An Introduction to Kant´s Transcendental Idealism

Thomas Pogge, Columbia University

This course will involve a close reading of selected parts from the B-edition of Kant´s Critique of Pure Reason, in the translation of Kemp Smith. Kant pursues there the questions: “What can we know?” and “How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?” His engagement with these questions leads him to what he calls “transcendental idealism,” a view that, he says, brings about a “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy. Transcendental idealism offers a dramatically new account of how the human mind works and is also radically at odds with received conceptions of space, time, and causality.

1. Preface and Introduction (Bvii-30)

       with passage on hypotheses (B803-810)

2. Space and Time (B33-73, 448-471, 513-555)

3. Intuitions, Concepts, Schemata; Categories; Judgments  (B74-116, 169-193)

4. Transcendental Deduction Part 1 (B116-146)

5. Transcendental Deduction Part 2 (B144-169, 396-406)

6. Idealism One (B294-315, 331-336, 342-346, 518-525, xvi-xxii, xxvi-xxvii, 69-71)

7. Idealism Two  (B274-279, xxxix ff. note, 288-294, 218-233)

8. Second and Third Analogies of Experience (B232-265)

Course book: Immanuel Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason, edited Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood      (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

B: second edition of The Critique of Pure Reason

Kant's Concept of Reason in the First Critique

Garrath Williams, Lancaster University

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781/7) is Kant’s most famous work and sets out his epistemology and metaphysics. The most-read part of the book is Kant’s account of how the structure of human knowledge is constituted – this will be covered in Thomas Pogge’s course on Kant’s transcendental idealism. However, Kant’s overall purpose – as the book’s title suggests –  is to give an account of human reason. This course will focus on Kant’s account of the nature and limits of human reason, using some of Kant’s incidental essays (such as ‘What is Enlightenment?’), the introductory sections of the Critique, and its final sections. We will also briefly consider Kant’s moral theory: Kant is famous for insisting that practical reason can give us knowledge of morality and its supreme principle, the Categorical Imperative; one important question for us will be whether this principle offers a key to reason in all its guises.

1.      ‘What is Enlightenment?’ and ‘What is orientation in thinking?’

2.   Kant’s account of reason in ethics: the Categorical Imperative

2.      Preface to the second (B) edition of the Critique                        Bvii-Bxli 

3.      The Ideal of Pure Reason                                           A567=B595-A642=B670 

4.      Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic              A642=B670-A704-B732

5.      Doctrine of Method: Introduction and Chapter I, Sections I & II A707=B735-A769=B797

6.      Doctrine of Method: Chapter I, Sections III & IV   A769=B797-A794=B822

7.      Doctrine of Method: Chapters II, III & IV                A795=B823-A855-B883

Course book: Immanuel Kant: The Critique of Pure Reason, edited Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood      (Cambridge University Press, 1999).

A: first edition of The Critique of Pure Reason

B: second edition of The Critique of Pure Reason

  Kant’s Ethics  and Kantian Ethics

 Onora O’Neill, Newnham College, Cambridge

These lectures will cover some of the central arguments of Kant’s moral philosophy, in particular those in The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals [G] and The Critique of Practical Reason [CPrR]. The main focus of the course will be on   Kant’s distinctive accounts of reason, freedom and autonomy, and some points of comparison and of contrast with contemporary deontological ethics.

Topics to be covered include: Kant’s theory of action; the role of principles in ethical life; good will and duty; some  problems of Kant’s moral psychology; the Categorical Imperative and the supposed equivalence of its formulations; formalism and rigourism; Kantian conceptions of  right and virtue; critique of reason and practical reason; the intelligible world and the two standpoints; the Postulates of Pure Practical Reason and their connection to Kant's Philosophy of Religion; Kant's extension of his practical philosophy to politics.  

1        Introductory Remarks:  What is Distinctive about Kant's Ethics?

2        Kant's Theory of Action

Begin reading Groundwork and Critique of Practical Reason.   As a first move aim to cover   

G   Part I and CPrR 5:15-5:29. 

3        Practical Principles, Happiness and Duty

Continue  CPrR up to 5:27

4        Imperatives and Universality

G II; CPrR up to 5:42

5        The Formulae, Autonomy and Heteronomy

As for 4

6        Freedom and Reason

G III, CPrR 5:43-109

7        The Highest Good, God and Immortality

CPrR 5:110-148

8        Politics

Course book: Kant. I. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary J. Gregor & Kant, I.: Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Mary J. Gregor, in Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Kant's Aesthetics

Sebastian Gardner, University College London

The course aims to give students in the first place a reasonably detailed and comprehensive

understanding of Kant's aesthetic theory, based on close reading and discussion of the 'Critique of Aesthetic Judgement' which composes Part One of Kant's Critique of Judgement. The following elements will be covered:

·        Kant's analysis of judgements of taste (with reference to the 'Analytic of the Beautiful').

·        Kant's attempt to provide a justification of judgements of taste ('Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements', §§30-42, and 'Dialectic of Aesthetic Judgement').

·        Kant's theory of the sublime ('Analytic of the Sublime').

·        Kant's theory of art ('Deduction of Pure Aesthetic Judgements', §§43-54).

In discussing these sections of Kant's text the course will draw attention to the following topics in particular: (1) the contrast of Kant's aesthetics with the aesthetic theories of his empiricist and rationalist predecessors; (2) the special exegetical difficulties surrounding certain of Kant's claims, and the competing interpretations of Kant offered by anglophone commentators (Henry Allison, Paul Guyer, and others); (3) the disputes among commentators concerning the relation of Kant's aesthetic theory to, on the one hand, his ethics, and on the other, his metaphysics of transcendental idealism; (4) historically important lines of criticism of Kant's aesthetics and the impetus given by Kant's aesthetics to the privileging of art in post-Kantian philosophy.

There will in addition be some discussion of the following further elements in the Critique of Judgement:

·        Kant's theory of teleological judgement and his conception of its relation to aesthetic judgement (with reference to selected passages from the 'Critique of Teleological Judgement').

·        Kant's moral theology ('Critique of Teleological Judgement', §§83-91).

·        Kant's account of the purpose of the Critique of Judgement (selected passages from the Introduction and the First Introduction).

Here the emphasis will be on grasping and evaluating Kant's claims concerning the role of the Critique of Judgement in unifying and completing the Critical system.

Course book: Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, edited and trans. Paul Guyer and trans. Eric Matthews (Cambridge University Press, 2002).