“Fourth Paralogism” in the 1781 Critique of Pure Reason: A (Moderately) Realist Reading
Abstract
On the historically dominant reading of the Fourth Paralogism, Kant pursues an antiskeptical strategy of a Berkeleyan stripe, aiming to secure our belief in the existence of the external world by reducing this world to a mind-dependent, mental entity. I propose a more charitable and realist interpretation of Kant’s strategy. On the proposed reading, Kant pursues a moderate antiskeptical strategy which sets radical skeptical worries aside; Kant’s Berkeleyan-sounding remarks merely express standard Kantian doctrine (his theory of space).