Sgarbi Marco. - Kant on Spontaneity

Kant on Spontaneity

Continuum Studies in Philosophy

Continuum Studies in Philosophy is a major monograph series from Continuum. The series features first-class scholarly research monographs across the whole field of philosophy. Each work makes a major contribution to the field of philosophical research.

Aesthetic in Kant, James Kirwan

Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion, Aaron Preston

Aquinas and the Ship of Theseus, Christopher Brown

Augustine and Roman Virtue, Brian Harding

The Challenge of Relativism, Patrick Phillips

Demands of Taste in Kants Aesthetics, Brent Kalar

Descartes and the Metaphysics of Human Nature, Justin Skirry

Descartes Theory of Ideas, David Clemenson

Dialectic of Romanticism, Peter Murphy and David Roberts

Duns Scotus and the Problem of Universals, Todd Bates

Hegels Philosophy of Language, Jim Vernon

Hegels Philosophy of Right, David James

Hegels Theory of Recognition, Sybol S. C. Anderson

The History of Intentionality, Ryan Hickerson

Kantian Deeds, Henrik Jker Bjerre

Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory, Alison Assiter

Kierkegaards Analysis of Radical Evil, David A. Roberts

Leibniz Re-interpreted, Lloyd Strickland

Metaphysics and the End of Philosophy, H. O. Mounce

Nietzsche and the Greeks, Dale Wilkerson

Origins of Analytic Philosophy, Delbert Reed

Philosophy of Miracles, David Corner

Platonism, Music and the Listeners Share, Christopher Norris

Poppers Theory of Science, Carlos Garcia

Postanalytic and Metacontinental, edited by James Williams, Jack Reynolds, James Chase and Ed Mares

Rationality and Feminist Philosophy, Deborah K. Heikes

Re-thinking the Cogito, Christopher Norris

Role of God in Spinozas Metaphysics, Sherry Deveaux

Rousseau and Radical Democracy, Kevin Inston

Rousseau and the Ethics of Virtue, James Delaney

Rousseaus Theory of Freedom, Matthew Simpson

Spinoza and the Stoics, Firmin DeBrabander

Spinozas Radical Cartesian Mind, Tammy Nyden-Bullock

St Augustine and the Theory of Just War, John Mark Mattox

St Augustine of Hippo, R. W. Dyson

Thomas Aquinas & John Duns Scotus, Alex Hall

Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Andrew Fiala

Kant on Spontaneity

Marco Sgarbi

Continuum Studies in Philosophy

Continuum International Publishing Group

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Marco Sgarbi, 2012

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The author has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-4411-1528-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sgarbi, Marco, 1982

Kant on spontaneity / Marco Sgarbi.

p. cm. (Continuum studies in philosophy)

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.

ISBN 978-1-4411-3319-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4411-4342-6 (ebook pdf : alk. paper) 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. 2. Spontaneity (Philosophy) I. Title.

B2798.S49 2012

193dc23

2012000805

Contents

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the help and support of numerous people and institutions while I was working on this book. This research has been possible thanks to a Frances A. Yates Short-Term Fellowship at the Warburg Institute and to an Assegno di ricerca at the Dipartimento di Filosofia of the Universit di Verona. I have been thinking about the issues discussed in this book since I participated in The New School Universitys Second Annual International Undergraduate Philosophy Conference on Kants Moral and Aesthetic Philosophy, the 4th and 5th of March, 2005, organized by Jennifer A. Bautz. Subsequently, I have benefited from interactions with an increasing number of Kantian scholars such as Reinhard Brandt, Wolfgang Carl, Bernd Drflinger, Flix Duque, Costantino Esposito, Alfredo Ferrarin, Eckart Frster, Piero Giordanetti, Paul Guyer, Norbert Hinske, Hansmichael Hohenegger, Rolf Peter-Horstmann, Patricia Kitcher, Heiner F. Klemme, Claudio La Rocca, Mario G. Lombardo, Mario Longo, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Massimo Marassi, Ferdinando L. Marcolungo, Massimo Mori, Alessandro Pinzani, Stefano Poggi, Ubirajara Rancan de Azevedo Marques, Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos, Valerio Rocco Lozano, Tom Rockmore, Paola Rumore, Clemens Schwaiger, Pedro Jess Teruel, Mara Jess Vzquez Lobeiras and Gnter Zller. My gratitude to the participants to the following conferences Kant and the Philosophical Tradition/Kant Today (Verona-Padova, 225 January 2008), Kants Critique of Judgement: Art, Science, and Religion (Baltimore, 289 March 2008) and Kant e la biologia (Marilia, 1012 August 2010) for feedback, comments and suggestions. While any list of reasonable length would be undoubtedly incomplete, I nonetheless want to acknowledge the great help of Seung-Kee Lee and Riccardo Pozzo, and the everyday patient support of Laura Anna Macor.

Sources and Abbreviations

All citations and references to Kants works are located by volume and page number as in Kants gesammelte Schriften = KGS, edited by the Royal Prussian (later German, then Berlin-Brandenburg) Academy of Sciences (Berlin: Georg Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1900). Arabic numerals indicate first the volume and then the page number of this edition. The one exception to this rule is the Critique of Pure Reason = CPR, where passages are located by numbers from A, the first edition of 1781, and/or B, the second edition of 1787. The pagination of the Academy Edition is reproduced in almost all modern English translations of Kants writings.

Unless otherwise noted, the translations are from the Cambridge Edition of theWorks of Immanuel Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

Chapter 1

Introduction: The Problem of
Spontaneity in Kant

I The Problem

Spontaneity is a key concept in Kants philosophy, yet the philosopher from Knigsberg never dealt with it explicitly, and it often tended to be presented as an insoluble problem concerning human reason. The ambiguity with which he faced this problem is unusual and unexpected when one considers that he was the philosopher who based his theoretical programme on the critique of the faculties of knowledge, feeling and desire. However, spontaneity in Kant seems to avoid any possible critique and appears to be the uncriticized presupposition of critical philosophy: it becomes the very core of every faculty of the mind that defines humans as rational beings.