Kant on Rational Sympathy (Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant) - Hardcover

Benjamin Vilhauer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1009486608 ISBN 13: 9781009486606

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2025

Synopsis

Contrary to what Kant scholars might think, Kant has a theory of rational sympathy which is essential to his ethics.

About this title

About the Author

This Element explains Kant's distinction between rational sympathy and natural sympathy. Rational sympathy is regulated by practical reason and is necessary for adopting as our own those ends of others which are contingent from the perspective of practical rationality. Natural sympathy is passive and can prompt affect and dispose us to act wrongly. Sympathy is a function of a posteriori productive imagination. In rational sympathy, we freely use the imagination to step into others' first-person perspectives and associate imagined intuitional contents with the concepts others use to communicate their feelings. This prompts feelings in us that are like their feelings.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1009486608
• ISBN 13: 9781009486606
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 75