Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks)

271 Pages·1999·1.75 MB·English

by  Sebastian Gardner

Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to
Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason
‘Sebastian Gardner’s book is the best introduction to Kant’s masterpiece
to have been written in over twenty years. . . . This is a truly useful
introduction for every reader of Kant that at the same time genuinely
advances our understanding of the greatest of modern philosophers. I
expect to recommend it for many years to come.’
(Paul Guyer, University of Pennsylvania)
‘Gardner’s argument and analysis are carried out in a tough and vigorous
way. Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason is valuable for students who
want a clear story.’
(Graham Bird, University of Manchester)
The Critique of Pure Reason is the cornerstone of Kant’s philosophical system and one of
the greatest works in the history of Western philosophy. A proper understanding of the
major philosophical developments of the last two hundred years – from Hegel to
Wittgenstein to Heidegger – presupposes a knowledge of the Critique of Pure Reason.
Ideal for students coming to Kant for the first time, this GuideBook will be an
invaluable guide to his epistemology and metaphysics.
Sebastian Gardner is Lecturer in Philosophy at University College London. He is the
author of Irrationality and the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis.
Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks
Edited by Tim Crane and Jonathan Wolff
University College London
Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason
Sebastian Gardner
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Jonathan Riley
Mill on Utilitarianism
Roger Crisp
Wittgenstein and the Philosophical Investigations
Marie McGinn
Heidegger and Being and Time
Stephen Mulhall
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Nickolas Pappas
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D. A. Lloyd Thomas
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Genevieve Lloyd
Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to
Kant and the Critique
of Pure Reason
▪ Sebastian Gardner

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1999
by Routledge
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London EC4P 4EE
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Routledge is an imprint of the
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© 1999 Sebastian Gardner
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
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British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in
Publication Data
Gardner, Sebastian.
Kant and the Critique of pure
reason / Sebastian Gardner.
p. cm. – (Routledge
philosophy guidebooks)
Includes bibliographical
references and index.
1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724–1804.
Kritik der reinen Vernunft.
2. Knowledge, Theory of.
3. Causation. 4. Reason.
I. Title. II. Series.
B2779.G27 1999 98–42339
121–dc 21
ISBN 0-203-015487 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-209044 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-11908-1 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-11909-X (pbk)
For my mother,
Jude, Euan and Benedict,
Emma, Bobby and Jade
We do not deny that the Kantian solution is extremely subtle and is
perhaps balanced on the point of a needle, but who would believe that a
solution to this problem could be found which was not alarmingly subtle?
(Gottfried Martin)
Transcendental idealism arises in general through a direct inversion of
previous modes of philosophical explanation.
(F. W. J. von Schelling)
Contents
Preface viii
1 The problem of metaphysics 1
2 The possibility of objects 18
3 How are synthetic a priori judgements possible? (The

Introduction) 34
4 The sensible conditions of objects (The Aesthetic) 43
5 Transcendental idealism 57
6 The conceptual conditions of objects (The Analytic) 75
7 Unknowable objects (The Dialectic) 136
8 The meaning of transcendental idealism 175
9 The complete Critical system (The Canon of Pure Reason) 199
10 The reception and influence of the Critique 212
Bibliography 226
Index 236
Preface
Kant published the Critique of Pure Reason (henceforth Critique) in two editions, and
there are substantial differences between them. They are interlaced in the translation by
N. Kemp Smith (2nd edn, London: Macmillan, 1933), where the ‘A’ numbering in the
margin refers to the first edition and the ‘B’ numbering to the second, corresponding to
the pagination of the German originals. Quotations in this book are taken from this
edition, which has hitherto been standardly employed in English-language Kant
commentary. Two new translations of the Critique have appeared very recently, the one
by W. Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), the other by P. Guyer and A. Wood
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
References are also made in this book to Kant’s Prolegomena to any Future
Metaphysics (Proleg) (trans. J. Ellington, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1977), Critique of
Practical Reason (CPracR) and Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Gr) (trans.
and ed. M. Gregor, in Kant, Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), Critique of Judgement (CJ) (trans. W. Pluhar, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987)
and his Philosophical Correspondence, 1759–99 (ed. and trans. A. Zweig, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1967). Where material from these works is quoted, it is
taken from these editions, and all references are to the marginal pagination. The standard
edition of Kant’s works in German is the Prussian Academy edition, Kants gesammelte
Schriften, ed. Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Georg
Reimer, subsequently Walter de Gruyter, 1900– ). References to this work are given in
the form Ak followed by volume number and page number. Regarding Kantian terms
such as ‘First Analogy’, ‘fourth paralogism’, capitals are used when referring to a section
of the Critique, and lower case when referring to the argument given or discussed there.
It cannot be pretended that the prose of the Critique – its ‘colourless, dry, packing-
paper style’ and ‘stiff, abstract form’, as the poet Heinrich Heine put it – has many
immediate attractions. Kant himself was acutely conscious of the work’s literary
limitations, and excused it on the grounds that what it contains requires quite special
technical expression. Kant’s philosophical vocabulary is baroque and unfamiliar. It does
not strictly consist of neologisms, because the terms Kant employs are drawn from earlier
philosophical sources and other (mathematical, juridical) quarters, but their meaning
cannot be sought outside Kant’s texts. The only remedy for the difficulty presented by the
style and terminology of the Critique is repeated exposure.
I should at the outset say something about the approach to Kant taken in this book, if
only so that readers unfamiliar with the Critique and commentary on it should be made
aware of how it differs from some of the many other approaches which may be taken.
The book reflects work, most of it in the last two decades, on Kant’s theoretical
philosophy by Henry Allison, Karl Ameriks, Richard Aquila, Ermanno Bencivenga,
Graham Bird, Gerd Buchdahl, Dieter Henrich, Arthur Melnick, Robert Pippin, Ralph
Walker, Wayne Waxman and others. These writers do not express a single view of Kant
by any means, but they share an outlook to the extent of agreeing that Kant’s metaphysic
of transcendental idealism is far from being a mere curiosity in the history of philosophy
and is instead (at the very least) a highly interesting philosophical project. With a view to
providing an introduction to the Critique that takes account of this recent work, this book
emphasises the basis, content and implications of the doctrine of transcendental idealism,
and furthermore seeks to bring out its strengths. It should consequently be emphasised
that there is an altogether different line to be found in Kant commentary, according to
which transcendental idealism is an incoherent doctrine, and the success of the Critique
lies in a set of metaphysically neutral but epistemologically forceful arguments which
may, with more or less difficulty, be isolated from their idealistic environment. The
classic work in this school is P. F. Strawson’s The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant’s
‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (London: Methuen, 1966). Not dissimilar conclusions have
been defended more recently by Paul Guyer. I have paid some attention to this approach,
but chiefly for purposes of contrast, and have not by any means attempted to represent all
that may be said on its behalf.
A further reason for the approach to the Critique taken in this book is provided by its
introductory character. Virtually every sentence of the Critique presents difficulties.
Attempts have been made to provide commentaries comprehensively elucidating each
individual section of the work, and some of these run to several volumes without getting
near its end. The most that a brief commentary can hope to do is communicate a broad
picture of what Kant says in the Critique which will provide a framework for the study of
individual sections and, more importantly, make this task seem worth pursuing.
Highlighting the theme of transcendental idealism again seemed suited to this purpose.
Limitations of space have meant that certain other questions of interpretation could not
be pursued. I have ignored what is known as the patchwork theory. In the view of some
commentators (most prominently in the English-language commentary by Norman Kemp
Smith) the text of the Critique should be regarded as a composite of elements written at
very different stages of Kant’s philosophical development, the upshot being that Kant’s
mature, ‘Critical’ view requires a kind of hermeneutical archaeology. This approach to
the text is currently not much favoured. More perilously, I have not drawn attention to the
possibility of identifying quite different, inconsistent philosophical pictures in the two
editions of the Critique but instead proceed on the assumption, which should also be
recognised as open to challenge, that this is not the case.
One point regarding the organisation of the book. As the contents pages show,
transcendental idealism is treated in two different chapters. The first (chapter 5) aims to
give the content of the doctrine and Kant’s defence of it; the only critical issues discussed
are those that pertain to the argument of the Aesthetic. The many further interpretative
and critical questions which arise, but which cannot be considered without a grasp of the
Analytic, are set out in the second chapter on transcendental idealism (chapter 8), which
is more involved, and in which I have made some suggestions as to how Kant’s position
may be understood, though without wishing to give the impression that such a brief
discussion can do any sort of justice to the difficulty of the topic.
My account of the Critique has for the greater part been formed by assembling what
has struck me as most illuminating in the writings of the authors listed above, particularly
Henry Allison’s Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) and Robert Pippin’s Kant’s Theory of Form: An
Essay on the ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).