Reading Kant: New Perspectives on Transcendental Arguments and Critical Philosophy

287 Pages·1989·36.42 MB·English

by  Eva Schaper

. I I
Copyright© Basil Blackwell Ltd 1989
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First published 1989
I
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Reading Kant: new perspectives on transcendental arguments and critical
philosophy.
1. Germany philosophy, Kant, Immanuel,
1724-1804
I. Schaper, Eva II. Vossenkuhl, Wilhelm
193
ISBN 0-631-16029-9
Library ofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data
Reading Kant: new perspectives on transcendental arguments and critical
philosophy I edited by Eva Schaper and Wilhelm Vossenkuhl.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-631-16029-9
1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. 2. Transcendental logic.
3. Transcendentalism. I. Schaper, Eva. II. Vossenkuhl, Wilhelm,
1945-
B2799.T7R43 1989
193-dc19
Preface
All papers in this collection owe their inspiration to Kant. For many of
the contributors this means that a large and important part of their
working lives has been spent in the company of Kant's texts, wrestling
with their difficulties and patiently trying to make sense of obscurities
in then1. As in the case of every great philosopher, understanding Kant
is a task that is never completed, however much every generation of
scholars feeds on the achievements ofearlier generations or is provoked
bywhatn1aynowappearto beearliermisunderstandings. Disagreements
on how to read Kant are likely to be with us as long as reading him
remains philosophically rewarding. A number of contributions to this
volume have been occasioned by lively controversies over the detail of
particularassessmentsthatKant'sdoctrineshavealreadyreceived. Others
advance afresh and offer novel insights, ranging from interpretation to
critical revisions and reconstructions of Kantian arguments. It is no
exaggeration to say that we have collected in one volume as many
'readings' of Kant as there are contributors. We trust, however, that it
will be clear that they have all been reading the same Kant.
The perspectives differ as much as the particular areas of Kant's
philosophy explored. There are convergences ofinterest and divergences
of approach. We have grouped the papers then1atically, and our part
headings try to give son1e indications of the problems addressed. Not
everyone will approve ofour mode ofarranging them, the responsibility
for grouping them, rather than offering the volume without any guide
for the selective reader, belongs to the editors. We have had too much
respect for the authors to ask them to conform to guidelines and to
tailor their contributions accordingly. In any case, such a request would
have been unreasonable and could hardly have been heeded without
loss. We have felt confirmed in our allegiance to the spirit of Kant by
the way the collection has found its shape.
Vll1 Preface
The partitions In this volun1e are not meant as demarcation lines.
Part I, 'Transcendental Arguments', for example, might well have
included several of the papers appearing in part II, 'The Refutation of
Scepticism'. The authors work with readings or modifications of a
particular form of argumentation which we owe to Kant and which
has recently been much debated, attacked, defended or even actually
used. Both contributors to part I focus explicitly on the controversial
nature of such arguments. Eckart Forster returns first to Kant's own
understanding of transcendental arguments in order to show that they
establish non-analytical and non-empirical conclusions; the transcen
dental mode of argumentation is defended against its most prominent
recentcritics. Graham Bird also reflects on the difference between Kant's
and modern transcendental arguments, before concentrating in detail
on Kant's procedure in the two standard-setting arguments, the
Refutation of Idealism and the Second Analogy. This paper already
deals with some of the issues that are central to part II.
Here the question is not so much whether Kant's intentions were
explicitly directed to such a refutation as whether his approach yields,
or could yield, models which may be so used. Ross Harrison rejects
contemporary historicizing interpretations of Kant's transcendental
arguments as mistaken and develops an austere general version of his
own that, he holds, can successfully refute scepticism. Ralph Walker
maintains that the individual sceptic who is prepared to argue at all
will have to accept that the conclusions of transcendental arguments
leave him deprived of the sceptical starting point: but such arguments
cannot, in his view, serve to defuse scepticism in general. He leaves it
open how far transcendental arguments can really take us. Peter Bieri
argues, with Kant unmistakably in the background, that scepticisn1
cannot coherently establish its own claims. He scrutinizes the main
formulations of anti-sceptical positions, not without admitting specific
weaknesses in them. He then develops a line based on results from
contemporarycognitivescience,whichseekstoestablishthecontroversial
point that understandingthe mind as an intentional structure guarantees
coherence with the causal structure of the world.
Part III, 'Geometry and Idealism', focuses on Kant's understanding
ofgeometry and on the vexed question ofhow far his position provides
support for the transcendental idealism Kant apparently derives from
it, and how far one can go in endorsing it. Terry Greenwood gives a
modal analysis of Kant's spatiality condition which demands that if
something is represented as an object it must necessarily be represented
as being in space. He finds that even if the Kantian condition holds,
thewiderclaimsoftranscendentalidealismarenottherebysubstantiated.
Indeed, any plausibility transcendental arguments possess would be lost
if they had transcendental idealist implications. Paul Guyer turns to the
Preface IX
barriers the Kantian things-in-themselves place in the way of adopting
transcendental idealism. He argues that Kant does not derive the
transcendental ideality of space from any modesty in knowledge claims
about the noumenal. On the contrary, it is from the imn10dest
supposition of certain knowledge of propositions necessarily true of
space and objects in them that he derives the denial of the absolute
reality of space. Guyer suggests that no contemporary defender of
transcendental idealism would be likely to adopt that doctrine if the
Kantian arguments were clearly spelled out - which is what his paper
tries to do. Rolf Peter Horstn1ann meets Guyer's reading of Kant with
head-on criticism. He reminds us that it was the German post-Kantian
(absolute) idealists who saw in the Kantian thing-in-itself the main
obstacle to successfully establishing transcendental idealism, and that
this reading was based on a misunderstanding of Kant's text - which
Guyer, in Horstmann's view, now perpetuates.
'Judgements and individuals', part IV, takes off from the Critique of
Judgement. Reinhard Brandt offers a new account of the relation
between analytic and dialectic in the third Critique, where the structure
of the dialectic does not run parallel to the architectonic articulation of
the first Critique. This, he argues, far fron1 being due to Kant's
carelessness in the application of his own distinctions, throws new light
on the development of his thought over the entire critical period.
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl sees one of the main thrusts of the third Critique
as being directed to the understanding of individuals. He explains why
this could not be accomplishedwith whatthe first Critique hadprovided
but had to wait for the mature analysis of the structure of the power
of judgement. The construal of this structure proceeds in terms of our
contemporary understanding of intentionality.
Part V, 'Idealism and Transcendental Structure', the final part, has
two contributions, both returning to the first Critique and both taking
up issues that have occupied the individual authors for some time. Gerd
BuchdahlherecompletesanewinterpretationofKant'scentralintentions
in the Critique of Pure Reason, supplemented by the Prolegomena,
which, he argues, become perspicuous only when read in a way that
brings outthe crucial dynamics ofthe project. This projectis understood
as realization, through developn1ental stages, of the object as it appears
to the senses and the understanding, after successive reductions, from
the object in general, via the transcendental object, to the categorized
andschematizedthing. DieterHenrichgivesadetailedcriticalreconstruc
tion of the transcendental deduction, articulating first the conditions
which have to be met, and then developing a step-by-step argument
that fulfils them so that the 'I think' of the deduction can emerge fully
as a subject with self-conscious identity and personhood.
x Preface
There has in recent years been something of a renaissance in Kantian
studies, fuelled, as renaissances are, by concerns which n1ay seem at
first son1ewhat remote from their object. Transcendental arguments and
the tenability of some form of idealism, however attenuated, are live
issues. We would like to think these essays will keep the blaze going
at the very least they may demonstrate that the reading of Kant is, as
it has always been, a creative as well as a rewarding occupation. The
greatness ofa philosopheris notto be gauged by unanimityofreception,
and does not require a definitive reading: there never will be one. We
. hope the contributions to this volume show that Kant is still very much
alive, challenging, and a thorn in the flesh of conten1porary philosophy.
Eva Schaper
Wilhelm Vossenkuhl
Part I
Transcendental Arguments
1
How Are Transcendental
Arguments Possible?
Eckart Forster
'. .. und so wird das Ganze endlich
iibersehen und eingesehen werden,
wenn man nur ... von der Hauptfrage,
auf die alles ankommt ... ausgeht'.
Kant to Garve, 7 August 1783
In the last few decades or so, transcendental arguments have enjoyed
a currency which has not been matched by an equal transparency as
to their exact nature, intention, or procedure. In this essay, I should
like to make an attempt at some further clarification of the issue by
returning to the origin oftranscendental philosophy, and by contrasting
modern transcendental arguments more carefully than is often done
with Kant's own paradigmatic procedure.
Part I of this essay is concerned with Kant's conception of a
transcendental proof. Part II contrasts with this some modern exponents
of transcendental arguments. In the last part, I examine two standard
objections that have been levelled against transcendental arguments.
I
Kant introduced into philosophy a new form of reasoning which he
himself characterized as 'transcendental'. Although the method of
philosophizing was novel, the term itselfwas not: Kant adopted it from
the tradition where it had been in frequent use. When, in a letter to
Marcus Herz, he first referred to his endeavours as 'transcendentalphilo
sophie',l Kant thus felt no need to indicate a special use of the term.
As his position developed and the critical position took shape, however,
the need to distinguish it from 'the transcendental philosophy of the
ancients' (B113)2 became increasingly urgent. For what had hitherto
borne this name was really a part of metaphysics; Kant, on the other
4 Eckart Forster
hand, purported to revolutionize this discipline in a way con1parable to
that in which Copernicus had revolutionized astronomy_
Like manyofhis contemporaries andpredecessors, Kantwas painfully
aware that the history of metaphysics, especially when compared with
the continuous progress achieved in mathematics and the natural
sciences, looked like 'a merely random grol?!ng, and what is worst of
all, a groping among mere concepts'. (Bxv) Unlike most of his
contemporaries and predecessors, however, Kant was not content to
diagnose the lack of progress in metaphysics or to lament the sad state
itwasin. Hepurportedto examineif, andhow, a metaphysicaldiscipline
was possible at all.
My purpose is to convince all those who find it worth their while to occupy
themselves with metaphysics: that it is absolutely necessary to suspend their
work for the present, to regard everything that has happened hitherto as not
having happened, and before all first to raise the question: 'Whether such
elSIe>
a thing as metaphysics is possible at all?' (Pro/., 255)
Thisproject,whilerevolutionaryinonerespect,was simpleinanother.
As Kantrealized, theentireproblemcouldbereducedtooneHauptfrage,
namely, Howaresyntheticapriorijudgementspossible? Forthepurpose
of metaphysics is 'not merely to analyse concepts ... and thereby to
clarify them analytically, but to extend our a priori knowledge'(B18).
Since synthetic, that is, 'ampliative' judgements are thus the ultimate
purpose of all speculative knowledge a priori (cf. A9-10/B13), the
fortune of metaphysics, or its possibility, must stand or fall with the
possibility of such judgements.
To solve this problem was the task Kant set himself in the Critique
ofPure Reason.3 To this end he propounded a new type of reflection
for which the old name of a transcendental philosophy was ready to
hand: 'It can be said that the whole transcendental philosophy which
necessarily precedes all metaphysics is itself nothing other than merely
the complete solution of the question proposed here, only in systematic
order and full detail (Prol., 279).
In the present context I can only outline Kant's solution to the
problem of metaphysical knowledge. As is well known, it is partly
negative. About such objects of classical metaphysical speculation as
God, the soul, or the world.toto genere, which necessarily lie beyond
all possible experience, he argues, no theoretical knowledge is humanly
possible. The knowledge we do have of things within our field of
experience, on the other hand, is inevitably empirical or a. posteriori,
not a priori. However, as Kant points out at the beginning of the
Critique: 'it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made
up ofwhat we receive through impressions and ofwhatour own faculty
of knowledge (sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion)
How Are Transcendental Arguments Possible? 5
supplies from itself'.(Bl) That is to say, if the subject of experience,
although not entirely producing its own experience, nevertheless
contributed so m.uch to it that withoutthis subjectivecontributian no
experience was possible - if, that is, experience had to be constituted
- then some synthetic a priori judgements would be possible in
philosophy. For we could then anticipate theform, although not the
content, of a possible experience and hence make valid judgements a
priori about experience in general.
The Critique, in a profoundly subtle and difficult luan11er, tries to
prove the correctness of this contention. First it argues that.we do not
experience things in themselves but merely the representations they
occasion in our sensibility, and that even space and time are mere forms
of our intuition, not properties of things in themelves. This step is
important, for ifthe objectsofourperceptionswerethingsinthemselves,
all our knowledge would have to be a posteriori.4
The impressions thus received by our senses, however, do not amount
to knowledge. For sensibility is a completely passive faculty, a mere
'capacityofreceiving representations (receptivity for impressions)' (A50/
B74). It does not connect and relate the manifold it receives. For
knowledge ofobjects to arise, therefore, the manifold has to be ordered
and related, it has to be 'gone through ... taken up, and connected'
(A77/BI02).5
The second and decisive step takes place in the Transcendental
Deduction. Self-consciousness, Kant here tries to prove, is possible only
if I have experience of an objective order which can be distinguished
from the merely subjective order of representations that occur in my
mind. Since, on the one hand, the actuality of my self-consciousness is
indubitably eviden~, yet, on the other hand, sensibility only provides a
n1anifold ofunconnected sense-impressions, itfollows that Imyselfhave
to connect these in1pressions in a determinate fashion and thus impose
the objective order on this manifold through which the objects of
experience (nature) first become possible. All my experience is thus
necessarily subject to rules or laws of the understanding, for only thus
can it become my experience.
That nature should direct itself according to our subjective ground of
apperception, and should indeed depend upon it in respect ofits conformity to
law, sounds very strange and absurd. But when we consider that this nature is
not a thing in itself but is merely an aggregate of appearances, so many
representations of the mind, we shall not be surprised that we..can discover it
only in the radical faculty of all our knowledge, namely, in transcendental
apperception, in that unity on account of which alone it can be entitled object
of all possible experience, that is, nature. (Al14)
With this remarkable tour de force, the riddle of metaphysics has
thus finally been solved and the transcendental Hauptfrage received its
6 Eckart Forster
overdue answer: the conditions of possible experience have objective
validity in a synthetic a priori judgement, for they are likewise the
conditions of possible objects of experience (cf. A158/B197).
This very broad and schematic account of Kant's solution to the
problem of metaphysical knowledge must suffice here. Rather than
going into any of the details of Kant's argumentation, I should like to
add some general comments about the type ofproofhe thought possible
in transcendental philosophy.
First of all, Kant thought, a transcendental proof (i.e., a proof for a
synthetic a priori conclusion) requires the truth of transcendental
idealisn1. There is no ambiguity about this in Kant; it is 'the only
feasible' reason, so the Critique declares (A130), why a transcendental
deduction is possible. To which the Prolegomena adds: transcendental
idealism is 'the sole means of solving [the] problem [of synthetic
knowledge a priori]' (Prol., 377). The same point is also emphasized
several times in Kant's correspondence.6
Because of this presupposition, secondly, transcendental proofs must
always be direct, or ostensive. As they are conducted 'within the domain
proper to dialectical illusion', where what is merely subjective often
presents itselfas being objective, a synthetic a priori proposition cannot
be established by disproving its opposite:
The apagogic method of proof is ... permissible only in those sciences where
itis impossiblemistakenly tosubstitutewhatis subjectivein our representations
for what is objective, that is, for the knowledge of that which is in the object.
Where such substitution tends to occur, it must often happen that the opposite
of a given proposition contradicts only the subjective conditions of thought,
and not the object, or that the two propositions contradict each other only
under a subjective condition which is falsely treated as being objective; the
condition being false, both can be false, without it being possible to infer from
the falsity of the one to the truth of the other. (A791/B819)
Both types of illusion Kant aptly illustrates with an example from
the Dialectic. Aproper transcendental proof, consequently, must always
bedirect orostensive; thatis to say, itmust 'combinewith the conviction
of this truth insight into the sources of its truth' (A789/B817).
Bearing this in mind it is not difficult to see why Kant, when he had
to characteriz~the peculiar nature of his proof-procedure, thought the
term 'deduction' an appropriate title. We only have to remember that
his paradigm is the legal deduction, not the strict proof-procedure in
standard logic which we now generally call by that name.7
In legal nlatters, jurists usually distinguish two things, namely, the
establishment of facts, or the quaestio facti, and the investigation
whether or not these facts exist rightfully, that is, the quaestio juris. A
legalprocedurewhich decidesaquaestiojurisrequiresthedenl0nstration
that a particular claim or possession is not obtained surreptitiously but