Is the Assumption of a Systematic Whole of Empirical Concepts a Necessary Condition of Knowledge?

Geiger, Ido

doi:10.1515/kant.2003.016

Cited by 52 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…I conclude that merely heuristic principles cannot fully express the demands of reason indicated above, the maximal systematicity and necessity of the laws of nature. This conclusion provides initial motivation to consider Kant's claim that in respect to nature in general, a certain conception 14 For example, Geiger (2003) argues for the strong transcendental reading, while Pickering (2011) rejects it. 15 I believe that this question poses a challenge for the stronger constitutive readings of the Appendix.…”

Section: The Regulative Use Of Reason In Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kant’s Regulative Metaphysics of God and the Systematic Lawfulness of Nature

Hoffer¹

2019

The Southern J of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the “Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic” of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant contends that the idea of God has a positive regulative role in the systematization of empirical knowledge. But why is this regulative role assigned to this specific idea? Kant's account is rather opaque, and this question has also not received much attention in the literature. In this article, I argue that an adequate understanding of the regulative role of the idea of God depends on the specific metaphysical content Kant attributes to it in the Critique and other writings. I show that neither a heuristic principle of conceptual systematicity, nor conceiving God as a hypothesis of an intelligent designer, can satisfy the demands of reason to make the unity and necessity of the laws of nature intelligible. Regarding the positive account about the metaphysical content of the idea of God, I support my argument by referring to Kant's precritical discussion of the usefulness of the conception of God for the project of science, and by expounding Kant's critical account of the necessity of the laws of nature. Thus, my account sheds light on the continuity of Kant's conception of God and his appropriation of his own rationalistic metaphysics.

show abstract

Section: The Regulative Use Of Reason In Generalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kant’s Regulative Metaphysics of God and the Systematic Lawfulness of Nature

Hoffer¹

2019

The Southern J of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Leaving aside the idea of the world (where Antinomies arise), when it comes to God and soul, Kant clearly says that "there is not the least thing to hinder us from assuming these ideas as objective and hypostatic" (CPR A 673/B 701). However, "their reality should hold only as that of a schema of the regulative principle for the systematic unity of all cognitions of nature; See Zocher (1956);Brandt (1989);and McLaughlin (2014); see also Geiger (2003).…”

Section: The Indispensably Necessary Illusion Of Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Massimi¹

2017

Kant Yearbook

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

General rightsCopyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policyThe University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact openaccess@ed.ac.uk providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. what has become known as the 'transcendental illusion' and I offer a novel reading that builds on some of the insights of these earlier readings. I argue that ideas of reason act as imaginary standpoints, which are indispensably necessary for scientific knowledge by making inter-conversational agreement possible. Thus, I characterise scientific knowledge as a distinctive kind of perspectival knowledge. This novel reading can illuminate the role of reason in complementing the faculty of understanding and sheds light on the apparent dichotomy between the first and the second part of the Appendix. More to the point, this novel reading takes us right to the heart of what scientific knowledge is, according to Kant, and how it differs from bogus knowledge and opinion. IntroductionWhat is scientific knowledge? And what is so special about it? We live at a time where these questions, far from being rhetorical, have in fact been dangerously called into question. Experts' knowledge has been publicly attacked, and the line between scientific knowledge and public opinion repeatedly blurred in prominent quarters. When it comes to policy-making about climate change, or else, these questions matter. They could not matter more. And yet, convincing answers to these pressing questions may prove hard to find. In this essay, I present my own reading of one such famous answer given by Immanuel Kant. Kant's fully-fledged answer to the question of "what is scientific knowledge?" spans the full Critical project, and as such goes well beyond the scope and limits of the present essay. My more modest goal here is to re-assess a famous qualification that Kant gave to scientific knowledge in a much debated passage of the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic in the Critique of Pure Reason. In that passage, Kant presents the faculty of reason in its hypothetical use as being directed https://doi.org/10. 1515/kantyb-2017-0004 Brought to you by |

show abstract

“…The concept gold, for example, is composed of further concepts, such as yellow, metal and soluble in aqua regia; these concepts stand to gold as genus to species, but gold itself functions as a genus with respect to lower-level concepts of different kinds of gold, various things made of gold, and so on (2001,35). Ido Geiger (2003) offers a more thoroughgoing justification of the need for systematic unity among concepts, drawing on the Sellarsian idea that since mere intuition cannot give content to our concepts, they can derive their content only from the systematic relations, which hold among them. But even if it is right that we cannot conceptualize nature without thinking of our concepts as standing in systematic relations to one another, 2 it still doesn't appear to follow that conceptualization requires the presupposition that nature itself is systematically organized.…”

Section: Guyer's Challenge To the Presupposition Of Systematicitymentioning

confidence: 99%