Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2025
This chapter provides a short overview of the secondary literature concerning this problem, in particular both “reversal” and “deflationary” readings of Kant’s project. It introduces the basic strategy of the argument of the book, namely that Kant’s analysis in the first part of Groundwork III does not move from the conditions of thinking to freedom of the will, but rather from the conditions of willing to the conditions of thinking: The “I will” implies the “I think” and as such all of the conditions of thinking. Several possible objections are refuted at the outset in order to provide a clear context for the chapters that follow, and the content of each of the following chapters is summarized.
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