Accessing Kant A Relaxed Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason

by Rosenberg, Jay F.

• ISBN13: 9780199275816
• ISBN10: 0199275815
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Jay Rosenberg introduces Immanuel Kant's masterwork, the Critique of Pure Reason, from a 'relaxed' problem-oriented perspective which treats Kant as an especially insightful practising philosopher, from whom we still have much to learn, intelligently and creatively responding tosignificant questions that transcend his work's historical setting. Rosenberg's main project is to command a clear view of how Kant understands various perennial problems, how he attempts to resolve them, and to what extent he succeeds. The constructive portions of the First Critique - theAesthetic and Analytic - are explored in detail; the Paralogisms and Antinomies more briefly. At the same time the book is an introduction to the challenges of reading the text of Kant's work and, to that end, selectively adopts a more rigorous historical and exegetical stance. Accessing Kantwill be an invaluable resource for advanced students and for any scholar seeking Rosenberg's own distinctive insights into Kant's work.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Two Ways to Encounter Kant	1	(1)
Two styles of historical philosophizing	2	(3)
This book's goals and strategies	5	(2)
The Pythagorean puzzle	7	(4)
Intelligibility: From Direct Platonism to Concept Empiricism	11	(21)
Universals and modes of being	11	(2)
Structure in the realm of intelligibles	13	(6)
Concept Empiricism	19	(7)
Synthetic a priori judgments	26	(6)
Epistemic Legitimacy: Experiential Unity, First Principles, and Strategy K	32	(29)
Empirical deductions and transcendental deductions	34	(2)
Neo-Humean empiricism: two sorts of epistemic authority	36	(5)
Anti-skeptical initiatives: strategic alternatives	41	(6)
Tertium quid rationalism vs Strategy K	47	(6)
The experiencing subject: a constitutive end	53	(8)
The World from a Point of View: Space and Time	61	(27)
Space, the form of outer sense	64	(5)
Time, the form of inner sense	69	(8)
The transcendental ideality of space and time	77	(6)
Is Kant right about space and time?	83	(5)
Concepts and Categories: Transcendental Logic and the Metaphysical Deduction	88	(20)
Transcendental logic	89	(2)
A new theory of concepts	91	(3)
Intuitions revisited: Cartesian perception and Kantian perception	94	(3)
The Forms of Judgment	97	(4)
The Table of Categories	101	(7)
Perceptual Synthesis: From Sensations to Objects	108	(32)
A phenomenology of perception	109	(3)
The ``threefold synthesis''	112	(5)
Transcendental apperception, rules, and concepts	117	(8)
Objects of representation	125	(11)
Apperception and inner sense	136	(4)
Schemata and Principles: From Pure Concepts to Objective Judgments	140	(22)
The unity of perception	141	(2)
Schemata: some puzzles	143	(3)
Schemata: some solutions	146	(4)
Homogeneity: two ways to ``apply a concept''	150	(1)
Schematizing the categories	151	(5)
A priori principles	156	(6)
Synchronic Manifolds: The Axioms and Anticipations	162	(15)
An item in an environment	163	(3)
Extensive magnitude	166	(4)
Intensive magnitude	170	(2)
Continuity and its consequences	172	(5)
Diachronic Manifolds: The Analogies of Experience	177	(22)
Philosophical analogies	178	(3)
The Auditory Model	181	(2)
Change in the Auditory Model	183	(5)
Substance in the Auditory Model	188	(3)
Causality in the Auditory Model	191	(5)
Space in the Auditory Model	196	(3)
Duration and Persistence: Substance in the Analogies	199	(16)
Hume on identity and duration	199	(4)
Persistence, alteration, and change	203	(3)
Substance as object and substance as matter	206	(6)
Substance in action	212	(3)
Succession and Simultaneity: Causation in the Analogies	215	(19)
Successive apprehendings: the problem	216	(2)
Successive apprehendeds: Kant's solution	218	(7)
Simultaneous causation	225	(6)
Reciprocal causation	231	(3)
The World as Actual: The Postulates and the Refutation of Idealism	234	(20)
Real possibility and material necessity	234	(3)
The many faces of idealism	237	(4)
Idealism refuted	241	(1)
Idealism from within	242	(6)
Phenomena and noumena	248	(6)
The Thinking Self as an Idea of Reason: The Paralogisms	254	(15)
The very idea of an idea of reason	254	(4)
The ``I'' who thinks	258	(6)
Dissolving the transcendental illusion	264	(5)
Reason in Conflict with Itself: A Brief Look at the Antinomies	269	(28)
In search of world-concepts	269	(4)
The necessary conflicts of cosmological ideas	273	(1)
The arguments of the First Antinomy	274	(5)
Reason's interests and reason's attitudes	279	(3)
Unraveling the Antinomies	282	(10)
The First Antinomy resolved	292	(2)
. . . and a quick glance at the other three	294	(3)
Epilogue: The Rest of the First Critique	297	(2)
Bibliography: Works Cited and Suggestions for Further Reading	299	(4)
Index	303