Transcendental Idealism and Ontological Agnosticism

Abstract

I would now like to substantiate my claim from the previous chapter that the problems with Kant’s attempt to circumvent ontology with epistemology are dialectically more complex than Bhaskar’s general argument recognizes. As I will try to show in this chapter, much of this hinges on the way in which transcendental idealism, and specifically the status of appearances, is interpreted. Since the initial reception of the Critique of Pure Reason transcendental idealism has been understood and criticized as a form of metaphysical idealism regarding the subjective status of space, time, and the objects within them, despite Kant’s protestations to the contrary. In recent years, some commentators (for example, Arthur Collins, Frederick Beiser, and Henry Allison1) have attempted to counter this interpretation by presenting transcendental idealism as a primarily epistemological doctrine rather than a metaphysical one. They have been opposed by contemporaries (for example, Paul Guyer, Rae Langton, and Kenneth Westphal2) who, in one way or another, insist on the metaphysical character of transcendental idealism.