Book Review by Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)

 

 

Paul  Guyer (ed.):  The Cambridge Companion to Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xii + 482 pages.

 

            As the third in a series of companions to major philosophers, this collection of fourteen scholarly essays is intended as an introductory-level survey of the whole of Kant's philosophy. Written by a select group of some of today's most eminent Kant-scholars, the essays aim not only to point out the major themes in basic Kantian texts, but also to summarize and comment on the recent scholarly discussion of some key interpretive issues. Most of the es­says strike a good balance between these two aims and are well worth reading for students and specialists alike.

            The editor's 'Introduction', however, is rather disappointing. Instead of in­troducing the collection, Guyer describes the 'evo­lution' of Kant's life and works. Al­though it conveys some useful insights as to how Kant's early writings relate to his prede­cessors and contemporaries, the Introduction suffers from an uncritical acceptance of four common myths. Guyer merely assumes that (1) many of Kant's early essays are 'scientific' [5-6], (2) the early Kant simply aped his predecessors' 'rationalist methodology' [7], (3) he briefly converted to Humean skepticism in the 1760s [7-8], and (4) appar­ent contradic­tions and new developments in Kant's mature works are evidence of changes in his official posi­tion [e.g., 12,18]. Guyer shows no awareness of the challenges to such as­sumptions posed by recent scholars who promote a 'perspectival' interpretation: (1) Kant's 'natural philosophy' was never meant to be natural sci­ence; (2) his writings evince a Criti­cal methodology from the very start; (3) Kant never em­braced skepticism as such, but merely used it (e.g., in the 1760s) for Critical ends; and (4) he organized (devel­oped) his System around complemen­tary per­spectives, never admitting to have 'changed' his mature views. Sadly, the other con­tributors to the Companion seem to have been chosen with a view to­wards 'editing out' this per­spectival way of in­terpreting Kant. As an appar­ent afterthought, Guyer tacks on a final paragraph, using but one sentence (or less) to de­scribe each essay. The following review provides a more detailed introduction, to­gether with comments on how well each essay succeeds in bal­ancing introductory-level synopsis and scholarly-level com­mentary.

            The first essay, by Frederick C. Beiser, offers a thorough overview of Kant's intel­lectual development up to 1781—one that renders superfluous Guyer's foregoing treatment of the same period. Beiser makes excellent use of Kant's 'love affair with metaphysics' metaphor to distinguish four periods: infatuation (1746-1759), disillu­sionment (1760-1766), partial reconcil­iation (1766-1772), and divorce (1772-1780). He then explains how the intellectual climate in Germany—especially the severe criticisms of Pietist philosophers (e.g., Crusius) against Wolf­fian rationalism—influenced Kant's early develop­ment. Unfortunately, Beiser leaves the student unaware that Kant himself was raised as a Pietist, that this tradition was Kant's 'first love', and that the affair lasting from 1746 to 1780 was therefore never a legitimate 'marriage'. Kant's aim was always to find a 'third way', so the Critical System can be regarded as Kant's way of rec­onciling his 'marriage' to Pietism with his 'love affair' with rationalist metaphysics. Beiser dis­pels several myths (assumed by Guyer!), rightly suggesting that the common use of the term 'precritical' is dangerously misleading [36] and that the changes of the 1760s owed far more to Rousseau than to Hume [43-6]. He still calls the 1760s Kant's 'skeptical' period, but later clarifies that both Dreams and the Dissertation evince a 'moral skepticism' [50-2]—i.e., the precursor of Kant's mature view of the primacy of practical reason.

            Charles Parsons follows with an essay on themes from the first Critique's Introduction and the Transcendental Aesthetic. After commenting on apriority and intuition (in terms of the 'immediacy condition'), Parsons examines four arguments for regarding space as an a priori intuition, dismissing several others as 'not in my view of much interest' [71]. He then discusses Kant's view of geometry, touch­ing upon the analytic-synthetic distinction. Parsons as­sumes Kant naively ascribed Eu­clidean geometry to physical space, rightly pointing out [76] that, given 'the modern distinction between pure geometry...and applied geometry...,...it is no longer clear that pure geometry is synthetic.' Unfortunately, he neglects the perspectival interpretations that allow pure ge­ometries to be analytic yet deny that its synthetic a priori sta­tus requires Eu­clidean geome­try to be true of physical space [see e.g., 'Kant on Euclid: Ge­ometry in Per­spective', PhilosophiaMathematica II5:1/2(1990), pp.88-113]. Parsons con­cludes with a dis­cussion of is­sues relating to transcendental idealism and the crucial ap­pearance/thing in itself distinction. He distinguishes between the 'Subjectivist', 'Distortion', and 'Intensional' views, siding with the latter without any reference to the volu­mous literature by Bird, Allison, and others defending that position. On the whole, Parsons' ap­proach is more evaluative than explanatory, and examines a number of advanced argu­ments. These two factors, together with a torturous style and a reluctance to drawde­cisivecon­clusions,rendersthisessaytoo difficult for the aver­age beginning philosophy stu­dent.

            In the third essay J. Michael Young offers a fresh, and genuinely introductory, look at the first chapter of the Analytic of Concepts (the so-called 'Meta­physical Deduction'). Young's chief contribution is his emphasis on the role of syn­thesis, which Kant first dis­cusses in this chapter, not in the Transcendental Deduction, as is often assumed. Whereas analy­sis applies only to given concepts, synthesis determines how concepts are made [111]—i.e., 'how ... intuition enters into concepts' [113]. When Kant says general logic 'abstracts from all con­tent of cognition' [A55/ B79], the 'content' of such con­cepts just is the intu­itions out of which they arise [114-5]. After noting some limits and shortcomings of Kant's view of logic, Young describes several groups of interpretive 'difficulties'. Yet, instead of offering ideas as to how they might be over­come, he merely suggests that 'Kant's central con­tention'—namely, 'that the categories are sim­ply logical functions of thought in gen­eral, em­ployed in the determination of the sensible mani­fold' [116]—is 'quite implausible' [110,119]. Kant is simply mistaken, it seems, having failed to be suffi­ciently critical of his Leibnizian heritage [116]. Young construes the 'clue' given in this chapter as the supposi­tion 'that the logical structure of judgment' tells us some­thing about how each indi­vid­ual category is derived. A more plausible interpretation is to identify this clue with the discovery of the twelve-fold structure of the categories as a whole—a possibility Young does not entertain.

            The editor's own contribution examines the second chapter of the Analytic of Concepts (theTranscendentalDeduction).Afterpointingoutnumerouspotential'puzzles'and'problems',Guyer provides helpful background material on Kant's early treat­ment of the categories. He dis­tinguishes between two claims Kant makes: the categories 'make possible the application of judgments' and they 'constrain [that applica­tion] in certain ways' [131]. Kant's account is ob­scure, Guyer asserts, because he failed to devise distinct strategies for defending these two claims [133]. The bulk of the essay 'offer[s] a chronologi­cal account of the evolution of the tran­scenden­tal deduction' [136], focusing on the Prolegomena and the two editions of the Critique. In each case Guyer pre­sents a good summary of Kant's argument, followed by a string of rea­sons why the argument fails, and some conjectures as to why each differs from the others. Guyer consis­tently reaches negative verdicts because he examines each argument in isolation, neglecting Kant's emphasis on systematic interconnections. His impres­sive use of Kant's Reflex­ionen exacerbates this tendency by needlessly drawing attention to supposed in­consisten­cies without ever identifying the systematic perspectives Kant adopts [e.g., 130-6]. Thus, Guyer seems to expect the Deduction to do the work of the Analytic of Principles [e.g., 136,153-5]. A surprise concluding paragraph explains why the Deduction was so success­ful in undermining Descartes, Locke, and Hume, even though '[f]ormally speaking' all of its arguments fail [155].

            Instead of a thoroughgoing account of the Analytic of Principles, the fifth essay, by Michael Friedman, examines selected passages from a wide variety of texts fo­cusing on that chapter's most important theme: causality and its relation to empirical causal laws. Friedman be­gins by sketching an almost universally ac­cepted view: that Kant's refutation of Hume relates only to the principle of causality as 'objective determinacy', not to 'the exis­tence of general causal laws' [164,169]. Friedman builds a strong case for rejecting this position, argu­ing that Kant does not follow Hume in assigning empirical laws a merely induc­tive status, but views them as de­ter­mined by or grounded in the principle of causality [170-3]. The latter 'somehow inject[s] neces­sity ... into particular causal laws' [174]. Friedman unveils Kant's four-stage hierarchy of 'progressively more concrete' levels, in which 'empirical laws are ... framed or nested' [176,185]: transcendental principles (re­lating to all beings) are the most abstract; meta­physical principles (relating only to nonliving beings) are derived therefrom [181-2]; principles of Newto­nian science, such as the law of universal gravitation, issue directly from the metaphysical prin­ciples and have a 'mixed status', being empirical, yet necessary [176]; and the vast majority of other empirical laws challenge our 'reflective judgment' to find systematic connections between them, thus revealing their ground­ing in Newto­nian laws [186-91]. This provoca­tive essay could have been even better by sketching some implications for Kant's other three categorial princi­ples.

            The core of the Companion consists of four essays, addressing themes relating to the second half of the first Critique. Gary Hatfield provides a well-balanced discussion of psychol­ogy: after summarizing the Paralogisms and Kant's two main conclusions (the need to discipline reason's impulse to speculate about the soul, and the importance of treating the soul as a regula­tive idea for interpreting inner experience), Hatfield explains why Kant excludes empirical psy­chology from both philosophy and science. He then defends Kant against the charge of inadver­tently introducing psychology into his arguments, especially in the Deduction. His essay con­cludes with a helpful explanation of how Kant's Critique of rational psychology could be so 'devastating' [223], even though Kant has turned out to be wrong in barring empirical psychol­ogy from science.

            Thomas E. Wartenberg's essay shows how the regulative use of reason is meant to play a crucial role in the practice of science. Just as empirical concepts unify perceptual data, so also theoretical ideas unify the conceptual structure of our empirical knowledge. This 'regulative' em­phasis does not make Kant an 'instrumentalist', for the ideas have a transcendental status as 'a necessary element of his general critical program' [232-3]. The drive toward unity (aiming to es­tablish a systematic interconnection between all facts) is just as immanent, just as essential to how 'science is constituted as a social practice', as the drive toward diversity [240-6]. Wartenberg's main shortcoming is his lack of attention to the secondary literature on this subject.

            The eighth essay, by Karl Ameriks, could well have been placed at the beginning of this set of four: it begins with a general overview of the Dialectic's Critique of traditional (especially Leibnizian) ontology. The second half explores the evolution of Kant's Lectures on Metaphysics by comparing extant versions of students' notes from different years, and reveals a Kant who was surprisingly amenable to his rationalist roots, particularly with respect to his views on the '“derivative” influx theory' [268] and on the noumenal substrate of the phenomenal world. Ameriks' essay effectively dissolves the myth of an antimetaphysical Kant.

            Onora O'Neill rounds out this section nicely by focusing on the Doctrine of Method and the issue of how to justify the Critical enterprise. She portrays Kant as 'vindicat[ing] reason [in a way] quite different from the foundationalist account that critics of “the Enlightenment pro­ject” target' [281]. Kant identifies reason not with logic, understanding, or Platonic Ideas, but with seeking unity in a 'reflexive' manner. The latter, argues O'Neill, means reason 'both generates and may resolve' its own problems [288]: each part supports the others, yet noth­ing supports the whole. Kant vindicates reason, then, in a modest  and 'disciplined' way, by viewing enlightened reason as negative, self-imposed, law-like, and public. While effectively counterbalancing the caricature of Kant as just another example of an Enlightenment founda­tionalist, O'Neill unfortu­nately fails to address the issue of how such an apparently secular view of reason impinges upon Kant's life-long religious disposition.

            The next two essays sur­vey some main themes in Kant's moral and political thought. J.B. Schneewind's essay has sections on autonomy, background influences (Shaftsbury, Hutcheson, Wolff, Crusius, and especially Rousseau), the necessity of self-imposed obligations, the struggle between virtue and happi­ness, types of imperatives, the formulations of the categorical imperative, the Groundwork's emphasis on respect, its emphasis on the role of freedom in grounding moral obligation, and finally, the ideas of God and immortality as practical postulates. Schneewind aims to address only those is­sue about which 'most commentators are agreed' [309]. He succeeds admirably, producing an essay that is bound to become a standard introduc­tory-level text, though not one that is likely to stimulate any new interpretive insights or scholarly debates.

            Wolfgang Kersting's sketch of Kant's political philosophy was written in German (tr. P. Guyer) in a comparatively complex style. He begins with an in­conclusive assessment of Kant's principle of right as not tautological, though also incapable of di­rectly producing par­ticular statutes. He then discusses the anti-communistic implications of Kant's deontological justification for private prop­erty, and his a priori version of a social con­tract theory, based on the principles of freedom, equality, and self-sufficiency. Self-suffi­ciency, argues Kersting, is merely a contingent factor and should be replaced by the potential to own property. Kersting's interpretation of Kan­tian 'property' as merely contingent may, however, be incorrect. 'Property' for Kant seems rather to be a transcendental concept that establishes a basic political space,much as desires establish a basic ethical space and in­tuitions establish physical space. Kersting himself offers some interest­ing contrasts and compar­isons be­tween Kant's ethical and political thought, as well as a number of good comparisons between Kant and various other political thinkers. He concludes with reflec­tions on reform vs. revolu­tion and on perpetual peace as the highest political good, always keep­ing one eye on the rele­vance of Kant's ideas for the con­temporary political scene.

            The twelfth essay, by Eva Schaper, sketches some of the main themes in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment. Unfortunately, she purposefully neglects the broader issues linking the latter to the Teleological half of the book, resulting in a poor understanding of Kant's overall systematic aims. Although Schaper does a good job of describing the key points of Kant's the­ory of taste, she treats the architectonic with derision and so rejects many arguments too hastily. She is quick to raise apparently difficult problems, yet slow to suggest illuminating solutions. For instance, in commenting on the sublime she says Kant leaves the reader 'bewildered rather than enlightened', and she re­gards Kant's account of genius as little more than a disconnected series of digressions [385]. Schaper's mainly negative assessment (whereby the book is worth reading more for its ability to stimulate good ideas than for the validity of the arguments themselves [p.392]) seems to re­sult largely from her own interpretive method, with its emphasis on Kant's alleged failures, in­consistencies, and changes of position. An essay with a clearer awareness of Kant's systematic and perspectival method of philoso­phizing would have been far more appropriate for the student readers of this Companion.

            Allen W. Wood's essay on Kant's philosophy of religion, though often insightful, is im­balanced, ignoring all relevant secondary literature except his own books. While making good points about Kant's Pietist background and religious disposition, he overem­phasizes the skeptical side of Kant's mature position, treating references to 'the minimum of theology' as Kant's official doctrine [405]. He points out real weaknesses in Kant's claim that the cosmological and teleological arguments depend on the onto­logical, yet neglects Kant's independent analysis of each argument. He sug­gests 'exists' could be both a real and a logical predicate, but fails to jus­tify this counter-intuitive claim. He notes interesting parallels between the ethical and political commonwealths, yet ignores Kant's religious argument for God's existence, reducing his doc­trine of the church to a mere tool for making morality social. Wood ably expounds the com­plex­i­ties of moral theology, including his own interpretation of the moral argument in terms of 'acting as if' God exists, yet rejects the latter as inadequate unless supported by 'either theoreti­cal evidence ... or else nonrational motivating factors' [405]—a no­tion totally contrary to Kant's doctrine of the primacy of practical reason. Conflating knowledge and belief, Wood in­terprets Kant's 'hopeful agnosticism' in a one-sided, negative fashion, as a form of skeptical unbelief. He entirely overlooks the substantial positive side of Kant's position: religious hope is by def­inition grounded on one's willingness to believe (without knowing)—not only in God, but in a living God who commands us through the moral law [cf. CPR, B660-1 and Religion, 153(142e)]!

            The Companion concludes with George di Giovanni's purported description of 'the first [twenty year] cycle in the reception of Kant's Critical program' [417]—an essay that reads more like an account of Jacobi-reception or post-Kantian Spinoza-reception. After reviewing Kant's chief contribution (his theory of truth), di Giovanni explains how Jacobi used a cri­tique of Spinoza to supplant reason with faith. He then argues that Reinhold's attempt to refute Jacobi failed because it neglected the (Spinozian) common ground between Kant and Jacobi. A more 'innovative move', claims di Giovanni [431], was made by Fichte in his 1792 essay on revela­tion, wherein he moved away from Kant, toward Spinoza. Di Giovanni misrepresents Kant's position several times. Moreover, he assumes: German ideal­ism is the in­evitable outcome of Kantian Critique; its Spinozian tendencies somehow justify Ja­cobi's criti­cism; and Kant was clueless about all this, plodding away at the hopeless task of completing his archi­tectonic. Yet these assumptions are far from self-evident. Sadly, the one thing that might justify this essay's subtitle ('The Spinoza connection')—namely, the Spinozian tendencies of the Opus Postumum—is left entirely unmen­tioned. Readers interested in the early roots of post-Kantian idealism will benefit much from this essay; but those looking for details of 'the first twenty years' of Kant-reception (among the likes of Beck, Jakob, Willich, Richardson, etc.) are sure to be disap­pointed. For the message conveyed to student-readers by this final essay is that Spinoza and Hegel are far more worthy of serious study than poor, mistaken Kant.

 

Stephen Palmquist, Hong Kong

 

 

 

 

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