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In this contribution, I respond to articles published in a Topical Issue of Open Philosophy on Kant’s Transcendental Dialectic by Mario Caimi, Gabriele Gava, and Michael Lewin, who criticize some of the views I put forward in my book Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics: The Dialectic of Pure Reason (Cambridge University Press, 2018). In particular, I discuss the “real use” of reason (in response to Caimi), the “regulative use” of principles and ideas of reason (in response to Gava), and Kant’s conception of reason (in response to Lewin).

This paper offers a partial defence of the Epicurean claim that death is not bad for the one who dies. Unlike Epicurus and his present‐day advocates, this defence relies not on a hedonistic or empiricist conception of value but on the concept of 'existential' value. Existential value is agent‐relative value for which it is constitutive that it can be truly self‐ascribed in the first person and present tense. From this definition, it follows that death (post‐mortem non‐existence), while perhaps bad in some respects, cannot be an existential harm for the one who dies. This paper argues that existential goods are central to any explanation of why life appears good to us from a self‐interested perspective, which means that death is not bad in the very respect in which life is most saliently good (from that perspective). A corresponding error theory shows why this truth is easily overlooked and explains why we tend to think that death is significantly worse than it really is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We are grateful to Stefanie Grüne and Andrew Chignell for their thoughtful commentaries on our paper. Both focus their remarks on the issue of ‘givenness,’ which could seem like a relatively narrow topic within the much broader subject matter of cognition that we have attempted to describe in our paper. However, we think that givenness, properly understood, plays an important role in Kant’s account of cognition, since it is central to both of the conditions that Kant places on cognition (which we call the ‘givenness condition’ and the ‘thought condition’). In particular, we maintain that givenness is an independent condition on cognition, one that has a meaning and function distinct from what it contributes to the thought condition. Full consideration of the givenness condition allows one to see more clearly how it gives expression to one of Kant’s most fundamental concerns in the first Critique. For, in our view, the primary role of givenness is to help to explain how it is that representations can refer, or fail to refer, to objects in a specific, cognitively significant way, an achievement that Kant is marking with the term ‘cognition.’ To make good on these claims and to substantiate this picture of the broader significance of givenness within Kant’s account of cognition, we address Grüne’s paper first, then Chignell’s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we offer an overview of the basic structure of Kant’s account of cognition, of the conditions on the notion of cognition most central to the first Critique, and how they are satisfied in the case of human beings. Our primary aim in this regard is to provide a comprehensive (albeit not exhaustive) framework for understanding Kant’s account of (theoretical) cognition. In the course of doing so, we argue for various interpretative claims, which, taken together, amount to a novel understanding of Kant’s account of cognition. First, we argue that cognition is a mental state that determines a given object by attributing general features to it. Second, we explain what it means for Kant for an object to be given: givenness in the relevant sense involves an immediate relation to an existing object. These first two claims imply that cognition (Erkenntnis) is distinct from knowledge (Wissen), both in Kant’s sense and in our modern sense. Third, we note some fundamental ambiguities about what sensibility and understanding are, and point out that purely causal interpretations of these faculties are problematic. Fourth, we distinguish between an intuition and an intuitive representation (analogous to the distinction between a concept and a discursive representation) in such a way that an intuition is one specific kind of intuitive representation. Fifth, we describe two different accounts of concepts (‘logical’ and ‘psychological’) and explain how they complement each other (despite their distinctness). Sixth, we diagnose several confusions regarding whether Kant is or is not a non-conceptualist about intuitions (though without attempting a definitive resolution to that debate). Finally, we show how our analysis of cognition clarifies what the most promising lines of argument are for Kant’s claim that we cannot have cognition of the objects of traditional metaphysics (while still allowing for limited kinds of knowledge of things in themselves). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the possibility of applying P. F. Strawson's method in his seminal paper "Freedom and Resentment" (1962) to issues in epistemology. In that paper, Strawson sheds light on our concepts of responsibility and free will by looking at practices in which we employ these concepts not directly-by judging that someone is free or responsible-but rather indirectly by adopting "reactive attitudes" such as resentment and gratitude that presuppose that their targets are free and responsible in relevant respects. In a similar way, we may be able to shed light on the concept of knowledge by looking at aspects of our communicative practice such as assertions and their acceptance. In accepting as true what others assert, the paper argues, we typically attribute knowledge to the asserter. This connection between acceptance and knowledge-attribution can then be used to argue that the concept of knowledge implicitly employed in our communicative practice is externalist in spirit, but also includes internalist elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on the non-derivability of the Universal Principle of Right (UPR) of German philosopher Immanuel Kant from the Categorical Imperative (CI). The author states that according to Kant, UPR connotes the legitimacy of legal coercion that cannot be deduced from the CI. The author also agrees with philosopher Michael Nance that the UPR is stronger than the CI, in which it authorizes people to do things.

Contextualist accounts of free will recently proposed by Hawthorne and Rieber imply that the same action can be both free and unfree (depending on the attributor's context). This paradoxical consequence can be avoided by thinking of contexts not as constituted by arbitrary moves in a conversation, but rather by (relatively stable) social practices (such as the practices of attributing responsibility or of giving scientific explanations). The following two conditions are suggested as each necessary and jointly sufficient for free will: (i) the agent is able to form considered practical judgements and to act accordingly, and (ii) the agent (or some agent-involving event) is the original cause of her actions. A contextualist reformulation of the second condition is developed according to which only contexts in which responsibility is attributed are relevant for the kind of original causation required for free will, which allows for a non-relativist contextualism about free will. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, there has been some discussion about the relationship between Kant's conception of right (the sphere of juridical rights and duties) and his moral theory (with the Categorical Imperative as its fundamental norm). In section 1, I briefly survey some recent contributions to this debate and distinguish between two different questions. First, does Kant's moral theory (as developed in the Groundwork and the Critique of Practical Reason) imply, or validate, a Kantian conception of right (as developed in the first part of the Metaphysics of Morals, the Doctrine of Right)? In other words, is the Categorical Imperative sufficient to show that the fundamental principles of right are normatively valid? Second, does Kant's conception of right presuppose his moral theory? In other words, is the Categorical Imperative necessary to show that the basic principles of right are normatively valid? In this paper, I will be primarily concerned with defending a negative answer to the first of these questions. In section 2, I will discuss Paul Guyer's attempt to vindicate a positive answer to the same question. In section 3, reasons will be given why any attempt to derive Kant's conception of right from the Categorical Imperative must fail because of the analytic connection between right and coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a non-relativist version of contextualism about knowledge. It is argued that a plausible contextualism must take into account three features of our practice of attributing knowledge: (1) knowledge-attributions follow a default-and-challenge pattern; (2) there are preconditions for a belief's enjoying the status of being justified by default (e.g. being orthodox); and (3) for an error-possibility to be a serious challenge, there has to be positive evidence that the possibility might be realized in the given situation. It is argued that standard "semantic" versions of contextualism (e.g. those of Lewis, Cohen, DeRose) fail to take these features into account, which makes them overly hospitable to the sceptic, and that Williams' version of contextualism, although incorporating (1), fails to do justice to (2) and (3). According to the contextualism developed here, although epistemic standards vary with the context, the truth-value of particular knowledge-attributions does not. Contexts here are understood as being constituted by two elements: an epistemic practice (a rule-governed social practice such as a scientific discipline, the law, a craft etc., in which knowledge-claims are evaluated according to specific standards) and the "facts of the matter" (i.e. those facts which, together with the epistemic standards in question, determine which error-possibilities are relevant and thus have to be eliminated for a knowledge-claim to be true). If there are several epistemic practices, and thus several contexts, in which a knowledge-claim can be evaluated, it is the "strictest" practice that counts. In this way, the counterintuitive consequence of other versions of contextualism that the same knowledge-claim can be true in one context, but false in another, can be avoided. At the same time, scepticism can be resisted since even in the "strictest" epistemic practices, error-possibilities become relevant only when backed by positive evidence that they might in fact obtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction to topics discussed within the issue is presented, including an article by Fabian Dorsch on the disjunctivism about perceptual experience developed by Michael G. F. Martin, an article by Matthew Soteriou about genuine perception and another article by John McDowell on disjunctivist theories.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses articles on the difference between Cartesian and Humean scepticism, a disjunctive conception of perceiving, and a criticism of disjuncticism.

A preface to the periodical "Grazer Philosophische Studien" is presented, which was developed from a conference on defeasibility in ethics, epistemiology, law and logic held in Germany in September 2010.

This article calls for papers for the 2010 special issue on disjunctivism of the journal "Philosophical Explorations."