Synthese Topical Collection on “Essences, Dispositions, and Laws in Kant”

Guest Editors 

Lorenzo Spagnesi (Trier University) and Kristina Engelhard (Trier University) 

Deadline 

Extended deadline: 31st May 2024 

Topical Collection Description 

Essences, dispositions, and laws play a central role in Kant’s pre-Critical and Critical philosophy, especially in, but not limited to, his theoretical philosophy and philosophy of science. For several years there has been a reappraisal of these notions and their interconnections (or lack thereof) in Kant scholarship, which might be motivated by recent extensive debates in metaphysics and philosophy of science on the same issues. Yet, several questions have not been fully answered so far, e.g.: What are essences for Kant? Should they be distinguished from ‘natures’ or ‘grounds’? What kind of investigation of nature do they afford? What role do dispositions play? Can we provide unified foundations for essences and dispositions, or are dispositions primitive? What grounds laws of nature or their modality? And how can they be object of cognition? More generally, what are, if any, the relations between essences, dispositions, and laws in Kant’s philosophy? The aim of this topical collection is to shed light on these and other related questions, as well as to explore their implications for contemporary debates in essentialism, dispositionalism, laws of nature and the metaphysics of modality. As such, the topical collection brings together aspects of history of philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of science. 

For further information, please contact the guest editors: spagnesi@uni-trier.de, engelhard@uni-trier.de. 

Submissions can be made at: https://www.editorialmanager.com/synt/default.aspx. Please select “Essences, Dispositions, and Laws in Kant” as type of manuscript.