Kantian Studies (Hardcover)

by Alic Halford Smith (Author)
Key Phrases: fourth antinomy, transcendental deduction, independent spatial objects, Refutation of Idealism, Third Antinomy, First Analogy (more...)

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KANTIAN STUDIES BY A. H. SMITH Warden of New College, Oxford OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1947 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMEN HOUSE, E. C. 4 London Edinburgh Glasgow New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Calcutta Madras GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN PREFACE THE studies of Kants Critique of Pure Reason contained in this volume were written for the most part before I wrote the last two sections of the book published in 1943 with the title of A Treatise on Knowledge. My aim was to clear my mind in regard to Kants main doctrines and to see, if I could, what they implied and where they broke down. But I also wished to inquire whether by any modifications of his doctrines or by further hypotheses it would be possible to retain what seemed most valuable in his system and thus these studies are in effect prolegomena to the speculations contained in the last section of my earlier book and are part of the argument for the views there put forward. It may assist the reader to see the train of thought which I follow if I indicate in the shortest possible way what seems to me to be most valuable in Kants system and where its difficulties lie. The parts of his doctrine which I find it hard not to accept are his arguments that all consciousness is a partial or incipient or would-be apprehension of order in a matter which is diverse or manifold, that our judgements of reality have reference both to the matter and to the order, that the order implies uni versality and necessity, that both the matter and the order belong to mind, that the forms of time and space which are in dividual unitary and systematic are the basic elements of the order, and that, since experience is one, what is intelligible in experience must accord with the form of what is sensible. To these points I would add that there is much which seems to me true in Kants later doctrine explained in Chapter II regarding the parity to be assigned to mental and physical events. On the other hand, I do not find that Kant anywhere explains how that which is known to one mind is known to others also. His doctrine of noumena, which is discussed in Chapter V, does not seem to offer an adequate answer, and his later doctrine about the relation of mental and physical events, though it has implications bearing directly on the problem, is not developed nor properly incorporated in his system. If he had even had a satisfactory account to offer of the minds knowledge of itself, it might have vi PREFACE led to an enlargement of his view of what knowledge is. But in this respect too there seems to be an error in his system, the con sequences of which are traceable in many directions. There may, I think, be some students of Kant who are sympa thetic to the point of view which I have referred to thus briefly, and, if so, they may find this book useful. A. H. S. September 1946 CONTENTS I. KANTS DOCTRINE OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THE FORMS OF SPACE AND TIME AND OUR CONSCIOUS NESS OF OBJECTS ...... i II. THE TWO REFUTATIONS OF IDEALISM . . 13 III. THE DOCTRINE OF THE FIRST-EDITION DEDUCTION OF THE CATEGORIES . . . . .48 IV. THE DOCTRINE OF THE SECOND-EDITION DEDUC TION OF THE CATEGORIES . . . .82 V. THE ANTITHESIS OF PHENOMENA AND NOUMENA . 153 VI. UNIVERSALS AND THE FORM OF INTUITION IN MATHEMATICS . . . . . .181 INDEX 195 I KANTS DOCTRINE OF THE RELATION BETWEEN THE FORMS OF SPACE AND TIME AND OUR CONSCIOUSNESS OF OBJECTS KANT claims that his doctrine regarding time and space solves three problems. In the first place it makes intelligible the minds possession of a priori knowledge regarding the temporal and spatial nature of objects. Secondly it removes certain perplexities which trouble the mind in its reflections on the infinity of the universe in respect of time and space and the infinite divisibility of its parts... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Greenwood Press Reprint (December 20, 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0837170036
• ISBN-13: 978-0837170039
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