Kant had thoughts on language, but his account of language is not explicit and cannot be found in any dedicated section of his works, so it needs to be philosophically reconstructed. The chapters in this volume investigate Kant's views on language from unique perspectives. They demonstrate that Kant's notions of thinking, knowing, communicating, and acting have implications for the philosophy of language: from the problem of empirical concept-formation to the categorial structure of experience, from the exhibition of aesthetic ideas to the role of analogies and metaphors, from poetry as the art of language to the moral relevance of rhetoric and the problem of persuasion, and from the source of Kant's philosophical vocabulary to the role of language in defining 'humanity'. The volume offers a new and distinctive interpretive context in which Kant's approach to language can be critically appreciated.
Introduction Konstantin Pollok and Luigi Filieri; Part I. Linguistic Implications of Kant's Thought: 1. Kant on language: semiotics and heuristics Mirella Capozzi; 2. The rise of empirical meaning Claudio La Rocca; 3. Kant and the idea of a language in 'the senses' Clinton Tolley; 4. Grammar, categories and the structure of experience Peter Thielke; 5. A liberated language. Kant on hypotyposis, symbol and analogy Alfredo Ferrarin; 6. Expressing the unnamable: poetic language, humanity and sociability in Kant's third critique Iris Vidmar Jovanović; 7. Kant's metaphors and analogies Sofie C. Møller; Part II. Kant on Language: Historical and Philosophical Implications: 8. Kant's vocabulary in context: 18th century canons for building a philosophical language Courtney D. Fugate; 9. Cassirer on Kant and W. v. Humboldt on language: 'Die Freiheit und Selbständigkeit des geistigen Tuns' Sebastian Luft; 10. Anthropology and the deaf and dumb: investigating Kant's sources Raphael Ehrsam; 11. Not those who 'all speak with pictures': Kant on linguistic abilities and human progress Huaping Lu-Adler; 12. Like entering a bright room? Kant and the challenge of lucidity Adam Westra; 13. Kant and the moral challenges of rhetoric Scott R. Stroud; 14. Kant's inferentialism Michael N. Forster; 15. Was Kant an expressivist?Should he have been? Karl Schafer; Bibliography; Index.
Luigi Filieri is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore - Pisa. He is the author of Sintesi e giudizio. Studio su Kant e Jakob Sigismund Beck (2020) and co-editor of both The Method of Culture: Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (with A. Pollok, 2021) and Kant on Freedom and Human Nature (with S. C. Møller, 2024). Konstantin Pollok is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Kant-Forschungsstelle at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. He is the author of Kant's Theory of Normativity: Exploring the Space of Reason (2017), Kants Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft: Ein Kritischer Kommentar (2001), and Begründen und Rechtfertigen: Eine Untersuchung zum Verhältnis zwischen rationalen Erfordernissen und prävalenten Handlungsgründen (2009).
