Kant’s Dialectic

308 Pages·2016·1.74 MB·English

by  Jonathan Bennett

Kant’s Dialectic

Kant’s Dialectic
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jonathan bennett
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Firstpublished1974
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Names:Bennett,Jonathan,1930–author.
Title:Kant’sdialectic/JonathanBennett.
Description:NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2016.|Originallypublished:
NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,1974|Includesbibliographical
referencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2015048475|ISBN9781107140578(Hardback:alk.paper)|
ISBN9781316506073(Paperback:alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:Kant,Immanuel,1724-1804.|Dialectic.
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Preface to this edition
karl ameriks
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JonathanBennett'sKant'sDialecticisalandmarkworkinmodernscholar-
ship.Itsappearancein1974wasoneofthefirstexpressionsofaconfluence
of three major trends that for fifty years now have played a major role in
philosophy.Thefirsttrendisthegeneralre-emergenceofmetaphysicsasa
source of positive attraction for the best and the brightest in the field.
A second surprising trend has been the renaissance of studies in the
historyofphilosophy.Whereasearlier,historyandphilosophywereoften
contrastedastwodifferentfields,ahistoricalturnhasnowtakentheform
ofanavalancheofdetailedstudiesofmajormodernfigures(e.g.,Bennett’s
Locke,Berkeley,Hume:CentralThemes,1971),aswellasanincorporationof
historical considerations directly in the content of significant systematic
argumentation. A third trend is the rehabilitation of Kant’s philosophy,
and a reconsideration of all aspects of his system as relevant to contem-
porary thought. Along with P. F. Strawson and Wilfrid Sellars, Jonathan
Bennett was a prime analytic instigator of this movement already in the
1960s,withhis firstbookonKant,Kant’sAnalytic(1966).Thisbookmade
Bennettfamousasa practitionerofanapproachthat favoursreconstruct-
ingaconciseandinterestingformofargumentthatseemstobepresentin
the text, and then not hesitating to mercilessly expose its apparent short-
comings,allforthepurposeofleadingtomoresatisfactoryargumentson
the important topics under discussion. Kant’s Dialectic employs a some-
what similar approach but expresses a broader perspective, one enriched
with considerably more historical detail and reference to relevant prede-
cessors.Afteranextremelyhelpfulreview,inthefirstthreechapters,ofthe
general themes of the ‘Analytic’, that is, the first major section of Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, Kant’s Dialectic launches into a path-breaking and
detailed treatment of the key metaphysical terms of the second major
section of the Critique: substantiality, simplicity, identity, infinity, limits,
divisibility, freedom, God, and reason. The mere fact that this part of
Kant’stext–whichhadforsolongbeenignoredbecauseofitsseemingly
old-fashioned themes: rational psychology, cosmology, theology –
received such careful attention by Bennett was already a revolution in its
time.Thecontentoftheattentionisevenmoreremarkable,andtheissues
ix
x prefacetothisedition
that areraised,about matterssuch as ‘quasi-memory’,relations,vacuum,
agency,andregulativeprinciples,remainjustascentralinleadingworkin
currentphilosophy. Bennett’sdiscussion is especiallyvaluable because of
hisin-depthunderstandingofLeibniz’srelevance(seehisnewCambridge
edition of Leibniz’s New Essays on Human Understanding). Among the
many highlights of the book, especially for advanced students, is the
discussionof‘inflatingthefirstparalogism’(section25),ofthe‘weakening
move’ (section 45) in consideration of the antinomies of the infinite, and
thecomplexitiesof‘realdivisibility’(section54).Thereisnobetterwayto
prepareoneselfforaseriouscontemporarystudyofthecentralconceptsof
Kant’s Dialectic than by working through every page of Bennett’s still
invaluable commentary.
Contents
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Preface to this edition bykarl ameriks page ix
Preface xi
System of references xiii
1 Introduction 1
1 Locatingthesubject-matter 1
2 Themaintopics 4
3 Backgroundmaterials 5
2 Concepts and intuitions 9
4 Thesensory/intellectualcontinuum 9
5 Troublefromthecontinuum 12
6 Kant’sbreakthrough 16
7 Contentv.activity 20
8 Conceptsandjudgments 23
9 Concept-empiricism 26
10 Thetheoryofcategories 30
11 Categoriesand‘innateideas’ 35
3 Substances and reality 40
12 Substancesandaggregates 40
13 Cartesiansubstances 42
14 Leibnizonsubstancesandreality 44
15 Leibnizonrelationsandreality 46
16 Kantonreality 49
17 Thingsinthemselves 52
18 Impositionandthingsinthemselves 54
19 Substancesassempiternal 56
20 Thebalanceprinciple 60
21 Existence-changesandquantifiers 62
4 The substantiality of the soul 66
22 TheCartesianbasis 66
23 Thesearchforthethinkingsubject 69
24 Thesoulassubstance 72
v
vi contents
25 Inflatingthefirstparalogism 76
26 Mydeath 78
5 The simplicityof the soul 82
27 Thesoulassimple 82
28 Mentalfission 85
29 Mentaldisunity 87
30 Simplicityandimmateriality 90
6 The identity of the soul 94
31 Thethirdparalogism:blindalleys 94
32 Locatingthethirdparalogism 96
33 Quasi-memory 98
34 Kant’sobserver 101
35 Identityandsubstrata 104
36 Substrata:twosources 107
37 Substrata:fourconsequences 109
38 Strawsonontheparalogisms 112
7 Infinity 115
39 Theantinomieschapter 115
40 Thelimitsoftheworld 118
41 Infinitetasks 122
42 Thefuturizingmove 124
43 Infinitenumber 127
44 Numbersandnaturalnumbers 130
45 Theweakeningmove 133
46 Infiniteandindefinite 139
8 Limits 145
47 Leibnizonspace 145
48 Leibnizonvacuum 148
49 Whytheworldisnotfinite 154
50 Otherarguments 157
51 Whytheworlddidnotbegin 161
9 Divisibility 165
52 Simplesubstances 165
53 Thedivisibilityoftheextended 166
54 Realdivisibility 170
55 Kantagainstatomism 172
56 Substanceandsubstances 176
57 Thesupposedinfinityproblem 179
58 Thedivisibilityofspace 183
contents vii
10 Freedom 186
59 Thethirdantinomy 186
60 Fromcosmologytohumanity 189
61 Theskeletonofatheory 192
62 Areconciliation? 195
63 HumeandSchlick 197
64 Restrictingdeterminism 201
65 Whendoesfreedomoccur? 203
66 Reactiveattitudes 207
67 Kantandreactivity 211
68 Agency 213
69 Self-prediction 217
70 Kantandagency 221
71 ExcusesforKant’stheory 225
11 God 230
72 TheKant–Fregeview 230
73 Existenceandnecessaryexistence 234
74 WhyMalcolm’sargumentfails 237
75 Aquinas’sthirdway 240
76 Thefourthantinomy 242
77 Thecosmologicalargument 246
78 Thesecondstep 250
79 Kant’sattack 253
80 Theradicalcriticism 255
81 Theargumentfromdesign 257
12 Reason 261
82 Inferencesofreason 261
83 Ascendingreason 263
84 Conditions 267
85 Thesourceofdialecticalerror 270
86 Regulativeprinciples 273
87 Arethereanyregulativeprinciples? 277
88 Regulativeandconstitutive 279
89 ThearchitectonicoftheDialectic 284
90 Reasonandcosmology 287
Index 292