’ volume 14, no. 14 ecent decades have seen a sea change in work in the Anglo- may 2014 phone world on Kant’s view of . Earlier scholars – fol- Imprint R lowing seminal readings by P. F. Strawson and Jonathan Bennett – read Kant as directly refuting the radical skeptic by somehow providing a more-or-less demonstrative of some metaphysical that pre- cludes skeptical .1 More recently, however, scholars have recog- nized that Kant’s diagnostic and methodological reading of skepticism is far more complex, and even ambivalent, than this. When Kant explic- “Kant’s Diagnosis of the itly discusses these “nomadic” “benefactors of human ,” he char- acterizes their position as a high-level metaphilosophical stance: a whole cluster of attitudes and beliefs about the roles, aims, and procedures of philosophical reflection, which the Critical must appreci- Unity of Skepticism” ate and learn from (cf. Aix–xii and A377–378, respectively).2 Only a di- agnostic understanding of skepticism deep enough to identify both its remarkable appeal and its pivotal assumptions could succeed in casting on such metaphilosophical commitments. For this reason, Kant argues, skepticism rewards close scrutiny, even if its true lessons are not what the skeptic herself thought she was teaching in advancing her gloomy verdict on the human epistemic situation in general.3 1. Here, I have in mind Strawson’s Bounds of Sense and Bennett’s Kant’s Analytic, both published in 1966. 2. Quotations from Kant’s works are from the Akademie Ausgabe, with the Cri- tique of Pure Reason cited simply by the standard A/B edition pagination, and the other works by both volume and page. Translations and editions are from Matthew A. Kelsey the Cambridge edition, as indicated in the references. Specific texts are ab- breviated as follows: Tarrant County College – South Campus Letters: Kant’s Correspondence Notes: Kant’s Notes and Fragments Pro: Prolegomena to Any Future G: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals MF: Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science “O”: “What Does it Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?” CPrR: Critique of “D”: “On a Discovery Whereby Any New is to Be Made Superfluous by an Older One” © 2014 Matthew A. Kelsey RP: What Real Progress Has Metaphysics Made in Germany Since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Jäsche: The Jäsche Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License. 3. Insightful proponents of the more nuanced view of Kant on skepticism in- clude Ameriks 2005; Anderson 2001; Engstrom 1994; Forster 2008; Hatfield

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This development within Kant scholarship is of wider philosophi- propose, can serve to illuminate these broader developments, as well cal interest, since it dovetails with a great deal of contemporary work as to clarify the of Kant’s own approach. on skepticism. Many epistemologists now argue that a direct refu- A general outline of the Kantian diagnosis of skepticism is easy tation of skepticism is impossible. In place of such straightforward enough to provide. For Kant, all forms of philosophically motivated proofs, these philosophers recommend a variety of diagnostic strate- skepticism – i. e., all forms that purport to be rational, rather than de- gies, which aim to show (as puts it) that skepticism is scents into mere misology – are articulations of a creeping distrust of merely “conditionally correct”: inescapable if certain initially plausible reason, a sense that reason’s “peculiar fate” of confronting unanswer- premises are granted, and yet capable of turned aside indirectly, able metaphysical questions already amounts to the skeptic’s gloomy so long as one of those key premises turns out to be something we verdict (Avii). The crux of Kant’s engagement with the skeptic is his can satisfactorily do without (1984: 179).4 Indeed, this is the dominant attempt to progressively reinterpret various skeptical arguments as approach to skepticism in contemporary , rivaled only by more or less adequate articulations of a radical underlying suspicion broadly Wittgensteinian attempts to show, “therapeutically,” that skep- concerning the nature (or even the ) of “human reason.” tical challenges are in some way nonsensical, or perpetually dialecti- As we shall see, Kant does not regard skepticism as a fixed pack- cally inappropriate.5 Closer attention to Kant’s battle with skepticism, I age of arguments, but as a guiding thought or maxim, common to all who philosophize skeptically: “how little cause have we to place trust in our reason if in one of the most important parts of our de- 2001 and 2003; Henrich 1989; Kitcher 1995; Kuehn 1987; Neiman 1994; Proops 2003; Stapleford 2007; Stern 2006 and 2008; and Velkley 1989. My sire for [viz., metaphysics] it does not merely forsake us goal in this essay is to contribute to this body of work by highlighting an as- but even entices us with delusions and in the end betrays us!” (Bxv) pect of Kant’s theory of skepticism which these scholars generally downplay or overlook. Thus, “Kantian skepticism” – skepticism as Kant understands it – is 4. For valuable studies of diagnostic (or nonrefutational) approaches to skepti- intentionally unified: disparate strategies are related as means to a sin- cism, see Pritchard 2001 and Williams 1996. gular skeptical end. (“Kantian dogmatism” likewise comprises dispa- 5. Candidates for “the lesson of skepticism” are widely varied and hotly con- rate means to the end of attaining knowledge of things as they are tested. Here is a sampler of possibilities: hard-to-abandon internalist de- in themselves.) By pursuing this line of thought, Kant proceeds from mands make a satisfying answer impossible (Fumerton 1995); stop assuming that knowledge and its ascription are context-invariant (Cohen 1999, DeR- vague doubts about human knowledge to a specific (and soluble) ose 1995, Williams 1996); knowledge is not, after all, closed under known problem for pure reason. As he sees it, transcendental ’s entailment (Dretske 2003, Nozick 1981); the traditional conception of the of the world is unworkable (Rorty 1981); bad metaphors of the charge is to enable us to “become critical” – to reflectively regain our mind as a perceptual space create the whole problematic (Fischer 2010, fol- trust in reason, without falling back into the dogmatist’s naïve faith in lowing Wittgenstein); we should have remained direct realists all along our powers of rational insight.6 (Huemer 2001); is through-and-through conceptual, as Hegel saw (McDowell 1996); or, we can and should ground our cognitive lives on readings of Kant himself, by Bird 2006, Mosser 2008, and even P. F. Strawson an existential-epistemic “leap of faith” (Foley 1993, Lehrer 1997). What these in 1985, later on his career. all have in common is a rejection both of skepticism, and of any attempt to directly guarantee our knowledge. Therapeutic responses to skepticism in- 6. Compare “D” 8:226–7: “By dogmatism in metaphysics the Critique understands clude Austin’s ordinary-language philosophy, as in his 1962; Carnap’s 1950 this: the general trust in its principles, without a previous critique of the faculty distinction between framework-internal and framework-external questions; of reason itself, merely because of its success; by skepticism, however, the gen- Cavell’s doubts about the skeptic’s ability to “say what she means” in his 1979; eral mistrust in pure reason, without a previous critique, merely because of the and, perhaps, Wittgenstein’s (1969) – along with Wittgensteinian failure of its assertions. The criticism of the procedure concerning everything

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What that trust amounts to, how it is to be reached and then sus- the legitimate aim and starting point of epistemology – assumptions tained, and the precise way it is meant to take the sting out of reason’s which, as it turns out, could only be motivated by the threat of a most “peculiar fate,” are all very complex questions – and too much for me fundamental mode of skepticism. Thus, I shall say that one skepti- to address here. In order to get a grip on this subject, then, I focus in cal argument reduces to another when it turns out that the reducing this essay on a single, crucial, but often overlooked element of Kant’s problematic provides the crucial dialectical context for the reduced diagnosis of skepticism. This is what I call the unity of skepticism one. I focus on the strong unity thesis here, since its defense entails thesis, or just the “unity thesis” for short: Kant’s claim that beneath the weaker thesis as well. the diversity of skeptical arguments lies a unifying metaphilosophical By showing how deeply both unity theses structure Kant’s think- maxim, which can be unearthed and repudiated by Critical philoso- ing, I defend three related claims: (1) we can only grasp the point of phy. Even those who take a broadly diagnostic approach to reading Kant’s arguments in light of the unity theses; (2) both of these two Kant against the skeptic generally do so piecemeal, by focusing on this theses are at least more plausible than they may seem at first blush; or that particular skeptical problematic, and so ignore Kant’s explicit and (3) Kant’s diagnosis of the skeptic incorporates certain insights claim that there is truly only one way to be a skeptic. Yet only the unity that suggest a novel conception of the nature and responsibilities of thesis could allow a Kantian to entertain hopes of diagnostically turn- the human cognitive subject. I will not be giving the full Kantian diag- ing aside skepticism überhaupt. nosis of skepticism, however. That would require a much more expan- This refusal to take Kant at his word is quite odd, since, as we sive treatment than is possible here. I begin instead with a picture of shall see, he is committed not just to this weaker unity thesis, but disunity, and then trace the broad outlines of Kant’s response to the to a stronger one as well: that the skeptic’s means are related hierar- skeptic, to show that the myriad varieties he engages with all share chically, such that problematics lower on the hierarchy inherit their a common root. Fortunately, I can rely here on some excellent recent force from those higher up. According to the weak unity thesis, that is, work on Kantian skepticism. Paul Guyer and Michael Forster both pro- skeptical arguments, in all their variety, are just so many attempts to vide a useful initial taxonomy of three traditionally prominent skepti- philosophically express a distinctive conception of the scope and na- cal arguments: the Cartesian, Humean, and Pyrrhonian (see Forster ture of human cognitive finitude. Such an explanation of skepticism is 2008: 3–5, and Guyer 2008: 27–52). And to this trio I add the Agrippan reductive, not in the classical intertheoretic sense, but in the broader skepticism analyzed by Paul Franks in his work on post-Kantian Ger- sense of an attempt to explain diverse phenomena as local expres- man (see his 2005: 8–10 and 17–19). sions of underlying patterns. The strong unity thesis is likewise reduc- Cartesian skepticism, in its paradigmatic contemporary form, is an tive, but in a deeper sense. Here, the claim is that all forms of skepti- argument, contending that a privileged class of cal argument embody certain metaphilosophical assumptions about (e. g., concerning “inner sense”) inadequately grounds a pertaining to metaphysics (the doubt of deferment) is, on the other hand, the distinct problematic class (e. g., concerning “the external world”). Hu- maxim of a general mistrust of all its synthetic propositions, until a universal mean skepticism attacks broad domains of our knowledge by denying ground of their possibility has been discerned in the essential conditions of our cognitive faculty.” On this “trust” or “faith” in reason, in relation to skepti- that certain essential concepts have any valid grounding, of justifica- cism, see Bxv, A237–9/B296–8, A709–11/B737–9, A741–3/B769–71, A751–2/ tion or of content, sufficient for us to claim objective purport for them. B779–80, A756–69/B784–97, and A827/B855; Pro 4:257–8, 4:262–4, 4:351–4, and 4:360–2; “O” 8:138n, 8:140–3, and 8:145–6; RP 20:262–4 and 20:319–20; Pyrrhonian skepticism is a demand for that is Jäsche 9:73–5 and 9:83–4; and Notes 16:459. motivated by the dialectical method of juxtaposing apparently equally

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justified propositions. Lastly, Agrippan skepticism argues that all jus- The extension of skepticism even to the principles of tifications, if challenged, lead to one of three equally unacceptable knowledge of the sensible, and to experience itself, can- options: an infinite regress, a dogmatically arbitrary assumption, or a not properly be considered a serious view that has been vicious circle. All four of these forms of skepticism are radical, in un- current in any period of philosophy, but has perhaps dermining all or nearly all human knowledge, and philosophical, in that been a challenge to the dogmatists, to demonstrate those they turn on very general features of knowledge that are taken to put a priori principles on which the very possibility of experi- its attainment out of our reach. Furthermore, all four are well-known, ence depends [that is, to pursue Kant’s immanent meta- both to us now and for much of the tradition. They are initially quite of the understanding]; and since they could not distinct, too, and so afford a good test of Kant’s ability to bring them do this, a way of presenting those principles to them as to unity, both weak and strong.7 In the end, I shall argue, Kant regards doubtful too. (RP 20:264) Agrippan “skepticism” as an accurate, but nonskeptical, description of the human epistemic situation. Kant has clear systematic for neglecting Cartesian skepti- I begin with Cartesian skepticism. Although some scholars – fol- cism in this way: his interest in the possibility of metaphysics, rather lowing Strawson’s lead – still persist in attempting to find a direct ref- than knowledge more generally; his oft-affirmed view that metaphys- utation of Cartesian skepticism somewhere in Kant’s transcendental ics is not foundational in the way Descartes assumed, such that ev- theory of experience, this is misguided.8 Kant grants Cartesian skepti- eryday knowledge demands that we first overcome extravagant doubt cism no methodological role in his system: by from metaphysical ; and his conviction that Carte- 7. As an anonymous reader noted, my characterization of these skeptical prob- sian skepticism is an unnatural reaction to the very natural failures of lematics is on the underdeveloped side. My brief definition of Cartesian skep- ticism, for instance, does not engage with the details of Descartes’ efforts in philosophical dogmatism.9 These theses combine in Kant’s rejection the Meditations; nor with such putatively crucial premises as epistemologi- of Cartesian attempts to force us to ground our knowledge of the ex- cal internalism, various commitments in the , the closure principle, or any other such assumptions; nor with questions concerning the ternal world on our relatively “safe” access to inner seemings – a rejec- exact target or targets of any fully detailed arguments. But this sketchiness tion which is itself of a piece with Kant’s fundamental aim of show- is deliberate. After all, it is central to Kant’s diagnosis that many particular arguments be found to exemplify these general stratagems. Accordingly, ing that our various epistemic faculties can work in harmony within Kant is committed to the view that we can undermine these problematics as such, without precisely specifying the strongest interpretations of the stron- Wolff 1963. Perhaps the most sophisticated version is Paul Guyer’s 1987 Kant gest arguments first. For that matter, I do not claim exhaustiveness for my and the Claims of Knowledge (though Guyer has reworked some of these views list either. Although I think Kant has the resources to incorporate still more more recently). Such interpretations are no longer much in vogue, and it is forms of skepticism into his diagnosis, these four varieties represent the clas- clear why not: they are incompatible with virtually everything Kant tells us sical problematics with which he is most explicitly engaged. Expanding my about what he is doing. For critiques stressing this point, see Ameriks 2000, focus to more obscure variants of skepticism would certainly be useful, but Bird 2006, Caranti 2007, and Forster 2008. would also complicate matters enormously. This is particularly so with re- 9. For Kant’s rejection of the Cartesian project of philosophizing independently spect to post-Kantian forms of skepticism, of the sort suggested by Jacobi’s of experience, see Bviii–xxii, Bxxv–xxvi, B18, B120, A422–5/B450–3, A468– and Maimon’s objections to the Critical philosophy. Such challenges claim to 71/B496–9, A710–1/B738–9, and A842–4/B870–2; “D” 8:226–7 and 8:226n; grant all of Kant’s premises about the structure of human knowledge, and yet RP 20:262 and 20:318–20; Jäsche 9:83–4; and Notes 16:459, 18:283–284, to justify a negative verdict on the possibility of human knowledge anyway. I 18:628–629, and 18:434–437. Cf. Kant’s assertions of the actuality of synthetic discuss them briefly in notes 36 and 38. a priori knowledge, e. g., at B19–24, B127–8, and A762–3/B791–2; Pro 4:255, 8. For influential readings of this sort, see Strawson 1966, Bennett 1966, and 4:272–5, and 4:327; RP 20:323; and CPrR 5:13–14.

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experience, rather than at cross-purposes. Close attention to Kantian based on the mistaken assumptions that knowledge of the world de- arguments sometimes read as direct refutations of Cartesian skepti- pends on knowledge of inner sense, or that knowledge of experience cism, suffices to show that he regards such arguments as muddled and depends on transcendent metaphysics. derivative byproducts of the genuine skeptical maxim. If we refuse to make such invidious distinctions, Cartesian skepti- Consider the Transcendental Deduction, as a direct refutation of cism is philosophically idle: we may be wrong in many details, but Cartesian skepticism. On such readings, it intends to show that human those errors (potential or actual) give us no reason to picture ourselves experience, in the “thin” sense of a purely subjective flux of sensations, as trapped within a bubble of private . (We may even be is possible only if it is categorially structured, and hence necessarily brains in vats, as a matter of fact, but this unlikely empirical hypoth- demon-free. But this is a forced reading of an argument which quite esis would not be a source of .) Kant’s counter- explicitly employs a “thick” sense of experience that already amounts proposal is quite bold: he promises a way of understanding our total to cognition of an objective world.10 As Karl Ameriks remarks, in Kant’s epistemic situation which does not force us to admit radical priority standard usage Erfahrung “is not defined in terms of private so-called relationships of this sort, at any point.12 This is transcendental philoso- ‘Cartesian’ representations, but instead designates a cognitive situa- phy’s normative model of reason: a system of metaphysical-epistemolog- tion occurring, roughly speaking, at a level no lower than that of the ical norms or principles which forms an integrative whole governing core perceptual judgments of ” (2003: 5). Such observa- and licensing any and all knowledge claims we make about the public, tions prompt alternative readings of the Deduction, on which it is con- human world. (Of course, this is a very large promissory note; I con- cerned to develop a notion of “experience” that permits us to draw a sider the standing of “human reason,” as a systematic theoretical entity, principled distinction between “good” and “bad” forms of metaphysics. at the end of this essay.) As these interpreters read Kant, the Deduction paves the way for an Making methodological use of Cartesian doubts would mean for- improved antidogmatic argument against our apparent need to make feiting this aim right at the beginning, by granting that human reason transcendent metaphysical claims.11 Its antiskeptical point is simply to as such is problematic, rather than merely prone to misuse, and thus in prevent us from drawing invidious distinctions between our beliefs need of some independent verification from privileged foundations if it is to claim any authority. (Recall Descartes’ tortured attempts to di- 10. See Bxvii–xviii, B132, B147, B165–6, B218–9, B234, and B276–7, as well as Pro vine the trustworthiness of his creator.) This is why Kant’s best-known 4:275, 4:300, and 4:304, and RP 20:276. At A736–7/B764–5, Kant affirms the thoroughgoing contingency of “possible experience” itself. These passages discussion of Cartesian skepticism, the Refutation of Idealism, occurs all have in common an affirmation of the epistemic immediacy of intuition, many pages into the Critique, and relies little on the Deduction. Indeed, which leaves the pure concepts of reason and the understanding as the sole focus of Kant’s justificatory efforts (see A19/B33, A68/B93, and A371). the Refutation itself is new to the second edition, and tucked away in the middle of the discussion of the Postulates of Empirical Thinking 11. Thus Kant’s remark that the “subtle ” of the Deduction is valuable only because it makes the negative, antidogmatic side of the Critical proj- in General, after the vast bulk of the constructive work of the Tran- ect possible – otherwise, “we learn nothing more than what we should in scendental Analytic (cf. Bxxix). In the first edition of the Critique, Kant any case have practiced in the merely empirical use of the understanding” (A237/B296). Principal exponents of this view include many commentators 12. This is not a coherentist direct refutation of Cartesian skepticism, since it says cited in note 3, as well as Gardner 1999. These commentators find in Kant a nothing about the structure of empirical knowledge. Kant’s concern is instead specifically dialectical response to the skeptic, which enables him to defend with the postulated system of norms governing that knowledge – a system the veracity of experience without presupposing anything about its ultimate which already distinguishes the human epistemic situation from that of the noumenal grounds. Cartesian mind, if it could somehow be vindicated.

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simply notes that sensation, and the coherence of experience, are the experience in human cognition that we already have independent criteria of actuality (e. g., A225–6). His claim is that we already know, grounds to reject. That is why he runs a reductio argument against the and in ordinary experience readily apply, the rules licensing various Cartesian, even though he that nothing positive (such as an knowledge claims. Kant’s indignation is understandable, then, when antiskeptical ) can be proven in this way (cf. A789–94/B817–22). he complains against his critics that “what I called [transcendental] In the end, then, the Refutation merely restates Kant’s earlier claim idealism did not concern the existence of things (the doubting of that inner and outer are epistemically continuous, by highlighting which, however, properly constitutes idealism according to the re- the fact that one cannot make knowledge claims only about one or ceived [empirical or Cartesian] meaning), for it never came into my the other, taken in isolation. Indeed, the argument in the B Edition mind to doubt that” (Pro 4:293). might better be called “the Self-Refutation of Idealism,” because Kant’s Admittedly, Kant does work to undermine the Cartesian project aim there is to show that there is no even minimally stable view here- in the first edition’s Fourth Paralogism, by flatly rejecting the asym- abouts for the Cartesian “skeptic” to cling to – thus, “the game that metry between mind and body that makes it seem mandatory for us idealism plays has with greater been turned against it” (B276). (A366–80; cf. Pro 4:336–7). By putting the deliverances of inner and Kant does not thereby claim knowledge of the falsity of skeptical sce- outer sense on an epistemic par, Kant refuses to grant Descartes’ invid- narios, in a general way, but only that considering such scenarios is ious distinction between privileged and problematic, thereby defusing as irrelevant for philosophical reflection as it is for justifying ordinary this central variant of the Cartesian challenge. But we can still accept knowledge claims. We already know how to justify such claims, after Kant’s claim that this form of skepticism “never came into his mind,” all, without appeal to the foundations Cartesians insist upon. Only a by adding a minor qualification: that the “skeptical idealist” is really a prior mistrust of reason could ever make heroic dogmatic efforts seem form of dogmatist, who makes ontological claims about the epistemi- philosophically mandatory.13 cally irrelevant mind-independent inner nature of sensible objects, of Kant’s glancing engagement with the Cartesian evinces a key in- the sort that really could be justified only by claiming foundational on- sight: skepticism must be natural to be of any philosophical interest. tological knowledge. Thus, Kant regards the usual form of Cartesian Insofar as the skeptic aims to secure our rational surrender of all or “skepticism” as a type of transcendental realism: the identification of very many of our claims to justification, she must leverage standards appearances and things in themselves. It “never came into [his] mind,” of justification to which we are already committed. Otherwise, any then, precisely as a form of skepticism. That is why Kant attempts to skeptical argument is merely a reductio of whatever alien assump- turn his objections to transcendent metaphysics against , tions the skeptic makes, even if this move requires some revisions in qua incitement to dogmatism. It is also why the Refutation, when it finally arrives, offers an inter- 13. Neiman offers a similarly dismissive take on the Refutation’s systematic im- portance in her 2001. She suggests that Kant’s famous characterization of Car- nal critique, by arguing that Cartesian inner experience (“the mere, but tesian skepticism as “a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason” empirically determined, consciousness of my own existence”) already at Bxxxixn is meant to invoke the Biblical connotations of Skandal, as an in- ducement to sin – namely, to dogmatism. Kant thus echoes Michael Williams’ entails claims about persisting outer objects (see A377–9 and B274–5). point that Descartes’ modernized methodological skepticism is quite unlike That is not to say that such claims are necessarily veridical, however. its ancient predecessors, in ways designed to enforce a dogmatic foundation- alist solution (see Williams 1998 and 2010). The fact that Cartesian skepti- Rather, Kant’s point is that Cartesian skepticism is ultimately the result cism poses a question to which the only conceivable answer is dogmatic of a presupposition concerning the role of “thin” or purely subjective metaphysics is, by Kantian lights, a sure sign of its unnaturalness.

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our own epistemic principles. The skeptic always bears the burden of be the correct one, it already tells us when we can rightly claim to making us feel the ineluctable paradoxicality of her argument – that know particular experiential objects. Unless we willfully forget that is why diagnostic responses to skepticism are possible in the first fact, there is no way to attain the radically subjective standpoint of the place.14 Indeed, such revisionary efforts are how the whole contem- Cartesian meditator. (This is one way of understanding the problem porary antiskeptical project tends to handle Cartesian skepticism: by of the Cartesian circle.) Thus, the real impetus of Kantian skepticism debating the comparative merits of adopting externalism, embracing must lie in this broadly “metaphysical” domain. , rejecting the closure principle, or what have you. Yet This is, in effect, a reduction of radical Cartesian skepticism to skep- Kant’s view is clearly that Cartesian skepticism is not a true paradox, ticism about metaphysics. The intractability of transcendent metaphys- even of the manageable variety – that the invidious, once-and-for-all ics casts suspicion on reason’s exercise beyond the bounds of sense; distinction between inner and outer, and many others like it, are just this calls into question the synthetic a priori principles exercised with- wrongheaded philosophical pictures we can easily relinquish, even as in ordinary experience; and only then might it ever occur to us (ratio- we continue to pursue our genuine philosophical questions. nally) to question the truth of ordinary experience itself, or to embark Kant’s insight here explains his comfort in investigating the ques- from there upon the desperate project of Cartesian . tion of how synthetic a priori judgments are possible on the assump- We have an “original title” to synthetic a priori claims, since they are the tion that we possess such knowledge already. Given Kant’s claim that constitutive exercise of that same reason that is expressed in all judg- we are “naturally predisposed” to metaphysics, doubts about such ments as such. Deeper forms of skepticism challenge that title, and, if knowledge could only be rationally motivated by a truly paradoxi- they can be addressed in a way that respects the lawful of cal crisis of metaphysics (eventually, we shall see that the Pyrrhonian reason, Cartesian skepticism is otiose. As it turns out, then, Humean challenge is that crisis). For Kant, no mere failure within experience, skepticism has priority over the Cartesian: and no decisive encounter with the supersensible, could impel us [T]hat science [mathematics], so highly esteemed for its to mistrust basic metaphysical principles – after all, such principles apodictic , must also succumb to in purport to judge experience, not the other way around (cf. Bxiii–xiv). principles on the same ground on which Hume put cus- Doubts about our principles can arise only within our system of princi- tom in the place of objective necessity in the concept of ples itself. (And the Cartesian must admit as much, in insisting on the cause; despite all its pride, it must consent to lower its subjective indistinguishability of her skeptical scenarios.) Cartesian bold claims commanding a priori assent and expect ap- skepticism, Kant contends, presumes far more than a fair “neutrality” proval of the universal validity of its propositions from of reason between competing alternatives – it demands the outright the kindness of observers who, as witnesses, would not self-destruction of reason as a precondition of any well-grounded in- refuse to admit that what the geometer propounds as quiry (A756–7/B784–5; cf. Jäsche 9:31, as well as A751–2/B779–80 and principles they have always perceived as well, and who A760–2/B788–90). Whichever set of epistemic principles happens to would therefore allow it to be expected in the future even though it is not necessary. In this way Hume’s empiricism 14. Stroud 1984 and Williams 1996 discuss the preconditions of diagnostic re- sponses to skepticism. Ribeiro 2004 is an insightful analysis of what is re- in principles also leads unavoidably to skepticism even quired if we are to “insulate” ordinary justificatory practices from skeptical with respect to mathematics and consequently in every arguments.

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scientific theoretical use of reason (for this belongs either In the passage just quoted, Kant blames Hume’s “empiricism in to philosophy or to mathematics). […] [A] universal skep- principles” for the troubles of Cartesian skepticism. But the real prob- ticism will have to follow (though it would, admittedly, lem is not Hume’s empiricism per se, but the way it undercuts the nor- concern only the learned). (CPrR 5:52) mative status of metaphysical claims to identify them with brute psy- chological . Kant’s diagnostic thought here is that Hume errs by taking an essentially third-personal view of principles that can only This passage brings Humean skepticism decisively into the picture be endorsed first-personally. That is why Kant’s attack against Hume by raising Hume’s worry that our principles are simultaneously nonra- runs exactly parallel to the objection he lodges against the rationalist tional and compulsory. The Humean argues that, in one or more cru- thesis of a “preformation-system” or “preestablished harmony” under- cial domains of judgment, a truly objective world plays no role in the lying our knowledge, in which God grants us innate a priori concepts fixation of our beliefs. Thus, our system of knowledge-licensing prin- and then structures the world accordingly. Both views command us ciples may indeed be complete and harmoniously integrated, in a way to take up a third-personal explanatory perspective on our deepest the Cartesian denies, but has no grip on a world which deserves to be normative principles. Any such hypothesis, Kant declares, “is precise- called “objective.”15 Kant’s take on Hume is one of his favorite self-pre- ly what the skeptic wishes most, for then all of our insight through sentational devices, and he offers lengthy variations of the story seven the supposed objective validity of our [even empirical] judgments is times in the major works, at B19–24, B127–9, and A758–69/B786–97; nothing but sheer illusion, and there would be no shortage of people Pro 4:257–63 and 4:310–7; and CPrR 5:12–14 and 5:50–7, along with who would not concede this subjective necessity (which must be felt) numerous incidental remarks. The passage just quoted is of particular on their own; at least one would not be able to quarrel with anyone interest because of how it connects Cartesian and Humean skepticism about that which merely depends on the way in which his subject is – here, Kant suggests that skepticism about ordinary experience de- organized” (B167–8; cf. B127–8 and Pro 4:319n).17 The point Kant has pends upon a prior skepticism about metaphysics, since you can only in mind is that viewing ourselves as merely compelled to use certain reject ordinary knowledge in the “right” way, so as to get Cartesian principles, as a matter of brute natural or supernatural , also skepticism, if you first regard these principles (rationalistically or em- makes it impossible for us to view these principles as normative in any piricistically) but quasi-naturalistically, as Hume bade us do. Cartesian genuine sense. We would then be trapped within our subjective situa- skepticism, that is, is really what Guyer dubs a “gastric reflux of doubt” tion, without resources sufficient to make objectively valid judgments from the metaphysical level, at which the Humean’s challenge oper- – just as the Humean skeptic pictures us. ates (2008: 7–9).16

15. A broadly anti-Humean reading of Kant is currently popular, owing to the why the radical skeptical crisis Hume depicts in those works eventually leads troubles encountered by Strawson’s reading of Kant, and its key notion of a him to question whether we can count as rational at all. Thus, Hume “transcendental argument” (see especially Stroud 2000). Given Hume’s prom- rejects the “trite topics” of simple perceptual error as arguments for skepti- inence in his own right, anti- is a natural fallback position for cism in his Enquiry, 12.5 and 12.21–2 (cf. Kant’s similar remarks at B278–9, readers who reject anti-Cartesianism, but still suppose Kant must (somehow) A376–7, and A447–51/B475–9). Thus it is that, in both works, Hume rejects directly refute the skeptic. Robert Stern makes the naturalness of this retreat Cartesian skepticism out of hand (e. g., at Enquiry 12.3 and Treatise 1.4.1.7). explicit in his 2000. (Throughout, I reference the Treatise by Book, part, section, and paragraph number, and the Enquiry by section and paragraph number.) 16. It is not noted often enough that Hume deliberately centers his skepticism on metaphysics too, in the introductions to the Treatise and the Enquiry. That is 17. For a contemporary attempt to make use of this insight, see Macarthur 2006.

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At this point, to preserve our self-image as rational creatures, non- the burden of proof tells soundly against Hume, as he himself should skeptical philosophers must find some radical alternative. The key is admit. We could then reject dogmatism while still laying claim to au- to take our principles seriously, without lapsing into dogmatic claims tonomy. And we should do this because philosophers should avoid that they are brute facts about us or the world. For Kant, everything willful paradoxes – such as a rationally based picture of ourselves as turns on distinguishing an immanent metaphysics of the understand- nonrational. Kant thus aims for a stable position that is untouched by ing from a transcendent metaphysics of intellectual intuition – a dis- schizophrenic Humean oscillations between philosophical skepticism tinction he claims can achieve everything Hume does against the dog- and ordinary life.18 Diagnostically, then, Kant claims that Humean matist, but at a far cheaper price. Thus, Kant introduces the Deduction skepticism rests on tendentious assumptions about the nature of by promising to “steer human reason between these two cliffs [- metaphysics. This is why Kant introduces the Deduction to us as “the tism and skepticism], assign its determinate boundaries, and still keep explanation of the way in which concepts can relate to objects a priori,” open the entire field of its purposive activity” (B127). Although Kant and why he claims that one relatively simple point – that synthetic a praises Hume for his rigor, then, he objects that Hume overlooks the priori knowledge is possible if and only if a shared faculty of under- possibility of an immanent, transcendental metaphysics: standing makes fully human cognitive experience possible – should be “sufficient by itself” for his aims (see A84/B117 and Axvii, respectively). Since he [Hume] could not explain at all how it is pos- That this is Kant’s line on Humean skepticism is also clear from sible for the understanding to think of concepts that in the Analogies, which are often wrongly read as direct refutations themselves are not combined in the understanding as still of this mode of skepticism.19 There, Kant’s crucial point is that as- necessarily combined in the object, and it never occurred cribing metaphysical principles like causality to “custom” or “habit” to him that perhaps the understanding itself, by means of these concepts, could be the originator of the experience 18. Kant often says the Critical philosophy is essentially negative, with the po- in which its objects are encountered, he thus, driven by lice’s function of maintaining the peace, rather than the legislature’s of in- stituting new laws (see Bxxvi, A11, B25, A89/B121, and A795–6/B823–4; and necessity, derived them from experience (namely from a Pro 4:350–2, 4:354–5, and 4:362–3). That is one major reason to think that subjective necessity arisen from frequent association in Kant’s basic aim must be to beat Hume at his own antidogmatic game (and cf. A470–1/B498–9, A764/B792 and A767–9/B795–7; Pro 4:257, 4:259–62, experience, which is subsequently falsely held to be ob- 4:312–13, and 4:351–4; and CPrR 5:52–3). See Stroud 2011 for a broadly Kan- jective, i. e., custom); however he subsequently proceeded tian argument that Humean reductions of key metaphysical concepts should quite consistently in declaring it to be impossible to go be- never rationally satisfy us. yond the boundary of experience with these concepts and 19. A few commentators locate this response in the two Introductions to the third Critique instead (see Guyer 2008: 213–22, for critical discussion). There, Kant the principles that they occasion (B127–8; cf. A760/B788). defends, as a “transcendental principle of the power of judgment,” a principle of systematicity opposed to Hume’s skepticism about induction. But this is a wholly inadequate direct refutation, if meant as such – after all, Kant, in On Kant’s reading, Hume argues that our principles are either dog- stressing the “heautonomy” of the power of judgment, admits that the key principle derives from our rational interest in progressive empirical inquiry, matically justified or brutely natural; the former is impossible; thus, we rather than any legislative demands we can make on the experiential world. are forced into radical empiricism; and this in turn yields a skeptical On its own, that is more of a capitulation to Hume than a refutation of him. But in the broader context of all three Critiques, Kant is on better footing, verdict on human knowledge. Kant’s counterproposal is that, if we find since the principle of systematicity is just one organic element of his overall an alternative and genuinely normative model of reason to endorse, normative model of reason.

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irrevocably alters them, so that they can no longer play a truly nor- then can we see that they are trustworthy expressions of our shared mative role. Hume sees such principles as vastly etiolated derivations project of sorting and categorizing the impressions of experience. And from experience: supremely abstract, and so quite dispensable, hyper- that standpoint in turn shows us how objective reasoning about ex- generalizations from our everyday linkages of via psycho- perience is possible, thereby undercutting Humean worries that the logical association of ideas. In Humean pseudo-judgments, we employ resulting cognition is basically irrational or “merely psychological” in warped empiricist facsimiles of the conceptual abilities central to our some way. reasoning, and as a result “custom (a subjective necessity) of perceiving Kant’s approach to Humean skepticism again evinces a keen diag- certain things or their determinations […] is insensibly taken for an nostic insight, akin to that pressed against the Cartesian: that even objective necessity of putting such a connection in the objects them- the skeptic must sign on to our basic self-image as autonomous ratio- selves” (CPrR 5:51; compare A91/B123–4; CPrR 5:12 and 5:53–4; and nal agents, insofar as her goal is (again) to rationally persuade us to Pro 4:298–301 and 4:312–4).20 This is, again, “what the skeptic wishes withdraw our claims to knowledge. As Hume well knows, losing our most”: a demonstration that mere habit plays the supreme role in hu- grip on our own destabilizes any philosophical self-concep- man cognition, rather than our rational reactions to genuine objects tion we might endorse, skeptical or otherwise.21 Yet Hume’s natural- in experience (B167–8). Such arguments “deny to reason the ability izing skepticism, consistently pursued, forces rational out of to judge an object, that is, to cognize it and what belongs to it” (CPrR the picture, making his a self-defeating enterprise that openly invites 5:12). Kant’s labors in the Analogies, by contrast, carefully frame an redoubled dogmatic efforts, launched when our fondly rational self- alternative way of giving content to these principles, via the temporal image is in the ascendancy. Hume’s position then threatens to dissolve schematization of the pure concepts of the understanding, that does into the “indeterminate recommendations of moderation” that Kant not have this disastrous consequence. By doing so, Kant hopes to rightly deems inadequate for curbing dogmatic pretensions to knowl- show why principles of the understanding cannot be extended to the edge (e. g., at B128). Such a collapse would leave Hume failing even by supersensible – but also why (and how) they can serve as elements of his own philosophical standards. For Kant, then, the only appropriate the self-understanding of autonomous rational agents. Crucially, this response is to reconceive metaphysics, not to forswear it entirely. If Critical project need not involve any claims to direct dogmatic insight there is any way to do so that permits us to continue to view ourselves into our essential nature. as basically rational cognitive agents, that would be philosophically The Analogies have the same systematic goal as the Deduction, preferable to skepticism – even by Hume’s own lights. then – Kant seeks to duplicate Humean accomplishments at lower Yet all this merely exacerbates the deeper worry that reason itself cost, through superior rational self-knowledge. This diagnostic move may prove dialectical. That threat would still make a mockery of Kant is the linchpin of Kant’s reply to Hume, since it allows him to display as much as Hume, by proving the impossibility of reflective stability our metaphysical principles precisely as principles, without forcing us to “really” put them down to either brute fact or divine imposition. Only 21. See Treatise 1.4.1.12, where Hume grounds his skepticism on a putative di- rect demonstration of the incoherence of reason. Relations of ideas, of course, are of no help at this point, since the connections we scrutinize in reflection 20. Notice that this move also reveals Hume’s doubts about induction as basically stand revealed as arbitrary inventions, which are inconceivable as contri- Cartesian in structure – an impossible demand that we demonstrate universal butions to a rational project of knowing objects. This is more than a simple laws from a manifestly inadequate inferential base of particular experiences limit on human cognition, then – Hume in fact entirely jettisons reason, in its (cf. CPrR 5:52). broad sense, as a faculty of knowledge.

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once and for all. Thus, Kant can claim that the indiscriminate Humean The critique of antinomy-prone dogmatic metaphysics in the Dia- rejection of metaphysics begs the question against transcendental phi- lectic is, generally and rightly, regarded as the core of Kant’s answer to losophy only in the absence of the suspension of our initial faith in rea- the Pyrrhonian. But, as the strong unity thesis implies, the so-called son embodied by Kantian skepticism. That loss of faith is, Kant thinks, positive and negative portions of the Critique – the Transcendental spurred by the crisis of metaphysics, and specifically by the - Analytic and the Transcendental , respectively – are in fact nian dialectic of the antinomies. Without an answer to the Pyrrhonian, two sides of a single antiskeptical strategy. In the Analytic, Kant offers we cannot hope for a constructive response to the Humean. Indeed, a self-conception of “pure reason,” and its correspondingly abstract without the Pyrrhonian attack there would be no need to object of knowledge, intended to nondogmatically secure metaphysi- an explicit model of reason at all, since we would lack any compelling cal claims with respect to experience. In the Dialectic, by contrast, he reason to challenge the dogmatically unselfconscious use of reason diagnoses the transcendental illusions of dogmatic metaphysics, and in the first place. The problem of skepticism, then, is really a meta- relieves the philosophical pressure on our ordinary, commonsensi- skeptical problem – the worry that we cannot attain stable rational cal worldview – with its causes, events, persisting objects, plurality of self-knowledge, knowledge of ourselves just insofar as we are the pur- agents, and so forth – by showing that the principles of experience do posive agents of our own cognitions. Here, the skeptic’s root maxim not commit us to transcendent metaphysical claims. These arguments comes clearly into view, as the basis of the weak unity of skepticism: have a single conclusion: “human experience” is a single, independent, the skeptic’s diverse stratagems are revealed as so many attempts at internally consistent normative project. Kant’s two-pronged approach self-knowledge of a certain special, “philosophical” sort, meant to allows us to endorse a normative model of reason as normative, for ground a far-reaching mistrust of the authority of our common human us and for others who share in our rationality, in a basic exercise of reason. In the wider context, this also represents another move toward our authority to define our own norms. In pursuit of this goal, Kant’s unity in the strong sense – in the last analysis, Kant argues, Humean paired arguments for – that it accounts for the skepticism reduces to Pyrrhonian skepticism.22 disparate epistemic roles of concepts and intuitions, and that it is the only means of escape from the antinomies – make a single point in 22. Indeed, this seems to be Hume’s actual view. Hume regards his empiricism two ways, namely that dealing with skepticism requires reason’s com- alone as insufficient to motivate the skeptical crisis so memorably portrayed at the conclusion of the first Book of the Treatise. Instead, he offers us a care- plete self-knowledge. Only by understanding our task in this way can ful dissection of the dialectic of reason in terms of an antinomial conflict be- we attempt the Copernican move of defining the norms of experience tween “vulgar” and “philosophical” ways of framing a systematic view of the 23 world. The vulgar system regards perceptions and their objects as identical, by reference to the rational agent of that experience. and hence as open to direct empirical ; the philosophical system O’Shea 1996). That is Hume’s own skepticism, and it is “mitigated” only by proposes their “double existence,” wherein objects cause perceptions which accepting our entire fragmentary human nature, on its own terms, anyway are themselves dependent on us for their existence. Yet Hume does not en- (see Treatise 1.4.7.11 and Enquiry 5.5–9). In this way, Hume himself unifies dorse either of these systems, even though he regards them as exhaustive “Humean” and Pyrrhonian skepticism. And this is Kant’s reading of Hume and exclusive. As he says after rejecting a number of possible escape routes, too. For Kant, after all, Hume is a “geographer of human reason,” “especially “there is a direct and total opposition betwixt our reason and our senses; constituted for equilibrium of judgment,” who offers us crucial assistance or more properly speaking, betwixt those conclusions we form from cause precisely by indicating the ground of reason’s dialectic (see A745/B773 and and effect, and those that persuade us of the continu’d and independent A760/B788, as well as Chance 2012: 329–30). existence of body” (Treatise 1.4.4.15; cf. 1.4.2–4, 1.4.7.4, and 1.4.7.7, as well as Enquiry 12.7–16). No rational systematization of our beliefs is workable, 23. For the skeptical method, see A388–9, A421–5/B449–53, A485–90/B513–18, and so we face a Pyrrhonian oscillation between irreconcilable choices (cf. A502–7/B530–5, A710–1/B738–9, and A768–9/B794–5. The ideas of reason

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Thus, although the Analytic and the Dialectic support and extend that “It was […] the antinomy of pure reason […] [which] first aroused each other, they do not constitute self-standing replies to essentially me from my dogmatic slumber and drove me to the critique of reason independent forms of skepticism.24 The strong unity of Humean and itself” (Letters 12:257–8). That is why he propounds a special “skeptical Pyrrhonian skepticism also explains Kant’s methodological emphasis method,” which turns out to be the Pyrrhonian one of dialectical op- on the antinomies, which is driven by his conviction that critique can positions, as essential for his Critical enterprise.25 Clearly, then, Kant only be rationally motivated by an internal conflict of reason. Thus, regards Pyrrhonian skepticism as methodologically central to tran- Kant advises his readers in the Prolegomena that they should take the scendental philosophy.26 antinomy as the ultimate arbiter of his success, “because nature itself It is rarely noticed, but, at this point, Kant offers an argument to the seems to have set it up to make reason suspicious in its bold claims effect that we can reject Pyrrhonian skepticism without even looking, and to force a self-examination” (Pro 4:341n; cf. 4:379). Earlier, in a as it were. An entire section of the antinomy is devoted to Kant’s claim note dating to the composition of the first Critique, Kant writes that that the Pyrrhonian’s “transcendental problems of pure reason […] when he first set out to assess the prospects for metaphysics “I tried 25. Indeed, according to Kant, the Pyrrhonian challenge of the antinomies of quite earnestly to prove propositions and their opposite, not in order pure reason is reason’s definitive felix culpa – “the most beneficial error into to establish a skeptical doctrine, but rather because I suspected I could which human reason could ever have fallen, inasmuch as it finally drives discover in what an illusion of the understanding was hiding” (Notes us to search for the key to escape from this labyrinth” (CPrR 5:107; compare B18, A423–5/B451–3, A468–71/B496–9, and A747/B775; Pro 4:338–40, 4:341n, 18:69). Likewise, in a 1798 letter to Christian Garve, Kant proclaims 4:365, and 4:379; “D” 8:226–7 and 8:226n; and RP 20:262 and 20:318–9). Evi- dently, then, Chance errs in claiming that the skeptical method is inessential discussed in the Paralogisms and the Ideal are, of course, just as dialectical to Kant’s strategy in the first Critique. Kant’s response to skepticism requires for Kant as the antinomies. But they are, we might say, purely dialectical or that metaphysical principles be called into question in a very specific way, illusory – they cannot motivate the critical project because they offer no clear and only the Pyrrhonian dialectic suffices (compare Chance 2012: 321–9). If conflict of reason with itself (see A407/B433–4). Moreover, these ideas pre- we reject the Cartesian and Humean problematics as ill-formed, as Kant does, suppose certain answers to various antinomies. For instance, talk of substan- then even the nondialectical illusions of the Paralogisms and the Ideal can tial souls involves a prior commitment to the idea of metaphysical simples only be rationally called into question by a truly antinomial threat. discussed in the second antinomy; and one must affirm the possibility of a 26. Of course, Kant also famously suggests that Hume woke him from his “dog- necessary being “either in the world or outside the world” to even raise the matic slumbers.” But these accounts are not in conflict, if Humean and Pyr- question of God’s existence. One could, in principle, compose empiricist an- rhonian skepticism are unified as I suggest (cf. Pro 4:260). Hume earns special titheses to the propositions of the Paralogisms and the Ideal, but doing so mention in some contexts because his empiricism aids Kant in sharpening his would be pointless for Kant’s purposes, since he thinks that there are no true distinction between immanent and transcendent metaphysics. That is why interests of reason driving us toward those forms of dogmatism (cf. A462–76/ the Critique of Pure Reason is “the elaboration of the Humean problem in its B490–504). As with many aspects of Kant’s diagnostic approach to skepti- greatest possible amplification”: via the antinomies, Kant is able to gener- cism, however, the skeptical method is infrequently discussed (though see alize Hume’s problem beyond relatively limited worries about causation or Chance 2012: 320n19). substantiality, to threaten metaphysics as such. This “amplification” of Hume 24. Kant states this explicitly at the end of the Dialectic, in reference to the brings the crisis of metaphysics to its highest pitch, because it displays the “logic of illusion” he has compiled: only our perennial tendency to dogmatic full cost of that skepticism about metaphysics which is otherwise a natural backsliding makes his investigations necessary – another sign that they are consequence of our quiet revocation of trust in (seemingly dialectical) reason. not an independent core of the Critical project (cf. A702–4/B730–2). Yet That cost confirms the unacceptability of Humean skepticism, which “merely Kant also downplays the Analytic at times, as at MF 4:474n, where he argues limits our understanding without drawing boundaries for it, and brings about that the full story of “how the categories make […] experience possible […] a general distrust but no determinate knowledge of the ignorance that is un- is in no way compulsory, but merely meritorious,” since the essential point is avoidable for us” (A767/B795). Amongst contemporary philosophers, Fogelin simply that immanent and transcendent metaphysical systems can be rigor- 1994 ably argues that – in a quite Kantian form – is the skeptical ously distinguished. problematic par excellence. philosophers’ imprint – 12 – vol. 14, no. 14 (may 2014) matthew a. kelsey “Kant’s Diagnosis of the Unity of Skepticism”

absolutely must be capable of a solution” (A476–84/B504–12; cf. Axii– seeks to do by undermining the transcendentally realistic dogmatism xiv, B23, A612–4/B640–2, A756–64/B784–92, A763/B791, A775/B803, and underlying the antinomies. This is a third and final variation on Kant’s A823/B851, as well as Pro 4:348–57 and 4:360–2). There, Kant argues that diagnostic point that skeptics must offer natural or internal critiques of reason’s essential capacity to determine for itself the nature of its own reason. Truly philosophical forms of skepticism, including Pyrrhonian object of possible knowledge means that it must also be in a position skepticism, are peculiarly timeless, since they arise from the general to determine whether or not insight into that object is a genuine pos- project of assessing our total epistemic situation. Insofar as skepticism sibility for it. It is not up to the vagaries of experience to determine the purports to tell us the final truth of our epistemic dysfunctionality, it specifications of this normative object of human knowledge in general, is directed at what Kant calls “pure reason,” because only in that exalt- since the context of pure reason abstracts from such contingencies to ed context can the skeptic make the global claims she wants to make. focus on what is essential to us as normative agents. Thus it turns out Once we see this, we see that Kant’s engagement with Pyrrhonism that, simply in of granting that there is a “context of pure reason” does not depend on contentious details of this or that argument in the at all, the Kantian skeptic licenses us to engage in Kant’s project of antinomy chapter. Rather, it goes to what is clearly the most serious seeking out a reflectively stable self-conception of reason: skeptical worry imaginable, the claim that our total epistemic situation is deeply incoherent. Since, therefore, the solution to these problems can never Now we can finally see at least the possibility of a fully satisfactory occur in experience, you cannot say that it is uncertain response to Kantian skepticism. Following Kant’s diagnostic insight what is to be ascribed to the object regarding them. For that the interminable conflict between skepticism and dogmatism is your object is merely in your brain and cannot be given “a mere misunderstanding in judging the true vocation of our reason at all outside it; hence all you have to worry about is and its principles,” we can now seek to resolve that misunderstanding agreeing with yourself, and avoiding the amphiboly that by exercising our rational authority to specify an authoritatively nor- would make your idea into a putative representation of mative model of reason itself (Pro 4:350). Transcendental philosophy something given empirically, and thus of an object to aims not at ultimate , then, in a flat-footedly direct way, but at be cognized in accordance with the laws of experience. our essential normative principles.27 The presupposed availability of Thus the dogmatic solution [as well as the skeptical one] is not merely uncertain, but impossible. The critical so- 27. This is one crucial implication of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental illusion. Against dogmatic metaphysicians, Kant points out in a variety of ways that lution, however, which can be completely certain, does we can never infer from how we must or should think, to the ultimate or not consider the question objectively at all, but instead unconditional truth of some matter. Human reason simply does not constrain reality as it is in itself in that way. Thus, there is a failure of transparency with asks about the foundations of the cognition in which it is respect to metaphysical questions concerning the ultimate principles regulat- grounded. (A484/B512) ing our knowledge. In ordinary contexts we answer the question “should I think that p?” by inquiring whether p is true or not, but in metaphysical or philosophical contexts we must halt at the former question and answer it solely in its own right, on our own authority as rational agents to intention- Here, Kant sees that philosophical skepticism unavoidably pre- ally determine our cognitive purposes in evaluating experience. But pursu- tends to absolute self-knowledge, and for that reason is best opposed ing this line of thought any further would lead us into Kant’s complementary diagnosis of dogmatism, as the rational counterpart of skepticism – so I must via rival claims to self-knowledge that do better justice to our prephi- desist. For relevant discussions of transcendental illusion, see A297–8/B354– losophical image of ourselves as rational agents. That is what Kant 5, A341/B399, A396–7, A407/B434, B427, A422/B450, A484/B512, and A570/

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an evaluative standpoint of “pure reason” already shows that this high- mistrustful fear that a terrible epistemic deficiency corrupts all human est-order context has the requisite internal coherence to respond to reasoning. And Kant’s whole diagnosis of skepticism aims to show the Pyrrhonian, whether we can detail that response or not. Where that this fear is groundless. reason’s problems provide sufficient rational guidance, philosophy’s To see this point more clearly, we can distinguish between what we central task is only to find a way of proceeding that represents a legiti- might call formulaic and zetetic forms of Agrippan skepticism. The for- mate alternative to both dogmatism and skepticism (cf. A407/B433–4). mer is a simple, all-purpose recipe for generating allegedly damning It is thus, by means of rational self-knowledge, that Kant hopes to do infinite regresses of justification. This is the “philosophical” version of justice to, without directly refuting, Cartesian, Humean, and Pyrrho- the Agrippan doctrine, which Kant rejects. Zetetic Agrippan skepti- nian skepticism – all at once. cism, by contrast, actually pursues given as far as they can be Unfortunately, Kant never explicitly discusses Agrippan skepticism. taken, and consequently sees the various skeptical “recipes” as con- Yet it is clear what his response must be: any conceivable refutation crete research projects, pursued in definite particular contexts. Zetet- of the Agrippan would be an unmitigated disaster for us. For Kant, ic skepticism shows its work, and thereby grants what Kant wanted that is, a full awareness of our unsettled empirical estate is the truth all along: a return to the “fertile bathos” of ordinary experience (Pro of skepticism, yet is not itself skepticism. Kant admits we will always 4:374n). Kant sees this version of the Agrippan doctrine as an accurate be troubled by the infinite regress of justification, and so by transcen- description of the human epistemic condition. There really is no end dental illusion. Yet, although he refuses any specifically philosophical to the questions which we can and should pursue in our ongoing in- answers to the Agrippan challenge, Kant also denies that this amounts vestigations – but this is hardly a disaster, once we recognize that we to skepticism. Our norms, after all, are immune to Agrippan attack, be- can autonomously regulate and prioritize our inquiries into progres- cause there is no need to explain them in terms of some further fact sive research programs that answer to specific controversies. (not because we cannot do so, as Wittgenstein supposes, but because Once we restore our trust in reason, we can acknowledge that the we need not do so, in virtue of the autonomy of reason). Our empirical constant quest for more, and more systematic, knowledge is itself con- knowledge is radically incomplete and fallible, but in a way that offers stitutive of human nature, in its theoretical dimension. In fact, this is a us a coherent project, to pursue in time. The Agrippan must admit as promising way to take a central implication of Kant’s difficult doctrine much, insofar as she is attempting to enforce rational suspension of of transcendental idealism. The key point is not that the appearances our beliefs, as any philosophical skeptic must do. Put still another way, we perceive are free-floating illusions, but that they are epistemically the frank recognition that our knowledge will always and inevitably autonomous, in that experiential knowledge, defined by reference to fall short of what we would like it to be, and that any of our empirical our epistemic capacities, neither commits us to, nor depends on, any beliefs might be called into question if we progress far enough along theses about the order of things considered as they are in themselves.28 some line of inquiry or other, is not, for Kant, a form of skepticism 28. Kant’s “appearances” are not a way (either good or bad) of knowing things at all. It is rather the root of philosophical wisdom itself, and as such in themselves (see Pro 4:353, and A29–30/B45, A34–6/B51–3, A38–41/B55–8, B69–71, A44/B62, B69–71, A155–7/B194–6, A190–1/B235–6, A222–3/B269– is the ultimate end of all philosophizing. The infinitude of the tasks 70, A276/B332, A379–380, and A489–90/B517–8). Things in themselves, of reason turns skeptical only if conjoined with the Kantian skeptic’s then, are the highest ground of the appearances only in the sense that they have ontological primacy – they are not implicated in our cognition. In fact, B598. These passages are skillfully discussed in Allison 2004, Ameriks 2006, knowledge of things as they are in themselves would be positively disastrous, and Grier 2001. since it would force us to endorse our highest principles dogmatically, rather

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For us, as experiential creatures, everything is located in the context of At this point, Kant’s argument for the strong unity thesis is, if not our own “pure reason,” so that there is no inhumanly situation- and complete, at least completely sketched out. Cartesian skepticism turns interest-independent “order of reasons,” as the skeptic supposes. As out to demand a starting point which the nonskeptical philosopher Kant has it, the appearances are not given to us as a determinate to- has no real reason to adopt, unless basic doubts about metaphysics as tality (see A498–9/B526–7, A504–6/B532–4, and A521/B549). That is such are quietly granted first. Both Humean and Agrippan skepticism, why the metaphysical principles (norms) governing reason’s quest are which at first glance are equally capable of inducing us to reject even not passively received, but must be intentionally projected by reason, the most basic claims to knowledge, presuppose in turn a genuine pos- as attempts to make sense of experience.29 All imaginable solutions to sibility that human reason will prove intrinsically dialectical, leaving the Agrippan grounding problems are thereby transformed into regu- us in need of philosophical guarantees of our fundamental principles. lative ideas, which indeed set unbounded tasks for us – but which, And only the specter of Pyrrhonism could rationally lead us to endorse for the same reason, need not be verified or even claimed to be true that conception of the end or aim of philosophy itself. When I stated apart from our ongoing struggle to reason and judge in accordance the strong unity thesis at the beginning of this essay, I put it in terms of with them (cf. A516–7/B544–5). A decisive direct refutation of Agrip- these reduction relationships between apparently independent prob- pan skepticism would require that we be (or become) something other lematics. But we can see now that unraveling these interlacing expres- than finite human cognizers – whereas, for Kant, one of the chief roles sions of the root skeptical maxim of mistrusting reason also yields a of philosophical thought is precisely to substantiate that self-concep- rich crop of insights into the skeptic’s defining metaphilosophical as- tion. It would be folly to demand a complete solution to the Agrippan sumptions – insights which are now available for cooptation by the task from the bare resources of the a priori philosophical standpoint, transcendental philosopher. Where direct refutations take a merely and Kant’s full diagnosis of skepticism, if successful, shows us that this negative attitude toward the skeptic, then, Kant’s diagnostic approach was never anything of value anyway.30 Thus, finally, we reduce Agrip- allows him to learn from skepticism without tacitly retreating before pan to Pyrrhonian skepticism – qua skepticism, at any rate. its onslaught. In the remainder of this essay, I draw out these construc- tive implications of the argument against Kantian skepticism. than critically (see B163–4, B409–10, and A743–4/B771–2; Pro 4:311, 4:353, Kant’s anti-Agrippan move from a constitutive to a regulative con- and 4:362–3; CPrR 5:146–8; and “O” 8:138n). Allais 2007 and Ameriks 2011 defend Kant’s attempt to avoid deflating empirical knowledge into something ception of the ideas of reason alters the fundamental nature of the second-rate or illusory. rejects bare challenges. But an unresolved crisis of metaphysics suspends 29. Compare Kant’s way of proposing the Copernican turn (Bxiii): “Reason, in our default trust in reason, making us vulnerable to . Once order to be taught by nature, must approach nature with its principles in that background of crisis is dissolved, however, it is open to Kant to adopt one hand, according to which alone the agreement among appearances can the “default-and-challenge” model of justification Michael Williams deploys count as laws, and, in the other hand, the experiments thought out in accor- against Agrippan skepticism. For Williams, the Agrippan errs by freely help- dance with these principles – yet in order to be instructed by nature not like ing herself to infinitely iterable challenges, on the basis of a radical principle a pupil, who has recited to him whatever the teacher wants to say, but like of “claimant-challenger asymmetry” which assigns exclusive responsibility an appointed judge who compels witnesses to answer the questions he puts for knowledge claims to the one entering them. He argues that this division to them.” of the burdens of justification is not a feature of our ordinary justificatory 30. Pyrrhonian and Agrippan skepticism share the method of opposition. But practice, and thus that we have no reason to take formulaic Agrippanism se- the Pyrrhonian gives specific equipoised arguments, whereas the formulaic riously. (Unlike Kant, however, Williams repudiates any attempts to philo- Agrippan advances “bare challenges”: why-questions not backed by evidence sophically evaluate the total human epistemic situation.) Compare Williams for a competing position. Ordinarily – and always within experience – Kant 2001, chapters 5 and 13, and 2004.

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standard of human knowledge, from insight into things as they are phy not as a foundational super-science or “science of sciences,” but in themselves, to one of maximal conformity with the ideal ends and as a “doctrine of wisdom” that is concerned with contextualizing and interests of reason. The initial remarks Kant makes by way of introduc- reinterpreting the various natural and cultural exertions of reason as a ing the ideas of reason, such as the Platonic idea of a perfectly just so- harmoniously unified vocation: ciety, make it clear that what he says about that case is meant to apply [P]hilosophy is the science of the relation of all cognition equally to all genuinely normative ideas: to the essential ends of human reason (teleologia rationis Even though this may never come to pass, the idea of humanae), and the philosopher is not an artist of reason this maximum is nevertheless wholly correct when it is but the legislator of human reason. […] The mathemati- set forth as an archetype, in order to bring the legislative cian, the naturalist, the logician are only artists of reason, constitution of human beings ever nearer to a possible however eminent the former may be in rational cogni- greatest perfection. For whatever might be the highest tions and however much progress the latter may have degree of perfection at which humanity must stop, and made in philosophical cognition. There is still a teacher however great a gulf must remain between the idea and in the ideal, who controls all of these and uses them as its execution, no one can or should try to determine this, tools to advance the essential ends of human reason. Him just because it is freedom that can go beyond every pro- alone we must call the philosopher. (A839/B867)32 posed boundary. (A317/B373–4)

The whole point of philosophy, then, is to make possible a critical Philosophy cannot determine ex ante the extent to which experi- faith in the vocation of human reason, as the fully sufficient ground of ence conforms to our “commanding reason” (A653/B681). Our limits, knowledge and action. If this project succeeds in setting forth the sta- whatever they are, lie only within the progress of nonphilosophical ble and systematic self-knowledge of reason, our trust in reason is vin- experience. Any conceivable direct refutation of Agrippan skepticism dicated. Yet it never stops being a matter of trust, by which we venture attempts just such a reduction of the ordinary to the philosophical, to frame and pursue normative projects of indefinite scope. Through and that is why Kant rejects all such refutations out of hand. Given “certainly erects secure principles, but not directly from concepts, but rather his Critical project, there can be no such authoritative philosophical always only indirectly through the relation of these concepts to something dictates, since these are inconsistent with both human autonomy and entirely contingent, namely possible experience” (A737/B765; cf. Kant on the discursivity of all philosophizing, at A712–38/B740–66). human finitude.31 Positively speaking, then, Kant conceives philoso- 32. This idea is pervasive: see A463/B491, A839–40/B867–8, A744–55/B772–83, 31. See Kant’s late and intemperate response to Fichte’s attempt at “culling a real and A849–51/B877–9; Pro 4:256; G 4:403–5; CPrR 5:108–9, 5:141, and 5:163; object out of logic” (Letters 12:370). Kant’s attack is unfair, but underscores RP 20:259–60, 20:272–3, and 20:301; Jäsche 9:22–3 and 9:25–6; and Notes his own, more limited, conception of the ambitions and authority of philos- 17:552–3, 17:557, 17:559–60, 18:5–7, 18:14, 18:59, 18:87, 18:93, 18:284–5, 18:445– ophy. The problem Kant raises for Fichte is just the one brought up here: 6, and 18:689. The idea that philosophy seeks wisdom, qua self-knowledge, is philosophical attempts to satisfy any imaginable Agrippan demand must ig- also the basis of Kant’s insistence that philosophy be fully systematic – for nore experience entirely, in favor of a chimerical sort of “pure reasons.” That him, partial contextualizations of human moral and cognitive exertions don’t is why the German Idealists unite in doing away with the thing in itself, as even count as philosophy, since they have nothing to do with reason proper well – they must do so in order to reject the brute contingency of possible (in general, überhaupt), except insofar as they at least aim at, but fall short of, experience. But Kant accepts that contingency: transcendental philosophy that maximally wide context.

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philosophy, we acquire no new worldly knowledge at all, either of critique means that reason’s “peculiar fate” turns out to be something things in themselves or of objects of experience – but we do develop we can wholeheartedly embrace, once we have dispelled the skeptic’s a better understanding of just what we do when we reason, and why. forlorn attitude of mistrust. That is Kantian wisdom, by contrast with the heaping of knowledge This is a fascinating project.35 And yet my analysis considerably ex- upon knowledge pursued in dogmatic quests for a super-authoritative acerbates an obvious Kantian problem: is there such a thing as “hu- “science of sciences.” This is what the Kantian response to skepticism man reason,” after all, such that it makes sense to define philosophy comes to in the end, then: we drop the idea that we relate to the ulti- thereby? Even if philosophical skepticism must assume that there is, mate principles of our knowledge by grasping the ontological struc- we may now balk at that hefty assumption. Kant himself never wavers ture of an objective “order of reasons,” and replace it with the idea in his conviction that “pure reason” designates a theoretically coher- that we relate to them by intentionally conjoining them under the ent entity. His whole argument aims to restore our trust in reason, not unifying end of reason. That is the final import of Kant’s proposal to to demonstrate its existence from independent first principles. (And “deny knowledge in order to make room for faith” (Bxxix–xxx).33 In its how would that go, anyway?) But, nowadays, we easily worry that “rea- most general contours, this thought is the now familiar one captured son” is a mirage – a name for nothing at all. In our less hopeful times, by Cavell’s famous suggestion that “the human creature’s basis in the then, understanding Kant’s project in terms of Kantian skepticism can world as a whole, its relation to the world as such, is not that of know- make it seem more alien and unpromising than ever.36 This is a hard ing, anyway not what we think of as knowing” (1979: 241).34 In Kant’s problem for my reading, and so I want to close with some telegraphic version of this idea, the possibility of rational self-knowledge through reflections on how latter-day Kantians could respond. My thought, in brief, is that this precarious condition is where we should hope to end 33. The immediate import of Kant’s remark is to draw attention to his reconception up. As once remarked, reason is both immanent and of specifically religious faith as a commitment to the postulates of practical reason (the notion of Vernunftglaube). But my discussion of Kantian wisdom transcendent. It must be immanent to our practices if we are to find here, as well as Kant’s own reflections on the need for a general “orientation ourselves in it, and thereby acknowledge its authority; but it must also in thought,” on the part of a power of reason which is at bottom practical, be transcendent, the exclusive of no person and no tradition, are meant to show that an analogous form of normative commitment is a central consequence of Kant’s theoretical response to nonreligious forms of to have any critical bite.37 This is a paradoxical status, to be sure, but skepticism as well. We should not think of Kantian rational self-knowledge as 35. I discuss the details of its execution, and its wider metaphilosophical ramifi- akin to knowledge either of an empirical or a supersensible object. I thank an cations, in Kelsey 2013. anonymous referee for pressing me on this point. 36. Radical may seem an obvious threat here, but it is notoriously hard 34. Cavell thinks the right “basis” is a noncognitive acceptance of others. Others to sustain. More promising objections draw on post-Kantian skepticism, such suggest a first-personal commitment to ourselves as natural creatures (Ma- as the arguments framed by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and Salomon Maimon. carthur 2006); a form of externalistic knowledge we share with nonrational Jacobi argues that philosophical reflection necessarily leads to : a to- beings (Sosa 2009); a groundless existential commitment (Foley 1993); the tal picture of the world with no place for the human subject. This is a restate- force of natural necessity, overcoming the quibbles of reason (Hume); our ment of the challenge to actually delineate a philosophical self-conception Bildung as members of a particular linguistic community (McDowell 1996); or capable of adoption from our nonphilosophical standpoints. Maimon, on the an essentially unphilosophical disposition to naturalistic questions and an- other hand, claims that while Kant has successfully defined the normative swers (Maddy 2011). These divergent views, of course, have very distinctive of experience for human beings, he fails to demonstrate its actual- implications for other matters of philosophical interest, as does the Kantian izability. For especially useful discussions, see Beiser 1987, chapters 2 and 4; search for a “doctrine of wisdom.” For now, though, my point is only that the di Giovanni 2005, chapter 4; Franks 1999; and Freudenthal 2004. attitude Kant intends to achieve is not knowledge, at least as it is understood by the (transcendentally realistic) tradition. 37. On the immanence and transcendence of reason, see Putnam (1987: 228 and

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it is just the status that ideals always have – they persist as standing cism, and a deep rethinking of what philosophy is and could be. That grounds for criticizing the present order, but they can never vouchsafe surely makes it worth taking seriously.39 their own realizability. Ideals are operative within the world only if we take them to heart as the standards of our actions and our judgments, Works Cited and in the process take their attainability on (hopefully rational) faith. Allais, Lucy. (2007) “Kant’s Idealism and the Secondary Quality Anal- Reason, qua ideal, must be problematic in just this way, if it is to play ogy.” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 45(3), 459–484. its essential normative role – and so must leave us vulnerable to the Allison, Henry E. (2004) Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation tribulations attendant on faith. Kant’s quest for philosophical wisdom, and Defense (second edition). Yale University Press. then, confronts us with the vitally important task of relating ourselves Ameriks, Karl. (2000) Kant and the Fate of Autonomy: Problems in the Ap- to reason so as to avoid falsifying its nature by treating it as a neutral propriation of the Critical Philosophy. CUP. object of third-personal description.38 Only if we learn the lesson of ——. (2003) Interpreting Kant’s Critiques. OUP. skepticism by relinquishing that misbegotten aim can we avoid a di- ——. (2005) “A Commonsense Kant?” Proceedings and Addresses of the sastrous fracturing of our self-conception as rational agents. If this is American Philosophical Association, 79(2), 19–45. right, then Kant’s two unity theses, rather than making matters worse, ——. (2006) “The Critique of Metaphysics: The Structure and Fate of point the way to both a surprisingly sophisticated diagnosis of skepti- Kant’s Dialectic.” In Ameriks, Kant and the Historical Turn: Philosophy as Critical Interpretation, 134–160. OUP. 242): “On the one hand, there is no notion of reasonableness at all without ——. (2011) “Kant’s Idealism on a Moderate Interpretation.” In Dennis cultures, practices, procedures; on the other hand, the culture, practices, pro- cedures we inherit are not an algorithm to be slavishly followed. […] Reason Schulting and Jacco Verburgt (eds), Kant’s Idealism: New Interpreta- is, in this sense, both immanent (not to be found outside of concrete language tions of a Controversial Doctrine, 29–53. Springer. games and institutions) and transcendent (a regulative idea that we use to criticize the conduct of all activities and institutions). […] If reason is both Anderson, R. Lanier. (2001) “Synthesis, Cognitive Normativity, and the transcendent and immanent, then philosophy, as culture-bound reflection Meaning of Kant’s Question, ‘How are synthetic cognitions a priori and argument about eternal questions, is both in time and in eternity. We possible?’” , 9(3), 275–305. don’t have an ; we always speak the language of a time European Journal of Philosophy and place; but the rightness and wrongness of what we say is not just for a Austin, John Langshaw. (1962) Sense and Sensibilia. Reconstructed from time and a place.” the manuscript notes by G. J. Warnock. OUP. 38. For a Kantian defense of ideals, see Stratton-Lake 1993. James Chase and Jack Beiser, Frederick C. (1987) The Fate of Reason: from Reynolds (2010) also argue that transcendental arguments intrinsically de- mand a rational faith in reason itself. Kant’s best hope for overcoming post- Kant to Fichte. Harvard University Press. Kantian skepticism lies in arguing that reason is distant from us in exactly Bennett, Jonathan. (1966) Kant’s Analytic. CUP. the way ideals are distant from those who seek to realize them (cf. note 36). Bird, Graham. (2006) The first move here involves Kant’s little-noticed claim, at the very end of The Revolutionary Kant: A Commentary on the Cri- the Critique, that the Philosopher is “a teacher in the ideal” who “is still found tique of Pure Reason. Carus Publishing. nowhere, although the idea of his legislation is found in every human rea- Caranti, Luigi. (2007) Kant and the Scandal of Philosophy: The Kantian Cri- son” (A839/B867). This suggests that philosophy, as a special discourse, does not unproblematically speak for reason – and so can err as Kant did – but tique of Cartesian Skepticism. University of Toronto Press. instead has its own defining regulative idea, as all rational discourses do (cf. A642–50/B670–8). If developed, this thought allows us to excise the linger- 39. For helpful comments on various iterations of this essay, I thank Karl Ameriks, ing vestiges of dogmatically presumptuous authority from Kant’s conception Andrew Cutrofello, Jason Rheins, and J. D. Trout, as well as two anonymous of philosophy. referees for Philosophers’ Imprint.

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