Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics in Focus

271 Pages·1996·11.96 MB·English

by  Beryl Logan (ed.)

IMMANUEL KANT’S
PROLEGOMENA TO ANY
FUTURE METAPHYSICS
in focus
How is knowledge possible? What kind of knowledge can be called
metaphysical? What is the source of metaphysical knowledge?
Such are the questions addressed by Kant in his famous Prolegomena
to Any Future Metaphysics. His ultimate argument, that there is no
such thing as metaphysics, continues to fascinate and challenge con­
temporary philosophers.
This collection of seminal essays on the Prolegomena provides the
student of philosophy with an invaluable overview of some issues
and problems raised by Kant. The edition offers a substantive new
introduction, the Carus translation of Kant s work, six papers never
before published together and an extensive bibliography. Special
attention is paid to the relationship between Kant and David Hume,
whose philosophical investigations, according to Kant s famous quote,
first interrupted Kants “dogmatic slumber.”
Beryl Logan is an Assistant Professor at Scarborough College, Uni­
versity of Toronto. She has published widely on David Hume and
the philosophers of the early modern period.
ROUTLEDGE PHILOSOPHERS
IN FOCUS SERIES
Series editor: Stanley Tweyman
York University; Toronto
ARISTOTLE’S DE ANIMA IN FOCUS
Edited by Michael Durrant
GEORGE BERKELEY: ALCIPHRON IN FOCUS
Edited by David Berman
CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN FOCUS
Edited by Hugo Adam Bedau
RENE DESCARTES: MEDITATIONS ON FIRST
PHILOSOPHY IN FOCUS
Edited by Stanley Tweyman
GODEL’S THEOREM IN FOCUS
Edited by S. G. Shanker
DAVID HUME: DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL
RELIGION IN FOCUS
Edited by Stanley Tweyman
WILLIAM JAMES: PRAGMATISM IN FOCUS
Edited by Doris Olin
JOHN LOCKE: LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION IN
FOCUS
Edited by John Horton and Susan Mendus
J. S. MILL: ON LIBERTY IN FOCUS
Edited by John Gray and G. W. Smith
PLATO’S MENO IN FOCUS
Edited by Jane M. Day
IMMANUEL KANT’S
PROLEGOMENA TO ANY
FUTURE METAPHYSICS
in focus
Edited by
Beryl Logan
O Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1996 by Roudedge
Published 2015 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Roudedge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 100l7 USA
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
selection and editorial matter © 1996 Beryl Logan
individual chapters © 1996 the contributors
Typeset in Bembo by Intype London Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to any future metaphysics: in focus /
edited by Beryl Logan.
p. cm. - (Roudedge philosophers in focus series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Prolegomena. 2. Knowledge, Theory
of. 3. Metaphysics. I. Logan, Beryl, 1944- . II. Kant,
Immanuel, 1724-1804. Prolegomena. English. III. Series.
B2787.Z7I48 1996
110-dc20 96-11897
ISBN 978-0-415-11575-9 (hbk)
ISBN 978-0-415-11576-6 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-203-69710-8 (eISBN)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vi
INTRODUCTION 1
Beryl Logan
PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSICS 27
Immanuel Kant
A PRUSSIAN HUME AND A SCOTTISH KANT 139
Lewis White Beck
KANT’S CONCEPTION OF “HUME’S PROBLEM” 156
Manfred Kuehn
CHANGING THE NAME OF THE GAME 178
Kant’s cognitivism versus Hume’s psychologism
Patricia Kitcher
A NOTE ON THE SYNTHETICITY OF 219
MATHEMATICAL PROPOSITIONS IN KANT’S
PROLEGOMENA
Daniel E. Anderson
WAHRNEHMUNGSURTEILE AND 226
ERFAHRUNGSURTEILE RECONSIDERED
Theodore E. Uehling Jr.
KANT, ANALOGY, AND NATURAL THEOLOGY 241
Jerry H. Gill
Selected bibliography 254
Index 262
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Open Court Publishing Co., La Salle, Illinois, for
granting permission to use the text of the Prolegomena to Any Future
Metaphysics, translated by Dr. Paul Carus. Permission to reprint was
kindly granted by authors and publishers of the six reprinted papers:
Lewis White Beck, “A Prussian Hume and a Scottish Kant,”
appeared in Essays on Kant and Hume, Yale University Press (1989);
Manfred Kuehn, “Kants Conception of Humes Problem” in the
Journal of the History of Philosophy; (21, 2, 1983); Patricia Kitcher,
“Changing the Name of the Game: Kant’s Cognitivism vs Hume’s
Psychologism” in Philosophical Topics (19, 1991); Theodore E. Ueh-
ling Jr., “Wahrnehmungsurteile And Erfahrungsurteile Recon­
sidered,” in Kant Studies (1978); Daniel E. Anderson, “A Note on the
Syntheticity of Mathematical Propositions in Kant’s Prolegomena,” in
the Southern Journal of Philosophy (17, 1979); Jerry H. Gill, “Kant,
Analogy and Natural Theology” in the International Journal for Philo­
sophy of Religion (16, 1984), reprinted by permission of Kluwer
Academic Publishers.
A debt of gratitude is owed to the general editor of the Philo­
sophers In Focus series, Stanley Tweyman, for his ongoing support
and encouragement, and for smoothing out the bumps in the road.
My efforts in this book were made possible by the dedication and
cooperation of my husband, Shelly, and our children.
INTRODUCTION
In Preface (II) of the Prolegomena Kant states that “the suggestion of
David Hume was the very thing, which, many years ago, first
interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave my investigations in the
field of speculative philosophy quite a new direction” (p. 33). In
the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR A769/B797) Kant refers to the
“uncritical dogmatist” as one “who has not surveyed the sphere of
his understanding, and therefore has not determined, in accordance
with principles, the limits of his possible knowledge.” The con­
clusions that Hume drew in his attack on “a single but important
concept in metaphysics, viz., that of Cause and Effect” (p. 31)
prompted Kant to undertake this survey in the Prolegomena Concerning
any Future Metaphysics in order to determine the possibility and limits
of metaphysical knowledge.
As a result of the importance that Kant places on Hume’s argu­
ments, I intend to adopt as my particular viewpoint in this Introduc­
tion what Kant perceives as problems in Hume’s philosophy and his
answers to those problems. Generally, this consists in responding to
Humean skepticism by offering conditions under which objective
validity is possible. Where appropriate, I will make reference to
Hume’s doctrines in order for the reader to be more familiar with
some of the arguments to which Kant was responding in the Prolego­
mena. This will allow the reader not only to grasp the force and
intent of Kant’s own positions, but also to recognise the pivotal role
played by one of Kant’s precursors in the development of his critical
philosophy. This focus is also reflected in the scholarly literature, as
is evident in the Bibliography included in this volume.
The first issue dealt with is the nature of the causal connection,
a dominant concern in the Prolegomena. Kant is seeking a way to
provide objective validity for causal judgments, as Hume’s position
allows only subjective validity and results in skepticism. We then turn
to Kant’s arguments with respect to Hume’s position on mathematics,
1
BERYL LOGAN
which are closely allied to causality: because Hume considered all
our judgments to be either matters of fact (synthetic propositions
known a posteriori) or relations of ideas (analytic propositions known
a priori), the causal relation was regarded by Hume to be the former
and mathematics to be the latter. Kant claims that if Hume had only
seen that mathematics consists of synthetic propositions known a
priori, he would have realized that causality (as well as metaphysics)
consists of the same, and been saved from his skepticism. Finally I
address Kant’s discussion of the limits and boundaries of reason which
refers to arguments in Humes Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Kant’s intention is to save religious belief from the skepticism that
he perceived in Hume’s position. This section of the Prolegomena has
received little attention in the Kant literature, but will be dealt with
in some detail here.
HUME’S ‘PROBLEMS’
The first three reprinted papers in this volume focus on what
Kant thought was Hume’s problem, and how he sought to solve it.
In the Preface to the Prolegomena, Kant states that Hume’s ‘problem’
lay in accounting for the origin of the causal concept. Hume is led
to his position on causality by the restrictions of his empiricism
and its theoretical constructs. As there is no impression of the concept
of cause, there can be no idea of it. Hume questioned the stance of
his predecessors that the concept of cause could be thought by
reason a priori, independent of all experience. Kant was “awoken
from his dogmatic slumber” by Hume’s suggestion that the necessity
in the causal principle arises solely from observation and experience,
and his conclusion that the causal relation and its justification is a
matter of fact. Kant goes beyond the empiricist picture of mental
life as consisting only of impressions, ideas, and the associations
between them to concern himself with “what types of faculties are
necessary for cognition and how their existence might be estab­
lished.”1
From a Kantian perspective, Hume had several ‘problems’ which
stem from his empiricism: this doctrine committed him to the view
that the only objects of knowledge are the contents of consciousness
— impressions and ideas — and the only judgments are those expressing
matters of fact or relations of ideas. This led him, according to Kant
to regard any a priori principles (such as the causal connection) to
be fictitious and “custom-bred” (CPR A765/B793), resulting in
2
INTRODUCTION
skepticism.2 As there can be no empirical ground for the validity of
causal inferences (as any empirical claim presupposes the principle
in question), and the principle is not self-evident (as the concept of
‘event’ and ‘cause’ are separate ideas), the principle is natural and
non-rational in character.3 The resulting lack of rigorous grounding
led Kant to seek “some criterion which is not subject to the defects
of the rationalist and empirical methods of proof, and which is
adequate to determine the validity or invalidity of general prin­
ciples.”4
Kant saw that a new conceptual context was necessary in order
to justify philosophically the causal inferences. This context consists
of the categories, of which causality is one: those principles, known
a priori, yet synthetic, that determine or condition sense-impressions,
providing a justification or objective validity that combats the per­
ceived skepticism inherent in the traditional empiricist position.
However, these concepts are also synthetic in nature: while they are
logically independent of experience, and are applied to experience,5
they are not tautological, nor are they logically necessary. This
realisation represented an enlargement of the empiricists’ epistemo-
logical context: it went beyond the traditional division of the types
of human knowledge (which Hume endorsed) into relations of ideas
(analytic a priori) and matters of fact (synthetic a posteriori) to
include a third type of proposition: synthetic, yet known a priori. In
order to avert the Humean skepticism that results from the traditional
division of propositions, such propositions must be possible. In order
for objectively valid causal inferences — and metaphysics — to be
possible, such propositions must be possible.
To solve Hume’s problems, Kant had to first ask and then answer
the question “how are synthetic judgments possible a priori?” Given
that we do make some judgments where the terms in the judgment
are synthetically connected but whose validity seems to be established
a priori, Kant must ask how such judgments are possible. The first
five sections of the Prolegomena set this stage.
What is the source of metaphysical knowledge? (§1): Metaphysics is
not empirical, but is knowledge of it a priori? The very concept of
metaphysical knowledge, Kant claims, implies that such is its nature.
It is knowledge that lies beyond experience.
What kind of knowledge can be called metaphysical? (§2): Here Kant
draws the distinction between analytic a priori propositions6 and
synthetic a posteriori propositions. The former are logical in nature,
and as their terms are connected through identity, e.g. all bodies are
3