Phenomenalism
and Kant
Roberto Horácio de Sá Pereira·
Universidade
Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil
Abstract
Readings of Kant’s Critique
as endorsing phenomenalism have occupied the spotlight in recent times: ontological
phenomenalism, semantic phenomenalism, analytical phenomenalism,
epistemological phenomenalism, and so on. Yet, they raise the same old
coherence problem with the Critique:
are they compatible with Kant’s Refutation of Idealism? Are they able to
reconcile the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition with the Refutation of the
second, since Kant repeatedly
claimed that he never changed his mind in-between the two editions of his Critique? This paper addresses the key
question: was Kant a phenomenalist and, if he was, in which precise sense? I
propose a metaphysical but not ontologically reductionist reading of Kant as a
phenomenalist. I argue for the following claims. To be sure, for Kant
appearance is mere representation. Yet, appearance is representation only
insofar as we take “appearance” in the empirical
sense, namely the way that the mind-independent existing noumenon appears
in space and, crucially, when we take “representation” in the transcendental
sense, namely the mind-dependent way that we can cognize the same mind-independent
existing noumenon. How shall I argue in defense of my alternative reading?
First, I argue that my reading is pretty much compatible with Kant’s Refutation
(in contrast to the rivals). Second, I argue that my reading reconciles the
causal with the intentional readings of the Refutation. Third, I argue that my
reading makes the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition and the Refutation of
Idealism of the second completely compatible.
Key-words
Ontological
Phenomenalism; Analytical Phenomenalism; Semantic Phenomenalism;
Epistemological Phenomenalism; Empirical Sense; Transcendental Sense; Metaphysical
Phenomenalism without Reductionism.
Introduction
It is common
currency in scholarship that Kant was rejecting Berkeley’s ontological
phenomenalism when he wrote his Refutation of Idealism: if the existence of
something outside mere representations in
me is required for the determination of the consciousness of my existence
in time, esse cannot be percipi,
things outside exist mind-independently, and, therefore, they cannot be reduced
to mere representations. The only open question is whether Kant changed his
mind in-between the first edition (Fourth Paralogism) and the second edition
(Refutation). Those scholars who claim that Kant changed his mind usually also
claim that in the first edition Kant was defending a sophisticated form of old
Berkeleian ontological phenomenalism. To be sure, claim those readers, Kant was
not endorsing Berkeley’s naïve claim that esse
est percipi, that is, the existence of outside things is nothing but the
existence of mere representations in us. Still, he was endorsing what Van Cleve
(2002) has recently called “analytical phenomenalism,” namely the thesis that
the notion of object is reducible to a rule-governed synthesis of mental representation
in accordance to concepts.
Yet, entirely new
readings of Kant’s phenomenalism have recently emerged. By identifying
appearances and representations, Kant never had ontological phenomenalism in
mind (either naïve or analytical). Regarding this, at least two complementary
proposals are worth mentioning. The first is what Jankowiak (2014) has called
“semantic phenomenalism.” Appearance is mere representation only in the sense
that we can only refer to “mental
representations” or in the sense that we can only refer to mind-dependent
things. The second is what we may call here “epistemological phenomenalism.”
Appearances are mere representations only in the sense that we have cognitive
access only to mind-dependent things, or mental representation. Indeed, the
rejection of ontological phenomenalism is pretty much in line with Kant’s blunt
reaction to the Feder-Garve Gottingen review
in the second edition of the Critique
in his Prolegomena and in his Correspondence. However, the old
exegetical problem remains untouched: if ontological phenomenalism is in fact
incompatible with Kant’s Refutation, the new readings also seem to be; after
all, if we only refer to/know representations, how can Kant support his claims
in his Refutation that this “persistent” thing, presupposed by the empirical
consciousness of my own existence in time, cannot be an “intuition in me?”[1]
Something has gone amiss.
This paper
addresses the question: was Kant a phenomenalist and, if he was, in which
precise sense? Following the new trend in Kant’s scholarship I resolutely
reject the ontological or analytical readings of Kant’s phenomenalism: reality
is not a mind-made rule-governed rejection of mental representation in
accordance to empirical concepts and categories.[2]
Yet, in opposition to the new trend I propose a metaphysical reading of Kant’s
phenomenalism as follows. To be sure, appearance is nothing but a mere
representation. Still, I hold that appearance is representation but only insofar as we take “appearance” in the
empirical sense, namely the way that the underlying noumenon appears to us
as persistent in space. Even more crucially, mental representations are nothing
but appearances but only insofar as we
take “representation” in the transcendental sense, namely as the mind-dependent
way that we can cognize the same mind-independent existing noumenon as
appearance; or so I shall argue.
I argue in defense
of my alternative metaphysical reading of Kant’s phenomenalism abductively, namely
as the inference to the best explanation. First, I argue that my reading is
pretty much compatible with Kant’s Refutation (in contrast to the two rivals).
Second, I argue that my reading reconciles the causal with the intentional
readings of the Refutation of Idealism. Finally, I argue that my reading makes
the Fourth Paralogism and the Refutation compatible.
After this brief introduction, the remainder of this paper is structured
as follows. In the next two sections I present and discard two main readings of
Kant’s phenomenalism (on similar grounds). Then, I briefly present my own view.
In the subsequent two sections I argue in detail for my view.
Semantic
Phenomenalism
As a general
claim, Kant’s alleged phenomenalism is the thesis that appearances are nothing
but “mere representations.” Now, even recognizing that Kant’s alleged
phenomenalism is controversial in Kant’s scholarship, the
textual evidence casts no doubt about this
claim.[3] The only remaining question is how we should understand
such identification. The Feder-Garve Gottingen review seems to suggest
that Kant’s phenomenalism is nothing but the transcendental restatement of
Berkeley’s view:
1) Ontological
Phenomenalism: esse est percipi.
Claim
1) expresses the most extreme form of subjectivism and solipsism: real is what
appears to us as real. However, Van Clave (2002) is (conditionally) right: if
Kant embraces ontological phenomenalism, this takes a sophisticated form:
2) Analytical
Phenomenalism. External reality is mind-made in the relevant sense that the
concept of object is nothing but a rule-governed synthesis of mental
representations in accordance with concepts.
Interestingly,
the mainstream scholarship is willing to accept (2), but is unprepared to accept (1); after all,
that is what Kant seems to say in his famous passages at A104-105 and at
B242-243 when he talks about the object. [4]
Yet, on closer inspection, the only relevant
ontological difference between (2) and (1) is the additional claim that reality is mind-made. As reality is the esse, what (2) adds to (1) is that reality
(the object) emerges only when the mind’s intellectual activities manage to
unify representations in accordance to conceptual rules. Before such activity, there is only a chaotic manifold of sensation
devoid of reference. Is that really what Kant had in mind?
I do
not believe so. Be that as it may. Ontological phenomenalism is not my concern
here. I limit myself to observing that ontological phenomenalism clashes
completely with the results of the Refutation. How can Kant claim at the same
time that he has proven the existence of persistent things that are not
“intuitions in me,” if those things are unities of “mere representations” in
accordance to rules? Indeed, defenders of Kant’s ontological phenomenalism are
willing to recognize the contradiction. That is why they famously claim that
Kant changed his mind in-between the Fourth Paralogism of the first edition and
the Refutation of the second.[5]This blatant contradiction and Kant’s blunt reactions
to the Feder-Garve Gottingen review have
invited new readings of Kant’s phenomenalism. What did Kant have in mind when
he claimed repeatedly that appearance is mere representation, if he was not
endorsing, albeit in a sophisticated way, Berkeley’s infamous tenet that esse est percipi?
Recently, two
suggestions have come under the spotlight in the recent debate over Kant’s
phenomenalism, namely the semantic and epistemological readings. The first
suggestion is to construe Kant’s identification between appearance as a claim
about semantic reference and ontological commitment. In a recent paper,
Jankowiak (2017) suggests the following reading of Kant’s phenomenalism:
3) Semantic
Phenomenalism. The only things to which the subject can make content-laden reference in experience are the subject’s own representations.
(2017, p. 209, emphasis added)
By identifying
appearances with representations Kant is claiming that we can only refer to
mind-dependent entities (the own subject’s mental representations). According
to Jankowiak, semantic phenomenalism does not entail ontological phenomenalism
(couched either in sentence 1) or in sentence 2)). What paves the way from 3)
to ontological phenomenalism is the following additional claim:
4)
Presence
Phenomenalism. The only things that are immediately present to consciousness
are sensations.
According to him,
though, presence phenomenalism is not a Kantian doctrine (see 2017, p. 209). Yet,
if we assume semantic phenomenalism--again the assumption that we can only make
content-laden reference to our own representations--it is hard to see how we
avoid presence phenomenalism, that is, the “Cartesian theater” or the “veil of
ideas,” ensuring that we do refer directly to mind-independent things. Be that as it may. Without assuming presence
phenomenalism, Jankowiak sustains that semantic phenomenalism only entails what
he calls:
5) Epistemological
Phenomenalism. Knowledge of physical
things is exhaustively knowledge of
their ways of appearing, i.e. of the ways they do and would appear to us under
various conditions. (2017, p. 167, emphasis
added)
Forster (2008),
Chiba (2012), Oberst (2018), and Stang (2018) presented quite similar proposals
as readings of Kant’s phenomenalism. The idea is quite clear. By identifying
appearance with representations Kant is not endorsing any Berkeley-like
ontological reduction of external reality to representations. Rather, what he
is claiming is we can only cognize (whatever it is) mind-dependently. To be
sure, Kant’s phenomenalism contains this epistemological claim. The only
question is whether that is all that Kant has in mind when he identifies
appearances with representations. I do
not believe that this is the case and in the remainder of this paper I shall
argue that Kant’s phenomenalism has a clear unequivocal metaphysical
commitment.
Now, regardless of
whether epistemic phenomenalism entails “semantic phenomenalism” or not,
Jankowiak’s suggestion raises a red flag. It is false that the subject can only
refer to his own representations in Kant’s theoretical philosophy. There are a
number of passages in which Kant clearly states that mental states do refer to things in themselves rather
than to anything mental. [6]
Indeed, Jankowiak may like it or not, but what he calls “the content-laden
reference to mind-independent things in themselves” is exactly what Kant aims
to prove in his Refutation: the acknowledgement of the mind-independent
existence of noumena is the ultimate condition for the consciousness of my own
experience in time.[7]
But Jankowiak’s
proposal raises another red flag. The idea that we can only make content-laden
reference to our own mental representations ends up reifying the notion of mental representation, as if it were the
very object of cognition. That opens up the doors to the old ontological
phenomenalism: the object of our human cognition turns out to be a logical
construction built out of those mental representations, namely a necessary unit of those mental
representations in accordance to conceptual rules.
Epistemological
Phenomenalism
Oberst (2018)
offers a much more interesting way of reaching an epistemological reading of
Kant’s phenomenalism. Phenomenological phenomenalism is a Cartesian claim
(viewed from Kant’s own perspective, of course) according to which only
cognitive access to states of one’s own mind can be taken as certain, while cognitive access to outer
objects is uncertain. Kant retains
from Cartesianism what he finds valuable for his critical project, namely the
transcendental divide between appearances and things in themselves and the
claim that we can only have certain cognitive access to appearances, but
certainly not to things as they exist in themselves. Cartesian epistemology is
supposed to be the combination of two claims. Oberst summarizes Kant’s alleged
Cartesian heritage in two claims: (a) “cognition of empirically inner objects
can be certain, (b) cognition of outer objects is necessarily uncertain.” (2018,
p.179)
Yet, Oberst’s
great insight into his epistemological reading of Kant’s phenomenalism is to be
found in Kant’s own remark about the ambiguity of the phrase “outer thing” in
his Fourth Paralogism of the first edition of the Critique. As Oberst reminds us, in his Fourth Paralogism, Kant’s
phenomenalism is his way of addressing the idealist skeptic of Cartesian
provenance, namely by disambiguating the notion of an “outer object.” This can
mean that something is either empirically or transcendentally outside us. In
his own words: “Empirically outer objects are outer appearances in space;
transcendentally outer objects are things in themselves.” (2018, p. 175)
The way that Kant
addresses the challenge is not supposed to be a mystery. Let me recap. The
idealist skeptic claims that we cannot cognize things outside us, but only
things inside us because such cognition is not immediate, but rather relies on
the problematic causal inference: the existence of outside things is the
probable cause of the mental representations we have of them. Therefore, there
is no way of justifying this causal inference, which remains “problematic.”
Oberst reconstructs the putative skeptic idealist’s causal argument as follows:
I-Cognition
of objects that can be only causally inferred is never certain.
II-Cognition
of outer objects is cognition of objects that can be only causally inferred.
III-Thus,
cognition of outer objects is never certain. (2018, p. 181)
However, in arguing so,
the skeptic mistakes the empirical sense of the phrase “things outside us” with
the transcendental one (sophisma figurae
dictionis); or so Kant argues. In the empirical sense, outside us are things
that we encounter in space without the need to transcend the bounds of the
mental realm. We have immediate cognitive access to them as mere mental
representations in us. In contrast, in the transcendental sense, outside us are
things in themselves, that is, noumena in the negative sense. To be sure, Kant
concedes to the idealist skeptic that we cannot cognize the underlying nature
of things outside us in the transcendental sense. Yet, because we do not need
to transcend the bounds of the mental realm, the way is open for the cognition
of outside things in the empirical sense, namely bodies in space. Yet, Oberst
claims that Kant also possesses a version of the causal argument:
Cognition
of objects that can be only causally inferred is never certain.
Cognition
of transcendentally outer objects is cognition of objects that can be only
causally inferred.
Thus,
cognition of transcendentally outer objects is never certain. (Oberst 2018, p.
181)[8]
According to Oberst,
Kant’s epistemological phenomenalism is a cluster of three key claims:
(A) Cognition
of empirically inner objects can be certain.
(B) Cognition
of empirically outer objects can be certain.
(C) Determinate cognition of
transcendentally outer objects is necessarily uncertain, whereas indeterminate cognition can be certain. (Oberst, 2018, p.
181)
However, it is hard to
follow Oberst here and believe that Kant could have his own version of the
causal argument, unless we assume he changed his mind completely in the second
edition with the Refutation.[9]
First, Kant never claimed that we can cognize
things in themselves either as certain or
as uncertain. The most that Kant
explicitly admits in his Refutation is the following claim:
The consciousness of the
existence of things in themselves is a condition for the consciousness of the
time-order of my own mental states and, hence, a condition for the
consciousness of my own existence in time.
Second, even when we
assume the so-called “causal reading” of Kant’s Refutation (“causal
refutation”), nowhere does Kant claim that cognition of transcendentally outer
objects is cognition of objects that can be only causally inferred. On the
contrary, Kant claims crystal clear that awareness of the temporal
determination of my own mental states is at the same time awareness of things
outside me, things in themselves outside intuitions/representations in me.
Finally, if cognition of
noumena is uncertain insofar as it
can only be inferred from the cognition of mental states, then the only things
to which the subject directly refers to in experience are his own
representations. Yet, in this way, we are again reifying representations as a
realm apart from noumena and end up embracing the two-objects view of Kant’s
transcendental idealism. The question is: how can Kant avoid the skeptic
idealist regarding the outside world? If we assume that the cognition of
noumena is uncertain or problematic, the only alternative is to reduce the
outside world to representations (ontological phenomenalism). Again, the object
of our human cognition turns out to be a logical construction built out of
those mental representations, namely a necessary
unit of those mental representations in accordance to conceptual rules.
Non-reductionist
Metaphysical Phenomenalism
I believe that
Oberst is on the right path, but barking up the wrong tree. The ambiguity
between two different ways of understanding “things outside me” is indeed the
key to opening the doors to Kant’s phenomenalism. Nonetheless, the ambiguity
not only concerns “outer thing,” but it naturally extends itself to the very
notion of “representation.” “Representation” can also be taken in two different
senses. First, in the empirical sense, “representation” means a mental state in
time (as in Kant’s Refutation). Yet, second, in the transcendental sense,
“representation” means that we can only cognize something in a mind-dependent
way (that is the main meaning in the A-Deduction and in the Fourth Paralogism
of the first edition). Given this, let me start by rephrasing both Kant’s
phenomenalism and ontological phenomenalism:
(6) Kant’s
Phenomenalism: appearance in the
empirical sense (what appears in space) is mere representation in the transcendental sense (what we can
mind-dependently cognize).
To start with (6)
does not entail (7):
(7) Ontological
Phenomenalism: the object of appearance in
the empirical sense is logical constructions built out of representations in the empirical sense, namely a
synthetic unity of mental representations in accordance to conceptual rules.
If “representation”
in the transcendental sense means what we can cognize mind-dependently, we are
not allowed to infer from the fact that we cannot cognize mind-independently
(anything beyond our representations) in
the transcendental sense that the object of our cognition is logical
constructions built out of representations in
the empirical sense (namely a synthetic unity of mental representations in
accordance to conceptual rules). The inference of (7) from (6) is a further
case of sophisma figurae dictionis: the
word “representation” in (6) is taken in
the transcendental sense, while in (7) it is taken in the empirical sense (a mental state in time). I believe that it
is all we need to distinguish Kantian phenomenalism (stated in 6) from the
Berkeleian varieties (stated in 7). The lurking question is: is (6) pure
epistemological phenomenalism without any metaphysical commitments as Oberst
suggests?
I do not believe
that this is the case. For one thing, appearance (Erscheinung) is always appearance
of something that appears. Likewise, “representation” (Vorstellung) is always the presentation of something else before
the mind. Thus, what appears in the empirical sense in space is always the
appearance of something existent in itself, the noumenon. By the same token,
representation in the transcendental sense is representation of something
essentially unknown, the noumenon again. Regarding this, there are two ways of
reading (6) in the literature. We either assume the so-called two-objects view
or the two-aspects view. According to the first possibility:
(6’) Kant’s Phenomenalism:
appearance in the empirical sense is
mere representation in the transcendental
sense and both are distinct from the noumenon.
According
to the second reading that I am proposing here:
(6’’)
Kant’s Metaphysical/Epistemic Phenomenalism. Appearance in the empirical sense is mere representation in the transcendental sense because (i) in the empirical sense
appearance is the way that the noumenon appears to us in space and (ii) in the
transcendental sense representation is the mind-dependent way that we know the
noumenon.[10]
In both
claims Kantian phenomenalism is not a purely epistemological view. It is a
doctrine that is metaphysically loaded. In both cases we are committed to the
existence of unknown noumena. The only difference is that in (6’’) appearance,
representation, and noumenon are ontologically identical and irreducible to
each other; while in (6’) noumenon is different from both appearance and
representation. Now, what paves the way from 1) to 2) [ontological
reductionism] is just the one-object view couched in (6”). In other words, it
is by assuming that appearance and representation, on one hand, and noumenon,
on the other, are numerically different things that we invite the thought that
if we cannot know the noumenon, we can at least know its “surrogate,” namely a
logical construction built out of mere representations, i.e. a synthetic unity
of representations in accordance to rules. In contrast, if we stick to (6”),
there is no threat of reductionism: appearance in the empirical sense is representation in the transcendental sense because both are the same thing an sich that appears in space and is only
cognized mind-dependently.
But why does Kant use
both expressions: “appearance” and “representation?” Well, the answer is quite
clear. Kant uses “appearance” whenever he wants to stress the metaphysical grounding: appearance is
the way that the noumenon appears in space. In contrast, he uses the expression
“representation” whenever he wants to stress that we can only cognize that
noumenon mind-dependently. Kant’s phenomenalism thus has complementary
metaphysical and epistemic sides.
Metaphysical Phenomenalism and the Fourth Paralogism
Again, since the
Cartesian skeptic idealist is a transcendental realist in the first place
(A369), the skeptic is challenging us to prove that we have cognition of things outside us, in the
transcendental sense, of things in themselves, rather than in the empirical
sense, of mere representations in the outer sense. And all parties in the
debate agree that such cognition is impossible for Kant: it is beyond the
bounds of the senses. The question is how Kant’s controversial statements of
A370 must be understood:
The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be
an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede
the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and
assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the
cogito, ergo sum. For because he allows this matter and even its inner
possibility to be valid only for appearance - which, separated from our
sensibility, is nothing - matter for him is only a species of representations
(intuition), which are called external. (A370)
On closer
inspection, by saying that matter is just a representation in us, Kant is not
endorsing ontological phenomenalism. Again, “representation” here must be
understood in the transcendental rather than in the empirical sense, that is,
as the mind-dependent way that we cognize the mind-independent existing
noumenon. By claiming that matter is just a mere representation in us, Kant is
only trying to persuade the skeptic idealist that “matter” (A370) is nothing
but the mind-dependent way that we cognize the mind-independent thing in
itself.
Therefore, my
reading of Kant’s phenomenalism is the one that best fits the argument of the
Fourth Paralogism of the first edition. But what can we say about the key
controversial passages of A104-105 and B242-243?
What does one mean, then, if one speaks of an object corresponding to and therefore also distinct
from the cognition (Erkenntnis)? It is easy to see this object must be
thought of only as something in general = X, since outside of our cognition we
have nothing that we could set over against this cognition as corresponding to
it.
We find, however, that our thought of the relation of
all cognition (Erkenntnis) to its object carries something of necessity with
it, since namely the latter is regarded as that which is opposed to our
cognitions being determined at pleasure or arbitrarily rather than being
determined a priori, since insofar as they are to relate to an object our cognitions must also necessarily agree
with each other in relation to it, i.e., have that unity that constitutes the
concept of an object. (A104-105, emphasis added)
If we investigate what new characteristic is given to
our representations by the relation to
an object, and what is the dignity that they thereby receive, we find that
it does nothing beyond making the combination of representations necessary in a
certain way, and subjecting them to a rule... (B242-243, original emphasis)
Is Kant thereby
stating that the object is nothing
but a rule-governed synthesis of mental representations in accordance to
concepts? That is only the case if we assume that “representation” is taken
here in the empirical sense of the
mental states of a person. However, if “representation” is taken here in the
transcendental sense (and appearance in the empirical sense), what we have is
something quite different. What Kant is stating is that the fact-awareness (cognition/Erkenntnis) of what appears in space simultaneously or successively
as necessarily connected relies on categories as the ultimate principles of the
lawlike connection of appearances.[11] Kant’s claim is not that reality is mind-made, but rather that the cognition of the mind-independent existing reality an sich is mind-dependent on categories
of human understanding.[12]
Metaphysical
Phenomenalism and the Refutation
Some scholars are
willing to agree that Kant is closer to ontological phenomenalism in the Fourth
Paralogism of the A-edition, but insist that this is completely different in
the B-edition. The underlying assumption is that Kant changed his mind probably
after the attack of the Göttingen Feder-Garve Review.
Regardless of
whether Kant changed his mind or not, one thing is for sure: ontological
phenomenalism is incompatible with the Refutation of Idealism. Now, is the
metaphysical reading of Kant’s phenomenalism (6’’) compatible with the
Refutation of Idealism? That is what I will argue for now (i). I shall also
argue in addition (ii) that (6”) is the only reading of Kant’s phenomenalism
that makes the causal and the intentional readings of Kant’s Refutation
compatible and (iii) that (6”) is the reading of Kant’s phenomenalism that best
makes the Refutation in the second edition compatible with the Fourth
Paralogism. Let me briefly recap the steps in the Refutation:
i. I am conscious
of my existence as determined in time. (B275)
ii. All
time-determination presupposes something persistent in perception. (B275)
iii. But this
persisting element cannot be an intuition in me. For all the determining
grounds of my existence that can be encountered in me are representations, and
as such they themselves need something persisting distinct from them, in
relation to which their change, and thus my existence in the time in which they
change, can be determined. (Bxxxix)
iv. Thus, the
perception of this persistent thing is only possible through a thing outside me and not through the
mere representation of a thing
outside me. Consequently, the determination of my existence in time is possible
only by means of the existence of actual things that I perceive outside myself.
(B275–B276, original emphases)
v. Now
consciousness in time is necessarily combined with the consciousness of the
possibility of this time-determination: Therefore, it is also necessarily
combined with the existence of the things outside me, as the condition of
time-determination; i.e., the consciousness of my own existence is at the same
time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me.
(B276)[13]
Let me start with
claim (i). For the defense of the compatibility between (6”) and the argument
of the Refutation, besides the first note, steps (iii)-(v) are also crucial. In
(iii), Kant makes the famous addendum in the preface: “this persisting element
cannot be an intuition in me” (Bxxxix,
emphasis added). In (iv), he reiterates the same by stating that: “the
perception of this persistent thing is only possible through a thing outside me
and not through the mere representation
of a thing outside me” (B275–B276, emphasis added). As I have already remarked,
the very same idea reappears in several Reflections right after the publication
of the second edition of the Critique.[14]
The question now
is: why is the addendum in the preface Bxxxix needed? The answer is quite clear
from the very text itself: to avoid an infinite regress. Now, this step only
makes sense if “representation” is understood in the empirical sense as a
mental state in time (rather than in the transcendental sense). Again, that is
what my metaphysical reading of Kant’s phenomenalism in (6”) stresses: one
should never confuse the empirical with the transcendental sense of
“representation.” Let us suppose that this persistent thing in space were a
mere “intuition in me” (representation in the empirical sense). Yet, as a mere
representation in me, it would also be in time and, hence, would also require a
“determining ground” and hence indefinitely, representation after
representation. The only way of stopping the infinite regress is to assume that
the cognition of my own representations in the empirical sense in time presupposes
the existence of noumena (that empirically appear as persistent in space).
Thus, the consciousness/cognition of my own existence in time forces me to
acknowledge the mind-independent existence of a thing in itself.
It is worth noting
that in the Refutation, Kant is not stating that some putative mind-independent
cognition of outside things (in the
transcendental sense) is a condition for the determination of consciousness of
my existence in time. In contrast, he talks merely about “the consciousness of the existence of actual
things” (B276) as a condition for the consciousness of my own existence in
time. We cognize only “representations” in the transcendental sense, but as the
way the noumena appear to us as persistent things in space. Thus, metaphysical
non-reductionist phenomenalism is quite compatible with the Refutation. Even if
I can only cognize mind-dependently (representation in the transcendental
sense), I must still acknowledge that what I cognize mind-dependently exists
mind-independently.
Let me focus now
on the defense of my claim (ii). According to the causal reading of Kant’s
Refutation of Idealism, in order for us to make justified judgments about the
mere temporal order of our inner states, those states must be caused by the
successive states of objects in space outside us.[15]
As I have argued against Oberst, that reading prima facie seems to contradict claims in the criticism of
Cartesian idealism; after all, in the Refutation Kant claims that we experience
outer things directly rather than indirectly, namely as the result of some
problematic causal inference from our putative immediate experience of our
inner experience.[16]
Moreover, the overwhelming evidence (quoted above) clearly indicates that the
acknowledgment of the mind-independent existence of the noumenon is what is
required for the temporal determination of our representations in time.
Has the so-called
“causal refutation” got everything wrong? I do not think so. If we have in mind
that representations can be taken both in the empirical and in the
transcendental sense as (6”) suggests, we can hold on to the claim that the
mind-independent existent noumena is the “cause” or the ultimate ground of the
temporal determination of our representations in the empirical sense (as mental
states), and we can also hold on to the claim that we can only cognize them
mind-dependently as a representation in the transcendental sense, namely as
persistent in space.
Let me focus
finally on my last claim (iii). Besides being compatible with both the Fourth
Paralogism and the Refutation of Idealism, my metaphysical non-reductionist
phenomenalism (6”) is the reading that best harmonizes the most reasonable
reading of the Fourth Paralogism with the widely shared reading of the
Refutation (without assuming that Kant changed his mind in-between the two
editions).
In the Fourth
Paralogism, Kant tries to persuade the Cartesian external-world skeptic that we
do possess direct epistemic access to material things, because material things
are nothing but representations in the relevant transcendental sense. In
contrast, in his Refutation he attempts to prove that representations in the
relevant empirical sense presuppose noumena insofar as they are
time-determined.
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