Abstract

Simple or "standard" empirical judgments--as expressed in such statements as "The rose is red" or "Socrates is mortal"--are logically basic for theoretical rationality. All the more complex forms of judgment presuppose the existence and tenability of judgments of the "standard" type. The overall aim of this study is twofold: to show how the traditional theory of standard empirical judgments--as represented by Kant's doctrine of judgment--is subject to a through-going form of skepticism that I entitle "judgmental skepticism" and to attempt to develop a more adequate account of the standard empirical judgment which circumvents the central difficulties in the traditional theory. ;Part I of the study develops, and then criticizes, Kant's theory of empirical judgment. Part II of the study then attempts to develop an accurate description of the standard empirical judgment, using the critical results of part I as working clues and foils. In the last chapter of part II, what may be called a "common sense" approach to judgmental skepticism is deployed: it is claimed that the judgmental skeptic cannot challenge the tenability of all standard judgments without rational self-stultification. Accepting this auxiom, it then becomes possible simple to describe several ways in which a paradigmatic, successful, standard judgment presupposes certain instinctive or "commonsensical" cognitive abilities. The careful description of these abilities in turn provides a commonsensical or non-transcendental foundation for theoretical rationality itself