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Kants Transcendental Proof

of Realism

Kenneth R. Westphal

Cambridge University Press2004

This book is the first detailed study of Kants method of transcendental reflec-tion and its use in the Critique of Pure Reasonto identify our basic human cogni-tive capacities, and to justify Kants transcendental proofs of the necessary a

prioriconditions for the possibility of self-conscious human experience. KennethWestphal, in a closely argued internal critique of Kants analysis, shows that if wetake Kants project seriously in its own terms, the result is not transcendentalidealism but (unqualified) realism regarding physical objects. Westphal attends to

neglected topics Kants analyses of the transcendental affinity of the sensorymanifold, the lifelessness of matter, fallibilism, the semantics of cognitivereference, four externalist aspects of Kants views, and the importance of Kants

Metaphysical Foundationsfor the Critique of Pure Reason that illuminate Kantsenterprise in new and valuable ways. His book will appeal to all who are inter-ested in Kants theoretical philosophy or in contemporary epistemology.

This is an important contribution to the contemporary literature on Kants theoreticalphilosophy. The book is distinguished by a novel main claim, an impressive grip on the

relevant secondary literature (both past and present), a close examination of sometypically neglected (but important) passages in the Critique of Pure Reason, and asustained, rigorous, and lucid argument. No one, so far as I know, has argued forKants realism in such a thorough way. Given both the novelty of the claim and the

care with which it is supported, all future interpreters of Kant will have to take Westphalinto account. Gordon Brittan

stimulating book. I will certainly return to Kants Transcendental Proof ofRealism, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

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ii

Contents

Analytical Table of Contents v

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works xi

Introduction 1

One Kants Methods: Transcendental and Epistemic Reflection. 7

Two The Metaphysics of Kants Transcendental Idealism. 27

Three Transcendental Affinity. 59

Four The Gap in Kants Critique of Pure Reason. 105

Five Kants Dynamic Misconstructions. 143

Six Kants Metaphysical Proof of the Law of Inertia. 169

Seven Three Kantian Insights. 189

Name Index

Subject Index

Bibliography

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iii

Analytical Table of Contents

Contents iii

Analytical Table of Contents v

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works xi

Introduction 1

One Kants Methods: Transcendental and Epistemic Reflection. 9

1 Epistemic Reflection in Kants Critique of Pure Reason. 9

2 Epistemic Reflection in Kants Transcendental Thought Experi-

ments. 14

3 Epistemic Reflection and the Integrity of these Four Thought

Experiments. 25

Two The Metaphysics of Kants Transcendental Idealism. 27

4 Introduction. 27

5 Noumenal Causal Affection of Sensibility. 31

6 Some Challenging Passages. 34

7 Verificationist Interpretations of Kant and the Transcendental

Significance of Concepts. 35

8 Transcendental Reflection and the Transcendental Significance of

Concepts. 39

9 Kants Transcendental Reflection on Sensibility. 43

10 Noumenal and Atemporal Causality. 46

11 Kants Metaphysical Dual Aspect Idealism. 47

12 Noumenal Causality and Rational Agency. 51

13 A Positive View of Noumenal Causality. 53

14 Conclusion. 57

Three Transcendental Affinity. 59

15 Introduction. 59

16 Is there a Link between Transcendental Arguments and Transcen-

dental Idealism? 59

17 Plan of Discussion. 62

18 The Humean Background. 62

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19 Transcendental Arguments with, and without, Transcendental

Idealism. 65

20 Void Space and the Possibility of Experience. 69

21 Kant: Transcendental Proofs Require Transcendental Idealism. 70

22 Transcendental Affinity and the Possibility of Experience. 74

23 Transcendental Affinity in the A Deduction. 85

24 Kant: Transcendental Idealism is the Only Explanation of Transcen-

dental Affinity. 90

25 Transcendental Idealism Cannot Explain Transcendental Affinity. 93

26 The Material Basis of Transcendental Affinity is Independent ofDisputes about Sensory Affection. 97

27 The Prospect of Non-Subjective Formal Transcendental Conditions

of Possible Experience Undermines Kants Arguments for Tran-

scendental Idealism, on Grounds Internal to the First Critique. 99

28 Critique of Allisons Kantian Methodology. 102

29 Conclusions. 104

Four The Gap in Kants Critique of Pure Reason. 105

30 Introduction. 105

31 Two Accounts of the Importance of the Foundations for the first

Critique. 10632 Plan of Discussion. 108

33 Transcendental and Metaphysical Analysis. 108

34 The Role of Outer Intuition and its Objects in the First Edition. 110

35 Three Critical Innovations in Kants Foundations. 113

36 The Analogies of Experience and External Causation. 120

37 A Metaphysical Presupposition of the Analogies of Experience. 129

38 A Second Metaphysical Presupposition of the Analogies of Experi-

ence. 131

39 Systematic Ramifications. 136

40 A Possible Source of Kants Difficulty. 140

Five Kants Dynamic Misconstructions 143

41 Introduction. 143

42 Kants Admission that Matter is Unconstructable. 145

43 Kants Aim and Method in the Foundations. 145

44 Kants Phoronomic Basis for Dynamics. 149

45 Phoronomy. 149

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46 Kants Fallacious Use of the Proposition of Phoronomy. 152

47 Kants Dawning Recognition of the Fallacy. 155

48 Kants Dynamic Theory of Matter. 156

49 Identifying Kants Circle. 157

50 Kants Problems with Cohesion. 162

51 A Further Circularity in Kants Argument. 163

52 Systematic Ramifications of Kants Problems in the Foundations. 164

Six Kants Metaphysical Proof of the Law of Inertia 169

53 Introduction. 16954 Kants Plan for Metaphysical Foundations for Newtonian Physics. 169

55 Kants Second Law of Mechanics. 170

56 Kants Proof that Physical Causality is External. 171

57 The Empirical Basis of Kants Refutations of Vitalism and Monad-

ism. 176

58 Systematic Shortcomings of Transcendental Idealism. 182

59 Kants Response to these Critical Problems. 183

Seven Three Kantian Insights. 189

60 Introduction. 189

61 Kants Critique of Determinism in Empirical Psychology. 19062 A Transcendental Justification of the Metaphysical Causal Principle.

201

63 Kants Critique of Global Perceptual Scepticism 205

64 Conclusion. 217

Appendix

65 Summary of Kants Transcendental Proof of the Legitimacy of

Causal Judgments. 221

Name Index

Subject Index

Bibliography

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The immediate object of Strouds comment is Jay Rosenbergs (1975a) naturalized1

Kantianism. I concur with most of Strouds criticisms. I follow Baum (1986) in

eschewing the term transcendental argument, which is not Kants, because thearguments bearing this label are not to be found in Kants Critique of Pure Reason(seeChapter One). Although Baums reconstruction may not be quite flawless (seeGuyer, Claims, 437 n20), it is rich in important insights. One important contemporarypreconception that cannot be explored here is the alleged untenability of analyticity.On this see Hanna (2001), especially chapter three.See Dreyer (1966), Baum (1986), Stroud (1999, 159), Greenberg (2000), Falkenberg2

(2004).See Buchdahl (1969), Brittan (1978), Friedman (1992a).3

Introduction

After initial enthusiasm sparked by Strawsons The Bounds of Sense(1966), Kants transcendental arguments have been sharply criticized byanalytic commentators. As Stroud (1977, 105) observed, it is not easy toincorporate the depth and power of Kants transcendental deduction intopresent-day philosophical attitudes and preconceptions. However, ratherthan trimming Kants views into conformity with contemporary predilec-tions, philosophically it is much more illuminating to reconsider some ofour present-day attitudes and preconceptions in order to understand andbenefit from Kants transcendental proofs.1

This study aims to contribute to contemporary epistemology as well asto Kant scholarship. Central to this study are important yet unappreciatedresources of Kants Critique of Pure Reason, both methodological andsubstantive, that provide a genuinely transcendental proof of realism sans

phrase. Kant has several projects in the first Critique. Kants main project isto establish the possibility ofa prioriknowledge, and so with the possibilityof rigorous (scientific) metaphysics. Another is to explain howmathe-2

matics and physical science are possible (B20, Prol. 5, 6, 15). However,3

Kant has a third key aim in the first Critique. While examining the possibil-ity of rigorous metaphysical science, Kant provides a sound transcendentalresponse to global perceptual skepticism. Kants concern with skepticismis reflected, e.g., in his famous remark on the philosophical scandal thatno one had yet proven the existence of the external world (Bxxxix note).Despite his confidence in mathematics and Newtonian physics as para-digm examples of knowledge, including synthetic a prioriknowledge (B128), when introducing the vital importance of the B Deduction Kantrecognizes that the key philosophical issue concerns whether the subjec-tive conditions of thought are objectively valid, that is, whether thesubjective conditions of thought are conditions of the very possibility of

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Rorty (1979), 823; cf. Frsters (1989b, 145) reply.4

Bell (1999) likewise identifies and criticizes the Cartesian assumptions of recent5

analytic discussions of transcendental arguments.

any and all knowledge of objects (B 1223, esp. 3:102.302; cf. B127,3:105.157).

Kants Refutation of Empirical Idealism has an anti-Cartesianconclusion: inner experience in general is only possible through outerexperience in general (B 278). Due to wide-spread preoccupation withCartesian skepticism, and to the anti-naturalism of early analytic philoso-phy (reflected in its basic division between conceptual and empiricalissues), most of Kants recent anglophone commentators have sought apurely conceptual, analytic argument in Kants Refutation of Ideal-

ismand then criticized Kant when no such plausible argument can bereconstructed from his text. They charge that Kants transcendentalarguments must argue by elimination, though they fail to eliminate thepossibility of Descartes evil deceiver, or alternative forms of cognition, orthe possibility that the mere (individually subjective) appearances of things

would suffice for the possibility of self-consciousness.4

In Chapter One I argue that these disappointments overlook three keyfeatures of Kants response to skepticism: the decidedly non-Cartesianphilosophy of mind involved in Kants epistemology, Kants semantics ofcognitive reference, and Kants decidedly non-Cartesian philosophicalmethod. Scholarly attention has focused so exclusively on Kants tran-5

scendental proofs and transcendental idealism, that Kants key method-ological innovations have been neglected. Kant developed a new philo-sophical method for conducting his critique of pure reason, and fordevising and assessing his transcendental proofs and his defense oftranscendental idealism, called transcendental reflection. Kants accountof transcendental reflection, like his name for it, are conspicuously rare,almost absent, from Kant scholarship. Yet Kant insists that

transcendental reflection is a duty from which no one can escape ifhe would judge anything about things a priori. (A263/B319)

If transcendental reflection is our Kantian duty, lack of attention to itsuggests that we have overlooked something very important for under-standing and assessing Kants a priorianalyses.

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In this regard, I present a strategy for meeting Strouds (1999, 161) challenge to6

show how substantive results concerning how the world is can be reached bya prioriepistemic reflection on the requirements for unified self-conscious experience,

without invoking Kants transcendental idealism.

Kant fostered some of this neglect by providing no comprehensiveaccount of transcendental reflection. Chapter One highlights its keyfeatures. Kant uses transcendental reflection to identify several of our keycognitive capacities by identifying several of our key cognitive incapacities.

These cognitive capacities are logically contingent, though transcenden-tally necessary conditions for the very possibility of human knowledge,indeed for the very possibility of self-conscious human experience. Kantidentifies some of our cognitive capacities by using wildly counter-factualthought experiments. Four of these thought experiments are considered

briefly to elucidate their role in transcendental reflection and to explicatehow these thought experiments are to be properly appreciated. Each ofthese four thought experiments is examined extensively in later chapters.

Kants epistemology highlights four integrated ways in which we arecognitively dependent on a commonsense spatio-temporal world; hissemantics entails that the skeptical hypotheses which alone call suchdependencies into question are themselves cognitively transcendent, idlespeculations. Both of these aspects are required to prove, as Kant puts it,the reality of outer sense (Bxlxli note, B27677 note), namely that wesense and do not merely imagine perceptible objects distinct from our-selves. Both of these aspects are required to understand Kants transcen-

dental response to global perceptual skepticism, which concludes thisbook. I contend that this approach to understanding and reconstructingKants transcendental proofs yields a sound, genuinely transcendentalproof of realism sans phraseregarding our empirical knowledge of molarobjects and events in space and time.

The transcendental proof developed here differs from those familiar inthe literature. However, it is squarely based on a key transcendental proofof realismand, surprisingly, for mental content externalismthat Kanthimself provides, though without pursuing it to its surprising logicalconclusion. I argue that this key transcendental proof ultimately showsthat transcendental idealism is groundless, because Kants arguments for

transcendental idealism are unsound. Kants own transcendental analysis6

of the necessary a priori conditions for the possibility of unified self-conscious human experience ultimately provides a sound version of the

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standard objection to Kants arguments for transcendental idealism, theso-called neglected alternative. Hence I use Kants own transcendentalanalyses to show that Kants own transcendental idealism is untenable.Guyers (1987, 417) criticisms of Kants transcendental idealism are statedin terms Kant would have understood. This is an important point ofcritical charity. My arguments take this charity a significant step further, bycriticizing transcendental idealism squarely on the basis of Kants ownanalyses in the Transcendental Analytic.

The significance of this result depends on the character of Kants

transcendental idealism, discussed in Chapter Two. Kants discussions oftranscendental idealism frequently suggest that it is a highly metaphysical

view, including the occurrence of causal events in a noumenal realmthat transcends space and time. Historically, the standard interpretation ofKants idealism was metaphysical. However, the idea that noumena orthings in themselves causally affect our sensibility, and thus provide us

with sensations, has been rejected on two basic grounds, forcefully ad-vanced recently by Bird and Strawson: It is unintelligible because distin-guishes between appearance and reality in such a way that things cannotin principle appear as they really are, and it requires applying the conceptof causality trans-phenomenally, contraKants Schematism of the Catego-

ries. In response to these and related objections, some recent scholars(e.g., Praus, Allison and Buchdahl) have argued that such objections donot pertain to Kants views, because despite some suggestions to thecontrary, Kants transcendental idealism is not metaphysical, it is onlymethodological or transcendental or only rests on two points of view ortwo kinds of description. Though prominent, such non-metaphysicalinterpretations are now subjected to sustained criticism scholars who onceagain defend metaphysical interpretations of Kants transcendental ideal-ism.

In Chapter Two I defend a metaphysical dual-aspect interpretation ofKants transcendental idealism. I focus on the test case of noumenal

causality, which I argue is intelligible and is required out of fidelity toKants texts and doctrines. In general, transcendental proofs aim toestablish a priori conditions necessary for our having self-consciousexperience at all. Transcendental idealism holds that such conditions donot hold independently of human subjects; those conditions are satisfiedbecause they are generated or fulfilled by the structure or functioning ofour cognitive capacities. Kant argued repeatedly that transcendental

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idealism is the only possible explanation of the transcendental conditionsof possible experience. Kants analysis of human agency also shows thathis practical philosophy is committed to noumenal causality, both from afirst- and from a third-person perspective. The standard objection from

Jacobi to Strawson is that Kants transcendental idealism is incoherent. Inreply, I argue that Kants theory of meaning and his transcendentalreflection on sensibility show how Kant legitimately can speak about, anddetermine that, our passive sensibility must be causally affected by non-spatiotemporal noumena. These points ground my criticisms of Allisons

view of affection, and Strawsons view of meaning.Showing that Kants transcendental idealism is metaphysical under-

scores the significance of the conclusion to my reconstructed Kantianproof of realism (sans phrase). This proof entails realism, broadly construed,about molar objects and events in our environs. Showing why Kantsidealism is coherent also reveals some very important, though widelyneglected features of Kants semantics. Kants semantics are important forhis reply to global perceptual skepticism. Fortunately, my criticisms oftranscendental idealism do not undermine Kants semantics. Instead itindicates that Kants semantics is separable from his transcendentalidealism, and so is available for the revised transcendental proof of realism

developed here.In Chapter Three I argue that Kant was mistaken that transcendental

conditions of possible experience require transcendental idealism. Ifurther argue that Kant can be shown to be mistaken on the basis of hisown transcendental proofs. I defend these claims by analyzing a widelyneglected doctrine of Kants, the transcendental affinity of the manifoldof [sensory] intuition. I argue for six claims: (1) This doctrine remains

vital to the second edition of the Critique, even though many passages onthe topic were omitted from that edition. (2) Kants link between tran-scendental idealism and transcendental arguments is substantive, notmethodological. (3) Kants views on transcendental affinity show that

there are non-subjective, transcendental materialconditions for the possi-bility of unified self-conscious experience. (4) These conditions andKants arguments for them directly undermine Kants own arguments fortranscendental idealism. (5) These points reveal some serious flaws in

Allisons defense of Kants idealism. (6) Realists of any stripe have muchto learn from Kants transcendental analysis of the conditions of unifiedself-conscious experience, because Kants doctrine of the transcendental

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Analytic preoccupation with Kants Second Analogy, and general neglect of the7

Third, began with Strawson (1966) and Beck (1967); it persists, e.g., in Van Cleve(1999) and Stern (1999b, 2000).

affinity of the manifold of intuition provides a sound argument supportingthe conclusion of his Refutation of Empirical Idealism, that inner experi-ence in general is only possible through outer experience in general.Indeed, Kants analysis of transcendental affinity provides a transcenden-tal proof of (not from) mental content externalism.

Chapters Four through Six develop a second criticism of Transcenden-tal Idealism internal to Kants first Critique. Famously, one of Kantscentral aims is to justify our causal judgments about spatio-temporalobjects and events, and thus to answer Humes skepticism about our

knowledge of or beliefs about such relations. The standard view amongAnglophone Kant scholars is that Kants Transcendental Deduction ofthe category of causality fails, and that a sound argument to justify ourcausal judgments can be found, if at all, in the Analogies of Experience,especially the Second Analogy, which is almost universally supposedly tocontain Kants answer to Humes skepticism about causality. However,Strawson condemned Kants argument as a non-sequitur of numbinggrossness; a charge to which Beck (among others) responded vigorously.

Kants justification of causal judgments in the Analogies is examined inchapter Four. This examination requires pursuing Kants analysis of causaljudgments much further into hisMetaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

(MAdN, or Foundations for short). These further issues are considered inchapters Five and Six. One main point is that Kant was far more subtleabout the issues pertaining to causal judgment than either his commenta-tors, or other philosophers addressing these issues. On this topic, philoso-phers have much to learn from some careful Kant scholarship. Kantsanswer to Hume is notprovided by the Second Analogy! Kants three

Analogies of Experience form an integrated set; no one of the principlesof causal judgment defended in the Analogies can be used without con-joint use of the other two. This important fact has been widely disre-garded, although Guyer (1987) clearly identified it. In chapter Four I7

further develop Guyers point, arguing that the integration of the three

Analogies is even deeper, more thorough, and more important than herecognized. Ultimately, the integrity of the principles of the three Analo-gies entails that we can only make legitimate causal judgments aboutspatio-temporal objects and events.

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Among Anglophone commentators, Kant's systematic hierarchy, in which8

transcendental philosophy grounds Critical metaphysics, which in turn groundsempirical physics (Frster 1989a, Dahlstrom 1991, Fulda & Stolzenberg, 2001) hasbeen widely dismissed or neglected, which has impoverished our understanding ofKant's philosophy. I hope the present book may contribute to correcting thisoversight.

Reexamining these issues about causal judgment reveals absolutelyfundamental points about Kants justification of causal judgments, includ-ing a fundamental flaw in the justification provided in the first Critique, aflaw Kant himself recognized. In 1787 and 1792 Kant noticed two basicproblems with his Foundations. Their only solution is to divorce metaphys-ics from mathematics. When Kant did this in 1798, it opened a crucialgap, not only in the Foundations, but in the Critical system as a whole. Whyis the Foundationsso important to Kants Critical philosophy? The Critiqueof Pure Reasondefends the general causal principle that every event has a

cause. However, the Analogies of Experience require the specific principlethat everyphysicalevent has an externalcause. This principle is not de-fended in the first Critiquenor is it often identified or defended (ratherthan assumed) in other philosophical anlayses of causality. Only in theFoundationsdoes Kant first distinguish these two causal principles, andonly there does he attempt to justify the second, specific principle. Kantsdefense of this specific causal principle in the Foundationsis coupled withan important shift in Kants view of the metaphysical basis of his tran-scendental philosophy, and with an ineluctably empirical basis of meta-physics. These two results, derived from central principles of KantsCritical philosophy, subvert the fundamental structure of Kants system of

transcendental philosophy (see 35, 41, 48): transcendental philosophycannot have its intended priority over Kants Critical metaphysics.8

Kants difficulties do not end there. Careful examination in chapterFive shows that Kants justification of the specific causal thesis, that allphysical events have an external cause, is irreparably flawed. According toKant, justifying the application of mathematics to objects in naturalscience requires metaphysically constructing the concept of matter. Kantdevelops these constructions in the Foundations. Kants specific aim is todevelop a dynamic theory of matter to replace corpuscular theory. In thePreface to the FoundationsKant claims to completely exhaust the meta-physical doctrine of body. However, in the General Remark to Dynam-

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ics (MAdN, ch. 2) Kant admits that once matter is reconceived as basicforces, it is impossible to construct the concept of matter.

I argue that Kants admission is only the tip of the problem. I showthat Kants proof that matter consists of forces is fallacious. I then re-analyze and substantiate the circularity in Kants definition of density.

These two fundamental problems demonstrate the untenability of Kantsmetaphysical method, and they require the radical revision of the relationbetween mathematics and metaphysics Kant undertakes in his opus postum-um. I show that some of Kants most surprising and critical later claims

about the Critical philosophy are correct, and that they require the sorts ofremedies Kant contemplates in the opus postumum.

These are very significant findings, at least within Kants Criticalphilosophy. However, there are further difficulties. A key aim of Kantsfirst Critiqueis to justify Newtonian mechanics by showing how physics asa rational science is possible. According to Kants Foundations, a properscience is organized according to rational principles and has a pure a priorirational part, its metaphysical foundation. In the second edition Preface tothe first Critique, Kant claims that his account of time explains the a prioripossibility of Newtons laws of motion. I argue that Kants proof of thelaw of inertia fails, and that this casts grave doubt on Kants enterprise of

providinga priorifoundations for Newtons physics. Hence even if Kantstranscendental and metaphysical analyses of causal judgment were sound,they would fail to achieve another of Kants key aims. More importantly,the failure of Kants proof of the law of inertia also marks the failure ofKants transcendental idealist proof of the specific causal thesis, that everyphysical event has an external cause. Thus Kants transcendental idealismfails to deliver Kants promised answer to Hume. Viewed systematically,Kants Critical Metaphysics also cannot have its intended priority overphysical science and empirical fact.

The irreparable flaw in Kants metaphysical proof of the law of inertiaunderscores the failure of Kants attempt to underwrite physics by philos-

ophy, and strongly suggests the impossibility of providing such philosoph-ical foundations of physics, whether transcendental or metaphysical (inKants Critical sense of the term). These findings strongly reinforce thephilosophical turn, away from Kants foundational programme, based inhis untenable and systematically inadequate transcendental idealism,towards a broadly realist approach to epistemology. Unique to my devel-opment of this theme is that this turn toward realism can and ought to

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of them prior to 1781) that alone provide the necessary framework withinwhich human beings can so much as have beliefs or consider questionsabout their justificatory status. Kant was a staunch externalist avant la lettre.Kants externalism, however, does not beg the question against globalperceptual skepticism: Kants externalism need only be true, it need not beknown to be true, to serve the role Kant assigns it in his transcendentalproofs, in which Kant does not, and need not, appeal to his externalism asa premise.

I contend that Kants attempts to eliminate the possibility of alterna-

tives to the specific causal principle, that every physical event has anexternal cause, are excessively preoccupied with the infallibilist notion ofjustification that is central to Cartesian-Humean skepticism, and to Kantsdemonstrative, apodictic ideals of transcendental, metaphysical andsystematic knowledge. The proper solution to the problems about causaljudgment lies instead in developing further our understanding and use ofKants transcendental reflection and his semantics of cognitive reference.In principle the alternatives to the specific causal principle are cognitivelytranscendent, idle metaphysical speculations. The solution to these worrieslies in appreciating both the strengths and the limits of our cognitivesituation as human beings. Identifying and appreciating these is precisely

the aim of transcendental reflection. If we appreciate these, we canunderstand, assess, and accept a revised, genuinely Kantian transcendentalproof of transeunt causality in the form of the metaphysical causal princi-ple. This provides a genuinely transcendental proof of realism sans phrase.

Recent devotees of analytic transcendental arguments have foundKants response to perceptual skepticism wanting, a view prominentlyadvocated by Stroud. I argue that Kants semantics of cognitive referencesuffice to show that global perceptual skepticism is a prime instance oftranscendental illusion. Demonstrating this reveals several key assump-tions and oversights in Strouds presentation of global perceptual skepti-

cism. This shows that such skepticism is not at all the innocent, common-sensical phenomenon Stroud claims. Global perceptual skepticism restson deceit and petitio principii, in ways revealed by Kants transcendentalproof of realism.

Chapter Seven thus contends that,paceKant, transcendental idealismis not necessary for responding by transcendental proof to global percep-tual skepticism, nor is it necessary for defending the theoretical possibility

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of free rational action; instead it is a desperate gasp of a misleading anddispensable infallibilism, a view already undermined and replaced byKants falliblist new way of thinking, transcendental reflection. In sum,transcendental affinity provides a genuine transcendental proof of (notfrom) mental content externalism. This proof entails that transcendentalidealism is false, and identifies the key fallacy in Kants arguments fortranscendental idealism. Transcendental idealism also fails to underwriteKants analysis of causal judgments, because KantsMetaphysical Founda-tions of Natural Sciencefails to fill the gap Kant identified in the Critique of

Pure Reason. These shortcomings reveal that the ultimate implication ofKants own transcendental analysis of the a priori conditions for thepossibility of human experience is a transcendental proof of realism sans

phrase about physical objects. This proof is based on four integratedexternalist aspects of Kants epistemology, concerning the source ofsensations, mental content, the objects of causal judgment, and justifica-tion: Kant is a fallibilist about empirical knowledge and about epistemol-ogy.

I close with a caveat. One implication of my analysis is that we mustcarefully reconsider Kants core arguments in the Transcendental Deduc-tion. By design I do not discuss Kants Deduction extensively. The

necessary minimum is summarized in 65. I am convinced that we mustcompletely reconsider the Deduction in view of Kants account of tran-scendental reflection, in view of the constructive and critical argumentsdeveloped below, and most importantly, in view of Michael Wolffs (1995,1998, 2000) brilliant reconstruction of Kants completeness proof for his

Table of Judgments. This task requires another book.

L

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Advice about further errata is most welcome.KRW9

ERRATA9

Page Correction

111 Line 8 Insert (21) between idealism and .

114 n. 59 The cross-reference to p. 108 should read: pp. 1089.

240 Line 6 up Replace the first occurence of Analogy by Antinomy.

260 n. 53, last line Insert any between of and variety.

272 Remove inference line from between premises (8) and

(9). (Printers error)

272 Insert inference line between premises (9) and (10).

(Printers error)

279 Edwards 2004 Omit second, redundant occurence of title of the collec-

tion in which Edwards 2004 appears; omit single quotebefore first occurence of title. (Printers error)

279 Ferrini 2004 Omit first, corrupt occurence of the title in which Ferrini

2004 appears. (Printers error)