Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE December 2014 Kant and the Neglected Alternative Andrew F. Specht Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Specht, Andrew F., "Kant and the Neglected Alternative" (2014). Dissertations - ALL. 183. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/183 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract In this work, I conduct a reconstruction and evaluation of the Neglected Alternative objection to Immanuel Kant's philosophy. Kant famously argues in the Transcendental Aesthetic section of the Critique of Pure Reason that space and time are subjective forms of human intuition, and the Neglected Alternative maintains that this argument is a failure. According to the Neglected Alternative, Kant completely overlooks the possibility that space and time are in some way both subjective and objective, and so Kant's conclusions about the nature of space and time are not justified by his arguments. This objection was first formulated very soon after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason but is still subject to great controversy among Kant scholars. I argue that the Neglected Alternative objection is unsuccessful. To do this, I provide a close analysis of Kant's key technical term “a priori intuition,” and I reconstruct the work of two important critics of Kant: H.A. Pistorius and F.A. Trendelenburg. I then argue that in the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant is justified in deriving the conclusion that space and time have nothing to do with things in themselves, or objects entirely independent of human cognition. Finally, I look at Kant's works as a whole and consider Kant's arguments that seem to rule out the possibility that things in themselves have a structure that is even similar to space and time. Kant and the Neglected Alternative Andrew F. Specht B.A. Lawrence University 2009 DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Syracuse University December 2014 Copyright © Andrew F. Specht 2014 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments I am extremely grateful for the assistance of many people in the process of writing this dissertation. Starting from the beginning, I thank Jennifer Keefe and Tom Ryckman for first teaching me how to do philosophy, and I thank Dan, Vitaly, and the other members of the Lawrence University Philosophy Club for good times and great discussions. At Syracuse University, I have had the honor to learn from a number of outstanding professors and graduate students. I am especially indebted to Andre Gallois and Kris McDaniel for providing helpful comments on earlier drafts of multiple parts of this dissertation. Most importantly, I thank Fred Beiser for working with me throughout the entire dissertation process, for reading inumerable chapter drafts, and for his constant patience and support. I also thank the other graduate students at Syracuse, who have informally worked through the difficult Critique with me, in particular Jon Delmendo, Matt Koehler, and James Lee. For comments on an ancestor of chapter one, I thank Dante Dauksz and an audience at the Syraucse Philosophy ABD workshop. For comments on various prior versions of chapter three, I thank Shane Callahan and audiences at the University of South Florida and the Eastern division of the North American Kant Society, as well as the editor and referees for the British Journal for the History of Philosophy. For comments on ancestors to chapter four, I thank Jake Greenblum, Colin McClear, and Nick Stang. I especially appreciate Jake Browning, who read drafts of multiple chapters. For assistance with the German language, I thank Tara Harvey, Karl Solibakke, Karina von Tippelskirch, and the financial assistance of the DAAD. I also thank Robert Clewis for providing research guidance. Finally, I thank my family (Mom, Dad, Mark, and Lizzie) for their constant love and support, Ted and Brian for good times at 301 Fellows, and Adrienne, whose encouragement, love, and sense of humor have enriched every aspect of my life. iv Table of Contents Introduction................................................................................................................... …..1 A Brief History of the Neglected Alternative.................................................... …..6 Overview of Chapters........................................................................................ …19 Chp. 1: The Argument for the Exclusive Mind-Dependence of Space......................... …23 1.1. A First Overview of the Argument.............................................................. …24 1.2. The Mystery of A Priori Intuition............................................................... …34 1.3. What A Priori Intuition Is............................................................................ ...40 1.4. The Aesthetic Reconsidered and the Properties of Space........................... ...55 1.5. Conclusion.................................................................................................. ...62 Chp. 2: H.A. Pistorius and the Origins of the Neglected Alternative............................ ...64 2.1. Pistorius's Conception of Space.................................................................. ...67 2.2. The Leibnizian Neglected Alternative........................................................ ...74 2.3. The Empiricist Neglected Alternative......................................................... ...78 2.4. Conclusion.................................................................................................. ...83 Chp. 3: Trendelenburg and his Third Alternative.......................................................... ...85 3.1. Logische Untersuchungen: First Formulation of the Objection................. ...86 3.2. Kuno Fischer's Counter-Attack................................................................... ...93 3.3. The Possibility of Space, both Subjective and Objective........................... ...97 3.4. Trendelenburg's Interpretation of the Aesthetic.......................................... ..104 3.5. The Origin and Applicability of Space....................................................... ..106 3.6. Conclusion.................................................................................................. ..110 Appendix: Trendelenburg on Necessity............................................................. ..111 Chp. 4: Resolving the Neglected Alternative................................................................ ..118 4.1. Premise Two: A Priori Intuitions and the Mind-Independent..................... ..120 4.2. The Fourth Step and the Source(s) of Space.................................................133 4.3. The Fourth Step: Could there also be a Mind-Independent Space?........... ..143 4.4. The Success of Kant's Argument................................................................ ..155 4.5. Alternative Solutions.................................................................................. ..160 4.6. Conclusion.................................................................................................. ..171 Chp. 5: The Structure of Transcendental Reality........................................................... ..172 5.1. The “Cinnabar” Passage and Similarity...................................................... ..175 5.2. First Practical Argument: God.................................................................... ..179 5.3. Second Practical Argument: Freedom........................................................ ..188 5.4. Theoretical Arguments: Infinite Divisibility and Simples.......................... ..192 5.5. Relations and Incongruence........................................................................ ..205 5.6. Kant's Picture of Transcendental Reality and our Knowledge of It..............209 Conclusion..................................................................................................................... ..216 Bibliography.................................................................................................................. ..220 Vita................................................................................................................................ ..234 v 1 Introduction In just a few pages in the first section of the Critique of Pure Reason, called the “Transcendental Aesthetic,” Kant comes to the bold conclusion that space and time are merely products of our minds and do not in any way reflect the nature of the reality beyond the human mind. The boldness of this conclusion has generated importantly divergent views in the history of philosophy. On one pole is the reaction by Feder and Garve in their Göttingen Review, which dismisses Kant's transcendental idealism as being just another instantiation of implausible Berkelian idealism. But on the other hand, many philosophers were persuaded by Kant's arguments for the ideality of space and time and developed their own systems incorporating this Kantian insight. Such philosophers include Reinhold and Fichte, who constructed their systems not long after the publication of the first Critique, as well as Kuno Fischer and Arthur Schopenhauer, the latter of whom made these gushing remarks about the doctrine of