Space, Geometry, and Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the CategoriesThomas C. Vinci aims to reveal and assess the structure of Kant's argument in the Critique of Pure Reason called the "Transcendental Deduction of the Categories." At the end of the first part of the Deduction in the B-edition Kant states that his purpose is achieved: to show that all intuitions in general are subject to the categories. On the standard reading, this means that all of our mental representations, including those originating in sense-experience, are structured by conceptualization. But this reading encounters an exegetical problem: Kant states in the second part of the Deduction that a major part of what remains to be shown is that empirical intuitions are subject to the categories. How can this be if it has already been shown that intuitions in general are subject to the categories? Vinci calls this the Triviality Problem, and he argues that solving it requires denying the standard reading. In its place he proposes that intuitions in general and empirical intuitions constitute disjoint classes and that, while all intuitions for Kant are unified, there are two kinds of unification: logical unification vs. aesthetic unification. Only the former is due to the categories. A second major theme of the book is that Kant's Idealism comes in two versions-for laws of nature and for objects of empirical intuition-and that demonstrating these versions is the ultimate goal of the Deduction of the Categories and the similarly structured Deduction of the Concepts of Space, respectively. Vinci shows that the Deductions have the argument structure of an inference to the best explanation for correlated domains of explananda, each arrived at by independent applications of Kantian epistemic and geometrical methods. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
1 A Priori Form vs Pure Representation in Kants Theory of Intuition | 9 |
2 The Metaphysical Expositions and Transcendental
Idealism I | 23 |
3 Kants Theory of Intentionality | 46 |
4 Kants Theory of Geometry and Transcendental Idealism II | 64 |
5 The Transcendental Deduction of the Categories I | 101 |
6 Appearances Intuitions and Judgments of Perception | 134 |
The B Edition Transcendental Deduction | 176 |
Other editions - View all
Space, Geometry, and Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories Thomas C. Vinci Limited preview - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
actual analytic appearances argue Argument for Transcendental causal chapter cognition Concept of Space construction determined discussion distinction edition Deduction empirical intuition empirical objects Euclidean Euclidean geometry example explain explanandum Falkenstein form of intuition form of sensibility form-space given imagination intellectual condition intentional objects interpretation intu judgments of experience judgments of perception Kant says Kant’s argument Kant’s doctrine Kant’s theory Kantian latter Leibniz Longuenesse manifold Metaphysical Exposition metrically Nomic Prescriptivism notion objective validity objects of empirical passage possible power of apperception principle problem Prolegomena properties propositions pure geometry pure intuition reading relation represent rules schematic objects Second Geometrical Argument section 15 section 26 sensations sense impression sensible intuition sensory sentence spatial spatiotemporal structure synthesis synthetic unity Table of Judgments texts things three-dimensional space tion topologically unified Transcendental Deduction Transcendental Exposition Transcendental Idealism understanding unity of apperception unity of consciousness unity of space