Kant's Idealism: New Interpretations of a Controversial Doctrine

278 Pages·2011·4.3 MB·English

by  Dennis Schulting (auth.)

Kant’s Idealism
The New Synthese Historical Library
TextsandStudiesintheHistoryofPhilosophy
VOLUME66
ManagingEditor:
SIMOKNUUTTILA,UniversityofHelsinki
AssociateEditors:
DANIELELLIOTGARBER,PrincetonUniversity
RICHARDSORABJI,UniversityofLondon
EditorialConsultants:
JANA.AERTSEN,Thomas-Institut,UniversitätzuKöln
ROGERARIEW,UniversityofSouthFlorida
E.JENNIFERASHWORTH,UniversityofWaterloo
MICHAELAYERS,WadhamCollege,Oxford
GAILFINE,CornellUniversity
R.J.HANKINSON,UniversityofTexas
JAAKKOHINTIKKA,BostonUniversity
PAULHOFFMAN,UniversityofCalifornia,Riverside
DAVIDKONSTAN,BrownUniversity
RICHARDH.KRAUT,NorthwesternUniversity,Evanston
ALAINDELIBERA,UniversitédeGenève
JOHNE.MURDOCH,HarvardUniversity
DAVIDFATENORTON,McGillUniversity
LUCAOBERTELLO,UniversitàdegliStudidiGenova
ELEONORESTUMP,St.LouisUniversity
ALLENWOOD,StanfordUniversity
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Dennis Schulting Jacco Verburgt
Editors
Kant’s Idealism
New Interpretations
of a Controversial Doctrine
123
Editors
Dr.DennisSchulting Dr.JaccoVerburgt
UniversityofAmsterdam VUUniversityAmsterdam
DepartmentofPhilosophy FacultyofPhilosophy
OudeTurfmarkt141–147 DeBoelelaan1105
1012GCAmsterdam 1081HVAmsterdam
TheNetherlands TheNetherlands
[email protected] [email protected]
ISBN978-90-481-9718-7 e-ISBN978-90-481-9719-4
DOI10.1007/978-90-481-9719-4
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Preface
ThethemeofthiscollectionofessaysconcernsalongstandingissueinKantstud-
ies, namely Kant’s controversial doctrine of idealism, most notably his notion of
‘the thing-in-itself’ and its distinction from ‘appearance’, which is Kant’s term
for an empirically real object but of which he also notoriously says that it is a
‘mererepresentation’.Thequestionsurroundingthatsomewhatnebulousnotionof
a ‘thing-in-itself’ is one of those perennial questions for Kant commentators, who
aftermorethan200yearsofKantscholarshiphaven’tbeenovercomebyconsensus
astohoweventointerpretKantianidealismandtheattendantdistinctionbetween
appearanceandthing-in-itself,letaloneweighitsphilosophicalmerits.
WhatisitaboutKant’sidealismthatstilloccupiesthemindsofsomanyKantians
andnon-Kantiansalike?Whyandhowisitdifferentfromstandardidealismabout
objects?HowdoKant’scommitmenttotheempiricalrealismofobjectsasappear-
ancesandhisdenialoftheirultimatemetaphysicalrealitygotogether?Isittrue,as
Hegel charged already early on in his critique of Kant, that Kant’s objects are not
genuinely,objectivelyreal,butinfactonlysubjectivelyobjective?That,inHegel’s
viewatleast,hisidealismisnotobjectiveenough?
EversinceKant’scontemporaryJacobifamouslycomplained,inhisDavidHume
(1787),thatthething-in-itselfpresentsanobstacletounderstandingthecriticalphi-
losophy, many philosophers, sympathetic or not to Kant’s overall thought, have
struggled with it. As Jacobi pointed out, without presupposing the thing-in-itself,
which somehow causally affects us, ‘arouses sensations in us’, one cannot ‘enter
thesystem’,butwiththepresuppositionit’simpossible‘toremaininit’forwithin
Kant’ssystemit’snotpossibletogivejustifiablesensetotrans-phenomenalcausal-
ity.Putdifferently,Jacobi’spointisthatKantneedsanargumentthatobjectsexist
‘outsideofusinthetranscendentalsense’,thusnot‘merelysubjectivelybutactually
objectively’—which supposedly is the real relevant issue here. But such an argu-
mentisunavailable forKant,Jacobiargues,sinceheclaimsabsoluteignoranceof
knowledgeofthingsinthemselves(or,asJacobiputsit,the‘transcendentalobject’),
whichisthemajorimplicationoftranscendentalidealism.
Theideathatthingsinthemselvesaffectoursensibility,butneverthelessareinac-
cessibleformindssuchasoursremainsamajorstumblingblockformanyreadersof
Kant.AstrikingexceptionisHegel,whothought,withsomeexaggeration,thatthe
v
vi Preface
easiestthingtograspinKant’sphilosophy waspreciselythething-in-itself.Hegel
observeswithsimulatedwonder:“Wemustbequitesurprised[...]toreadsooften
thatonedoesnotknowwhatthething-in-itselfis;fornothingiseasiertoknowthan
this” (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, §44). But given that so many
words have since been dedicated to grappling with the meaning of the thing-in-
itselfanditsostensiblerelevanceforKant’scriticalthoughtthenotionisapparently
notsoeasytograspasHegelhasusbelieve.
However,asKarlAmerikshasaptlynoted,preciselybecause“[t]hedoctrineof
transcendentalidealismissodifficult”,“oneshouldnotturnawayfromconsidering
anyserioushypothesisthatmightshedlightonit”(InterpretingKant’sCritiques,p.
147). Indeed, widely varying and even deflationary interpretive approaches to ide-
alism might together give us a better picture of possible avenues of approaching
thiscontroversialdoctrinethatseemstobecentraltoKant’sphilosophy.Inthefirst
partofthisvolume,whichfocusesmoregenerallyoninterpretingKantianidealism,
ManfredBaumarguesthatKant’sfirstconcernintheCritiqueofPureReasonisnot
idealismatall,butratherthefundamentalquestionregardingtheaprioricognizabil-
ityofobjects.Insofarasidealismisconceivedofinthetraditionalsense,namelyin
termsofanontologicalclaimregardingtheexistenceornon-existenceofobjects,it
isnotpartoftheargumentintheTranscendentalAnalytic.Onewouldthusdobest
nottoattachtoomuchimportancetothelabeltranscendentalidealism,alsobecause
Kant himself uses it rather infrequently. Ido Geiger, on the other hand, seeks to
defend the thesis that in the Critique of the Power of Judgment Kant formulates a
superior version of transcendental idealism, which is no longer committed to the
ideathatthingsinthemselvesasexistingentitiesunderlieappearances,asKanton
hisreadingstillarguesinthefirstCritique.Havingwrittenextensivelyonthetopic,
AmerikshimselfofferswhathenowcallstheModerateInterpretationofKant’side-
alism, which one may see as his considered view on the topic. More in particular,
in his essay Ameriks subjects the naturalist assumptions underlying a very recent
readingofKant’sidealism,offeredbyRobertHanna,toacritique.
Thearticlesinthisvolumearepartlybasedupontheproceedingsofaconference
that was held at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in May 2008. The
mainthemeoftheconferenceconcernedtherelationbetweenKant’stranscendental
idealism and his transcendental logic—a relation that has been much neglected in
the Kant literature. The reason for this appears to be the common but disputable
conception that Kant’s doctrine of idealism and his discursive logic are wholly
unconnected.
MorethanfortyyearsafterthepublicationofP.F.Strawson’sclassicTheBounds
of Sense, there is an ongoing interest among epistemologists in the potential for
epistemology of a so-called transcendental theory of experience, which however
dispenses with the ostensible speculative excess of Kant’s idealism. In some way
or other, it is argued, the argument for a priori constraints for the experience of
objects must be able to accord with unabashed naturalism about objects and, as
Strawson forcefully argued in the latter part of his influential book, it is thus to
be seen as quite independent of the doctrine of transcendental idealism. One of
the reasons underpinning this view is the standard empiricist assumption that the
Preface vii
analysis of knowledge has nothing in common with the forms of logic. This goes
ofcourseagainstKant’sexplicitclaimthatthecategoriesofexperiencecorrespond
to,andarederivablefrom,theformsofjudgment.Moreimportantly,itobstructsan
understandingoftherelevanceoftranscendentalinquiryforKant’scriticalproject
andthusanunderstandingofhisidealismascontributingtowhatheasserts,inthe
prefaceofthesecondeditionoftheCritiqueofPureReason,isa“changeintheway
ofthinking”(Bxvi;emphasisadded).Itwouldappearthereforethattranscendental
philosophycannotconcernmerelyatheoryofknowledgeastraditionallyconceived.
Insomefurtherspecifiableway,itmusthavetodowiththelogicofthoughtitself,
notjustthelogicofexperience.
More often it is claimed that Kant’s idealism is intrinsically linked up with his
controversial views on space and time, more in particular his notorious view that
spatiotemporal objects are not ultimately real, and that consequently idealism can
easily be detached from his views on the conceptual requirements for knowledge.
However, it is debatable whether Kant’s distinctive transcendental logic regarding
the cognitive structure of experience can indeed be separated from idealism about
spatiotemporalobjects.WhereasintheearlierliteraturetherelationbetweenKant’s
aesthetics and idealism has been extensively covered, the essays in this collection
donotespeciallyaddressKant’sviewsonspatiotemporality,importantthoughthis
topic is for grasping Kant’s idealism. An important goal of this volume is to fill a
gapintheexistingliteratureregardingtheneedforanexplanationofanelementthat
isequallyimportantforunderstandingKant’sdoctrineofidealism,namelyhispar-
ticular view on logic and the discursivity of human judgment. Nevertheless, given
theclosenessofthedoctrineofspatiotemporalityandKant’sviewofhumandiscur-
sivitysomeoftheargumentspresentedintheessaysheredotouchuponaspectsthat
concernspatiotemporality.
The essays in the second part of this volume examine various lines of interpre-
tationthatreflectspecificallyontherelationbetweenKant’stheoryofknowledge,
in particular his transcendental logic underpinning it, and his idealism. One such
lineofinquirywouldbetoexplore,inawaydifferentfromasimilartackbyHenry
Allison,thepossibilityofshowingthatKant’sconceptionofdiscursivityitselfleads
to transcendental idealism. This line is adopted, in various ways, in the essays by
GaryBanham,SteveBayne,MarcelQuarfoodandDennisSchulting.
In his article, Banham connects Kant’s idealist position to his Copernican Turn
regardingthewayinwhichtheverynotionof‘object’isaproductoftheself-activity
ofthesubjectandsoisdirectlyrelatedtohisdefinitionofthetranscendentalunity
of apperception. The sense of objectivity that we have when we refer to physical
objectsthereforerestsonsomebasicreferencetocombinatoryactivitybythesub-
ject,whichconstituteswhatBanhamcallsthe‘idealismofapperception’.According
toBayne,thereisawayofseeinganimportantandcloseconnectionbetweenKant’s
transcendentalidealismandhistheoryofconcepts.Byfirstdistinguishingthecon-
cepts as marks theory, the concepts as images theory, and the concepts as rules
theory—whichhediscussesagainstthebackdropofLeibniz’,Locke’sandHume’s
respective theories—Bayne subsequently points out that only the latter theory of
viii Preface
concepts as rules is necessary, though not sufficient, for establishing a transcen-
dentalidealismbasedonKant’sCopernicanhypothesis,namelythehypothesisthat
objectsmustconformtoa“rule”which,asKantassertsinafamouspassageinthe
B-preface,“Ihavetopresupposeinmyselfbeforeanyobjectisgiventome,hencea
priori”(Bxvii).Quarfooddefendsthethesisthatitisonlybywayofexaminingmore
closely the contrast between human discursive understanding and non-discursive
types of understanding that some peculiarities of Kant’s conception of idealism
become more understandable, in particular his otherwise rather enigmatic state-
ments about the relation between whole and parts in things in themselves. Finally
inthispart,Schultingarguesthatidealismfollowsalreadyfromtheconstraintsthat
the use of the categories, in particular the categories of quality, places on the con-
ceivabilityofthingsinthemselves.Hisclaimisthat,althoughitisnotonlypossible
but also necessary to think things in themselves, it doesn’t follow that by merely
thinkingwehaveafullgraspofthenatureofthingsinthemselves.
The separability issue not only concerns epistemological readings. Some have
offered metaphysical interpretations that accommodate Kant’s talk about things
in themselves and appearances whilst ignoring idealism, most prominently Rae
LangtoninherbookKantianHumility(1998).Langtonhasherselfbeentheobject
ofintensescrutiny.Intheintroductoryessaybelow,Schultingdiscussesinparticular
Ameriks’critiqueofLangton’smetaphysicalpositiononKant’stranscendentaldis-
tinction,whichatthesametimebringsintoviewhisowndistinctivemetaphysical
readingofidealism.LucyAllais,whoinsomerespectsisclosetoLangton,takesa
novelapproachtotheusualexclusionaryoptionsofbeingatwo-aspecteroratwo-
worlder regarding the transcendental distinction.Inrecent work,shehas proposed
thatthebestwaytoreadKant’sidealismisbyseeingitasatheorycommittedtothe
reality of things that can be characterized in two ways, which correspond to their
having an inner nature that is inaccessible to human minds and to their having an
appearancenature,whichcanbecognizedbyus.It’sinthislastsense,intheman-
nerthattheyaremind-dependent,thatthingsaremetaphysicallyideal,accordingto
Allais.Intheintroductoryessay,SchultingelaboratesonAllais’views.Inherown
articleinthisvolume,Allaislinkshermiddleroadapproachtotranscendentalide-
alismtothequestionofseparabilityinthecontextoftheTranscendentalDeduction.
Shethinksthattherearegoodreasonstobelievethatatleastonelineofthoughtin
the Deduction may be compatible with straightforward realism. Allais thus argues
that Kant’s argument for the possibility of objective experience is separable from
hisargumentforidealism.
Notwithstanding the great variety of interpretations of Kantian idealism, the
majorityofcontemporaryreadingsstillappearstobebasedupontheassumptionthat
the thing-in-itself is a self-standing numerically identical individual or entity that,
as extramentally existing real thing, must in some sense correlate with the object
asappearance.Agenuinelyneglectedalternativewouldbetoconsiderthething-in-
itself,notasaself-standingentity,butasanecessarypostulatedobjectofReason,
anensrationis,whichissuesfromtheconstraintsofthoughtitself,butwhichmust
atthesametimestillbeaccountedforintermsofanuncognizable‘transcendental
substratum’, as Kant calls it, or a reality underlying appearances, albeit that Kant
appearstoseethenatureofthisrealityasdefinitelynon-empirical.
Preface ix
In the third part of the volume Dietmar Heidemann, Christian Onof, and Jacco
Verburgt,eachintheirownwayandfromdifferentangles,consideraspectslinked
totheissuesinvolvingthenatureor,indeed,theveryconceptofthething-in-itself
orthe‘in-itself’,asOnofcallsit.HeidemannconsidersthequestionwhetherKant’s
viewofthething-in-itselfcommitshimtoskepticism.Heidemannarguesthattran-
scendental idealism is not a skeptical theory concerning the existence of things
in themselves, since the distinction between appearances and things in themselves
mustnotbeseenintermsoftraditionalskepticismwithrespecttotheexternalworld.
TraditionalskepticismratherpresupposeswhatKanttermstranscendentalrealism,
which holds that external objects exist in a strong ontological sense as things in
themselvesindependentlyofourminds.Theunderlyingassumptionsoftheskepti-
calhypothesis arethusnotcompatiblewithtranscendental idealism.Onoffocuses
ontheissuehowwemustunderstandwhatitisforsomethingtohavean‘in-itself’
character on the basis of an explanation of the way we are causally affected by
a thing. The ‘in-itself’, Onof argues, is the ground of affection and also that of
which the empirical object is the appearance. Whilst we must think the ‘in-itself’
as conceptually indeterminate, its indeterminacy is a surplus of content character-
izing its intrinsic nature. Onof’s proposed understanding of the ‘in-itself’ suggests
it does not define an ontological realm distinct from that of empirical objects, but
also that a dual-aspect interpretation of transcendental idealism is untenable. And
finally,VerburgtstressestheneedforincludingtheTranscendentalDialecticofthe
CritiqueofPureReasonintothediscussionaboutKant’sidealism.Verburgtconcen-
trates on the section on the Transcendental Ideal in which Kant defines the notion
of ‘the thing-in-itself’ in terms of an ideal of reason. He discusses in some detail
Béatrice Longuenesse’s reading of this section and queries her more general view
on the relation between the Analytic and the Dialectic, which reflects an inade-
quateperspectiveonKant’sTranscendentalLogicandaconspicuousneglectofhis
idealism.
The contributors to this collection of essays do not agree with one another on
everyaspectofKantianidealism.Whattheydo,however,agreeuponisthecontin-
uingrelevanceofaddressingthetopicofidealism,notleastbecauseKant’soverall
philosophy is often seen, rightly or wrongly, in the light of this controversial doc-
trine. We believe that the essays collected here offer a comprehensive analysis of
cardinal aspects of Kant’s idealism, which have hitherto not or insufficiently been
consideredintheKantliterature.
WewishtoacknowledgethesupportofASCA,inparticularEloeKingma,and
theDepartmentofPhilosophyoftheUniversityofAmsterdamformakingthecon-
ference Kant’s Transcendental Logic & Idealism, the proceedings of which lie at
thebasisofpartofthisvolume,financiallypossible.Wewouldliketoexpressour
gratitudetotheauthorswhocontributedtheirpapers.Wealsothankananonymous
readerforSpringerforhishelpfulcommentsonthemanuscript,andnotleastIngrid
vanLaarhovenforheroutstandingworkasoureditoratSpringer.
London,England DennisSchulting
Amsterdam,TheNetherlands JaccoVerburgt