The First Paralogism

2021 ◽  
pp. 90-103
Author(s):  
Ian Proops
Keyword(s):  
Informal Fallacies ◽  
Transcendental Illusion

This chapter addresses a range of questions relating to the Paralogisms in general and the first Paralogism in particular. In particular it is asked: What is Kant’s notion of a paralogism? and How is transcendental illusion supposed to operate in the first paralogism? The answer to the first of these questions is surprising. Kant understands a paralogism as an argument that has true premises but is ‘false with respect to form’. But, crucially, he understands falsity with respect to form more expansively than as formal invalidity: arguments that are ‘false with respect to form’ include certain informal fallacies, including the fallacy of ignoratio elenchi—a fallacy of overestimation of the strength of one’s proven conclusion. This explains how it could be that the A-edition first paralogism is ‘false with respect to form’ (as a paralogism must, by definition, be) even though it is not in fact an invalid argument.

Deductivism and the Informal Fallacies

Argumentation ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Jacquette
Keyword(s):  
Informal Fallacies

Review: Kant's Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion

Mind ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 112 (448) ◽  
pp. 718-724 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Longuenesse
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Illusion

scholarly journals Commitment, Types of Dialogue, and Fallacies

1992 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Walton
Keyword(s):  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Ad Hominem ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Informal Fallacies

This paper, based on research in a forthcoming monograph, Commitment in Dialogue, undertaken jointly with Erik Krabbe, explains several informal fallacies as shifts from one type of dialogue to another. The normative framework is that of a dialogue where two parties reason together, incurring and retracting commitments to various propositions as the dialogue continues. The fallacies studied include the ad hominem, the slippery slope, and many questions.

The A-edition First Paralogism

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-139
Author(s):  
Ian Proops
Keyword(s):  
Valid Argument ◽  
Transcendental Illusion

This chapter opens with an account of the A-edition first Paralogism. After refining the account of Transcendental Illusion given in Chapter 1, it proceeds to examine Julian Wuerth’s rival interpretation of the first Paralogism and, in connection with that interpretation, Kant’s notion of the ‘substantiale’. The chapter discusses a problem with Kant’s characterization of a paralogism in terms of ‘transcendental’ and ‘empirical’ uses of a category. Finally, it considers the three ways in which a paralogism can be diagnosed, namely, either as an invalid argument with known premises or as a valid argument with at least one unknown premise (a ‘paralogism’ now only by courtesy) or, finally, as a valid argument with known premises which is ‘false with respect to form’ because its proponent commits the fallacy of overestimating the significance of what has been proved. This last, it argues, is the diagnosis Kant offers of the A-edition first paralogism.

Closing Reflections

2021 ◽  
pp. 453-462
Author(s):  
Ian Proops
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Transcendental Illusion ◽  
Transcendental Realism

In this concluding chapter the main lessons of the book are reviewed, and some further problems for Kant raised. The chapter reflects once again on Kant’s confession that he had found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith, offering a deeper explanation of this claim than was given in the introduction. It then considers the consequences of his having regarded Transcendental Realism as not just false, but rather logically impossible. It asks whether such a view can be reconciled—given Kant’s views on contradiction—with the supposed contentfulness of transcendental illusion or with Transcendental Idealism itself. It raises a problem for Kant’s account of metaphysical error as arising from transcendental illusion. Finally, it evaluates Kant’s claim to have offered an exhaustive critique of speculative metaphysics, arguing that this is unfortunately not the case.

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