Kant's Categories Reconsidered
ABSTRACT: Adopting a Quinean criterion of ontological commitment, I consider the question of the ontological commitment of Kant's theory of our a priori knowledge of objects. Its direct concern is the customary view that the ontology of Kant's theory of knowledge in general, whether a priori or empirical, must be thought in terms of the a priori conditions or representations of space, time, and the categories. Accordingly, this view is accompanied by the customary interpretation of ontology as consisting of Kantian "appearances" or "empirical objects." I argue against this view and interpretation. My argument turns on the opposition between the necessity and universality of the a priori and the particularity and contingency of the existent. Its main point is that the a priori can remain necessary and universal only if the existence of objects is kept distinct from it.
I. Introduction
To the extent that category theory, i.e. that there are certain predicates of things that are fundamental to our thought about objects in general, has been based on our thought of objects of possible experience, it has been highly suspect. This is the negative thesis of this paper. Over the years, philosophical inventiveness has produced various schemes of predicates which challenge the claims of necessity that have been made on behalf of the scheme we employ for such objects-a scheme of substances that are involved in causal action and interaction. If no particular scheme is necessary, perhaps it is not necessary that we employ any scheme at all.
Kant's theory of categories is no different from any other category theory in this regard. Its dependence on what Kant calls the logical functions of judgment do...
... middle of paper ...
...scussion. For an actual development of the proposal see Robert Greenberg, "The Content of Kant's Logical Functions of Judgment," History of Philosophy Quarterly 11 (1994): 375-92.
(7) This interpretation of "transcendental content" seems to dispute that given by Darrell Johnson, viz., that it refers to the concept of an object in general. See his, "Kant's Metaphysical Deduction," Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1995) Volume II, Part I, p 273.
(8) The by now widely accepted division of the B-Deduction into two steps was first introduced into the current commentary on the deduction by Dieter Henrich in his, "The Proof Structure of Kant's Transcendental Deduction," Review of Metaphysics 22 (1969): 640-59, reprinted in Ralph C. S. Walker, ed. Kant on Pure Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).
Heidler, David Stephen, and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds. Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: a
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Norman Kempsmith. New York: The Humanities P, 1950.
In this paper I shall consider Spinoza’s argument offered in the second Scholium to Proposition 8, which argues for the impossibility of two substances sharing the same nature. I shall first begin by explaining, in detail, the two-step structure of the argument and proceed accordingly by offering a structured account of its relation to the main claim. Consequently I shall point out what I reasonably judge to be a mistake in Spinoza’s line of reasoning; that is, that the definition of a thing does not express a fixed number of individuals under that definition. By contrast, I hope to motivate the claim that a true definition of a thing does in fact express a fixed number of individuals that fall under that definition. I shall then present a difficulty against my view and concede in its insufficiency to block Spinoza’s conclusion. Finally, I shall resort to a second objection in the attempt to prove an instance by which two substances contain a similar attribute, yet differ in nature. Under these considerations, I conclude that Spinoza’s thesis is mistaken.
Johnson, R. (2013). Kant’s moral philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition). Zalta, E. (Ed.). Retrieved online from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/kant-moral/
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Trans. H. J. Paton. 1964. Reprint. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Thought, 2009. Print.
Some hold that Kant’s conception of autonomy requires the rejection of moral realism in favor of "moral constructivism." However, commentary on a little noticed passage in the Metaphysics of Morals (with the assistance of Kant’s Lectures and Reflexionen) reveals that the conception of legislation at the core of Kant’s conception of autonomy represents a decidedly anti-constructivist strand in his moral philosophy.
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.
would be unfair to use the one to the side as a means to save the
Perelman, Chaim. From _The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning_. In Bizzell and Herzberg. 1384-1409.
Style: The typical Magical- Realistic story of García Márquez placed in a familiar environment where supernatural things take place as if they were everyday occurrences. Main use of long and simple sentences with quite a lot of detail. "There were only a few faded hairs left on his bald skull and very few teeth in his mouth, and his pitiful condition of a drenched great-grandfather took away and sense of grandeur he might have had" (589).
The Transcendental Deductions of the pure concept of the understanding in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in its most general sense, explains how concepts relate a priori to objects in virtue of the fact that the power of knowing an object through representations is known as understanding. According to Kant, the foundation of all knowledge is the self, our own consciousness because without the self, experience is not possible. The purpose of this essay is to lay out Kant’s deduction of the pure concept of understanding and show how our concepts are not just empirical, but concepts a priori. We will walk through Kant’s argument and reasoning as he uncovers each layer of understanding, eventually leading up to the conclusion mentioned above.
In conclusion, Kant’s three formulations of the categorical imperative are great examples of how we should live our lives. Along with living our lives by the formulations of the categorical imperative, we should also treat every rational being as an end in itself. It is quite obvious that Kant’s theories are still in existence today.
The question of synthetic a priori propositions is important because, as Kant argues, all important metaphysical knowledge is synthetic a priori. If it is not possible to determine the truth of synthetic a priori judgments, then metaphysics in itself is not possible to understand.
It is key, in this interpretation, to look at the context of when the poem was written. "Ulysses" was written in 1933, part of a ten year break of Tennyson from publishing, following the death of his close friend Arthur Hallam. The man’s death had a huge influence on Tennyson’s life and thinking (Napierkowski and Ruby 277). Critics claim that themes of death worked their way into most of Tennyson’s works at this time. “Tennyson related death to this tale of Ulysses’ desire to return to a life of adventure,” (Napierkowski and Ruby 277). This statement seems strange, until one looks at what many interpretations of the poem suggest his final voyage truly represents. Charles Mitchell says that he “feel[s] that Ulysses’ major tension is… fixed in the outer conflict between his will and death.” Mitchell thinks that Ulysses is about to die, and is struggling with his own legendary status, and how the two can mesh (Mitchell 289). Mitchell brings up the line “I am become a name” again, claiming that it is Ulysses reasoning that since he is a legend, he cannot truly die, he has been immortalized (Mitchell 292) (Tennyson). “[I]n the first paragraph Ulysses implies that he has explored the known world, in the last paragraph, which deals with the future, he goes to “seek a newer world.” Mitchell claims that this new world is the after life, and after all that Ulysses has been
Alfred Tennyson gifted the Victorian Era, and the literary world with two iconic poems. The author explored the themes of personal development and culture clash in one of his most famous poems, “Ulysses”. Tennyson also discovered and analyzed the themes of love and death through his renowned and eminent poem, “Tears Idle, Tears”. The poet was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire in 1809 in the East Lindy district of England. Tennyson experienced numerous amounts of difficulties in his childhood and growing adolescent phases that spilled into his adult life. These trials and tribulations became a foundation and source of inspiration for Tennyson, who used them as a stimulus and catalyst to aide his literary progress and ideas. Two of the most prominent poems that Tennyson wrote were “Ulysses “and “Tears Idle, Tears”. These poems defined the peak of his literary endeavor and symbolized the struggles that Tennyson had experienced in his life. Throughout time readers have been able to distinguish a direct correlation between his life journey and the poems he crafted.