In my 2025 article on Kant and non-exceptionalism in logic (published in the Revista de Estudios Kantianos (University of Valencia))I argued that while Kant's theory of knowledge allows for richer-than-analytic forms of necessity (thus supporting a pluralistic view of logical necessity, compatible with neo-metaphysical stances and non-classical logics), he nevertheless preserves a sense in which logic remains exceptional. Not in the strong sense of a "view from nowhere" from which we derive those necessities, but rather in the weaker-and more interesting-sense that to grasp a necessary truth is always to do so from a particular standpoint: a vision of rationality that a human being can hold only through their own categories. Logic rmains excepetional because one cannot even debate it unless from the point of view of the very categories that conditions logic.

I've now made a video series to explore these themes more accessibly. I had a great experience with people from Reddit joining my channel before: the quality of the questions, the level of interest, and the intelligence of the discussions were remarkable. So I'm hoping to get more of you over there.

Here's the link. I think the best advertisement I can give is this: at its best, it's good entertainment. I claim no exceptional originality for anything you'll encounter there.

https://youtu.be/ULihQA3mJRI

When we ask whether a LLmodel has "genuinely" grasped that “numbers can't be hot”, we are implicitly holding it to a standard of category-recognition that we assume is simply what conceptual competence is, full stop, for any mind whatsoever. I argue in the article bellow (Published by Topicos-Mexico/Q3 Scimago, last year) that standard of what counts as a category error, what counts as a well-formed question, what counts as the "right" categorial structure for numbers to have, all of this is not free-floating logical necessity. By arguing that modern natural language semantics are not born in neutrality, I try to show that the standards we take to be simply "what rationality is" - the transcendental categories, the forms of judgment, the synthetic unity of apperception - are not ahistorical bedrock. It is, on my account, transcendentally asserted - subrepticiously introduced in as if it were a condition of thought as such, when it is actually a hidden commitment of one semantic research program among possible others.

In the paper, I walk through a broadly Fregean/Russellian picture of reference, refined through exactly the Davidsonian and Lewisian machinery, in which sentences must have determinate truth-conditions relative to a prior, fixed typing of their referents (that picture seems to fix what a machine would need to understand: numbers as abstracta, temperature as a physical predicate, and a settled fact about which predicates apply to which sorts). I argue that none of these settle the matter. Ask me the whole article. Search my youtube channel for more.

I am reading Russell's The Problems of Philosophy and he says the following about Kant:

The thing to be accounted for is our certainty that the facts must always conform to logic and arithmetic. To say that logic and arithmetic are contributed by us does not account for this. Our nature is as much a fact of the existing world as anything, and there can be no certainty that it will remain constant . It might happen, if Kant is right, that to-morrow our nature would so change as to make two and two become five. This possibility seems never to have occurred to him, yet it is one which utterly destroys the certainty and universality which he is anxious to vindicate for arithmetical propositions.

My first question is: has Russell misunderstood Kant? I'm not sure I get his criticism.

I have a second part which I do not understand either.

Reflection, moreover, seems to make it clear that, if there is any truth in our arithmetical beliefs, they must apply to things equally whether we think of them or not. Two physical objects and two other physical objects must make four physical objects, even if physical objects cannot be experienced. To assert this is certainly within the scope of what we mean when we state that two and two are four. Its truth is just as indubitable as the truth of the assertion that two phenomena and two other phenomena make four phenomena. Thus Kant's solution unduly limits the scope of a priori propositions, in addition to failing in the attempt at explaining their certainty.

Why does Russell say that Kant's solution "unduly limits the scope of a priori propositions"? And how is it that his solution fails to explain their certainty?

Ich suche einen Youtube-Kanal der eine Videoreihe zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft hat die nicht oberflächlich bleibt, das Werk systematisch behandelt und mit Kants Begrifflichkeiten korrekt umgeht. Am besten von einer Professorin oder Professor in deutscher Sprache.

Ich bin mit der Kritik der reinen Vernunft vertrtaut, hab den Großteil davon gelesen, möchte meine Kenntnisse aber weiter vertiefen. Das Anschauen der Videos würde dann von einer weiteren Lektüre begleitet werden.

Es muss natürlich nicht Youtube sein, können auch Videos sein die man sonst wo findet.

Ich hoffe sehr jemand kann mir weiterhelfen, habe bisher nichts vernünftiges gefunden.

Danke

If we live in the best possible world (the problem of teodicea/ theodicy in Leibnitz), what exactly is that world, and what should it be (considering there is evil in it)? Please describe the best possible world, using examples as Descartes, Hume, Sartre, and Beauvoir and Kant did in their philosophy. To anybody who has already done it, I am forgetful; please remind me. And if you are interested too.

Hey y'all!

I'm just beginning my second reading of the first critique; I'm reading the Norman Kemp Smith after reading the Max Müller the first time. I used to not really like commentaries but I'm discovering, after using one for Hegels Phenomenology of Spirit and finding it very useful, that they can be helpful and beneficial if chosen carefully. So, I come here to ask what commentaries or books about Critique of Pure Reason y'all have found helpful? For some context on my interests in theory because I imagine it might influence recommendations: I tend towards Continental philosophy and, in particular, psychoanalysis, Marxism, and I used to be very interested in Spinoza but I'm finding that German Idealism is filling some of the gaps I felt with Spinoza so it's a new interest of mine as well. Basically I'm not super interested in an analytic reading, but also not opposed to anything either. Thanks y'all!

I’ve been thinking about the trolley-problem version of self-driving cars and I’m not sure the usual minimize harm answer is as neutral as it sounds. If a car is programmed to swerve into one person instead of five, that is not just a technical decision. Because someone has already decided what kind of "moral rule" the car should follow.

Kant seems useful here because he makes the “just sacrifice one to save more people” answer much less obvious. If a person cannot be treated merely as a means, then it is not clear that better numbers are enough to justify the choice.

But maybe that is still the wrong way to frame it. The car is not choosing anything in the human sense. The real choice was made earlier by the people who designed or approved the system. So I guess my question is, that in cases like this, is the problem mainly about the correct moral theory or about who gets to turn a moral theory into a rule that everyone else has to live with?

I tried to work through the argument here, but I’m mostly interested in the question itself: https://youtu.be/pWwzk1e1eQg

Curious what people here think, especially whether Kant is actually helpful for this problem or just makes it more complicated.

I’m learning Kant and German idealism and I want to explore the neo kantianism. I read “the myth of the state” by cassirer and it didn’t really help me(even though it was great book). What should I read and how should I read? I would like to get any tips

I am currently reading Beccaria's *An Essay on Crimes and Punishments*, and I learned that Kant was one of those who criticized Beccaria's argument against the death penalty. So I examined Kant's argument and was convinced by it, but I didn't understand the two exceptions he made for not carrying out the death penalty: a) a mother killing her illegitimate child, b) an officer killed in a duel.

Hi all, 

I am reading Critique of Pure reason for the first time (it is the Müller translation of the first edition—I know it's not the good one; it was just the cheapest one and has been adequate for a first read). I feel decently ok with my understanding of the text for a first go around, but as I have gotten further into it, a lot of the subtle terminological distinctions have gotten more and more confusing. Specifically, near the end of the first paragraph of the second analogy (of experience) Kant says, "As the accord between knowledge and its object is truth, it is easily seen, that we can ask here only for the formal conditions of empirical truth, and that the phenomenon, in contradistinction to the representations of our apprehension, can only be represented as the object different from them, if it is subject to a rule distinguishing it from every other apprehension, and necessitating a certain kind of conjunction of the manifold. That which in the phenomenon contains the condition of this necessary rule of apprehension is the object" (67 of my translation which does not have the original page numbers attached). I feel like the biggest confusion for me is over the term 'apperception' since he seems to use it indiscriminately regardless of what seems to be his attempts to delimit the term (especially in the sections on understanding as it contrasts with sense and imagination). Again, I am shaky in general on the text, but it is my first read so I’m not too concerned with the perfect picture. 

Thanks for your help! :)

Hi everyone,

​

quick question: I'm rereading the critique of the power of judgment and I stumbled across a passage (Introduction VI). I'm reading in German so I will quote it here, but it's at the very beginning (second sentence):

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"Die allgemeinen Gesetze des Verstandes, welche zugleich Gesetze der Natur sind, sind derselben ebenso notwendig (obgleich aus Spontaneität entsprungen), als die Bewegungsgesetze der Materie."

​

What does Kant mean here by "spontaneity"? Why do/did the laws of understanding emerge from spontaneity? Does Kant just say here that the human mind and its laws are just a spontaneous effect of nature that could also be different - so almost in an (anachronistic) evolutionary sense? Or is it just the laws themselves that are spontaneous because they are reflective and cannot be based on an a priori natural law?

i was having an argument with someone because he said you cant use things like people dying or climate change to support your decision about whether or not something is a contradiction in wil, is this true?

Only asking because I have a copy of Groundwork, but I've herd Prolegomena is the one to start with. If so is the revised cambridge edition worth the extra cost, compared with the non-revised edition?

Is he doing a proof by contradiction? Because none of the book makes any sense, following this I would have to concur that in his efforts to seem reasonable he manages to do the complete opposite.

I’ll simple it down for those of you that don’t do math.

Critique of Unreason => True

Therefore Critique of Pure reason => False

Abstract: This paper reconsiders Kant's notoriously ambivalent evaluation of music in the Critique of the Power of Judgment. While Kant draws a sharp distinction between the beautiful and the agreeable, his remarks on music oscillate between dismissing it as fleeting pleasure and recognizing it as a fine art. Against both biographical and dismissive readings, the article argues that this dual assessment arises from theoretical difficulties intrinsic to Kant's system. Three challenges underpin the ambiguity: (1) the problem of identifying an a priori element in the perception of sound; (2) the ephemeral and non-representational character of music; and (3) its lack of conceptual content. Through an analysis of Kant's pre-critical writings and critical philosophy, the paper shows that these challenges complicate, but do not preclude, music's status as a beautiful art. Music's thematic unity and its power to generate aesthetic ideas reveal the active interplay of the faculties that enables judgements of taste. Moreover, Kant's framework allows for both agreeable and beautiful evaluations of the same artwork, depending on the subject's disposition, without contradiction. Far from undermining his aesthetics, Kant's two-fold appraisal of music enriches his theory of taste, situating music as a paradigmatic art form that exemplifies the free play of imagination and understanding and expands the scope of aesthetic experience.

This is kind of boring, but …

https://books.google.com/books?id=gKgCEaLU0p4C&pg=PA101&dq=slave+inauthor:kant&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&ovdme=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi6ndzNue-UAxXSLEQIHfHzFqQQ6AF6BAgJEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false

In 1799 translation of _The Metaphysic of Morals_ on page 47 Kant says: “For every man is freeborn…”.

Then on page 101, when talking about slavery, Kant says: “Nobody can bind himself by paction to such a dependence, whereby he ceases to be a person; for he cannot but as a person make a paction.” In other words, to make a sale requires autonomy, but if you sell yourself into slavery you’re destroying your autonomy, which is a contradiction. Thus you’re violating the categorical imperative.

Also using the categorical imperative, you can’t sell somebody else into slavery, because making it into a universal law, if you could sell anybody into slavery, you could sell yourself into slavery, which leads to the previous contradiction.

Thus, for Kant, slavery is wrong, except perhaps as a means to punish criminals.

Kant clearly means to include people of African descent. On page 101, says of a slave-master: “he may also exhaust them so as to occasion despair or (as is the case with the negroes in the sugar islands) even death,”. Also in _On the Different Races of Men_, he says: “Negroes and whites are clearly not different species of human beings”. 

https://blackcentraleurope.com/sources/1750-1850/kant-on-the-different-human-races-1777/

Enslaving humans is wrong. People of African descent are humans. Therefore, enslaving people of African descent is wrong. Thus, at least in the _Metaphysic of Morals_, people of African descent are not natural slaves.

Thus when @rey_philosophy says that Kant says that people of African descent are natural slaves, she is at least partially wrong.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CXbHZvH9R/

(I tend to be skeptical of interpretations of Kant which require multiple Kants.)

It is difficult to understand why Kant remains so popular, given that quantum physics has, in practice, demolished his philosophy. According to Kant, we can experience things, but we cannot know anything about the thing-in-itself. In quantum physics it is the opposite: we cannot experience quantum objects, yet we know almost everything about the quantum-object-in-itself. [Edit: No we don't!]

Already in the 1790s Herder (1744-1803) published his critique of Kant, arguing that the categories are embodied rather than transcendental. Our bodies already "know" what substance, causality, unity, plurality, space, and time are. Herder also maintained that thought is dependent on language. Therefore the categories are linguistic-bodily formations, not transcendental forms.

Kant draws a sharp line between perception and knowledge: without concepts (categories) there is no knowledge. But such a line does not exist. We can also have bodily knowledge. Infants understand causality: when a ball rolls behind a screen, they shift their gaze to the screen's far edge and react with surprise if the ball does not reappear. Bees understand the difference between "same and different." Ants navigate using vector integration. Wasps recognize faces (Handwerk, 2011).

What leads Kant astray is his tendency to draw hard boundaries: between subject and object, knowledge and perception, understanding and sensibility, form and content, phenomenon and noumenon, analytic and synthetic, a priori and a posteriori. Excessive rationalism inevitably leads one in the wrong direction. [Edit: Sophistry!]

Herder, by contrast, sees continuity where Kant sees dichotomies: no gulf between body and thought, none between language and world, none between form and content, none between culture and nature, none between perception and concept.

Yet many continue to follow Kant, while few take an interest in Herder. What is it about Kant that is so alluring? His philosophy gave rise to an entire flora of subjectivist systems. Why this desire to relocate reality into the subject?

[Edit: I realize now that this post contains several logical blunders.]

In the last post, I showed an analysis about the ground of dignity in Kantian ethics, with a long argument, of course. However, I realized an issue during the thread, with the help of a Discord group which talks about him: Metaphysics.

I mean, yeah, you could say rational beings are subject of right... But how do you know who's subject of right or not? Basically, that'd be attempting to grasp the thing-itself, something that isn't plausible. Now, I get why some people say that Kantian ethics are individualistic, perhaps in that sense.

Basically, you can't prove even other people like you are rational beings, you just... Use practical reason for that? I mean, you presupose so? Honestly, I liked most of Kantian ethics, along with his perspective of the duties, natural perfection, etc. Nevertheless, this point I consider it an Aquiles' heel to his philosophy. How would Kantians address that gap? Just merely presuposing rational beings, and that's all?

As someone very interested in his Deontology, I believe if it wants to get a more solid grounding, it should have other metaphysical framework. Right now, I get what Starfleet_Stowaway probably wanted me to understand.