1st Edition
The Kantian Subject New Interpretative Essays
This book presents a critical reconsideration of the Kantian cognitive and practical subject. Special attention is devoted to highlighting the complex relation between subjectivity as it is presented in the three critiques and the way in which it is construed in other writings, in particular the Anthropology. While for Kant our cognitive apparatus and the structure of our will are common to all humans, the anthropological subject reveals degrees of variation, depending on a myriad of external circumstances that pose a challenge to the unity of Kant’s account and await theoretical solutions.
The chapters collected in the volume delve into how the different shapes of human nature are not unrelated. They explore how and why different ‘Kantian subjects’ are closely connected at their core, if not entirely unified. The notions of personality, humanity, and citizenship will serve as leading threads for the reconstruction of this possible underlying unity.
An engaging read that promises to deepen our understanding of human nature, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, politics, psychology, social anthropology, ethics, and epistemology.
Contributors vii
Preface xi
I
Personality and Human Nature 1
1 On the Distinction between Humanity and Personality in Kant 3
LUIGI CARANTI
2 Kant on the Frailty of Human Nature 21
ROBERT B. LOUDEN
3 ‘A Man for All Faculties’?: The Unity of Kantian Reason from a Pragmatic Point of View 28
GUALTIERO LORINI
4 ‘Geography Makes Us Citizens of the World’: On the Cosmopolitical Nature of Kant’s Geographical Thought 50
FERNANDO M.F. SILVA
II
Personality and Subjectivity 69
5 It thinks: On a Function of the ‘I’ in the Formula of the Principle of Apperception 71
MARIO CAIMI
6 A Role for Creative Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Science 87
PATRICIA KAUARK-LEITE
7 On Becoming a Person and Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Evolution and Revolution towards Freedom 99
PAULO JESUS
8 The Concept of Person in the Metaphysics of Morals: From a Formal to a Material Concept 121
SORAYA NOUR SCKELL
9 Critique. Enlightenment. Parrhesia.: Michel Foucault’s Questioning of The Concepts of Person and Humanity in Kant’s Works 132
MARITA RAINSBOROUGH
III
Personality and Citizenship 143
10 Kant’s Social Sympathy: Debunking Beneficence and Cultivating the Sense of Justice 145
NURIA SANCHEZ MADRID
11 Active Citizenship and Kantian Republicanism 161
LUKE J. DAVIES
12 Personhood according to Kant (and Schiller): Personality, Being a Human Being, and Revolution 180
ANTONINO FALDUTO
13 Kant on Natural Right and Revolution 199
FIORELLA TOMASSINI
Name Index 213
Subject Index 216
Biography
Fernando M.F. Silva is a postdoctoral fellow and member of the Centre for Philosophy at the University of Lisbon. He completed his PhD in 2016, on Novalis’s critique of identity. He is the co-editor of the journal Estudos Kantianos and the co-coordinator of the Study Nucleus Kant and German Idealism, CFUL. His areas of research interest include Kantian Aesthetics and Anthropology, German Idealism and Romanticism, in authors such as Fichte, Novalis, or Holderlin. His publications include the forthcoming volume ‘The Poem of the Understanding Is Philosophy’: Novalis and the Art of Self-Critique, in Mimesis Verlag, Germany.
Luigi Caranti is Professor of Political Philosophy at the Universita di Catania. He focuses on Kant, human rights, peace studies, and contemporary political theory with a special emphasis on distributive justice. Among his recent publications: The Kantian Federation (2022) and Kant’s Political Legacy: Human Rights, Peace, Progress (2017).
