Transcendental arguments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Do So

Transcendental arguments seek to answer scepticism by showing that the things doubted by a sceptic are in fact preconditions for the scepticism to make sense. Hence the scepticism is either meaningless or false. A transcendental argument works by finding the preconditions of meaningful thought or judgment. For example, scepticism about other minds suggests that only the thinker themselves might have sensations. A transcendental argument which answered this scepticism would show that a precondition for thinking oneself to have sensations is that others do so as well. Expressing the scepticism involves thinking oneself to have sensations; and the argument shows that if this thought is expressible, then it is also false. Arguments with such powerful consequences have, unsurprisingly, been much criticized. One criticism is that it is not possible to discover the necessary conditions of judgment. Another is that transcendental arguments can only show us how we have to think, whereas defeating scepticism involves showing instead how things really are.

Strawson's Transcendental Deduction of Other Minds

1975 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
J. L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Other Minds ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Transcendental Deduction ◽  
The Third ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Transcendental Method

It is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists. So with all transcendental arguments (p. 30).Although P. F. Strawson mentions transcendental arguments only once in Individuals, there is no doubt as to his commitment to transcendental method. This paper will offer a critique of such a method, as it functions in a single context. Strawson gives a transcendental argument to refute scepticism with regard to other minds. We are all familiar with the gist of this argument. The sceptic holds that one can ascribe states of consciousness only to oneself. This assertion obviously implies that one can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself. But, Strawson argues, “One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others” (p. 96). In other words, the second assertion implies a third, that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others. The third assertion, though implied by the sceptic's initial assertion, contradicts it. Thus scepticism is shown by transcendental argument to imply its own denial. According to Strawson, the very statement of a sceptical position always presupposes concepts sufficient for its solution. “It is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists.”

On Refusing to Play the Sceptic's Game

Dialogue ◽  
1972 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kai Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Paradigm Case ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Do So

Paradigm-Case arguments were set out to meet epistemological scepticism and to refute in a short decisive way, without even the need to examine them in detail, paradoxical metaphysical claims. Stroud, J. J. Thomson and Rorty think they utterly fail to do so.1 I shall argue that supplemented by a perfectly innocuous verificationist argument, a distinct argument of Moore's, given a limited sphere of application and taken as also involving the argument from a non-vacuous contrast, the argument from the paradigm-case presents a decisive argument against such forms of scepticism. If it is not sound, transcendental arguments will also be undermined but if it is sound, they are unnecessary.

scholarly journals Entrepreneurial Opportunities for All?

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 159-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Wilson ◽  
Lee Martin
Keyword(s):  
Development Policy ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Entrepreneurial Opportunity ◽  
Entrepreneurial Opportunities ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Entrepreneurship Theory ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Do So

This paper considers the freedom of each and every one of us to choose to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities – that is, to practise entrepreneurship – should we wish to do so. Drawing on the Capabilities Approach, a novel conceptualization of entrepreneurial capability is put forward as the individual freedom to pursue an entrepreneurial opportunity within one's environment. In shifting analytical attention away from empirical cases of entrepreneurs (that is, those identified post hoc with successfully pursuing an entrepreneurial opportunity) and exploring the potential (or otherwise) of any individual to pursue entrepreneurship in theory, we are forced to ask what is specific about entrepreneurial opportunities and whether they can be pursued by anyone. Our resulting conception of entrepreneurial capability introduces seven universal and necessary conditions for this distinctive type of freedom to be present. The significance of this conceptualization of entrepreneurial capability for entrepreneurship theory and economic and human development policy is discussed.

Transcendental Arguments and Idealism

1982 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 211-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Causal Order ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
The Subject ◽  
New Form

‘Metaphysics’, said Bradley, ‘is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe on instinct, but to find these reasons is no less an instinct.’ This idea that reasoning is both instinctive and feeble is reminiscent of Hume; except that reasons in Hume tend to serve as the solvent rather than the support of instinctive beliefs. Instinct leads us to play backgammon with other individuals whom we assume inhabit a world which exists independently of our own perception and which will continue to exist tomorrow in a similar fashion to today. However, when instinct leads us also to reason about these beliefs they are all subject to sceptical attack. Their defence provides a challenge, a challenge which in thumbnail histories of the subject is met by Kant. He does this by use of a powerful new form of argument which he calls transcendental argument and which, in my opinion, provides not only reasons but also good reasons for the defence of some of our most central instinctive beliefs. The strategy involved in this kind of argument is to reflect on the necessary preconditions for comprehensible experience. In this way, some beliefs which are subject to sceptical attack, such as that there is a causal order between objects which exist independently of our experience of them, can be found to be the essential preconditions for having comprehensible experience at all. The reason for accepting them is, therefore, that they are the necessary preconditions of having any beliefs at all; and this provides a good, rather than a bad, reason for accepting these particular instinctive beliefs.

Kant’s Deduction of Freedom

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
One Step

The aim in this chapter and in chapter 4 is to explain how the post-Kantian German Idealists radicalized Kant’s prioritizing of the practical. This chapter brings into focus the performative and first-personal aspect of transcendental arguments. I present a Fichtean interpretation of Kant’s Deduction of Freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason. This interpretation shows that a transcendental argument always involves at least one step that cannot be established by logical means alone, but requires that the reader freely adopt a philosophical system or standpoint. By offering this Fichtean interpretation of Kant’s Deduction of Freedom, I also clarify the view that a form of self-relation that Fichte calls self-positing is the ground of moral obligation.

scholarly journals Taylor, Transcendental Arguments, and Hegel on Consciousness

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stern
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Classic Article

AbstractIn this paper, I consider Charles Taylor's classic article ‘The Opening Arguments of thePhenomenology’, in which Taylor presents an account of the Consciousness chapter of thePhenomenologyas a transcendental argument. I set Taylor's discussion in context and present its main themes. I then consider a recent objection to Taylor's approach put forward by Stephen Houlgate: namely, that to see Hegel as using transcendental arguments would be to violate Hegel's requirement that his method in thePhenomenologyneeds to bepresuppositionless. I concede that Houlgate's criticism of Taylor has some force, but argue that nonetheless Taylor can suggest instead that although Hegel is not offering transcendentalargumentshere, he can plausibly be read as making transcendentalclaims, so that perhaps Houlgate and Taylor are not so far apart after all, notwithstanding this disagreement.

McDowell on Transcendental Arguments, Scepticism and “Error Theory”

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Alan Thomas
Keyword(s):  
External World ◽  
Error Theory ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Error Theories ◽  
Philosophical Scepticism

John McDowell has recently changed his line of response to philosophical scepticism about the external world. He now claims to be in a position to use the strategy of transcendental argumentation in order to show the falsity of the sceptic’s misrepresentation of our ordinary epistemic standpoint. Since this transcendental argument begins from a weak and widely shared assumption shared with the sceptic herself the falsity of external world scepticism is now demonstrable even to her. Building on the account of perceptual intentionality defended in the Woodbridge lectures, McDowell argues that the idea of narrow perceptual content is unavailable to anyone, including the sceptic. This argument is assessed by drawing out an analogy with parallel responses to error theories in ethics.

Transcendental Arguments About Other Minds and Intersubjectivity

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 300-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matheson Russell ◽  
Jack Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Other Minds ◽  
Transcendental Arguments

scholarly journals Van Til versus Stroud: Is the Transcendental Argument for Christian Theism Viable?

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-160
Author(s):  
Bálint Békefi
Keyword(s):  
Recent Literature ◽  
Transcendental Argument ◽  
Transcendental Arguments ◽  
Strategy I ◽  
Van Til

In this paper I introduce the transcendental argument for Christian theism in the context of Reformed theologian and philosopher Cornelius Van Til’s thought. I then present the critique proffered by Barry Stroud against ambitious transcendental arguments, and survey various formulations of transcendental arguments in the literature, seeking how the objection bears upon them. I argue that Adrian Bardon’s (2005) interpretation is the most helpful in understanding the Stroudian objection. From this interpretation, two types of possible rebuttals are deduced. Proceeding to survey the responses offered by Van Tillians to this objection in the recent literature, I discern two general strategies pursued in these responses, which map onto the previously deduced types of rebuttals: the Biblical justification strategy and the objection-undermining strategy. I argue that all the specific attempts to answer Stroud which I examine here (those of Butler, Bosserman, and Fluhrer) are inadequate and that these two strategies, in general, face serious problems. I conclude with considering the options before the proponent of the transcendental argument for Christian theism and with offering a new objection to the argument, which focuses on its inconsistency with the implications of Christian theism itself.

scholarly journals La fenomenología de la razón y la experiencia estética. Edmund Husserl y Vasily SesemanNN

2021 ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Dalius Yonkus
Keyword(s):  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Edmund Husserl ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
Phenomenological Reduction ◽  
Phenomenological Method ◽  
Aesthetic Perception ◽  
Aesthetic Object ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Do So

La estética fenomenológica debería ser capaz de revelar cómo la estructura de cualquier objeto estético dado está conectada con la experiencia de ese objeto, así como demostrar las condiciones necesarias para la propia experiencia estética. Para hacerlo, hay que argumentar en contra de los supuestos unilaterales, como por ejemplo la suposición del objetivismo estético que postula la belleza como rasgo exclusivo de la realidad independiente del sujeto; o la creencia opuesta, que la belleza es esencial y únicamente la proyección del gusto subjetivo sobre las cosas en el mundo. Sesemann analiza el objeto estético y el acto estético, enfatizando su conexión. Esta conexión se refiere a lo que se describe en la fenomenología de Husserl como la correlación entre el objeto intencional y el acto intencional. Esta conexión puede ser descubierta sólo mediante el método fenomenológico: realizando la reducción fenomenológica. En este documento se explicará en primer lugar la percepción estética en la estética de Sesemann. Más adelante, se examina la concepción de la estructura del objeto estético en el contexto de la estética de Sesemann: la composición de los elementos, las sensaciones en relación con el significado, etc. Por último, el artículo sugiere que la estética de Sesemann se basa fundamentalmente en el método de la reducción fenomenológica.Phenomenological aesthetics should also be able to show how the structure of any given aesthetic object is connected with the experience of that object, as well as to demonstrate the necessary conditions for the aesthetic experience itself. In order to do so, one must argue against one-sided assumptions, such as the aesthetic objectivism’s supposition that beauty is exclusively the trait of reality not at all dependent on the subject’s experience of it; or its opposite belief that beauty is essentially and solely the projection of the subjective taste onto the things in the world. Sesemann analizes the aesthetic object and aesthetic act by emphasizing their connection. This connection relates to what is described in Husserls phenomenology as the correlation between the intentional object and the intentional act. This connection can be discovered only by using the phenomenological method: by doing phenomenological reduction. This paper will first explain the aesthetic perception in Sesemann‘s aesthetics. Later, it examine the conception of the aesthetic object‘s structure in Sesemann‘s aesthetic: composition of elements, sensations in connection with meaning; etc. Finally, the paper will argue that Sesemann‘s aesthetics is essentially based on the method of phenomenological reduction.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document