Clinton Tolley

The Non-Conceptuality of the Content of Intuitions: A New Approach

There has been considerable recent debate about whether Kants account of intuitions implies that their content is conceptual. This debate, however, has failed to make significant progress because of the absence of discussion, let alone consensus, as to the meaning of ‘content’ in this context. Here I try to move things forward by focusing on the kind of content associated with Freges notion of ‘sense ( Sinn )’, understood as a mode of presentation of some object or property. I argue, first, that Kant takes intuitions to have a content in this sense, and, secondly, that Kant clearly takes the content of intuitions, so understood, to be distinct in kind from that possessed by concepts. I then show how my account can respond to the most serious objections to previous non-conceptualist interpretations.

The Difference Between Original, Metaphysical and Geometrical Representations of Space

Tolley argues, first, for a sharper distinction between three kinds of representation of the space of outer appearances: (i) the original intuition of space, (ii) the metaphysical representation of this space via the a priori concept “expounded” in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and (iii) the representation of this space in geometry, via the construction of concepts of spaces in intuition. He then shows how more careful attention to this threefold distinction allows for a conservative, consistently nonconceptualist and non-intellectualist interpretation of the handful of suggestive remarks Kant makes in the Transcendental Deduction about the dependence of various representations of space on the understanding—against recent interpretations which argue that the Deduction’s remarks require that Kant revise the impression given in the Aesthetic (and elsewhere) that intuition in general, and the original intuition of space in particular, enjoys a priority to, and independence from, all acts and representations of the understanding.

Bolzano and Kant on the Nature of Logic

Here I revisit Bolzanos criticisms of Kant on the nature of logic. I argue that while Bolzano is correct in taking Kant to conceive of the traditional logic as a science of the activity of thinking rather than the content of thought, he is wrong to charge Kant with a failure to identify and examine this content itself within logic as such. This neglects Kants own insistence that traditional logic does not exhaust logic as such, since it must be supplemented by a transcendental logic that will in fact study nothing other than thoughts content. Once this feature of Kants views is brought to light, a much deeper accord emerges between the two thinkers than has hitherto been appreciated, on both the nature of the content that is at issue in logic and the sense of logics generality and formality.

Frege's Elucidatory Holism

Abstract I argue against the two most influential readings of Freges methodology in the philosophy of logic. Dummetts “semanticist” reading sees Frege as taking notions associated with semantical content—and in particular, the semantical notion of truth—as primitive and as intelligible independently of their connection to the activity of judgment, inference, and assertion. Against this, the “pragmaticist” reading proposed by Brandom and Ricketts sees Frege as beginning instead from the independent and intuitive grasp that we allegedly have on the latter activity and only then moving on to explain semantical notions in terms of the nature of such acts. Against both readings, I argue, first, that Frege gives clear indication that he takes semantical and pragmatical notions to be equally primitive, such that he would reject the idea that either sort of notion could function as the base for a non-circular explanation of the other. I argue, secondly, that Freges own method for conveying the significance of these primitive notions—an activity that Frege calls “elucidation”—is, in fact, explicitly circular in nature. Because of this, I conclude that Frege should be read instead as conceiving of our grasp of the semantical and pragmatical dimensions of logic as far more of a holistic enterprise than either reading suggests.

Kant on the place of cognition in the progression of our representations

I argue for a new delimitation of what Kant means by ‘cognition [Erkenntnis]’, on the basis of the intermediate, transitional place that Kant gives to cognition in the ‘progression [Stufenleiter]’ of our representations and our consciousness of them. I show how cognition differs from mental acts lying earlier on this progression—such as sensing, intuiting, and perceiving—and also how cognition differs from acts lying later on this progression—such as explaining, having insight, and comprehending. I also argue that cognition should not be confused with ‘knowledge [Wissen]’, insofar as knowledge represents the culmination of a separate orthogonal progression of acts of ‘holding-true’. Along the way, I show how having in focus the specific progression from representation, to consciousness, to cognition (and beyond) allows us to better appreciate the architectonic significance of the progression of Kant’s analysis in the first Critique (and beyond), and also helps to illuminate the unity of Kant’s account of cognition itself across its variety of (empirical, mathematical, philosophical) forms.

The Context of the Development of Carnap's Views on Logic up to the Aufbau ∗

Friedman, Richardson, and others have helpfully foregrounded the neglected presence of Kantian and neo-Kantian influences on the early Carnap. Here, however, I sound a cautionary note, highlighting a dimension along which early Carnap departs directly from Kant and neo-Kantianism, swinging much closer to Russell – namely, in his conception of logic’s subject-matter. For while Kant and neo-Kantians conceive of logic as a science concerned primarily with mental activity and its (ideal) contents (concepts, Fregean ‘Sinne’), Carnap (mostly) follows Russell in seeing logic as primarily concerned with the objectivities represented by such contents through such acts – i.e., with the objects, properties, states of affairs, facts (and so on) that together constitute the world’s most general or universal features. But then, because Carnap also follows Russell in placing logic at the very basis of his own constitution programme, I conclude that Russellian doctrines lie at the heart of Carnap’s Aufbau project, which means that we must also orient our understanding of early Carnap on central points by reference to decidedly non-Kantian threads.

Mini-symposium on Kant and cognition

Kant’s position in the history of philosophy is unique in that many of the most important schools of thought over the past two hundred years in both analytic and continental philosophy are all, in one way or another, reactions to Kant and have a common source inKant, despite the fact that they often have radically differentmethods, terminologies, and positions. Now one popular point of departure in Kant has been his assertion of synthetic a priori cognition, where much attention has been paid both to the analyticsynthetic distinction (in the logical positivists andQuine) and to the possibility ofwhat, if anything, can be established a priori (in Philip Kitcher, Richard Rorty, Lawrence Bonjour and, again, Quine). Surprisingly, much less explicit attention has been paid to the third crucial term, cognition (Erkenntnis), and to exactly how it is to be understood. It is true that different traditions have taken very different stances on cognition. For example, Sellars and some of his prominent followers (such as Robert Brandom and John McDowell) have proceeded on the assumption that Kant’s basic interest in the Critique of Pure Reason lies in developing a theory of intentionality (or representationality). But it has also been quite common to take Kant to be an arch-epistemologist (responsible for synthesizing the rationalist and empiricist epistemological traditions), a view that was encouraged by Norman Kemp Smith’s influential English translation of the first Critique, which translated both ‘Wissen’ and ‘Erkenntnis’ as knowledge. (If ‘Erkenntnis’ just is knowledge, then Kemp Smith is correct, but by not marking the

The Place of Logic within Kant’s Philosophy

This chapter spells out in detail how Kant’s thinking about logic during the critical period shapes the account of philosophy that he gives in the Critiques. Tolley explores Kant’s motivations behind his formation of the idea of a new “transcendental” logic, drawing out in particular how he means to differentiate it from the traditional “merely formal” approaches to logic, insofar as transcendental logic investigates not just the basic forms of the activity of thinking but also its basic contents. Kant’s understanding of both of these logics directly factor into the first Critique’s more general project of the critique of reason in particular, as not just a capacity for a certain kind of thinking (inferring), but as a possible source of a priori cognition.

Husserl’s Philosophy of the Categories and His Development toward Absolute Idealism

In recent work, Amie Thomasson has sought to develop a new approach to the philosophy of the categories which is metaphysically neutral between traditional realist and conceptualist approaches, and which has its roots in the ‘correlationalist’ approach to categories put forward in Husserl’s writings in the 1900s–1910s and systematically charted over the past few decades by David Woodruff Smith in his studies of Husserl’s philosophy. Here the author aims to provide a recontextualization and critical assessment of correlationalism in a Husserlian vein. To this end, the author presents, first, the reasons why, later in his life, Husserl himself found his earlier treatment of categories philosophically naive, and why he increasingly advocated for a more genetic-teleological account. The author then draws upon arguments made a century earlier by Schelling and Hegel, in criticism of Fichte, to point up what might remain philosophically unsatisfying about even the post-correlationalist genetic position of the later Husserl, in light of the pronounced trend in Husserl’s own development, on the questions of reason and spirit, toward absolute idealism.

Bolzano and Kant on Space and Outer Intuition

In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant famously argues for what he calls the ‘transcendental ideality’ of space. A key step in Kant’s argument is his attempted proof in the Transcendental Aesthetic that our most ‘original’ representation of space must be an intuition rather than a concept, and moreover, must be one that is pure, insofar as it must be in the mind a priori, prior to all actual ‘empirical’ (sensation-involving) intuitions of external objects, what Kant calls ‘outer intuitions’. Kant thinks this intuition of space must be present (or ‘occur’) in the mind a priori since spatial representation is universally and necessarily involved in all of our outer intuitions. Kant then goes on to argue (briefly in the first Critique but then at length in the Prolegomena) that accepting his account of the pure intuition of space is also necessary in order to make sense of how it is possible that we could come to have the a priori cognition of space in pure geometry that Kant, along with most of his contemporaries, assumes that we possess.