Kant’s Proof of the Existence of the Outer World

In this paper I propose a novel interpretation of Kant’s proof of the existence of the outer world in the Refutation of Idealism. According to this interpretation, Kant’s proof does not provide a regressive explanation of our capacity to determine the temporal order of our experiences. Rather, it expresses a counterfactual reflection on what it takes for something to be actual in contrast to being merely imagined. On the ground of this reflection, Kant argues against the Cartesian sceptic that, even if all our representations of empirical objects other than ourselves failed to be veridical, we would still know a priori that in every situation in which we, as thinking things, actually exist, something outside us in space must necessarily exist.

What Is Meaning: Reference or Something Else?

The debate over the meaning of referential terms has a long history in both linguistics and language philosophy. Moore applied referential theory of meaning in two famous arguments: The Refutation of Idealism and The Open Question Argument. The validity of referential theory is key point to decide whether these two arguments are successful or not. This paper argues that the plausibility of referential theory is subject to controversy and thus the conclusions of these two arguments are logically invalid. This research firstly demonstrates the logic behind Moore’s two arguments and explain how Moore reached his conclusions by assuming the referential theory of meaning, then discusses problems that referentialism inevitably confronts, proving the solutions that Moore proposed to solve these problems are unfeasible, and concludes that these arguments fail for it doesn’t comply with our rational intuition, providing linguistic perspective to examine philosophical problems.

Mendelssohn, Kant, and Idealism

After examining the dispute between Mendelssohn and Kant over the ideality of time in 1770, this chapter argues that Kant’s addition of a “Refutation of Idealism” to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1787 is a response to Mendelssohn’s treatment of idealism in his 1785 Morning Hours. Both defend the position that Kant calls empirical realism, but only Kant defends it by means of a transcendental argument that knowledge of external objects is a necessary condition of empirical self-knowledge, although only within the framework of transcendental idealism. Mendelssohn accepts that human experience can never tell us how things are in themselves, but does not accept Kant’s outright denial of the non-spatiality and non-temporality of things in themselves.

Hegel’s Speculative Identity Thesis

This chapter explores Hegel’s speculative identity thesis, defending the importance of Schelling for Hegel’s appropriation of Kant’s purposiveness theme. It provides an interpretation of Hegel’s first published text, the Differenzschrift, and analyzes the relation between “subjective subject-objects” and “objective subject-objects” as an early presentation of Hegel’s philosophical method. In addition to defending the contribution of Schelling, this chapter provides an interpretation of Fichte’s contribution via his notion of the self-positing activity of the I. It then turns to a reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, demonstrating that the notion of “negativity” can be understood along the lines of speculative identity. The chapter argues that Hegel presents life as constitutive for self-consciousness by way of a three-dimensional argument: the employment of an analogy; a transcendental argument; and a refutation of idealism argument. It concludes by briefly outlining how the speculative identity thesis is carried forward in the Science of Logic.

Expansion of Self-consciousness in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

This paper is a novel attempt at reconstructing Kant’s account of self-consciousness in the first Critique by making evident its gradual expository progression, and at identifying the epistemic status of the two modes of self-consciousness: pure and empirical. I trace the gradual exposition of theoretical self-consciousness across three crucial parts of the book: the Transcendental Deduction, the Refutation of Idealism, and the Paralogisms of Pure Reason. In doing so, I show that the account of theoretical self-consciousness is not presented to us all at once, but is progressively expanded and filled in. I also emphasize the importance of the distinction between the subject’s awareness of its existence, “Dasein”, and of its existence, “Existenz”. I conclude by discussing Kant’s preliminary remarks about practical self-consciousness in the Paralogisms, which bear an important relation to theoretical self-consciousness.

Kant’s (Non-Question-Begging) Refutation of Cartesian Scepticism

Interpreters of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism face a dilemma: it seems to either beg the question against the Cartesian sceptic or else offer a disappointingly Berkeleyan conclusion. In this article I offer an interpretation of the Refutation on which it does not beg the question against the Cartesian sceptic. After defending a principle about question-begging, I identify four premises concerning our representations that there are textual reasons to think Kant might be implicitly assuming. Using those assumptions, I offer a reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation that avoids the interpretative dilemma, though difficult questions about the argument remain.