In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant famously makes the following startling claim, which we can call the transcendental ideality thesis concerning the nature of space, or, for ease of reference in what follows, simply “TI”: Der Raum stellt gar keine Eigenschaft irgend einiger Dinge an sich, oder sie in ihrem Verhältniß auf einander vor, d.i. keine Bestimmung derselben, die an Gegenständen selbst haftete, und welche bliebe, wenn man auch von allen subjectiven Bedingungen der Anschauung abstrahirte.

There is a second way in which the question is capable of a twofold interpretation. One might begin with a priori concepts which have no empirical reference and ask how they can apply to objects. Or, one might deny the dichotomy between the a priori and experience and inquire how synthetic a priori judgments about experience can be accounted for. Initially Kant regarded the problem of schematism in the former way as that of bringing together two divorced realms. From this (...) standpoint it is assumed: a) that a priori concepts are generated by mind independently of experience, and b) that objects are given in intuition However, Kant came to see that if the problem is stated in this way it is insoluble. Only a pre-established harmony would guarantee that a priori concepts apply to objects. He attempted to break down this dualism between intuition and thought, between objects and concepts by showing that the knowledge of objects requires both intuition and thought. Unfortunately the original statement of the problem recurs alongside of the revised formulation at many places in the Critique. A close study of the development of Kant's thought makes it sufficiently clear that it is the latter statement of the problem which alone represents his mature insight and is consonant with his transcendental method of proof. (shrink)

Kants Argument zugunsten der Idealität und Subjektivität des Raumes stellt eine Erklärung dar für die Möglichkeit, Geometrie für die Kenntnis der Natur anzuwenden. Gemäß dem transzendentalen Idealismus können geometrische Sätze, die notwendig und a priori sind, auf empirische Objekte angewendet werden, weil der Raum auf das Subjekt zurückgeht. Kant entwickelte seine Konzeption des synthetischen Charakters der Geometrie im Gegensatz zu Leibniz' analytischer Auffassung, aber der Verfasser argumentiert, dass die Einführung nichteuklidischer geometrischer Strukturen eher Leibniz' als Kants geometrischer Konzeption entspricht. Der (...) Verfasser behauptet weiter, dass Kants Theorie nach Einführung des Begriffs des physikalischen Feldes und der Anwendung nicht-euklidischer Raumstrukturen in der Relativitätstheorie vollkommen unhaltbar wird. Gegenwärtig kann nicht behauptet werden, dass ein euklidischer Raum, von dem wir sicherlich tin a priori Wissen haben, gleichzeitig die Struktur eines physikalischen Raumes bietet. Zudem widerlegt diese Schlussfolgerung Kants Theorie des Raumes als eine a priori Form menschlicher Anschauung. (shrink)

Kant’s Transcendental Ideal (TI) is presented in a notoriously obscure section of the Critique of Pure Reason. Many readers know that Kant’s principal purpose in the TI is to show how reason fallaciously derives its concept of God from its idea of the world. But this argument is clothed in a language that is unfamiliar even to skilled commentators on Kant’s work. In this essay, I present the historical context of the proof, conduct a detailed exegesis of the (...) proof, and argue that Kant formulated the Transcendental Ideal in such a way as to avoid Spinozism—a point Kant later seems to have doubted could be avoided. I develop my case in light of some comments made in a lesser-known essay that Kant wrote for the 1795 contest of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin. (shrink)

In Newtonian physics, all phenomena take place in absolute space, which is a fixed scenario, and are referred to absolute time, which rules all processes. Motion is governed by a set of basic differential equations, and it is possible, at least in principle, to deduce future events from present initial conditions.

When Derrida translated and commented on Husserl’s manuscript The Origin of Geometry in 1962, he gave a central place to what Husserl called the Idea “in the Kantian sense”. This article reflects on the use and function of this Idea in Derrida’s reading of Husserl. It critically interrogates the relationship between the Idea in the Kantian sense and mathematical ideality, as well as the use of this Idea in the interpretation of the Thing (Ding) and the stream of experience (Erlebnisstrom). (...) In the centre of the discussion stands what Derrida calls “pure thinking”, on which he tries to ground the Idea in the Kantian sense. (shrink)

Three genuinely transcendental conditions for the possibility of self-conscious experience are and can only be material (§§2–4). Identifying these conditions shows that the link between transcendental proof and transcendental idealism is not direct, but must be justified by substantive argument (§§ 4, 5). This illuminates the prospect of separating transcendental proofs from transcendental idealism. Indeed, examining these conditions reveals a powerful strategy for using transcendental proof to defend realism sans phrase. Strikingly, this prospect illuminates (...) some otherwise occluded aspects of post-Kantian German Idealism (§6), and sets an important contemporary philosophical agenda (§7). (shrink)

Este estudo aprofunda o sentido da experiência relatada por Marguerite Porete, mistica medieval, condenada como herética e queimada em 1310, acusada de ultrapassar e transcender as Escrituras, errar nos artigos da fé e dossacramentos e dizer palavras contrárias e prejudiciais. No entanto, ela traz uma contribuição importante para o pensamento filosófico-teológico e literário, na medida em que levanta questões e articula respostas sobre o problema da inacessibilidade do transcendente. O aniquilamento é o seu tema, perigoso para um tempo em que (...) o ideal era a salvação de si próprio, perigoso também parao tempo atual, fundado no humanismo e, nessa medida, detido no eu. (shrink)

I examine how Kant argues for the transcendental ideality of space. I defend a reading on which Kant accepts the ideality of space because it explains our (actual) knowledge that mathematical judgments are necessarily true. I argue that this reading is preferable over the alternative suggestion that Kant can infer the ideality of space directly from the fact that we have an a priori intuition of space. Moreover, I argue that the reading I propose does not commit Kant to (...) incoherent modal views. If we carefully distinguish between different senses of modality, the fact that our spatial form of intuition is (in some sense) contingent does not undermine the claim that this form can explain how our mathematical judgments are (in some sense) necessary. (shrink)

Cairns presents a plausible two-part, step by step, approach seemingly developed in Husserl’s “workshop” to transcendental phenomenology that is independent of culture and history, refines a concept of knowledge and its references to worldly things, encounters a difficulty, and resolves it through recognition of a non-worldly apodictic core of consciousness distinct from being in the real temporal, spatial, and causal world.

The paper explores the possibility of philosophical cooperation between Thomism and American pragmatism by resurrecting a largely forgotten debate between Wilmon Henry Sheldon and Jacques Maritain. The discussion focuses primarily on the problem of truth as it is discussed by Peirce and by some contemporary Thomists, including Maritain but also Milbank, Pickstock, Lonergan, Balthasar, Pieper, and Ulrich. The paper claims that, if we bring Peirce’s version of pragmatism into the picture, cooperation is not possible but likely to be fruitful for (...) both pragmatism and Thomism. (shrink)

This dissertation engages critically with the metaphysical implications of the respective transcendentalisms of Husserl, Deleuze, and Kant in an attempt to disclose their largely untapped resources for a renewed consideration of the ability of science to grasp reality as it is in-itself. Chapter 1 examines the metaphysical implications of Husserl’s critique of natural scientific objectivity in his later transcendental philosophy in connection to his early formulations of phenomenological objectivity around the axis of the distinction between metaphysics as the science (...) of real Being and formal ontology as the science of Being in the most universal sense. I argue that Husserl’s phenomenological metaphysics constitutes a framework in which the ideal Being of the transcendental dimension of experience operates as the condition for the possibility of natural scientific objectivity. Chapter 2 scrutinizes Deleuze’s characterization of intensity as a transcendental concept rather than a scientific one against the background of his metaphysics of difference and his critique of the shortcomings of Kant’s transcendental idealism for addressing the transcendental conditions for the genesis of real experience. Through a reading of Deleuze’s metaphysics of difference and intensity in connection to his confinement of the creative productivity of scientific thought to a plane of reference, I argue that the creativity apropos to the scientific engagement with material reality necessitates that such creativity is conditioned by the same transcendental considerations operative in a metaphysics of difference at a broad scale. Against the backdrop of Husserl’s and Deleuze’s respective criticisms of the inadequacy of Kant’s transcendental idealism for articulating the material component of experience, Chapter 3 studies Kant’s later iv conception of ether as the simultaneously empirical and transcendental condition for the possibility and unity of experience. Through an examination of Kant’s renewed understanding of materiality as the necessary and sufficient condition for scientific objectivity in connection with the problematic objectivity of the transcendental ideas created by pure reason in Kant’s Critical philosophy, I suggest that Kant’s later articulation of materiality on transcendental grounds simultaneously addresses the objectivity and the creativity pertinent to the encounter of scientific Thought with material/physical reality. (shrink)

Trendelenburg argued that Kant's arguments in support of transcendental idealism ignored the possibility that space and time are both ideal and real. Recently, Graham Bird has claimed that Trendelenburg (unlike his contemporary Kuno Fischer) misrepresented Kant, confusing two senses of . I defend Trendelenburg's : the ideas of space and time, as a priori and necessary, are ideal, but this does not exclude their validity in the noumenal realm. This undermines transcendental idealism. Bird's attempt to show (...) that the Analytic considers, but rejects, the alternative fails: an epistemological reading makes Kant accept the alternative, while an ontological reading makes him incoherent. As I demonstrate, Trendelenburg acknowledged the ambiguity of , focusing on the transcendental, not the empirical sense. Unlike Fischer, Bird denies Kant's commitment to things-in-themselves in favour of a descriptivist, non-ontological reading of transcendental idealism as an inventory of . But neither Bird's descriptivism, nor Fischer's commitment to things-in-themselves, answers Trendelenburg's sceptical worry about transcendental idealism. (shrink)

The problem of Kant’s Neglected Alternative is that while his Aesthetic provides an argument that space and time are empirically real – in applying to all appearances – its argument seems to fall short of the conclusion that space and time are transcendentally ideal, in not applying to any things in themselves. By considering an overlooked passage in which Kant explains why his Transcendental Deduction is ‘unavoidably necessary’, I argue that it is not solely in his Aesthetic but (...) more so in his Deduction where he intends to provide his argument for the transcendental ideality of space and time. His Deduction shows that space and time do not have a valid application to any things in themselves by arguing that the categories do have a valid application to everything in space and time, but that the categories do not have a valid application to any things in themselves. (shrink)

This article argues that in Beyond Good and Evil (BGE) Nietzsche defends “will to power” as a transcendentally ideal condition of objectivity, in the sense in which Kant considers, say, space, time, or the concepts of substance and causation to be such conditions. The article shows how Nietzsche’s engage-ment with the transcendental idealist arguments of his Kantian contemporaries leads him to reject naturalism and to adopt a peculiarly transcendental kind of skepticism, which rejects as unjustified the conditions (...) that would make objec-tivity possible. The article then turns to the argument for “will to power” in BGE 36, showing that it is best read as defending a transcendentally ideal condition of objectivity, and thus as responding to transcendental skepticism. The article concludes by elaborating on this understanding of “will to power,” particularly in relation to the sense of causality that Nietzsche invokes and in comparison with Kant’s own transcendental claims. (shrink)

Husserl’s concept of an “historical apriori” is marked by a tension: It simultaneously departs from, and develops his long-standing commitment to philosophy as transcendental phenomenology. This paper looks at some reasons for this tension in the context of Husserl’s attempt to determine philosophy as a “tradition” in The Origin of Geometry. Husserl is convinced that philosophy is a scientific tradition, and the historical apriori serves in the analysis of the conditions that define a distinctively scientific “handing down.” The key (...) here is a kind of writing—mathematics—thanks to which the participants in the tradition can be certain that they are in essential connection with the “original” idealities of that tradition. But Husserl’s discovery about the individual philosopher’s relation to the philosophical tradition—namely, that it is always mediated by a kind of “poetic invention”—undermines his conviction that philosophy can be a scientific tradition. This is Husserl’s “existentialism.”. (shrink)

My goal in this paper is nothing less than to make philosophical sense of the term “transcendental” as it is used in twentieth-century philosophy. I want to do this by constructing a notion of philosophical reductionism which not only defines the term “transcendental” but also renders explicit the idealistic theses implicit in transcendental philosophies. While I intend an ideal construction of the notions “transcendental” and “idealism,” I think that the notions I develop apply to the (...) philosophies of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger. The historical locus of the paper is Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology, but later sections of the paper will show that the primary concern is not simply to offer a reinterpretation of Husserl but to make intelligible the very notions of “transcendental subjectivity” and “idealism.” Readers who find that their philosophical questions are answered by claims that the world is constituted in transcendental intersubjectivity and that “There is no world without an Existence that sustains its structure” will not share the urgency this writer feels to attain a modicum of clarity. (shrink)

In the Dialectic of the first Critique, Kant claims that a highest being is the transcendental ideal of speculative reason. However, the Canon of the Doctrine of Method presents the highest good as an ideal of both the speculative and the practical use of reason. In this paper, I argue (1) that the highest good is the ideal of the unity of reason – unlike the ideal in the Dialectic – insofar as (2) the highest (...) good serves both the speculative and the practical employment of reason. Accordingly, I also argue that (3) these two employments are complementary, not alternative. Kant’s argument for the ideal of the highest good in the Canon shows that the unity of reason combines the two lawful employments of reason. In order to be reason’s highest ideal, this ideal cannot just mirror the demands of speculative reason – it must also involve the other fundamental employment of reason, i. e., the practical. This highest standpoint cannot be merely speculative but must be moral as well: not just a highest ideal, but also a good (the highest good). (shrink)

Lucy Allais argues that we can better understand Kant's transcendental idealism by taking seriously the analogy of appearances to secondary qualities that Kant offers in theProlegomena. A proper appreciation of this analogy, Allais claims, yields a reading of transcendental idealism according to which all properties that can appear to us in experience are mind-dependent relational properties that inhere in mind-independent objects. In section 1 of my paper, I articulate Allais's position and its benefits, not least of which is (...) its elegant explanation of how the features of objects that appear to us are transcendentally ideal while still being ‘empirically’ real. In section 2, I contend that there are elements of Allais's account that are problematic, yet also inessential, to what I view to be the core contribution of her analysis. These elements are the views that the properties that appear to human beings are not really distinct from properties that things have ‘in themselves’ and that Kant embraced a relational account of perception. In section 3, I return to the core of Allais's reading and argue that, despite its multiple virtues, it cannot make sense of key features of Kant's idealism. (shrink)

In der transzendentalen Dialektik führt Kant die transzendentalen Ideen ein, deren systematischer Zusammenhang ambivalenter ist, als er zunächst erscheint. Das transzendentale Ideal, Kants Gottesbegriff, resultiert als eine der Ideen aus der Forderung der Vernunft, zu einem gegebenen Bedingten die vollständige Reihe der Bedingungen vorauszusetzen. Der ‚Grundsatz der durchgängigen Bestimmung‘ bildet Kant zufolge eine Variante dieses Prinzips. Außerdem beruht das Ideal, das hinsichtlich aller möglichen kontradiktorischen Prädikatenpaare bestimmt ist, auf seiner Grundlage. Entgegen Kants Darstellung wird gezeigt, dass dieser Begriff (...) nicht durchgängig, sondern nur partiell bestimmt ist, da Kant in seinem Grundsatz Prädikate transzendental und nicht logisch entgegensetzen muss und sich die transzendentalen Gegensätze nur als eine Teilmenge der logischen offenbaren. (shrink)

In The Idea of Justice Amartya Sen criticises ‘transcendental institutionalism’ for entertaining notions of ‘ideal justice’ that, are neither necessary nor sufficient for the advancement of justice in the real world. Sen argues in favor of a ‘realization- focused’ and ‘comparative’ understanding of justice that he associates with the names of Adam Smith, Marx, and J. S. Mill. Conceptions of ideal justice. Sen believes, are useless since in practice we do not need them to advance justice. And (...) they are ‘infeasible’ because all conceptions of ideal justice can be reasonably rejected for one reason or other. I shall address both complaints in turn and maintain that Sen’s rigid contra-position of ideal and comparative justice is overstated. It will also be discussed how the institutional focus of ‘transcendental institutionalism’ links up with the need for an ideal conception of justice. Finally, some implications of rational dissent about justice and two common strategies to deal with it will be discussed. (shrink)

In 1930 Husserl wrote that phenomenology is ‘a transcendental idealism that is nothing more than a consequentially executed self-explication in the form of an egological science, an explication of my ego as subject of every possible cognition, and indeed with respect to every sense of what exists, wherewith the latter might be able to have a sense for me, the ego.’ In transcendental-phenomenological theory, according to Husserl, ‘every sort of existent itself, real or ideal, becomes understandable as (...) a “product” of transcendental subjectivity, a product constituted in just that performance.’ This appears so inimical to the fundamental bases of feminist theory that the question of the very possibility of a ‘feminist phenomenology’ inevitably arises, not least because so much associated with the contributions of feminist theory to philosophy concern precisely the critique of the transcendental, isolated, disembodied subject. This chapter explores the different kinds of feminist phenomenology of pregnancy and birth with this problem in mind. Although phenomenology has developed and transformed itself in ways more accommodating to feminist theory we are still entitled to ask what makes it phenomenology? What are the presuppositions of any feminist phenomenology if it is still to count as phenomenology, rather than descriptive social-psychology or feminist metaphysics or feminist ethics? Is phenomenology essentially tied to first-personal description, or can third-person accounts be a legitimate part of its analyses? If third-person descriptions are accepted as a legitimate, what considerations govern the inevitable interpretative aspect of their analysis? Can there be any phenomenology, feminist or otherwise, without some conception of transcendental subjectivity? And what is at stake in the continued use of the transcendental problematic, granted its immanent phenomenological criticism and its various theoretical transformations? This chapter addresses the question of the philosophical specificity of feminist phenomenology by pursuing its distinction from the use of phenomenological research methods in practice disciplines and qualitative psychology, via two of the pivotal questions raised above: can there be any phenomenology, feminist or otherwise, without some conception of transcendental subjectivity? And what is the role of third person testimony in phenomenology? I will argue that the first of these questions remains a problem for feminist phenomenology, in a way that is not easily solved with recourse to third person testimony, the use of which remains under-theorized in the feminist phenomenological literature. Finally, I will show how the problem of transcendental subjectivity is particularly acute for the feminist phenomenology of pregnancy and birth when we consider the generative metaphorics of its philosophical origin in Kant’s philosophy. (shrink)

This book focuses on Edmund Husserl’s philosophical collaboration with Eugen Fink which took place in the early 1930s, and shows how their disagreement over the nature, origin, and aim of phenomenology led to a crucial divergence on the issue of who was engaging in phenomenology, and with what motivation. It provides a philosophical investigation of a key moment in the development of Husserl’s late phenomenology. The author claims that Husserl’s meta-phenomenological exploration of the theoretical and, importantly, practical underpinnings of the (...) transcendental investigator leads him to affirm their humanity and, ultimately, to adopt an ethically charged ideal of “higher humanity” as telos of phenomenology. Fink argued that phenomenology was essentially an activity beyond the horizon of human possibility and history. In contrast, Džanić illustrates how Husserl was looking for a way to theoretically unite the purity of transcendental insight with the existential reality and practical motives of the phenomenologist. Understanding the complex aspects of this debate is crucial for understanding the Crisis-period of Husserl’s thought. This text appeals to graduate students and researchers in phenomenology and related fields of philosophy. (shrink)

Throughout his career, Husserl identifies naturalism as the greatest threat to both the sciences and philosophy. In this paper, I explicate Husserl’s overall diagnosis and critique of naturalism and then examine the specific transcendental aspect of his critique. Husserl agreed with the Neo-Kantians in rejecting naturalism. He has three major critiques of naturalism: First, it (like psychologism and for the same reasons) is ‘countersensical’ in that it denies the very ideal laws that it needs for its own justification. (...) Second, naturalism essentially misconstrues consciousness by treating it as a part of the world. Third, naturalism is the inevitable consequence of a certain rigidification of the ‘natural attitude’ into what Husserl calls the ‘naturalistic attitude’. This naturalistic attitude ‘reifies’ and it ‘absolutizes’ the world such that it is treated as taken-for-granted and ‘obvious’. Husserl’s transcendental phenomenological analysis, however, discloses that the natural attitude is, despite its omnipresence in everyday life, not primary, but in fact is relative to the ‘absolute’ transcendental attitude. The mature Husserl’s critique of naturalism is therefore based on his acceptance of the absolute priority of the transcendental attitude . The paradox remains that we must start from and, in a sense, return to the natural attitude, while, at the same time, restricting this attitude through the on-going transcendental vigilance of the universal epoché. (shrink)

In recent work, William Blattner claims that Heidegger is an empirical realist, but not a transcendental idealist. Blattner argues that, unlike Kant, Heidegger holds that thinking beyond human life warrants no judgment about nature's existence. This poses two problems. One is interpretive: Blattner misreads Kant's conception of the beyond-life as yielding the judgment that nature does not exist, for Kant shares Heidegger's view that such a judgment must lack sense. Another is programmatic: Blattner overstates the gap between Kant's and (...) Heidegger's positions, for both are ontological, not ontic. I solve these problems by showing that Heidegger's analysis of Dasein contains the core of Kant's argument for transcendental idealism: the apriority of space and time. I conclude that Heidegger exemplifies Kant's view that empirical realism just is transcendental idealism. (shrink)

The Husserlian phenomenological approach to organisational research as a way to understand how collectives experience and mean their work context, is rarely used although, when it is, it often functions as a negative criticism of objectivist methods. The sociological potential of phenomenological concepts to enable understanding of subjective experience of social contexts, and the characterisation of those social contexts through ideal type construction, deserves to be used more extensively in a positive proposal of organisational research methodologies. However, a consistent (...) phenomenological approach—with its inherent qualities that enable the transcendental understanding of subjective phenomena and social objectivity—can be sociologically fruitful only if it benefits from accumulated sociological knowledge, realised by various approaches that discuss macro and micro aspects of organisations. The proposed phenomenological methodology considers both aspects. It takes account of social theories that consider the influences of both the macro environment and institutionalisation on structure and culture through their relationship with collective and individual action. Also, it performs collaboration between two close perspectives which recognise the importance of the subjective meanings of the individuals constituting the collective: Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Weber’s ideal type construction. It also discusses context, participant selection, the concepts of saturation and generalisation, and the applicability of the methodology. (shrink)

In this paper I contrast Husserlian transcendental eidetic phenomenology with some other views of what phenomenology is supposed to be and argue that, as eidetic, it does not admit of being ‘naturalized’ in accordance with standard accounts of naturalization. The paper indicates what some of the eidetic results in phenomenology are and it links these to the employment of reason in philosophical investigation, as distinct from introspection, emotion or empirical observation. Eidetic phenomenology, unlike cognitive science, should issue in a (...) ‘logic’ of consciousness. Instead of being derived from empirical investigations its results should consist of high-level background conditions that are necessary for cognitive science to be possible in the first place. To negate these conditions is to be faced with certain types of ‘material’ contradictions. Some analogies with science – mathematical science – are used to develop the argument. (shrink)

The founding fathers of modern philosophy of culture, the neo-Kantians, and especially the Southwest school, brought the concept of culture into play as a counter concept to that of nature. Taking Heinrich Rickert?s conception of culture as a starting point, the article shows how culture is conceived of as a self-formation of the subject. It leads to transcendental idealism of freedom, typical of a Kantian type of transcendental philosophy. However, in this self and world formation of the subject (...) it is presupposed that nature is to any extent formable by values and thus by freedom. This presupposition cannot be accounted for properly within transcendental idealism. Hegel, by contrast, conceives of culture as a manifestation of the idea, leading to speculative idealism of freedom. The origin of culture, i.e., its original determinacy, should not be conceived of in terms of an opposition to nature, and consequently in the fashion of a subject of thought and action that forms itself by forming its world, culture. Rather, it should be conceived of in terms of a manifestation of the idea as the truly transcendental subject qua absolute ground of validity and thus the ground of being too. Nature and culture are both primarily determined by their ideal character and the relationships emerging therefrom. (shrink)

This is the first book in English on the major works of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It examines the transcendental theory of self and world from the writings of Fichte's most influential period, and considers in detail recently discovered lectures on the Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy. At the center of that body of work stands Fichte's attempt to integrate the theories of volition and cognition into a unified but complex 'system of freedom'. The focus of this (...) book is the intricate interplay between thinking and willing in the birth of experience out of the spirit of freedom. Combining incomparable erudition, sensitive readings of some of the most difficult of philosophical texts, clarity in exposition and an acute awareness of historical context this book takes its place as the ideal introduction to Fichte's thought. (shrink)

From the various discussions of Kant’s theoretical philosophy throughout Hegel’s works, it is not difficult to come away with the impression that Hegel thinks that the Kantian categories are derived from experience, and that the method of a “transcendental” investigation of the forms of subjectivity is nothing other than that of generalization upon observation. As early as the 1802-03 essay, Faith and Knowledge, for example, he characterizes the critical philosophy as the “completion and idealization” of Lockean “empirical psychology.” In (...) § 41 of the Encyclopedia he tells us that Kant’s systematization of the “special forms of the a priori element … of thought … is solely based upon psychological and historical grounds.” Moreover, in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, he refers to Kant as going “psychologically,” i.e., “historically,” to work in his accounts of intuition, understanding, and reason in a manner that is “entirely empirical, and not developed out of the concept.”. (shrink)

Kant argues at the beginning of his critical work that transcendental philosophy completely banishes anything that is merely of the order of an hypothesis. Does this rejection reveal his assurance that he, like Newton, makes no hypotheses? Newton’s famous “Hypothesis non fingo” was meant to stem the multiplication of redundant hypotheses in mathematical physics. Thus, according to Newton, a Cartesian vortex dragging material particles into itself does not really explain the motion of the particles. The problem of the origin (...) of their motion has been obscured by Descartes, because the medium happens to move in a way that is indistinguishable from the particles themselves. The point is stressed by Cotes in his preface to the second edition of Newton’s Principia. Suppose the cause of gravity is explained by means of a “subtle matter, not discernible by our sight... or any other of our senses.” Any body that moves in this medium will simply follow the figure already described by the medium. We start from a purely ideal conjecture concerning the non-sensible existence of a vortex, and we end up with the conclusion that “the meanest man may understand” the ultimate causes of nature; that is, we have never really moved away from the superficial level of immediate appearances. As for Newton’s physics itself, recent historiography has shown that numerous worthy hypotheses are used in virtually all of its areas. (shrink)

Philosophical reflection proposes a return to self as the condition required of a genuinely radical transcendental philosophy. This proposal has its proper ground. It is not an ideal externally imposed upon reflection but rather springs from the very structure of reflection itself in its relation to the reflected. It has its source, specifically, in the capacity on the part of reflection to gain mastery over any proposed external condition in the sense that the very posing of such a (...) condition, presumed to mark the limit of reflection, proves, in the end, to be itself the work of reflection. To the extent that reflection, as re-enactment, poses the limit for itself, it thereby represents the limit in such fashion as to exhibit it as having already been, at the unreflected level, no more than a constitutive product. To the degree that reflection brings an external limit to light, it reveals that limit as sustained precisely by the light which illuminates it, and hence, it dissolves its externality. Thus, philosophical reflection proposes a return to self which is achieved in an act of total reflection. Such reflection first opens up the domain of philosophical thought by actualizing at a single stroke the ideal born of the first act of reflection. It places itself from the very outset at the terminal point of the transcendence from perspectivity to objectivity whose inherent incompleteness defines our perceptual life, and it claims not only to have achieved this vantage point but also to have brought objectivity totally under its command, to have subjugated it by elevating itself to that position which is no longer really a position at all, that position from which objectivity is only for-consciousness. The return to self is a reflective appropriation of the pre-reflective through which the identity of reflection with the reflected is established in such a way that all that remains to be accomplished is the explication by reflection of what is already totally, though still implicitly, appropriated to it. The authentic task of philosophical thought is to render the implicit explicit. Transcendental philosophy is thus obliged to insist that with the very inception of genuinely philosophical thought the subject is already implicitly a pure presence of itself to itself, a presence which is, in principle, totally transparent. The subject is pure inferiority, and the way is prepared for asserting, with Hegel, that “Spirit is Being-within-itself.” Even its own return to itself by which it first reaches the level of philosophical thought is, in the end, taken up into the circuit of self-presence definitive of this level and appropriated in such a fashion that the shadows which made this path of self-discovery into a highway of despair are banished by the high noon of reflection; the subject's own constitutive history is transformed without residue into a history constituted by the subject. (shrink)

Through investigation of Chinese cultural ideals and life practices, Prof. Cho-yun Hsu constructs an original portrait of Chinese spiritual life. Apart from focusing on the exalted subtleties of the scholarly elite, Prof. Hsu pays more attention to the everyday people's cultural idea. By examining their daily practices (including eating, living, medical practices, poems, songs, art, and literature) and "collective memory" such as legends, he seeks to clarify Chinese ideas concerning the universe, human life and nature, from traditional times down to (...) the present day. Different from Judeo-Christian tradition centered on "God," the spiritual life of the Chinese people develops around ideas of being "human," and thus cultivating an interactive relationship between man, time, and space. Cho-yun Hsu considers the mode and direction of Chinese culture will impact the future of the entire world. Based on his observation, Western civilization represented by Europe and America nowadays is on the verge of a great change. The problems they are facing, including various crises of alienation and separation from nature, are, in terms of their basic origins, problems for which Western civilization lacks the resources to arrive at a solution. Thus, Chinese culture centered on the man and on the idea of intimate, interdependent relations between man and nature, might offer another solution. It is expected that, by integrating its features into modern civilization, Chinese culture can continue to prosper and be of benefit to the future of the world. (shrink)

This book, assembled in large part from previous papers and talks, consists of three chapters. The first offers distinctions between types of description and between descriptive and speculative procedures in philosophy, and then a view as to the character of "philosophical facts." Then it turns to the charge that description is really interpretation. On account of the method of composition, the challenge is met in a somewhat disjointed manner. With emphasis on the question of historical and moral relativism, Mohanty returns (...) to the theme in chapter 3 as well. What the latter adds is mainly a comparison of Davidson and Husserl on incommensurable worlds/conceptual schemes; the sketch of a means for overcoming relativism "from within," and for confirming a "belief in moral absolutism as [at least] a regulative ideal" by means of "reflective inner morality" as a particular instance of "tak[ing] up the stance of the transcendental ego". Mohanty compares the conflict in question to that between uncritical contentment with absorption in Hegelian Sittlichkeit and submission to Kantian Moralität. The palm goes to the latter, once it is construed as something to be arrived at precisely through the former. (shrink)

What should our theorizing about social justice aim at? Many political philosophers think that a crucial goal is to identify a perfectly just society. Amartya Sen disagrees. In The Idea of Justice, he argues that the proper goal of an inquiry about justice is to undertake comparative assessments of feasible social scenarios in order to identify reforms that involve justice-enhancement, or injustice-reduction, even if the results fall short of perfect justice. Sen calls this the “comparative approach” to the theory of (...) justice. He urges its adoption on the basis of a sustained critique of the former approach, which he calls “transcendental.” In this paper I pursue two tasks, one critical and the other constructive. First, I argue that Sen’s account of the contrast between the transcendental and the comparative approaches is not convincing, and second, I suggest what I take to be a broader and more plausible account of comparative assessments of justice. The core claim is that political philosophers should not shy away from the pursuit of ambitious theories of justice (including, for example, ideal theories of perfect justice), although they should engage in careful consideration of issues of political feasibility bearing on their practical implementation. (shrink)

Amartya Sen describes John Rawls?s ?justice as fairness? as ?transcendental institutionalism? and develops his realization-focused approach in contrast. But Rawls is no transcendental institutionalist, and Sen?s construal of their opposition occludes a third, relation-based position and a valuable and practical form of ideal theory. What Sen calls transcendental institutionalism and realization-focused comparative theory each treat justice as something to bring about, a problem for experts. A third position treats justice in terms of how we relate to (...) one another rather than of achievement. This position, called ?justice as reciprocity,? is consistent with Rawls?s ?justice as fairness? and Sen?s normative aspirations, and might form the basis of new and fruitful dialogue between them. By treating justice as a question of how we relate to one another, and treating relation-based ideals as the basis of respectful behavioral constraints (rather than of ends to pursue), ?justice as reciprocity? grounds an everyday form of just democratic citizenship. (shrink)

The purpose of my paper is to interpret kant 's transcendental idealism by looking at his claim that space is "nothing but" ideal. My position is that if we grant to kant the thesis that space is an "a priori" condition for knowing objects, Then it follows that our notion of space can only refer to the character of our experience, Not to properties of things as they may be "in themselves." and this, I argue, Yields a sense (...) of the ideality of space. (shrink)

The heritage of transcendental philosophy, and more specifically its viability when it comes to the problematic of the philosophy of social sciences, has been a key point of dissensus between Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel. Whereas Apel has explicitly aimed at a transcendental-pragmatic transformation of philosophy, Habermas has consequently insisted that his formal pragmatics, and the theory of communicative action which is erected upon it, radically de-transcendentalizes the subject. In a word, the disagreement concerns whether transcendental entities (...) have any substantial role to play in philosophical discourse and social-scientific explanations. My aim is to reconstruct how Apel establishes a connection between transcendentals, qua the ideal communicative community and the possibility of non-objectifying self-reflection. As I shall demonstrate, the principles that transcendental pragmatics sees as underlying social actions are not to be understood in a strictly judicial way, as “supernorms.” Rather, they should be conceptualized and used as a means for action regulation and mutual action coordination. Against this backdrop, I show that the concept of the ideal community provides the necessary underpinnings for Habermas’ schema of validity claims and the project of reconstructive sciences. (shrink)

This article develops an interpretation and defense of Husserl’s account of the omnitemporality of idealities. I first examine why Husserl rejects the atemporality and temporal individuation of idealities on phenomenological grounds, specifically that these attributions prove countersensical in how they relate idealities to consciousness. As an alternative to these conceptions, I develop a two-sided interpretation of omnitemporality expressed in modal terms of actuality and possibility, the actual referring to appearances in time and the possible, to reactivation at any time. In (...) defense of this interpretation of omnitemporality, I consider influential criticisms against Husserl’s account of idealities as they concern time, particularly whether the historical genesis of idealities compromises their omnitemporality by binding them to time. Ultimately, I argue that the transcendental historicity of idealities, despite being relevant to the question of validity and access, proves indifferent to their omnitemporality. (shrink)

The thesis of this essay is that Kant's theory of the “forms of intuition” can be regarded as an account of the structure of our embodied perspective. The ideality and subjectivity of space is concluded to be an account of the perspective relative nature of the figure-ground relationship or how it is that objects emerge for us in empirical experience as being orientated in a spatio-temporal field. Time is regarded similarly as the event-series relationship. The significant role of embodiment in (...) Kant's thought on space and time is explored through a textual analysis of all of Kant's writings on the subject. By recovering the importance of the body to Kant's theoretical philosophy, the ontological implications of his theory of space and time and his idealism can be made more plausible. (shrink)

Angelica Nuzzo offers a comprehensive reconstruction of Kant's theory of sensibility in his three Critiques. By introducing the notion of "transcendental embodiment," Nuzzo proposes a new understanding of Kant's views on science, nature, morality, and art. She shows that the issue of human embodiment is coherently addressed and key to comprehending vexing issues in Kant's work as a whole. In this penetrating book, Nuzzo enters new terrain and takes on questions Kant struggled with: How does a body that feels (...) pleasure and pain, desire, anger, and fear understand and experience reason and strive toward knowledge? What grounds the body's experience of art and beauty? What kind of feeling is the feeling of being alive? As she comes to grips with answers, Nuzzo goes beyond Kant to revise our view of embodiment and the essential conditions that make human experience possible. (shrink)