Abstract:
There is clear evidence in the Critique of Pure Reason and in other works that Kant holds a thesis that asserts the coextensiveness of necessity and apriority. What has remained unclear and a subject of controversy in the literature is the exact content of this thesis and why Kant holds it. I argue for a new reading that explains the connection between the necessary and the a priori as Kant understands them and in a way that makes this thesis applicable to all the knowledge claims that Kant deems a priori. I begin by analyzing Kant’s conceptions of apodictic judgment and of necessity in its empirical use. I then offer an analysis of his conception of knowing as a specific epistemic attitude and the key notion of insight that belongs to it. Finally, I show how Kant’s explanations of these features of his epistemology make the claims of modern natural science, as Kant describes them, relevant examples of his conception of synthetic a priori knowledge. By approaching the question of the synthetic a priori through examples from natural science and not through those from mathematics or transcendental philosophy, as in the dominant approach to this problem, I offer a fresh perspective on Kant’s view that also allows us to question the overly demanding requirements that have come to be associated with it.
© De Gruyter