Kant's Argument Of Determining Ground

Kant's account of determining grounds is even more nuanced because it takes into account key Crusian concepts. Kant distinguishes two types of determining grounds. His first type is known as a consequentially determining ground: the ground of knowing something to be true, after its determinate concept is given by some other source.8 This concept is analogous to Crusius' notion of the principle of sufficient cause, insofar as the sufficient cause or grounds to know the will is secondary to the will's justification itself. The second version of determining grounds for Kant is the antecedently determining ground: this entails that the determinate concept precedes and serves as the condition of whatever is determined; if there was no antecedently

In order for a proposition of any sort to be true, there needs to be a ground that guarantees that the opposite of the true proposition is excluded; this is what constitutes a determining ground for Kant.10 If this was not the case, it would result in an obvious contradiction. There would be no apparent way to distinguish which of the opposing predicates was assigned to the subject, and which two predicates would be denied of the subject. This would mean that the subject would be indeterminate regarding each respective predicate, and there would be no room for truth, even though the truth was presupposed at the outset.11 It would be entirely possible for someone to say: ""a is b" and also " a is not b"", when they are only trying to say "a is b". Kant thus holds that a determining ground in order for any claim to be considered

The act of free will exists, and since it exists, there must have been a time period in which the existence of the act of will did not exist and its prior existence leaves out the question of its existence beforehand, we must conclude that it is unknown whether the will existed before an individual act of willing.13 Since a being will remain indeterminate and is incapable of being determined until external concepts are used to independently determine the earlier nonexistence of the existing act of will. This entails that without an antecedently determining ground, there can be no concept of the movement from the prior nonexistence to the current existence of an act of will.14 When I will to write this paper and in order for this act to be contingent, it has to be possible that I do not will to write this paper. There needs to be a ground that determines the move from me either writing the paper or not writing this paper to the actuality that I write it. Kant concludes in The New Elucidation, that the libertarian concept is free will is clearly inferior to a compatibilist account in tune with the principle of determining