scholarly journals An Overlooked Argument for the Categories: Kant’s Interlude of Justification in the Prolegomena

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 878
Author(s):  
Adriano Perin
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Methods ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Theoretical Philosophy

The deduction of the categories lies undoubtedly at the very heart of Kant's theoretical philosophy and, for this reason, it is one of items in the philosophical canon that is greatly discussed and least agreed upon. In the modern and contemporary Western philosophical tradition as well as in Kant’s literature, the loci classici for its consideration are the 1781 and 1787 editions of the Critique of pure reason. In this paper, I aim at presenting and discussing an argument that Kant advances in the Prolegomena and which is virtually ignored in the approach of the deduction of the categories. At first, an inquiry into the distinction between analytic and synthetic methods is carried out. After that, the difference between judgments of perception and judgments of experience is taken into account. Finally, the Prolegomena’s argument for the categories is brought into discussion. *** Um Argumento Negligenciado para as Categorias: O Interlúdio Kantiano de Justificação nos Prolegômenos ***É indiscutível que a dedução das categorias compreende o núcleo da filosofia teórica kantiana. Por esse motivo, tal empreendimento figura entre os elementos do cânone filosófico que recebem maior discussão e menos consenso. Os loci classici para a sua consideração, tanto na tradição filosófica ocidental moderna e contemporânea quanto na literatura kantiana, são as edições de 1781 e 1787 da Crítica da razão pura. Neste trabalho, objetivo apresentar e discutir um argumento que Kant desenvolve nos Prolegômenos e que é praticamente ignorado na abordagem da dedução das categorias. Inicialmente, empreende-se uma investigação sobre a distinção entre os métodos analítico e sintético. Na sequência, considera-se a distinção entre juízos de percepção e juízos de experiência. Por último, discute-se o argumento para as categorias que é dado nos Prolegômenos.Palavras-chave: Método Analítico. Método Sintético. Juízos de Percepção. Juízos de Experiência. Dedução das Categorias.

Some Persistent Presumptions of Hegelian Anti-Subjectivism

2019 ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Karl Ameriks
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Critical System ◽  
Theoretical Philosophy

This chapter responds primarily to a recent criticism of Kant by Stephen Houlgate. Like many other recent Hegelian accounts, Houlgate’s severe critique of Kant’s theoretical philosophy contends that, in contrast to Hegel, Kant’s Critical system, especially because of its doctrine of transcendental idealism, presupposes a subjectivist and therefore inadequate position. On the basis of a moderate interpretation of Kant’s idealism and his general Critical procedure, the chapter defends Kant from the charge of subjectivism, and also gives an account of how subjectivist interpretations in general can arise from a series of understandable misunderstandings of difficult passages in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.

Kant as Seen by Hegel

1982 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 93-109
Author(s):  
W. H. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Special Care ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Main Ideas ◽  
The Impact

Few major philosophers show evidence of having studied the works of their predecessors with special care, even in cases where they were subject to particular influences which they were ready to acknowledge. Hume knew that he was working in the tradition of ‘some late philosophers in England, who have begun to put the science of man on a new footing’—‘Mr Locke, my Lord Shaftsbury, Dr Mandeville, Mr Hutchinson, Dr Butler, &c.’ But there is not much sign in the Treatise or elsewhere in Hume's writings of any close acquaintance with the works of these authors; the presumption must be that he had read them at some time and extracted the main ideas, but was not in the habit of returning to their texts. He had something more important to do, namely to work at philosophical problems of his own. Similarly Kant, though he said that the Critique of Pure Reason was not meant to be ‘a critique of books and systems, but of the faculty of reason in general’, had clearly felt the impact of the thought of some important past philosophers, but equally had never spent much time in finding out just what these philosophers had to say. Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz and Hume all get fairly frequent mention in his pages. But Kant takes his knowledge of Plato and Aristotle from J. J. Brucker's Historia critica philosophiae, a six-volume compilation which first appeared in 1742, or from doubtful sources such as Mendelssohn's doctored translation of the Phaedo, and though he doubtless knew the more recent authors at first hand clearly felt no need to study them in any depth. This was true even of writers to whom he attributed a particular importance, such as Leibniz and Hume. The references to Hume in the Critique and Prolegomena are all disappointingly general, and though the summary of Leibniz's philosophy in the section called ‘The Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection’ has a certain force, it is not documented with references to Leibnizian texts. Kant knows that there is a difference between the views of the historical Leibniz and those which constituted the ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian system’ of his successors. But he is not very curious about the difference, or inclined to explore it.

On the Reality of Existence and Identity

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 613-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Hacking
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Identity Relation ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Real Relation ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

“The confusion of a logical with a real predicate,” according to the Critique of Pure Reason, “is almost beyond correction” (A598/B626). Kant did not assert that existence is no predicate, but that it is only a “logical” one, and not a “real” one. Much the same thing has been said about identity, although Kant himself thought it is real and not logical. We have long lacked a rigorous criterion to distinguish real from logical predicates, and hence have not been able to say why the difference matters. This paper has two objects. First it provides a demarcation between real and logical predicates that confirms Kant's dictum that existence is only “logical.” Secondly it states the theory of a “logical” (but not “real”) relation of identity. Perhaps this is not the only identity relation. I show only that once it has been precisely defined in the right setting, there are definite answers to a number of disputed questions about identity. Maybe there are other concepts of identity for which different answers are to be given, but I shall not discuss that disagreeable prospect here. A third application concerns the ontological argument.

scholarly journals Of empty thoughts and blind intuitions Kant's answer to McDowell

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Günter Zöller
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Real ◽  
Myth Of The Given ◽  
Passive Data ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Given ◽  
Theoretical Philosophy

This paper examines the relation between intuition and concept in Kant in light of John McDowell's neo-Kantian position that intuitions are concept-laden.2 The focus is on Kant's twofold pronouncement that thoughts without content are empty and that intuitions without concepts are blind. I show that intuitions as singular representations are not instances of passive data intake but the result of synthetic unification of the given manifold of the senses by the power of the imagination under the guidance of the understanding. Against McDowell I argue that the amenability of intuitions to conceptual determination is not due some pre-existing, absolute conceptuality of the real but to the "work of the subject."3 On a more programmatic level, this paper seeks to demonstrate the limitations of a selective appropriation of Kant and the philosophical potential of a more comprehensive and thorough consideration of his work. Section 1 addresses the unique balance in Kant's philosophy between the work on particular problems and the orientation toward a systematic whole. Section 2 outlines McDowell's take on the Kantian distinction between intuition and concept in the context of the Kant readings by Sellars and Strawson. Section 3 exposes McDowell's relapse into the Myth of the Given. Section 4 proposes a reading of Kant's theoretical philosophy as an epistemology of metaphysical cognition. Section 5 details Kant's original account of sensible intuition in the Inaugural-Dissertation of 1770. Section 6 presents the transition from the manifold of the senses to the synthesis in the imagination and the unification through the categories in the Critique of pure reason (1781 and 1787). Section 7 addresses Kant's formalism in epistemology and metaphysics.

scholarly journals The Problem of the Relationship between Apperception, Self-Consciousness and Consciousness in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-53
Author(s):  
I. E. Andriianov
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Synthetic Activity ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Functional Roles ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
Prime Task ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Relationship

Kant does not provide clear-cut definitions of apperception, consciousness, and self-consciousness and everywhere uses these terms as synonyms, which creates the problem of the relationship between these faculties. The importance of this problem stems from the colossal significance of each of the above-mentioned faculties which are intimately connected with Kant’s formulation of the key tasks of transcendental philosophy. The prime task is to discover the categories of understanding and to prove the legitimacy of their use, a task that is further complicated by the difference between the editions of the Critique of Pure Reason in terms of the argumentation in the section on the deduction of categories and Kant’s concept of apperception. Accordingly, the author seeks to clarify the purpose of each of the above-mentioned faculties and to establish their inter-relationship. To this end the author analyses the functional roles of consciousness, self-consciousness and apperception in solving the main tasks of the first Critique. It turns out that consciousness is a reflexive cognitive capacity which provides access to representations in our soul and allows us to distinguish them and to connect them. Self-consciousness is the mode of the functioning of consciousness which makes it possible to study three objects of consciousness: internal and external representations of the subject, the synthetic activity of understanding and our soul. Apperception is the Latin synonym of the concept of Selbstbewußtsein and is aimed at studying the unity of our representations. Because Kant distinguishes multiple kinds of unity, there are different names for apperception. Kant uses the concept of Apperzeption as a synonym of self-consciousness because his concept of consciousness follows the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition.

scholarly journals Mendelssohn and Kant on Mathematics and Metaphysics

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Callanan
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Critical Periods ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
The Difference ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Prize Essay

AbstractThe difference between the method of metaphysics and the method of mathematics was an issue of central concern for Kant in both the Pre-Critical and Critical periods. I will argue that when Kant speaks of the ‘philosophical method’ in the Doctrine of Method in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), he frequently has in mind not his own methodology but rather the method of conceptual analysis associated with rationalism. The particular target is Moses Mendelssohn’s picture of analysis contained in his submission for the 1763 Prize Essay competition. By the time of the first Critique, I argue, Kant wants to maintain his own longstanding commitment to the distinctness of the methods of metaphysics and mathematics. However, Kant wants to use this same analysis of the source of the distinction to diagnose the origins of the dogmatism that is engendered by the method of the rationalists.

Identity, Appearances, and Things in Themselves

Dialogue ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ermanno Bencivenga
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Possible World Semantics ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Theoretical Philosophy

In his lucid and perceptive essay, “Recent Work on Kant's Theoretical Philosophy”, Karl Ameriks signals Kant's distinction between appearances and things in themselves as one of the (two) “central issues” of the Critique of Pure Reason. The reason why the issue is central (and complicated) is that Kant appears to say contradictory things on the matter. At times he says (or implies) that appearances are the same as things in themselves, and at other times he says (or implies) that they are different. Some interpreters have tried to make sense of these contradictions by claiming that “although for Kant there are not two objects involved, there are still two transcendental and intelligible aspects or points of view that are called for by his doctrine of things in themselves and appearances”. However, it is not immediately clear what kind of an animal an aspect or a point of view is, what kind of operation it is to “look at” an object from such different points of view, and what kind of results this operation is supposed to give. In the present paper, I make a fresh proposal. I propose to interpret Kant's conflicting claims on the relation between things in themselves and appearances in terms of the contemporary framework of possible-world semantics.

scholarly journals HEIDEGGER’S READINGS OF KANT: APPROPRIATION OF TIME AND SPACE THROUGH UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORICITY OF DA-SEIN AS BEING-IN-THE-WORLD

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-90
Author(s):  
Syed Alam Shah
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Public ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Human Reality ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Being There

Heidegger’s reading of Kant is deciphered to have illuminated his own project concerning the basic question of Ontology, Time, Space and History [Temporality, Spatiality and Historicity] embodying the novel description of Human reality in terms of Mit-Dasein and Mit-welt [Subjectivity with the public face]. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason led Heidegger develop his own project of Existential Phenomenology contrary to Husserilian Phenomenology. We will discuss the Kantian Heidegger following the two main issues: one, Heidegger appreciates Kant on his identifying and exploring the difference of ontic/ontological. Two, Kant prioritizes time over space. Heidegger would explore the subject of ontic/ontological difference in the sense that ontic knowledge is the knowledge of particular beings, whereas ontological knowledge is described as the a priori condition inferring the ontic knowledge. In this sense ontological knowledge pertains to question of being rather than beings. This is how Heidegger’s Kant interpretation would differ from the Neo-Kantianism of Marburg School which argued that Critique of Pure Reason is a work of epistemology. In contrast to this position, Heidegger held that Critique is a unique work of transcendental philosophy; it is theory of ontological knowledge but not ontic knowledge. Ontic knowledge of beings must conform to Being of beings [ontological foundation]. Heidegger holds that this should be Kant’s “Copernican Revolution”. However, Heidegger would appropriate the Kantian notion of time in the form of temporality of Dasein. Being manifests itself on beings through Being-there [Human reality] who purely understands Being. For Heidegger, temporality of Dasein is the foundation of ontological knowledge indeed.

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