Michele Merritt
Biographic Data
| ID | 462208 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michele Merritt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michele |
| FAMILY NAME | Merritt |
| SIGNATURE | MERRITT M |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7526-2548 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 29 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Kant's Critique of Taste: The Feeling of Life
The perennial challenge for any Kant scholar is to offer close reading of a dense and often exceedingly abstract text that is faithful both to its driving philosophical insights and to something recognizable as human life. Perhaps it is with this in mind that Katalin Makkai breaks ground on her interpretation of Kant’s theory of taste with a nod to Zadie Smith’s (2019) reflections about how she came, one day, to love the music of Joni Mitchell af…
Humor, Common Sense and the Future of Metaphysics in the Prolegomena
Kant’s Prolegomena is a piece of philosophical advertising: it exists to convince the open-minded “future teacher” of metaphysics that the true critical philosophy — i.e., the Critique — provides the only viable solution to the problem of metaphysics (i.e. its failure to make any genuine progress). To be effective, a piece of advertising needs to know its audience. This chapter argues that Kant takes his reader to have some default sympathies for…
Feeling and Orientation in Action: A Reply to Alix Cohen
Alix Cohen argues that the function of feeling in Kantian psychology is to appraise and orient activity. Thus she sees feeling and agency as importantly connected by Kant’s lights. I endorse this broader claim, but argue that feeling, on her account, cannot do the work of orientation that she assigns to it
Nature, corruption, and freedom: Stoic ethics in Kant's Religion
Kant's account of “the radical evil in human nature” in the 1793 Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone is typically interpreted as a reworking of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. But Kant does not talk about Augustine explicitly there, and if he is rehabilitating the doctrine of original sin, the result is not obviously Augustinian. Instead, Kant talks about Stoic ethics in a pair of passages on either end of his account of radical …
Kant and Stoic Affections
I examine the significance of the Stoic theory of pathē (and related topics) for Kant’s moral psychology, arguing against the received view that systematic differences block the possibility of Kant’s drawing anything more than rhetoric from his Stoic sources. More particularly, I take on the chronically underexamined assumption that Kant is committed to a psychological dualism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, positing distinct rational an…
Practical Reason and Respect for Persons
My project is to reconsider the Kantian conception of practical reason. Some Kantians take practical reasoning to be more active than theoretical reasoning, on the grounds that it need not contend with what is there anyway, independently of its exercise. Behind that claim stands the thesis that practical reason is essentially efficacious. I accept the efficacy principle, but deny that it underwrites this conception of practical reason. My inquiry…
Attention and Synthesis in Kant's Conception of Experience
In an intriguing but neglected passage in the Transcendental Deduction, Kant appears to link the synthetic activity of the understanding in experience with the phenomenon of attention (B156-7n). In this paper we take up this hint, and draw upon Kant’s remarks about attention in the Anthropology to shed light on the vexed question of what, exactly, the understanding’s role in experience is for Kant. We argue that reading Kant’s claims about synthe…
Varieties of Reflection in Kant's Logic
For Kant, ‘reflection’ (Überlegung, Reflexion) is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind sp…
Kant on Enlightened Moral Pedagogy
For Kant, the ideal of enlightenment is most fundamentally expressed as a self‐developed soundness of judgment. But what does this mean when the judgment at issue is practical, that is, concerns the good to be brought about through action? I argue that the moral context places special demands on the ideal of enlightenment. This is revealed through an interpretation of Kant's prescription for moral pedagogy in the Critique of Practical Reason . Th…
Kant on the Transcendental Deduction of Space and Time: An Essay on the Philosophical Resources of the Transcendental Aesthetic
Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has focused intensively on the transcendental deduction of the categories – the pivotal chapter of the book that governs our understanding of much that precedes it and just about all that follows it. One simple way to understand the systematic function of the Transcendental Deduction is to appreciate that it provides an account of how the ‘two stems of human knowledge’ (A15/B29) – sensibility and under…
The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom
Robert R. Clewis: The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. xiii + 258, £55.00 (hb.). ISBN 978-0-521-51668-6 This book distinguishes itself
Kant's Argument for the Apperception Principle
My aim is to reconstruct Kant's argument for the principle of the synthetic unity of apperception. I reconstruct Kant's argument in stages, first showing why thinking should be conceived as an activity of synthesis (as opposed to attention), and then showing why the unity or coherence of a subject's representations should depend upon an a priori synthesis. The guiding thread of my account is Kant's conception of enlightenment: as I suggest, the p…
Reflection, Enlightenment, and the Significance of Spontaneity in Kant
Analysis in the Critique of Pure Reason
It is widely supposed that the principal task of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is to carry out some kind of analysis of experience. Commentators as profoundly at odds on fundamental points of interpretation as P. F. Strawson and Patricia Kitcher share this supposition. In a letter to J. S. Beck, Kant seems to endorse this view himself, referring to some unspecified stretch of the Critique as an ‘analysis of experience in general’. The idea that …
Attention and Synthesis in Kant's Conception of Experience
In an intriguing but neglected passage in the Transcendental Deduction, Kant appears to link the synthetic activity of the understanding in experience with the phenomenon of attention (B156-7n). In this paper we take up this hint, and draw upon Kant’s remarks about attention in the Anthropology to shed light on the vexed question of what, exactly, the understanding’s role in experience is for Kant. We argue that reading Kant’s claims about synthe…
Reflection, Enlightenment, and the Significance of Spontaneity in Kant
Varieties of Reflection in Kant's Logic
For Kant, ‘reflection’ (Überlegung, Reflexion) is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind sp…
Kant on Enlightened Moral Pedagogy
For Kant, the ideal of enlightenment is most fundamentally expressed as a self‐developed soundness of judgment. But what does this mean when the judgment at issue is practical, that is, concerns the good to be brought about through action? I argue that the moral context places special demands on the ideal of enlightenment. This is revealed through an interpretation of Kant's prescription for moral pedagogy in the Critique of Practical Reason . Th…
Kant's Argument for the Apperception Principle
My aim is to reconstruct Kant's argument for the principle of the synthetic unity of apperception. I reconstruct Kant's argument in stages, first showing why thinking should be conceived as an activity of synthesis (as opposed to attention), and then showing why the unity or coherence of a subject's representations should depend upon an a priori synthesis. The guiding thread of my account is Kant's conception of enlightenment: as I suggest, the p…
Kant's Critique of Taste: The Feeling of Life
The perennial challenge for any Kant scholar is to offer close reading of a dense and often exceedingly abstract text that is faithful both to its driving philosophical insights and to something recognizable as human life. Perhaps it is with this in mind that Katalin Makkai breaks ground on her interpretation of Kant’s theory of taste with a nod to Zadie Smith’s (2019) reflections about how she came, one day, to love the music of Joni Mitchell af…
Kant and Stoic Affections
I examine the significance of the Stoic theory of pathē (and related topics) for Kant’s moral psychology, arguing against the received view that systematic differences block the possibility of Kant’s drawing anything more than rhetoric from his Stoic sources. More particularly, I take on the chronically underexamined assumption that Kant is committed to a psychological dualism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, positing distinct rational an…
The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom
Robert R. Clewis: The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. xiii + 258, £55.00 (hb.). ISBN 978-0-521-51668-6 This book distinguishes itself
Analysis in the Critique of Pure Reason
It is widely supposed that the principal task of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is to carry out some kind of analysis of experience. Commentators as profoundly at odds on fundamental points of interpretation as P. F. Strawson and Patricia Kitcher share this supposition. In a letter to J. S. Beck, Kant seems to endorse this view himself, referring to some unspecified stretch of the Critique as an ‘analysis of experience in general’. The idea that …
Kant's Argument for the Apperception Principle
My aim is to reconstruct Kant's argument for the principle of the synthetic unity of apperception. I reconstruct Kant's argument in stages, first showing why thinking should be conceived as an activity of synthesis (as opposed to attention), and then showing why the unity or coherence of a subject's representations should depend upon an a priori synthesis. The guiding thread of my account is Kant's conception of enlightenment: as I suggest, the p…
Reflection, Enlightenment, and the Significance of Spontaneity in Kant
Kant on the Transcendental Deduction of Space and Time: An Essay on the Philosophical Resources of the Transcendental Aesthetic
Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason has focused intensively on the transcendental deduction of the categories – the pivotal chapter of the book that governs our understanding of much that precedes it and just about all that follows it. One simple way to understand the systematic function of the Transcendental Deduction is to appreciate that it provides an account of how the ‘two stems of human knowledge’ (A15/B29) – sensibility and under…
The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom
Robert R. Clewis: The Kantian Sublime and the Revelation of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. xiii + 258, £55.00 (hb.). ISBN 978-0-521-51668-6 This book distinguishes itself
Kant on Enlightened Moral Pedagogy
For Kant, the ideal of enlightenment is most fundamentally expressed as a self‐developed soundness of judgment. But what does this mean when the judgment at issue is practical, that is, concerns the good to be brought about through action? I argue that the moral context places special demands on the ideal of enlightenment. This is revealed through an interpretation of Kant's prescription for moral pedagogy in the Critique of Practical Reason . Th…
Varieties of Reflection in Kant's Logic
For Kant, ‘reflection’ (Überlegung, Reflexion) is a technical term with a range of senses. I focus here on the senses of reflection that come to light in Kant's account of logic, and then bring the results to bear on the distinction between ‘logical’ and ‘transcendental’ reflection that surfaces in the Amphiboly chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason. Although recent commentary has followed similar cues, I suggest that it labours under a blind sp…
Practical Reason and Respect for Persons
My project is to reconsider the Kantian conception of practical reason. Some Kantians take practical reasoning to be more active than theoretical reasoning, on the grounds that it need not contend with what is there anyway, independently of its exercise. Behind that claim stands the thesis that practical reason is essentially efficacious. I accept the efficacy principle, but deny that it underwrites this conception of practical reason. My inquiry…
Attention and Synthesis in Kant's Conception of Experience
In an intriguing but neglected passage in the Transcendental Deduction, Kant appears to link the synthetic activity of the understanding in experience with the phenomenon of attention (B156-7n). In this paper we take up this hint, and draw upon Kant’s remarks about attention in the Anthropology to shed light on the vexed question of what, exactly, the understanding’s role in experience is for Kant. We argue that reading Kant’s claims about synthe…
Humor, Common Sense and the Future of Metaphysics in the Prolegomena
Kant’s Prolegomena is a piece of philosophical advertising: it exists to convince the open-minded “future teacher” of metaphysics that the true critical philosophy — i.e., the Critique — provides the only viable solution to the problem of metaphysics (i.e. its failure to make any genuine progress). To be effective, a piece of advertising needs to know its audience. This chapter argues that Kant takes his reader to have some default sympathies for…
Feeling and Orientation in Action: A Reply to Alix Cohen
Alix Cohen argues that the function of feeling in Kantian psychology is to appraise and orient activity. Thus she sees feeling and agency as importantly connected by Kant’s lights. I endorse this broader claim, but argue that feeling, on her account, cannot do the work of orientation that she assigns to it
Nature, corruption, and freedom: Stoic ethics in Kant's Religion
Kant's account of “the radical evil in human nature” in the 1793 Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone is typically interpreted as a reworking of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. But Kant does not talk about Augustine explicitly there, and if he is rehabilitating the doctrine of original sin, the result is not obviously Augustinian. Instead, Kant talks about Stoic ethics in a pair of passages on either end of his account of radical …
Kant and Stoic Affections
I examine the significance of the Stoic theory of pathē (and related topics) for Kant’s moral psychology, arguing against the received view that systematic differences block the possibility of Kant’s drawing anything more than rhetoric from his Stoic sources. More particularly, I take on the chronically underexamined assumption that Kant is committed to a psychological dualism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, positing distinct rational an…
Kant's Critique of Taste: The Feeling of Life
The perennial challenge for any Kant scholar is to offer close reading of a dense and often exceedingly abstract text that is faithful both to its driving philosophical insights and to something recognizable as human life. Perhaps it is with this in mind that Katalin Makkai breaks ground on her interpretation of Kant’s theory of taste with a nod to Zadie Smith’s (2019) reflections about how she came, one day, to love the music of Joni Mitchell af…
Epistemology (14 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (13 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Enlightenment (3 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (3 works) · Mathematics (3 works)