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Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense

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The author gives a sensitive, detailed, and very understandable overview of Kant's construction of transcendental idealism. He clearly is supportive of Kant's ideas, but he does approach them also with a critical analysis. Readers who disagree with Kant are encouraged to read this book, as it offers a fresh perspective on his ideas. Kant's philosophy has pervaded many fields, such as psychology, physics, logic, and ethics, and therefore an understanding of these fields and modern philosophy will need as prerequisite a study of Kant.

Allison attempts to set straight the "standard picture" of Kant, which he argues does not fairly represent the Kantian view. The philosophers P.F. Strawson and H.A. Prichard are to be held mostly responsible for this mistaken picture argues the author. Allison's position is that the standard picture fails to distinguish between "ideality" and "reality" and between appearances and things in themselves. He attempts to defend Kant's thinking in terms of these distinctions. A reader really interested in an in-depth analysis of his arguments will need to have a thorough knowledge of the German language.

Allison argues that there is a definite distinction between an empirical and transcendental sense of 'ideality' and 'reality'. Empirically, 'ideality' characterizes the private data of an individual mind, but at the transcendental level, it characterizes the universal, necessary, and a priori conditions of human knowledge. This is an interesting reading of Kant, for it refutes the main objection to his philosophy, namely that the structure of the mind precludes any real knowledge of things. A transcendentally real object is then a nonsensible object (noumenon). The (actual) existence of these objects need not be postulated at all when reading Kant. Calling an object 'ideal' is not making a statement about its existence; empirical objects are ideal only because they cannot be described independently of the "forms of sensibility". Again, one can see in this reading of Kant a definite refutation of skepticism, for at the empirical level, the appearances are mental and the things in themselves are physical; at the transcendental level, appearance means relative to the subjective conditions, while things in themselves are independent of these conditions. The conditions do not determine how things appear in the empirical realm, they give universal and necessary conditions for the capability of the mind to recognize an object. One can argue here that it is these very conditions that set the foundation for genuine knowledge of objects; or an even more minimal view that they serve as precursors to genuine knowledge.

To elaborate on Kant in a more organized and rigorous manner, Allison introduces the concept of an "epistemic condition". These are conditions that establish the pure concepts of the understanding and also the forms of human sensibility. They are different form psychological conditions, which are unique to the human cognitive apparatus, and from ontological conditions, which are conditions of the being of things. According to the author Kant refutes Hume by showing that Hume confuses psychological and epistemic conditions, and also refutes Newton by showing that Newton confused epistemic with ontological conditions.

The author also clears up the misreading of Kant that characterizes appearances as "mere representations". Kant's claim is not, according to Allison, that objects have no independent existence but rather that such existence cannot be attributed to them in the manner in which they are represented. It is here though that Allison slips a little and weakens his case against Kantian skepticism when he summarizes the Kantian position as stating that whatever is necessary for the representation of something as an object must reflect the cognitive structure of the mind rather than the nature of the object as it is in itself. He seems to be saying that the very structure of the human mind, and its required use in the attempts to gain knowledge, precludes such knowledge.

The author also clears up the Kantian position versus phenomenalism. Whatever is actual must be an object of possible perception, but this is a consequence of actuality and not a cognition. Whatever can be connected with a given perception in accordance with the "analogies of experience" is to be deemed actual. This move by Kant removes the element of subjectivity in claims on actuality, distancing himself from Berkeley's purely psychological account of perception, defining the possibility of perception in terms of conformity to a priori principles. In addition, the Kantian position on conceptual knowledge is clarified by Allison. Kant contrasts the human capacity for conceptual knowledge versus the notion of an intuitive intellect, the later which is purely creative and requires no cognitive effort. Further, and central to the human capability for abstraction, is the Kantian notion that a concept is an organizing principle for consciousness. Sensible intuition provides the mind with only the raw data for conceptualization, not with the determinate knowledge of objects.

This text is the most sympathetic reading of Kant's CPR in English. Allison is perhaps the ablest defender of Kant in the USA. Burge once said that Allison defends Kant a bit too sympathetically--perhaps believes that K. is right. I think Allison's defensive reading is crucial in understanding Kant's Transcendental Project, or the Critical Project. If one wants a clear notion of what Kant meant by "Transcendental Idealism," this text is required reading. Allison's prose is careful, clear, and cautious. He brings light to often obscure passages of 'the Master.'

While I have the chance to plug it, I highly recommend Kuehn's biography on Kant (Cambridge UP), esp. for students new to the CPR.

Also, the N. Kemp Smith translation of K's CPR is standard in the field, but the new Guyer-Wood translation (Cambridge UP) is certainly worth checking out. Many corrections.

For an 'empirical' reading of Kant, see Strawson's Bounds of Sense. Also, his Individuals.

For excellent readings and clear interpretations of Kant, see Allison, Guyer (K and the Claims of Knowledge), Strawson (not altogether sympathetic with K's 'T.I.'), and Collins (Possible Experience/ U CAL).

On Kant and "Transcendental Arguments," see Stroud's articles (Human Knowledge/Oxford UP), A. Brueckner (articles), and D. Stern's anthology (Oxford UP).

I recently finished reading a handful of secondary sources on Kant's Transcendental Idealism/Critique of Pure Reason, and this was one of the most fair and most readable ones. .... While Allison could be criticized for sympathizing a bit too much with Kant, he is simply attempting to present Kant in a less idealistic light than that in which he is usually examined. While many scholars see Kant as a Berkeleian idealist who was too scared to admit his true beliefs, or who did not recognize his true beliefs, Allison takes Kant's statements rebuking Cartesian/Humean skepticism and Berkeleian idealism seriously.
Allison makes one of his most important points early on, that is, that Berkeleian idealist readings of Kant always interpret the transcendental ideality of space and time as meaning that space and time are a set of either ontological or psychological conditions for the possibility of the representation of objects, while in fact Kant only means that space and time are epistemic conditions of human knowledge. This is the basis for Kant's revolution, that objects have to be representable to be represented, meaning that they have to conform to a priori epistemic human conditions to be possibly experienced. This seems much easier to swallow than the contents of Transcendental Analytic, even though those contents have recieved so much acclaim from English scholars who write very boring books which get published only because they hold teaching positions at major overrated English univeristies. Anyhow, while critiques of Kant which represent him as an idealist and view his Transcendental Aesthetic as skeptical hogwash certainly gain some support from some of Kant's statements, these critiques are abundant and all say basically the same thing. For a fresh interpretation of Kant that takes statements Kant makes about the nature of his own philosophy seriously, and which shows the true merit in Kant's work, Allison's book gets the job done.

This is a very good commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason that usually interprets it in the most charitable way. If you're out for economy, buy a used copy of this--but be aware that there is a new, considerably expanded edition of this book that Allison has put out, and the changes are worth the money.

Henry Allison has become one of the world's best living Kant Scholars, and KTI is his best work. With Kantian epistemology becoming more and more important, not to mention controversial, many of Kant's critics have got in the habit of smashing down straw-man versions of Kant (often without even realizing it). Here however, Allison weaves together a stunning interpretation and defense of Kant's Transcendental Idealism that leaves little room for those wanting to flail away at poorer constructions. For anyone who loves Kant this is the book for you, and for those who don't this is one of the most important books you'll ever read because it really lets you know what you're up against.

This text was assigned as required secondary reading for a graduate seminar that focused on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Allison, unlike many modern commentators on Kant, gives a defense, albeit remaining critical, of Kant's metaphysics, i.e. Transcendental Idealism. This is a valuable secondary source in that it is recently published and, aside from critically analyzing the major sections of Kant's critique of Pure Reason, it also makes frequent reference to other major contemporary philosophical criticisms of Kant by philosophers such as: Strawson, Guyer, Kemp-Smith etc.

Henry Allison uses his book as a companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in his courses on that work at Boston University, and well he should. The book is dense and written for the serious student or scholar of Kant, but it is very accessible and useful to both. Each chapter deals with a specific problem of Kantian idealism, moving from analysis of Kant's presentation, through the interpretations that populate the literature on the first critique, and finishing with Allison's own defense of Kant's argument (or, in some cases, what he takes Kant's argument to be). Perhaps the most important contribution Allison makes to scholarship on the Critique with this book is his treatment of Kant's work and his idealism as a whole, and his persistence in keeping that whole in view even while dissecting the minutiae of Kant's arguments; the treatment of Kantian idealism as a doctrine lends Allison's defense a plausibility importantly lacking in such piecemeal accounts of the Critique's immense, sophisticated, and intricate argument as the almost useless Cambridge Companion to Kant. The discriminating reader will find that Allison's defense is not always on target-he sometimes disappointingly defends Kant from himself beyond our own ability to sympathize-but Kant's Transcendental Idealism succeeds despite this sentimentality.

Henry Allison is quite rightly regarded as a legendary Kant scholar, and his service in countering the dominant Anglo-American criticisms of Kant is noble indeed. This remains a very important book after so many years. I am only sorry that he spent so much time dealing with arguments that are often unworthy of consideration. For students wending their way through the thickets of the Kant literature, this book simply must be studied with care.

even though i disagree with allison's interpretation of kant, he spells everything out clearly. this book was a help to an undergraduate course i took on kant.

Allison announces in his first sentence of his Preface that this, the 2nd edition of a book originally published in 1983 is "substantially revised," and so it is, especially the last half of it. It was an important work of scholarship 23 years ago, and a revision after so much time during which he has remained a teacher and scholar specializing in Kant, was bound to excite broad interest. It must have gone far toward gaining for him the prestigious prize of $30,000 he was awarded last year (2005) for outstanding Kantian scholarship.

In the preface Allison cites Michelle Grier as having awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers. In the body of the text he mentions her name only once, but given the compliment to her, my curiosity was aroused. First I looked at the endnotes in which her work was mentioned by Allison, and then, a little puzzled, I looked carefully over her book, Kant's Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion, published in 2001. I found many citations of her work in the endnotes. Adding them up, I found that there were 28 endnotes, these referred, by explicit citation, to 200 pages of her 305 page book. What one finds in comparing the two books, his and hers, is that every idea or argument that Allison advances and almost every reference, citation to Kant or to other philosophers, supposition, hypothesis, or development is to be found explicitly in Grier. It is impossible to compare the two books and not conclude that Allison had no new ideas of his own at all, at least for the last half of his book, the half that he claims developments in Kantian scholarship had compelled him to fully and carefully rethink and therefore to have most fully revised. If one were to remove from Allison's book, however, the ideas, arguments, and so forth that he derived directly and unambiguously from Grier, there would be nothing but minor and for the most part exceedingly trivial asides. It would, to put it simply, not have been publishable.

It is apparent that rather than generously recognizing Michelle Grier by his compliments and endnotes, he was stabbing her in the back. His "generous" remarks have the effect of diminishing her role in his accomplishment. He makes it seem as though she inspired him or set him on the right track rather than to have fashioned the final intellectual product that he merely, but arrogantly, rephrased. Nowhere does he acknowledge the incontestable truth, as of course he cannot, that he was himself entirely empty, and given a choice between remaining silent or stealing from the younger, creative scholar, Michelle Grier, the work he wished he had produced himself, he chose the shabbier but more profitable course.