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Mental powers and the soul in Kant’s Subjective Deduction and the Second Paralogism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Steven Tester
Steven Tester*
Affiliation:
Philosophisches Seminar, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany Lichtenberg Kolleg, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Goettingen, Germany
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Kant’s claim in the Subjective Deduction that we have multiple fundamental mental powers appears to be susceptible to some a priori metaphysical arguments made against multiple fundamental mental powers by Christian Wolff who held that these powers would violate the unity of thought and entail that the soul is an extended composite. I argue, however, that in the Second Paralogism and his lectures on metaphysics, Kant provides arguments that overcome these objections by showing that it is possible that a composite could ground the unity of thought, that properties are powers and therefore the soul could possess multiple powers, and the soul is a thing in itself so it cannot be an extended composite. These arguments lend additional support to the attribution of multiple mental powers to us in the Subjective Deduction.

Keywords

KantrationalismGerman PhilosophyWolffsoulmetaphysics
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , June 2016 , pp. 426 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2016

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