Abstract
Standard interpretations of Kant’s transcendental idealism take it as a commitment to the view that the objects of cognition are structured or made by conditions imposed by the mind, and therefore to what Van Cleve calls “honest-to-God idealism”. Against this view, many more recent investigations of Kant’s theory of representation and cognitive significance have been able to show that Kant is committed to a certain form of Mental Content Externalism, and therefore to the realist view that the objects involved in experience and empirical knowledge are mind-independent particulars. Some of these recent interpreters have taken this result to demonstrate an internal incompatibility between Kant‘s transcendental idealism and his own model of cognitive content and the environmental conditions of empirical knowledge. Against this suggestion, this article argues that, while Kant’s theory of content is indeed best construed as externalist, an adequately adjusted form of transcendental idealism is not only compatible with this externalism, but in fact supports it. More generally, the article develops the position that mental content externalism cannot force the adoption of metaphysical realism.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allais L. (2003) Kant’s transcendental idealism and contemporary anti-realism. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 11(4): 369–392
Allais L. (2004) Kant’s one world: Interpreting ‘transcendental idealism’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 12(4): 655–684
Allison H. E. (1983) Kant’s transcendental idealism. An interpretation and defense. Yale University Press, New Haven
Bird G. (2006) The revolutionary Kant. Open Court, Chicago
Brandt R. (1998) Transzendentale Ästhetik, §§1-3. In: Mohr G., Willaschek M. (eds) Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, pp 81–106
Cassam Q. (2007) The possibility of knowledge. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Collins A. (1996) Possible experience. University of California Press, Berkeley
Falkenstein L. (1995) Kant’s intuitionism. University of Toronto Press, Toronto
George R. (1981) Kant’s sensationism. Synthese 47(2): 229–255
Goldberg, S. (forthcoming). Externalism and metaphysical realism. American Philosophical Quarterly.
Guyer P. (1987) The claims of reason. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Hanna R. (2001) Kant and the foundations of analytic philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Hanna, R. (2006a). Kant’s theory of judgment. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2006 Edition). http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/
Hanna R. (2006b) Kant, science, and human nature. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Howell R. (1973) Intuition, synthesis, and individuation in the critique of pure reason. Nous 7: 207–232
Howell R. (1992) Kant’s transcendental deduction. Kluwer, Dordrecht
Kant I. (1968) Logik (Jäsche). In: Weischedel W. (ed.) Immanuel Kant, Werkausgabe, Bd. VI/2. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, pp 417–582
Kant I. (1996) Critique of pure reason (W. S. Pluhar, Trans). Indianapolis, Hackett
Kant I. (1998) Critique of pure reason (P. Guyer & A. Wood, Trans). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, MA
Langton R. (1998) Kantian humility. Clarendon Press, Oxford
McDowell J. (1994) Mind and world. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Melnick A. (2004) On things in themselves. In: Melnick A. (ed.) Themes in Kant’s metaphysics and ethics. The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, DC, pp 147–163
Mittelstaedt P. (2003) Der Objektbegriff bei Kant und in der gegenwärtigen Physik. In: Heidemann D., Engelhard K. (eds) Warum Kant heute? De Gruyter, Berlin, pp 207–230
Rosenberg J. F. (2005) Accessing Kant. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Schönrich G. (2003) Externalisierung des Geistes? Kants usualistische Repräsentationstheorie. In: Heidemann D., Engelhard K. (eds) Warum Kant heute? De Gruyter, Berlin, pp 126–149
Strawson P. (1988) Perception and its objects. In: Dancy J. (ed.) Perceptual knowledge. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 92–112
Strawson P. (1999) The bounds of sense. London, NY, Routledge (Orig. 1966)
Thompson, M. (1972–1973). Singular terms and intuitions in Kant’s epistemology. Review of Metaphysics, 26, 314–343
Van Cleeve J. (1999) Problems from Kant. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Waxman W. (2005) Kant and the empiricists. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Westphal K. R. (2003a) Epistemic reflection and cognitive significance in Kant’s transcendental response to skepticism. Kant-Studien 94: 135–171
Westphal K. R. (2003b) Can pragmatic realists argue transcendentally? In: Shook J. R. (ed.) Pragmatic naturalism and realism. Prometheus, Amherst, NY, pp 151–175
Westphal K. R. (2004) Kant’s transcendental proof of realism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/London
Westphal K. R. (2005) Kant, Wittgenstein, and Transcendental Chaos. Inquiry 28(4): 303–323
Westphal K. R. (2006) How does Kant prove that we perceive, and not merely imagine, physical objects? Review of Metaphysics 59: 781–806
Willaschek M. (1997) Der transzendentale Idealismus und die Idealität von Raum und Zeit. Deutsche Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 51: 537–564
Willaschek M. (1998) Phaenomena/Nouomena und die Amphibolie der Reflexionsbegriffe. In: Mohr G., Willaschek M. (eds) Immanuel Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, pp 325–351
Willaschek M. (2001) Die Mehrdeutigkeit der Unterscheidung zwischen Dingen an sich und Erscheinungen. In: Gerhard V., Horstmann R.-P., Schumacher R. (eds) Kant und die Berliner Aufklärung. Berlin/NY, DeGruyter, pp 679–690
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mueller, A. Does Kantian mental content externalism help metaphysical realists?. Synthese 182, 449–473 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9753-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-010-9753-z