Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

Professor Patrick Frierson

Class Meets Tuesdays, 7:30-close in Olin 154 and Wednesdays for tutorials in Olin 194 (see below)

Office Hours: Tuesday 3-5 PM, Wednesday 11-noon, Thursday 9-10 AM.

Overview: The Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most important works in the history of philosophy. In this work, Kant articulates his “transcendental idealism” and seeks to show a way to resolve the problems with both British empiricism and Continental rationalism. Martin Heidegger has explained the importance of this text as follows: “Because of the Critique of Pure Reason all preceding philosophy . . . is put in a new light, and for the period that comes after, this Critique gives rise to a new philosophical problematic.” As one of the most important philosophical texts of all time, the first Critique is a sweeping study of the nature of knowledge and reality that transformed study within metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, phenomenology, philosophy of religion, and even ethics. Getting a clear understanding of this text will illuminate both the history of philosophy prior to Kant and the history of philosophy that developed in response to his great work. At the same time, the study of the Critique of Pure Reason has proved a fruitful source of original philosophical thinking itself. In his own courses, Kant repeatedly said that he taught not philosophy, but how to philosophize. In studying Kant's most important work, we will focus not merely on learning what Kant's views were, but on learning how to think more deeply about the topics that he discusses. In that context, you will be encouraged to not only understand his views, but critique them, take them further, or draw out unintended or unexplored implications of them. You are encouraged to develop your own philosophical interpretations not only of Kant himself, but of the world that he tries to explain, the world of human “experience.”

Required Texts:

1. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, ed. Guyer and Wood, Cambridge University Press: 1998, ISBN: 0-521-65729-6.

2. Jill Vance Buroker, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press: 2006; ISBN: 0-521-61825-0

3. The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (ed. Paul Guyer), Cambridge University Press: 2010; ISBN: 0-521-71011-4.

4. Lucy Allais, Manifest Reality, Oxford University Press: 2014; ISBN: 0-198-74713-0

Course Requirements:

· Six (6) tutorial papers (1500-2200 words) [10% of grade each, 60% total]

· Six (6) peer commentaries during tutorial [20% of grade total]

· Oral participation in tutorial [15% of grade total]

· Kant Lexikon [5% of grade]

· Final paper (1800-3000 words) [Optional, can affect final grade if done well]

Kant Lexikon: Over the course of the semester, you should put together a lexicon of key Kantian terms. Each week, you should choose a minimum of three (3) terms to define. For each term, you should give your own concise definition of the term. If it is used in multiple different ways, give multiple concise definitions. You should quote at least sentence from Kant in which he uses the term and explain its use in that context. You should also have at least two additional references to places where Kant uses the term in the same way. If a secondary source defines the term (Burocker often does), you should give a reference to where it is defined in that source (and if you particularly like the definition, quote it). After the first week, you can choose to revise or expand a definition of term rather than define a new term. By the end of the semester, you need to have completed at least twenty-five (25) terms and to have revised at least ten (10) of these.

Tutorial Format: Our course is scheduled for 7:30-9:50 on Tuesday evenings, but we will only use part of this timeslot each week because this course will be conducted as a tutorial. In addition to our weekly group meetings on Tuesday, you will be divided into pairs, and each pair will meet with me once a week (probably on Wednesdays) for 60 minutes. During each of these weekly meetings, one student will be responsible for a paper discussing issues related to the reading for the day. These papers should be 1500-2200 words. For the first half of the semester, I have provided one or more questions for each week, and you should choose one of these questions to answer for your weekly papers. (If you would prefer to write on a question of your own design for one of your first three papers, you should clear that question with me in advance.) Later in the semester, you should draw on the primary and secondary sources to develop your own question for discussion. You are expected to take the assigned secondary sources into account where they are relevant, and for each paper (other than your first) you should find at least one additional secondary source. (Important: This additional source should be an academic paper or journal article, not including the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. You will be graded in part on the quality of the additional source(s) that you use, so choose well.) You must submit your paper, as well as a pdf of your additional secondary literature, to myself (by emailing to frierspr@whitman.edu) and to your partner no later than noon on the Monday preceding our scheduled meeting. Turning in papers late with have a significant negative effect on your final grade. At the end of the semester, each student will have the chance to expand one of their tutorial papers into a longer final essay (1800-3000 words). (I will comment on papers orally, as part of the tutorial itself. At your request, I will prepare written comments on your first paper and one other paper during the semester.)

On weeks that you are not writing a paper, you will be responsible for responding to your partner’s paper. You should read the paper carefully and come with specific prepared comments and questions. These comments can include criticisms of the paper as well as extensions and further applications of the arguments of the paper. As with the paper itself, these comments should reference secondary literature where relevant. You should send me an email prior to our tutorial meeting that includes a brief statement of what you take your partner’s thesis to be and that describes at least two specific comments or questions you will make on her/his paper when we meet.

Each tutorial meeting will begin with the first student reading her/his paper. Then the other student will respond, and we will have an intensive discussion of the material.

Weekly Flow: This course involves reading and rereading very difficult material and then writing about and discussion that material. It will be a lot of work, and the work will be more or less constant throughout the semester. Your overall work flow will look something like the following, using our meeting on February 1^st as an example.

Work	Paper Writer (A)	Peer Commentator (B)
Jan 22	Start doing the reading for your tutorial paper.	Finish writing your tutorial paper for our Jan 25 tutorial meeting.
Jan 23-24	Prepare comments on B’s paper.	Submit your paper by noon on the 23d, then relax and take a breather.
Jan 24, 7:30 PM	Group meeting, Olin 154	Group meeting, Olin 154
Jan 25	Tutorial meeting and keep reading for your upcoming paper. (Start looking for a good additional secondary source for the paper.)	Tutorial Meeting
Jan 26	Visit my office hours (9-10 am) to discuss paper ideas.	Start the reading for Feb 1
Jan 26-29	Write your tutorial paper.	Keep reading.
Jan. 29	Finish up your tutorial paper.	Start doing the reading for the tutorial paper we’ll discuss on Feb 8.
Jan 30, noon.	Submit your tutorial paper.	Start preparing your response to the tutorial paper.
Jan 30-31	Relax and take a breather	Prepare comments on B’s paper.
Jan 31	Group meeting, Olin 154	Group meeting, Olin 154
Feb 1	Tutorial meeting to discuss the paper you’ve been working on for more than a week!	Tutorial Meeting and keep reading for your upcoming paper.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING PRIMARY AND SECONDARY SOURCES: Reading Kant is really, really hard. He writes poorly and uses a lot of technical jargon that is hard to understand and often used in idiosyncratic and counter-intuitive ways. You will constantly be tempted to read the assigned secondary sources, and/or various internet sites or other sources that help you understand what Kant is saying, before slogging through Kant on your own. Given the pace of this class, this will be particularly tempting. DO NOT GIVE IN TO THIS TEMPTATION. This is a course in which you are learning to read hard philosophy for yourself. If you let others give you the easy interpretation first, you foreclose original insights you might have about the text, and you undermine your process of learning to engage with ideas that are particularly hard to understand. For each week, you should do the primary source reading for yourself, trying your best to understand the main points and to formulate your own interpretation. Then go to the assigned secondary sources. Then go back and reread the primary source material with your own ideas, and those of the secondary sources, in mind. Only after you have worked through all of the assigned reading on the syllabus should you look for additional secondary sources. DO NOT consult the internet for help with the reading before you have read the material assigned on the syllabus.

Schedule of Readings: For each week, there is primary material from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (given in both A/B page numbers and page numbers in the Cambridge Edition marked by CE) and secondary readings from our three secondary sources (listed by name of author/editor and page numbers). In addition to these sources, you are expected to find at least one additional source for each week. We will discuss together strategies for finding these secondary sources, and you can also consult the secondary source guide at http://people.whitman.edu/~frierspr/secondary_tips.htm

	Topic	Primary Reading	Secondary Reading	Questions
Jan 17	Introduction to Kant		Buroker 1-13
Jan 24	Prefaces and Introduction	A iii-xiv; B ii-xliv A1-16/B1-30 CE 91-152	Buroker 14-35; Guyer 21-40, 75-92; Brigitte Sassen, Kant’s Early Critics, pp. 53-58 (handout).	1. Choose one of the secondary sources for this week. Lay out her/his account of Kant’s answer to the question “How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?” and show one important error or limitation of her/his treatment. 2. Explain one objection raised in Feder and Garve’s review of Kant’s A-edition Critique and then show how Kant, in his B-Preface, tries to respond to that critique. 3. Particularly in the light of Quine’s criticisms in “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” does Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments stand up to scrutiny?
Jan 31	Transcendental Aesthetic	A19-49/B33-72; CE 155-92	Buroker 36-72, 305-309; Guyer 93-117.	1. Does Kant have a good reason to reject the “neglected alternative”? (Read Sassen pp. 93-105, especially pp. 94-100)? 2. What is the best way to understand Kant’s transcendental idealism, that is, his claim that “Our exposition therefore establishes the … ideality of space in respect of things when they are considered in themselves through reason, that is, without regard to the constitution of our sensibility” (A28/B44)? 3. How does Kant defend his transcendental idealism in the transcendental aesthetic?
Feb 7	Transcendental Logic: Metaphysical Deduction	A50-83/B74-116; CE 193-218	Buroker 73-102; Guyer 118-29; Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, pp. 133-56 (ch. 6).	1. What does the “Metaphysical Deduction” actually deduce? Is the argument for this conclusion sound? 2. How serious a problem for Kant’s deduction is the fact that modern logic is quite different from the Aristotelian logic Kant was familiar with? 3. What precisely is the relationship between categories and the forms of judgment? For example, “how many sets of concepts are there” (Buroker 99)?
Feb 14	Transcendental Deduction A	A84-130; CE 219-44	Buroker 103-15; Guyer 129-34; Ameriks, “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction as a Regressive Argument” Optional: Guyer 380-400 and selections from Heidegger	1. Does the A edition transcendental deduction “fail miserably” (Buroker 106)? If so, why? If not, how can you respond to critics’ objections? 2. What is the structure of the transcendental deduction? Is it (and if so, in what sense) a “regressive argument” (Ameriks)? 3. What is the role of the imagination in the transcendental deduction? (See too Heidegger.)
Feb 21	Transcendental Deduction B	B129-69; CE 245-65	Buroker 116-35; Guyer 139-50; Ameriks, “Kant’s Transcendental Deduction as a Regressive Argument” Optional: Guyer 380-400 and selections from Heidegger	1. Does the B edition deduction improve on the A edition? How? Does it ultimately succeed? 2. What is the structure of the transcendental deduction? 2a. Is it (and if so, in what sense) a “regressive argument” (Ameriks)? 2b. What is the relationship between §15-20 and §21-26? (Choose either 2a or 2b or some other version of question two; don’t try to answer both 2a and 2b.) 3. What kind of knowledge is it possible to have of the thinking subject? (See too Kraus.) 4. What is the role of the imagination in the transcendental deduction? (See too Heidegger.)
Feb 28	Analytic of Principles 1: Schematism, Axioms, Anticipations	A130-81/B169-224; CE 267-98	Buroker 136-62; Guyer 151-56;	1. Is the Schematism necessary in order to show how a priori synthetic judgments are possible? Why? 2. Do any of Kant’s claims in these sections conflict with his transcendental aesthetic? (For example, does his claim in the axioms of intuition that the measurement of parts precedes the whole conflict with his claim that the a priori intuition of space as a whole precedes any intuition of its parts?) 3. What is the best way to understand the relationship between categories, intuitions, and schemata? (See e.g. references to Allison, Gibbons, Guyer, and Chipman in Buroker pp. 140-2.)
Mar 7	Analogies of Experience: Substance, Causation, Reciprocity; Refutation of Idealism; (Option: Phenomena and Noumena)	A176-235/B218-94; CE 295-337 (A235-92/B294-349; CE 354-83)	Buroker 163-200; Guyer 156-67. (Optional: Guyer 168-89)	Starting with this week, you should use the assigned primary and secondary sources to identify your own questions. Look for places where secondary sources highlight disagreements, and/or for places where your reading of the text is at odds with readings in various secondary sources. (We’ll talk more about how to do this in class together.)
	SPRING BREAK	End of the analytic, where we vindicate legitimate metaphysics…	… Now for the transcendental dialectic, where…Well, you’ll just have to wait and see.	Regardless of whether your assigned tutorial is March 28 or Apr 4, you should write your paper, or at least get a good start, over break. I also recommend that you read a decent amount of Lucy Allais’s Manifest Reality
Mar 28	(Option: Phenomena and Noumena) Paralogisms; Refutation of Idealism	(A235-92/B294-349; CE 354-83) A293-405/B349-432; CE 384-458 Reread B274-79; CE 326-9	Buroker 201-25; Guyer 168-244.
Apr 4	Antinomies	A405-567/ B432-595 CE 459-550	Buroker 226-63; Guyer 245-65
Apr 11	Ideal of Pure Reason (on God) (Optional: selections from the Critique of Practical Reason and/or Critique of the Power of Judgment) NOTE: No Tuesday evening session because of Undergraduate Conference. Wednesday meetings will be unchanged.	A567-704/ B595-732; CE 551-623	Buroker 264-83; Guyer 266-89
Apr 18	Review OR Start on Lucy Allais, Manifest Reality OR Transcendental Doctrine of Method, with optional readings from Critique of Practical Reason (on the highest good) or Critique of the Power of Judgment (Introduction).	TBD Or A707-855/ B735-883; CE 627-704	TBD or Buroker 283-309; Guyer 290-326
Apr 25	Lucy Allais, Manifest Reality	Entire. (We’ll focus discussion on chapters 1-8)
May 2	Lucy Allais, Manifest Reality	Entire. (We’ll focus discussion on chapters 5-12.)
May 11	Final papers and Kant Lexikons due by noon, emailed to frierspr@whitman.edu