Kant's Theory of Knowledge

Abstract

This book expounds, analyzes, and appraises the constructive part of Kant’s theory of knowledge, as presented in the Prefaces, Introduction, Transcendental Aesthetic, and especially the Transcendental Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Drawing on the work of influential recent Kant commentators like Robert Paul Wolff, Peter F. Strawson, Paul Guyer, Jonathan Bennett, Henry Allison, and James Van Cleve, Dicker reconstructs the central argument of the Analytic that spans the first and second edition versions of the Transcendental Deduction and the Second Analogy of Experience. The book also contains detailed analyses of key sections of the Critiquethat enrich or supplement the central argument, such as the First Analogy and the Refutation of Idealism. As well, it offers balanced and detailed analyses of sections of the Critique that Kant took to be important but that are less closely tied to its central argument, including the Metaphysical Deduction, the Schematism, the Axioms of Intuition, the Anticipations of Perception, the Postulates of Empirical Thought, and the Third Analogy. Throughout the book, the writing is both rigorous and highly accessible. All the major arguments are reconstructed in numbered steps, in such a way that their premises are perspicuous and their validity easily seen by basic rules of sentential logic. The book is designed to be read as a companion to the constructive first half the Critique, and to be useful to undergraduate and graduate students studying Kant and to their professors. Its analyses of major Kantian arguments will be of interest to Kant scholars as well.