Did Kant Conflate the Necessary and the A Priori?

It is commonly accepted by Kant scholars that Kant held that all necessary truths are a priori, and all a priori knowledge is knowledge of necessary truths. Against the prevailing interpretation, I argue that Kant was agnostic as to whether necessity and a priority are co‐extensive. I focus on three kinds of modality Kant implicitly distinguishes: formal possibility and necessity, empirical possibility and necessity, and noumenal possibility and necessity. Formal possibility is compatibility with the forms of experience; empirical possibility is compatibility with the causal powers of empirical objects; noumenal possibility is compatibility with the causal powers of things in themselves. Because we cannot know the causal powers of things in themselves, we cannot know what is noumenally necessary and what is noumenally contingent. Consequently, we cannot know whether noumenal necessity is co‐extensive with a priority. Therefore, for all we know, some a priori propositions are noumenally contingent, and some a posteriori propositions are noumenally necessary. Thus, contrary to the received interpretation, Kant distinguishes epistemological from metaphysical modality.     

Does Respect for Embryos Entail Respect for Gametes?

Respect for human embryos is often defended on the basis of the potentiality argument: embryos deserve respect because they already possess potentially the features that in adults are fully actualized. Opponents of this argument challenge it by claiming that if embryos should be respected because they are potentially adults, then gametes should be respected because they are potentially embryos. This article rejects this reductio ad absurdum argument by showing that there are two different types of potentiality involved so that the transitivity of potentiality does not hold up in this case. Respect for embryos does not logically entail respect for gametes.     

Was Kant a nonconceptualist?

I criticize recent nonconceptualist readings of Kant’s account of perception on the grounds that the strategy of the Deduction requires that understanding be involved in the synthesis of imagination responsible for the intentionality of perceptual experience. I offer an interpretation of the role of understanding in perceptual experience as the consciousness of normativity in the association of one’s representations. This leads to a reading of Kant which is conceptualist, but in a way which accommodates considerations favoring nonconceptualism, in particular the primitive character of perceptual experience relative to thought and judgment.

Did Armstrong Cheat?

In this paper, I explore the idea that under one way of understanding cheating, Armstrong did not fulfill any of the three necessary conditions: (1) that cheating violates a rule—I will make the case that though doping was against the official rules, it was not against the rules the athletes used; (2) that it is cheating if the intent is to obtain an unfair advantage—I will argue that dopers were not attempting to obtain an unfair advantage, at least on one plausible understanding of fairness; and (3) that cheating requires fair enforcement of the rules—I will show that the official rules against doping were hardly enforced at all, much less fairly enforced, and thus lacked enough sufficient normative force to deem breaking them cheating.     

Does the Value Circle Exist Within Persons or Only Across Persons?

This study tests whether the Schwartz (1992) value circle exists within individuals, not only across individuals, thereby providing evidence for the within‐person rationale underlying the value circle. We analyze responses from five samples (a representative sample in Britain, a general population sample in the United States, and university students in Britain and Iran) varying in value measures of the Schwartz value theory (SVS, PVQ40, PVQ21). An unfolding model is used to map each person's value profile into a two‐dimensional space representing both persons and values. In all samples, clear value circles were found, with values ordered around the circle largely according to the theory. The model also represents most individuals well. The value circle exists within individuals, providing strong support for the underlying within‐person rationale for the Schwartz (1992) value theory. The unfolding analysis allows identifying which persons fit the model less well and in which way, identifying how meaningful subgroups differ in their value profiles, and testing whether meaningful subgroups have different value structures. The model opens up many new possibilities for research linking values to other variables.     

“More on Respect for Embryos and Potentiality: Does Respect for Embryos Entail Respect for In Vitro Embryos?”

It is commonly assumed that persons who hold abortions to be generally impermissible must, for the same reasons, be opposed to embryonic stem cell research [ESR]. Yet a settled position against abortion does not necessarily direct one to reject that research. The difference in potentiality between the embryos used in ESR and embryos discussed in the abortion debate can make ESR acceptable even if one holds that abortion is impermissible. With regard to their potentiality, in vitro embryos are here argued to be more morally similar to clonable somatic cells than they are to in vivo embryos. This creates an important moral distinction between embryos in vivo and in vitro. Attempts to refute this moral distinction, raised in the recent debate in this journal between Alfonso Gómez-Lobo and Mary Mahowald, are also addressed.     

Did the universe design itself?

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Many philosophers and scientists believe that we need an explanation as to why the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe are...     

What is Philosophical about Kant’s Anthropology?

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is fundamentally about the sphere of civilization, and, with this, a particular kind of philosophical self-understanding. By civilization, Kant means to indicate the process by which human beings transform their inner natures based on pragmatic or prudential considerations born of our living together. Civilization is what we do to ourselves in order to get along with others with whom we share the earth. In the Anthropology, what we come to understand about ourselves is the possibility of transforming our inner natures based on our will.     

Did Paul Get Luther Right?

Abstract : Did Paul and Luther proclaim the same gospel? Although Luther's understanding of the work of Christ and his idea of the “joyous exchange” between Christ and believers reflect many ideas that are foreign to Paul's thought, both agree on the heart of the gospel, namely, that justification is by faith alone, since “faith alone fulfills the law.” In Christ God graciously accepts sinners just as they are, so that as they live out of faith, trusting solely in God for forgiveness and new life, they may become the righteous people God desires that they be, not for God's sake, but for the sake of human beings themselves.