On Kant’s Transcendental Argument(s)

Presented in the “Critique of Pure Reason” transcendental philosophy is the first theory of science,which seeks to identify and study the conditions of the possibility of cognition. Thus, Kant carries out a shift to the study of ‘mode of our cognition’ and TP is a method, where transcendental argumentation acts as its essential basis. The article is devoted to the analysis of the transcendental arguments. In § 2 the background of ТА — transcendental method of Antiquity and Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason — are analyzed and their comparison with ТА is given. § 3 is devoted to the analysis of TA in the broad and narrow senses; a formal propositional and presupposition models are proposed. In § 4 I discuss the difference between TA and metaphysics’ modes of reasoning. It analyzes the Kant’s main limitations of the use TA shows its connection with the Modern Age and contemporary science

How to solve the knowability paradox with transcendental epistemology

A novel solution to the knowability paradox is proposed based on Kant’s transcendental epistemology. The ‘paradox’ refers to a simple argument from the moderate claim that all truths are knowable to the extreme claim that all truths are known. It is significant because anti-realists have wanted to maintain knowability but reject omniscience. The core of the proposed solution is to concede realism about epistemic statements while maintaining anti-realism about non-epistemic statements. Transcendental epistemology supports such a view by providing for a sharp distinction between how we come to understand and apply epistemic versus non-epistemic concepts, the former through our capacity for a special kind of reflective self-knowledge Kant calls ‘transcendental apperception’. The proposal is a version of restriction strategy: it solves the paradox by restricting the anti-realist’s knowability principle. Restriction strategies have been a common response to the paradox but previous versions face serious difficulties: either they result in a knowability principle too weak to do the work anti-realists want it to, or they succumb to modified forms of the paradox, or they are ad hoc. It is argued that restricting knowability to non-epistemic statements by conceding realism about epistemic statements avoids all versions of the paradox, leaves enough for the anti-realist attack on classical logic, and, with the help of transcendental epistemology, is principled in a way that remains compatible with a thoroughly anti-realist outlook

Philosophy and the Turn to Religion

Originally published in 1999. If religion once seemed to have played out its role in the intellectual and political history of Western secular modernity, it has now returned with a vengeance. In Philosophy and the Turn to Religion, Hent de Vries argues that a turn to religion discernible in recent philosophy anticipates and accompanies this development in the contemporary world. Though the book reaches back to Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, and earlier, it takes its inspiration from the tradition of French phenomenology, notably Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Marion, and, especially, Jacques Derrida. Tracing how Derrida probes the discourse on religion, its metaphysical presuppositions, and its transformations, de Vries shows how this author consistently foregrounds the unexpected alliances between a radical interrogation of the history of Western philosophy and the religious inheritance from which that philosophy has increasingly sought to set itself apart.De Vries goes beyond formal analogies between the textual practices of deconstruction and so-called negative theology to address the necessity for a philosophical thinking that situates itself at once close to and at the farthest remove from traditional manifestations of the religious and the theological. This paradox is captured in the phrase adieu (à dieu), borrowed from Levinas, which signals at once a turn toward and a leave-taking from God—and which also gestures toward and departs from the other of this divine other, the possibility of radical evil. Only by confronting such uncanny and difficult figures, de Vries claims, can one begin to think and act upon the ethical and political imperatives of our day

Rothbard\u27s Intellectual Ancestry

Murray Rothbard is a prominent spokesman for neo-Austrian economics, yet the economics profession has not taken him seriously enough to investigate his claims. He and his disciples invite this neglect by treating the Rothbardian corpus more as creed-to-be-adhered-to than as theory-to-be-tested-and-improved-on. The profession\u27s neglect is nonetheless unwise. Even if neo-Austrian economics turns out to be unsound, it should be taken seriously because of the growing number of intelligent people who identify themselves as Austrians

Schelling\u27s Naturalism: Motion, Space, and the Volition of Thought

This dissertation examines F.W.J. von Schelling\u27s Philosophy of Nature (or Naturphilosophie) as a form of early, and transcendentally expansive, naturalism that is, simultaneously, a naturalized transcendentalism. By focusing on space and motion, this dissertation argues that thought should be viewed as a natural activity through and through. This view is made possible by German Idealism historically, and yet, is complicated and obscured by contemporary philosophy\u27s treatment of German Idealism in both analytic and continental circles. The text engages with the foundations of Schelling\u27s theory of nature as well as geometry, field theory, inter-theory relations, epistemology, and pragmatism

Kant, Husserl, and Analyticity

Thesis advisor: Andrea StaitiThis study concerns the nature and role of analyticity in the work of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. Its initial goal is that of clarifying the place of analytic judgment in Kant's critical project. Against the widely held assumption that analytic judgment has no role to play in the critical project, I show that analytic judgment has a precise and genuinely important role to play in the context of Kant's metaphysics. Analytic judgment has the role of clarifying our a priori conceptual repertoire and thus of making possible the synthetic a priori judgments that are properly constitutive of metaphysics. The next goal of the study is that of unifying and defending Kant's various characterizations of analytic judgment. Whereas a number of commentators have suggested that Kant is vague or ambivalent as regards the properties of analytic judgment, I show that we can extract a clear, consistent picture of analytic judgment from his work. The key to seeing this, I argue, is becoming clear on Kant's basic assumptions concerning concepts, logic, and propositional form. Subsequently, I turn to Husserl. Picking up on the fact that for Husserl, too, analyticity has metaphysical, or ontological significance, I spell out his conception of analyticity in detail. I show that analyticity for Husserl embraces two essentially symmetrical domains of law: the a priori laws of objective givenness and the a priori laws of propositional form. I then bring Husserl and Kant together. After showing that Husserl fails to capture the essence of Kant's theory of analytic judgment, and so fails to see exactly where he stands relative to Kant, I argue that what ultimately distinguishes Husserl from Kant is the claim that analytic truth is properly articulated in a purely formal context. I show that this departure from Kant has extremely significant consequences. For example, it enables Husserl to describe whole systems of judgment, such as mathematics or logic, as analytic; and it enables Husserl to defend the possibility of analytic judgments having empirical content.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy

Adorno's Critique of Judgement: the recovery of negativity from the philosophies of Kant and Hegel

This thesis has four primary aims. Firstly, I develop an account of Adorno’s critique of Kant and Hegel’s philosophy. I argue that the role and structure of judgement is key to his critical analysis. Adorno's discussion of their metaphysics, epistemology revolves around an immanent critique of judgement. This critique reveals, in the dialectical sense, the irreducibility of the 'negative moment' within judgement. This critical exposition grounds the second aim of the thesis. Analysis of Kant and Hegel's philosophies enables us to discern a number of key concepts in Adorno's own thought, concepts which will help us to understand his notion of negativity. In particular, his dialectical critique produces a constellation of critical - or negative - dialectical concepts: conceptless [begriffslose], non-identity [Nichtidentität], mediation [Vermittlung]. The generation of these concepts and their elucidation provides the basis for the third aim: to give a textually viable and philosophically fruitful explanation of key commitments in Adorno’s negative dialectics. I argue that negative dialectics does not amount to a system, a standpoint, or even a set of principles. Rather, it is a critical activity. The commitments, which revolve around the constellation of concepts outlined above, indicate a critical sensitivity to the limits of epistemology and metaphysics and the problem that these limits pose for judgement. Finally, I develop the resources to answer Michael Rosen’s claim that Adorno’s rejection of Hegelian determinate negation leaves his dialectics without any dynamic force. Drawing upon aesthetics, we can better understand the dynamics of negative dialectics. Aesthetic engagement with artworks not only demonstrates an appropriate orientation of philosophy to material, it is also an appropriate medium through which we can gain a clearer understanding of the philosophical commitments elucidated above