Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-qc88w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-08-23T11:17:31.204Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spontaneity and Self-Consciousness in the Groundwork and the B-Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Yoon Choi
Yoon Choi*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
*
Yoon Choi yoon.choi@marquette.edu Department of Philosophy, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to some influential readings of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, the view presented there of the kind of spontaneity we are conscious of through theoretical reason and the significance of such self-consciousness is irremediably at odds with the Critical theory, and thus roundly and rightly rejected in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason. This paper argues, on the contrary, that the Groundwork can be read as articulating for the first time the account of self-consciousness and spontaneity that Kant goes on to develop in the B-Critique, especially the B-Transcendental Deduction.

Keywords

Kantfreedomspontaneityself-consciousness

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 7 , November 2019 , pp. 936 - 955
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allison, H. 1986. “Morality and Freedom: Kant's Reciprocity Thesis.” Philosophical Review 95 (3 ): 393–425. doi:10.2307/2185466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, H. 1990. Kant's Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, H. 1995. “Spontaneity and Autonomy in Kant's Conception of the Self.” In The Modern Subject: Conceptions of the Self in Classical German Philosophy, edited by Ameriks, K. and Sturma, D., 11–29. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Allison, H. 2004. Kant's Transcendental Idealism. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Allison, H. 2011. Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allison, H. 2013. “Kant's Practical Justification of Freedom.” In Kant on Practical Justification: Interpretive Essays, edited by Timmons, M. and Baiasu, S., 284–299. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ameriks, K. 2000. Kant's Theory of Mind. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ameriks, K. 2003. Interpreting Kant's Critiques. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, L. W. 1960. A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. Forthcoming. “Space and Geometry in the B-Deduction.” In Kant's Philosophy of Mathematics, Volume I, edited by Posy, C. and Rechter, O.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, P. 2016. Virtues of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, P. 2018. “The Struggle for Freedom: Freedom of Will in Kant and Reinhold.” In Kant on Persons and Agency, edited by Watkins, E., 120–137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Henrich, D. 1994. “The Concept of Moral Insight and Kant's Doctrine of the Fact of Reason.” In The Unity of Reason: Essays on Kant's Philosophy, edited by, Velkley, R. L. translated by Kuehn, Manfred, 55–87. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, T. 1992. Dignity and Practical Reason. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. 2011. Kant's Thinker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, C. 1996. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Land, T. 2015. “Nonconceptualist Readings of Kant and the Transcendental Deduction.” Kantian Review 20 (1 ): 25–51. doi:10.1017/S1369415414000272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longuenesse, B. 1998. Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Trans. Wolfe, Charles T.. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longuenesse, B. 2005. Kant on the Human Standpoint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longuenesse, B. 2017. I, Me, Mine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLear, C. 2015. “Two Kinds of Unity in the Critique of Pure Reason.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 53 (1 ): 79–110. doi:10.1353/hph.2015.0011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messina, J. 2014. “Kant on the Unity of Space and the Synthetic Unity of Apperception.” Kant-Studien 105 (1 ): 5–40. doi:10.1515/kant-2014-0002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Neill, O. 1989. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O’Neill, O. 2002. “Autonomy and the Fact of Reason in the Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft (§§7-8, 30-41).” In Kritik der praktischen Vernunft: Klassiker Auslegen, edited by Höffe, O., 81–97. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Pollok, K. 2008. “‘An Almost Single Inference’ – Kant's Deduction of the Categories Reconsidered.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 90 (3 ): 323–345. doi:10.1515/AGPH.2008.013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tenenbaum, S. 2012. “The Idea of Freedom and Moral Cognition in Groundwork III.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (3 ): 555–589. doi:10.1111/phpr.2012.84.issue-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, J. 2007. Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, J. 2010. “Reversal or Retreat? Kant's Deductions of Freedom and Morality.” In Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide, edited by Reath, A. and Timmermann, J., 73–89. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermann, J. 2019. “Emerging Autonomy: Dealing with the Inadequacies of the ‘Canon’ of the Critique of Pure Reason.” In The Emergence of Autonomy in Kant's Moral Philosophy, edited by Bacin, S. and Sensen, O., 102–121. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ware, O. 2017. “Kant's Deductions of Freedom and Morality.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 47 (1 ): 116–147. doi:10.1080/00455091.2016.1235856.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, A. 2007. Kantian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar