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Externalization of Spirit? Use Theory of Representation in Kant's Philosophy

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Schoenrich G.

Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

2004

vol. 13

issue 4(52)

243-261

The paper compares certain views of Kant's with positions taken by Putnam, Prauss, Frege and Peirce on the origin and status of the contents of representations. The author focuses on the shift that is detectable in the 'Critique of Pure Reason', where Kant seems ready to abandon the 'representation' position for the 'use' position, and the 'internalist' position for the sake of the 'externalist' position to emphasise the process-like character of concepts and contents. This shift is tantamount to 'expelling contents out of mind'. Contents is understood as a system of rules formulated conditionally, pertaining to conceptual determinants and dependent on our knowledge. The semantic test of adequacy of use is the world. Thus, instead of speaking about 'contents' of concepts, it is preferable to speak of rules of using concepts. The author proposes to replace 'representations' with 'instances of direct insight', which will facilitate understanding of the alleged question of externalisation of contents of representations. In author's proposal the signifying sign cannot be separated from the signified object and its history in our knowledge. Both are aspects of the same process, and direct insight is a non-conceptual phenomenon. But on the other hand, even the most scrupulous observation of the rules of correct usage of concepts will not guarantee that a representation will reach an external object for which it is intended or that the object will possess the stable identity that we wish to assign to its representation.

Kant and the Problem of Moral Motivation

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Ameriks K.

Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

2004

vol. 13

issue 4(52)

167-182

The problem of moral motivation, or speaking more generally, the question, why we should follow demands of 'pure reason' rather than inclinations 'contingent nature', is of an essential importance to those who seem not to be satisfied with Kant,s approach to practical philosophy. But their position, most elequently expressed in the philosophy found in English language publications, is rather simplistic and it tends to separate the question of conflicting claims of reason and nature from the rest of Kant's philosophy. Thus despite the fact that Kant's ethics has enjoyed a renewed interest in analytic philosophy recently, it is typically subordinated to other ethical positions, such as utilitarianism, expressivism, a theory of virtues (Aristotelian or Humean), or various anti-theoretic forms of particularism. Proponents of these theories go in the footsteps of Foot, Williams, McDowell or Blackburn and reject all kinds of moral theories that resemble Kant's ethics too closely. It seems consequently necessary to venture beyond the proper field of Kant's scholarship when one wants to reach wider public. Which in turn means that it is advisable to raise a more general question: What issues should be included in every perspicuous and reliable moral theory? The author starts to discuss this problem in a neutral language (part one) in order to be able to defend Kant against most common objections (part two) to his ethics, then he reconstructs Kant's theory of motivation (part three) by pointing to some salient features of that theory which unfortunately has been either neglected or overlooked.

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2 Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria

2 2004

1 Ameriks K.

1 Schoenrich G.

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Externalization of Spirit? Use Theory of Representation in Kant's Philosophy

Kant and the Problem of Moral Motivation