Abstract
In this chapter I discuss Kant’s view of cognition against the historical background. In particular, I stress a historical approach to Kant in depicting the critical philosophy as reacting to and correcting the Platonic position. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant suggests it is possible to know a philosopher’s position better than its author in pointing to Plato. Kant is then depicted as following Plato’s rejection of a backward cognitive inference from appearance to reality in further denying intellectual intuition. Kant’s solution lies in the Copernican solution that we know only what we in some sense can be said to construct. The effort to formulate an acceptable version of this insight is central to Kant’s critical philosophy as well as to post-Kantian German idealism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
See Tom Rockmore, German Idealism as Constructivism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).
- 2.
See, for discussion, Konrad Cramer, “Das philosophische Interesse an der Geschichte der Philosophie,” in Subjektivität und Autonomie, ed. Stefan Land and Lars-Thade Ulrichs (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 33–50.
- 3.
See, for example, Marco Sgarbi, Kant on Spontaneity (London: Bloomsbury, 2012).
- 4.
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), A314/B370.
- 5.
Cohen was very interested in Plato, whom he understood as an early idealist thinker. See, for example, Hermann Cohen, “Die Platonische Ideenlehre psychologisch entwickelt,” Zeitschrift für Völkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft 4 (1866): 403–64; and “Platons Ideenlehre und die Mathematik,” in Rectoratsprogramm der Univerisität Marburg (Marburg: Elwertsche, 1878).
- 6.
See, for discussion, Sanford Budick, Kant and Milton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).
- 7.
Diels, H. & Kranz W., eds., Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (Berlin, 1952), 28 B 3, Clem. Alex. strom. 440, 12; Plotinus, Enneads 5, 1, 8.
- 8.
“But the fragment (frag. 3) which was once believed, by Berkeley among others (Siris §309), to say that to think and to be are one and the same is rather to be construed as saying, on the contrary, that it is one and the same thing which is there for us to think of and is there to be: thought requires an object, distinct from itself, and that object, Parmenides argues, must actually exist.” M. F. Burnyeat, Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 255.
- 9.
Immanuel Kant, Philosophical Correspondence, 1759–99, trans. and ed. Arnulf Zweig (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 71.
- 10.
In the Dohna-Wundlacken Logic, presumably based on lectures given in the 1790s, hence in the critical period, he states representation “cannot be explained at all.” Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Logic, ed. J. Michael Young (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 440.
- 11.
See Hans Blumenberg, “What Is ‘Copernican’ in Kant’s Turning?,” in The Genesis of the Copernican World, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 595–614.
- 12.
See, for a thorough study of the relation of Kant to Hume, Paul Guyer, Knowledge, Reason, and Taste: Kant's Response to Hume (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013).
- 13.
According to Kühn, Kant “seems” to have read Plato. See Manfred Kühn, Kant: A Biography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 370 n.19.
- 14.
It is, for instance, not mentioned at all in a recent, detailed study of Kant’s metaphysical approach to Newtonian mechanics and modern science in general. See Michael Friedman, Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the “Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science” (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rockmore, T. (2016). Plato and Kantian Transcendental Constructivism. In: Kim, H., Hoeltzel, S. (eds) Transcendental Inquiry. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40715-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40715-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40714-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40715-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)