This paper offers a new interpretation of Kant's puzzling claim that the B-Deduction in the Critique of Pure Reason should be considered as having two main steps. Previous commentators have tended to agree in general on the first step as arguing for the necessity of the categories for possible experience, but disagree on what the second step is and whether Kant even needs a second step. I argue that the two parts of the B-Deduction correspond to the two aspects of (...) a priori cognition: necessity and universality. The bulk of the paper consists of support for the second step, the universality of the categories. I show that Kant's arguments in the second half of the B-Deduction aim to define the scope of that universality for possible experience by considering the possibilities of divine intellectual intuition, of non-human kinds of sensible intuition, and of apperception of the self. In these ways Kant delimits the boundaries of the applicability of the categories and excludes any other possible experience for human beings. (shrink)

There is no consensus concerning how to understand the ‘two-step proof structure’ (§§15–20, 21–7) of the Transcendental Deduction in the B-edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. This disagreement invites a closer examination of what Kant might have meant by a ‘transcendental deduction’. I argue that the transcendental deduction consists of three tasks that parallel Kant’s broader project of a ‘critique’ of pure reason; first, an origin task to justify reason’s authority to use them; second, an analytical task that determines (...) the conditions under which this authority can be legitimately exercised; and third, a dialectical task to determine the conditions under which this authority cannot be legitimately exercised. So long as we continue to read the B-Deduction solely in terms of its two-step proof structure, we overlook how Kant’s notion of ‘critique’ constitutes the real grounds for his argumentative strategy there. (shrink)

In A Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls introduces the concept of “reflective equilibrium.” Although there are innumerable references to and discussions of this concept in the literature, there is, to the present author's knowledge, no discussion of the most important question: Why reflective equilibrium? In particular, the question arises: Is the method of reflective equilibrium applicable to the choice of this method itself? Rawls's drawing of parallels between Kant's moral theory and his own suggests that his concept of “reflective (...) equilibrium” is on a par with Kant's concept of “transcendental deduction.” Treating these two approaches to justification as paradigmatic, I consider their respective merits in meeting the reflexive challenge, i.e., in offering a justification for choice of mode of justification. My enquiry into this topic comprises three parts. In the first part (Eng 2014a), I raised the issue of the reflexivity of justification and questioned whether the reflexive challenge can be met within the framework of A Theory of Justice. In this second part, I shall outline a Kantian approach that represents a paradigmatic alternative to Rawls. (shrink)

Few of Kant’s doctrines are as difficult to understand as that of self-affection. Its brief career in the published literature consists principally in its unheralded introduction in the Transcendental Aesthetic and unexpected re-appearance at a key moment in the Deduction chapter in the B edition of the first Critique. Kant’s commentators, confronted with the difficulty of this doctrine, have naturally resorted to various strategies of clarification, ranging from distinguishing between empirical and transcendental self-affection, divorcing self-affection from the claims of self-knowledge (...) with which Kant explicitly connects it, and, perhaps least justified of all, ignoring the doctrine altogether. Yet the connection between self-affection and central Critical doctrines (such as the transcendental synthesis of the imagination) marks all of these strategies as last resorts. In this paper, I seek to provide a clearer outline of the constellation of those issues which inform Kant’s discussion of self-affection. More particularly, I intend to explain the crucial role played by self-affection in the account of the transcendental conditions of perception provided late in the B Deduction. (shrink)

Esta nota crítica consiste en una aproximación a la literatura analítica reciente que discute con mayor o menor interés algunas aristas del principio de apercepción kantiano. Prestando especial atención a la forma en que esta literatura acoge el enlace entre actividad judicativa y apercepción, se identifican grosso modo tres líneas interpretativas. Si bien entrañan teorías generales sobre la mente humana, aquí se trata de ver cómo cada una de ellas propicia una hipótesis de lectura sobre qué es lo que subyace (...) a los argumentos kantianos que enlazan la capacidad de juzgar con la capacidad de apercibir. (shrink)

This thesis argues that Kant is able to maintain the distinctiveness of his position in opposition to Hume's naturalism (contrary to the arguments of R. A. Mall and L. W. Beck) without invoking premises which are question begging with regard to Hume's scepticism. The argument of Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, as presented in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, is considered in relation to the two sets of criticism that have been levelled at it from (...) its publication up to the present day, both of which aim to demonstrate that synthetic a priori judgements are subjectively necessary but without objective validity. The first set of criticisms involves problems raised with regard to the status of transcendental arguments. The difficulties identified here (by B. Stroud, M. S. Gram, and others) are that the Deduction can either, at best, show that it is necessary for experience to be regarded in a certain way without demonstrating anything as to the nature of experience as such, or the argument is circular in that it begins by making assumptions regarding the nature of our experience. Alternatively, if the Deduction is taken to establish the objective nature of concepts via an analysis of the conditions under which it is possible for us to have some knowledge of ourselves, then incoherence is said to arise because this requires either an implausible reflective theory of consciousness (according to D. Henrich) or that we have knowledge of the subject-in-itself (as held by J. G. Fichte and other contemporaries of Kant). Through a consideration of both the historical and contemporary manifestations of these criticisms, the thesis advances an interpretation of the Deduction, with special attention paid to the role and nature of the subject, which does not fall prey to the alleged incoherence. As such, the thesis defends both the distinctiveness and legitimacy of transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

Kant calls his Transcendental Deduction "the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics" (4:260). Readers have found it not just difficult but downright impossible. I will address two long-standing problems. First, Kant seems to contradict his conclusion at the outset of his proof. He does so in both the 1781 and 1787 editions of his Critique of Pure Reason. Second, Kant seems to argue for his single conclusion twice over in his Critique's 1787 edition. I (...) will propose novel solutions by considering why Kant's Deduction is more difficult than his Transcendental Aesthetic, on one hand, and his 1770 Inaugural Dissertation, on the other. My broader aim is to oppose a subjectivist interpretation of Kant's Deduction with an original interpretation. On the subjectivist interpretation, Kant holds that the categories apply to appearances because appearances necessarily conform to our subjective forms of the understanding. I will argue to the contrary in addressing the first problem. On my interpretation, the reason that the categories apply to appearances is not just because of what our subjective forms of the understanding are. It is because of what objects are as appearances. What are objects as appearances, for Kant? In addressing the second problem, I will argue that they are objects of our possible intuitions and judgments. (shrink)