I argue that Patricia Kitcher's Kant-inspired account of self-consciousness overintellectualizes the requirements for rational cognition. Kitcher claims that a person can only believe something on the ground of another belief if she is able to recognize the grounding belief as grounding the first belief and as one of her own. I criticize this claim by arguing that (i) someone can believe something for a certain reason without recognizing this reason as a reason (the possibility of unreflected reasons), and that (ii) she can recognize something as a reason for something else without being able to self-ascribe either her original belief or the belief that grounds it (the possibility of reflected but not self-conscious reasons).

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant appears to make incompatible claims regarding the unitary natures of what he takes to be our a priori representations of space and time. I argue that these representations are unitary independently of all synthesis and explain how this avoids problems encountered by other positions regarding the Transcendental Deduction and its relation to the Transcendental Aesthetic in that work. Central is the claim that these representations (1) contain, when characterized as intuitions and considered as prior to any affections of sensibility, only an infinitude of merely possible finite spatial and temporal representations, and (2) are representations that are merely transcendental grounds for the possibilities for receiving or generating finite representations in sensibility that are determined (immediately, in the case of reception) by means of syntheses that accord with the categories.

This paper addresses problems associated with the role of the empirical concept of matter in Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, offering an interpretation emphasizing two points consistently neglected in the secondary literature: the distinction between logical and real essence, and Kant's claim that motion must be represented in pure intuition by static geometrical figures. I conclude that special metaphysics cannot achieve its stated and systematically justified goal of discovering the real essence of matter, but that Kant requires this failure for his larger philosophical presentation of the dialectic that ‘irremediably attaches to human reason’ (A298/B354).

The focus of my argument is whether, and in what sense, freedom is ‘revealed’ by the fact of reason in Kant’s second Critique. I examine the passages in which Kant refers to the fact of reason and conclude that he uses the term to refer to our taking morality as authoritative, and to our apprehending the content of the moral law. I then point out how various commentators have claimed each to be the fact of reason. Next I address how each is claimed by Kant to reveal ‘freedom’ to us and argue that our taking morality as authoritative is best understood as referring to our conception of ourselves as autonomous beings, and that our apprehending the moral law’s content reveals only the idea of freedom as a coherent one. Neither would demonstrate that we actually are autonomous, nor would their conjunction, despite what some commentators have claimed. In closing I defend the deflationary position that the fact of reason entitles us to postulate our freedom, but only from the practical point of view, and that it demonstrates that freedom is a coherent idea.

In this article, I argue that Kant’s real reason for rejecting a world state in practice is that a world state would be in greater danger of despotism than individual states. Kant hopes that public participation and self-enlightenment of the people in the public sphere could counter the despotic danger in individual states. However, in a world state, state affairs are too distant from the lives of individuals, making it difficult for individuals to maintain enthusiasm for public discourse and political enlightenment. Moreover, the absence of external competition and the risk of war would eliminate the incentive of the ruler to preserve freedom for the development of industry and commerce and, consequently, for the enlightenment of the people. These defects make it more difficult for a world state to resist despotic danger.

This article contributes to understanding of Contemporary Art and of the temporality of contemporaneity, along with the philosophy of time more generally. I propose a diachronic contemporaneity over time gaps – elective contemporaneity – through examination of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic, the Third Analogy and the concept of ‘following’ among artistic geniuses; diachronic recognition and disjunctive synchronicity discoverable in William Kentridge’s multimedia artworks; as well as non-chronological temporal implications of superimpositions in late Palaeolithic cave art suggesting ‘graphic respect’. Elective contemporaneity shows up complexity in relations to past and present, putting in question definitions of ‘Contemporary Art’ restricted to either chronology or supposedly definitive paradigms.

In this article, I take on a classic objection to Kant’s arguments in the Antinomy of Pure Reason: that the arguments are question-begging, as they draw illicit inferences from claims about representation to claims about reality. While extant attempts to vindicate Kant try to show that he does not make such inferences, I attempt to vindicate Kant’s arguments in a different way: I show that, given Kant’s philosophical backdrop, the inferences in question are not illicit. This is because the transcendental realists that Kant was arguing against have certain philosophical commitments about the nature of ground which, if true, warrant the inferences that Kant draws. This historical corrective not only allows us to better understand Kant’s own thinking in the Antinomies but it also has important upshots for our understanding of Kant’s transcendental idealism.

The history of what we now term international relations theory is as rich and as complex as any area in the history of political thought. Yet in the last few decades one particular type of political philosophy has come to be almost unambiguously associated with liberal international relations theory. The dominance of Kantian cosmopolitanism in contemporary liberal international relations theory is quite remarkable. Its position is challenged, within liberalism, only by the utilitarian cosmopolitanism of thinkers such as Peter Singer and, from outside the liberal tradition, by communitarians such as Michael Walzer or Alasdair MacIntyre. At least, this is how the debate is portrayed in the current literature. In this article I want to suggest that the biggest challenge to Kantian cosmopolitanism comes from within the neo-Kantian tradition.

In an interview with Philippe Nemo, Emmanuel Levinas makes a very revealing comment about what he was trying to accomplish in his ethical philosophy. In response to a question about the ‘starting-point’ of his ethics, Levinas protests: ‘My task does not consist in constructing ethics; I only try to find its meaning … One can without doubt construct an ethics in function of what I have just said [in describing his philosophy up to this point in the interview], but this is not my own theme’ (El 95–9/90).

Kant starts the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by emphasizing the importance of separating the a priori or rational part of moral philosophy from the a posteriori or empirical aspects. Indeed, he reserves the term moral philosophy for the rational part. He writes ‘ethics … the empirical part might be given the special title practical anthropology, the term moral philosophy being properly used to refer just to the rational part’. Throughout his writings in both theoretical and practical philosophy the distinction between what is a priori and what is a posteriori is given paramount importance. We need to separate that which has its source a priori from its application to, for example human beings.

The contemporary discussion of non-conceptual content inaugurated by Gareth Evans and John McDowell has generated a range of differing views as to Kant's position on the issues raised. I argue that for Kant perception is prior to thought and that it is as being prior that perception connects us to reality in outer intuition. I then argue that for Kant thought relates to perception by being the rule for perceptual procedures. This accounts for thought's extending in scope beyond what we actually perceive to all that is manifest in space and time. As against Merleau-Ponty this Kantian understanding of thought beyond perception does not distort the nature of reality which remains essentially that which can be engaged.

In his recent book, The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, Adrian W. Moore takes Kant to play a crucial role in the evolution of modern philosophy; yet, for him, Kant’s metaphysics is ultimately and profoundly unsatisfactory. In this article, I examine several of Moore’s objections and provide replies. My claim is that Moore’s reading points to fundamental issues, yet these are not issues of Kant’s transcendental idealism, but of the traditional idealism his view has often been taken to represent.