Kant's Inferentialism: The Case Against Hume

321 Pages·2015·1.18 MB·English

by  David Landy

Kant’s Inferentialism
Kant’s Inferentialism d raws on a wide range of sources to present a read-
ing of Kant’s theory of mental representation as a direct response to the
challenges issued by Hume in A Treatise of Human Nature. Kant rejects
the conclusions that Hume draws on the grounds that these are predicated
on Hume’s theory of mental representation, which Kant refutes by present-
ing objections to Hume’s treatment of representations of complex states of
affairs and the nature of judgment. In its place, Kant combines an account
of concepts as rules of inference with a detailed account of perception and
of the self as the locus of conceptual norms to form a complete theory of
human experience as an essentially rule-governed enterprise aimed at pro-
ducing a representation of the world as a system of objects necessarily con-
nected to one another via causal laws. This interpretation of the historical
dialectic enriches our understanding of both Hume and Kant and brings to
bear Kant’s insights into mental representation on contemporary debates
in philosophy of mind. Kant’s version of inferentialism is both resistant to
objections to contemporary accounts that cast these as forms of linguis-
tic idealism and serves as a remedy to misplaced Humean scientism about
representation.
David Landy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State
University, United States.
Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy
1 Naturalization of the Soul 7 Aesthetics and Morals in the
Self and Personal Identity in the Philosophy of David Hume
Eighteenth Century Timothy M. Costelloe
Raymond Martin and John Barresi
8 Hume’s Diffi culty
2 Hume’s Aesthetic Theory Time and Identity in
Taste and Sentiment the Treatise
Dabney Townsend Donald L.M. Baxter
3 Thomas Reid and Scepticism 9 Kant and the Cultivation
His Reliabilist Response of Virtue
Philip de Bary Chris W. Surprenant
4 Hume’s Philosophy of the Self 10 The Post-Critical Kant
A E Pitson Understanding the Critical
Philosophy through the
5 Hume, Reason and Morality Opus postumum
A Legacy of Contradiction Bryan Wesley Hall
Sophie Botros
11 Kant’s Inferentialism
6 Kant’s Theory of the Self The Case Against Hume
Arthur Melnick David Landy
Kant’s Inferentialism
The Case Against Hume
David Landy
First published 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Landy, David.
Kant’s inferentialism : the case against Hume / David Landy. — 1 [edition].
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in eighteenth-century philosophy ; 11)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804. 2. Hume, David, 1711–1776. I. Title.
B2798.L293 2015
121'.3—dc23
2014048745
ISBN: 978-1-138-91308-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-69160-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
This book is dedicated to those without whom
it would not be possible, much less actual:
Rick, Judy, Madeline, Violet, and, more
than anyone else, Margo.
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Notes on the Texts xi
Introduction 1
1 Hume’s Theory of Mental Representation 19
2 Two Objections to Hume’s Theory of Mental Representation 52
3 The A-Deduction and the Nature of Intuitions 107
4 The Object of Representation 173
5 Self and World in the Analogies of Experience 198
6 The Inferential Self 234
Postscript on Transcendental Idealism 276
Index 305
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Acknowledgments
Portions of the following chapters have been previously printed as follows.
My thanks to these publishers for allowing me to reprint this material here.
PREFACE
“The Premise That Even Hume Must Accept,” S elf, Language, and
World: Problems from Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg. Eds. Jim O’Shea and
Eric Rubenstein. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co., 2010: 28–46.
CHAPTER 1
“Hume’s Theory of Mental Representation,” H ume Studies, 38, 1 (April
2012): 23–54.
CHAPTER 2
“Sellars on Hume and Kant on Representing Complexes,” E uropean Jour-
nal of Philosophy , 17, 2 (August 2009): 224–246.
“A Sellarsian Kantian Critique of Hume’s Theory of Concepts,” Pacifi c
Philosophical Quarterly , 88, 4 (December 2007): 445–457.
CHAPTER 3
“Inferentialism and the Transcendental Deduction,” Kantian Review ,
14, 1 (March 2009) 1–30.
CHAPTER 6
“A Rebuttal to a Classic Objection to Kant’s First Analogy,” History of
Philosophy Quarterly , 31, 4 (October 2014): 331–345.