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Kant's Empiricism in his Refutation of Idealism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

Adrian Bardon
Affiliation:
Wake Forest University

Extract

In the preface to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant laments that

it still remains a scandal to philosophy and to human reason in general that the existence of things outside us … must be accepted on faith, and if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubts by any satisfactory proof. (B xl n.)

The two editions of the Critique each contain a celebrated refutation of epistemological scepticisms like those of Descartes and Hume. The first edition refutation has been widely decried as relying on an objectionable sort of idealism. The refutation of the second edition, though rather more difficult to interpret than the first, has usually been read as a mere reworking of the first.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Kantian Review 2004

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