Read more
The book addresses two main areas of Kant's theoretical philosophy: the doctrine of transcendental idealism and various central aspects of the arguments from the Metaphysical and Transcendental Deductions, as well as the relation between the deduction argument and idealism.
Among the topics covered are the nature of objective validity, the role and function of transcendental logic in relation to general or formal logic, the possibility of contradictory thoughts, the meaning of the Leitfaden at A79 and the unity of cognition, the two-steps-in-one-proof interpretation and categorial instantiation, categorial illusion, Strawson's transcendental argument, the persistently perplexing question of the derivation of the categories, and the relation between apperception, objectivity, judgement, and idealism.
With regard to idealism in particular, the focus is on the metaphysical two-aspect interpretation and its problems, on the merits and demerits of the controversial phenomenalist reading of Kant's idealism, and on the topic of subjectivism and epistemic humility.
In all of the aforementioned topics, the book presents wholly novel interpretations compared to the standard or mainstream interpretations
List of contents
Part I: From Apperception to Idealism.- 1. On Strawson on Kantian Apperception.- 2. Apperception, Objectivity, and Idealism.- Part II: The Metaphysics of Transcendental Idealism and Conceivability.- 3. Transcendental Idealism and Phenomenalism.- 4. On An Extreme Phenomenalistic Reading of Kant.- 5. Phenomenalism, Conceivability, and Epistemic Humility.- 6. The Unity of Cognition and the Subjectivist vs. 'Transformative' Approaches to the B-Deduction, or, How to Read the Leitfaden (A79).- Part III: The Intimacy Between The Logic of Thought and the Thought of an Object.- 7. Transcendental Logic and the Logic of Thought.- 8. Once More Unto the Breach: The Derivation of the Categories From a Principle.- 9. Categorial Necessity and Categorial Illusion.- 10. A Last Remark on Objective Validity.- Appendix: On a Confusion about Existence.- Bibliography.
About the author
Dennis Schulting is an independent scholar. He was formerly Assistant Professor of Metaphysics and the History of Philosophy in the Philosophy Department of the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.His previous works include Kant's Radical Subjectivism (2017) and Kantian Nonconceptualism (2016).
