Ontology as Transcendental Philosophy

How does the critical Kant view ontology? There is no shared scholarly answer to this question. Norbert Hinske sees in the Critique of Pure Reason a “farewell to ontology,” albeit one that took Kant long to bid (Hinske 2009). Karl Ameriks has found evidence in Kant’s metaphysics lectures from the critical period that he “was unwilling to break away fully from traditional ontology” (Ameriks 1992: 272). Gualtiero Lorini argues that a decisive break with the tradition of ontology is essential to Kant’s critical reform of metaphysics, as is reflected in his shift from “ontology” to “transcendental philosophy,” two notions that Lorini takes to be related by mere “analogy” (Lorini 2015). I agree with Lorini that a thorough reform of ontology is a pivotal part of Kant’s critical plan for metaphysics and that ontology somehow “survives within the critical philosophy” (Lorini 2015: 76). To make this case, however, I deem it important to identify “ontology” and “transcendental philosophy” in the sense of extensional equivalence. While we can detect this identification in Kant’s writings, only from his metaphysics lectures can we get a full sense of its historical and philosophical significance. In this chapter I focus on how it represents a definitive turn from as well as notable continuity with traditional treatments of ontology, particularly the Wolffian one

A Guide to Ground in Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics

While scholars have extensively discussed Kant’s treatment of the Principle of Sufficient Ground in the Antinomies chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason, and, more recently, his relation to German rationalist debates about it, relatively little has been said about the exact notion of ground that figures in the PSG. My aim in this chapter is to explain Kant’s discussion of ground in the lectures and to relate it, where appropriate, to his published discussions of ground

Monsters, Laws of Nature, and Teleology in Late Scholastic Textbooks

In the period of emergence of early modern science, ‘monsters’ or individuals with physical congenital anomalies were considered as rare events which required special explanations entailing assumptions about the laws of nature. This concern with monsters was shared by representatives of the new science and Late Scholastic authors of university textbooks. This paper will reconstruct the main theses of the treatment of monsters in Late Scholastic textbooks, by focusing on the question as to how their accounts conceived nature’s regularity and teleology. It shows that they developed a naturalistic teratology in which, in contrast to the naturalistic explanations usually offered by the new science, finality was at central stage. This general point does not impede our noticing that some authors were closer to the views emerging in the Scientific Revolution insofar as they conceived nature as relatively autonomous from God and gave a relevant place to efficient secondary causation. In this connection, this paper suggests that the concept of the laws of nature developed by the new science –as exception-less regularities—transferred to nature’s regularity the ‘strong’ character that Late Scholasticism attributed to finality and that the decline of the Late Scholastic view of finality played as an important concomitant factor permitting the transformation of the concept of laws of nature

Disputatio De Nihilo : Quae Non Est De Nihilo, Vagans per omnes disciplinas

Layoutgetreues Digitalisat der Ausg.: Marpurgi Cattorum : Hutwelckerus, 1608 Standort: Zentralbibliothek (000) Signatur: I B 57 pe, 3, 54 (Hassiaca

Solennis Actus Promotionis XX. Candidatorvm Philosophici Magisterii

Quos Ornavit Rodolphus Goclenius Senior, Die 7. Jan. Anno 1608Marburg, Universitätsrede vom 7. 1. 1608Vorlageform des Erscheinungsvermerks: Marpurgi, Excudebat Guolgangus Kezelius. M. DC. VIII

Observationum Linguae Latinae, Sive Puri Sermonis Analecta : Omnibus Purae Emendataeque Locutionis Studiosis profutura

Rodolpho Goclenio, Professore Philosophico in Academia Marpurgensi AuctoreEnth.: Rodolphi Goclenii Professoris Philosophici In Academia Marpurgensi, Problematum Grammaticorum. Libri