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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    We cannot theoretically know that we are free. — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    We cannot theoretically know that we are free.

    Free Will & ForeknowledgeMoral Responsibility
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Freedom would be a property of the self as a thing in itself.
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    • 2.We cannot know anything about things in themselves.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Practical reason's unconditional demand for moral obligation itself constitutes a form of rational self-knowledge that is not theoretical.
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    • 2.The 'fact of reason' (Faktum der Vernunft) reveals freedom as a practical certitude prior to and independent of theoretical cognition.
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    • 3.If moral obligation is real and knowable, then freedom—its necessary condition—is known through practical rather than theoretical knowledge.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Kant's own transcendental idealism distinguishes appearance from thing-in-itself but does not entail total ignorance of the noumenal self.
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    • 2.The spontaneity of apperception—our awareness of ourselves as the unified subject of thought—is not empirical and cannot be fully reduced to appearance.
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    • 3.Strawson and Allison argue that the logical subject of 'I think' provides indirect but genuine rational grounds for attributing spontaneous, free agency to the self.
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    Topics

    Moral ResponsibilityFree Will & Foreknowledge

    Notable Defenders

    AristotleancientTarget of criticisms of syllogistic logic rehearsed in Kant's The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures (1762)
    PlatoancientReferenced implicitly as the originator of the view that the sensible world imitates an intelligible world of paradigmatic forms
    Henry AllisoncontemporaryAllison 2004
    Patricia KitchercontemporaryKitcher 2011
    Rae LangtoncontemporaryLangton 1998
    Christian GarvemodernGöttingen review of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1742–1798)
    Christian WolffmodernCo-target (with Leibniz) of Kant's departures from German rationalism in the Prize Essay and other works of 1762–1764
    Christian Wolffmodern
    David Humemodern
    F. H. JacobimodernAccused Lessing of Spinozism, sparking the pantheism controversy (1743–1819)
    Francis HutchesonmodernSource for Kant's claim that moral content derives from an unanalysable feeling of the good (Prize Essay)
    Friedrich Heinrich JacobimodernJacobi 1787, 336
    G. E. LessingmodernPosthumously accused of Spinozism by Jacobi (1729–1781)
    Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizmodernTarget of Kant's critique that real opposition is not reducible to logical contradiction (Negative Magnitudes)
    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnizmodern
    Gottfried Wilhelm LeibnizmodernAssociated with the 'comparative concept of freedom' per Kant (5:96–97)
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of the Power of Judgment (1790), especially the Appendix and §§82–91
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason, 5:95ff.
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason (5:122, 5:144–145, 5:472)
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft), 5:373–410
    Immanuel KantmodernThe Only Possible Argument (1762–3); Prize Essay (1764); Negative Magnitudes (1763); Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (1764)
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernGroundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (4:417–4:437); Critique of Practical Reason (5:22–124); Metaphysics of Morals (6:5–7, 385); Critique of Pure Reason (A808/B836)
    Immanuel Kantmodern5:27 (Critique of Practical Reason)
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel Kantmodern[26]
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason, Analytic of Concepts (Transcendental Deduction)
    Immanuel KantmodernTranscendental deduction (Critique of Pure Reason)
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason A820–831/B848–859; Critique of Practical Reason 5:4, 5:48–49, 5:133
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason, A77/B103, B141–142
    Immanuel KantmodernReferenced section 5.4; footnote 19
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft), 5:118
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason, 5:96–97
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason, A108
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason; Inaugural Dissertation (2:397)
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason (5:31–32, 42–43, 47, 55); Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (4:459)
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason (Bxviii); Inaugural Dissertation; letter to Marcus Herz
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason, 5:110–111
    Immanuel KantmodernOriginator of transcendental idealism (being interpreted)
    Immanuel Kantmodern
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason (1781, rev. 1787); Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785); Critique of Practical Reason (1788); Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790)
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft), 1790
    Immanuel KantmodernInaugural Dissertation (1770); later rejected this Platonist view in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
    Immanuel KantmodernReferenced passages at 5:19, 27 (likely Critique of Practical Reason or Groundwork)
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Judgment (1790), especially 5:179–186; Critique of Pure Reason Bxiii–xiv
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of the Power of Judgment (1790), Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), The Metaphysics of Morals (1797)
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason, 5:29
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Practical Reason, 5:25, 5:29, 5:61
    Immanuel KantmodernInaugural Dissertation (1770); letter to Marcus Herz (1772); Critique of Pure Reason (A51/B75)
    Immanuel KantmodernCritique of Pure Reason (1781/1787)
    Isaac NewtonmodernSource for Kant's distinction between the methods of mathematics and philosophy (Prize Essay)
    J. G. FedermodernGöttingen review of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1740–1821)
    J. G. FichtemodernAttempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792); initially aligned with Kant, later developed an independent position repudiated by Kant
    Jean-Jacques RousseaumodernDeep influence on Kant's thinking about moral philosophy in the mid-1760s, reflected in handwritten remarks in Kant's copy of Observations
    Johann Nicolaus TetensmodernTetens 1777
    John Lockemodern
    K. L. ReinholdmodernLetters on the Kantian Philosophy (1786); initially popularized Kant, later criticized and moved away
    Marcus HerzmodernRecipient of Kant's 1772 letter articulating these doubts
    Moses MendelssohnmodernWon the Prussian Royal Academy prize competition over Kant's entry (published 1764)
    Nicolaus CopernicusmodernReferenced as the source of the heliocentric analogy Kant draws upon

    Connections

    3 topics

    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedModality & Possibility1 linkedSkepticism1 linked

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    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: kant
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    But, second, if “we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them,” then we cannot have a priori knowledge about things whose existence and nature are entirely independent of the human mind, which Kant calls things in themselves (Bxviii). In his words: “[F]rom this deduction of our faculty of cognizing a priori […] there emerges a very strange result […], namely that with this faculty we can never get beyond the boundaries of possible experience, […and] that such cogni
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    Details

    Freedom would be a property of the self as a thing in itself.If moral obligation is real and knowable, then freedom—its necessary condition—i...Kant's own transcendental idealism distinguishes appearance from thing-in-itself...Practical reason's unconditional demand for moral obligation itself constitutes ...
    +4 moreShow less
    Strawson and Allison argue that the logical subject of 'I think' provides indire...The 'fact of reason' (Faktum der Vernunft) reveals freedom as a practical certit...The spontaneity of apperception—our awareness of ourselves as the unified subjec...We cannot know anything about things in themselves.
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit