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Reason’s Disunity with Itself: Comments on Adrian Moore on Kant’s Dialectic of Human Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2016

Edward Kanterian
Edward Kanterian*
Affiliation:
University of Kent
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Adrian Moore develops a helpful distinction between good and bad metaphysics. Employing this distinction, I argue, first, that some contemporary metaphysical theories might be ‘bad’, insofar as they employ, unreflectively, concepts akin to Kant’s Ideas of reason. Second, I investigate the difficulty Kant himself has with explaining our craving for bad metaphysics. Third, I raise some problems for Kant’s doctrine of ‘transcendental cognition’, which rests on the difficult assumption that Ideas have objective reality. I conclude that, while Kant has given us means to combat certain bad metaphysics, his own philosophy is not entirely free of it either.

Keywords

Kantmetaphysicstranscendental idealismideas of reasontranscendental deductionintellectual intuitionobjective realityillusory knowledgeGodthe worldtotality
Type
Author Meets Critics
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 483 - 493
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2016 

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