Kantian Humility ' Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves '

ISBN-13: 9780199243174 / Angielski / Miękka / 2001 / 248 str.

Rae Langton

Opis

In this refreshing and exceptional work, Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defense of Kant's doctrine of "things in themselves." Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, thus making a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Langton argues that his claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility; we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to be superior even to modern day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable.

Recenzje

a novel attempt to elucidate and defend a central Kantian thesis ... a most interesting, impressive, and scholarly exercise in Kantian interpretation

O autorze

Rae Langton is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.