Kant's Theory of Knowledge An Analytical Introduction

by Dicker, Georges

• ISBN13: 9780195153071
• ISBN10: 0195153073
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's acknowledged masterpiece, in which he tackles the question of how we can possibly have knowledge that does not rest on experience (a priori knowledge). The first half of the Critique advances a constructive theory of human cognition and defends thepossibility of human knowledge against the skeptical empiricism of Hume. These sections of the Critique are difficult for beginners and for advanced students alike. While there exist many scholarly works discussing the Critique on an advanced level, this book is explicitly designed to be readalongside the text by first-time readers of Kant. Dicker makes Kant's views and arguments as accessible as possible without oversimplifying them, and synthesizes the views of contemporary scholars. Kant's Theory of Knowledge will be useful to both undergraduate and graduate students struggling withthis notoriously difficult yet deeply influential thinker.

Author Biography

Georges Dicker is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Philosophic Exchange at SUNY Brockport. He is the author of Dewey's Theory of Knowing (1976), Perceptual Knowledge: An Analytical and Historical Study (1980), Descartes: An Analytical and Historical Introduction (1993), Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction (1998), and numerous journal articles.

Table of Contents

Introduction	3	(23)
Kant, Rationalism, and Empiricism	3	(3)
Kant as Synthesizer of Rationalism and Empiricism	3	(1)
Kant's Relation to Rationalism	4	(1)
Kant's Relation to Empiricism	4	(2)
Kant's Reduction of His Agenda to Its Simplest Form	6	(11)
Kant's Simplifying Question	6	(1)
A Priori and A Posteriori	7	(3)
Analytic and Synthetic	10	(4)
Kant's Classification of Knowable Propositions	14	(3)
The Plan of the Critical Philosophy and the Structure of the Critique	17	(9)
The Overall Structure of the Critique of Pure Reason	17	(3)
How the Major Sections of the Critique Relate to Kant's Simplifying Question	20	(6)
Geometry, Space, and Transcendental Idealism	26	(23)
The Nature of Space and the Argument from Geometry	26	(5)
The Doctrine of Transcendental Idealism	31	(3)
The Argument from Geometry and Other Arguments Regarding Space	34	(9)
Two Criticisms of the Argument from Geometry	35	(1)
Other Arguments Regarding Space	36	(7)
Some Criticisms of Transcendental Idealism	43	(3)
A ``Weak'' Interpretation of Transcendental Idealism	46	(3)
Categories and Principles of the Understanding	49	(35)
The Structure of the Transcendental Analytic	49	(2)
Discovering the Categories: Forms of Judgment as the Guiding Clue	51	(8)
Kant's Table of Judgments	53	(4)
Criticisms of the Table of Judgments	57	(2)
From Judgments to Categories and from Some Categories to Some Principles	59	(25)
Categories of Quantity and Axioms of Intuition	60	(7)
Categories of Quality and Anticipations of Perception	67	(5)
Categories of Relation	72	(6)
Categories of Modality and Postulates of Empirical Thought	78	(6)
The Central Argument of the Analytic (I): The Transcendental Deduction	84	(28)
Introduction	84	(1)
The Problem of the Deduction	84	(4)
Two Meanings of ``Experience''	88	(2)
A Preliminary Sketch of the Deduction	90	(3)
The Patchwork Theory of the Deduction	93	(2)
The First Version of the Deduction	95	(10)
The Second Version of the Deduction	105	(7)
The Central Argument of the Analytic (II): The Analogies of Experience, The Two Time-Orders, and the B-Deduction	112	(33)
The Subjective Time-Order and the Objective Time-Order	112	(2)
The Two Time-Orders, Objectivity, and Spatiality	114	(5)
The Two Time-Orders and the Transcendental Deduction	119	(3)
The Central Argument of the Transcendental Analytic: First Reconstruction	122	(4)
Some Conclusions and Their Status	126	(3)
The B-Deduction	129	(16)
Analysis and Critique of the B-Deduction	130	(7)
A Reconstruction of the B-Deduction	137	(8)
The First Analogy: Substance	145	(18)
The Permanence Thesis	145	(5)
The Permanence-of-Substance Thesis	150	(3)
An Argument for the Permanence-of-Substance Thesis	153	(10)
The Second Analogy: Causality	163	(16)
Kant's Strategy	163	(3)
The Irreversibility Argument	166	(4)
Guyer's Interpretation of the Second Analogy	170	(4)
A Second Reconstruction of the Central Argument of the Analytic	174	(5)
The Third Analogy: Interaction	179	(15)
The Principle of the Third Analogy	179	(5)
The Proof of the Third Analogy	184	(4)
Guyer's Analysis of the Third Analogy	188	(6)
Kant's Refutation of Idealism	194	(19)
Introduction	194	(1)
The Refutation of Idealism in the Critique	195	(2)
The Refutation of Idealism: An Improved Version	197	(10)
The Refutation of Idealism and Transcendental Idealism	207	(6)
Appendix: The Schematism	213	(12)
Notes	225	(20)
Bibliography	245	(4)
Index	249