Kant's Transcendental Idealism (original) (raw)

On Kant’s Transcendental Idealism & Empirical Realism, and his Conception of Objectivity

I make a critical exposition of Kant’s transcendental idealism and empirical realism about space and time: I see that while transcendental idealism, to Kant, warrants his distinction between mere appearances (mere presentations) and things-in-themselves pertaining to external objects, it necessitates empirical realism which demarcates it from the other ‘metaphysically erroneous’ versions of idealism. I argue that Kant’s distinction between these two “doctrinal systems” – or rather, the correlation between the two – serves to defend his conception of objectivity (of perceptual experiences and of judgments) as that which arises from subjectivity. Such relationship between subjectivity and objectivity, in turn, defends his contention of synthetic a priority, the possibility of which determines the plausibility of metaphysics as a science of pure reason. Furthermore, I argue that Kant’s treatment of objectivity goes against the Lockean construal of “secondary qualities” as the ‘powers of objects’; rather, to Kant, the cognitive powers lie in us. (Content word count 1,624)

Kant's Doctrine of Transcendental Idealism

2024

My dissertation proposes a novel interpretation of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason. I aim to give a consensus interpretation by overcoming past errors in interpreting this doctrine. I support my interpretation through a textual exegesis of the Critique of Pure Reason with a special focus on the direct and indirect proofs of transcendental idealism. Transcendental idealism is the doctrine that objects of our experience, space, and time, when taken as they would be outside our possible experience, are nothing but mere representations. However, this does not make them into illusions. This is because Kant takes objects of our experience, space, and time to be empirically real. Empirical realism is the doctrine that objects of our experience, space, and time, when taken within our possible experience, exist independently of us. Yet, their empirical reality is not grounded in things in themselves, about whose existence Kant is agnostic. Instead, the reality of objects of our experience, space, and time depend on a standard of empirical reality that differs from the standard of transcendental reality. This separate standard of empirical reality allows Kant to hold transcendental idealism and empirical realism at the same time. Finally, while not strictly part of the doctrine of transcendental idealism, I answer the question of the relation of appearances and things in themselves. The distinction between appearances and things in themselves is a metaphysical distinction between two different ways of being, i.e., objectivity, properties, existence, reality. Yet, this is a metaphysical distinction within the same concept of an object. Thus, appearances and things in themselves are the same object conceptually that is determined metaphysically in two different ways.

Kant, Epistemic Phenomenalism, and the Refutation of Idealism

My paper takes issue with the widespread view that Kant rejects epistemic phenomenalism. According to epistemic phenomenalism, only cognition of states of one's own mind can be certain, while cognition of outer objects is necessarily uncertain. I argue that Kant does not reject this view, but accepts a modified version of it. For, in contrast to traditional skeptics, he distinguishes between two kinds of outer objects and holds that we have direct access to outer appearances in our mind; but he still considers objects outside our mind unknowable. This sheds new light on Kant's refutation of idealism.

Being realistic about Kant's idealism

This is a heavily updated version of "Transcendental Idealism and the Aposteriori Contents of Experience" and contains my latest attempt to make sense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism. ABSTRACT: This paper deals with the question of whether Kant's transcendental idealism allows for an explanation of the a posteriori aspects of mental content by the properties of empirical objects. I first show that a phenomenalist interpretation has severe problems with assuming that we perceive an object as being red or as being cubical partly because the perceived object is red and cubical, and then present an interpretation that allows us to save the realistic intuition behind these claims. According to this interpretation, Kantian phenomenal properties are understood as response-dependent properties of extra-mental objects that also have to have some response-independent (in-itself-) properties. I show that this interpretation is well supported by Kant's remarks about the transcendental object in the A-edition of the first Critique and that it also makes intelligible why Kant took explanations of mental content by means of empirical properties to imply an explanation by means of noumenal properties without thereby violating his own doctrine of noumenal ignorance. This not only allows us to establish a realistic reading of Kant idealism but also to discern the true kernel in Adickes’ infamous talk about Kant's theory of double affection.

Kants Refutation of Idealism Dissertation Jason Potter

Kant=s Refutation of Idealism In his Refutation of Idealism, Kant attempts to show that what Cartesian idealism takes to be most certain (inner perceptions, appearances before the mind) is only possible on the condition of that which Cartesian idealism takes to be least certain (the existence of matter in space causally responsible for the content of sense perception). Despite widespread interest in this argument, most 20th century Anglophone commentators think it unsound. I provide textual and philosophical evidence that these criticisms depend chiefly on either of two common interpretive errors in determining the reference of the pivotal expression Asomething permanent in perception@ employed in the second premise of this argument. Different groups of commentators coalesce around each error: Group I includes those who think the permanent in perception (PIP) is a perceptual continuant, either permanent (E. Skorpen) or relatively permanent (J. Vogel, Q. Cassam, H. Alison, H.A. Prichard, R. Meerbote), to which the mind has unmediated access through its faculty of sensibility whenever it is aware of its own empirical existence in time. I argue that for Kant, in fact, the mind=s access to the PIP is indirect, mediated by outer appearances which are themselves immediate but transitory representations with a necessary, nonimmediate relation to that which is permanent in outer sense. Group II includes those who think the PIP is either Aan enduring framework of space@ (P.F. Strawson, P. Guyer), or a pure formal intuition of space (R. Hanna). These interpretations are incompatible with Kant=s oft-repeated claim that space is a product of the mind=s faculty of sensibility, is no less ideal than time, and cannot be an actual representation (i.e., a given appearance in sensibility). The PIP is needed to provide what the form of inner sense (time) cannot, i.e., an objective representation of time in the field of appearances. But neither a pure formal intuition of space nor an enduring framework of space can do this job because, according to the Transcendental Aesthetic, space is strictly subjective. These criticisms are byproducts of a new interpretation of the Refutation, the elaboration and defense of which is the central theme of my work. On this new interpretation, Kant=s Asomething permanent in perception@ is not any particular empirical object, nor a noumenal object, nor even a pure object of intuition, but rather what Kant means by >Nature=: a qualitative unity of dynamically interrelated material substances which, taken together, yield a real individual which can only be cognized indirectly. In contrast to other interpreters, I claim the PIP is a set of unified, necessary relationships among material substances inferred from sensations which together constitute objective time (and objective space) through acts of mind without which cognition and experience (for a being like that under consideration in the Critique of Pure Reason) would be impossible. Whether the resulting Refutation of Idealism is sound is not settled in this work. In the last chapter I attempt to consider reasonable challenges and replies, and hope that in any case I have helped to clarify the setting within which this well-known argument is evaluated. Jason T. Potter Boulder, CO