Interpreters of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism face a dilemma: it seems to
either beg the question against the Cartesian sceptic or else offer a disappointingly
Berkeleyan conclusion. In this article I offer an interpretation
of the Refutation on which it does not beg the question against the
Cartesian sceptic. After defending a principle about question-begging, I
identify four premises concerning our representations that there are textual
reasons to think Kant might be implicitly assuming. Using those assumptions,
I offer a reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation that avoids the interpretative
dilemma, though difficult questions about the argument remain
