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In Bertrand Russell's writings during the first two decades of the Twentieth Century there occur two rather different distinctions that involve his much-discussed, technical notion of acquaintance. The first is the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description; the second, the distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge of truths. This article examines the nature and philosophical purpose of these two distinctions, while also tracing the evolution of Russell's notion of acquaintance in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It argues that, when he first expressly formulates his Principle of Acquaintance in 1903, Russell's chief concern is to appeal to the first distinction to argue against a certain tightly restrictive epistemology of understanding that he finds in the writings of William James. By contrast, when in 1911 he begins to place emphasis on the second distinction, his concern is to appeal to it in the course of defending his thesis that we are capable of having perfect knowledge (by acquaintance) of particulars. The defense is necessary because this thesis comes under attack from a certain argument Russell finds in the writings of the Monistic Idealists. Russell explicitly formulates distinction A for the first time in some study notes from 1903entitled "Points about Denoting" (hereafter cited as PAD). 6 These notes also contain his first explicit formulation of (some version of) the Principle of Acquaintance (hereafter cited as POA). Russell deploys distinctions A and B against two rather different targets. He appeals to distinction A-and to the thesis that we may know by description certain things with which we lack acquaintance-in the course of challenging the restrictive epistemology of understanding that is-or seems to be-espoused by James in his Principles of Psychology, and which James himself derives-or thinks he derives-from Locke. According to this epistemology, acquaintance-or in James's terminology "sensation"-is both an enabling condition of thought, and hence of knowledge, and the limiting condition of them. 9 In other words, for James we are able to think about anything with which we are-or can be-acquainted, but only about such things.Russell, I shall argue, seeks to replace James's epistemology of understanding with a view that resembles it insofar as it treats acquaintance as an enabling condition of thought and knowledge (of truths), but that also differs from it insofar as it denies that acquaintance sets limits to thought, and hence also to knowledge (of truths).The philosophical use to which Russell puts distinction B is altogether different. In the summer of 1911, in the course of writing POP, he formulates the doctrine that acquaintance with sense-data constitutes knowledge that is "perfect and complete" (POP, 46). He does so, I shall argue, not out of any attachment to a Cartesian version of foundationalism, but rather because he sees this thesis as a way to resist an argument for a certain holistic conception of kn...

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant appears to characterize analytic judgments in four distinct ways: once in terms of “containment,” a second time in terms of “identity,” a third time in terms of the explicative‐ampliative contrast, and a fourth time in terms of the notion of “cognizability in accordance with the principle of contradiction.” The paper asks which, if any, of these characterizations—or apparent characterizations—has the best claim to be Kant's fundamental conception of analyticity in the first Critique. It argues that it is the second. The paper argues, further, that Kant's distinction is intended to apply only to judgments of subject‐predicate form, and that the fourth alleged characterization is not properly speaking a characterization at all. These theses are defended in the course of a more general investigation of the distinction's meaning and tenability.

Building on work of Dieter Henrich, the essay argues that Kant's legal metaphors suggest that the Deductions in Kant's first two Critiques share a common structure. Each has a first part corresponding to the "factum" of a legal deduction, and a second part corresponding to a proof of the validity of a legal claim from this basis. The relevant factum in the first Critique is the fact--revealed by the Metaphysical Deduction--that the categories have a priori origins; in the second, it is the so-called 'Fact of Reason'. Each 'factum' both requires a proof and admits of one.

In the chapter of the Critique of Pure Reason entitled “The Paralogisms of Pure Reason” Kant seeks to explain how rationalist philosophers, including thinkers of the caliber of Descartes and Leibniz, could have arrived at what he considers to be certain erroneous, “dogmatic” conclusions about the nature of the self or soul. His diagnosis has two main components: first, the positing of “Transcendental Illusion”—a pervasive intellectual illusion, modeled on perceptual illusion, which predisposes us to accept as sound certain invalid arguments for substantive theses about the nature of the soul; second, the identification of the relevant fallacies. This essay examines Kant's account in the First Paralogism of how these two elements combine to produce the doctrine that the soul is a substance. It is argued that Kant has a novel, ingenious—and even somewhat plausible—account of how the rational psychologist might arrive at such a view. It is further argued that the source of the fallacy in the first paralogism is a confusion about the very nature of conceivability and that, in identifying this confusion, Kant makes a philosophical contribution of lasting value.