Week X: Antinomies (pp. 459-550)
General Secondary Reading (optional): Allison pp. 357-95 ; Strawson pp.175-206.
Question 1) Choose one antinomy and offer an analysis of it. Among the issues you may include in your analysis are (a) do the arguments for the thesis and antithesis both work if we assume transcendental realism, (b) is Kant's resolution of the antinomy satisfying (and what is this resolution), (c) what are the roles of reason and the understanding in generating the antinomy, (d) what is the "illusion" and what is the "error" related to the antinomy, and (e) are there other/better ways to deal with this issue than Kant's?

Secondary literature: Allison 357-65 and the sections related to your particular antinomy; Strawson 175-206 (focus on the sections most relevant to your antinomy); and find at least one further secondary source relevant to your antinomy. (For this purpose, I recommend using footnotes in Allison, but see too my guide to finding and using secondary sources.)
Question 2) Do the Antinomies provide an argument for transcendental idealism? More generally: from your reading so far, do you think transcendental idealism is defensible?

Secondary literature: Wilkerson, 180-98; Strawson, 175-206; Walker, 122-35; Allison, 1-49, 257-365, 384-395

Question 3) Do you think contemporary astrophysical theories about the limits of space or the beginning of the universe have any bearing on the conclusions of the arguments of the First Antinomy? (More generally, how successful are the arguments of the First Antinomy?)

Secondary literature: Weldon, 117-24; Swinburne, 280-4, 296-301; Strawson, 175-87, 199-206; Bennett 1974: 117-46, 151-62; Allison 366-76

Question 4) Pick one antinomy and discuss the following question: Given the arguments of the transcendental analytic, why not simply reject the thesis and affirm the antithesis? What rules out this way of solving the antinomy? What would be lost by solving the antinomy in this way?

Secondary literature: Allison 357-65 and the sections related to your particular antinomy; Strawson 175-206 (focus on the sections most relevant to your antinomy); and find at least one further secondary source relevant to your antinomy. (For this purpose, I recommend using footnotes in Allison, but see too my guide to finding and using secondary sources.)