Gardner on the Transcendental Turn

Sebastian Gardner gave a really interesting paper at Essex's departmental Seminar yesterday, entitled "The Transcendental Turn: Motivation and Execution". The paper looked at what it means to take the transcendental turn and what might motivate one to do so in the first place.

Sebastian argued that transcendental philosophy involves a turn away from naturalism (or from common sense, naturalistically conceived). The turn itself involving both a negative case against naturalism and a positive case for a transcendental position. The line of argument involved assessing upon whom the burden of proof lies. Around one hundred years ago, the position seemed that transcendental philosophy (or idealism) was the default view, and that the naturalist was the one who had to make his case. Now, the position appears to be the reverse.

Sebastian also suggested that this change of fortunes was not the result of rational argument, and that the case in naturalism's favour that accompanied the rise of analytic philosophy was inconclusive.

But, as Sebastian pointed out, we can distinguish between 'hard' (reductionist) naturalism and 'soft' (non-reductionist) naturalism, and the issues look rather different for each of these. For soft naturalists claim to accommodate the insights that might lead one to accept a transcendental view. But soft naturalism has its work cut out as, among naturalist positions, the burden of proof lies with the soft rather than the hard naturalist. As a consequence of the difficulties faced by soft naturalism, it seems that the transcendental turn is not made redundant.

Now, unfortunately, I have lost my notes and so have to rely on my patchy memory for the discussion. But some of the issues that came up were these : One of the things that might be (partly) responsible for the change in transcendental philosophy's fortunes could be the Moorean defense of common sense - conceived as a shifting of the burden of proof onto those positions which, like transcendental philosophy, appear to come into conflict with common sense. Furthermore, if this is right then it is not at all obvious that hard, rather than soft, naturalism is the default naturalist position, as soft naturalism might claim to better preserve the appearances.

Doesn't it seem likely that soft naturalism couldn't replace transcendental philosophy, as the soft naturalist will shy away from making claims about what must be the case, claims that the transcendentalist will make. Relatedly, the soft/hard distinction is conceived as a metaphysical distinction (resting on the issue of reductionism). But, one of the most natural ways of distinguishing naturalism from transcendental philosophy is epistemologically - by the view taken of a priori knowledge. So, soft naturalism would seem a very different proposition to the full transcendental position.

Finally, doesn't Kant treat the transcendental and the idealistic aspects of his position in separation? What needs motivating is the idealism, but if we think of the transcendental perspective just e from which are interested in asking about the conditions of possibility of knowledge, then it doesn't seem to require any special motivation over and above simple curiosity!