Kant and the Possibility of Progress: From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties

304 Pages·2021·3.233 MB·English

by  Paul T. Wilford and Samuel A. Stoner

Kant and the Possibility of Progress
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
K A N T
and the
POSSIBILITY
OF PROGRESS
From Modern Hopes
to Postmodern Anxieties
edited by
Paul T. Wilford
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
Copyright © 2021 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for
purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book
may be reproduced in any form by any means without
.d written permission from the publisher.
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
To Richard Velkley—teacher, mentor, friend
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
Contents
Introduction. Modernity and Postmodernity:
Our Temporal Orientation 1
Samuel A. Stoner and Paul T. Wilford
PART I. KANT ON PROGRESS
Chapter 1. Kant on Individual Moral Progress 19
Oliver Sensen
Chapter 2. Should We Believe in Moral Progress? 30
Kate Moran
Chapter 3. Respect, Moral Progress, and Imperfect Duty 47
Jens Timmermann
Chapter 4. Loneliness and Ambiguity
in Kant’s Philosophy of History 62
Rachel Zuckert
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
viii Contents
PART II. PROGRESS AFTER KANT
Chapter 8. History, Progress, and Autonomy:
Kant, Herder, and After 137
Karl Ameriks
Chapter 9. Language, Embodiment, and the Supersensuous
in Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation 153
Richard L. Velkley
Chapter 10. Hegel on the Conceptual Form of Philosophical History 165
Mark Alznauer
Chapter 11. Relocating the Highest Good: Kierkegaard on God,
Virtue, and (This- Worldly) Happiness 185
Ryan S. Kemp
Chapter 12. Kant and Benjamin on Hope, History,
and the Task of Interpretation 202
C. Allen Speight
Chapter 13. The Curious Fate of the Idea of Progress 217
Robert B. Pippin
Notes 233
List of Contributors 283
Index 287
.d Acknowledgments 293
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.
Introduction
Modernity and Postmodernity
Our Temporal Orientation
Samuel A. Stoner and Paul T. Wilford
To be modern is to be up-t o- date, to be with the times, to be in fashion or à la
mode, as the French might say. Etymologically, “modernity” (from the Latin
adverb modo, meaning just now or recently) is that state of being or condi-
tion of just-n ow- ness. Modernity is the age of the perennially new. Defned
negatively in contrast to antiquity and the Middle Ages, the modern epoch is
positively defned by continual and ceaseless change. If the age were to stop
changing, if it were to reach some kind of stasis, modernity would cease to be.
On occasion it is said that we live in a postmodern age, that we live in
.d the age that is beyond being up- to- date. According to this hypothesis, we’re
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rP a live in a postmodern age is often pronounced in moralistic tones, as if assert-
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20 modernity’s attempts at self- orientation by what is not- yet. We still take our
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Kant and the Possibility of Progress : From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties, edited by Paul T. Wilford, and Samuel A.