Kant's Second Analogy

In the Second Analogy, Kant argues that we must presuppose, a priori, that each event is determined to occur by some preceding event in accordance with a causal law. Although there have been numerous interpretations of this argument, we have not been able to show that it is valid. In this paper, I develop my own interpretation of this argument. I borrow an insight offered by Robert Paul Wolff. In Kant's argument, our need to presuppose that the causal determination of each event rests not upon our need to impose a 'necessary' and 'irreversible' temporal order upon representations of the states of an object, as Kant is usually interpreted, but upon our need to generate a comprehensive representation that includes a certain a priori conception of events in the world around us. Although the argument I attribute to Kant is valid, it cannot compel the Humean skeptic to accept the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event: Kant has not successfully responded to Hume in the Second Analogy.

In the Second Analogy, Kant argues that we must presuppose, a priori, that each event is determined to occur by some preceding event in accordance with a causal law. Although there have been numerous interpretations of Kants argument in the Second Analogy, we have not been able to find an argument that we can show valid. The modest title of a recent article, Another Volley at Kants Reply to Hume, (1) suggests that the problem of finding a valid argument in the Second Analogy, and an adequate response to Hume, is still with us.

In this paper I will present an argument I have found in the Second Analogy for the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event. I will begin by briefly describing Robert Paul W...

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...r, referring to the objective order of representations we achieve as we apply our rule, we must presuppose the causal determination of the event we experience (A201/B246-7). Again, Kant does not wish to suggest that as we reproduce representations we must apply, as our rule specifying an order of representations, a causal law. We may apply a more minimal rule. He claims that corresponding to a rule-governed order of representations referring to an event, we must presuppose that the event we experience arises in accordance with a causal law. We must presuppose, he wishes to say, that each event arises in accordance with a causal law.

(13) Henry Allison, Kants Transcendental Idealism (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1983), pp.222-28.

(14) Lewis White Beck, Did the Sage of Konigsberg Have No Dreams? Essays on Kant and Hume (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1978), p.54.