Abstract
Ever since Johann Georg Heinrich Feder published the Göttingen review of Kant’s first Critique in 1782, this book has been read as a specimen of transcendental idealism or even as a ‘system’ of transcendental idealism, and up to this day the characterization by Feder is quite common. For example, the best present account of Kant’s main work, by Henry Allison, goes under the title Kant’s Transcendental Idealism. An Interpretation and Defense. Garve’s review of the book, which was abridged by Feder, does not speak of a system of transcendental idealism.
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Notes
- 1.
Feder (1825: 119). His own words are: “welches wohl am meisten beleidigt haben mag, ich aber am wenigsten bereue.”
- 2.
Note that the words after the comma are not given in the Guyer/Wood translation (Kant 1998).
- 3.
Notice this order of time and space, which is strangely inverted in the Guyer/Wood translation (Kant 1998).
- 4.
Dasein or Wirklichkeit.
- 5.
We must excuse Guyer and Wood here, because even in German the phrase is hardly clear: “[…] sie außer unseren Gedanken keine an sich gegründete Existenz haben” (A491=B519).
- 6.
See, e.g., the footnote on Bxxvi. Kant calls this “reale Möglichkeit”, meaning the possibility of things as contrasted with that of concepts. But when we translate it as ‘real possibility’ we must avoid mistaking ‘real’ for ‘actual’, which would make the phrase nonsensical.
- 7.
In Kant (2004).
- 8.
In a draft version of this passage Kant had written “vor sich selbst” (“by itself” instead of “its”), which indicates that he wanted to distinguish the role of his idealism in solving the problem of synthetic a priori cognition from its role as a key to solving the cosmological dialectic, which he considered as a confirmation of his doctrine in the Transcendental Aesthetic (see AA 23: 62).
- 9.
Or, rather, “undoubted [ungezweifelt]”; Kemp Smith has “have […] freedom from doubt”.
- 10.
Note that Kant here uses the term “organon” in a modified sense of the Aristotelian tradition. Cf. A61=B86 and A12=B26.
- 11.
“Ontology is the science of the more general predicates of the thing.”
- 12.
“First principles of human cognition.”
- 13.
Of course we have to take this for Kant’s words.
- 14.
Kant (1997: 116, emphasis added).
- 15.
Kant (1997: 114ff.)
- 16.
I would prefer to translate “Dinge überhaupt” as “things as such” for reasons that will presently become obvious.
- 17.
Which in German would be „die Wissenschaft der allgemeineren Prädikate des Dinges”.
- 18.
This could be due to Mrongovius.
- 19.
I have changed Ameriks’ and Naragon’s translation of this sentence in order to come closer to Mrongovius’ German.
- 20.
Kant (1997: 140).
- 21.
Kant (1997: 140, my italics).
- 22.
This is, of course, an allusion to Kant’s doctrine of transcendental schematism.
- 23.
A79=B105; my italics. I replaced Guyer’s and Wood’s “pertain to” (for “gehen auf”) by “refer to”, which is what Kant means.
- 24.
B133.
- 25.
This is, of course, for any particular object only a necessary, not a sufficient condition.
- 26.
An example in general logic (in Kant’s sense) would be: I can mistake a tree for a man, but I can never be mistaken in assuming that it is an object of my judgement.
References
Feder, J. G. H. 1825. Leben, Natur und Grundsätze. Leipzig: Schwickert.
Kant, I. 1997. Lectures on Metaphysics. Trans. and ed. K. Ameriks and S. Naragon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and ed. P. Guyer and A. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, I. 2004. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Trans. and ed. G. Hatfield. Revised edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Drs. M.J.A. Romijn for his very competent help in the joint effort of transforming my spoken words into readable English. The remaining imperfections are, of course, mine.
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Baum, M. (2010). Objects and Objectivity in Kant’s First Critique . In: Schulting, D., Verburgt, J. (eds) Kant's Idealism. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 66. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9719-4_3
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