This volume gathers some of the papers I wrote between 1995 and 2003, namely in the years that followed the publication of my earlier Kant book, first in French (Kant et le pouvoir de juger, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993, hereafter KPJ), then in its expanded English version (Kant and the Capacity to Judge, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998, hereafter KCJ). Among the essays written during that period that I did not include in this volume are an essay on Kant and Hegel which belongs in a separate volume devoted to my work on Hegel; essays on self-consciousness and “I” which are part of a work in progress I hope to develop further; and finally a few essays that in one way or another overlap with those included here.

What unifies the essays selected for this volume is their relation to the central theme of my earlier book on Kant: Kant's conception of what he calls our capacity to judge (Vermögen zu urteilen) and its role in our forming an objective view of the world. However, in addition to the role of our capacity to judge in cognition, I now consider its role in moral deliberation and in aesthetic evaluation. Some of the essays have been revised in light of discussions I benefited from since they first appeared. Others, especially the more recent, remain mostly unchanged, except for editorial adjustments necessary to unify references throughout the volume and to tie the different topics together.