Hedging Around Objectivity: Reply to De Boer, Blomme, Van den Berg & Spigt

 

DENNIS SCHULTING | Kant’s Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction | London: Palgrave Macmillan 2017

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This article was first published in Dutch in Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 80 (2) (2018):363–378. The current English translation is a somewhat modified version of the original article. 

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By Dennis Schulting

In this paper, I respond to critiques by Karin de Boer, Henny Blomme, Hein van den Berg and Joris Spigt of my book Kant’s Radical Subjectivism: Perspectives on the Transcendental Deduction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). I address issues that are raised concerning objectivity, the nature of the object, the role of transcendental apperception and the imagination, and idealism. More in particular I respond to an objection against my reading of the necessary existence of things in themselves and their relation to appearances. I also briefly respond to a question that relates to the debate on Kantian nonconceptualism, more in particular, the question whether Kant allows animals objective intentionality. Lastly, I respond to one objection against my reading of Hegel’s critique of Kant. In my reply, I shall proceed thematically, addressing four main themes which are also central to my book: objectivity, the thing in itself, nonconceptual representational content and Hegel’s critique of Kant. This division also neatly corresponds to the focus of the different critics.

On Sebastian Rödl’s “Self-Consciousness and Objectivity”, Or, The Refutation of Absolute Idealism

 

SEBASTIAN RÖDL | Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: An Introduction to Absolute Idealism | Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2018

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By Robert Hanna

Sebastian Rödl’s recent book, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: An Introduction to Absolute Idealism, just like Robert Brandom’s A Spirit of Trust (Brandom 2019), Irad Kimhi’s Thinking and Being (Kimhi 2018) and Robert Pippin’s Hegel’s Realm of Shadows (Pippin 2018)—all of these books appearing within the last two years, like so many oranges tumbling out of a dropped shopping bag—is another first-rate example of what I have called “Pittsburgh/Chicago-neo-Hegelianism-with-a-serious-dash-of-neo-Aristotelianism” (see Hanna 2018). Rödl’s book, in turn, strongly encourages me to expand that handy label into “Pittsburgh/Chicago/Leipzig-neo-Hegelianism-with-a-serious-dash-of-neo-Aristotelianism”.

Over een extreem fenomenalistische lezing van Kant

 

EMANUEL RUTTEN | Contra Kant. Herwonnen ruimte voor transcendentie | Utrecht: Kok, 2020

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7 April: An English translation can be downloaded here

 

Door Dennis Schulting

Het komt niet vaak voor dat er in het Nederlands een filosofisch werk uitkomt dat gewijd is aan Kants theoretische filosofie. Er bestaat in het Nederlandse taalveld niet een heel grote traditie van Kant-onderzoek, althans niet als geïnstitutionaliseerde academische wijsgerige activiteit (een enkele welkome uitzondering daargelaten). Daar zijn allerlei oorzaken van historische en sociologische aard voor aan te wijzen. Maar feit is dat met name in Nederland serieus onderzoek naar de filosofie van Kant in de naoorlogse tijd het ondergeschoven kindje is gebleven. Aangezien Kants Kritiek nu eenmaal vaste prik is in het onderwijscurriculum, waant elke filosoferende onderwijzer zich vaak een Kant-expert. Je als Kantiaanse filosoof laten voorstaan op echte expertise wordt dan gezien als zelfwaan. Met zo’n mentaliteit gedijt serieus Kant-onderzoek vanzelfsprekend niet goed.

Reply to Michael Friedman

 

HENRY E. ALLISON | Kant’s Transcendental Deduction. An Analytical-Historical Commentary | Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015

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By Henry Allison

I wish to thank Michael Friedman for both his extraordinarily rich discussion, which amounts to a commentary of his own on the B-Deduction, and his generous comments about the import of my own work. Given the detailed nature of his reading of the text, with much of which I am in agreement, I shall not here attempt to comment on his account as a whole, since that would require a reply of almost equal length to his. Instead, I shall focus first on what he suggests is our major point of disagreement, namely, the conceptual-non-conceptual issue, and then consider some of our more specific differences.  

In recent years, the contrast between conceptualist and non-conceptualist readings has become the great divide in interpretations of the Transcendental Deduction. And, as Friedman notes, the focal point of the dispute is the note that Kant attaches to the first paragraph of §26 of the B-Deduction. It reads: