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Metaphysical Dogmatism, Humean Scepticism, Kantian Criticism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Robert Stern
Robert Stern
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

In this article, I want to argue that scepticism for Kant must be seen in ancient and not just modern terms, and that if we take this into account we will need to take a different view of Kant's response to Hume from the one that is standardly presented in the literature. This standard view has been put forward recently by Paul Guyer, and it is therefore his view that I want to look at in some detail, and to try to correct.

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Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 11 , March 2006 , pp. 102 - 116
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Copyright © Kantian Review 2006

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References

Notes

1 Guyer himself emphasizes that his account of Kant's treatment of theoretical scepticism put forward in his paper, including Humean scepticism, is intended to be one that most would accept: ‘My aim here is not a detailed treatment of Kant's response to theoretical scepticism as he has conceived it. Rather, I will provide an outline of his approach to theoretical scepticism, an outline which I do not take to be particularly controversial, that can then be used as a guide for my analysis of Kant's response to moral scepticism, which may be more unconventional’ (Guyer, Paul, ‘Kant on common sense and scepticism’, Kantian Review, 7 (2003), 10).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Guyer cites , Ameriks'sKant and the Fate of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), quoting from p. 43Google Scholar . For another recent example of a reading that attempts to downplay the significance of scepticism to Kant (by claiming that he may at best address the sceptic indirectly), see Bird, Graham, ‘Kant and the problem of induction’, in Stern, Robert (ed.), Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 31–45Google Scholar.

3 , Guyer, ‘Kant on common sense and scepticism’, 6Google Scholar . Cf. also ibid, 5: ‘The refutation of Cartesian scepticism, to be sure, is not the predominant concern of Kant's theoretical philosophy.’

4 Kant, Immanuel, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Akademie edition, Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902-) 4: 258Google Scholar , trans. Gary Hatfield (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 7.

5 , Guyer, ‘Kant on common sense and scepticism’, 10Google Scholar . Cf. also ibid, 5: ‘The whole of the Critique of Pure Reason is organized around the dual tasks of, first, in the Analytic, refuting Humean scepticism about first principles, and then, second, in the Dialectic, resolving Pyrrhonian scepticism engendered by the natura l dialectic of human reason.’

6 In fairness to Ameriks, Guyer should perhaps have cited Ameriks's note on p. 43 of Kant and the Fate of Autonomy: ‘This is not to deny that Kant was highly concerned with Humean scepticism, specifically about “reason”.’

7 , Guyer, ‘Kant on common sense and scepticism’, 5.Google Scholar

8 For another attempt to argue that the Refutation is not so central to Kant's approach as is often assumed, see Bell, David, ‘Transcendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realism’, in Stern, Robert (ed.), Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 189–210.Google Scholar

9 Cf. , Guyer, ‘Kant on common sense and scepticism’, 6–8.Google Scholar

10 Cf. , Kant, Metaphysik Vigilantius [1794-1795], Ak 29: 957–8Google Scholar , trans. Ameriks, Karl and Naragon, Steve, in Lectures on Metaphysics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 429:Google Scholar ‘All judgments and every whole system were accepted [in metaphysics], if one only remained consistent and did not contradict oneself. But there arose a dispute of the philosophers among themselves over the propositions maintained as conclusions of their systems, in that one group believed that they were grounded, and the other group that they were just as clearly refuted, and showed that the opposite could be grounded just as clearly … Thus as soon as the contradiction and the existence of the wholly conflicting propositions was quite clear, there arose that party [i.e. the sceptics] which doubted the certainty of either; this party took the opportunity thereby to declare all truths of reason as uncertain, and accepted the principle that we lack certainty in all our cognitions; it even contradicted itself, and admitted that even the question whether everything is uncertain is itself uncertain. Now this killed all progress of the investigation because dogmatism was overthrown and skepticism affirmed no principles <principium> from which one could proceed. The interest of human beings suffered under this, and neither of the opposites <opposita> served any use.’

11 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Smith, Norman Kemp, corrected edn (London: Macmillan, 1933)Google Scholar , Aix (translation modified).

12 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason Aviii. Cf. also , Kant, Prolegomena, Ak 4: 255–7Google Scholar , trans. Hatfield, pp. 5-7, and Ak 4: 271, trans. Hatfield, pp. 24-5: ‘one metaphysics has always contradicted the other either in regard to the assertions themselves or their proofs, and thereby metaphysics has itself destroyed its claim to lasting approbation. The very attempts to bring such a science into existence were without doubt the original cause of the skepticism that arose so early, a mode of thinking in which reason moves against itself with such violence that it never could have arisen except in complete despair as regards satisfaction of reason's most important aims.’

13 This may seem to overlook Hume's own objections to what he calls Pyrrhonism: but, first, those objections are not (so to speak) theoretical, but practical (wholesale suspension of belief would be bad for us, and anyway is something we canno t achieve); and, second, he recognizes the value of the Pyrrhonist's questionin g of our cognitive capacities as part of a ‘mitigated’ scepticism that attempts to put a check on our metaphysical reasoning and dogmatism, which is the issue that concerns Kant here. See Hume's discussion in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section XII, to which further reference is made below.

14 Hume, David, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A.; 2nd edn ed. Nidditch, P. H. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. xiv.Google Scholar

15 Cf. Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, in Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals ed. Selby-Bigge, L. A., 3rd edn revised P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), section XII, part III, pp. 161–2Google Scholar : ‘There is, indeed, a more mitigated scepticism or academical philosophy, which may be both durable and useful, and which may, in part, be the result of this Pyrrhonism, or excessive scepticism, when its undistinguished doubts are, in some measure, corrected by common sense and reflection. The greater part of mankind are naturally apt to be affirmative and dogmatical in their opinions; and while they see objects only on one side, and have no idea of any counterpoising argument, they throw themselves precipitately into the principles, to which they are inclined; nor have they any indulgence for those who entertain opposite sentiments. To hesitate or balance perplexes their understanding, checks their passion, and suspends their action. They are, therefore, impatient till they escape from a state, which to them is so uneasy: and they think, that they can never remove themselves far enough from it, by the violence of their affirmations and obstinacy of their belief. But could such dogmatical reasoners become sensible of the strange infirmities of human understanding, even in its most perfect state, and when most accurate and cautious in its determinations; such a reflection would naturally inspire them with more modesty and reserve, and diminish their fond opinion of themselves, and their prejudice against antagonists’.

16 , Kant, Prolegomena, Ak 4: 258–9Google Scholar , trans. Hatfield, p. 9. Cf. also Kant's remark on , Beattie (Prolegomena, Ak 4: 259Google Scholar , trans. Hatfield, pp. 9-10): ‘I should think, however, that Hume could lay just as much claim to sound common sense as Beattie and on top of this to something that the latter certainly did not possess, namely, a critical reason, which keeps ordinary common sense in check, so that it doesn't lose itself in speculations, or, if these are the sole topic of discussion, doesn't want to decide anything, since it doesn't understand the justification for its own principles; for only so will it remain sound common sense.’

17 , Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Avii–viii.Google Scholar

18 Cf. Kant, ibid., A609-10/B637-8.

19 Cf. , Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, section XII, part III, p. 162Google Scholar , where Hume argues that once we see how even our ordinary inductive beliefs (for example) are problematic, we will not be tempted into anything as ambitious as metaphysics: ‘While we cannot give a satisfactory reason, why we believe, after a thousand experiments, that a stone will fall, or fire burn; can we ever satisfy ourselves concerning any determination, which we may form, with regard to the origin of worlds, and the situation of nature, from, and to eternity?’ This is in support of his earlier hope, cited previously, that ‘could such dogmatical reasoners [in metaphysics] become sensible of the strange infirmities of human understanding, even in its most perfect state [i.e. in ordinary life], and when most accurate and cautious in its determinations; such a reflection would naturally inspire them with more modesty and reserve, and diminish their fond opinion of themselves, and their prejudice against antagonists [in their metaphysical speculations]’ (ibid., p. 161, my emphasis).

20 , Kant, Critique of Pure Reason B224.Google Scholar

21 Kant, ibid., A768-9/B796-7.

22 Kant, ibid., A757/B785.

23 Cf. also , Kant, Prolegomena Ak 4: 262Google Scholar , trans. Hatfield, p. 12: ‘[Hume] deposited his ship on the beach (of skepticism) for safekeeping, where it could then lie and rot, whereas it is important to me to give it a safe pilot, who, provided with complete sea-charts and a compass, might safely navigate the ship wherever seems good to him, following sound principles of the helmsman's art drawn from a knowledge of the globe’; and Prolegomena Ak 4: 351, trans. Hatfield, p. 105: ‘Skepticism originally arose from metaphysics and its unpoliced dialectic. At first this skepticism wanted, solely for the benefit of the use of reason in experience, to portray everything that surpasses this use as empty and deceitful; but gradually, as it come to be noticed that it was the very same a priori principles which are employed in experience that, unnoticed, led further than experience reaches - and did so, as it seemed, with the very same right - even the principles of experience came to be doubted [cf. Hume]. There was no real trouble with this, for sound common sense will always assert its rights in this domain; there did arise, however, a special confusion in science, which cannot determine how far (and why only that far and not further) reason is to be trusted, and this confusion can be remedied and all future relapses prevented only through a formal determination, derived from principles, of the boundaries for the use of our reason [cf. Kant].’

24 , Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A763–4/B791.Google Scholar

25 Kant, ibid., A761/B790.

26 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Practical Reason, Ak 5: 52.Google Scholar

27 , Guyer, ‘Kant on common sense and scepticism’, p. 9Google Scholar . Cf. also ibid., p. 33 note 11, where Guyer cites the Blomberg logic lectures, in which Kant characterizes Hume in Pyrrhonian terms, but where Guyer feels obliged to dismiss these lectures as ‘early’, implying that Kant then changed his mind about Hume. On my account, by contrast, there is greater continuity in Kant's view of Hume's scepticism. For the relevant Kant text, see Blomberg Logik, Ak 24: 217, in Lectures on Logic, trans Young, J. Michael (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 172Google Scholar .