Books by Konstantin Pollok
Preface and acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Part I. From the Clarity
of Ideas to the Validity of ... more Preface and acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Part I. From the Clarity
of Ideas to the Validity of Judgments: 1. Kant’s farewell to
perfectionism; 2. The concept of judgment and the divisions of
philosophy ; 3. Kant’s taxonomy of judgments; Part II. Kant’s
Transcendental Hylomorphism: 4. Hylomorphism and normativity; 5.
Determinable sensibility and intellectual determination; Part III. The
Legislation of Pure Reason: 6. ‘Reason prescribes laws to us’; 7. The
normativity of judgments of experience; 8. The normativity of practical
judgments; 9. The normativity of judgments of taste; Epilogue: Kant’s
moderate forms of transcendental and political idealism; Bibliography;
Index.
Kant's Theory of Normativity: Exploring the Space of Reason, 2017
Konstantin Pollok offers the first book-length analysis of Kant’s theory of normativity that cove... more Konstantin Pollok offers the first book-length analysis of Kant’s theory of normativity that covers foundational issues in theoretical and practical philosophy as well as aesthetics. Interpreting Kant’s ‘critical turn’ as a normative turn, he argues that Kant’s theory of normativity is both original and radical: it departs from the perfectionist ideal of early modern rationalism, and arrives at an unprecedented framework of synthetic a priori principles that determine the validity of our judgments. Pollok examines the hylomorphism in Kant’s theory of normativity and relates Kant’s idea of our reason’s self-legislation to the ‘natural right’ tradition, revealing Kant’s debt to his predecessors as well as his relevance to contemporary debates on normativity. This book will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, early modern philosophy and intellectual history.
Papers by Konstantin Pollok
Kant hat mit seiner universalistischen, formalistischen und kognitivistischen Konzeption moralisc... more Kant hat mit seiner universalistischen, formalistischen und kognitivistischen Konzeption moralisch-praktischer Gründe in Gegenüberstellung zu seiner instru-mentalistischen Konzeption nicht-moralisch-praktischer Gründe eine Begrifflich-keit geschaffen, die es erlaubt, handlungsleitende Überzeugungen hinsichtlich ihres Geltungsanspruchs und ihrer Verbindlichkeit zu differenzieren. Von einem ‚Sollen' spricht Kant in beiden Fällen. Nicht nur der kategorische Imperativ, der unbedingt gebietet, " ich soll niemals anders verfahren als so, daß ich auch wollen könne, meine Maxime solle ein allgemeines Gesetz werden " (GMS, AA 04: 402), sondern auch hypothetische Imperative, die bedingt gebieten, " ich soll etwas thun, darum weil ich etwas anderes will " 1 , nehmen bei Kant die normative Form eines ‚Sollens' an. In beiden Fällen ergehen also Forderungen an die Vernunft, doch es ist alles an-dere als klar, in welcher Beziehung diese Sollensformen zueinander stehen. Bestünde gar keine solche Beziehung, so träte praktische Vernunft im Plural auf – wohlge-merkt in einer einzigen Person, welcher sich der Sinn beider Imperativformen er-schlossen hat. Da eine solche Form von Schizophrenie der Willensbestimmung nicht der Kantischen Vorstellung von praktischer Vernunft entspricht, stellt sich die Frage nach der Einheit von bedingtem und unbedingtem Sollen. Die leitende Frage dieses Aufsatzes ist relativ eng umschrieben, zumindest gemes-sen an den Ansprüchen, die Kant selbst stellt: " […] wenn reine Vernunft für sich praktisch sein kann und es wirklich ist, wie das Bewußtsein des moralischen Geset-zes es ausweiset, so ist es doch immer nur eine und dieselbe Vernunft, die, es sei in theoretischer oder praktischer Absicht, nach Principien a priori urtheilt […]. " (KpV, AA 05: 121) Abgesehen von der Problematik der Protasis, die weiter unten 1 GMS, AA 04: 444; eine direkte Opposition der beiden Sollensformen findet sich in GMS, AA 04: 441: " Dies Verhältniß [zw. dem Willen und dessen Objekt; K. P.], es beruhe nun auf der Neigung, oder auf Vorstellungen der Vernunft, läßt nur hypothetische Imperativen mög-lich werden: ich soll etwas thun darum, weil ich etwas anderes will. Dagegen sagt der mo-ralische, mithin kategorische Imperativ: ich soll so oder so handeln, ob ich gleich nichts an-deres wollte. Z. E. jener sagt: ich soll nicht lügen, wenn ich bei Ehren bleiben will; dieser aber: ich soll nicht lügen, ob es mir gleich nicht die mindeste Schande zuzöge. "
In this paper I argue for the following two related claims. First, a successor version of the sch... more In this paper I argue for the following two related claims. First, a successor version of the scholastic 'forma-non-afficit' theorem functions as the key to Kant's transcendental idealism. Second, drawing on the 'natural right' tradition which Kant sees himself being part of, the relation between our cognitive spontaneity and the legislation of the understanding is one of acknowledgment (rather than creation) of the laws of the understanding. This interpretation allows us to make sense of pure concepts and principles of the understanding as the fundamental laws of nature. They rationally constrain our empirical concepts and judgments , and thus warrant the 'lawfulness in the connection of appearances.' (Prol, AA 04: § 36) In a passage from the Metaphysik Mrongovius (1782/83) Kant is reported to have summarized his doctrine of the forms of intuition in the following way: Our intuition is sensible. – It rests on the receptivity of being affected by things. We can think of a being that intuits spontaneously from its own power, by itself without being affected by objects, so one imagines God; we cannot comprehend how this is possible, other than perhaps through this, that the power of cognition produces things, for he affected them, not they him; but we also have no concepts of this: our intuition is receptivity. By intuition we understand sensible intuition through all organs, not merely through sight.
Againstt he standard interpretation of Kant's 'Copernicanr evolution' as the prioritization of ep... more Againstt he standard interpretation of Kant's 'Copernicanr evolution' as the prioritization of epistemology over ontology,Iarguei nt hisp aper that his critique of traditionalm etaphysics must be seen as af arewellt ot he perfectionismo nw hich earlym odernr ationalist ontology ande pistemology areb uilt.H owever, Kant does nots implyr eplace 'perfection' with another fundamentalconcept of normativity. More radically, Kant realizes that it is not simply ideasb ut only ther elation of ideast hatc an be subjectt on orms,a nd thus he shifts thefocus from thereality of ideastothe validity of judgments. Section1of this paperclarifiesthe pre-Kantianroleofthe conceptofperfection ande xaminesK ant'sc riticalr esponset ot hatc oncept.S ection 2i dentifies Kant's pointofdeparture from theCartesian 'way of ideas.'Section 3explains thekey problemofhis novelaccount of epistemicnormativity.Iconclude that Kant's anti-perfectionism must be seen as thed riving forceb ehindh is 'Copernicanr evolution' in ordert of ully appreciate hism aturea ccount of epistemicnormativity.
By taking into account some texts published between the first and the second edition of the Criti... more By taking into account some texts published between the first and the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason that have been neglected by most of those who have dealt with the deduction of the categories, I argue that the core of the deduction is to be identified as the 'almost single inference from the precisely determined definition of a judgment in general', which Kant adumbrates in the Metaphysical Foundations in order to 'make up for the deficiency' of the A-deduction. Whereas the first step of the B-deduction is an attempt to show that the manifold of an intuition belongs to the 'necessary unity of self-consciousness' by means of the synthesis of the understanding, the second step has the task of showing that the very same synthesis is responsible for the spatio-temporal unity of the manifold. Thus, Kant's 'answer to Hume' is that no spatio-temporal objects of experience at all are merely 'given', independently of the conceptual activities of the understanding. Against the established view I substantiate the claim that with this 'almost single inference'of the second proof step the distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience consequently vanished from Kant's thinking.
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Books by Konstantin Pollok
of Ideas to the Validity of Judgments: 1. Kant’s farewell to
perfectionism; 2. The concept of judgment and the divisions of
philosophy ; 3. Kant’s taxonomy of judgments; Part II. Kant’s
Transcendental Hylomorphism: 4. Hylomorphism and normativity; 5.
Determinable sensibility and intellectual determination; Part III. The
Legislation of Pure Reason: 6. ‘Reason prescribes laws to us’; 7. The
normativity of judgments of experience; 8. The normativity of practical
judgments; 9. The normativity of judgments of taste; Epilogue: Kant’s
moderate forms of transcendental and political idealism; Bibliography;
Index.
Papers by Konstantin Pollok
of Ideas to the Validity of Judgments: 1. Kant’s farewell to
perfectionism; 2. The concept of judgment and the divisions of
philosophy ; 3. Kant’s taxonomy of judgments; Part II. Kant’s
Transcendental Hylomorphism: 4. Hylomorphism and normativity; 5.
Determinable sensibility and intellectual determination; Part III. The
Legislation of Pure Reason: 6. ‘Reason prescribes laws to us’; 7. The
normativity of judgments of experience; 8. The normativity of practical
judgments; 9. The normativity of judgments of taste; Epilogue: Kant’s
moderate forms of transcendental and political idealism; Bibliography;
Index.