Here are some possible topics for papers. You are welcome to write on something else (or on some modified topic related to one of the options below), but please discuss this with me first. The first draft of the paper is due Friday, November 17th. The final draft is due Friday, December 8th.
- What is Kant’s argument for necessary causal connection in the Second Analogy? Is this argument cogent? Does it provide a plausible response to Hume?
- What is Kant’s argument for the ideality of space in the Transcendental Aesthetic? Is this argument cogent?
- Kant sometimes presents the categories as simply identical with the forms of judgment. Why would he say this? What problems are there for the identity view? Why might it be important for the rest of Kant’s argument in the Critique that they be identical?
- In the Third Antinomy, what possibility regarding our freedom does Kant want to secure? Why does Kant think this is important? What is his argument for our possible freedom? Is it cogent?
- In the final section of the Groundwork Kant presents an argument that we know we are transcendentally free. What is this argument? Is it cogent?