Richard E. Aquila

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 (2002) 267-268 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge Robert Greenberg. Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 278. Cloth, $45.00. This is one of the deepest and most carefully reasoned books on Kant I have read. It is a book for the scholar of the first Critique, not the "educated layman," but it very much needs to be read by the former. Even for Kant scholars, it is not easy. Apart from demands imposed by the tightness of the reasoning, one may simply be uneasy with the fact that, as instanced in a relentless and detailed critique of the main species of the "customary" reading--represented primarily by Allison and Guyer--Greenberg is defending a radically new view of Kant's reasoning in the Critique.Typically, one either supposes Kant really has no theory regarding the possibility of specifically a priori knowledge in the first place, or--either for excessive subjectivism, reference to "things in themselves" (in more than an Allisonian "methodological" spirit), or both--it is a disaster. (Or, as in Guyer and before him Strawson, one distinguishes between a Kant of each stripe.) On the no-theory option Kant is primarily concerned with the conditions of empirical knowledge and the relation of experience to objects. So occupied, he in effect redefines what it is to be concerned with the (non-analytic) a priori in the first place: it just is to be concerned with such conditions. In turn, he takes it for granted that, insofar as certain representations are indeed such conditions, they are sufficiently related to experience and its objects to meet the demands of knowledge. To the contrary, according to Greenberg, it is just this which Kant sees cannot be taken for granted.Regarding the ontology of Kant's theory, Greenberg argues (18-26 and chapter 2passim) that it is and ought to be distinct from that of the knowledge that is its target, that is, from the world of "appearances." But this is not to say that what is in question is a world of "things in themselves": things that, as Greenberg takes that notion, would have to be viewed "according to properties or laws that are intrinsic to them" (101), to make sense of the theory in the first place. Rather, the ontology comprises "things simpliciter": things that might (though not by us) be viewed as "things in themselves." What the theory tells us, first, is thata priori knowledge is possible only insofar as it relates to things precisely as appearances. Second, this is possible only insofar as experience itself relates to things as appearances. Thus to the contrary of standard readings, the primary focus is on the possibility [End Page 267] of experience, and its relation to objects, as a condition of a priori knowledge, not vice versa. This is of course not to deny the importance of space, time, and the categories as conditions of experience. It is just that their relevance to the possibility of a priori knowledge cannot consist wholly in the fact of such conditioning.Greenberg concedes that the book falls short of defending the objective validity of Kant's theory, as opposed to its internal coherence and--as exemplified mainly by way of a detailed analysis of the second-edition Transcendental Deduction (chapters 11-3), a convincing account (chapter 10) as to what was needed but lacking in the original version, and (chapter 9) a major independent contribution to the discussion of Kant's views regarding "logical forms" and "functions"--the validity of Kant's reasoning. That just illustrates the general point: just as the ontology of the theory needs to be distinct from that of the knowledge that is its target, the point from which the objective validity of the theory is assessed needs to be part of some further theory. This may be dissatisfying. "But is that not how things always stand in philosophy?" (269).There is no way that...

I want to state as clearly as I can the sense in which Kant is, and the sense in which he is not, a phenomenalist. And I also want to state the argument which Kant presents, in the Transcendental Deduction, for his particular version of phenomenalism. Since that doctrine has been stated by Kant himself as the view that we have knowledge of “appearances” only, and not of things in themselves, or that material objects are nothing but a species of our “representations,” it will of course be part of my task in this paper to deal with these fundamental notions. Some recent works on Kant have completely misinterpreted these notions, and because of this they have failed to capture the peculiar character of Kant’s phenomenalism. Jonathan Bennett, for example, interprets Kant’s claim that “objects are nothing but representations” as the claim that “statements about objects must be translatable into statements about intuitions.” I shall call such a view a reductive phenomenalism and argue in this paper that Kant is not a reductive phenomenalist. But Kant is, all the same, a phenomenalist. I shall call him an existential phenomenalist. The difference is this: Kant does not maintain, as Bennett claims, that all propositions which assert or presuppose the existence of objects must be translatable into statements which refer to intuitions alone, but he does hold that all such propositions are translatable into statements about the existence of intuitions alone. When Kant tells us, therefore, that objects are mere “appearances,” he is not offering a theory about what empirical objects are or about what we are really referring to when we refer to such objects, but he is offering a theory about the sense in which any empirical objects can meaningfully be said to exist. The significance of the distinction between reductive and existential phenomenalism is great. For it both allows Kant to do justice to those considerations which appear to lead to idealism or phenomenalism, while it does not at the same time require him to deny that the level at which we speak of material bodies and states is, and must be, a basic level of our conceptual framework. It cannot be one which is itself built upon, or constructed out of, some more basic level, e.g., out of talk about sense-data or sensory states. The uniqueness of Kant’s phenomenalism lies precisely at this point.

In the Critique of Fure Reason Kant distinguishes two sorts of conditions of knowledge. First, there are the space and time of pure intuition, introduced in the Transcendental Aesthetic. They are grounded in our dependence on a special sort of perceptual field for the location of objects. Second, there are pure concepts of the understanding, or categories, introduced in the Analytic. In one respect these are grounded in the logical function of the understanding in judgements, introduced in the first chapter of the analytic of concepts: Clue to the Discovery of All Pure Concepts of the Understanding; in another respect, they are grounded in transcendental unity of apperception, which is introduced in the second chapter: Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding, or Transcendental Deduction. I shall be concerned with the latter and its contribution to the overall strategy of argument in the analytic. Within the Analytic, Kant distinguishes between an Analytic of Concepts and an Analytic of Principles. This corresponds to a traditional distinction between a doctrine of concepts and judgement. It is arguable that Kant's theory of concepts undermines this distinction. However, I shall not deal with that general issue, but with a more specific issue related to the first two chapters of the Analytic of Principles: the Schematism and the System of Principles

This book, assembled in large part from previous papers and talks, consists of three chapters. The first offers distinctions between types of description and between descriptive and speculative procedures in philosophy, and then a view as to the character of "philosophical facts." Then it turns to the charge that description is really interpretation. On account of the method of composition, the challenge is met in a somewhat disjointed manner. With emphasis on the question of historical and moral relativism, Mohanty returns to the theme in chapter 3 as well. What the latter adds is mainly a comparison of Davidson and Husserl on incommensurable worlds/conceptual schemes; the sketch of a means for overcoming relativism "from within," and for confirming a "belief in moral absolutism as [at least] a regulative ideal" by means of "reflective inner morality" as a particular instance of "tak[ing] up the stance of the transcendental ego". Mohanty compares the conflict in question to that between uncritical contentment with absorption in Hegelian Sittlichkeit and submission to Kantian Moralität. The palm goes to the latter, once it is construed as something to be arrived at precisely through the former.

BRENTANO'S APPROPRIATION OF THE Scholastic notion of intentionality, and of what Brentano called "the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object," was early on exploited in a reading of Kant's theory of objects and appearances. Apparently the first systematic attempt was undertaken by Hans Vaihinger. However, Vaihinger's is radically different from more recent intentionalist readings of Kant. Albeit not in every respect, I propose that a return to this aspect of Vaihinger's approach supports a rewarding advance on such readings. After a general introduction, I survey three instances of the latter—Prauss, Pereboom, and Sellars—in section 2 (and comment on some others in notes throughout). In sections 3 and 4, I then turn to Vaihinger's approach.

BRENTANO'S CLAIMS ABOUT INTENTIONALITY DO NOT BEAR SOLELY\nON A CONCERN WITH THE POSITIVE NATURE OF MENTAL STATES.\nTHEY ALSO HAVE NO BEARING ON THE PROBLEM OF MENTAL/MATERIAL\nIDENTITY. PART OF THEIR POINT IS JUST TO OPPOSE A CERTAIN\nVIEW ABOUT THE PROPER OBJECTS OF AWARENESS, NAMELY THAT\nINSOFAR AS WE ARE AWARE OF OBJECTS THEY HAVE AN EXISTENCE\n"IN THE MIND." BOTH HUME AND DESCARTES HELD SUCH A VIEW. AN\nEXAMINATION OF THE NOTIONS OF "IDEA" AND "OBJECTIVE\nREALITY" SHOWS THE INACCURACY OF REGARDING DESCARTES AS A\n"REPRESENTATIVE REALIST." WHAT REPRESENTS EXTERNAL NATURES\nIN THE MIND IS JUST THOSE NATURES THEMSELVES INSOFAR AS\nTHEY EXIST IN THE MIND

This book is a critical and analytical survey of the major attempts, in modern philosophy, to deal with the phenomenon of intentionality—those of Descartes, Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, Frege, Russell, Bergmann, Chisholm, and Sellars. By coordinating the semantical approaches to the phenomenon, Dr. Aquila undertakes to provide a basis for dialogue among philosophers of different persuasions. "Intentionality" has become, since Franz Brentano revived its original medieval use, the standard term describing the mind's apparently paradoxical capacity to relate itself to objects existing in the world. One approach to the phenomenon emphasizes the mental act. The author argues that the most adequate account involves elements of both approaches. Contemporary treatments tend to formulate problems of intentionality primarily in terms of logic and semantics rather than those of metaphysics and phenomenology. Dr. Aquila's effort to coordinate these approaches will make his book useful to students both of analytical philosophy of mind and also of phenomenology.