Kant-Arg Philosophers

Ralph C S Walker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136292323
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

First Published in 1999. The purpose of this series is to provide a contemporary assessment and history of the entire course of philosophical thought. Each book constitutes a detailed, critical introduction to the work of a philosopher of major influence and significance. Any list of the great philosophers has to include Kant. His influence on philosophical thinking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been immense, and his work remains of the most immediate contemporary relevance.

Notes

Where bibliographical details are not fully given they may be found in the Bibliography. For abbreviated forms of reference see above, p. xii.

I How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?

1 To J. H. Lambert, 31 December 1765, Ak. X: 56 (53).

2 B. Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, Cambridge University Press, 1900; L. Couturat, La Logique de Leibniz, Félix Alcan, Paris, 1901.

3 Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humain, book iv ch. 2, Gerhardt V: 343 ff.; Generales Inquisitiones de Analysi Notionum et Veritatum, in L. Couturat, ed., Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz, Félix Alcan, Paris, 1903, PP. 371, 388.

4 C. Wolff, Ontologia, § 28.

5 C. A. Crusius, Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheiten, § 85.

6 Ibid., § 31.

7 Wolff, op. cit., § 27; Crusius, Weg zur Gewissheit, § 256.

8 Crusius, Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheiten, § 287.

9 Goerwitz p. 74, Ak. II: 342.

10 Goerwitz p. 117 (translation amended), Ak. II: 370.

11 Goerwitz p. 121, Ak. II: 373.

12 Goerwitz pp. 107 f., Ak. II: 363 f.

13 Lucas p. 9, Ak. IV: 260.

14 Goerwitz p. 112, Ak. II: 367; To Moses Mendelssohn, 8 April 1766, Ak. X: 70(67).

15 Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral, Ak. II: 273–301. For a different view of it see L. W. Beck, Early German Philosophy: Kant and his Predecessors, p. 448.

16 Ak. II: 383. In their translation (p. 43) Kerferd and Walford misread the German text: Erfahrung for Erkenntniss.

17 Refl. 5037. Though the view is manfully resisted by G. Tonelli, ‘Die Umwälzung von 1769 bei Kant’, Kant-Studien 54 (1963), pp. 369–75.

18 Goerwitz p. 119, Ak. II: 372; cf. A 820 f./B 848 f.

19 Inaugural Dissertation, § 11.

20 To J. H. Lambert, 2 September 1770, Ak. X: 98 (94). Cf. Inaugural Dissertation, §§ 14.6, Ak. II: 401 f., and 15. E, Ak. II: 404 f.

21 Ak. XX: 274; B 161; B 218 f. See further below, pp. 14–18 and 75–6.

22 A 11/B 25; A 56/B 80; A 85/B 117; To J. W. A. Kosmann, September 1789, Ak. XI: 81 f. (79).

23 A 146/B 185; A 221 f./B 269. Cf. C. Wolff, Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt, und der Seele des Menschen, § 144; Ontologia, § 498. Admittedly more needs to be said about this; for a somewhat different view cf. N. Hinske, Kants Begriff des Transzendentalen, Bd. 1, W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 1970. It may or may not be a disadvantage of my suggestion that it requires a different account to be given of Kant’s use of the term ‘transcendent’, which he distinguishes from ‘transcendental’ (A 296/B 352 f.) though he does often confuse the two. A concept or a principle is transcendent if it attempts to go beyond the limits of possible experience and to treat what is unknowable as though it could be known.

24 P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, part I and passim.

II Transcendental arguments

1 P. F. Strawson, Individuals, p. 35.

2 Prolegomena, § 4; § 5, Lucas p. 31 n., Ak. IV: 276 n.

3 Cf. A 56/B 80; Prolegomena, Lucas p. 144 n., Ak. IV: 373 n.; KdU, Introduction, § V, Ak. V: 181.

4 It would be a mistake to read B 23 as implying that it is synthetic. The paragraph is about the analytic propositions made by the dogmatists within their metaphysical systems, which of course do not include those used in transcendental arguments. Cf. Prolegomena, Lucas pp. 23 f., Ak. IV: 273 f. The metaphysics which here and elsewhere (A 10/B 13, etc.) is said to be synthetic a priori is that speculative knowledge out of pure reason which the transcendental arguments of the Critique are supposed to make possible.

5 A 155 ff./B 194 ff.; A 718 ff./B 746 ff. Kant also (and equivalently) speaks of possible experience as the third thing, e.g. at A 737/B 765.

6 A 721 ff./B 749 ff.; A 736 f./B.764 f.; A 782 f./B 810 f.

7 B 135;B 138.

8 Logik, § 106, Ak. IX: 143; cf. L. W. Beck, ‘Kant’s Theory of Definition’, Philosophical Review 65 (1956), pp. 179–91.

9 In his note at Ak. XVIII: 699.

10 T. E. Wilkerson, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, ch. 10 esp. § 3; ‘Transcendental Arguments’, Philosophical Quarterly 20(1970), pp. 200–12.

11 Wilkerson, ‘Transcendental Arguments’, p. 211.

12 Logik, § 36, Ak. IX: 111.

13 Cf. G. Frege, The Foundations of Arithmetic, 2nd ed., tr. by J. L. Austin, Blackwell, Oxford, 1959, § 3.

14 On this see W. V. Quine, ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, in From a Lo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• References and Abbreviations
• I How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?
• II Transcendental Arguments
• III Space and Time as A Priori
• IV Space and Time as Intuitions
• V Geometry and Arithmetic
• VI The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories
• VII Schematism and Principles
• VIII The Transcendental Object
• IX Transcendental Idealism
• X Postulates, Ideas and Aesthetic Judgments
• XI The Moral Law
• XII God
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index