The A-edition First Paralogism

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

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.

The Third Antinomy Resolved

This chapter examines the resolution of the third antinomy. Kant argues that the thesis and antithesis are (roughly speaking) sub-contraries rather than contradictories. However, the sense in which he maintains that the thesis and antithesis ‘can both be true’ is delicate. He holds that the truth of neither claim excludes the truth of the other; but this is compatible with necessary falsehood of the thesis, which affirms the existence of human freedom. Importantly, Kant does not take himself to show on theoretical grounds that freedom is even logically possible. The chapter also discusses: Kant’s conceptions of intelligible causality and of empirical and intelligible character; moral responsibility; moral growth; the rationality of blame; Kant’s criticisms of Leibniz’s compatibilism; the third antinomy as an indirect argument for Transcendental Idealism; and the first-Critique’s version of a moral argument for freedom. Kant emerges as a ‘soft determinist’ of a highly unusual stripe.

The Mathematical Antinomies Presented

The chapter examines Kant’s conception of the phenomenon of ‘antinomy’. It argues that his classification of antinomies is grounded in his trichotomous division of oppositions (into contraries, sub-contraries, and contradictories). According to Kant’s diagnosis, while all the antinomies consist of pairs of propositions that appear to be contradictories, the mathematical antinomies are merely contraries and the dynamical antinomies sub-contraries. The chapter makes a case for the centrality of the phenomenon of antinomy to Kant’s diagnosis of dogmatic speculative metaphysics. The general form of an antinomy is discussed, along with Kant’s notion of infinity. The arguments for the thesis and antithesis position of the first two antinomies are presented in detail.

Empirical and Rational Psychology

This chapter examines the conceptions of rational and empirical psychology developed in the writings of Kant’s predecessors and in his own pre-critical writings. The views of the following figures are examined in detail: Wolff, Gottsched, Baumgarten, Meier, and the Kant of the ‘L1’ metaphysics lectures. Once this background has been surveyed, the chapter goes on to explore: Kant’s conception of a distinctively pure rational psychology; his science of self-consciousness; and his two contrasting understandings of how rational psychology might be pursued. The chapter argues that Kant’s target in the Paralogisms chapter is an idealized ‘pure’ rational psychology, an aspiring a priori ‘science’ of the soul, whose closest antecedents in the tradition are the views of Baumgarten, on the one hand, and his own views in the ‘L1’ metaphysics lectures, on the other.

The First Critique on the Physico-Theological Argument

This chapter examines Kant’s criticisms of physico-theology as they are developed in the first Critique and in his pre-critcal work, The Only Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God. By ‘physico-theology’ Kant means the project of arguing from the (apparent) fact that the world contains end-directed or ‘purposive’ natural features and arrangements to the existence of God conceived of as an all-powerful, perfectly wise, and benevolent creator—an ‘Author of Nature’, who brings the world into existence through His wisdom and free choice. Kant’s attitude to this project is complex: while he rejects physico-theology in its traditional, crude form (the so-called ‘ordinary’ physico-theology), he nonetheless endorses a more sophisticated, ‘revised’ physico-theology. However, the argument he defends aims to produce, not knowledge, but only a justified ‘doctrinal belief’ in a wise and great (but not perfect) creator of matter ex nihilo: a creator-god with a small ‘g’.

The B-Edition First Paralogism

This chapter analyses the second-edition first paralogism. It argues that Kant offers a plausible account of how a philosopher in the grip of transcendental illusion might be led to commit a fallacy of equivocation of the kind Kant discerns in the first paralogism (when its premises are taken to be true), namely, a sophisma figurae dictionis. (The paralogism Kant states is actually an abridged polysyllogism.) The chapter explains how Kant can, by the lights of his own epistemology, regard the premises of the argument as true. The chapter criticizes an interpretation of the Paralogism offered by Michelle Grier and responds to a textual worry raised by Patricia Kitcher. It defends the author’s interpretation against the recent criticisms of Julian Wuerth and Béatrice Longuenesse. Finally, the chapter explains the ways in which the author’s account diverges from that of the (to his mind) close-to-correct interpretation of Karl Ameriks.

Transcendental Illusion

This chapter examines the nature of logical, empirical, and transcendental illusion. It goes into depth on the following topics: Kant’s account of the sources of transcendental illusion, his illustrative example of the construction of polysyllogisms and the lessons he draws from this example, his two accounts of how transcendental illusion leads to dogmatism and error, and his argument for the universality of transcendental illusion. The author partly agrees with, and partly takes issue with, Michelle Grier’s justly influential account of Kant’s views on transcendental illusion and metaphysical error. What is correct in this account is its insistence on maintaining a sharp distinction between transcendental illusion and dogmatic metaphysical error; what is mistaken is its account of the fallacy that constitutes the first paralogism.

The Third Paralogism

This chapter analyses the third paralogism of ‘personality’ (or, equivalently, of ‘personhood’), situating the paralogistic argument in its Wolffian context. The chapter contends that Kant treats personality as an epistemic state. It offers accounts of Kant’s envisaged ‘practical use’ of the concept of a person and of his conception of what immortality would have to consist in if there were to be such a state. It scrutinizes in detail Kant’s criticisms of the separate arguments of Moses Mendelssohn and of David Fordyce for the immortality of the soul. Finally, it examines Kant’s sympathetic adaptation of Fordyce’s argument to his own, rather less ambitious, purposes—namely, the justification, or, more accurately, production and stabilization, of a ‘doctrinal belief’ in an afterlife. It offers an evaluation of the argument when it is so construed.

The Mathematical Antinomies Resolved

This chapter identifies two lines of resolution in the mathematical antinomies, which lines, it argues, correspond to two traditional ways of attempting to generate counter-examples to the law of excluded middle. One line involves positing an instance of category clash, the other the suggestion that ‘the world’ is a non-referring singular term. The upshot, in either case, is that the thesis and antithesis are not contradictories but merely contraries (and both are false). The chapter criticizes, and then charitably reformulates, Kant’s indirect argument for Transcendental Idealism. It considers why Kant did not seek to resolve the antinomies by arguing that thesis or antithesis are nonsense. Also discussed are: reductio proofs in philosophy (and Kant’s attitude toward them, which is argued to be more sympathetic than is often supposed), regresses ad infinitum and ad indefinitum; the cosmological syllogism; the sceptical representation; the Lambert analogy, the indifferentists; and the comparison with Zeno.