This paper focuses on a single question that highlights some of the most puzzling aspects of Kant’s explanation of the duty of moral self-perfection. What kinds of activity count as striving for purity in one’s disposition to duty, or strength of will? I argue that a dominant strand of Kant’s approach to moral striving does not fit familiar models of striving. I seek to address this problem in a way that avoids the flaws of synchronic and atomistic approaches to moral self-discipline by developing an account of Kantian moral striving as an ongoing contemplative activity complexly engaged with multiple forms of self-knowledge.

I give an argument against nonconceptualist readings of Kant’s First Critique, according to which one can enjoy a Kantian intuition without possessing any concepts, and present an alternative reading. The argument is that nonconceptualist readings are forced to construe the Transcendental Deduction in one of three ways, none of which is acceptable: The Deduction is seen either (i) as inconsistent with the Transcendental Aesthetic; or (ii) as addressing a question of fact rather than a question of legitimacy; or (iii) as articulating a position that Kant himself criticizes as a form of scepticism. Consideration of the third alternative, in particular, shows that a more promising construal of the Deduction must be based on a different interpretation of Kant’s claim that intuitions and concepts constitute two distinct kinds of representation than is assumed by proponents of nonconceptualist readings. I present such an interpretation and outline the alternative reading of the Deduction that results.

In the interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, a textual stalemate between two camps has evolved: two-world interpretations regard things in themselves and appearances as two numerically distinct entities, whereas two-aspect interpretations take this distinction as one between two aspects of the same thing. I try to develop an account which can overcome this dispute. On the one hand, things in themselves are numerically distinct from appearances, but on the other hand, things in themselves can be regarded as they exist in themselves and as they appear. This reveals a mutual entailment of both accounts. Finally, I suggest that this approach most naturally leads to a kind of ‘phenomenalism’, but of a sort not normally attributed to Kant.

There are several senses in which Kant’s moral law is independent of sensibility. This paper is devoted mainly to Kant’s account of ‘physical conditions independence’, or the idea that the moral law can compel us to pursue ends that might be impossible to realize empirically. Since this idea has received little attention from commentators, this paper addresses both its textual basis in Kant’s writings and its overall philosophical viability.

This paper offers an analysis of Kant’s account of the mathematical sublime with reference to his claim that ‘Nature is thus sublime in those of its appearances the intuition of which brings with them the idea of its infinity’ (CJ, 5: 255). In undertaking this analysis I challenge Paul Crowther’s interpretation of this species of aesthetic experience, and I reject his interpretation as not being reflective of Kant’s actual position. I go on to show that the experience of the mathematical sublime is necessarily connected with the progression of the imagination in its move towards the infinite.