Comments and Questions to: John Protevi
LSU French & Italian
Protevi Home Page

Classroom use only. Do not cite w/o permission.
 

I.Writings:
    A.Pre-Critical:
        1.Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime
        2.The Only Possible Basis of Proof for Demonstrating the Existence of God
        3.On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World
B.Critical System:
    1.Critique of Pure Reason: A 1781; B 1787
    2.Critique of Practical Reason: 1788
    3.Critique of Judgment: 1790
C.Popular Introductions:
    1.Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics Worthy of the Name
    2.Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
D.Developments:
    1.Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
    2.Metaphysics of Morals
        a.Metaphysical Elements of Justice:
        b.Metaphysical Elements of Virtue
E.Political Essays
    1.Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View
    2.An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?
    3.On the Old Saying: That may be True in Theory, but not in Practice
    4.Perpetual Peace
F.Other Works:
    1.Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone
    2.Conflict of the Faculties
    3.Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View

II.Quick Overview of the Critical System
A.CPR: limit knowledge to natural appearance to make room for "faith"
    1.stop metaphysical war by declaring understanding ruler, thus stopping endless battles of dogmatic empiricism and rationalism, which leads to skepticism and indifferentism
    2."faith" = thinkable, but not knowable freedom necessary for morality
B.CPrR: defend notion of pure practical reason as self-determination
C.CJ: mediate realms of nature and freedom divorced by first two critiques

III.Deleuze's reading of the "faculties"
A.knowing [relation of reps] properly ruled by understanding [source]
B.desiring [relation] properly ruled by reason [source]
C.feeling: free accord that allows for determinate relation in other fields

IV.Critique of Pure Reason
A.What is Kant's Project?
    1.epistemology: relation of subject and object
    2.ontology: critique of subjectivity as fundamental ontology
B.Who are Kant's targets?
    1.Leibniz/Wolff:
        a.K likes: insistence on universality and necessity
        b.K dislikes:
            (1)world as knowable a priori [reason as constitutive]
            (2)sensation as "mutilated thought"
    2.Locke/Hume:
        a.K likes:
            (1)emphasis on sensibility
            (2)conditions of subjectivity as conditions of experience
        b.K dislikes:
            (1)empirical human nature as conditions of subjectivity doesn't = universality and necessity
            (2)i.e., laws of psychological association as "cement of universe"
                (a)resemblance
                (b)contiguity
                (c)causation
            (3)e.g., causation: not given in impression, we must supply it [thus subjectivity conditions objectivity], but only as inference
                (a)contiguity
                (b)priority
                (c)constant conjunction
            (4)what we add for Hume is learned from nature, with added assumption that nature will continue the same
C.Four important "faculties"
    1.[theoretical] reason:
        a.drive to complete series of judgments
        b.such completion is an idea of totality, given only in imagination
        c.re: the drive of reason: cf. pleasure at finding laws [CJ 187]
    2.understanding:
        a.spontaneity
        b.conceptual ordering of sensory manifold
        c.rehabilitation of understanding from empiricism: not just habit
    3.sensibility:
        a.receptivity
        b.openness of alterity
        c.rehabilitation from rationalist degradation as confused thought
    4.imagination: synthesis of the sense manifold
D.Limitations enforced by critical reason
    1.theoretical reason has only regulative role in guiding understanding
    2.understanding can only order sense manifold
    3.sense is only appearance, not thing in itself
E.Results:
    1.no more rationalist metaphysics: reason cannot yield knowledge by seducing understanding to apply categories to mere ideas
    2.no more empiricist skepticism: freedom is thinkable [not knowable]
F.Important Metaphors:
    1.political: establishing a commonwealth of reason by ending state of nature or war of pre-critical metaphysics
    2.juridical: establish tribunal of reason to adjudicate knowledge claims
    3.medical: curing feverish madness of reaon
    4.pedagogical: save the young from disappointed lapse into indifferentism

V.Critique of Practical Reason
A.Goal: defend notion of pure practical reason as self-determination
B.Enemies:
    1.empiricist degradation of reason to instrument of passions
    2.rationalist insistence on obedience to outside God/nature/good
C.Definition of pure practical reason
    1.maxim of action meets test of categorial imperative:
        a.maxim could be universal law
        b.maxim respects humanity in self and others as end in itself
        c.maxim treats all rational wills as universally legislative
    2.contrast with hypothetical imperatives
        a.here determinate objects determine the will
    3.hence pure pr. reason is determined by pure form of law, not desire for existence of an object

VI.Critique of Judgment
A.Goal: mediation of theory and practice, nature and freedom
B.Enemies:
    1.rationalists [Baumgarten]
        a.K likes:
            (1)account for universality and necessity
            (2)[quantity and modality]
        b.K dislikes:
            (1)but miss aesthetic and subjective
            (2)[quality]
            (3)because they assimilate JB to cognitive J about perfection
    2.empiricists [Burke]
        a.K likes:
            (1)account for subjective and aesthetic
        b.K dislikes:
            (1)but miss universality and necessity
            (2)bcs they stay empirical and miss a priori principle
            (3)hence cannot distinguish J taste from J agreeableness
C.Clue: purposiveness of feelings of B or S provoked by nature
    1.that is, we judge that it seems as if nature were designed to provoke these feelings which teach us something about our internal makeup and thus relation to the world
    2.feeling of beautiful teaches us our cognitive power
    3.feeling of sublime teaches us our moral power
D.Aesthetic Judgment
    1.beautiful: nature as pleasant stimulus
        a.quality: disinterested pleasure
            (1)provokes feeling of furtherance of life, that is, pleasure
            (2)but w/o sense feeling
        b.quantity: universal
            (1)universal voice demanding agreement
            (2)mistakes only in application, not right to claim universality
            (3)free play of I and U underlying all cognition
         c.relation: formal, subjective purposiveness of nature
            (1)[contingent to understanding: we can't explain it]
            (2)purposiveness w/o purpose: as if it were meant to stimulate us, but w/o positing a cause [which means we could explain it]
        d.modality: necessary
            (1)rests on assumption of common sense
            (2)= common makeup of cognitive powers
    2.sublime: nature as if it were about to overwhelm us
        a.Mathematical sublime:
            (1)reason demands presentation [comprehension] of what imagination can only apprehend [run through and order as time]
            (2)violent excess of nature over our ability to present it
            (3)purposive gap of reason over imagination i)Dynamical sublime:
            (4)fearfulness w/o fear:
                (a)nature can destroy us as natural,
                (b)but can't touch us as rational
            (5)thus violence is useful in pointing out supersensible vocation
            (6)infinity of nature analogous to infinity of duty
E.Teleological Judgment
    1.organisms [internal purposiveness] [#64-65]
        a.shows supplement of production:
            (1)organism not art, but
            (2)analogon of life: each part is end and means of itself
            (3)yet this is inscrutable, so we need productive model
        b.formative power of self-formation [species/individual]
            (1)allows for deviations useful for survival
            (2)compare w/ genius and breaking of model
    2.nature as a whole [83]
        a.purpose of nature can only be found in man, who is self-purpose
            (1)development of powers
            (2)culture of skill and discipline
            (3)guaranteed by system of states guaranteeing freedom
    3.antinomy of TJ:
        a.antinomy:
            (1)must judge all nature as determined by mechanistic causality
            (2)yet as contingent
                (a)in particulars
                (b)in relation to us [="subjective purposiveness"]
        b.solution:
            (1)determine the supersensible basis of nature's lawfulness [left indeterminate but thinkable by CPR]
                (a)as negative idea of non-discursive (intuitive) intellect,
                (b)intellectual intution that would form nature in all details
                    i)that is, would see all that we must laboriously investigate and codify in science
                    ii)just as we form nature universally, through space/time and categories, so that we see in terms of space/time and quantity, quality, relation, modality
            (2)we need supplement of production bcs this is inscrutable 408
            (3)and this enables practical determination of supersensible as moral author
    4.mediation of nature and freedom thus brought about via supplement of production, which allows thought of moral author who would guarantee that nature must at least co-operate with our moral action