KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON
Spring 2007: Philosophy 615/415
Professor Ernesto V. Garcia, Syracuse University
Class meetings: MW, 1-2:45 p.m.
E-mail: evgarc01@syr.edu
Office: 523 Hall of Languages, ext. 3-2519
Office hours: M, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m. and by appointment
This course offers a basic introduction to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason [KrV], one of the most important texts in Western philosophy. Some of the main topics include: Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism, space and time, self-consciousness, the nature of objectivity, causality, external world skepticism, arguments for the existence of the soul and God, freedom and determinism, morality, and the distinction between opinion, faith, and knowledge. Kant’s views will be read in light of his relationship with various modern philosophers, including Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Hume, and Berkeley.
Required texts
Critique of Pure Reason [KrV], Immanuel Kant (Cambridge UP, 1997).
Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, Sebastian Gardner (Routledge, 1999)
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Critical Essays, ed. by Patricia Kitcher (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998) [K]
Commentary to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith (Humanities Press, 1992)
Recommended texts
Kant's Transcendental Idealism, Henry Allison
Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Paul Guyer
Kant and the Capacity to Judge, Beatrice Longuenesse
The Bounds of Sense, P.F. Strawson
Problems from Kant, James van Cleve
A Companion to Kant, ed. by Graham Bird
Cambridge Companion to Kant, ed. by Paul Guyer
Class requirements
For undergraduate students:
20% Class participation and Blackboard weekly posts ** [posted on http://blackboard.syr.edu]
50% 2 short papers (4-6 pp.)
30% Final exam
For graduate students:
Class participation
1 class presentation or Blackboard weekly posts (see above)
2 short papers (8-10 pp.) or 1 long term paper (15-20 pp.) with appropriate use of secondary literature
CLASS READINGS
W, 1/17
Introductory class: Overview of KrV
A-Preface (6 pp.)
Required:
KrV, Avii-Axxii [99-105]
M, 1/22
A and B-Introduction: Kant’s ‘Copernican Revolution’ and basic framework
Required:
A-Introduction
B-Preface, Bvii-xxii [106-113]
B-Introduction, B1-A16/B30 [136-152]
Recommended:
Beck, “Kant’s Theory of Definition”
Beck, “Can Kant’s Synthetic Judgments Be Made Analytic?”
Van Cleve, Problems from Kant, Ch. 2
W, 1/24
A- and B-Introduction (cont)
M, 1/29
Transcendental Aesthetic (I): Metaphysical Exposition of Space
Required:
KrV, A19/B33-A30/B45 [172-178]
Gardner (75-79) and Kemp Smith (99-109)
Recommended:
Falkenstein, “Was Kant a Nativist?” [K]
Warren, “Kant and the Apriority of Space”
W, 1/31
Metaphysical Exposition of Space (cont)
M, 2/5
Transcendental Aesthetic (II): Transcendental Exposition of Space, Time
Required:
Leibniz, New Essays (excerpt) [414]
KrV, A31/B45-A-41/B47 [178-184, skim sections on ‘Time’]
Prolegomena, First Part, 4:280-294 [32-46]
KrV, A713/B741-A738/B766 [630-643, focus mainly on mathematics]
Recommended:
Shabel, “Kant’s Argument from Geometry"
W, 2/ 7
Introduction and Transcendental Analytic: ‘Analytic of Concepts’ to the ‘Clue’: Kant on Cognition, Truth, the Table of Judgments, and the Categories
Required:
KrV, A50/B74-B116 [193-218]
Recommended:
Longuenesse, “Kant on the a priori concepts: The metaphysical deduction of the categories”
M, 2/12
Transcendental Analytic A-Deduction and 1772 Letter to Herz: The ‘Subjective’ Deduction’
Required:
Kant letter to Herz in 1772
KrV, A84-A130 [219-244] (focusing on A84-A110, pp. 219-234)
Recommended:
Henrich, “Kant’s Notion of a Deduction”
Wolff, “A Reconstruction of the Argument of the Subjective Deduction”
W, 2/14
Subjective Deduction
M, 2/19
Transcendental Analytic A-Deduction: ‘Objective Deduction’, Conclusion
Required:
KrV, Review A-Deduction, esp. A110-A130 (234-244)
Leibniz selections (on perception/apperception)
Recommended:
Kitcher, “Kant’s Philosophy of the Cognitive Mind”
W, 2/21
Transcendental Analytic B-Deduction: 1st Step, Objective Validity vs. Objective Reality, Judgments, and the Nature of Experience
Required:
Prolegomena, 4:294-306 [47-59]
KrV, B129-143, §§15-20 [245-252 (253-266 optional)]
Recommended:
Henrich, “The Proof-Structure of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction”
Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, Ch. 7
M, 2/26
Transcendental Analytic B-Deduction: 2nd Step, The Overall Relationship between the A- and B-Deductions
Required:
Feder-Garve Review
Review KrV, B143-B169, §§21-27 [253-266]
Recommended:
Ameriks, “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction as a Regressive Argument” [K]
Beck, “Did the Sage of Königsberg Have No Dreams?” [K]
Engstrom, “The Transcendental Deduction and Skepticism”
W, 2/28
Transcendental Analytic: Analytic of Principles, Schematism: On the Application of the Categories to Intuition
Required:
KrV, A130-B169-A147/B187 [267-277]
Kant, Jäsche Logic (excerpts)
Recommended:
Pendelbury, “Making Sense of Kant’s Schematism”
M, 3/5
Transcendental Analytic: System of All Principles of Pure Understanding up to Axioms/Anticipations and 1st Analogy: Analytic and Synthetic Judgments, The Nature of Substance
Required:
KrV, A148/B187-A180/B232 [278-304]
Recommended:
van Cleve, “Substance, Matter, and Kant’s First Analogy”
W, 3/7
Transcendental Analytic: Hume on the Problem of Causation
Required:
Hume, Treatise, (excerpt)
Hume, Enquiry, Sections IV-V, VI (excerpt)
Kant, Prol. Intro (excerpt)
KrV, A188/B232-B256/A211 [304-316]
Recommended:
Beck, “Once More Unto the Breach: Kant’s Answer to Hume Again”
3/12-3/16 SPRING BREAK
M, 3/19
Transcendental Analytic: Kant’s 2nd Analogy (cont.)
Required:
KrV, Review of 2nd Analogy, A188/B232-B256/A211 [304-316]
Recommended:
Guyer, “Kant’s Second Analogy: Objects, Events and Causal Laws”
W, 3/21
Transcendental Analytic: Conclusion of 2nd Analogy/3rd Analogy
Required:
KrV, A211/B257-A218/B265 [316-321]
Recommended
Watkins, "Kant's Third Analogy of Experience"
M, 3/26
Postulates and Refutation of Idealism: Kant and External World Skepticism
Required:
Feder-Garve Review
KrV, A-Edition refutation (4th Paralogism), A367-380 [425-431]
KrV, Intro, Bxxxix footnote [121-122]
KrV, A218/B266-B-294 [321-337]
Recommended:
Proleogmena, 4:372-380 [126-134]
Beiser, German Idealism, Chs. 3 and 6
Bennett, Kant’s Analytic, Ch. 14
Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Ch. 13
M. Wilson, “Kant and the Dogmatic Idealism of Berkeley”
W, 3/28
Transcendental Analytic: On the Ground of the Distinction of All Objects into Phenomena and Noumena – Kant’s General Remarks on the Transcendental Aesthetic, Transcendental Idealism
Required:
Leibniz/Clarke excerpts
KrV, Transcendental Aesthetic, A42/B59-B73 [185-192]
KrV, A235/B294-A260/B315 [354-365]
Recommended:
Shabel, “Kant’s Argument from Geometry”
Strawson, “The Metaphysics of Transcendental Idealism” [K]
M, 4/2
Transcendental Analytic: On the Ground of the Distinction of All Objects into Phenomena and Noumena – Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (II)
Required:
Review KrV, A235/B294-A260/B315 [354-365]
Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, pp. 181-217 [K]
Recommended:
Guyer, “The Rehabilitation of Transcendental Idealism?”
W, 4/4
Transcendental Analytic ‘Appendix’: Critique of Leibniz in the Amphiboly
Required:
Leibniz selections
KrV, A260/B316-A292/B349 [366-383]
Recommended:
C. Wilson, “Confused Perceptions, Darkened Concepts: Some Features of Kant’s Leibniz-Critique”
M. Wilson, “Confused vs. Distinct Perceptions in Leibniz: Consciousness, Representation, and God’s Mind”
Langton, Kantian Humility, Ch. 4
M, 4/9
Transcendental Dialectic: Introduction and Concepts of Pure Reason or the “Ideas”, Paralogisms
Required:
KrV A293/B249-A338/B396 [384-408]
KrV, B406-B432 [445-458]
Recommended:
Prol. 4:327-333 [81-87]
Ameriks, “The Critique of Metaphysics”
Rosefeldt, “Kant’s Self: Real Entity and Logical Identity”
H.J. Walsh, “Kant on Self-Knowledge”
W, 4/11
Transcendental Dialectic: Summary of Paralogisms, Antinomies 1-2
Required:
KrV, A405/B432-A443/B471 [459-483]
Recommended:
al-Azm, Origins of Kant's Arguments in the Antinomies (excerpts)
Michelle Grier, “The Logic of Illusion and the Antinomies”
Bennett, “The Age and Size of the World”
M, 4/16
Transcendental Dialectic: Antinomy 3 (cont.) and 4 (36 pp.), Conclusion
Required:
KrV, A444/B472 - A567/B595 [484-550]
Recommended:
Wood, “Kant’s Compatibilism” [K]
Allison, Kant’s Theory of Freedom, Ch. 1
W, 4/18
Transcendental Dialectic: The Ideal of Pure Reason and Proofs for and against Existence of God
Required:
KrV, A567/B595- [551-589]
Recommended:
Wood, “Rational Theology, Moral Faith, and Religion”
M, 4/23
Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic: On the Regulative Use of the Ideas of Pure Reason
Required:
KrV, A642/B670-A704/B732 [590-623]
Recommended:
Warternberg, “Reason and the Practice of Science”
Neiman, The Unity of Reason, Ch. 2
Kitcher, "Projecting the Order of Nature"
W, 4/25
Doctrine of Method, Discipline of Pure Reason, Canon of Pure Reason
Required:
KrV A795/B823-A831/B8598 [672-690]
Recommended
Shabel, "Kant's Philosophy of Mathematics”
Guyer, "The Unity of Reason: Pure Reason as Practical Reason in Kant's Early Conception of the Transcendental Dialectic"
M, 4/30
Doctrine of Method: Finish up Canon, Architectonic and History of Pure Reason, Class Summary
Required:
KrV, A832/B860-A855/B883 [691-704]