Uberzeugender Beweis aus der Vernunft von der Unsterblichkeit sowohl der Menschen Seelen insgemein, als besonders der Kinder-Seelen

Israel Gottlieb Canz’s Uberzeugender Beweiß, first published in 1741 and reprinted here in its second, expanded edition stands as his most influential discussion of the soul’s immortality, with one contemporary pronouncing it to be “one of the best [treatments of immortality] that we have.” In this text, Canz seeks to augment and supplement traditional Wolffian proofs by considering, first, the grounds for the soul’s immortality that are contained in its own nature and, second, the grounds for the same that are found in God. In addition, Canz extends his treatment to include a detailed discussion of the souls of children and he offers speculations concerning the soul’s condition in the afterlife. On account of its systematic presentation and original argumentation, Canz’s Beweiß represents a key contribution to Leibniz-Wolffian rational psychology, and through the critical reaction it generated it would help shape the debate concerning the soul’s immortality for years after its original publication

Leibniz's Wolffian Psychology

In this paper, I attempt to trace the broader contours of a putative Leibnizian psychology by adopting the rather unusual, and perhaps historically dubious, strategy of outlining the continuities between Leibniz’s discussion of the soul and the much more detailed and systematic psychological writings of his German successor, Christian Wolff

Between Wolffianism and Pietism: Baumgarten's Rational Psychology

In this paper, I consider Baumgarten’s views on the soul in the context of the Pietist critique of Wolff’s rational psychology. My primary aim is to account for the largely unacknowledged differences between Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s rational psychology, though I also hope to show that, in some cases, the Pietists were rather more perceptive in their reading of Wolff than they are typically given credit for as their criticisms frequently succeed in drawing attention to significant omissions in Wolff’s discussion

The Function of Derivation and the Derivation of Functions: A Review of Schulting’s Kant’s Deduction and Apperception

In this review essay, I raise three principal concerns relating to Schulting’s project of deriving the categories from apperception as elaborated in his recent book Kant’s Deduction and Apperception (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). First, I claim that Schulting overlooks a key ambiguity relating to ‘ableiten’ and which contrasts with his strictly logical understanding of that term. Second, I dispute on textual and philosophical grounds Schulting’s characterization of the subject’s consciousness of its own identity in terms of the analytic unity of apperception. Finally, I raise an objection to Schulting’s account of the derivation of the concept of substance from apperception, as I claim that at best Kant allows that the logical function underlying this category (rather than the category itself) can be so derived, and I note that this objection can be extrapolated to apply to the other derivations of the categories Schulting offers

The Proof-Structure of Kant’s A-Edition Objective Deduction

Kant's A-Edition objective deduction is naturally (and has traditionally been) divided into two arguments: an " argument from above" and one that proceeds " von unten auf." This would suggest a picture of Kant's procedure in the objective deduction as first descending and ascending the same ladder, the better, perhaps, to test its durability or to thoroughly convince the reader of its soundness. There are obvious obstacles to such a reading, however; and in this chapter I will argue that the arguments from above and below constitute different, albeit importantly inter-related, proofs. Rather than drawing on the differences in their premises, however, I will highlight what I take to be the different concerns addressed and, correspondingly, the distinct conclusions reached by each. In particular, I will show that both arguments can be understood to address distinct specters, with the argument from above addressing an internal concern generated by Kant’s own transcendental idealism, and the argument from below seeking to dispel a more traditional, broadly Humean challenge to the understanding’s role in experience. These distinct concerns also imply that these arguments yield distinct conclusions, though I will show that they are in fact complementary

Reason and the Idea of the Highest Good

In this paper, we reconstruct Kant’s notion of the practically conditioned, introduced in the Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason, by drawing on Kant’s general account of the faculty of reason presented in the Transcendental Dialectic of the Critique of Pure Reason. We argue that practical reason’s activity of seeking the practically unconditioned for a given condition generates two different conceptions of the practically unconditioned and identify these as virtue and (the ideal of) happiness. We then account for how and why reason proceeds to combine these two distinct ideas into the composite idea of the highest good. Last, we draw on our discussion to determine more precisely what Kant intends by the ‘supremacy’ of virtue within reason’s idea of the highest good

Interspecific Hybridization Yields Strategy for South Pacific Filariasis Vector Elimination

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) is a global health problem, with over 120 million people affected annually. The current LF elimination program is focused on administering anti-filarial drugs to the entire at-risk population via annual mass drug administration (MDA). While the MDA program is proving effective in many areas, other areas may require augmentative measures such as vector control. An example of the latter is provided by some regions of the South Pacific where Aedes polynesiensis is the primary vector. Here, we describe a novel vector control approach based upon naturally occurring Wolbachia bacterial infections. Wolbachia are endosymbiotic intracellular bacteria that cause a form of sterility known as cytoplasmic incompatibility. We show that introgression crosses with mosquitoes that are infected with a different Wolbachia type results in an A. polynesiensis strain (designated ‘CP’) that is incompatible with naturally infected mosquitoes. No difference in mating competitiveness is observed between CP males and wild type males in laboratory assays. The results support continued development of the strategy as a tool to improve public health