TRANSCENDENTAL ARGUMENTS, TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM AND SCEPTICISM (REMARKS ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL APPROACH).

摘要

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the characteristics of the transcendental response to different forms of scepticism. I want to emphasize the intricate relations of the premises of transcendental arguments of general transcendental idealist theses. According to the view which I attempt to defend, we cannot appreciate the potential of transcendental anti-sceptical strategies without taking into account their dependence on some form of the critical idealism first elaborated by Kant on the basis of his Copernican hypothesis.;Unfortunately, it is very difficult to mount a satisfactory defense of the new verificationist analogue of transcendental idealism. It emerges as a paradoxical thesis that cannot be coherently presented and can be accepted only if one is ready to acknowledge the truth of claims which cannot be meaningfully stated, but may only be "shown", or "pointed to" in a Tractarian fashion.;I focus on the argumentative method employed in the Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason, and examine the way in which it is supposed to meet the challenge of both Cartesian and Humean sceptics. I isolate the basic model of Kantian transcendental "proofs" and discuss its structure as well as the self-referential nature and the presuppositions of its premises. After dealing with some of the problems besetting its application, I proceed to explore a transcendentalist reading of Wittgenstein's philosophy. I argue that a careful reconstruction of Wittgenstein's remarks on the "sceptical paradox" concerning rule-following and on the impossibility of a private language can provide us with a new insight into the transcendental reply to scepticism. I engage in the analysis of a kind of verificationism originating in Wittgenstein's later writings and consider the extent to which it supports transcendental argumentation. It is this verificationism which, I contend, must be regarded as a contemporary parallel of transcendental idealism. Finally, I undertake to illustrate Strawson's failure to do away with Kant's Copernican attitude, in so far as he has to rely on the Wittgensteinian verificationist assumptions. When he dismisses them completely he lapses into dogmatic realism.