Belief in Kant

Abstract

Most work in Kant's epistemology focuses on what happens "upstream" from experience, prior to the formation of conscious propositional attitudes. That story is familiar: fi rst there is sensory or pure intuition, then conceptualization in accordance with categorial rules, and, ultimately, cognitive experience that is susceptible to propositional judgment. Precisely how all this works, of course, has been the topic of 225 years of debate. Most work in Kant's epistemology ignores what goes on "downstream" from experience, despite the fact that this aspect of Kant's account touches directly on issues of substantial interest in contemporary philosophy. In particular, commentators neglect Kant's view of what it is for a judgment to be justifi ed or count as knowledge, as well as his account of the principles that ought to guide our practices of judgment formation if the latter are to count as rational. 1 We might well wonder why. One suggestion is that Kant's discussions of this sort of thing-justifi cation and the ethics of belief-are short and sketchy, and, moreover, they're located in the "Canon of Pure I am indebted to the following people for helpful discussions of the ideas in this essay:

What is this Thing Called ‘Scientific Knowledge’? – Kant on Imaginary Standpoints And the Regulative Role of Reason

“…For the understanding can only guarantee the private validity of the judgments subjectively produced (hence a lingering threat of transcendental solipsism that some scholars have seen at work in Kant's Critical project). A condition for true judgFor an excellent discussion of this overall topic see Chignell (2007). See footnote 18.…”

Rehabilitating the regulative use of reason: Kant on empirical and chemical laws

“…One believes when one assents to a judgment with sufficient subjective grounds but insufficient objective grounds, while one knows when one assents with sufficient subjective and objective grounds (KrV, A823/B851). Chignell (2007) understands this to mean that believing requires the subject to have accessible grounds on which one bases one's assent, while knowing additionally requires that the subject's ground for belief makes the assented-to judgment probably true. If one can have experiences that make a judgment more or less probable, then one is capable of achieving objective grounds for the judgment.…”

Kant on Doxastic Voluntarism and its Implications for Epistemic Responsibility

“…See Wood (2002, chapter 3) for an enlightening discussion of Kant's position on rational faith. For a useful discussion of Glaube in this context, see Chignell (2007a). This paper focuses solely on the acquisition of empirical beliefs, beliefs that are always, at least in principle, susceptible of evidential support.…”