Abstract
This chapter proposes to distinguish the different forms of scepticism recognized by Kant: Baylean, Humean, and Cartesian scepticism. In order for his critical philosophy and indeed for the Enlightenment to stand, all three must be neutralized, if not refuted. Each of these three forms of scepticism is presented, in each case identifying its modern source and Kant’s elaboration of it. In all three cases, Kant distinguishes between the scepticism itself and the useful part of it that he integrates into his critical project. Thus, first Kant extracts “Hume’s problem” from Humean scepticism; then he isolates the sceptical method from Baylean scepticism; and finally, he distinguishes transcendental idealism from sceptical idealism. Subsequent German philosophy, including both post-Kantian scepticism and German idealism, would depend on his transcendental-idealist answer to these three modern forms of scepticism; his response to each would be made subject to detailed examination, as if the conflict between sceptics and anti-sceptics is destined never to end.
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Notes
- 1.
AK, IV, 260. The following abbreviations have been used for Bayle, Hume and Kant’s works: DHC = Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique, Amsterdam, Leiden, The Hague and Utrecht, 1740, 4 vols. References are to article, remark, page. EHU = David Hume, Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch (eds.), Oxford, Clarendon Press, 3rd edition, 1975. References are to section and page. AK = Immanuel Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, Königlichen Preußischen and Akademie der Wissenschaften (eds.), Berlin, Georg Reimer, 1900-. References are to volume, page. A/B = Immanuel Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1980. References A are to page of the 1781s edition; references B are to page of the 1787s edition.
- 2.
See M. Forster, Kant and Scepticism, Princeton/Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2008, p. 3–5; P. Guyer, Kant, London/New York, Routledge, 2006, p. 8–13; P. J. Smith, “As respostas de Kant ao ceticismo cartesiano” in O filósofo e sua história, Wrigley, M. and Smith, P. J. (eds.), Campinas, UNICAMP, 2003, p. 397, note 1; and P. J. Smith, “La Critique de la raison pure face aux scepticismes cartésien, baylien et humien” in Dialogue XVLII, pp. 463–500.
- 3.
DHC, “Pyrrho”, B.
- 4.
EHU, XII, 117.
- 5.
EHU, XII, 118–123.
- 6.
EHU, XII, 127.
- 7.
AK, XXVIII, p 403–404; cf. AK IV, 259.
- 8.
B, 122.
- 9.
B, 127–8.
- 10.
B, 19–20; cf. AK IV, 257.
- 11.
B, 20.
- 12.
B, 19.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
B, 128; AK IV, 271–275.
- 15.
B, 20.
- 16.
B, 795.
- 17.
B, 106.
- 18.
B, 107.
- 19.
Cf. P. Guyer, Knowledge, Reason, and Taste : Kant’s Response to Hume, Princeton/Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2008, pp. 93–95.
- 20.
A. Melnick, “The Second Analogy” in G. Bird (dir.), A Companion to Kant, Oxford, Blackwell, 2005.
- 21.
B, 232–256.
- 22.
H. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 1983; J. Floyd, “The fact of judgement : The Kantian response to the Humean Condition” in J. Malpas (ed.), From Kant to Davidson : Philosophy and the idea of the transcendental, London/New York, Routledge, 2003, pp. 22–47.
- 23.
AK, XII, 258; Henry Allison, op. cit., p. 35.
- 24.
AK, IX, 30–31.
- 25.
AK, IX, 74.
- 26.
A 756/B 784.
- 27.
cf. AK IV, 340; A 756/B 784.
- 28.
Michel de Montaigne, Essais, P. Villey (ed.), Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1978, 12, p. 449.
- 29.
Ibid., p. 502.
- 30.
EHU, XII, 124.
- 31.
EHU, XII, 117.
- 32.
EHU, XII, 126.
- 33.
EHU, XII, 117.
- 34.
EHU, XII, 126.
- 35.
For an assessment of Hume’s position in the face of antinomies, see P. J. Smith, “Hume on sceptical arguments”, in D. Machuca (ed.), Pyrrhonism in Ancient, Modern, and Contemporary Philosophy, Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York, Springer, 2011, pp. 171–189. See also P. J. Smith, “? Cómo Hume se volvió escéptico ?”, Daímon, 52, enero-abril 2011, pp. 71–84. It is true that Hume displays a conflict between reason and the senses concerning the existence of the external world, a conflict already present in the Conclusion of the Treatise, which was available to Kant. However, Hume seems to think that his empirical science only discovers new oppositions that would please the sceptics (T, 1, 3, 13, 12), not that antinomies are his main reason to become a sceptic.
- 36.
M. Kuehn, “Kant’s Conception of Hume’s Problem”, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 21, 1983, pp. 175–93.
- 37.
T, 1.4.7.4.
- 38.
T, 1.4.4.15 and 1.4.7.4.
- 39.
T 1.3.13.12.
- 40.
See chapter “Bayle and Pyrrhonism: Antinomy, Method, and History” by P. J. Smith, in this volume, part 1. See also P. J. Smith, “Bayle e os impasses da razão”, Kriterion, 120, julho a dezembro 2009, pp. 377–390.
- 41.
Montaigne, op. cit., I, 23, p. 125.
- 42.
see DHC, “Jansenius”, G and H, and “Chrisippus”, H.
- 43.
Cf. Forster, Kant and Scepticism, op. cit., p. 20; Guyer, Knowledge, Reason, and Taste, op. cit., p. 53–56.
- 44.
See Plínio J. Smith, “La Critique de la raison pure face aux scepticismes cartésien, baylien et humien”, Dialogue, 47, 2008, pp. 463–500, for a more detailed defense of this interpretation.
- 45.
B 771; AK III, 487.
- 46.
A, 389.
- 47.
B, 451–452.
- 48.
B, 513.
- 49.
B, 528.
- 50.
B, 569.
- 51.
B, 771.
- 52.
B, 449.
- 53.
DHC, “Maldonat”, K.
- 54.
DHC, “Pyrrho”, B.
- 55.
DHC, “Zeno of Elea”, H.
- 56.
See S. Charles, Berkeley au siècle des Lumières : immatérialisme et scepticisme au XVIII e siècle, Paris, Vrin, 2003.
- 57.
EHU, XII, 123, n. 1
- 58.
EHU XII, 116.
- 59.
EHU XII, 116.
- 60.
T, 1.4.5.2–3.
- 61.
EHU XII, 123.
- 62.
T, 1.4.2.56.
- 63.
B, XXXIX.
- 64.
Notably M. Burnyeat, “Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes saw and Berkeley missed”, The Philosophical Review, 91, 1, 1982.
- 65.
A, 367.
- 66.
B, XXXIX.
- 67.
B, 276.
- 68.
B, 276–277.
- 69.
B, 275.
- 70.
B, 274.
- 71.
B, 276.
- 72.
See chapter “Fichte et Schopenhauer face au scepticisme de Schulze” by Brandão in this volume.
- 73.
See chapter “Scepticisme et dialectique des Lumières chez le jeune Hegel” by Testa and “Hegel on Scepticism and Irony” by Biscuso, both in this volume.
- 74.
See chapter “Maimon, scepticisme et Lumières” by Radrizzani in this volume.
Bibliography
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Smith, Plínio J. 2011. Hume on sceptical arguments. In Pyrrhonism in ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy, ed. D. Machuca, 171–189. Dordrecht/Heidelberg/London/New York: Springer.
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Smith, P.J. (2013). Kant’s Criticism and the Legacy of Modern Scepticism. In: Charles, S., J. Smith, P. (eds) Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 210. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4810-1_17
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