Sally Atkins: 'Asking for Ourselves: Recognition of Other Reasoners in Kant'.
Chair: TBC
Abstract: "In this talk, I respond to an objection to Kant’s theory of freedom, which Joe Saunders (2016) calls the Problem of Recognition: Kant precludes our being able to recognise other rational agents. As formulated here, the problem attributes three claims to Kant. Firstly, transcendental freedom implies there are no theoretical grounds for thinking anything is a free, rational agent. Secondly, the practical grounds to which Kant appeals in the Critique of Practical Reason are consistent with transcendental idealism only if they are exclusively first-personal: they reveal, to each of us, our own freedom, but nothing more. Finally, these grounds exhaust what is available on Kant’s framework. Taken together, these claims imply that Kant’s view offers no way of identifying other rational agents in experience. This constitutes a powerful objection to Kant’s system. My aim is to defend a solution to this problem. Taking Richard Moran’s (2018) account as a starting point, I argue testimony provides distinctively practical, second-personal grounds for recognising other agents, consistent with Kant’s account. While Kant does not make this point himself, I suggest it is both consistent with and in the spirit of his framework".
