The Problem of the External World in René Descartes, Edmund Husserl, Immanuel Kant and the Evil Genius

Dialogue and Universalism 30 (1):57-66 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The need to prove the existence of the external world has been a subject that has concerned the rationalist philosophers, particularly Descartes and the empiricist philosophers such as John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. Taking the epoché as the key mark of the phenomenologist—the suspension of the question of the existence of the external world—the issue of the external world should not come under the domain of the phenomenologist. Ironically, however, I would like to suggest that it could be argued that the founder of the phenomenological school of thought, Edmund Husserl, also did not avoid the question of the existence of the external world. What I would like to suggest further is that Immanuel Kant grants himself illicit access to the external world and thus illustrates that the question of the external world is vital to the argument structure of the first Critique.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,757

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-03-16

Downloads
99 (#214,670)

6 months
19 (#157,171)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Robert E. Allinson
Soka University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references