Research

Kant denies knowledge to make room for Belief. Yet his account of moral Belief seems contradictory: qua Belief, it rests on subjective grounds and has merely private validity; qua moral, it can be demanded of everyone and has universal validity. Call this the ‘Problem of Validity’. The paper solves this problem by defending the private validity of moral Belief. Moral Belief, it is argued, rests not on morality itself, or its universal demands, but on the private interest we take in morality; this interest, moreover, is presupposed by Kant’s moral proofs, which justify only a conditional demand for moral Belief. The proposed reading sharpens Kant’s distinction between knowledge and Belief. It also has two broader implications: Kant cannot reduce epistemic normativity to the universal legislation of epistemic autonomy; nor can he restrict epistemic authority to the public use of reason. By denying public knowledge, Kant makes room for private Belief.

Hypothesis confirmation plays a major role in Kant’s philosophy of science, yet it remains remarkably underexplored. Kant regards hypotheses as both indispensable to empirical enquiry and, at the same time, epistemically defective—they fallibly infer from observed consequences to unobserved grounds. This tension raises a pressing question: how can hypotheses be confirmed to improve their epistemic standing? While Kant distinguishes three types of hypothesis confirmation, this paper argues that these are all unified by a single requirement: deduction. To confirm a hypothesis, on this reading, is to derive it deductively. Such derivation can, in many cases, render a hypothesis certain, but crucially it does not do so in every case. The proposed interpretation underscores Kant’s innovative and nuanced approach to scientific reasoning.

Kant’s theory of assent seems to combine two incompatible claims that (i) we are responsible for our assent and (ii) we have no direct voluntary control over our assent. But how can we be responsible for something over which we have no direct voluntary control? Scholars have tried to resolve this tension by arguing that, according to Kant, assent is under our indirect voluntary or intellectual control. This paper defends a different solution. It is argued that contrary to first impressions, Kant is actually committed to the view that most assent is under our direct voluntary control, which, in turn, accounts for our doxastic responsibility. From this emerges the outline of a unified Kantian theory of doxastic agency.

What might Kant have made of the Kantian Threshold View and its associated theses? This section argues that Kant not only inspires them, but that they also enjoy textual support. It proceeds by reconstructing Kant’s claims about the structural relations between thinking/opinion, conviction, and certainty, and considers which doxastic state in Kant’s taxonomy of assent most closely corresponds to the present-day notion of belief.

This paper defends Kant’s ‘Antinomy of Practical Reason’ (APR) against the objection that it fails to meet the standards of a strict Kantian antinomy. Critics claim that the APR cannot be a true antinomy because its thesis and antithesis do not contradict each other logically, unlike the ‘Antinomies of Theoretical Reason’ (ATRs). In response to this objection, it is argued that the theses and antitheses of the ATRs do not contradict each other logically either; they only contradict each other relatively. It is then shown that the thesis and antithesis of the APR, properly understood, also contradict each other relatively, thus satisfying the same standard as the ATRs. This paper offers broader insights into the structure of antinomical conflict within Kant’s Critical philosophy.

This thesis is about Kant’s account of reason. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant introduces reason as an infinitely demanding faculty that seeks complete explanations for all observable phenomena. This account of reason is essential to Kant’s discussion in the Transcendental Dialectic and prompts the primary question of this thesis: how does Kant justify such an infinitely demanding faculty? How does he think we come to know that we have reason, so understood?

Traditionally, Kant scholars have held that we can grasp our mental faculties either through a priori awareness of their unique activities or through transcendental arguments. Both approaches, however, fail with reason, which presents unique metacritical challenges. We can never be aware of reason’s unique activities, which are infinite and so never complete, and reason cannot be established via transcendental argument because it is not necessary for the possibility of experience.

So, how can we know that we have reason? This thesis breaks with tradition by arguing that reason gains self-knowledge in empirical psychology, the study of phenomena in inner sense. Reason, according to Kant, seeks to explain all phenomena, including those of inner sense. To explain inner phenomena, reason hypothesises mental faculties and their laws. Our tendency to ask why-questions, Kant argues, is best explained by hypothesising a faculty that demands complete explanations – i.e., reason.

The thesis has five chapters. The first shows that, for Kant, mental faculties are (also) powers of inner sense. The second argues that the normative demands of these faculties are grounded in constitutive principles or laws. The third finds that the constitutive principle of reason requires us to systematise powers of nature, which, as the fourth chapter explains, we do by hypothesising their respective laws. Finally, the fifth chapter suggests that reason hypothesises its own explanation-seeking law.