This article advocates a new interpretation of inner experience – the experience that one has of one’s empirical-psychological features ‘from within’ – in Kant. It argues that for Kant inner experience is the empirical cognition of mental states, but not that of a persistent mental substance. The schema of persistence is thereby substituted with the regulative idea of the soul. This view is shown to be superior to two opposed interpretations: the parity view that regards inner experience as empirical cognition of a mental object on a par with outer experience and the disparity view that denies altogether that inner experience is empirical cognition.

This article presents a metaphysical approach to the interpretation of the role of things-in-themselves in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. This focuses upon identifying their transcendental function as the grounding of appearances. It is interpreted as defining the relation of appearing as the grounding of empirical causality. This leads to a type of dual-aspect account that is given further support through a detailed examination of two sections of Kant’s first Critique. This shows the need to embed this dual-aspect account within a two-perspective framework. The resulting picture is contrasted with the main rival theories and objections are addressed.

This article explores a set of questions about the ‘idea of freedom’ that Kant introduces in the fourth paragraph of Groundwork III. I develop a reading that supports treating it as a normative notion and brings out its normative content in some detail. I argue that we should understand the idea as follows: that it is a general feature of reasoning and judgement that it understands itself to be a correct or sound application of the normative standards of the relevant domain of cognition, not influenced by irrelevant or external factors. Reasoning and judgement are thus normatively committed to these standards of correctness. A second and related concern is to explore connections between the idea of freedom and Kant’s conception of autonomy and to identify different points at which autonomy plays a role in the argument of Groundwork III. In the final section, I mine the idea of freedom for a set of normative commitments specific to rational agency that play a foundational role in Kant’s moral conception.

This article discusses Luigi Caranti’s Kant’s Political Legacy, which argues, among other things, that a Kantian reconstruction of dignity can provide a foundation for human rights. Caranti’s book is one of the most powerful recent reconstructions of Kant’s political philosophy. Four main points are argued in response. First, to what extent can dignity understood as a value ground the essentially relational character of human rights claims? Second, does Caranti explain why our mere rational capacity to set moral ends has dignity rather than the realization of that capacity in a morally righteous will? Third, how can the argument provided avoid the conclusion that, because people’s capacities vary, their dignity varies too? Fourth, is Kant’s political philosophy incompatible with our modern understanding of human rights and, in particular, their function in international law and practice?

In recent decades a great deal of attention has been given to Kant’s writings on politics as presenting a possible path to lasting peace. In this literature too high an expectation is created over what Kant’s cosmopolitan thinking might achieve. Caranti’s book provides an excellent antidote to these speculations by spelling out clearly the implications of Kant’s peace theory. I suggest there may even be better ways for understanding the guarantee of perpetual peace, the role of religion and the ideal of the moral politician than Caranti maintains.

Luigi Caranti seeks to find a foundation for a contemporary theory of human rights in Kant, as well as contemporary relevance for his project of perpetual peace and his teleology of political progress. I agree with much of what he says, but provide a different account of Kant’s foundations for morality in general and human rights in particular, and defend my critique of Kant’s conception of a guarantee of progress from Caranti’s defence of Kant.

The following are my responses to a set of extremely insightful, hence pressing, criticisms of my book Kant’s Political Legacy (2017). I wish to express my gratitude to Andrea Sangiovanni, Howard Williams and Paul Guyer for their comments, and to the editors of Kantian Review for reserving this space in the journal to discuss my ideas.