This book joins the contemporary recovery of Kant’s empirical works to highlight the relevance of his concept of culture for understanding the sources of various characteristic modern dilemmas, such as the tension between culture and happiness, the morally ambivalent nature of cultural progress, or the existing conflicts between a factual plurality of cultures and the historical forces pressing toward a universal civilization. The book will be of special interest for Kantian scholars, moral and political philosophers, as well as philosophers of culture.
Katerina Deligiorgi interprets Kant's conception of enlightenment within the broader philosophical project of his critique of reason. Analyzing a broad range of Kant's works, including his Critique of Pure Reason, the Critique of Judgment, his lectures on anthropology and logic, as well as his shorter essays, she identifies the theoretical and practical commitments that show the achievement of rational autonomy as an ongoing project for the realization of a culture of enlightenment. Deligiorgi also considers Kant's ideas in relation to the work of Diderot, Rousseau, Mendelssohn, Reinhold, Hamann, Schiller, and Herder. The perspective opened by this historical dialogue challenges twentieth-century revisionist interpretations of the Enlightenment to show that the "culture of enlightenment" is not simply a fragment of our intellectual history but rather a live project.
Sebastian Luft presents and defends the philosophy of culture championed by the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. Following a historical trajectory from Hermann Cohen to Paul Natorp and through to Ernst Cassirer, this book makes a systematic case for the viability and attractiveness of a philosophical culture in a transcendental vein, in the manner in which the Marburgers intended to broaden Kant's approach. In providing a philosophical study of culture, Luft adheres to important Kantian tenets while addressing empirical studies of culture. The Space of Culture culminates in an exploration of Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, and argues for the extent to which Cassirer's thought was firmly rooted in the Marburg School, despite his originality. At the same time, it shows how Cassirer opened up the philosophical study of culture to new horizons, making it attractive for contemporary philosophy.
In Kant's Human Being, Robert B. Louden continues and deepens avenues of research first initiated in his highly acclaimed book, Kant's Impure Ethics. Drawing on a wide variety of both published and unpublished works spanning all periods of Kant's extensive writing career, Louden here focuses on Kant's under-appreciated empirical work on human nature, with particular attention to the connections between this body of work and his much-discussed ethical theory. Kant repeatedly claimed that the question, "What is the human being" is philosophy's most fundamental question, one that encompasses all others. Louden analyzes and evaluates Kant's own answer to his question, showing how it differs from other accounts of human nature. This collection of twelve essays is divided into three parts. In Part One (Human Virtues), Louden explores the nature and role of virtue in Kant's ethical theory, showing how the conception of human nature behind Kant's virtue theory results in a virtue ethics that is decidedly different from more familiar Aristotelian virtue ethics programs. In Part Two (Ethics and Anthropology), he uncovers the dominant moral message in Kant's anthropological investigations, drawing new connections between Kant's work on human nature and his ethics. Finally, in Part Three (Extensions of Anthropology), Louden explores specific aspects of Kant's theory of human nature developed outside of his anthropology lectures, in his works on religion, geography, education ,and aesthetics, and shows how these writings substantially amplify his account of human beings. Kant's Human Being offers a detailed and multifaceted investigation of the question that Kant held to be the most important of all, and will be of interest not only to philosophers but also to all who are concerned with the study of human nature.
This book offers a systematic examination of the place of religion within Kant's major writings. Kant is often thought to be highly reductionistic with regard to religion - as though religion simply provides the unsophisticated with colourful representations of moral lessons that reason alone could grasp. James DiCenso's rich and innovative discussion shows how Kant's theory of religion in fact emerges directly from his epistemology, ethics and political theory, and how it serves his larger political and ethical projects of restructuring institutions and modifying political attitudes towards greater autonomy. It also illustrates the continuing relevance of Kant's ideas for addressing issues of religion and politics that remain pressing in the contemporary world, such as just laws, transparency in the public sphere and other ethical and political concerns. The book will be valuable for a wide range of readers who are interested in Kant's thought.
This is the first book dedicated to a systematic exploration of Kant's position on colonialism. Bringing together a team of leading scholars in both the history of political thought and normative theory, the chapters in the volume seek to place Kant's thoughts on colonialism in historical context, examine the tensions that the assessment of colonialism produces in Kant's work, and evaluate the relevance of these reflections for current debates on global justice and the relation of Western political thinking to other parts of the world.
The Possibility of Culture: Pleasure and Moral Development in Kant’s Aesthetics presents an in-depth exploration and deconstruction of Kant’s depiction of the ways in which aesthetic pursuits can promote personal moral development. Presents an in-depth exploration of the connection between Kant’s aesthetics and his views on moral development Reveals the links between Kant’s aesthetics and his anthropology and moral psychology Explores Kant’s notion of genius and his views on the connections between the social aspects of taste and moral development Addresses aspects of Kant’s ethical theory that will interest scholars working in ethics and moral psychology
Kant and Culture. Studies on Kant’s Philosophy of Culture is a collective volume focusing on the figure of Kant as Kulturphilosoph. The challenge of this volume, which gathers scholars who differ in language, method, approach and perspective, is to shed light from different angles on the relevance and complexity of a subject – Kant and culture – that has often been confined to the margins of the Kantforschung and has only recently received the attention it deserves. Yet, on closer inspection, the issues related to the notion of culture in Kant are so varied and at the same time so pervasive and transversal that they allow for important connections between his philosophical reflection’s different areas (from aesthetics to theoretical philosophy, from ethics to philosophy of history, from philosophy of law to moral philosophy, from anthropology to religion, from geography to pedagogy), providing a privileged point of view to explore and understand his idea of a Bestimmung des Menschen. Moreover, Kant’s contribution to the philosophy of culture offers important insights into its contemporary crisis, its loss of significance and interest. A starting point to try to articulate a notion of culture in a normative sense, that is, elaborated not in reference to a certain class of objects defined as cultural (education, the arts, the sciences), but formally, as a particular relationship we can establish with any object, subject or experience.
Integrating Kant's ideas on aesthetics and morality, Dr. Kemal explains how Kant's theories emphasize that art is critical to the development of culture and community goals. He clarifies Kant's often obscure efforts to justify artistic judgements and demonstrates Kant's claim that they have their own necessity. Containing explanations of many difficult terms present in Kant's Critique of Judgment, this study is a valuable guide to understanding Kant's association of beauty and morality.
