Abstract
Ryall argues, with much historical irony, that the philosophical implications of Copernicus’ insight directly oppose Kant’s transcendental philosophy and this because the Copernican world-view presupposes for its vindication the truth of transcendental realism, not idealism. The thesis, therefore, is not simply a negative one in its insistence that Kant misappropriated the Copernican name but it offers, also, a positive case for a realist ontology which sits better with the “the change in the way of thinking” adopted by Copernicus. The account additionally demonstrates how Kant strayed (with his transcendental idealism) so far from the “secure path of a science” as to lapse into glaring absurdity, as with his Ptolemaic claim that the earth “persists in space” while the sun moves in relation to it (B277 = 278).
In its transcendental efforts … reason cannot look ahead so confidently, as if the path on which it has travelled leads quite directly to the goal, and it must not count so boldly on the premises that ground it as if it were unnecessary for it frequently to look back and consider whether there might not be errors in the progress of its inferences to be discovered that were overlooked in its principles and that make it necessary either to determine them further or else to alter them entirely.
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason, A735=B763)
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- 1.
All translations of Kant are cited with the standard Akademie pagination. Details of translations are provided in the References. It might be objected here that the proposition “Objects conform to our cognition ” is better designated a ‘hypothesis’ rather than ‘principle’ (the latter connoting something certain or true upon which a system of belief can be founded in contrast to the mere conjectural status of a hypothesis); especially since Kant himself proposes “the transformation in our way of thinking presented in criticism merely as a hypothesis,” deeming this analogous to Copernicus’ speculative stance (B xxii, note). In this same note, however, Kant unequivocally states that this proposition “will be proved not hypothetically but rather apodictically” (ibid.), which, if we are to take him at his word on this, would seem to warrant our naming it a principle, one that he maintains will be proven by “the constitution of our representations of space and time and … the elementary concepts of the understanding ” (ibid.).
- 2.
That our minds “construct” or “make” objects, however, does not entail that we create them, which Henry E. Allison , in a somewhat crude characterisation of Kant’s critics, suggests is how they interpret his meaning (2004, 172). Thus, and just as a builder or carpenter might construct or make an object in a formal sense (concerning its structure, shape, etc.) while not being responsible for producing the already existing material out of which it is made, so in Kant’s case human beings are not responsible for creating the “matter” of cognition (i.e., sensation ) but only for providing it with an objective form. As Kant expresses it in the Critique: “[S]ince representation in itself (for we are not here talking about its causality by means of the will) does not produce its object as far as its existence is concerned, the representation is still determinant of the object a priori if it is possible through it alone to cognize something as an object” (A92=B124–125). We are therefore architects and artisans, as it were, with respect to the empirical world inasmuch as we construct or make it but we do not bring it into being in the sense of producing the material out of which it is constructed.
- 3.
By which “persistence ” is not meant endures though time (this obviously applying to the sun as well) but, rather, remains at rest and this in contrast to the proposed “motion ” of the sun.
- 4.
Although the appearance of celestial motion results from the rotational motion of the earth, as an observer situated on the planet’s surface one in fact revolves through space since one’s body does not rotate about its central point (as the body of the earth does) but describes an imperfect circle through space during each of the earth’s rotational cycles. In this regard, and somewhat ironically, the daily motions described by our bodies constitute epicycles along the course of the earth’s annual revolution around the sun. None of this is itself ‘observed’ by the subject (indeed, for the subject herself, it is non-observable ) and the contrast between rotational and revolutionary motion is a subtle one but will bear upon the problem of explicating motion to be addressed further on.
- 5.
Kant utilizes a distinction between reality and appearance or “semblance ” cast in purely immanent terms (Metaphysical Foundations , 4:555) and some may think this capable of explaining the contrasting apparent and real motions described by Copernicus. It might also be thought that the notion of a ‘possible experience ’, as opposed to ‘actual experience ’, allows one to account for the empirical reality of terrestrial motion to the extent that it is possible for an observer to perceive this from the vantage point of cosmic space. These and associated claims are addressed in subsequent chapters.
References
Allison, H.E. 2004. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Brandom, Robert. See reference for Sellars.
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Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press.
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Kant, Immanuel. 2004. Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, trans. and ed. Michael Friedman. Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 2004 (Revised Edition). Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science, trans. and ed. Gary Hatfield. Cambridge University Press.
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Sellars, Wilfrid. 1997 (With an Introduction by Richard Rorty & Study Guide by Robert Brandom). Empiricism & The Philosophy of Mind. Harvard University Press.
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Ryall, J.T.W. (2017). Introduction. In: A Copernican Critique of Kantian Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56771-6_1
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