Abstract

Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. The paper explores this by analysis of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical (i.e. nonmetaphysical) and transcendental (metaphysical) realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits.

Highlights

  • The aim of this paper is to show that the Critique of pure Reason is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism

  • Kant invents the common philosophical term ‘realism’. He lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning external reality

  • He rather claims that transcendental idealism and empirical realism form a unity, i.e., only in combination they demonstrate that objects of external perception are real: Transcendental idealists hold that the objects as we represent them in space and time are appearances and not things-in-themselves

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Summary

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to show that the Critique of pure Reason is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. For many years even Kant scholarship has ignored the fact that Kant is a self-declared idealist and a self-declared realist.1 In a way, this is surprising, all the more since Kant, in the Fourth Paralogism of the Critique of pure Reason (CPR A 366-380), introduces the concept “realism” (CPR A 369) to philosophy and offers an astute account of paradigmatic forms of realism, i.e., empirical and transcendental realism.. 4. the aim of this paper is modest: On the backdrop of the historical finding that Kant introduces ‘realism’ and makes this concept available for general philosophical usage, I argue that he distinguishes principal forms of realism and that ipso facto Kant’s pertinent distinction to a greater or lesser extent has shaped the theoretical landscape of philosophical realism to the present-day

Shaping the landscape: empirical and transcendental realism
Empirical realism
Transcendental realism
Classifying realism: non‐metaphysical and metaphysical
Applying Kant’s classificatory criteria
The wider scope of Kant’s classification
Concluding remarks: expanding the classification
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