Kant, Cognition and The Antinomies.

1997

Co-edited with Anil Gomes, Oxford University Press, 2017

The essays in this volume explore those aspects of Kant’s writings which concern issues in the philosophy of mind. These issues are central to any understanding of Kant’s critical philosophy and they bear upon contemporary discussions in the philosophy of mind. Fourteen specially written essays address such questions as: What role does mental processing play in Kant’s account of intuition? What kinds of empirical models can be given of these operations? In what sense, and in what ways, are intuitions object-dependent? How should we understand the nature of the imagination? What is inner sense, and what does it mean to say that time is the form of inner sense? Can we cognize ourselves through inner sense? How do we self-ascribe our beliefs and what role does self-consciousness play in our judgments? Is the will involved in judging? What kind of knowledge can we have of the self ? And what kind of knowledge of the self does Kant proscribe? These essays showcase the depth of Kant’s writings in the philosophy of mind, and the centrality of those writings to his wider philosophical project. Moreover, they show the continued relevance of Kant’s writings to contemporary debates about the nature of mind and self. Contents: 0. Introduction Anil Gomes and Andrew Stephenson 1. Kant, The Philosophy Of Mind, And Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy Anil Gomes 2. Synthesis And Binding Lucy Allais 3. Understanding Non-Conceptual Representation Of Objects: Empirical Models Of Sensibility’s Operation Katherine Dunlop 4. Are Kantian Intuitions Object-Dependent? Stefanie Grüne 5. Intuition And Presence Colin McLear 6. Imagination And Inner Intuition Andrew Stephenson 7. Inner Sense And Time Ralf M. Bader 8. Can’t Kant Cognize Himself? Or, A Problem For (Almost) Every Interpretation Of The Refutation Of Idealism Andrew Chignell 9. A Kantian Critique Of Transparency Patricia Kitcher 10. Judging For Reasons: On Kant And The Modalities Of Judgment Jessica Leech 11. Kant On Judging And The Will Jill Vance Buroker 12. Self and Selves Ralph C. S. Walker 13. Subjects Of Kant’s First Paralogism Tobias Rosefeldt 14. The Lessons Of Kant’s Paralogisms Paul Snowdon

To which extent is it justified to adopt Kant as a godfather of cognitive science? To prepare the stage for an answer of this question, we need to set aside Kant’s general transcendental approach to the mind which is of course radically anti-empiricist and instead turn our attention to specific topics and claims regarding the mind which are often not the focus of his epistemology but nevertheless interestingly presented. If someone is willing to take this stance, it turns out that there are many bridges connecting Kant with contemporary cognitive science. We investigate possible bridges suggested in the literature between some of Kant’s central claims about consciousness, mental content, and functions of mind, and some specific treatments of these topics in contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science. While doing so, we offer additional arguments for some proposed bridges, reconstruct others and completely destroy some bridges by demonstrating that some suggested links between Kant and cognitive science remain only apparent and are misleading.

… sixteenth annual conference of the Cognitive Science …, 1994

After a sketch of Kant’s life and central project and some remarks about his mmediate influence, we will sketch his model of the mind, his views on consciousness of self, and his view of unified consciousness and the special form of synthesis and structure in the contents of consciousness that it requires. With this overview of his ideas in place, we will then examine what in these ideas has become the foundation of contemporary cognitive research, namely, his model of the mind, and what has not been thus taken up, namely, the three items on 3 the list. We will focus on unified consciousness and the structure of conscious experience. On this score, we will look at a couple of recent neo-Kantian arguments and check them against what Kant actually said.

Studia Kantiana, v. 15, p. 72-84, 2013, 2013

According to the Prolegomena, Kant was awakened from his “dogmatic slumber” not once but twice. In the Preface, he referred to the impact that Hume’s criticism of the notion of cause and effect had in his metaphysical investigations, and to how he was led to generalize Hume’s problem about causality, developing and solving it in its fullest extent in the Critique of Pure Reason. On the other hand, in the Third Part of the Main Transcendental Question, in a passage that is corroborated in the Critique and in a letter to Garve, he credited his awakening to the discovery of the Antinomies as a product of reason in its transcendent use. These two accounts have traditionally led to two mutually exclusive explanations of the origin of Kant’s critical philosophy, one that places great importance on Hume’s influence, and other in which this influence is seen as minimal or even non-existent. Thirty years ago, however, Manfred Kuehn, in his paper “Kant’s Conception of ‘Hume’s Problem’”, proposed not only that one should not treat this question as demanding a strict “either-or” answer, but, more boldly, that the contribution of Hume was decisive in both issues, and that “the problem of the Antinomies is just another aspect of the problem of Hume” (p. 187). Kuehn is able to locate the very source in which these two themes (namely, the role of imagination in our causal beliefs and the contradiction that arises from two natural and necessary operations of the human mind) appear associated in Hume’s exposition: in the Conclusion of Book I of the Treatise, which Kant read in 1771 in Hamann’s translation, and which, for Kuehn, was what most disturbed Kant in his slumber and finally woke him. Although Kuehn’s proposal is very well argued and represents a major contribution to the study of Hume’s influence in the origin of Kant’s critical philosophy, it depends, in my view, on two crucial assumptions that I intend to discuss in my presentation. The first is that, contrarily to what is commonly accepted, Kant would not have discovered the Antinomies before 1769, but only proved some propositions and their opposites, whereas, for Kuehn, an antinomy in the proper sense must involve a contradiction among laws of reason itself. The second is that Hume, for his part, would have grasped a proper concept of antinomy when he described an unavoidable contradiction between natural principles of the human mind; and thus, Kant’s antinomy of reason would have been modeled on Hume’s “antinomy of imagination”. I will argue that both these assumptions are debatable. Concerning the first, one could say not only that Kant had already made the essential discovery of the antinomies before 1771, but also that he had even presented a solution for them by means of the discovery of transcendental idealism in this Dissertation of 1770. Concerning the second, although Hume does indeed mention a contradiction in the operations of imagination in the Conclusion of Book I of the Treatise, he by no means explains there how this contradiction arises, and the passages in the book that could be related to it (e.g. 1.4.4.15) are quite enigmatic to say the least. Therefore, it is not much plausible that Kant would be so provoked by the bare unexplained mention of such a contradiction, nor that he would have discovered there something that he could not have already learned through his much earlier reading of the Enquiry on Human Understanding, section 12, where Hume details how clear and distinct ideas may contain contradictory circumstances in relation to themselves or to other clear and distinct ideas, leading reason to skepticism. Finally, I will tentatively propose that these two subjects – the antinomies and the origin of the concept of cause and effect – have in fact a complementary role in Kant’s critical development, but not, as Kuehn believes, as two aspects of the same problem that acted as a single trigger, but as distinct questions that gave rise, each, to a distinct stage in the long way that led to the Critique of Pure Reason. De acordo com o Prolegômenos, Kant foi despertado de seu “sono dogmático” não uma, mas duas vezes. No Prefácio, ele se refere ao impacto que a crítica de Hume à noção de causa e efeito teve em suas investigações metafísicas, e como foi levado a generalizar o problema de Hume sobre a causalidade, desenvolvendo-o e resolvendo-o em sua máxima extensão na Crítica da Razão Pura. Por outro lado, na Terceira Parte da Questão Transcendental Principal, em uma passagem que é corroborada pela Crítica e por uma carta a Garve, ele creditou seu despertar à descoberta das antinomias como produto da razão em seu uso transcendente. Estes dois relatos têm levado, tradicionalmente, a duas explicações mutuamente exclusivas da origem da filosofia crítica de Kant, uma que atribui uma grande importância à influência de Hume, e outra em que essa influência é considerada mínima ou mesmo inexistente. Trinta anos atrás, no entanto, Manfred Kuehn, em seu artigo “Kant’s Conception of ‘Hume’s Problem’”, propôs não só que não se deve tratar essa questão como pedindo um rigoroso “ou isto ou aquilo” como resposta, mas, com mais ousadia, que a contribuição de Hume foi decisiva para ambos os tópicos, e que “o problema das antinomias é apenas outro aspecto do problema de Hume” (p. 187). Kuehn é capaz de localizar a fonte em que esses dois temas (o papel da imaginação em nossas crenças causais e a contradição que surge entre duas operações necessárias e naturais da mente humana) aparecem associados na exposição de Hume: na Conclusão do Livro I do Tratado, que Kant leu em 1771 na tradução de Hamann, e que, para Kuehn, foi o que mais perturbou Kant em seu sono e, finalmente, despertou-o. Apesar de a proposta de Kuehn estar muito bem fundamentada e representar uma importante contribuição para o estudo da influência de Hume na origem da filosofia crítica de Kant, ela depende, a meu ver, de dois pressupostos fundamentais que pretendo discutir na minha apresentação. O primeiro é que, ao contrário do que é comumente aceito, Kant não teria descoberto as antinomias antes de 1769, mas apenas provado algumas proposições e seus opostos, ao passo que, para Kuehn, uma antinomia em sentido próprio deve envolver uma contradição entre as próprias leis da razão. O segundo é que Hume, por sua vez, teria apreendido um conceito próprio de antinomia, quando descreveu uma contradição inevitável entre os princípios naturais da mente humana, e, assim, a antinomia da razão de Kant teria sido modelada na “antinomia da imaginação” de Hume. Vou argumentar que esses dois pressupostos são questionáveis. Quanto ao primeiro, pode-se dizer não apenas que Kant já tinha feito a descoberta essencial sobre as antinomias antes de 1771, mas até mesmo apresentado a solução para elas pela descoberta do idealismo transcendental na Dissertação de 1770. Quanto ao segundo, apesar de Hume, de fato, mencionar uma contradição nas operações da imaginação na Conclusão do Livro I do Tratado, ele não explica lá de modo algum como esta contradição surge, e as passagens do livro que podem estar relacionadas a isto (1.4.4.15, por exemplo) são bastante enigmáticas, para dizer o mínimo. Portanto, não é muito plausível que Kant tivesse sido tão provocado pela simples menção não explicada de tal contradição, nem que tivesse descoberto aí alguma coisa que já não pudesse ter aprendido em sua leitura muito anterior da Investigação sobre o entendimento humano, seção 12, em que Hume detalha como idéias claras e distintas podem conter circunstâncias contraditórias com relação a si mesmas ou a outras idéias claras e distintas, levando a razão ao ceticismo. Finalmente, vou tentativamente propor que esses dois temas – as antinomias e a origem do conceito de causa e efeito – têm, de fato, um papel complementar no desenvolvimento crítico de Kant, mas não, como Kuehn acredita, como dois aspectos de um mesmo problema que teriam atuado como um único gatilho, mas como diferentes questões que deram origem, cada uma delas, a uma etapa distinta no longo caminho que levou à Crítica da Razão Pura."

Rethinking Kant, Volume III, 2011

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2001

According to Kant's theory of thought or cognition, thoughts are rules for empirical reactions in the compass of spatial and temporal constructions. Theses rules function to represent our situation in relation to all the ways it is proper to interact with reality. After outlining Kant's theory, I present a modi ed version in which rules are identi ed with executive mechanisms for behavioural output. Following Kant, I show how such rules can pertain to the past in terms of mechanisms for being beyond or past stages of temporal constructions. This identi cation of rules with mechanisms allows for a real de nition of the truth of thoughts as the active realizability of the mechanisms that thoughts are. I show how this modi ed version can encompass the full scope of even relativistic spatio-temporal reality, and indicate why this theory deserves consideration as against rival descriptive and causal theories of cognition.