In the ‘Refutation of Idealism’ chapter of the first Critique, Kant argues that the conditions required for having certain kinds of mental episodes are sufficient to guarantee that there are ‘objects in space’ outside us. A perennially influential way of reading this compressed argument is as a kind of causal inference: in order for us to make justified judgements about the order of our inner states, those states must be caused by the successive states of objects in space (...) outside us. Here I consider the best recent versions of this reading, and argue that each suffers from apparently fatal flaws. -/- . (shrink)

Causal refutations of external-world scepticism start from our ability to make justified judgements about the order of our own experiences, and end with the claim that there must be perceptible external objects, some of whose states can be causally correlated with that order. In a recent paper, I made a series of objections to this broadly Kantian anti-sceptical strategy. Georges Dicker has provided substantive replies on behalf of a version of the causal refutation of idealism. Here I offer (...) a few final remarks about issues at the heart of our disagreement. -/- . (shrink)

Modern Idealism, if it asserts any general conclusion about the universe at all, asserts that it is spiritual. There are two points about this assertion to which I wish to call attention. These points are that, whatever be its exact meaning, it is certainly meant to assert (1) that the universe is very different indeed from what it seems, and (2) that it has quite a large number of properties which it does not seem to have. Chairs and tables (...) and mountains seem to be very different from us; but, when the whole universe is declared to be spiritual, it is certainly meant to assert that they are far more like us than we think. The idealist means to assert that they are in some sense neither lifeless nor unconscious, as they certainly seem to be; and I do not think his language is so grossly deceptive, but that we may assume him to believe that they really are very different indeed from what they seem. And secondly when he declares that they are spiritual, he means to include in that term quite a large number of different properties. When the whole universe is declared to be spiritual, it is meant not only that it is in some sense conscious, but that it has what we recognise in ourselves as the higher forms of consciousness. That it is intelligent; that it is purposeful; that it is not mechanical; all these different things are commonly asserted of it. In general, it may be said, this phrase 'reality is spiritual' excites and expresses the belief that the.. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes two short texts in which Peirce sketches out an anti-skeptical argument inspired by Kant’s refutation of idealism. The chapter will first consider why Peirce found Kant’s argument interesting and promising, given that it is often regarded as problematic and unsuccessful. It will then briefly reconstruct Kant’s refutation, highlighting its most problematic passages. Moreover, since Peirce’s own version of the argument relies on Kant’s views regarding the temporal structure of consciousness, the chapter will explain how (...) Peirce tackles this issue in “The Law of Mind.” Finally, the chapter considers Peirce’s own anti-skeptical argument and examines whether and how it can be seen as appropriating Kant’s strategy. (shrink)

The paper identifies a possible precedent for Kant’s Refutation of Idealism in the work of Johann Nicolaus Tetens. An attempt is made to reconstruct the reasoning that led Tetens to reject idealism as a false starting point, and some parallels are drawn between Tetens’s psychologistic approach to the problem andKant’s transcendental methodology.

Idealism is a sticky doctrine. Each of us believes that there are lots of things existing and taking place beyond our actual or possible knowledge. Yet we have to live with the predicament that we cannot put our finger on any one such item without somehow touching it with our language and mind. Even our imagination seems to suffer from this incurable ambivalence between self-containment and self-transcendence.

Many commentators of Kant assume that the Refutation of Idealism is directed against a radical sceptic whose sole claim is immediate knowledge of his own representations in inner experience, including, to some extent, their temporal order. Accordingly, the Refutation is viewed as an attempt to establish that the perception of external objects is a prerequisite of knowing the temporal order of our representations. Here it will be argued that this minimal claim has to be supplemented by the (...) proposition that the idealist is aware of himself as a substance in time, if Kant’s Refutation is to be reconstructed as a successful argument. In addition, the view will be defended that the argument is not appropriate to decide the questio facti whether there are external objects or not. It rather establishes that the determination of the self as a substance in time is conceptually dependent on the perception of external objects. As a consequence, the argument does not preclude the possibility that some people are brains in a vat, as Q. Cassam justly remarked. (shrink)

I will discuss Kant 's arguments in these section in three parts. In Part I, I will try to show how we can make sense of the obviously close relations in theme and content between the Refutation of Idealism and the two version of the Fourth Paralogism, as well as the second Postulate of Empirical Thought. This will serve as a kind of introduction, since on a cursory first reading, the connections might be far from apparent. In the (...) process, I will try to isolate a few basic. (shrink)

G. E. Moore’s The Refutation of Idealism falls into two main parts: the analysis of “esse is percipi,” which Moore claimed was the key premise of all Idealist arguments to the conclusion that reality is spiritual; and the discussion of sensations. I am here only concerned with the latter. This, on its critical side, took a position of Bradley’s as its target and, in its turn, drew objections from Strong and Ducasse. The following explores these disputes about sensory (...) experience which revolved around the second part of Moore’s Refutation. (shrink)

This paper assesses the role of the Refutation of Idealism within the Critique of Pure Reason, as well as its relation to the treatment of idealism in the First Edition and to transcendental idealism more generally. It is argued that the Refutation is consistent with the Fourth Paralogism and that it can be considered as an extension of the Transcendental Deduction. While the Deduction, considered on its own, constitutes a 'regressive argument', the Refutation allows (...) us to turn the Transcendental Analytic into a 'progressive argument' that proceeds by the synthetic method. (shrink)

I reply to the most important criticisms made by Chignell of my ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’. I also introduce a new consideration which brings out more fully the power of Kant's argument.

In this essay, I want to begin a dialogue with the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler’s book Technics and Time. Stiegler is internationally known as the inheritor of another French philosopher whose work is currently being rediscovered worldwide: Gilbert Simondon. In Stiegler’s work, this Simondonian heritage plays itself out in the domain of continental philosophy. The thesis maintained here will be the following: there is another relation to Simondon that is possible, one that also takes up the major problems we’ve inherited (...) from the continental philosophical tradition. The double fundamental philosophical problem raised in Stiegler’s debate with Simondon is the following: A) On the one hand .. (shrink)

In ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’ (Noûs, 47), I defend a version of the Refutation, pioneered by Paul Guyer inKant and the Claims of Knowledge, whose core idea is that the only way that one can know the order of one's own past experiences, except in certain rare cases, is by correlating them with the successive states of perceived external objects that caused the experiences. Andrew Chignell has offered a probing critique of my reconstruction of Kant's argument (Philosophical (...) Quarterly, 60), and I have responded (Philosophical Quarterly, 61). In a rebuttal of my response, Chignell raises three new objections (Philosophical Quarterly, 61). My purpose in this paper is to reply to these. (shrink)

이 연구의 목적은 칸트의 〈관념론 반박〉을 경험적 자기의식의 문제와 관련해서 비판적으로 해석하는 것이다. 나는 칸트가 『순수이성비판』 재판의 〈관념론 반박〉에서 전개한 외부 사물의 현존에 대한 증명은 데카르트의 그것과 마찬가지로 문제적이고 개연적이라고 주장한다. 〈관념론 반박〉은 나의 현존의 시간적 규정을 위해 요구되는 고정불변적인 것(das Beharrliche)이 표상이 아니라 정신 외부에 현존하는 사물이라는 것을 설득력 있게 증명하지는 못했다. 나의 테제는 선험적 관념론(der transzendentale Idealismus)을 포함한 관념론 일반은 표상 외부에 현존하는 사물을 증명할 수 없고 이 문제에 대한 칸트의 가능한 해결은 선험적 관념론 외부에 있다는 것이다. 나는 (...) 외적 사물의 현존은 자신을 둘러싼 사물들과 유용성의 관계를 맺는 신체를 토대로 감각하는 자아의 질료적 자기의식을 통해 알려진다는 것을 칸트의 가능한 테제로 제시한다. (shrink)

In his Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Paul Guyer offers an influential reading of Kant’s famous “Refutation of Idealism.” Guyer’s reading has been widely praised as Kantian exegesis but less favorably received as an anti-skeptical line of argument worthy of contemporary interest. In this paper, I focus on defending the general thrust of Guyer’s reading as a response to Cartesian skepticism. The paper falls into two sections. The first section constructs Guyer’s central argument in three steps and (...) gives it a quasi-formal presentation. That presentation reveals the principal obstacle to the argument’s being convincing to a contemporary audience, namely, its apparent reliance on Kant’s prohibition against psychological laws governing mental states. The second section constructs a lemma in defense of Guyer’s general line of attack. In effect, it suggests that that line does not depend on a metaphysical ban on psychological laws, but only on the modest premise that according to the Cartesian’s concept of knowledge such laws cannot justify claims about the temporal order of the self. (shrink)

G. E. Moore’s famous “Refutation of Idealism” and related essays, like “Hume’s Philosophy” in his Philosophical Studies, signaled the rise of a passionate belief. That is, we cannot use less obviously lucid and acceptable claims or arguments to defeat propositions that are most clear and most obviously true by our plainest human standards. The plurality of material objects in material space is assured for us by the high degree of clarity and assuredness of our propositions about hands, trees, (...) meals, clocks, clouds, and rainfall. The soundness of belief in matter, time, space, and the plurality of material objects is upheld by such ordinary and obviously true propositions about the familiar. And the massive number of such commonsensical propositions makes the task of idealists and skeptics supremely unpromising. (shrink)

Kant seems to think of our own mental states or representations as the primary objects of inner sense. But does he think that these states also inhere in something? And, if so, is that something an empirical substance that is also cognized in inner sense? This chapter provides textual and philosophical grounds for thinking that, although Kant may agree with Hume that the self is not ‘given’ in inner sense exactly, he does think of the self as cognized through inner (...) sense. It is also argued that he both does and ought to regard this self as an empirical substance in which our changing representations inhere. In the second part of the chapter it is suggested that this poses a significant problem for most of the leading interpretations of Kant’s anti-sceptical argument in the Refutation of Idealism. (shrink)

In this paper I shall show that Kant's best anti-sceptical argument, found in the “Refutation of Idealism” — hereafter Refutation —, is not successful in debunking the sceptic. My strategy will be to argue that, although dependent upon transcendental idealism, the Refutation is inconsistent with it. In order to achieve this goal, I shall sketch, in section 1, the two main interpretations of Kant's idealism, namely, the ‘two world’ and the ‘two aspect’ theories. I (...) shall maintain that the latter is more in keeping with Kant's overall intentions in the Critique of Pure Reason. In section 2, I shall spell out the main points of the Refutation. In section 3, I shall argue that, in the context of the Refutation, the conception of the permanent as the pre-condition of any temporal sequence clashes with some of the main doctrines of transcendental idealism. Finally, in section 4, I shall follow some unsuccessful attempts to harmonise transcendental idealism with the Refutation. (shrink)

As a counter-argument to Moore's "Refutation of Idealism," this article explains how the application of non-dualistic idealism reveals the underlying problem in both narrowly defined "esse is principi" brands of idealism and Moore's realism. The issue at hand, this article suggests, is the presupposition that experience naturally forks off into subjective consciousness and particular objects of consciousness. Rather than agree with either Moore or dualistic forms of idealism, the Vedanta-inspired view set forth in this article (...) provides a third option to reject the ontological commitments of the former two philosophical stances. This third stance suggests that reality amounts to consciousness, and, thus, motivates the conclusion that modes of consciousness are what differentiate experience, not the bifurcation of experience into subject and object. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson represents a philosophical tradition in Kant scholarship. Strawson is opposed to Kant’s transcendental idealism, but he finds much of value in Kant’s metaphysical views. Strawson’s goal in The Bounds of Sense is to separate what is of value in Kant’s thought from Kant’s transcendental idealism. His dislike of transcendental idealism is based upon a certain interpretation which Henry Allison calls “the standard picture”. This picture is shared by several of Kant’s commentators, but is best exemplified (...) in the work of Strawson and H.A. Prichard. Concerning Strawson’s interpretation of Kant, R.C.S. Walker writes. (shrink)

An anti-skeptical transcendental argument can be loosely defined as an argument that purports to show that some experience or knowledge of an external world is a necessary condition of our possession of some knowledge, concept, or cognitive ability that we know we have. In this dissertation I examine transcendental arguments by focusing on one such argument given by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, along with some attempts to interpret that argument by contemporary commentators. ;I proceed by dividing (...) anti-skeptical transcendental arguments into three types: epistemological, verificationist, and psychological. I examine arguments of the first two types and show why they cannot succeed against the skeptic. I then argue that Kant's Refutation of Idealism is of a different type: it is psychological in that it concerns the necessary conditions of our forming beliefs of certain kinds. Many contemporary Kant scholars have claimed that his anti-skeptical strategy relies on phenomenalism or verificationism; I argue, however, that Kant in the Refutation employs a clever and hitherto unappreciated strategy which involves an empiricist principle concerning the origin of simple ideas, and which does not require either phenomenalism or verificationism. I conclude with an analysis and assessment of Kant's argument. (shrink)

The dissertation analyzes Kant's arguments against Cartesian skepticism from the precritical period up to the "Reflexionen zum Idealismus" . It is argued that in the silent decade , the skeptical challenge leads Kant to reinterpret the foundation of his philosophy, namely, the distinction between appearances and things in themselves. Realizing the impossibility of refuting the skeptic through the identification of appearances with mental entities and the affirmation of the mind-independent existence of things in themselves as causes of the appearances , (...) Kant is forced to modify radically his notion of appearances in such a way as to make a new anti-skeptical argument possible. Thus, he no longer interprets appearances as mental entities, but as genuine, mind-independent objects. In this way, the skeptical challenge leads Kant to his mature notion of empirical realism, as presented in the 1781 Fourth Paralogism. ;The dissertation also shows that the mainstream evaluation of the arguments from the critical period needs to be revised. Some interpreters consider Kant's overall attempt to refute the skeptic ultimately unsatisfactory. Others are convinced that Kant manages to refute the skeptic only with the Second Edition argument, the Refutation of Idealism. The Fourth Paralogism---the argument that Kant presents in 1781, but drops in the Second Edition---is usually dismissed because of its alleged commitment to phenomenalism that makes it unable to serve as the foundation of the existence of a mind-independent world. In contrast with both groups, it is argued that Kant does have a powerful argument against the skeptic, which, however, is not to be found in the Refutation of Idealism or in its refinements in the "Reflexionen," but in a line of thought contained in the Fourth Paralogism, properly interpreted in a non-phenomenalistic way. The Refutation of Idealism, despite its intuitive appeal, ultimately fails and can be salvaged only if anti-skeptical resources are borrowed from the Fourth Paralogism. (shrink)

In the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant laments thatit still remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general that the existence of things outside us … must be accepted on faith, and if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof. The two editions of the Critique each contain a celebrated refutation of epistemological scepticisms like those of Descartes and (...) Hume. The first edition refutation has been widely decried as relying on an objectionable sort of idealism. The refutation of the second edition, though rather more difficult to interpret than the first, has usually been read as a mere reworking of the first. (shrink)