One-object-plus-epistemic-phenomenalism

Kant e-prints

Endereço:
Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência (CLE), Rua Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Nº 251 - Cidade Universitária
Campinas / SP
13083-859
Site: https://www.cle.unicamp.br/eprints/index.php/kant-e-prints/index
Telefone: (19) 3521-6520
ISSN: 1677-163X
Editor Chefe: Daniel Omar Perez
Início Publicação: 01/01/2002
Periodicidade: Quadrimestral
Área de Estudo: Ciências Humanas

One-object-plus-epistemic-phenomenalism

Ano: 2019 | Volume: 14 | Número: 1
Autores: R. H. de S. Pereira
Autor Correspondente: R. H. de S. Pereira | [email protected]

Palavras-chave: transcendental idealism, the one-world view, the two-world view, phenomenalism

Resumos Cadastrados

Resumo Inglês:

The aim of this paper is to present a novel reading of Kantian idealism. In want of a better name, I call my interpretation “one-object-plus-epistemic phenomenalism”. I partially endorse Allison’s celebrated position, namely his rejection of metaphysical world-dualism. Yet, I reject Allison’s deflationary two-aspect view. I argue that Kantian idealism is also metaphysically committed to an ontological noumenalism (one-object), namely the claim that the ultimate nature of reality is made up of unknown things in themselves (substantia noumena). Natural sciences can only reveal the relational/structural properties of things as they appear rather than the intrinsic properties of substantia noumena in the negative sense. My anti-deflationary reading is similar to Allais’s and my agnostic monism to Hanna’s. However, against both, I hold that appearances are not the accusative objects of our sensible representations, but rather as Kant repeatedly states: “mere representations”. The accusative objects of our senses are substantia noumena in the negative sense. Moreover, my view is also similar to Langton’s. Again, against Langton I hold that appearances are not merely relational properties of substantia noumena, but the way that such substantia noumena exist inside our mind as “mere representations”. In this regard, I also partially endorse Guyer’s and Van Cleve’s phenomenalist reading because these substantia noumena in the negative sense can only be cognized mind-dependently, namely as appearances. However, against Guyer and Van Cleve I hold that the phenomenalist side of Kantian idealism is purely epistemological rather than ontological: what Kant calls the necessary unity of representations according to categories is not a logical construction of objects out of representations, that is, an ontological reduction of noumena to appearances, but rather the way we sense-independently cognize mind-independent noumena.