1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910815784503321

Autore

Greenberg Robert <1934->

Titolo

The bounds of freedom : Kant's causal theory of action / / Robert Greenberg

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berlin, [Germany] ; ; Boston, [Massachusetts] : , : De Gruyter, , 2016

©2016

ISBN

3-11-061175-9

3-11-049184-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (146 pages)

Collana

Kantstudien-Ergänzungshefte, , 0340-6059 ; ; Band 191

Disciplina

128/.4092

Soggetti

Act (Philosophy)

Free will and determinism

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Causal Theories of Objects and Grice’s Causal Theory of Perception -- 3. Kant’s Theory of Practical Causality -- 4. Conscience: Remembering One’s Forbidden Actions -- 5. The New Problem of the Imputability of Actions -- 6. Maxims and Categorical Imperatives -- 7. Necessity and Practical A Priori Knowledge: Kant and Kripke -- 8. The Bounds of Freedom -- References -- Subject index

Sommario/riassunto

This monograph is a new interpretation of Kant’s àtemporal conception of the causality of the freedom of the will. The interpretation is based on an analysis of Kant’s primary conception of an action, viz., as a causal consequence of the will. The analysis in turn is based on H. P. Grice’s causal theory of perception and on P. F. Strawson’s modification of the theory. The monograph rejects the customary assumption that Kant’s maxim of an action is a causal determination of the action. It assumes instead that the maxim is definitive of the action, and since its main thesis is that an action for Kant is to be primarily understood as an effect of the will, it concludes that the maxim of an action can only be its logical determination. Kant’s àtemporal conception of the causality of free will is confronted not only by contemporary philosophical conceptions of causality, but by Kant’s own



complementary theory of causality, in the Second Analogy of Experience. According to this latter conception, causality is a natural relation among physical and psychological objects, and is therefore a temporal relation among them. Faced with this conflict, Kant scholars like Allen W. Wood either reject Kant’s àtemporal conception of causality or like Henry E. Allison accept it, but only in an anodyne form. Both camps, however, make the aforementioned assumption that Kant’s maxim of an action is a causal determination of the action. The monograph, rejecting the assumption, belongs to neither camp.