Kasey Hettig-Rolfe

In this dissertation, I argue for a radical reframing of the central argument of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Deduction. It is almost universally agreed that the Deduction aims to establish a fit between our a priori concepts—the categories—and objects in the empirical world. I argue that it aims to establish, in an overtly meta-philosophical register, that there is only one appropriate way to establish such a fit and, thereby, to justify metaphysical claims. This recasting has two major upshots. First, it vindicates the common intuition that the Deduction is not sufficient to respond to Humean skeptical worries about the categories, while also explaining the necessity of Kant's later proofs in the Analytic of Principles. Second, it shows how the Deduction offers an underappreciated criticism of both Platonic and Leibnizian metametaphysical theories and, thereby, puts us in a better position to understand the Deduction's contribution to Kant's critical doctrine on the method of metaphysics.

Hegel argues that Kant's critical project is analogous to the attempt to learn to swim before getting in the water. Some have taken this to indicate the broadly anti-epistemological nature of Hegel's philosophical system. In this paper, I offer a novel interpretation of the swimming argument which is both (i) compatible with a broadly epistemological conception of his Logic and (ii) more obviously efficacious against its intended target (viz. Kant). Briefly stated, the swimming argument is intended to reveal the reflexive or self-implicating nature of any critical-reflection.