Kantian Review

Table of Contents - July 2012 - Volume 17, Issue 02  

Articles

Kant's Refutation of Idealism: Once More Unto the Breach

Georges Dickera1 c1

a1 The College at Brockport, State University of New York

Abstract

In ‘Kant's Refutation of Idealism’ (Noûs, 47), I defend a version of the Refutation, pioneered by Paul Guyer in Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, whose core idea is that the only way that one can know the order of one's own past experiences, except in certain rare cases, is by correlating them with the successive states of perceived external objects that caused the experiences. Andrew Chignell has offered a probing critique of my reconstruction of Kant's argument (Philosophical Quarterly, 60), and I have responded (Philosophical Quarterly, 61). In a rebuttal of my response, Chignell raises three new objections (Philosophical Quarterly, 61). My purpose in this paper is to reply to these.

Keywords

  • Jonathan Bennett;
  • causal relation;
  • Andrew Chignell;
  • Paul Guyer;
  • induction;
  • Immanuel Kant;
  • memory;
  • mental clock;
  • P. F. Strawson;
  • temporal succession

Correspondence:

c1 Email: gdicker@brockport.edu