This week we continue our discussion of Kant’s doctrine of Transcendental Idealism. We’ll focus primarily on his inference from the a priori and intuitive status of our representation of space and time to the conclusion that space and time themselves are mind-dependent. We’ll also look at various options for interpreting Kant’s positions on idealism and realism.
If there is time we may discuss briefly Kant’s derivation of the categories and how this conception of the categories might provide a further basis for Kant’s idealism (see optional reading).
Readings
- Same as last week
- Kant, CPR “Transcendental idealism as the key to solving the cosmological dialectic” A490-97/B518-25 (Guyer & Wood pp. 511-14)
- (Optional) CPR: Transcendental Logic & Analytic (the Clue), B91-116 (Guyer & Wood, 201-18)
Questions
- What is “Empirical Realism”?
- What is “Transcendental Idealism”?
- Why does Kant think Transcendental Realism implies Empirical Idealism?
- In what sense might we consider TI to be merely “epistemic”?
- In what sense might we consider TI to be a “metaphysical” position?
- What is being agreed upon or disagreed upon in the interpretation of TI?