Sacha Golob

In his new book, Kant’s Radical Subjectivism, Schulting provides a rigorous and persuasive account of the core themes of the Transcendental Deduction. I have learnt a great deal from this work, and I am sympathetic to many of its points. In this response, however, I think it will be most interesting to concentrate on two issues where Schulting and I disagree, and where that disagreement has important structural consequences. The first issue concerns the role of objectivity in Kant’s argument, the second the prospects for nonconceptualism. I shall begin by summarising Schulting’s stance on each. I will then explain where we differ and why it matters.

This article examines the phenomenon of thought insertion, one of the most extreme disruptions to the standard mechanisms for self-knowledge, in the context of Kant's philosophy of mind. This juxtaposition is of interest for two reasons, aside from Kant's foundational significance for any modern work on the self. First, thought insertion presents a challenge to Kant's approach. For example, the first Critique famously held that " The 'I think' must be able to accompany all my representations " (Kant, KrV, B132). Yet thought insertion raises the problem of representations which are 'mine' by many natural criteria, and yet which I am unwilling to self-ascribe. Ultimately, my argument will be that thought insertion simultaneously problematises, and yet to some degree also vindicates, the complex distinctions between activity and passivity which underlie Kant's system. Second, I argue that Kant's position contains resources that allow us to model thought insertion, and its broader implications for self-knowledge, in an interesting and distinctive manner. Kant himself held an extreme view of philosophy's competence in the study of mental disorder: in the Anthropology, he suggests that courts must refer such cases to philosophers, rather than medics (Kant, Anth, p.214). My aim is much more modest: to suggest that a Kantian treatment of thought insertion deserves consideration by both philosophers and clinicians.

James Conant’s recent article, ‘Why Kant Is Not a Kantian’, offers a sophisticated and provocative account of the relationship between sensibility and understanding. It is also an account that I think is mistaken. One consequence is that Conant is unable to do justice to both the differences and the deep continuities that exist between us and non-rational animals. Kant’s own views in this regard, I argue, were both more flexible and more attractive.
https://virtualcritique.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/the-separability-of-understanding-and-sensibility-a-reply-to-james-conant/#more-4400

This article addresses three questions concerning Kant's views on non-rational animals: do they intuit spatio-temporal particulars, do they perceive objects, and do they have intentional states? My aim is to explore the relationship between these questions and to clarify certain pervasive ambiguities in how they have been understood. I first disambiguate various non-equivalent notions of objecthood and intentionality: I then look closely at several models of objectivity present in Kant's work, and at recent discussions of representational and relational theories of intentionality. I argue ultimately that, given the relevant disambiguations, the answers to all three questions will likely be positive. These results both support what has become known as the nonconceptualist reading of Kant, and make clearer the price the conceptualist must pay to sustain her position.

One of the strongest motivations for conceptualist readings of Kant is the belief that the Transcendental Deduction is incompatible with nonconceptualism. In this article, I argue that this belief is simply false: the Deduction and nonconceptualism are compatible at both an exegetical and a philosophical level. Placing particular emphasis on the case of non-human animals, I discuss in detail how and why my reading diverges from those of Ginsborg, Allais, Gomes and others. I suggest ultimately that it is only by embracing nonconceptualism that we can fully recognise the delicate calibration of the trap which the Critique sets for Hume.
http://www.palgrave.com/in/book/9781137535160

"This paper addresses a number of closely related questions concerning
Kant’s model of intentionality, and his conceptions of unity and of magnitude
[Grösse]. These questions are important because they shed light on three issues
which are central to the Critical system, and which connect directly to the recent
analytic literature on perception: the issues are conceptualism, the status of
the imagination, and perceptual atomism. In Section 1, I provide a sketch of the
exegetical and philosophical problems raised by Kant’s views on these issues. I
then develop, in Section 2, a detailed analysis of Kant’s theory of perception as
elaborated in both the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Judgment; I show
how this analysis provides a preliminary framework for resolving the difficulties
raised in Section 1. In Section 3, I extend my analysis of Kant’s position by
considering a specific test case: the Axioms of Intuition. I contend that one way
to make sense of Kant’s argument is by juxtaposing it with Russell’s response
to Bradley’s regress; I focus in particular on the concept of ‘unity’. Finally, I offer,
in Section 4, a philosophical assessment of the position attributed to Kant in
Sections 2 and 3. I argue that, while Kant’s account has significant strengths, a
number of key areas remain underdeveloped; I suggest that the phenomenological
tradition may be read as attempting to fill precisely those gaps."

Kant's Transcendental Deduction, by Henry Allison. Oxford University Press, 2015.

The purpose of this book, by one of the foremost contemporary Kant scholars, is to advance a simultaneously ‘analytic and historical’ treatment of the most complex component of Kant’s philosophy: the Transcendental Deduction (p. 1).The approach is analytic in that Allison seeks to provide a rigorous assessment of the multiple lines of argument visible in Kant’s text. It is historical in that this is embedded within a detailed exegetical framework: Allison considers, often line by line, a huge range of sources, beginning with the Prize Essay before moving through the A Deduction and the Prolegomena to the B Deduction. This interweaving of the textual and the conceptual makes the book immensely valuable: by closely tracking the development of Kant’s thought, from its emergence from rationalism through to the modifications implemented over the two editions of KrV, Allison provides a rich picture of the tensions and pressures which shape the Critical system. My aim is to provide an outline of Allison’s analysis, and to identify some challenges which his approach faces.
https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/mind/fzw052

This article advances a new account of Kant’s views on conceptualism. On the one hand, I argue that Kant was a nonconceptualist. On the other hand, my approach accommodates many motivations underlying the conceptualist reading of his work: for example, it is fully compatible with the success of the Transcendental Deduction. I motivate my view by providing a new analysis of both Kant’s theory of perception and of the role of categorical synthesis: I look in particular at the categories of quantity. Locating my interpretation in relation to recent research by Allais, Ginsborg, Tolley and others, I argue that it offers an attractive compromise on this important theoretical and exegetical issue.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/kantian-review/article/kant-as-both-conceptualist-and-nonconceptualist/F1548F2F4A3F2536578A868799A04524

Comparative work in the history of philosophy is a difficult thing to do well. It requires bringing into dialogue systems and arguments which are, even when close chronological and intellectual connections exist, often driven by very different ambitions and pressures, and which are frequently couched in terminological and conceptual frameworks untranslatable without remainder. Yet such comparative work is also extremely important. In his book, Sorin Baiasu examines what is, I think, a particularly important comparative case study, that of Kant and Sartre. My aim is to discuss, and to pose some challenges to, Baiasu's reading.OPEN ACCESS AT
https://virtualcritique.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/sacha-golob-on-sorin-baiasus-kant-and-sartre-re-discovering-critical-ethics/