Remote Sensing and the Earth

A text book on remote sensing, as part of the earth resources Skylab programs, is presented. The fundamentals of remote sensing and its application to agriculture, land use, geology, water and marine resources, and environmental monitoring are summarized

Astronautics and aeronautics, 1963 chronology on science, technology, and policy

Chronological compilation of events relating to space exploration and exploitatio

The Mother of Chaos and Night: Kant\u27s Metaphilosophical Attack on Indifferentism

Kant positions the Critical philosophy as a response to the crisis of metaphysics - a crisis that is still with us. But his diagnosis of that crisis in terms of a struggle between dogmatism, skepticism, and indifferentism is given short shrift in the secondary literature, despite its promise to help us understand Kant\u27s claim that transcendental philosophy represents a radical alternative to these philosophical modi vivendi. After a consideration of Kant\u27s remarks on what philosophy is in general, I argue that all four of these mutually-exclusive ways of philosophizing are best understood as metaphilosophical stances: ways of conceiving of the ends or aims of philosophy, which collectively determine the legitimate moves in philosophical argumentation, thereby setting the terms of success for such inquiry. I then make these four competing stances explicit, by drawing on Kant\u27s scattered remarks on them and their history. This involves articulating and defending Kant\u27s complex and surprisingly sophisticated relationship to dogmatism and skepticism, and hence a general assessment of Kant\u27s attempts to incorporate these stances\u27 insights, and so subvert their appeal, in the course of developing his transcendental philosophy. Readings of Kant which myopically take him to be focused on bluntly refuting the dogmatist (e.g., Allison), or the skeptic (e.g., Guyer), fall into characteristic errors as a result. Even more importantly, I show that Kant\u27s central target is in fact the much-neglected indifferentist, whose metaphilosophical stance is defined by a denial of the distinctness and autonomy of philosophy, in a way antithetical to Kant\u27s attempt to ground his philosophical activity on the fact of human agency. Indifferentism has numerous adherents, though naturally not under that name, both in Kant\u27s day (e.g., the so-called Popularphilosophen) and in our own (e.g., the Wittgenstein of On Certainty). Reading Kant against these thinkers sharply clarifies his aims and methods in the Critical philosophy, in a way that the predominant anti-dogmatic and anti-skeptical readings fail to do. Kant\u27s assault on indifferentism centrally employs a set of arguments designed to put us in a position to rationally endorse our high-order normative principles without risk of (indifferentistically) ascribing that endorsement either to passive uptake from the wider culture, or to the oracular dictates of common sense. Thus, it is only by means of Kant\u27s distinctive transcendental proofs that can we invoke the authority of reason in philosophy without making one of two fatal errors: making reason utterly transcendent, which produces skepticism; or casting reason as wholly immanent, which yields dogmatism. Taken together, Kant\u27s metaphilosophical views promise a revitalization of transcendental philosophy for our contemporary age