By Yoon Choi
Kant and the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson, is a welcome collection of previously unpublished work on Kant, ranging over a selection of topics central to both Kant’s philosophy and to current debates in philosophy of mind. All contributions are primarily interpretative in aim, and most are deeply rooted in Kant’s texts and the secondary scholarship. Several also make connections with current philosophical and psychological work, sometimes to shed light on Kant’s views (e.g. Lucy Allais and Katherine Dunlop) and sometimes to bring Kant’s views to bear on ongoing debates (e.g. Patricia Kitcher and Ralph Walker). The resulting volume thus presents Kant “as engaged in the philosophy of mind”, as Gomes puts it (p. 6), and advances our understanding of Kant’s account of intuition, his theory of judgement, and his views on the self, self-awareness, and self-knowledge. Some may say the volume focuses on a handful of topics at the expense of representing the full range of work on Kant’s theory of mind. That is not wrong, but the editors are inclusive in other ways, and their priorities result in a volume that is exceptional in one way: it captures several substantive debates, in which contributors engage intensively with each other rather than presenting a series of different views on a topic. Indeed, every essay takes up or is taken up to some degree by another, and even when this takes the form of a passing footnote, it generates continuity and unity to the volume as a whole and conveys a sense of common purpose running through the disagreement. This must be the result of careful editorial design and encouragement; and it is, in my view, a real achievement.
