Kant on Laws

Provides a unified account of the notion of law - both natural and moral - in Kant's abstract and empirical philosophy.

Eric Watkins (Author)

9781316615560, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 March 2021

313 pages
22.6 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.506 kg

'Kant on Laws is a wonderful piece of scholarship and must be read by anyone with an interest in Kant's conception of law.' Hein van den Berg, European Journal of Philosophy

This book focuses on the unity, diversity, and centrality of the notion of law as it is employed in Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. Eric Watkins argues that, by thinking through a number of issues in various historical, scientific, and philosophical contexts over several decades, Kant is able to develop a univocal concept of law that can nonetheless be applied to a wide range of particular cases, despite the diverse demands that these contexts give rise to. In addition, Watkins shows how Kant comes to view both the generic conception of law which he develops and its different particular instances as crucial components of his systematic philosophy as a whole. This volume's new and unified account of a major current running through Kant's work will be important for scholars interested in numerous aspects of his philosophy, from the theoretical and abstract to the practical and empirical.

Introduction
Part I. Kant's Conception of Law: 1. What is, for Kant, a law of nature?
2. Kant on transcendental laws
Part II. The Laws of Mechanics: 3. The system of principles
4. The argumentative structure of Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
5. The laws of motion from Newton to Kant
6. Kant's justification of the laws of mechanics
Part III. Teleological Laws: 7. The antinomy of teleological judgment
8. Nature in general as a system of ends
Part IV. Laws as Regulative Principles: 9. Kant on rational cosmology
10. Kant on Infima Species
Part V. The Moral Law: 11. Autonomy and the legislation of laws in the Prolegomena
12. Kant on the natural, moral, human, and divine orders.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]