Abstracts for Saturday, 12 April 2014
Sacha Golob, "Why the Deduction is Compatible With Nonconceptualism"
Paper available now; contact conference organizer for copy.
My aim in this paper is twofold: I argue that Kant was, in at least one significant sense, a nonconceptualist, and I give a new account of how that result might fit with the Transcendental Deduction. I begin by highlighting a series of structural pressures in Kant’s work, pressures both for and against nonconceptualism. I then provide a brief sketch of what one might call his ‘general’ theory of perception, the theory which he assumes in the case of both rational and non-rational beings. Next I analyse the distinctive intentional contribution made by concepts, taking the Axioms as a case study. I argue that these results both support a reading of the Deduction as a transcendental argument entirely compatible with nonconceptualism, and illuminate Kant’s relationship to Frege.
Farid Masrour, "Was Kant a Conceptualist?"
Some commentators have interpreted Kant’s view in the CPR as a form of intuition conceptualism, the view that synthesis on the basis of concepts is a requirement for having intuitions. My aim in this paper is to motivate a proto-conceptualist reading of Kant’s account of intuition. On both readings the synthesis of imagination on the basis of certain rules is a condition of the possibility of intuitions. But in contrast to the conceptualist reading that identifies these rules with concepts, the proto-conceptualist reading regards these rules as innate precursors of concepts. I argue that the exegetical evidence that is often cited in support of the conceptualist reading equally supports the proto-conceptualist reading. The proto-conceptualist reading, however, is preferable to the conceptualist reading in at least two respects. First, Kant’s commitment to an empiricist account of concept acquisition gives rise to certain challenges for the conceptualist reading that the proto-conceptualist reading can easily avoid. Second, the proto-conceptualist reading is immune to some of the direct exegetical challenges that the conceptualist reading faces.
Angela Breitenbach, "Cognition, Reflection, and Analogy"
Paper available now; contact conference organizer for copy.
In his logic lectures Kant argues that analogies are useful and indispensable for cognition. If we take Kant by his word, this is a strong claim. Why should we expect that phenomena, which appear to be similar in some respects, will turn out to share common properties in other respects? Is Kant right to suggest that we cannot get on without analogical reasoning? I show that we can find answers to these questions at the heart of Kant’s theory of cognition. Analogical reasoning, for Kant, guides reflection on the sensible given and is subjectively necessary and objectively useful. I argue that focusing on Kant’s conception of analogy sheds light on the role of reflection in cognition and the interdependence of the regulative and constitutive employment of a priori principles.
Timothy Rosenkoetter, "Kant on Pure Apperception and Existence"
Paper available now; contact conference organizer for copy.
Kant holds that “my existence…cannot be regarded as inferred from the proposition ‘I think’…but rather it is identical with it” (1787: B422). My question in this paper is: What must be true of apperception and <existence> if this claim is to be something more than ad hoc or aspirational? If it is to actually fall out of Kant’s theory of apperception? My proposal is in two parts. First, I argue that there is a close relation between <I> and <substance>. Very roughly, in self-conscious thought we think of ourselves as substances. (We do not, except insofar as we are making a cognitive mistake, take ourselves to be persisting substances.) Second, I develop an account of the intensional content of <substance> that makes it analytic that substances exist. This involves challenging an apparently obvious feature of Kant’s theory of functions, viz., that there is no ‘intermingling’ between the four classes of functions. I argue that the categorical function includes assertoricity (in a manner to be specified), while offering an explanation as to why there is nonetheless a separate assertoric function. This explains why we cannot think <substance> without thinking an existent, thus completing the larger argument.
Sacha Golob, "Why the Deduction is Compatible With Nonconceptualism"
Paper available now; contact conference organizer for copy.
My aim in this paper is twofold: I argue that Kant was, in at least one significant sense, a nonconceptualist, and I give a new account of how that result might fit with the Transcendental Deduction. I begin by highlighting a series of structural pressures in Kant’s work, pressures both for and against nonconceptualism. I then provide a brief sketch of what one might call his ‘general’ theory of perception, the theory which he assumes in the case of both rational and non-rational beings. Next I analyse the distinctive intentional contribution made by concepts, taking the Axioms as a case study. I argue that these results both support a reading of the Deduction as a transcendental argument entirely compatible with nonconceptualism, and illuminate Kant’s relationship to Frege.
Farid Masrour, "Was Kant a Conceptualist?"
Some commentators have interpreted Kant’s view in the CPR as a form of intuition conceptualism, the view that synthesis on the basis of concepts is a requirement for having intuitions. My aim in this paper is to motivate a proto-conceptualist reading of Kant’s account of intuition. On both readings the synthesis of imagination on the basis of certain rules is a condition of the possibility of intuitions. But in contrast to the conceptualist reading that identifies these rules with concepts, the proto-conceptualist reading regards these rules as innate precursors of concepts. I argue that the exegetical evidence that is often cited in support of the conceptualist reading equally supports the proto-conceptualist reading. The proto-conceptualist reading, however, is preferable to the conceptualist reading in at least two respects. First, Kant’s commitment to an empiricist account of concept acquisition gives rise to certain challenges for the conceptualist reading that the proto-conceptualist reading can easily avoid. Second, the proto-conceptualist reading is immune to some of the direct exegetical challenges that the conceptualist reading faces.
Angela Breitenbach, "Cognition, Reflection, and Analogy"
Paper available now; contact conference organizer for copy.
In his logic lectures Kant argues that analogies are useful and indispensable for cognition. If we take Kant by his word, this is a strong claim. Why should we expect that phenomena, which appear to be similar in some respects, will turn out to share common properties in other respects? Is Kant right to suggest that we cannot get on without analogical reasoning? I show that we can find answers to these questions at the heart of Kant’s theory of cognition. Analogical reasoning, for Kant, guides reflection on the sensible given and is subjectively necessary and objectively useful. I argue that focusing on Kant’s conception of analogy sheds light on the role of reflection in cognition and the interdependence of the regulative and constitutive employment of a priori principles.
Timothy Rosenkoetter, "Kant on Pure Apperception and Existence"
Paper available now; contact conference organizer for copy.
Kant holds that “my existence…cannot be regarded as inferred from the proposition ‘I think’…but rather it is identical with it” (1787: B422). My question in this paper is: What must be true of apperception and <existence> if this claim is to be something more than ad hoc or aspirational? If it is to actually fall out of Kant’s theory of apperception? My proposal is in two parts. First, I argue that there is a close relation between <I> and <substance>. Very roughly, in self-conscious thought we think of ourselves as substances. (We do not, except insofar as we are making a cognitive mistake, take ourselves to be persisting substances.) Second, I develop an account of the intensional content of <substance> that makes it analytic that substances exist. This involves challenging an apparently obvious feature of Kant’s theory of functions, viz., that there is no ‘intermingling’ between the four classes of functions. I argue that the categorical function includes assertoricity (in a manner to be specified), while offering an explanation as to why there is nonetheless a separate assertoric function. This explains why we cannot think <substance> without thinking an existent, thus completing the larger argument.