Kant’s Responses to Skepticism

Abstract

Kant sketches a history of pure reason in which his critical philosophy surpasses both dogmatism and skepticism. But by his own admission, critical philosophy still makes use of dogmatic and skeptical procedures. Although the challenge of criticism is to refute skepticism, we find that in his lectures on logic Kant sometimes praises the sceptici, and not just for having overcome dogmatism. These lectures on logic also allow us to expand our knowledge of the kinds of judgment examined by Kant. In addition to the determinant kinds of judgment that Kant tried to justify in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason and the reflective kinds of judgment added by the Critique of Judgment, Kant also considers a third type called “preliminary or provisional judgments” (vorläufige Urteile).¹