A Neo-Kantian Critique of Von Mises's Epistemology

1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierluigi Barrotta
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

More than many other Austrians, Mises tried to found aprioristic methodology on a well defined and developed epistemology. Although references to Kant are scattered rather unsystematically throughout his works, he nevertheless used an unequivocal Kantian terminology. He explicitly defended the existence of ‘a priori knowledge’, ‘synthetic a priori propositions’, ‘the category of action’, and so forth.

scholarly journals Kant’s Response to Hume’s Critique of Pure Reason

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
General Question ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Abstract In this article I argue that Kant considered Hume’s account of causality in the Enquiry to be primarily relevant because it undermines proofs for the existence of God and, moreover, that this interpretation is plausible and text-based. What the Prolegomena calls ‘Hume’s problem’ is, I claim, the more general question as to whether metaphysics can achieve synthetic a priori knowledge of objects at all. Whereas Hume denied this possibility, I show how the solution Kant develops in the Critique of Pure Reason is in agreement with Hume’s critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but salvages the synthetic a priori principles he takes to be constitutive of empirical cognition.

Kreines on the Problem of Metaphysics in Kant and Hegel

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-120
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

AbstractThis article offers a discussion of James Kreines’s book Reason in the World: Hegel’s Metaphysics and Its Philosophical Appeal. While broadly sympathetic to Kreines’s ‘concept thesis’ as a conceptual realist account of Hegel, the article contrasts two Kantian arguments for transcendental idealism to which Hegel’s position may be seen as a response—the argument from synthetic a priori knowledge and the argument from the dialectic of reason—and explores the implications of Kreines’s commitment to the latter over the former.

‘With a Philosophical Eye’: the role of mathematical beauty in Kant’s intellectual development

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 759-788
Author(s):  
Courtney David Fugate
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Development ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Early Analysis ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Mathematical Beauty ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This paper shows that Kant’s investigation into mathematical purposiveness was central to the development of his understanding of synthetic a priori knowledge. Specifically, it provides a clear historical explanation as to why Kant points to mathematics as an exemplary case of the synthetic a priori, argues that his early analysis of mathematical purposiveness provides a clue to the metaphysical context and motives from which his understanding of synthetic a-priori knowledge emerged, and provides an analysis of the underlying structure of mathematical purposiveness itself, which can be described as unintentional, but also as objective and unlimited.

Necessity, Universality, and the A Priori in Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 114-126
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Moral Epistemology ◽  
General Idea ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Moral Particularism ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This paper asks what form of moral epistemology is best fitted to the claims of moral particularism. It argues that moral truths can be known a priori even though moral truths about particular cases are context-sensitive and so contingent. The general idea is that although one needs empirical knowledge of the situation, one’s knowledge of how to respond is not thereby shown to be empirical. We emerge with synthetic a priori knowledge of a range of truths including among them the moral. Particular attention is paid to Kant’s claim that since moral truths apply to all rational beings, they must be universal in form

Space in Kantian Idealism

Space ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 280-305
Author(s):  
Michael Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Universal Gravitation ◽  
Action At A Distance ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Bodies ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Kant’s conception of space can be understood only against the background of the famous debate between Leibniz and Newton in the early eighteenth century. Throughout his life, Kant sought a middle path between the philosophical extremes represented by Leibniz and Newton, but he eventually concluded that only transcendental idealism is able to explain the knowledge of nature expressed in Newton’s theory of universal gravitation, whose postulation of action at a distance among material bodies Kant embraced. Kant’s argument for transcendental idealism involves both his conception of geometry as providing synthetic a priori knowledge, but also his contention that the pure concepts of the understanding, such as substance and community, must be “schematized” or infused with spatiotemporal content if Newton’s science of nature is to be explained.

Twelve Basic Philosophical Concepts in Kant and the Compound Yijing

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 143-162
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Palmquist
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
The Third ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Four Levels ◽  
The University ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This is the third in a series of articles that correlates Kant’s architectonic with the Yijing’s sixty-four hexagrams (gua 卦). Previous articles explained “architectonic” reasoning, introduced four levels of the “Compound Yijing,” consisting of 0+4+12+(4 × 12=48) gua, and suggested correlating the fourth level’s four sets of twelve to the four “faculties” in Kant’s model of the university. This third paper examines the philosophy faculty, assessing whether the twelve proposed gua meaningfully correlate with twelve basic philosophical concepts that Kant introduces in his three Critiques. A key difference emerges: Kant’s architectonic method aims to produce synthetic a priori knowledge, while the Yijing’s architectonic method aims to produce analytic a posteriori belief.

scholarly journals Transformations of Transcendental Philosophy: Wolff, Kant, and Hegel

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 50-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Common View ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
The One ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Kant's philosophy is generally known as transcendental philosophy or transcendental idealism, terms often thought to describe the inquiry into the subjective conditions of empirical knowledge carried out in theCritique of Pure Reason. On this conception of transcendental philosophy Kant is seen to pursue a project very different from both Wolffian metaphysics and Hegelian speculative science. This view is confirmed by scholars who compare Kant's conception of transcendental philosophy to the Scholastics' conception of ‘transcendentals’ such as unity, truth, and perfection. On their account, there remains a puzzling gap between, on the one hand, the scholastic conception of the most general determinations of all beings and, on the other hand, Kant's investigation into the conditions of possibility of experience.In this article I want to challenge this common view of Kant's transcendental philosophy for two reasons. The first reason concerns the question of how theCritique of Pure Reasonitself should be read. I take the view that in the firstCritiqueKant's primary aim is to determine the conditions of synthetic a priori knowledge rather than to identify the a priori conditions of empirical knowledge. Since metaphysics was traditionally considered to be the discipline that possessed a priori knowledge of things, this view makes good sense of Kant's presentation of theCritique of Pure Reasonas a work intended to transform metaphysics into a science. In this article I hope to clarify the nature of this transformation by determining the elements which Kant's transcendental philosophy has in common with Wolff's ontology, as well as the respects in which Kant turns against Wolff. I thus hope to solve some of the riddles posed by Kant's use of the term ‘transcendental philosophy’ in theCritique of Pure Reason.

Seeing, Knowing, and Doing

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Human Action ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Rational Action ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Discriminative Response ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This book provides an overall theory of perception and an account of knowledge and justification concerning the physical, the abstract, and the normative. It has the rigor appropriate for professionals but explains its main points using concrete examples. It accounts for two important aspects of perception on which philosophers have said too little: its relevance to a priori knowledge—traditionally conceived as independent of perception—and its role in human action. Overall, the book provides a full-scale account of perception, presents a theory of the a priori, and explains how perception guides action. It also clarifies the relation between action and practical reasoning; the notion of rational action; and the relation between propositional and practical knowledge. Part One develops a theory of perception as experiential, representational, and causally connected with its objects: as a discriminative response to those objects, embodying phenomenally distinctive elements; and as yielding rich information that underlies human knowledge. Part Two presents a theory of self-evidence and the a priori. The theory is perceptualist in explicating the apprehension of a priori truths by articulating its parallels to perception. The theory unifies empirical and a priori knowledge by clarifying their reliable connections with their objects—connections many have thought impossible for a priori knowledge as about the abstract. Part Three explores how perception guides action; the relation between knowing how and knowing that; the nature of reasons for action; the role of inference in determining action; and the overall conditions for rational action.

How Reality is Reasonable

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Williams
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Dimensional Manifold ◽  
The World ◽  
Being There ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Fundamental Entity ◽  
Spatiotemporal Relations ◽  
Priori Knowledge

This chapter begins with a systematic presentation of the doctrine of actualism. According to actualism, all that exists is actual, determinate, and of one way of being. There are no possible objects, nor is there any indeterminacy in the world. In addition, there are no ways of being. It is proposed that actual entities stand in three fundamental relations: mereological, spatiotemporal, and resemblance relations. These relations govern the fundamental entities. Each fundamental entity stands in parthood relations, spatiotemporal relations, and resemblance relations to other entities. The resulting picture is one that represents the world as a four-dimensional manifold of actual ‘qualitied contents’—upon which all else supervenes. It is then explained how actualism accounts for classes, quantity, number, causation, laws, a priori knowledge, necessity, and induction.

How Do We Know that We’re Not Brains in Vats?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith DeRose
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Conservative Approach ◽  
Contingent Fact ◽  
Brains In Vats ◽  
Priori Knowledge

In this chapter the contextualist Moorean account of how we know by ordinary standards that we are not brains in vats (BIVs) utilized in Chapter 1 is developed and defended, and the picture of knowledge and justification that emerges is explained. The account (a) is based on a double-safety picture of knowledge; (b) has it that our knowledge that we’re not BIVs is in an important way a priori; and (c) is knowledge that is easily obtained, without any need for fancy philosophical arguments to the effect that we’re not BIVs; and the account is one that (d) utilizes a conservative approach to epistemic justification. Special attention is devoted to defending the claim that we have a priori knowledge of the deeply contingent fact that we’re not BIVs, and to distinguishing this a prioritist account of this knowledge from the kind of “dogmatist” account prominently championed by James Pryor.

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