Reading Group: Guyer on Transcendental Idealism
So, here are my thoughts on Guyer's , "The Rehabilitation of Transcendental Idealism?". From this afternoon, I know that Wayne, in particular, has another very interesting take on it but I'll stick to the original thoughts that I had when reading the paper (which have been sharpened enormously by the useful discussion today).
The general picture is that Guyer offers an interpretation of Kant's main argument for transcendental idealism that shows it (a) to rule out the neglected alternative, and (b) to be seriously questionable in more than one respect. The main point he wants to impress upon us is that Kant's argument for transcendental idealism uses the denial that space (& time) is a property of things-in-themselves as a premise. Thus the neglected alternative (that things-in-themselves might be spatio-temporal after all) is not neglected at all.
I'm going to ignore the question as to whether Guyer gets Kant right. I'm not the person to adjudicate that. Rather, I want to reconstruct Guyer's argument as I understand it and pinpoint a couple of places where I remain unconvinced. Some of the terminology differs from that Guyer uses, but I hope I'm not introducing anything foreign to his line of thought. Here goes:
(for those present this afternoon, I've changed the numbering AGAIN - sorry)
1. We have synthetic apriori knowledge of Euclidean geometry.
2. We can have synthetic apriori knowledge only of the forms of intuition.
So,
3. Space is AT LEAST the subjective form of intuition
--But this leaves open the neglected alternative, that space is also a property of things in themselves. So we move on--
4. If we perceive an object, it is necessarily spatial
5. If something is necessarily spatial, then everything that is spatial is necessarily spatial
6. We perceive an object
So,
7. Everything that is spatial is necessarily spatial
So,
8. Either things in themselves are non-spatial or they are necessarily spatial
9. All necessary truths can be known apriori
10. We cannot know apriori that things in themselves are (necessarily) spatial
So,
11. Things in themselves are non-spatial
So,
12. Space is AT MOST the subjective form of intuition
I take it that Guyer treats transcendental idealism as the conjunction of 3 and 12.
I also take it that this argument is valid, so we should be concerned with the premises.
First, one of Guyer's most searching criticisms of this argument is its reliance on 4. According to him, the most that we could expect to result from a transcendental inquiry is,
4*. Necessarily, if we are to perceive an object then it is spatial
And, of course, 4 does not follow from 4*. [This is Guyer's distinction between what he calls 'conditional necessity' (all Kant can get) and 'absolute necessity' (what Kant needs)].If he is right about this, and also right about Kant's argument, that would be significant since it would show that Kant's argument for transcendental idealism rests on a premise that is unavailable from the perspective of transcendental philosophy. And that would be a bad thing.
Second, one might balk at 5 (I certainly do). It is Guyer's interpretation of the slogan that necessity implies universality. If Kant believes this, then so be it. But to my mind it stands in need of justification.
Third, more important is the argument's reliance on 9. Now I don't think that 9 is explicitly articulated by Guyer, but I for one can't see how to make sense of his comments towards the end of the paper without assuming that Guyer takes Kant to adopt such a principle. Without it, the neglected alternative remains a possibility - that is, 11 (and so 12, and so transcendental idealism) is not established. For, without it we cannot rule out that things in themselves might be necessarily spatial albeit unbeknownst to us. But, of course, 9 is highly questionable.
Fourth, it is unclear to me what is the justification 10. Does it follow from 2?
Fifth, premise one is a concern to those of us who doubt that Euclidean geometry is a body of necessary truths that can be known apriori. So some have tried to weaken this to something like,
1*. We have synthetic apriori knowledge of space (e.g. that it is unique)
Now, Guyer has a subsidiary argument to the effect that this can't be done consistently with some of Kant's other views. As I understand it, it goes something like this:
13. Necessarily, we impose a spatial form on the objects of experience
14. Intuition teaches us that the spatial form of the objects of intuition is Euclidean
15. The objects of experience have a determinate/particular spatial form
So,
16. Necessarily, we impose a determinate/particular spatial form on the objects of experience (form 13&15)
So,
17. Euclidean geometry is necessarily true (from 14&16)
Two things need to be said about this straight away:
First, Guyer admits that Kant could allow the factual falsity of 14. But he maintains that whatever the spatial form is that is revealed by intuition, it will reappear in a suitably modified version of 17. And, he suggests, this would be just as problematic. Perhaps this is because which geometry it is that correctly describes the spatial form of the actual world is an empirical issue (?).
Second, to my mind there is an equivocation in the argument. For, arguably, 16 is ambiguous between
16a. Necessarily, there is a spatial form that we impose
and
16b. There is a spatial form that we necessarily impose
As far as I can see, at best 16a would be licenced by 13&15, but it is 16b that is required to derive (with 14) the apparently unpalatable 17. If so, Guyer's further charge regarding premise 1 is unsubstantiated.
I have to say that I am uneasy attributing this slip to Guyer. If for no other reason than that it looks remarkably similar to Kant's alleged conflation of conditional and absolute necessity. But, as it stands, I can't see another way out.
Last thing...next week...
Wednesday (23rd) in room 4.137 at Essex University, between 12-2pm. We'll be reading Michael Friedman's, "Kant, Skepticism and Idealism", Inquiry 49:1, pp.26-43. Again, discussion will continue here.
The general picture is that Guyer offers an interpretation of Kant's main argument for transcendental idealism that shows it (a) to rule out the neglected alternative, and (b) to be seriously questionable in more than one respect. The main point he wants to impress upon us is that Kant's argument for transcendental idealism uses the denial that space (& time) is a property of things-in-themselves as a premise. Thus the neglected alternative (that things-in-themselves might be spatio-temporal after all) is not neglected at all.
I'm going to ignore the question as to whether Guyer gets Kant right. I'm not the person to adjudicate that. Rather, I want to reconstruct Guyer's argument as I understand it and pinpoint a couple of places where I remain unconvinced. Some of the terminology differs from that Guyer uses, but I hope I'm not introducing anything foreign to his line of thought. Here goes:
(for those present this afternoon, I've changed the numbering AGAIN - sorry)
1. We have synthetic apriori knowledge of Euclidean geometry.
2. We can have synthetic apriori knowledge only of the forms of intuition.
So,
3. Space is AT LEAST the subjective form of intuition
--But this leaves open the neglected alternative, that space is also a property of things in themselves. So we move on--
4. If we perceive an object, it is necessarily spatial
5. If something is necessarily spatial, then everything that is spatial is necessarily spatial
6. We perceive an object
So,
7. Everything that is spatial is necessarily spatial
So,
8. Either things in themselves are non-spatial or they are necessarily spatial
9. All necessary truths can be known apriori
10. We cannot know apriori that things in themselves are (necessarily) spatial
So,
11. Things in themselves are non-spatial
So,
12. Space is AT MOST the subjective form of intuition
I take it that Guyer treats transcendental idealism as the conjunction of 3 and 12.
I also take it that this argument is valid, so we should be concerned with the premises.
First, one of Guyer's most searching criticisms of this argument is its reliance on 4. According to him, the most that we could expect to result from a transcendental inquiry is,
4*. Necessarily, if we are to perceive an object then it is spatial
And, of course, 4 does not follow from 4*. [This is Guyer's distinction between what he calls 'conditional necessity' (all Kant can get) and 'absolute necessity' (what Kant needs)].If he is right about this, and also right about Kant's argument, that would be significant since it would show that Kant's argument for transcendental idealism rests on a premise that is unavailable from the perspective of transcendental philosophy. And that would be a bad thing.
Second, one might balk at 5 (I certainly do). It is Guyer's interpretation of the slogan that necessity implies universality. If Kant believes this, then so be it. But to my mind it stands in need of justification.
Third, more important is the argument's reliance on 9. Now I don't think that 9 is explicitly articulated by Guyer, but I for one can't see how to make sense of his comments towards the end of the paper without assuming that Guyer takes Kant to adopt such a principle. Without it, the neglected alternative remains a possibility - that is, 11 (and so 12, and so transcendental idealism) is not established. For, without it we cannot rule out that things in themselves might be necessarily spatial albeit unbeknownst to us. But, of course, 9 is highly questionable.
Fourth, it is unclear to me what is the justification 10. Does it follow from 2?
Fifth, premise one is a concern to those of us who doubt that Euclidean geometry is a body of necessary truths that can be known apriori. So some have tried to weaken this to something like,
1*. We have synthetic apriori knowledge of space (e.g. that it is unique)
Now, Guyer has a subsidiary argument to the effect that this can't be done consistently with some of Kant's other views. As I understand it, it goes something like this:
13. Necessarily, we impose a spatial form on the objects of experience
14. Intuition teaches us that the spatial form of the objects of intuition is Euclidean
15. The objects of experience have a determinate/particular spatial form
So,
16. Necessarily, we impose a determinate/particular spatial form on the objects of experience (form 13&15)
So,
17. Euclidean geometry is necessarily true (from 14&16)
Two things need to be said about this straight away:
First, Guyer admits that Kant could allow the factual falsity of 14. But he maintains that whatever the spatial form is that is revealed by intuition, it will reappear in a suitably modified version of 17. And, he suggests, this would be just as problematic. Perhaps this is because which geometry it is that correctly describes the spatial form of the actual world is an empirical issue (?).
Second, to my mind there is an equivocation in the argument. For, arguably, 16 is ambiguous between
16a. Necessarily, there is a spatial form that we impose
and
16b. There is a spatial form that we necessarily impose
As far as I can see, at best 16a would be licenced by 13&15, but it is 16b that is required to derive (with 14) the apparently unpalatable 17. If so, Guyer's further charge regarding premise 1 is unsubstantiated.
I have to say that I am uneasy attributing this slip to Guyer. If for no other reason than that it looks remarkably similar to Kant's alleged conflation of conditional and absolute necessity. But, as it stands, I can't see another way out.
Last thing...next week...
Wednesday (23rd) in room 4.137 at Essex University, between 12-2pm. We'll be reading Michael Friedman's, "Kant, Skepticism and Idealism", Inquiry 49:1, pp.26-43. Again, discussion will continue here.
Labels: Transcendental Idealism
posted by Joel at 8:45 pm
1 Comments:
Thanks Joel, this post is really useful for making clear Guyer's argument.
I am not going to comment directly on the argument. Rather, I want to say something about why it (A) perhaps doesn't represent Kant's thinking, and, (B) that whether it is a telling critique of TI (whether it shows that transcendental philosophy yields only 'conditional' necessities but needs 'abolute' necessities to underwrite TI), will depend on what we think TI is.
(A) Guyer contends, that the argument he presents as a rendition of the B-edition Transcendental Exposition is Kant's fundamental argument for TI. It seems far more natural to read the 'argument from geometry' as a bolstering argument that says, 'look, another bonus, my theory that the representation of space is an a priori intuition explains how geometry, which prima facie seems like a synthetic a priori body of knowledge, is possible.' Cf.(A25/B41): "Our explanation is thus the only explanation that makes intelligible the possibility of geometry, as a body of synthetic a priori knowledge."
In the 'Conclusions from the above Concepts' section, where Kant lays out TI for the first time in the Aesthetic, he does not appeal to the argument from geometry, which purportedly contains the 'immodest' premise that things in themselves (tiis) are not spatio-temporal. He says rather that: '...space does not represent any determination that attaches to the objects themselves...which remains even when abstraction has been made of all the subjective conditions of intuition.' The justification for this is then given: '...no determinations...can be intuited prior to the existence of the things to which they belong, and none, therefore, a priori.' (A26/B42) This seems to suggest that 'space does not represent any property of things in themselves' because, given the findings of the Metaphysical Expositions (that space is an a priori intuition), we cannot countenance the idea that we somehow intuit spatial properties as belonging to things independent of their presentation within our form of sensibility. This is because we must presuppose such things to be so presented if they are to be intuited at all. So space does not *represent* tiis, but rather our form of sensibility.
Now, I agree with Guyer that Kant's next conclusion, (b), that 'Space is nothing but the form of all appearances', does not seem to follow from (a), that is, (a) does not rule out the neglected alternative. So perhaps the argument from geometry does play a role here.
However, it is not clear that if it does, it takes the form Guyer says it does (employing 'absolute' necessity). For when Kant goes on to explain what he means by restricting our knowledge to appearances, he seems to talk in terms of Guyer's 'conditional' rather than 'absolute' necessity. Hence he says: 'If we add to the concept of the subject of a judgement the limitation under which the judgement is made, the judgement is then unconditionally valid. The proposition, that all things are side by side in space, is valid under the limitation that these things are viewed as objects of our sensible intuition.'(A27/B43) This doesn't suggest the interpreation that the things that constitute appearances are necessarily spatial, but rather that those things are necessarily spatial only when 'viewed as objects of our sensible intuition'.
(B) I think that Guyer's argument against the cogency of TI, if it works, is highly instructive. It forces us to decide what we think TI is. The following conjunction of theses I think roughly describes the general understanding of TI Guyer is working with: TI* (i*) There is a way the world is in itself [realism]. (ii*) We can have no knowledge of that world because our judgements about it are mediated by a priori constraints (such as spatial intuition) [depressing humility]. (iii*) Our knowledge is of the world as it appears to us [mind-dependence].
Now, if the world of (i*) just is the spatio-temporal world (as the neglected alternative suggests) then (ii*) and (iii*) do not follow and TI is false. And, if transcendental philosophy can't possibly rule out the neglected alternative without appealing to modal claims in principle out of its reach, then TI is false because (ii*) is false (as long as we think TI goes hand in hand with transcendental philosophy).
But what if TI consisted in the following set of theses: TI** (i**)There is some empirical cognition of the world. (ii**) There are a priori constraints on such cognition. These constraints mean we could never cognise objects or properties of objects that do not conform to them (tiis 'negatively defined a la Allison) [liberating humility]. (iii**) Our knowledge is of the world as it appears to us [mind-dependence].
This latter set of theses (TI**) is compatible with the main point of Guyer's argument, i.e. the transcendental 'proofs' that underpin (TI**) need only rely on 'conditional' necessities because (ii**) does not claim that we cannot know tiis because they are non-spatial. Rather, (ii**) says: we know (trivially) we cannot know tiis from the fact that they are defined as things stripped of properties that attach to them as they appear to us. But although this is expressed as a trivial truth, the hard work is showing that space is a form of intuition in the first place. Showing this demonstrates the empirical reality of it (let's not forget this aspect of Kant's transcendental project)- that all objects of outer sense are presented directly in space, and that all empirical objects will possess spatial properties. But it also demonstrates that there are forms of intuition that mediate all human cognition. Before this was shown, it was possible, as Leibniz did, to think cognition did consist in some (more or less adequate) epistemic access to things stripped of the properties that attach to them by virtue of being presented in our forms of intuition. So although we can express humility as a trivial truth, the work to get to the truth is not trivial at all.
Whether TI** rules out the neglected alternative depends on how we understand it. Guyer himself vacillates between it being about 'things in themselves' and 'things as they really are'. It seems to me that the latter could be spatial, so that the category of things in themselves was in fact empty. But this would not effect the fact that under TI** we have no knowledge of tiis understood as things stripped of all properties that would attach to them as we intuit them: it is perfectly consistent to claim that we have no knowledge of a possibly empty category of objects, whilst allowing that we might have knowledge of things as they really are.
So what makes TI** idealistic is its denial we can know tiis. But whether we know things as they really are is a moot point under its aegis, which strikes me as the right kind of humility for transcendental philosophy to be expressing.
All in all, Guyer's paper, if we think TI has got anything to do with what transcendental philosophy can prove, forces us to think about what it is.
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