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The Idea of the Systematic Unity of Nature as a Transcendental Illusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2011

Mark Pickering
Mark Pickering
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Abstract

The Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique is notorious for two reasons. First, it appears to contradict itself in saying that the idea of the systematic unity of nature is and is not transcendental. Second, in the passages in which Kant appears to espouse the former alternative, he appears to be making a significant amendment to his account of the conditions of the possibility of experience in the Transcendental Analytic. I propose a solution to both of these difficulties. With regard to the first, I argue that Kant does not contradict himself. With regard to the second, I argue that Kant is not making any change to his view of the conditions of the possibility of experience espoused in the Transcendental Analytic. The underlying cause of these apparent problems is also their solution: the transcendental illusion that nature is necessarily systematic.

Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , 28 September 2011 , pp. 429 - 448
Copyright
copyright © Kantian Review 2011

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