Abstract

An account of what an object is depends fundamentally upon what kind of thing a mind is viewed to be. The classical empiricist view of the mind gives rise, apparently, to an account of objects which raises serious questions concerning whether they can be known. ;Kant, in the Transcendental Deduction B, argues that the empiricist picture of mind does not in fact give rise to the empiricist's problematic account of objects. In the first chapter, I offer a close explication of the text, and I explore such fundamental notions as spatiality, vindication of a subject's combining of ideas , and the independence of objects from minds. I arrive, with Kant, at a concept of objectivity which, though promising, has an idealist flavour. ;In the second chapter, I argue that this concept of objectivity is not really idealist. The argument rests on the drawing of a distinction close to but weaker than Kant's transcendental/empirical distinction. Though the distinction is problematic and not fully motivated, I argue that a significant response to the skeptic will indeed involve the successful drawing of some such distinction. ;Though I do not fully make out the case that Kantian "objects" are to be truly counted as objective, I argue that it is the philosopher who must explain why such "objects" come up short of full objectivity. To thus insist is, in my view, to call into question the very nature of the epistemological enquiries traditionally undertaken by the philosopher