An Analysis of Solipsism in Kant’s Critique of Pure...

An Analysis of Solipsism in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason My goal is to examine solipsism and discover how Immanuel Kants Transcendental Idealism could be subject to a charge of being solipsistic. Following this, I will briefly review the destructive impact this charge would have on certain of Kant’s positions. After the case for solipsism is made, I intend to describe a possible line of rebuttal from Kant’s perspective that could be made to the charge. The issue of solipsism is intriguing in that it seems to be universally rejected as a basis of metaphysics. Yet, the modern tradition has had difficulty supporting this rejection. Antony Flew defines solipsism as, The theory that I am the sole existent. To be a solipsist I†¦show more content†¦Thereafter, the modern tradition was challenged to prove the existence of an external world and the existence of other minds. Once we concede...that the immediate objects of sense experience are mind-dependent (ideas, impressions, sense data, etc.), it is indeed questionable whether we can argue validly to the existence or nature of a mind-independent external world. (Flew: 330) Within the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant affirms that our capacity to perceive objects in the external world is dependent upon the subjects imposition of certain conditions of the possibility of experience. Time, space and the categories are among these. Thus, human beings are capable of viewing only the appearance and not things as they are in themselves. Now a thing in itself cannot be known through mere relations; and we may therefore conclude that since outer sense gives us nothing but mere relations, this sense can contain in its representation only the relation of an object to the subject, and not the inner properties of the object in itself. This also holds true of inner sense, not only because the representations of the outer senses constitute the proper material with which we occupy our mind, but because the time in which we set these representations, which is itself antecedent to the consciousness of them in experience, and which underlies them as the formal condition of the mode in which we posit them in theShow MoreRelatedBranches of Philosophy8343 Words   |  34 Pagessuch as numbers, elements, universals, and gods; the analysis of patterns of reasoning and argument; the nature of the good life and the importance of understanding and knowledge in order to pursue it; the explication of the concept of justice, and its rel ation to various political systems[8]. In this period the crucial features of the philosophical method were established: a critical approach to received or established views, and the appeal to reason and argumentation. [pic] [pic] St. Thomas AquinasRead MoreDid Wordsworth or Coleridge Have Greater Influence on Modern Criticism?8605 Words   |  35 Pagesyet still very much interested in reason and analysis.  The Romantics often define themselves in opposition to the Age of Reason.  They borrow some ideas from it, but basically they are a kind of revolution, a reaction against what was going on in the age before. Now although they are still interested in mental faculties, like epistemology, they replace the 18th emphasis onanalysis, with a new focus on  synthesis[2]. In addition, they privilege imagination over reason and judgment. Of course, we talked