Research
My research focuses on a range of topics in Kant's metaphysics and epistemology, including Kant's idealism, his modal metaphysics, his rational cosmology and his account of things in themselves. Below, I list publications and works in progress. Please email me if you would like a draft of a work in progress.
Book
2023. The Idea of Freedom: New Essays on the Kantian Theory of Freedom. Co-editor (w/ Evan Tiffany). Oxford University Press.
Published and Forthcoming Articles
In considering Kant’s response to the Leibnizian theory of space in the Transcendental Aesthetic, scholars have overwhelmingly emphasized Kant’s response to Leibniz’s relationalism. They have largely missed the metaphysically realistic aspects of Leibniz’s theory with which Kant is primarily concerned. As such, scholars have failed to appreciate the threat Leibniz’s theory poses to Kant’s idealism, a point made publicly as early as 1786 by H. A. Pistorius. I argue that the Aesthetic does indeed contain a compelling argument against the Leibnizian theory of space. This argument crucially depends upon Kant’s claim that space is monistic: that the whole of space is prior to the parts of space and, as such, spatial representations are not decomposable.
Forthcoming. "The Unity of Reason: A Reply to Cohen and Schafer." In Kant's Fundamental Assumptions (Marshall and McLear, eds.).
2023. "The Idea of Freedom: An Introduction" (co-authored w/ Evan Tiffany). In The Idea of Freedom: New Essays on the Kantian Theory of Freedom (Heide and Tiffany, eds.). Oxford University Press.
Much recent attention has been paid to Kant’s account of the unity of space in the Critique of Pure Reason, not least because of the significant implications of that view for other key critical-period doctrines. But far less attention has been paid to the development of Kant’s account of the unity of space. This paper aims to offer a systematic account of Kant’s pre-critical account of the unity of space. On the view presented herein, Kant’s early account of the unity of space is deeply rooted in his pre-critical cosmological views. In particular, I argue that Kant sees the unity of space as grounded in the cosmological unity of the world of substances, which is itself rooted in the divine conservation of all substances in relations of mutual causal dependence. I contend that the seeds of this view are present in the late 1740s and 1750s, but that this view receives its fullest and most complete expression in the 1770 Inaugural Dissertation. The final section of the paper considers the fate of Kant’s pre-critical account of the unity of space. I contend that the theory is excluded from the Critique of Pure Reason in light of the strict epistemological strictures adopted in that text. But considerable textual evidence shows that Kant continues to aver the theory throughout the 1770s and 1780s in the looser epistemic context of his lectures. I contend, then, that this theory is not abandoned at all. Rather, like Kant’s 1763 proof of the existence of God, it is epistemically demoted: it is Kant’s preferred view, but one that falls short of the demanding epistemic standards of the critical philosophy.
Kant rejects the ontological argument on the grounds that the ontological argument inescapably must assume that existence is a "determination" or "real predicate," which it is not. Most understand Kant's argument for this claim to be premised upon his distinctive proto-Fregean theory of existence. But this leaves Kant dialectically vulnerable: the defender of the ontological argument can easily reject this as question-begging. I show that Kant in fact relies upon two distinct arguments, both of which contend that the claim that existence is a determination is inconsistent with bedrock ontological set pieces assumed by rationalist defenders of the ontological argument.
Kant's arguments for transcendental idealism have not been well received. I argue that Kant has available to himself an argument for the non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves that is premised upon a disparity between the mereological structure of space and time and the mereological structure of the intelligible world.
Work in Progress
"Kant on Real Predication and the Ontological Argument" (complete draft)
What is the meaning of Kant's famous objection to the ontological argument that existence is not a real predicate? I argue against the consensus view that real predicates are synthetic predicates by contending that this interpretation renders Kant's objection to the ontological question begging. I argue instead that Kant's objection is rooted in a perfectionist metaphysics widely shared by defenders of the ontological argument.
"Rationalism and Necessity in Kant's Philosophy of Mathematics" (complete draft).
This paper is an attempt to interpret Kant's claim that Euclidean geometry is necessary. Some have argued that it is necessary by virtue of being the only "really possible" geometry. I argue that, though this claim is correct, it is too weak to account for the sense in which Euclidean geometry is necessary. On my proposal, Euclidean geometry is necessary in virtue of a) the fact that it is the human form of outer intuition, and b) its incompossibility with any other geometry by virtue of space's essential singularity.
"Humility and Relationality" (in progress).
Kant's claim that things in themselves are uncognizable by discursive human subjects is well known. But there is considerable disagreement about the precise meaning of the claim and about how Kant aims to establish it. Some scholars have proposed that the relational nature of space plays a key role in Kant's argument for the epistemic humility thesis. I agree, but I argue that extant accounts have adequately explained neither the model of noumenal cognition that Kant proposes and means to argue against in the Aesthetic nor the precise nature of the relationality of space that he exploits in so arguing. Close attention to these contextual details reveals a compelling argument for the epistemic humility thesis found in the Aesthetic.