It is quite common when explicating the nature of Kant's break with the preceding Early Modern tradition to cite his attitude towards the acquisition and deployment of concepts. It is claimed that Kant sought to distinguish two tasks that had become unfortunately intertwined and conflated — explaining how we come to acquire our concepts on the one hand and showing how we are justified in deploying them in judgement on the other. This conflation can be expressed in terms of a conflation of the natural and the normative, of descriptive and prescriptive questions. The topic of the conditions of concept-possession, i.e. how we have come to possess the concepts that we do, is an entirely psychological inquiry, involving ‘natural’ descriptive inquiries. The topic of concept-deployment, the story about how we use our concepts in veridical judgements about the world, is an entirely philosophical question, since it involves the question of how we ought to deploy those concepts in judgement. The fundamental distinction between the natural and the normative is drawn by Kant, it is claimed, in order to distinguish these two practices of acquisition and deployment.

The manner in which this claim is expressed is through Kant's distinction between the question of fact (quaestio facti) and the question of right (quaestio juris). I want to claim that a proper understanding of this distinction doesn't support this notion of Kant's ‘normative turn’. In fact, the distinction is best understood within an interpretation whereby Kant is understood as continuing to endorse the Early Modern conviction that the provision of a concept's possession-conditions is sufficient to determine that concept's deployment-conditions, and that the task of the Transcendental Deduction is to determine the possession-conditions for the Categories.

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason contains an original and powerful semantics of singular cognitive reference which has important implications for epistemology and for philosophy of science. Here I argue that Kant's semantics directly and strongly supports Newton's Rule 4 of (natural) Philosophy in ways which support Newton's realism about gravitational force. I begin with Newton's Rule 4 of Philosophy and its role in Newton's justification of realism about gravitational force (§II). Next I briefly summarize Kant's semantics of singular cognitive reference (§III). I then show that the key point of Kant's cognitive semantics is embedded in and strongly supports Newton's Rule 4, and that it rules out not only Cartesian physics (per Harper) but also Cartesian, infallibilist presumptions about empirical justification generally (§IV). Finally, I argue that Kant's semantics reveals a key defect in the original version of Bas van Fraassen's anti-realist ‘Constructive Empiricism’, and in many common objections to realism (§V). Fortunately, Kant's semantics of singular cognitive reference stands independently of his Transcendental Idealism; nothing I argue in this paper depends at all upon that doctrine.

In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions. (Newton 1999: 796)

Kant's philosophy is generally known as transcendental philosophy or transcendental idealism, terms often thought to describe the inquiry into the subjective conditions of empirical knowledge carried out in the Critique of Pure Reason. On this conception of transcendental philosophy Kant is seen to pursue a project very different from both Wolffian metaphysics and Hegelian speculative science. This view is confirmed by scholars who compare Kant's conception of transcendental philosophy to the Scholastics' conception of ‘transcendentals’ such as unity, truth, and perfection. On their account, there remains a puzzling gap between, on the one hand, the scholastic conception of the most general determinations of all beings and, on the other hand, Kant's investigation into the conditions of possibility of experience.

In this article I want to challenge this common view of Kant's transcendental philosophy for two reasons. The first reason concerns the question of how the Critique of Pure Reason itself should be read. I take the view that in the first Critique Kant's primary aim is to determine the conditions of synthetic a priori knowledge rather than to identify the a priori conditions of empirical knowledge. Since metaphysics was traditionally considered to be the discipline that possessed a priori knowledge of things, this view makes good sense of Kant's presentation of the Critique of Pure Reason as a work intended to transform metaphysics into a science. In this article I hope to clarify the nature of this transformation by determining the elements which Kant's transcendental philosophy has in common with Wolff's ontology, as well as the respects in which Kant turns against Wolff. I thus hope to solve some of the riddles posed by Kant's use of the term ‘transcendental philosophy’ in the Critique of Pure Reason.

In the Encyclopaedia Logic, Hegel states that ‘philosophy … contains the sceptical as a moment within itself — specifically as the dialectical moment’ (§81, Addition 2), and that ‘scepticism’ as ‘the dialectical moment itself is an essential one in the affirmative Science’ (§78). On the one hand, the connection between scepticism and dialectic is obvious. Hegel claims that scepticism is a problem that cannot be just removed from the philosophical agenda by knock-down anti-sceptical arguments. Scepticism intrinsically belongs to philosophical thinking; that is to say, it plays a constructive role in philosophical thinking. On the other hand, scepticism has to be construed as the view according to which we cannot know whether our beliefs are true, i.e., scepticism plays a destructive role in philosophy no matter what. It is particularly this role that clashes with Hegel's claim of having established a philosophical system of true cognition of the entirety of reality. In the following I argue that for Hegel the constructive and the destructive role of scepticism are reconcilable. I specifically argue that it is dialectic that makes both consistent since scepticism is a constitutive element of dialectic.

In order to show in what sense scepticism is an intrinsic feature of dialectic I begin by sketching Hegel's early view of scepticism specifically with respect to logic and metaphysics. The young Hegel construes logic as a philosophical method of human cognition that inevitably results in ‘sceptical’ consequences in that it illustrates the finiteness of human understanding. By doing so, logic not only nullifies finite understanding but also introduces to metaphysics, i.e., the true philosophical science of the absolute.

Rae Langton (1998) offers a non-idealist interpretation of Kantian things in themselves according to which we have no knowledge of things in themselves – the intrinsic nature of things – just because our epistemic access to things is via their relational, non-intrinsic properties. Whatever the merits of her account as an interpretation of Kant's metaphysics, its plausibility presupposes the coherence of her notion of intrinsic properties. According to the account of intrinsic properties Langton uses, as we will see, there are only intrinsic properties if certain worlds are possible. Allais (2006) attacks one half of the modal intuitions on which Langton relies, but is adequately rebutted by Langton (2006). This paper discusses another, far more radical critique of the other half of the modal intuitions underlying Langton's account of intrinsic properties, intuitions which are also the basis of Langton and Lewis' (1998) account of the same. The account of intrinsicness under fire here depends on the possibility of objects existing alone in worlds in which no other objects (not counting their parts) exist. But according to Hegel's Logik, such worlds are simply not possible. To develop this critique, we cast a broad net by linking Langton (1998) with Lewis (2009) and Langton and Lewis (1998), and then consider (in a necessarily limited fashion) claims from the 1832, Lehre vom Sein in Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik, which we consult in the edition of Hegel (2008). The primary aim of this paper is to offer a clear model of the modal error which Hegel purports to identify, and to show its application to Langton's work.

Perhaps one of the most difficult passages in Hegel's Science of Logic is his treatment of contradiction. If each moment of Hegel's logic is understood to constitute a sort of proof and since contradiction itself is presented as a moment of the logic, then in what sense can one comprehend a proof of contradiction as such? It is difficult to formulate this in any way that does not sound fundamentally incoherent, since it is not just at odds with our ordinary way of thinking but also with the overwhelming majority of the Western philosophical tradition. The basic problem, essentially, is this: if Hegel's logic includes contradiction as one of its moments, then how is Hegel's entire philosophical project not simply incoherent?

In the first part of this article, I will attempt to demonstrate one way in which Hegel's treatment of contradiction could in fact be considered coherent, through a close reading of the relevant passages. In this reading, I will particularly focus on the function of Hegel's dialectical concept of sublation (aufheben), and attempt to show (by example) how analysing Hegel's nuanced use of sublation can help us to work through some of his logic's complexities. The overall purpose here will be to present a systematic (as opposed to historical) exposition of Hegel's concept of contradiction and to illustrate the important role that this concept (as the contradiction of contradiction) plays in Hegel's logical method.

Hegel's empty formalism charge is taken, virtually without exception, as a serious objection to Kant's categorical imperative and a powerful refutation of his formalist ethics. The dominant interpretation is represented by Bradley, Paton, Mill, Korsgaard, Guyer, Wood, Schneewind, Sedgwick, more recently, Freyenhagen, and others. So far, the dominant interpretation has remained powerfully influential and virtually unchallenged.

However, the dominant interpretation tends to take Hegel's empty formalism in isolation from other texts in the corpus, his holistic system, and dialectical method in general. What makes this non-contextualised approach problematic is that it ignores his remarks on formalism in other texts where his use of dialectical and sceptical method is more in evidence. Hegel's emptiness remarks span his entire career, from their appearance in Jena right up to the end of his career in Berlin. In Jena, his views on formal thinking in a logical sense developed alongside his views on formalism in ethics. Prima facie, the arguments bring together two subject matters that seem to have nothing to do with one another. This may explain why no one has given an interpretation that brings the two domains together. But it is worth noting that Kant himself brings logical considerations to bear on his conception of the moral principle. His distinction between the form of a moral principle and its empirical content recalls his characterisation of logical laws in the first Critique (B77-B78/A53-A54).

Like two heavyweight boxers exchanging punches, but neither landing the knock-out blow, Kantians and Hegelians seem to be in a stand-off on what in contemporary parlance is known as the Empty Formalism Objection. Kant's ethics is charged with being merely formal and thereby failing to provide the kind of specific guidance that any defensible ethical system should have the resources to provide. Hegel is often credited with having formulated this objection in its most incisive way, and a wealth of Kantian responses has been deployed to answer it. In this paper, I take up the objection as it appears in §135R of Elements of the Philosophy of Right in order to scrutinise the contemporary debate between the two camps. I propose that there are, in fact, three different, albeit connected objections and examine (what I take to be) the best Kantian replies to them. I will not adjudicate which of these replies is the most accurate interpretation of Kant's texts, nor trace the particular historical context in which Hegel takes up Kant's ethics, nor the way the Empty Formalism Objection fits into Hegel's wider system. This is partly because of constraints of space, and partly because many of the contemporary Kantian replies — for better or for worse — treat the Empty Formalism Objection as a self-standing philosophical problem, irrespective of its historical context or systematic place in Hegel's theory. My limited aim here is to show that, even if one grants — for argument's sake — the legitimacy of such a non-contextual approach, significant difficulties remain.

The topic that I wish to consider is the significance, both systematic and historical, for Kant's system as a whole, of the postulates of pure practical reason, more specifically, of the two theological postulates concerning the existence of God and personal immortality which form the basis of Kant's moral theology. My discussion will focus on the problems of Kant's moral theology in the eyes of his early contemporaries, for whom it constituted a crux in Kant's project. Different views were taken by Kant's contemporaries of what exactly these problems signified regarding the future of Critical philosophy. For the thinkers I will be looking at here, the miscarriage of the moral theology constituted a fatal fault in the Kantian project. For the German Idealists, the moral theology instead provided a vital clue as to how the Kantian system could be transformed into a more radical idealism, while confirming that it needed to be. The role of the practical postulates in the development of German Idealism demands a separate treatment; what I will argue here is simply that the practical postulates do indeed represent a point at which Kant's philosophical system displays a deep and interesting tension, in light of which both historical responses are prima facie intelligible.

This article explores the writings of Ludwig Heinrich Jakob and Johann Benjamin Erhard, two young Kantians who produced original defences of resistance and revolution during the 1790's. Comparing these two neglected philosophers reveals a crucial divergence in the liberal theory of revolution between a perspective that emphasises resistance by the individual and another that emphasises revolution by the nation. The article seeks to contribute to a more nuanced view of the political theory of the German Enlightenment, which has often been presented as excessively obedient to authority.

The historian Charles Ingrao repeated a common perception when, in an article on enlightened absolutism, he speculated that, ‘the German's greater acceptance of authority both then and now may be rooted in their own distinctive national culture’ (Ingrao 1986: 165). This idea of the obedient German has been promoted especially by those who seek cultural explanations for the authoritarian bent of German society in the 20th century (such as Mandt 1974 and Lepenies 2006). But the idea has a longer history. Herder described Germany as the land of obedience, and Kant wrote that, ‘in keeping with their penchant for law and order, they [the Germans] will rather submit to despotic treatment than venture on innovations (especially wilful reforms of government)’ (Kant 1974: AA 7: 318). By ‘wilful reforms of government’ Kant meant revolution. Madame de Staël later observed that Germans ‘join the greatest boldness of thought to the most obedient character’ (Staël Holstein 1813: 35). As Frederick Beiser has shown, this view, which was repeated by Heine and Marx, came to dominate the historiography (Beiser 1992: 7).

Kant's characterisation of judgements of taste, as expressing a disinterested pleasure and as being independent of concepts, defines the framework in which he attempts to justify or ‘deduce’ their claim to universal and necessary validity. In §38 of the Critique of Judgement, the ‘official’ deduction, the problem is to find a balance between the aim of grounding the judgements' validity on their relation to cognition and the danger of collapsing these aesthetic judgements into cognitive ones. Apparently, Kant's intention is to show that even though judgements of taste are not cognitive judgements, they are close enough to the conditions employed in all cognition to legitimize their claim to universal validity. Yet, in §59 of the Dialectic Kant seems to attempt another justification, this time by relating judgements of taste to morality. The problem now is to specify this relation so as to avoid reducing aesthetic to moral judgements. The justificatory projects in §38 and §59 are usually considered to be quite different. My aim in this paper is to clarify the relation between the two projects on the basis of an interpretation of what the pleasurable state of mind consists in, that is, the free harmonious play of the faculties in which everyone ought to share in the presence of beautiful objects. In the light of this interpretation I shall give a reconstruction of the argument of §38 which reveals its connection and contrast with §59.

This article concerns a specific shift in Kant's use of biological concepts in his theory of history. As I argue in the first section, biological concepts play an important role in Kant's early theory of history. However, in the Critique of the Power of Judgement, Kant explicitly separates history from biology: history and biology become fundamentally different forms of teleological explanation. In the second section, I examine Kant's reasons for the separation of history from biology. I conclude with a discussion of the moral implications of this modification in his historical writings.

Kant's main concern in his philosophy of history is the intelligibility of history. How should history be understood, given the fact that it appears to be a mere amalgam of contingent human actions?

The reason why historical facts are so confusing and unsystematic is that human behaviour is not fully determined by any particular factor. It is underdetermined by animal instinct, but it is not completely guided by principles of reason either. To address this randomness, philosophers of history must actively search for coherent structures. They must look for concepts and assumptions that help them to grasp the phenomena in a systematic way. Kant suggests that assuming a predisposition which unfolds throughout history is inevitable in this regard. A predisposition is understood as a natural tendency of the human species, which is initially hidden but manifests itself gradually and continually.

This paper offers an outline of the central issue Hegel is concerned with in his discussion of spirit. The issue is: how can we possibly confirm our basic and comprehensive claims to validity? In the ‘Spirit’ section of the Phenomenology, Hegel focuses on what we nowadays would call ‘thick conceptions’. The corresponding claims to knowledge relate (a) to a general worldview and (b) to the objective norms embedded in this worldview. Furthermore, they also include (c) a claim to self-knowledge, which is correlated to both.

Hegel suggests that if we want to validate these claims we should not look at merely given facts but at the actions performed on the basis of these claims — it's the deed that matters. But in making claims, we are also addressing others. The resulting questions are: How can they possibly recognise the action as a manifestation of the underlying principles? What follows for my self-knowledge if I accept that the judgement of others contributes to what the action really is and thus what it says about me?

The first part of the paper explores the general framework underlying Hegel's discussion of spirit. The second part exemplifies Hegel's conception by referring to different cultural realisations of spirit put forward in the sixth chapter of his Phenomenology: the focus will be on Hegel's interpretation of Sophocles' tragedy, Antigone. In the brief, final part I would like to point to three features of Hegel's account of spirit that I take to be still worthy of consideration.