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For the last 100 years historians have denigrated the psychology of the Critique of Pure Reason. In opposition, Patricia Kitcher argues that we can only understand the deduction of the categories in terms of Kant's attempt to fathom the psychological prerequisites of thought, and that this investigation illuminates thinking itself. Kant tried to understand the "task environment" of knowledge and thought: Given the data we acquire and the scientific generalizations we make, what basic cognitive capacities are necessary to perform these feats? What do these capacities imply about the inevitable structure of our knowledge? Kitcher specifically considers Kant's claims about the unity of the thinking self; the spatial forms of human perceptions; the relations among mental states necessary for them to have content; the relations between perceptions and judgment; the malleability essential to empirical concepts; the structure of empirical concepts required for inductive inference; and the limits of philosophical insight into psychological processes.
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Kant's Transcendental Psychology
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Kant's
Transcendental Psychology Patricia Kitcher
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Oxford
Oxford University Press Oxford New York Toronto Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi Kuala Lumpur Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo Nairobi Dar es Salaam Cape Town Melbourne Auckland Madrid and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1990 by Patricia Kitcher Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016-4314 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1993. Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kitcher, Patricia. Kant's transcendental psychology by Patricia Kitcher. p. cm. ISBN 0-19-505967-0 ISBN 0-19-508563-9 (pbk) 1. Cognition. 2. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804—Contributions in psychology. 3. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804 Kritik der reinen Vernunft. I. Title. BF311.K57 1990 128'.092—dc20 89-78463
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
For P.S.K.
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Preface
Many people have helped me in the course of my study of Kant and in writing this book. At Wellesley, Ingrid Stadler spent hours taking me through the three Critiques, more hours, I fear, than I have spent teaching any undergraduate. I also benefited from Richard Rorty's Kant seminar at Princeton. Over the years my correspondence with Gary Hatfield has been a source of inspiration and support. Hatfield's own work and his responses to mine have encouraged me to believe that it is not crazy to take Kant's psychology seriously and to try to understand it in its own context. Three people have been kind enough to read the entire manuscript and to offer their criticisms: Henry Allison, Philip Kitcher, and Jonathan Vogel. It was particularly kind of Professor Vogel to send detailed criticisms, since we only met once. Henry Allison read drafts of each of the chapters, which we then discussed at length. Anyone writing on Kant would be extraordinarily fortunate to have such a critic and I hope that I have used his expertise wisely. Philip Kitcher read more drafts of these chapters than either he or I care to remember. I am also grateful for Jill Buroker's comments on Chapters 2 and 3, many of which led me to make substantial revisions. While we were colleagues at Minnesota, John Earman and I had several conversations about Leibniz. More rec