Customer Reviews

Kant and Skepticism (Princeton Monographs in Philosophy)

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A very clearly written presentation, nicely divided into short chapters.

Especially good at exposing the logical problems with Kant's famous argumentation for the "conditions of the possibility" of appearances, experience, etc.

Where Forster goes too far with his critique of Kant's Critique is in his own implicit endorsement of skepticism. He takes seriously the academic skepticism that undermines both classical logic and subjective experience, and faults Kant for not doing so too. Such objections are, in a sense, too strong. They are not just objections to Kant but to any noble conception of philosophy, period. A skepticism that does such violence to common sense risks consigning philosophy to irrelevance, to intellectual "moves" that take human thought nowhere. On that model, "philosophy" only clears the path for the reductionist ideologies of the modern sciences.

There are deep problems with Kant's system; but Forster doesn't see so well what Kant saw with incomparable force.