Syntheticity and Recent Metaphysical Readings of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

Kant Studien 111 (1):104-132 (2020)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Metaphysical readings of Kant’s theoretical philosophy in the Critical period are ascendant. But their possibility assumes the possibility of existence- and real-possibility-judgments about things in themselves. I argue that Kant denies the latter possibility, so metaphysical readings have dubious prospects. First, I show that Kant takes existence- and real-possibility-judgments, as necessarily synthetic, to require a relation to sensible intuition. Second, I show that the most promising metaphysical readings can ultimately neither satisfy nor explain away that requirement for existence- and real-possibility-judgments about things in themselves. I conclude with pessimistic reflections on the prospects for the metaphysical interpretive project.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

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

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Kant’s Response to the Principle of Sufficient Reason.Amanda Hicks - 2013 - In Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio La Rocca & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses. Boston: de Gruyter. pp. 359-370.
Kant's Metaphysics of the Self.Colin Marshall - 2010 - Philosophers' Imprint 10:1-21.
Transformations of Transcendental Philosophy: Wolff, Kant, and Hegel.Karin de Boer - 2011 - Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 32 (1-2):50-79.
Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism.Kenneth R. Westphal - 2004 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kant's account of nature's systematicity and the unity of theoretical and practical reason.Lara Ostaric - 2009 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 52 (2):155 – 178.
The Sphere of Reason: Kant and the Orientation of Thought.Avery Marc Goldman - 2001 - Dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University
Kant, Hegel, and the System of Pure Reason.Karin de Boer - 2011 - In Elena Ficara (ed.), Die Begründung der Philosophie im Deutschen Idealismus. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. pp. 77-87.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-03-07

Downloads
72 (#207,597)

6 months
6 (#202,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Simon R. Gurofsky
Carleton University

Citations of this work

Kant and the forms of realism.Dietmar Heidemann - 2019 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 13):1-22.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Kant, self-awareness, and self-reference.Andrew Brook - 2001 - In Andrew Brook & R. DeVidi (eds.), Self-Reference and Self-Awareness. John Benjamins. pp. 9--30.

Add more references