Space, Geometry, and Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories

Space, Geometry, and Kant's Transcendental Deduction of the Categories
Author: Thomas C. Vinci
Publisher:
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2015
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019938116X

Thomas C. Vinci aims to reveal and assess the structure of Kant's argument in the Critique of Pure Reason called the "Transcendental Deduction of the Categories." At the end of the first part of the Deduction in the B-edition Kant states that his purpose is achieved: to show that all intuitions in general are subject to the categories. On the standard reading, this means that all of our mental representations, including those originating in sense-experience, are structured by conceptualization. But this reading encounters an exegetical problem: Kant states in the second part of the Deduction that a major part of what remains to be shown is that empirical intuitions are subject to the categories. How can this be if it has already been shown that intuitions in general are subject to the categories? Vinci calls this the Triviality Problem, and he argues that solving it requires denying the standard reading. In its place he proposes that intuitions in general and empirical intuitions constitute disjoint classes and that, while all intuitions for Kant are unified, there are two kinds of unification: logical unification vs. aesthetic unification. Only the former is due to the categories. A second major theme of the book is that Kant's Idealism comes in two versions-for laws of nature and for objects of empirical intuition-and that demonstrating these versions is the ultimate goal of the Deduction of the Categories and the similarly structured Deduction of the Concepts of Space, respectively. Vinci shows that the Deductions have the argument structure of an inference to the best explanation for correlated domains of explananda, each arrived at by independent applications of Kantian epistemic and geometrical methods.

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories
Author: Kenneth R. Westphal
Publisher: Helsinki University Press
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2021-04-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9523690299

Immanuel Kant’s ‘Transcendental Deduction of the Categories’ addresses issues centrally debated today in philosophy and in cognitive sciences, especially in epistemology, and in theory of perception. Kant’s insights into these issues are clouded by pervasive misunderstandings of Kant’s ‘Deduction’ and its actual aims, scope, and argument. The present edition with its fresh and accurate translation and concise commentary aims to serve these contemporary debates as well as continuing intensive and extensive scholarship on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Two surprising results are that ‘Transcendental Deduction’ is valid and sound, and it holds independently of Kant’s transcendental idealism. This lucid volume is interesting and useful to students, yet sufficiently detailed to be informative to specialists.

Kant's Reform of Metaphysics

Kant's Reform of Metaphysics
Author: Karin de Boer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2020-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108842178

This book reinterprets key parts of the Critique of Pure Reason in view of Kant's sustained engagement with Wolffian metaphysics.

Kant's Transcendental Deduction

Kant's Transcendental Deduction
Author: Henry E. Allison
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2015
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198724861

Henry E. Allison presents an analytical and historical account of Kant`s transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding in the Critique of Pure Reason. He traces the line of thought that led Kant to a recognition of the need for transcendental deduction, and defends Kant`s 'non-contingency thesis' and 'non-separability thesis'.

Kant’s B Deduction

Kant’s B Deduction
Author: Pablo Muchnik
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2014-10-16
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1443869457

This book is organized as a commentary following the text of the B-Transcendental Deduction line by line. In so doing, it becomes evident that each step of the Deduction necessarily follows from the preceding step and is grounded in it, although not in the way the steps of a formal-logic deduction are. The primary hypothesis of this book is that the succession of steps is but the unfolding of the Principle of Apperception. The commentary assumes that the entire argument of the B-Deduction consists in a progressive enlargement and enrichment of the Principle of Apperception. The book draws its unity from this assumption, as well as from the strong concatenation of the successive steps. Focusing the monograph on the very narrow problem of the B-Deduction’s argumentative structure enables the author to settle several controversial questions, such as, for instance, those originating in the division of the B-Deduction in two steps, and that of the function of the doctrine of the transcendental subject expounded in paragraphs 24 and 25. Its comprehensive explanation of the Transcendental Deduction ensures that the book will be helpful to students of Kantian Philosophy, while its focus on a single problem will make it useful to specialists. Kant’s B Deduction is part of the Kantian Questions series.

Kant's Tribunal of Reason

Kant's Tribunal of Reason
Author: Sofie Møller
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2020-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108498493

This is the first book-length study in English of Kant's legal metaphors, whose philosophical importance has so far been overlooked. It will appeal to academic researchers and advanced students of Kant, early modern philosophy, legal philosophy, and intellectual history.

Kant's Anatomy of the Intelligent Mind

Kant's Anatomy of the Intelligent Mind
Author: Wayne Waxman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 603
Release: 2014
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199328315

According to current philosophical lore, Kant rejected the notion that philosophy can progress by psychological means and endeavored to restrict it accordingly. This book reverses the frame from Kant the anti-psychological critic of psychological philosophy to Kant the preeminent psychological critic of non-psychological philosophy.

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction

Kant’s Transcendental Deduction
Author: R.C. Howell
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2013-06-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401580200

The argument of the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories in the Critique of Pure Reason is the deepest and most far-reaching in philosophy. In his new book, Robert Howell interprets main themes of the Deduction using ideas from contemporary philosophy and intensional logic, thereby providing a keener grasp of Kant's many subtleties than has hitherto been available. No other work pursues Kant's argument through every twist and turn with the careful, logically detailed attention maintained here. Surprising new accounts of apperception, the concept of an object, the logical functions of thought, the role of the Metaphysical Deduction, and Kant's relations to his Aristotelian-Cartesian background are developed. Howell makes a precise contribution to the discussion of most of the disputed issues in the history of Deduction interpretation. Controversial in its conclusions, this book demands the attention of all who take seriously the task of understanding Kant's work and evaluating it dispassionately.