Episteme
Article Title
Kant's Proof of a Universal Principle of Causality: A Transcendental Idealist's Reply to Hume
Abstract
In the Second Analogy of the Critique of Pure Reason, is Kant directly responding to Hume? The author argues that he must be, otherwise his arguments about succession and irreversibility (the house and the ship) fall victim to P. F. Strawson’s “non sequitur” criticism. Kant believes that our experience of successive objective events presupposes the application of the causal category, obviously a crucial part of Kant’s notion of the understanding. So long as we keep in mind that Kant depends strongly on his underlying doctrine of transcendental idealism, the author grants Lewis White Beck’s defense of Kant, in alluding to B234 of the Critique, which supposedly implies that Kant is aware of the need for Strawson’s conditions of non-coexistence and perpetual isomorphism to be rendered as given. More generally, this paper explores the nature of Kant’s thoughts on causality in the wake of Hume’s revolutionary ideas.
Recommended Citation
Mahmoodshahi, Reza
(2004)
"Kant's Proof of a Universal Principle of Causality: A Transcendental Idealist's Reply to Hume,"
Episteme: Vol. 15, Article 2.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.denison.edu/episteme/vol15/iss1/2