In progress
Kant
Paper on the PCD and PSR in Kant
Paper on the Critical fate of Kant's 'possibility proof'
Paper on Kant's views on divine creation
Contemporary
"Alienated Autonomy", on liberal theories of autonomy
"Over-intelligibility", on how having apt concepts can backfire
Selected Work
“Grounding the Highest Good: the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God of Kant's moral argument”, Kant-Studien, forthcoming; 2.5-page precis
Kant claims that his moral arguments for faith in God’s existence secure faith in a being with traditional divine properties including omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. However, it is unclear how Kant’s moral arguments attain this result. This paper presents a new interpretation of Kant’s moral arguments, the ‘grounding interpretation,’ which shows why moral faith concerns a being with the traditional divine omni-properties. It argues for a connection between moral faith and a metaphysical conception of God as the ground of possibility. While that conception has previously been associated with Kant’s theoretical philosophy, Kant’s moral arguments supply it with both a practical justification and a practical interpretation. Recognizing this point enables us to understand why Kant holds that the God of moral faith has the traditional divine properties.
The Totality of the Thinkable, dissertation (completed 2023)
Five chapters on the theological and epistemological views of Immanuel Kant and related themes within contemporary epistemology. Each of the five chapters addresses a discrete problem related to the idea of the totality of the thinkable, or the idea of a totality of possible concepts. Taken together, these chapters constitute a unified argument that variants of both historical and contemporary 'rationalism' have tacitly appealed to an idea of the totality of the thinkable in a way that raises philosophical problems.
The first four chapters of the dissertation explore the way the idea of totality of the thinkable is implicated in Kant’s criticisms of his German rationalist predecessors. These chapters argue that, according to Kant, this idea forms part of a distinctive kind of self-deception through which the mind mis-represents its relationship to reality. Connections to Kant's moral philosophy and Kant's views on Spinoza are also explored. The fifth chapter adapts a version of Kant’s criticisms to apply to appeals to ideal reasoners within contemporary epistemology.
“Kant’s Critical Theory of the Best Possible World”, Kantian Review (2020)
Argues that in the Critical Period, Kant continues to endorse the view that God creates the best possible world; presents an interpretation of what Kant thinks it is for a world to be best-possible according to which best possible worlds are infinite in value.