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Deduction Difficulties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2018

Robert Howell
Robert Howell*
Affiliation:
University at Albany, SUNY/Moscow State University
*
Email: bobh@albany.edu
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Abstract

I argue, contrary to Dennis Schulting in Kant’s Radical Subjectivism, that the main reasoning of Kant’s transcendental deduction of the categories is progressive, not regressive. Schulting is right, however, to emphasize that the deduction takes the object cognized to be constituted in an idealism-entailing way. But his reasoning has gaps and bypasses Kant’s most explicit deduction argument, independent of the Transcendental Aesthetic, for idealism. Finally, Schulting’s claim that Kantian discursivity itself requires idealism overlooks the fact that Kantian general judgements can be true in a domain of objects without being specifically of or about any particular ones of those objects.

Keywords

transcendental deductioncategoriestranscendental idealismobject constitutionprogressive and regressiveKantian conceptsdiscursivitything in itself
Type
Author Meets Critics
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 111 - 121
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2018 

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References

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