On the Conditions of Possibility of the Objects of Experience

8/18/2019 On the Conditions of Possibility of the Objects of Experience

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Amogha Sahu21/04/2016

On the Conditions of Possibility of the Objects of

Experience: Reading Brian Cantwell Smith as a

Transcendental etaphysician

!" # short Tre$ thro%gh Transcendental Philosophy

What does the word ‘transcendental’ mean? Philosophers in the analytic

tradition, ranging from Barry Stroud to Quassim Cassam to Charles

Taylor, hae descri!ed it as species of argument, which aims to ta"e

e#perience$ as a certain "ind of ‘gien’ or ‘foundation’, and thus argue

for the necessary e#istence of structures within e#perience% & typical

e#ample of a transcendental argument is the anti's"eptical argument for

the e#istence of an e#ternal world% (ien that our e#perience indu!ita!ly

testi)es to the e#istence of a world independent of our e#periencing, itshould !e o!ious that there is a world%

*ant and +eidegger famously descri!e it as a dierent "ind of

metaphysics, namely ‘transcendental’ metaphysics% Proponents of

transcendental metaphysics accuse non'transcendental metaphysicians

of ontic nonsense- in so far as they reify the nature of the world as a

world of o!.ects, properties, relations and sets which would !e structured

the way it was independently of our rendering the world intelligi!le%

Traditional /ealism thus ta"es the nature of the world as such to !e

gien 0thus loo"ing at the world through a ‘iew from nowhere’1,unaected !y the sense'ma"ing practices of the human su!.ect%

Transcendental 2etaphysicians accuse this picture of ma"ing two

fundamental errors% 3irstly, it pro.ects the structure of the world

resulting from our intentional practices onto the world as it e#ists

independently of us% 3or e#ample, 3acts 0which connect a property 031

with a particular 0a1 in the form 3a, where 3 is instantiated !y a1 are

considered to !e structures in the world !y many contemporary

metaphysicians, with no account of how a ery speci)c linguistic

structure generated !y 45th

century analytic metaphysicians comes to !e‘written in the !oo" of the world’ since it !egan%

Secondly, within it’s ‘iew from nowhere’, it )nds itself una!le to

accommodate intentionality and semantics 0and indeed, all of what were

traditionally referred to as ‘the human sciences’1% 6ne can read this

1 There is a certain equivocation in the use of term ‘experience’ here. t seems to

!e easiest to ana"ogi#e it to phenomena" experience $our conscious experience%&

!ut it is c"ear that 'hat is !eing referre( to here $at "east in )ant an( *ei(egger%

is not the in(ivi(ua" experience of a particu"ar thin+er& !ut ‘experience’ as anintersu!,ective structure 'hich can !e instantiate( !- a particu"ar su!,ect.

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‘ina!ility to accommodate’ in three ways7'

0i1 The ‘iew from nowhere’ typically ta"es as the nature of the world of

o!.ects 0which it has ta"en to !e primitie1 as a world goerned !y the

natural sciences, and the natural sciences cannot accommodate

intentionality, as the emphasis on locality and eicacy underwrites the

essentially non'local, non'eectie relation present in ‘intentional mental

states’%

0ii1 The +eideggerian claim that traditional realism restricts itself to a

single ‘way of Being’, which is the !eing of present'of'hand entities,

which appear to us to !e separate and detached from our intentional

actiities% +aing !egun with objects 0understood in this restrictie way1,

one can no longer reconstruct subjects, e#cept as a "ind of object 0a

Cartesian thin"ing su!stance, an &ristotelian rational animal, a8ei!ni9ian super'monad, a Spino9istic mode and so on1% +oweer, we still

recogni9e the distinctieness of mentality, and attempts to do .ustice to it

lead us to untena!le metaphysical positions, such as idealism 0the mind is

the only o!.ect1 and dualism 0there are two fundamentally dierent "inds

of o!.ects, mental ‘things’ and physical ‘things’1%

0iii1 The *antian claim that traditional metaphysics 0which he calls

‘transcendental realism’ as opposed to his ‘transcendental idealism’1

leads to irreduci!le antinomies, or contradictions, which can only !e

resoled !y adopting a new metaphysics, transcendental idealism%

The a!oe should indicate that transcendental metaphysics inoles

taking intentionality metaphysically seriously % What it means to ta"e

intentionality metaphysically seriously is to ensure that the intentional

practices of su!.ects has much more metaphysical pride of place than the

traditional realist metaphysics of o!.ects allows it% This ‘pride of place’

can !e understood in terms of the *antian distinction !etween empirical

and transcendental cognition%

Empirical cognition is concerned with indiidual o!.ects, or sets orclasses of indiidual o!.ects% Transcendental cognition is concerned with

what ma"es those o!.ects ‘possi!le’% :n other words, it is concerned with

objecthood, with what it is to een !e an o!.ect at all% The answer that

!oth *ant and +eidegger gie to the transcendental ;uestion 0what

ma"es o!.ects possi!le?1 is that our intentional practices 0which *ant

calls ‘transcendental synthesis of the faculty of imagination’, and which

+eidegger4 calls ‘comportment’ or ‘disclosure’1 generate a domain of

intelligibility , which contains an implicit criterion of o!.ectiity%

2 'i"" (istinguish ‘o!,ects’ from ‘entities’& 'here the "atter is associate( 'ith*ei(egger’s ‘presentathan(’& the (etache( o!,ects of tra(itiona" metaph-sics.

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This domain of intelligibility allows o!.ects to disclose themseles to us

as o!.ects% 6!.ects here may !e understood as &ustin’s ‘medium'si9ed

dry goods’, as o!.ects which hae sta!le identity conditions, enter into

causal relations with each other and so on% These o!.ects can also !e

understood as o!.ects of indiidual intentional acts, as o!.ects of

demonstratie reference, as o!.ects which can form part of inferential

.udgements 0This th century

mechanistic natural science1%

: hae !een using the phrase ‘our intentional practices’ to descri!e the

transcendental account of what grounds the world as world% This ‘our’ is

traditionally read as a claim that su!.ects ground the world of o!.ects,

and thus as a lapse into a dangerous su!.ectie idealism% The

transcendental philosopher can respond to this in two ways% 3irstly, the

cry of ‘su!.ectiism’ is not unfounded so much as incoherent7 What can

you possi!ly mean when you say ‘su!.ectiity’?

This is !ecause transcendental metaphysics ditches traditional

conceptions of the su!.ect 0four of them are listed a!oe1, as they are the

!y'products of traditional realist metaphysics failing to integrate

intentional practices into it’s restrictie conception of ‘!eing’% *ant

claimed that su!.ectiity could !e understood in two ways, as a formal

structure of apperception underlying all e#perience or as an o!seration

of inner mental states%

:f what is meant !y ‘su!.ect’ is the latter, then it is e#egetically incorrect%*ant categorically denies the Cartesian claim that our e#periential access

to our own mental states is prior to our e#periential access to outer

o!.ects through representations of them% :ntrospectie access to mental

states presupposes a world of outer o!.ects% :f what is meant !y ‘su!.ect’

is the former, then the claim that ‘su!.ects’ ground ‘o!.ects’ should !e

rendered as ‘the structure of intelligi!ility generated !y the intentional

practices of su!.ects grounds !oth su!.ects and o!.ects’%

+eidegger does not een use the traditional *antian notation of ‘:’,

!elieing 0pro!a!ly correctly1 that *ant’s usage of ‘:’ reected a residualCartesianism which must !e aoided% +e descri!es the Being of entities


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&" 'hat moti(ates On the Origin of Objects)

Cantwell Smith !egins Origin with the professed desire to aoid the

AScylla 0666 p%1 of realism and the AChar!ydis 0666 p%1 of pure

constructiism, in faour of a Aphilosophy of presence 0666 p%1, which

is intended to do .ustice to the realist Aepistemic deference to the world

0666 p%1 and the constructiist Arespect for the constitutie human

inolement in the world 0666 p%1% This will !e done through an

inestigation of the ‘middle distance’, which is the middle !ridging the

causal connection stressed !y the natural, and the non'causal

disconnection stressed !y the intentional%

The ‘middle distance’ is thus a realm of partial connection and partial

disconnection%

+ow does Smith plan to delier on this grandiose promise? Through an

inestigation into the metaphysical foundations of intentionality 0+ow

does the world hae to !e such that there e#ists intra'worldly !eings%

This focus on )nding a metaphysical ground for intentionality and

reconciling the intentional and the natural without denying one or the

other unites *ant, +eidegger and Brian Cantwell

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On the Conditions of Possibility of the Objects of Experience