Transcendental philosophy was not born like Athena out of Zeus’s head, mature and in full armour from the very beginning. That is why in both prefaces to the Critique of Pure Reason (1781 and 1787) Kant introduces the concept of transcendental philosophy as an “idea.” The idea understood architectonically develops slowly and only gradually acquires a definite form. As witnessed by the works of Kant himself and of his predecessors and followers, the idea of transcendental (...) philosophy has undergone a series of changes and adjustments compared to the initial plan. In this context, my goal is not simply exegesis and historical investigation of transcendental philosophy, but also to look at it from a systematic and methodological perspective. I examine the concept of transcendental philosophy from the viewpoint of programmatic metaphilosophy. The first part discusses programmatics as a distinct subsection of metaphilosophy. I argue that Kant’s architectonic methodology and the methodology of Lakatos can be used to understand the inception, development and degradation of philosophical systems. In the second part I look at the project of transcendental philosophy and the stages of its development from the standpoint of architectonics. The third part shows that Lakatos’s methodology can provide a detailed insight into the elements of transcendental philosophy, a clear idea of its logic and identify the component parts that can be improved and developed. In spite of the different levels of detailing and epistemological prerequisites, the methodologies of Kant and Lakatos can be combined to achieve a metaphilosophically informed and progressive understanding of philosophical projects. (shrink)

In the opening sections of his Foundations of Natural Right, Fichte argues that mutual recognition is a condition for the possibility of self-consciousness. However, the argument turns on the apparently unconvincing claim that, in the context of transcendental philosophy, conceptions of the subject as an isolated individual give rise to a vicious circle the resolution of which requires the introduction of a second rational being to ‘summon’ the first. In this essay, my aim is to present a revised (...) account of the opening arguments on which they are more convincing. In particular, I argue that the problem of a circle is genuine and may be seen to result from a relation of mutual dependence between agency and cognition which ensures that for an exercise of either capacity to take place, an exercise of the other would have already had to have taken place with the result that neither can occur. Moreover, the solution is successful. The summons prevents us from being driven around the circle once more because it is a ‘synthesis’ that reconciles the constraint to which I am subject as a cognizer of independently given objects and my freedom as a self-determining subject. (shrink)

The classics of transcendental philosophy (Kant’s “Criticism,” Descartes’s “Metaphysics,” and Fichte’s “Doctrine of Science”) all conceive of rational autonomy as the ultimate ground for justification. Correspondingly, their philosophical pedagogy is focused on seizing and making that very autonomy or active self-determination intellectually and existentially available. But in the concrete way of proceeding, the three models diverge. Descartes expects one to become master of oneself and “the world” by methodologically suspending his judgement on what cannot qualify itself to be (...) undoubtable. Kant leads us to where we can triangulate universal conditions of the possibility of knowledge through individually acquiring the competence to judge the legitimacy of encountered propositional claims. Fichte confronts us with the idea of the identity of self-consciousness and objectivity. (shrink)

Kant's introduction of a distinctive form of philosophical investigation and proof, known as transcendental, inaugurated a new philosophical tradition. Transcendental Philosophy and Naturalism assesses the present state and contemporary relevance of this tradition. The contributors aim to understand the theoretical structures involved in transcendental explanation, and to assess the contemporary relevance of the transcendental orientation, in particular with respect to contemporary philosophical naturalism. These issues are approached from both naturalistic and transcendental perspectives.

This collection focuses on the transcendental philosophy of Kant and Husserl and on the intersection of transcendental philosophy and everyday life and experience. It contains sections on philosophy and everyday experience, Kant and neo-Kantianism, applications of transcendental philosophy, and transcendental philosophy and the emotions. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Logic diagrams have seen a resurgence in their application in a range of fields, including logic, biology, media science, computer science and philosophy. Consequently, understanding the history and philosophy of these diagrams has become crucial. As many current diagrammatic systems in logic are based on ideas that originated in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is important to consider what motivated the use of logic diagrams in the past and whether these reasons are still valid today. This paper (...) proposes that transcendental philosophy was a key inspiration for the development of logic diagrams and that such diagrams can be employed in transcendental arguments, even after the linguistic turn. (shrink)

One needs specific initiation into the classics of transcendental philosophy because all say farewell to the common sense view of things. The three types of transcendental thinking converge in conceiving rational autonomy as the ultimate ground for justification. Correspondingly, the philosophical pedagogy of all three thinkers is focused on how to seize and make that very autonomy intellectually and existentially available. In the concrete way of proceeding, however, the three models diverge. Descartes expects one to become master (...) of oneself and "the world" by methodologically suspending his judgement on what cannot qualify itself to be undoubtable. Kant leads us to the point where we can triangulate universal conditions of the possibility of knowledge through individually acquiring the competence to judge the legitimacy of encountered propositional claims. Finally, Fichte confronts us with the idea of the identity of self-consciousness and objectivity. (shrink)

In this essay, I propose a novel way of thinking about Kant’s philosophical methodology during the critical period. According to this interpretation, the critical Kant can generally be understood as operating within a “capacities‐first” philosophical framework – that is, within a framework in which our basic rational or cognitive capacities play both an explanatorily and epistemically fundamental role in philosophy – or, at least, in the sort of philosophy that limited creatures like us are capable of. In discussing (...) this idea, I consider the complicated relationship between the explanatory and epistemic roles that such capacities play in Kant. I also sketch how this way of thinking about Kant’s methodology can illuminate the foundations of both his theoretical and his practical philosophy, before discussing some of Kant’s reasons for finding this approach to philosophy attractive. I close with a brief discussion of the contemporary relevance of this approach. (shrink)

The summer of 1989 was an especially eventful one for Poland, but in the midst of all the political ferment some two dozen scholars from 10 countries —including the Federal Republic of Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, China, Bulgaria, Italy, Israel, and the USA—spent five days together in a guest house owned by the Polish Academy of Sciences in the tiny village of Mogilany, a half-hour’s drive from Krakow. They were assembled for a conference organized by Prof. (...) Marek Siemek, Director of the Philosophical Institute of the University of Warsaw. Though the conference bore the general title, “Transcendental Philosophy and Dialectic,” almost all of the contributions were specifically concerned with aspects of the philosophy of J. G. Fichte. This was only fitting, since the ostensible occasion for the conference was to celebrate the 70th birthday of the world’s best-known Fichtean, Prof. Reinhard Lauth of the University of Munich. Since the majority of the participants had also participated in the two International Fichte Conferences held in Austria in 1977 and 1987 there was something of an air of a class reunion about the gathering, which made for an especially congenial conference. (shrink)

In the following, the American reader is to be familiarized with what is called the Munich School and, in particular, with my systematic philosophical work. The Munich School began to form at the start of the fifties. This School regards itself as philosophically transcendental, not in the sense that a new position is founded by it, but as the advocate and conveyor of the one transcendental philosophy. Transcendental philosophy, namely, was founded, according to the understanding (...) of this School, essentially through René Descartes, and for the first time was detailed and realized as a system by Johann Gottlieb Fichte. In this essay, therefore, I will trace the origin of transcendental philosophy and the development of it, and will try to show the place which my own work and that of the colleagues associated with me have in the presentation of transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

In The Adventures of Transcendental Philosophy, critical theory scholar Eduardo Mendieta examines the philosophical origins of discourse ethics through the prism of Apel's thought. Mendieta finds that Apel fundamentally transformed German philosophy, which had become stagnant in the years before World War II, and deeply influenced later thinkers such as JYrgen Habermas.

The aim of this paper is to apply Charles S. Peirce's pragmatic method to establishing if proponents of transcendental arguments could hold the conclusions of their arguments to be fallibly known. I will thus propose a pragmatic clarification of the concepts of a priority, necessity, and infallibility in order to ascertain if these concepts are unavoidably related or not. I will argue that an a priori knowable necessary proposition is not in principle indubitable, whereas a proposition infallibly known is (...) so. Finally, I will apply these reflections to transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

We propose to demonstrate that Heidegger’s Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics attempts to think the unthought unity of ontology and theology, or metaphysics, by staging a confrontation between transcendental philosophy and empirical science. Since this topic is a central concern of contemporary continental philosophy, this way of reading Heidegger’s text may prove important for the light it sheds on the deconstruction of this opposition. Heidegger’s own unique way of understanding the relation between philosophy and science involves (...) class='Hi'>philosophy in a relation with poetry, and science in a relation with theology. (shrink)

Philosophers working within the pragmatist tradition have pictured their relation to Kant and Kantianism in very diverse terms: some have presented their work as an appropriation and development of Kantian ideas, some have argued that pragmatism is an approach in complete opposition to Kant. This collection investigates the relationship between pragmatism, Kant, and current Kantian approaches to transcendental arguments in a detailed and original way. Chapters highlight pragmatist aspects of Kant’s thought and trace the influence of Kant on the (...) work of pragmatists and neo-pragmatists, engaging with the work of Peirce, James, Lewis, Sellars, Rorty, and Brandom, among others. They also consider to what extent contemporary approaches to transcendental arguments are compatible with a pragmatist standpoint. The book includes contributions from renowned authors working on Kant, pragmatism and contemporary Kantian approaches to philosophy, and provides an authoritative and original perspective on the relationship between pragmatism and Kantianism. (shrink)

his paper explores the relationship between Kant’s views on the metaphysical foundations of Newtonian mathematical physics and his more general transcendental philosophy articulated in the Critique of pure reason. I argue that the relationship between the two positions is very close indeed and, in particular, that taking this relationship seriously can shed new light on the structure of the transcendental deduction of the categories as expounded in the second edition of the Critique.Author Keywords: Kant; Mathematical physics; (...) class='Hi'>Transcendental deduction. (shrink)

How does the critical Kant view ontology? There is no shared scholarly answer to this question. Norbert Hinske sees in the Critique of Pure Reason a “farewell to ontology,” albeit one that took Kant long to bid (Hinske 2009). Karl Ameriks has found evidence in Kant’s metaphysics lectures from the critical period that he “was unwilling to break away fully from traditional ontology” (Ameriks 1992: 272). Gualtiero Lorini argues that a decisive break with the tradition of ontology is essential to (...) Kant’s critical reform of metaphysics, as is reflected in his shift from “ontology” to “transcendental philosophy,” two notions that Lorini takes to be related by mere “analogy” (Lorini 2015). I agree with Lorini that a thorough reform of ontology is a pivotal part of Kant’s critical plan for metaphysics and that ontology somehow “survives within the critical philosophy” (Lorini 2015: 76). To make this case, however, I deem it important to identify “ontology” and “transcendental philosophy” in the sense of extensional equivalence. While we can detect this identification in Kant’s writings, only from his metaphysics lectures can we get a full sense of its historical and philosophical significance. In this chapter I focus on how it represents a definitive turn from as well as notable continuity with traditional treatments of ontology, particularly the Wolffian one. (shrink)

The paper discusses the Strawsonian concept of descriptive metaphysics and its various implementations in conceptions of I. Kant, R.G. Collingwood and P.F. Strawson, their similarities and differences. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of Kant's transcendental philosophy (resp. transcendental idealism), or its metaphysics of appearance as a pioneer version of descriptive metaphysics and its comparison with the version of descriptive metaphysics of P. Strawson himself.

The notion of “representation” is central to Kant’s transcendental philosophy. But naturalism and mind-body reductionism tend to reduce talk of (first-person) representation to stories of (third-person) causality and evolution. How does Kant fare in this context?

This article aims at answering the following problem: since for Heidegger the historicity of Being presupposes the withdrawal of the transcendental source of such a historicity, then does Heidegger’s perspective lead to a form of relativism of the kind of an epochal historicism? If on the contrary one judges that for Heidegger there is after all, beyond the ordered unfolding of epochs in the history of Being, an ultimate transcendental or at least trans-epochal dimension, does Heidegger’s thinking lead (...) back to an ahistorical Absolute beyond historicity? In order to answer these questions, I propose to divide Heidegger’s philosophy in three stages, rather than the two stages that have usually been retained by commentators ever since the works of Richardson, in conformity with Heidegger’s own indications regarding the Turning (Kehre) of his philosophy. Indeed, Heidegger in the 1930’s develops the notion of machination (Machenschaft) and thus gives historicity a hegemonic function in Being’s essential occurrence (Wesung), itself understood as the intensification of the program of machination starting in the Greek inceptual thinking and developing itself until today’s planetary technological era. However, after 1945 Heidegger does not think anymore that the truth of Being is entirely determined by historicity and that Being essentially abandons Dasein to machination and to its gradual historical unfolding, because there is now according to him, beyond the epochs that are destined to Dasein, a trans-epochal giving (and perhaps generous) origin of presence that constitutes the supreme cause for thinking (Sache des Denkens). (shrink)

Special Issue, n. I, ch. 1, On the Transcendental.

Introduction -- Matter, form of cognition, form of sensibility, form of understanding, time and space -- Sensibility, imagination, understanding, pure a priori concepts of the understanding or categories, schemata, answering the question Quid Juris, answering the question Quid Facti, doubts about the latter -- Ideas of the understanding, ideas of reason, etc. -- Subject and predicate. the determinable and the determination -- Thing, possible, necessary, ground, consequence, etc. -- Identity, difference, opposition, reality, logical, and transcendental negation -- Magnitude, alteration, (...) change, etc. -- Truth, subjective, objective, logical, metaphysical -- On the I, materialism, idealism, dualism, etc. -- Short overview of the whole work -- My ontology -- On symbolic cognition and philosophical language. (shrink)

Emil Lask’s transcendental philosophy is one of the first points of view that tries to evade the monistic inclinations of the transcendental philosophy. Lask sets as presupposition of the knowledge the “categorial differentiation”, a structure that is immanent to the relations between subject and object, knowledge and reality, “validity” and “existence”. This paper analyses this kind of “difference” – a “deviation ” or a “shift ” conceived beyond the contrast, in a non-oppositional way – and shows (...) that Lask is moving in a direction that anticipates “solutions” which are peculiar to the contemporary philosophy of difference. (shrink)

It has frequently been argued that there must be a necessary and important difference between the methods of the natural and social sciences, or that an empirical method in social science must be supplemented by or is inferior to an interpretative method. Often these claims have been supported by arguments using premises derived from the early Heidegger or the late Wittgenstein. These arguments, in turn, tend either to be transcendental in form or to follow a hermeneutic argument strategy. This (...) paper argues that neither of these types of argument, based on Heideggerian or Wittgensteinian premises, can be used successfully to show an important or essential difference between natural and social science. It does this by examining arguments proposed by Peter Winch and Hubert Dreyfus, showing how they are fallacious and misconstrue the import of the premises upon which they are based, and generalizing these objections to the transcendental and hermeneutic styles of argument in this field as such. The paper concludes with a consideration of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, which reaches conclusions in this area which are similar to those of this paper but which, it is argued, misconstrues the character of its own argument. (shrink)

Kant’s transcendental philosophy of Kant is the metaphysics of possible experience related to the solution of the [semantic] problem set in his famous letter to M. Hertz (02.21.1772): “What is the ground of the relation of that in us which we call 'representation' to the object?” There are two possible ways to solve it: empiricism and apriorism, – and Kant chooses the second of them, thus making his “Copernican Revolution”. In the Preface to the 2nd ed. Critique Kant (...) correlates his Copernican turn/revolution with "altered method of our way of thinking [in metaphysics]" [BXVIII] and considers it as an analogue of the hypothetico-deductive scientific method of Copernicus – Galileo – Newton. The analysis of structure of the Copernican Revolution shows that it is possible to pick out two vectors: the empirical (from the thing-in-itself to representations) and the noumenal ones (from the transcendental unity of apperception [or transcendental object] to objects of experience). The introduction of an a priori vector (resp. a priori forms) means that Kant's conception is not empirical, but Kant’s keeping empirical vector says that it is compatible with empirical realism [A370–1]. Thus, Kantian transcendentalism is a synthesis of realism (basic level) and transcendental idealism (as a meta-level superstructure above it), whose task is to find out and analyze the transcendental conditions [possibility] of our knowledge of objects. (shrink)

By recognizing Immanuel Kant as the founder of the so-called being-knowing fallacy, the Italian new realism proposed and defended by Maurizio Ferraris argues for the autonomy of ontology from epistemology. The dependence of reality on our conceptual framework would in fact transform our world in a system of beliefs that loses its connection with the “hardness” of the given data. This paper discusses Ferraris’s claims by maintaining that they are based upon an insufficient reading of history of philosophy, particularly, (...) upon a misinterpretation of Kant’s philosophy. Firstly, we shortly analyze the relationship between transcendental philosophy and post-modernism through a comparison with Friedrich Nietzsche: we criticize their conflation. Secondly, we take into consideration Kant’s arguments about science and answer a particular objection of Ferraris by investigating how we can legitimately acquire knowledge in the deep past without contradicting Kantianism. In this sense, we believe that the new realism presents inconsistent arguments. (shrink)

Can there be a transcendental philosophy of science? What would it be good for?

In speaking of transcendental philosophy here, I mean philosophy as a procedurally rigorous, systematic, and deductive instrument for the general and specific founding of science. I thereby presuppose that transcendental philosophy is not only possible but also is already established, at least in its general fundamentals. Its relevance to the empirical science of psychology can readily be conceived: transcendental philosophy should provide, in a rigorous, systematic, and deductive fashion, an a priori conceptual basis (...) specific to psychology. This conceptual basis should include the theoretical and practical heuristic principles necessary for meaningful research into the relevant area of reality, as well as for the sensible use of the resulting knowledge in general social praxis. (shrink)

This is the first book in English on the major works of the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It examines the transcendental theory of self and world from the writings of Fichte's most influential period, and considers in detail recently discovered lectures on the Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy. At the center of that body of work stands Fichte's attempt to integrate the theories of volition and cognition into a unified but complex 'system of freedom'. The focus of (...) this book is the intricate interplay between thinking and willing in the birth of experience out of the spirit of freedom. Combining incomparable erudition, sensitive readings of some of the most difficult of philosophical texts, clarity in exposition and an acute awareness of historical context this book takes its place as the ideal introduction to Fichte's thought. (shrink)

This paper seeks to show that the turn toward local scientific practices in the philosophy of science is not a turn away from transcendental investigations. On the contrary, a pragmatist approach can very well be (re)connected with Kantian transcendental examination of the necessary conditions for the possibility of scientific representation and cognition, insofar as the a priori conditions that transcendental philosophy of science examines are understood as historically relative and thus potentially changing. The issue of (...) scientific realism will be considered from this perspective, with special emphasis on Thomas Kuhn's conception of paradigms as frameworks making truth-valued scientific statements possible and on Charles S. Peirce's realism about "real generals". (shrink)

The article considers I.Kant's transcendental philosophy as a possible basis for further research in the field of artificial intelligence. It is demonstrated that the main criticism of transcendentalism associated with the exclusion of ontology "in its pure form" in I.Kant's philosophy is irrelevant if artificial intelligence is understood by "pure reason", since one of the features of the latter is the absence of an "ontological assumption". A number of I.Kant's propositions quite adequately describe the basic mechanisms of (...) artificial intelligence, and at the same time "pure reason" is considered in I.Kant's works not in isolation, but in connection with human consciousness as a whole, which makes his philosophy a productive basis for developments in the field of artificial consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to shed some light on Heidegger's conception of phenomenology, and on the relationship between Heidegger's conception and that of Husserl. In particular, I am concerned to elucidate the sense in which Heidegger's phenomenology can be seen as a species of transcendental philosophy. In the concluding section of the paper I briefly consider the significance of Heidegger's conception of phenomenology for his later philosophy, as represented by 'The Question Concerning Technology'.

Kant''s claim that the justification of transcendental philosophy is a priori is puzzling because it should be consistent with (1) his general restriction on the justification of knowledge, that intuitions must play a role in the justification of all nondegenerate knowledge, with (2) the implausibility of a priori intuitions being the only ones on which transcendental philosophy is founded, and with (3) his professed view that transcendental philosophy is not analytic. I argue that this (...) puzzle can be solved, that according to Kant transcendental philosophy is justified a priori in the sense that the only empirical information required for its justification can be derived from any possible human experience. Transcendental justification does not rely on any more particular or special observations or experiments. Philip Kitcher''s general account of apriority in Kant captures this aspect of a priori knowledge. Nevertheless, I argue that Kitcher''s account goes wrong in the link it specifies between apriority and certainty. (shrink)

This chapter aims to situate Hegel’s philosophical outlook by illuminating it against the backdrop of Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy, some early skeptical critiques of that philosophy, Fichte’s philosophy of freedom, and finally the Spinozistic thinking of Schelling and of Hegel himself.

The article presents the philosophical thought of Rudolf Zocher, Wolfgang Cramer and Hans Wagner, whose theoretical stance can be dubbed Neoneo-Kantianism. The article investigates their philosophical output and argues that they developed a transcendental reflection of a different kind than that of Baden Neo-Kantianism. The transcendental reflection of Neoneo-Kantianism, especially in the work of Hans Wagner, takes on the topic of phenomenological inquiry and treats consciousness as a source of subject- object distinction, unlike Rickert and Windelband, who were (...) developing transcendental reflection focused on aprioristic forms of cognition, much in the post-Fichtean vein, thus giving primacy to the subjective conditions of possible experience. (shrink)