structure for 'Reason'    |     alphabetical list of themes    |     unexpand these ideas

2. Reason / E. Argument / 2. Transcendental Argument

[backwards reasoning to accepting presuppositions]

5 ideas
'Transcendent' is beyond experience, and 'transcendental' is concealed within experience [Kant, by Potter]
     Full Idea: Kant distinguished between the 'transcendent', which is wholly beyond experience, and the 'transcendental', which, although not strictly part of experience, is a structural feature imminent in it.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B353/A296) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Trans'
     A reaction: This may be the most disastrous idea in western philosophy since Plato's theory of Forms. How can he claim special insight into the imminent structural features of his own experience, while admitting that he has no experience of these features?
Transcendental ideas require unity of the subject, conditions of appearance, and objects of thought [Kant]
     Full Idea: All transcendental ideas fall under three classes: the first contains the absolute unity of the thinking subject, the second the unity of conditions of appearance, the third the unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B391/A334)
     A reaction: This kind of claim makes me search the attic for my logical positivist shotgun. How does he KNOW these things? However we must grant him that experience 'binds' together in some way, and we think of persons and ideas as atomic.
Transcendental cognition is that a priori thought which shows how the a priori is applicable or possible [Kant]
     Full Idea: Not every a priori cognition must be called transcendental, but only that by means of which we cognize that, and how certain representations (intuitions or concepts) are applied entirely a priori, or are possible.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B80/A56)
     A reaction: Kant really wasn't good at expressing himself. I would describe this as either explanation, or as meta-thought.
Transcendental arguments move from knowing Q to knowing P because it depends on Q [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Transcendental arguments ran: "If it weren't that P, we couldn't know (now 'say' or 'think' or 'judge') that Q; and we do know (now…) that Q; therefore P". Old and new arguments tend to be equally unconvincing, because of their empiricist preconceptions.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3)
Transcendental proofs derive necessities from possibilities (e.g. possibility of experiencing objects) [Gardner]
     Full Idea: A transcendental proof converts a possibility into a necessity: by saying under what conditions experience of objects is possible, transcendental proofs show those conditions to be necessary for us to the extent that we have any experience of objects.
     From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 02 'Transc')
     A reaction: They appear to be hypothetical necessities, rather than true metaphysical necessities. Gardner is discussing Kant, but seems to be generalising. Hypothetical necessities are easy: if it is flying, it is necessarily above the ground.