Transcendental Concepts, Transcendental Truths and Objective Validity

Bibliographic Data

ID20510428
AuthorsChong-Fuk Lau (0000-0002-7731-2059, Chinese University of Hong Kong, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume20
Issue3
Pages445-466
Publication date2015-11-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueKantian Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1369-4154 • E-ISSN: 2044-2394
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1369415415000175
OpenAlexW2606501636
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

Kant insists that the use of concepts must be subject to empirical conditions if they are to have objective validity. This article analyses Kant’s principle of objective validity, focusing particularly on its application to transcendental concepts such as those of sensibility, understanding and transcendental apperception. It distinguishes between two orders of objective validity, based on Kant’s distinction between empirical and transcendental truths. Since transcendental concepts are pure concepts without spatio-temporal content, their objective validity is of the same second-order kind as that of unschematized categories. This characteristic of transcendental concepts implies that the cognitive powers picked out by them are not particular psychological mechanisms, but rather abstract functional structures. Transcendental concepts owe their objective validity to the realizability of the functional structures by empirical cognizers like humans. This relation in turn helps to explain the nature of transcendental truths

Algorithm · Apperception · Epistemology · Realizability · Sensibility · Transcendental idealism · Transcendental number · Transcendental philosophy · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Mathematics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology

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