Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T00:48:23.622Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Kantian Phenomenalism Without Berkeleyan Idealism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2017

Tim Jankowiak*
Affiliation:
Towson University

Abstract

Phenomenalist interpretations of Kant are out of fashion. The most common complaint from anti-phenomenalist critics is that a phenomenalist reading of Kant would collapse Kantian idealism into Berkeleyan idealism. This would be unacceptable because Berkeleyan idealism is incompatible with core elements of Kant’s empirical realism. In this paper, I argue that not all phenomenalist readings threaten empirical realism. First, I distinguish several variants of phenomenalism, and then show that Berkeley’s idealism is characterized by his commitment to most of them. I then make the case that two forms of phenomenalism are consistent with Kant’s empirical realism. The comparison between Kant and Berkeley runs throughout the paper, with special emphasis on the significance of their theories of intentionality.

Type
Articles
Copyright
© Kantian Review 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abela, Paul (2002) Kant’s Empirical Realism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Allais, Lucy (2004) ‘Kant’s One World: Interpreting Transcendental Idealism’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 12 (4), 655684.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allais, Lucy (2007) ‘Kant’s Idealism and the Secondary Quality Analogy’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 45 (3), 459484.Google Scholar
Allais, Lucy (2015) Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Allison, Henry (1973) ‘Kant’s Critique of Berkeley’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 11 (1), 4363.Google Scholar
Ameriks, Karl (2006) Kant and the Historical Turn: Philosophy as Critical Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aquila, Richard (1983) Representational Mind. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Aquila, Richard (2003) ‘Hans Vaihinger and Some Recent Intentionalist Readings of Kant’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 41 (2), 231250.Google Scholar
Bennett, Jonathan (1966) Kant’s Analytic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Berkeley, George (1948–57) The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne. Ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessup. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons.Google Scholar
Berkeley, George (1998a) A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. Ed. Jonathan Dancy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Berkeley, George (1998b) Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. Ed. Jonathan Dancy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Arthur (1999) Possible Experience: Understanding Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dicker, Georges (1982) ‘The Concept of Immediate Perception in Berkeley’s Immaterialism’. In C. Turbayne (ed.), Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 4868.Google Scholar
Emundts, Dina (2008) ‘Kant’s Critique of Berkeley’s Concept of Objectivity’. In Daniel Garber and Beatrice Longuenesse (eds), Kant and the Early Moderns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 117141.Google Scholar
Gallois, Andre (1974) ‘Berkeley’s Master Argument’. Philosophical Review, 83 (1), 5569.Google Scholar
George, Rolf (1981) ‘Kant’s Sensationism’. Synthese, 47 (2), 229255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haag, Johannes (2007) Erfahrung und Gegenstand: das Verhälthis von Sinnlichkeit und Verstand. Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann.Google Scholar
Hall, Bryan (2010) ‘Appearances and the Problem of Affection in Kant’. Kantian Review, 14 (2), 3866.Google Scholar
Hanna, Robert (2001) Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Jankowiak, Tim (2014) ‘Sensations as Representations in Kant’. British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 22 (3), 492513.Google Scholar
Jankowiak, Tim (2016) ‘Intentionality and Sensory Consciousness in Kant’. Journal of Philosophical Research, 41, 623–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1998) Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2002) ‘Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’. Trans. Michael Friedman in Henry Allison and Peter Heath (eds), Theoretical Philosophy since 1781 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 181279.Google Scholar
Langton, Rae (1998) Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Muehlman, Robert (1992) Berkeley’s Ontology, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Pappas, George (1982) ‘Berkeley, Perception, and Common Sense’. In C. Turbayne (ed.), Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 321.Google Scholar
Pappas, George (2000) Berkeley’s Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Park, Désirée (1982) ‘On Taking Ideas Seriously’. In C. Turbayne (ed.), Berkeley: Critical and Interpretive Essays (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), pp. 3547.Google Scholar
Pereboom, Derk (1988) ‘Kant on Intentionality’. Synthese, 77 (3), 321352.Google Scholar
Pitcher, George (1986) ‘Berkeley and the Perception of Objects’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 24 (1), 99105.Google Scholar
Rickless, Samuel (2013) Kant’s Argument for Idealism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid (1967) Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Sellars, Wilfrid (2007) ‘The Role of Imagination in Kant’s Theory of Experience’. In Robert Brandom and Kevin Scharp (eds), In the Space of Reasons: Selected Essays of Wilfrid Sellars (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 454466.Google Scholar
Turbayne, Colin (1955) ‘Kant’s Refutation of Dogmatic Idealism’. Philosophical Quarterly, 5, 225244.Google Scholar
Vaihinger, Hans (1892) Commentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, vol. 2. Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Van Cleve, James (1999) Problems from Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vinci, Thomas (2014) Space, Geometry, and Kant’s Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Margaret (1999) ‘The “Phenomenalisms” of Berkeley and Kant’. In Ideas and Mechanism: Essays on Early Modern Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press), pp. 294305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winkler, Kenneth (1989) Berkeley: An Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Winkler, Kenneth (2008) ‘Berkeley and Kant’. In Daniel Garber and Beatrice Longuenesse (eds), Kant and the Early Moderns (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 142171.Google Scholar