Kant and the Claims of Knowledge PAUL GUYER CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE NEW YORK NEW ROCHELLE MELBOURNE SYDNEYPublished by the Press Syndicate of the Univers of Cambridge “The Pitt Building, Trumpington Strect, Camoridge cuz en? 42 Eest s7th Street, New York, s¥ (0022, USA to Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3165, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1087 First published 1987 Library of Congres Catalgingsin-Publiccion Data Guyer, Paul, 1948 Kant and the claims of knowledge Includes indexes. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804 ~ Contributions in theory of knowledge. 2. Knowledge, Theory of. 1. Tie a7g@.k7088 1988 r21'093'4 87-878 British Library Cataloguing in Publicaton Data Guyer, Paul Kant and the claim of knowledge 1 Kant, Immanuel - Knowledge, Theory of 1. Title avons M7907 Isa © 21 33102 7 hard covers tsmw © 521 33772 © paperback ‘Transferred to digital printing 2003, FOR PAMELAKant and the Claims of Knowledge ‘This book offers a radically new account of the development and structure of the central arguments of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: the defense of the objective validity of such categories as substance, causation, and independent existence. Paul Guyer makes far more extensive use than any other commentator of historical materials from the years leading up to the publication of the Critigue and surrounding its revision, and he shows that the work which has come down to us is the result of some striking and only partially resolved theoretical tensions. Kant had originally intended to demonstrate the validity of the categories by exploiting what he called “analogies of appearance” between the structure of self-knowledge and our knowledge of objects. The idea of a separate “transcendental deduction,” independent from the analysis of the necessary conditions of empirical judgments, arose only shortly before publication of the Critique in 1781, land distorted much of Kant's original inspiration, Part of what led Kant to present this deduction separately was his invention of a new pattern of, argument - very different from the “transcendental arguments” attributed by recent interpreters to Kant - depending on initial claims to necessary truth. This new form of argument forced Kant's defense of the categories into a far more idealistic framework than was otherwise necessary, although the original impetus to realism reappeared in his brief “Refutation of, Idealism” in 1787. ‘This book thus provides a detailed study of the grounds which motivated Kant to realism as well as to idealism, presenting a picture of Kant as a more torn but therefore even more profound philosopher than we have come to accept in recent decades,