Abstract In this paper I discuss Kant’s philosophy of grammar in order to argue that: (a) the formal analysis of language implies that there is a structural correspondence between logical and grammatical form; (b) there is a distinction between the sense in which logic is formal and the sense in which grammar is formal; (c) universal grammar descends from the system of categorial functions that are investigated in the transcendental analytic; (d) transcendental grammar implies that the universal form of human language has its ground in the universal structure of thought; (e) the concept of a grammatical norm is clarified once we combine the theory of universal grammar with how linguistic experience takes place.

Abstract The origin of languages was a hotly debated topic in the eighteenth century. This paper reconstructs a distinctively Kantian account according to which the origination, progression, and diversification of languages is at bottom reason’s self-development under certain a priori constraints and external environments. The reconstruction builds on three sets of materials. The first is Herder’s famous prize essay on the origin of languages. The second includes Kant’s explicit remarks about language – especially his notion of “transcendental grammar,” his argument that language cannot be innate, his contrast of “Oriental” symbolic (intuitive) and “Occidental” discursive languages, and his treatment of the latter as a sine qua non of humanity’s cultural and moral progress. The third includes the concepts that we need to make sense of those remarks, such as Kant’s epigenetic theory of biological formation and his account of categories as originally acquired.

Abstract It is common for constructivists to claim that Kant was the first philosopher to understand moral facts as ‘constructions of reason’. They think that Kant, just like the constructivist, proposes a procedure – the Categorical Imperative – from which the order of value can be ‘constructed’ and grounds the validity of this construction procedure not in some previous value but in its capacity to solve a practical problem, the problem of ‘free agency’. I here argue that this reading is misguided and propose that we read Kant as a teleological realist instead. Kant is a realist in that he takes the value of rational nature to be objective and so not ‘constructed’. Kant is a teleological realist insofar as his derivation of the moral law from the objective value of rational nature relies on a teleological understanding of rational nature.

Abstract In order to make headway on the debate about whether Kant was a constructivist, nonconstructivist, or instead defends a hybrid view that somehow entirely sidesteps these categories, I attempt to clarify the terms of the debate more carefully than is usually done. First, I discuss the overall relationship between realism and constructivism. Second, I identify four main features of Kantian constructivism in general. Third, I examine three rival versions of metanormative Kantian constructivism, what I’ll call axiological, constitutivist, and rationalist constructivist. I argue that Kant is best seen as a rationalist constructivist. I conclude by arguing that although it’s a constructivist view, this reading avoids the main pitfalls of traditional Kantian constructivism. In doing so, it helps us to achieve a satisfying rapprochement between constructivist and non-constructivist (that is, so-called ‘realist’) readings of Kant.

Abstract Karl Vorlaender made an excellent scholarly contribution to the detailed and accurate academic appreciation of Kant’s work. Over several decades from the early 1890s to the late 1920s he researched and presented Kant’s ideas in their German and European philosophical context in a manner which contributed to their accessibility and their reach into the culture and population at large. Vorlaender performed an important role in the transmission of Kant’s ideas and the ideas of the neo-Kantian school in general to a younger generation of scholars and the German public as a whole. Vorlaender is by far the most focussed upon social and political issues amongst the neo-Kantians. Others may have completed deeper individual investigations of the import of Kant’s work, particularly in epistemology and ethics, but none rise to Vorlaender’s level in their analysis and discussion of the political significance of Kant’s work. Much of this significance is attained by concentrating primarily upon Kant

Abstract Based on Kant’s own concept of politics, it is possible to construct his political philosophy that is related to but also different from his metaphysics of right. Politics is the practice of realizing the principles of right in experience; therefore, Kant’s political philosophy must explore the general conditions that make this practice possible. These conditions, such as political judgement, publicity and the enlightenment of the people, are indispensable to Kant’s thinking about human external freedom but do not belong to the metaphysics of right. Kant’s metaphysics of right is undoubtedly a liberal theory, but we can also identify some republican elements in his political philosophy. In this way, Kant provides us with a very instructive programme to absorb republican elements within a liberal theory.

Abstract Kant’s essays in the philosophy of history, such asUniversal HistoryandConjectural Beginning, offer a speculative account of the gradual development of reason in our species and of the way the mature use of reason can be attained. Such mature use of reason, as Kant explains a few years later in the publishedAnthropology, is characterized by abandoning the standpoint of “practical egoism” and learning how to exercise the psychological disposition to “pluralism”. To be a pluralist, he claims, means to be capable of seeing things from other people’s standpoints, of giving deliberative weight to the needs of others, and of taking part in universally valid judgments. But Kant is never explicit about what is required in order to become a pluralist, nor does he explain what it means to be a pluralist beyond a brief remark in theAnthropology.My paper takes a detailed look at this under-studied notion and offers a novel account of this notion. I explicate the features of pluralistic thinking and I connect this notion to the public use of reason, the three maxims of common human understanding, and the role played by interpersonal communication in advancing the progress of our rational capacities. I also explain the key role of education in reason’s development and the conceptual relationship between the enlightenment of an individual and the enlightenment of the human species.