Although there is increasing interest in philosophy of science in transcendental reasoning, there is hardly any discussion about transcendental arguments. Since this might be related to the dominant understanding of transcendental arguments as a tool to defeat epistemological skepticism, and since the power of transcendental arguments to achieve this goal has convincingly been disputed by Barry Stroud, this contribution proposes, first, a new definition of the transcendental argument which allows its presentation in a simple modus ponens and, second, a pragmatist (...) re-interpretation of this argument form that leaves it to the scientific community to debate, criticize, refine, or reaffirm its core claim: a premise which claims that the truth of a certain assumption is a necessary condition for something that is generally accepted. The proposed “logico-pragmatist interpretation” highlights the role of transcendental arguments as a methodological step to move science forward, just as abduction and inference to the best explanation do. (shrink)

Recent developments of transcendental arguments reflect the struggle to accommodate Stroud’s devastating objection by giving up on failed expectations in providing proof of what the external-world skeptic calls into question: knowledge of the existence of the outside world. Since Strawson's capitulation in 1984, the truth-direct transcendental arguments have given way to modest belief-direct transcendental arguments that concede that truth-direct transcendental arguments are doomed to fail to establish ambitious conclusions about reality but at the same time hold that they can nonetheless (...) successfully establish modest conceptual connection between the major beliefs within our conceptual scheme. This article seeks the “reactionary” rehabilitation of the old hubris: a new defense of the truth-direct transcendental argument. I set forth a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation as a successful truth-directed transcendental argument that meets Stroud’s objection. As with several papers and books about the theme, this article is of a systematic and a historical nature by connecting the contemporary debate about transcendental argument with Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

The nature of Hegel’s idealism has been much disputed, and this chapter offers an account of it that is distinctive. Against recent commentators such as Robert Pippin, it is argued that Hegel was not a Kantian or transcendental idealist; it is also argued that Hegel was not a mentalistic idealist, offering a kind of ‘spirit monism’ that reduced the world to mind. It is argued instead that Hegel understood idealism to be the view that ‘the finite has no veritable being’, (...) where this leads to a position according to which thought cannot grasp what truly exists through experience but only through a kind of rationalist theorizing, and that this in turn requires us to accept a form of realism about concepts. It is therefore argued that this conceptual realism makes up the core of Hegel’s idealism, understood as the anti-nominalist doctrine that reality is structured by concepts that render it accessible to thought. (shrink)

I critically discuss Strawson's transcendental argument against other minds scepticism, and look at the prospects for a naturalised version of it.