Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T02:16:08.226Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kant’s Neglected Alternative and the Unavoidable Need for the Transcendental Deduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2019

Justin B. Shaddock
Justin B. Shaddock*
Affiliation:
Williams College
*
Email: jbs3@williams.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The problem of Kant’s Neglected Alternative is that while his Aesthetic provides an argument that space and time are empirically real – in applying to all appearances – its argument seems to fall short of the conclusion that space and time are transcendentally ideal, in not applying to any things in themselves. By considering an overlooked passage in which Kant explains why his Transcendental Deduction is ‘unavoidably necessary’, I argue that it is not solely in his Aesthetic but more so in his Deduction where he intends to provide his argument for the transcendental ideality of space and time. His Deduction shows that space and time do not have a valid application to any things in themselves by arguing that the categories do have a valid application to everything in space and time, but that the categories do not have a valid application to any things in themselves.

Keywords

transcendental idealismthings in themselvesAestheticspace and timeDeductioncategories
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 127 - 152
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, R. (1997) ‘Things in Themselves’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 57/4, 801–825.Google Scholar
Allais, L. (2004) ‘Kant’s One World’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 12/4, 655–684.Google Scholar
Allais, L. (2009) ‘Kant, Non-Conceptual Content, and the Representation of Space’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47/3, 383–413.Google Scholar
Allais, L. (2010) ‘Kant’s Argument for Transcendental Idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 110/1, 47–75.Google Scholar
Allais, L. (2011) ‘Transcendental Idealism and the Transcendental Deduction’. In D. Schulting and J. Verburgt (eds), Kant’s Idealism (Dordrecht: Springer), 91–107.Google Scholar
Allais, L. (2015) Manifest Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Allison, H. (1996) ‘Transcendental Idealism: A Retrospective’. In Idealism and Freedom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 3–26.Google Scholar
Allison, H. (2004) Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Allison, H. (2012) ‘Transcendental Realism, Empirical Realism, and Transcendental Idealism’. In Essays on Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 67–83.Google Scholar
Ameriks, K. (1990) ‘Kant, Fichte, and Short Arguments to Idealism’. Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 72/1, 63–85.Google Scholar
Ameriks, K. (1992) ‘Kantian Idealism Today’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 9/3, 329–342.Google Scholar
Ameriks, K. (2003) ‘Kant and Short Arguments to Humility’. In Interpreting Kant’s Critiques (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 135–158.Google Scholar
Ameriks, K. (2006) ‘Idealism from Kant to Berkeley’. In Kant and the Historical Turn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 63–88.Google Scholar
Chignell, A. (2010) ‘Real Repugnance and Belief about Things in Themselves’. In J. Krueger and B. Lipscomb (eds), Kant’s Moral Metaphysics (Berlin: De Gruyter), 177–210.Google Scholar
Chignell, A. (2011) ‘Real Repugnance and our Ignorance of Things in Themselves’. Internationales Jahrbuch des deutschen Idealismus, 7, 135–159.Google Scholar
Chignell, A. (2014) ‘Modal Motivations for Noumenal Ignorance: Knowledge, Cognition, and Coherence’. Kant-Studien, 105/4, 573–597.Google Scholar
Falkenstein, L. (1995) Kant’s Intuitionism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, P. (1987) Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, P. (1992) ‘The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories’. In P. Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 123–160.Google Scholar
Hogan, D. (2009) ‘Three Kinds of Rationalism and the Non-Spatiality of Things in Themselves’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 47/3, 355–382.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1996) Critique of Practical Reason . In Practical Philosophy, trans. M. J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 133–271.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1998a) Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1998b) Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Ed. J. Timmerman. Hamburg: Felix Meiner.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1999) Correspondence. Trans. A. Zweig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (2004) Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Trans. M. Friedman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kemp Smith, N. (1918) A Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Langton, R. (1998) Kantian Humility. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Longuenesse, B. (2005) Kant and the Human Standpoint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McLear, C. (2015) ‘Two Kinds of Unity in the Critique of Pure Reason ’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53/1, 79–110.Google Scholar
Pistorius, H. A. (2000/1786) ‘Elucidations of Professor Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason by Johann Schultze’. In B. Sassen (ed.), Kant’s Early Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 93–105.Google Scholar
Shaddock, J. (2014) ‘Kant and the Most Difficult Thing that Could Ever Be Undertaken on Behalf of Metaphysics’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 31/1, 41–58.Google Scholar
Shaddock, J. (2015) ‘Kant’s Transcendental Idealism and his Transcendental Deduction’. Kantian Review, 20/2, 265–288.Google Scholar
Shaddock, J. (forthcoming) ‘Kant’s Conceptualism: A New Reading of the Transcendental Deduction’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.Google Scholar
Stang, N. (2016) Kant’s Modal Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tolley, C. (2013) ‘The Non-Conceptuality of the Content of Intuitions: A New Approach’. Kantian Review, 18/1, 107–136.Google Scholar
Trendelenburg, A. (1862) Logische Untersuchungen. Leipzig: Hirzel.Google Scholar
Vaihinger, H. (1881–92) Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Stuttgart: Spemann.Google Scholar
Van Cleve, James (1999) Problems from Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar