Kant's Copernican Revolution

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Kant's Copernican Revolution

Kant's Copernican Revolution

ERMANNO BENCIVENGA

New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1987

Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland and associated companies in Beirut Berlin Ibadan Nicosia

Copyright © 1987 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bencivenga, Ermanno, 1950Kant's Copernican revolution. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804. Kritik der reinen Vemunft. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. 3. Causation. 4. Reason. I. Title. B2779.B44 1987 121 86-23607 ISBN 0-19-504957-8

987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To Sara and Tommy, and their smile: because it soothes the pain.

Preface This is a book about Immanuel Kant, a historical figure. To a large extent, the book deals with one of Kant's works, probably his major one: the Critique ofPure Reason. But the book is not a commentary on the Critique, is not a vindication of its philosophy, and is not an attack on it. It is not concerned with unearthing Kant's "real intent," and it does not get involved in discussions of (or arguments with) the extant secondary literature. It even seems to disagree with Kant's and most of his interpreters' perception of the relative importance of the various parts of his work: the transcendental deduction and the analogies receive less concentrated attention here than a single passage from the second Preface. The fundamental reason for this glaring lack of orthodoxy is to be found in the way I relate to the Critique's celebrated "obscurity." I do not think that this greatest of obstacles in a reading of Kant has to do with Kant's either being a bad writer or having something very complicated to say. I think that it is the natural result of the kind of operation he was performing: a conceptual revolution, and a uni­ versal one at that. Such an operation requires time: the time to develop a new language, that is, to evolve new linguistic practices and to have a new linguistic community take shape around them. The Critique was written in the middle of this process, in a constant fight with old modes of expression and old canons of understanding. It was like throwing in the idea of a new game without having ever played it, and beginning to play it "by way of illustration" on the spot. It was an experiment, an attempt at looking at human cogni­ tive (and other) activities from a different standpoint, but a stand­ point that had to be created before you could look from it. It was an intellectual adventure, a voyage into high seas, with no idea of what fairies or monsters may lie ahead. And then there is something else that is even more important. The adventure is not over. Some additional steps have been made,

Vlll

Preface

but things are still far from clear. If the Critique was work in prog­ ress, the work is not finished yet. The operation Kant initiated is virtually as revolutionary today-at least in this part of the world­ as it was at his time. And we need revolutionary operations in phi­ losophy, not necessarily because they will bring us closer to "the Truth," but because they will make us question more of our assumptions, and wonder more. This is why I do not find it useful to argue with other commen­ tators. Though I have learned a great deal from many of them, and I often use their suggestions below to articulate my discourse, the task they seem to set for themselves is in general so different from mine that discussion is not likely to be profitable. They seem to con­ front Kant's work as presenting a definite position, and one that they either want to reconstruct "sympathetically" or criticize. I, on the other hand, think of the same work as presenting a set of prob­ lems for whose solution Kant had most of the clues but lacked many of the tools. And this is why I often direct my attention to the mar­ gins of the text, because it is there, far from "the most considered statements" and from the greatest efforts toward systematicity and coherence, that the strain involved in Kant's operation is often revealed most clearly, and the best insight into the operation itself can be gained. What follows is my report on Kant's revolutionary turnabout, on what motivated it, and on where it took him. In this report, some aspects of the Critique "make sense" more than ordinarily alleged. I could have expanded the list of such aspects, but, in my opinion, this expansion would have detracted from the effectiveness of my attempt by confusing issues that do not belong together. My purpose here is not that of defending either Kant or my "understanding" of him, but that of telling an edifying story about man and his expe­ rience, a story that I consider worth putting on the record and that I have found sketched in that inexhaustible mine of thought which is the Critique of Pure Reason. I thank Kent Baldner, Nuccia Bencivenga, and various anony­ mous referees for comments on earlier drafts of this book. I thank the editors of the Canadian Journal ofPhilosophy and Nous for per­ mission to utilize materials from my ( 1985) and ( 1987).

Irvine, California June 1986

E. B.

Contents

1. Transcendental Philosophy

3

1. Textual puzzles 2. Kant's program 3. "'Real" possibility

2. The Old Conceptual Framework 1. Objects and representations 2. The problem 4. Empirical 3. Synthetic a priori judgments idealism 5. Trying to save the framework

3. Between Old and New

32

59

1. A revolution for whom? 2. The main step 3. Difficulties with revolutions 4. Reflective judgments 5. Intentional objects

4. Thinking of Objects 1. Ladders 3. Criteria

89

2. Things in themselves 4. The human predicament

5. Experiencing Objects 1. Space and time 2. Counting oneself as one 3. Empirical correlations 4. Reasons for dissatisfaction 5. Hume revisited

119

x

Contents

6. The Conflict of Faculties

164

1. Divisibility and other enigmas 3. Appearances 2. The transcendental illusion 4. Understanding and reason

7. Knowledge in the New Framework

194

1. Synthesis 2. Wisdom 3. The problem resolved? 4. The point of story-telling

Notes Bibliography Index

218 248 259

Kant's Copernican Revolution

1 Transcendental Philosophy This is my foundation. I have already sketched out the course I want to take. I shall begin my journey, and nothing shall prevent me from pursuing it. Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces, I, p. IO

.. .nature has apparently made its decision regarding the duration of man's life with things other than the furtherance of the sciences in view. For just when the most gifted man stands on the brink of the greatest discovery that his skill and experience can allow him to hope for, old age makes its entrance; his mind becomes dull and he must leave it to a second generation . . . to make a small contribution 10 culture's progress. Speculative Beginning of Human History, p. 55 footnote; VIII, p. 117

Until his time, Kant thinks, metaphysics has been "the battle-field of .. . endless controversies" (Aviii). To resolve these controversies, something more is necessary than cleaning up details or displaying more ingenuity in the construction of proofs. It is necessary for human reason to enter a new path.To a large extent, the novelty of the path is to be found in Kant's realization and insistence that the philosopher's task must be redefined. Metaphysics (at least in the old sense) must be given up, and a new discipline must take its place: transcendental philosophy. In the present chapter, I want to investigate the significance of this new agenda that Kant set for his profession.

1.

Textual puzzles

The usual starting point for understanding Kant's notion of tran­ scendental philosophy is a passage at Al 1-12 B25: I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects in so far as 3

Kant's Copernican Revolution

4

this mode is to be possible a priori. A system of such concepts might be entitled transcendental philosophy.

In commenting upon this passage, Norman Kemp Smith (1923) articulates Kant's characterization in what appears to be a natural way: Transcendental knowledge and transcendental philosophy must therefore be taken as coinciding; and as thus coincident, they signify the science of the possibility, nature, and limits of a priori knowledge. (p. 74)

For example, my knowledge that ( 1) 2 + 2

=4

is (a case of ) mathematical knowledge, but my knowledge that it is possible for me to know (1) a priori is (a case of) transcendental knowledge, and hence (part of) transcendental philosophy. This picture is clear, and has become entrenched in our conven­ tional wisdom about Kant.1 But I want to argue that it makes things much too simple. To begin with, consider the following grammati­ cal point. Kant says that transcendental philosophy is a system of such concepts. Which concepts? There is no reference to concepts in the sentences immediately preceding this one. The puzzle can be solved by comparing the A with the B edition. In A, the first sen­ tence of the passage above reads: "I entitle transcendental all knowl­ edge which is occupied not so much with objects as with our a priori concepts of objects in general." So the puzzle is apparently a result of careless editing: there was a reference to concepts in A, but the reference was deleted in B, and thus the 'such' was left without an antecedent. It is natural to think that Kant substituted (a reference to) a priori modes of knowledge for (one to) a priori concepts of objects because he realized that his previous characterization would have excluded the Transcendental Aesthetic from the scope of transcendental phi­ losophy: space and time are a priori representations but not a priori concepts. This conjecture seems to agree with the following state­ ment, to be found later in the Critique: Not every kind of knowledge a priori should be called transcendental, but that only by which we know that-and how-certain represen­ tations (intuitions or concepts) can be employed or are possible purely a priori. (A56 B80-8 1; italics mine)

Transcendental Philosophy

5

But suppose that we emendate the passage at B25 to get rid of the poor editing. In A, transcendental knowledge is concerned "with our a priori concepts of objects in general." If transcendental phi­ losophy is to be a system of such concepts, it is to be a system of a priori concepts of objects in general. In B, reference to concepts is replaced by reference to a priori modes of knowledge, that is, intu­ itions and concepts, so the most natural way to emendate the awk­ ward "such concepts' would be by replacing it with 'such intuitions and concepts' (that is, such modes of knowledge). By such a substi­ tution, transcendental philosophy would become a system of a priori intuitions and concepts. But transcendental philosophy is a kind of philosophy and, according to Kant, philosophy is a purely conceptual enterprise, in which there is no room for intuitions. 2 It is for this reason, for example, that "mathematical principles form no part of this system [ of principles]" (A149 B188), and philoso­ phy's concern with them is limited to rendering them conceivable. 3 Thus Kant's definition at B25 is confused (and confusing). As it reads, it makes no grammatical sense, and the most natural way to fix it gives us something that Kant would have to find unacceptable. Textual tensions of this kind are often evidence of underlying the­ oretical tensions, and I think that the present case is no exception. To identify the theoretical tension here, return to the text once more. The passage at A11-12 B25 I have been discussing contains not only the "official" definitions of transcendental knowledge and tran­ scendental philosophy, but also the first significant occurrence of the word 'transcendental' in the Critique. 4 A common complaint about Kant's use of this word is that, after introducing it here in what is at least prima facie a relatively rigorous way, he proceeds to apply it to all sorts of things not covered by his definition. 5 For example, he talks of a transcendental ground at A563 B591 and at A564 B592, referring in both cases to things in themselves (of which supposedly we have no knowledge ); 6 he talks of a transcendental substrate at A575 B603, referring to the transcendental ideal of reason (of which again we have no knowledge), and he talks constantly of a transcen­ dental employment of understanding and reason, meaning their application to things in themselves (see, e.g., A238 B298). Surpris­ ingly, there is also another (rarely noticed) side to the coin: the phrase 'transcendental knowledge' itself (in German, transzenden­ tale Erkenntnis), 7 which Kant defines so carefully twice early in the Critique (at A11-12 B25 and A56 B80-81), occurs only twice more

6

Kant's Copernican Revolution

in the rest of the work. 8 One occurrence is in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method (at A783 B8 1 1, some eight hundred pages after the phrase was first introduced), and the other one is in the Analytic, in the chapter on phenomena and noumena, and it refers to a kind of knowledge of whose possibility we have no idea! Such objects of pure understanding will always remain unknown to us; we can never even know whether such a transcendental or excep­ tional knowledge is possible under any conditions-at least not if it is to be the same kind of knowledge as that which stands under our ordinary categories. (A258 B314; italics mine)

In order to bring some order into this textual morass, consider some applications of "transcendental" in more detail. The transcen­ dental employment of the categories is their employment at a purely conceptual level. When we employ the categories at this level, we come up with thoughts such as that of a transcendental ground, or a transcendental substrate, or a transcendental ideal. A transcenden­ tal subreption (A509 B537, A583 B6 1 1, A6 19 B647) is a conceptual subreption, a confusion at the conceptual level. The transcendental division of an appearance (A527 B555) is its division at the concep­ tual level, and "the question how far it may extend does not await an answer from experience." A transcendental presupposition (A572-73 B600- 1) is a conceptual presupposition. Transcendental answers for transcendental questions (A637 B665) are "answers exclusively based on concepts that are a priori, without the least empirical admixture," and a transcendental procedure for construct­ ing a theology amounts to constructing it "through purely specula­ tive reason" (A638 B666). The result of applying this procedure is a transcendental theology, which "thinks its object . . . through pure reason, solely by means of transcendental concepts (ens originar­ ium, realissimum, ens entium)" (A63 1 B659). A transcendental cri­ terion (A640 B668) is a purely conceptual criterion, and a transcen­ dental proposition "can never be given through construction of concepts, but only in accordance with concepts that are a priori" (A720 B748). A transcendental synthesis is one that proceeds "from concepts alone, a synthesis with which the philosopher is alone competent to deal" (A7 19 B747), and a transcendental hypothesis is to be found when "a mere idea of reason is used in explanation of natural existences" (A772 B800). This list is certainly not exhaustive, but is representative enough

Transcendental Philosophy

7

to reach a few tentative conclusions. First of all, the qualification 'transcendental' is sometimes applied by Kant to (mental) activities (such as an employment of the categories, a division, a synthesis). In this case, a transcendental (activity) X seems to be an X performed at a purely conceptual level, that is, an X whose performance requires nothing but (the possession and mobilization of) concepts, an X that is conducted in terms of (or utilizes) concepts only. Sec­ ond, 'transcendental' is applied to results or tools of a transcenden­ tal activity; such is the case, for example, with transcendental prop­ ositions, presuppositions, or hypotheses. Third, 'transcendental' is applied to (kinds of ) things that are thought of in the course of a transcendental activity, for example, a transcendental ground or a transcendental substrate. In this case, it can be cashed out as fol­ lows: a transcendental Xis an X as it surfaces within a transcenden­ tal activity. That is, it is a purely conceptual characterization (in short, a conceptualization) of an X. An important qualification can be added to this tentative account by considering another set of passages, in which transcendental activities are contrasted with a different kind of conceptual activi­ ties, the logical (or general-logical) ones. Here is a representative selection. General logic .. . abstracts from all content of knowledge, that is, from all relation of knowledge to the object, and considers only the logical form in the relation of any knowledge to other knowledge; that is, it treats of the form of thought in general. But . . . we should have a logic in which we do not abstract from the entire content of knowledge. This other logic . . . should contain solely the rules of the pure thought of an object . . . (A55 B79-80) General logic . . . abstracts from all content of knowledge. . . . Tran­ scendental logic, on the other hand, has lying before it a manifold of a priori sensibility . . . as material for the concepts of pure under­ standing. (A 76-77 B 102) In terms of this proposition [that is, "Everything which exists is com­ pletely determined"] the predicates are not merely compared with one another logically, but the thing itself is compared, in transcen­ dental fashion, with the sum of all possible predicates. (A573 B60 1)

A comparison of these passages with our earlier conclusions sug­ gest the following picture. Some mental activities typically aim at

8

Kant's Copernican Revolution

the representation of objects; call them representational activities. Other mental activities are not representational: they consist of comparing and analyzing concepts. 9 Logical activities are non-rep­ resentational mental activities. Transcendental activities on the other hand-or, as they are also called, to emphasize both their sim­ ilarity and their contrast with (general-)logical ones, transcendental­ logical activities-are conceptual representational a£tivi�_ies. They must remain at the-conceptual level to qualify-as philosophical activities, but somehow they manage not to be void of content, and to involve reference to an object. 10 An explication of the other two major uses of 'transcendental' identified above (and exemplified in the phrases 'transcendental proposition' and 'transcendental ground,' respectively) follows easily. This account still leaves much to be desired, and a large part of my efforts below will have the effect of further articulating it. In par­ ticular, at virtually every major turn in the argument we will have something new to learn about the specific character, the complica­ tions, and the paradoxes of a "purely conceptual activity." But for the moment, the (misleadingly) innocent-looking formulation above may suffice, if for nothing else because it already gives us enough to worry about. It will become progressively clearer in this chapter, and will be illustrated in the rest of the book, that the project of distinguishing (general-)logical from transcendental activ­ ities is a delusive one, and the search for objects at the conceptual level collapses into a play with predicates ( or, perhaps, just words). Briefly put, �re cannot be__ ?___ conceQtual representational activity: pure thought has no object. As a firs{-step- toward establishingsuch claims, I will now apply my preliminary understanding of the word 'transcendental' to an interpretation of Kant's embarrassment with the phrase 'transzendentale Erkenntnis'. In the present context, 'Erkenntnis' is an ambiguous word: it may refer to the (mental) activity of erkennen, to a result of this activity, or to something which is characterized in the course of a mental activity. If we take it in the first sense, then a transcendental Erkenntnis is a conceptual erkennen; if we take it in the second sense, it is an Erkenntnis obtained at the conceptual level; and if we take it in the third sense, it is a conceptualization of Erkenntnis. But in all cases we have a problem. A transcendental employment of the categories is still an employment of them, maybe a misemployment, but an employment nonetheless. A transcendental subreption is still a subreption, a transcendental hypothesis is still an hypothesis, and

Transcendental Philosophy

9

a transcendental ground is still a ground. But a transcendental Erkenntnis is no Erkenntnis. For it is part of Kant's teaching that a limitation of erkennen to its purely conceptual component results in no erkennen, and that a pure conceptualization of Erkenntnis is no Erkenntnis. Without a contribution on the part of sensibility­ specifically, without an application of concepts to sensible mate­ rial-there are no erkennen and no Erkenntnis: It is . . . just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add the object to them in intuition, as to make our intuitions intelligible, that is, to bring them under concepts. . . . The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can think nothing. Only through their union can knowledge [Erkenntnis] arise. (A5 1 B75-76; italics mine)

So, no wonder that the phrase ·transcendental Erkenntnis' intro­ duced at A11-12 B25 is hardly ever used again. A transcendental Erkenntnis for Kant is almost a contradiction in terms. Or, more precisely, the phrase ·transcendental Erkenntnis' is highly mislead­ ing, since it is natural to think of it as referring to some kind of Erkenntnis, whereas a transcendental Erkenntnis is as little an Erkenntnis as an incomplete circle is a circle or an alleged proof is a proof ! 1 1 We now have a clue as to the theoretical tension underlying the B25 passage.1 2 On the one hand, Kant is aware of the fact that tran­ scendental philosophy is a purely conceptual activity.On the other, he certainly wants transcendental philosophy to be more than wild speculation; in fact, at Axiv he characterizes his aim as that of obtaining "'complete knowledge" of "'reason itself and its pure thinking." But given the official characterization of knowledge in the Critique, a purely conceptual activity can yield no knowledge. At B25, Kant manages to hide this conflict by a miracle of obscurity, that is, by transforming it into a textual conflict: transcendental phi­ losophy is characterized (consistently with the purely conceptual nature of all philosophy) as a system of "'such concepts," but the previous sentence does not tell us which concepts the "'such con­ cepts" are. What that sentence refers to instead is (presumably) intu­ itions and concepts, that is, the two necessary ingredients of (human) knowledge. And, in conclusion, Kant's poor editing is seen to be not only the origin of the textual confusion but also (and more importantly) the consequence of a deeper theoretical confusion. 1 3 Apparently, there is a simple way of addressing this textual and theoretical conflict. It consists in the (relatively commonplace) sug-

Kant's Copernican Revolution

gestion that Kant's notion of Erkenntnis is too narrow to cover all of knowledge, and in particular the knowledge the Critique is sup­ posed to give us.1 4 Rolf George (1981) points out that [s]ince the eighteenth century [the word "Erkenntnis '1 has migrated from the semantic field of reference to that of insight: "erkennen " used to mean, roughly, "'to discern, make out, detect, perceive," or more generally, "'to have before one's mind as an object," rather than "'to know, ascertain, understand." (p. 24 1)

In the serial arrangement given at A320 B376-77 Erkenntnis is defined as an objective conscious representation, and since 'objec­ tive' is the same for Kant as 'of an object', 1 5 an Erkenntnis turns out to be a (conscious) representation of an object. But then 'Erkennt­ nis ' is not in a position to cover, for example, our knowledge of the laws of formal (or general) logic, which according to Kant do not concern objects at all, but only (the comparison and analysis of) concepts. And certainly 'Erkenntnis' cannot cover philosophical knowledge, if any such thing exists. Philosophical knowledge is the result of philosophical reflection, that is, of a purely conceptual activity whose subject matter may be, for example, Erkenntnis but which cannot itself consist of (Kantian) Erkenntnis. The truths such reflection can prove, if any, (and hence the truths we can know phil­ osophically, if any) are purely conceptual truths, in Kant's terms analytical truths.1 6 By taking this route, one could claim that Kant simply lacked a term to describe (the results of) his own philosophical activity, and that providing him with such a term would eliminate all the interpretive problems surrounding this activity and streamline the convolutions contained in his characterizations of the activity. But I think that this analysis does not go deep enough. I think that the attraction the notion of Erkenntnis exercised on Kant 1 7 and his unwillingness to give it up in favor of a different notion of knowl­ edge more suited to the conceptual nature of his own philosophical activity are perfectly understandable once one forms a clear notion of Kant's philosophical program and of the (probably unexpected) difficulties this program eventually ran into.To put it in a compact (and, at this stage of the game, necessarily still opaque) form, by holding fast to his notion of Erkenntnis Kant tried to avoid having to change the nature of philosophy not just once but twice. In the next two sections, I will account for this admittedly mysterious formulation.

Transcendental Philosophy

2.

II

Kant 's program

A large portion of the Kant literature, at least in English, is con­ cerned with transcendental arguments. 1 8 In fact, the issue of tran­ scendental arguments has been recently characterized by Ralph Walker ( 1 978) as one of the two "central ones" in Kant's philosophy (the other being the "closely intertwined" one of transcendental ide­ alism; see pp. vii-viii). Authors disagree widely on what the struc­ ture of these arguments is, but there seems to be a core of agreement on the following points: transcendental arguments were inaugurated by Kant; the transcendental deduction is one of them; transcendental arguments are supposed to answer the skeptic; they do that by undercutting the skeptic's position, that is, by showing that the truth of some proposition p that the skeptic wants to deny is required (in a sense specified differently by different authors) for the very formulation of intelligible thought, so that, if the skeptic denies p, he ends up making no sense at all; and, finally, (e) it is unlikely that any transcendental argument purporting to prove some interesting proposition can be made to work (though examples can be found of sound transcendental arguments that prove relatively trivial conclusions). 1 9

(a) (b) (c) (d)

To give only a couple of recent examples, take Walker and T . E. Wilkerson ( 1 970, 1 976). Walker claims that transcendental argu­ ments have the form: ( 1 )(a) We have experience (of kind K) (b) It is analytic that the truth of p is a necessary condition for experi­ ence (of kind K) ( c) Therefore, p.

But this form could be simplified. For an instance of ( I ) is sound if and only if an instance of the following is sound: (2)(a) We have experience (of kind K) (b) Therefore, p.

And (2) makes it clear that the first premiss is where the whole game against the skeptic is played (according to Walker). For as to analytic truths, if the skeptic raises doubts about them, then he is probably going to raise doubts about analytic inferences as well and hence be unimpressed by any argument one could come up with. In the particular case of the transcendental deduction, (2)(a) has the form

12

Kant 's Copernican Revolution

(3) We have sensible experience,

whereas in the Analytic of Principles, (2)(a) becomes (4) We have temporal experience.

But none of this is going to impress the skeptic, Walker thinks. The weaker premiss (5) We have experience

probably would, but Kant can get nowhere with just (5). And as soon as he qualifies the kind of experience we have, it is "open to [the skeptic] simply to deny that we do have experience or knowl­ edge of that kind" (p. 15). Therefore, transcendental arguments can hardly be successful. On the other hand, in Wilkerson's position (as reconstructed by Walker20) the structure of a transcendental argument is the following: (6)(a) We have experience (of kind K) (b) It is synthetic but a priori that the truth of p is sufficient, ceteris par­ ibus, for our having experience (of kind K) (c) Therefore, p.

In this reading, transcendental arguments not only have a special kind of premiss( es), but are also "arguments" of a very special kind. For if they work at all, they do not work the way arguments nor­ mally do, by showing that the conclusion is logically implied by true premisses. As Walker points out, q does not follow logically from p and "q is a sufficient condition for p" (that is, "if q, then p"), and hence transcendental arguments a la Wilkerson are typically invalid. So the burden is on Wilkerson and those who agree with him to specify a sense in which such "arguments" work, and nobody has been successful in this enterprise yet. Walker's general point is not new. Robert Paul Wolff ( 1963) made the same point against Kemp Smith and Lewis White Beck, who both claimed that there was something "regressive" about Kant's arguing. A regressive argument in Beck's sense, Wolff pointed out, is simply a fallacy, and Kant's arguments are not fallacies, or at least not so obvious ones. So why, one might ask, such a recurring ten­ dency to attribute to Kant blatant non sequiturs and to make them the (dubious) cornerstone of his philosophy? Walker ( 1978) himself asks this question, and he suggests two possible answers for it. On the one hand, he says, people have

Transcendental Philosophy

13

thought that normal (analytic) arguments are somewhat trivial, that their conclusions are already contained in their premisses, and therefore that in some sense they cannot really advance philosophy. But this, he thinks, is "'rather harsh" (p. 22). Analysis can be com­ plicated, and its results can be interesting. 2 1 On the other hand, according to Walker, Kant's arguments, when construed as normal arguments, are usually unsound, so thinking of them as having some nonstandard structure is a way of salvaging them. But we should not attempt such a rescue, Walker continues, since . . . philosophers commonly do produce unsound arguments, and Kant is no exception, as a glance at his non-transcendental arguments will speedily confirm. We ought to recognize the fact, and not seek to disguise it by enveloping the argument-form in mystery. (ibid.)

On the face of it, this is good advice. In doing the history of phi­ losophy, our charitable and sympathetic reading should not be car­ ried to an extreme, and prevent us from recognizing the past mas­ ters' serious blunders. At that extreme, charity becomes intellectual fuzziness and dishonesty. But if the advice is generally good, I think it has no application to the present case. The problem of the status of transcendental arguments is largely a creation of Kant's inter­ preters, and Walker's advice is the ironic conclusion of blunders they make in reading the text. To see what these blunders are, let us take a fresh look at what Kant himself says. There are only two uses of the phrase 'transcendental argument' ( 'transzendentales Argument ') in the whole Critique. The first one is at A589 B6 17, and it refers to the cosmological argument for the existence of God: "Though this argument, as resting on the inner insufficiency of the contingent, is in actual fact transcendental. . . . " The second one is at A627 B655, in the context of Kant's discussion of the physico-theological proof: "To prove the contingency of mat­ ter itself, we should have to resort to a transcendental argument, and this is precisely what we have here set out to avoid." In both cases, 'transcendental' is to be understood as 'purely conceptual', and Kant is clearly not endorsing such arguments, even less indi­ cating that they are somewhat central to his endeavors. On the other hand, there are four occurrences of the related phrase 'transcendental proof ' ('transzendentaler Beweis ') and one occurrence of 'transcendental mode of proof ' ( 'transzendentale Bew­ eisart ') in the Dialectic. They are at A59 1 B6 19, A6 14 B642 (2), A6 15 B643, and A629 B657, respectively. All of them refer in effect

14

Kant 's Copernican Revolution

to the ontological argument for the existence of God. 22 The context of the third occurrence is especially instructive: "Both the above proofs were transcendental, that is, were attempted independently of empirical principles" (italics mine). There are four additional occurrences of 'transcendental proof in the Transcendental Doctrine of Method: at A786 B8 1 4, A787 B8 1 5, A788 B8 1 6, and A789 B8 1 7. They are contained in a section entitled "The Discipline of Pure Reason in Regard to its Proofs," which is concerned with transcendental proofs in general and begins as follows: What distinguishes the proofs of transcendental synthetic proposi­ tions from all other proofs which yield an a priori synthetic knowl­ edge is that, in the case of the former, reason may not apply itself, by means of its concepts, directly to the object, but must first establish the objective validity of the concepts and the possibility of their a priori synthesis. (A 782 88 1 0)

Since the possibility of this synthesis can be established for concepts of the understanding-Kant claims-the transcendental proof of the principle of causality is legitimate. Since this possibility cannot be established for ideas of reason, the transcendental proof of the existence of God is illegitimate. The picture suggested by these passages agrees with my earlier dis­ cussion of the general meaning of 'transcendental'. A transcendental proof is a purely conceptual proof, in particular, one that involves reference to (for example, tries to establish the existence of) some object or objects, and hence there is nothing new to it. Philosophers had been attempting such proofs long before Kant; in fact, Kant thinks, their major strategical mistake consisted precisely in relying on such a demonstrative tool too often and too indiscriminately. What is new to Kant's position is that he asks questions about these proofs; in particular, he asks for an account of how the proofs are possible. 23 Such an account he calls a (transcendental) deduction: But if such professed proofs are propounded, we must meet their deceptive power of persuasion with the non liquet of our matured judgment; and although we may not be able to detect the illusion involved, we are yet entirely within our rights in demanding a deduc­ tion of the principles employed in them. . . . (A 7 8 6-87 88 1 4- 1 5) Everyone must defend his position directly, by a legitimate proof that carries with it a transcendental deduction of the grounds upon which it is itself made to rest. (A 794 8822)

Transcendental Philosophy

15

The most fundamental of transcendental deductions is, of course, the deduction of the categories, which consistently with the char­ acterization above is described by Kant as the "explanation [ Erklarung] of the manner in which concepts can thus relate a priori to objects . . ." (A85 B11 7), and this explanation comes in the form of a philosophical theory-more generally, of a whole new philo­ sophical standpoint-that allows one to conceptualize the possibility that categories may have application to objects. Later in the book I will articulate this reading of the transcenden­ tal deduction. For the moment, note that I am not the first to say that the deduction is something more (or less?) than an argument. Peter Strawson (1966) claimed that the deduction "is not only an argument. It is also an explanation, a description, a story" (p.86). 2 4 But if this claim is accepted, then Kant seems to be in conflict with his own intentions, as declared, for example, in the Preface to the First Edition: As to certainty, I have prescribed to myself the maxim, that in this kind of investigation it is in no wise permissible to hold opinions. Everything, therefore, which bears any manner of resemblance to an hypothesis is to be treated as contraband; it is not to be put up for sale even at the lowest price, but forthwith confiscated, immediately upon detection. (Axv)

For is not a philosophical theory (or a "story"), such as the one that I (and Strawson) see embedded in the deduction, a more or less organized system of opinions, that is, the kind of thing that should be allowed no currency in transcendental philosophy?25 Not surprisingly, Strawson concludes that Kant acted against his better judgment, and that he must be saved from his own question­ able maneuvers. Not only are the two aspects of the deduction separable: they must be separated, or "disentangled," in Strawson's terminology, to identify Kant's real contribution. The "austere" transcendental argument must be purified of its connections with the "transcendental drama." I, on the other hand, think that these two aspects are best seen together, that the deduction (and the Cri­ tique in general) are best seen as presenting an argument (or a sys­ tem of arguments) which takes the form of a story, and that appre­ ciating this point will bring us to a closer understanding of Kant's philosophical program. 26 In addition to the occurrences mentioned above, the phrase 'tran­ scendental proof ' occurs once more in the Critique. This last occur-

16

Kant's Copernican Revolution

rence is also its only occurrence in the Analytic. It is contained in the following passage: Almost all natural philosophers, observing . . . a great difference in the quantity of various kinds of matter in bodies that have the same vol­ ume, unanimously conclude that this volume, which constitutes the extensive magnitude of the appearance, must in all material bodies by empty in varying degrees. Who would ever have dreamt of believ­ ing that these students of nature . . . would base such an inference solely on a metaphysical presupposition-the sort of assumption they so stoutly profess to avoid? They assume that the real in space . . . is everywhere uniform and varies only in extensive magnitude, that is, in amount. Now to this presupposition, for which they could find no support in experience, and which is therefore purely metaphysical, I oppose a transcendental proof, which does not indeed explain the dif­ ference in the filling of spaces, but completely destroys the supposed necessity of the above presupposition. . . . My proof has the merit at least of freeing the understanding, so that it is at liberty to think this difference in some other manner . . . . (A l 73-74 B2 15- 1 6; italics mine)

Transcendental proofs of this kind belong to what Kant calls the polemical employment of reason, which consists of . . . the defence of its propositions as against the dogmatic counter­ propositions through which they are denied. Here the contention is not that its own assertions may not, perhaps, be false, but only that no one can assert the opposite with apodeictic certainty, or even, indeed, with a greater degree of likelihood. We do not here hold our possessions upon sufferance; for although our title to them may not be satisfactory, it is yet quite certain that no one can ever be in a position to prove the illegality of the title. (A739-40 B767-68)

Kant does in fact use reason polemically in a number of cases. At A363-64 he shows that the identity of self-consciousness at different times does not entail the numerical identity of the subject, since one could imagine self-consciousness to be transmitted from one sub­ stance to another the way motion is transmitted from one elastic ball to another. At B4 1 4- 1 8 he counteracts Mendelssohn's proof of the permanence of the soul after death by imagining that the soul's powers be lost in a gradual and continuous way, and then observes in a long footnote that [s]ome philosophers, in making out a case for a new possibility, con­ sider that they have done enough if they can defy others to show any

Transcendental Philosophy

17

contradiction in their assumptions. . . . But those who resort to such a method of argument can be quite nonplussed by the citation of other possibilities which are not a whit more adventurous.

And at A778 B806, in a passage which has obvious resonances with his central claim that empirical objects are appearances, he says: If, therefore, having assumed (in some non-speculative connection) the nature of the soul to be immaterial and not subject to any cor­ poreal change, we are met by the difficulty that nevertheless experi­ ence seems to prove that the exaltation and the derangement of our mental powers are alike in being merely diverse modifications of our organs, we can weaken the force of this proof by postulating that our body may be nothing more than a fundamental appearance which in this our present state (in this life) serves as a condition of our whole faculty of sensibility, and therewith of all our thought, and that sep­ aration from the body may therefore be regarded as the end of this sensible employment of our faculty of knowledge and the beginning of its intellectual employment.

So pure speculation can be useful to disarm our opponent, if not to establish our own position. But if this is all the use speculation can have, why does Kant characterize his strategy at A l 73-74 B2 1 5- 1 6 as that of offering a transcendental proof? What can he. hope to prove by just voicing a new hypothesis on the matter? Answering this question proves decisive in understanding the sense in which the deduction can be construed as establishing (or at least trying to establish) something with the apodeictic certainty Kant requires at Axv. My answer is as follows. To be sure, (the exis­ tence of ) a (consistent) philosophical theory entailing, say, (7) The self is not numerically identical through time,

is insufficient to prove the truth of (7), but such a theory may be sufficient to prove the truth of (8)

It is possible that the self be not numerically identical through time.

And, in general, merely imagining or describing a possible state of affairs in which p is true does not allow one to establish p, but may be taken as sufficient to establish (9)

It is possible that p.

With this in mind, consider again Kant's characterization of the deduction. The deduction is, he says, "[t]he explanation of the man-

18

Kant's Copernican Revolution

ner in which concepts can thus relate a priori to objects" (italics mine).This explanation, I noted above, comes in the form of a phil­ osophical theory: more precisely, a theory concerning how represen­ tations are related to objects. It may be a consequence of this theory that some a priori concepts have objective validity, but the theory all by itself could not prove that these concepts do in fact have objective validity, so if that is what Kant is after, the deduction would not help him. However, Kant's own characterization of the deduction suggests that that is not what he is after. What he is after is proving that the concepts in question can have objective validity, and for this purpose a (consistent) theory (or, to put it a la Strawson, a [consistent] story) is perfectly adequate.2 7 In the Introduction, Kant says that "the proper problem of pure reason is contained in the question: How are a priori synthetic judg­ ments possible?" (Bl 9).Many have found this formula unjustifiably reductive, and have claimed that Kant has as many problems with a posteriori judgments as with (synthetic) a priori ones. 2 8 And so it is-as I will argue in some detail in the next chapter. But there is a sense in which the formula above captures exactly the spirit of Kant's enterprise, in that it mobilizes from the beginning-and assigns a central role to-the notion of possibility. Kant is not a foundationalist: he says immediately after the last passage quoted that the actuality of mathematics and physics has never been in question, and that their existence is a simple fact which does not expect legitimation from philosophy. If anything, it is philosophy itself that is in question, insofar as philosophers cannot explain to themselves how something that happens all the time is possible, and in fact have remained largely impotent in the face of Hume's sus­ tained attack against this possibility. What Hume's attack-or, bet­ ter, a suitable generalization of it-has proved is that traditional philosophy provides no consistent conceptual model of human knowledge-and perhaps, though the thing is not immediately rel­ evant here, of other aspects of human experience as well. It is the challenge represented by this attack that Kant wants to take up, by way of an "experiment" (see Bxvii29 ) which he hopes-in fact, ini­ tially is convinced-will be more successful than the traditional approach.3 0 The experiment in question is Kant's conceptual revolution, that is, the main subject matter of the present book. But before we turn to the essence of that revolution, something more m ust be said about the nature of the task involved.To begin with what is prom-

Transcendental Philosophy

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ising about it, this task seems both more feasible and more germane to philosophy (at least as Kant understood it) than, say, the Carte­ sian task of proving that our normal waking perception is truthful. For, on the one hand, Kant's task seems simpler: proving that some­ thing is possible seems simpler than proving that it is true. On the other, if a proof of possibility consists in the cooking up of a con­ sistent story, it seems to be the kind of thing that an armchair thinker could obtain by playing with his concepts. So, once again, shall we conclude that Kant was simply missing a term for the knowledge that his own "experiment" would provide him with, and that supplying him with such a term would close the issue? Not quite.

3.

"Real " possibility

The Kantian program as I characterized it so far has interesting analogies with David Hilbert's formalist program in the philosophy of mathematics. As in Kant's case, the situation Hilbert ( 1 925) faces is one of conceptual crisis: . . . a contradiction discovered by Zermelo and Russell had a down­ right catastrophic effect when it became known throughout the world of mathematics . . . . Cantor's doctrine . . . was attacked on all sides. So violent was this reaction that even the most ordinary and fruitful concepts and the simplest and most important deductive methods of mathematics were threatened and their employment was on the verge of being declared illicit. (p. 1 4 1 )

When such a conceptual crisis occurs, a natural reaction on the part of many is that of adopting a revisionary attitude with respect to ordinary beliefs and/or practices. If they get us in trouble, the revisionists claim, they must be modified. In the next chapter, we will encounter the major revisionists Kant was facing and opposing; as for the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionists were the most vocal and thorough in assuming this role. Consider, for example, the following passage by Arend Heyting ( 1 9 3 1 ): A real number is defined according to Dedekind by assigning to every rational number either the predicate ' Left' or the predicate 'Right' in such a way that the natural order of the rational numbers is pre­ served. . . . In its original form, . . . Dedekind's definition cannot be used in intuitionist mathematics. Brouwer, however, has improved it. . . . (p. 43)

20

Kant 's Copernican Revolution

The details of Heyting's objection to Dedekind and of Brouwer's "improvement" on the latter's definition are of no concern here; what matters for us is that Heyting and Brouwer found it necessary, on the basis of their philosophical conclusions as to what is and what is not legitimate, to intervene in, and modify, ordinary mathemati­ cal practice. Hilbert, on the other hand, is a conservative with respect to such practice. Of set theory, for example, he says: "No one shall drive us out of the paradise which Cantor has created for us" (1925, p. 141). His way out of the crisis is to be found not in a revision of ordinary mathematics, but in the establishment of a new discipline, meta­ mathematics, which will essentially leave ordinary mathematics alone but proceed to argue and inquire about mathematics. And, to make the analogy with Kant even closer, the first substantive step of the formalist program consists in proving (or trying to prove) within metamathematics that the axiom systems in which ordinary mathematical practice is codified (or, to put it more provocatively, the stories used to conceptualize and systematize that activity) are consistent. Unfortunately, the analogies between Hilbert and Kant do not stop at the way in which they conceived of their programs, or at the confidence that at one time they seemed to have in the success of those programs, 3 1 but extend to the fate of the programs as well. We know that Hilbert's program failed, and that it failed because of intrinsic limitations on what it is possible to prove at a purely con­ ceptual level. In the end, Kant's program (as I formulated it so far) failed for similar (though even more general) reasons. It is to these reasons that I turn now. One of the most obscure Kantian doctrines is the thesis, proposed in the Postulates of Empirical Thought, that the field of the possible extends no further than the field of the actual. On the matter, Kant is adamant: Everything actual is possible; from this proposition there naturally follows, in accordance with the logical rules of conversion, the merely particular proposition, that some possible is actual; and this would seem to mean that much is possible which is not actual. It does indeed seem as ifwe were justified in extending the number of possible things beyond that of the actual, on the ground that something must be added to the possible to constitute the actual. But this [alleged] pro­ cess of adding to the possible I refuse to allow. (A23 l B283-84; italics mine)

Transcendental Philosophy

21

Not many commentators find it worthwhile even to consider this statement, and those who do have serious problems with it. Kemp Smith (1923), for example, thinks that Kant is simply confusing the issue: " . . . Kant suddenly, without warning or explanation, attaches to the term possibility a meaning altogether different from any yet assigned to it" (p. 401 ). In part, this attitude is justified by Kant's own: he presents this subtle and surprising claim almost in passing, to discharge a task that he himself does not seem to judge particularly interesting: "I have made mention of these questions only in order to omit nothing which is ordinarily reckoned among the concepts of understanding" (A232 B284-85). But belittling the issue will not make it go away, nor will claiming-another thing Kant does here-that this is not the right place to deal with it.32 So let us stay with the issue a little longer, and see what sense we can make of it. A first stab at the difficulties surrounding this doctrine could be made by pointing out that the possibility Kant is talking about here is not logical but his stronger real possibility. Logical p,c,ssibility is absence of contradiction, whereas real possibility is the possibility ofbeing experi-enced: Also; logic-al possibiH-ty is typically predicated 'ofconcepts, wher�as real possibility is typicall_y pr�s;ficat�d of9bj�c_ts, and no easy inference can be made from the former to the latter: a �L!l!_a}' be logically possible and its-obJec£ sii1In-ot -15e really possible. - -�-�-·-. A concept is always possible if it is not self-contradictory. This is the logical criterion of possibility, and by it the object of the concept is distinguishable from the nihil negativum. But it may none the less be an empty concept, unless the QPkf_�tv.e ��aliJ}' (),t t!}_�_§.j'nt_h��i_s_through which the concept is generatecl _has been specifically prov�d; and such proof . .- �-�9Il _pnndpl�� _ of possible experience, and not on the principle of analysis (the law of contradiction). This is a warning against arguing directly from the logical possibility of concepts to the real possibility of things. (A596 B624 footnote)

And, finally the establishment of real possibility requires, in a way that is not yet entirely clear, the mobilization of our intuitive faculty: . . . as concepts of objects they are then empty, and do not even enable us to judge of their objects whether or not they are possible . . . For I have not then shown that the concept which I am thinking through

22

Kant 's Copernican Revolution my pure concept is even so much as possible, not being in a position to give any intuition corresponding to the concept. . . . (B 1 48-49) . . . if all sensible intuition, the only kind of i ntuition which we pos­ sess, is removed, not one of these concepts can in any fashion verifv itself, so as to show its real possibility. Only logical possibility then remains, that is, that the concept or thought is possible. (B302-3 footnote)

But a reference to real possibility by itself will not do. For even if this possibility is stronger than the logical variety, it still does not follow that it should collapse into actuality. In Gordon Brittan's (1978) recent reconstruction, a logically possible proposition is one that is true in some logically possible world, and a really possible proposition one that is true in some really possible world, where really possible worlds are a (proper) subclass of logically possible worlds, but a subclass that, though it contains the real world, does not-according to Brittan-reduce to it: "One point Kant wants to make is that a great number of worlds are compatible with the actual world, although they differ from it in one respect or another" (p. 22). And it is exactly this great variety of "really possible worlds" that Kant seems to deny in the passage from the Postulates I have been considering here: That yet another series of appearances i n thoroughgoing connection with that which is given in perception, and consequently that more than one all-embracing experience is possible, cannot be inferred from what is given; and still less can any such inference be drawn independently of anything being given-since without material noth­ ing whatsoever can be thought. (A23 l -32 B284)

Thus Kemp Smith's conclusion would seem to be justified that Kant is introducing here a whole new sense of possibility, to the utter bewilderment of his readers. But I think that this conclusion is rash. What is emerging here is not an (additional) ambiguity in the word 'possibility': it is rather an insight about (real) possibility as already characterized that proves Kant to have seen farther and deeper than even most contemporary philosophers of logic, 3 3 though perhaps what he saw he did not like. Understanding this insight will require a digression. Suppose that in propositional modal logic we follow our most immediate intuitions and characterize necessity and possibility as truth at all possible worlds and at some possible world, respectively. Given the level of logical analysis at which we are, it will be natural

Transcendental Philosophy

23

for us to formally construe possible worlds as assignments of truth­ values t? (unanalyzed) atomic propositions.[Now consider the _ propos1t10n (1)

It is possible that p.

Since p is atomic, there certainly is a world (that is, an assignment) at which p is true, and hence ( I ) is logically true.But it we substitute q-and-not-q for p, the result is a proposition that not only is not logically true, but is in fact logically false: (2)

It is possible that q-and-not-q.

And the reason why this creates a serious problem is that p and q­ and-not-q may represent two distinct levels of logical analysis of one and the same English proposition, so that, depending on how deeply judging it consistent and we analyze that proposition, we end inconsistent, possible and impossible! Contemporary modal logic carefully avoids this difficulty by con­ centrating on schemes rather than propositions. Its subject matter, that is, is construed as being constituted not by those propositions that are true at all possible worlds but by those schemes of propo­ sitions whose instances are all true at all possible worlds. However, if this strategy effectively succeeds in insulating logic from the prob­ lem, it does not eliminate the problem. What we believe, question, or argue for are propositions, not schemes, and hence we must.s,till face the fact that a judgment passed on � proposition a� �me level of logical (tfiat-is, conceptual) analysis could be contradicted at a sub­ seciuen�, -deeper lever of the same analysis. 34 · The problem could be deflated if we were dealing with an artificial language, a language defined once and for all. For then we could, conceivably, make sense of a deepest level of logical analysis, and count a proposition as really possible if it were recognized as pos­ sible at that level. But natural language does not work this way. Conceptual analysis in natural language may not be an infinite pro­ cess as Leibniz claimed, but it certainly is_.an jn��finit.e ,.._o,pen-e_nq�d one, 35 and this it1:definiteness is enough to 17Jl_e oµt _any chance of successfully ap-plying th�_ strategy above '. However long we may have taken- examining the network of concepts mobilized by a proposition, �e may never be con�Jµfily� -�-�_rta�!?- �-��t a·-· c��· �r'1_