognition… is far from sufficing to constitute the material (objective) truth of the cognition, nobody can dare to judge of objects and to assert anything about them merely with logic without having drawn on antecedently well-founded information about them from outside of logic, in order subsequently to investigate its use and connection in a coherent [zusammenhängenden] whole according to logical laws (A60/B85).

Note that in explaining the role of transcendental logic as a negative criterion of empirical cognition, Kant clearly implies that coherence, or

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more precisely “connection in a coherent whole,” is the positive condition. This is consistent both with some of his most important early modern predecessors and with his own work in the critical period. The drive for systematic unity among empirical laws serves to provide coherence among, and thus justification for, empirical laws or concepts. The system of empirical laws figures as part of a larger structure that it is the task of the Critique of Pure Reason to construct. The purpose of that structure, described in the Architectonic, is to represent the proper place for every sort of representation in light of the result of Kant’s investigation into the possibility of cognition through pure reason. Within that structure, the system of empirical laws represents the proper place for well-grounded but a posteriori cognition. Laws integrated into this system are grounded, in the first place, with respect to the “negative criterion” of the categories—no scientific law that does not exclusively make reference to objects in space and their causal interactions has a place there. They are grounded in the second place by their coherence with other laws, which for Kant takes the form of a hierarchy of natural kinds, articulated according to the principles of homogeneity, specification, and continuity (A658/B686). A maximally well-grounded law would be so in virtue of its place in the hierarchy: Each law would encompass some more particular laws, and ultimately a range of sensible intuitions to which the law applies. Also, each law would itself be subsumed under a more general law, just as Newton’s laws of motion are supposed to entail physical laws of narrower scope. Finally, and quite crucially, in addition to the vertical structure of the system, laws cohere horizontally as well. Insofar as, for example, the different subfields of biology—evolutionary biology, microbiology, zoology, etc.—are distinct from one another but on approximately the same vertical level, so to speak, in relation to the “idea… of the form of a whole of cognition” (A645/B673), the distinction between them would find expression in their corresponding location in the hierarchy. Each law incorporated into the system would be justified by deduction from higher-order laws. Now, the unified system of cognition is composed of empirical concepts, the objective validity of which Kant says is a “mere consequence” (A114) of the objective validity of the pure concepts of the understanding.3 It is important to see that the categories are necessary but not sufficient for organizing empirical concepts into a system. It is perfectly coherent to maintain that we might have all the empirical concepts we do and yet be unable to find a basis for unifying them in the manner Kant foresees. The 3

I agree with Kenneth Rogerson’s view on this point. See Rogerson, “Kant and Empirical Concepts” Journal of Philosophical Research Vol. 50 (2015).

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systematization of cognition entails a contingent proposition about appearances, namely that they are capable of being unified in the manner Kant describes. One might, for example, agree with the claim, made in different ways by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Rorty, that scientific theories are incommensurable. The incommensurability thesis cannot be disproved through mere logic, nor empirically, since the ideas of pure reason are supposed to provide a criterion for judging empirical theories. The considerations Kant offers earlier in the Critique, for example in “On the Principles of a Transcendental Deduction in General,” why synthetic a priori concepts need to be grounded by means of a transcendental argument, apply equally to the ideas of pure reason. The purposiveness of nature is thus analogous to the “transcendental affinity of appearances,” namely as that property of appearances that makes it possible to subsume them under the relevant sort of concept. Kant thus faces a normativity problem regarding the purposiveness of nature that parallels the problem with regard to judgments of taste: in both cases there is an important objective dimension that cannot be construed as a condition of the possibility of experience. I submit that the simplest solution here is to take the two problems to be one: In pure aesthetic judgment, we discover, to our pleasure, that things in nature are suited for integration into a system. The ‘in general [überhaupt]’ in ‘cognition in general’ denotes the demand for systematic unification, which belongs to the account of cognition but is not entailed by the objective validity of the categories. Reading the text in this way allows us to connect ‘cognition in general’ to cognition simpliciter while preserving the conceptual indeterminacy that is essential to judgments of taste. It also helps us make sense of the fact that the possibility of systematizing cognition takes center stage in the Introduction to the Critique of the Power of Judgment. In the Introduction there, Kant introduces the (seemingly new) faculty of reflective judgment as a “means for combining [Verbindungsmittel]” speculative understanding and practical reason. (5:176) Reflective judgment, he says, legislates a priori, (5:179), and consequently its critique belongs to the overall project of the critique of pure reason. While this might look like a major revision of the official account of the critical project, it turns out that the business of reflective judgment is precisely the task I have said is left over from the first Critique: The systematic unification of empirical cognition. The “principle of the formal purposiveness of nature” is the proposition that “what is contingent for human insight in the particular (empirical) laws of nature nevertheless contains a lawful unity, not fathomable [nicht zu ergründende] by us but still thinkable, in the combination of its manifold into one experience possible in itself.” (5:183-

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4) Of the two major divisions of the Critique of Judgment, the “part that contains the aesthetic power of judgment is essential.” (5:193) My proposal is that the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment” provides the needed critical warrant for the principle of the formal purposiveness of nature by showing that in our pure aesthetic judgment of natural beauty we find evidence (albeit of an indeterminate sort) that nature is suited to our goal of systematic cognition. To sum up: systematic unification is essential to the account of empirical cognition in the first Critique. It is also at the center of Kant’s explanation of the purpose of the Critique of Judgment. Reading ‘cognition in general’ as systematic unification therefore connects the account of taste both to the Introduction to the work and to the critical account of cognition. It is only reasonable, though, to worry that this comes at the cost of erasing the important difference between cognitive and aesthetic judgment. Most obviously, one might object that the connection I draw between systematic unification and taste cannot be right, because the systematization of empirical concepts concerns cognition of objects, whereas judgments of taste, for Kant, are subjective. I think these facts can be reconciled. At the very beginning of the first section of the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” Kant declares that a judgment of taste is “one whose determining ground [Bestimmungsgrund] cannot be other than subjective.” (5:203) I take the ‘determining ground’ to be the evidence that it is appropriate to give for the judgment. For judgments of taste, this evidence turns out to be the feeling of the harmony of the faculties. But this is quite compatible with the judgment being about—referring to—an object in the world. This reading is consistent with an important passage much later on, in the “Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgment.” The dialectic of aesthetic judgment, briefly, consists in the fact that judgments of taste seem both to involve concepts, because we can argue about taste, and not to involve concepts, because “everyone has his own taste.” Kant resolves this apparent contradiction by saying that the concept of beauty is an indeterminate one, by which he means a concept “from which… nothing can be cognized and proved with regard to the object.”4 (5:340) So judgments of taste, on my reading, are about objects, but because the only evidence for a judgment of taste is reference to the purely subjective harmony of the faculties, I cannot prove, e.g., that the rose is beautiful, as I can prove that it is red. In fact, it is clear that for Kant, beauty is in nature. He says so quite clearly in at least one place, in the first section of the Analytic of the 4

See my “Symbolism and Cognition in General in Kant’s Critique of Judgment,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 82 (3):266-296 (2000).

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Sublime. “We express ourselves,” he says, “on the whole incorrectly if we call some object of nature sublime, though we can quite correctly call very many of them beautiful.” (5:245) This cannot be dismissed as an isolated slip on Kant’s part. His purpose here, after all, is precisely that the topic of beauty is essential to the task of the Critique of Judgment but the topic of the sublime is not. This fits with the treatment of beauty in the rest of the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment,” where natural objects such as flowers are said to be beautiful. On the other hand, at no point does Kant give any indication that he is offering an error theory of beauty, as one might expect if he really thought that beauty is “only in the mind.” A similar worry motivates the objection that if ‘cognition in general’ is really just cognition, then the objective validity of cognition carries over to taste. For example, Christel Fricke has pointed out that, given the fact that Kant thinks that all objects of experience are cognizable in the sense of being subject to the categories of the understanding, the claim that cognition in general really is cognition has the consequence that all objects of experience must be beautiful.5 Note that because on my reading, ‘cognition in general’ refers to systematic unification rather than subsumption under the categories, the intersubjective validity of judgments of taste does not entail that all objects are beautiful, only that the discovery of beauty gives us evidence of an apparently contingent fit between nature and our goal of systematic unity. Fricke’s own solution to the problem is to posit that an “aesthetic synthesis” of the sensible manifold figures in the account of aesthetic response. This synthesis involves faculties of cognition— imagination and understanding—but without issuing in a cognition. Thus the role played by the cognitive faculties serves, so to speak, to borrow the normativity of cognition for aesthetic judgment, but because the judgment of taste entails an aesthetic rather than a cognitive synthesis, there is no reason to think that Kant is committed to saying that all objects are beautiful. As Fricke herself notes, however, this leaves us still without an answer to the problem about normativity, since only cognition is universally communicable. Fricke takes this to be a problem with Kant’s theory, not with her interpretation of it.6 Hannah Ginsborg, on the other hand, attempts to solve this problem by taking every judgment of beauty to incorporate a “self-referential claim to its own appropriateness with regard to the object.”7 Every judgment of taste, 5 Christel Fricke, Kants Theorie des reinen Geschmacksurteils (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1990), p. 4. Translation is my own. 6 Ibid., p. 173. 7 Hannah Ginsborg, The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 125.

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that is, in which an object is sincerely judged to be beautiful includes the implicit claim “this judgment is universally valid.” But Ginsborg’s account cannot explain a crucial fact about our experience of beauty, namely (O) Not all objects are equally apt to occasion the harmony of the faculties. My response to a given object can be appropriate only if it is sensitive to this fact. But on Ginsborg’s account, the appropriateness of the judgment is represented in a way that is equally applicable to any object at all, which leaves Ginsborg without resources for representing the differences among objects in their degrees of suitability for judgments of beauty. Now, I think that (O) is part of the common sense understanding of the idea of beauty. Kant clearly takes (O) for granted in the “Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment.” This emerges very clearly, for example, in the “comparison of the aesthetic value of the beautiful arts with each other” in §53. The “art of poetry,” Kant tells us, “claims the highest rank” of all the arts because of its tendency to let the mind “feel its capacity to consider and judge of nature, as appearance, freely, self-actively, and independently of determination by nature.” (5:326) Music, by contrast, “occupies the lowest place among the beautiful arts” because it “plays merely with sensations.”(5:329) Differences in aesthetic aptness are also presupposed in Kant’s account of the relation of taste to genius. For beautiful art, Kant writes, not only spirit [Geist] but taste is required, without which spirit “produces… nothing but nonsense.” Taste serves as a “discipline” for genius, “clipping its wings and making it well-behaved.” Taste thus “gives genius guidance as to where and how far it should extend itself if it is to remain purposive,” so as to “make the ideas tenable, capable of enduring and universal approval.” (5:319) The implication is that the genius’s works might well fail to produce disinterested pleasure in her audience. Finally, Kant’s commitment to (O) can be seen in the fact that, in judging the beauty of objects, we do not allow anyone to argue us into finding something beautiful, but rather each of us “wants to submit the object to his own eyes,” presumably because it is at least conceivable that we might not feel disinterested pleasure with regard to the same objects as others have. (5:216)8 This criticism of Ginsborg’s reading is not original with me. Jens Kulenkampff, for example, says of an earlier version of this view that it is “perverse [abwegig]” to suppose, as Ginsborg does, that “the judger desires of herself that she find herself in the state of mind in which she already

8

Jens Kulenkampff makes an argument along these lines in criticizing Ginsborg’s view. See Kants Logik des ästhetischen Urteils (Frankfurt a.M.: Vittorio Klostermann, 1994), 2nd. Edition, p. 179.

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[ohnehin] finds herself.” Such a state of mind, he argues, must be “totally empty,” so that Ginsborg seems “to have lost sight not only of the beautiful object, but also Kant.”9 More recently, Rachel Zuckert has said that judgments of taste for Ginsborg are “peculiarly empty,” because as she sees it “aesthetic experience seems to be a rapt absorption in (perceiving) the object.”10 Ginsborg has answered these and similar criticisms in her book The Normativity of Nature. There she observes that, contrary to what Kulenkampff suggests, our state of mind in experiencing beauty “has a phenomenological specificity that is not exhausted by its incorporating a claim to its own universal validity.” Rather, “when we claim that all others should agree with us in our judging of the object, we are in the first instance claiming not merely that all perceivers of the object should feel pleasure in it or judge it to be beautiful, but, more specifically, that they should share the very experience we are having.”11 Ginsborg emphasizes the role of the imagination in her account. She says that “the act of judging which I judge to be universally valid—and with it, the judgment of universal validity itself—is at the same time an imaginative activity which the object elicits on my part.” Thus “whether I make a judgment of this kind is not just up to me, but depends on the imaginative activity which—as a matter of empirical fact—the object elicits.”12 Unfortunately, these elaborations do not make Ginsborg’s position any less vulnerable to the charge of emptiness. While it is a “matter of empirical fact” that some things are more apt than others to elicit the harmony of the faculties, this fact does not find representation within the structure of aesthetic judgment as Ginsborg analyzes it. That structure includes, according to what I’ve just cited, descriptive facts about the object (red, 3” tall, etc., plus the fact that that object has occasioned my disinterested pleasure) and the normative claim that the object is beautiful. But the latter claim, on Ginsborg’s analysis, still is (or incorporates) a “selfreferential claim,” and this is all there is to the free play of the faculties.13 So the beauty of the beautiful object, so to speak, has no connection to that object, and thus the judgment of beauty has no means of representing the relevant difference between that object and others less apt to elicit disinterested pleasure. Ginsborg’s influential view makes for a good contrast with my own because she is right to see the normativity of aesthetic judgment as having, 9

Kulenkampff, Op. Cit., p. 181. Translation is my own. Rachel Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 189 and 189n. 11 Ginsborg, Op. Cit.., p. 125. 12 Ibid., p. 91n. 13 Ibid., p. 125. 10

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for Kant, the same basis as normativity in general. Kant himself urges the broader significance of aesthetic judgment with his claim that the judgment of taste rests on the conditions for “cognition in general.” (5:217) But insofar as Ginsborg’s account neglects sensitivity to the object judged, the normativity of aesthetic judgment in fact rests on a different basis than does (for Kant) cognition in general. Empirical judgments, even more obviously than judgments of taste, are supposed to be sensitive to differences in the objects. Indeed, that is the very point of empirical judgment. In the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant expresses this by saying that the object of our judgment “is regarded as that which is opposed to our cognitions being determined at pleasure or arbitrarily.” (A104) This is crucial to the normativity of empirical judgments: My reason for expecting you to agree that the cherry is red and the banana isn’t is, presumably, that that is how the world is, for me as it is for you and for everyone. This is the basis for normativity in cognition, what I have called the imperative to represent the world accurately. By leaving open the possibility that judgments of taste are determined arbitrarily, Ginsborg severs the connection between the judgment and the ground of its normativity. On my account, by contrast, the judgment of taste purports to detect a real distinction in nature, namely the felt suitability of a given manifold for incorporation into a system.

Works Cited Fricke, Christel, Kants Theorie des reinen Geschmacksurteils (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1990). Ginsborg, Hannah. The Normativity of Nature: Essays on Kant’s Critique of Judgment. Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2015. Kinnaman, Ted, “Symbolism and Cognition in General in Kant’s Critique of Judgment,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 82 (3):266-296 (2000). Kulenkampff, Jens. Kants Logik Des Ästhetischen Urteils. Frankfurt a.M., Vittorio Klostermann, 1994. Rogerson, Kenneth. “Kant and Empirical Concepts.” Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 50, 2015, pp. 441–454. Zuckert, Rachel. Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

KANT’S POSTULATE THAT GOD EXISTS IAN BLECHER

Seine Augen tragen ihn bis zu dem Sonnenziele der Gottheit, aber er selbst muss erst träge und mühsam durch die Elemente der Zeit ihm entgegenkriechen. —Schiller (1786/1962:112)

I 1. In his later work, Kant represents the moral law as a basis of belief in the existence of God (e.g. KpV 5:124). Since this belief falls short of genuine knowledge [Wissen], it could also be called “faith” -- the German Glaube permits either translation. But this is not the faith of Thomas Browne, “contrary to Reason, and against the arguments of our proper senses” (1643/1967:16). It is (or is supposed to be) rational, and not just in the sense that we can give reasons for it (KpV 5:126 et passim). Belief in God is supposed to originate in the moral law itself -- that is, in pure practical reason (KpV 5:132; cf. KrV A681ff./B709 ff.; FM 20:297). 2. It is not obvious why. As early as 1796, F.W.J. Schelling was professing bafflement (1796/1856:350). Heinrich Heine accused Kant of deliberate mystification, “reviv[ing], as if by a magic wand, the body of a Deism which theoretical reason had killed”1 (1834/1951:293). Schopenhauer attributed it instead to “self-mystification” (1840/1988:525, emphasis added).2 Nowadays the whole question seems quaint; it seems a 1

Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. also Bulgakov:

2 See

'[Kant] roundly demolished all five proofs [cried the foreigner,] and then, as if mocking himself, constructed a sixth proof of his own.' 'Kant's proof,' the learned editor [Berlioz] objected with a subtle smile, 'is equally unconvincing. Not for nothing did Schiller say that the Kantian reasoning on this question can satisfy only slaves, and Strauss simply

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“mere curio, a 'specimen'” of “the dear old man,” as William James said (1898:309):3 the lingering effect of his Pietist upbringing, a sentimental attachment to Leibniz, the political situation of late 18th-century Prussia.4 Anyway, the assumption is always the same: whatever Kant may have said, this is not an especially “Kantian” idea.5 I disagree. In what follows, I will suggest that it is an especially Kantian idea. The idea is that faith is the special possession of the righteous; that in the purity of virtue “there lies something so uplifting for the soul” that “it leads to the Godhead itself” (Rel 6:183). Therefore the blessedness of God [Gottseligkeit] is not a surrogate of virtue, a means of doing without it, but its completion, so that all our good ends may be crowned with a hope of final success. [Rel 6:185]

II 1. The moral argument for faith is connected with a certain idea of the highest good. laughed at this proof.' [...] 'They ought to take this Kant and give him a three-year stretch in [the] Solovki [Asylum] for such proofs!' Ivan Nikolaevich plumped quite unexpectedly. 'Ivan!' Berlioz whispered, embarrassed. But the suggestion of sending Kant off to Solovki not only did not shock the foreigner, but even sent him into raptures. 'Precisely, precisely,' he cried, and his green left eye, turned to Berlioz, flashed. 'Just the place for him! Didn't I tell him that time at breakfast: “As you will, Professor, but what you've thought up doesn't hang together. It's clever, maybe, but mighty unclear. You'll be laughed at.”' [1967/1997:12-3] I am grateful to Irad Kimhi for this reference. James was speaking of Kant's philosophy in general; elsewhere he refers to the moral argument for faith as a “particularly uncouth part” of that philosophy (1917:55). 4 See for example Greene (1960:lxiv); Yovel (1980:100); Reath (1988:601, 608n.); Ypi (2021:172). 5 See Förster (1992:184); Pogge (1997:377); O'Neill (2015:217ff.) 3

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2. What is the highest good? It certainly includes moral virtue, for this is said to be good “without limitation” (GMS 4:393, 411). In fact, Kant says, virtue is the condition under which anything is good at all. All riches, power, fame, and glory; all talents of mind; all resources of temperament; even our attainments of character must be worthless except in reference to its aims and interests. For this reason, Kant calls virtue the “supreme” good, “das Oberste” (KpV 5:110 et passim). But it is not the complete good, “das Vollendete”, the “perfectissimum” (loc. cit.). For -- “through a particular disfavor of fate, or the miserly dispensation of a stepmotherly nature” (GMS 4:394) -- our virtue might accomplish nothing. In that case it would still be good -“would indeed shine for itself like a jewel, as something which has its full worth in itself” (ibid.) -- but we must be dissatisfied, and to that extent, unhappy.6 There may be more important things than happiness, but Kant never doubts the desire for it is reasonable; it is, he says, “necessarily the demand of every rational but finite being” (KpV 5:25). It must make up a part of the highest good. But this good is not simply the conjunction of virtue with happiness -or even of universal virtue with universal happiness. As the singular object of our will, the highest good must have some sort of unity (KpV 5:111; see KrV A328/B385). The question is what sort. Assuming that virtue and happiness are “entirely disparate” goods (KpV 5:112), their unity cannot be that of a concept or a relation of ideas. It must be real; for Kant this means it must be causal.7 He concludes “that virtue brings forth happiness [...] as a cause brings forth an effect” (KpV 5:111; cf. KrV A813/B841). The complete good can then be defined as this causality in its widest extent -universal happiness as the effect of universal virtue (KpV 5:124; KU 5:450). 3. Suppose that to promote this good is our duty, even our highest duty (KpV 5:124f.); and suppose too that duty commands nothing that cannot be attained under natural conditions (Rel 6:47, 50, 62, 64; KrV A806/B835). Then the complete good must somehow be attainable.

6

The Stoics thought the consciousness of virtue was happiness (see for example Cicero 1998:116). But this, Kant says, would spoil the purity of moral knowledge and corrupt the integrity of moral motives (GMS 4:395; KpV 5:111ff., but cf. 5:60). 7 This is something Kant says, for instance, in the Critique of Pure Reason: [T]here is no existence which could be cognized as necessary under the condition of other given appearances except the existence of effects from given causes according to laws of causality. [Krv A227/B279; cf. B234]

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But how can it be? Whatever can be said for the life of virtue, its rewards are at best uncertain. It gives no protection against misfortune -- “plague, hunger, [...] frost, attacks of [...] large and small animals, and so forth” (KU 5:430). Maybe it makes these things easier to bear -- but that is only consolation, not happiness. And even if, despite every appearance, each of us enjoys the degree of happiness commensurate to our moral attainment, how could we know this was not just a matter of chance? 4. The problem is to make out the necessary agreement of nature itself with the motives and purposes of virtue (KpV 5:124ff.; cf. V-Rel/Pölitz 28:1072). Since (as I said) there does not seem to be even accidental agreement here, it is not obvious how this will go. But if there were such agreement, it could only be explained by something outside nature -something supernatural. According to Kant, this “something” must have three attributes. First, it must have intelligence enough to understand the motives and purposes of virtue and the diverse sources of human happiness and unhappiness. Second, it must have a will to act from this understanding. And third, it must have the power to make a world answering to its will. But these can only be attributes of God -- whose existence he now lays down as a “postulate of pure practical reason” (KpV 5:132 et passim; cf. KrV A812f./B840f.).

III 1. What is a postulate of pure practical reason? At the beginning of the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant says it is an “assumption” [Annehmung] or “hypothesis” [Hypothese] that every rational agent must make (KpV 5:11n.). But this cannot be quite right. Assumptions and hypotheses are more or less arbitrary propositions, while postulates are not arbitrary at all; they are put forward because they are known to be true (KpV 5:142; KrV A309/B366, A633f./B661f.). Even “postulate” is not quite what he means. A postulate in the strict sense is a practical proposition -- for example, “to describe a circle with any center and radius”8 -- while the proposition that God exists is theoretical: it does not say what ought to be but what is (KrV A234/B287, A633/B661). But since, Kant says, “I could not find a better expression,” “postulate” must do (KpV 5:11n.). The difficulty of finding a suitable expression is connected with the broader difficulty of explaining what is really being claimed about God. It is not that his existence can be proved according to any of the established 8

See Euclid (1883:8).

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methods, for Kant had already rejected all such proofs in the Critique of Pure Reason (KrV A583ff./B611ff.). But neither is it Pascal's idea that, since “reason can determine nothing here, [...] one must wager” (1670/1976:355; cf. KrV A825/B853). For Kant does not agree that reason determines nothing here. What, then? The argument seems to be this: since “it is a duty to effectuate the highest good to the best of our ability,” this good “must indeed be possible” (KpV 5:143n.). But since its possibility depends on an act of God, God -- the Supreme Being -- must exist. But that is not quite what Kant says. What he says is that “it is unavoidable for every rational being in the world to presuppose” that God exists (ibid., emphasis added; cf. KU 5:450n.f.). The weakened conclusion may help to avoid certain misunderstandings, but it raises new questions. The most important is: is the presupposition really unavoidable? Say the atheists are “corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good” (Psalm 14:1).9 Still, they are “rational beings”. 2. In a recent essay on Kant's moral theology, Frederick Beiser says that “Kant's concept of rational faith [...] rests on the possibility of a pragmatic justification of belief” (2006:609). This might suggest that the belief is grounded on its usefulness for a practical purpose, but Beiser's proposal is stronger than that. According to him, the argument of KpV 5:143n. is this: (1) We have a duty to promote the highest good. (2) We must assume the conditions for the possibility of this good. (3) [The existence of] God is a condition of the possibility of the highest good. [Conc.] Therefore, we have a duty to assume the existence of God. [2006:604]10

Premise (2) is ambiguous. “We must assume” might mean something like: “It would be somehow incoherent to deny...”. We cannot say something must be and then deny the conditions of its possibility. “I must not saw off the branch on which I sit,” as Wittgenstein said (1954/2003:50). But this does not support the conclusion Beiser wants. The conclusion is not: “It would be somehow incoherent to deny the existence of God” but “we have a duty” to assume this. So Premise (2) must mean “We have a duty to assume the conditions for the possibility of the highest good”. 9

King James Version. I have added the paragraph breaks between propositions.

10

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The trouble is, Kant never mentions such a duty. This is probably not an oversight. Elsewhere he rejects any duty to assume or believe, calling it an “absurdity”, an “Unding” (KpV 5:144, cf. 146; FM 20:299; GMS 4:399). He does not elaborate, but the idea seems to be the familiar one that assumptions and beliefs are representations that can be true or false and not actions that can be good or bad (KrV A822/B850). (This does not mean that questions of truth are irrelevant to duty -- any more than they are irrelevant to actions.) There remains the weaker notion of a “pragmatic justification” for belief -- that it might be “defensible to hold [a] belief because it is [an] effective means to achieve an end” (2006:609, emphasis added). For instance, a belief in the existence of God might be “defensible” if it leads us to spend our small resources in repairing the world rather than in pursuit of pleasure. Without the belief, Beiser says, some people might still pursue the good, but even they could only do so within the limits of what seemed to them achievable in the light of experience (2006:617). 3. This is a common theme in recent interpretations of Kant's moral theology. Paul Guyer, for instance, has claimed that the whole thing “is stated with the limits of human psychology.” It is a subjective limit of human psychology that we cannot see the possibility of the highest good to be compatible with the laws of nature, and it is a subjective necessity for us to compensate for this limitation by introducing ideas of grounds for this good that are theoretically noncontradictory but otherwise have no recommendation except that they are effective in motivating creatures like us to act in the way and toward the end that reason demands. [2000:367]11

But beliefs do not normally arise from a bare representation of their usefulness. Nor does Kant say they should. Our understanding may be a “spontaneity of cognition” (KrV A51/B75 et passim), but we cannot believe whatever we like any more than we can know whatever we like. Guyer tries to avoid the difficulty by appealing to Kant's speculative theology. The idea is that, even before any consideration of morals, a belief in God will naturally arise to answer the need of reason to think “the supreme and complete material condition” of everything that exists (KrV A576/B604). Kant says the thought of this condition is an “illusion” (KrV 11 For similar thoughts, see Wood (1970:176); Yovel (1980:101ff., cf. 126); Moore (2003:164); Brandt (2009:374); Ricken (2011:166f.).

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A566ff./B595ff. et passim). But since the illusion arises from the nature of reason itself (KrV A582/B610), Guyer says that “we do not have to produce” belief in it by an act of will -- we only “preserve and cultivate [it] because of [its] subjective efficacy in promoting moral action” (2000:369f.). 4. Kant really seems to have thought that a belief in the existence of God can motivate us to virtue -- if only by enabling us to maintain our respect for the moral law against the evidence of its uselessness on Earth (KU 5:452f.). He even recommends church membership, “assuming that this church does not contain formalities which could lead to idolatry” (Rel 6:198f.).12 But it is still unclear how a belief in the existence of God could originate in the moral law. In the Critique of the Power of Judgment, Kant denies that “it is just as necessary to assume the existence of God as to recognize the validity of the moral law” (KU 5:450f.). Even without this assumption, Every rational [person] would still always have to cognize himself as strictly bound to the precept of morals; for its laws are formal and command unconditionally, without respect to ends (as the matter of the will). [KU 5:451]

And Guyer is wrong to say the belief begins in theoretical reason. Theoretical reason only gives us the abstract idea of a benevolent creator (KpV 5:135). It does not give us a belief in his existence.13 In fact, it does not give us beliefs at all. For “belief” -- belief in the strict sense, at least -is always connected with practical reason. In particular, he says, belief in the existence of God must be sought “in a moral use of reason, and ground[ed] [...] on this use” (KpV 5:5, cf. 126).

IV 1. I should say something about Kant's understanding of belief. In general, he says, believing is a type of “holding-as-true” (“Fürwahrhalten”). (There is no good English word for this; but there does not seem to have been a German word for it either before Kant introduced 12

Kant himself was not a member of any church. His biographer Manfred Kuehn says that “Religious observances played no part of his life” (2001:318). See also Malter (1990:307). 13 Near the end of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant says explicitly that natural theology (“Physikotheologie”) must “beg[i]n from [the] moral order” -- and not the other way around (KrV, A816/B844).

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this one.14) “Holding” refers to the subjective validity of an assertion -- its validity for a particular subject or range of subjects.15 Initially, Kant says, it is only “persuasion” (“Überredung”), bare holding-as-true. This may have its place in public life, but that does not give it real worth -- Kant calls it “a mere semblance [Schein]” (KrV A820/B848; cf. VL/Blomberg 24:143; VL/Dohna 24:732). Still, in some cases persuasion gives way to real “conviction” (“Überzeugung”). Ordinarily this involves an increased commitment to the truth of an assertion, as measured, for instance, by our willingness to lay money on it (KrV A824f./B852f.; VL 9:73; VL/Dohna 24:736; VLo/Wiener 24:850 ff.). But not always. To have a conviction is not to represent our assertion with a particular degree of validity, but with a certain consciousness of its grounds. When we are convinced, we can say why we believe something - in a sense of “why” that bears somehow on the truth of our belief. 2. There are three types of conviction, distinguished by the type and sufficiency of their grounds. To begin with, every conviction must have its cause or causes in the mind, which Kant calls its subjective grounds (see KrV A820ff./B848ff.). These are sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker. But if they are not enough to sustain conviction indefinitely -- if they are “subjectively insufficient” -- the holding is only an “opinion” (“Meinen”) (KrV A822/B850; Log 9:67).16 If the grounds are enough to sustain conviction indefinitely, the holding is either “knowledge” (Wissen) or “belief”. Knowledge in this sense is a holding whose grounds are enough not only to sustain conviction indefinitely, but also to establish the truth of the conviction. As Kant would say, they are sufficient not only subjectively but also objectively (KrV A820/B848, cf. Log 9:66f.).17 Belief is a holding 14

He may have been influenced by C.A. Crusius. For a useful historical discussion, see Gava (2019). 15 The German word for “valid” -- gültig -- might also be translated as “holding good” or “true”. 16 Opinion is greater than bare persuasion, for it always involves an awareness of the subjective insufficiency of its grounds -- and so, a certain humility. With persuasion, there is no question of grounds at all. For this reason, a person may be persuaded of something “with such confident and intractable defiance,” Kant says, “that he seems to have cast aside all concern for error” (A824/B853). 17 Knowledge in this sense always involves necessity. That may seem a very high standard, but it has its place in the tradition: compare Aristotle's discussion of epistƝmƝ in Posterior Analytics 1.2 (1964:71b9-19; see also Kosman 2014). When

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whose grounds are sufficient subjectively but not objectively (KrV A820/B848ff.; Log 9:66f.). 3. It may be hard to see how there could be any such thing as belief in this sense. If the grounds of our assertion are not enough to establish its truth, how can they be enough to make us believe in it? One possibility is that “subjective sufficiency” and “objective sufficiency” correspond to different degrees of conviction. Subjectively sufficient grounds would produce a certain likelihood of truth; objectively sufficient grounds would produce certainty (or near certainty). Sometimes Kant talks that way, or seems to. In a footnote to the Logic he calls belief “a kind of incomplete holding-as-true” (9:67n.; cf. KrV A822/B850); the implication is that knowledge is complete (or more complete). But he adds that, when belief “is considered as restricted to a special kind of object (which belongs to [it] alone) [...] it is not distinguished [...] by its degree” (Log 9:67n., emphasis added).18 4. Since the “special kind of object” which belongs to belief alone is (or includes19) God, I will call belief in this restricted sense “faith”. Kant assumes that faith must be pure rather than empirical.20 This does not prevent our being led to it by some particular experience -- of a terrifying sermon, for instance. It is only the representation of God that is pure. Among other things, this means it must originate in the mind21 -- and more precisely, Kant says, in our faculty of reason. But not theoretical reason; for faith is always connected with practice (KrV A823/B851).22 And since Kant wants to speak of “knowledge” in a more colloquial sense, he tends to use the word “Erkenntnis” (nowadays translated, imperfectly, as “cognition”). 18 In this passage, he is speaking of the distinction between belief and opinion rather than belief and knowledge. But the point generalizes. When belief “is considered as restricted to a special kind of object,” it is a “complete holding-as-true”, and so no less certain than knowledge (Log 9:72, emphasis added). 19 Personal immortality may also be a special object of belief (see KpV 5:122ff.; Rel 6:135). But here too it is natural to speak of “faith”. 20 At one point he says that all belief must be pure (Log 9:68). I am not sure why. He certainly thinks that experience (including empirical testimony) can be a subjectively sufficient ground of conviction (see Log 9:70). 21 “We can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves put into them” (KrV Bxviii). 22 If we translate “Glaube” as “faith”, its practical significance may become clearer. For faith is closely connected with trust (Log 9:69n.), and this in turn with promises to do something or other (see GMS 4:422). Perhaps it was Descartes who first extended this notion to theoretical questions. He did not just ask whether empirical

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practical reason is necessarily connected with the freedom of our will (GMS 4:448), The only objects [Gegenstände] of faith are things [Sachen] for which holding-as-true is necessarily free, i.e. not determined by objective grounds of truth independent of the nature and interest of the subject. [Log 9:70; cf. FM 20:298; KpV 5:146]

5. Although faith is a holding that is necessarily free, Kant does not understand it as an action of the will.23 It is not a free choice; it is not even a “pious wish” (cf. MS 6:213). Yet it must in some way reflect our freedom of will. It does not arise in the mind arbitrarily, by a sort of self-persuasion; or for the sake of some non-moral aim, such as pleasure (cf. KrV A76/B101). Instead, Kant will describe faith as “a holding-as-true of what I accept on moral grounds” (Log 9:67).

V 1. Faith is a conviction that is objectively insufficient and a conviction that rests on moral grounds; but faith is not a conviction that is objectively insufficient because it rests on moral grounds. Ordinarily, moral grounds are objectively sufficient,24 for they establish the truth of a practical conviction -- that lying is bad, for example, and helping the needy is good. These are not questions of belief but of knowledge. If it seems important to distinguish this knowledge from the work of the sciences, we could call it “moral knowledge”. Then we can say that faith in God is not a type of moral knowledge. It is a type of moral belief. 2. A short digression. Throughout his practical writings Kant emphasizes that morality is not just a matter of doing whatever is required. For example, [T]here are many souls so sympathetically attuned that, even without any other motive of vanity or of selfishness they find an inner satisfaction [Vergnügen] in spreading joy around themselves and can take delight in the knowledge is possible, but whether the senses are trustworthy (1641/1904:18 et passim; see KrV A825f./B853f.). 23 See III.2, above. 24 “[T]he recognition [Anerkennung] of the moral law is the consciousness of an agency [Tätigkeit] of practical reason from objective grounds [...]” (KpV 5:79, emphasis added; cf. GMS 4:401, 427 et passim).

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satisfaction [Zufriedenheit] of others to the extent that it is their own work. But I maintain that in such cases the action, however consistent with duty [pflichtmässig], however genial it may be, nevertheless has no true moral worth [...] [GMS 4:398]

There is nothing wrong with taking pleasure in one's own beneficence - in fact, that is part of what it means to be beneficent.25 Kant's point is that some people -- the “sympathetic souls” -- are beneficent just because they find it pleasant. Had their inclination been instead for cruelty; had their resources been fewer; had they been impeded by a tyrannous government - they would not have acted so.26 Now what is missing from their conception is not an awareness that beneficence is a moral requirement. For this requirement is so widely and earnestly promulgated in civil society27 that no rational human being could believe otherwise. But to be aware of a certain duty, and perform it unhesitatingly -- even taking a righteous pleasure in having done so! -- is not necessarily to act “from duty”. To do what is required because it is required: only this, Kant says, has real moral worth (GMS 4:397ff.). 3. The reason is that what I have called “moral knowledge” involves two factors.28 The first is the awareness I have already mentioned -- a consciousness of itself as moral knowledge, and of its object as the object of this knowledge. In some cases, this consciousness is only “implicit”, or (as Hume put it) “present [...] in power” (1739-40/1888:20). We do not ordinarily need to consider the moral prohibition on murder in order to conform to it. But presumably our conformity is not accidental. We comply with this prohibition, and in extremity would cite it as a ground of action. (How we manage to comply with prohibitions without representing them explicitly is an interesting question, but not one I am able to address here.) The second factor in moral knowledge is its efficacy. The knowledge itself can -- and in the best cases, it actually does -- cause its object to exist (KrV Bx, A92/B125, A328/B385). Without this efficacy it might still be 25 As Aristotle says, the best sort of benefactor “delights in the object” of beneficence

(2010:1168b10-11). Cf. Spinoza: “from the same property of human nature from which it follows that people are compassionate, it follows also that they are envious and ambitious” (1677/1925:165). 27 Thoreau: “Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind” (1854/2004:73). 28 Many of the ideas discussed in this section are discussed by Stephen Engstrom (2009:29ff. et passim). 26

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possible to compare different types of action according to their moral worth, or to ask whether a particular action is morally required, but the answers to such questions could never determine us to act; reason alone would not determine the will. (Some people have said that reason does not determine the will -- at least, not by itself -- but Kant thinks “the fact [...] is undeniable” [KpV 5:32].29) The two factors in moral knowledge are inseparable. The efficacy depends on the awareness; the awareness includes a representation of its own efficacy. This representation Kant calls “respect” (“Achtung”). And since, in the end, the object of respect is just morality itself, it is also called “respect for law” (GMS 4:400f.). Kant classifies respect as a “feeling” (“Gefühl”) or “a receptivity [...] to be moved by pure practical reason” (GMS 4:401n.; MS 6:400; cf. KpV 5:75f.). But it is not, like other feelings, the effect of some given object -like our love or fear of some animal (KpV 5:76). Such feelings surely have their place in human life, but they have no moral meaning -- at least, not of themselves. Respect is different. It is a feeling entirely “self-wrought” (“selbstgewirkt”) -- the effect on the mind of moral knowledge itself. It is true that we sometimes trace this feeling to other sources. We may speak of the “dictate of conscience,”30 or “the dread of guilt” (Johnson, 1759/2009: 101), or “a sympathy with the sentiments of others” (Hume, 173940/1888:324). For Kant it all comes to the same thing: the sense of a value that overwhelms the will, that humiliates our self-conceit, and elevates what is best in us (KpV 5:80f.).

29

He continues: We only have to analyze the judgment that people make on the lawfulness of their actions: then we will always find that, whatever inclination may say against it, their reason, uncorrupted and self-constrained [durch sich selbst gezwungen], always holds the maxim of willing in an action before [an] the pure will [...]. [KpV 5:32]

30

Cardinal Newman: [W]hat reason have we to take exception at the doctrine, as strange and difficult, that in the dictate of conscience, without previous experiences or analogical reasoning, [a man] is able gradually to perceive the voice, or the echoes of the voice, of a Master, living, personal, and sovereign? [1874:111f.]

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VI 1. “The standpoint [Absicht] on the highest good from which follows the presupposition of its objective reality,” Kant says, is made “necessary by respect for the moral law [...]” (KpV 5:132; cf. Log 9:70). Since this presupposition leads more or less directly to faith, the feeling of respect must be the ultimate ground of faith. He does not say why. But here is a suggestion. Respect is the feeling (or “merely subjective” representation [MS 6:211]) of the efficacy of moral knowledge.31 Ordinarily this efficacy seems to be limited in certain ways -- by the frailty of our nature, if not its outright depravity (Rel 6:29f.).32 But it is not limited by the concept or the nature of respect itself. It is not the sort of thing to diminish with use, but only to increase. If we were free from non-moral influences, it would determine everything we did. But not only that. From the “standpoint on the highest good” there is an idea of an efficacy without limitation. But this is finally the idea of a power that extends beyond ourselves to take in the whole world -- so that nature too must conform to every need [Bedürfnis] of morality. Here too everything must go “according to wish and will” (KpV 5:124). But such a world would be divine -- or at least, as Milton said, “divinely wrought” (1674/2003:159).33 2. The grounds of this idea are not “objectively sufficient”, Kant says. In the end, practical reason cannot “furnish an objectively valid proof of the existence of God, or prove to the doubter that there is a God” (KU 5:450n.f.). It is a question of faith; its validity is only subjective. For “faith,” he says, does not yield the [sort of] conviction that could be communicated and command universal acclamation [Beistimmung], like the conviction that comes from knowledge. Only I myself can be certain of the validity and

31

At one point Kant says that respect “is morality itself, considered subjectively as a source of action [Triebfeder]” (KpV 5:76, emphasis added). (N.b.: Triebfeder is usually translated as “incentive”, but in the case of respect at least, this is misleading: here the Triebfeder lies not in the anticipation of some reward, but in our own faculty of practical reason. See Engstrom [2002:xlviiin.].) 32 In the Religion, Kant says that “even the best” human being is innately corrupt (Rel 6:30, 32). This is the “radical evil” of which so much has been made. 33 For a discussion of the word “divine”, see Kosman (2000).

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Kant’s Postulate that God Exists immutability of my practical faith [...].34 [Log 9:70, cf. KrV A829/B857, KpV 5:125]

This is puzzling, since Kant certainly seems to give communicable arguments here. At one point he even speaks of a “deduction” of God's existence from moral grounds (KpV 5:126, cf. 113).35 Unfortunately -though not uncharacteristically! -- he does not address the puzzle directly. But my guess is that the arguments are only supposed to show how, “within the boundaries of mere reason” (Rel 6:1), a person may come to believe that God exists. They are not supposed to generate the belief itself -- nor could they. 3. It is not just that, in matters of religion, we must 'see for ourselves'. That is surely true, but the same is true of knowledge as Kant understands it. Knowing is not just a certain kind of awareness that something is so; it is also the awareness, however implicit, that we know this (KrV B135; cf. B140ff.). We must always see for ourselves: that, he says, is the meaning of 'Enlightenment' (WA 8:35).36 What does distinguish faith is that its grounds cannot also be made universally available; they are irreducibly subjective. Here there is no appeal beyond the dictates of conscience. 4. This does not mean the contents of faith are inexpressible -- or expressible only in the mystical pronouncements of “solemn formulas” (Rel 6:145). They get expressed like any other content -- now darkly, now clearly. What cannot be conveyed is the belief itself -- the moral certainty of its validity. The reason is that the ground of this belief is not a proposition or a common notion; it is the feeling of respect for law. Although this feeling is 34

This remark may be compared with Plato's claim, in the Meno, that it is only by consulting correct belief [eudoxia] [...] that statesmen set cities straight. With respect to understanding [phronein], they are not different from soothsayers and prophets: for these too say many true things when inspired, but they do not know [isasi] what they are saying. [99b-c]

I am not sure whether Kant also shares Plato's conclusion, that virtue itself is “gained by divine dispensation” (99e). But it is at least possible: see KpV 5:128n. 35 By a “deduction”, Kant means an argument establishing entitlement to a certain claim. See KrV A84ff./B116ff. 36 “Sapere aude! -- have the courage to attend upon your own understanding! -- is,” Kant says, “the slogan [Wahlspruch] of Enlightenment” (WA 8:35).

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'natural' in the sense that it arises from our native reason (MS 6:402f.; Rel 6:27), it is not at first the ground of any action, let alone of real virtue (cf. KpV 5:128). For that takes training and experience and much effort, and even then it is a rare thing. In our present condition it may be impossible (cf. KpV 5:32f.). What I want to suggest is that for Kant, faith is the special possession of the righteous (those he calls “der Rechtschaffene”).37 It is they who will see the divine38 in things on the infinite strength of moral feeling (KpV 5:143).39 For everyone else (and here I would include myself) there remains the possibility -- sometimes the danger -- of a theistical persuasion,40 and maybe in the best cases, a pious hope that could be called the true religion (cf. KpV 5:130; KrV A805f./B833f.). But it is not to them that the divine shows itself. 5. The divine does not show itself to the cold and impartial judgment of a speculative reason, no matter how well developed (see Rel 6:27). It does not show itself to moral novices, no matter how earnest the desire to conform. Faith is not, and cannot be “commanded, but [...] has itself arisen from the moral disposition [Gesinnung]” (KpV 5:146). At one point Kant puts it like this: The humanity in our person must be holy to ourselves [...] since he [the human being] is the subject of the moral law, thus of that which is holy in 37

Iris Murdoch: “One might say that true morality is a sort of unesoteric mysticism” (1970:90). 38 See Kosman (MS), who finds a related idea in the Eudemian Ethics (1249b16-22). 39 O: Rational belief [...] could be called a 'postulate' of reason; not because it is an insight that would meet all the logical requirements for certainty, but because this holding-as-true is not inferior in its degree of knowledge (provided it is in a man for whom everything is constituted as morally good) [...]. [8:141, emphasis added] 40

Cf. Rousseau: You must believe in God in order to be saved. This misunderstood dogma is the source [principe] of bloodthirsty intolerance and the cause of all those vain instructions that deliver the mortal blow to human reason by accustoming it to appease itself with words. Without doubt there is not a moment to lose for meriting eternal salvation: but if to obtain this it suffices to repeat certain sayings, I do not see what prevents our peopling heaven with starlings and magpies just as well as children. [1762/1969:554f.]

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If we now conceive this law not only as holy in itself, but as unlimited in the extent and intensity of its power, then we have an intimation of the holiness in all things: what Aryeh Kosman has called “the shine and presence of the world” (MS).41 6. 'But no one is truly virtuous, so no one truly believes in God.' In a way this is true. Even in Scripture we read that Aaron made a golden calf; that Moses smote the rock; that Jesus wept; that Thomas doubted him; that Peter denied him thrice. Resolve weakens and belief wavers. But true faith cannot waver, and knows that it is unwavering (O 8:141n.).42 Earthly religion is not then the true religion of a pure practical reason. Yet for all that there is, in the bare “representation of a worth that demolishes [Abbruch tut] my selflove” (GMS 4:401n.), a flash of the divine.43

Works Cited Aristotle (1964). Analytica Priora et Posteriora, W.D. Ross and L. MinioPaluello, eds. Oxford: Oxford Classical Texts. (Cited by Bekker page number.) —. (2010). Ethica Nicomachea, Ingram Bywater, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Cited by Bekker page number.) Boethius (2005). De Consolatione Philosophiae, Opuscula Theologica, Claudio Moreschini, ed. Munich and Leipzig: K.G. Saur. Thomas Browne (1643/1967). Religio Medici. In: The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne, Norman Endicott, ed. New York: Norton. Mikhail Bulgakov (1967/1997). The Master and Margarita, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, trans. New York: Penguin Classics. Cicero (1998). De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, L.D. Reynolds, ed. Oxford: Oxford Classical Texts.

41

Kosman associates this “shine and presence” with theory; for Kant it is an essentially practical question. It is not clear to me how great a contrast this is. 42 We are told how, when Jesus warned Peter, “Thou shalt deny me thrice”, he replied, “Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee” (Matthew 26:34f.). But he did. 43 My thanks to Sasha Newton, Andrews Reath, Edgar Valdez for valuable comments, and to audiences at the University of California at Riverside and the University of Leipzig where earlier versions of the paper were presented.

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René Descartes (1641/1904). Meditationes de Prima Philosophia. In: Œuvres de Descartes Vol. 7, Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, eds. Paris: Léopold Cerf, pp. 1-90. Euclid (1883). Elementa. In: Euclidis Opera Omnia Vol. 1, J.L. Heiberg, ed. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner. Heinrich Heine (1834/1951). Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland. In: Gesammelte Werke Vol. 5, Wolfgang Harich, ed. Berlin: Aufbau, pp. 191-330. David Hume (1739-40/1888). A Treatise of Human Nature, L.A. SelbyBigge, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. William James (1898). “Philosophical Conceptions and Practical Results”. University Chronicle 1:4, pp. 287-310. —. (1917). The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. New York: Longmans, Green and Co. Samuel Johnson (1759/2009). The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, Thomas Keymer, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Immanuel Kant (1900-). Kant's gesammelte Schriften in 29 volumes, various eds. Berlin: Georg Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter. John Milton (1674/2003). Paradise Lost, Merritt Y. Hughes, ed. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett. John Henry Newman (1874). An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent. London: Burns, Oates, and Co. Blaise Pascal (1670/1976). Pensées, Philippe Sellier, ed. Paris: Mercure de France. Plato (1903). Opera Vol. 3, John Burnet, ed. Oxford: Oxford Classical Texts. (Cited by Stephanus page number.) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762/1969). Émile ou de l'éducation. In: Œuvres Complètes Vol. 4, Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, eds. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, pp. 241-868. F.W.J. Schelling (1796/1856). Abhandlungen zur Erlaeuterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre. In: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's Sämmtliche Werke Vol. 1, K.F.A. Schelling, ed., pp. 343452. Stuttgart: J.G. Cotta, pp. 343-452. Friedrich Schiller (1786/1962). Philosophische Briefe. In: Schillers Werke, Nationalausgabe Vol. 20, Benno von Wiese, ed. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachfolger, pp. 107-129. Benedictus de Spinoza (1677/1925). Ethica. In Spinoza Opera Vol. 2, Carl Gebhardt, ed. Heidelberg: Carl Winters, pp. 41-308. Arthur Schopenhauer (1840/1988). Preisschrift über die Grundlage der Moral. In: Werke in fünf Bänden, nach den Ausgaben letzter Hand Vol. 3, Ludger Lütkehaus, ed. Zürich: Haffmans, pp. 463-632.

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Henry D. Thoreau (1854/2004). Walden, Jeffrey S. Cramer, ed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1954/2003). Philosophische Untersuchungen, Joachim Schulte, ed. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Secondary sources Frederick Beiser (2006). “Moral Faith and the Highest Good”. In: The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, Paul Guyer, ed., pp. 588-629. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reinhard Brandt (2009). Die Bestimmung des Menschen bei Kant. Hamburg: Meiner. Stephen Engstrom (2000). Introduction to Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, Werner Pluhar, trans. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett. —. (2009). The Form of Practical Knowledge: A Study of the Categorical Imperative. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Eckart Förster (1992). “'Was darf ich hoffen?' Zum Problem der Vereinbarkeit von theoretischer und praktischer Vernunft bei Immanuel Kant.” Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 46:2, pp. 168-185. Gabriele Gava (2019). “Kant and Crusius on Belief and Practical Justification”. Kantian Review 24:1, pp. 53-75. T.M. Greene (1960). “The Historical Context and Religious Significance of Kant's Religion”. In: Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, T.M. Green, trans. New York: Harper & Bros. Paul Guyer (2000). “From a Practical Point of View: Kant's Conception of a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason”. In Kant on Freedom, Law, and Happiness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 333-371. Aryeh Kosman (2000). “Metaphysics ȁ 9: Divine Thought”. In Michael Frede and David Charles, eds. Aristotle's Metaphysics Lambda: Symposium Aristotelicum. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 307-326. —. (2014). “Understanding, Explanation and Insight in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics”. In: Virtues of Thought: Essays on Plato and Aristotle. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 7-26. —. (MS). “Aristotle on the Divinity of (a) Human Life”. Manfred Kuehn (2001). Kant: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudolf Malter, ed. (1990). Immanuel Kant in Rede und Gespräch. Hamburg: Meiner. Iris Murdoch (1970). The Sovereignty of Good. Oxford: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

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A.W. Moore (2003). Noble in Reason, Infinite in Faculty: Themes and Variations in Kant's Moral and Religious Philosophy. London: Routledge. Onora O'Neill (2015). Constructing Authorities: Reason, Politics and Interpretation in Kant's Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas W. Pogge (1997). “Kant on Ends and the Meaning of Life”. In: Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls, Andrews Reath et al., eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 361-387. Andrews Reath (1988). “Two Conceptions of the Highest Good in Kant”. Journal of the History of Philosophy 26:4, pp. 593-619. Friedo Ricken (2011). “Die Postulate der reinen praktischen Vernunft”. In: Immanuel Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Klassiker Auslegen vol. 26, 2nd edition), Otfried Höffe (ed.). Berlin: Akademie Verlag, pp. 163-176. Allen W. Wood (1970). Kant's Moral Religion. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Yirmiyahu Yovel (1980). Kant and the Philosophy of History. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lea Ypi (2021). The Architectonic of Reason: Purposiveness and Systematic Unity in Kant's Critique or Pure Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PART II: MORAL JUDGMENT

KANT ON MORAL FEELING AND PRACTICAL JUDGMENT NICHOLAS DUNN

Introduction Commentators have shown a steady interest in the role of feeling in Kant’s moral and practical philosophy over the last few decades. Much attention has been given to the notion of ‘moral feeling’ in general, as well as to what Kant calls the ‘feeling of respect’ for the moral law. My focus in this essay is on the role of feeling in practical judgment. In contrast with the above topics, practical judgment has received comparatively little attention. There are, of course, some excellent and well-known accounts of practical judgment (Herman 1993; O’Neill 2018). However, these accounts tend to focus more on what practical judgment looks like in practice—e.g., what to do in the face of moral dilemmas, conflicting obligations, hard cases, and the like—and less on the nature or structure of practical judgment itself. My claim in what follows is that the act of judging in the practical domain—i.e., determining what one ought to do, or what action one ought to perform, in a specific case—crucially involves feeling. Put more simply: I argue that practical judgment has an essentially affective dimension. The upshot of the account I will give is that it provides us with a richer and more complex account of moral feeling than has previously been appreciated in the literature. While it is recognized that feeling plays a certain role in moral motivation, what I hope to demonstrate here is that feeling is involved much earlier in the exercise of moral agency. Far from entering only at the point at which we are trying to muster the strength of will to carry out what we know we ought to do, feeling is present the moment we begin to deliberate about what it is that we ought to do. The view I put forward here builds on previous work I have done concerning the nature of judgment, for Kant. I argue elsewhere that reflection is at the heart of Kant’s conception of judgment, which is to say, that judgment is fundamentally reflective in nature. I begin by briefly rehearsing this view (section I). Having discussed the idea that all judgment involves reflection, I then spell out what this looks like in the specific case

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of practical judgment (section II). After this, I move from the claim that practical judgment is reflective to the claim that practical judgment is affective (section III). While I take this claim to hold true for the activity of judgment in general, my focus here is restricted to judgments in the practical domain. I then connect my account to the literature on moral feeling in Kant, showing that it presents us with a new and previously unnoticed dimension of feeling within the etiology of moral action (section IV). I conclude by noting an affinity between the reading of Kant that I present and two subsequent views which attribute a role to affects and emotions in moral judgment and decision-making (section V): one in post-Kantian philosophy (J.G. Fichte’s ethical theory), the other in contemporary neuroscience (Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis).

I. Judgment as Reflection Commentators who discuss Kant’s theory of judgment usually focus on the first Critique. Those who consider his account in the third Critique are usually interested in showing how his discussion of aesthetic judgment sheds light on his account of cognition, i.e., the cognitive judgments whose possibility he believes he has secured in the first Critique. Rarely is there a consideration of what is common to judgment ‘in general’ [überhaupt]— which would include the practical judgments of the second Critique. Is there some feature that all judgments possess in virtue of which they can all be called judgments? I have argued that there is—and that this feature is reflection (Dunn 2021). In this section, I summarize this view. It is important to make a distinction at the outset between judgment as an activity [J1] and judgment as a product [J2] (of this activity). My primary concern here is with the former. For example, a situation I find myself in might require me to exercise practical judgment [J1], while the output of this may be a practical judgment [J2]. When speaking of Kant’s conception of judgment in general, I am thus speaking of his conception of the overall activity of judgment [J1]. Kant defines judgment [J1] in terms of a specific faculty that he calls the ‘power of judgment’ [Urteilskraft], which is responsible for bringing about any judgment [J2] at all.1 The power of judgment is defined in two main places in Kant’s Critical philosophy. In the first Critique, it is “the faculty of subsuming under rules,” 1

Note that this power is not the same as the ‘faculty of judgment’ or ‘capacity to judge’ [Vermögen zu urteilen] that Kant discusses in the Metaphysical Deduction to the first Critique (KrV A69/B94). I cannot take up the distinction between Vermögen and Kraft here.

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which is to say, “determining whether something stands under a given rule or not” (KrV A133/B172). Notably, the power of judgment is not guided by rules in its activity—a point Kant makes by appealing to the infinite regress that would ensue if it were (there would need to be rules for those rules, and so on, ad infinitum). In the third Critique, the power of judgment is “the faculty for thinking of the particular as contained under the universal” (KU 5:179). Kant’s third Critique account includes a distinction within the power of judgment that did not appear in the first Critique—namely, between two uses of the power of judgment, which he calls ‘determining’ [bestimmend] and ‘reflecting’ [reflectirend] (EEKU 20:211). Insofar as judgment in general is a matter of bringing together particulars (i.e., concrete cases) and universals (i.e., general representations), the difference between these two uses of judgment is characterized in terms of whether both a universal and a particular are given. When they are, Kant says, the task of the power of judgment is to subsume the latter under the former. However, when only a particular is given, the power of judgment reflects on the particular as such. It may be tempting to see this distinction as mutually exclusive—i.e., judgment is either determining or reflecting but not both (Allison 2001, p. 17-18; Guyer 2003, p. 2; Zuckert 2007, p. 72). However, there are reasons to see a certain amount of continuity between determining and reflecting judgment. For example, insofar as the empirical concepts that are applied to objects in a determining judgment are themselves a product of reflection, determining judgment seems to presuppose a prior act of reflecting judgment (Longuenesse 1998, p. 163, 197; 2003, p. 145-146). Moreover, in the third Critique (which, it should be noted, is a critique of the power of judgment), Kant argues that it is only the reflecting power of judgment that undergoes critique and has its own a priori principle (Nuzzo 2005, p. 166; Macmillan 1912, 39-59; Teufel 2012). I have argued that we should take this to mean the following: the power of judgment just is reflecting judgment (Dunn 2021). That is, the autonomous and independent faculty of the mind that is the subject of the third Critique is solely the reflecting power of judgment. By extension, determining judgment is not in fact a faculty of the mind at all, but rather something that takes place when the reflecting power of judgment assists another faculty (in the case of practical judgment: reason) in applying its laws. Accordingly, reflecting judgment takes precedence over determining judgment insofar as it operates according to a law that it gives itself (the principle of purposiveness), rather than on a law that is given from elsewhere (e.g., a concept of the understanding or a principle of reason). More to the point: an act of reflecting judgment is always present, even in a determining judgment. For

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while our other cognitive faculties bring forth universals, they are unable to apply them to particulars on their own. The insight that I want to bring forward for the purposes of this discussion is that the act by which we determine whether a rule applies in a given case, or whether a particular belongs under a universal, is an act of reflection. Kant defines ‘reflection’ immediately after introducing the notion of reflecting judgment. I think we should take this to mean that reflection is an activity of the power of judgment. It is defined as the act of comparing and holding together one’s representations (EEKU 20:211). In light of the above distinction between an act and its product, we can thus distinguish the act of reflection from a judgment of reflection. When I speak of reflection as being common to all judgment, I am referring to the former—namely, the activity of the reflecting power of judgment. The latter refers specifically to the aesthetic and teleological judgments that Kant treats in the third Critique; these arise when the power of judgment is not assisting another faculty in applying its determining principles. Kant calls these ‘merely’ reflecting judgments, for in them the activity of reflection persists. By contrast, in a determining judgment (on my view) the activity of reflection is brought to a close when one representation (a particular) is deemed to belong with another representation (a universal). I discuss the structure of practical judgment in more detail in the next two sections, both as a determining judgment that has a reflective basis and as something which feeling has a role in making possible. For now, I have simply wished to note how the view according to which all judgment involves reflection explains both determining and reflecting judgment. A further part of the story, which I will also have occasion to discuss shortly, concerns the special principle of the power of judgment. Kant calls this the principle of purposiveness. In the case of aesthetic judgment—the paradigmatic act of reflecting judgment—Kant characterizes this in terms of the suitability of nature for our cognitive faculties. As a principle governing all operations of the power of judgment, I suggest a broad characterization in terms of which we recognize the suitability of one thing for another, or that two things belong together. Such recognition, I claim below, can only take place through feeling, i.e., affectively.

II. Reflection and Reason: Kant’s Account of Practical Judgment We can now consider the specific case of practical judgment. In the ‘Typic’ section of the second Critique, Kant describes practical judgment [praktische Urteilskraft] as the act by which we determine “whether an

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action possible for us in sensibility is or is not a case that stands under [a rule of reason]” (KpV 5:67).2 It is therefore the act “by which what is said in the rule universally (in abstracto) is applied to an action in concreto” (ibid). Drawing on Kant’s definition of judgment in general (the subsumption of a particular under a universal), we can say that practical judgment involves subsuming a possible action under an abstract moral principle (i.e., the moral law). Practical judgment is thus an instance of determining judgment, for both a universal and a particular are given.3 The universal is a rule provided by the faculty of reason, yet it is the power of judgment that makes possible its application. If I am right that judgment is always reflective, then this means that determining judgments are also reflective. The proper distinction, then, is between judgments that are merely reflecting and those that are both determining and reflecting.4 In a merely reflecting judgment, there is no universal under which to subsume a particular. Instead, we reflect on the particular as such, and judge by means of a feeling that we have in engaging with our representation of it. The kind of reflection that takes place in a determining judgment is different insofar as a universal is also given in addition to a particular. In such an instance, we hold up and compare the particular to the universal in order to determine whether the former ought to be subsumed under the latter. On this picture, then, the activity of practical judgment involves, first, reason providing a general moral rule, and, second, the power of judgment holding up and comparing this rule to a possible action. In doing so, the power of judgment reflects on whether an action that I could perform ought 2 Cf. Kant’s remarks in the Religion, where he distinguishes practical judgment from conscience: “[To] pass judgment upon actions as cases that stand under the law…is what reason does so far as it is subjectively practical” (RGV 6:186). As I show in this section, reason’s ability to be subjectively practical requires the co-operation of the reflecting power of judgment. 3 Some commentators deny this. For example, O’Neill (2018, p. 123-124) argues that practical judgments are neither determining nor reflecting. She does this by claiming that it is because no particular is given (p. 82, 89, 91, 111). I cannot engage with O’Neill on this point here, but simply wish to highlight Kant’s language of ‘possible action,’ as well as of ‘subsumption’ and ‘application’—all of which suggest that he conceives of practical judgment on the model of determining judgment. Commentators who see practical judgment as strictly determining include Beck (1960, p.154fn) and Westra (2016, p. 24). The view I am defending here comes closest to Grandjean, for whom practical judgment is both reflecting and determining (2004, p. 48-51). For more on this, see Dunn (2023). 4 This is a point first made by Longuenesse (1998), with whom I agree—though for very different reasons (see Dunn 2021).

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to be subsumed under the former, which is to say, whether this is an action I should perform. Bound up with this reflection, I will soon show, is feeling. But we can first pause to appreciate the distinction between these two faculties. Again, the universal is provided by reason. Reason finds within itself the moral law, and legislates this for the will (KU 5:178, 198). Yet this law on its own (and insofar as it is a general representation) is insufficient for determining the cases in which it applies, or how precisely it is to be applied. More to the point: reason alone is unable to bring about practical judgments. For this, the power of judgment is required. Kant invokes the power of judgment in the ‘Typic’ to explain how it is that human beings can apply the moral law to specific situations. What sets the power of judgment apart from reason (as well as the understanding, which provides its own kinds of universals in the case of theoretical judgment) is its ability to bring general representations to bear on particular ones. Just as there can be no rules for the application of rules ad infinitum (a point Kant makes in the first Critique regarding the understanding and its concepts), there can be no principles for the applications of principles. This being the case, we can think of determining judgment as a matter of the reflecting power of judgment assisting, or cooperating with, another faculty (in this case, reason) in applying its laws or principles. I now want to discuss the extent to which reflection is involved in practical judgment. Recall that reflection is a matter of holding up and comparing representations. On my view, this can equally explain ‘merely’ reflecting judgment and determining judgment. In the latter case, the salient representations are that of a particular and a universal. Here, the act of reflection has a particular aim—namely, to determine whether the particular belongs with the universal. One might resist thinking of practical judgment as determining because it may seem to imply that they are mechanical, leaving no leeway for the exercise of judgment. Attending to the reflective basis of all judgments, however, allows us to avoid this conclusion. For there is not only the question of what one’s duty is, but also the matter of how one is to fulfill one’s duty—not just a matter of the major premise in the practical syllogism, but the matter of how to subsume a possible action under the former in the minor premise. That lying is always wrong, for example, does not mean that the specific action I must take in order not to lie will always be readily apparent or uncontroversial in every case.5 Not 5

One might think that the need for judgment only arises in the case of wide or imperfect duties—but not for strict or perfect duties. There are certainly important differences between the two. However, I do not think that they differ with respect to whether judgment is required. The gap between the universal and the particular exists in both cases, even though we might see this gap as comparatively small in

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only must we determine if a situation we are in is one that involves a duty, we must also (if we answer affirmatively) determine which course of action would best satisfy this duty. Again, a grasp of the relevant rule is not enough; judgment is needed to apply the rule—that is, determine the action that is to be done. As early as the first Critique’s Amphiboly section, Kant states that all judgments require reflection (KrV A261/B317). Kant’s remarks in the second Critique suggest that he sees a role for reflection in practical judgment. In supplying a ‘type’ of the moral law (the practical analogue of the schemata), Kant says that one engages in a “comparison of the maxim of [one’s] actions with a universal law of nature” (KpV 5:69; emphasis mine). In addition, Kant says that in making a practical judgment, “reason…always holds the maxim of the will in an action up to the pure will, that is, to itself in as much as it regards itself as a priori practical” (KpV 5:32; emphasis mine). Put in terms of the practical syllogism: I hold up and compare a possible action (the particular) against the concept of the good (the universal), reflecting on whether the former ought to be subsumed under the latter. The latter is the condition of the rule asserted in the major premise. Yet this rule itself cannot instruct me on how to subsume. Reason is legislative, and the power of judgment (in its co-operation with reason) is guided by the moral law, which it seeks to apply. In this way, judgment is reflecting even when it is determining. Most accounts of practical judgment that invoke reflection (Kantian or otherwise), however, see it only in terms of one’s perception of the particularities of the situation. For example, Herman provides an explicitly Kantian account of the ‘rules of moral salience,’ while McDowell provides a more Aristotelian conception of deliberation as “a capacity to read the details of situations in light of a way of valuing actions” (1993, p. 78-98; 1996, p. 23, 26). For both Herman and McDowell, reflection is a matter of reflecting on the specific circumstances one finds oneself in, with an eye towards its morally relevant features. Now, understanding one’s context is undoubtedly an important aspect of moral agency (and, indeed, one that bears on the process of practical judgment). Yet it cannot explain the precise sense in which practical judgment is reflective, for Kant. Reflecting the case of strict or perfect duties. We might also think of there being an additional step in the case of wide or imperfect duties. For example, in determining how to act on the duty of beneficence (wide/imperfect), one must first determine an act-type that instantiates this duty and then an act-token—whereas in determining how to act on the duty not to lie (strict/perfect), one already has the act-type in hand. This may give the illusion that judgment is not necessary in the latter case. Yet we should recognize that the move from the act-type to the act-token must still take place.

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judgment is a matter of reflection on a particular. In its determining use, judgment reflects on a particular for the sake of subsuming it under a universal. The particularities of one’s situation, however, cannot be subsumed under a universal. The relevant particular in a practical judgment is a possible action—not the background conditions for such an action. Keeping in mind the structure of the activity of practical judgment will be important in considering the role that feeling plays in what follows. To avoid confusion in what follows, it is also important to note what the moment of practical judgment consists in. There is a crucial difference, as I see it, between practical reason and practical judgment—though this is not a distinction that is often drawn. I suggest that we think of this difference in terms of the distinction between act-types and act-tokens. Practical reason would thus specifically concern the move from the categorical imperative, the most abstract moral principle, to a specific action-type, as expressed in a maxim—for example, from the concept of duty to the idea that all lying is wrong. But we can note that a maxim is still a “general determination of the will” (KpV 5:19). It refers to all lies, and it says that they are all wrong. On its own, a maxim does not specify which actions are lies—which is to say, how one is to recognize whether a particular, possible action is a lie. This is the task of practical judgment. Just like the doctors and lawyers that Kant speaks of in his account of judgment in the first Critique, who contain much theoretical knowledge and many rules in their head, but are unable to apply it in concreto, one may be an excellent practical reasoner but a lousy practical judge. Practical judgment, Kant says, concerns “the case at hand” (MS 6:313). Kant points to such a division of labour (between reason and judgment) when he says that “the law can prescribe only the maxim of actions, not actions themselves; this is a sign that it leaves a playroom (latitudo) for free choice in following (complying with) the law, that is, that the law cannot specify precisely in what way one is to act and how much one is to do by the action from an end that is also a duty” (MS 6:390). Such latitude is connected to the need for judgment: “Ethics…unavoidably leads to questions that call upon judgment to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases” (MS 6:411). In other words, reason can tell us that certain kinds of actions (act-types) are required, wrong, etc., but it cannot tell us which specific action (act-token) to perform. By distinguishing practical reason from practical judgment, we can appreciate the ineliminable role of judgment in closing the gap between the universal and the particular—between abstract moral rules and concrete (possible) actions. What’s more, in claiming that feeling plays a role in practical judgment, which I am about to do, I am referring only to the moment in which we determine which precise action would instantiate a

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general moral rule—and not the prior moment in which we derive a general moral rule from the categorical imperative. As we will see, Kant does not admit a role for feeling in practical reason. We also will see, however, that Kant does attribute a role to feeling in the subsequent moment—once I know exactly what it is that I ought to do, but have not yet decided whether to act in such a way. This moment, which concerns the determination of the will, is where almost all of the discussion on moral feeling in the literature has focused. My interest in this paper is precisely on the moment that lies in the middle.

III. Reflection and Affection: The Role of Feeling in Judgment A correlate of the claim that all judgments are reflective (discussed in section I) is that they are also all affective. This is the case, as I will show in this section, because of the close relationship between judgment and feeling. These faculties are connected via the principle of purposiveness, which is legislated by the power of judgment for feeling. Moreover, it is specifically the reflecting power of judgment which generates this norm. While I cannot lay out the relationship between judgment and feeling in detail, I will briefly describe the view—namely, that what it means for judgment to provide a law for feeling is for feeling to function as a norm for our judgments, and, thus, for all judgments to be made by means of feeling. Then, with a general idea of how feeling plays a role in the activity of judgment in general, we can then turn to the specific role for feeling in the case of practical judgment. One might be tempted to have a view of the relationship of feeling to judgment according to which feeling is involved in aesthetic judgment, but does not play a role in the kinds of judgments that are at issue in the first and second Critique (theoretical and practical, respectively). After all, Kant says that the determining ground of an aesthetic judgment is a feeling, while that of a cognitive judgment is a concept. Such a view follows from thinking that these latter two types of judgments are strictly determining, and, consequently, that reflecting judgment has its place only in the third Critique. In other words, restricting the role of feeling in this way presupposes that determining and reflecting judgments are mutually exclusive. But, as I have suggested, there are good reasons for thinking that all determining judgments also involve an act of reflecting judgment. If I am right concerning the reflective basis of all judgments, then it follows that there is also an affective basis to all judgments. I suggest that we understand it in the following way: in reflection, we hold up and compare representations to each other and affectively respond to them. When the power of judgment

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is determining, it reflects specifically on whether these representations belong together. This, I claim, it can only do by means of feeling. To appreciate this view, we must first consider in more detail what feeling is, for Kant. The topic of feeling in Kant has, until recently, received almost no direct attention.6 This is even more true of Kant’s decision to connect the faculties of feeling and judgment. Kant sees each of the higher cognitive faculties (understanding, reason, and the power of judgment) as related to a ‘fundamental’ faculty [Grundvermögen] (cognition, desire, and the feeling of pleasure and displeasure). Such a relation consists in the former providing an a priori principle for the latter (KU 5:196-198; EEKU 20:245-246). We have already noted that reason legislates the moral law for desire (i.e., the will). Our interest is now in the power of judgment’s legislation of the principle of purposiveness [Zweckmäßigkeit] for feeling. Kant defines a fundamental faculty in terms of its inability to be “reduced” to a further faculty. That there are three fundamental faculties can be seen, Kant thinks, by the distinct kinds of representations generated by each. The kinds of representations that issue from the faculty of feeling pleasure and displeasure [Gefühl der Lust und Unlust] have a “relation merely to the subject,” rather than to an object that we cognize or desire (EEKU 20:206). While one is hard pressed to find an explicit definition of feeling from Kant, we find something close to an actual definition in the Metaphysics of Morals, written several years after the third Critique. There, Kant defines ‘feeling’ as the “susceptibility” of a subject to be affected by a representation (MS 6:211). Still, feeling is almost always defined negatively: it has “no relation at all to an object…[and] expresses nothing at all in the object but simply a relation to the subject” (MS 6:211-212). “Nothing at all in the object is designated,” but only the way in which the subject is affected by an object (KU 5:204). Kant also often speaks of feeling in terms of subjectivity: it pertains to the “merely subjective” aspect of a representation and is “only the receptivity of a determination of the subject” (MS 6:211; EEKU 20:208). Kant attributes to the power of judgment a certain degree of subjectivity as well. While understanding and reason both “relate their representations to objects…the power of judgment is related solely to the subject” (EEKU 20:208). For this reason, Kant observes, there is “a certain suitability of the power of judgment to serve as the determining ground for the feeling of pleasure” (ibid). Hence, he continues: “if the power of judgment is to determine anything for itself alone, it could not be anything other than the 6 See Sorensen & Williamson (2018) for the first edited volume devoted to the topic of feeling, in Kant.

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feeling of pleasure, and, conversely, if the latter is to have an a priori principle, it will be found only in the power of judgment” (ibid). Kant thus affirms that the faculty of feeling “grounds an entirely special faculty for discriminating and judging”—referring, of course, to the reflecting power of judgment (KU 5:204).7 Aesthetic judgment is the paradigmatic instance of merely reflecting judgment in at least the following respect: with no rule in hand, we judge the particular only by means of the feeling that we have when it affects us. The ground of this judgment is not a determinate concept of an object, but rather the feeling of pleasure we experience in engaging with the object. In an aesthetic judgment, the power of judgment and feeling stand in “immediate relation” to each other—a relation that precludes mediation by a concept (KU 5:169). What we get from the aesthetic case is a feeling that arises from the activity of reflecting on a representation in the absence of a rule, one that manifests itself when we perceive that our faculties are in agreement with each other.8 Such an agreement, Kant says, is “felt, not understood” (EEKU 20:232). In this way, feeling, for Kant, can be defined as a non-discursive capacity, while feelings are representations which pertain to the way in which a subject is affected. One can, of course, be affected by external objects (as in the case of sensation), but also internally, that is, by the activity of one’s own mind and its faculties. In an aesthetic judgment, this feeling arises from the free play of imagination and understanding. In a practical judgment, I contend, this feeling arises from the holding up and comparing of moral rules to possible actions. With this understanding of feeling in hand, we can return to the question of how feeling plays a role in all judgments. While the norms of understanding and reason are discursive and determinate, Kant describes the principle of purposiveness as a norm that is affective and “indeterminate” (KU 5:239). In my view, norms of the latter type require norms of the former type in order to be applied to particulars. To speak of the cooperation between the 7

Cf. Kant’s description of feeling, in the ‘Orientation’ essay, as “an obscure discrimination of the power of judgment” (GMS 4:451). 8 In a recent paper, Alix Cohen (2020) argues that feelings are “affective appraisals of our activity,” which “mak[e] us aware of the way our faculties relate to each other and to the world” (p. 430). Such an account concurs with mine insofar as it sees feeling as, among other things, a response to the activity of our faculties, and, moreover, a mode of awareness. However, for Cohen, feelings require reflecting judgment in order to be “interpreted”: “we cannot make sense of their meaning until we reflect on them…” (p. 437-438). The view I am putting forward here is, in a sense, the inverse: it is not judgment through which we determine the content of our feelings, but rather feeling through which we determine the content of our judgments.

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power of judgment and another faculty, one in which the former assists the latter in applying its laws or principles, is to say that purposiveness, and thus affectivity as such, is also always at play—not only in aesthetic judgments, but in theoretical and practical judgments as well. This does not collapse the distinction between these faculties and their norms, or reduce that of one to the other. For we can distinguish between, on the one hand, the law that is being applied (in the case of practical judgment: the moral law), and, on the other, the law that is governing the power of judgment in doing the applying. That feeling has a principle or norm, then, means that feeling itself functions as a distinct (non-discursive) mode of judging. Feeling and judgment are connected in that we can only recognize the fitness of two things for each other through feeling, which is, in turn, the only way that we can engage in the activity of reflecting judgment. In other words, we just see (indeed, feel) that certain representations belong together, or that one representation is suitable for another.9 This agreement we perceive not because we judge by means of a rule (for, again, how could we judge this if not by a further rule?) but by means of feeling. Allison expresses a similar sentiment when he says: “one [must] simply be able to see whether or not a datum or state of affairs instantiates a rule,” something that requires “the capacity for…nonmediated ‘seeing,’ or… ‘feeling’” (2001, p. 14). Allison continues: “feeling serves as the vehicle through which we perceive the aptness or subjective purposiveness (or lack thereof) of a given representation” (ibid, p. 71). While Allison is only making this point with respect to aesthetic judgments, I contend that this is true of all acts of judgment—namely, that feeling is the vehicle (or mode) through which we perceive the aptness of two (or more) representations for each other. These representations may be multiple particulars, or they may be particulars and universals. There are at least three reasons to find this view attractive. First, it provides a straightforward way of understanding Kant’s solution to the regress problem generated by discursive rules: namely, that it can only be stopped by non-discursive means. Insofar as rules are inherently general, which is to say, can be applied to more than one case, there must exist a faculty that is distinct from those which generate rules (understanding and reason) and is capable of recognizing when a rule applies in a given case. 9 My view is very similar to that of A.W. Moore, who argues that Kant’s solution to the regress problem is an affective response, which he calls ‘the Feeling of Unity’ and characterizes as a kind of “inexpressible knowledge” (p. 477). In other words, the question of how rule-governed objective judgement is possible is answered by appealing to a non-rule-governed subjective element: “grounded in a feeling that certain elements of experience constitute an integral, satisfying whole” (p. 476). See also Bell (1987).

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As Kant notes, such a faculty cannot itself be governed by rules that would direct it in its application of rules, for this would only create a regress problem: as noted above, there would need to be rules for those rules, and so on, to infinity. Kant conceives of the power of judgment as a regressstopping faculty, though his account in the first Critique never quite addresses the question of how this happens. There, he only refers to it as a special “talent” or skill, which “cannot be taught but only practiced” (KrV A133/B172). At this stage in the development of the Critical philosophy, Kant has not yet assigned to the power of judgment its own special principle. By the time he writes the third Critique, however, judgment does have its own principle—a principle, we have noted, that it legislates for feeling. What I am suggesting here is that this means we can see judgment as a faculty that can apply rules without itself being rule-guided only insofar as it is guided by feeling. Second, granting feeling an essential role in reflection provides a degree of continuity between determining and reflecting judgment. These would have otherwise seemed likely markedly different exercises of the power of judgment—insofar as one involves applying a given universal to a particular, while the other involves searching for a universal for a particular. More specifically, if, as I claim, the power of judgment is essentially reflective, then one might wonder what this means for the status of determining judgment (i.e., how it could be assimilated into an account of the former). For unlike reflection, where the imagination and understanding are in free play (owing to the absence of a rule on the part of the understanding), a determining judgment is a case of the understanding providing a universal and the imagination apprehending the sensible given in a way that allows it to be subsumed under it. Yet the presence of a rule does not abrogate the necessity of reflection to hold our representations up to each other, affectively respond to them, and judge whether they belong together. This is easy to see in the case of an aesthetic judgment, where, in reflecting on a particular in the absence of a universal, I have no other resources at my disposal except the feeling that my response is appropriate. But it is also the case in a determining judgment (theoretical or practical). I hold up my intuition of a flower against my concept of a flower. There can be no rule instructing me on how to subsume the former under the latter. I just see (indeed, I feel) that this intuitive representation belongs with this discursive representation. Again, the power of judgment is reflecting even when it is determining. Third, this points to a dimension of moral feeling that has not yet been appreciated in discussions of Kant’s ethics. Most discussions of moral feeling in the literature pertain to the issue of moral motivation and the

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specific feeling of respect for the moral law. However, if feeling is needed for the ability to make judgments about whether my representation of a possible action ought to be subsumed under the concept of moral goodness, then we can locate feeling much earlier in the process of moral agency: it does not just enter at the point where we need the motivation to perform some action that is required, but rather at the moment we begin to determine what action is required. The cultivation of moral feeling, then, is not limited to the moment in moral agency where strength of will is called for, but includes the capacity to improve one’s ability to discern the goodness of an action that one could perform. I discuss this, and its implications for how we think about moral feeling, in the next section.

IV. A New Kind of Moral Feeling? As I just noted, the vast majority of the discussions of feeling in the context of Kant’s ethics and practical philosophy are indexed to the specific feeling of respect for the moral law and the issue of moral motivation. This is not the kind of moral feeling that I am interested in here. I will briefly describe this in order to set it aside and distinguish it from the kind of moral feeling that I am interested in. I will then identify what I take to be some distinctive features of this new kind of moral feeling—namely, that it is a higher, or intellectual, feeling which is produced by the power of judgment, and can thus be thought of as a kind of skill or capacity that one can cultivate. In addition, it shows up in-between the moments of practical reason, on the one hand, and choice or action, on the other—after I have become aware of the moral law or discovered any general moral laws, but before I have made any decision regarding my will. These features set it apart from other affective states that show up in the course of Kant’s moral theory. In both the Groundwork and the second Critique, Kant speaks of a peculiar kind of feeling that he calls both ‘moral feeling’ and ‘respect for the law.’ This feeling is unlike other feelings in that it is “not received by influence” but rather “self-wrought” (GMS 4:402). The moral law, Kant thinks, is able to “produce a feeling,” which he describes as “a special kind of feeling” and which is “perhaps the only case” of an a priori feeling (KpV 5:73, 75-76, 92). Kant clarifies that this feeling is not “antecedent” to the moral law, something that makes us “attuned to morality,” but is instead something that is produced by reason insofar as we recognize the bindingness of the moral law on us (KpV 5:75). The primary debate in the literature concerns the question of whether this feeling plays a direct role in motivating moral action. There are two

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main positions on this question, which are usually referred to as affectivist and intellectualist. Affectivists see feeling as necessary for moral action, while intellectualists deny this and see reason as the sole motivator. Put another way: affectivists see the feeling of respect as a feeling as much as any other kind of feeling, while intellectualists see it as a cognitive recognition.10 Because I am interested in a different kind of moral feeling, one that arises earlier on in the process of moral agency, I will not take a position on this debate. We have seen that there is a particular kind of feeling that Kant calls ‘moral feeling,’ which arises in relation to whether one determines one’s will in accordance with the moral law. Kant even calls this moral feeling ‘strictly speaking’ (KpV 5:38). Given that this seems to be the only kind of moral feeling that Kant talks about and the only kind that commentators have paid attention to, one might wonder how it could be that there is another kind of moral feeling—one that has not only gone unnoticed by interpreters of Kant but also seems to be given no mention by Kant himself. The position I put forward here is admittedly reconstructive. Kant never explicitly describes the moment of practical judgment as involving feeling—much less does he call this feeling ‘moral.’ Yet I believe that Kant is committed to such a view, based on what I have laid out in the preceding sections. To recap: all judgments involve reflection, and feeling is the mode of reflective judging. Since practical judgment is an instance of judgment, it thus involves feeling. Such an account faces two main challenges. The first concerns whether this commits Kant to something like moral sense theory, a position he is known for rejecting. I will argue that it does not by noting that Kant is critical of feeling forming the basis of morality as such, but has no problem with granting feeling a role in making specific moral judgments. The second concerns whether we should call this feeling ‘moral.’ I will argue that we should, but with qualification. The kind of moral feeling that is operative in practical judgment should not be considered moral in the same sense as the other, better known kind of moral feeling—nor should it be seen as akin to related notions, such as virtue, character, or conscience. Still, it can be treated as moral in that it is a capacity that can be cultivated, one that has as its object moral rules and cases. We can start by considering Kant’s criticism of moral sense theory and the moral sentimentalist tradition. Kant rejects the accounts given by the likes of Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, according to which the fundamental principles of morality are grounded in feeling. As is well-known, the 10

See McCarty (1993), especially p. 423.

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Critical Kant instead holds that moral principles are grounded in reason. Feeling comes after our awareness of these, not before; it is an effect of our recognition of the moral law, not the foundation of it. This is partly because feelings are subjective, and differ greatly not only between each other but among individuals. Accordingly, they could not serve as a “uniform measure of good and evil” (GMS 4:443; cf. KpV 5:58). But it is also because all feelings are sensible, and only knowable through experience; yet the moral law must be able to determine the will a priori (KpV 5:71, 75). In short, feelings are empirical and contingent, but morality is universal and necessary.11 Sensen (2012) helpfully distinguishes between at least three possible roles for feelings in Kant’s moral philosophy, which he calls: metaphysical, epistemic, and motivational (p. 48).12 The first concerns the grounding of morality. The second concerns knowledge of what is morally right and wrong. The third pertains to the psychological incentives for moral action (which we have just discussed). Sensen rightly notes that if the first were true, Kant would be a sentimentalist. However, he inaccurately (in my view) suggests that if the second were true, Kant would also be a moral sense theorist. This is because of an ambiguity contained within the notion of what is morally right and wrong, which Sensen does not acknowledge. We can recall the distinction I drew earlier between practical reason and practical judgment and note that both, in some sense, concern what is morally right and wrong. Practical reason is concerned with this at the level of act-types; it issues maxims which state which kinds of actions are right and wrong. Practical judgment is concerned with this at the level of acttokens; it says that some concrete action is right or wrong. It is true that Kant does not grant a role to feeling in the process of what I am calling practical reason, the derivation of general moral rules from the pure law.

11

It should be noted that this forms the basis for Kant’s rejection of a moral sense, but not moral feeling. He rejects the former (in Hutcheson, et al.) insofar as it is construed as a kind of perception of good and evil. 12 Walschots (2017) also distinguishes between feeling as an issue of moral motivation as opposed to the basis for morality. Walschots contends that the “core feature” of Hutcheson’s moral sense theory is that feeling is “the foundation of moral judgment,” and that this is something Kant rejects (p. 37). Kant’s reasons for doing this, he says, are “because [feeling/moral sense] is incapable of issuing sufficiently universal and necessary judgments of moral good and evil” (ibid). However, it is unclear what Walschots means by ‘moral judgment’—in particular, whether it is the same as practical judgment, as I have described it, or something closer to the verdicts of practical reason. Like Sensen, he seems to equivocate being principles and laws, on the one hand, and actions, on the other.

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Sensen seems to have only this stage in mind when he rejects the epistemic role of feeling in Kant’s moral theory—and not practical judgment. For he speaks only of feelings being used to “discover” moral laws (p. 51-52). This suggests that he has in mind things like maxims and not the specific acttokens that are the product of practical judgment. In addition, Sensen leans on the same reasons Kant gives for rejecting the idea of feeling as the basis for morality (the metaphysical role) to claim that he also rejects the idea of feeling as an aid in discerning what is morally right and wrong (epistemic role). These, which we saw above, have to do with the subjective nature of feelings; feelings are private and vary among individuals. Grounding morality on feeling would be problematic at least because different people would arrive at different moral rules; insofar as feelings are incommunicable, there would be no way of settling the matter. But as a way of explaining the activity of practical judgment, there is no issue—and, in fact, this accords with Kant’s conception of judgment as a skill that varies among persons. That one person may be better able to discern whether a specific action is right or wrong than someone else does not undermine the nature of morality itself. We can now begin to consider the content of such a feeling. Moral feeling of the sort I have been describing is an intellectual or higher feeling—specifically, one that is produced by the activity of the power of judgment. Kant distinguishes between each of the fundamental faculties a higher and a lower part. Lower faculties involve representations of objects that we are given, whereas higher faculties are capable of bringing forth representations independently of objects. In the case of feeling, this is either a capacity for feeling pleasure and displeasure in objects that affect us or for producing feelings on one’s own (VM 28:228-229). Moral feeling in the better known sense is produced by reason. This other kind of moral feeling also has its source in a higher faculty: the reflecting power of judgment. Whereas the former is the effect of our recognition of the moral law, the latter is the effect of our reflection on some possible action in light of the moral law. Both feelings are intellectual or higher in that they are instances of affection by the activities of our mind. This kind of moral feeling relates to what Kant describes as the principle of appraisal of an action as morally good or evil, as distinct from the principle of execution (the incentive or motivation to perform such an action). He refers to the first as the objective ground, the second as the subjective ground. The more commonly described notion of moral feeling pertains to the second. What I am interested in here relates to the first: “whereby I judge the goodness or depravity of actions,” rather than “what impels me to do the thing” (VE 27:274-275). The latter (moral feeling

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‘strictly speaking’) “cannot be confused with the principle of judgment” (ibid). Kant’s insistence that we judge actions “by reason [and] not through mere feeling” may make it seem as if there is no room for the kind of moral feeling I am pointing to (KpV 5:58). At one point, he even says that moral feeling can “not [serve] as a principle for the judgment of moral action” (VE 29:625). That “the judgment of morality consists in objective principles,” as Kant goes on to say in this passage, does not rule out feeling in the application of such principles (ibid). That is, we need not interpret these remarks to mean that feeling is unrelated to the principle of judgment—so long as we keep in mind that a principle of reason is still the salient norm, which the power of judgment seeks to apply via its own norm (feeling). Kant treats the issue of appraisal in the short but important section of the second Critique, entitled the ‘Typic.’ It is here that Kant discusses practical judgment, and outlines the process by which we determine whether an action can be subsumed under a moral rule. Without delving into the details, this procedure involves considering whether a maxim (the outcome of the process of practical reasoning) could be thought of as a law of nature. In the Groundwork, Kant refers to this as an ability “to bring an idea of reason closer to intuition (according to a certain analogy) and thereby to feeling” (GMS 4:436; emphasis mine). In other words, while one cannot have “a feeling of a law as such,” there seems to be room for a feeling of whether an action is a correct application of the law (KpV 5:38).13 But what, if anything, is distinctively moral about such a feeling? If we zoom out and recall the more general claim that all acts of judgment—the thinking of a particular under a universal—involve feeling, then we might start to wonder: (i) whether there is just one kind of feeling that is operative in any and all acts of judging, or (ii) whether each kind of judgment has its own kind of feeling. This would only raise further questions about what these different kinds of feeling have in common with each other. For example, if (ii) were true, then it would follow that there was also a distinctive feeling associated with making ordinary perceptual judgments

13 As Geiger (2011) observes, Kant seems to also recognize a distinct moral feeling that arises after one recognizes some specific action as morally required (p. 293). Geiger points to the following passage from the Metaphysics of Morals: “Every determination of choice proceeds from the representation of a possible action to the deed through the feeling of pleasure or displeasure…” (MS 6:399). We can note Kant’s talk of a ‘possible action’ here, as the particular which we subsume under a moral rule in a practical judgment. This moral feeling is thus distinct from the one effected by recognition of the moral law in general, but is instead the effect of a practical judgment.

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(the kind Kant is concerned with in the first Critique), which we could call ‘empirical feeling.’ Of course, Kant does recognize a distinctive feeling associated with making aesthetic judgments, which he characterizes as disinterested pleasure. If aesthetic judgment is the paradigmatic act of reflecting judgment, then it may be the case that aesthetic pleasure is the paradigmatic kind of feeling. Still, to say that all judgments involve feeling is not to say that all judgments involve this specific kind of pleasure. In this way, I want to distinguish the notion of ‘aesthetic’ from that of ‘affective.’ What I have suggested is common to all acts of judging is the feeling of the suitability of one thing for another. We can indeed think of this as a pleasurable feeling in the sense that, as Kant says, “The attainment of every aim is combined with the feeling of pleasure” (KU 5:187). In this way, it is a more general kind of feeling that obtains insofar as we recognize fitness—of which we can take aesthetic pleasure to be a species. This leaves open the question of content of such feelings within different domains—e.g., whether there is something distinctive about feeling the suitability of a possible action for a moral rule, or an intuition for an empirical concept. All of this to say: I want to remain agnostic about these two different options. For the following question remains either way: is it not potentially misleading to refer to this as moral feeling? That it is the kind of feeling that is present in the making of moral judgments may not be enough. Put another way: the better known kind of moral feeling, discussed above, seems to deserve the modifier ‘moral.’ Whether an agent possesses or lacks this kind of feeling, along with things like strength of will, certainly seems to be a moral matter. Can we say the same about the feeling that is associated with practical judgment? I think we can, but we should qualify this as a relatively thin conception of ‘moral’ as compared with other notions like virtue, character, and conscience.14 14 While here is not the place to discuss these other notions in Kant’s ethics, I should note that I see the affective capacity that is bound up with practical judgment as sufficiently distinct from these other things. For example, virtue and character, as strength of will and resolve in carrying out one’s duty, seem more associated with the issue of moral motivation and thus distinct from practical judgment. One might think that conscience, however, is an appropriate name for the kind of feeling I have been describing. While Kant describes conscience in a way that suggests it is a feeling, he distinguishes it from the objective judgment we make about a particular action; it is instead the subjective response to such a judgment in the form of “acquittal or condemnation” (MS 6:400). As Geiger (2011) puts it: “it is not the task of conscience to pronounce the right objective judgment of what law holds in a given situation and what action it commands or forbids” (p. 294). Conscience, Geiger says,

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To see what I mean, we can ask whether an agent who possesses this kind of feeling is one that we would be inclined to call praiseworthy.15 If so, we would at least not be inclined to place this on the same level as, for example, doing an action solely from duty. But more importantly, we should not think of this as the kind of feeling that one simply either possesses or lacks. This may be true of the other kind of moral feeling, the content of which consists in recognizing (or not) the moral law and its force on us. Instead, this kind of moral feeling seems to come in degrees; it is the kind of thing one can have more or less of. This is because it is the mode of judgment, which is something one can be better or worse at. Recall that Kant calls the power of judgment a talent or skill, which can only be acquired through experience and practice. One way of thinking about what Kant means by this is in terms of the cultivation of a capacity. In terms of what we have been discussing, this would be an affective capacity. What Kant calls a ‘sharpened’ or refined power of judgment, which amounts to a capacity to recognize that a rule applies in a given case, involves exposure to a variety of cases, but also the development of feeling. To cultivate this kind of feeling is not to improve one’s commitment towards the moral law,

“is the subjective affective response to judging a particular course of action…” (ibid). Even as ‘the inner judge’ (as Kant will also call it), conscience is a higherorder judgment a subject makes of oneself rather than their action (MS 6:438). How both this and the moral feeling described in the previous footnote relate to the feeling of respect for the moral law is beyond the scope of the present discussion. Cf. Kant’s distinction of conscience, in the Religion, from the activity of practical reason (RGV 6:186). 15 To extend Kant’s example of doctors and lawyers, one may be an excellent practical judge but a bad moral agent—always knowing exactly what one ought to do, but lacking in execution. It is worth noting that this entails that we can judge something to be good without acting on it, which is to say, it commits Kant to the existence of something like weakness of will. As he says in the Collins lectures, “When I judge…that an action is morally good, I am still very far from doing this action of which I have so judged” (VE 27:1428). This suggests that the two kinds of moral feeling—the kind involved in practical judgment and the kind involved in moral motivation—are sufficiently distinct. How exactly they relate to each other is not something I can take up here, though I will note that a further remark from Kant in this passage from the Collins lectures suggests that they may be connected in some way: “But if this judgment [that an action is morally good] moves me to do the action, that is the moral feeling” (ibid). Whether this means that the moral law’s effect on feeling occurs via a practical judgment is not entirely clear.

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but rather to improve one’s ability to determine precisely what kinds of actions would instantiate such a law.16 One might think that what I am describing is more of a cognitive virtue than a moral one. And, in some sense, this is correct. After all, the power of judgment is a cognitive faculty—and Kant is clear that we have a duty to cultivate our faculties, especially those related to the use of moral concepts (MS 6:387). Indeed, when distinguishing the principle of appraisal from the principle of execution, Kant refers to the failure of judgment in the former cases as a “theoretical” fault—as opposed to a “practical” fault in the case of the latter (ibid). Still, what we are speaking of here is its specific ability to render judgments in moral matters. Intuitively, the skill of judgment is one that can be improved in one domain and not another. That is, improving my capacity to render moral judgments does not necessarily bear on my capacity to render, say, scientific or aesthetic judgments. Minimally, then, we can call this moral feeling in that it is domain-specific, concerning itself with moral rules and the morally relevant features of specific cases.

V. Conclusion In closing, I want to discuss two subsequent views on the role of feeling and emotions in moral judgment that have an affinity with the account of Kant I have just put forward. One is found in J.G. Fichte, an immediate successor of Kant; the other is found in contemporary neuroscience research from Antonio Damasio. In his System of Ethics, Fichte contends that only an affective state can put an end to a particular kind of regress problem inherent to moral deliberation. Fichte calls this feeling ‘conscience,’ and assigns to it the role of determining the correctness of one’s actions. There is scholarly debate about whether this particular feeling comes after the practical judgment has been made (as in Kant, see footnote 10) or is part of the making of the

16

The reader may wonder how close this puts Kant to Aristotle, or whether the notion of moral feeling in the context of practical judgment is something akin to practical wisdom [phronesis]. There are at least two important differences. First, Aristotle sees this as a quasi-perceptual capacity. However, Kant does not see practical judgment as a kind of perception (MS 6:400). Perception, for Kant, is always of a particular. By contrast, in judging, we are considering the relation between two or more things. This makes feeling the relevant mental act, rather than perception. Moreover, Kant’s account is not particularist. Practical judgment is concerned with applying universal moral rules to particulars, not judging particulars on their own.

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practical judgment itself.17 I will not try to resolve the issue here, but only wish to raise it in order to show the potential similarities to Kant. In any situation where we are deliberating about what to do, we are faced with many possible actions. For Fichte, there is “absolutely only one…that is dutiful” (SL 4:207). To figure out what this is, Fichte sees the need for a theoretical faculty, in addition to a practical one. Whereas the latter supplies the criterion for duty and the basis of morality, the former is required for surveying all of the possible actions we could perform and settle on a singular course of action. While the moral law makes a determinate demand on us, Fichte says, it is not itself a cognitive power and thus cannot tell us what to do on its own: “Instead, it expects it to be found and determined by the power of cognition – the power of reflecting judgment” (SL 4:165).18 Fichte thus seems to follow Kant in at least two respects. First, he upholds a distinction between a faculty that generates a discursive rule (reason, a practical faculty that gives us the moral law) and a faculty that is concerned with applying this rule in a given case (the power of judgment). Second, he takes the latter faculty to be reflecting judgment. Insofar as there is only one single action that is our duty in any situation, the question can be raised: “Which of these possible ways of acting is the one that duty demands?” We can answer this question, Fichte says, “by referring to an inner feeling within our conscience. In every case, whatever is confirmed by this inner feeling is a duty; and this inner feeling never errs so long as we simply pay heed to its voice (SL 4:207-208).19 As Ware (2020) notes, one way of interpreting this passage risks reducing the criterion of morality to something subjective—a worry, we have seen, Kant also had— by suggesting that conscience is itself what determines our duty (p. 101). However, Fichte’s definition of conscience simply states that it is “the immediate consciousness of our determinate duty” (SL 4:173). Ware contends that this indicates “that their determination has already taken place” (2020, p. 102).

17 See chapter 5 of Ware (2020) for an excellent overview of the literature on Fichte’s

theory of conscience. Ware refers to this debate as whether conscience plays a contentful or noncontentful role—either telling us what we should and should not do, or simply confirming the correctness of one’s judgments. 18 Fichte continues in the same vein shortly thereafter: “The practical power is therefore unable to provide us with this [action]; instead, the latter has to be sought by the power of judgment, which is here reflecting freely” (SL 4:167). 19 I cannot deal here with Fichte’s claim that “conscience never errs” (SL 4:173), as it is controversial and invites worries that Kant was concerned with addressing related to the contingency and subjectivity of feelings.

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Ware draws attention to subsequent passages that suggest Fichte sees conscience as stepping in to confirm that we have made the correct judgment. This would place him very close to Kant as regards their respective theories of conscience, but it would also mean that he only recognizes a role for affectivity after the moment of practical judgment. For example, Fichte writes: “As soon as the power of judgment finds what was demanded, the fact that this is indeed what was demanded reveals itself through a feeling of harmony” (SL 4:167-168). And, later: “Conscience, the power of feeling described above, does not provide the material of duty, which is provided only by the power of judgment, and conscience is not a power of judgment; conscience does, however, provide the evidential certainty” (SL 4:173).20 Without settling these interpretive questions in Fichte, it is clear that he picks up on aspects of Kant’s account of practical judgment that I have raised related to the essential role of affectivity. The view in Kant I have argued for also has an interesting connection to contemporary neuroscientific research related to the role of emotions in decision-making. In his book, Descartes’ Error, Antonio Damasio contends that emotions play an essential role in guiding us to determine a course of action. His ‘somatic marker hypothesis’ suggests that there are positive or negative affective states associated with past experiences and particular outcomes. The idea is that when we cognitively furnish a variety of possible actions, emotions step in to steer us towards behaving one way rather than another. A central piece of evidence for Damasio’s hypothesis is the case of patients with damage to the frontal lobe—specifically, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Those in whom this part of the brain is impaired seem to lack the emotional responses necessary for making decisions. While they are able to apprehend reasons for and against all the possible actions they are considering, they are unable to settle on one. Descartes’ error, according to Damasio, was his dualistic separation of reason and emotion, and his failure to recognize the necessary role of the latter for the former. The standard story of Kant’s ethics would seem to go a similar way: reason alone determines what we ought to do, and affective states such as feelings and emotions only get in the way (at most playing a motivational role post-deliberation). This story has, of course, begun to be challenged in recent years, and what I take myself to have done here is 20

Fichte recognizes that this only seems to give rise to a further kind of regress problem, distinct from the one generated by discursive rules—namely, how can I be certain that I am certain? (SL 4:169). Ware sees his solution to the problem as consisting in a particular kind of feeling that can stop the regress: a feeling of harmony which “expresses an actual relation of fit. I stand in harmony with my ethical drive, and I know this…because I feel it” (p. 109).

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simply add to this re-consideration of the place that feeling has in Kant’s ethical theory. If this is correct, then Descartes’ error was not Kant’s.

Works Cited Primary texts Fichte SL = System of Ethics Fichte, J.G. 2005 [1798]. System of Ethics in Accordance with the Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre. Translated by Daniel Breazeale and Günter Zöller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Secondary literature Allison, Henry. Kant’s Theory of Taste: A Reading of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Beck, Lewis White. 1960. A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Bell, David. 1987. “The Art of Judgment.” Mind 96 (382): 221-244. Cohen, Alix. 2020. “A Kantian Account of Emotions as Feelings.” Mind 129 (514): 429-460. Damasio, Antonio. 1994. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: G.P. Putnam. Dunn, Nicholas. 2021. “Subsuming ‘determining’ under ‘reflecting’: Kant’s power of judgment, reconsidered.” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2021.1986291. Dunn, Nicholas. 2023. “Reflections of Reason: Kant on Practical Judgement,” Kantian Review. DOI: 10.1017/S1369415423000328. Geiger, Ido. 2011. “Rational Feelings and Moral Agency.” Kantian Review 16(2): 283-308. Grandjean, Antoine. 2004. “Jugement moral en situation et exception chez Kant.” Philosophie 81: 42–57. Guyer, Paul. 2003. “Kant’s Principles of Reflecting Judgment.” In Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment: Critical Essays, edited by Paul Guyer, 1-61. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Herman, Barbara. 1993. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Longuenesse, B. Kant and the Capacity to Judge: Sensibility and Discursivity in the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 1998. Longuenesse, Béatrice. 2003. “Kant’s Theory of Judgment, and Judgments of Taste: On Henry Allison’s Kant’s Theory of Taste.” Inquiry 46 (2): 143-163. McCarty, Richard. 1993. “Kantian Moral Motivation and the Feeling of Respect.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 31: 421–35. McDowell, J. 1996. “Deliberation and Moral Development in Aristotle’s Ethics.” In Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and Duty. Edited by Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting, 19-35. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moore, A.W. 2007. “Is the Feeling of Unity That Kant Identifies in his Third Critique a Type of Inexpressible Knowledge?” Philosophy 82(321): 475-485. O’Neill, Onora. 2018. From Principles to Practice: Normativity and Judgement in Ethics and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sensen, Oliver. 2012. “The Role of Feelings in Kant’s Moral Philosophy.” Studi Kantiani 25: 45-58. Sorensen, Kelly, & Williamson, Diane (eds.). 2018. Kant and the Faculty of Feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Walschots, Michael. 2017. “Hutcheson and Kant: Moral Sense and Moral Feeling.” In Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment. Edited by Elizabeth Robinson and Chris W. Suprenant, p. 36-54. New York/London: Taylor & Francis. Ware, Owen. 2020. Fichte’s Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Westra, Adam. 2016. The Typic in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: Moral Judgment and Symbolic Representation. Berlin: de Gruyter. Zuckert, Rachel. 2007. Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

AFFECTS, CHOICE, AND KANT’S INCORPORATION THESIS MARTINA FAVARETTO

This paper focuses on the relation between affects and the Incorporation Thesis in Kant’s practical philosophy. The Incorporation Thesis (so labeled by Henry Allison1) holds that “freedom of the power of choice has the characteristic, entirely peculiar to it, that it cannot be determined to action through any incentive except so far as the human being has incorporated it into his maxim (has made it into a universal rule for himself, according to which he wills to conduct himself)” (RGV 6:23–4). My target in this paper is the following view, which has recently gained prominence in Kant scholarship: according to Kant, when affects lead to action,2 the relation between one’s affect and one’s action is one of being caused to act by one’s affect in such a way that it leaves no room for choice by the agent.3 1

In his Kant’s Theory of Freedom (1990). E.g., p. 40. Notice that I will not consider or discuss in this paper reason-caused affects. Reason-caused affects (notably but not exclusively enthusiasm) are affects that are caused by ideas of reason and hence grounded in higher faculties. For a discussion of reason-caused affects, see Sorensen (“Kant's Taxonomy of the Emotions”); Clewis (The Kantian Sublime). 3 A proponent of this view is Patrick Frierson. In his early work on affects, Frierson writes that “under the influence of an affect, one does not choose in the ordinary sense. Feeling simply leads directly to action [...] The affect itself takes control.” (“Kant on mental disorder. Part 2” 293). In later work, Frierson holds that “as feelings so overwhelming that one cannot properly assess their place in one’s overall happiness, affects become immediate causes of action.” (“Affects and passions” 103). According to Frierson, affects “are not ‘intentional’ in the rational sense; that is, no end has been incorporated into a maxim that provides a motive for the higher faculty of desire. Thus there is no ‘choice’ in these cases.” (“Affects and passions” 106). In his Kant’s Will at the Crossroads, Jens Timmermann endorses Frierson’s view of how affects lead to action. Timmermann writes that “affects take us by surprise; they pre-empt rational deliberation and reflection; we lose our composure and act rashly without choosing to do so (see AP VII 252.3–6).” (Kant’s Will at the Crossroads 139). Similarly, Martin Sticker writes “I agree with Frierson that [...] 2

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According to this view, acting from an affect falls outside the scope of the Incorporation Thesis, because: a) to incorporate an incentive into one’s maxim requires choosing to do so; and b) acting from an affect does not involve such choice. While I see attributing a to Kant as unproblematic, the focus of this paper is to show why Kant should not be interpreted as holding b. In this paper, I argue that Kant’s text supports an alternative reading of how affects lead to action. On this alternative reading I put forth, affects do not lead to action through bypassing choice entirely.4 Rather, I claim that affects allow for unreflective choice by the agent. Because acting from an affect still amounts to choosing to act – though unreflectively – I claim that it should be regarded as falling within the scope of the Incorporation Thesis. Two preliminary considerations are in order. First, Kant indicates that some affects completely prevent us from acting. Fright, surprise and joy sometimes simply paralyze us so that we cannot act. Fright, for instance, is treated by Kant as “suddenly aroused fear that disconcerts the mind” (Anth 7:255) that need not lead to action. Suppose I am paralyzed by fright upon seeing an unfamiliar and menacing face at the window. My fright led to no action, and I will not say that I chose to be affected by my fright, or consider my being paralyzed an action done on a maxim. In this paper, I set aside those cases in which affects lead to no action at all; my focus is on those cases in which affects lead to action, and my main interest is to figure out how those affects lead to action.5

being overwhelmed by affect does not constitute acting on a maxim” (44n). Further, Marijana Vujoševiƛ holds a similar view when she writes that affects “preclude reflection and cause us to act involuntarily” (119) and “in an affective state one is incapable of calm reflection – one can neither form maxims nor determine one’s choices.” (118). Finally, Jessica Tizzard holds that “Kant [...] distinguishes affects from passions insofar as the former cannot, like the latter, express itself through desires that get incorporated into maxims” (12). 4 Here, I find myself in agreement with Lara Denis. In her “Kant’s Cold Sage and the Sublimity of Apathy”, Denis writes that “despite some of Kant’s dramatic language, we should note that affects and passions do not rob us of the ability to choose the maxim on which we act [...] Instead, the urgency and suddenness of emotional agitations make rational, practical reflection more difficult.” (51). 5 Though, even affects that primarily paralyze rather than stimulate (such as shock or fright; cf. VAnth 25:591–2) can have direct implications – even if only negative – on action. See Frierson, “Affects and passions” 102. Suppose that “one sees a child fall into the water, which one could save, however, through a little assistance, but one is so shocked that one thereby cannot do anything” (VAnth 25:591). Here, one’s omission to act amounts to a serious moral failure and should arguably be counted as an action.

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Second, Kant’s text suggests that some responses to affects are not actions at all. They are more like reflexes. No choice, reason or evaluation need be involved in them. Among others, “shuddering that comes over children when they listen at night to their nurses’ ghost stories” (Anth 7:263) is like this, and so are “shivering, as if one were being doused with cold water”, and “dizziness” (Anth 7:263). For this kind of cases, the view I am targeting might aptly describe the relation between one’s affect and one’s reflex: one is caused to have a certain reflex by one’s affect in a way that leaves no choice by the agent. However, while this account might be apt for making sense of the affect/reflex relation, I argue it is not apt for making sense of how Kant describes the affect/action relation. The paper is divided into two main sections. Section I contains three subsections. In section Ia, I argue that, while it is clear that Kant holds that affects are obstacles for reflection, there are reasons to doubt he holds that affects completely preclude choice. As I will show, Kant’s claim that affects are obstacles to reflection does not imply that affects necessitate or cause us to act. In Ib, I argue that the reflection that affects impede amounts to the ability to meet normative standards when deliberating over a course of action. According to my reading, when one acts from affect one chooses to act without properly evaluating whether one should do so or not, and this amounts to choosing to act unreflectively. In Ic, I claim that there are two ways in which affects allow for unreflective choice. The first way is when affects allow for the kind of unreflective choice that is made for some implicit reason. The second way is when affects allow for the kind of unreflective choice that is made for an explicit reason, where this is a bad reason. Even if one grants my account of affects where the actions they lead to involve a choice by the agent, there is still a question about whether – in choosing to act from an affect in either of the two ways I describe – one’s choice would involve incorporating the affect into a maxim. This is because one might question whether, when one acts from an affect in either of the two ways I suggest, one would be acting on a maxim. In section II, I will be arguing that, in fact, one would be. In IIa, I defend the claim that acting from an affect falls within the scope of the Incorporation Thesis by showing (a) how unreflectively choosing to act from an affect, where that choice is made for some explicit bad reason, counts as acting on a maxim; and (b) how unreflectively choosing to act from an affect, where that choice is made for some implicit reason, could still count as acting on a maxim. In IIb, I defend my claim that choosing to act from an affect for some implicit reason amounts to acting on a maxim from some relevant objections.

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I conclude that, if I am right that (i) acting from an affect still amounts to choosing to act, and (ii) acting from an affect can count as acting on a maxim, then acting from an affect falls within the scope of the Incorporation Thesis.

I. Affects and Choice This section is divided into three subsections. In Ia, I show that Kant’s text supports the view that, when affects lead to action, they leave room for choice by the agent. In Ib, I turn to a closer examination of Kant’s claim that affects impede reflection. In Ic, I discuss two ways in which affects can lead to action by impeding reflection.

Ia. No Choice When Acting From Affect? In the Anthropology, Kant describes affects as illnesses of the mind that, like passions, are able to shut out the sovereignty of reason: “To be subject to affects and passions is probably always an illness of the mind, because both affect and passion shut out the sovereignty of reason” (Anth 7:251).6 From what Kant writes, it is clear that what makes something an affect is that it is a feeling and it impedes reflection. “It is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure or displeasure)” (Anth 7:254). What is less clear, however, is what Kant means by the claim that to be in a state of affect is to lack reflection. Some scholars take the view that affects impeding reflection preclude the possibility of affects allowing for choice. As Patrick Frierson writes, The way in which affects preclude reflection is to suspend the influence of the power of choice; that is, the higher faculty of desire. For affects with volitional importance (whether through provoking actions or paralyzing one’s capacity for action), affects prompt ‘actions’ through bypassing choice. (“Affects and passions” 103)

Here, Frierson holds that affects suspend the influence of the power of choice, which he equates with the higher faculty of desire. For Frierson, “the 6

Notice that Kant’s claim here that affects “shut out the sovereignty of reason” cannot amount to the claim that affects prevent one from having the capacity of adopting maxims. This is because in the same passage Kant claims that passions shut out the sovereignty of reason too, and “passion always presupposes a maxim on the part of the subject” (Anth 7:266).

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power of choice is precisely a power of the higher faculty of volition” (Kant’s Empirical Psychology 221). Since for Frierson when one acts from affect one would “‘act’ directly from lower desires” (Kant’s Empirical Psychology 63), one would be prompted to action “through merely animal rather than distinctively human forms of volition” (Kant’s Empirical Psychology 219). For Frierson, these actions would proceed directly from “stimuli” or “impulse” (Kant’s Empirical Psychology 220), and are those for which the Incorporation Thesis does not hold.7 In order to evaluate Frierson’s account, we have to fully understand what Kant means by “choice” and “power of choice”. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant makes clear that the faculty of choice is the faculty of desire insofar as it operates in a context where its activity can bring about its object. He writes that the faculty of desire, “insofar as it is joined with one’s consciousness of the ability to bring about its object by one’s action is called choice [Willkür]” (MS 6:213). In his Lectures, Kant goes on to argue that every act of the faculty of choice – i.e., the faculty of desire – has an impelling cause, and this can be either sensitive or intellectual: Every act of the faculty of choice has an impelling cause. The impelling causes are either sensitive or intellectual. The sensitive are stimuli or motive causes [Bewegungsursache], impulses. The intellectuals are motives [Motive] or motive grounds [Bewegungsgrunde] … If the impelling causes are representations of satisfaction and dissatisfaction which depend on the manner in which we are [sensibly] affected by objects, then they are stimuli. But if the impelling causes are representations of satisfaction or dissatisfaction which depend on the manner in which we cognize the objects through concepts, through the understanding, then they are motives. (VM 28:254).

The passage makes it clear that we can distinguish between: a) Acts of the power of choice which are determined by sensitive impelling causes or “stimuli”. These depend on the manner in which we are

7

“Human beings can, sometimes, act purely from instinct or inclination, without incorporating such instincts or inclinations into any principle of the understanding. [Kant’s] language to describe such ‘actions’ fits the lack of true agency implied by their failure to fit Allison’s account of incorporation. He refers to them as actions proceeding from ‘stimuli’ or ‘impulse’. Most actions, even those that are not guided by morality, are free in the sense that they are associated with the higher faculty of desire, where one acts on principles or maxims, even if these maxims take the satisfaction of inclination as their end. But one can also ‘act’ directly from lower desires.” (Frierson, Kant's empirical psychology 63n).

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So far, the passage seems to be compatible with Frierson’s distinction between actions that proceed directly from “stimuli”– i.e., lower desires – and actions that stem from motive grounds – i.e., higher desires.8 However, the next sentence in the text rules out that affects are feelings capable of causing the agent to act by bypassing choice entirely. Indeed, here Kant holds that, when it comes to rational animals like human beings, the “stimuli” are causes that do not have necessitating power, but only impelling power. For non-rational animals, instead, these “stimuli” are causes that have necessitating power: Stimuli are causes which impel the power of choice so far as the object affects our senses. This driving power of the power of choice can either necessitate, or by itself it can also only impel. Stimuli thus have either necessitating power or impelling power . With all non-rational animals the stimuli have necessitating power , but with human beings the stimuli do not have necessitating power , but rather only impelling . (VM 28:255)

Kant concludes that, while the sensitive power of choice can either be brute or free, the human sensitive power of choice is free (so far as it is defined psychologically or practically9): 8

Frierson quotes this passage when arguing that “stimuli” or “impulse” cause action without the agent having any capacity for choice, while motive grounds motivate action through the agent’s adoption of a maxim. Though, notice that the passage does not establish on its own that actions proceeding from “stimuli” are those for which the Incorporation Thesis does not hold and actions proceeding from “motives grounds” are those for which the Incorporation Thesis hold. Indeed, the next sentence after this passage makes it clear that this interpretation should be ruled out. 9 Practical or psychological freedom is “the independence of the power of choice from the necessitation of stimuli “ (VM 28:267). Kant adds that “that power of choice which is not necessitated or impelled at all by any stimuli , but rather is determined by motives, by motive grounds of the understanding, is the intellectual or transcendental power of free choice.” (VM 28:255).

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[T]he human power of choice is not brute , but rather free . This is the power of free choice , so far as it is defined psychologically or practically. [...] The sensitive power of choice can indeed be free , but not the brute one . The sensitive power of [free] choice is only affected or impelled by the stimuli , but the brute one is necessitated. A human being thus has a power of free choice; and everything that arises from his power of choice arises from a power of free choice. (VM 28:255)

As Kant holds, everything that arises from a human being’s power of choice – i.e., from a human being’s faculty of desire – be it sensitive or intellectual, arises from a power of free choice: “The human power of choice is free , be it sensitive or intellectual ” (VM 28:255). So, human beings can be affected by all kinds of stimuli, but these stimuli do not necessitate their will: All kinds of torment cannot compel his power of free choice; he can endure them all and still rest on his will [...] A human being thus feels a faculty in himself for not allowing himself to be compelled to do something by anything in the world. Often because of other grounds this is difficult; but it is still possible, he still has the power for it. (VM 28:255)

The meaning of the overall passage is clear: while human beings’ acts of the power of choice can either stem from the sensitive or intellectual power of choice – i.e., either from the lower or the higher faculty of desire – all these acts of the power of choice always presuppose the agent’s capacity to refrain from being compelled to action, even though the extent according to which one is successful in exercising this capacity may vary. The upshot of this line of reasoning is that affects cannot preclude the capacity of free choice simply in light of their status of being feelings that stem from “stimuli” or “impulse” – i.e., from the sensitive power of choice or lower faculty of desire.10 Affects may work in such a way that it would 10 In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant makes it clear that maxims stem from the faculty or power of choice (Willkür) (MS 6:226). This is because, as Allison explains, “Willkür is the faculty or the power of choice, and choice, for Kant, involves not merely particular actions but also maxims” (130). Since Kant claims that maxims stem from the faculty of choice and does not specify that maxims stem from the intellectual power of choice alone, there is no reason to hold that maxims cannot stem from the sensitive power of choice. Indeed, in the Second Critique Kant clearly states that “all material practical rules put the determining ground of the will in the lower faculty of desire, and were there no merely formal laws of the will

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be difficult for someone subject to an affect to resist its influence; however, the possibility to resist acting from that affect is always open to the agent. So, Frierson’s claim that affects lack the “reflection required to be ‘capable of doing otherwise’ in any meaningful sense” (Kant’s Empirical Psychology 221) seems wrong: when one is subject to an affect, one would have the capacity to refrain from acting in the way that the affect urges one to act. There is no question that refraining to act in the way one’s affect urges one to act would be challenging, but Kant is clearly telling us that it is always possible. Arguably, the extent according to which one would be successful in doing so would be a matter of virtue.11 Now, the passage in the Lectures on Metaphysics entails a difficulty for my reading of affects. This is because Kant holds that “only in some cases does [the human being] have no power of free choice, e.g., in most tender childhood, or when he is insane, and in deep sadness, which is however also a kind of insanity” (VM 28:255). From this sentence, it seems that human beings always have the capacity for not being necessitated to action, but for few exceptions: when they are in “most tender” childhood, in cases of insanity, or in deep sadness. Setting aside the first case, insanity and deep sadness might sound close enough to something like affect, especially given Kant’s characterization of affect as “illness of the mind” (Anth 7:251). Is Kant in this passage claiming that when one is subject to an affect one has no power of free choice? The answer is no. For Kant, insanity is not an affect (i.e., a disorder of the faculty of feeling), but a “methodical” kind of derangement of the power of judgment listed among the disorders of the faculty of cognition. In insanity, “the mind is held in suspense by means of analogies that are confused with concepts of similar things, and thus the power of imagination, in a play resembling understanding, conjures up the connection of disparate things as universal, under which the representations of the universal are contained” (Anth 7:215). What about deep sadness? While Kant holds that this is a kind of insanity, deep sadness sounds close enough to Kant’s characterization of despair as “exhaustion of patience in suffering as a result of sadness” (Anth 7:258). But what makes me think that Kant is not talking about an affect when he talks about “deep sadness” is the following passage: sufficient to determine it, then neither could any higher faculty of desire be admitted” (KpV 5:22). Again, the upshot is clear: affects cannot preclude the capacity to adopt maxims of action simply in light of their status of being feelings that stem from the sensitive power of choice. 11 Kant writes that “[r]eally learned people, and philosophers, can keep a tight rein on their affects, … they weigh everything that they take as objectum of their considerations cold-bloodedly, that is, with calm mind” (VL 24:163).

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In the case of a woman who killed a child out of despair because she had been sentenced to the penitentiary, such judge declared her insane and therefore exempt from the death penalty [..] Now this woman adopted the principle that confinement in the penitentiary is an indelible disgrace, worse than death (which is quite false), and came to the conclusion, by inference from it, that she deserved death. – As a result she was insane and, as such, exempted from the death penalty. – On the basis of this argument it might be easily possible to declare all criminals insane, people whom we should pity and cure, but not punish. (Anth 7:214n)

Here, Kant is describing a woman acting from the affect of despair and is claiming that the judge’s sentencing of this woman as insane is clearly inappropriate. Indeed, Kant seems to argue that, if we were to declare insane those committing these kinds of actions – i.e., actions done from affects – and exempt them from punishment – as would be appropriate in cases of insanity – then we might as well declare all criminals insane and exempt them from punishment – a scenario Kant is clearly criticizing. So, at least in this passage Kant rejects taking despair to be the same as insanity or the same as a kind of insanity. Let me conclude this section by arguing that, given Kant’s characterization in his Lectures on Metaphysics of the human power of choice as free (be it sensitive or intellectual), affects do not necessitate or cause the agent to act. This means that, as human beings, we are never compelled to act in a certain way just because we have an affect – be it rage, fright, despair, or else – that urges us so to act. Part of our freedom as human rational beings is the ability to say “No” to any stimuli – including affects – that we have. So, when one is subject to an affect one can always exercise one’s capacity for choice and, for instance, refrain to act in the way one’s affect urges one to act. This is consistent with Kant’s discussion of affects. Indeed, Kant often discusses acting from an affect as something the agent does while exercising her capacity for choice. Take for instance Kant’s discussion of courage as an affect (Anth 7:257). Kant discusses “whether suicide also presupposes courage”. He writes: If it is committed merely in order not to outlive one’s honor, therefore out anger, then it appears to be courage; however, if it is due to exhaustion of patience in suffering as a result of sadness, which slowly exhausts all patience, then it is an act of despair […] The manner of execution of the suicide allows this distinction of mental state to be recognized. If the chosen means are sudden and fatal [...] then we cannot contest the courage of the person who has committed suicide. However, if the chosen means are rope that can be cut by others, or an ordinary poison that can be removed [...] then it is cowardly despair from weakness. (Anth 7:258–9)

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Here, Kant writes that, if one chooses sudden and fatal means when willing to commit suicide, then we can infer one is acting from the affect of courage. If one instead chooses means that are not so effective to bring about one’s suicide, then we can infer one is acting from another affect, cowardly despair. It is striking that Kant is discussing two affects in the passage, and attributes to the agent acting from them the capacity to choose the means to achieve a certain end they are willing. Kant is attributing to one acting from affect the capacity to act on maxims regulated by hypothetical imperatives. Thus, the passage makes it clear that Kant is not treating these affects as brute forces that necessitate or cause the agent to act; rather, being subject to them leaves open the possibility that the agent regulates her behavior according to rules.12 In the Third Critique, we can find another passage in which Kant discusses acting from an affect as something the agent does while exercising her capacity for choice. Here, Kant writes that Every affect is blind, either in the choice of its end, or, even if this is given by reason, in its implementation; for it is that movement of the mind that makes it incapable of engaging in free consideration of principles, in order to determine itself in accordance with them (KU 5:272)

We can see that Kant talks explicitly about the capacity for choice when in a state of affect. He tells us that the blindness of affects pertains either to which ends one chooses, or how one implements the ends one has chosen. Moreover, the passage states that all affects entail choice, where this choice can be blind as in regard to its end or to the means for achieving the end. It is also important to notice that the passage says that affects make one incapable to engage in free consideration of principles of action, rather than in choice of principle of action. So, I would argue that Kant’s text shows that affects work by restricting the considerations on which one chooses one’s principle of action. That is, affects work by limiting the agent’s ability to clearly see which considerations count in favor of (or against) a certain action. In order to fully grasp how exactly affects limit the agent’s ability to clearly see which considerations count in favor of (or against) a certain action, we need to figure out what Kant’s claim that affects impede 12 The same can be said in the case of “a woman who killed a child out of despair” (Anth 7:214n). Kant tells us that this woman adopted a principle and came to the conclusion that a certain action was required by adopting such a principle. Again, here Kant is far from discussing affects as brute forces that cause or necessitate us to act in a certain way. Rather, he describes an agent subject to an affect who regulates her behavior according to a rule.

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reflection amounts to. More specifically, we have to figure out what Kant has in mind with “reflection”, what it means that affects are obstacles to it, and which implication this has for how one can exercise one’s power of choice when in a state of affect. This is the task of the next section.

Ib. How Do Affects Impede Reflection? I turn now to a closer examination of Kant’s claim that affects impede reflection (Überlegung). Kant tells us that what constitutes being in a state of affect is that one lacks reflection in comparing this one affect with the sum of all other feelings of pleasure and displeasure one has: “It is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure or displeasure)” (Anth 7:254). Kant’s discussion of affects in the Anthropology provides us with further elements for understanding what it means that being in a state of affect is to lack the comparison between this one affect and the sum of all other feelings of pleasure and displeasure one has. Kant writes that “the feeling of pleasure or displeasure in the subject's present state that does not let him rise to reflection (the representation by means of reason as to whether he should give himself up to it or refuse it) is affect.” (Anth 7:251). Here, Kant holds that affect is feeling that does not let one rise to reflection. By reflection, he means the representation by means of reason as to whether one should give oneself up to one’s feeling or refuse it. This tells us the following: that one who is subject to an affect is impeded in the comparison between this one affect and the sum of all other feelings one has. Affects prevent one from properly answering the question “Should I give myself up to this affect? Or should I refuse to act from it?”. Thus, comparing this one affect with the sum of all other feelings one has is relevant for answering the normative question about whether one should give oneself up to one’s affect or refuse to act from it. Kant provides the following example to illustrate this point: The rich person, whose servant clumsily breaks a beautiful and rare crystal goblet while carrying it around, would think nothing of this accident if, at the same moment, he were to compare this loss of one pleasure with the multitude of all the pleasures that his fortunate position as a rich man offers him. However, if he now gives himself over completely to this one feeling of pain (without quickly making that calculation in thought), then it is no wonder that, as a result, he feels as if his entire happiness were lost. (Anth 7:254)

There are a few things to notice here. First, Kant describes a rich man who gives himself over completely to his feeling of pain when his servant

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breaks a beautiful and rare goblet. That this man gives himself over to his feeling of pain, rather than being overwhelmed by this feeling, tells us that affects do not work through a complete lack of choice.13 Second, Kant tells us that this rich man would probably think nothing of this accident, were he to compare the loss of this one pleasure with the multitude of all the pleasures that his fortunate position as a rich man offers him. The comparison at stake is a “quick calculation”, presumably of quantities of feeling in a pain-pleasure scale. Since Kant tells us that as a result of not making this calculation the rich man feels as if his entire happiness were lost, we can infer that what is at stake in making this calculation is his ability to properly evaluate whether he should give himself over to his feeling in light of his overall happiness. That the rich man fails to properly compare this affect to the sum of all other feelings he has, I would argue, means that he fails to properly evaluate whether he should give himself up to his affect or refuse to act from it in light of his overall happiness.14 Say he gives himself up to his affect and yells at his servant in anger, then goes to his room – neglecting other more important business – to weep over the loss of his goblet. By failing to compare his affect with the sum of all his other feelings, the rich man would be impeded in properly answering the question “How should this one feeling of pain influence my action in light of my overall happiness?”. If he were to properly compare his affect to the sum of all of his other feelings, then he would be able to properly evaluate that he should not have allowed his affect to influence his action as it did, i.e., he should not have given himself up to his affect. I have argued that for Kant affects impede reflection by impeding one who is subject to an affect to properly evaluate whether one should give 13

Commentators of this passage have been too quick in dismissing this point. Melissa Merritt, for instance, writes that “Kant already says too much when he claims that his unreflective rich man ‘gives himself over completely to this one feeling of pain’ (Anth 7:254). For [...] affect [...] should not leave the rich man the resources to give himself over in one way or another at all: rather, it must be that he so finds himself.” (20). If there is an interpretation of the passage that avoids attributing an inconsistency to Kant, though, then we should prefer it. 14 It is important to notice that, according to Kant, passions work in a similar way when it comes to impeding reflection. Indeed, Kant claims that passions preclude one from properly comparing this one passion to all of one’s other inclinations when evaluating how it should influence one’s choice in light of one’s overall happiness. “Inclination that prevents reason from comparing it with the sum of all inclinations in respect to a certain choice is passion” (Anth 7:265), where the idea “that all inclinations unite in one sum” (GMS 4:399, cf. “the sum of all inclinations”, GMS 4:394) is happiness.

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himself up to this affect – and allow it to influence one’s actions – or refuse it. Affects impede reflection in this way by impeding the agent in properly making the comparison on which one could ground one’s evaluation. From what Kant writes, then, the reflection that affects impede amounts to the ability to meet normative standards when deliberating over a course of action.15 To sum up: Kant’s claim that affects impede reflection does not imply that, when one is in a state of affect, one is caused to act by one’s affect in such a way that no room for choice is left by the agent, for Kant holds that no stimuli can necessitate a human being to act – not even affects. However, affects are capable of influencing our choices of action because they work by urging us to act without carefully and due-diligently evaluating our choices of action. When affects lead us to act, then, they get in the way of making a choice of action that a thoughtful agent would consider adequate. Let me conclude this section by arguing that, when Kant writes that “in affect, the person cannot carry out a rational choice” (VAnth 25:212), we should take Kant to mean the following: when one is subject to an affect and chooses to act in a certain way, affects get in the way of meeting some normative standards of rationality, where these standards could be either prudential, or moral. What the text establishes is that one in a state of affect cannot carry out either a morally sound choice or a prudentially sound choice. But while the agent in a state of affect cannot make a sound choice, it is clear that she could still be able to make a choice that is neither morally nor prudentially sound.

Ic. Affects and Unreflective Choice: Two Ways in which One Can Choose to Act Unreflectively from Affect. So far, I have argued that, when affects lead to action, they do so by allowing for choice. Affects allow for choice while impeding one’s ability to make either a morally or prudentially sound choice when in a state of affect. For Kant’s claim that affects impede reflection amounts to the claim that affects impede proper reflective evaluation when in a state of affect. 15

This characterization of reflection (Überlegung) as the ability to meet normative standards when deliberating fits well with Kant’s definition of Überlegung. Kant writes: “Überlegung heisst: etwas mit den Gesetzen des Verstandes und der Vernunft vergleichen” (Refl. 2519, 16:403). Here, Kant holds that reflection would amount to the comparison of something (e.g., a proposed course of action) with the laws of the understanding and reason. In the context of practical deliberation, comparing a proposed course of action with the laws of understanding and reason amounts to engaging in evaluative deliberation.

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The task of this section is to show that there are two possible ways in which one can choose to act unreflectively when in a state of affect. I will argue that, when one chooses to act unreflectively from affect, one can make such a choice on the basis of some explicit bad reason, or on the basis of some implicit reason. We have seen that, when Kant writes that “it is not the intensity of a certain feeling that constitutes the affected state, but the lack of reflection in comparing this feeling with the sum of all feelings (of pleasure and displeasure)” (Anth 7:254), Kant understands reflection in terms of comparison: one fails to compare one’s affect with the sum of all other feelings one has in light of a normative standard. Notice that the passage leaves open two possible ways in which one can fail to compare one’s affect with the sum of one’s feelings, thus failing to meet some normative standards: 1) one fails in such a comparison because one does not engage in any explicit comparison in the first place; or 2) one fails in such a comparison because, while engaging in an explicit comparison, one does not make a sound comparison. I would claim that, when one does not engage in any explicit comparison in the first place (1), one would choose to act from one’s affect without figuring out an explicit reason for doing so. Choosing to act from an affect for no explicit reason at all is failing to engage in any explicit comparison in the first place: one would not explicitly evaluate the reasons in favor or against acting from that affect, simply because one would not take anything to be an explicit reason at all. I would claim that, when one does not make a sound comparison (2), one would unreflectively choose to act from one’s affect without engaging in the proper comparison of the explicit reasons one would take to be for and against going with that affect. I am suggesting that affects limit the agent’s ability to comply with normative standards in her choice of action in either of two distinct ways: either the agent chooses to act unreflectively for some explicit (bad) reason, without considering other (better) reasons, or the agent chooses to act unreflectively for some implicit reason. I will now discuss these two ways in which affects can lead to action in more detail. Let us focus on the first way in which affects can lead to action. This is when one chooses to act from an affect for some explicit bad reason. Kant suggests that affect can preclude the sound evaluation of one’s explicit reason for acting in his goblet example. In the goblet example, Kant holds that affect impedes the rich man’s reflection in the sense that it impedes the sound comparison of the reasons he explicitly takes to give himself over to his affect with the reasons against doing so. Were he to soundly compare such reasons, he should realize that they are bad reasons. Granted, it is

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somewhat odd that Kant indicates that the relevant question – “How does this one feeling of pain influence my overall happiness?” – should be answered by the rich man in light of taking into account “the multitude of all the pleasure that his fortunate position as a rich man offers him”. For, something like this would be also apt (if not more apt, and probably less odd): “My servant works so hard and generally does a really good job, and anyone can break something...I really should not have acted as I did”. But my point is that, in evaluating how one’s affect influences one’s overall happiness, the rich men’s reflective failure consists in his not taking in considerations the reasons against going with his affect and the proper normative weight that such reasons should be given. When affects impede reflection in this way, one would unreflectively choose to act for bad reasons. Let us now focus on the second way in which affects can lead to action. This is when one chooses to act from an affect for some implicit reason. With this, I have in mind the following kind of agency: Take the affect of furious rage and the situation in which, acting from this affect, one thinks “I am so angry” and flings a book at you. Flinging the book at you, one did not take one’s anger to be a reason for acting; one’s thought process has not been, e.g., “I will fling a book at you, because I didn’t like what you said”. One simply decided to go with the furious, impetuous rage one was feeling, without reflecting on that feeling so as to take it to be an explicit reason for acting. It is rather fitting in this situation to say that one acted for no explicit reason at all: from one’s perspective, one did not engage in any practical reasoning in which one figured out a consideration that counted in favor of flinging the book; one just felt like doing it – one had this strong, quick feeling for doing it. In this case, rage worked by impeding one to explicitly articulate any reason one could have had. Upon reflection, when rage subsides, one might be able to articulate that one did what one did because of an explicit reason (e.g., that you made a disrespectful remark); but in the moment of action, one chose to act without explicitly articulating the reasons one could have taken in favor of acting. Thus, some reconstruction of one’s reasoning would accurately or fairly represent what may have been only implicit in the agent’s consideration. Indeed, when acting from affect in this way one would be acting for some implicit reason. These would be reasons one did not articulate such that they explicitly figured in one’s practical reasoning. To sum up: I have argued that affects limit the agent’s ability to comply with normative standards in her choice of action in either of two distinct ways: either the agent chooses to act unreflectively for some explicit bad reason, without considering other better reasons, or the agent chooses to act

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unreflectively for some implicit reason she hasn’t fully articulated.

II. Choosing to Act from an Affect as Acting on a Maxim This section is divided into two subsections. In IIa, I argue that when one chooses to act from an affect in either of the two ways I have suggested (i.e., either for implicit reasons, or for bad reasons), one would be acting on a maxim. In IIb, I defend my claim that choosing to act from an affect for implicit reasons amounts to acting on a maxim from three relevant objections.

IIa. Unreflective Choice and Maxims So far, I have argued that affects allow for unreflective choice by the agent, where such an unreflective choice can be carried out either for some implicit reason, or for some explicit bad reason. As I will claim, if affects allow for unreflective choice by the agent, then we need not think that acting from an affect falls outside the scope of the Incorporation Thesis. To fully defend my suggestion, I must show that choosing to act from an affect amounts to acting on a maxim. It is easy to see how choosing to act from an affect for some bad reason falls within the scope of the Incorporation Thesis: choosing to act from an affect for some explicit reason, even though this would be a bad reason one has not properly assessed, is certainly compatible with acting on a maxim. One would adopt a (bad) maxim on the basis of one’s (bad) reasons for acting. In the scenario in which one flings a book at somebody because they answered disrespectfully, for instance, we could imagine that one’s (bad) maxim was “When you feel disrespected, allow yourself to respond in a fierce way”. It is less clear how choosing to act from an affect for some implicit reason could count as acting on a maxim. Can choosing to act from an affect for some implicit reason count as acting upon the adoption of a maxim? It can, I would argue, if a) we take seriously Kant’s claim that we always act on maxims; and b) if we consider that Kant did not mean a single thing with “maxim”, instead employing this term for a variety of purposes. That we act on maxims every time we act on an incentive is clearly expressed by the Incorporation Thesis: whenever one acts on an incentive16, 16

Kant defines “incentive” as follows: “by incentive (elater animi) is understood the subjective determining ground of the will of a being whose reason does not by its nature necessarily conform with the objective law” (KpV 5:72).

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one “incorporates” it into a maxim. And, for Kant, we always act on incentives: “Should I desire neither according to understanding nor to sensibility, then I would want that which displeases me, I would act without incentive and cause, and that is impossible” (VM 29:900). So, since agents always act on incentives, and whenever they act on incentives, they incorporate them into maxims, agents always act on maxims. Kant’s claim that we always act on maxims should not be taken as the same as the claim that we always act on some explicit reason, though; indeed, we sometimes act for no explicit reason at all. My point is that Kant’s claim that we always act on maxims leaves open the possibility that maxim-govern action need not be action governed by explicit reasons. Moreover, recent work in Kant scholarship has shown that Kant did not mean a single thing with “maxim” and rather used the term in different ways for several purposes. Jens Timmermann indicates that Kant employs the term “maxim” in three different senses. First, there is what Timmermann calls a maxim in the “thin” sense. Thin maxims are, as Timmermann writes, “the specific first-order principle of volition and consequently action, variously described in the Groundwork as ‘the subjective principle of willing’ (IV:400), ‘the subjective principle of action’, or ‘the principle on which a person acts’ (IV:420 n).” (“Kant’s Puzzling Ethics of Maxims” 40). Maxims of this sort, importantly, lack normativity and are not prescriptive principles: they can only be descriptive of the agent’s intentions. Thin maxims describe what one intends to do rather than prescribe courses of action. Second, there is what Timmermann calls a “higher-order” maxim. A higher-order maxim is a “higher-order subjective principle of volition and action, the principle on which maxims of the first kind are chosen.” (“Kant’s Puzzling Ethics of Maxims” 40). A maxim of this type is still, at a higher level, expressive of one's actual will; however, according to Timmernann higher-order maxims have the role of influencing the choice of first-order maxims on which we directly act. Finally, there is what Timmermann calls a maxim in the “thick” sense. A thick maxim is a “higher-order subjective principle that is particularly characteristic or vigorous.” (“Kant’s Puzzling Ethics of Maxims” 41). According to Timmermann, this is a “principle” of action in a more elevated sense of the word, a kind of “life rule”. The maxim referred to in the example of the deposit that Kant describes in the Second Critique: “I have made it my maxim to increase my wealth by all secure means” (KpV 5:27), which seems to rest on some kind of resolution, would fit in this category. Here, I will not be concerned with defending Timmernann’s taxonomy of maxims, which has been generally accepted by Kant scholars and has not

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been seriously challenged.17 My aim is simply to suggest that acting from an affect for implicit reasons fits within that taxonomy. While not all thin maxims must be maxims adopted upon one’s choice to act from an affect, I am claiming that choosing to act from an affect for some implicit reason should be regarded as acting on a thin maxim. By arguing that acting from an affect for some implicit reason amounts to acting on a thin maxim, I am claiming that such a maxim would entail an intention grounded on some implicit reason, rather than an intention grounded on some explicit reason (e.g., “I will fling a book at you because you were disrespectful”).

IIb. Defending the Claim that Acting from an Affect for Implicit Reasons Amounts to Acting on a Maxim Some Kant scholars might worry that Kant’s text does not clearly establish that acting from an affect for some implicit reason amounts to acting on a maxim. In this section, I consider three important objections to this claim. If successful, these objections would show that Kant’s account of maxims rules out that one can adopt a maxim for some implicit reason. They are the following: (1) maxims are always grounded on the agent’s interest, and the agent’s interest is the explicit reason she takes for adopting her maxim; therefore, maxims are always grounded on some explicit reason; (2) maxims must have a degree of generality and to have such a degree of generality maxims must entail some explicit reason for acting; therefore, maxims must be grounded on explicit reasons; (3) all maxims entail an end and for one to adopt a maxim is to treat one's end as an explicit reason for acting; therefore, all maxims must entail explicit reasons. In replying to these objections, I aim to show that Kant’s account of maxims can entail maxims that are adopted by the agent for some implicit reason. Let us start with the first objection. According to this objection, when an agent adopts a maxim, she does so on the basis of her underlying interest, where such an interest provides the agent with a reason for acting. This is Allison’s view. Allison writes that “every maxim reflects an underlying interest of the agent, which provides the reason for adopting the maxim. Consequently, a reference to this interest is implicit in every maxim, constituting, as it were, part of its ‘deep structure’” (90). If, as Allison holds, every maxim is grounded on an interest of the agent and such an interest provides the agent with a reason for acting, then every maxim adopted by an agent entails a reason for acting. That this reason must be explicit in the 17

See, for instance, O’Neill (“Autonomy”); Sensen (“Kant on Human Dignity”); Kahn (“Obligatory Actions, Obligatory Maxims”).

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agent’s practical reasoning seems to be implied by the following remark. For Allison, “a minimally rational agent is one who forms interests on the basis of some kind of reflective evaluation of inclination and adopts policies on the basis of these interests. Such policies are termed maxims” (89). Importantly, Allison claims that to adopt maxims on the basis of some reflective evaluation of one’s incentive, i.e., on the basis of some considered, explicit reasons, is what it takes to be a minimally rational agent. If true, this position would rule out that, when one acts from an affect for some implicit reason, one could act on a maxim. In order to evaluate Allison’s claim, we need to keep in mind that Kant emphasizes and explains the relation between maxim and interest in the Critique of Practical Reason, where he writes that the concept of a maxim rests on that of an interest: From the concept of an incentive arises that of an interest, which can never be attributed to any being unless it has reason and which signifies an incentive of the will insofar as it is represented by reason … On the concept of an interest is based that of a maxim. (KpV 5:79).

Here, Kant writes that the concept of interest is grounded on the concept of an incentive. How does the concept of incentive ground the concept of interest? An interest, Kant writes, consists in that incentive insofar as it is represented by reason. But Kant does not make any claim about which kind of representation is at stake when an incentive is represented by reason to form an interest. There is no suggestion that the representation at stake need involve a reflective evaluation of one’s incentive. So far as this piece of textual evidence goes, when an agent’s incentive is represented by reason to form an interest, the representation at stake could amount to a representation which does not entail any reflection or evaluation. If this is correct, there could be maxims that do not entail considerations based on the agent’s reflective evaluation of her incentives, that is, there could be maxims that do not entail explicit reasons. In the Introduction of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant provides us with some more elements for understanding how an agent having an interest represents to herself an incentive. Here, Kant describes “interest” as a “connection of pleasure with the faculty of desire that the understanding judges to hold as a general rule (though only for the subject).” (MS 6:212). Here, Kant writes that interest is a connection of pleasure with the faculty of desire; this connection, Kant adds, is judged by the understanding to hold as a general rule. If we combine what Kant writes in the Second Critique with what Kant writes here, it seems that an interest is an incentive represented by reason, that is, it involves a representation of the connection

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between pleasure and the faculty of desire. That the agent judges this connection to hold as a general rule seems promising for the claim that taking an interest would need to imply some form of reflective evaluation of one’s incentive. One would need to reflectively evaluate the connection between pleasure and the faculty of desire, and judge it to hold as a general rule. But this is not what the passage must imply. In fact, a few lines later in the Introduction of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant goes on to identify an “interest of inclination” with pleasure itself, and not, as he initially suggested, with the combination of pleasure with the faculty of desire which is judged by the understanding to hold as a general rule.18 He writes “so if a pleasure necessarily precedes the desire, the practical pleasure must be called an interest of inclination.” (MS 6:212). Engstrom explains Kant’s passage in the following way: in the case of a sensuous desire, when one can notice by means of her understanding a connection between one’s experience of pleasure for an object and the desire for it, the pleasure must itself be represented through a concept and the pleasure will count as an interest.19 My point is that the representation at stake in such a process need

18 Kant’s discussion of the notion of “interest of inclination” must be distinguished from his discussion of the notion of “interest of reason”. In the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant introduces the notion of interest of reason in contrast with the notion of interest of inclination: “But if a pleasure can only follow upon an antecedent determination of the faculty of desire it is an intellectual pleasure, and the interest in the object must be called an interest of reason; for if the interest were based on the senses and not on pure rational principles alone, sensation would then have to have pleasure connected with it and in this way be able to determine the faculty of desire.” (MS 6:212-213). Moreover, Kant indicates that these two notions of interest cannot be treated as the same, since “where a merely pure interest of reason must be assumed no interest of inclination can be substituted for it.” (MS 6:213). The important thing to notice about Kant’s characterization of an interest of inclination is that it is the sensible feeling of pleasure towards an object that is responsible for the subject being interested in it and desiring to bring it about. The same does happen in the case of an interest of reason. Indeed, Kant tells us that an interest of reason is based on pure practical principles alone. Thus, no sensible feeling of pleasure could be responsible for the subject being interested in an object or state of affairs. Notice that my discussion in this section of the paper is limited to the notion of interest of inclination. 19 “Once an inclination is in place, as one term in a stable, homeostatic connection between the pleasing experience of some object and the faculty of desire, an animal may, if it has understanding, notice this general connection and represent it conceptually, through a rule, in which, on account of the rule’s generality, the pleasure must itself be represented through a concept of the object the representation

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not imply reflective evaluation of one’s incentive, but it might just amount to a representation of pleasure through a concept. Such a representation would require awareness, but need not require reflection or evaluation. So far as this piece of textual evidence goes, the possibility that a maxim might be grounded on an interest which does not entail some kind of reflective evaluation is open. If this is correct, then adopting a maxim need not entail adopting some explicit reasons for acting. I will now consider another objection to my claim that, when one acts from an affect for some implicit reason, one acts on a maxim. The objection goes as follows: Maxims are supposed to determine how we act on the basis of a practical rule, and the form of a practical rule is supposed to be “When in S-type situation, perform A-type actions” (Allison 90); it is in light of having such a form that maxims are regarded as principles having some degree of generality. But this is not the form of “I will fling a book at you”. According to this criticism, the latter could not be regarded as a maxim because it does not have any degree of generality. Nonetheless, a maxim of this sort might still be regarded as a principle of action entailing some degree of generality in at least two important ways: (a) it could have a future orienting role such that, when I adopt “I will fling a book at you”, I am setting up a rule for myself on the basis of which I can orient my future practical thinking when it comes to the kind of feeling and action my maxim is about; and (b) it could be considered a maxim that, upon the agent’s reflection, has the potential to become a maxim entailing an explicit reason for acting. As to a, this is what I have in mind more specifically. When one adopts “I will fling a book at you”, this maxim might have a future-orienting role in the sense that one can make it a habit to express rage by flinging a book at you. When it comes to this kind of affect my behavior can be guided by the habitual adoption of that thin maxim. My account, then, is not threatened by what Korsgaard has called “the argument against particularistic willing” (Korsgaard 72). Particularistic willing “would be a matter of willing a maxim for exactly this occasion without taking it to have any other implications of any kind for any other occasion.” (Korsgaard 75). According to Korsgaard, this kind of willing is impossible for Kant since on Kant’s account of rational agency we form specific intentions in the light of maxims that, however specific they are, are taken to be general policies for dealing with the specifics described in the maxims.20 I would claim that

of whose existence it accompanies: in such a case, the pleasure will count as an interest.” (Engstrom 41) 20 See Korsgaard (Self-constitution 75).

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adopting a thin maxim of the sort I have described from affect does not amount to particularistic willing. This is because the future-orienting role of a thin maxim grounded on affect would entail a degree of generality such that this maxim will guide my future behavior when it comes to practical situations in which the specifics described in the maxim apply. As to b, that the agent can reflect on her affect on a second moment, evaluating it in relation to the sum of her other feelings, when the impetuousness and rash of such an affect is gone, is clearly suggested by Kant when he writes that the reflection that affects impede is reflection on the spot, as in the goblet example. Similarly, upon reflection one might come up with an explicit reason why one flung a book at you even though such a reason did not figure explicitly in one’s thinking process. Suppose one steps back and reminds oneself of one’s commitment to treat people fairly. After reflecting, one may say “It is so bad you did what you did. How dare you!”, or “I do not usually get so infuriated. The fact that I am now is a good indication that you did something wrong”. These are considerations that one might explicitly take to count in favor of acting. Importantly, these reasons did not figure in one’s practical thinking – they were implicit in one’s practical thinking – but they can be made explicit upon reflection for justifying why one acted as one did. Notice that my characterization of maxims that do not entail an explicit reason for acting fits Allison’s account of maxims as hierarchically arranged principles. According to Allison, Kant’s claim in the Religion that the ground for the adoption of a maxim must be sought always again in a maxim (RGV 6:21n) means that “one might think of maxims [..] as arranged hierarchically, with the more general embedded in the more specific, like genera in species.” (93). Thin maxims of the kind I suggest would be at the bottom of the hierarchy. To be clear, it is also worth pointing out that maxims of the kind I suggest are the kind of maxims that should not be tested by the CI procedure. Maxims that should be tested by the CI procedure are maxims that entail explicit reasons for acting. My suggestion is in line with Herman’s view that we need to rethink the very idea that the role of the CI procedure is to provide a method for the moral assessment of agents’ actual maxims.21 Herman’s idea is that the CI procedure should test “generic maxims”, maxims of the form “to do x type of action for y type of reason”. The third objection to the claim that when one acts from an affect for some implicit reason, one acts on a maxim runs as follows. One might argue that every maxim that an agent adopts is done to achieve a chosen end and 21

See Herman (The Practice of Moral Judgment 143).

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to achieve that end is always explicitly taken by the agent to be a reason to act. According to this criticism, the form of a maxim should be “When in Stype situation, perform A-type actions to achieve end E”. I would respond to this objection by pointing out that Kant allows one’s end to be explicit or implicit in one’s maxim. One example of a maxim in which the agent’s end is made explicit is Kant’s notorious formulation of the suicide maxim: “From self-love I make it my principle to shorten my life when its longer duration threatens more troubles than it promises agreeableness.” (GMS 4:422). Here, the maxim is quite explicit in the sense that it specifies not only a particular course of action in a particular type of situation, but also that the agent’s end is to act from self-love. This is to be contrasted with the false-promising example: “When I believe myself to be in need of money, I shall borrow money and promise to repay it, even though I know this will never happen.” (GMS 4:422). As Allison puts it, “the latter maxim is quite explicit in the sense that it specifies a particular course of action in a particular type of situation, but there is no mention of the end or interest.” (90). I would argue that when the agent’s end is explicit in one’s maxim, she should be regarded as taking that end to be an explicit reason for acting. But when the agent’s end is not explicit in one’s maxim, then I would argue that we need not think that the agent takes that end to be an explicit reason for acting. That there is an end to the agent’s maxim tells us that there is some reason for choosing that end, but it does not tell us that the agent has explicitly taken those reasons to be her reasons. It doesn’t tell us that those reasons explicitly figured in her practical thinking as her reasons for acting. Indeed, it doesn’t tell us that those reasons were explicitly articulated by the agent in her process of practical thinking. If this is correct, the claim that when one acts from an affect for no explicit reason at all, one still acts on a maxim stands against the objection presented. If I am right that (i) acting from an affect still amounts to choosing to act and (ii) acting from an affect can count as acting on a maxim, then acting from an affect falls within the scope of the Incorporation Thesis. Against Frierson’s claim that “affects … bypass any need to be incorporated into maxims” (“Affects and passions” 105), I would argue that affects cannot determine actions unless they have been incorporated by the agent into a maxim of action.

Conclusion I have argued that actions that are motivated by affects fall within the scope of the Incorporation Thesis. Despite affects having been treated in

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Kant scholarship as strong feelings that lead to action by entirely precluding the capacity for choice by the agent, Kant’s text supports an alternative reading of how affects lead to action. On the account I have proposed, affects do not cause us to act in a way that leaves no room for choice by the agent; rather, affects influence our choices of action because they urge us to act without carefully and due-diligently evaluating the reasons for and against making such choices, and this amounts to acting unreflectively. Moreover, I have argued that unreflectively choosing to act from affect either for implicit reasons or for bad reasons amounts to acting on a maxim.

Works Cited Allison, Henry E. Kant's Theory of Freedom. Cambridge University Press, 1990. Borges, Maria de Lourdes. Emotion, Reason and Action in Kant. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. Clewis, Robert R. The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom. Cambridge University Press, 2009. Darwall, Stephen L. Impartial reason. 1983. Denis, Lara. “Kant's Cold Sage and the Sublimity of Apathy.” Kantian Review 4 (2000): 48-73. Engstrom, Stephen. “Kant’s ‘Metaphysics of Morals’: A Critical Guide.” Reason, Desire, and the Will (2010): 28-50. Frierson, Patrick. “Kant on mental disorder. Part 2: Philosophical implications of Kant’s account.” History of Psychiatry 20.3 (2009): 290310. Frierson, Patrick. “Kant on Mental Disorder. Part 1: An Overview.” History of Psychiatry 20.3 (2009): 267-289. Frierson, Patrick. “Affects and passions.” Kant’s Lectures on Anthropology: A Critical Guide (2014): 94-113. Frierson, Patrick R. Kant's Empirical Psychology. Cambridge University Press, 2014. Herman, Barbara. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Harvard University Press, 1993. Kahn, Samuel. “Obligatory Actions, Obligatory Maxims.” Kantian Review 26.1 (2021): 1-25. Kant, Immanuel. Kant: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Cambridge University Press, 2006. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

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Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In Practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. In Practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. In Practical philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 2012. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Metaphysics. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press, 2001. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Logic. Cambridge University Press, 2004. Kant, Immanuel. “Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.” Religion and Rational Theology 39 (1998): 83. Christine, Korsgaard. Self-constitution. Oxford University Press, 2009. Merritt, Melissa. Kant on Reflection and Virtue. Cambridge University Press, 2018. O'neill, Onora. “Autonomy: the Emperor's New Clothes.” Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume. Vol. 77. No. 1. Oxford, UK and Boston, USA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2003. Sensen, Oliver. “Kant on Human Dignity.” Kant on Human Dignity. de Gruyter, 2011. Sorensen, Kelly D. “Kant's Taxonomy of the Emotions.” Kantian Review 6 (2002): 109-128. Sticker, Martin. Rationalizing (Vernünfteln). Cambridge University Press, 2021. Timmermann, Jens. “Kant’s Puzzling Ethics of Maxims.” The Harvard Review of Philosophy 8 (2000): 39-52. Timmermann, Jens. Kant's Will at the Crossroads: An Essay on the Failings of Practical Rationality. Oxford University Press, 2022. Tizzard, Jessica. “Kantian Moral Psychology and Human Weakness.” Philosophers 21.16 (2021). Vujoševiƛ, Marijana. “The Kantian Capacity for Moral Self-Control: Abstraction at Two Levels.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 102.1 (2020): 102-130. Willaschek, Marcus, et al., eds. Kant-Lexikon. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2015. Wood, Allen. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

THE SELF-BINDING SELF: PHENOMENA AND NOUMENA IN KANT’S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY NATALIYA PALATNIK

I. Introduction Kant’s treatment of the possibility of freedom and the nature of moral agency inevitably draws on the distinction between phaenomena and noumena. Setting aside the complexities of the long-standing debate about the nature of Kant’s transcendental idealism, I want to consider certain puzzles about the use of this distinction in Kant’s account of moral selfconstraint, particularly in the context of Groundwork III and in his argument for the possibility of duties to oneself in the Metaphysics of Morals. Kant’s treatment of moral self-constraint is generally couched in terms of a ‘doubled self’ or ‘dual personality’ theory of agency. On this view, an agent represents being bound by the moral law as a relation in which her pure rational self normatively constrains her choices as a sensible human being. We find such descriptions throughout Kant’s practical corpus.1 Yet, it is fair to say that the practical application of the phaenomenal-noumenal

1

See, e.g., (GMS, 452-5; 457-8, 461), (KpV, 5:87), (MS, 6:438, 438fn). See also Vigilantius Lectures on Ethics (1793-94): “Just as to every right there must correspond a duty, at least (if not coercive, yet) an inner duty, so humanity also has a right against me as a man, and thus an obligatus confronts an obligatum here. This requires a double nature to explain it. We conceive of man first of all as an ideal, as he ought to be and can be, merely according to reason, and call this Idea homo noumenon; this being is thought of in relation to another, as though the latter were restrained by him; this is man in the state of sensibility, who is called homo phenomenon. The latter is the person, and the former merely a personified Idea; there, man is simply under the moral law, but here he is a phenomenon, affected by the feelings of pleasure and pain, and must be coerced by the noumenon into the performance of duty. So we can here draw an analogy, from the way that one man stands in relation to another.” (VE, 27:593; cf. VE, 27:509-10; 27:579-80).

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distinction has not been well received.2 Kant’s appeal to it at the crucial junctions of his moral theory is often deemed unhelpful, even misleading in apparently conflating ontological and normative considerations.3 In his commentary on the Groundwork,4 Henry Allison argues, for example, that one of the key problems with Kant’s deduction of the Categorical Imperative in Groundwork III – the problem of the status of the addressee of the categorical imperative – has to do with the way this distinction is characterized. The distinction is introduced based on theoretical considerations and described as a contrast between two ways of regarding a human being – as a part of the world of sense where her behavior is fully determined by natural causes (her impulses and inclinations) and as a member of the world of the understanding, governed by pure practical reason and transcendentally free (e.g., GMS, 4:452-3). But, this distinction is not adequate to account for the necessitation of the will expressed in the categorical imperative: “Considered qua legislator of the law, the subject unambiguously belongs to the world of the understanding; but contrary to what Kant’s distinction between standpoints suggests, the same subject, considered qua addressee or recipient of this imperative, cannot unambiguously be located in the world of sense.” (Allison 2011: 345)

Allison’s point is that, qua addressee of the law, the subject must be regarded as capable of responding to the categorical requirements – capable of recognizing and being moved by moral considerations. She cannot be conceived (or conceive of herself) merely as “a part [eines Stücks] of the world of sense” (GMS, 4:453) whose desires and inclinations operate as causal determinants of her behavior. Moreover, understood in this way, the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction invites a ‘quasi-Manichean’ view of the self, on which our better, idealized self, qua member of the world of the understanding, constrains our selfish, ‘dear’ self, associated with our sensuous nature, qua member of the world of sense (Allison 2011: 341-2).5 2

See e.g., (Wood 1999:119-20, 135-138), and especially (Wood 1999:296 n.12), where pointing to key parts of Groundwork III, Wood criticizes Kant for engaging in “gratuitous supernatural metaphysics with annoying regularity”. 3 An objection of this kind with respect to Kant’s deduction of the categorical imperative in Groundwork III is mentioned, for example, by Karl Ameriks in (Ameriks 2003:178) and discussed in (Allison 2011:335-336). 4 See (Allison 2011). 5 As Allison points out, such a view is incompatible with Kant’s conception of freedom, yet Kant seems to suggest it at certain points in Groundwork III. See, in particular, his discussion of the most malicious scoundrel becoming conscious of his

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Andrews Reath offers a similar assessment of Kant’s appeal to the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction in solving an apparent contradiction in the concept of duty to oneself (and of moral self-constraint, more generally) in the Metaphysics of Morals: “We expect the distinction between phenomena and noumena to rescue the idea of constraining or binding oneself from becoming meaningless by enabling us to think of the agent in two different senses. But in fact it is the agent as noumena who occupies both roles of binding and bound…Crudely put, it is the legislative capacities of the noumenal self – our humanity or personality – that impose demands on the noumenal self’s choices and attitudes towards itself. Intuitively it seems correct that duties to oneself require that we think of a single agent in two different senses, but the distinction between phenomenon and noumenon has not provided a way to do this.” (Reath 2002: 356)

While Reath’s claim that a Kantian noumenal self constrains its own choices and attitudes can be plausibly challenged,6 he is right to stress, as Allison does, that it makes no sense to talk about morally binding a human being regarded merely as a subject to deterministic natural laws. These observations suggest that we could make better sense of some key arguments of Kant’s moral theory if we were able to reconceive the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction in a way that allows it to serve the distinctive purposes of Kant’s practical philosophy. In this paper, I offer such a re-conception. In particular, I argue that Kant’s discussions in the Metaphysics of Morals and in the Religion, point to a reading of this distinction that shows it to be more complex and more interesting than is often thought. On this reading, a practical concept of a homo phaenomenon can be taken in two senses. On the one hand, homo phaenomenon is a concept of the self as a natural rational being who “has reason” (MS, 6:418); a being who acts (and regards herself as acting) on incentives she takes to be reasons. Taken in this sense, the concept of a homo phaenomenon is morally undetermined, since it leaves open the possibility that the agent’s actions are fully determined by natural causes. On the other hand, from the practical standpoint, from which the agent is able to cognize herself as a freely acting intelligence, the concept of homo phaenomenon acquires new content. An agent is now regarded not merely as a natural being with reason, but also as receptive to unconditional moral requirements; as possessing the kind of sensibility that makes her capable of moral feeling and of acting for good will that “constitutes the law for his evil will as a member of the world of sense” (GMS, 4:455). 6 I will say more about this in section IV.

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genuinely moral reasons. That is, from the practical point of view, the concept of homo phaenomenon becomes morally determined. My aim is to show that recognizing these two senses of the concept of homo phaenomenon implied in Kant’s later writings allows us not only better to understand what Kant says about moral self-constraint and the possibility of duty to oneself in the Metaphysics of Morals, but also to shed additional light on his use of the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction in Groundwork III and offers a possibility of a more positive assessment of his argument there.

II. The Phaenomenal-Noumenal Distinction and the Practical Point of View One of the first applications of the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction to human action in Kant’s critical period can be found in the Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason, in the context of Kant’s defense of “the possibility of causality through freedom unified with the universal law of natural necessity” (KrV, A538/B566). Here, the distinction is used to explain how the same action can be viewed as subject to laws of empirical causality and as free. It is put in terms of dual self-conception: “The human being is one of the appearances in the world of sense, and to that extent also one of the natural causes whose causality must stand under empirical laws. As such he must accordingly have an empirical character.…Yet a human being, who is otherwise acquainted with the whole of nature solely through sense, knows himself also through pure apperception, and indeed in actions and inner determinations which cannot be accounted at all among impressions of sense; he obviously is in one part phenomenon. But in another part, namely with regard of certain faculties, he is merely an intelligible object, because the actions of this object cannot at all be ascribed to the receptivity of sensibility.” (KrV, A546-7/B574-5, italics added).

The empirical character of an agent’s power of choice and “the other cooperating causes” (KrV, A437/B575) determine all her actions according to natural laws, as events in the sensible world. With respect to her character as a phaenomenon, there is no freedom. If it were possible for us to know the empirical character of an agent’s power of choice, we could (in principle) predict her actions with certainty.7 When we think of a human 7

This claim is made explicitly in the second Critique: “One can therefore grant that if it were possible for us to have such deep insight into a human being’s cast of mind, as shown by inner as well as outer actions, that we would know every incentive to

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being and her actions in this way, says Kant, we “consider a human being solely by observing, and, as happens in anthropology, by trying to investigate the moving causes of [her] actions physiologically” (KrV, A550/B578, italics added). Yet, when we think of the very same actions in relation to practical reason as their source, we regard them as subject to laws of reason that belong to an order entirely different from the order of nature. From this point of view, we are able to see the agent as a freely acting intelligence. So, on the one hand, Kant here links regarding a human agent as a phaenomenon to a purely theoretical perspective of observation, “physiological” investigation, and prediction. On the other, he links regarding her as an intelligence to the practical evaluative perspective, as in his example of a malicious lie (KrV, A554-5/B582-3) that aims to illustrate the necessary presupposition of freedom in our moral practices (in this case, of imputation and blame). Now, Kant’s primary concern in this part of the first Critique is not with moral self-consciousness or justification of morality, but with theoretical worries about the logical possibility of transcendental freedom, given that the natural order is governed by deterministic laws. In his practical philosophy, however, the deliberative perspective of moral agency necessarily takes center stage. Here, the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction plays a key role in Kant’s account of the bindingness of the categorical imperative and the possibility of moral obligation.8 In preparing a way for the deduction of the categorical imperative in Groundwork III, for example, he argues that an agent who stands under the categorical imperative thinks of herself as belonging both to the world of sense and to the world of the understanding, and regards herself qua intelligible being (homo noumenon) as binding herself qua sensible being (homo phaenomenon): “when we think of ourselves as free we transfer ourselves into the world of the understanding as members of it and cognize autonomy of the will along with its consequence, morality; but if we think of ourselves as put under obligation we regard ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and yet at action, even the smallest, as well as all the external occasions affecting them, we could calculate a human being’s conduct for the future with as much certainty as a lunar or solar eclipse…” (KpV, 5:99). 8 Kant defines obligation and duty this way: “The dependence upon the principle of autonomy of a will that is not absolutely good (moral necessitation) is obligation. This, accordingly, cannot be attributed to a holy being. The objective necessity of an action from obligation is called duty.” (GMS, 4:439); “the relation of [finite rational] will to this law is dependence under the name of obligation, which signifies a necessitation, though only by reason and its objective law, to an action which is called duty” (KpV, 5:32). See also (MS, 6:222-3).

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the same time to the world of understanding.” (GMS, 4:453, italics added; see also (GMS, 4:454-5), (KpV, 5:6; 87; 98)).

Importantly, the deliberative standpoint of an agent who is subject to duty is incompatible with an agent thinking of herself under the concept of a homo phaenomenon associated with a theoretical perspective, from which she considers a human being, as Kant puts it, “solely by observing” (KrV, A550/B578). Hence, by Kant’s own lights, the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction introduced on the basis of theoretical considerations cannot be applied to the practical without a significant re-conception that would make it compatible with the agential standpoint. This seems to be the basic reason why the theoretically based phaenomenal-noumenal distinction fails to play the role Kant is often taken to want it to play in the deduction of the Categorical Imperative in Groundwork III and in his proof of the possibility of duties to oneself in the Metaphysics of Morals, for example. Insofar as both of these arguments concern an agent’s practical self-conception, they can no more appeal to the concept of a homo phaenomenon tied to an observational-predictive perspective than to the merely negative, practically undetermined, concept of a homo noumenon (as an unknown and unknowable ground of the self as an appearance).

III. Kant’s Practical Phaenomenal-Noumenal Distinction III.1 Already in Grounwork III (and later in the Critique of Practical Reason), Kant makes clear that the concept of a homo noumenon receives positive content by means of the moral law (as a freely acting intelligence governed by the law of autonomy).9 Yet he never explicitly considers how the practical point of view shapes our conception of ourselves as natural beings. His later work, however, provides us with resources for addressing this question, or so I will argue. 9

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant argues that our consciousness of the moral law as supremely authoritative “points to a pure world of the understanding and indeed, even determines it positively and lets us cognize something of it, namely a law” (KpV, 5:43). This is the moral law as “the law of causality through freedom and hence a law of the possibility of a supersensible nature” (KpV, 5:47). See also the Critical Elucidation of the Analytic of the second Critique: “The concept of freedom alone allows us to find the unconditioned and intelligible for the conditioned and sensible without going outside ourselves. For, it is our reason itself which by means of the supreme and unconditional practical law cognizes itself and the being that is conscious of this law (our own person) as belonging to the pure world of understanding and even determines the way in which, as such, it can be active.” (KpV, 5:106, italics added).

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Kant’s discussion of the apparent antinomy in the concept of a duty to oneself in the Metaphysics of Morals (MS, 6:417-8) offers a good starting point. On the one hand, says Kant, there is an apparent contradiction in the concept of duty to oneself – it seems that one cannot bind oneself, or bind oneself to be bound, since one can always release oneself from a selfimposed constraint. On the other hand, human beings do have such duties. Indeed, if there were no duties to oneself (internal duties), he famously argues, neither would there be duties to others: “I can recognize that I am under obligation to others only insofar as I at the same time put myself under obligation, since the law by virtue of which I regard myself as being under obligation proceeds in every case from my own practical reason; and in being constrained by my own reason, I am also the one constraining myself.” (MS, 6:418)

To recognize an obligation to another to act in a certain way is to recognize that I am subject to a practical law that requires this action (a law that says that I ought to keep my promises or respect another person’s property, for example) and confers on the other a special moral standing to demand this action from me. As an unconditional requirement, this law can issue only from my own practical reason.10 In other words, every duty involves what Kant calls “free self-constraint” (MS, 6:393), or “selfconstraint in accordance with a principle of inner freedom” (MS, 6:394).11 So Kant’s claim here seems to be this: if the problem with the concept of a duty to oneself is that it involves an apparently incoherent concept of free self-constraint or self-binding, then the same problem would necessarily plague the concept of duty in general, rendering it incoherent, and hence making all duty impossible.12 Since we do not doubt that we have duties to others, the question Kant faces is: how is such a self-constraint possible? His answer to this question relies on the phaenomenal-noumenenal 10 Recognizing that I ought to keep my promise to you, for example, is only possible if I recognize that I am rationally bound to keep my promises; and, more generally, bound to treat you and other persons as ends in themselves. 11 Here is a more fulsome statement of the idea in the Metaphysics of Morals: “The very concept of duty is already the concept of a necessitation (constraint) of free choice through the law. This constraint may be an external constraint or a selfconstraint. …But since the human being is … a free (moral) being, when the concept of duty concerns the internal determination of his will (the incentive) the constraint that the concept of duty contains can be only self-constraint (through the representation of the law alone); for only so can that necessitation (even if it is external) be united with the freedom of his choice.” (MS, 6:380) 12 This point is also stressed by Reath (see Reath 2002: 354).

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distinction applied to a person’s conception of her own practical agency. For our purposes here, it is worth quoting this answer more or less in full. “When a human being is conscious of a duty to himself,” Kant writes, “he views himself, as the subject of duty, under two attributes: first as a sensible being, that is, as human being (a member of one of the animal species), and secondly as an intelligible being (not merely as a being that has reason, since reason as a theoretical faculty could well be an attribute of a living corporeal being). The senses cannot attain this latter aspect of a human being; it can be cognized only in morally practical relations, where the incomprehensible property of freedom is revealed by the influence of reason on the inner lawgiving will. Now the human being as a natural being that has reason (homo phaenomenon) can be determined by his reason, as a cause, to actions in the sensible world, and so far the concept of obligation does not come into consideration. But the same human being thought in terms of his personality, that is, as a being endowed with inner freedom (homo noumenon), is regarded as a being that can be put under obligation and, indeed, under obligation to himself (to the humanity in his own person). So the human being (taken in these two different senses) can acknowledge a duty to himself without falling into contradiction (because the concept of a human being is not thought in one and the same sense).” (MS, 6:418, italics added)

As the subject of duty, a person recognizes two aspects of her agency – she sees herself as a sensible human being with reason (rational animal) and as a being endowed with inner freedom (as rational and reasonable being).13 Indeed, given the Groundwork’s claim that when we think of ourselves as put under obligation “we regard ourselves as belonging to the world of sense and yet at the same time to the world of understanding.” (GMS, 4:453, italics added), it is plausible to read Kant here as claiming that she regards herself under both attribitutes. An agent who stands under the moral law cognizes herself as intelligence only in morally practical relations, that is, through her consciousness of the moral law as supremely authoritative, or what in the second Critique Kant calls the “fact of reason” (e.g., KpV, 5:31). But, what about an agent’s self-conception as a sensible being (homo phaenomenon)? When she thinks of this aspect of herself, she regards herself as a living corporeal being, whose reason can be a determining cause of her actions in the sensible world. As a homo phaenomenon (animal rationale), she is a human being who acts on incentives she takes to be reasons for action. Notice that this is already a practical version of the concept of homo phaenomenon, since an agent’s desires and inclinations are now considered 13

See also e.g., (MS, 6:434-5).

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to be sources of reasons, rather than merely causes of her behavior. Yet Kant’s point seems to be that this practical conception of oneself is insuffient to account for the possibility of unconditional necessitation. A few pages later, he tells us that, viewed merely as a rational animal, a human being is of slight moral importance (however unfair we may now think this claim is to animals, rational and otherwise). Although “a human being has, in [her] understanding, something more than [mere non-rational animals] and can set [her]self ends” (MS, 6:434), this gives her only an extrinsic value for her usefulness14 As such, she cannot yet be considered a person, a subject to morally practical reason, who is, and must be valued as, an end in itself. Seeing someone (including oneself) simply as a natural being who is practically rational does not yet warrant regarding her as bound by unconditional moral requirements, as able to act on genuinely moral reasons. As Kant puts it in his treatment of the antinomy in the concept of duty to oneself quoted above, “so far, the concept of obligation does not come into consideration” (MS, 6:418, italics added). The idea is expressed perhaps more clearly in an important footnote in the Religion: “from the fact that a being has reason does not at all follow that, simply by virtue of representing its maxims as suited to universal legislation, this reason contains a faculty of determining the power of choice unconditionally, and hence to be “practical” on its own; at least, not so far as we can see. The most rational being of this world might still need certain incentives, coming to him from the objects of inclination, to determine his power of choice. He might apply the most rational reflection to these objects – about what concerns their greatest sum as well as the means for attaining the goal determined through them – without thereby even suspecting the possibility of such a thing as the absolutely imperative moral law which announces to be itself an incentive, and, indeed, the highest incentive. Were this law not given to us from within, no amount of subtle reasoning on our part would 14

Kant makes a similar point in the second Critique: “The human being is a being with needs, insofar as he belongs to the sensible world, and to this extent his reason certainly has a commission from the side of his sensibility which it cannot refuse, to attend to its interest and to form practical maxims with a view to happiness in this life and, where possible, in a future life as well. But he is nevertheless not so completely an animal as to be indifferent to all that reason says on its own and to use reason merely as a tool for the satisfaction of his needs as a sensible being. For, that he has reason does not at all raise him in worth above mere animality for animals; reason would in that case be only a particular mode nature had used to equip the human being for the same end to which it has destined animals, without destining him to a higher end. No doubt once this arrangement of nature has been made for him he needs reason in order to take into consideration at all times his well-being and woe …” (KpV, 5:61, italics added).

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produce it or win our power of choice over to it.” (RGV, 6:26fn, italics added)

Kant’s discussion here points to the fact that the concept of homo phaenomenon as a rational animal – a being who acts on incentives she takes to be reasons – a natural rational being with predispositions to animality and humanity (RGV, 6:26) – is morally undetermined. The capacity to act for reasons does not yet imply the capacity to act for genuinely moral reasons; to act from duty (MS, 6:434-5; RGV, 6:26fn). To think of a human being in this way is to leave open the possibility that her actions are fully determined by natural causes. The concepts of moral personhood, duty, and obligation15 have validity for us (“come into consideration”) only because, as Kant puts it, the moral law is “given to us from within”, that is, as ‘the fact of reason’ – through our consciousness of its authority in our practical thought and judgment. As the subject of duty, the same human being who thinks of herself as a natural being whose empirical practical reason has causality in the sensible world, must also think of herself as a person who is able to recognize and act on genuinely moral reasons. In other words, standing under obligation requires that a human being be able to regard herself not merely as a natural being acting on reasons (homo phaenomenon), whatever the source of these reasons might be, but also as a moral person (homo noumenon), an intelligent being whose reasons are, in Kemp-Smith’s apt translation, not “nature again” (KrV, A803/B831). At the same time, to be bound by the moral law, the agent must take an interest in morality and see herself as

15

Kant’s text here seems to echo his criticism of Christian Wolff’s universal practical philosophy in the Preface to the Groundwork. Proponents of the Wolffian approach, Kant writes, “do not distinguish motives that, as such, are represented completely a priori by reason alone and are properly moral from empirical motives…; instead they consider motives only in terms of the greater or smaller amount of them, without paying attention to the difference of their sources (since all of them are regarded as of the same kind); and this is how they form their concept of obligation, which is anything but moral, although the way it is constituted is all that can be desired in a philosophy that does not judge at all about the origin of all possible practical concepts, whether they occur only a posteriori or a priori as well” (GMS, 4:391). The Wolffians rely on the morally undetermined concept of a human being as a rational animal. But, thinking of a human being under that concept does not yet warrant thinking of her as capable of standing under genuine obligations. Indeed, to use Kant’s language in the Metaphysics of Morals, “so far, the concept of obligation does not come into consideration” (MS, 6:418).

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such.16 That is, she must regard herself also as a sensibly affected rational being who is moved by moral concerns and capable of moral feeling – a natural being for whom the moral law “announces to be itself an incentive, and, indeed, the highest incentive” (RGV, 6:26fn.). So the same act of reason that allows her to think of herself as a homo noumenon confers further content on her self-conception as a rational natural being. If this is right, then, as a subject of duty (an addressee of the categorical imperative), Kant’s agent must regard herself as susceptible to being moved by moral considerations; as having the kind of sensibility that can be affected by demands of pure practical reason. Only this kind of natural human being, can be represented as constrained by her own reason – by her self qua homo noumenon. Hence, from the practical standpoint of deliberating agency, both an agent’s conception of herself as a homo noumenon and her self-conception as a homo phaenomenon are morally-determined. III.2 We can fill out this morally-determined concept of homo phaenomenon (call it homo phaenomenonM) some more by considering Kant’s account of the “natural predispositions of the mind (praedispositio) for being affected by concepts of duty” (MS, 6:399, italics added), and of moral feeling in particular, in the Doctrine of Virtue. He describes these capacities as “antecedent predispositions on the side of feeling” that every human being possesses originally. We become aware of them only through our consciousness of the moral law as authoritative, that is, through ‘the fact of reason’ and, more specifically, through the effect the moral law has on our faculty of feeling. It is in virtue of these predispositions, Kant adds, that we can be put under obligation (MS, 6:399). As natural predispositions of the mind on the side of feeling, they must be ascribed to our sensible nature. But, given that our awareness of these “moral endowments” is essentially dependent on our consciousness of the moral law, it allows, indeed requires, us to think of ourselves as natural beings whose sensibility is responsive to moral requirements. In other words, as subject to the moral law, we now ascribe to ourselves natural “receptivity to the concepts of duty” (MS, 6:399). That is, we view ourselves under the concept of homo phaenomenon that is morally determined – homo phaenomenonM. Now, why does Kant say that it is in virtue of these predispositions that a human being can be put under obligation? He points out that our 16 As Henry Allison puts it, “in order for an agent to regard itself as bound by a principle it must take an interest in what the principle requires and…the categorical imperative requires that its addressee take a pure interest in its dictates” (Allison 2011: 346).

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consciousness of obligation depends on our natural predisposition to moral feeling “to make us aware of the constraint present in the thought of duty” (MS, 6:399). The idea seems to be this. As the sensible effect that can issue only from the causality of pure reason,17 moral feeling makes us aware of the law of our reason constraining (or necessitating) our choice. Hence, it is only because we have an original predisposition, or capacity, for such a feeling that we can be conscious of the necessitation present in the thought of duty. Our moral self-consciousness depends on our possession and active manifestation of this natural predisposition. Since we can be put under obligation only if we can be conscious of moral necessitation, without this natural predisposition, and the actual moral feeling to which it gives rise, the concepts of duty, obligation, as well as the concept of moral personhood, would have no validity for us. Rather evocatively, Kant writes: “if (to speak in medical terms) the moral vital force could no longer excite this feeling, humanity would dissolve (by chemical laws, as it were) into mere animality and be fixed irretrievably with the mass of other natural beings” (MS, 6:400).

Our humanity essentially involves the “moral vital force” (the active power, or spontaneity) of pure practical reason in relation to our moral sensibility constituted by the “antecedent predispositions on the side of feeling” (MS, 6:399). Consciousness of the former (of the active power of pure practical reason) allows a human being to think of herself as a homo noumenon, in terms of her personality. Consciousness of the latter (of the capacity to be sensibly affected by this active power) morally determines her self-conception as a sensible being, and allows her to think of herself in terms of her predisposition to personality, which, in the Religion, Kant describes as “the susceptibility to respect for the moral law as of itself a sufficient incentive to the power of choice” (RGV, 6:27, italics added). Now, qua homo phaenomenon, she is regarded not merely as a natural being with reason, but also as receptive to genuinely moral requirements; as a natural being able to act for moral reasons. If this is right, we are in a good position to take up Reath’s and Allison’s worries about Kant’s use of the phenomenal-noumenal distinction in his argument for the possibility of duties to oneself in the Metaphysics of Morals and in Groundwork III respectively. I now turn to this task.

17

In the Groundwork, Kant describes moral feeling as the “subjective effect” produced by a “causality of reason to determine sensibility in conformity with its principles” (GMS, 4:460; cf. GMS, 4:401fn., MS, 6:399).

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IV. In Response to Reath and Allison IV.1 Recall Andrews Reath’s claim that Kant’s distinction between phaenomena and noumena does not help to make sense of the idea of constraining or binding oneself, and hence to rescue his resolution to the apparent antinomy in the concept of duty to oneself. Now, this would be true only if we were to take the concept of homo noumenon in its morally determined sense (as intelligence endowed with morally legislative capacities), while assuming that the relevant concept of homo phaenomenon is morally undetermined. I believe this assumption is at least partly responsible for Reath’s claim that “it is the agent as noumena who occupies both roles of binding and bound” (Reath 2002: 365). The preceding analysis challenges this assumption. I have argued that from the practical point of view, both concepts under which an agent views herself – homo noumounon and homo phaenomenon – acquire moral content. I have also suggested that Kant’s solution to the antinomy in the concept of a duty to oneself can be read as ultimately appealing to the distinction involving these morallydetermined concepts. Kant’s argument makes better sense if we take it to reflect an essential difference that a practical (moral) point of view makes to an agent’s conception of herself as a sensibly affected rational being. She can no longer regard herself merely under the morally undetermined concept of homo phaenomenon, but must think of herself as a sensible being receptive to morality (under the concept of homo phaenomenonM). Now, at this point, one may object that some of Kant’s language clashes with reading. Kant writes, for example: “the same human being [a natural being with reason] thought in terms of his personality, that is, as a being endowed with inner freedom (homo noumenon), is regarded as a being that can be put under obligation and, indeed, under obligation to himself (to the humanity in his own person)” (MS, 6:418, bold added)

This way of putting things seems to suggest something along the lines of Reath’s contention that a Kantian noumenal self constrains its own choices and attitudes. But, two observations can be made here. First, the claim that a human being thought as a homo noumenon can be put under obligation to himself (again, as a homo noumenon) is rather problematic within Kant’s moral-theoretic framework, since the notion of obligation involves necessitation, an ought, which has no application to a being thought merely as intelligence. Moreover, Kant’s text does not force such a reading. Instead, we can plausibly understand his claim as follows. When the same human who thinks of herself as a natural human being with reason

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thinks of herself in terms of her personality,18 her conception of herself as a natural being is also transformed. She is now able to regard herself under the morally-determined concept of homo phaenomenonM. It is this same agent, now viewed as a being endowed with “natural predispositions of the mind for being affected by the concepts of duty” (MS, 6:399), with the predisposition to personality, that can be put under obligation, and indeed under obligation to herself (to personality, or humanity, in her own person). IV.2 I believe that a similar reading can be given to Kant’s use of the pheanomenal-noumenal distinction in Groundwork III, although I can only begin to sketch it here.19 Recall Henry Allison’s claim that one of the key problems with Kant’s deduction of the moral law in the Groundwork, is the so-called “problem of the status of the addressee of the categorical imperative” (Allison 2011: 345-6). In Groundwork III, the distinction is initially introduced on merely theoretical grounds. As such, it is not adequate to account for the necessitation of the will expressed in the categorical imperative. For qua addressee of the moral law, the subject must be regarded as capable of responding to the categorical moral requirements. Allison rightly points out that the practical application of the phaenomenalnoumenal distinction, which is based on the introduction of the concept of freedom, requires major changes to the way the two standpoints are understood. One of these changes has to do with the relationship between the subject and her inclinations. The latter are now seen by her as sources of putative reasons to act – reasons that are grounded in her sensuous nature, and which ought to be subordinated to reasons stemming from her pure will. Allison suggests, however, that Kant’s reliance on the theoretical version of the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction (or at least on the theoretical conception of homo phaenomenon) is precisely what gives rise to the problem of the status of the addressee of the categorical imperative. While Kant can certainly be faulted for not carefully isolating different versions of this distinction, I think there is room for a more charitable reading of its use in Groundwork III. It seems clear that the deduction of the categorical imperative is an argument that concerns a practical perspective of rational agency, and is addressed to an agent taking up such a perspective. It is no accident that the core sentences of the deduction speak to us in the first person:

18

Note that Kant does not claim that she is thought merely in terms of her personality. 19 I plan to develop the ideas discussed in this section more fully in future work.

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As soon as Kant’s deduction begins to address the reader as an agent occupying the practical point of view, it has access to the phenomenalnoumenal distinction that is morally determined. Such an agent recognizes that she takes an interest in the moral law. So, it is also not surprising that Kant takes the deduction of the categorical imperative also to elucidate the nature of pure moral interest. And, since for Kant the foundation of pure moral interest lies in moral feeling (GMS, 4:460), an agent who takes an interest in morality, also thinks of herself, qua addressee of the categorical imperative, as possessing sensibility that is responsive to the demands of reason. In other words, she thinks of herself (at least implicitly) as a being who has a capacity for moral feeling. So, insofar as she sees herself as bound by duty, she thinks of herself under the morally-determined concept of a natural being (homo phaenomenonM). If we grant Kant recognition that the practical point of view transforms how the phaenomenal-noumenal distinction is conceived and applied to herself by an agent, as I think we should, we can plausibly read the deduction of the categorical imperative as relying on the morallydetermined version of this distinction. If this is right, the problem of the status of the addressee of the categorical imperative does not arise in Groundwork III, and, despite some infelicitous images, a ‘quasiManichean’ view of the self that associates evil with our sensible nature also begins to dissipate.

Works Cited Allison, Henry E. Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary, Oxford University Press, 2011. Ameriks, Karl. Interpreting Kant’s Critiques, Oxford University Press, 2003. Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics, Translated by Peter Heath and edited by Peter Heath and J.B. Schneewind. Cambridge University Press, 1997. Kant, Immanuel. Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and Other Writings, edited by Allen Wood, and George di Giovanni. Cambridge University Press, 1998.

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Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason, Translated and edited by Paul Guyer, and Allen Wood. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Kant, Immanuel. Practical Philosophy, Translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Reath, Andrews. “Self-Legislation and Duties to Oneself” in Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: Interpretative Essays, edited by Mark Timmons. Oxford University Press, 2002. Wood, Allen W. Kant’s Ethical Thought, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

PART III: KANT AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

KANT ON FRIENDSHIP ALLEN WOOD

Ancient ethics considered friendship an important topic. There are at least three important works in ancient philosophy that thematize it: Plato, Lysis, Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics Books VIII and IX, and Cicero, On Friendship. By contrast, it is generally not dealt with at all by modern philosophers. There is, to be sure, perceptive discussion of the psychology of affection, love and sympathy in a number of early moderns: Hutcheson, Hume, Adam Smith and Rousseau, to name only four. But when the project is giving a philosophical account of the specific relationship that holds between friends, Kant stands out as the most important philosopher to think about it in all of early modern philosophy from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. One recent writer has put it this way: “If you turn to Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Hume, Rousseau, Bentham, Mill, Hegel or Marx, you will simply not find enough to go on. Kant included a section on friendship in one of his books, the Metaphysics of Morals, and also part of the course he taught at the University of Königsberg.”1 Kant makes no explicit use of the discussions of friendship by Plato or Aristotle, although as we shall see presently, his taxonomy of kinds of friendship is interestingly similar to Aristotle’s, but also interestingly different. Kant knew Cicero’s treatment of friendship, but does not directly cite it. His references to Cicero, and to other ancient writers on friendship, are apparently mediated through the one early modern source that plainly did influence him.

1 Mark Vernon, The Philosophy of Friendship. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, p. 79 (Cited below as ‘Vernon,’ by page number. Cf. also Sandra Lynch, Philosophy and Friendship. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2005. p. 4. Vernon reports (inaccurately) that this was “the course” Kant taught “between 1775 and 1780”. Only the discussion of friendship in Collins dates from this time. The most extensive discussion occurs in the Metaphysics of Morals Vigilantius, which dates from 1793-1794.

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I. Montaigne on Friendship One of Kant’s favorite authors was Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592). Book I of his Essays (first published in 1580) contains a relatively short essay De l’amitié (On Friendship).2 Screech, however, translates the title ‘On Affectionate Relationships’, on the ground that in sixteenth century French, amitié had a wider reference than ‘friendship’ does in twentieth century English. And it is true that in the essay, Montaigne mentions four species of love: “the natural, the social, the hospitable and the erotic” (Montaigne, p. 207). Montaigne also specifically discusses ‘natural’ friendship, both paternal-filial and fraternal (pp. 207-208), and also erotic love, both heterosexual and homosexual (pp. 208-211). But he does so in order to set up his much longer discussion of that “kind of love more equable and more equitable: ‘Such only are to be considered friendships in which characters have been confirmed and strengthened with age’ (Cicero, De amicitia, XX 74)” (Montaigne, p. 211). His references to this work of Cicero clearly indicate that his primary topic is the same as Cicero’s, and much closer to the familiar meaning of ‘friendship’. Besides, the essay soon turns into a celebration of Montaigne’s own close friendship with the jurist, political theorist and writer Étienne de La Boétie (1530-1563), for whose death at age 33 Montaigne was, by his own account, in lifelong mourning: “I merely drag wearily on. The very pleasures which are proffered me do not console me: they redouble my sorrow at his loss. In everything we were halves: I feel I am stealing his share from him: ‘Nor is it right for me to enjoy pleasures, I decided, while he who shared things with me is absent from me’ (Terence, Heautontimorumenos, I, 1, 97-98)” (Montaigne, p. 217). Most of Montaigne’s essay, however, is not mournful. It is rather a reminiscence of La Boétie, and a reflection on the nature of the perfect friendship, illustrated by citing his own friendship with La Boétie: “If you press me to say why I loved him, I feel that it cannot be expressed except by replying: ‘Because it was him, because it was me’…There is no particular consideration – nor even two or three nor four nor a thousand of them – but rather some inexplicable quintessence of them all mixed up together which, having captured my will, brought it to plunge into his and lose itself and which, having captured his will, brought it to plunge and lose itself in mine with an equal hunger and emulation. I say ‘lose itself’ in very

2

Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays, translated by M.A. Screech (London: Penguin Books, 1987), pp. 205-219. Cited below as ‘Montaigne’ by page number in this translation.

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Friendships were important in Kant’s life too, especially (in his younger years) with the professor of law Johann Daniel Funk (1721-1764) and especially, later in life, with the businessman of English birth Joseph Green (1727-1786).3 But Kant’s treatment of friendship, unlike Montaigne’s, emphasizes the imperfection of every actual friendship, and underscores the idea that friendship is always a moral idea, to which no empirical reality can ever be adequate (MS 6: 469-470, VE Collins 27:423-424, VE Vigilantius 27:675, 680). Kant draws most from remarks and quotations in Montaigne where the latter is discussing the imperfection of the “common friendships,” even “the most perfect of their kind” with which Montaigne wishes to contrast his own perfect friendship with La Boétie (Montaigne, p. 213). Kant seems skeptical of traditional enthusiasm for friendship: “the hobbyhorse of all poetical moralists, and here they seek nectar and ambrosia” (VE Collins 27:422; cf. MS 6:470; VE Vigilantius 27:675). He emphasizes the difficulties that stand in the way of perfect friendship (a theme to which we will return later) (MS 6:470-471).

II. The Importance of Friendship in Kant’s Ethical Theory Kant’s relatively brief discussion of friendship in the Metaphysics of Morals comes quite late in that work (MS §§ 46-47, 6:469-473). This is not a sign of its lack of importance to his ethical theory, but the very reverse of that. For Kant divides our duties to others into duties of love (MS 6:450462) and duties of respect (MS 6:462-468); he prefaces the discussion with the claim that these two kinds of duties stand in a kind of contrast or even tension with one another: “The principle of mutual love admonishes them constantly to come closer to one another; that of the respect they owe one another, to keep themselves at a distance from one another;” yet both are necessary, for “should one of these great moral forces fail, ‘then nothingness (immorality), with gaping throat, would drink up the whole kingdom of (moral) beings like a drop of water’ (MS 6:449; the quotation is from Haller’s Ode on Eternity). Friendship, at least in its idea, is the relation in which love and respect are in perfect balance.

3 See Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapter 3 (concerning Funk) and Chapters 4-6 (concerning Green).

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The tension between love and respect is worth considering for a little while in itself, since it might be thought paradoxical, and we will understand Kant’s moral psychology better if we see why he thought there was such a tension. The opposite of love, after all, is not respect, but hatred; the opposite of respect is not love, but contempt. But it belongs to Kant’s theory of human nature that each of these moral forces, considered by itself, tends to pull human beings in the direction of the other’s opposite. The cause for this dynamic is the human tendency to competition or self-conceit. The feeling of love is pleasure taken in the perfection of another (“love of wellpleasedness”), which causes us to desire to benefit the other (“love of benevolence”) (VE Collins 27:416, KU 5:276; cf. MS 6:449). But the perfection of another may threaten our self-esteem, which would sooner occasion displeasure, even envy or hatred. Therefore, we tend to love that to which we feel superior, which does not threaten our self-esteem. “We love everything over which we have a decisive superiority, so that we can toy with it, while it has a pleasant cheerfulness about it: little dogs, birds, grandchildren. Men and women have a reciprocal superiority over one another” (Refl 1000, Ak 15:490). “Love, like water, always flows downward more easily than upward” (VE Vigilantius 27:670). The nearness of the beloved to which we are inclined is therefore always a familiarity associated with pleasures that occasion low esteem for what we love. Our tendency to love, if taken by itself, is always a tendency at the same time toward contempt. Genuine love, Kant insists, must always be grounded on respect, which is therefore morally primary in relation to love (ED 8:337-338). Respect, however, is a feeling that combines positive valuation with infringement of our self-love, and humiliation of our self-conceit (GMS 4: 401n, KpV 5:73). Respect is akin to a feeling of the dynamical sublime, which elevates us, but through a painful feeling of awe akin to fear (KU 5:260-264). Its psychological-social origin, for Kant, lies in sexual attraction met with sexual refusal (MA 8: 113). Respect for another person therefore pushes us away, bidding us to keep our distance. We respect those whose merits reveal our own shortcomings (KpV 5:78), and those whose condescending beneficence toward us makes us painfully aware of the debt of gratitude we owe them (MS 6:458-461; cf. 6:480). These twin tendencies (of love toward contempt, of respect toward hatred) are the reason that Kant thinks love needs respect, while respect needs love; either without the other would swallow up that other and result in limitless immorality. Moreover, it is Kant’s view not only that some degree of love must be combined with respect, and some degree of respect with love, if morality is to exist at all, but further that respect and love are each morally impoverished or deficient if there is too much imbalance between them. Respect with little

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or no love is tolerable as our attitude toward strangers, but it is a hard, cold substitute for any attitude deserving of praise toward those we know. And it is difficult for love with only a minimum of respect to avoid being an attitude of condescension that makes the love itself of little moral value. What is morally desirable, then, is not merely that both love and respect be present in our attitudes toward others, but that they be combined and in balance. When Kant considers Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean, he shows a very poor understanding of it and has little good to say about it (MS 6: 404, VE Collins 27:264, 276-277). But his own ethics shows that he in effect embraced this doctrine at crucial points, even if he does not recognize the agreement with Aristotle for what it is. The need for a union of love and respect is probably the most conspicuous case. Kant’s treatment of friendship in the Doctrine of Virtue comes at the end, but only because it is the topic in which the treatment of ethical duties culminates. Kant thus headlines the discussion: “Conclusion of the elements of ethics On the most intimate union of love with respect in Friendship” (MS 6:469)

Friendship is the topic with which the Doctrine of Virtue concludes, because it represents the ideal combination of the two kinds of ethical duties to others; and combining the two attitudes toward others that must be combined in a balanced union if morality is to exist at all. “Friendship (considered in its perfection) is the union of two persons through equal mutual love and respect” (MS 6:469). The “union” and also the “equality” here has at least two dimensions. First, in the attitude of each friend toward the other, love and respect must be united, and they must be equal, in the sense that they must be in balance. But second, the friends themselves must be united in their reciprocal exchange of this union of love and respect, and at least for ideal friendship, they must be, and view each other as, equals, neither of them standing in a position of superiority as regards the other. The balance, in Kant’s view, is necessarily precarious: “[For] how can he be sure that if the love of one is stronger, he may not, just because of this, forfeit something of the other’s respect, so that it will be difficult for both to bring love and respect subjectively into that equal balance required for friendship?” (MS 6:470). Friendship is not only Kant’s ideal as regards the combination of love and respect. It is also the best real world model for the ultimate (and in that sense most adequate) formulation of the moral law itself: the formula of the

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realm of ends.4 A realm of ends is a realm (Reich) in two senses: it would be an ideal community of rational beings (a realm or commonwealth of which all rational beings are members or citizens) in which each is regarded as an end in itself, and in which their ends are all reciprocally shared or combined into a realm – a reciprocal combination of ends that mutually support one another, like the ends that constitute the inner teleology of a living organism (GMS 4:433). In the realm of ends, as in friendship, there is a union of rational beings, and there is also the combination of love (mutual sharing of ends) with respect (for each member as an end in itself). Friendship is also Kant’s model for the ideal ethical community, the religious community or church, which he regards as the necessary mode of human behavior of the human species is to make moral progress (RGV 6:96102). Here too human beings would freely constitute themselves as a single community, unlimited in extent, and bound together by mutual love and respect: “a household (a family) under a common though invisible moral father… a free, universal and enduring union of hearts” (RGV 6:102). This seems closely akin to Kant’s account of the idea of a philanthropist, “a friend of human beings as such (i.e. of the whole race)… one who takes an effective interest in the well-being of all human beings (rejoices with them) and will never disturb it without heartfelt regret.” Kant warns that this requires a relation of equality among all human beings “and hence the idea that in putting others under obligation by his beneficence he is himself under obligation, as if all were brothers under one father who wills the happiness of all” (MS 6:472-473).

III. The Three Kinds of Friendship Friendship as it actually exists, and provides Kant with the ideal model of human community, is never (and can never be) universal in scope, like the ideal realm of ends or the perfected ethical community. As it was understood by the ancients, by Montaigne, and also by Kant, it is a relation between two persons. Friendship in this sense exists in three different forms, two of which are only incomplete forms or analogues of true friendship. Kant does not cite Aristotle in this connection, but his three forms of friendship bear a striking resemblance to the three forms Aristotle distinguishes:

4 See Christine Korsgaard, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Chapter 7, especially pp. 192-196.

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Kant 1. Friendship of need (“pragmatic friendship”) 2. Friendship of taste (“based on feeling”) 3. Moral friendship: of “disposition or sentiment” (MS 6:471-472; VE Collins 27:424-426) Aristotle 1. Friendship of advantage 2. Friendship of pleasure 3. Friendship of character (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Ch. 2)5 The similarities between Aristotle’s and Kant’s imperfect or incomplete forms of friendship are striking. Also striking, however, are the differences. Even the differences between the two imperfect or incomplete forms of friendship anticipate differences between the complete form. Aristotle regards the friendship of advantage as friendship to the extent that the friends wish goods to one another, but says that they always do so only as a means to their own advantage (Aristotle NE 1156a9-11). For this reason, Aristotle does not regard the friendship of advantage as a form of friendship at all, properly speaking (Aristotle NE 1157a15). Kant regards the friendship of need as the first beginning of friendship among human beings, because it involves a recognition of mutual dependency among people, and also – if it is actually friendship, and not merely mutual utility -- a measure of trust between people (VE Collins 27:424-425). The friendship of pleasure for Aristotle resembles true friendship, as long as the friends seek and obtain the same thing from each other (Aristotle 1157a1), but he denies that erotic (homosexual) relationships are friendships, because the lover and the beloved do not seek the same thing from each other (Aristotle NE 1157a7-14). It is for Kant the friendship of taste, based on pleasure, that is not genuine friendship at all, but only an analogue, because here the friends do not seek one another’s happiness, but only pleasure in each other’s company (VE Collins 27:426). But Kant thinks that in this kind of relationship, people do typically seek and receive different things from each other. Such friendships typically form between people of differing occupations, and differing characters, because each can

5

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, edited and translated by Terence Irwin, 2nd edition (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999). Cited below as ‘Aristotle, NE’ by book and chapter or by Bekker number.

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get from the other something different from what he has (VE Collins 27:426-427).

IV. The Highest or True Form of Friendship. In these different depictions of, and judgments about, the imperfect forms of friendship, we can see already the outlines of each philosopher’s conception of the complete or perfect form: for Aristotle, this consists in people alike in virtue sharing their virtuous activities and therefore seeking each other’s good for the other’s sake, because the other’s good is the same as theirs, and their attraction to the other’s good is the same as their attraction to their own. “The excellent person is related to his friend as he is related to himself, since a friend is another himself. Therefore, just as his own being is choiceworthy for him, his friend’s being is choiceworthy in the same or a similar way” (Aristotle, NE 1170b7-9). For Aristotle, friends must be alike in virtue, so that in valuing my friend, I value the same thing that I value in myself, and so that I see in the friend’s activities, successes and happiness an extension of my own. Being together and communicating with a friend is valued because of our mutual pleasure in the virtues we share. “Someone’s own being is choiceworthy because he perceives that he is good, and this sort of perception is pleasant in itself. He must, then, perceive a friend’s being together [with his own], and he will do this when they live together and share conversation and thought” (Aristotle NE 1170b10-12). For Kant, however, the basic thing in true or complete friendship is not mutual admiration and shared excellence, but rather mutual benevolence and shared thoughts and feelings. Morality is needed for friendship in order to sustain the trust that makes intimate communication possible, and the good will toward each other that constitutes their shared ends and feelings: “Each participating and sharing sympathetically in the other’s well-being through the morally good will that unites them” (MS 6: 469). For Kant too, morally good will is necessary for the highest form of friendship, and it in turn cultivates a good will. But for Kant the source of benevolence in friendship is not, as it is for Aristotle, esteem for the good will (akin to one’s own good will) that one perceives in one’s friend. For Kant, to put friendship on that basis would be to invite a competition for honor between flawed (self-conceited, jealous) human beings, a rivalry for each other’s esteem (aiming at confirmation of each one’s own self-esteem) that would inevitably lead to deceit, envy and antagonism. Instead, for Kant friendship evolves originally from an acknowledgment of human interdependence, together with a general love of humanity that appreciates

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the absolute worth of the other person as a human being, irrespective of the goodness of the other’s will (VE Collins 27:422). On Kant’s account, therefore, the general moral basis of friendship cannot explain why I am friends with one individual rather than another, as Aristotle’s account does, based on our shared virtues or excellences. For Kant, the explanation of this point is rather that I have somehow succeeded in developing a special relation of intimacy and mutual trust with one person, but not with another. It is this intimacy that provides friendship with its natural end in relation to our human needs. With Aristotle, moral virtue enters into friendship first through the fact that you must be virtuous in order for me to have a reason to wish you well. For Kant, however, it is just the opposite: the need for virtue is fundamentally my need to be virtuous and to act virtuously in relation to you in order to be worthy of the trust and benevolence I hope you will show me as my friend (MS 6:469, VE Collins 27:429). It is a commonplace in ancient accounts of friendship that friendship can be found only among morally good human beings. This is especially emphasized by Cicero (De amicitia § 5), and is repeated in Kant’s time by Voltaire: “The wicked can only have accomplices, the voluptuous have companions in debauchery, self-seekers have associates, the politic assemble the factions, the typical idler has connections, princes have courtiers. Only the virtuous have friends” (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, Boston: IndyPublish, 2006, p. 94.) Kant and Aristotle thus share the same view, but for quite different reasons. Aristotle holds that bad people would be unworthy of friendship, since friendship requires that a virtuous person value virtue in his friend. For Kant, however, to require moral virtue for friendship in this way would threaten it with annihilation, since by that standard no one would qualify to be my friend, nor (in all likelihood) neither would I qualify to be anyone else’s. If my friend’s bad conduct threatens our friendship, this is not because it gives me reason to think (selfconceitedly) that she is no longer worthy of being my friend, but because it threatens the mutual trust between us that sustains the intimacy and selfrevelation on which our mutual good will is based. Kant and Aristotle also agree that friends must agree in their moral principles. For Aristotle, this is because friends must be alike in moral virtue. But for Kant “identity in thought is not required… On the contrary, it is difference which establishes friendship, for each supplies what the other lacks; but in one particular they must agree: they need to have the same principles of understanding and morals, and then they can fully understand each other” (VE Collins 27:428-429). Although for Kant the mutual benevolence involved in friendship rests fundamentally on rational

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philanthropy we feel toward all other human beings, this benevolence is not typically grounded on the thought of duty. By describing the highest form of friendship as friendship of “disposition or sentiment” he means “dispositions of sensation and not dispositions of performance” (VE Collins 27:426-427). In this context, the terms ‘disposition’ and ‘sentiment’ refer to those feelings, thoughts and attitudes to which a human being, as a sociable creature, has a natural need to give expression, but which are usually restrained through fear of what others will think of him for having them. What matters most in friendship for Kant, therefore, is the mutual communication of thoughts and feelings, which enables us to be “wholly in society” (gänzlich in Gesellschaft) with our friend (VE Collins 27:427). Even if we are among our acquaintances and in society we are still not wholly in society. In every society, one holds back most of one’s sentiments, dispositions and judgments. Everyone expresses the judgments that seem advisable under the circumstances: everyone is under constraint, everyone distrusts everyone else…But if we release ourselves from this constraint and give the other what we really feel, then we are wholly in society” (VE Collins 27:427). “If he finds someone intelligent – someone who, moreover, shares his general outlook on things – with whom he need not be anxious about this danger but can reveal himself with complete confidence, he can then air his views. He is not completely alone with his thoughts, as in a prison, but enjoys a freedom he cannot have with the masses, among whom he must shut himself up in himself” (MS 6:472).

Our need for friendship with other human beings thus arises from a powerful “need to reveal [oneself] to others (even with no ulterior end)” (MS 6:471). In this need we can also discern the basic moral attitudes of love and respect, as well as the ground for the tension between them. Our need to communicate is a need to give something to others (our thoughts, sentiments and attitudes), which is an expression of love; but it is also a need to be valued (to be respected) by them. The two come into conflict because candid expression of ourselves, and even the open familiarity with which we offer them, can give others grounds for contempt, while any expectation on our part that they should esteem us can also strike them as presumptuous or threatening: if our self-esteem seems justified, it can lead to envy and hatred. Only the union of love and respect, grounded on the balance between them that is found in friendship, is capable of creating the conditions of mutual trust under which open communication of our sentiments and dispositions becomes possible. The need to be “wholly in society” with another can therefore be satisfied only through friendship,

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which is therefore “the human being’s refuge in this world from the distrust of his fellows, in which one can reveal his disposition to another and enter into community with him; this is the whole human end, through which he can enjoy his existence” (VE Collins 27:428).

V. The Five Elements of True Friendship In the Vigilantius transcription of the lectures that led up to the publication of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant distinguishes five elements or characteristics that go to make up the friendship of disposition or sentiment. They may be interpreted as five essential characteristics of friendship, when it is viewed in its totality from several points of view. 1. Well-wishing love. Mutual love of well-liking (complacientia) and well-wishing (benevolentia) (VE Vigilantius 27: 675). This may be viewed as the foundation of friendship in human nature: love as empirical feeling. As we saw earlier, for Kant love is pleasure taken in the perfection of another (“love of well-pleasedness”), which causes us to desire to benefit the other (“love of benevolence”) (VE Collins 27:416, KU 5:276; cf. MS 6:449). Kant distinguishes this from ‘practical love,’ or benevolence on principle, which can be commanded as a duty, while love as empirical feeling (“pathological love”) cannot, and only beneficence from practical love has authentic moral worth (GMS 4:399, MS 6:449). Some readers infer from this that Kant thinks that only practical love is to be valued morally, and that pathological love has no moral significance. This, however, is the very reverse of the truth. On the contrary, Kant thinks that only love as feeling is properly what we call ‘love’ at all (MS 6: 401). To be sure, “the love in friendship,” however, Kant says, “cannot be an affect” – that is, an excessive feeling that overwhelms our self-control and rational self-government (Anth 7:252). “For [affects] are blind in their choice and after a while they go up in smoke” (MS 6:471). But friendship is nevertheless based on love as feeling. The feeling of love as benevolence or well-wishing takes the form of friendship when it is reciprocal: “Benevolence changes into friendship (amicitia) through being reciprocal love or amor bilateralis” (VE Vigilantius 27: 675-676). As the foundation of friendship, love as feeling is also the foundation of that relation between human beings in which moral virtue is to be found in its highest form. Authentic moral worth for Kant belongs only to actions done from duty; but moral virtue involves much more than can be commanded or done from duty. The balanced feelings of love and respect found in friendship are the supreme example of this.

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2. Equality. The necessary condition for perfect friendship. True friendship, according to Kant, at least in its most perfect form, is impossible between unequals (VE Vigilantius 27: 676). Friendship can exist in an imperfect form where one friend is in a position of superiority to the other (for example, as benefactor of the other). But any inequality tends to disturb the equal balance of love and respect, since the superior friend will tend to love more and to be respected more than the inferior. This in turn tends to undermine the fragile trust required for that intimacy in which friends fully “possess one another” and share their thoughts, feelings and lives (VE Vigilantius 27: 683). Kant thinks this condition also entails that marriage can never involve perfect friendship. Kant does not give the same reason for this that Montaigne does: that the flames of physical passion are “too rash, fickle, fluctuating and variable” to sustain friendship (Montaigne, pp. 208-209). Kant’s reason is different, and lies closer to his conception of friendship as the perfect balance and equality of love and respect. As Kant understands marriage, and as it existed in his time, the wife is economically dependent on the husband; therefore, her respect for him must be greater than his respect for her (VE Vigilantius 27:683). Kant thinks, as we have seen, that men and women can love each other because they have a reciprocal superiority in affective needs (Refl 1000, Ak 15:490). But husbands, being socially superior, tend to love their wives more than the wives love them, while wives respect their husbands more than the husbands respect them. Marriage partners cannot relate to each other as equals. Obviously a world, very different from Kant’s, where marriage partners (whether of the same sex or of different sexes) could relate as equals, would be one in which on Kant’s account marriage might approach perfect friendship. 3. Reciprocal possession of one another. This gives friendship its moral importance. Here Kant does seem influenced by Montaigne’s conception of friendship as “the total interfusion of two wills” (Montaigne, p. 214). “Each friend mutually shares in every situation of the other as if it were encountered by himself” (VE Vigilantius 27:677). Friends “participate and share sympathetically in each other’s well-being” (MS 6:469). Reciprocal possession is not merely a matter of each friend seeking the good of the other along with his own. Rather, the ends of friends are consciously shared ends; their wills involve the combination of the goods of each in a larger shared good, which each places ahead of his own private good. This is what makes friendship the model in the real world for the ideal realm of ends, in which the ends of all rational beings constitute a single system. The idea of

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friendship, Kant says, is one in which “self-love is swallowed up in the idea of a generous mutual love” (VE Collins 27:423).1 4. Intimate communication. This is the final end of friendship from the standpoint of our needs as natural and social beings. As we have seen, Kant holds that as social beings, human beings have the need to share their thoughts, feelings and attitudes, their “dispositions” and “sentiments,” with other human beings. They are restrained from doing this in human society through the knowledge that other people, as unsociably sociable beings, will take any opportunity to use such disclosures against them, and will despise them for any self-revelations that can be interpreted to their discredit. The highest form of friendship, therefore, is the friendship of sentiment or disposition, “the mutual enjoyment of their humanity.” “This mutual enjoyment, which arises in that one shares his thoughts with the other, and 1

Mark Vernon depicts Kant as holding that “friendship is a pact in which friends put their selfish motives to one side because they know their friend is doing the same” but he questions whether “this absolves friendship of its selfishness” (Vernon, p. 80). It is clear neither where Vernon gets this description of Kant’s view nor why he thinks it fails to absolve friendship of selfishness. Perhaps Vernon is thinking of this passage: “But if all men are so minded, that each looks out for the other’s happiness, then each man’s welfare will be nurtured by the rest; were I to know that others were caring for my happiness, as I would wish to care for theirs, I would be sure of not falling too short in my cultivation of my own happiness, for it would be made good to me, in that I was cultivating that of the others…It looks as if a man loses, when he cares for other people’s happiness; but if they in turn, are caring for his, then he loses nothing’ (VE Collins 27:422-423. This passage, however, is not specifically about the relation of friendship, nor does it depict this relation, or any other relation, as a “pact”. Kant does not say (or believe) that I look out for others’ happiness so that they will look out for mine, only that we would all benefit if everyone looked out for everyone else. The passage also does not depict the behavior described as in any way selfishly motivated. Kant’s point is rather simply that if people were unselfish then we would all be better off: Selfishness is always a vice, which even the selfish person would be better off without, especially if other people were also without it. Kant does think of marriage as a contract, insofar as it is a legal relationship aimed at protecting the rights of the parties (MS 6:277-280). But it would be alien to Kant’s thinking to depict an ethical relationship as a pact or contract, since it involves neither the right to external freedom nor coercible obligations. Would Vernon think that friendship is still selfish if he presented Kant’s view of it accurately, as involving a shared end, in which the well-being of both friends has been “swallowed up in generous mutual love”? It is impossible to say. But then Vernon also thinks that Aristotle’s conception of the friend as “another self” involves “selfish calculation” and “the associated moral duplicity” (Vernon, p. 80). Vernon caricatures both philosophers merely so that he can present his own ideas as superior to theirs. This is not how we learn from the history of philosophy.

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the other conversely with him, is foundation of openheartedness, animus apertus, sinceritas aperta” (VE Vigilantius 27:677). This is the ideal which Kant holds up to people when he extols the virtue of honesty and condemns lying (MS 6: 429). The difficulty of its duty, and its necessarily imperfect manifestation in typical social relationships, is an important part of Kant’s doctrine here, which is ignored (it is the subject of culpable and willful blindness) by the vast majority of those who reject Kant’s views on veracity because they see in them only the superficial idea that truthfulness is strictly required (“whatever the consequences”). But that is a grotesque caricature of Kant’s position, Kant in fact acknowledges that untruthfulness is sometimes required in order to prevent harm: “but here too we perceive the regrettable weakness of human nature, which sets bounds to the sublimity of an unconstrained openness of heart” (VE Vigilantius 27:701). It is only in friendship that complete openness of heart may even be approached, though as we shall see later, even in friendship certain restraints are necessary (VE Vigilantius 27: 678). 5. “Love toward reciprocal well-liking.” This is the characteristic of friendship that makes it the final end of morality. It is what makes friendship something valued for itself, and makes friendship as an ethical duty (MS 6:469). What Kant means by this phrase is that people are truly friends only if in addition to loving, sharing and intimately communicating, they also cherish or love something of great moral value in their friendship itself – namely, the fact that two human beings do actually reciprocally and equally love and respect each other, show benevolence toward one another, communicate intimately, and unite their ends, swallowing up the happiness of each in their common good as a shared end. Whether or not our friendship is perfect enough to make us completely happy, striving after the ideal of friendship makes us worthy of happiness. It is therefore only this fifth and final element of friendship that makes friendship itself an ethical duty: “Even though it does not produce complete happiness in life, the [friends’] adoption of this ideal [the ideal of friendship] in their disposition toward one another makes them deserving of happiness; hence human beings have a duty of friendship” (MS 6:469).

VI. The Fragility and Imperfection of Friendship The basis of friendship is always love as feeling, but even when, as in the highest form of friendship, this is disciplined and moderated by moral virtue, it still renders friendship fragile: “Friendship is something so delicate (teneritas amicitiae) that it is never for a moment safe from interruptions if it is allowed to rest on feelings, and if this mutual sympathy and self-

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surrender are not subject to principles or rules preventing excessive familiarity and limiting mutual love by requirements of respect” (MS 6:471). Every expression of love in friendship endangers mutuality of respect. On the one hand, friends are required by duty – by a duty of love – to point out to each other the other’s faults: “From a moral point of view it is of course a duty for one of the friends to point out the other’s faults to him; this is in the other’s best interests and is therefore a duty of love. But the latter sees in this a lack of respect he expected from his friend and thinks that he has either already lost or is in constant danger of losing something of his friend’s respect… and even the fact that his friend observes him and finds fault with him will seem in itself something offensive” (MS 6:470).

On the other hand, mutual love prompts the friends to come to each other’s aid and do one another favors. But this too threatens the balance of love and respect that friendship requires: “But if one of them accepts a favor from the other, then he may well be able to count on equality in love, but not in respect; for he sees himself obviously a step lower in being under obligation without being able to impose obligation in turn” (MS 6:471; cf. VE Collins 27:425). The confidence friends repose in one another as a condition of their intimate communication is also at the same time a source of risk to the friendship: “Every human being has his secrets and dares not confide blindly in others, partly because of a base way of thinking in most human beings to use them to one’s advantage and partly because many people are indiscreet or incapable of judging and distinguishing what may and may not be repeated. The necessary combination of qualities is seldom found in one person (rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno),2 especially since the closest friendship requires that a judicious and trusted friend be also bound not to share the secrets entrusted to him with anyone else, no matter how reliable he thinks him, without explicit permission to do so” (MS 6:472).

For these reasons, Kant also follows Montaigne in offering the advice that one must always behave toward one’s friend as though he might someday become our enemy (VE Collins 27:429; cf. VE Vigilantius 27:679,

2

“A bird rare on earth, quite like a swan that is black” (Juvenal, Satires 2.6.165).

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Montaigne, p. 213).3 Kant hastens to add: “We are not, indeed, to suppose that he may become our enemy, for then there would be no trust between us” (VE Collins 27:430). Because of human imperfection, openheartedness must always be balanced with caution. “Trust him with caution only, and disclose nothing to him that he might be likely to misuse… From this it follows that in itself it can never be made a duty that men should be [completely] openhearted with one another… Openheartedness must serve as a basis, whereby alone the so needful sharing of feelings and thoughts, the necessary enlargement of our various perfections, and the closer bonding with our friend, is accomplished; whereas sympathy in feelings and honesty in communication merely prevent the evil which inclination and disposition might otherwise occasion” (VE Vigilantius 27:679).

The aim of both candor and discretion is the same: that of preserving and protecting the mutual love and respect friends have for each other, as well as the interest in each other’s well-being that they share. Here again we see the subtle ambiguity, usually missed, in Kant’s views about the duty of veracity. Although intimate communication is the natural need that drives us to seek friendship, Kant thinks that the love we bear our friend also sets limits to our self-disclosure, because the deepest truth about any of us always includes something ugly and abominable: “The trust and confidence goes as far as disposition and sentiment, but decency must still be observed; for we all have certain natural frailties and must be reserved regarding them lest humanity be outraged. Even to one’s best friend one must not reveal oneself as one naturally is and knows oneself, for that would be disgusting” (VE Collins 27:427-428; cf. VE Vigilantius 27: 678, 685, MS 6:471). Yet another danger to friendship arises from our natural desire to have many friends, even to be a “friend of human beings as such (i.e. of the whole race)” (MS 6:472). “It is almost impossible to have many friends, [unless] this expression means nothing more than to have good will toward many people. A complete friendship also calls for an unrestricted enjoyment of similar disposition, an unconcealed sharing and participation in one another; but is

3

Montaigne draws this advice from Chilo, probably as reported in Cicero: “Love a friend as though some day you must hate him; hate him as though you must love him” (Montaigne, p. 213; cf. Cicero, De amicitia XVI, 49).

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Here again Kant seems to be thinking of Montaigne: “Common friendships can be shared. In one friend one can love beauty; in another, affability; in another, generosity; in another, a fatherly affection, in another, a brotherly one, and so on. But in [true] friendship love takes possession of the soul and reigns with full sovereign sway; that cannot possibly be duplicated. If the two friends asked you to help them at the same time, which of them would you dash to? If they asked conflicting favors, who would have priority?... The unique highest friendship loosens all other bonds. That secret which I have sworn to reveal to no other, I can reveal without perjury to him who is not another: he is me. It is a great enough miracle for oneself to be redoubled: they do not realize how high a one it is when they talk of its being tripled” (Montaigne, p. 215).

Friendship for any of us seems restricted to only a few others, or even, in cases of extraordinarily close friendship, to only one other. For it involves an intimacy that seems to require exclusiveness, and a sharing of wills and ends that commits us to a single other, with whom such unity might be possible. Yet for Kant, friendship is also seen as the real world model for the realm of ends, the perfect community in which all rational beings are equally loved and respected by one another, and pursue a shared system of ends. For the reasons Kant and Montaigne state, this ideal is necessarily in tension with the ideal of friendship as it must exist in reality, under the conditions of human life. “For he who is a friend to all has no particular friend; but friendship is a particular bond” (VE Collins 27:430). For all these reasons, then, Kant regards friendship as an ideal that may exist to some degree in actuality, though only very rarely: Kant does admit that the highest kind of friendship “is not just an ideal, but (like black swans) actually exists here and there in its perfection” (MS 6:472). It is not clear whether Kant thinks perfect friendship is impossible – this seems to be his usual position -- or (as in the remark just quoted) that it does exist here and there but only very rarely. Perhaps this remark is an expression of deference to Montaigne’s view of his own friendship with La Boétie. But Kant more often doubts that friendship in its perfection is to be found anywhere on earth. Here too, however, Kant draws from Montaigne, this time a quotation (or misquotation) from Aristotle, that he repeats almost obsessively throughout both his works and his lectures: “O my friends, there are no

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friends!” (MS 6:470; Anth 7: 152; cf. VE Collins 27:424, VE Vigilantius 27:680, VA 25, 505, GMS 4:408; Montaigne, p. 214).4

Abbreviations Ak

Immanuel Kants Schriften. Ausgabe der königlich preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1902-). Unless otherwise footnoted, writings of Immanuel Kant will be cited by volume:page number in this edition.

Ca

Cambridge Edition of the Writings of Immanuel Kant (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992-) Specific works will be cited using the following system of abbreviations (works not abbreviated below will be cited simply as Ak volume:page).

Anth

Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), Ak 7 Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view, Ca Anthropology, History and Education

ED

Das Ende Aller Dinge, Ak 8 The End of All Things, Ca Writings on Religion and Natural Theology

G

Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1785), Ak 4 Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, Ca Practical Philosophy

4

Montaigne’s source is apparently Erasmus, Apophegemata VII, Aristoteles Stagirites XXVII. The original source seems to be Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophers 5.1.21. But the alleged quotation from Aristotle may be based on a textual corruption. Cf. “He who has [many] friends has no friend.” Eudemian Ethics 1425b20. This would indeed support the idea that friendship is restricted to a single friend -- a thought found in both Montaigne and Kant. Omit the hard breathing mark, however, and you transform the opening word into a vocative, asserting to those you are calling your friends the non-existence of friends. So understood, the remark contains a rhetorical irony that presented Kant with the opportunity to say that friends must acknowledge to each other that they never fully live up to the ideal to which they must aspire. Jacques Derrida drew from it a perhaps titillating but certainly less uplifting lesson: that even (or especially) where honesty and sincerity are most at stake, language is always trapped in paradox, that nobody can ever mean seriously what they say, that friends can always just as easily be thought of as enemies. Derrida, “The Politics of Friendship,” American Imago 50:3 (1993).

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KpV

Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788), Ak 5 Critique of practical reason, Ca Practical Philosophy

KU

Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790), Ak 5 Critique of the power of judgment, Ca Critique of the Power of Judgment

MA

Mutmaßlicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte (1786), Ak 8 Conjectural beginning of human history, Ca Anthropology History and Education

MS

Metaphysik der Sitten (1797-1798), Ak 6 Metaphysics of morals, Ca Practical Philosophy

R

Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793-1794), Ak 6Religion within the boundaries of mere reason, Ca Religion and Rational Theology

Refl

Reflexionen, Ak 15

SF

Streit der Fakultäten (1798), Ak 7 Conflict of the faculties, Ca Religion and Rational Theology

VA

Vorlesungen über Anthropologie, VA 25 Lectures on Anthropology, Ca Lectures on Anthropology

VE

Vorlesungen über Ethik, Ak 27 Lectures on Ethics, Ca Lectures on Ethics VE Collins (1784-1785) VE Vigilantius (1792-1793)

KANT’S TELEOLOGY AS THE TRUE APOLOGY TO LEIBNIZ’S PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY NOAM HOFFER

In this paper, I argue that with respect to some important features of Leibniz’s doctrine of pre-established harmony we should take seriously Kant’s claim that his critical philosophy is the ‘true apology for Leibniz’ (ÜE 8:250).1 I suggest that exploring Kant’s continuous engagement with Leibnizian pre-established harmony, seen from the lens of his critical appropriation of it as a regulative idea, sheds light on the development of his position on teleology in sciences. In section I, I present the general framework through which Kant appropriates Leibnizian doctrines as regulative ideas rather than as theories explaining the material world. I will focus on Kant’s appropriation of Leibnizian pre-established harmony. In section II, I present one of Leibniz’s facets of pre-established harmony, that of the compatibility of mechanistic and teleological causal laws. This type of harmony is relevant for our discussion because, as I show next, Kant was pre-occupied with the idea of harmony between different laws of nature. In section III, I address Kant’s 1

I cite Kant from the Akademie edition by reference to volume and page number. Quotations from Critique of Pure Reason are cited by the standard (A/B) pagination. I mostly use the translations of the Cambridge edition of Kant’s works ((Kant Critique of Pure Reason), Kant 2000, (Kant Religion and Rational Theology), (Kant Theoretical Philosophy after 1781), (Kant Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770), (Kant Notes and Fragments), (Kant Natural Science)); if there has been no translation in that edition, translations are mine. References to Kant’s unpublished Reflexionen will be given with the numbers of the individual reflections (R #) provided in the volumes 17, 18 and 19 of the Akademie edition. I use the Kant-Studien: PND=A New Elucidation of the First Principles of Metaphysical Cognition; MSI=On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World [Inaugural Dissertation]; BDG= The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God;; KU=Critique of the Power of Judgment; ÜE=‘On a Discovery Whereby Any New Critique of Pure Reason Is to Be Made Superfluous by an Older One’. Unless indicated otherwise, translations of Leibniz are mostly taken from (Leibniz Philosophical Papers and Letters: A Selection), abbreviated as L.

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pre-critical engagement with pre-established harmony. While he rejected it as a non-causal account of relations between states of substances, Kant made extensive references to harmony between laws of nature as grounded in God in his accounts of causation and physico-theology. In section IV, I show how Kant’s pre-critical conception of harmony between the laws of nature is transformed into a teleological regulative principle that can be correlated with Leibnizian pre-established harmony between efficient and final causation. In section V, I show how the account of organic nature in the Critique of the Power of Judgment makes explicit the aim of uniting efficient and final causation as motivating the appropriation of preestablished harmony.

I. Kant’s Apology for Leibniz My starting point is the curious passage in Kant’s 1790 polemical essay ‘On a Discovery Whereby Any New Critique of Pure Reason Is to Be Made Superfluous by an Older One’, where he claims that ‘the Critique of Pure Reason might well be the true apology for Leibniz’ (ÜE 8:250). Henry Allison (1973) initially interpreted the claim either as a tongue-in-cheek response targeted against the Leibnizian philosopher J. A. Eberhard or as a mere conciliatory remark towards the Leibnizian audience (Allison 1973, 101). In contrast, I will argue that, at least to some extent, Kant meant it seriously. This has been claimed before. Allison himself changed his mind in (Allison 2001), articulating a way in which the Critique of the Power of Judgment fulfills the role of the ‘true apology’ for Leibniz’s pre-established harmony regarding the relation between understanding and sensibility. Villinger also argued that the ‘true apology’ consists of Kant’s account of the relation between sensibility and understanding. She exemplified this in her reconstruction of the B edition transcendental deduction. Jolley discusses the ‘true apology’ explaining why Kant did not treat Leibniz as an idealist and why the ‘apology’ does not encompass Leibniz’s seeming affinity to Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space and time. My aim here is not to disagree with these accounts but to argue for two further claims. First, my broader claim is that Kant finds Leibnizian metaphysics valuable as expressing regulative ideas of reason. In this, I agree with Jauernig who argues that Kant’s apology is utterly sincere because he shares with Leibniz ‘the underlying metaphysical picture of the supersensible world’ despite the deep methodological and epistemological differences regarding this picture (Jauernig, 53). While Jauernig emphasizes the moral significance of this metaphysical picture, my addition is that it also has a theoretical regulative use. My main claim is that Kant’s

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appropriation of Leibnizian pre-established harmony parallels his account of the regulative use of teleology in general.2 From the Discovery essay we can extract a general form of an appreciative reading of some central Leibnizian doctrines. Kant discusses three doctrines of Leibniz’s metaphysical system: 1. the principle of sufficient reason; 2. the doctrine of monads; 3. the doctrine of preestablished harmony (ÜE 8:247). In all three doctrines Kant identifies a metaphysical error if taken as objective knowledge of the nature of things. At the same time, he also identifies something positive in each of them. Kant attributes the erroneous use of the doctrines to Leibniz’s followers who distorted Leibniz’s original intention.3 While this claim may not be historically accurate, there is some insight in it, revealing important philosophical motivations behind the Leibnizian doctrines. The positive value of Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason is only promissory. It indicates that not all a priori truths are analytic, derivable from the principle of non-contradiction, so that a principle of synthetic judgment should be sought. In this case, the principle is only a ‘pointer’ for further investigations and should not be regarded as informative in itself for justifying metaphysical theories (ÜE 8:248). Likewise, the theory of monads is misleading when used to explain the composition of material sensible objects. This criticism forms a major part of Kant’s response to Eberhard in this essay. But already in the Amphiboly chapter of the first Critique, which also criticizes the theory of monads, Kant’s assessment of the doctrine is not entirely negative. The basic thought is that the theory of monads would be appropriately derivable from the concepts of reflection if cognition of purely intelligible objects were possible. Leibniz’s postulation of simple objects determined solely by internal representational states would be justified if objects were considered as cognizable by the understanding abstracted from sensibility, i.e., ‘an intellectual system of the world’ (A270/B326). The positive evaluation becomes clearer in the Discovery essay. Here Kant focuses on the aim of Leibniz’s theory, claiming that by monads he ‘did not mean the physical world, but rather its substrate, unknowable by us, the intelligible world, which lies merely in the Idea of reason’ (ÜE 8:248). The notion of an ‘idea’ (Idee) has a specific meaning in the Kantian system. It designates concepts of objects that cannot be cognized in possible 2

(Sánchez-Rodríguez) makes a similar point about the appropriation of preestablished harmony as a regulative idea, but does not engage with the details of Leibniz’s theory or with the development of Kant’s attitude toward it. 3 For an explanation of Kant’s criticism of the Leibnizians and not of Leibniz himself regarding the composition of bodies see (Jauernig).

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experience: ‘A concept made up of notions [pure concepts], which goes beyond the possibility of experience, is an idea or a concept of reason’ (A320/B377). Ideas of reason are therefore concepts of purely intelligible objects, things as they are in themselves unrelated to the conditions of possible experience. 4 The notion of an ‘idea of reason’ also hints at the normative value of the theory, as it designates a standard of perfection, which although lying beyond the conditions of possible experience serves as an end set by reason. Kant borrows the term ‘idea’ from Plato explicitly to convey this normative meaning, most vivid when practical reason is aiming at moral perfection (A313/B370-1). When resisting the illusion to regard ideas as cognizable, theoretical reason also finds for them ‘an excellent and indispensably necessary regulative use, namely that of directing the understanding to a certain goal’ (A644/B672). Indeed, Kant also likens Leibniz to Plato regarding the ability to represent purely intelligible objects: He also seems, with Plato, to attribute to the human mind an original, though by now dim, intellectual intuition of these super-sensible beings, though from this he inferred nothing concerning sensible beings (ÜE 8:248)

The same view is also stated in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural science: [the theory of monads] has nothing at all to do with the explanation of natural appearances, but is rather an intrinsically correct platonic concept of the world devised by Leibniz, insofar as it is considered, not at all as object of the senses, but as a thing in itself, and is merely an object of the understanding’ (MAN 4:507).

Since Kant commonly refers to platonic ideas when explicating his notion of regulative ideas of reason, the connection made between Plato and Leibniz suggests a regulative significance for the theory of monads. The exact details of this regulative use, however, are not elaborated here. The positive tone is most salient in Kant’s remarks on the doctrine of pre-established harmony. Kant rejects pre-established harmony as an explanation of the mind-body relation, as reducible to harmony between the internal states of distinct substances. Such an explanation is redundant, 4 God and the soul are clear examples of concepts of non-spatio-temporal things-inthemselves. While the idea of freedom is not a concept of an object, in conceiving the reality of freedom we conceive the possibility of an intelligible self as its ground (A557/B585).

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because if the mind is producing its representations solely through the causality of its internal states, there is no need to presuppose something external to it (ÜE 8:249). Pre-established harmony is also unneeded to explain the relation between what is given in sensible intuition and the concepts supplied by the understanding. The Analytic of the first critique argues for a priori laws of the synthesis necessary for all possible experience. Yet the transcendental arguments leave a need to explain some further features of the harmony between understanding and sensibility: we could still provide no reason why we have precisely such a mode of sensibility and an understanding of such a nature, that by their combination experience becomes possible; nor yet, why, as otherwise fully heterogeneous sources of cognition, they always conform so well to the possibility of empirical cognition in general….(ÜE 8:250)

The transcendental arguments do not explain why sensibility and understanding have the nature they have which allows for empirical cognition. Furthermore, they do not demonstrate the unity of the empirical laws of nature. For this, a further presupposition about the systematicity of nature is required. As we will see below, the latter presupposition about nature and its ground in God preoccupied Kant from his earliest writings and guided his own versions of pre-established harmony. These various forms of harmony, between the faculties of cognition and between nature and our faculties, allow Kant to see the value of Leibniz’s doctrine of pre-established harmony as expressing the need to presuppose a single intelligent ground, i.e., God, for various inexplicable harmonies: Leibniz termed the ground of this agreement … a pre-established harmony, by which he had obviously not explained this agreement, nor was seeking to do so, but was merely indicating that we would have to suppose thereby a certain purposiveness in the dispositions of the supreme cause, of ourselves as well as of all things outside us… it can by no means be conceived from the constitution of the world, but rather as an agreement that for us at least is contingent, and comprehensible only through an intelligent worldcause. (ÜE 8:250)

A similar thought appears also in a letter to Herz about Maimon’s manuscript I am quite convinced that Leibniz, in his pre-established harmony (which he, like Baumgarten after him, made very general), had in mind not the harmony of two different natures, namely, sense and understanding, but that of two faculties belonging to the same nature, in which sensibility and understanding harmonize to form experiential knowledge. If we wanted to

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Instead of harmony between the internal states of distinct substances, e.g., the perception of bodies and their motion, Kant reinterprets preestablished harmony as a harmony between different explanatory principles (or the cognitive faculties governing them). It should be noted that Leibniz indeed used the principle of harmony in different ways, and that mind-body pre-established harmony was only one of them. Leibniz identifies three types of harmony: ‘formal causes, or souls, with material causes, or bodies; efficient or natural causes with final or moral causes; the kingdom of grace with the kingdom of nature’ (Causa Dei §46 G VI:446).5 The latter two variants of harmony between efficient and final causes and between grace (morality) and nature, resemble Kant’s notion of harmony between explanatory principles.6 In the above-cited passage (ÜE 8:250), Kant alludes to the forthcoming Critique of the Power of Judgment whose overarching theme is harmony in its different guises: harmony between the system of the laws of nature and our cognitive faculties; harmony between sensibility and understanding in aesthetic judgments; harmony of mechanistic and teleological causality in the explanations of living beings; and finally, harmony between the moral ends of freedom and nature as a whole. The latter two correspond to the second and third types of Leibniz pre-established harmony. Thus, although Kant states that the Critique of Pure Reason is the true apology for Leibniz, I suggest that the Critique of the Power of Judgment can more specifically be labeled as an apology for Leibnizian pre-established harmony.7 5

Translation in (Strickland): 302. Also in Theodicy §62: ‘Being on other considerations already convinced of the principle of Harmony in general, I was in consequence convinced likewise of the preformation and the Pre-established Harmony of all things amongst themselves, of that between nature and grace, between the decrees of God and our actions foreseen, between all parts of matter, and even between the future and the past, the whole in conformity with the sovereign wisdom of God, whose works are the most harmonious it is possible to conceive’ (Leibniz Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil) 6 It might be objected that pre-established harmony refers only to the solution to the mind-body problem put forth in the New System of Nature. But since substances are metaphysically fundamental, all harmonies are grounded on the fundamental harmony between substances. 7 (Allison “The Critique of Judgment as a 'True Apology' for Leibniz”) poignantly makes this point, but he discusses only the first type of harmony, that between nature and the faculties of cognition which Kant transforms into the purposiveness of nature

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Kant’s explicit aim set up in the introduction of the Critique of the Power of Judgment is to bridge the ‘gulf’ between the domains of nature and freedom, i.e., to account for the possibility of realizing the ends of morality within nature (KU 5:176). This is the most obvious parallel to Leibniz’s harmony between the kingdoms of nature and grace. However, here I will focus on the harmony between the laws of nature and its relation to the harmony between mechanistic and teleological explanations. In the next sections I show how this kind of harmony figures in Leibniz’s philosophy and that similar concerns preoccupied Kant from his pre-critical writings.

II. Leibniz’s Pre-Established Harmony and Teleology in Nature In addition to his account of relation between states of substances as a solution to the mind-body problem, Leibniz held another variant of preestablished harmony, related to teleology within physics. In contrast with other early modern philosophers, the Leibnizian project seeks to reserve a role for teleological explanations in addition to the increasingly successful mechanistic explanations of his time.8 According to Leibniz, souls act towards ends while bodies obey the efficient laws of motion.9 The preestablished harmony between souls and bodies is therefore also a harmony between final and efficient causation, where the former explains changes in souls and the latter in bodies.10 Leibniz maintained that teleological principles have an important role also within physics, the study of material bodies.11 An important case is how to explain the structure of living beings. For Leibniz, it is unreasonable to claim that ‘we happen to have eyes but that eyes were not made for the purpose of seeing’ in the same way it is ridiculous to explain a military conquest in terms of the motions of cannonballs without appealing to the planning of the conqueror.12 Surprisingly, teleology is useful in explaining as a transcendental condition of empirical concept formation. My account emphasizes the harmony between mechanism and teleology and its relation to the regulative role of the idea of God. 8 For a recent defense of this view see (Mcdonough “The Heyday of Teleology and Early Modern Philosophy”). 9 Monadology §79 L 651. 10 It is worth noting that Leibniz formulates the complementary role of efficient and final causes before the explicit formulation of the doctrine of pre-established harmony comes up in 1696, e.g., Discourse on Metaphysics §22 L 317. 11 Discourse on Metaphysics §19 ‘The utility of final causes in physics’ L 315. 12 Discourse on Metaphysics §19 L 316.

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inorganic nature as well. Leibniz’s common example comes from optics, Snell and Fermat’s principle of refraction: the path of a ray of light passing through different media ‘happens to be the easiest, or at least the most determined way to pass from a given point in one medium to a given point in another’.13 According to Leibniz, the principle presupposes final causation because the calculation depends on knowing the endpoint of a process (its goal) while minimizing or maximizing some variable. In contrast, a nonteleological (mechanical) principle allows calculating a state of a system from its previous state as an efficient cause. In addition to optics, Leibniz points to other examples in mechanics such as the problem of finding the shape of hanging chains and calculating the quickest path of descent for a falling body between two points in a plane.14 Such teleological principles were formalized by Euler and Lagrange as the calculus of variations and came to be known as variational principles.15 The discovery of such principles with comparable explanatory power to laws of efficient causation has for Leibniz a deep metaphysical significance. It is a sign of pre-established harmony between the kingdom of power and efficient causation and the kingdom of wisdom and final causes: I usually say that there are, so to speak, two kingdoms even in corporeal nature, which interpenetrate without confusing or interfering with each other—the realm of power, according to which everything can be explained mechanically by efficient causes when we have sufficiently penetrated into its interior, and the realm of wisdom, according to which everything can be explained architectonically, so to speak, or by final causes when we understand its ways sufficiently (Tentamen Anagogicum L479)

As with other types of harmony, this one is also grounded in an intelligent creator and serves as evidence for its existence: Nothing seems to me to be more effectual in proving and admiring the sovereign wisdom of the Author of things as shown in the very principles of things themselves. (L484)

But how are these principles in physics related to God? A possible answer is that since God is an intelligent creator acting to achieve ends, the fact that nature itself is explainable teleologically is a sign of being the

13

Discourse on Metaphysics §22 L 318. The most elaborate discussion of those principles is in the Tentamen Analogicum (around 1696). An illuminating account available in (Mcdonough “Leibniz on Natural Teleology and the Laws of Optics”):524-6. 15 See (Yourgrau and Mandelstam): 24-32. 14

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product of agency. But it should be noted that the notion of teleology introduced here is rather ‘thin’16, it does not involve reference to intrinsic goods or agency. The shortest path of a ray of light is not ethically superior to other paths; additionally, the ray of light does not choose its path, nor does God direct each ray of light. Furthermore, Leibniz maintains that theoretically, with sufficient cognitive capacity, all physical phenomena are explainable mechanically (see the quote above from Tentamen Anagogicum). It could seem that the thinness and redundancy of this teleology would also make it incapable of having the theological significance Leibniz attributes to it. The solution lies in Leibniz’s’ view concerning the ground of the laws of nature and the principle of the best which guides the divine will. Leibniz maintains that although given mechanical principles allow the derivation of effects from causes as logically necessary, the principles themselves are not logically necessary; rather, they stem from God’s choice: all natural phenomena could be explained mechanically enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically, since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work. (L 478)

Thus, the laws of nature, which we have discovered in the case of variational principles to be explainable both mechanically and teleologically, are the product of God’s choice in creating the best possible world. For Leibniz, laws of nature are not ontologically fundamental entities but abstractions from individual natures and their powers.17 Therefore the harmony between different kinds of abstractions points to the goodness of what grounds the possibility of compatible laws, the nature of things chosen to be created by God. But what is so good about this harmony between complementary laws18, mechanical and teleological? One possible answer is that the duality of 16

I borrow this characterization from (Mcdonough “Leibniz on Natural Teleology and the Laws of Optics”): 527-9. 17 See (Okruhlik): 196-7, (McDonough “Leibniz's Two Realms Revisited”): 683. 18 The exact relation between mechanical and teleological principles in Leibniz’s physics is a subject of debate. The orthodox view is that teleology is more fundamental, as related to the metaphysical level of divine free choice rather than the phenomenal level ((Okruhlik): 202-3, (Hirschmann)). McDonough argues that mechanical and teleological laws are equipotent so that teleology is not more fundamental than mechanism ((McDonough “Leibniz's Two Realms Revisited”): 684-7). Recently, Hamid defended the orthodox view by distinguishing the different roles mechanism and teleology play in Leibniz’s picture of science explaining how

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principles is good because it is useful for human beings, as some problems in physics are easier to solve teleologically, while others are easier to solve mechanistically. But there is a deeper reason. The teleological principles show that distinct domains such as optics and mechanics have unifying principles and thus bear evidence for the common ground of all of nature. It is also evidence of the goodness of the ground. The normative principle which guides God in choosing the best possible world is this: ‘the simplicity of the means is in balance with the richness of the effects’ (Discourse on Metaphysics §5 L305). This principle can also be called a general principle of harmony which means for Leibniz ‘unity in variety’19. Therefore, harmony in this general sense is itself a teleological principle, and hence a manifestation of divine wisdom that maximizes entities while minimizing the principles governing them.20 As I will show next, there is a strand in Kant’s thought regarding the unity of the laws of nature which makes his apology especially pertinent to these Leibnizian insights, even if Kant was not aware of Leibniz’s texts mentioned here, the Discourse on Metaphysics and the Tentamem Anagogicum21. It is worth noting that the Leibnizian theological interpretation of the teleological laws in physics was also held by later mathematicians that further developed them, Pierre Louis Maupertuis22 and Leonhard Euler23. In the next section, I will attend to Maupertuis’ direct influence on Kant. the latter are the metaphysical grounds for the former ((Hamid): 276-281). The exact nature of the relation is not important for my purposes as I focus on the general idea of harmony between mechanism and teleology. 19 ‘On Wisdom’ L 426. See also (Lyssy “Nature and Grace: On the Concept of Divine Economy in Leibniz's Philosophy”): 171. 20 (Hamid) adds that for this reason all the teleological (sometimes called architectonic) principles, which harmony is one of them, serve an essential role ‘in the uni¿cation of empirical laws … to represent nature systematically’ (282). 21 See (Wilson) for a list of the works of Leibniz published during Kant’s lifetime. 22 ‘One cannot doubt that everything is governed by a supreme Being who has imposed forces on material objects, forces that show his power, just as he has fated those objects to execute actions that demonstrate his wisdom. The harmony between these two attributes is so perfect, that undoubtedly all the effects of Nature could be derived from each one taken separately. A blind and deterministic mechanics follows the plans of a perfectly clear and free Intellect.’ Translation by Ansgar Lyssy from (Lyssy “L’économie De La Nature — Maupertuis Et Euler Sur Le Principe De Moindre Action”):38-9. 23 ‘For since the plan of the universe is the most perfect possible and the work of the wisest possible creator, nothing happens which has not some maximal or minimal property, and therefore there is no doubt but that all the effects in nature can be

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III. The Pre-Critical Kant on Causality and Harmony In the New Elucidation of 1755 and the Inaugural Dissertation of 1770, Kant criticized pre-established harmony as a theory of causal relations, instead, he argued for a ‘physical influx’ theory, the view that there is real causal interaction between physical substances.24 But in contrast with what could be expected, Kant’s theory leaves a role for God in grounding causal relations. In the New Elucidation Kant argues that the possibility of relations between substances cannot be derived from the concept of a substance, and therefore a common ground for all substances must be presupposed: Finite substances do not, in virtue of their existence alone, stand in a relationship with each other, nor are they linked together by any interaction at all, except in so far as the common principle of their existence, namely, the divine understanding, maintains them in a state of harmony in their reciprocal relations. (PND 1:413)

Kant is rather vague on how the common ground makes relations possible, but what is clear is that it involves God representing the relations between substances: If they are conceived as related in God’s intelligence, their determinations would subsequently, in conformity with this idea, always relate to each other for as long as they continued to exist … the reciprocal connection of substances requires that there should be, in the effective representation of the divine intellect, a scheme conceived in terms of relations. (PND 1:414)

The nature of this grounding becomes clearer in the 1770 Dissertation. Kant argues that in order for distinct substances to be conceived as belonging to one world-whole, there must be some principles uniting them giving the world-whole an essential form. This form is related to the possible interactions between substances, i.e., universal laws governing the relations between things (MSI 2:390). Kant calls this lawful unity a ‘generally established harmony’ in contrast with the Leibnizian ‘individually established harmony’ (MSI 2:409). Thus, Kant’s attitude towards pre-established harmony is nuanced: while opposing the reducibility of causal interactions to a harmony between the internal states of substances, Kant accepts that equally well determined from final causes by the aid of the method of maxima and minima as from the efficient causes.’ Translation from (Jourdain): 435. See (Lyssy “L’économie De La Nature — Maupertuis Et Euler Sur Le Principe De Moindre Action”):46. 24 For a full account of Kant’s pre-critical theory of causality and its relation to the debates of the 18th century see (Watkins) ch. 2.

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there is harmony in the laws governing causal relations which points to their single divine ground. This type of harmony between laws of nature is central for Kant’s account of physico-theology in the ‘The Only Possible Argument’ of 1763. Kant rejects teleological explanations that appeal to deliberate divine actions beyond what is explainable by the laws of nature (BDG 2:118-23). Instead, the correct way to think about the manifestation of the divine origin of nature is to point to the harmony between the necessary laws discoverable by the natural sciences. Kant argues extensively that this way of thought is both conducive for science and commensurate with his a priori proof for the existence of God as the ground of all possibility. The harmony discovered at the level of essences and necessary laws (rather than in the contingent arrangement of particular things) points to a single ground: Our mature judgement of the essential properties of the things known to us through experience enables us, even in the necessary determinations of their internal possibility, to perceive unity ... the internal possibility of things is itself necessarily related to order and harmony … on this basis, we could establish whether the essences of things themselves indicate an ultimate common ground (BDG 2:92).

Kant espoused this kind of relation between God and the laws of nature already in his 1755 essay Universal Natural History: if one considers that nature and the eternal laws that are prescribed to substances for their interaction, are not a principle independent and necessary without God, that precisely because of the fact that it shows so much correspondence and order in what it produces through universal laws, we can see that the essences of all things must have their common origin in a certain primitive being and that for this reason they reveal many reciprocal relationships and much harmony because their properties have their source in a single highest understanding (NTH 1:332) 25

Kant kept holding it also in the critical period in his lectures on theology: Now from the fact that the highest being is also the original being, from which the essence of all things is derived, it follows that the order, beauty, harmony and unity which are encountered in things are not always contingent, but can rather inhere necessarily in their essence (V-Phil-Th 28:1034)

25

Also 1:222-3.

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I suggest that this notion of harmony between laws of nature follows the same line of thought as Leibniz’s harmony between efficient and final causation presented in different domains of physics. Kant did not discuss in detail teleological laws in physics, for example in optics, though there is evidence that he was aware of Fermat’s law of refraction and its teleological interpretation.26 However, Kant was impressed by Pierre Louis Maupertuis’ generalization of such laws in optics and mechanics in his principle of least action. In BDG, Kant refers to the unifying power of Maupertuis’ principle in the context of his version of physico-theology as further evidence for the divine ground of the discovered harmony between the necessary laws of nature: Maupertuis, proved that even the most universal laws of matter in general whether it be at rest or in motion, whether in elastic or in non-elastic bodies, whether in the attraction of light in refraction or in its repulsion in reflection - are subject to one dominant rule, according to which the greatest possible economy of action is always observed… This acute and learned man immediately sensed that, in having thus introduced unity into the infinite manifold of the universe and created order in what was blindly necessary, there must be some single supreme principle to which the totality of things owed its harmony and appropriateness. He rightly believed that such a universal cohesiveness in the simplest natures of things afforded a far more fitting foundation for the indubitable discovery, in some perfect and original being, of the ultimate cause of everything in the world, than any perception of various contingent and variable arrangements (BDG 2:98-9)27

As noted in the previous section, the unity hinted by the teleological principles in physics is also part of the significance Leibniz attributed to them. But we should observe here the following difference between Leibniz and the pre-critical Kant: while Leibniz emphasized the harmony between efficient and teleological causal laws as evidence for God’s purpose of creating the best possible world, Kant stressed the harmony between laws of nature in general without drawing an explicit reference to teleology, i.e., a purpose chosen freely by God. Yet Kant’s pre-critical notion of harmony

26

“Among the principles of harmony (principiis convenientiae) one can also count [the principle] that everything (natural) in the world is good and has its own purpose, because, first, by means of it when an end is presupposed the true constitution can be discovered, or 2. from the constitution a purpose is found (Fermat).” (15:285 R649 my translation). 27 Kant refers here to Maupertuis’ Essais de Cosmologie (1751). More on Maupertuis’ physico-theology in (Terrall), Ch. 9.

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is still implicitly related to teleology, in the sense that it is a form of physicotheology, i.e., evidence for the existence of God as a supreme intelligence. Kant makes the distinction between the existence of things in the created world, which depend ‘morally’ on God, i.e., through his will, and the essences of things, which depend on God ‘non-morally’, i.e., out of necessity (BDG 2:100). Yet although non-moral dependence is not a product of divine choice, Kant maintains that it does provide evidence for an intelligent creator: ‘Order and appropriateness are indications of an intelligent creator, even when they are necessary’ (BDG 2:123). What is the explanation for this? Kant first states that ‘from the point of view of its possibility, extensive harmony is never adequately given in the absence of an intelligent ground’ (BDG 2:124), and then elaborates on the relation between harmony and divine wisdom: Now, if it be asked: 'How do these natures depend upon such a Being so that I can understand their harmony with the rules of wisdom?' - if this question be raised, I should reply: 'They depend upon something in this Being which, in virtue of its containing the ground of the possibility of things, is also the ground of that Being's own wisdom; for this wisdom presupposes the possibility of things in general. But granted that the ground, which underlies not only the essence of all things but also the essence of wisdom, goodness and power, is a unity, it follows that all possibility must of necessity harmonise with these properties'. (BDG 2:125-6)

The explanation seems to be that God’s wisdom, his ability to choose the best means for his ends, presupposes harmony between essences that make the choice possible. But this only means that harmony is a necessary condition for wisdom, not a sufficient one. Therefore, harmony between laws of nature might be evidence for their single ground, but not that this ground is intelligent. Leibniz, Maupertuis, and Euler did not face this problem, because they appealed to the teleological nature of the variational principles in physics and not only to their unity across different domains of physics. As we will see in the next section, in his critical writings, Kant found another way to connect the harmony of the laws of nature and teleology when both are transformed into regulative ideas.

IV. The Critical Kant on Harmony and Teleology The relation between the unity of the laws of nature and teleology is reintroduced in the first Critique with respect to the regulative use of reason in general and specifically the regulative role of the idea of God. The first part of the Appendix to the dialectic is concerned with the principle of systematic unity prescribed by reason for the investigation of nature. This

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supreme principle leads to several heuristic methodological principles of homogeneity, speci¿cation, and continuity which together direct the investigation of nature in order to achieve a system of empirical concepts (A657-8/B685-6). The second part of the Appendix introduces the ideas of reason, God, the world-whole and the soul, delineating their roles relative to the principle of systematic unity. The idea of God is most relevant for my discussion of teleology in nature. Regarding teleology, Kant still rejects here the appeal to divine purposes for explaining specific phenomena, a method he labels as ‘lazy reason’ (A689/B717). Yet the notions of purposiveness and divine intelligence are introduced to express the way reason conceives the legitimate principle of systematic unity: ‘the highest formal unity that alone rests on concepts of reason is the purposive unity of things’ (A686/B714). Thus, there is a heuristic principle to ‘regard every ordinance in the world as if it had sprouted from the intention of a highest reason’ (A687/B715). But in order to avoid the fallacy of attributing specific purposes to the design of nature, we should make the systematic unity of nature entirely universal in relation to the idea of a highest intelligence. For then we make a purposiveness in accordance with universal laws of nature the ground, from which no particular arrangement is excepted, but arrangements are designated only in a way that is more or less discernible by us (A691/B719)

Attributing purposiveness to nature does not mean that we know its divine purpose, but only that for assuming the systematic unity of the laws of nature as ‘discernible by us’ we assume a supreme intelligent being as the ground for their unity. Thus, we should understand purposiveness here as the way human thought can make the unity of the laws of nature palpable when applying it to the system of empirical concepts. In the Critique of the Power of Judgment (KU), however, Kant is much clearer on the different notions of purposiveness. The ‘universal purposiveness’ presented in the Appendix becomes the purposiveness for our cognition, a transcendental principle of the faculty of the power of reflective judgment in its search for empirical concepts and laws of nature: the particular empirical laws … must be considered in terms of the sort of unity they would have if an understanding (even if not ours) had likewise given them for the sake of our faculty of cognition (KU 5:180)

The principle applies both to the ordering of empirical concepts in a system of species and genera, as well as to the various heuristic principles of science. One of them, the law of parsimony stating that ‘nature takes the shortest way’ (KU 5:182) resembles Leibniz’s principles of economy.

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Hence the principle of purposiveness allows Kant to explicitly unite a notion of teleology with his preoccupation with the harmony of the laws of nature within the constraints of the critical epistemology. Indeed, In the Discovery Kant relates this principle of judgment with Leibniz’s pre-established harmony: [our powers of cognition] always conform so well to the possibility of empirical cognition in general, but especially, as the Critique of Judgment will intimate, for the possibility of an experience of nature under its manifold particular and merely empirical laws, of which the understanding teaches us nothing a priori, as if nature were deliberately ordered for our comprehension; this we could not further explain (and neither can anyone else). Leibniz termed the ground of this agreement … a pre-established harmony, (ÜE 8:250).

The above paragraph refers to the harmony between empirical laws and this is indeed the focus of the introduction to KU. It should be noted that later in KU Kant also mentions harmony in geometry, a theme that he addressed at length in BDG as ‘The unity in the manifold of the essences of things is demonstrated by appeal to the properties of space’ (BDG 2:93). A common example used both in BDG and KU is the numerous proofs and scientific applications that stem from the very simple shape of a circle (BDG 2:94, KU 5:363-4). But the critical framework requires a reconceptualization of this harmony as space becomes a form of human sensibility rather than a thing in itself or its property. The harmony found in geometry is not harmony between the essences of objects grounded in God as supposed in BDG, but can be explained a priori. But Kant still maintains that there is something inexplicable in this harmony which arouses admiration, ‘as if there is an external ground, distinct from our power of representation’ (KU 5:364). The figure of a circle is a sensible intuition, but it is constructed according to a concept of the understanding. The admirable results for geometry are thus attributed to an inexplicable harmony between sensibility and understanding which hints at a purpose grounded in something external, i.e., God: the compatibility of that form of sensible intuition (which is called space) with the faculty of concepts (the understanding) is not only inexplicable for us insofar as it is precisely thus and not otherwise, but also enlarges the mind, allowing it, as it were, to suspect something lying beyond those sensible representations, in which, although unknown to us, the ultimate ground of that accord could be found (KU 5:365)

This concludes my discussion of teleology in Kant’s appeal to harmony between laws of nature. The bulk of KU is, however, devoted to teleology

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in organic nature. Certainly, this is a distinct form of teleology, different from the unity of the laws of nature discussed earlier, and the harmony between sensibility and understanding mentioned above. But what is important for my aims is that Kant unites these types of harmony under the principle of purposiveness of reflective judgment. One proposal for explaining the unity of the principle of reflective judgment that is especially relevant is Zuckert’s formulation of the principle as ‘lawfulness of the contingent’ or ‘unity of diversity’.28 Because this teleological principle covers the wide range of phenomena in which there is unity which is not logically necessary, it can also be regarded as an appropriation of the different guises of Leibnizian pre-established harmony whose general principle is ‘unity in plurality’ (L 426).29 In contrast with Leibniz, however, this is not an objective ontological principle grounded in divine choice, but rather a subjective regulative principle for human thought. In the next section, I turn to Kant’s discussion of organic nature which forms the main example of his new take on the legitimacy of teleology introduced in KU. I show that this kind of teleology also correlates with his appropriation of Leibnizian pre-established harmony as a regulative idea. My aim is not to explain in detail Kant’s intricate philosophy of biology, but only to highlight several points of convergence with Leibniz.

V. Kant on Teleology in Organic Nature As noted above, in the pre-critical period Kant was deeply suspicious of using specific ends to explain natural phenomena. Yet in the ‘Only Possible Argument’ he made living beings an exception and conceded that since they display purposeful design, it is inconceivable that they could be a product of necessary laws of nature without deliberate divine intervention.30 In this context, he also remarked on the controversy regarding embryology between epigenesis and preformation (BDG 2:114-5). Epigenesis is the view that organisms gradually develop from elements contributed by the parents; preformation is the view that each organism is pre-formed in one of its parents and only grows in size. Kant rejected as completely inconceivable the third option of spontaneous generation of organized beings from dead matter. Necessary laws could never make the emergence of organisms intelligible, while hylozoism, the assumption of primordial 28

(Zuckert): 5ff. Zuckert indeed locates the source of Kant’s principle in the Leibnizian tradition (ibid: 7-11). 30 BDG 2:107, 2:115. 2:118, 2:125. 29

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living forces is an unfounded speculation.31 Thus the difference between preformation and epigenesis boils down to the time of divine intervention: either each individual organism is created by God, or God created the first organisms and implanted in them a mysterious mechanism for producing offspring. While the second option is somewhat more ‘philosophical’ because it points to a general mechanism of generation (BDG 2:135–6), in the final account Kant deemed both theories equally as fanciful metaphysics lacking any scientific rigor. Kant just could not bridge the gap between the teleological organization of living beings and the scientific method that relies only on universal necessary laws. But that is what the critical epistemology allowed him to achieve in the third Critique. Kant continues to claim that the structure of organisms (‘ends of nature’) defies mechanical explanations because of the special kind of causality they manifest: In such a product of nature each part is conceived as if it exists only through all the others, thus as if existing for the sake of the others and on account of the whole (KU 5:373-4)

In an organism each part is the cause, as a condition for the generation and preservation of all other parts, and thus the cause of the whole organism. At the same time, each part is the effect of the whole in the sense that it depends on it for its generation and preservation: This view implies a teleological structure because the parts are conceived as parts by reference to their function in maintaining the whole. Yet this use of teleological explanations is legitimate because teleology is used only as a subjective regulative principle of reflective judgment that does not determine the objective constitution of objects and therefore does not contradict the constitutive principles of natural science (KU 5:375). It also does not imply that organisms were created for a purpose, the purposiveness applies only to the internal structure. Once the general reciprocal structure is presupposed, necessary laws can be used to explain specific operations, for example how laws of optics explain the functionality of the eye to produce an image (EEKU 20:240). This means that the teleological structure is not something supernatural interfering with the natural order, but only a regulative principle for carving a part of nature as an object for further scientific study.32 As we shall see, it is in this sense that 31

In KU Kant puts forth an argument against hylozoism based on the concept of inert matter (KU 5:374–5). 32 See (Breitenbach) for an elaboration of this point about teleological laws in biology.

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Kant sees in the organic nature a phenomenon where efficient and final causation harmonize. It should be noted that Leibniz also viewed the phenomena of life as another manifestation for the doctrine of pre-established harmony because it unites efficient and final causation: From these [machines of nature] I constitute a twofold and most perfect parallelism: on the one hand, between the material and formal principles, that is, between body and soul; on the other hand, between the kingdom of efficient causes and the kingdom of final causes.33

For Leibniz, pre-established harmony presupposes the existence of a ground in a divine intelligence. We have already seen that, in the third Critique, the harmony between the laws of nature becomes teleological for Kant when regarded as created by God for our cognitive faculties. With the analysis of organic nature, the role of the idea of God becomes even more explicit. Since the inexplicable teleological structure of organisms leads to the thought of a supersensible ground, Kant deems it reasonable to think of a singular ground of nature as a whole, i.e., God. This ground combines the harmony of the necessary laws of nature with what makes possible organic nature: once we have discovered in nature a capacity for bringing forth products that can only be conceived by us in accordance with the concept of ¿nal causes, we may go further and also judge to belong to a system of ends even those things (or their relation, however purposive) which do not make it necessary to seek another principle of their possibility beyond the mechanism of blindly acting causes; because the former idea already, as far as its ground is concerned, leads us beyond the sensible world, and the unity of the supersensible principle must then be considered as valid in the same way not merely for certain species of natural beings but for the whole of nature as a system (KU 5:380-1).

This claim about the unity of the ground of purposive beings with the ground of mechanical lawfulness is repeated in the discussion of the apparent antinomy between mechanism and teleology, where Kant ties the possibility of harmony between these principles with the former type of harmony between laws of nature, by forming the regulative idea of a divine

33

Translation from (Duchesneau and Smith): 21.

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mind (an intellectual intuition) as a ground for the harmony.34 Hence for the purpose of expressing the possibility of these harmonies, it is permissible … to conceive of something as a thing in itself (which is not an appearance) as substratum, and to correlate with this a corresponding intellectual intuition… [in which] the agreement and unity of the particular laws and corresponding forms, which in regard to the mechanical laws we must judge as contingent, can at the same time be considered in it, as object of reason (indeed the whole of nature as a system) in accordance with teleological laws (KU 5:409 emphasis mine)

Kant’s appropriation of Leibnizian pre-established harmony grounded in God as a regulative idea therefore correlates with his appeal to the idea of God as the intuitive intellect grounding the unity of mechanism and teleology. Finally, I suggest that Kant’s casting of the harmony between mechanism and teleology as an appropriation of Leibniz’s pre-established harmony sheds light on his position in KU about debates in embryology. The introduction of the new status of teleological explanations allows Kant to change his attitude towards epigenesis in his remarks on Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. As Kant understood him (or misunderstood him35), Blumenbach’s version of epigenesis did not assume that organization can emerge from dead matter (which implies hylozoism), but assumed only a general principle applicable only to organisms, a ‘formative drive’ that ‘leaves natural mechanism an indeterminable but at the same time also unmistakable role under this inscrutable principle of an original organization’ (KU 5:424). The significance Kant saw in Blumenbach’s principle is not the objective positing of vital forces in nature, but an expression of the idea that final and efficient causation are mutually dependent for making the phenomena of life intelligible. Kant writes to Blumenbach praising him for capturing an idea that has long preoccupied him: ‘the union of two principles that people have believed to be irreconcilable, namely the physical-mechanistic and the merely teleological way of explaining organized nature’ (Br 11:185). As we have seen, this very idea of harmony between teleology and mechanism was one of the 34 The interpretation of the antinomy and the role the intuitive intellect plays in its resolution is a highly contested issue, but addressing it is beyond the scope of this paper. 35 (Lenoir) argues for the affinity and mutual influence between Kant and Blumenbach. (Richards) disagrees and argues for a ‘creative misunderstanding’ between them. (J. Zammito) and (Look) follow Richards. My concern here, however, is only in Kant’s appreciation of Blumenbach, and not the accuracy of his reading.

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motivations of Leibniz’s pre-established harmony that Kant found valuable in the Discovery essay. I propose that there is an analogy between Kant’s reading of Leibniz contra his followers and his reading of Blumenbach’s epigenesis contra hylozoism. Kant blames Leibniz’s followers of taking his metaphysics to apply directly to sensible objects instead of limiting it to regulative ideas. Similarly, in contrast with hylozoist theories of life, Kant found in Blumenbach a theory which does not infuse life and purposiveness into matter, ‘limiting an excessively presumptuous use of [epigenesis]’ (KU 5:424), but only posits a regulative idea of unity between mechanistic and teleological explanations. This regulative approach to epigenesis allows Kant to claim that there is a certain truth also in the rival theory of preformation when taken as a regulative idea.36 Thus, Kant labels Blumenbach’s cogent epigenesis as a ‘system of generic preformation’ in contrast with ‘individual preformation’ of each organism by God, while both theories are forms of ‘prestabilism’, hinting at pre-established harmony (KU 5:423). Epigenesis equals generic preformation because: the productive capacity of the progenitor is still preformed in accordance with the internally purposive predispositions that were imparted to its stock, and thus the speci¿c form was preformed virtualiter (KU 5:423)

Regarding embryology, Leibniz himself sided with preformation. He maintained that since all souls existed from creation, and since there is a body-mind pre-established harmony, the souls of future generations correlate with some pre-formed seeds in current organisms.37 But we can see how Kant’s appropriation of pre-established harmony as a regulative idea can transform Leibniz’s individual preformation into Blumenbach’s generic preformation: a metaphysical theory pertaining to the preformation of each actual individual by God is transformed into a regulative assumption of an idea of a species which inexplicably grounds the mechanism of epigenesis of individuals.

VI. Conclusion Let us summarize the reconstruction of how Kant came to make an apology for Leibniz’s pre-established harmony in relation to his views on teleology. Since his early pre-critical writings Kant was opposed to it as a 36 37

See (Cohen):680, (J. H. Zammito):88. See (Smith), ch. 5.

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theory of causal relations. Yet he did endorse harmony in another sense, in the conception of God as grounding the harmony between the necessary laws of nature. In this context Kant recognizes the influence of Maupertuis who generalized Leibniz’s variational principles to unify laws in different domains of physics. In the pre-critical period Kant distinguishes the harmony between laws of nature which is grounded in God’s essence from what is grounded in God’s choice such as organic nature. But this distinction undergoes a subtle change in the critical period. In the first Critique, the conception of harmony between laws of nature is transformed into a regulative idea, but here with a vague sense of teleology as systematic unity is identified with purposiveness. Purposiveness becomes explicit in KU as a regulative principle that unifies a range of domains in which harmony is found in addition to the harmony between laws of nature that is carried over from the pre-critical writings. This includes harmony between sensibility and understanding in aesthetic judgments and a conception of harmony between mechanism and teleology found in organic nature. Thus, the general principle of reflective judgment which regards harmony as purposive and legitimizes teleological explanations of nature allows Kant to make an apology for Leibniz’s pre-established harmony by transforming it into a regulative idea.

Works Cited Allison, Henry E. “The Critique of Judgment as a 'True Apology' for Leibniz.” Kant Und Die Berliner Aufklärung: Akten Des Ix. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Bd. I: Hauptvorträge. Bd. Ii: Sektionen I-V. Bd. Iii: Sektionen Vi-X: Bd. Iv: Sektionen Xi-Xiv. Bd. V: Sektionen Xv-Xviii. Eds. Schumacher, Ralph, Rolf-Peter Horstmann and Volker Gerhardt: De Gruyter, 2001. 286-99. Print. —. The Kant-Eberhard Controversy: An English Translation, Together with Supplementary Materials and a Historical-Analytic Introduction of Immanuel Kant's on a Discovery According to Which Any New Critique of Pure Reason Has Been Made Superfluous by an Earlier One. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. Print. Breitenbach, Angela. “Laws in Biology and the Unity of Nature.” Kant and the Laws of Nature. Eds. Massimi, Michela and Angela Breitenbach: Cambridge University Press, 2017. 237-55. Print. Cohen, Alix A. “Kant on Epigenesis, Monogenesis and Human Nature: The Biological Premises of Anthropology.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 37.4 (2006): 675-93. Print.

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Duchesneau, François, and Justin E. H. Smith. The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy. Yale University Press, 2016. Print. Hamid, Nabeel. “Teleology and Realism in Leibniz's Philosophy of Science.” Leibniz and the Structure of Sciences. Ed. De Risi, Vincenzo: Springer, 2019. 271-98. Print. The Kingdom of Wisdom and the Kingdom of Power in Leibniz. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 1987. JSTOR. Print. Jauernig, Anja. “Kant's Critique of the Leibnizian Philosophy : Contra the Leibnizians, but Pro Leibniz.” Kant and the Early Moderns. Eds. Garber, Daniel and Béatrice Longuenesse: Princeton University Press, 2008. 41-63. Print. Jolley, Nicholas. “Kant’s “True Apology for Leibniz”.” Leibniz’s Legacy and Impact. Eds. Weckend, Julia and Lloyd Strickland: Routledge, 2019. 112-25. Print. Jourdain, Philip E. B. “Maupertuis and the Principle of Least Action.” The Monist 22.3 (1912): 414-59. Print. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Guyer, Paul and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Print. —. Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print. —. Notes and Fragments. Trans. Guyer, P., C. Bowman and F. Rauscher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. —. Religion and Rational Theology. Trans. Wood, A.W. and G. di Giovanni. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print. —. Theoretical Philosophy after 1781. Trans. Allison, H., et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print. —. Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Trans. Walford, David and Ralf Meerbote. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print. Leibniz, G.W.F. Philosophical Papers and Letters: A Selection. Trans. Loemker, L.E. Dodrecht: Springer Netherlands, 1976. Print. —. Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man, and the Origin of Evil. Trans. Huggard, E.M.: Open Court, 1985. Print. Lenoir, Timothy. “Kant, Blumenbach, and Vital Materialism in German Biology.” Isis 71.1 (1980): 77-108. Print. Look, Brandon C. “Blumenbach and Kant on Mechanism and Teleology in Nature: The Case of the Formative Drive.” The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy. Ed. Smith, Justin E. H.: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print. Lyssy, Ansgar. “L’économie De La Nature — Maupertuis Et Euler Sur Le Principe De Moindre Action.” Philosophiques 42.1 (2015): 31-50. Print. —. “Nature and Grace: On the Concept of Divine Economy in Leibniz's Philosophy.” Studia Leibnitiana 48.2 (2018): 151-77. Print.

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Mcdonough, Jeffrey K. “The Heyday of Teleology and Early Modern Philosophy.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 35.1 (2011): 179-204. Print. —. “Leibniz's Two Realms Revisited.” Noûs 42.4 (2008): 673-96. Print. —. “Leibniz on Natural Teleology and the Laws of Optics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78.3 (2009): 505-44. Print. Okruhlik, Kathleen. “The Status of Scientific Laws in the Leibnizian System.” The Natural Philosophy of Leibniz. Springer, 1985. 183-206. Print. Richards, Robert J. “Kant and Blumenbach on the Bildungstrieb: A Historical Misunderstanding.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C 31.1 (2000): 11-32. Print. Sánchez-Rodríguez, Manuel. “Der Begriff Der Zweckmäßigkeit in Kants Philosophie Als Kritisch-Immanente Transformation Des Leibnizschen Prinzips Der Harmonie.” Teleologische Reflexion in Kants Philosophie. Eds. Órdenes, Paula and Anna Pickhan: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2019. 191-212. Print. Smith, Justin E. H. Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life. Princeton University Press, 2011. Print. Strickland, Lloyd. “Leibniz’s Harmony between the Kingdoms of Nature and Grace.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 98.3 (2016): 302-29. Print. Terrall, Mary. “The Man Who Flattened the Earth : Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment.” Chicago :: The University of Chicago Press, 2002. Print. Villinger, Rahel. “Recovering the ‘True Meaning’ of the Pre-Established Harmony: On a Neglected Key to Kant’s Theory of Intuition.” KantStudien 108.3 (2017): 338-77. Print. Watkins, Eric. Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Print. Wilson, Catherine. “Leibniz's Influence on Kant.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Ed. Zalta, Edward N. Spring 2018 ed: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018. Print. Yourgrau, Wolfgang, and Stanley Mandelstam. Variational Principles in Dynamics and Quantum Theory [by] Wolfgang Yourgrau [and] Stanley Mandelstam. Pitman, 1968. Print. Zammito, John. “Kant's Early Views on Epigenesis: The Role of Maupertuis.” The Problem of Animal Generation in Early Modern Philosophy. Ed. Smith, Justin E. H.: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Print.

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Zammito, John H. “'This Inscrutable Principle of an Original Organization': Epigenesis and 'Looseness of Fit' in Kant's Philosophy of Science.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 34.1 (2003): 73109. Print. Zuckert, R. Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the 'Critique of Judgment'. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.

KANT’S PIETISM: RELIGIOUSLY VAGUE YET PHILOSOPHICALLY PROFOUND? FR. BONAVENTURE CHAPMAN, O.P.

I. Kant’s Supposed Religious Pietism Given Kant’s youthful inundation with religious Pietism, it is not surprising that Pietism is often invoked as an important influence on Kant’s philosophy, especially his moral philosophy.1 Yet when looking for specific aspects of Kant’s philosophy that show such influence, none besides vague generalities about Kant’s “Pietist background” and “the definitively Pietistic 1

Such claims of Kant’s Pietism were common in the early biographies of Kant. For Kant’s own positive description of Pietism in the context of speaking about his parents’ display of Pietism, see Kant’s remarks, quoted in Manfred Kuehn, Kant: A Biography (New York: Cambridge UP, 2001), 40: “Even if the religious views of that time . . . and the concepts of what was called virtue and piety were anything but clear and sufficient, the people actually were virtuous and pious. One may say as many bad things about Pietism as one will [Man sage dem Pietismus nach, was man will]. Enough already. The people who took it seriously were characterized by a certain kind of dignity. They possessed the highest qualities that a human can possess, namely that calmness and pleasantness, that inner peace that can be disturbed by no passion. No need, no persecution, no dispute could make them angry or cause them to be enemies of anyone.” For the original, see Friedrich Rink, Ansichten aus Immanuel Kants Leben (Königsberg, 1805), 13–14: “Waren auch die religiösen Vorstellungen der damahligen Zeit . . . und die Begriffe von dem, was man Tugend und Frommigkeit nannte, nichts weniger als deutlich und gnügend: so fand man doch wirklich die Sache. Man sage dem Pietismus nach, was man will, genug! die Leute, denen er ein Ernst war, zeichneten sich auf eine ehrwürdige Weise aus. Sie befaßen das Höchste, was der Mensch besitzen kann, jene Ruhe, jene Heiterkeit, jenen innern Frieden, die durch keine Leidenschaft beunruhigt wurden. Keine Noth, keine Verfolgung setzte sie in Mißmuth, keine Streitigkeit war vermögend sie zum Zorn und zur Feindschaft zu reizen. Mit einem Wort, auch der bloße Beobachter wurde unwillkürlich zur Achtung hingerissen.” For a description of the Collegium Fridericianum, see Kuehn, Kant, 45–55.

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trait” of Kant’s moral claims are forthcoming.2 Claims of Pietist influence are not merely made about Kant’s practical philosophy, but also about Kant’s theoretical philosophy. Edward Kanterian’s Kant, God, and Metaphysics: The Secret Thorn (2018) offers one example. Kanterian first gives the “standard” reading of Kant: The solitary figure of Kant appeals to our own, more secular attitudes, as they prevail in some parts of society and the world. Free of any commitment to transcendent metaphysics, indeed understood as its gravedigger, he appears to be a philosopher who could be our contemporary, standing closer to us than to God-obsessed thinkers such as Leibniz, Baumgarten and Crusius.3

But according to Kanterian, Kant is just as “God-obsessed” as these thinkers, and Kant’s pre-critical work is taken up with a sort of “Lutheran apologetics”—a reasoned defense of the Christian God. This obsession continues in the mature Kant as well: The modern drama of religion continued with Kant, not just during the precritical period, as discussed in this book, but also later. Overall, he emerges as a twilight figure. Even if it may be going too far to claim that Kant was putting forward a version of Pietist theology, he was ‘fundamentally a religious thinker.’4

Following Manfred Kuehn and Lukas Sosoe, I think Pietism’s religious influence on Kant is vague and inconsequential: claims of influence lack substance when pressed.5 Nevertheless, I argue that Pietism’s influence on 2 For instance, see Keith Ward, The Development of Kant’s View of Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972), 13: “On the other hand, his Pietistic background leads him to see each human being as having an infinite spiritual destiny, and a unique and incommensurable importance in his own right.” Or see Paul Schilpp, Kant’s PreCritical Ethics (1938; Bristol: Thoemmes P, 1998), 49: “Long before he knew Rousseau, Kant, as a youthful Pietist, had been indoctrinated with the notion of the inherent worth of every human being.” In these cases, and many others, no specific texts are given for influence. 3 Edward Kanterian, Kant, God, and Metaphysics: The Secret Thorn (New York: Routledge, 2018), xiii. 4 Kanterian, Kant, God, and Metaphysics, 396. Internal quote from Stephen Palmquist, Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason (Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016), 2. 5 See Kuehn, Kant, 54: “It is absurd to claim that Pietism was a major influence on his moral philosophy.” Lukas Sosoe’s study of Kant and Pietism agrees with Kuehn, noting that the only direct reference to Pietism, that in Conflict of the Faculties

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Kant is profound. The key is a distinction between religious Pietism and philosophical Pietism. In a way, Kanterian’s claims are not going too far: Kant is, even in his critical works, putting forth a version of Pietism, but it is Pietist philosophy, not Pietist theology. The key figure, of course, is the final one in Kanterian’s “God-obsessed” trio: Christian August Crusius.6 In this paper I will argue that the core claims of Kant’s critical metaphysics are structured according to Crusius’s own Pietist metaphysics, making Kant a sort of Pietist metaphysician himself. But before getting to Crusius’s metaphysics and Kant’s appropriation of that metaphysics, we ought to take a brief tour through the history of philosophical Pietism, a largely unknown philosophical school.

II. The Genesis and Character of Philosophical Pietism The beginnings of Pietism, philosophical or otherwise, lie in the 1675 work of Philip Jakob Spener (1635–1705), a remarkable Lutheran Churchman.7 Earning a doctorate in theology, he received a call to be the head pastor of Frankfurt-am-Main (1666–86). Spener distinguished himself as a leading preacher of reform and a return to Johannes Arndt’s vision of Christianity (as laid out in the latter’s True Christianity [1605–1610]). His efforts lead, in 1670, to the formation of a collegium pietatis—a small group where Christians met to study Scripture or devotional works together.8 In 1675 Spener was asked to write a preface to a reprinting of Arndt’s sermons, and the result was Pia Desideria, a sort of “Pietist Manifesto.”9 The fifth (7:53–60), is a wholly negative one. See Lukas Sosoe, “Dans quelle mesure la philosophie pratique de Kant est-elle piétiste?” Les Sources de la Philosophie Kantienne: XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles, eds. Robert Theis and Lukas Sosoe (Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 2005), 227–36. 6 Lukas Sosoe considers even Crusius’s Pietism suspect, but I think this is overly skeptical. See introduction, Instruction pour une vie raisonnable, by Christian August Crusius, trans. Lukas Sosoe (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2007), 26–27. 7 For Spener’s biography, see K. James Stein, Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch (Chicago: Covenant Press, 1986), and Stein, “Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705)” The Pietist Theologians, ed. Carter Lindberg (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 84–99. For Spener’s role in the founding of Pietism, see Johannes Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986); and Wallmann, Der Pietismus (Göttingen: Vandenheock & Ruprecht, 1990), 36–59. 8 For details on Spener’s role in the collegium pietatis, see Wallmann, Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus, 253–306. 9 See Philip Jakob Spener, Pia Desideria, trans. Theodore Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress P, 1964).

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proposal for action in this treatise aimed at scholastic reform: “Besides, students should unceasingly have it impressed upon them that holy life is not of less consequence than diligence and study, indeed that study without piety is worthless.”10 This Pietistic reform program caught the eye of August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), who created a stir in Leipzig by putting Spener’s reform into action.11 Francke formed a collegium pietatis for the implementation of Spener’s fifth proposal. This was enough to get him removed from Leipzig in 1691, upon which he was sent, along with Christian Thomasius (1655–1728),12 to the new University of Halle, the center of Prussian Pietism under the direction of the Pietist Soldatenkönig, Friedrich Wilhelm I (1688–1740).13 Christian Thomasius, the son of Jakob Thomasius, erstwhile mentor of Leibniz in Leipzig,14 initiated the philosophical line of Pietists. Christian Thomasius discipled the doctor-philosopher Andreas Rüdiger (1673–1731), who discipled Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann (1703–1741), who discipled Christian August Crusius (1715–1775).15 This extraordinary line of thinkers established a system of philosophy on Pietist principles which rivaled the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy. The Pietist school is sometimes called

10

Spener, Pia Desideria, 104. For Francke, see Gary Sattler, God’s Glory, Neighbors Good: A Brief Introduction to the Life and Writings of August Hermann Francke (Chicago: Covenant P, 1982). For the Leipzig incident, see Douglas Shantz, An Introduction to German Pietism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2013). For Halle Pietism, see Richard Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia (New York: Cambridge UP, 1993), 150–99. 12 For a short biography of Christian Thomasius, see Rolf Lieberwirth, “Christian Thomasius (1655–1728)” Aufklärung und Erneuerung, eds. Günter Jerouschek and Arno Sames (Hanau: Dausein, 1994), 29–45; and Thomas Ahnert, Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith and Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius (Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2006), 9–26. 13 For Friedrich Wilhelm I, see Gawthrop, Pietism and the Making of EighteenthCentury Prussia, 200–69. 14 Jakob Thomasius supervised Leibniz’s bachelor’s thesis and the two kept up a correspondence. For a discussion of their correspondence, see Christia Mercer, “Leibniz and His Master: The Correspondence with Jakob Thomasius,” Leibniz and his Correspondents, ed. Paul Lodge (New York: Cambridge UP, 2004), 10–46. 15 For short treatments of Rüdiger, Hoffmann, and Crusius, see The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers, eds. Heiner Klemme and Manfred Kuehn (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 637–39 (Rüdiger), 345 (Hoffmann), and 149–54 (Crusius). 11

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“Thomasian-Pietist” or simply “Thomasian” philosophy.16 But even more so than the “Leibniz-Wolffian” label, “Thomasian” or “Thomasian-Pietist” is a misnomer. As Ian Hunter has pointed out, Thomasius and the three aforementioned disciples were aiming at something very different.17 Simply put, while Rüdiger, Hoffmann, and Crusius sought to build an alternative scholastic philosophy (Philosophical Pietism), Thomasius sought to build an alternative to scholastic philosophy.18 Nevertheless, something of a Pietist foundation was laid in Halle through the work of Francke, Thomasius, Joachim Lange (1670–1744) and Johann Buddeus (1667–1729), but mainly as a negative or reactive program against another famous Halle philosopher: Christian Wolff (1679–1754).19 Perhaps the most important event in Halle Pietism was the expulsion of Wolff from the University and his exile from Brandenburg-Prussia under the threat of death.20 In 1721, Wolff had given an address on Confucian ethics, provoking Pietist wrath by claiming that moral truth did not depend on Christian revelation.21 In 1723, the theological Pietists of Halle (particularly Lange and Buddeus) convinced King Friedrich Wilhelm I that Wolff’s system of metaphysics entailed determinism, thus making it impossible to prosecute criminals, like deserting soldiers, for their crimes. 16 For “Thomasians,” see Lewis White Beck, Early German Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1969), 255: “There was a small ‘Thomasian school’ whose centers were Halle and Leipzig and whose leading members were Johann Budde, Andreas Rüidger, Adolf Friedrich Hoffmann, and Christian August Crusius;” see also 296– 305. For the more common label, “Thomasian-Pietist,” see Sonia Carboncini, “Die thomasianisch-pietistische Tradition und ihre Fortsetzung durch Christian August Crusius” Christian Thomasius: 1655–1728, ed. Werner Schneiders (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1989), 287–304; and Giorgio Tonelli, “The ‘Weakness’ of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment,” Diderot Studies 14 (1971): 217–44. 17 For Hunter’s reticence about the “Thomasian-Pietist” label, see Rival Enlightenments (New York: Cambridge UP, 2001), 270–71. 18 For this, see Hunter, Rival Enlightenments, 268–70, and Beck, Early German Philosophy, 297. 19 For a short discussion of Christian Wolff, see The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers, 862–67. 20 For details on the “Wolff Controversy,” see Benjamin Marschke, “Pietism and Politics in Prussia and Beyond,” A Companion to German Pietism, 1660–1800, ed. Douglas Shantz (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 501–507; and Carl Hinrichs, Preußentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in Brandenburg-Preußen als Religiös-Soziale Reformbewegung (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 388–441. 21 For a discussion of the content of Wolff’s oration and Lange’s criticism of it, see Mark Larrimore, “Orientalism and Antivoluntarism in the History of Ethics: On Christian Wolff’s ‘Oratio de Sinarum Philosophia Practica,’” The Journal of Religious Ethics 28 (2000): 189–219.

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While this “Wolff Controversy” is often portrayed as an example of obscurantism vs. enlightenment, it was more properly a philosophical debate between two rival accounts of metaphysics and morality: Wolffian intellectualism and Pietist voluntarism.22 Metaphysically speaking, the Pietists argued that Wolffianism was deterministic. Morally speaking, the Pietists argued for what is now called “incompatibilism,” where determinism is incompatible with human freedom, moral imputation, morality itself, and the justice of God in his eternal judgment of individuals. These matters served as the core concerns of Pietism. In another sense the “Wolff Controversy” was not as important to philosophical Pietism as one might think, given that the first genuine philosophical Pietist, Andreas Rüdiger, had already settled into teaching at the University of Leipzig in 1713, ten years before Wolff’s expulsion. It was in Leipzig, not Halle, where philosophical Pietism was born, with Rüdiger’s philosophical treatises, written in Latin, published against Wolff’s psychology and philosophy.23 In particular, Rüdiger made the decisive shift of philosophy from the mathematical method to its own philosophical method of analysis. Philosophy, for the Pietists, was no longer a strictly deductive science. But Rüdiger was a transitional and reactive figure in philosophy. Rüdiger’s own disciple, Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann, was more proactive, taking up Rüdiger’s mantel when the latter died in 1731.24 This remarkable man is often ignored in treatments of the German Enlightenment,25 perhaps 22 See Hunter, Rival Enlightenments, 270: “Far from representing the reaction of religious obscurantism to rationalist enlightenment, then, Lange and Budde[us] were engaging Wolff on a shared ground, countering his intellectualist anthropology and cosmology with their own voluntarist kind.” 23 For short treatments of Rüdiger, see Beck, Early German Philosophy, 298–300 and Max Wundt, Die deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung (Hildesheim : Georg Olms, 1964), 82–98. For an historical treatment of Rüdiger’s philosophical methodology, see Heinrich Schepers, Andreas Rüdigers Methodologie und ihre Voraussetzungen (Koln: Kolner Universitäts, 1959). For Rüdiger’s practical philosophy, see Wilhelm Carls, Andreas Rüdigers Moralphilosophie (1894; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1999). Given that Thomasius eschewed Latin and gave the first University lectures in German, Rüdiger’s return to Latin scholasticism was intellectual patricide. 24 For short biographies of Hoffmann, see Robert Theis, “Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann (1703–1741),” Aufklärung 21 (2009): 275–78; and Detlef Döring, “Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann,” The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers, 345–46. 25 For example, in Copleston’s construal of the German Enlightenment, he moves directly from Rüdiger to Crusius, without even a mention of Hoffmann’s

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because (1) Hoffmann died at exactly the moment when his philosophical production was beginning in earnest; and (2) his disciple Crusius’s work overshadowed the one book that Hoffmann published during his short life. Hoffmann produced the first philosophical Pietist textbook to challenge the Wolffian textbooks, his Vernunft-Lehre of 1737. In this text, Hoffmann makes a crucial shift in what we might call, following Nicholas Stang’s work, German Modal Metaphysics.26 Unlike mathematics, which treats the possible (thus grounding Wolffian modal metaphysics in possibility), Hoffmann considers philosophy as beginning with the actual, the existent or with experience (Erfahrung), thus grounding Pietist modal metaphysics in actuality. Monumentally, this means distinguishing between Wolffian logic and Pietist logic, for while Wolffians treat that claims as always leading to why claims, or what Stang calls “epistemic grounds” leading to “explanatory grounds,” Hoffmann denies the universality of this transition.27 Said simply: Logic is not isomorphic with Ontology, as the onto-logical system of Wolff had maintained. Knowing that x causes y does not entail the possibility of knowing why x causes y. Though Hoffmann did not live to further explicate his system, Christian August Crusius later took up his master and friend’s mantle by offering a decade of philosophical Pietist writings, a system complete with textbooks on Ethics, Metaphysics, Logic, and Physics intended to rival and replace the Wolffian textbooks throughout Germany.28 relationship connecting these two. See Frederick Copelston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. 6: Modern Philosophy (1960; New York: Image, 1994), 119–20. More surprising is the same ignorance in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd ed., 10 vols., ed. Donald Borchert (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006), which includes articles on Andreas Rüdiger (see vol. 8, 526–27) and Christian August Crusius (see vol. 2, 605–608), both by Giorgio Tonelli, but no article on Hoffmann. 26 See Nicholas Stang, Kant’s Modal Metaphysics (New York: Oxford UP, 2016). 27 See Stang, Kant’s Modal Metaphysics, 83. 28 We have a touching tribute to both Crusius’s character and to his relationship with Hoffmann in the death notice of Crusius from 1776. There we learn that Crusius attended Hoffmann in his final hours, reading to him from 1 Corinthians 15 and that Hoffmann saw Crusius as his direct successor and the one who would complete his philosophical work. See Anon., “Kurzgefasste Lebensgeschichte Herrn Christian August Crusius,” Acta historico-ecclesiastica nostris temporis XVII (Weimar: 1776): 970–93. Crusius’s actual titles are as follows: Anweisung vernünftig zu leben [Ethics] (1744), Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheit [Metaphysics] (1745), Weg zur Gewißheit und Zuverläßigkeit der menschlichen Erkenntniß [Logic] (1747), and Anleitung über natürliche Begebenheiten ordentlich und vorsichtig nachzudencken, 2 vol. [Physics] (1749). The complete Ethics, Metaphysics, and Logic make up volumes 1–3 of Die philosophischen Hauptwerke, ed. Giorgio

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III. Philosophical Pietism as an Alternative to Wolff: Christian August Crusius (1715–1775) Crusius studied under Hoffmann at Leipzig from 1734 until Hoffmann’s death in 1741, which came the year following Crusius’s Latin treatise, Dissertatio philosophica de corruptelis intellectus a voluntate pendentibus (1740), the completion of which allowed him to begin teaching philosophy. Crusius’s final (and most influential) Latin treatise was published in 1743: Dissertatio philosophica de usu et limitibus principii rationis determinantis vulgo sufficientis [De usu].29 After this dissertation Crusius took up an extraordinary chair in philosophy at Leipzig and began publishing his German textbooks, direct alternatives to the influential Wolffian textbooks (Wolff had since returned to Halle in 1740), such that four massive tomes appear from 1744–1749: Anweisung vernünftig zu leben [Ethics] (1744), Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheiten [Metaphysics] (1745), Weg zur Gewißheit und Zuverläßigkeit der menschlichen Erkenntniß [Logic] (1747), and Anleitung über natürliche Begebenheiten ordentlich und vorsichtig nachzudencken, 2 vol. [Physics] (1749). In spring of 1751 Crusius received his doctorate in theology based on his Disputatio de dissimilitudine inter religionem et superstitionem.30 This marks a shift in his academic career, for in 1751 Crusius took an ordinary chair in theology at Tonelli (DPH 1–3) (1964–1987; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2006–2010), respectively. The first part of the Physics can be found in volume 4.1 of Die philosophischen Hauptwerke, eds. Sonia Carboncini and Reinhard Finster (DPH 4.1) (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1987), 447–648. Given the general reception of Crusian physics, there is little reason to expect that the rest of the Physics will be published. For a general treatment of Crusian physics, see Kay Zenker, “Crusius’ Naturphilosophie,” Christian August Crusius (1715–1775), eds. Frank Gurnet, Andree Hahmann, and Gideon Stiening (CAC) (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021), 115–69. Zenkler also offers a nice Rezeptionsgeschicte of not only Crusius’s Physics, but of his textbooks in general. 29 See DPH 4.1, 182–267 for the main text, and DPH 4.1, 268–324 for an Appendix consisting of his responses to criticisms of the De usu. For the German translation, which Crusius always recommends in his textbooks, see Christian August Crusius, Ausführliche Abhandlung von dem rechten Gegrauche und der Einschränkung des sogenannten Satzes vom zureichenden oder besser determinirenden Grunde, trans. Christian Krause (Leipzig, 1744). An English translation of much of the treatise can be found in Corey Dyck (ed. and trans.) Early Modern German Philosophy: 1690– 1750 (New York: Oxford UP, 2019), 197–225. 30 For a discussion of Crusius’s theology, especially regarding the topic of this Disputation, see Paola Rumore, “Crusius’ Gedanken über Geister, Teufel und Aberglaube,” CAC, 393–407.

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Leipzig, whilst maintaining his extraordinary chair in philosophy and continuing to teach, although not to publish, philosophy.31 Allow me to situate philosophy in the broadest sense in Crusius’s accounting, before dealing with his metaphysics: Philosophy in the Broad Sense

Mathematics

Philosophy in the Strict Sense Disciplinary Sciences

Metaphysics (Entwurf, 1745)

Ontology

Theoretical Natural Theology

Cosmology

Pneumatology

Ethics (Anweisung, 1744)

Logic (Weg, 1747)

Physics (Anleitung, 1749)

Turning to Crusian Metaphysics in more detail, three structural elements (SE) are important: (SE 1) the epistemological nature of metaphysics; (SE 2) the principles of metaphysics; and (SE 3) Crusian metametaphysics. For our purposes, I will be focusing on Crusian Ontology, and ignoring, for the

31

Lewis White Beck interprets this switch to theology as a matter of Crusius’s own desires to leave behind philosophy for theology. See Beck, “From Leibniz to Kant,” The Age of German Idealism, eds. Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins (New York: Routledge, 1993), 19: “With [his theological voluntarist] views and his Pietist habitus it is not hard to see why the young Crusius gave up his philosophical career after only twelve years. Theology’s gain was philosophy’s loss.” See also Giorgio Tonelli, “Crusius, Christian August,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 2, 605: “[Crusius] later turned to theological studies, lost interest in philosophy, and founded a new theological school, the Biblicoprophetic school, which partly diverged from Pietism.” But, (1) as we have seen Crusius did not “give up his philosophical career;” he continued to teach and issue revised editions of his German textbooks through the 1750s and 1760s; and (2) it seems that the move from philosophy to theology was not Crusius’s desire; quite the opposite as the early death notice records: “Unser Wohlseel. Herrn D. [Crusius] bekannte selbst, daß wenn es einst auf seine Wahl angekommen wäre, er eine philosophische Profeßion jeder andern vorgezogen haben würde, wo von der bey Ausarbeitung des philosophischen Systems immer zunehmende Geschmack an der Philosophie Ursache war. Aber, welches er, als Gottes Vorsorge mit freudigen Dank erkannte und prieß, die würdige Männer, welchemn die Sorge für die Universität zu Leipzig anvertrauet war, erklärten daß sie ihm eine theologische Profeßion bestimmt hätten, dazu die Gelegenheit nahe schien, weil damals ein Paar verdienter Männer in der theologischen Facultät zu Leipzig bereits sehr bejahrt waren.” See Anon., “Kurzgefasste Lebensgeschichte Herrn Christian August Crusius,” 982–83.

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most part, the other three parts of metaphysics. Thus ontology and metaphysics will be used interchangeably unless otherwise noted. (SE 1) Crusius’s Epistemologized Metaphysics. “Metaphysics is the science of those necessary truths of reason, which are something other than the determinations of extended magnitudes.”32 Now it is easy to miss the profound difference between Crusian and Wolffian metaphysics if we forget that Crusius follows Hoffmann in separating logic from ontology, such that the “necessary truths” in metaphysics are not immediately truths about things but rather are truths of cognitions—these are “necessary truths of reason.” Of course, Wolff would agree with the distinction, and since truths of reason are governed by the Principle of Non-Contradiction and the Principle of Sufficient Reason, truths of reason are truths of things.33 Reality is fully transparent to reason in the Wolffian system. But such transparency is precisely not the case for Crusius and the philosophical Pietists. Instead, they develop a philosophical system as their participation in the Wolffian critique, and for perfectly Pietist reasons: Wolffian onto-logic, according to Crusius, denies freedom of the will and therefore moral responsibility, and God’s justice in punishing sinners. Consider Crusius’s attack on Wolffianism the non-violent version of the earlier expulsion edict. According to Crusius, a hallmark of the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy is its grounding in two and only two highest principles: (1) the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC), and (2) the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).34 Crusius considers these the formal and material principles of Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy: the PNC provides the formal condition of all truths, and the PSR provides the material condition of all truths.35 In the De 32 Metaphysics §4; 6–7: “Die Metaphysik ist die Wissenschaft dererjenigen nothwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten, welche etwas anderes sind, als die Bestimmungen der ausgedehnten Grössen.” Unless otherwise noted, translations of Crusius’s textbooks are my own, with section and page number from DPH 2 or DPH 3. 33 One might say that the genitive term in Crusius’s definition is subjective and objective for Wolff, where this is not the case for Crusius. 34 Crusius calls the PNC the “Principle of Contradiction,” but we will use the more standard PNC label. 35 See De usu, §I, 201: “The illustrious Leibniz has posited two principles of human cognition, of which the first is called the principle of contradiction and is familiar to everyone, and the other is called the principle of sufficient reason, which he expresses thus: anything that happens or is true has a sufficient reason why that fact or proposition is so and not otherwise.” Translations of the De usu come from Dyck’s Early Modern German Philosophy, with the page number referring to that volume. See note 29 for details. Crusius gives and follows the German translation of Théodicée by Koehler, with principe de la raison determinante translated as “der Satz des zureichenden Grundes oder das principium rationis sufficientis.” Thus

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usu, Crusius targets the PSR, and specifically the ambiguities involved in both “reason” and “sufficient.” First, the ambiguity of “reason:” Since a reason [ratio; Grund] is that from which it is cognized why something is, Leibniz in fact comprehends under it both principles of cognition and of things, that is principles of cognition a priori, including purely ideal principles, in addition to active causes and the remaining sort of determining principles which determine another thing to be in a certain way merely through their existence and not through some activity; indeed, he even includes ends, laws and rules of prudence among reasons.36

The basic ambiguity is that a reason (ratio; Grund) can be a principle of being or a principle of knowing, and these need not be the same. Crusius’s decisive distinction is between what he will later call Real Grounds (Realgrunde) and Ideal Grounds or Grounds of Knowing (Idealgrunde or Erkenntnisgrunde), and while in some cases the two go together, in other cases they come apart. Instead of collapsing these different grounds, Crusius carefully distinguishes them in his own chart:37 A Reason or Principle is

[1] either a reason of physical existence, and this is

[1.1] either a principle of being

[1.1.1.] either an efficient cause

[1.1.2] or an existentially determining principle

[2] or a reason of moral existence

[1.2] or a principle of cognizing, and further

[1.2.1] either a posteriori

[2.1] either a reason of prudence, and this is

[1.2.2] or a priori and this is

[1.2.2.1] either merely ideal

[2.1.1] either a mere reason of prudence

[2.2] or a reason of justice

[2.1.2] or at the same time a reason of justice

[1.2.2.2] or at the same time a principle of being

What this means is that some metaphysical truths will be known to be true, but they will not be explained as true. For example, free actions have sufficient but not determining reasons—this is what the Wolffians deny but the Pietists affirm, due to the Pietist commitment to what we would call when Crusius relabels the Leibnizian PSR as the Principle of Determining Reason (PDR), he is returning to a more literal rendering of Leibniz’s text. 36 Crusius, De usu, §XVI, p. 211, emphasis added. 37 See Crusius, De usu, §XXXIX, p. 219.

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incompatibilism and a libertarian conception of freedom. The important part is that the PSR will not be able to secure positive metaphysical principles, the first necessary truths of reason in metaphysics. Metaphysical principles will need an epistemological grounding, not an onto-logical one based on the PNC and the PSR, since we can think or know more than we can explain or deduce. As Crusius says: “the characteristic of a possible thing consists in the capacity to think it by means of a concept.”38 Hence, Crusian metaphysics is epistemologized metaphysics. (SE 2) Crusius’s Fundamental Material First Principles. “The first and most general principle of the mark of a possible thing is the principle of contradiction, namely that nothing can be and not be in the same sense at the same time.”39 But this is merely a formal (and negative) principle, and must be supplemented by two material first principles, the SnT and SnV: The Principle of Inseparability (SnT): What we cannot think without the other is in reality combined.40 The Principle of Uncomposability (SnV): What we cannot think together is in reality not combined together.41

Alongside the PNC, the SnT and SnV serve as “the collected marks of possible and actual things [die sämtlichen Kennzeichen der möglichen und wirklichen Dinge]” (Metaphysics §15, p. 26). But how are these principles related? One might think that the PNC is the highest principle, with SnT and SnV derived or dependent on the PNC, but that is not what Crusius thinks. Rather all three stem from the highest principle of knowledge: the “essence of the understanding [Wesen des Verstandes]” or the EU. 38

Crusius, Metaphysics §12, p. 22: “Was nun erstlich das Kennzeichen eines möglichen Dinges anlanget: So bestehet dasselbe vermöge des Begriffs darinnen, wenn sich etwas denken läßt.” 39 Crusius, Metaphysics §13, p. 23: “Nichts ist so schlechterdings unmöglich zu denken, als dasjenige, was sich selbst wiederspricht . . . . Daher ist der erste und allgemeineste Hauptsatz von dem Kennzeichen der möglichen Dinge der Satz vom Wiederspruche, nehmlich daß nichts in ganz einerley Verstande und zu einerley Zeit seyn und auch nicht seyn könne.” The Satz vom Wiederspruche will be abbreviated as PNC, the Principle of Non-Contradiction. 40 Crusius, Metaphysics §14, p. 26: “Was sich nicht ohne einander denken läßt, das ist auch in der That mit einander verbunden; Man kan diesen den Grundsatz des nicht zu trennenden nennen.” 41 Crusius, Metaphysics §14, p. 26: “Was sich nicht mit und neben einander denken läßt, das kan auch in der That nicht mit einander verbunden werden; Dieses kan der Grundsatz des nicht zu verbindenden heissen.”

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So much for our first two SEs of Crusius’s metaphysics: (1) his is an epistemologized metaphysics, and (2) material first principles having their source in the EU, stemming from the highest material principles, the SnT and SnV. Crusius’s favorite example of such further or subordinated material principles is the principle of causality, which is a necessary truth, presupposed by experience, but not provable by the PNC.43 (SE 3) Crusius’s Metametaphysics. How do we know that our metaphysical cognitions are cognitions of things? Once the Pietist philosophers, Crusius in particular, epistemologized metaphysics, the question of objective reference becomes crucial and Crusius sees this right away. How can we be certain our metaphysical concepts refer? Answer: God.

42 Crusius, Metaphysics §15, p. 27: “Das allerhöchste Kennzeichen aber, der möglichen und wirklichen Dinge, ist das Wesen des Verstandes, daß nehmlich dasjenige nicht möglich oder wirklich sey, was sich nicht also denken läßt; und daß hingegen dasjenige möglich sey, was sich denken läßt; dasjenige aber gar wirklich sey, bey dessen Leugnung man mittelbar oder unmittelbar etwas zugeben müste, was sich nicht als wahr, oder der Vollkommenheit vernünftiger Thaten gemäß denken läßt.” 43 Not provable by PNC, see Crusius, Logic §260, p. 470: “Man muß nur nicht hieraus schliessen, als ob hierdurch die Sache ungewiß werde, sondern vielmehr erkennen, daß der Satz vom Widerspruche, weil er ein leerer Satz ist, nicht das einzige Principium der menschlichen Gewißheit sey. Z.E. daß ieder Effect eine Ursache voraussetze, lässet sich durch den Satz vom Widerspruche leicht klar machen. Es kommt aber daher, weil man unter einem Effecte etwas verstehet, welches von einem andern, das die Ursache heisset, hervorgebracht worden, und also in den Begriff des Effectes den Begriff der Ursache schon hineingenommen hat, welchen man dahero freylich, so lange man jenen setzet, nicht verneinen kan, ohne sich seblst zu widersprechen.” Presupposed by experience, see Crusius, Logic §66, p. 116: “Die Erfahrung seblst kan hierüber den Auspruch nicht thun. Denn Causalverknüpfungen sind nicht etwas, das man empfinden kan. Die Erfahrung kan nicht mehr lehren, als daß gewisse Veränderungen des Leibes, und gewisse Veränderungen des Verstandes beysammen sind, oder auf eineander folgen. Was aber der Grund davon sey, muß weiter untersuchet werden.”

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All truth that we cognize is so to speak, an imprint from the divine understanding. In the essence of our understanding [EU] lie certain marks of truth, in the presence of which we either can no longer doubt the truth of a proposition, or are forced to hold it as true in so far as we can assume that the essence of our understanding [EU] teaches truth, and is not so corrupted that it in and of itself deceives us.44

Crusius repeats this line in his more detailed treatment of the issue in Logic §432: “The original source of all truth and certainty is to be sought in a necessary, that is divine, understanding, and a proposition is therefore only true because it is from the divine understanding.”45 According to Crusius, firstorder metaphysics is secured by a theologically-inflected metametaphysics.

44

Crusius, Metaphysics §287, p. 520-21: “Nemlich alle Wahrheit, die wir erkennen, ist so zu reden, ein Abdruck von einem kleinen Theile der Wahrheit aus dem göttlichen Verstande. In dem Wesen unseres Verstandes liegen gewisse Kennzeichen der Wahrheit, bey deren Gegenwart wir entweder an der Wahrheit eines Satzes gar nicht weiter zweifeln können, oder ihn doch in so fern für Wahrheit zu halten gezwungen sind, wie ferne wir vor bekannt annehmen dürfen, daß uns das Wesen unseres Verstandes Wahrheit lehre, und nicht etwan so abgerichtet sey, daß es uns an und vor sich selbst betrüge. Die Untersuchung derselben gehöret in die Vernunft-Lehre. Wir finden diese Kennzeichen der Wahrheit theils in den höchsten Grund-Sätzen der Vernunft §14, 15, und allen darauf gebauten demonstrativen Schlüssen und mittelbaren Sätzen; thiels in der Empfindung, so wohl in der äusserlichen als innerlichen §16; ja auch in der moralischen Gewißheit, welche, wenn sie rechter Art ist, ebenfalls keine Furcht such zu berrügen übrig läßt, wenn man nicht gegen die wesentliche Einrichtung unserer Erkenntniß überhaupt einen Verdacht hat. Da nun diese Einrichtung unserer Seele, vermöge welcher wir etwas vor wahr zu halten genöthiget werden, von GOtt ist: So kan man dieselbe nicht anders ansehen als einen Weg, wodurch uns GOtt etwas von der Wahrheit aus seinem Verstande zu erkennen geben will, und da er nur eine gewisse Einrichtung der Dinge als Zeichen brauchet, wodurch er uns zu verstehen giebet, was er von seiner eigenen und von anderer Dingen Beschaffenheit als wahr erkennet. Hierzu kan GOtt, wenn es ihm beliebet, oder wenn er es vor nöthig findet, auch noch übernatürliche Offenbarungen hinzuthun, davon die Erklrärung und Vertheidigung hierher nicht gehöret.” 45 Crusius, Logic §432, p. 768: “Die ursprüngliche Quelle aller Wahrheit und Gewißheit ist in einem nothwendigen, nemlich in dem göttlichen, Verstande zu suchen, und ein Satz ist nur deswegen wahr, weil er aus dem göttlichen Verstande ist.”

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IV. Kant’s Metaphysics as Crusian Metaphysics? Where is Kant in all of this? There is much to say about the pre-critical time as a time of developing Crusianism in Kant, despite the general narrative of either a continuous decline or a sort of crescendo followed by decrescendo in relation to Crusius. For our purposes we will skip to the Critical period and simply notice two phases of Crusian study in Kant’s precritical years.46 In the first phase Kant deals with Crusius in a naïve and largely negative manner, especially as regards Crusius’s moral philosophy.47 But things change in 1760, and a second phase occurs where Kant turns toward Crusius, in moral philosophy, but also in theoretical philosophy— this is where grounds, real and logical, become crucial even if not Crusian, and the critical question gets raised, as one would expect in Kant’s discussion of Crusius’s metaphysical principles.48 We know Kant is studying Crusius more intently during these years because of a letter to Ludwig Ernst Borowski on June 6, 1760 (Br. 10:32), in which Kant asks Borowski if he can keep Borowski’s copy of Crusius’s Metaphysics for a little longer before buying his own copy.49 And Kant did buy the Metaphysics, along with Crusius’s Ethics, Physics, and Logic.50 Why would Kant be studying Crusius more intently in the 1760s? Beyond any internal motivations and reflections, there were plenty of external motivations. Not only was Kant competing for students with the popular Crusian philosophers, Daniel Weymann (1732–95) and August Wilhelm Wlochatius (1744–1815),51 but Johann Buck, who held the chair of logic and metaphysics 46

Tinca Prunea-Bretonnet points out these two phases of Crusian engagement in the pre-critical Kant; see Prunea-Bretonnet, “Crusius and Kant on Distinctness, Certainty, and Method in Philosophy,” in CAC, 32–35. 47 See Kant, Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphiscae nova dilucidatio (1755), 1:401–405, for an explicit anti-Crusian dialogue, using Crusius’s own characters—Titius and Caius. 48 Kant, Versuch den Begriff der negativen Größen in die Weltweisheit einzuführen (1763), 2:201–204. 49 Kant, Letter to Borowski, Briefe 10:32: “Des Crusius Metaph: wage noch ein paar Tage zu behalten alsdenn denke meine eigene zu besitzen ich werde es in Ihrer Eltern Hause abliefern laßen.” 50 There is dispute about this from Warda’s list since it gives the wrong date for Crusius’s Logic, but since Kant quotes it in False Subtlety it seems best to assume he had a copy of it and not some text on Crusius’s Logic, as some propose. 51 For Weymann, see Bloomsbury Dictionary, 843; and for Wlochatius, see Bloomsbury Dictionary, 859–60. Weymann was a vocal opponent of Kant when the two where young competing masters at the University, with Weymann defending Crusius against Leibnizian optimism and Kant defending optimism against Crusius

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during that time, began teaching with Crusius’s Metaphysics in the Winter of 1760, and seems to have used Crusius exclusively until he switched chairs in 1770, with Kant taking Buck’s chair of logic and metaphysics.52 In short, in the 1760s Crusius had arrived in Königsberg and it is not surprising that Kant was studying him intensely. Instead of telling this story in detail I want to focus on Kant’s critical metaphysics and recast it in Crusian light, showing how rather than receding into the background, Crusianism remains at the heart of Kant’s project, although with modifications. Specifically, the core structural elements of Kant’s critical metaphysics are Crusian, with SE 1–3 belonging just as much to Kant as to Crusius. As I will show, the fundamental difference between Kant and Crusius concerns SE 3 or metametaphysics, not metaphysics. Kant as a metaphysician? Lacking space for a detailed defense of the claim, I will just assert it: Kant has a two-ordered or two-tiered metaphysics, or better Kantian metaphysics in the broad sense consists of a metaphysics and a metametaphysics.53 In the Critique of Pure Reason (KrV) the emphasis is on metametaphysics—the justification of first principles of metaphysical cognition, while in his Metaphysics Lectures we see the emphasis on metaphysics—the search for first principles of metaphysical and his prize-winning disciple, Adolph Friedrich von Reinhard (1726–83). Reinhard won the 1755 Prussian Royal Academy Philosophy Essay-Prize on the theme of Pope’s optimism, and Kant had basically all four of his 1760s Crusian philosophical works in his personal library. See Kant, Theoretical Philosophy 1755–1770, ed. David Walford (New York: Cambridge UP, 2002), 514–15. For Reinhard, see Bloomsbury Dictionary, 618–19. 52 For Buck’s teaching and textbooks, see Marcus Sgarbi, “Metaphysics of Königisberg,” Trans/Form/Acao 33.1 (2010): 31–64; and Oberhausen, Michael and Riccardo Pozzo, eds. Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universität Königsberg (1720– 1804), 2 vol. (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friederich Frommann Verlag, 1999), 248– 301. 53 For Reflexionen, see R4466: “The critique of pure reason [is] preparation for metaphysics in theoretical philosophy” (17:562); R4897: “There is no transcendental doctrine; hence the organon of pure reason is a science that displays the use of pure reason with regard to the empirical in general; thus all philosophy of pure reason is either critique or the organon thereof. The former is transcendental philosophy, the latter metaphysics” (18:22); R5130: “Transcendental philosophy has 2 parts: Critique of pure reason and ontology” (18:100). For a defense of Kant as a metaphysician of this sort, see Karin De Boer, Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics (New York: Cambridge UP, 2020). See also Eric Watkins, Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality (New York: Cambridge UP, 2005); Anja Jauernig, The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism (New York: Oxford UP, 2021); and of course the original Anglo-American voice in this regard, Karl Ameriks, Kant’s Theory of Mind, 2nd ed. (1982; New York: Oxford UP, 2000).

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cognition. Nevertheless both are intertwined with the KrV including metaphysical principles and the Lectures themselves contain metametaphysics. The locus classicus of this distinction between metaphysics and metametaphysics comes in the “Architectonic of Pure Reason” of the KrV: Now the philosophy of pure reason is either propaedeutic (preparation), which investigates the faculty of reason [Vermögen der Vernunft] in regard to all pure a priori cognition, and is called critique, or second, the system of pure reason (science) [System der reinen Vernunft (Wissenschaft)], the whole (true as well as apparent) philosophical cognition from pure reason in systematic interconnection [systematischen Zusammenhange], and is called metaphysics; this name can also be given to all of pure philosophy including the critique, in order to comprehend the investigation of everything that can ever be cognized a priori as well as the presentation of that which constitutes a system of pure philosophical cognitions of this kind [System reiner philosophischen Erkenntnisse dieser Art], but in distinction from all empirical as well as mathematical use of reason (A841/B869).

And of course Kant refers to critique in his letter to Herz as the “metaphysics of metaphysics [Metaphysik von der Metaphysik]” (Br. 10:269).54 Now my claim: the three essential features of Crusius’s account are present in Kant’s Critical metaphysics. (SE 1) Kant’s Epistemologized Metaphysics. First, when looking at Kant’s metaphysics, beginning with his “Copernican Revolution,” we can see that it has the same epistemologized shape as Crusian metaphysics.55 54

See also R5644: “Thus in the first place metaphysics itself is the object, and that which investigates its possibility is critique” (18: 286); and R5667: “Metaphysics is the system of the principles of all a priori cognition from concepts in general. The science of the possibility, scope, etc., of a priori cognition is transcendental philosophy. The sum-total of metaphysics. To extract transcendental philosophy and boundaries from what is present to pure reason: the critique of pure reason” (18:323– 24). 55 For attestation of this shift in metaphysics, but without reference to Crusius, see Hauping Lu-Adler, Kant and the Science of Logic (New York: Oxford UP, 2018), 134: “[Kant’s] treatment first and foremost, signals a departure from the traditional conception of ontology. The latter is reflected in Wolff’s definition of ontology as ‘the science of being in general, or insofar as it is being (Disc, #73). For Kant, by contrast, ontology is not so much about objects (beings) themselves as about certain conditions for cognizing them. This is how he views the subject matter of metaphysics in general.” Lu-Adler’s book is an excellent treatment of Kant’s critical project as continuous with the larger tradition, specifically the logical tradition, with of course his special conception of “transcendental logic” as ontology. Despite the rich historical analyses of the work, Lu-Adler does not treat Crusius in any detail,

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“Metaphysics is not a philosophy about objects, for these can only be given by means of the senses, but rather about the subject, namely, the laws of its reason . . . (R3716).”56 In the Introduction to the first Critique, Kant is explicit about the epistemological nature of metaphysics: “I call all cognition transcendental that is occupied not so much with objects but rather with our a priori concepts of objects in general. A system of such concepts would be called transcendental philosophy” (A11/B25). Hence ontology becomes transcendental logic in Kant’s hands, but this is just his label for Crusian metaphysics. (SE 2) Kant’s Fundamental Material First Principles. Second, what about the principles of Kant’s metaphysics? As with Crusius, Kant is after material first principles of metaphysical cognition, since he follows Crusius in denying the PNC any positive work. As Kant says in the Prolegomena (4:273): Metaphysics properly has to do with synthetic propositions a priori, and these alone constitute its aim, for which it indeed requires many analyses of its concepts (therefore many analytic judgments), in which analyses, though, the procedure is no different from that in any other type of cognition when one seeks simply to make its concepts clear through analysis. But the generation of cognition a priori in accordance with both intuition and concepts [die Erzeugung der Erkenntniß a priori sowohl der Anschauung als Begriffen nach], ultimately of synthetic propositions a priori as well, and specifically in philosophical cognition, forms the essential content of metaphysics.57

Kant’s clarification of metaphysics as the science of synthetic a priori cognitions is followed by an attack on “dogmatic philosophers” including “the famous Wolff” and “the acute Baumgarten” who failed to distinguish analytic and synthetic judgments and therefore tried “to find the proof of the principle of sufficient reason, which is obviously synthetic, in the principle of contradiction.”58 Crusius, as we have seen, did make the distinction and

and rather lumps him in with the “eclectics” like Christian Thomasius. For this, see Lu-Adler, Kant and the Science of Logic, 16–27. 56 For similar Reflexionen see R3929 (17:351); R3938 (17:355); R3952 (17:362); R4168 (17:441); R4369 (17:521–22); R4457 (17:558); and R4853: “Philosophy deals not with objects, but with cognitions” (18:10). 57 Kant makes a distinction between judgments in metaphysics and metaphysical judgments; see Prol. 4:27. 58 Prol., 4:270.

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did consider metaphysics as a science of synthetic a priori judgments, although Crusius does not use Kant’s terminology.59 Kant also, like Crusius, demotes the PSR to being merely one of the synthetic a priori principles of metaphysical cognition, making room for a different supreme principle of metaphysics. For Crusius, as we saw, this is the EU, with the SnT and SnV. What is it for Kant? The supreme principle of all synthetic judgments [Das oberste Principium aller synthetischen Urteile] is, therefore: Every object stands under the necessary conditions of the synthetic unity of the manifold of intuition in a possible experience. In this way synthetic a priori judgments are possible, if we relate the formal conditions of a priori intuition, the synthesis of the imagination, and its necessary unity in a transcendental apperception to a possible cognition of experience [Erfahrungserkenntnis] in general, and say: The conditions of the possibility of experience [Möglichkeit der Erfahrung] in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience [Möglichkeit der Gegenstände der Erfahrung], and on this account have objective validity in a synthetic judgment a priori (A158/B197).60

The possibility of experience is the possibility of the objects of experience, which is grounded in the transcendental unity of apperception in consciousness, thus the transcendental unity of apperception serves as the subjective source of metaphysical principles. In a word, Crusius’s EU is Kant’s TUA.

V. Kantian Metametaphysics as Neo-Crusian Metametaphysics? (SE 3) Kant’s Metametaphysics. Kant’s metaphysics, I claim, shares the structural essentials of Crusius’s metaphysics. What about Kant’s metametaphysics? Here we find the key difference, for while Kant thinks Crusius is right about the nature of metaphysics, Kant faults Crusius in the 59 For Crusius’s anticipation of Kant’s conception of synthetic a priori metaphysical truths, see Beck, Early German Philosophy, 399, and J. N. Findlay, Kant and the Transcendental Object: A Hermeneutical Study (New York: Oxford UP, 1981), 58. 60 See also R5934: “The universal formal principle of possible experience is thus: all perceptions are with regard to their connection in one consciousness determined a priori (for consciousness is a unity in which alone the connection of all perceptions is possible, and if it is to be cognition of the object, it must be determined a priori). The objective unity in the consciousness of different representations is the form of the judgment” (18:393).

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justification of metaphysics. What’s the problem? For Kant, Crusius puts his trust in the wrong source: God instead of Reason. As Kant says in Metaphysics Vigilantius/K3 (1794): Crusius indeed contested such a unified effect of the soul on the body, which Leibniz assumed by virtue of the harmonia praestabilita, but decreed on the contrary that the criterion of truth is to be sought for only in the ideas which the creator has placed in us, just because he could not trust it to our reason that it would find these ideas itself [weil er es unserer Vernunft nicht hätte zutrauen können, daß sie diese Ideen selbst auffinden würde]; he thus assumed an inner revelation with human beings, and with the necessity of this for bringing one to conviction (VM 29:959).61

But we must not allow this difference to overshadow the significant similarities between the two conceptions of metametaphysics, for as it turns out, Kant thinks that only Crusius can rival his own account of metametaphysics—all other systems either fail to ask the question (LeibnizWolffianism) or offer answers that cannot possibly work (LockeanEmpiricism). Kant makes this point clear in a number of Reflexionen, but one stands out, R5637: R5637: Not only does reason overlook the ideality of the objects of the senses, it also bristles against this as it does against everything that restricts its sphere of influence. Hence it is necessary to investigate the paths that it takes. The first is empiricism. But not only does a priori mathematical cognition refute the falsehood of this putative origin of our cognition, but also the concepts that are present in experience contain a necessity (cause) that experience cannot teach; thus Locke, who earned almost too much honor after Leibniz had already refuted him, falls by the wayside. There thus remains epigenesis, mystical intuition, and involution [die Epigenesis, die mystische Anschauung, die involution]. Finally there is also the qualitas occulta of common reason [Gesunde Verstand]. . . . Now the logical system of the cognitions of the understanding is either empirical or transcendental. The former Aristotle and Locke, the latter either the system of epigenesis or

61 “Crusius bestritt zwar eine solche vereinigte Wirkung der Seele auf den Körper, als Leibnitz vermöge der harmonia praestabilitia angenommen, statuirte dagegen jedoch, daß das Criterium der Wahrheit nur in den Ideen zu suchen sey, die der Schöpfer deshalb in uns gelegt habe, weil er es unserer Vernunft nicht hätte zutrauen können, daß sie diese Ideen selbst auffinden würde; er nahm also eine innere Offenbarung bey den Menschen, und dabei die Nothwendigkeit derselben an, um ihn zur Überzeugung zu bringen.”

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A diagram helps to make this Reflexion clearer:

62

Involution is another name Kant uses for preformation, the metametaphysical account he associates with Crusius. For Kant’s use of involution, see Refl. 18:273; 18:275; 17:654; 23:105; 23:106. Preformation, in ovulis – lit. “in the egg.” 63 It is not clear from the text whether erworben oder angebohren refers to involution, or whether the two are another way of distinguishing Epigenesis from Preformation. Thankfully in a contemporary text, Über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll (ÜE) (1790), Kant makes it clear that angebohren refers to Preformation and erworben is his view, Epigenesis. See ÜE, 8:221: “The Critique admits absolutely no implanted [anerschaffene] or innate [angebohrne] representations. One and all, whether they belong to intuition or to concepts of the understanding [Verstandesbegriffen], it considers them as acquired [erworben]. But there is also an original acquisition [ursprüngliche Erwerbung] (as the teachers of natural right call it), and thus of that which previously did not yet exist at all, and so did not belong to anything prior to this act.” We’ll return to this passage later as it shows the intimate connection between Epigenesis and Kant’s metametaphysics. 64 “Nicht allein, daß die Vernunft die idealitaet der Gegenstande der Sinne übersieht, sondern sie sträubt sich auch dagegen wie gegen alles, was ihren Wirkungskreis einschränkt. Daher ist es nothig, die Wege zu untersuchen, die sie nimmt. Der erste ist der empirismus. Aber da nicht allein die Mathematische Kentnis a priori die falschheit dieses angeblichen Ursprungs unserer Erkenntnisse wiederlegt, sondern auch die Begriffe, welche in der Erfhrung vorkommen, eine Nothwendigkeit enthalten (Ursache), die die Erfahrung nicht lernen konte, so fellt nachrem Locke, der damit fast zu viel Ehre erwarb, nachdem ihn Leibniz schon wiederlegt hat, weg. Also bleiben übrig die Epigenesis, die mystiche Anschauung, die involition. Endlich komt noch die qualitas der gemeinen Vernunft. . . . Das logische System der Verstandeserkentnisse ist nun entweder das empiriche oder Transcendentale. Erstes Aristoteles und Locke, das zweite entweder der Epigenesis oder der involution, erworben oder angebohren. Der sogenannte Gesunde Verstand ist asylum ignorantiae.”

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Metametaphysics (R5637) (logische System der Verstandeserkentnisse)

Empirical (empirische) Locke, Aristotle

Transcendental (transcendentale)

Epigenesis (erworben) [Kant]

Involution (angebohren) [Crusius]

As this Reflexion makes clear, there are only three modern attempts (based in the three causal systems) at metametaphysics: Lockean, Crusian, and Kantian.65 Lockean “physiology of reason” is insufficient because it cannot produce necessary truths in metaphysics.66 In other words, Lockean empiricism is not even in the right conceptual shape to provide an answer to the justification question. Only Crusian and Kantian answers have the right conceptual shape, as he makes clear in both the Prolegomena and the KrV, building on insights into the February 26, 1772 Letter to Marcus Herz. In these three texts where Kant raises the critical or metametaphysical question, it is Crusius who remains front and center: (Text 1) February 21, 1772 Letter to Marcus Herz: Plato assumed a previous intuition [ehemalige Anschauen] of divinity as the primary source of the pure concepts of the understanding and of first principles. Mallebranche [sic] believed in a still-continuing perennial intuition [immerwährendes Anschauen] of this primary being. Various moralists have accepted precisely this view with respect to basic moral laws. Crusius believed in certain implanted rules [eingepflantze Regeln] for the

65 For another Reflexion with a similar threefold categorization, see R4859: “Ursprung transcendentaler Begriffe 1. per intuitionem mysticam. 2. (influxum) sensitivum. 3. Per epigenesin intellectualem. (intellectualia intuitive oder discursiv.)” (Refl. 18:12). 66 For more examples of Kant’s rejection of Locke as found in Kant’s Metaphysics Lectures, see VM 28:539–40; VM 28:782; VM 29:764; and VM 29:958.

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purpose of forming judgments and ready-made concepts [Begriffe]67 that God implanted in the human soul just as they had to be in order to harmonize with things [die Gott schon so wie sie seyn müssen, um mit den Dingen zu harmoniren, in die Menschliche Seelen pflantzte]. Of these systems, one might call the former the Hyperphysical Influx Theory [influxum hyperphysicum] and the latter the Pre-established Intellectual Harmony Theory [harmoniam praestabilitam intellectualem]. However, the deus ex machina is the greatest absurdity one could hit upon in the determination of the origin and validity of our cognitions. It has – besides its vicious circularity [betrüglichen Zirkel] in drawing conclusions concerning our cognitions – also this additional disadvantage: it encourages all sorts of wild notions and every pious and speculative brainstorm [er ieder Grille oder andächtigem oder grüblerischem Hirngespinst vorschub giebt] (Br. 10:131).

(Text 2) Prolegomena §36 (4:320, note): Crusius alone knew of a middle way [Crusius allein wußte einen Mittelweg]: namely that a spirit who can neither err nor deceive originally implanted these natural laws in us [uns diese Naturgesetze ursprünglich eingepflanzt habe]. But, since false principles are often mixed in as well – of which this man’s system itself provides not a few examples – then, with the lack of sure criteria [sicherer Kriterien] for distinguishing an authentic origin from a spurious one, the use of such a principle looks very precarious, since one can never know for sure what the spirit of truth or the father of lies may have put into us (Prol. 4:320, note).

(Text 3) KrV, B167–68: If someone still wanted to propose a middle way [Mittelweg] between the only two, already named ways, namely, that the categories were neither selfthought a priori first principles of our cognition nor drawn from experience, but were rather subjective predispositions for thinking, implanted in us along with our existence by our author [sondern subjektive, uns mit unserer Existenz zugeich eingepflanzte Anlagen zum Denken wären, die von unserm Urheber so eingerichtet worden] in such a way that their use would agree exactly with the laws of nature along which experience runs (a kind of preformation-system of pure reason), then (besides the fact that on such a hypothesis no end can be seen to how far one might drive the presupposition of predetermined predispositions for future judgments) this would be decisive against the supposed middle way: that in such a case the categories would lack the necessity that is essential to their concept [daß in solchem Falle den Kategorien die Notwendigkeit mangeln würde, die ihrem Begriffe 67

The original is simply Begriffe, such that “ready-made” seems an unnecessary interpretive gloss.

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wesentlich angehört]. For, e.g., the concept of cause, which asserts the necessity of a consequent under a presupposed condition, would be false if it rested only on a subjective necessity, arbitrarily implanted in us [wenn er nur auf einer beliebigen uns eingepflanzten subjektiven Notwendigkeit], of combining certain empirical representations according to such a rule of relation. I would not be able to say that the effect is combined with the cause in the object (i.e., necessarily), but only that I am so constituted that I cannot think of this representation otherwise than as so connected [daß ich diese Vorstellung nicht anders als so verknüpft denken kann]; which is precisely what the skeptic wishes most, for then all of our insights through the supposed objective validity of our judgments is nothing but sheer illusion, and there would be no shortage of people who would not concede this subjective necessity (which must be felt) on their own; at least one would not be able to quarrel with anyone about that which merely depends on the way in which his subject is organized [was bloß auf der Art beruht, wie sein Subjekt organisiert ist] (KrV B167–68).

Crusian metaphysical principles are only subjectively necessary—this is Kant’s critique of Crusian metametaphysics. But why only subjectively necessary? Here again we note that Kant distinguishes between the “physiology of pure reason” and the “preformation system,” between Locke (and Leibniz) and Crusius.68 The former is psychologically subjective and does not even offer critique-worthy necessity—it is merely contingent. The latter, Crusian metametaphysics, does offer critique-worthy necessity, but it is subjective all the same, this time theologically so. Pithily summarized by Kant in an introduction to his Logic text: “Crusius: fantasiche Logik (Refl. 16:48).” Crusius is a fanatical or mystical metaphysician.69 R4446 is similarly

68

For the connection of Locke and Leibniz as offering a physiology of reason, see Hauping Lu-Adler, “Epigenesis of Pure Reason and the Source of Pure Cognitions: How Kant is No Nativist about Logical Cognition.” Rethinking Kant. Vol. 5. Eds. Pablo Muchnick and Oliver Thorndike. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. 35–70. 69 See M-Volkmann: “Der Mysticismus ist schwärmerisch und fanatisch, denn nach demselben kan man sich einbilden, daß man innerliche Erleuchtungen habe; je nachdem die Phantasie ausschweift, und muß daher aus der Philosophie verbannt werden” (VM 28:372); M-von Schön: “Crusius dagegen neigte sich zum mystischen; gieng aber bis zum Fanatischen. Das Mystische des Plato bestand in dem sogennanten Anschauen der Gottheit, dagegen seines in dem Anschauen andrer Geister” (VM 28:467); M-Mrongovius: “Leibniz was the follower of Plato, believed in ideas connatas, but left the mystical aside. Crusius also maintained this, although he does not express himself quite so obscurely regarding this. – One can say that the school of Plato has still retained something of the mystical intellectus. But this

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concise: Crusius’s “method of preestablished cognition” is “not to be used, because we do not know what God has given us” (Refl. 17:554).70 Kant’s basic criticism is that Crusius does not successfully answer the critical question, but merely trades one relation to be explained for another: that between human certainty and God. Our certainty in God is only subjectively valid, based upon a person’s conviction, not upon logical deduction. In some ways, I think Crusius would agree—he was after all a religious Pietist as well as a philosophical one.

VI. Conclusion: Shifting the Canon? T.S. Eliot in his “Tradition and Individual Talent (1919)” speaks of how one work of art changes the entire canon when added to it: No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new.71

Although Eliot speaks about the addition of new works which shift the canon, I think the same is true through the introduction of newly discovered or appreciated works, here particularly of the Pietist philosopher Christian August Crusius. Allowing Crusius to re-enter the philosophical history not only does him justice, but also shifts the whole canon a bit in at least two ways: (1) Kant’s originality in metaphysics, specifically his “Copernican Revolution” and his defense of synthetic a priori judgments and propositions, opinion is fanatical; everyone can imagine much here – e.g., standing in community with spirits, etc.” (VM 29:761). See also R1642: “Mystisch – Crusius” (Refl. 16:63). 70 R4446 (17:554): “Crusius* Methodus cognitionis praestabilitae. vel per epigenesin vel per praeformationem *(ist nicht zu gebrauchen, weil wir nicht Wissen, was Gott uns erofnet hat.)” 71 T. S. Eliot, The Sacred Wood (London: Methuen & Co., 1920), 44–45.

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appears less original in the face of Crusius’s own metaphysical system;72 and (2) Kant himself looks to be standing less above but more amongst competing German metaphysical traditions. Kant, while not exactly a Crusian, takes his place alongside the German Pietist philosophers of the Eighteenth-century, developing Crusius’s core insights against the thenregnant Leibniz-Wolffian system. My goal has been to gesture towards the profundity of Pietism on Kant’s critical thought, in this paper focusing on his metaphysics. In the introduction to a collection of religious Pietist writings, Peter Erb claims that “Immanuel Kant’s reflection on the ‘interior’ transcendental structures of human thought and on the categorical imperative is a development of his earlier pietist training.”73 If “earlier pietist training” refers to Kant’s home and early school life, Erb is wrong; any claim to religious Pietism in Kant, especially his metaphysics, is vague. But if “early pietist training” refers to Kant’s devoted study of philosophical Pietism and especially Christian August Crusius, Erb is right, and profoundly so.

Works Cited Ahnert, Thomas. Religion and the Origins of the German Enlightenment: Faith and Learning in the Thought of Christian Thomasius. Rochester: U of Rochester P, 2006. Ameriks, Karl. Kant’s Theory of Mind. 1982. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2000. 72

A similar claim has been made regarding Kant’s moral philosophy in relation to Crusius’s own moral philosophy. See Josef Schmucker, Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants in seiner workritischen Schriften und Reflektionen (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain KG, 1961): 81–82: “Läßt man die Ausführungen der ‘Anweisung’ unvoreingenommen auf sich wirken, so ist man in der Tat aufs höchste überrascht, daß ihr Verfasser fast alle wesentlichen Grundgedanken der späteren Ethik Kants in dieser oder jener Form bereits vorwegnimmt; das geht so weit, daß wir viele charakteristische Formulierungen und Begriffe, die gemeinhin als spezifisch Kantisch gelten, durchaus schon bei Crusius vorgebildet finden, so daß die vielgerühmte Originalität der ethischen Konzeption des Philosophen von hier aus nur mit Einschränkung anerkannt werden kann, womit freilich ihre Bedeutung und Größe nicht bestritten werden soll; aber man muß doch aus das andere sehen: daß die Wurzeln ihrer Grundideen tief hinabreichen in den Mutterproben der deutschen Aufklärungsphilosophie, vor allem wie sie von Crusius verkörpert wurde.” Consider this paper an attempt to expand Schmucker’s view to Kant’s metaphysics as well. 73 Peter Erb, Introduction, Pietists: Selected Writings, ed. Peter Erb (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 2.

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Anon. “Kurzgefasste Lebensgeschichte Herrn Christian August Crusius.” Acta historico-ecclesiastica nostris temporis XVII. Weimar: 1776. 970– 93 Beck, Lewis White. Early German Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1969. Borchert, Donald. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2nd ed., 10 vols. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2006. Carboncini, Sonia. “Die thomasianisch-pietistische Tradition und ihre Fortsetzung durch Christian August Crusius.” Christian Thomasius: 1655–1728. Ed. Werner Schneiders. Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1989. 287–304. Carls, Wilhelm. Andreas Rüdigers Moralphilosophie. 1894. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1999. Copelston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Vol. 6. 1960. New York: Image, 1994. Crusius, Christian August. Anweisung vernüftig zu leben. 1744. Ed. Giorgio Tonelli. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2010. —. Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheiten. 1745. Ed. Giorgio Tonelli. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2006. —. Instruction pour une vie raisonnable. 1744. Trans. and ed. Lukas Sosoe. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2007. —. Kleinere philosophische Schriften. 1737–1752. Eds. Sonia Carboncini and Reinhard Finster. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1987. —. Weg zur Gewissheit und Zuverlässigkeit. 1747. Ed. Giorgio Tonelli. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 2010. De Boer, Karin. Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics. New York: Cambridge UP, 2020. —. “The Prolegomena.” Kant’s Lectures on Metaphysics: A Critical Guide. Ed. Courtney Fugate. New York: Cambridge UP, 2018. 31–52. Dyck, Corey, ed. and trans. Early Modern German Philosophy: 1690–1750. New York: Oxford UP, 2019. Eliot, T. S. The Sacred Wood. London: Methuen & Co., 1920. Findlay, J. N. Kant and the Transcendental Object: A Hermeneutical Study. New York: Oxford UP, 1981. Fugate, Courtney. The Teleology of Reason: A Study of the Structure of Kant’s Critical Philosophy. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2016. Gawthrop, Richard. Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia. New York: Cambridge UP, 1993. Gurnet, Frank, Andree Hahmann, and Gideon Stiening, eds. Christian August Crusius (1715–1775). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021.

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Hinrichs, Carl. Preußentum und Pietismus: Der Pietismus in BrandenburgPreußen als Religiös-Soziale Reformbewegung. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971. Hunter, Ian. Rival Enlightenments. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. Jauernig, Anja. The World According to Kant: Appearances and Things in Themselves in Critical Idealism. New York: Oxford UP, 2021. Kant, Immanuel. Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften. Ed. Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 29 vols. Berlin: Georg Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter, 1900–. —. Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Eds. Guyer, Paul and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–. —. Theoretical Philosophy 1755–1770. Ed. David Walford.New York: Cambridge UP, 2002. Kanterian, Edward. Kant, God, and Metaphysics: The Secret Thorn. New York: Routledge, 2018. Klemme, Heiner, and Manfred Kuehn, eds. The Bloombury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016. Kuehn, Manfred. Kant: A Biography. New York: Cambridge UP, 2001. Larrimore, Mark. “Orientalism and Antivoluntarism in the History of Ethics: On Christian Wolff’s ‘Oratio de Sinarum Philosophia Practica.’” The Journal of Religious Ethics 28 (2000): 189–219. Leibniz, G. W. Theodicy. Trans. E. M. Huggard. La Salle: Open Court, 1985. Lieberwirth, Rolf. “Christian Thomasius (1655–1728).” Aufklärung und Erneuerung. Eds. Günter Jerouschek and Arno Sames. Hanau: Dausein, 1994. 29–45. Look, Brandon. “Kant’s Leibniz: A Historical and Philosophical Study.” Leibniz and Kant. Ed. Brandon Look. New York: Oxford UP, 2021. 1– 26. Lu-Adler, Hauping. “Epigenesis of Pure Reason and the Source of Pure Cognitions: How Kant is No Nativist about Logical Cognition.” Rethinking Kant. Vol. 5. Eds. Pablo Muchnick and Oliver Thorndike. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018. 35–70. —. Kant and the Science of Logic. New York: Oxford UP, 2018. Marschke, Benjamin. “Pietism and Politics in Prussia and Beyond.” A Companion to German Pietism, 1660–1800. Ed. Douglas Shantz. Leiden: Brill, 2015. 501–507. Mercer, Christia. “Leibniz and His Master: The Correspondence with Jakob Thomasius,” Leibniz and his Correspondents. Ed. Paul Lodge. New York: Cambridge UP, 2004.

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Oberhausen, Michael and Riccardo Pozzo, eds. Vorlesungsverzeichnisse der Universität Königsberg (1720–1804). 2 vol. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friederich Frommann Verlag, 1999. Palmquist, Stephen. Comprehensive Commentary on Kant’s Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016. Rink, Friedrich. Ansichten aus Immanuel Kants Leben. Königsberg, 1805. Sattler, Gary. God’s Glory, Neighbors Good: A Brief Introduction to the Life and Writings of August Hermann Francke. Chicago: Covenant P, 1982. Sgarbi, Marcus. “Metaphysics of Königisberg.” Trans/Form/Acao 33.1 (2010): 31–64. Schepers, Heinrich. Andreas Rüdigers Methodologie und ihre Voraussetzungen. Koln: Kolner Universitäts, 1959. Schilpp, Paul. Kant’s Pre-Critical Ethics. 1938. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1998. Schmuker, Josef. Die Ursprünge der Ethik Kants in seiner workritischen Schriften und Reflektionen. Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain KG, 1961. Shantz, Douglas. An Introduction to German Pietism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2013. Spener, Philip Jakob. Pia Desideria. 1675. Trans. Theodore Tappert. Philadelphia: Fortress P, 1964. Solomon, Robert, and Kathleen Higgins, eds. The Age of German Idealism. New York: Routledge, 1993. Sosoe, Lukas. “Dans quelle mesure la philosophie pratique de Kant est-elle piétiste?” Les Sources de la Philosophie Kantienne: XVIIe et XVIIIe Siècles. Eds. Robert Theis and Lukas Sosoe. Paris: Libraire Philosophique J. Vrin, 2005. 227–36. Stang, Nicholas. Kant’s Modal Metaphysics. New York: Oxford UP, 2016. Stein, K. James. Philipp Jakob Spener: Pietist Patriarch. Chicago: Covenant P, 1986. —. “Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705).” The Pietist Theologians. Ed. Carter Lindberg Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 84–99. Theis, Robert. “Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann (1703–1741).” Aufklärung 21 (2009): 275–78. Tonelli, Giorgio. “Leibniz on Innate Ideas and the Early Reactions to the Publication of the Nouveaux Essais (1765).” Journal of the History of Philosophy 12.4 (1974): 437–54 —. “The ‘Weakness’ of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment.” Diderot Studies 14 (1971): 217–44.

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Wallmann, Johannes. Der Pietismus. Göttingen: Vandenheock & Ruprecht, 1990. —. Philipp Jakob Spener und die Anfänge des Pietismus. 2nd ed. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986. Ward, Keith. The Development of Kant’s View of Ethics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972. Watkins, Eric. Kant and the Metaphysics of Causality. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. —. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials. New York: Cambridge UP, 2009. Wundt, Max. Die deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964.

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NIETZSCHE VERSUS KANT ON THE POSSIBILITY OF RATIONAL SELF-CRITIQUE MARKUS KOHL

I. Introduction Accounts of the relation between Nietzsche and Kant typically focus on moral and related metaphysical issues such as the categorical imperative, moral responsibility, and free will1, or on epistemological topics such as Nietzsche’s critique of Kant’s view that we have the conceptual resources for a meaningful representation of things in themselves.2 By contrast, in this essay I consider an epistemological, methodological dispute between these two thinkers about the possibility of rational self-critique: an activity where the intellect reflects on its cognitive powers, demarcates the proper use and limitations of these powers, and thereby achieves a systematically complete insight into what we can and cannot know. Kant affirms whereas Nietzsche denies that we can successfully conduct such a self-directed rational enquiry. My aim is to understand their respective arguments and the roots of their disagreement. After setting the stage by introducing some key philosophical considerations, terms, and passages (section I), I reconstruct the central argumentative moves that Nietzsche and Kant do or could make to defend their respective position. In section II, I expound two central objections Nietzsche raises against the Kantian view. In section III, I show that Kant has a powerful rejoinder against these objections; however, as I argue in section IV, this rejoinder may not be ultimately effective in light of Nietzsche’s most fundamental commitments. In the conclusion, I draw some general lessons from this debate. I suggest that trying to decide who 1

See, e.g., Leiter 2015 and Reginster 2006. See, e.g., Clark 1990. The Nietzschean worry here (which figures prominently in, e.g., HAH) targets Kant’s view that we can at least think (if not theoretically cognize) things in themselves (B166).

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has the final upper hand here is less fruitful than recognizing that the two positions are rooted in starkly diverging concerns and aspirations. This reveals a clash between two distinctive models of philosophical enquiry, of what philosophy is and ought to be all about.

II. Setting the Stage: The Affirmation and Denial of Rational Self-Critique In the Prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant presents a special kind of rational self-examination as the cornerstone of his philosophical project. This activity does not give us knowledge about our metaphysical constitution, nor does it provide us with privileged access to our mental states.3 Rather, rational self-critique reveals the scope and limits of our rational powers – namely, what these powers do and do not enable us to know, which principles our pure intellect contains, and how we can make a legitimate use of these principles. Because we exercise our rational powers only upon themselves rather than on external objects, such reflection (if properly conducted) yields fully comprehensive results. It makes clear and explicit, with systematic completeness, what our rationality involves, what pure reason can and cannot achieve: “nothing” in “the inventory of all we possess through pure reason…can escape us, because what reason brings forth entirely out of itself cannot be hidden, but is brought to light by reason itself” (Axx). Kant’s main focus is on what epistemic self-critique reveals about the possibility of metaphysics: “pure speculative reason…can and should measure its own capacity” in order to “completely enumerate the manifold ways of putting problems before itself, so as to catalog the entire…sketch of a whole system of metaphysics” (Bxxii-Bxxiii). Reason’s self-measurement has a twofold upshot. On the one hand, reason provides a systematically complete account of the various metaphysical cognitions that it can achieve. On the other hand, it uncovers the insurmountable limits of its metaphysical insight and exposes the characteristic errors it commits when attempting to breach these limits.4 These errors result from a lack of epistemic selfcritique, when one endorses “principles, which reason has been using for a 3

See Korsgaard 1996:92, 100. The theoretical metaphysical cognition that self-critique vindicates is the immanent metaphysics of experience that comprises the categorial principle of understanding, such as ‘Every event has a cause’, if these are restricted to sensible appearances. On the other hand, the self-critique of pure reason shows that its transcendent ideas of God, the immortal soul and free will cannot yield theoretical cognition.

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long time without first inquiring in what way and by what right it has obtained them”, when one follows “the dogmatic procedure of pure reason, without an antecedent critique of its own capacity” (Bxxxv). Kant appeals to the power of rational self-critique throughout the first Critique, especially in the Transcendental Dialectic where he considers grand metaphysical questions in a “skeptical” (that is, properly self-critical, non-dogmatic) manner in order to “exempt oneself from a great deal of dogmatic rubbish, and put in its place a sober critique, which, as a true cathartic, will happily purge such delusions along with the punditry (Vielwisserei) attendant on them” (A486/B514). Kant has an unrelenting (decidedly non-skeptical5) confidence in the suitability of our intellect as the instrument for framing and answering questions about its own cognitive powers: pure reason, as the “highest court of appeals for all rights and claims of our speculation cannot possibly contain original deceptions and semblances” (A669/B697). His transcendental philosophy is unique “among all speculative cognition” because it “has the special property that there is no question at all dealing with an object given by pure reason that is insoluble by this very same human reason” (A477/B505); it is thus one of the “sciences whose nature entails that every question occurring in them must absolutely be answerable from what one knows, because the answer must arise from the same source as the question” (A476/B504). Because pure reason is the author of metaphysical concepts (‘ideas’, in Kant’s technical sense) such as ‘God’ or ‘the world’, it must be able to determine with strict, indubitable certainty what kind of cognition these concepts yield or fail to yield and what their legitimate or illegitimate use consists in. The method for reaching this determination is the assessment of pure reason by pure reason. Kant also highlights the fundamental methodological role of infallible rational self-critique in the Critique of Practical Reason. Its Preface announces that the book shall “critique…the entire practical faculty” of pure reason (KpV, 5:3). The “critique of practical reason as such” is concerned with “the principles of its possibility, its scope and limits”, which are to be determined in an a priori fashion, independent of any experience (KpV, 5:8). As in the first Critique, Kant stresses that it is entirely appropriate for pure reason to be at once the subject and the object of critique, to answer “questions, which pure reason puts to pure reason” (A486/B514). Only 5 Kant distinguishes between his skeptical method and skepticism (A424-425/B451452). The skeptical method aims at (and attains) certainty – not regarding the objects of metaphysical speculation (such as God), but regarding the limits of what we can know about such objects. Skepticism, by contrast, leaves no room for certainty and thereby “undermines the foundation of all cognition.”

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“pure reason…itself contains the standard” (Richtschnur) “for the critique of its entire use” (KpV, 5:16). That is, the normative criteria for answering reason’s questions about what we may justifiably believe and do can only come from pure reason itself. There is no other, external authority that could rightfully interfere with reason’s critical self-examination or replace pure reason’s autonomous Richtschnur. As Onora O’Neill points out, an external source could not lay any normative claim on us unless we first granted it the authority to do so through a process of critical reflection where reason uses its own normative guidelines to decide the self-directed question of whether and why it (i.e., we, as rational beings) should vindicate this external source.6 Nietzsche targets this Kantian methodology in the (added) Preface to Dawn (§3), when he asks provocatively about Kant’s critical project: “…was it not somewhat strange to demand that an instrument should criticize its own excellence and aptitude? that the intellect itself should ‘cognize’ its own worth, power, and limits? was it not even just a little absurd?” He also raises this concern in various unpublished notes composed in 1885-1886. Consider the following representative passages: (1) It is almost comical, that our philosophers demand that philosophy has to begin with a critique of the faculty of cognition: is it not very improbable, that the organ of cognition can ‘critique’ itself, if one has become mistrustful about all previous results of cognition? (NF 1885, Group 1 §60) (2) …our critical philosophers…think that if one first examines the instrument before one applies it, namely the faculty of cognition — — — . This is even worse than wanting to examine a match before wanting to use it. It is the match that wants to examine itself whether it will burn (NF 1885, Group 1 §113) (3) One would have to know what being is in order to determine whether this and that is real (for example, ‘the facts of consciousness’); likewise, what certainty is, what cognition is, and suchlike. — But since we do not know this, a critique of the faculty of cognition is absurd: how should an instrument critique itself, if it can use precisely only (eben nur) itself for critique? (NF 1885, Group 2 §87) (4) An instrument cannot critique its own aptitude: the intellect cannot itself determine its limit, and neither its well-bredness or its ill-bredness (sein Wohlgerathensein oder sein Mißrathensein). — (NF 1885, Group 2 §132) (5) The ʌȡ૵IJȠȞ ȥİ૨įȠȢ: how is the fact of cognition possible? Is cognition even a fact? (…) But if I do not yet ‘know’ whether there is 6

O’Neill 1989:15, 39.

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cognition, I cannot reasonably pose the question, ‘what is cognition’. Kant believed in the fact of cognition: what he wants is a naivete: the cognition of cognition! (NF 1886, Group 7 §4) Although Kant is mentioned explicitly only in (5), the other fragments are clearly concerned with his position as well – Kant is chief amongst “our critical philosophers” who “demand that philosophy has to begin with a critique of the faculty of cognition” (cf. (1)-(2)). Nietzsche’s points here reflect a broader epistemological interest in human cognition that figures prominently in his published works. This will become clear in the next section, where I reconstruct what I regard as Nietzsche’s two most important arguments against Kant’s method.

II.1: Nietzsche’s Objections: The Circularity Argument The above passages suggest an objection that I call the circularity argument. According to this argument, the project of rational self-critique is viciously circular because when one tries to determine the cognitive aptitude and limitations of our intellect by exercising this very intellect in self-reflective enquiries, one must already take it for granted that our intellect does possess the cognitive aptitude required for successful critical self-examination – thus one presupposes what one purports to discern. This is Nietzsche’s point in passages such as (3) or (4), which target the avowedly self-reflexive aspect of Kant’s project, namely, the supposition that the pure intellect can simultaneously function as the agent and the object of critique. An initial Kantian response might be that it is misleading to say that we take for granted precisely what we are trying to determine in rational selfcritique. We seek to determine the general potentials and limits of our (especially metaphysical) cognition. When we embark on the project of selfcritique we do not yet presume to know what these general potentials and limits are; we presuppose only that the pure intellect has the cognitive aptitude for discerning them. But for Nietzsche, this presupposition is already enough to entangle Kant in the vicious circle. Those who use the pure intellect to determine what it can and cannot cognize must assume that estimating its own cognitive capabilities and limitations lies within the pure intellect’s cognitive powers. Hence, the project of rational self-critique already presupposes an answer to the question that it purports to be raising: what are the pure intellect’s cognitive powers? Kant might insist that he is presupposing only a strictly limited answer to the question he raises: he is assuming that the pure intellect has the power to recognize its own powers and limits, but this does not anticipate any

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further, controversial claims – most importantly, it does not entail that we can or cannot cognize metaphysical objects such as God. Kant might say: because his presupposition does not presume substantive claims about our cognition of external (including transcendent) objects, it has a modest, purely methodological or subject-centered status: it amounts to nothing more than assuming from the outset that the activity of epistemic selfcritique can succeed (if properly conducted). He might challenge Nietzsche to provide grounds for treating this assumption as a controversial idea that cannot be taken for granted as a legitimate starting point. Nietzsche intimates such a ground in (1) when he asks: “is it not very improbable, that the organ of cognition can ‘critique’ itself, if one has become mistrustful about all previous results of cognition?” This suggests that the reason why he deems it question-begging to assume that our intellect can determine its own cognitive capabilities and limits is that we must regard the intellect as an inherently fallible cognitive instrument: hence, we cannot legitimately place the confidence in its potential for fruitful self-critique that the Kantian approach requires. What makes Nietzsche so “mistrustful about all previous results of cognition”? I will suggest one answer to this question in section II.2, where I consider Nietzsche’s debunking naturalistic account of our cognitive faculties. But Nietzsche’s mistrust need not rely on his own substantive views about our cognitive (in)capacities. Instead, he can motivate his doubts about the Kantian presupposition by invoking the long history of failed attempts to achieve rational self-cognition. This includes, specifically, the many times where philosophers since Descartes confidently proclaimed that they shall ground and delimit human cognition by investigating its sources but ended up with highly problematic doctrines that were duly criticized and rejected.7 Nietzsche also offers a principled explanation for these failures of selfcognition. In the (1887 addition to the) Gay Science, he argues that the intellect is particularly ill-suited for examining and cognizing itself because true cognition requires detachment from its object “as distant” from ourselves. Such an unbiased stance of critical distance is impossible when our intellect seeks to determine its own capacities. Hence, the idea that we should begin philosophical reflection by focusing on allegedly uncontroversial ‘facts of consciousness’ (cf. (3)) or ‘facts of cognition’ (cf. (5)) is flawed: the claim that it is “methodologically demanded to begin from the ‘inner world’, from the ‘facts of consciousness’ because it is the world more

7

Notably, this is similar to Kant’s strategy at the beginning of the Critique, when he appeals to the unhappy history of metaphysics (“the battlefield of endless controversies”, Aviii) to show that metaphysics is not (yet) a science.

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familiar to us” yields only the “error of errors”. The sense of familiarity we assume with regard to our conscious mental states, including those that we are inclined to treat as cognitions, is precisely what prevents us from occupying the unbiased stance that would enable us to ask the proper questions about these states and thus to ‘cognize’ them in a proper sense: “The familiar (das Bekannte) is the usual (das Gewohnte); and the usual is hardest to ‘cognize’, which means to see as a problem, which means to see as alien, as distant, as ‘outside us’…” (GS V §355). For Nietzsche, the pitfalls arising from this lack of detachment are especially severe when philosophers ruminate about human cognition: as historical-biographical interpretation reveals, they tend to do so in light of idiosyncratic personal values that are grounded in their unconscious drives, whose influence on conscious thought escapes their reflective self-awareness. These philosophical values include a high esteem for reflection, reason, and conscious awareness. In the Gay Science (GS IV §333), Nietzsche points out (echoing his remarks in (3) and (5)) that this uncritical valuation leads to confusion about what cognition fundamentally is. Targeting especially Spinoza’s definition of cognition as a state of calm, dispassionate rational equilibrium, he argues that philosophers have been led into error “about the nature of cognition” because they have placed undue emphasis on “conscious thinking, and especially that of the philosopher”: they have “viewed conscious thinking as thinking per se”, whereas “the by far largest part of our mental operating (Wirken) proceeds unconsciously, unfelt to us”. This point also plays a central role in Beyond Good and Evil where Nietzsche considers “the prejudices of philosophers”. One such prejudice is the conviction that conscious reflection operates autonomously, determines its own course and judgments. Historical-biographical analysis suggests that conscious philosophical reasoning does not set its own course but is rather determined by non-rational, non-conscious conditions: “the most conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly led and forced into determinate paths by his instincts” (BGE I §3). These subjective, biased instincts and passions rather than an impersonal, purely rational appreciation of objective ‘facts of cognition’ determine the course and outcome of philosophical (self)reflection: “Accordingly I do not believe that a ‘drive for cognition’ is the father of philosophy but, rather, that another drive…uses cognition (and misconception!) (Erkenntnis (und Verkenntnis!)) only like a tool” (BGE I §6). Nietzsche is explicit about what he takes this non-cognitive drive to be in Kant’s case: Kant’s quest for epistemic self-cognition is instinctively guided by religious and moral biases. In one fragment (NF 1886, Group 7 §4), Nietzsche argues that the influence of these biases is twofold. First,

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because of his “habituation to unconditional authorities” Kant regards pure reason as a quasi-divine legislator of timelessly valid, necessary laws, as an authority whose purely rational insight and legislative power is untainted by the contingencies of the fickle, immoral sensible world. Kant thus reveals his moral trust or faith in the existence of purely rational cognition: “…trust in reason…is, as trust, a moral phenomenon” (Dawn, Added Preface §4). “Kant believed in the fact of cognition…The rightfulness of the faith in cognition is always being presupposed: just like the rightfulness in the feeling of the judgment of conscience is being presupposed. Here the moral ontology is the reigning prejudice” (NF 1886, Group 7 §4). But secondly, moral and theistic interests also motivate Kant’s allegedly critical denial of pure reason’s knowledge claims about God or immortality: “To assert on the whole the existence of things about which we cannot know anything at all, precisely because there is an advantage in not being able to know anything about them, was a naivete of Kant, consequence of a refill (Nachschlags) of needs, namely moral-metaphysical ones” (NF 1887, Group 10 §205). Nietzsche is presumably thinking here (in part) of Kant’s declaration, “Thus I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith” (Bxxx) in God, immortality, and free will. As Nietzsche sees it, Kant seeks to exploit the fact that by surrendering the claim to knowledge, moral faith in these entities need no longer justify itself as knowledge: once moral beliefs about supersensible beings are reconfigured as faith, they no longer incur the burden of proof that is imposed by the demanding knowledge-standard of justification. Since Kantian self-critique has shown that attempts to disprove the existence of supersensible beings violate the limits of human knowledge as well, the path is cleared for claiming that our moral faith in such beings is legitimate after all. This provides a “hiding place” (Schlupfwinkel) for those who seek to hold onto their faith in God, immortality etc. because they can “at last…create a right for themselves to affirm certain things as irrefutable – namely as beyond all means of refutation (this artifice nowadays calls itself ‘Kantian Criticism’)” (NF 1888, Group 15 §19; cf. GM III §26); “the typical philosopher is here an absolute dogmatic; — if he needs skepticism, this is in order to be allowed to talk dogmatically about his main issue” (NF 1888, Group 14 §189). Kant’s purportedly antidogmatic rational self-critique thus reveals “the theological prejudice in Kant, his unconscious dogmatism, his moral perspective as ruling, steering, commanding” (NF 1887, Group 7 §4). The moral perspective is steering insofar as it leads Kant to posit a (theoretically speaking) uncognizable realm of non-sensible things in themselves that is impervious to the

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contingent, ‘immoral’ character of the cognizable sensible world, of our empirical nature and history (Dawn, Added Preface §3). One might seek to dismiss these points as mere ad hominem attacks that lack argumentative weight. But they are clearly relevant to the question of whether Kant may start his project of rational self-critique from the unquestioned assumption that the pure intellect can (infallibly, systematically) determine its own cognitive capabilities and limitations. For Nietzsche, this is a controversial assumption that a non-question begging pursuit of epistemic self-cognition would need to establish in the first place. If Kantians respond that this assumption expresses no more than a harmless methodological guideline, then it seems appropriate for Nietzsche to counter by stressing Kant’s personal investment in the project of epistemic selfcritique: led by his allegedly innocuous guideline, Kant develops an account of human cognition that so happens to justify highly controversial (moral, metaphysical, theistic) beliefs to which Kant is personally attached.8 Kant thereby provokes a mistrust in his or more generally the human ability to accurately measure our cognitive capacities in an objective, unbiased fashion. This mistrust provides a valid reason for questioning the presupposition that we indeed possess this ability. For Nietzsche, this is sufficient to show that the Kantian project is viciously circular, since it (on the one hand) purports to determine what our cognitive powers are, but (on the other hand) already takes for granted the determination that we do have the power to obtain indubitably certain epistemic self-cognition.

II.2 Nietzsche’s Objections: Naturalism about Human Cognition In his first objection, Nietzsche raises doubts about whether we have the cognitive powers for epistemic self-cognition required by the Kantian project via his appeal to the long comedy of errors that characterize the history of philosophy, and via his observation that philosophers are led to these errors because their reasoning is in the grip of (chiefly, theistic and moral) biases and prejudices. By contrast, his second objection relies more decisively on his own substantive views about the character of human 8

It is somewhat controversial whether Kant is really attached to these beliefs. In his seminal biography, Kuehn (2001:3) denies that Kant had any personal belief in God and immortality. Even if that is correct, Nietzsche can still invoke Kant’s putative moral-metaphysical ‘prejudices’ such as the belief in timeless, universal moral values or in absolute free will and responsibility. Kuehn agrees (2001:145, 379-382) that the belief in transcendental freedom was central to the way in which Kant lived and philosophized.

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cognition. I cannot do full justice here to Nietzsche’s complex thoughts on human cognition, and I cannot consider how these thoughts evolved and changed during the 1870s and 1880s. But I shall expound five aspects of his view that frequently recur both in the earlier (1870s) and later (1880s) periods of his thinking. First, Nietzsche’s view is thoroughly naturalistic.9 For Nietzsche, our cognitive faculties belong to the natural order of things, just like the faculties of other creatures: they have been gradually acquired in a long historical process which was shaped by contingent, shifting biological and sociocultural circumstances.10 This process eventually produced in human beings a range of relatively stable, uniform cognitive dispositions. This naturalism contrasts sharply with Kant’s view that our fundamental cognitive capacities (chiefly, our pure forms of sensibility and our pure intellect with its a priori forms of judgment and concepts) belong to our atemporal noumenal character which is not subject to the vagaries of the contingent, ever-changing empirical world. Second, our cognitive dispositions are controlled by desiderative natural states that are oriented towards goals such as securing survival, enhancing one’s well-being, and increasing one’s sense of power.11 Hence the focus of our cognitive dispositions is distorted: our cognitive attention is directed only to certain aspects of the world (at the expense of others), namely those that have a bearing on our desires’ satisfaction. This point, taken by itself, would render our representations partial but not necessarily false or inaccurate: even if we represent only features of the world that bear on the satisfaction of our desires, our representations might provide objective cognition of said features. Likewise, a functionalist or pragmatic explanation of our cognitive dispositions which explains these dispositions in terms of their success in helping us fulfil our practical interests is compatible with

9

For a helpful characterization of Nietzsche’s naturalism, see Leiter 2015:1-23, 244263. 10 See, e.g., Dawn II §123. 11 It is unclear what Nietzsche means by ‘power’ when he posits the will to power as a (or even the) fundamental drive directing human (and other organic) life. Some commentators adopt a ‘formal’ reading of the will to power as a second-order drive to have one’s first-order desires (regarding external objects) satisfied (Clark 1990:228-229) or to overcome resistance in trying to satisfy first-order desires (Reginster 2006:131-132). Another important question here is whether Nietzsche’s appeals to the will to power express descriptive (empirical? metaphysical?) claims, or an evaluative ideal, or a combination of both. An evaluative reading is proposed by Clark 1990, whereas Richardson 1996 (following Heidegger) defends a staunchly metaphysical view.

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our cognitive dispositions being truth-tracking. One might even hold that the pragmatic approach predicts that these dispositions are mostly truthtracking, since by delivering accurate representations they enable us to effectively realize our desires. However, Nietzsche does not endorse these (somewhat) conciliatory ideas. In his view, the truthfulness of our representations is not generally conducive and may even be a severe hindrance to the satisfaction of our strongest or most prevalent desires. Although it is not implausible to suggest that in his more cautious moments Nietzsche argues only that pragmatic usefulness does not guarantee truthfulness, he typically puts forward a stronger claim: since our cognitive faculties are shaped by (broadly speaking) pragmatic interests, they are ill-suited to provide us with cognition if ‘cognition’ is understood in the traditional sense as grasping facts or truths (conceived in a non-pragmatic fashion12) and as enabling objective knowledge.13 The basic actions of our cognitive faculties falsify the actual character of the natural world, so that we end up representing the world – even in our best scientific thinking – in fictitious ways which are conducive to realizing our basic desires.14 This process of falsification, invention or subjective interpretation involves various mechanisms (some of which are operative already in our faculties of sensory representation), such as: simplifying what is inherently complex; leveling what is inherently diverse; and, “reducing something unfamiliar”, potentially unsettling “to something familiar” – here “the first representation through which the unfamiliar explains itself as familiar feels so pleasant that one ‘takes’ it ‘as true’” (TI, “The four big errors” §5).15 These mechanisms introduce order, unity, and regularity into our conception of reality, so that we exercise a corresponding degree of (imaginary) control over the thus-conceived natural world: thanks to the simplifying, leveling, and familiarizing acts of our cognitive faculties, we apprehend the world in an anthropocentric manner that enables us to feel at home in it, to calculate the consequences of our actions and to satisfy our desires. 12

It is worth noting that Nietzsche does not, pace Danto 1980, define ‘truth’ or ‘facts’ in pragmatic terms: if he did, he could not say that pragmatic drives falsify our representations of facts. See Clark 1990:32-34. 13 See, e.g., BGE I §6, §11; BGE VII §229-230; NF 1886 Group 6, §8, 11. 14 See, e.g., GS II § 107; GS III §111; BGE 1 §11; BGE 2 § 24; BGE IX §291; NF 1885, Group 43 §1. These and related passages lead me to prefer the ‘falsification’ interpretation over the more cautious reading. I further support this interpretation in section 3. 15 See also Dawn II §111, 117; GS V §355; BGE V §192; BGE VII §230-231; GM III § 24.

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The third aspect of Nietzsche’s view is that the desiderative states that control our basic cognitive actions operate below the threshold of consciousness and are therefore concealed from our reflective selfawareness.16 As a result, our conscious mental thinking does not possess the kind of autonomous influence that philosophers have traditionally ascribed to it: the causal force and guiding role of reflective thinking is strongly demoted in Nietzsche’s view. He attributes a quasi-epiphenomenal status to our conscious thoughts and regards them as mere by-products or accompanying appearances of the underlying non-conscious desiderative states that are really taking the reins in determining our theoretical and practical worldview (as well as our corresponding behavior).17 Fourth, the subjective-falsifying character of our cognitive capacities also affects those of our conscious representations and thought-patterns that philosophers have traditionally viewed as signatures of pure rationality and (thus) as guides to the metaphysical structure of ‘being’, in part because they constitute our basic grammatical forms of thinking.18 This includes mathematical concepts, logical rules, and the Kantian categories, i.e., basic ontological concepts such as ‘substance’ or ‘causality’.19 Since these representations are a product of our cognitive dispositions, they are infected with the abovementioned simplifying, leveling, and anthropomorphizing tendencies that shape these dispositions. For instance, grasping the world in logical and mathematical terms (e.g., via formulas and numbers) operates on the assumption that there are generic identities among numerically different objects. This basic assumption also underlies our classificatory conceptual schemes, including those we use in advanced scientific thinking. But it masks the endless complexity and diversity in nature, which would be too much to handle for our pragmatically driven cognitive system.20 The notion that the empirical world consists of substances that remain identical over time is another cognitive crutch that our intellect uses to make a restlessly changing reality amenable to our need for continuity, by projecting diachronic identities onto this reality; likewise, our causal thinking is designed to cover up the fickle, chaotic character of the natural world with a semblance of regularity, stability, and calculability.21

16

See, e.g., GS IV §333; BGE I §3, §6. See, e.g., Dawn II § 109. 18 See, e.g., NF 1886, Group 6 §13. 19 See, e.g., GS III §110-111, 121; TI,‘Reason’ in Philosophy §3, 5; NF 1885, Group 43 §1; NF 1886, Group 6 §8, 11. 20 See, e.g., GS III § 111-112; NF 1886 Group 6, §14. 21 See, e.g., Dawn II §121; GS III §111-112. 17

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A fifth aspect of Nietzsche’s view is his claim that the falsifying tendencies of our cognitive faculties lead to deeply engrained misrepresentations of these faculties and of our own selves.22 Chief amongst these misrepresentations is the belief in a unified substantial self, soul or ego that persists and retains its identity and internal unity over time.23 Relatedly, we are firmly attached to the false idea that our substantial self has an abiding rational core that is realized in our conscious thinking, and to the associated idea that our conscious, reflective thoughts cause our judgments and behavior.24 These misconceptions encourage the illusion that we possess the rational freedom to think and act without being conditioned by contingent non-rational factors that lie outside of our control (such as our subconscious drives), and that we are personally responsible in an absolute metaphysical sense for our judgments and actions.25 On the aforementioned cautious reading, where Nietzsche’s naturalistic view of our cognitive dispositions is meant to show only that the desiderative or pragmatic character of these dispositions does not guarantee the truthfulness of our representations, Nietzsche’s naturalism yields just another version of the previous circularity argument: Nietzsche invokes naturalistic considerations regarding the character of human cognition to show that it would be question-begging or circular to put the trust in the cognitive powers of reason that is needed for the Kantian project to get off the ground (whereas the circularity objection considered in II.1. was based chiefly on historical, including biographical analysis). But on the (in my view) textually more compelling reading where Nietzsche argues that the naturalistic character of our cognitive dispositions shows them to be inherently unreliable, Nietzsche’s fivefold naturalistic account implies that the Kantian project of rational self-critique is not only circular but rests on mistaken views about human cognition. The Kantian project seeks to determine, with objective rational certainty, what our cognitive capabilities and limitations are. It thereby presupposes that we have the rational power to step aside from our personal motives and biases so that we may take a critical distance towards ourselves and assess our cognitive faculties in an objective, truth-oriented manner (the truths at issue being truths about what we can and cannot know). As Christine Korsgaard put it, “the reflective structure of human consciousness gives us authority over ourselves. Reflection gives us a kind of distance from our impulses which…enables

22

See, e.g., Dawn II §119. See, e.g., BGE, Preface. 24 See, e.g., GS III § 110; BGE I §16-17; BGE VII §231. 25 See, e.g., Dawn II §116: GM I § 13. 23

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us…to make laws for ourselves.”26 For Nietzsche, this betrays a misconception of what our reflective intellect is and how it works: since the basic character of conscious reflection is constituted and controlled by falsifying (oversimplifying, over-unifying, etc.) subjective drives that do not aim at truth or ‘cognition’ in the traditional (truth-oriented, objective) sense of that term, conscious self-reflection cannot afford us a stance of critical distance from these subjective drives and thus cannot provide us with an objectively certain, unbiased estimation of what we can and cannot know. Indeed, for Nietzsche the presupposition that we can achieve such self-knowledge through acts of purely rational self-reflection is itself a product of unconscious subjective forces that goad philosophers to adopt a false but flattering sense of their rational powers: especially if this inflated self-conception and the thought processes spurned by it lead to further subjectively comforting beliefs (such as the metaphysical-moralistictheistic beliefs that Nietzsche views as Kant’s basic prejudices).27

III. The Kantian Rejoinder In this section, I expound the (in my estimation) strongest Kantian defense against Nietzsche’s objections. The passage where Kant mounts this defense occurs in the Preface to the second Critique – which is fitting since (cf. section 1) Kant here explicitly discusses his core methodological idea that pure reason can provide a cogent epistemic self-critique. He says: Nothing worse could happen to these labors than that anyone should make the unexpected discovery that there neither is, nor can be, any a priori cognition at all. But there is no danger of this. This would be the same thing as if one sought to prove by reason that there is no reason. For…rational cognition and cognition a priori are one and the same. It is a clear contradiction to try to extract necessity from a principle of experience…and to try by this to give a judgement true universality (without which there is 26

Korsgaard 1996:128-129. Ascribing to Nietzsche the falsification thesis (as opposed to the moderatecautious stance) raises intricate questions. How could he claim to know that our cognitive dispositions are falsifying? Is he being dogmatic in deeming reason unreliable? For discussion of these issues, see Anderson 2005; Hussain 2007; Clark 1990. Perhaps Nietzsche (like Hume) holds that we can – through (“ascetic”) mental self-discipline and in response to epistemically viable (naturalistic) evidence – recognize and resist the falsifying habits of our cognitive faculties in rare moments (if only to recognize what these habits and errors are) but must succumb to them once we relax our self-constraint (as we must in order to live). Whether this yields a viable position is a different question, which I address in sections 3 and 4. 27

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no rational inference…). To substitute subjective necessity, that is, custom, for objective, which exists only in a priori judgements, is to deny to reason the power of judging about the object, i.e., of cognizing it, and what belongs to it. It implies, for example, that we…reject the notion of cause altogether as false and a mere delusion. (KpV, 5:12) Kant’s target here is Hume’s empiricism (see KpV, 5:13; B5; A94/B128).28 It is controversial to what extent Nietzsche’s views can be compared to Hume’s. Some commentators see a close connection between the two philosophers as far as their general naturalistic outlook is concerned.29 However, Nietzsche shows very limited knowledge of or interest in Hume’s philosophy; his rejection of Locke’s account of the origin of human ideas (in BGE I §20) suggests that he would not be on board with all major tenets of Hume’s naturalistic empiricism either (since Locke’s account closely resembles Hume’s copy principle). Nevertheless, the above passage indicates how Kant would respond to Nietzsche’s objections: these objections rely on assumptions which are relevantly similar to the Humean claims that Kant addresses. Let us consider first how Kant’s rejoinder bears upon the second objection, which derives from Nietzsche’s naturalistic view of human cognition. The five elements (sketched in II.2.) which comprise this view involve various naturalistic claims about the character of both our cognitive dispositions and the external world. Based on the above passage, we can expect Kant to point out that such claims, if they are to be taken seriously within a philosophical or (broadly speaking) scientific debate, must be based upon pure a priori reason: they must aspire to yield rational cognition, must demand intersubjective agreement among rational thinkers, and must therefore lay claim to objective truth and universal validity (see, e.g., Prol, 4:299).30 If Nietzsche were to admit that his own naturalistic claims are the upshot of the truth-indifferent empirical mechanisms that according to his naturalistic theory control our cognitive output, then he would be pulling 28

For helpful discussion of how this passage contributes to Kant’s overall response to Hume, see Engstrom 1994. 29 See, e.g., Leiter 2015:1-10. For further Hume-Nietzsche comparisons, see Beam 1996 and Kail 1996. 30 The reach for intersubjective agreement which Kant deems essential to the act of rational judging does not entail that one must engage in actual communication with other thinkers: it requires only (but essentially) that we regard our judgments as answerable to potential rational interlocutors, namely, that we judge “as it were in community with others to who we communicate our thoughts, and who communicate theirs with us” (O, 8:144).

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the rug out from under his own feet. He would have to admit that his naturalistic claims have no a priori rational basis and thus cannot make a rational claim on other thinking subjects who aim to discern objective truths about human cognition. Those who read Nietzsche as a staunch empiricist might suggest that Nietzsche can respond here by denying Kant’s claim that “rational cognition and cognition a priori are one and the same”.31 According to this response, Nietzsche’s naturalistic objection to Kant’s project targets primarily the ‘purist’ pretensions inherent in this project: namely, the idea that one can critique and vindicate human cognition on an a priori basis, independently of experience. By severing Kant’s tie between rational and a priori cognition, Nietzsche can hold that his own views about human cognition have objective validity (and thus can demand rational agreement from others) because they are based on good empirical evidence. It is unclear whether this empiricist rendering of Nietzsche’s position is defensible. It requires, among other things, that Nietzsche eventually abandons his aforementioned point that our faculties of sensory representation already incorporate pragmatically fueled cognitive biases and falsifications.32 But even assuming that an empiricist account which views the senses (unlike ‘pure reason’) as epistemically trustworthy can be attributed to Nietzsche, Kant would insist that the empiricist counter to his rejoinder runs into two problems. For one, whatever accurate information the senses may provide, cognitive output in the form of judgments or theories occurs only once this sensory material has been conceptually interpreted by our intellectual faculties. This could hardly be denied by Nietzsche, who frequently emphasizes the role such interpretation plays in determining our beliefs. It seems implausible (and Nietzsche never suggests) that an accurate account of complex natural phenomena can simply be read off a given mass of raw sensory data which have objective evidential significance despite their lack of conceptual structure. But if – as Nietzsche stresses (see, e.g., TI, ‘Reason’ in Philosophy §2) – the process of conceptually interpreting sensory data 31

Leiter attributes to Nietzsche an “explicit empiricism” (2015:11). Some commentators hold that in his late works such as the Twilight of Idols, Nietzsche moves towards a view where the senses (untainted by the fictitious concepts of ‘pure reason’) yield accurate information about empirical reality (see, for instance, Clark 1991:103-116; Leiter 2015:12-13). There are passages in TI that can be taken to support such a reading (see especially §2, 3 of ‘Reason’ in Philosophy). But I am not sure that the sparse remarks that Nietzsche makes here in a strongly polemic context (of inveighing against rationalistic pretensions) warrant attributing to him a new, decidedly empiricist epistemological orientation.

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characteristically involves the falsifying mechanisms explicated in II.2., then we are back to Kant’s point that Nietzsche’s account of human cognition is self-undermining because the falsifications that, according to this account, shape all human thinking also affect Nietzsche’s own thoughts about human cognition. Secondly, Nietzsche’s account employs specific representations that cannot be vindicated on an empirical basis. When Kant equates “rational cognition” and “cognition a priori”, he supports this by arguing that senseexperience – or any other merely empirical, e.g., a psychological source – cannot vindicate claims to necessity and strict (rather than merely comparative, inductive) universality (cf. EEUK 20:238 and Refl. 18:176). Nietzsche claims that given the naturalistic basis of human cognition, there cannot be the a priori (self-)cognition to which the Kantian project aspires; but for Kant, the modal strength of this assertion – the idea that a priori (self)cognition is impossible – requires an a priori cognitive source. Thus, Kant would deem Nietzsche’s attack on the possibility of a priori (self-)cognition incoherent since it relies on the actuality of a priori (self-)cognition. One might suggest that Nietzsche can avoid this problem by weakening the modal strength of his objection: rather than deeming a priori rational self-cognition impossible, he might instead hold that in light of what we can empirically cognize about human cognition, we have no good reason to expect that a priori rational self-cognition is possible; its possibility cannot be established. From an interpretive standpoint, this suggestion is problematic because it fails to capture the characteristic lack of modesty in Nietzsche’s relevant assertions, not just in polemical works such as Beyond Good and Evil where, one might argue, the modal strength of Nietzsche’s claims is mostly a rhetorical tool. In Dawn (II §117), he holds that due to our falsifying habits which “are the foundation of all our judgments and ‘cognitions’…we cannot catch anything other” than what fits into our illusory cognitive web. In Twilight of Idols (Reason’ in Philosophy §5), he insists that the prejudices of ‘reason’ “force us” to “posit unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause” and thereby “necessitate us to error”. But there is a further problem with the idea that Nietzsche can avoid Kant’s rejoinder by abandoning the modal concepts which are inadequately supported by sense-experience. These concepts seem indispensable for Nietzsche’s naturalistic account of cognition and (thereby) for his naturalistic objection against the Kantian project. Consider here an important passage from Beyond Good and Evil: …it is high time to replace the Kantian question, ‘How are synthetic judgments a priori possible?’ by another question, ‘Why is belief in such judgments necessary?’— namely, to comprehend that such judgments must

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be believed to be true, for the sake of the preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they might obviously still be false judgments! Or, more plainly spoken…synthetic judgments a priori…are nothing but false judgments. However…the belief in their truth is necessary, as a foregroundbelief (Vordergrundsglaube) and appearance (Augenschein) which belongs to the perspective- optics of life. (BGE I §12) The Kantian question to which Nietzsche refers here is precisely the question that epistemic self-critique seeks to answer: to what extent can our intellect achieve a kind of cognition that is both independent of experience and yet truly informative (“amplifying”) rather than a mere analytic explication of our concepts? Kant argues that we can answer this question and vindicate some synthetic a priori judgments – namely, those which apply categories like ‘substance’ and causality’ to sensible appearances – as true if we carefully attend to the structure of our cognitive faculties. Nietzsche here (and elsewhere) deems all so-called synthetic a priori judgments epistemically ungrounded, even false: categories such as ‘causality’ or ‘substance’ (no less than transcendent ideas like ‘God’ or ‘free will’) are cognitive fictions that are inextricably bound up with the nonrational, falsifying dispositions of the human mind (cf. II.2). But he also says that the judgments which apply such categories “must be believed to be true”, that “the belief in their truth is necessary” (emphasis mine): this belief belongs to the subjective perspective that the human organism has to occupy given its natural life conditions. Nietzsche here employs a modally strong concept of causation that implies a necessary constraint: he views the psycho-physical constitution of the human organism as a non-rational natural cause which makes it inevitable for human beings to adopt those fictitious beliefs that Kant deems ‘synthetic a priori’. One might respond by suggesting that given the polemical character of Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche’s strong modal-causal pronouncements in this passage are just rhetorical hyperbole and hence do not betray a commitment to the existence of causal necessities. However, Nietzsche makes similar pronouncements in many other works and contexts as well. For instance, in the Gay Science (GS III §111), when he discusses the ‘illogical’, i.e., unreasonable origin of logic, he argues that the strong “propensity…to treat the similar as identical, an illogical propensity – since there is nothing identical in itself – has created all foundation of logic in the first place”; likewise, in order for the concept of substance (which is “indispensable to logic” but to which “nothing real corresponds”) to arise in our mind, “for a long time the changing in things had not to be seen, not to be felt”. He traces these fictitious concepts and inferential patterns to the

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pragmatic advantages that they afford creatures which possess them, compared to creatures whose thinking is more cautious and more attuned to the non-substantial, diverse character of natural reality. Here Nietzsche provides a naturalistic explanation of our falsifying cognitive habits that employs a modally strong notion of causation: he argues that certain natural propensities driven by organic needs “created” or produced, were thus causally sufficient for the development of our concepts and inferencepatterns. These propensities could have arisen only in creatures whose senses failed to grasp the true character of reality for a long time, which entails that such prolonged misperceptions were causally necessary for the development of our cognitive traits. Nietzsche further remarks that “every high degree of caution in inferring, every skeptical propensity is already a great danger for life. No living beings would be preserved if the contrary propensity had not been bred (angezüchtet) with extraordinary strength – the propensity rather to affirm than suspend judgment, rather to err and invent than wait”. This counterfactual claim also has a modal strength that goes beyond what we can empirically observe, since it envisages the nonactual effects (namely, the extinction of living beings) that would follow if an actually effective cause (namely, the disposition to judge rashly and incautiously) failed to be effective. It is hard to see how any constructive naturalistic account can do without positing natural causes that are sufficient to produce (and can therefore be cited in naturalistic explanations of) certain outcomes, and that operate only under certain necessary conditions. If such accounts imply that our modally rich causal beliefs are unreasonable, they seem to be pulling the rug from under their own feet.33 Kant would thus hold that Nietzsche here ends up in 33 For Leiter, “causation, and causal explanation, is central to Nietzsche’s naturalism” (2015:255). He identifies many passages and contexts (beside the ones I noted) where Nietzsche seems to rely on causal claims. However, Leiter does not reconcile this with Nietzsche’s prevailing view that the representation of causation (just like that of substance, etc.) is merely “invented” by the human mind, that “one should use ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ only as…conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and communication – not for explanation” (BGE I §21; cf. GS III §112). Sometimes it seems that Leiter wants to treat this as a mere relic of Nietzsche’s earlier “NeoKantian skepticism about causation” that Nietzsche allegedly abandoned in his mature works (Leiter 2015:18, 254-255). But Nietzsche still includes causation among other subjective fictions such as substance, unity, identity etc. in the Twilight of Idols (‘Reason in Philosophy’ §5), which supposedly (on Leiter’s and Clark’s reading) manifests Nietzsche’s turn towards a non-skeptical empiricism. Sometimes Leiter seems to be flirting with the idea that Nietzsche, like (allegedly) Hume, accepts an empiricist regularity notion of causation as mere constant conjunction and denies rational justification only to the stronger notion of causal necessity

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the same boat as Hume, whose natural science of the mind makes modally strong causal claims that undermine the rational basis of his own causal beliefs: Hume posits non-rational associative customs which “carry” the mind to form certain causal expectations under certain conditions (such as repeated observation of the same sequence of event-types) so that a causal “belief is the necessary”, “unavoidable” “result of placing the mind in such circumstances” (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section V §38). For Kant, since the modally rich concept of causality cannot be legitimately drawn from sense-experience it “must either be grounded in the understanding completely a priori or else be entirely surrendered as a mere figment of the brain” (A91/B123-124). This surrendering occurs in naturalistic genealogies which trace this concept to subjective, non-rational mechanisms that force upon us beliefs in the existence of objectively real causal relations. “To substitute subjective necessity, that is, custom, for objective (necessity), which exists only in a priori judgements, is to deny to reason the power of judging about the object, i.e., of cognizing it” (KpV, 5:11). But naturalists also rely upon their power of judging about objects when they theorize that non-rational causal mechanisms produce our cognitive output (only) under certain conditions. In proposing such theories, they assume that their own causal judgments have an objectively rational basis. For Kant, naturalists like Nietzsche or Hume presuppose the a priori cognitive resources of our intellect (such as the category of ‘causality’) when they argue that our intellect is incapable of a priori rational cognition; hence, they incoherently seek “to prove by reason that there is no reason”.34 It is not so obvious that Kant’s rejoinder also addresses Nietzsche’s first objection, the circularity argument, since this argument does not rely on naturalistic causal claims about how human cognition operates. Perhaps Kant’s rejoinder might be adapted to the circularity argument as follows. According to this argument, Kant’s project to determine our cognitive capabilities and limitations moves in a vicious circle since it already presupposes the controversial claim that our intellect can determine its cognitive capabilities and limitations. Kant might try to turn the tables (Leiter 2015:8-9, 257). But Nietzsche stresses that the appeal to observed regular successions fails to provide genuine causal explanations (GS III §112). Moreover, as we saw, there are many passages where he uses the modally stronger notion. 34 Clark and Dudrick 2012 argue that Nietzsche accepts the considerations revealing the need for a priori concepts (which, they claim, he found in the work of Afrikan Spir) and abandons naturalism on this basis. I cannot engage with this reading here, but it is worth noting that it flies in the face of much textual evidence (some of which I cite above); hence Clark and Dudrick present their reading as capturing the allegedly “esoteric” message of Nietzsche’s works.

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against Nietzsche: he might say that Nietzsche’s circularity argument is itself circular (involves the incoherent strategy “to prove by reason that there is no reason”) because it employs the faculty of reason in order to raise a rationally compelling doubt about the viability of the Kantian project. In this argument, Nietzsche invokes an a priori standard which governs what we are rationally entitled to believe: namely, a formal standard of coherence prescribing that we must not assume the very claim that we set out to prove. For Kant, this shows that no rational process of doubting, critique, or argumentation can get off the ground without placing a robust methodological trust in our basic rational capacities and the cognitive norms that arise from these capacities, a trust which also provides the legitimate starting point for epistemic rational self-critique. As O’Neill suggests, the problem with skeptical attempts to question the authority of reason is that the act of “intelligible questioning presumes the very authority it seeks to question”.35 Nietzsche might respond that this Kantian reaction to his circularity argument does not truly establish the Kantian project to be non-circular: it does not positively restore the coherence of already trusting the pure intellect’s power of self-reflection when trying to determine the intellect’s capacities and limits. The Kantian rejoinder only attacks the coherence of Nietzsche’s attempt to undermine this trust by relying on intellectual-logical standards of coherence. This seems to yield a stalemate rather than a decisive advantage for the Kantian view, although Kantians might seek to interpret this stalemate as a victory, or at least as sufficient for their intents and purposes. Nietzsche might try to break this stalemate by arguing that his presupposition is much less ambitious than the Kantian one: while his circularity argument indeed presupposes our intellectual capacity to employ valid logical norms, this is not nearly as controversial as assuming that reason has the much stronger intellectual power to determine (with certainty and systematic completeness) the entire scope of its cognitive capabilities and limitations. To see that the cognitive power of assessment required by Kant’s project goes beyond the capacity for logically valid thinking, consider Kant’s ambition to have reason adjudicate over synthetic a priori judgments 35 O’Neill 1989:42. There is much I agree with in her pioneering account of how Kant conceives reason’s self-reflexive vindication in non-solipsistic terms, as a public act. But I do not accept her idea that rational self-vindication is antifoundationalist, a reflective process where we initially lack “any way of judging what reason is” (1989:9), which has a “recursive” character that always allows for questioning previous assumptions and precludes definite answers (1989:21). Here O’Neill underestimates the extent to which for Kant all rational activities (including constructive planning procedures) are governed by foundational, certain principles of pure reason.

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where the question of justifiability or truth cannot be settled by appeal to merely logical standards such as coherence (which might suffice to vindicate analytic judgments). However, Nietzsche may no longer be entitled to this response if he combines it with his naturalistic view that even logical rules (like coherence) spring from falsifying pragmatic instincts. It may thus be sufficient for Kant’s purposes that he has a strong point against Nietzsche’s naturalistic view of human cognition: this view both employs and yet purports to undermine central intellectual standards, both standards of formal logic and extra-logical rules such those governing legitimate causal reasoning. Since this naturalistic view is a core aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy, Kant’s rejoinder raises a crucial issue for Nietzsche’s attempts to undermine the Kantian methodological framework.

IV. Nietzsche’s Demotion of Reason, Truth, and Knowledge Should Nietzsche concede that in light of Kant’s rejoinder, he must withdraw his objections against the Kantian project of rational self-critique? I will suggest that Kant’s rejoinder may lack genuine force from Nietzsche’s considered point of view, as informed by his deepest philosophical concerns. Here I will draw on an aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy that is a recurrent theme in his thinking from the early 1870s to the late 1880s: his demotion of reason, truth, and knowledge from pinnacles of philosophical achievement to engines of nihilism and pessimism. I will first explain this demotion and then clarify how it bears on the debate between Nietzsche and Kant. Nietzsche’s suspicion about whether the pursuit of truth, rationality, and knowledge is conducive to human flourishing makes a first prominent appearance in the Birth of Tragedy. Here he views the creative tendencies to falsify, feign, and invent, which are most pronounced in aesthetic production and experience, as forces that can replenish our vital energies and that can overcome the life-negating attitudes which arise from knowing the true character of reality. Art “wants to convince us of the eternal lust and delight of existence” (80); the “drive which calls art into being…seduces us into continuing to live” (24), whereas “gazing into the inner, terrible depths of nature” (46) leads to Silenus’ “wisdom” that for human beings “the very best thing is…not to be, to be nothing” and “the second best thing…is: to die soon” (23). Thus, “knowledge kills action; action requires one to be shrouded in a veil of illusion” (40). The life-affirming creative powers of humanity were at their height in Homeric Greek culture but began to

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dwindle under the anti-aestheticist, intellectualist influence of Plato and Socrates who championed the unconditional worth of rationality, science, and knowledge: Socratic-rationalistic “dialectic drives music out of tragedy under the lash of its syllogisms” (70). Similarly, in his essay on the dangers of excessive historical knowledge (the 1874 second Untimely Meditation), Nietzsche warns that the quest for “historical verification” destroys “the mood of pious illusion in which alone anything that wants to live can live” and be creative (95); “everything…that possesses life…ceases to live when it is dissected completely, and lives a painful and morbid life when one begins to practice historical dissection upon it” (97). Notably, these excesses of “historical sense” include evolutionary doctrines about the natural history of mankind, which imply “the lack of any cardinal distinction between man and animal – doctrines which I consider true but deadly” (112). He still echoes this sentiment thirteen years later in the Genealogy of Morals when he remarks that “all science… is nowadays seeking to talk man out of his former self-respect as though this were nothing but a bizarre piece of self-conceit” and implies that this does not “work against the ascetic ideal”, the overarching life-negating, pessimistic evaluative standard that has been governing humanity for centuries and with which modern science has formed a nihilistic alliance (GM III §25). In the late 1870s Human All Too Human, Nietzsche also argues that objective knowledge is life-undermining – “the tree of knowledge is not that of life” (HAH 3 § 109) – since “the illogical is necessary for human beings” (HAH 1 §31). He returns to this point in the late (1887) addition to the Gay Science when he suggests that insofar as organic life requires “semblance, i.e., error, deception, simulation, blinding, self-blinding”, the “will to truth” might be hostile to our organic life-conditions: “Will to truth – that could be a hidden will to death” (GS V §344). Accordingly, he urges us to regard the value of a theoretical judgment or a moral command as independent from its truth, just like the value of a medication for a person is “completely independent” of whether the person has true or false medical beliefs (GS V §345) – consider here the salutary placebo effect. Beyond Good and Evil again raises “the problem regarding the value of truth” and of the will to truth (BGE I §1). Nietzsche now explicitly denies that truth has the unconditional value which philosophers typically ascribe to it: since we are “conceding untruth as a life-condition”, “the falseness of a judgment is for us not yet an objection against a judgment…the question is to what extent” the judgment “is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-cultivating” (BGR 1 §4). In the Genealogy of Morals, he argues that in our modern condition we face “a new problem: that

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concerning the value of truth” (GM III §24). This problem is ignored by modern science whose foundation is its “overestimation of truth”, the olden metaphysical “faith” that truth cannot be assessed or criticized (GM III §25). Accordingly, he praises those ultimate free spirits who are open-minded enough to question whether and to what extent one should really want to seek knowledge and truth (GM III §24). Nietzsche’s concerns here relate both to the content of the propositions that are (supposedly) known as true and to the psychological mode or spirit of knowledge – and truth-seeking. Regarding the former issue, Nietzsche’s views on why the relevant truths are life-undermining shift over time. In early writings such as the Birth of Tragedy, he is still inspired by Schopenhauerian pessimism: he traces our deepest yet most unbearable knowledge to the insight that our sense of individual personhood is an illusion since an undifferentiated, insatiable, purposelessly striving will constitutes the essence of reality. When he discards this metaphysical worldview in Human All Too Human, he takes the knowledge poisoning the tree of life to disclose that the beliefs which our species needs to survive are unreasonable. This includes the beliefs in logic, substances, causes, generic and diachronic identities, free will, and moral objectivity. This point persists in his later writings, but here Nietzsche specifies more clearly the dire consequences of the knowledge that our most fundamental theoretical and practical attitudes ultimately spring from non-rational, immoral origins: this genealogical knowledge contributes to the realization that our basic epistemic and moral goals are vain and unsatisfiable in this world.36 This realization, in turn, leads to the nihilistic-pessimistic view that our lives and the world we live in have no real point or value. Regarding the spirit of knowledge – and truth-seeking, Nietzsche argues that a commitment to be objective at any cost and to value knowledge and truth unconditionally for their own sake conflicts with the basic needs of organic human life which seeks interpretation, invention, and simplification, strong action-carrying conviction rather than a cautious, scrupulous, or skeptical suspension of full belief. Since “the cultivation of the scientific spirit” requires that one permits “oneself no more convictions” (GS V §344) and demands that we resist or even eradicate our natural needs for subjective interpretation, invention, simplification etc., Nietzsche deems this scientific spirit deeply unnatural, ascetic, and hostile to our vital life forces: it “expresses the asceticism of virtue, quite as efficiently as does any repudiation of the

36

On the central role this realization plays in Nietzsche’s conception of modern pessimism and nihilism “as despair”, see the helpful discussion in Reginster 2006:21-49.

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senses (it is at bottom only a modus of that repudiation)” (GM III §24). Accordingly, the scientific mindset, like all the other manifestations of the ascetic ideal (such as Christian faith or Buddhist practices) presupposes, indeed derives from “a certain impoverishment of life”: a weakened, exhausted, dispassionate psycho-physiological condition where “the affects have become cool” and where one puts “the dialectic in place of the instinct” (GM III §25). The latter remark signals the revival in Nietzsche’s later works of a contrast which was already a centerpiece of the Birth of Tragedy, and which he now calls the “entire, genuine antagonism”: art versus science, Homer versus Socrates and Plato, “the will to deception” and fabrication which seeks the beautifying, life-affirming reinterpretation of reality (and which is thereby fundamentally opposed to the nihilistic, life-smearing ascetic ideal) versus the will to truth and objective knowledge (GM III § 25). In Nietzsche’s narrative, the Socratic turn towards consciousness, reason, and dialectic, “the hypertrophy of the logical” (TI, The Problem of Socrates §4), stems from a physiological condition he calls “decadence”. In this condition, the strong, active passions and instincts whose unconscious rule over the human organism once drove our progressive-creative development and enthusiastic life-affirmation have become unhinged, decentered, disorganized, and chaotic. Individually, they lack any internal restraint and seek absolute satisfaction at all costs. Collectively, they have segregated from the cohesive psycho-physical union that constitutes a healthy person; they work fiercely against each other in recurring antagonistic psychophysical processes which sap the decadent organism’s vital forces and thereby create the constant sense of depletion, exhaustion, and feeling overwhelmed that is so characteristic of the modern condition. Hence, decadent persons must regard their most vital passions as enemies: they must fear these life-forces and their unconscious workings, must seek to suppress and (as far as possible) eradicate them via a new tyranny of conscious reasoning. “Rationality was then guessed to be the savior…The fanaticism with which all of Greek thought threw itself on rationality reveals that there was a crisis: people were in danger, they had only option: be destroyed or – be absurdly rational…” (TI, The Problem of Socrates §10). How does this affect the dispute between Nietzsche and Kant? As we saw, Kant argues that anyone who partakes in a truth-oriented thought process must place a robust trust in our purely rational capacities. Thus, for Kant Nietzsche’s objections against the project of rational self-critique fail since they incur a commitment to the cognitive authority and standards of pure reason which they purport to deny or doubt. However, Nietzsche emphatically disavows a preoccupation with rationality, truth, and knowledge:

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in his view, dispositions such as valuing truth over everything else, favoring dialectical procedures of giving and weighing reasons or arguments, and seeking out objective knowledge for its own sake betray a deeply problematic mindset. This mindset results from and manifests an impoverished psycho-physical life form which involves thinned, frigid passions as well as the corresponding loss of any deeper sense of meaning, orientation, and purpose. Due to this loss, we have no real confidence that or why human life is worth living and should continue to be lived when it involves so much suffering, disappointment, loss, and finitude. In particular, we cannot give any satisfying answer to the question of why we should live for the sake of truth and knowledge, or what makes truth and knowledge categorically more valuable than falsehood, (self-)deception, and illusion. In short, for Nietzsche the truth – and reason-oriented mindset that Kant sees as the common ground of all philosophy and science is just one prominent expression of our decadent human condition, a specific incarnation of the dangerous asceticism and nihilism which is characteristic of our decaying modern age. On this basis, he would hold that the Kantian rejoinder has no force against his overall viewpoint. One might object that Nietzsche cannot plausibly avoid the Kantian rejoinder via his demotion of the value of knowledge. To motivate this demotion, Nietzsche assumes that we can know certain “terrible” truths (Ecce Homo, Why I am a Destiny §1) about our existence. Here he seems to be abandoning the skepticism about the possibility of knowledge that fueled his initial objections against the Kantian enterprise. But this objection overlooks two crucial points. First, the cognitive skepticism Nietzsche endorsed after the Birth of Tragedy and his associated severe doubts about our capacity to know the true character of reality (partly) constitute the “terrible” truth (Ecce Home, Why I am a Destiny §1) of our condition: this terrible truth includes the recognition that modern humans laboring under the will to truth seem incapable of realizing their most important (namely, epistemic) aims. Thus, Nietzsche’s demotion of the value of truth and knowledge incorporates rather than replaces his skepticism about the possibility of (certain kinds of) knowledge. Second, Nietzsche’s project of demoting the value of knowledge does not strictly need to assume actual knowledge: this project may proceed just by raising the very uncomfortable suspicion that the relevant “terrible” ideas might be true. Moreover, as we saw, his demotion is motivated not just by his appeal to the known terrible content of certain propositions, but also and crucially by worries about the (dispassionate, depersonalized, emaciated) mindset of those who labor under the will to truth and knowledge.

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One might insist that Nietzsche’s strategy does not effectively address Kant’s reply to his initial objections. Kantians might argue that if Nietzsche counters this reply by demoting the value of rationality, truth, and knowledge, then his initial objections against their project lose their force: if Nietzsche abandons the game of rational argumentation, truth – and knowledge-seeking, then he cannot take his ruminations about circularity and naturalistically determined cognition to yield arguments that expose rational flaws in the Kantian project. And, if Nietzsche’s objections are not intended as arguments which occur within a rational debate between participants who share a commitment to objective truth and knowledge, then these objections cannot undermine the rational credentials of the Kantian project. They fail to provide good reasons for denying that we can successfully conduct epistemic self-critique. This dismissal of Nietzsche’s position would be too quick. Nietzsche does not himself abandon, or propose that others should abandon, truth – and knowledge-seeking altogether. He denies only that truth and knowledge are to be viewed as absolutely, intrinsically (rather than instrumentally) valuable and, as such, must always be pursued unconditionally at all costs. What he deems problematic is not the pursuit of truth and knowledge per se but, rather, a mindset where adopting a maximally objective, dispassionate stance of truth – and knowledge-seeking has become the ultima ratio, a second (or third) nature. Hence, Nietzsche can take his objections against the Kantian project to function as reasons that disclose rational flaws in this project, without thereby conceding that rational standards of argumentation, truth – and knowledge-seeking have absolute authority. For instance, he can offer his circularity argument as a reason against the intellectual cogency of the Kantian project while also denying that rational standards of noncircularity or coherence have supreme authority over, or impose ultimately decisive constraints upon, our projects and attitudes. “The price of fertility” (i.e., of life-affirming creativity and inventiveness) “is to be rich in contradictions” (TI, Morality as Anti-Naturalness §3). One might still protest: if Nietzsche admits that the rational standards which he uses in his arguments against the Kantian project are not ultimately decisive or authoritative, must he not also concede that his arguments cannot decisively tell against the Kantian project? Does it not, then, follow after all that Kantians are free to dismiss these arguments as irrelevant? But Nietzsche’s point is that the relevant rational standards and arguments are ultimately decisive in his interlocutors’ eyes – given their commitment to the unconditional value of rationality, objectivity, truth and knowledge, Kantians must regard the circularity or incoherence of their quest for epistemic self-cognition as a decisive problem. This, Nietzsche might hold,

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is sufficient to break in his favor the dialectic stalemate over the circularity argument that arises when the two sides of the debate accuse each other of incoherence (cf. II.1). This reveals an important characteristic of Nietzsche’s philosophical style: he frequently shifts between various perspectives or contexts relative to which certain questions, problems, or arguments have a force that they might lack in other contexts, relative to other viewpoints that involve different commitments. In particular, he sometimes adopts or simulates the standpoint of those who are absolutely committed to truth – and knowledgeseeking. This is an easy thing for him to do: he knows the allure and pitfalls of this standpoint inside out since it used to be his own perspective.37 We can understand his post-will to truth strategy in raising objections like the circularity argument as a way of engaging with those who are still fully in the grip of the will to truth: Nietzsche addresses truth – and knowledgefanatics, “these last idealists of cognition” (GMS III §24), on their own ground and in their own terms, through rational considerations that they must take seriously given their absolute deference to standards of intellectual rigor. Through arguments that undermine their cognitive pursuits by suggesting that these pursuits are flawed even relative to their 37 Nietzsche arguably exemplified the absolute will to truth when he had internalized the rigorous standards of classical philology, and especially during the transitional, starkly ‘positivistic’, even anti-aestheticist period of the late 1870s and early 1880s, after he had severed his ties with the romantically enraptured Wagner-Schopenhauer worldview. This is a plausible reference point for his remark in GMS III §24 that “I know this” (i.e., the “heroic” commitment to truth and “intellectual cleanliness” to be found in “pale atheists, antichrists, immoralists, nihilists”) “perhaps too far at close range”. Kaufman (2000:587) argues that this mindset “seems remote from Nietzsche’s own spirit”. This may be correct with regards to the late 1880s Nietzsche, but Nietzsche’s late 1870s/early 1880s spirit can plausibly be seen as committed to intellectual cleanliness and a heroic cognitive asceticism that prefers truth over life-preserving (e.g., Wagnerian) illusion. One might suggest that Nietzsche’s remark (“I know this….too far at close range”) refers not to himself but to his former circle of philological scholars. But Nietzsche would not credit these scholars with heroic cognitive idealism: he would not count them among those “rare, noble, and atypical cases” where people strive for truth and knowledge from the genuine will for truth qua “passion, love and ardor” for objective truth and knowledge (GMS III §23). For Nietzsche, these scholars characteristically lack “a goal, a will, an ideal, passion of the great faith” and instead “exhibit “unreflective diligence, heads smoking night and day” (GMS III §23). They are engaged in “mechanical activity” aimed at suppressing their deep-seated discontent. This is compatible with the further plausible supposition that most of these scholars (just like academic philosophers) are driven by “a host of little, very human impulses” such as “the motive of breadwinning” or “vanity” (Schopenhauer as Educator §6).

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internal intellectual standards, such as the logical norm of coherence, he seeks (among other things) to gradually alienate them from these pursuits and to change their present commitments: namely, to unsettle their cognitive idealism, to shatter their mindset of seeking objective truth and knowledge above all else. He intends to sway these idealists of cognition – which, he suspects, form a considerable portion of his readership38 – towards a realignment of their priorities, an intellectual reorientation. This reorientation might involve gradually breaking away from their (stifling, ascetic) obsession with critical self-scrutiny and “intellectual cleanliness” (GMS III §24), instead focusing their remaining or replenished energies on healthier, more important aspirations. It is less clear how this strategy bears on Nietzsche’s naturalistic objection to the Kantian project. According to the Kantian response examined in section 3, this objection fails because it is based upon a naturalistic theory of human cognition which purports to undermine and yet employs the a priori rational-cognitive standards that the Kantian pursuit of rational self-critique also takes for granted. Whether and how Nietzsche can hold on to his naturalistic demotion of our higher intellectual faculties and categorial concepts despite the fact that his naturalistic account seems to employ those faculties and concepts (such as ‘causality’) is, in my estimation, one of the hardest questions about Nietzsche’s philosophy. I cannot fruitfully pursue this question here. But even if it turns out that Nietzsche’s naturalistic account is self-undermining (in the way suggested in section 3), there might still be a way for him to use this account as an argumentative resource in his second, naturalistic objection to the Kantian project. Nietzsche might conceive his overall stance roughly as follows. Due to his demotion of the value of truth, knowledge, and rationality, he need not, at the end of day, really care about whether his naturalistic claims about human cognition are rationally defensible as objective-knowledge claims. When he raises his naturalistic objection, he is (if only temporarily) adopting the perspective of those who accept that one must not make any 38

Given his aforementioned point that Kant’s pursuit of allegedly rational selfcritique is driven by personal (religious-moral) interests rather than by an unbiased commitment to objective truth, Nietzsche might deny that Kant is really at bottom a pure “idealist of cognition” or truly committed to “intellectual cleanliness” (cf. Clark 1990:175). But this does not change the fact that he would expect among his readers many Kantians, or thinkers inspired by Kant, who exhibit more intellectual cleanliness than Kant did and who have taken Kant’s professed commitment to dispassionate rational self-scrutiny to the next ascetic level (cf. Clark 1990:237239).

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assertions unless they are rationally defensible as claims to objective knowledge and truth. This includes Kantian thinkers who sincerely engage in rational self-critique. Nietzsche can insist that from within this perspective, one must concede that his naturalistic argument undermines the project of rational self-critique. This is because the naturalistic view of human cognition shows that our conscious reasoning lacks the sort of intellectual autonomy (qua independence from subjective, non-rational drives) which one must attribute to oneself when one seeks to establish unbiased claims about our cognitive powers and limits. Suppose: (I) The debunking naturalistic view of human cognition is based on strong empirical evidence (e.g., it is backed by recent findings in evolutionary biology or cognitive psychology39), and it makes valid use of intellectual (e.g., logical and categorial) concepts and forms of inference that must be used in any scientific theory. (II) The naturalistic theory undermines the objective rational validity of those intellectual concepts and forms of inference. The conjunction of (I)-(II) creates a bad quandary for those who seek rational, objectively true beliefs about human (self-)cognition. But it does not necessarily yield a problematic predicament for Nietzsche or anyone else who is ready to abandon the ascetic-nihilistic will to objective truth, knowledge, and rational defensibility as the ultimate arbiter of what attitudes we should adopt about ourselves and the world. One might raise a further worry about Nietzsche’s view. Crucial to this view (as I have reconstructed it) is the point that the (e.g., Kantian) commitment to critical (self-)scrutiny, objectivity, and truth ultimately leads to a deep-seated weariness and disgust with life. But, one might argue, for this point to have any force Nietzsche must present it as a good reason for abandoning the (unconditional) will to truth, which requires him to make a claim to normative-practical knowledge. Thus, he accepts after all the (e.g., Kantian) commitment to practical knowledge and truth which he allegedly seeks to undermine.

39

Note here Darwin’s “horrid doubt” about “whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy” (F. Darwin 1887: 1:315-316). In more recent evolutionary-based cognitive psychology, claims similar to Nietzsche’s naturalistic views on human cognition can be found in Stich 1990 and in Churchland: “The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive…Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost…a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival” (Churchland 1987:543).

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However, this worry can be defused by noting that Nietzsche’s practical prescriptions make sense, within his framework, even though or better precisely because they do not aspire to the kind of objective, universal normative-practical knowledge which he thinks we should stop pursuing. I cannot examine here precisely what kind of status Nietzsche might assign to his own value claims or normative-practical prescriptions while abandoning their claim to objective-universal validity.40 But it is worth noting that Nietzsche deliberately addresses a select audience of people who, he thinks, either already to some extent share or at least are prone to be made to share his concerns about modern self-disgust and nihilism, and who thus have the requisite psychological proclivities and sensibilities to care about strategies for avoiding (or overcoming) this nihilism. The fact that Nietzsche’s claims about what there is good reason (not) to do are subjective or relative to the presence of certain sensibilities does not render his practical judgments pointless, irrelevant, or less than ‘genuine.’ Quite the contrary: the subjectivity and relativity of Nietzsche’s own valuepronouncements is completely of a piece with his view that his envisaged “philosophers of the future”, while still attached to “their truths”, “will certainly not be dogmatists” or universalists of the Kantian type precisely because that would be “contrary to their pride and…taste”: an integral feature of their “noble” concerns and aspirations is that these are designed to engage only a select minority of creative spirits, are thus not meant to be shared by everyone (BGE II, §43).

V. Conclusion A centerpiece of Kant’s mature philosophy is the idea that before trying to cognize truths about external (especially transcendent) objects, human reason must first engage in an internal self-critique which sets fixed, nonarbitrary boundaries for human cognition by determining in a principled manner, with objective certainty, which sorts of truth we can and cannot know. This paper has examined how Kant’s approach fares in light of Nietzsche’s claim that the Kantian project is misguided. I suggested that Nietzsche raises two separate objections: first, he argues that the Kantian approach is viciously circular; second, he argues on naturalistic grounds that we lack the cognitive powers for purely rational self-critique which the Kantian project presupposes. I showed that Kant can give a powerful rejoinder by arguing that Nietzsche’s objections themselves presuppose the 40 For discussion of this issue (and possible options for Nietzsche), see, e.g., Huddleston 2014; Hussain 2007; Reginster 2006.

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cognitive powers and authority of pure reason. I then brought out a further complication: Nietzsche does not condone the “ascetic” mindset that values “intellectual cleanliness”, rationality, truth – and knowledge-seeking above all else. This stance may allow Nietzsche to sidestep Kant’s rejoinder because it enables him to remain ultimately agnostic or non-committal about whether the cognitive resources that he employs in his objections are truthapt or conducive to acquiring objective knowledge. There remains, however, a question about whether this stance is consistent with the naturalistic pronouncements that Nietzsche uses against the Kantian view (and more generally in his philosophy, e.g., in his genealogical inquiries); or, if Nietzsche’s overall view here turns out to be inconsistent, whether he might get away with saying that a lack of consistency is simply not a major problem for him (since a concern with consistency betrays an ongoing commitment to ascetic-nihilistic “intellectual cleanliness”). Does Kant or Nietzsche have the final upper hand in this debate? To my mind, this is not the most fruitful question to ask here. Instead, I suggest that the debate I have traced is of central interest in part because it gives vivid expression to two different ways of philosophizing, which reflect different views about what is at stake in philosophical inquiry. For Kant, a properly enlightened philosophy aims to scrutinize both ordinary and philosophical (especially metaphysical) claims to truth and knowledge. Since judgments which lay claim to objective truth demand assent from other judging subjects in a community of rational thinkers, philosophy is at bottom an attempt to assess whether various types of judgments have the kind of universal, intersubjective validity which makes them justifiable to others. This requires that we reflect on the structure and representational contents of our shared cognitive capacities. Through epistemic self-reflection, we can establish what sorts of claims human cognizers can and cannot know to be true or false, and we can also vindicate certain claims that fail to yield objective knowledge: such claims can still be rationally justifiable to others, e.g., as rational faith. For Nietzsche, philosophy should not be conceived primarily as critical reflection on the epistemic credentials of our judgments. He denies that the tribunal of pure universal reason must be accepted as the prime arbiter of our attitudes (beliefs, volitions, etc.), or that philosophers should (continue to) view rational justifiability to others as the fundamental criterion for deeming our attitudes acceptable. For Nietzsche, the olden philosophical preoccupation with truth, knowledge, or rational justifiability to others is (if it ever was) no longer viable, i.e., liveable in our modern human condition after the irredeemable “death of God” and the resulting, ever-increasing threat of nihilism and pessimism that hits modern subjects in a new guise:

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namely, as an ever-growing weariness of and disgust with humanity. In our modern context, the will to truth, rationality, and universal justifiability emerges as a problem, a symptom of rather than a solution to our deepest predicaments. Hence, philosophy cannot rest on its wilting laurels as a stalwart defender of hollow cognitive ideals: philosophers are now charged with the task to create new ideals and values (see, e.g., BGE VI, §210-213). The appeal of these new values rests on their capacity to wake up, enliven, and inspire those select few who still possess inner strength and genius, so that they might devise new forms of life and creative output which make us admire humanity (and thereby escape the threat of nihilism) once again. Due to their inherently selective purpose and character, these values are by design not objectively valid or universally acceptable for every ‘rational’ subject. The extent to which one is inclined to side with Kant or Nietzsche in this debate may hinge on whether one is drawn more to the Kantian or the Nietzschean model of philosophizing. How is one to decide between these two models? Can or should it be a rational decision? Such questions do not get us very far because they just lead us back again to the very dichotomy which they seek to resolve. Kantians will say that we should adopt their model because it is supported by compelling reasons that apply to everyone who engages in a rational debate and who thereby incurs a commitment to the values of universal justifiability, objectivity, and truth, i.e., to regard intersubjectively shareable reasons as the only valid basis for belief and action. Nietzscheans will hold that human thought, including philosophical thought (including Kantian thought bent on justifying moralistic, theistic dogmas), is not based on objective, purely rational considerations; they will add that the continued (unconditional) attachment to the “ascetic” values of universal justifiability, objectivity, and truth is a deep problem that afflicts humanity in its modern depleted, disoriented, pessimistic, and nihilistic condition since “life wants deception, it lives from deception” including self-deception (added Preface to Human, All Too Human §1). Thus, a survey of the dialectic between Kant and Nietzsche seems to reveal that there can be no resolution that would be independent of their respective philosophical framework.41 Hence, I abstain from a verdict about who ‘wins’ the debate over the possibility of rational self-critique. In my view, a more important lesson of this essay is that it reveals one crucial 41 This might be interpreted as support for Nietzsche’s ‘meta-philosophical’ framework, because his perspectivism and his related view that philosophical arguments have or lack weight relative to the desiderative forces of one’s readership explain why the dialectic presented here cannot be resolved in a non-questionbegging manner.

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benefit of engaging with the history of philosophy. Tracing the intricacies, twists, and turns of central debates among great philosophers can make us see what is ultimately at stake for these thinkers, while also allowing or forcing us to confront the question of what our stakes are: what we see as the basic aspiration of our philosophical activity, other than doing what it takes to keep collecting that monthly paycheck, getting closer to the next petty promotion, and satisfying our vanity by racking up publications in ‘top journals’.42

Works Cited Quotations from Kant’s works other than the Critique of Pure Reason cite the volume and page number (AA, Volume:page) of the Academy edition, Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Königlich Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, vols. 1–29 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1902–). Quotations from the Critique of Pure Reason are cited according to the standard A and B pagination. Translations are my own. Quotations from Nietzsche’s published works cite the book numbers and paragraphs of the Kritische Studienausgabe, Eds. G. Colli and M.Montinari. Translations are my own. I have used the following abbreviations: BGE = Beyond Good and Evil; GM = Genealogy of Morals; GS = The Gay Science; HAH = Human, All Too Human; TI = Twilight of Idols. Quotations from Nietzsche’s posthumous fragments cite the ordering and paragraphs used on http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB. Translations are my own. Anderson, Lanier (2005): “Nietzsche on Truth, Illusion, and Redemption.” European Journal of Philosophy 13 (2), pp. 185-225 Beam, Craig (1996): “Hume and Nietzsche: Naturalists, Ethicists, AntiChristians.” Hume-Studies 22, pp. 299-324 Churchland, Patricia (1987): “Epistemology in The Age of Neuroscience.” Journal of Philosophy 84, pp. 546-583 Clark, Maudemarie (1990): Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy. Cambridge University Press

42 A version of this paper was presented at the NAKS Southern Study Group at UNC Wilmington in April 2022. I am grateful to the audience for stimulating questions and comments, and especially to Olga Lenczewska for organizing a wonderful conference. For very helpful feedback on earlier drafts, I am indebted to Stephanie Basakis, Phil Bold, and Bernard Reginster.

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Clark, Maudemarie and Dudrick, David (2012): The Soul of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Cambridge University Press Danto, Arthur (1980): Nietzsche as a Philosopher. 2nd edition. Columbia University Press Darwin, Francis (1887): The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. Volume 1. John Murray Engstrom, Stephen (1994): “The Transcendental Deduction and Skepticism.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 32, pp. 359-80 Huddleston, Andrew (2014): “Nietzsche’s Meta-Axiology: Against the Skeptical Readings,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 22 (2), pp. 322-342 Hussain, Nadeem (2007): “Honest Illusion: Valuing for Nietzsche’s Free Spirits”. Nietzsche and Morality, B. Leiter, N. Sinhababu (eds.), pp. 15791. Oxford University Press Kail, Peter (2009): Nietzsche and Hume: Naturalism and Explanation.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 37 (1), pp. 5-22 Kaufmann, Walter (2000): Basic Writings of Nietzsche. The Modern Library Korsgaard, Christine (1996): The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge University Press Kuehn, Manfred (2001): Kant. A Biography. Cambridge University Press Leiter, Brian (2015): Nietzsche on Morality (2nd edition). Routledge O'Neill, Onora (1989): Constructions of Reason. Cambridge University Press. Reginster, Bernard (2009): The Affirmation of Life: Nietzsche on Overcoming Nihilism. Harvard University Press Richardson, John (1996): Nietzsche’s System. Oxford University Press Stich, Stephen (1990): The Fragmentation of Reason: Preface to a Pragmatic Theory of Cognitive Evaluation. MIT Press

CONTRIBUTORS

Ian Blecher teaches philosophy at Hunter College in New York City. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013. His philosophical work has focused mainly on Kant's theoretical philosophy. He also has an interest in ancient and Hellenistic philosophy. Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, O.P. is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America, having completed his doctorate in 2023 on Christian August Crusius’s influence in Kant’s critical philosophy. His research interests are Crusius and Crusianism as well as philosophical Pietism more broadly, especially the historical and systematic development of early modern German philosophy through the Pietismusstreit and the two-fold reception of Leibniz’s works. He also holds degrees in theology from Oxford University and the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC. Nicholas Dunn is the Klemens von Klemperer Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, where he teaches in Philosophy, Politics, and the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). He received his PhD from McGill University in 2020. The central theme of his research is the faculty of judgment: its nature as a mental activity and its practical potential. In Kant, he focuses on the metaphysics of mind, ethics, and aesthetics. In Arendt, he focuses on the political dimension of judgment and its relevance for pluralism, democracy, and disagreement. His work has appeared in Kantian Review, Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, and Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory. He is the editor of a forthcoming volume on Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (Berlin: de Gruyter). Martina Favaretto is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Ethics at the University of Toronto. She received her PhD from Indiana University, and her M.A and B.A from the University of Pavia in Italy. Martina specializes in ethics and in the history of ethics, with a special focus on Kant's ethics.

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Contributors

Noam Hoffer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His work focuses mainly on Kant’s rational theology and related issues in theoretical philosophy, philosophy of science and the history of early modern philosophy. His current research project ‘Kant’s regulative metaphysics’ builds on prior work to offer normexpressivist account of the significance of regulative ideas. He has published in Kantian Review, the Southern Journal of Philosophy, the European Journal of Philosophy and the Journal of the History of Philosophy. He received his Ph.D from Indiana University in 2017. Tim Jankowiak received his PhD at the University of California, San Diego, and is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Towson University in Maryland. His research focuses primarily on Kant's metaphysics and epistemology, with emphasis on Kant's accounts of sensory representation, intentionality, and transcendental idealism. He also has strong interests in contemporary work in the philosophy of mind, especially regarding the nature of sensory perception. His paper in this volume is part of a larger project aimed at understanding the relationship between Kant's accounts of phenomenal character, spatial representation, and the object-directedness of experience. Ted Kinnaman received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He has taught philosophy at George Mason University since 1996. He has published extensively on Kant's aesthetics and on the unity of Kant's critical system, as well as articles on Berkeley, Hume, and Johann Georg Hamann. Markus Kohl studied classics, philosophy and literature in Germany and the UK before obtaining his PhD in philosophy from UC Berkeley in 2012. After spending five years at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, he joined the philosophy department at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2017. His research interests focus on Kant, Nietzsche, existentialism, and the impact philosophical ideas have had on 20th century literature and culture. His book Kant on Freedom and Rational Agency was published in 2023. Nataliya Palatnik is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. Her current research centers on Kant’s practical philosophy, especially on his metaphysics of agency, moral psychology, and theory of rational faith. Some of her recent work also focuses on developing a Kantian account of practical self-consciousness and consciousness of

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others as free moral agents and on better understanding the relationship between constitutive and regulative principles of practical reason. Allen Wood is Ruth Norman Halls Professor at Indiana University and Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor emeritus at Stanford University. He has also held professorships at Cornell University and Yale University and visiting appointments at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, University of California at San Diego, and Oxford University, where he was Isaiah Berlin Visiting Professor in 2005. He has done research at the Freie Universität Berlin and Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Wood is a graduate of Garfield High School, Seattle, Washington; his BA is from Reed College, Portland, Oregon; his MA and PhD from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. He is author of a dozen books, editor or translator of a dozen others. He has written books on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, J. G. Fichte, G.W.F. Hegel, and Karl Marx. He is cogeneral editor of the Cambridge Edition of Kant’s Writings in English translation. Wood is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.