Constituting Objectivity

In recent years, many philosophers of modern physics came to the conclusion that the problem of how objectivity is constituted (rather than merely given) can no longer be avoided, and therefore that a transcendental approach in the spirit of Kant is now philosophically relevant. The usual excuse for skipping this task is that the historical form given by Kant to transcendental epistemology has been challenged by Relativity and Quantum Physics. However, the true challenge is not to force modern physics into a rigidly construed static version of Kant’s philosophy, but to provide Kant’s method with flexibility and generality. In this book, the top specialists of the field pin down the methodological core of transcendental epistemology that must be used in order to throw light on the foundations of modern physics. First, the basic tools Kant used for his transcendental reading of Newtonian Mechanics are examined, and then early transcendental approaches of Relativistic and Quantum Physics are revisited. Transcendental procedures are also applied to contemporary physics, and this renewed transcendental interpretation is finally compared with structural realism and constructive empiricism. The book will be of interest to scientists, historians and philosophers who are involved in the foundational problems of modern physics.

In recent years, many philosophers of modern physics came to the conclusion that the problem of how objectivity is constituted (rather than merely given) can no longer be avoided, and therefore that a transcendental approach in the spirit of Kant is now philosophically relevant. The usual excuse for skipping this task is that the historical form given by Kant to transcendental epistemology has been challenged by Relativity and Quantum Physics. However, the true challenge is not to force modern physics into a rigidly construed static version of Kant’s philosophy, but to provide Kant’s method with flexibility and generality. In this book, the top specialists of the field pin down the methodological core of transcendental epistemology that must be used in order to throw light on the foundations of modern physics. First, the basic tools Kant used for his transcendental reading of Newtonian Mechanics are examined, and then early transcendental approaches of Relativistic and Quantum Physics are revisited. Transcendental procedures are also applied to contemporary physics, and this renewed transcendental interpretation is finally compared with structural realism and constructive empiricism. The book will be of interest to scientists, historians and philosophers who are involved in the foundational problems of modern physics.

Since the beginning of philosophy, philosophers have sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. This book uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for nonquestion-begging support for claims to objective truth, and that therefore we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges. One key lesson is that a constructive, explanatory approach to philosophy must change the subject from skeptic-resistant reasons to perspectival reasons arising from variable semantic commitments and instrumental, purpose-relative considerations. The book lays foundations for such a reorientation of philosophy, treating fundamental methodological issues in ontology, epistemology, the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of practical rationality. It explains how certain perennial debates in philosophy rest not on genuine disagreement, but on conceptual diversity: talk about different matters. The book shows how acknowledgment of conceptual diversity can resolve a range of traditional disputes in philosophy. It also explains why philosophers need not anchor their discipline in the physicalism of the natural sciences.

The first part of this book is of an epistemological nature and develops an original theory of scientific objectivity, understood in a weak sense (as intersubjective agreement among the specialists) and a strong sense (as having precise concrete referents). In both cases it relies upon the adoption of operational criteria designed within the particular perspective under which any single science considers reality. The “object” so attained has a proper ontological status, dependent on the specific character of the criteria of reference (regional ontologies). This justifies a form of scientific realism. Such perspectives are also the result of a complex cultural-historical situation. The awareness of such a “historical determinacy” of science justifies including in the philosophy of science the problems of ethics of science, relations of science with metaphysics and social dimensions of science that overstep the traditional restriction of the philosophy of science to an epistemology of science. It is to this “context” that the second part of the book is devoted.

In the last decade, too many American theologians have been preoc cupied with charting and interpreting in a superficial manner the move ments of the newest stars in the Continental theological firmament. This preoccupation contributed much, unfortunately, to that faddism that was so characteristic of American theology in the Sixties, the period imme diately following the passing of a generation of theological giants like Barth, Bultmann, Tillich, Gogarten, and the Niebuhrs. There has seldom been a period in which so many promissory notes were issued so care lessly onto the intellectual market, notes that were not, and perhaps could not, have been redeemed. Given this temper of the times, it is difficult to account for the almost total neglect of the work of Professor Fritz Burl of Basel, whose "theolo gy of existence" is one of the most interesting and impressive contempo rary attempts to interpret the myths and symbols of the Christian faith in terms of an existentialist philosophy. Even if one were to apply that most superficial, though for many apparently decisive, criterion of "radicality," one might have expected his work to attract some sustained attention be cause Buri has consistently posed a radical solution to most of the hotly debated issues of the times: the problem of demythologization, the mean ing of theological language, the problems raised by historical criticism, and the meaning of the historical Jesus for faith, to mention a few.

This book is a study of the second-edition version of the 'Transcendental Deduction' (the so-called 'B-Deduction'), which is one of the most important and obscure sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By way of a close analysis of the B-Deduction, Adam Dickerson makes the distinctive claim that the Deduction is crucially concerned with the problem of making intelligible the unity possessed by complex representations - a problem that is the representationalist parallel of the semantic problem of the unity of the proposition. Along the way he discusses most of the key themes in Kant's theory of knowledge, including the nature of thought and representation, the notion of objectivity, and the way in which the mind structures our experience of the world.

Originally published in 1986. This work remains of compelling interest to those concerned with the natural sciences and their social problems. It puts forward original and unorthodox ideas about the philosophy of and sociology of science, starting from the conviction that modern societies face deep problems arising from unresolved dilemmas about the meaning, content and technical applications of the theories of nature they employ. The book draws on insights developed within a variety of traditions to explore these problems, especially the work of Edmund Husserl and modern critical theory.

We shall be concemed in the following pages with some issues common to the systems of both Kant and Husserl. Given the structured nature of philosophical systems, however, the topics cannot be isolated from the systems in which they function, imbuing them in each case with a specific direction. An examination of the basic concept of Anschauung will indicate the difference between the two systems. To be sure, Anschauung points in both to the visual aspect of knowledge, an element inherent in the classical concept of theoria, which is related to the word horao, to see. In Kant, however, the visual aspect is not the highest component of cognition, since it is related to sensuality. Anschauung belongs to the synthesis and not the summit of knowledge. It is given before thinking, and is present in the ongoing search for relations between data. In Kant's understanding, pure reason can be related to data only through the medium of understanding. In this sense, we could say that Anschauung, being a variation of Schau, is that which can be perceived with the eyes. In Kant's system, it points to the presence of that which is given and thus to reception, whereas knowledge proper is a synthesis of reception and spontaneity .