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stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

stankovic, sasa thesis.pdf - Atrium - University of Guelph

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Allison draws out the conclusion <strong>of</strong> Kant’s position in this regard. “Thus, in contrast to most<br />

contemporary theorists,” he argues, “Kant’s determinism at the empirical level does not rest on<br />

the assumption <strong>of</strong> either the reducibility <strong>of</strong> action explanations to neurophysiological ones or <strong>of</strong> a<br />

token-token identity between physical and psychological states. On the contrary, the relevant<br />

causal factors seem to be largely psychological in nature, that is, the beliefs, desires, and<br />

intentions <strong>of</strong> the agent” (Allison 1990 31). The feeling as the subjective ground <strong>of</strong> desire that<br />

determines the causality <strong>of</strong> the empirical character is pleasure. In this sense, Kant’s point is not<br />

so much that it is the laws <strong>of</strong> nature that determine the causality <strong>of</strong> the empirical character.<br />

Instead, his point is that it is the pathological attitude that determines the causality <strong>of</strong> the<br />

empirical character. When I act not because I want to act, but because the feeling <strong>of</strong> pleasure<br />

wants me to act, Kant argues, my action is not free action. It is a reaction, a passion. And is not<br />

the essence <strong>of</strong> pathology its reactionary, its passionate nature?<br />

“Secondly, we should also have to allow the subject an intelligible character, by which it<br />

is indeed the cause <strong>of</strong> those same actions [in their quality] as appearances, but which does not<br />

itself stand under any conditions <strong>of</strong> sensibility, and is not itself appearance. We can entitle the<br />

former the character <strong>of</strong> the thing in the [field <strong>of</strong>] appearance, and the latter its character as thing<br />

in itself” (CPR A539/B498). What is this intelligible character? Theoretical knowledge is limited<br />

to objects <strong>of</strong> possible experience. For this reason, theoretical knowledge knows the intelligible<br />

character only in terms <strong>of</strong> its empirical effects. “Thus the will <strong>of</strong> every man has an empirical<br />

character, which is nothing but a certain causality <strong>of</strong> his reason, so far as that causality exhibits,<br />

in its effects in the [field <strong>of</strong>] appearance, a rule from which we may gather what, in their kind<br />

and degrees, are the actions <strong>of</strong> reason and the grounds therefore, and so may for an estimate<br />

concerning the subjective principles” (CPR A550/B578). Thus Kant talks about the “empirical<br />

103

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