New Essays on Kant 0820403652

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r American University Studies

,

New Essays on K ant

edited by Bernard den Ouden Marcia Moen, Associate Editor

-1

New Essays on Kant

edited by Bernard den Ouden Marcia Moen, Associate Editor

PETER LANG New York· Bern· Frankfurt am Main· Paris

New Essays on Kant

American University Studies

Series V Philosophy Vol. 20

PETER LANG New York . Bern . Frankfurt am Main . Paris

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data New essays on Kant. • (American university studies. Series V, Philosophy; vol. 20). (Contents: Kant and the objects of theory I Gordon G. Brittan, Jr.-Brittanic and Kantian objects I Carl J. Posy-Kant's transcendental deduction; a limited defense of Hume I Manfred Kuehn-[etc.] I. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. I. Ouden, Bernard den. II. Moen, Marcia, 1944. III. Series: American university studies. Series V, philosophy; v. 20. B2798.N49 1987 193 86-21035 ISBN 0-8204-0365-2 ISSN 0739-6392

CIP-Kurztitelaufnahme der Deutschen Bibliothek

New Essays 011 Kalil I ed. by Bernard den Ouden ; Marcia Moen, associate ed.-New York; Bern ; Frankfurt am Main : Lang, 1987. (American university studies; Ser. 5, Philosophy; Vol. 20) ISBN 0-8204-0365-2 NE: den Ouden, Bernard [Hrsg.]; American university studies I 05

© Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 1987 All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, offset strictly prohibited. Printed by Weihert-Druck GmbH, Darmstadt (West Germany)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Bernard den Duden., Introduction

I. II.

Gordon G. Brittan, Jr., Kant and the Objects oj Theory

7

CarlJ. Posy, Brittanicand Kantian Objects

29

:- III.

Manfred Kuehn, Kant's Transcendental Deduction: A Limited Defense oj Hume

47

IV.

Richard E. Aquila, Matter, Form, and Imagitlative Association in Sensory Intuition

73

V.

Ralf Meerbote, Kant's Rejlltatiotl oj Problematic .Waterial Idealism

I I I

VI.

Robert Paul Wolff. Remarks on the Relation oj the Critique of Pure Reason to Kant's Ethical Theory

139

VII.

Henry E. Allison, Transcendental Idealism: The 'Two Aspect' View

155

Karl Ameriks, The Hegelian Critique oj Kantian Morality

179

Robin M. Schott, Kant's Treatment oj Sensibility

21 3

X.

Wayne F. Buck, Kant'sjustification oj Private Property

227

XI.

Marcia Moen, The Critique ofJudgment and its Legacy

245

VIII. IX.

INTRODUCTION From the Pre-Critical writings to the Critiques., Kant created a formidable challenge for philosophers of the 19th and 20th Centuries. If western philosophy was rightly characterized as footnotes on Plato, the philosophy of the last two centuries could be appropriately described as attempts to come to terms with the implications of the Kantian "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy. The volume at hand is a collection of some of the most recent research and reflection on Kant and Kantian problematics. The major contributors rank among the most widely read and recognized scholars of Kantian literature. In addition, the reader will find a number of essays by younger scholars who will, in all likelihood, be part of a new generation of Kantian inquiry. The essays that comprise this collection are 0;' Kant, but they also provide the reader with an occasion to re-think basic positions of reference theory and on successful or unsuccessful refutations of skepticism and phenomenalism. One can also find meticulous arguments, assertions and counter assertions on the objects of theory or theoretical objects and the nature of scientific generalization. Kant's refutations of subjective idealism and his answers to skepticism are carefully analyzed, defended, and challenged. This volume is a clear example of the interrelationship of the finest textual analysis with sound rigorous reasoning. M any of the articles are written in view of each other, i. e., by philosophers that have developed their interpretations in reaction to each other's research and reading of Kant. Others deal with the Kantian legacy and consider, e.g., clements in the philosophy of Hegel that have not been sufficiently recognized for their Kantian character. The reader will also find new interpretations of the relationship between the Critique oj Pure Reason and the Critique oj Practical Reason. For those who are convinced that the Critique oj Judgment has not received the study and recognition it deserves, they will find an analysis of Kant's sensus communis and a well-reasoned clarification of the "new concepts and the new a priori principle" that this critique offers.

For those who are interested in the relationship between Kant and Hume, a strong case is made that the Transcendental Deduction is a defense of aspects of Hume's thought as well as an answer to other facets of his position and that Kant and Hume were involved in a common project. In this context, a very helpful and detailed evaluation of recent literature on the Transcendental Deduction is presented. Another im portant issue that is explored is the issue of "imaginative association" and the question of the basis for the "necessary synthetic unity of appearances." Issues such as these take the reader to the heart of Kantian problematics. Contemporary philosophers have struggled to state clearly what is meant by em pirical verification and also to make good on the claim that consciousness is consciousness of something. These are issues that are provocatively and systematically addressed in this collection. Kant's theory of sensibility and his treatment of the body, sexuality, and in particular sexuality of women, are also critically interpreted. In addition, his justiflcation of private property is elucidated in view of the Metaphysical Elements ojJustice. This volume exemplifies the wide range of issues in Kant's corpus. New Essays on Kant is an invitation to re-examine these issues through Kant's constructs and Kantian perspectives . Bernard den Ouden Department of Philosophy U ni versity of Hartford

1. KANT AND THE OBJECTS OF THEORY

It might be asked, why in physical science generalization so readily takes the mathematical form. The reason is now easy to see. It is not only because we have to express numerical laws ; it is because the observable phenomenon is due to the superposition of a large number of elementary phenomena which are all similar to each other; and in this way differential equations are quite naturally introduced. It is not enou,Rh that each elementary phenomenon should obey simple laws: all those that we have to combine must obey the same law; then only is the intervention of mathematics ofany use ... It is, therefore, thanks to the. approximate homogeneity of the matter studied by physicists, that mathematical physics came into existence. Henri Poincare, Science and Hypothesis Mathematics and physics, the two sciences in which reason yields theoretical knowledge, have to determine their objects a priori, the former doing so quite purely, the latter having to reckon, at least partially, with sources ofknowledge other than reason. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Philosophers many years ago amused themselves with the question: Are scientific objects invented or discovered? To this the correct answer is that we invent them and discover that they do the work ofsomething that is to count as real. Wilfred Sellars, Is Scientific Realism Tenable?

In a sense, the fundamental philosophical question has alWays been: what is there, really? The traditional answers are for the most part notorious. My favorite is that of Parmenides, whose view seems to imply that there is just one thing in the world, and that he isn't it. Ai: least since the 16th century the question: what is there, really? has been replaced by another: to what extent do scientific theories provide us with a correct account of what there really is?

8

Roughly'speaking, two. ~nswers have been given to this second question. On the one hand, there are those who claim that scientifi(; theories give us a true account of the world, and that therefore the various entities which they postulate-atoms, fields, drives, libidos, and so on-are real; theoretical objects exist. Those who make this claim are known, understandably, as scientific realists. On the other hand, there are those who claim that taking science seriously does not commit us to a particular account of what there is. Theories are not so much true as useful. Since the task of science is simply to organize the data of our experience in such a way that predictions about, and eventual control of, the future are possible, we are committed to no more than the view that theories are instruments; theoretical objects are merely theoretical. Those who make these claims are thus often known as instrumentalists. II

The background sketched, I want now in a completely general and informal way to outline three arguments in support of instrumentalism, then suggest a new reading for the expression "theoretical object" that captures what is true and important in the instrumentalist position and fits at least some of the paradigm cases. I happen to think, and hope to show, that I am proceeding along Kantian lines, and thus that there are senses in which theoretical objects, newly construed, do and don't exist. What should emerge is a rather unusual, perhaps somewhat minimal, but nevertheless throughly defensible scientific realism. III

A preliminary classification of theoretical objects (perhaps "entity" is more appropriately neutral at this point), traditionally construed, for future referen~e:l (r) Observable entities incorrectly postulated: Vulcan (2) Unobservable entities (a) correctly postulated: neutrinos (b) incorrectly postulated: the ether (3) Ideal entities: point-masses

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IV InstYllmentalist argument # 1: the eliminability of theoretical terms 2 Let's assume that the task of science is, in fact, to organize the data of our experience in such a way that predictions about the future course of that experience are possible. On this assumption, what role does the postulation of theoretical entities play? A plausible answer is that the introduction of theoretical entities allows us to extend the range of application of our empirical generalizations and to accommodate what would otherwise be exceptions. Many everyday empIrical generalizations are limited in the ranges of their application and suffer from exceptions. for example as G. r: Wood floats on water, iron sinks in it.. is limited to wood. water, and iron and suffers from those cases in which wood sinks and iron (perhaps fashioned into spheres) floats. But we can apparently remedy these defects by introducing a theoretical concept, specific gravity, and by extension an en~ity or quantity to which it refers, defined as the quotient of a solid body's weight and volume. 0.1: s(x}=w(x)/v(x)

and then assert that

G.2: A solid body floats on a liquid ifits specific gravity is less than that of the liquid. This generalization, unlike the first, is unlimited and exceptionless. Now the difficulty with this interpretation of the function of theoretical concepts, hence ultimately of theoretical entities, is that on it they seem to be in principle eliminable, and therefore we have no reason to assume that the entities to which such concepts refer actually exist. That is, we can replace G.2 by G. 3: A solid body floats on a liquid if the quotient of its weight

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and volume is less .than the corresponding quotieht for the liquid. (replacing definiendum by definiens) and make exactly the same predictions. Whatever work the concept of specific gravity does, apart from its abbreviating function, can be done without it. This argument can be generalized. Assume, somewhat more precisely this time, that to make a prediction is to derive an observation 02 from a theory T and other observation statements 01 together with the help of certain "correspondence rules" C, that is,

01 T

£

02.

Clearly this argument could be replaced by another correlating 01 and 02 directly.

which affords the same observational consequences and which does not make use of theories or theoretical terms. 3 The obvious conclusion would seem to be that we can always get from observations to (predicted) observations without making a theoretical detour. In which case there would seem to be no reason to suppose that theories are more than mere instruments, convenient and economical, but. in principle eliminable, ways of representing the data.

Instrumentalist argument #2: the incompleteness of theoretical objects Ordinary sorts of objects are such that every assertion about them is either true or false. It is in this sense that ordinary sorts of objects are said to be complete; the law of bivalence holds with respect to their various predications. Perhaps we should qualify this claim slightly so as to preclude the possibility of "category mistakes." It is neither true

II

nor false, for example, that the number five is green or that cats are prime. Let us say, then, that ordinary sorts of objects are such that every assertion about them appropriate to the category to which they belong, is either true or false. "Categories" are characterized in terms of ranges of identifying or individuating conditions. Thus, two sets are identicaljustin case they have all and only the same members. Two physical objects are identical just in case they occupy the same spacetime points. And so on. For many, if not most, of the entities we'll take as exemplary, the appropriate category will be that of physical objects, and the properties appropriate to them what we intuitively understand by physical properties. Now the difficulty is that theoretical objects are unlike ordinary sorts of objects in that they are essentially incomplete. There are many assertions about them, even with regard to an otherwise appropriate selection of properties, which are truthvalueless. The theory in which they are embedded simply provides no grounds for the assertion that, for example, atoms (as construed in the 17th century) are red or not red, or in more extreme cases rules out the possibility that there could be such grounds, for example that atomic and sub-atomic particles have a precisely and simultaneously determinable position and velocity. There is no way, even in principle, that such questions could be decided. If we assume, what seems entirely plausible, that an existent object must be complete,4 then theoretical objects do not, and cannot exist. Theoretical entities are often said to be like, or to be,fictional entities in the superficial sense that they are imagined, or imaginary. 5 But in a deeper sense they are like fictional entities insofar as both are essentially incomplete. However much we would like to know what happened to Dick Diver after his move to the Finger Lakes district (and on a recent trip to upstate New York I was tempted to make some inquiries), there is nothing more to be known than what Scott Fitzgerald has already set down about his life and character. Many assertions about him, in contrast to his creator, are neither true nor false. In this respect, and perhaps in others, novels are like theories. But in other ways, of course, they differ. If assertions about Dick Diver are true, they are true only "within the novel:' whereas the assertions of:l. scientific theory are true or false simpliciter. There is a difference in the

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types of evidence on which .the respective assertions are based. And, as we shall see, the entities imagined by theory are not, in an appropriate sense, indi viduals. The would-be planet Vulcan is not only, in the appropriate sense, an individual. It is also a complete object. That is, if Vulcan did exist, then any assertion appropriate to the category to which it belongs (largescale physical object) would be true or false. Hence it is incorrectly classed as a theoretical object. It is "theoretical" only in the misleading and trivial sense that its existence was surmised and not established (and perhaps also in that it served to explain perturbations in Mercury's orbit). If it had been discovered, as was Uranus in similar sorts of circumstances, it would no longer be theoretical, whereas neutrinos, long since discovered, continue to be so classifred. It is tempting to say that Vuk:m is not a theoretical object because it is observable, because all observable entities are complete, and then go on to identify "theoretical" with "unobservable" in the usual way. But the notion of "observability" at stake here does not prove to be very helpful, and the converse does not hold: complete entities are not necessarily observable. Although unobservability helps make incompleteness possible, the grounds on which we characterize entities as theoretical lie elsewhere.

Instmmentalist argument #3: the ideality of theoretical entities In an important sense, ordinary sorts of objects are "given',' they a wait their discovery. Theoretical objects, on the other hand, are mind-dependent: they are invented or postulated, not discovered. They are, as is so often said, "free creations of the human mind'; unlike ordinary sorts of objects-opaque, resistant-which impose themselves on us. More specifically, a large subclass of theoretical objects (pointmasses may be taken as paradigm) are ah initio ideal. They are not "accidentally" fictional (since incomplete) but "deliberately" fictional (because not intended to be taken ontologically seriously). Thus, "ideal entities differ from all the examples previously considered in that no one thinks they exist. For example, point-masses are used in physics as a 'convenience': their non-existence was not discovered, but was known prior to their invention."6

13

v These three instrumentalist arguments are arranged in order of increasing strength. The first argument is properly agnostic: we have no reason to assume that theoretical objects exist, given that all reference to them is eliminablc in principle. The second argument is that theoretical objects do not, and cannot, exist, since unlike ordinary sorts of objects they are incomplete. The third argument is that the question of their existence (at least in exemplary cases) does not even arise; there is simply no issue. My strategy in brief is to reject the first argument, to accept the second argument but in such a way that it can be turned against the instrumentalist, and to weaken the third argument. Since on my Kantian account "ideal" objects are in important respects like other sorts of theoretical objects, I will begin by undermining the claim that questions concerning their existence do not arise. In accepting parts of the last two arguments, I hope at the same time to deepen the concept of a theoretical object.

VI Two celebrated episodes illustrate a recurring pattern in the history of science? The first concerns Galileo's postulation of the rectilinear com ponent of the parabolic trajectory. According to Galileo himself, rectilinear motion does not exist: we find none but curved motion in nature. In fact, given the conceptual framework against the background of which Galileo's theory of the parabolic trajectory is formulated, not only does rectilinear motion not exist, it could not exist. It is in this sense impossible. 8 Yet Galileo's treatment, "which he himself considered as an idealization, came to be accepted by his successors as a literally correct treatm~t; the true horizontal component was a straight line, and deviation therefrom was due to the action of an external force ... The second episode concerns Planck's postulation of discrete quanta in the analysis of black-body radiation .10 For the curve-fitting Planck,this postulation was no more than a calculational device yielding a single formula covering all black-body radiation frequencies. Once again, the idealization involved was self-conscious, for Planck

:'9

.

14 "knew" that in reality th,e process in question had to exhibit'continuity, an essential component of every successful physical theory to that time, Yet after Einstein's work on the photoelectric effect, discrete quanta came to be accepted as fundamental elements of the true scientific picture of things. The point is simply that it does not follow from the fact that an object is introduced as a "convenience," or from the fact that no one, at least originally, thinks they exist, indeed even if they are in some sense "impossible,"l1 that the question of its existence does not arise. arise. What these episodes, and others like them, illustrate is that often such objects are eventually taken in a straightforward sense as real. Precisely why they are remains to be seen.

VII What is a theoretical object? To say that it is an object whose existence is postulated by a theory correctly emphasizes the fact of postulation (to be discussed in more detail in a moment), but is otherwise unenlightening so long as we have nothing further to say about the nature of theories. I think, in fact, that the notion of a theory is to be understood in terms of the notion of a theoretical object, and not the other way around. To say that a theoretical object is an imperceptible object is more enlightening, but it is questionable (since many theories, those of Darwin and Skinner for example, are expressly designed to restrict their objects to the clearly perceptible) and, despite much effort, still somewhat obscure (for the line between the perceptible and imperceptible seems difficult if not also impossible to draw, even roughly). In fact, if we look more closely at the cases of theoretical objects we tend to take as paradigm, atoms for instance, their most striking feature, I think, is their similarity-atoms (at least in classical theories) are all alike; if you've seen one of them, so to speak, you've seen them all. The same seems to be true of theories in the social sciences, particularly in the most developed, viz. economics and sociology; human beings, characterized with respect to a set of preferences or social groups, are regarded as identical.

15 VIII

[ want to begin making this last idea more precise, although in an informal and intuitive way. The appropriate formal re-casting should not be difficult to imagine. Imagine a continuum, at one end of which are "perfect" objects, at the other end of which are "imperfect" objects. Very roughly, "perfect" objects are such that (a) any meaningful assertion about them (meaningful predication with respect to them) is either true or false, i.e., bivalence holds with respect to them, and(b) any two such objects can be "strongly" individuated, i.e., Leibniz's law of the identity of indiscernibles, in some suitably strong form, 12 holds with respect to them. Again very roughly, "imperfect" objects are such that (a) they are completely undetermined with respect to any nonlogical properties, (b) any two such objects cannot in any degree be individuated. They are more like "things," in fact, than "objects," in this respect like variables, the mere forms of objects. "Semi-perfect" objects lie somewhere between the two ends of the continuum. On my view, theoretical objects are "semi-perfect'.' The important analogy on this view is with mathematical objects: theoretical objects are, in structure at least, very much like mathematical objects.u Consider, for example, a typical proof in Euclid. We begin by postulating, e.g.,a triangle having certain properties (that it is right-angled, that one side has length 1, etc.). This particular triangle ABC is distinct from any other triangle not having the particular properties in question, but indistinct from other triangles which, however they might otherwise differ, have these properties~ i.e., a variety of different triangles satisfy the conditions of postulation. Which is to say that in the case of mathematical objects introduced in the course of a typical proof, identity and order relations are often underdetermined. We are told to choose numbers specified simply with respect to some interval ("any number between one and ten',' "any number greater than two': "any finite prime"), again without regard to order and identity ."Semi.perfect" objects are underdetermined in precisely the same way. Slightly more generally, "semi-perfect" objects are such that (a) the degree to which an object can vary (its "degree offreedom") is limited by the conditions of its postulation, (b) the degree to which objects of a

16 given type can vary witJ1 respect to each other is limited by the conditions of its postulation. That is, the distinction between object and type collapses, as it does with a species, in the case of "semiperfect" or theoretical objects. [X

From the syntactic point of view, the objects of theory are never completely determined. 14 Thus, from this point of view, they are never more than "semi-perfect" (one could say that the syntax of a theory at any time reflects a particular degree of determination of the objects whose existence the theory postulates). Complete determination comes at the level of classical semantics, which reflects the "platonic" or "perfect object" point of view. It is thus necessary to make changes in the semantics so that, at this level too, objects can be construed as underdetermined, i.e. ,so that the "law of bivalence 'tan be modified or abandoned. 1s The goal is to make the semantics reflect the syntax. 16

x It should be clear how, on this account, such "semi-perfect" objects incorporate certain of the instrumentalist's deepest intuitions. They are incomplete (the objects of theory are underdetermined) and they are mind-dependent (the objects of theory are postulated). [hope it is clear as well how this account fits at least some paradigm cases of theoreticalobjects. 17 Now the question is, why should we say that such "semi-perfect" objects exist? The account given, however vague, is largely syntactic, i. e., in terms of the ways in which objects are specified; why say that anything more than syntax, a way of talking, is involved? Or again, the account given is of "abstract" objects (in the sense that abstraction has been made of certain properties); why hold that they are more than " a bstract " ('I.e., " unrea 1")"18 ~ The answer can be given by way of inverting the first instrumentalist argument: unrestricted generalizations of the sort required by scientific explanation, "laws of nature',' are possible only with respect to theoretical objects as just construed and precisely for that reason are ineliminable.

17 This conclusion can be supported, very briefly, by two closely connected and familiar lines of argument. First. One way of putting the classic problem of induction is to point out that there are too many generalizations; for each generalization on our experience, there is another supported by the same experience but incompatible with the first. 19 Which generalization do we choose? So long as we are dealing with "perfect" objects (e.g., ordinary sorts of physical objects, such as emeralds) the problem is insoluble; for every similarity we can find a dissimilarity, for every dissimilarity we can tind a similarity. Only when we have "semi-perfect" objects, i.e., only where the similarity relations are fixed from the outset, are the appropriate generalizations indicated. 20 Second. Not just any generalization will support a scientific explanation. We need to distinguish between accidental and lawlike generalization, e.g., between "all Swans in France are white" and (Descartes' 2nd law) "every body which moves tends to continue its movement in a straight line:' How do we make the distinction? So long as we are dealing with "perfect" objects, the problem is insoluble: every non-trivial generalization with respect to "perfect" objects is contingent (they happen to share or not to share a particular property as the case may be). Only where we have "semi-perfect" objects, i.e., only where the generalizations are necessary (because they follow from the conditions of postulation) is a distinction possible. Lawlike generalizations are necessary .21

Xl Let us return to our analogy between mathematical and theoretical objects. The crucial points about mathematical reasoning are (a) that the objects reasoned about are perfectly representative (one triangle in a Euclidean proof does for all); we perform what amounts to a one-step induction (free-variable proof), and (b) that mathematical generalizations are in an important sense necessary, although' not merely analytic in the trivial sense of the word. In the same way, it is only because theoretical objects are thoroughly '''representative'' that we can generalize satisfactorily with respect to them and that theoretical generalizations are in an im portant sense necessary. I want to sa y thanheoretical generalizations, to extend the analogy

18

further, are either necessary or false. This necessity does not derive in the case of science, any more than it does in mathematics, from mere definitions or conventions. Rather, it derives from the initial conditions of postulation, themselves never simply arbitrary.22 This is not to say that theoretical generalizations are just like mathematical generalizations. For one thing, theoretical generalizations contain "empirical" concepts. But for present purposes, the similarities are more important than the differences. XII

Whatever happened to G.2, the generalization that a solid body floats on a liquid if its specific gravity is less than that of the liquid? It is interesting to note, first, that Galileo introduced the concept of specific gravity as denoting a property in common to all bodies of a certain kind or species. 23 That is, as against weight which varies from body to body, specific gravity is constant for classes of bodies. "Every species of body has its own proper gravity-its specific gravity, or density; and it has a characteristic speed of fall in a void which depends solely on that gravity." 24 In this sense, specific gravity is introduced as a theoretical quantity very much along the lines already indicated. Specific gravity is a "kind"-property. From our present point of view, even more to the point is that one can only demonstrate the universal constancy of specific gravity, by means of which G.2 constitutes a law of nature, through admitting something like the atomic theory of matter. In other words, suppose that the atoms which compose (homogeneous) bodies have the same density and the same size. It follows that the densities of different bodies are proportional to the number of atoms in equal volumes. It is only when we have something like the atomic theory of matter (including the appropriate similarity relations and homogeneities) that G.2 becomes a law as regards both its necessity and confirmability. For the same reason, of course, any reference to the atoms of theory is not simplyeliminable. XIII I think that this sketch of the concept of theoretical objects throws light on certain main themes in Kant's position, just as I think that his

19

posltlon clarifies certain aspects of the sketch. After a very long preliminary, it is time to take a closer look at the text. We can begin with a celebrated passage in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique:

When Calileo caused balls, the weights oj which he had himself previously determined, to roll down an inclined plane; when Torricelli made the air carry a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that oj a defmite volume oj water; or ... when Stahl changed metals into oxides and oxides back into metal, by withdrawing something and then restoring it, a light broke upon all students oj nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it produces aJter a plan oj its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles oj judgment based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answer to questions oj reason's own determitling.Accidental observations, made in obedience to no previously thought-out plan, can never be made to yield a necessary law, which alone reason is concerned to discover ... .Even physics, therefore, owes the beneficent revolution in its point oj view entirely to the happy thought, that while reason must seek in nature, not fictiously ascribe to it, whatever as not beitlg k,lOwable through reason's own resources has to be learnt, ifleamt at all, onlyJrom nature, it must adopt as its guide, in so seeking, that which it has itself put into nature. It is thus that the study oj nature has entered in the secure path oj a science, aJter havitlgJor so many centuries been nothing but a process ojmerely random groping. 25 In context, the passage draws a rather precise analogy, turning on a common concept of constructibility, between the correct methods of mathematics and of the physical sciences. More specifically, the claims made might be summarized as follows. We have science only where we have laws. We have laws only where we have necessity. But, the crux of Kant's "Copernican Revolution',' w'e have necessity only where we have mental activity, i.e., reason "interrogating nature" after a plan of its own. So far, so good: our knowledge of nature is necessary only to the extent that we read out of our experience what we have already

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read in, a familiar, if not uncontroversial, Kantian theme. It is only much later in the Critique, however, in the Appendix to the DiaIcctic, that Kant returns specifically to the theme of "interrogating nature:' this time linking it explicitly to the introduction of theoretical (or "idealized") objects as I have construed them. After asserting that what is distinctive of reason is its attempt to systematize the knowledge obtained for us by the understanding, by taking such knowledge as a system connected according to necessary laws, Kant explains in some detail how concepts ofreason make such "systematization" possible.

These concepts of reason are not derived from nature; on the contrary, we interrogate nature in accordance with these ideas, and consider our knowledge as defective so long as it is not adequate to them. This simply re-states a theme from the preface to the second edition. But then we learn, rather unexpectedly, that these concepts of reason are not very general regulative ideas, but quite specific theoretical concepts.

By general admission, pure earth,. pure water, pure air, etc., are not to be found. We require, however, the concepts of them (though, in so far as their complete purity is concerned, they have their origin solely in reason) in order properly to determine the share which each of these natural causes has in producing appearances. Thus in order to explain the chemical interactions of bodies in accordance with the idea ofa mechanism, every kind of matter is reduced to earths (qua mere weight), to salts and inflammable substance (qua force), and to water and air as vehicles (machines, as it were, by which the first two produce their effects). The modes of expression usually employed are, indeed, somewhat different; but the influence of reason on the classifications of the natural scientist is still easily detected. 26 We "interrogate nature" by conceptualizing the phenomena in certain ways, by introducing the concepts of theoretical objects. These C011cepts contain empirical elements (as, e.g., does the concept of "pure earth"), but they are not simply derived from experience. Rather, they

21

are introduced by reason in its attempt to "systematize" and explain. Since it is such "systematization" and explanation that constitute knowledge as scientific, we can say, in a Kantian turn of phrase, that theoretical objects (more properly, the concepts thereof) make scientific knowledge possible. In the next several paragraphs of the Critique, Kant generalizes these ideas by way of the notion of a "projected unity (or order) of nature:' We project an order of nature by introducing theoretical concepts. The projection, requiring as it does that we describe the phenomena in certain ways and not in others, at the same time limits and focuses the questions we ask, determines the form and content of our answers, and ensures that the laws to which we eventually make appeal are necessary, because the concepts in terms of which such a projection is made are already inter-related. At the same time, Kant hastens to add, there are important constraints on our projections. The mere introduction of a concept, or postulation of an object, is no guarantee of truth, or reality. Some of these constraints are empirical. Whatever order we project must have observational consequences, and those orders are to be asserted whose consequences are verified. 27 Some of these contraints arc methodological. We are to project those orders of nature that are easier to test, that employ fewer fundamental concepts, that lead to more precise, more unified, and simpler mathematically expressible theories. Finally, some of these constraints are philosophical. Any admissible projection must conform to the conditions of possible experience. Thus, although the "mechanical" way (in terms of the motion and contact of imperceptible particles) of explaining natural phenomena lends itself to "systematization" and, in particular, mathematization, and although as a projected order of nature it has testable consequences, the "absolute density" it ascribes to atoms and the "absolute emptiness" in which such atoms interact do not conform to the conditions of possible experience and as a result the atomic concepts in particular and the "mechanical" way 'in general should be avoided. 28 The problematic sentence in the passage quoted from the Appendix to the Dialectic is to the effect that theoretical objects "are not to be found." Docs it follow that, for Kant, theoretical objects do not exist? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer. But I will make it brief.

22

Kant's pOSitiOn, he often tells US, rests on a distinction between empirical realism and trans'cendental idealism. The idealism, quite in line with my earlier sketch of the concept of theoretical objects, involves giving up bivalence,29 on the one hand, and claiming, on the other hand, that the objects of experience are never simply "found" but in some way and some sense are "constructed." The realism is a function of the facts (a) that the objects of experience can be located objectively at points of space and time,30 and (b) that the laws which govern the behavior of these objects are necessary, irreducible to patterns of sense-impressions. The possibility of empirical realism depends on the possibility of being able to distinguish within experience between how it stands with me and how it stands with the world, and that second possibility is compatible both with the "underdetermined" and with the "constructed" character of the world. Now if, very generally, this summary is correct, then it follows that the introduction of theoretical objects, on which the possibility of scientific knowledge depends, provides support for and illustration of Kant's transcendental idealism. It also follows that such objects are "empirically real." But if theoretical objects play an indispensable role with respect to the possibility of scientific ~~nowledge, that role is broadly no different in kind from the role that ordinary sorts of objects play with respect to the possibility of knowledge in general. Ordinary sorts of physical objects, too, are postulated in the attempt to "systematize" the ordinary course of our experience (and for reasons similar to those already given are equally ineliminable). The postulation is subject to the same basic constraints. Bivalence fails with res pect to them, 31 which is to say that our "ordinary," like our "scientific," picture of the world is never more than partial. And the conditions with respect to which we individuate and identify them are never simply "given." In this sense, ordinary sorts of physical objects, no more than theoretical objects, are never "found." If the latter are more highly "idealized" than the former, it is only a matter of degree. 32 Which is to say that for Kant, in the final analysis, all the objects of our experience are, in the most crucial respects, theoretical. 33

XIV Allow me to suggest two much larger claims in conclusion. One is

23

that although our knowledge at any given time is incomplete, it grows, as the result of collective social effort, over time. Whether or not there is convergence to some ideal of truth, as a limit, development from our present perspective amounts to saying that in the long run any distinction between the order ofnature that we project and the way the world really is, between concepts and objects, collapses. The other suggestion is that to the extent that we refuse to construe human beings as "semi-perfect" (on other than theological grounds), to that extent we cannot have a science of hum an beings. It is presumably because human beings are, or are regarded as, individuals, determinate wholes perfectly different from one another, that a human science is impossible. 34 Gordon G. Brittan, Jr. Department of History and Philosophy Montana State University

From Terence Parsons, Nonexistent Objects (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), p. 228. 2 Following closely C. G. Hempel's well-known discussion in "The Theoretician's Dilemma," reprinted iii his Aspects of Scientific Explanation (New York: The Free Press, 1965). 3 A result made rigorous with respect to finitely axiomatizable theories by William Craig. See his "Replacement of Auxiliary Expressions," Philosophical Review 65 (1956), pp. 38-55. 4 An assumption made explicit in the semantics, if not also in the syntax, of theories formulated in standard, first-order quantification theory. S The fictionalist view of theoretical entities is perhaps most developed in Pierre Duhem's The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. Although I will generalize his view concerning laws having the form of differential equations, Poincare, too, is instrumentalist. 6 Parsons, Non-existent Objects, p. 232. 7 Both are discussed by Dudley Shapere, Calileo (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974). 1

24 See Alexandre Koyre, Galilean Studies (Atlantic Highlands, N.].: Humanities Press, 1978):P. 155. 9 Shapere, Galileo, p. 120. 10 See M. J. Klein, "Max Planck and the Beginnings of Quantum Theory," Archivefor the History of the Exact Sciences I (1962), pp. 459 ff., and "Planck, Entropy, and Quanta, 1901-1906," The Natural Philosopher I (New York: Blaisdell, 1963), pp. 83-108. 11 If point-masses are impossible, it cannot be simply that the expression "point-mass" is incoherent. Indeed, present-day quarks seem very much like the point-masses of yore. 12 Objects can be "strongly" individuated if there are properties other than those used to characterise the category to which they belong that they do not share. Thus, physical objects can be "strongly" individuated if there are non-spatial-temporal properties that they do not share. It is in this sense that Leibniz apparently intended his law. Incongruent counterparts, Kant pointed out in reply, cannot be "strongly" individuated. 13 The origins of modem science in the 16th and 17th centuries are intimately connected, however great or small the degree of "platonism," with a revival of mathematical realism. The flip-side of Galileo's mathematization of the phenomena is their mathematizability, made possible by the introduction of theoretical objects which in appropriate respects are "mathematical." 14 Several years ago Carl Posy and I discovered in conversation that we had been thinking along similar lines: what I call "semi-perfect" objects he calls "partial" objects, although his use of the idea is restricted to mathematical contexts and is introduced in the service of a sophisticated idealism. I am indebted to his paper, "Platonism and the Pre-Ontology of Mathematics," Proceedings of the International Philosophy Conference, 1976. 15 Bas van Fraassen has worked out a by now well-known semantics in which excluded middle, but not bivalence, holds generally. It can serve as an illustration of how we might proceed in this respect (see following footnote), although van Fraassen, like Posy, wants to defend a generally "idealist" or instrumentalist position. See his "Presupposition, Implication, and Self-Reference:' Journal of Philosophy 6 ~ V (1968), pp. 136-52. 16 Among other things this will involve, I think, giving up the 8

25 (otherwise doomed) attempt to provide identity conditions for "semi ·perfect" objects. The dictum "no entity without identity" is simply the prejudice of a classical semanticist. I would substitute "no object without objectivity," the requirement that there is independently (and not necessarily sensory, as in the case of sets) evidence on the basis of which claims about genuine objects can be affirmed or denied. Claims about "semi-perfect" objects are clearly objective in this required sense. Moreover, depending on the kind and degree of evidence available, the claims we are licensed to make change over time. The semantics, too, must reflect the fact that complete determination is the (impossible) goal and not the (necessary) starting point of our scientific activities. 17 Thus N. Rashevsky ,Mathematical Biophysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. I: "In our study we should first start with the fundamental living unit, the celL Following the fundamental method of the physico-mathematical sciences, we do not attempt a mathematical description of a concrete cell, in all its complexity. We start with a study of highly idealized systems ...." 18 Again Rashevsky: "The physicist goes on studying mathematically in detail, such nonreal things as 'material points: 'absolutely rigid bodies; 'ideal fluids: and so on. There are no such things as these in nature." Ibid. 19 Nelson Goodman's "new riddle of induction," See Fact, Fiction, and Forecast (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965). 20 W. V. Quine has made something like this point in his discussion of "natural kinds" in Ontological Relativity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). I am trying to extend the notion of a "natural kind" to theoretical objects generally, although on my account the kinds are never simply found, so are never simply "natural'.' In his classic discussion of the problem of induction, Mill asks: "Why is a single instance, in some cases, sufficient for a complete induction, while in others, myriads of concurring instances, with a single exception known or presumed, go such a very little way toward establishing a universal proposition?" Philosophy of Scientific Method (New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1950), p. 186. Yet the examples he gives (chemical clements for single-instance inductions, crows for many-instance inductions) suggest strongly that the difference lies in kind of object under investigation.

26 More support for this claim, as well as an elaboration of the connection between explanation and necessity (and scientific realism), can be found in Clark Glymour's "Explanations, Tests, Unity and Necessity," Nous 14 (1980), pp. 31-50. According to Glymour, "a theory succeeds in explaining an empirical regularIty by reducing it to a necessary truth only if there is a special intimacy postulated among the properties concerned." On my view, the "special intimacy" is itself to be explained in terms of the fact that the properties attributed to theoretical objects serve to "define" them. "All hydrogen atoms have exactly one electron" is in this sense necessary. 22 The postulation of some theoretical objects serves to systematize our experience more effectively than does the postulation of others. 23 "[ A ]nd let 'bodies of the same kind' be defined as those that are made of the same material, e.g., lead, wood, etc.;' On Motion (University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1960), p. 27. 24 Ibid. We distinguish, as Galileo does not, between specific gravity, the magnitude of the density of a substance relative to that of water, and density, but here nothing turns on the otherwise important distinction. 25 Bxiii-xiv. From the translation by Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1933). 21

A6461B674. A6461 B674. In this respect, Kant is to be understood a la Quine, denying that parts of the "projected order" (which, incidentally, is not 26

27

to be identified with a particular version, still less with a particular formalization, of a theory) can be compared directly with experience, affirming that the "projected order" as a whole must make contact with our sensory stimulations. For a useful elaboration of this view, see Philip Kitcher, "How Kant Almost Wrote 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (And Why He Didn't)," Philosophical Topics (December, 1981), and "Kant's Philosophy of Science," Midwest Studies in Philosophy 7 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983). 28 See the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, translation by James Ellington (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 90ff. 29 Epistemically construed as the principle that every judgment has a knowable (empirically determinable) truthvalue. See the Critique, A793/B82 I. The Antinomies, Kant's first and principal argument for

27 his brand of idealism, are intended to force this conclusion. For more on the role of bivalence in Kant, see my Kant's Theory of Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), chapter I. 30 Which in turn requires that such objects can be given in intuition. Individual objects of experience, among which theoretical (in contrast to purely mathematical) objects, are not wholly discursive; they have a characteristic "thisness" which cannot be reduced to descriptions of them (see footnote 12). In the case of theoretical objects generally, "intuitability" (hence know ability) requires no more than ascribing at least one causal property to them 31 A477/ B 50 5: "In the explanation of natural appearances much must remain uncertain, and many questions insoluble, because what we know of nature is by no means sufficient, in all cases, to account for what has to be explained." The failure of bivalence here is closely related to Kant's view that empirical concepts cannot be defined (A7271 13755; since mathematical concepts can be defined, bivalence holds with respect to mathematical propostions-see A4761B504 and A4801 B508). In a passage with a marvellously contemporary ring, Kant adds: "We make usc of certain characteristics only so long as they are adequate for the purpose of making distinctions; new observations remove some properties and add others; and thus the limits of the concept arc never assured." 32 Cf Kant's remarks on the "magnetic matter" at A2261B273 of the

Critique. Cf Quine, Theories and Things (Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press, 1981) p. 20: "Even our primordial objects, bodies, are already theoretical-most conspicuously so when we look to their individuation over time. Whether we encounter the same apple next time around, or only another one like it, is settled if at all by a network of hypotheses that we have internalized little by little in the course of acquiring the non-observational superstructure of our language." 34 Earlier versions of this paper were read at the Coll~ge de France (under the title "Vcrs une theorie rtaliste de la science") and the APA Pacific Division meetings. I have learned more (and am more grateful) than. is reflected here from the cornments of James Allard, Ralf Meerbote, Carl Posy, and Jules Vuillemin. 33

II. BRITTANIC AND KANTIAN OBJECTS

A)Introduction This paper began life as a set of comments on the paper by Professor Gordon Brittan in the present volume. 1 Though it has undergone some revision, and though I shall use it to make some points that are quite independent of Brittan's paper, I think of it nevertheless as a commentary on Brittan's work. For that reason I have chosen to organize it around Brittan's paper. Professor Brittan proposes what he calls a "new construal" of theoretical objects: a picture in which these objects are determined solely by their places in scientific theories. His paper is rich in many ways, but I have chosen to concentrate on five specific points which I think central. I)The first is that theoretical objects (electrons, triangles and the like) exist on their own and not as parasites of allegedly more concrete or more secure objects. This is the core of his version of "empirical realism." 2) The second point is Brittan's thesis that theoretical objects are in some sense mind- or at least theory-dependent. They exist only when and only as postulated. Here we have an updated (actually, as it turns out, a rather Putnamian) "transcendental idealism. " 3) Third, these theoretical objects are, this time in a very precise sense, partial, incomplete or as Brittan puts it: "semi-perfect." The precise sense is that sentences about these objects need not be bivalent. 4) Fourth, all of these special characteristics-empirical reality, transcendental ideality and incompleteness-apply to ordinary physical objects as well. Indeed, theoretical objects and ordinary objects differ at most in degree and not in kin~. s)Finally, the fifth major claim is that all of this Kantian sounding ontology-which has been presented, to be sure, in very persuasive contemporary form-does in fact have clear roots in Kant. I think that all this is highly interesting, that much of it is close to right as a reading of Kant, and a good deal of it may even be independently defensible. Nevertheless, Brittan's points, as they are pre-

30

sented, appear to me tQ be formally and conceptually very vexing. I will mention three main difficulties that they raise, and then I will briefly indicate how I think these difficulties might be relieved within the spirit of Brittan's program, for I think they can. I will conclude by discussing the relation of all this to Kant. Addressing these points will lead me to quibble with some of Brittan's claims. But more importantly, considering a skeptical point of view will suggest what seem to me some deeper systematic points.

B) Speaking for the Skeptic The first objection, simply put, is the taint of phenomenalism. Kant's idealism is often read as a sort of constructivism: a view that we (or more precisely, our "transcendental faculties") literally construct our objects out of the material of sensation. Brittan himself uses this constructivist imagery. Now maybe you can buy this sort of view for abstracta like mathematical functions, or things like positrons or quarks, things which might well derive their existence and nature from our theory building activities. But when this constructivism is applied to ordinary perceivable physical objects, to tables and chairs, men and women, then this attitude becomes a sort of Berkcleyan phenomenalism and begins to offend good sense. Brittan denies that it amounts to phenomenalism. But what else could it be? Even on his view, the objects of our theories still stand ontologically hostage to the epistemic states that justify our theories (be they observations or whole series of intricate arguments). And he tells us forcefully that ordinary objects are no better on this score, no less theory bound. Phenomenalism is bad enough. But I think Brittan's claims about "semi-perfect" or incomplete objects are stickier still. He paints a picture here of objects, both theoretical and concrete, which have those and only those properties that they are postulated to have. Sometimes these are incomplete because our stories about them arc unfinished in many details. Brittan's example of Dick Diver serves well here. So too do the objects of mathematically incomplete formal theories. But sometimes the objects are postulated as incomplete. The "arbitrary" figures and numbers that we find in mathematics serve to illustrate this possibility. Brittan claims that this incompleteness

31 guarantees a certain generality. But it also generates what I called the conceptual and formal objections. First, the conceptual objection: I suspect that most people will find these incomplete objects difficult to picture or even to think about, and will resist them. Yes, if I refer to an arbitrary person (in economics for instance or in psychology), I have not said anything about gender. But to most of us this doesn't mean, as Brittan seems to suggest, that the person in question has no determinate sex. The skeptic will say that I am simply considering some particular person and consciously ignoring any information about gender. Perhaps, as Brittan thinks, mathematical objects are the paradigm semi-perfect objects. But the skeptic can take the very same stance toward mathematical objects, even Brittan's "arbitrary objects:' These would simply be determinate triangles and numbers in which we highlight certain aspects and suppress others. Given this attitude, all the talk about collapsing the difference between a number and a "type" (which to the skeptic is just a set of numbers) will come out as unnecessarily mysterious or incoherent. Indeed, I think this belief in perfect objects may well constitute our conception of what counts as an object at all. Certainly it is a very widespread and very deep habit of thought. (I think that this is part of Quine's point about bivalence being built into our theories.) Put otherwise: if transcendental idealism entails the semi-perfect ontology, then, for better or for worse, most of us have been brought up as transcendental realists. Finally, the formal objection. It comes from following through some of Brittan's remarks about individuation in section VIII of his paper. To illustrate this skeptical objection let me tell you that some months before writing this I asked Professor Brittan and Professor Ralf Meerbote each to be prepared on January I, 2001 to pick an integer from a certain interval. I asked Professor Brittan to pick an integer between I and 5 inclusive, and Professor Meerbote to pick one between 2 and 4 inclusive. Brittan's number and Meerbote's number are typical semi-perfect integers. And each of these numbers has a clearly defined "degree of freedom." In particular they represent different intervals, so there is strong ground to say that they are distinct. But of course it is entirely possible that both professors will pick 3! What would we say then?

•

32 This notion of unpredictable temporal progress (e.g., waiting until for the outcome) is important to Brittan's picture. (See section XIV of his paper.) And in general if our objects are to reflect the state of our knowledge then we cannot ignore the fact that our knowledge grows as time goes on. 2 But I can, if you prefer, give an example in which temporal development plays no role. Consider, if you will, an "arbitrary number" between 1 and 3 inclusive. And suppose we do think of this integer as a true incomplete number in Brittan's sense. Call it n. n is determined to be in this interval, and no more. Now suppose we ask whether or not n is equal to I. Clearly we can't answer yes to that, now or ever, by the definition ofn. Similarly we can't say n=2 or n=3 either. Nor can we say that n actually differs from 1, 2 or 3; for then there would be four and not three elements of the interval. At first sight it is most tempting to affirm the long disjunction [(n;::;l) v (n=2) v (n=3)] while simultaneously denying truth value to each of its disjuncts. Van Fraassen's well known supervaluational machinery is designed to do that while still maintaining a classical logic. The idea, in a nutshell, is to hold as true in the (incomplete) actual situation only those statements which are true in every possible imaginary completion of that situation. In the present case, each imaginary completion would make exactly one of the disjuncts (and therefore the whole disjunction) come out true. That would make the entire disjunction true in the actual situation. This may be fine for many purposes. But there is one purpose for which it seems to me that this machinery is not helpful: If I need to know exactly what the term"n" refers to, then that disjunction seem::. patently insufficient. The point of these and similar examples is that we can't easily individuate and distinguish these semi-perfect objects. That makes them really "sticky"; for, most of us can't think clearly about these entities without knowing how to fix matters of identity. And -more to the point-if we can't refer to them, we can't use them as touchstones for the truth of our sentences about them. I think Professor Brittan is emphasizing just this problem in Section IX of his paper, where he talks about the difficulty of fashioning a classical formal semantics for languages which quantify over these semi-perfect entities. For we can't set up the reference relation that lies 2001

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at the base of this sort of semantic account of truth if we don't know how to individuate the objects ret"rrred to The problem,when posed in these terms, is really wry difficult. On the one hand Brittan proposes an object language which is intended to quantify over things whose identity relations are indett'rminate. Yet in order. to do semantics we must (at what Brittan calls "the semantic level") fix these same identity relations. Now in footnote 16 of his paper Brittan tells us that he is prepared to abandon, even at this semantic level, the doctrine of "no entity without identity." Indeed, where I spoke of individuation as a condition for thinking clearly about objects Brittan describes it as merely a prejudice of classical semantics. He suggests that we replace the semantic notion of identity with a guarantee that our evidence about the objects of discourse is "objective." Though he doesn't make it clear how he proposes to incorporate these evidential concerns into the formal (or even the informal) semantics, he does suggest (in footnote 15) that van Fraassen's supervaluational approach might adequately serve to mirror the object language indeterminacy in the semantics. I will have some things to say a bit later about Brittan's notion of objectivity and also about the general idea of an epistemic semantics. But I do want to repeat here that I do not think supervaluations will get him out of the referential hole. Suppose we return for a moment to our example of the arbitrary n between 1 andJ, and suppose we ask (in the metalanguage) how many entities there are in the domain (i.e. in the interval in question). The obvious and correct answer is three. But that is exhausted by the numbers 1,2 andJ. What about the referent of"n"? You cannot say that "n" has no referent, for the whole point of Brittan's discussion is that tl and entities like it exist. Nor can you say that "u" shifts referents among 1, 2 and J in the various imaginary completions. For "n" must be a perfectly ordinary referring term.To allow it any special semantic treatment would undermine Brittan's fourth thesis (i.e., that theoretical objects and ordinary objects differ at most in degree, and not at all in kind) . Yet if we were to allow this sort of referential shift in general then we would undo .the basic tenet that lends plausibility to van Fraassen's machinery: namely, the idea that the various classical valuations arc all anchored in a single actual situation. The most tempting thing is to say that the (metalinguistic) function

34

which enumerates the domain is simply undefined at the referent of "n:' (More precisely, that no metalinguistic claim of the formj(n) = k can have a (metalinguistic) truth value. Here f is the enumerating function, and k is any positive integer.) Perhaps this is one way for the metalanguage to mirror the object language's indeterminacy. However, if you do take this approach, you will have to turn to the same supervaluational semantics for the metalanguage. And that, together with the indeterminacy of n, will induce an infinite regress of valuations. This will be a vicious infinite regress; for it will be a theory of truth with no foundation. These then are the difficulties that taint this account of theoretical objects. It smacks of phenomenalism. It posits an unfamiliar ontology that runs against the grain of our ordinary thinking. And it seems to resist all our attempts at a well founded semantic modeling. The skeptic is bound to ask: "When you speak of these semi-perfect objects, do you really know what you are talking about?" C) A Henkin Model Now, in fact, I don't think that the notions at the core of Brittan's proposal are incoherent or inconsistent. For instance you can always fashion a syntactic (Henkin style) model of the scientist's object language assertions. Here the object would be represented as equivalence classes of linguistic expressions. 3 And insofar as the theory (which itself should be a union over time of several sub-theories) is syntactically incomplete, these classes will reflect that. This approach is useful in many ways, especially for the "realist" skeptic, professing as he does not to understand people who quantify over semi-perfect objects. From the perspective of set theory the equivalence classes are perfectly complete objects. But actually this is not a satisfactory semantics. It misses the intentions of semi-perfect quantification. It leaves the accusation of phenomenalism untouched. Indeed, it leaves it still a mystery how anyone could ground his notion of truth on the possibility of referring to these sticky semi-perfect objects. So I think it better to try to address the skeptical objections by attempting directly to fashion a serious semi-perfect semantics. I would like to suggest a currently popular "assertabilist" technique to do that job. D) Assertabilisrn

35 This is an epis.temic semantics which bypasses the notion of reference that caused Brittan so much trouble. Given some fragment of language, on this approach we replace the standard referential notion of truth for sentences of that fragment with a notion of "sufficient evidence," or warranted assertability. Instead of speaking about what must be the case in the world (or in some model) for a given sentence to be true, we speak about what sort of epistemic state or states will suffice to justify asserting the sentence. Indeed, we must replace the classical notion of a model (or possible state of affairs) with the notion of an epistemic situation: a collection not of objects, but of bits of evidence sufficient to support or refute some set of elementary sentences. This notion of assertability at an epistemic situation now plays the semantic role that used to be reserved for the standard notion of truth in a model. In particular where before we had the familiar recursion clauses for truth as a model we will now have recursively defined conditions concerning knowledge (or assertability) at an epistemic situation. Let's leave aside the question of whether the technical notion of an epistemic situation is supposed to model the knowledge state of some single individual knower or of some (perhaps privileged) larger class of knowers. For the moment all we need to do is notice that in either case, so long as we are concerned with ordinary human knowers, these epistemic situations will always be finite. Actually, this is an epistemic rather than semantic point. But it does have semantic consequences. After all, even the most resolute ontological realist will now readily admit that each human epistemic state must inevitably leave some assertion or other undecided. And so we can use all of this to capture Brittan's notion of incomplete determination directly in the semantics. For instance, no one knows today what numbers my colleagues will pick, so no one can decide whether or not Brittan's number is equal to Meerbote's number. Under the present assumptions, that will leave claims about the equality of the two numbers without (current) truth value, which is precisely what Brittan wants. But it does so without making any off-beat ontological claims about these numbers. This is why I think the assertabilist approach captures Brittan's in tentionsbut avoids the "conceptual" problem I outlined above. I believe this assertabilism also captures Brittan's notion of evidential growth. Thus you can, for instance, easily picture a natural expan-

sion of the current evidential state in which the question of the equality of the two numbers is decided. Just think of the state ofour knowledge on January 2, 2001. Indeed, the most natural assertability clauses for some compound propositions autQwatically invoke this notion of evidential growth. Universal propositIons for instance: The fact that all planets explored so far have been barren doesn't by itself justify my asserting that all planets are lifeless. In order to justifiedly assert that, I must be certain that no future observations of our solar system will turn up any life forms. And so the assertability clauses for this claim must make mention of that prediction about future evidential states. 4 Formally you might think of a Beth or Kripke model as representing this idea of a gradual evidential progression among incomplete evidential states. (The ascending nodes represent expanding states of knowledge.) Though if you do this you must take care to stay away from the "possible worlds" imagery that often accompanies these model structures. The imagined progression is a progression in evidence, in mental states if you like; it has nothing to do with how the world of objects might evolve. Now it may seem to you that in using this machinery to interpret Brittan's intentions about incompleteness and informational growth I'm doing him no favor. Since sufficient evidence is now the criterion of semantic success (i.e .• oftruth), it sounds as ifI've put him right back in the phenomenalist mode. There's no realism here. I have him once again claiming that our discourse is really about bits of evidence (perceptions perhaps, or proofs or whole webs of theory). Indeed, not only have I gotten rid of reference, I've done away with objects altogether. I think this is a mistake. Yes, to be sure, objects don't figure into our semantic recursion clauses. But this certainly doesn't mean that the semantics denies that there are objects or denies that they are mind independent. Legitimate scientific evidence always claims to be about the mind independent world, and our terms generally purport to refer to things in that world. Nothing in the assertabilist semantics denies these claims. I am not talking here simply about what Hilary Putnam calls an "internal" reference relation, a reconstruction of the formal Tarskian semantics within our assertabilist language. s That may have itsuses,

37

but I believe assertabilism is formally consistent with something much more full-blooded: It is consistent with the traditional relation of correspondence between linguistic terms and mind independent nonlinguistic entities, the relation that we all think of when we use the word "reference." Nothing in the basic assertabilist doctrines denies that there can be such an "external" reference relation. 6 Moreover this sort of reference relation is very important. We inevitably appeal to it in order to assure what Brittan calls "the objectivity" of our propositions, and we use it to explain their intersubjectivity. Those who object to linguistic idealism often do so precisely because they think that these elements are missing from the idealist's picture oflanguage. But that is not (or at least need not be) SQ. The assertabilist can be quite receptive to our natural inclination to anchor what we say and think in a non-lingusitic (indeed non-epistemic) world. And he can perfectly well speak of the anchoring relation as "referential:' But, in that case he simply will not use that notion of reference to found his semantics, his conception of truth. This last distinction (between external reference and a non-referential theory of truth) may seem strange to some. For many people thmk of reference as mainly a semantic notion, the basis for a set of truth conditions. But there are, as I just suggested, other uses of the notion. And I believe that fact is crucial for relating all of this to Kant.

E) Kant For I want to point out that these last points about the legitimacy of external reference and its distance from semantics are actually rather Kantian. The part about external reference corresponds to his claim in several places that we must appeal to the idea of a mind independent reality in order to have any sort of respectable epistemology for or about our objectivejudgments. One place we find Kant saying this is in the B-Prt:face:

... though we cannot know these [empirical] objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in a position to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears. (Bxxvi-xxvii)

Another, even more ~Iatant, and especially interesting plnce where Kant makes this point is at A494/US22-3:

We may, however, eutitle the purely intell(~ible cause [UrsacheJ of appearatlces ill.,!elleral the trallScetldetltal object, bllt merely ill order to have something corresponditl.,! to sellsibility viewed as a receptivity. To this trarlscet/dental object we call ascribe tile whole extetlt atld co/lllcctioll '-if our possible perceptiOIlS, and can say that it is,,!iven in itselfprior to all experience.

This is imeresting because of Kant's eyebrow-raising usc of Ursache here. For of course he can't be talking about the ordinary, empirical sort of causality that is defended in the "Second Analogy:' 7 13ut in fact I think that Kant's choice oflanguage is instructive, and that we should heed the analogy between this "transcendental object" and the ordinary notion of cause. The heart of the "Second Analogy" is Kant's argument that a perceiver cannot justify his belief that a perceived event is something more than an accidental (and accidentall y ordered) collection of sensations without appealing to the existence of a (prior) empirical cause of that event. Indeed, Kant speaks here of a feeling of rulelike necessity which characterizes the experience of that event (AI97/U242), and says that we n1Ust invoke some prior cause in order to account for that fdt nccessity (A200/13246-7). 8 13ut this notion of necessity, of a repeatable rulelike arrangement of the parts of an experience, is for Kant the effective content of the concept of "objectivity." (A 197/13242-3, sec also UI42, A lOS.) So at its core the "Second Analogy" claims that one can assure the objectivity of some perceived event only by relating that evcnt to some prior empirical cause. And it seems to me that in the later passage (at A494/US22-3) Kant is saying a similar thing in a more general setting. He is saying that our epistemological account of the coherence and regularity of human representations will trace the occurrence of these representations to a mind independent source. As I said coherence and regularity arc the Kantian marks of objectivity. So there is the same general relation here as in the "Second Analogy": To explain the objectivity of A we must

39 invoke the existence of B as its cause. This is perhaps a rather generic notion of cause, but more importantly for the moment, it is precisely the role I outlined above for the contemporary notion of reference. That is why I said that I find a parallel between this special Kantian causality and external reference. Let's turn to the second point, the view that reference is a nonsemantic notion. This I think is the heart of a healthy reading of Kant's transcendental realism. The passage I just quoted comes from one of Kant's general accounts of transcendental idealism, and continues as follows:

But the appearances, while cotiforming to it [i.e., to the "transcendental object"], are not .f!iven in themselves, btlt only in this experience, bein.f! mere representations, which as perceptions can mark out a real object only in so far as the perception connects with all others according to the rules of the unity of experience. ( A494-SIBs23) I believe that Kant's talk about reality here, and about real objects, is best interpreted as an attitude towards truth. The domain of "reality;' after all, consists precisely of those things which one can truly claim to exist. So when Kant says that the "rules of the unity of experience" dictate the limits of reality he is best read as saying that these rules set the criteria for the truth of our judgments, at least our empirical judgments. Thus for these judgments he will have an epistemic theory of truth. Now these rules tell us how to connect intuitions with the a priori concepts that structure our judgments and with the empirical concepts that occur in these judgments. Intuitions are not proper constituents of judgments; it seems to me that the rules in question are really telling us how to connect our objective judgments with the experiences that serve as evidence for these judgments. Kant, it seems, is equating truth with knowledge. 9 Thus I am suggesting that KantYs epistemic theory of truth is a version of what I have been calling "assertabilism. " This is the Putnamian reading of transcendental idealism I alluded to initially. Transcendental realism would be the reference-based notion of truth (where reference is taken as external reference). Kant, for his part, should be prepared to combine this assertabilist

40

semantics with a notion.of external (transcendental) reference. Or so I argued above. Putnam of course rejects that combination. But to be accurate I must say that Kant and Putnam-each for his own reasonsboth hold that this sort of reference relation at best connects our linguistic practice to "unknowable" things in themselves. 1o The real difference between them is that Putnam thinks this alone is already a reductio of external reference ad absurdum, while Kant, as we have seen, doesn't. F) Bivalence Now I believe that this assertabilism provides a very fruitful interpretation for many of the themes and arguments in the Critique oj Pure Reason. 11 So if we read Brittan as an assertabilist who is prepared to countenance a full-blooded external reference, then I do think there is a legitimately Kantian element to the line of thought suggeted by his paper. (Actually, Brittan himself proposes this in chapter I of his book on Kant's philosophy of science.)12 But what of the core of Brittan's proposal: the idea that our semantics should reject bivalence in discourse about both theoretical and ordinary objects? This is the main legacy of his notion of incomplete objects. Is that a Kantian theme too? Well, suppose we do apply this n060n of assertabilism to Kant. Doesn't that serve to make Kant anti-bivalence from the start, and thus prove Brittan's point? After all, assertabilism is built on the assumption that the basic modeling unit, the epistemic situation, is incomplete, and thus fails to determine truth value of some judgments. In fact the answer is : No, not necessarily. Assertabilism does not automatically undermine bivalence. For one could be a "Peircian" assertabilist, equating truth with eventual (and perhaps continual) assertability. This Peircian view makes truth into a non-temporal notion, or at least one which is independent of any specific temporal situation. Thus for instance though we know nothing today about the presence of animal life on Venus, we might well soon discover some animal life forms there. Under a more strict (or local) dssertabilism we would then say that the claim "There is animal life on Venus" moved from being truthvalueless to being true. Under the Peircian version

41

we could all make that claim true simpliciter, though up 'til then we hadn't known it. We can tell from his emphasis on how things turn out "in the long run" [section XIV] that Brittan favors this Peircian view. Kant clearly does as w.ell. Witness his remarks at A493/BS21:

To call an appearance a real thing prior to our perceiving it, either means that in the advance ofexperience we must meet with StIch a perception [i.e., a perception which attests to the reality of the appearance} or it means nothin,~ at all. But on this Peircian view the question of bivalence is not so easilysettled. It's not enough to say that at every given point there is always some proposition or other which is undecided. We need to have a single proposition that remains forever undecided (like our earlier questions about equating the "arbitrary number" n with various other integers); then, to be sure, that will scotch bivalence. That proposition will get no truth value. And indeed the object in question will be legitimately incomplete in what seems to me exactly the way that Brittan intends. It will have only those limited properties that it is eventually shown to have. If, on the other hand, for any particular area of discourse it turns out that we may rightfully assume that every question posed can be eventually answered (i. e., "in the long run "). then under this Peircian assertabilism which equates having a truth value with eventual dccidability, we must also assume that that fragment of language is fully bivalent! Now Professor Brittan (in his footnote 3 I) has quoted us a passage from A477IBsoS which shows Kant displaying a rather pessimistic view about the decidability of propositions in the natural sciences. Here is the passage again:

In the explanation of natural appearances much must remain uncertain, and many questions insoluble, because what we know , of nature is by no means sufficient, in all cases, to account for what has to be explained. So for Kant, under our assertabilist reading, the "empirical

42 fragment" of language is. indeed non-bivalent. And if we adopt Brit.tan's terminology, this area of discourse does indeed countenance semi-perfect objects. But here I must quibble with Brittan on three points. My first quibble is fairly minor: Brittan suggests that this empirical undecidability derives from Kant's views about the undefinability of empirical concepts. But an examination of the part of the Critique in which his passage occurs shows us that it is not definability but "receptivity" that is at issue here. Empirical claims are ordinarily undecided because we lack the empirical intuitions needed to confirm or refute them. And because of the "receptivity" of our sensory faculty we cannot assure that we will attain those intuitions. We might tinker with the world and try to put ourselves in position to receive them. (I think Kant's talk about Galileo (Bxii-xiii) and about interrogating nature according to a plan "of reason's own determining" emphasizes this manipulative ability.) But once an experimenter has arranged things to the best of his ability, still he must patiently wait for the world to provide empirical intuitions. [Indeed, if you look at the discussion of empirical definability in the passages in the "Doctrine of Method" that Brittan alludes to, you will find that the undefinability of empirical concepts is itself a function of the receptivity of our empirical intuitions. We cannot predict the "new observations" that will change the concept.] This business of definability versus receptivity is really a small exegetical matter. But it seems to me to have a large consequence: Ifwe admit that undecidability flows from our relative impotence in manufacturing legitimate empirical intuitions, then once an empirical intuition is attained, judgments based upon it ought to be fully decidable and therefore bivalent. Equivalently, once an empirical object has been shown intuitable, then we may assume that it is complete at least regarding its simple properties. So ordinary empirical objects, once they exist, are incomplete only in a very limited sense, i.e., in their relations to other, as yet non-existent, objects. That is my second quibble. . My third quibble concerns Brittan's treatment of "pure earth, pure water, pure air.: , etc. Some objects which Brittan calls "theoretical" may well exist by Kant's standards. Very small (or very large) postulated objects which are imperceptible for physical reasons are good

43

examples. According to the first "Postulate" this sort of object will exist whenever it is causally connected with actually intuitable objects. This is an important element in Kant's empirical realism. On the other hand infinitely large or infinitely small theoretical objects (like those considered in the" Antinomy"), are imperceptible on "transcendental" grounds. We know a priori that the intuitions required for perceiving them are impossible. Objects of this sort do not properly exist. This, I think, is the lesson of the "Antinomy;' and in the passage Brittan quotes from A646/B674 it seems to apply to "pure earth, pure water, pure air:' etc.too. So I am less certain than Brittan about Kant's generosity towards these theoretical substances. A final remark concerning mathematical objects: Brittan takes these as the paradigm incomplete objects, though in note 3 I he indicates that Kant will not agree with him on that. I think he is right. In the same section of the "Dialectic" in which he remarks about the undecidability of empirical judgments, Kant gives a very different assessment of possible progress in mathematics. Mathematics, he says, may

... demand and expect none but assured answers to all the questions within its domain, even though up to the present they have perhaps not beenfound. (A480IB508)

There is no room here for any eternally undecidable questions, and thus no room at all for any incomplete objects like our indeterminate integer n. Once again, I think it is a matter of control (the "spontaneity" of our mathematical intuitions) that is at stake here rather than definability. (Indeed, once again I think that mathematical definability is in Kant's eyes a consequence of the "spontaneity" of mathematical concepts and intuitions. ,See A729IB7SB.) But in any event the point is clear: Mathematical language is bivalent. Now obviously our own mathematical experienct'i; especially in the present century, has changed. And we are less likely to be so optimistic about the ultimate decidability of all mathematical questions. Nevertheless, I have to say that we cannot look upon Kant as a forerunner of the idea that mathematical objects, for Brittan the paradigm theoretical objects, are semi-perfect.

44 G) Conclusion In sum, then, r think Kant can be read in quite a Brittanic fashion: There is room for empirical realism combined with a breakdown of bivalence and incomplete determination of objects-though not precisely in the ways that Brittan suggests. Moreover, I think that this sort of epistemic approach can provide a reasonable semantics and can avoid the taint of phenomenalism. But there remains a nagging motivational problem: Why should we, born realists that we are, bother with this odd semantics (or, in Brittan's terms, with these sticky semi-perfect objects)? Why should we settle for a theory of meaning that is merely consistent with a robust realism, when we can have one that is built directly on realistic assumptions about reference to the mind-independent world? The present literature has some "anti-realist" answers to these questionsmost notably in the writings of Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam. I don't want to assess these now. Instead I would like to suggest one answer that I think Brittan would want to give: Using Brittan's terminology, we might say that one main theoretical reason for upholding the ontology of perfect objects is the need for individuating these objects at the base of a referential theory of truth. This in turn allows us to make claims about the objectivity and intersubjectivity of our true statements; and indeed it helps us solve a whole group of problems about identifying the objects of different scientific theories. But once we maintain that non-epistemic theory of truth, then we are bound to ask the eternal epistemic question: How do we get to know the various truths about the objects which are the referents of our terms? When the objects in question are abstract or theoretical objects, Brittan has emphasized the inevitability of an "instrumentalist" answer: In one way or another we reduce these objects to observations. But of course the same question will dog us when we turn our attention to ordinary perceptual objects. And Brittan's holistic approach will lead us to the same answer. Once we endorse this realistic notion of truth, we are on a slippery slide to phenomenalism. Ifwe were hard-core materialists that might lead us to disparage the whole class of physical objects. But even without that, phenomenalism alone is a bad enough consequence of the perfectobject ontology.

45 I said that this, or something like it, should be Brittan's attack on realism; but in fact I think it is also Kant's. It is his point in the "Fourth Paralogism": Transcendental realism has as its consequence a nasty em pirical idealism. Carl]. Posy Duke Univesity

lThese were delivered at the Western Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association, March, 1984. 2 L.E.J. Brouwer is famous for having incorporated this notion of evidential growth into his theory of mathmatical objects. In the present instance, since we are concerned with empirical objects as well, there are even stronger grounds to take account of the growth of knowledge. This is of course quite separate from any question of "theory change." 3 I sketched such a semantics in "Platonism and the Preontology of Mathematics," the paper Brittan mentions in his footnote 14. That paper was delivered at the "International Philosophy Conference" in March, 1976. The proceedings of this conference have never appeared. Since that time I have rethought that paper and the general project to which it belongs. I hope soon to publish a revised version of the paper. 4 One of the important insights from intuitionistic logic is the observation that this same sort of projection is involved in negations as well. I will for now leave open the controversial issue of whether this sort of projection is needed in the clauses for disjunctions and existential claims. (See my "Kant's Mathematical Realism;' The Monist, v. 67, 1984, pages 115-134.) 5 I have in mind in particular Tarski's "disquotational" clause for the basic reference relation. Putnam discusses this notion of internal reference in Meaning. and the Moral Sciences, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978(pages 123-138) and in Reason, Truth and History,Cambridge University Press, 1981 (pages 49ft). 6 This is to be distinguished from some of the arguments for assertahlism (in particular those by Michael Dummett), which do allege that the very notion of external reference is incoherent or inconsistent .

This has led to StrawsO,n's elaborate notion of the causal-like "Arelation:' See P. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, Methuen, 1966, page 23 6 . 8 See my "Transcendental Idealism and Causality" inWm. Harper and R. Meerbote (eds.), Kant on Causality, Freedom and Objectivity, a Festschrift for L. W. Beck, Minnesota, 1984. 9 Though I am not claiming that Kant had in mind the distinctions that underlie the present interpretation, the continuation of this passage does support the conclusion that Kant is identifying truth and knowledge: 7

Thus we can say that he real things ofpast time are given in the transcendental object of experience; but they are objects for me and real in past time only in so far as I represent to myself (either by the light ofhistory orby the guiding clues ofcauses and effects) that a regressive series ofpossible perceptions in accordance with empirical laws, in a word, that the course of the world, conducts us to a past time-series as condition of the present time-a series which, however, can be represented as actual not in itself but only in connection of a possible experience. Putnam argues from considerations of indeterminacy. (See Reason, Truth and History, pages72-74.) Kant holds this view because the criterion of synthetic knowledge is the presence of an empirical intuition, and the epistemological arguments supporting these transcendental objects don't provide that. Indeed the claims about things in themselves cannot be known. They can only be thought, which is not at all the same thing. 11 See my "Dancing to the Antinomy;' American Philosophical Quarteriy,v.19,I982, pages 81-94; and "The Language of Appearances and Things in Themselves;' Synthese, v. 47, 1981, pages 313-352; in addition to the papers mentioned above. ' 12 Gordon Brittan, Kant's Theory of Science. Princeton University Press, 1978. 10

III. KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL DEDUCTION: A LIMITED DEFENSE OF HUME Twenty years ago, Robert Paul Wolff observed:

It is a remarkablejact that after nearly two centuries ojintensive criticism and study, commentators have not come to an agreement about the precise nature oj Kant's argument in the Transcendental Analytic. This disagreement ... is over such straighiforward matters as what Kant was trying to prove, what he assumed as premises, and what the steps were by which he connected the two. Clearly, the Analytic, and thereby the entire Critical Philosophy, must remain an enigma until these questions are answered. 1 This observation remains as true as ever; and it seems to hold ajortiori of the part that is considered the nervus probandi of the Analytic, namely, Kant's Transcendental Deduction. As Karl Ameriks showed in a review of "Recent Work on Kant's Theoretical Phlosophy" that appeared in 1982, there is still no agreement "about the starting point or the conclusion of Kant's transcendental deduction, let alone the nature and validity of the path between its end po in ts. "2 This suggests that the alternative interpretation offered by Wolff himself, as well as by such influential thinkers as P. F. Strawson and Jonathan Bennett has also failed. These attempts never successfully explained what the premisse(s) of the deduction is (are). 3 The only thing that seemed to be clear during the last twenty years or so was "what Kant was trying to prove": the Transcendental Deduction, as the most important instance of a "transcendental argument," is essentially an "anti-skeptical" argument; it is designed to prove that there is objective experience,. "and thereby to give a complete answer to the skeptic about the existence of things outside US."4 This was taken to mean that Kant is, in a most fundamental sense, an "anti-skeptical philosopher."5 And where this interpretation was given any historical underpinnings, it was usually claimed that Kant's critical philosophy in general and his Transcendental Deduction in particular is, in some significant sense, "an answer to Hume." But nobody ever construed a convincing "anti-skeptical argument" on the

basis of Kant's text. In fact, most accounts in this vein ended up accusing Kant of committing one sort offallacy or another. 6 I want, in this paper, to take issue with the anti-skeptical view. More particularly, I shall challenge it on such a straightforward matter "as what Kant was trying to prove," and I shall argue that Kant's deduction was as much a defense of certain aspects of Hume as it was an answer to other aspects of him. While it is often admitted that the Transcendental Deduction 'contains the two principal proofs of the book, the one demonstrating the possibility of a systematic knowledge of experience and the other the impossibility of knowledge beyond the limits of experience," the negative or restrictive side of the Deduction usually drops out of sight very quickly. 7 Recent accounts of the Deduction emphasize almost exclusively the positive side. I shall try to show here that the negative side is much more important than has been assumed until now, and that the positive side of the Deduction can only be understood against the background of its negative or restrictive side. Since the latter must be understood as a limited defense ofHume, the positive side can only contain a limited answer to Hume. If only because Kant's criticisms ofHume have been over-emphasized until now, I shall emphasize how it is possible "to see Kant and Hume engaged in a common project" even in the Transcendental Deduction. s In any case, this paper should not only make clear that the exclusive emphasis on Kant's anti-skepticism distorts the sytematic intent of the Transcendental Deduction and thus the critical philosophy in general, but also how important Hume is for understanding all of Kant. Because it seems to me that the present state of conflicting discussion is the result of concentrating almost exclusively on the Analytic or the Deduction, I shall take a different route. 9 lnstead ofbeginning with an y of the different versions of the Deduction as an argument more or less isolated from the rest of Kant's first Critique, I shall try to situate it within the context of the book as a whole and show how it contributes to the establishment of its final "Resultat." Accordingly, I shall first try to identify what Kant took to be the outcome or the conclusion of his theoretical philosophy. This, I find, is what he calls "Hume's principIe." Secondly, I shall make clear how the Transcendental Deduction can and must be read also as a justification of Hume's principle. Thirdly, I shall show why the exclusive emphasis on Kant's " anti-

49 skepticism" actually weakens Kant's critical philosophy by appearing to make it more "interesting," and adduce further evidence against the general claim that Kant wanted to "answer" Hume.

In the "Conclusion" of his Prolegomena Kant argues that "Hume's principle, 'not to carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond the field of all possible experience, '" should be combined with another "principIe," which he quite overlooked, 'not to consider the field of experience as one which bounds itselfin the eyes of our reason. '" He further claims that, since his first Critique effects just such a combination, it "here points out the true mean between dogmatism, which Hume combats, and skepticism, which he would substitute for it. "10 Perhaps because the tendency of this passage is critical of Hume's principle as a complete delineation of the subject matter of metaphysics, it has usually escaped commentators that Kant actually endorses here what may very well be taken to be the outcome of Hume's "mitigated" or "consequent" skepticism. But, while it is true that Kant believes Hume's principle needs to be complemented, and that such a complementation brings him into conflict with Hume, it is equally true that he accepts the principle. So this passage is just as important for understanding his answer to Hume. Wherever this answer may be found, and whatever it involves, it should not be thought to supercede what he calls here "Hume's principle." Hume himself, of course, nowhere espouses this principle in this particular form. The formulation "not to carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond the field of all possible experience" is very Kantian. And this is not just a matter of style. Where Kant speaks of "possible experience," Hume would have spoken of "the usual course of experience" or "what actually has b~en experienced." So it might be said that Kant's interpretation of "Hume's principle" distorts Hume. This would be no objection to the interpretation of Kant offered here. For Kant clearly believes that this principle sums up an important aspect of Hume. Furthermore, it is a fair rendition of Hume's systematic intention as expressed in a great number of passages that are meant to criticize that "considerable part of metaphysics" which is "not properly a science, but ... which would penetrate into

so subjects utterly inaccessible to the understanding ... " and that present arguments for the cultivation of "true metaphysics .. .in order to destroy the false and adulterate. "11 It is more than clear that Hume believes he has shown that we cannot go beyond experience. Because "we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses" only by means of the relation of cause and effect,12 and because this relation itself"arises entirely from experience," all arguments in moral, political and physical subjects which are "supposed to be the mere effects of reasoning and reflection ... will be found to terminate, at last, in some general principle or conclusion, for which we can assign no reason but observation and experience. "13 In the section "Of a Particular Providence and of a Future State" Hume lets Epicurus say that:

the experienced train ofevents is the great standard, by which we all regulate our conduct. Nothing else can be appealed to in the field, or in the senate. Nothing else ought ever to be heard of in the school, or in the closet. In vain would our limited understanding break through those boundaries, which are too narrow for our fond imagination. While we argue from the course of nature, and infer a particular intelligent cause ... we embrace a principle which is .. .uncertain ... because the subject lies entirely beyond the reach of human experience. 14 And Epicurus's opponent or respondent, whoever he may be, agrees and includes among his own principles that "all the philosophy ... will never carry us beyond the usual course of experience. "IS Passages like this could be multiplied; but I shall refer here only to the most famous of these in the concluding paragraph of the first Enquiry which condemns as "sophistry and illusion" everything that is neither abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number nor "experimental reasoning concerning matter offact or existence." For Hume, the principle that "all the philosophy will never be able to carry us beyond the usual course of experience" is most important for undermining "the foundations of abstruse philosophy, which seems to have hitherto served only as a shelter to superstitution, and a cover to obscurity and error." It fulftlls thus essentially the negative task of limiting the sphere of metaphysics. However, according to Hume, the principle also has the positive effect ofliberating us from

51

"religious fears and prejudices" and supporting in this way a more humane moral outlook on life, strengthening the "easy and obvious philosophy. "17 The negative theoretical strictures are meant to contribute to a more positive moral outlook. For Hume, the principle may even have positive religious consequences because it shows that the "true" religion must be based on faith, and that, by limiting "the principles of human reason," it may make room for faith. 1s This shows how central something like the principle Kant calls "Hume's principle" was for Hume. I believe it does indeed sum up the perhaps most fundamental tenet of Hume's mitigated skepticism. But, and this is more important for the purposes of this paper, it also sums up the most important outcome of Kant's first Critique. For what Kant in the Prolegomena calls "Hume's principle" is nothing but a different formulation of what he also identifies in the very same context as the

original proposition, which is the resume [Resultat] of the whole Critique: Reason by all its a priori principles never teaches us anything more than objects ofpossible experience, and even of these nothing more than can be known in experience. 19 This is most significant, if only because Kant admits here that "the resume of the whole Critique" is essentially a negative principle. It limits our use of reason and thus also the scope of metaphysics. When one disregards the phrases characterizing reason as having a priori principles, as one may well do here without distorting the intent of the sentence, Kant simply says that "reason never teaches us anything more ... than can be known in experience." Accordingly, it must seem that the outcome of Kant's critical inquiries is "skeptical" and does not go beyond that ofHume's "mitigated skepticism" as espoused in the Enquiry. Kant was very much aware of the negative char~cter of his critical philosophy. Thus he notes in the "Introduction" to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason that

on a cursory view of the present work it may seem that its results are merely negative, warning us that we m~jst never venture beyond the limits ofexperience. Such is infact its primary use ...

52 So far as our Critique limits speculative reason, it is indeed negative. 20 Like Hume, Kant thinks that "it is ... the first and most important task of philosophy to deprive metaphysics, once and for all, of its injurious influence, by attacking its errors at their very source" (13xxxi). Further, like Hume, Kant believes that this negative theoretical principle has a positive moral point, for it has "the inestimable benefit, that all objections to morality and religion will be for ever silenced, and this in Socratic fashion, namely, by the clearest proof of the ignorance of the objectors" (Bxxxi). Hume's principle at once acquires positive value when we recognize that the principles with which speculative reason ventures out beyond its proper limits do not in effect extend the employent of reason, but ... inevitably narrow it. These principles properly belong not to reason but to sensibility, and when thus employed they threaten to make the bounds of sensibility coextensive with the real, and so to supplant reason in its pure (practical) employment (Bxxiv). This also holds for religious contexts. "Hume's principle" is also an expression of Kant's conviction that it is "necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room forfaith" (Bxxx).21 So what Kant calls "Hume's principle" points towards the fundamental similarity of their two enterprises. Hume and Kant agree in their estimation of traditional metaphysics. Both claim that their negative or restrictive epistemological or metaphysical principle serves to liberate morality. However much Hume and Kant may differ in the details of their account of reason and how we know things (or do not know them), both are concerned to show that reason cannot go beyond the limits prescribed by the senses and still produce knowledge. As Kant puts it: "the chief question is always simply this-what and how much can the understanding and reason know apart from all experience?" (Axvii) And the Answer is: "Nothing." "Hume's principle" is today perhaps better known by P. F. Strawson's name: "Kant's principle of significance," since, in his The Bounds of Sense he calls attention to a version of Hume's principle, saying "this principle .. .is one with which empiricist philosophers

53 have no difficulty sympathizing," and that "his espousal of the principle of significance and in .his consequential repudiation of transcendent metaphysics, Kant is close to the tradition of classical empiricism, the tradition of Berkeley and Humeoo .."22 Strawson recognizes the importance of this principle as a "major instrument of this necessary limitation" for Kant's project ofsettir.g philosophy "on the sure path of a science" by limiting its pretensions. 23 Though I fully agree with Strawson's account-so far as it goes-I also think it does not go far enough. Kant does not simply assume or uncritically take over the principle from Hume. He considers it to be the outcome, the" Resultat" of his first Critique. Thus the more than 800 pages of this work were written, at least in part. to establish his "principle of significance" or "Hume's principle." Kant disagrees with the way in which Hume defended his principle. His Critique is meant to offer a new defense of "Hume's principle." This new defense became necessary during the early seventies when Kant came to believe that the concept of causality can "be thought ... a priori; and consequently ... possesse[ s 1an inner truth, independent of all experience, implying a perhaps more extended lise not restricted merely to objects of experience. "24 He came to see that, if certain concepts are completely independent of experience, they also might very well be used to extend knowledge beyond experience. If there are a priori concepts, either "Hume's principle" must be given up, or it must be established in a new way. Another way of putting this is to say that Kant became dissatisfied with Hume's empirical justification of the principle of significance. He believed that it needed a justification that was itself indepe~dent of experience, i.e, a transcendental deduction. Hume only "imagined" that he had "sufficiently disposed of" the pretensions of transcendent metaphysics "by setting them outside the horizon of human reason-a horizon which yet he was not able to determine" (A76o=B788). Because he "did not make a systematic review of all the various kinds of a priori synthesis ascribable to the understanding" Hume could not "prescribe determinate limits to the activities whereby the understanding and pure reason extend themselves a priori"(A767=B795). Accordingly,

he merely restricts the understanding without

defi~ling

its

54

limits, and while creating a general mistrust fails to supply any determinate knowledge of the ignorance whichfor us is unavoidable. For while subjecting to censorship certain principles of the understanding, he makes no attempt to assess the understanding itself, in respect of all its powers, by the assay-balance of criticism; while rightly denying to the understanding what it cannot really supply, he goes on to deny it all power ofextending itself a priori, and this in spite of his never having tested it as a whole. Thus the fate that waits upon all skepticism likewise befalls Hume, namely, that his own skeptical teaching comes to be doubted, as being based only on facts which are contingent, not on principles which can constrain to a necessary renunciation of all right to dogmatic assertions (A707=B795). For Kant, critical philosophy, as the attempt "to supply ... determinate knowledge of the ignorance which for us is unavoidable." cannot be based upon contingent facts, but it must rest upon "principles which can constrain to a necessary renunciation of all right to dogmatic assertions." And it is this that differentiates his critical philosophy from the Humean "skeptical method" as well as from what "many a naturalist of pure reason" pretends he "not only suspected but knew and comprehended" long ago: "that with all our use of reason we can never reach beyond the field of experience. "25 II

Strawson observes that, in the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant makes much use of Hume's principle, or, as he calls it, "Kant's principle of significance." Indeed, much of the dialectical part of the first Critique depends upon the presupposition of such a principle. But S tra wson seems to believe that this principle is •• a consequence of certain of the doctrines of transcendental idealism" as they are developed in the Dialectic and the very last part of the Analytic. Therefore he believes that "[ w]e must inquire more closely from just which of these doctrines Kant thinks of the principle as deriving its force. "26 And he looks mainly at "the first chapter on the antinomies" for support. 27 However, Strawson's search for the doctrines from which the principle of significance (or Hume's principle) derives its force for

55 Kant is fundamentally misguided. Kant does not want to justify this principle in the Dialectic, but he believes that he has already accomplished this task in the "Transcendental Analytic." At least that is what he himself explicitly tells us in a number of passages. Thus in the second-edition "Preface" he claims that the principle "all speculative knowledge of reason is limited to mere objects of experience" or, less precisely, that "we must never venture with speculative reason beyond the limits of experience" follows from a number of other claims-all of which are "proved in the analytical part of the Critique" (Bxxvi).28 So we can be sure that the doctrines which justify Hume's principle for Kant must be sought in the Transcendental Analytic or between A64=B89 and A292=B349. But we can be more specific. First of all, Kant tells us in the Prolegomena that, though for the complete circumscription of the limits of knowledge "two important and indispensable, though very dry, investigations ... became indispensable in the Critique of Pure Reason," namely, the chapters on the schematism and the distinction between phenomena and noumena. He also makes quite clear that the most important part of the justification of Hume's principle has been accomplished when he reaches the chapter on the schematism. For, he identifies as "the result of all our foregoing inquiries: .All synthetical principles a priori are nothing more than principles of possible experience.'''29 Further, Kant says in the chapter on the schematism: "[a]fter what has been proved in the deduction of the categories" nobody would be undecided in regard to the question whether we can use the categories beyond the limits of experience, since he has shown in the Deduction that "concepts are altogether impossible, and can have no meaning, ifno object is given for them ... " (AI39=BI78).30 Hence Kant's justification of Hume's principle must be found before A 13 I = B I 69 and indeed within the context of the Transcendental Deduction. Secondly, that the Transcendental Deduction must have as one of its most important aims the justification of Hume's principle can be further supported by a great number of remarks Kant makes about it. Thus in the "Preface" of the first edition of the Critique he says that he knows of "no enquiries which are more important for exploring the faculty which we call understanding, and for determining the rnles and limits of is employment, than those .. .in the ... Deduction of the Pure Con-

cepts of the Understanding".(Axvi, emphasis mine), clearly identifying as one of his purposes the restriction of the use of our concepts. This is further supported by the claim of the "The Principles of Any Transcendental Deduction" that a deduction of the categories is necessary because, for one thing, "they arouse suspicion .. .in regard to the objective validity and the limits of their own employment" (A88B 121) ~1 In the "preface" to the second edition he notes that the "deduction of our power of knowing a priori ... has a consequence which is startling and has the appearance of being highly prejudicial to the whole purpose of metaphysics, as dealt with in the second part. For we are brought to the conclusion that we can never transcend the limits of possible experiences ... " (Bxix). Thirdly, in the second edition Kant added three paragraphs to the section "Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories" that re-emphasize the importance of the limitation of knowledge in the deduction by describing it as "the trial whether it be possible to find for human reason safe conduct between these two rocks, assigning to her determinate limits, and yet keeping open for her the whole field of her appropriate activities" (B 128, emphasis mine). Finall y, in the second-edition Deduction Kant most clearly states: "Our conclusion is therefore this: the categories, as yielding knowledge of things, have no kind of application, save only in regard to things which may be objects of possible experience" (BI48).32 And in section 27 of this version the "Outcome of this Deduction of the Concepts of the Understanding" is identified as "Consequently, there can be no a priori knowledge, except ofobjects ofpossible experience" (B 166). Could Kant say any more clearly that Hume's principle is one of the conclusions, or perhaps even the conclusion of the Transcendental Deduction? What he says about the outcome of his whole Critique points just as much to this as does what he claims about the Transcendental Deduction in particular. Since he also identifies a version of Hume's principle as-at the very least-one of its conclusions, [ believe we are justified to consider this argument as-at least in part-a defense ofHume's principle. 33 But this leaves open the question as to how Hume's principle is related to the other conclusions of theDcduction. In answering this question I shall, rather than trying to canvass all the different opinions that have been held concerning what the conclusion of the Trans-

57 cendental Deduction is, take my clue from Kant's text. And it should be immediately clear from the title of the Transcendental Deduction what the main conclusion of it must be, if Kant is doing what he claims he is doing, namely a "Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. "34 These "pure concepts of the understanding" are, of course, Kant's "categories"; and, accordingly, we may say that what Kant should "deduce" or "justify" are these categories. Any interpretation that sees Kant as doing primarily anything else actually constitutes a criticism of Kant's argument. 35 But any such criticism is really quite unfair. For, if Kant is clear on anything in the Transcendental Deduction, it is on his belief that the argument constitutes the justification of the categories. He wants to show that we have a right to use them in certain ways. And the use he is most interested in is the one "in complete independence of all experience" or their "pure a priori employment." (AB5 =B 117). Categories, for Kant, are concepts of "an object in general" (EI27). We need them in order to think any object whatsoever, and without them we cannot think at all. As such, they are not abstracted from experience, but are concepts we have a priori. lkcause of this they need not be restricted to experience, according to Kant. Though we must make use of them when we make empirical judgments, we also can-and often do--use them to think objects that cannot possibly be encountered in experience. And, primajacie, there is nothing wrong with that, for it can be said that the categories are "marked out for pure a priori employment, in complete independence of all experience" (ABS=BII7). But this use must be justified tor Kant, if only because "the chief question is always simply this:-what and how much can the understanding and reason know apart from all experience?" (Axvii). So the conclusion of the Transcendental Deduction could be something like: "we are justified in using the categories even though they are completely independent of all experience," o~ "the pure a priori em ployment of the categories is possible." And nothing Kant actually states as his conclusion in the Transcendental Deduction would contradict these claims. But Kant wants to be more precise. His actual conclusions are meant to state exactly "what and how milch" the categories allow us to know. Thus he finds in the first edition: This is all that we were called upon to establish in the trans-

58

cendental deduction of the categories, namely, to render comprehensible his relation of understanding to sensibility and, by means of sensibility, to all objects of experience. The objective validity of the p~lTe a priori concepts is thereby made intelligible, and their origin and truth determined (A 128R6 1

or

Pure concepts of the understanding are thus a priori possible, and, in relation to experience, are indeed necessary; and thisfor the reason that our knowledge has to deal solely with appearances (A130). And to say that we have knowlege only of "appearances" is just another way of saying that we cannot "carry the use of reason dogmatically beyond the field of all possible experience." In the second edition he is much more clear:

Consequently, there can be no a priori knowledge, except of objects ofpossible experience (B166). Accordingly, the conclusion of the Transcendental Deduction is a limited justification of the a priori use of the categories. Kant says, on the one hand: yes, we may, indeed must, use the categories, even though they are independent of experience. But, on the other hand, he also thinks he has shown: no, we cannot employ them any further than "the field of possible experience. "The Deduction shows that, though the categories are independent of experience, their use is not so independent. Because the categories are necessarily related to possible experience, they cannot legitimately be used apart from it. This shows that the conclusion of the Deduction, and thus the Deduction itself, has, so to speak, a positive and a negative side. The Deduction aims to establish at the very same time that we are justified to use the categories and what the limits of this use are.3' Kant seems to think that these two aspects of the question cannot be kept separate. To determine "what" exactly the categories allow us to know necessarily involves saying "how much" they allow us to say. Therefore, Hume's principle not to carry the use of reason beyond the

59

field of all possible experience is not really a conclusion different from the one that states "the objective validity of the pure a priori concepts." Hume's principle is just the other side of the coin ofKant'sjustification of the a priori concepts of the understanding. Kant himself uses another metaphor to describe this circumstance. For him, the conclusion of the Deduction which assigns to reason "determinate limits, and yet keeps open for her the whole field of her appropriate activities" is better described as making "possible to find for human reason safe conduct between ... two rocks" (BI2S). The two rocks are "enthusiasm" and "scepticism'·'; and the two philosophers who failed to avoid them are Locke and Hume. The former "opened the door" to enthusiasm, while the latter could not avoid skepticism. Thus the Transcendental Deduction is here characterized not as the attempt to mediate between rationalism and empiricism, but as the attempt to make "classical empiricism" more consistent. In fact, Kant very clearly characterizes his own Trancendental Deduction as continuing the tradition of Locke and Hume's empirical deduction. His belief is that Locke proceeded "inconsequently" by deriving the pure concepts of the understanding from experience, while still applying them to obtain knowledge which transcends experience. Hume is more consistent. He also derives the pure concepts of the understanding from experience, and therefore denies that they can be applied in the way in which Locke would like to apply them. He "recognized that, in order to be able to do this, it was necessary that these concepts should have an a priori origin'.' Because he could not see how they couJd have such an origin, he denied that we can "pass beyond the limits of experience" (B 127). Kant, as we have seen, agrees to this conclusion, but disagrees with Hume's empirical deduction of it. For one thing, such a deduction would be too weak to justify this principle. 38 And, for another, it cannot be reconciled with the "scientifica priori knowledge which we do actually possess" in mathematics and the natural sciences, and this "suffices to di~prove such derivation" (BI2S). Kant's Transcendental Deduction is meant to justify Hume's conclusion in such a way that the Justification is compatible with scientific knowledge. It is meant to defeat Humes's enemies, the dogmatists, while saving Hume from himself and his bouts of skepticism. 39

60 III

The anti-skeptical interpretation has Kant justify too much, or, at the very least, much more than he himself would have wanted to claim he has justified. It is very misleading to say that "we can ... get some understanding of Kant's question of justification by looking at the challenge presented by the epistemological skeptic. "40 If only for this reason, all criticisms of Kant's Transcendental Deduction as failing to perform this particular feat are irrelevant for the evaluation of Kant's position. 41 They may be telling against Strawson followers, but they miss Kant's more subtle point. Kant's conclusion in the Transcendental Deduction is much weaker than the one ascribed to him by the anti-skeptical interpretation. To show that Hume's principle is compatible with the existence of a priori concepts, or to say the same thing more positively and in a more Kantian fashion: that a priori concepts are possible in so far as we must apply them in experience, is not all the same thing as proving the objective validity of experience. But, it might be objected, Kant speaks of the categories as being necessary for the very "possiblity of experience"; and does this not mean that Kant wanted to prove, against the skeptic, that experience is not impossible, or that it is possible? Does this not show that the Transcendental Deduction is meant to have anti-skeptical import? I do not think that Kant's emphasis on the possibility of experience goes to show any of this for the two following reasons: First, the possibility of experience is not what is proved in the Deduction. It is being used to prove the objective validity or necessity of the categories. This should be clear from such passages as the following:

The Transcendental Deduction of a priori concepts has thus a principle according to which the whole inquiry must be directed} namely} that they must be recognized as a priori conditions of the possibilityof experience} whether ojthe intuitions which are to be met with in it or of the thought. Concepts which yield the objective ground of the possibilityofexperience arefor this reason necessary (A94= B 126).42 The proof does not seem to move from asserting the existence of the categories, or something still more basic than the categories, to assert-

61 ing the possibility of experience. What actually goes on is more complicated: the Deduction shows that the categories, ,which may be assumed as given because of the Metaphysical Deduction,are necessarily related to possible experience. And the use of the categories is shown to be justified in so far as they are related to this experience. Accordingly, the proof moves from the assertion of the categories and the assertion of the possibility of experience to asserting the necessary connection of those two, justifying a certain use of the categories. That this is a fair sketch of Kant's argument can be seen from the way in which he contrasts ideas and concepts of the understanding later, saying that the former cannot form "the basis of any objectively valid synthetic judgment," while

[tJhrough concepts oj unders,tanding reason does, establish secure principles, not however directly Jrom alone, but always only indirectly through relation concepts to something altogether contingent, namely experience (A737=B70S).

indeed, concepts oj these possible

Thus he can say that any principle of the understanding has "the peculiar character that it makes possible the very experience which is its own ground of proof' (ibid).43 And this implies not only that experience would not be possible without these categories, but also that we cannot establish their objectivity without rdating them to possible experience, which is "something entirely contingent." In other words, the very aim of the Transcendental Deduction could not be reached without possible experience. Perhaps this account of the role of possible experience in the Transcendental Deduction is still misleading, since it suggests that possible experience is a premise of theDeduction. But there are passages that suggest that the possibility of experience does not really figure as a presupposition or premise in a transcendental argument, but must be seen as a "special guidance supplied from outside ..... (A782=B8IO). Kant claims that "in transcendental knowledge, so long as we are concerned only with concepts of the understanding, our guide is the possibility of experience (A783=B8II). Possible experience plays more the role of a "principle of orientation," keeping the Transcendental Deduction on its tracks, so to speak. To use a Kantian

62 terminology: it is not constitutive of a Transcendental Deduction but only a regulative principle. 44 This leads us to the second point, for the preceding shows that the possibility of experience is somehow assumed by Kant in the Transcendental Deduction, and that the question concerning our evidence for the existence of experience or knowledge is not addressed in the Deduction. In any case, the categories cannot be taken, in this context, as independent evidence for the existence of experience. But then they need not be taken as such evidence either, since Kant does not appear to have thought that the existence of experience or knowledge was problematic. This is shown when he claims that the question how the sciences are possible is "quite proper to ask" because "sciences actually exist" or "that they the sciences must be possible is proved by the fact that they exist" (B2I}.45 Accordingly, we must differentiate between the question whether experience or knowledge is possible and the question how experience or knowledge is possible. 46 The first question is, for Kant, easy to answer, namely by appealing to actual experience or knowledge. The second question is more difficult, and it requires a Transcendental Deduction because actual experience has certain features that cannot be derived from experience. 47 To give a complete answer to the faceless' "epistemological skeptic," postulated by modern Anglo-American philosophers, Kant would have had to answer the first question in a different way. But he did not do that; and to construe his answer to the second question in such a way that it answers the first is to misconstrue his argument. By trying to make it answer a question that it was never designed to answer, it will be found that "the conclusion of a transcendental argument .. .is not something that can be demonstrated by such an argument. "48 However, this hardly constitutes a criticism of Kant. But even the question as to how the categories make experience possible is not as important for Kant's project as is the justification of Hume's principle. At least, that is what Kant himself suggests in a long footnote to the Preface of his Metaphysical Principles of the Natural Sciences, where he says:

The system of criticism ... isfounded On the proposition: that the entire speculative use of our reason can never go beyond

objects of possible experiences. For, if it can be proved that the categories, which reason has to use in all of its knowledge, cannot have any other use than in relation to objects of experience ... then the answer to the question as to how they make experience possible is indeed important for the completion of the deduction, where this is possible. But with regard to the main aim ofthe system, namely, the determination ojthe limits ofpure reason, it is not at all necessary, but only meritorious. 49 This means that the negative side of the Deduction,or the justification of Hume's principle, is, for Kant, much more important than its positive side, and that it is indeed the conclusion of the Deduction. "Hume's principle" as theconclusioil'Of the Deduction is the foundation of "the system of criticism." And this re-affirms, again, that the emphasis on its positive side by the more recent interpretations is wrong. The Transcendental Deduction must be seen, first and foremost, as an attempt tb continue, by different means, what Hume (and Locke) had started. This suggests that Kant's entire relation to Hume needs to be re-assessed. It may very well be that his whole theoretical philosophy is not so much an "answer to Hume" as it is a continuation of the latter's project. But, at the very least, it proves that it is wrong to claim that one of Kant's major preoccupations was "the countering of skepticism. " While it need not be denied that the rich texture of Kant ian criticism does contain an anti-skeptical strand, and that Kant does make a number of critical remarks about skepticism and Hume, the question remains: do these strictures give us the right to declare the antiskeptical tendency of Kant's philosophy as its most important identifying characteristic. In fact, there is a great deal of prima facie evidence that speaks against this view: first, recent studies in German have shown that Kant's critical method owes mu~h more to skepticism than has been assumed thus far. so Thus Kant himself called his critical method "the skeptical method" until the Critique of Pure Reason, and many of his problems actually derive from the skeptical tradition. Second, even after the appearance of the first Critique, he makes clear that his critical method is closely related to what he calls "the

skeptical method." Thus he observes that "while ... th~ skeptical procedure cannot of itself yield any satisfying answer to the questions of reason, more or less it prepares the way by arousing reason to circumspection, and by indicating the radical measures which are adequate to secure it in its legitimate possessions" (A769=B797). Third, when Kant's critical philosophy was first attacked as a form of idealism and skepticism, he reacted quite differently to the two charges. While he tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and Berkeley, he re-affirmed his connections with Hume. In the Prolegomena he speaks of the "hated idealism" and attacks Berkeley's "mystical and visionary idealism," but he "openly confesses" that it was Hume who gave his own enquiries the direction which led to the first Critique, and this even though he is afraid that his Critique will fare as badly as Hume's proposal. The second edition of the first Critique contains a section entitled "Refutation of Idealism," like most textbooks written between 1760 and 1780, but, unlike most of these same textbooks, it does not contain a section entitled "Refutation of Skepticism. "51 Fourth, Kant does not believe that Hume is a radical skeptic in the sense of the "epistemological skeptic" dreamt up by contemporary philosophers. Thus he argues in one of his lectures that:

in our times even such people are called skeptics who do not at all deserve the title philosopher (as Voltaire,for instance). On the other hand, people are called skeptics who are not really academics J who follow only the skeptical method, such as Hume. 52 The same claim is also made on the very last page of the first Critique, where Hume is said to proceed according to the skeptical method, which, according to Kant, is scientific. This means, among other things, that, rightly or wrongly, Kant did not believe that Hume needed an "answer" in the sense in which the anti-skeptical view suggests. Thus it seems to me more sensible to see in the Transcendental Deduction one step of Kant's transformation of Hume's skeptical method into his own critical method. It appears to me, therefore, that the historical claim concerning Kant's intention to answer Hume needs as much revision as the systematic claim concerning the central

importance of the anti-skeptical dimension of critical philosophy. This paper is no more than a first step in this direction. But, I believe it shows Hume's importance for the development of the negative side of Kant. This influence has been under-estimated so far, and as a result the anti-skeptical view is untenable in its one-sidedness. Furthermore, because the anti-skeptical view of Kant's transcendental arguments has had an influence that far exceeded the esoteric circles of Kantscholarship, such a revision, once undertaken, should have important consequences for the on-going philosophical discussion. It should show not only that much of the supposed "Kantianism" of presentday philosophy has very little to do with Kant-or is more "Kantian" than Kant was himself-but also that the "anti-Kantianism" of such "culture critics" as Richard Rorty is based on a rather distorted Feindbi/d. It appears to be timely to resurrect Kant, the Alleszermalmer, who "made it [his] duty to determine, with exactitude and certainty, the limits of pure reason in its transcendental employment" (A726=B7SS). In any case, only when this is done will we be able to understand Hamann's claim that Kant "certainly deserves the title, 'a Prussian Hume."'S3 Manfred Kuehn Purdue University

Robert Paul Wolff, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity (Gloucester, Mass.: 1973, p. 44; (the work first appeared in 1963, I quote from the reprint) . This paper is a revised version of an invited paper read at the meeting of the North-Eastern American Philosophical Association in Boston, December 27-30, 1983; I would like to thank Professor Lewis White Beck and Professor Robert]. Dostal for their comments on the earlier version. 2 Karl Ameriks, "Recent Work on Kant's Theoretical Philosophy," American Philosophical Quarterly 19 (1982), pp. 1-24. The second half of this review deals with the recent work on the Transcendental Deduction. As Ameriks' account is not complete, it should be compared with Reinhold Aschenberg's "Ober transzendentale Argumente: Oricntierung in einer Diskussion zu Kant und Strawson, "Jahrbuch der 1

66

Corres Cesellschajt 83 (1979), pp. 331-358. See Amcriks, "Recent Work," pp. IIff, and Aschenberg "Ober transzcndentale Argumente," pp. 334-358.

3

This formulation is taken from Barry Stroud's "Transcendental Arguments," Journal of Philosophy (1968), pp. 241-256. I quote from the reprint in The First Critique, ed. Terence Penelhum and J. J. MacIntosh (Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., Inc., 1969), pp. 54-69, pp. 54f. Though Stroud criticizes Strawson's reconstruction of a "transcendental argument" as not being able to deliver what it promises, he accepts Strawson's reconstruction as genuinely Kantian. For Stroud, a "transcendental argument is supposed to answer the question of 'justification,' and in so doing it demonstrates the objective validity of certain concepts"; and he takes "this to mean that a concept 'X' has objective validity only if there are X's, and so demonstrating the objective validityof certain concepts is tantamount to demonstrating that X's actually exist"(p.69). Among other commentators who hold such a view are WolffandJonathan Bennett (Kant's Analytic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966)). This way of interpreting Kant's Deduction goes back to P. F. Strawson's Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (London:Lowe and Brydone Printers ltd., 1959). Strawson's The Bounds of Sense, An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1966) gives a different, though perhaps not incompatible account of the Transcendental Deduction. Ameriks does not differentiate clearly enough between the earlier and the later Strawson. Aschenberg, however, is very helpful. 4

See, for instance, Barry Stroud, "Kant and Skepticism," in The Skeptical Tradition, ed. Myles Burnyeat (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 413-434. But compare also Wolff, Kant's Theory, especially pp. 319-324. I shall take the term "anti-skeptical" very broadly to include all interpretations which see Kant engaged in a transcendental justification of all knowledge claims. For such a project presupposes that knowledge needs justification, and thus takes seriously such objections as are ascribed by modern philosophers to "the epistemological skeptic." 6 Bennett talks of its "neurotically inept exposition," for instance, and 5

calls it -a "botch" (Kant's Analytic, pp. 138, 100). But see also S. Korner, "The Impossibility of Transcendental Deductions," in KantStudies Today, ed. Lewis Whitc Beck (La Sallc, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Co., 1969), pp. 230-244; and Moltkc S. Gram's "Transcendental Arguments," Nous 5 (1971), pp. 15-26, and "Must Transcendental Arguments bc Spurious?" Katlt-Studien 65 (1974), pp. 3043 1 7. 7 The quote is from Dieter Hcnrich's "The Proof-Structure of Kant's Transcendental Deduction," Review of Metaphysics 22 (1969), pp. 640659, 640. Though hc notcs that there are thesc two conclusions, he never addresses the negative one, seeing Kant engaged in an anti