Regulative Principles and Kinds of the Unconditioned
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Authors
Publication Date
2021-06-01Journal Title
Kantian Review
ISSN
1369-4154
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Volume
26
Issue
2
Pages
287-297
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
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Breitenbach, A. (2021). Regulative Principles and Kinds of the Unconditioned. Kantian Review, 26 (2), 287-297. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415421000066
Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>
<jats:p>In his <jats:italic>Kant on Laws</jats:italic>, Eric Watkins presents an account of reason on which the principles of specification and continuity are regulative instructions to search for different kinds of the unconditioned. I suggest that we correct Watkins’ account in two ways. First, we need to complete Watkins’ claim to the plurality of the unconditioned: reason aims for three kinds of the unconditioned, associated with the <jats:italic>lowest</jats:italic>, <jats:italic>next</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>highest</jats:italic> concepts. Second, we need to look beyond reason’s search for the unconditioned in order to properly understand the nature of the aim of reason. I argue that we construe reason’s aim as the systematic unity of cognition considered as a whole or, in Kant’s teleological terms, as the realization of an ‘idea’, or a ‘purposive unity’.</jats:p>
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1369415421000066
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/334786
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