Study Questions to Chapter 7: Kant

Prepared by Dr. Jan Garrett

Last modification date: July 15, 2009

1. What concepts does Kant inherit from Christianity? What are the major influences on his thought from early modern science? (144)

2. Of what did Kant think human reason capable? (145)

3. What was Kant's attitude to traditional ideas? To what did he think reason should appeal? How can we discover the limits of reason? What does the term "critique" mean when Kant uses it? (146)

METAPHYSICS AND THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE

4. What was one basic theme (goal?) of Kant's philosophy? What seems to be meant by the following terms: a priori, a posteriori, synthetic, analytic? (See Kant Study Guide for some help with technical aspects of his thought.) (146-47)

5. What is meant by the two form of intuition? The twelve categories? (Both of these are considered a priori, by the way.) (147)

6. Some of our knowledge is a posteriori (and it involves synthetic judgments). What sorts of knowledge, in what fields? Some of our knowledge is analytic and a prioriÑwhat does this mean? Where do we find this sort of knowledge? (147)

7. Some of our knowledge, according to Kant, is synthetic a priori. This is a new, controversial claim. What propositions does K. think are known in this way? (147)

8. What is the key claim of George Berkeley's subjective idealism? (147) Is Kant a Berkeleyan? What "persuasive insight" is behind Kant's transcendental idealism? (147)

9. What "more radical and mind-boggling possibility" did Kant conceive? How does Stevenson suggest we understand the claim that "objects must conform to our cognition"? Explain briefly (so far as you can) his distinction between things as they appear and things as they are in themselves. (148)

10. About what do we tend to mistakenly claim knowledge? Are metaphysical assertions meaningless, according to Kant? Can they be proven or given empirical support? (148)

THEORY OF HUMAN NATURE

11. What does the sentence at the end of the quote from Kant's first Critique on p. 149 mean?

12. Which of the human faculties under discussion are also found in nonhuman animals? Does Kant think that animals form concepts? (149)

13. What special role of reason does Stevenson attribut to Kant in the first complete paragraph on p. 150? (This is how we come up with notions of the universe as a whole, a Creator of the universe, and other grand ideas.)

14. What does it mean to say we are agents? How do we transcend nonhuman animals? (150)

15. Explain Kant's distinction between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. (150-51)

16. How do Kant and Hume differ about morality? (151)

17. Does Kant believe we can prove the existence of an incorporeal (immaterial) soul? (151-52) What can we know about ourselves? Can we prove that we are only material beings? (152)

18. What is the Hobbes-Hume version of compatibilism (regarding freewill and determinism)? In what way does Kant reject this? (152) What is his solution to the apparent incompatibility? (152-53)

Stevenson's interpretation of Kant's view here is plausible but perhaps wrong. Beliefs and desires might be psychological events that are part of a deterministic system and correspond to bodily states without being identical to them. If so, free will as an uncaused cause would be more mysterious, necessary to make sense of morality (holding persons responsible) but not knowable. S. seems to forget that Kant often uses "intelligible" to refer to beings whose existence we are somehow forced to assume, even though we have no observation or empirical evidence of them.

19. Do we feel the influence of our desires? Do we feel the influence of our free will? Which of these two "forces" is uncaused according to Kant? (153)

20. In what sense are reasons events in time? In what sense are they not? (154)

DIAGNOSIS

21. What is the moral point of the claim that human beings are mixed creatures? (155) What does Kant mean by "pure practical reason"? (155)

22. Explain the difference between the two types of self-interested reasons. (155)

23. Why does Stevenson say that Kant often presents his view in a very severe guise? What does he think Kant's real point is? (155-56)

24. What is utilitarian ethics and how does Kant's view relate to it? (156)

25. What does Kant mean by radical evil? Does he think this evil is innate, inherent in human nature, or derivative from another source? (156)

PRESCRIPTION

26. How does Kant think morality can be promoted in individual persons? (157)

27. What is original about Kant's critique of the major philosophical traditional arguments for the existence of God? Does Kant think any of them are sound? (158)

28. In what way does Kant think propositions about God, immortality and free will can be justified? (158, 159)

29. What does Kant say about notions of heaven, hell, and religion in his 1793 Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason? (159-60) What got Kant into trouble with the 18th century Prussian censors? (160)

30. What was Kant's hope about history? What two interpretations of Kant's view does Stevenson consider? (160-61)