Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T12:09:45.152Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Reason’s Disunity with Itself: Comments on Adrian Moore on Kant’s Dialectic of Human Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2016

Edward Kanterian*
Affiliation:
University of Kent

Abstract

Adrian Moore develops a helpful distinction between good and bad metaphysics. Employing this distinction, I argue, first, that some contemporary metaphysical theories might be ‘bad’, insofar as they employ, unreflectively, concepts akin to Kant’s Ideas of reason. Second, I investigate the difficulty Kant himself has with explaining our craving for bad metaphysics. Third, I raise some problems for Kant’s doctrine of ‘transcendental cognition’, which rests on the difficult assumption that Ideas have objective reality. I conclude that, while Kant has given us means to combat certain bad metaphysics, his own philosophy is not entirely free of it either.

Type
Author Meets Critics
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Frege, G. (1972) Conceptual Notation and Related Articles, trans. and ed. Terrell Bynum. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Frege, G. (1979) Posthumous Writings, ed. Hans Hermes, Friedrich Kambartel and Friedrich Kaulbach, trans. Peter Long and Roger White. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Frege, G. (1984) Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy, ed. B. McGuiness, trans. M. Black et al. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Gabriel, G. (2000) ‘Logik und Metaphysik in Freges Philosophie der Mathematik’. In G. Gabriel and U. Dathe (eds), Gottlob Frege: Werk und Wirkung (Paderborn: Mentis), pp. 2537.Google Scholar
Husserl, E. (1970) Logical Investigations, trans. J. N. Findlay. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kant, I. (1998) Critique of Pure Reason, trans. and ed. P. Guyer and A. W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kripke, S. (1963) ‘Semantical Considerations on Modal Logic’. Acta Philosophica Fennica, 16, 8394.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1989) Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Moore, A. W. (2012) The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics: Making Sense of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pascal, B. (1901) The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal, trans. C. Kegan Paul. London: George Bell & Sons.Google Scholar
Pollok, K. (2001) ‘Einleitung’. In I. Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können, ed. K. Pollok (Hamburg: Felix Meiner), pp. xi–lxii.Google Scholar
Russell, B. (1917) The Problems of Philosophy. New York: Holt.Google Scholar
Tonelli, G. (1971) ‘The “Weakness” of Reason in the Age of Enlightenment’. Diderot Studies, 14, 217244.Google Scholar
Williamson, T. (2003) ‘Everything’. Philosophical Perspectives, 17 (1), 415465.Google Scholar
Wundt, M. (1939) Die deutsche Schulmetaphysik des 17. Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar
Wundt, M. (1945) Die deutsche Philosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar