Baumgarten, Kant, and the Refutation of Idealism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter points to the influence of Baumgarten’s Metaphysics on Kant’s transcendental philosophy. By comparing Kant’s refutation of idealism, including modifications to it suggested by notes written after the Critique of Pure Reason, with passages in the Metaphysics, Guyer shows that Kant clearly adopts Baumgarten’s own peculiar definition of idealism and develops the thesis that Baumgarten’s discussion of real interaction suggested to Kant the underlying strategy of his own refutation.

scholarly journals Transcendental Philosophy as a Research Programme

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 93-126
Author(s):  
Michael Lewin
Keyword(s):  
Research Programme ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Third ◽  
Definite Form ◽  
Historical Investigation ◽  
Clear Idea ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Insight Into

Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental philosophy has undergone a series of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects.

scholarly journals Transzendentalphilosophie als kritische Bestimmung des Stand­punkts. Eine wissenschaftstheoretische Annäherung

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-50
Author(s):  
Rudolf Meer
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Expanded Concept ◽  
Constitutive Principles

Both the categories and principles of understanding as well as the ideas and principles of reason build transcendental elements to conceive transcendental philosophy as a philosophical system. Accordingly, in addition to the “Transcendental Analytic”, Kant develops in the “Transcendental Dialectic” an expanded concept of the transcendental. The transcendental ideas do not denote object-constitutive principles but, in a weaker sense, conditions of the possibility of experience. The relation between Division One and Division Two of the “Doctrine of Elements” can be demonstrated exemplarily with regard to Kant’s references to astronomy. Based on the constitutive principles of understanding, which are directed towards the field of possible experience and provide a connection of cognition through reasons and consequences, as well as the regulative principles of reason, which form maxims of research, astronomy is a proper and rational natural science. The analysis of the case studies of astronomy shows that Kant uses the term transcendental within the framework of the “Transcendental Logic” of the Critique of Pure Reason to denote conditions that are constitutive for the possibility of an object in general and for describing necessary regulative conditions of experience. With these reflections, Kant places his transcendental philosophy in a long tradition of philosophical thought in which the celestial bodies are the preferred subject.

Immanuel Kants transzendentaler Kritizismus und die Frage nach Gott

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Mugerauer
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Thinking

For those who are interested, the study of Kant's relevant writings is facilitated here, especially that of the ´Critique of Pure Reason´. Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy and criticism of reason has left a lasting mark on modern thinking. The author gives an overview of Kant´s criticism. The focus is on Kant's philosophical treatment of the subject of God and his criticism of affirmative rational theology. If one wants to understand Kant, the God theme is of outstanding importance. Moreover, it is gaining increased philosophical interest nowadays. The author concludes with an outlook on the philosophical theologies in German idealism.

Kant on Time I: The Kinematics of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Kant-Studien ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-497
Author(s):  
David Hyder
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Analytical Mechanics ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Principle Of Relativity ◽  
Theory Of Motion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moving Bodies

Abstract The theory of space-time developed in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and his (1786) Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is connected to Leonhard Euler’s proof of invariance under Galilean transformations in the “On Motion in General” of the latter’s 1736 Analytical Mechanics. It is argued that Kant, by using the Principle of Relativity that is the output of Euler’s proof as an input to his own proof of the kinematic parallelogram law, makes essential use of absolute simultaneity. This is why, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, he observes that “our theory of time explains as much a priori knowledge as the general theory of motion displays.” (KrV, B 67) In conclusion, it is shown that the same proof-method, under a different definition of simultaneity, leads to the parallelogram law of the “Kinematic Part” of Einstein’s 1905 “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”.

Gottlob Ernst Schulzes skeptizistische Kant-Kritik in ihrer Relevanz für Arthur Schopenhauers Systemkonstitution

Kant-Studien ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-146
Author(s):  
Daniel Elon
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Positive Answer ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The World

Abstract: In 1792, Gottlob E. Schulze published one of the most important treatises in the era of the early critical reception of Kant’s transcendental philosophy: the skeptical treatise Aenesidemus. One of Schulze’s later students was the young Arthur Schopenhauer, whose examination of Kant’s philosophy was significantly influenced by Schulze. In this paper, it shall be established that this influence isn’t limited solely to the details of Schopenhauer’s critique of Kantian thinking, but rather extends to the systematic unfolding of Schopenhauer’s philosophy as a whole. In this respect, Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation can be understood as a direct, positive answer to the questions left open by Schulze’s debate on the internal problems of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

scholarly journals Tower of Babel: transcendental linguistics in Friedrich von Hardenberg’s (Novalis) Fichte Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Alexander Knopf
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Original Insight ◽  
Insight Into

This article provides a new interpretation of the linguistic aspects of Friedrich von Hardenberg’s Fichte Studies. It argues that Hardenberg was searching, among other things, for a transcendental language for philosophy. The possibility of such a language was discussed intensely among his contemporaries, such as Maimon, Niethammer, Reinhold, Weißhuhn, and Fichte. Its necessity, however, had become apparent with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Readers had noticed a disturbing discrepancy between the objective knowledge of transcendental philosophy—which, according to Kant, was supposed to be generally communicable—and Kant’s actual failure to communicate it. Hardenberg’s original insight into the inseparable unity of sign and signified, anticipating modern linguistic theories, led him to the assumption of a lawful relationship between both. From his unsuccessful attempt to disclose these laws, he went on to discover language as an independent realm fundamentally opposed to nature. Precisely because language is a necessary illusion, only the ‘presenting I’ (das darstellende Ich) achieves its end, namely absolute freedom. Philosophy, therefore, is pure as long as it remains within the boundaries of language alone, that is a language which does not refer to anything outside itself.

Does Kant Fall into the Myth of the Given?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Sophia Maddalena Fazio
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
Myth Of The Given ◽  
The Given

Abstract According to McDowell, conceptualism necessarily follows from the thesis that Kant falls into Sellars’ myth of the given. However, by comparing Sellars’ and McDowell’s versions of the myth of the given, it emerges that while Sellars introduces the myth of the given as a critique of empirical fundamentalism, McDowell’s critique is directed at minimal empiricism. The aim of this paper is to show that Kant’s theory of cognition does not fall into either of the two variants of the aforementioned myth. It thus argues against a conceptualist interpretation of Kant’s transcendental philosophy. It shows this by examining the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason.

Mendelssohn, Kant, and Idealism

2020 ◽  
pp. 167-202
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
External Objects ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism ◽  
Empirical Realism

After examining the dispute between Mendelssohn and Kant over the ideality of time in 1770, this chapter argues that Kant’s addition of a “Refutation of Idealism” to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1787 is a response to Mendelssohn’s treatment of idealism in his 1785 Morning Hours. Both defend the position that Kant calls empirical realism, but only Kant defends it by means of a transcendental argument that knowledge of external objects is a necessary condition of empirical self-knowledge, although only within the framework of transcendental idealism. Mendelssohn accepts that human experience can never tell us how things are in themselves, but does not accept Kant’s outright denial of the non-spatiality and non-temporality of things in themselves.

scholarly journals A FORMALIZATION OF KANT’S TRANSCENDENTAL LOGIC

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. ACHOURIOTI ◽  
M. VAN LAMBALGEN
Keyword(s):  
Formal Proof ◽  
Order Logic ◽  
First Order Logic ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Technical Application ◽  
First Order ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Argumentative Structure

Although Kant (1998) envisaged a prominent role for logic in the argumentative structure of his Critique of Pure Reason, logicians and philosophers have generally judged Kant’s logic negatively. What Kant called ‘general’ or ‘formal’ logic has been dismissed as a fairly arbitrary subsystem of first-order logic, and what he called ‘transcendental logic’ is considered to be not a logic at all: no syntax, no semantics, no definition of validity. Against this, we argue that Kant’s ‘transcendental logic’ is a logic in the strict formal sense, albeit with a semantics and a definition of validity that are vastly more complex than that of first-order logic. The main technical application of the formalism developed here is a formal proof that Kant’s Table of Judgements in Section 9 of the Critique of Pure Reason, is indeed, as Kant claimed, complete for the kind of semantics he had in mind. This result implies that Kant’s ‘general’ logic is after all a distinguished subsystem of first-order logic, namely what is known as geometric logic.

Kant's Empiricism in his Refutation of Idealism

2004 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 62-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Bardon
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Refutation Of Idealism

In the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant laments thatit still remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general that the existence of things outside us … must be accepted on faith, and if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof. (B xl n.)The two editions of the Critique each contain a celebrated refutation of epistemological scepticisms like those of Descartes and Hume. The first edition refutation has been widely decried as relying on an objectionable sort of idealism. The refutation of the second edition, though rather more difficult to interpret than the first, has usually been read as a mere reworking of the first.

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