The Conception of Things in Themselves in the Critical Philosophy Exegetical Issues

Early on in the “Transcendental Aesthetic” at A20/B34 Kant provides us with a definition ofthe notion of appearances Erscheinungen, or rather “things that appear,” one of the most import

Chapter 1: The Conception of Things in Themselves in the Critical Philosophy:

Exegetical Issues

Introduction

Within recent years Immanuel Kant's conception of things in themselves has been at thecenter of a highly contentious debate regarding the proper meaning and import of Kant'stranscendental idealism, that is, what, properly speaking, transcendental idealism is, or what itamounts to Henry Allison made this point in a relatively recent article entitled “TranscendentalRealism, Empirical Realism, and Transcendental Idealism” (which was largely devoted to this veryissue), when he says that “The debate regarding the interpretation of Kant's idealism is usually seen

as turning on the best way to understand his transcendental distinction between appearances andthings in themselves.”1 What this suggests is that one cannot advance an interpretation of Kantiantranscendental idealism without first advancing an interpretation of the transcendental distinctionbetween appearances and things in themselves (TD), since how one interprets the former is a directresult of how one interprets the latter That is, how one interprets Kant's TD directly governs howone understands the fundamental character of Kantian transcendentalism So, in light of thecentrality of the TD to the controversy surrounding Kant's transcendental idealism as a whole, it isnot surprising that one of the aims of this thesis is to come to terms with that very issue, of how best

to understand the idea of things in themselves within the context of Kant's theoretical philosophy.Not only is this far from an easy task to begin with, but it is compounded by the fact that, sincethere is obviously no consensus on exactly what Kant meant with his formulation of the TD, or onexactly what the TD ultimately amounts to, multiple schools of thought have arisen for the solepurpose of tackling that very issue With this basic understanding that there is no easy answer to thequestion of what exactly Kant intended his formulation of the TD to mean, it becomes clear that, as

we attempt to arrive at the heart of what the TD really consists in, we must first come to grips withexactly what these various exegetical schools of thought have to say about the TD, of how it must

be understood within the broader context of Kantian transcendentalism: for it is only then that will

we be in a position to sufficiently address the concerns, textual as well as systematic, that havearisen in reference to the particular Kantian concept under consideration

As I noted, there are many different interpretations of the precise meaning of Kant's TD,ranging (as we will see) from straightforward ontological interpretations which paint Kant as a

1 Henry E Allison, “Transcendental Realism, Empirical Realism, and Transcendental Idealism,” Kantian Review 11

(2006): 1

traditional, Berkeleian metaphysician for whom the external, mind-independent world is nothingover and above a series of our mental representations, to more revolutionary2 interpretations whichsee Kant not as an “honest-to-goodness, old fashioned” idealist who doubts the existence of the

external world, but rather as a bona fide direct realist for whom there really are external objects – in

this case, appearances, not things in themselves – which causally “affect” us in a straightforwardlyempiricist sense Each of these interpretations will therefore be dealt with in the forthcoming stages

of this thesis; it must also be noted here that common-sense suggests that they cannot carry an equalamount of exegetical weight, either in regards to their textual consistency or in regards to theirarchitectonic plausibility for that matter, and the most important implication this has for ourpurposes is that we will eventually have to decide which readings, if any, do justice to thefundamental import and significance of Kantian transcendentalism Moreover, since there isobviously no conceivable way I can establish exactly what the TD amounts to within the context ofKantianism proper in a vacuum, as it were, independent of the various exegetical schools of thoughtwhich have as their concern the TD, as I see it, the simplest way of dealing with the exegeticalissues related to Kant's TD is simply to pose the all-important question: is there a reading of the TDthat fits the texts, and remains true to the more fundamental philosophical concerns of Kantianism

in general? This question will no doubt form the basis of the first part of my thesis, which is

concerned with finding, within contemporary philosophical studies on Kant, a prima facie plausible

Part 1: An Introduction to Kant's Conceptions of Appearances and Things in Themselves

As I indicated above, in the first part of this chapter I will introduce, by way of explication,the two central Kantian concepts at the heart of the aforecited question, which we saw forms thebasis of our critical and exegetical evaluation of the meaning and import of Kant's TD The concepts

to which I here refer are nothing other than appearances and things in themselves So, to that end,

we should now consider these two concepts within the Critical context of transcendental idealismitself

2 See Graham Bird, The Revolutionary Kant: A Commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason (Chicago: Open Court,

2006), xii-xiv, where Bird first introduces his distinction between traditionalist and revolutionary accounts of Kantianism

Early on in the “Transcendental Aesthetic” at A20/B34 Kant provides us with a definition of

the notion of appearances (Erscheinungen), or rather “things that appear,” one of the most important

conceptions of his entire “Critical” framework, in terms of the idea of a spatio-temporal object of anempirical intuition; simply put, appearances, in other words, can best be understood as things or

objects as we experience them under the a priori conditions of a possible experience As we come

to learn in the Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), an appearance is something that conforms to the

formal-categorial structure of a possible experience, which essentially means two things: in the first

place, it means that appearances are objects that conform to the basic a priori forms of space and

time, or to put it differently, appearances are spatio-temporal objects; secondly, it means thatappearances are objects that are made intelligible by means of the most basic concepts of our humanunderstanding, the categories, which is to say that they are objects that can be made sense of interms of such concepts as unity, plurality, reality, negation, and the like Another way of putting this

is by saying that Kant takes the concept of appearances to signify nothing over and above theordinary empirical constituents of our shared, spatio-temporal reality, with the result thatappearances can include, on the one hand, such mundane spatio-temporal items such as tables,chairs, and computers, that is, items with which we are all intimately familiar, but it also means thatthey can include such things as atoms, neurons, and supernovas, for instance, items of modernscientific discovery with which we are not so intimately familiar In the end, what is important for

our purposes is that, because appearances conform to both the subjective a priori forms of our empirical intuition, as well as to the most basic a priori (and thus once again subjective) categories

of our understanding, appearances are obviously things that factor into our knowledge-claims aboutthe state of reality, and it is for that reason that we can say of them that they are things that areultimately cognizable by us Crudely put, the concept of appearances is the concept of things that

we can know

Additionally, one must remember that, beginning at A22/B37 of CPR, Kant draws a

distinction between inner sense on one hand, and outer sense on the other, each of which becomesassociated with its own corresponding form of empirical intuition; the form of time becomesassociated with inner sense, whereas the form of space becomes associated with the form of outersense Kant asserts that,

By means of outer sense, a property of our mind, we represent to ourselves objects as

outside us, and all without exception in space In space, their shape, magnitude, and

relation to one another are determined or determinable Inner sense, by means of

which the mind intuits itself or its inner state, yields indeed no intuition of the soul

itself as an object; but there is nevertheless a determinate form [namely time] in

which alone the intuition of inner states is possible, and everything which belongs to

inner determinations is therefore represented in relations of time Time cannot be

outwardly intuited, any more than space can be intuited as something in us.3

Laying aside the fact that this distinction will soon prove to be crucial in the following chapter, forour present purposes what this implies is that spatio-temporal appearances include, among otherthings, inner, and therefore wholly mind-dependent, mental items, the contents of which form the

basis of our most complex thoughts and emotions, as well as outer, wholly material, items like

computers, cell-phones, and cars, for instance The reason this is important is because this is whereKant first begins to distance himself from Berkeley or a Berkeleian-type phenomenalism, the latterbeing a metaphysical and epistemological position which doubts the existence of anything andeverything that is not immediately perceived or perceivable by us And, as we will come to learn inthe next chapter, many accounts of the TD will suffer for just that reason: they fail to account forthis fundamental distinction between inner and outer sense, which, as we just saw, plays animportant role in Kant's account of the nature of appearances

There is no doubt that, in comparison with Kant's account of the conception of appearances,which we have already considered in some detail, his account of the conception of things in

themselves (Dinge an Sich) is much more complex and nuanced To begin with, as we will shortly

see, we cannot even say with absolute certainty that things in themselves actually exist, that is, thatthere really is something, to be exact, a non-spatial, atemporal, and non-categorial form of being towhich the concept of the thing in itself refers Nevertheless, we can say with a considerable degree

of certainty that the concept of things in themselves (or things as they are in themselves) is, verygenerally, the concept of something, let us say once again, a form of being, that exists completelyapart from, independent of, and without any reference to, our experience, and the consequent result

is that things in themselves thereby essentially become understandable in terms of a form of being

that fails to conform to any of the a priori subjective conditions of a possible experience More

specifically, things in themselves refer to a form of being that exists outside the empirical realm of

spatio-temporal reality, and for that very reason they denote a form of being to which the a priori

forms of space and time cannot apply; furthermore, they cannot be subsumed under, conform to, or

in any sense be rendered intelligible by means of, the subjective a priori categories of our

understanding such as substance/attribute, cause and effect, unity, and reality, naming a few The

important point is that, by virtue of the status of things in themselves as prima facie

mind-independent items of some mysterious non-spatial, atemporal, and non-categorial sort, the concept

of things in themselves is the concept of a thing that is fundamentally unknowable to us; simply put,

if things in themselves were to exist, they would be so different from anything we have ever

experienced (or for that matter, could ever experience) that we would not be in a position to know

anything about them

Despite the fact that we are in no position to make any substantive pronouncements aboutthe precise meaning of the TD, of what it amounts to and how it can best be understood in light ofKantian idealism proper, one can nevertheless see key themes emerging in many contemporaryaccounts of the TD, particularly with respect to Kant's doctrine of things in themselves Let's beclear, though: I am certainly not saying that all of these themes or theses are entirelyunobjectionable; in fact, we will shortly see that some contemporary Kantian interpreters reject thevery first and most basic thesis, the thesis that things in themselves actually exist, that is, that theconcept of such things refers to something that really exists However, what I am saying is that mostKantian interpreters attempt to do justice to these theses in some way Even though we have alreadytouched upon most of them, it is certainly important at this stage to make them as clear and explicit

as possible To that end, then, I have provided a list of them, viz., a list of what many take to be thefour essential features or elements of Kant's commitment to the conception of things as they are inthemselves, which can be encapsulated in terms of the following four theses, and which I have

entitled the existential thesis, the non-formal, non-categorial thesis, the discursivity thesis, and finally, the inscrutability thesis, respectively

1 Things in themselves exist [See CPR, Bxx]

2 Things in themselves are necessarily non-spatial, atemporal things of some kind,

which cannot be understood in terms of the pure a priori concepts of the understanding (i.e., the categories) [See CPR, A30/B45 and A39/B56].

3 Human cognition is discursive, meaning that it requires both sensible intuitions, as

well as concepts [See CPR, A51-52/B75-76]

4 (From 1, 2, and 3) Things in themselves cannot be known by us [See CPR, Bxxvi,

A30/B45, and A44/B61].4

To be sure, the first two theses are metaphysical in character and import, whereas the final two areepistemological, where the conclusion logically follows the combination of the first three theses Inthe end, all I want the reader to take from this philosophical outline at this point is that, once we

4 Cf Rae Langton, Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 7-14, and James Van Cleve, Problems from Kant (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 135 It must be

noted that both Langton and Van Cleve outline what they take to be the essential theses or elements of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves The major difference between theirs and mine is that they both assume that the noumenal realm of things in themselves somehow causes or affects us, “giving rise to the representations through which phenomena are represented and constituted,” as Van Cleve says The causal thesis, as I call it, is a controversial claim, and one which I do not particularly accept Now, even though we will come to see that it is not the only thesis with respect to Kant's doctrine of things in themselves that I reject, it is simply too controversial a claim to include it in my list of the essential theses inherent to Kant's doctrine of things in themselves

combine the fact that things in themselves supposedly exist in some metaphysically-robust sense of

term, with the additional facts that they can be neither formal nor categorial – as both the a priori forms of intuition as well as the pure a priori categories of our understanding apply only to objects

of sense that are immediately given to us – and that our knowledge is discursive in that it requiresboth sensible particulars as well as general concepts, it follows that things in themselves are things

of a fundamentally inscrutable sort

However, there are of course fundamental problems with the above account, the first ofwhich centers round the conclusion, the inscrutability thesis, according to which things inthemselves represent a form of being of which we cannot obtain any determinate knowledge For,

so the argument goes, if things in themselves were genuinely inscrutable to us, common-sense saysthat we certainly could not know that they exist, and we certainly could not know that they exist in

such a way that they do not conform to either the a priori forms of our empirical intuition or to the pure a priori categories of thought Another way of putting this point is to claim that, insofar as one

accepts the veracity of the conclusion above, one thereby rejects the veracity of both premises 1 and

2, for one might ask: on what grounds can we claim that things in themselves exist, and exist insome non-formal, non-categorial way, moreover, if we cannot even claim to have any determinateknowledge of such things in the first place?

Now, at least in my mind, there are some relatively simple ways of rebutting this criticism,where the most common is to claim that it is only synthetic claims about things in themselves thatKant rejects as illegitimate, which essentially means that we are free to make as many analyticclaims about the status and/or character of things in themselves as their concept warrants Theimplication here is that, notwithstanding claim 1, which says that things in themselves exist, all ofthe aforementioned claims listed above, meaning claims 2 and 3, as well as the conclusion 4, arewholly legitimate because they express merely analytic truths about the status and/or character ofthings in themselves With this understanding that many of the above theses can be derived purelyfrom the concept of things as they are in themselves as such, some Kantian scholars have sought todispel the worry noted above by effectively claiming that, since the concept of things in themselves

is nothing more than the concept of a non-spatio-temporal, non-categorial object of some sort, toclaim that we cannot obtain any determinate knowledge of things in themselves is to state a merelyanalytic truth about such things Now, while I agree with this line of argument as far as it goes, theproblem becomes compounded once we take into account the second major issue in respect to theabove account, which is in a very important respect a more forceful expression of our currentproblem

A far more serious critical issue arises, however, when we recall that things in themselves

are supposed to be things that lie wholly beyond the categories of our thought, that is, the a priori,

and therefore most fundamental, concepts of the human understanding by means of which theexternal, mind-independent world is made intelligible to us According to Graham Priest,5 one of theimplications of the Kantian theory that the categories can only be employed within the field of apossible experience, and can therefore only be applied to objects within that field (viz.,phenomena), is not just that we cannot know things in themselves (or noumena) – what Priest refers

to as being beyond the limit of cognition – but more importantly, and more controversially, thatneither can we make meaningful statements about things in themselves nor form coherent thoughts(or ideas) of such things – in this latter sense, things in themselves are beyond both the limit ofexpression as well as the limit of conception.6 In order to adequately understand the rationalebehind Priest's view that we can neither say anything meaningful about, nor even form coherentthoughts (or ideas) of, Kant's notion of things in themselves (or noumena), we must first exploreexactly why he thinks we cannot know them As we can see here, there is a close connectionbetween the way in which things in themselves are beyond the limit of our cognition on one hand,and the way in which they are both beyond the limit of expression as well as the limit of conception

on the other hand

Very basically, the reason things in themselves (or noumena) are unknowable, in Kant'seyes, is that their status as non-categorial things or objects of some kind logically prohibits them

from factoring into any putative knowledge-claim That is, to know such and such about x is to make a claim or a judgement regarding x, and to make a claim or a judgement regarding x is to implement (at least some of) the various categories, thereby rendering x intelligible to us Even the

most basic – or what some might call the most “primitive” – form of cognitive awareness requiresthe implementation of the categories, for even the most basic form of cognitive awareness requires

us to make meaningful judgements about the objects of that awareness So, with this in mind, thethought, it seems to me, is that, if things in themselves are non-categorial in the respect that theyexist outside the field of the logical employment of the categories, it follows that we cannot evenobtain the most basic form of knowledge of them – whatever that might amount to – for the simplereason that we cannot even make a meaningful statement about them For, to make a meaningfulstatement about them would be to implement the various categories, which is impossible

5 See Graham Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 88-91

6 Things in themselves (or noumena) are also beyond the limit of iteration, according to Priest – which we shall not concerns ourselves with here Priest defines the limit of the iterable as “some operation that is applied over and over again as far as possible.” The most notable case of something being beyond the limit of the iterable, according to Priest, is the mathematical (ordinal) infinite Very basically, as far as I understand it, the thought seems to be that the mathematical infinite is at the limit of the iterable given that it is always possible to add something to our conception

of an infinite totality But I'm afraid I cannot say much more on this here See Graham Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought, 79-113, for more on this

Having already explained why things in themselves are beyond the limit of our cognition, it

is not too difficult to see why some might argue that they are beyond the limit of expression as well– the idea that we cannot say (or express) anything about them So the argument goes: if we cannotmake meaningful statements about things in themselves without employing any of the categories,and if things themselves are things which are outside the categories in some respect, then it followsthat we cannot make any meaningful statements about things in themselves As such, Kant's notion

of things in themselves is beyond the limit of the expressible

Yet, I would argue that the central argument Priest uses to illustrate the contradictory – orrather incoherent – nature of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves in relation to some of the

broader theoretical concerns of CPR itself is not in terms of the idea that we cannot make any

meaningful statements about things in themselves, but rather in terms of the idea that we cannoteven form any coherent thoughts, ideas, or concepts of such things, of what things in themselvesmay ultimately be like In this way, Priest alleges that the Kantian notion of things in themselves isbeyond the limit of conception In short, the reason Kant's doctrine of things in themselves isultimately incoherent, according to Priest, is that even the notion of a (negative) noumenon as amerely problematic concept our understanding forms in relation to non-sensible modes of intuitingthings – that is, a concept which refers to a problematically instantiated object – violates the non-categorial thesis of things in themselves For, as Priest puts it:

But to say that there are (or even may be) things about which we cannot judge is to

make a judgement about them; specifically, it existentially quantifies over them, and

so applies the Category of plurality The 'legitimate' notion is therefore just as

illegitimate as the illegitimate one … Hence Kant is caught squarely in the

contradiction inherent in the limits of thought And let me emphasize again: this is

not a contradiction of the kind of which one finds so many in the Critique: a result of

carelessness or of changes of view; it is a contradiction which is occasioned by the

very objects of the theory.7

If it is incoherent, based on Kant's own theory of the categories, for one not only to make anymeaningful statements about things in themselves – that such things are non-formal, non-categorial,and that we cannot obtain any knowledge of them – but for one to entertain even the barestpossibility that such things may in fact exist, that there may be certain things which do not relate toour sensible form of intuition, then Kant's doctrine of things in themselves is incoherent lock, stock,and barrel

One might object to Priest's account of the Kantian doctrine of things in themselves on the

grounds that, as evidenced in various parts of CPR, Kant insists that, provided our thoughts do not

logically contradict themselves, there are very few restrictions on what one might “think,”

7 Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought, 91

“conceive,” or even “hypothesize.” For example, in the “Transcendental Doctrine of Elements,”Kant makes his famous remark that: “Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions withoutconcepts are blind.”8 For our present purposes, what is noteworthy about this passage is that Kantnever says that thoughts without content are logically contradictory or impossible, only that they areempty, meaning, devoid of any putative reference Most importantly, this is not to say that wecannot have such thoughts, that we cannot have the thought of a merely “problematically”instantiated item; but it is to say that such a thought is vacuous in the ordinary sense of the term inthat it does not refer to anything within the field of a possible experience, and as such, it does not,

as Kant would say, refer to an object which is actually given to us My view, in the end, is that thispassage is evidence of Kant's considered view that, in the event that our concepts (or thoughts) donot objectively refer to anything within the field of a possible experience, they are nevertheless stillcoherent thoughts, they are still thoughts of possible objects – barring, of course, any logicalcontradictions inherent in those thoughts This is exactly what Kant is saying in the following note

to CPR, Bxxvi where he remarks:

To know an object I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its actuality as

attested by experience, or a priori by means of reason But I can think whatever I

please, provided only that I do not contradict myself, that is, provided my concept is

a possible thought This suffices for the possibility of the concept, even though I may

not be able to answer for there being, in the sum of all possibilities, an object

corresponding to it But something more is required before I can ascribe to such a

concept objective validity, that is, real possibility; the former possibility is merely

logical This something more need not, however, be sought in the theoretical sources

of knowledge; it may lie in those that are practical.9

Kant's suggestion here is just that so long as our concept of the thing in itself, of a negativenoumenon that is, is the thought of a possible object in the respect that it does not logicallycontradict itself, the concept of the thing in itself is by no means impossible, and the consequentupshot for the Kantian is that there is no contradiction in us entertaining thoughts about such things

As such, Kant's doctrine of things in themselves – which turns out to be the doctrine of negativenoumena, as we will see – is not in any way embroiled in the logical contradictions andincoherences that Priest alleges

As we have seen, the major problem with Priest's account of how Kant's notion of things inthemselves violates the limit of conception stems in large part from a misunderstanding, on Priest'spart, of the complexities and nuances of Kant's theory of judgement in relation to the categories ofthought Essentially, in restricting the field of the possible employment of the categories within that

of a possible experience, Kant in effect thereby implicitly leaves open the (logical) possibility that

we may think whatever we please, provided, of course, our thought of a possible object is acoherent thought in that it does not contradict itself To quote Robert Hanna at this point:

By contrast, all judgments that are not objectively valid are “empty” (leer) or

truth-valueless Nevertheless it must be noted that for Kant empty judgments can still be

rationally intelligible and not nonsensical, if all the concepts contained within them

are at least logically consistent or “thinkable” (Bxxvi n.) In this way, e.g., some

judgments containing concepts of noumenal objects (things-in-themselves, or real

essences) or noumenal subjects (rational-agents-in-themselves, or persons) are

anthropocentrically empirically referentially meaningless and truth-valueless, hence

empty, yet also are rationally intelligible and even essential both to Kant's theoretical

metaphysics (A254-255/B309-310, A650-654/B678-682) and to his metaphysics of

freedom and morality (A530-558/B566-586).10

In the end, then, Priest's account of the contradictory nature of Kant's conception of things as theyare in themselves largely fails as an interpretation of the real, Critical Kant, for, as I have said, itfails to do justice to the complexities and nuances of Kant's theory of judgement, of whether it ispossible to think a merely “problematic” object without at the same time employing the forms ofjudgement, and in turn the various categories Since Kant remains committed to the view that it ispossible for us to entertain such thoughts, for us to have the thought of an object that may only

“problematically” exist, it is certainly by no means unintelligible or incoherent for him to advance atheory of the TD in which things in themselves are necessary only in the regulative sense inmarking off the territory of the knowable

We have therefore considered, in a preliminary way, how Kant introduces the concept ofthings in themselves, and how this does not immediately fall foul of a fatal difficulty – though ofcourse many puzzles still remain, as we will come to as we proceed But first I will set out the mainways in which Kant's TD have been understood

Part 2: An Enumeration and Explication of Four Transcendental Construals of Kant's TD

As I understand it, there are only four possible interpretations of what Kant's TD can be said

to amount to; and in what follows, I will enumerate them in chronological order, that is, according

to the temporal order in which they were formulated in response to the problematic surrounding the

TD, of what the TD means, and how it can be understood In chronological order, these

transcendental construals are: first, the traditional ontological construal (which includes both the

two-object view as well as the two-worlds view); second, the methodological construal; third, the

10 Robert Hanna, “Kant's Theory of Judgement,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (July 2004), accessed April 4,

2013, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/

two-aspect construal; and fourth, the intrinsic nature construal11

Immediately following the publication and release of the first edition of CPR in 1781, there

were questions regarding the precise character of Kant's TD, of whether or not the Kantian notions

of appearances and things in themselves, which are so integral to the Kantian enterprise oftranscendental idealism itself, are coherent in the light of Kant's revolutionary program inmetaphysics.12 Kant's revolutionary program, as I here refer to it, is the metaphysical andepistemological program according to which the central task of the metaphysician is no longer one

of simply making necessary claims regarding objects based on the insights of pure reason, but is

now one of uncovering the necessary a priori epistemic conditions of our knowledge of objects, that

is to say, of what is needed for us to have any determinate knowledge of objects in the first place

So in light of these concerns, philosophers such as Eberhard and Jacobi asked: how, if at all, can wemake sense of the TD? What I am trying to convey to the reader here is simply that critical andexegetical issues have surrounded Kant's TD, especially his conception of things in themselves,ever since transcendental idealism was originally formulated in the latter half of the eighteenthcentury by Kant himself in north-eastern Germany It is not a dispute which arose only within thepast few decades among Kant scholars; it stems from the very foundation of transcendental idealism

as such

Yet, for our purposes, what is important is that most of Kant's contemporaries, including all

of the above, subscribed to some form of what I herein referred to as the traditional “ontological”construal of the TD, whereby things in themselves represent the matter or the content of ourempirical intuitions, which in some sense is meant to give rise to or simply cause our spatio-temporal representations of objects In an important sense, things in themselves can thus can be

seen to act, on the ontological models of the TD, as some sort of metaphysical ground (“Grund”) of

11 Here, it is important to convey to the reader that, for the most part, there is no set chronological order in which these readings appeared For, within the context of the debate regarding the meaning and import of Kant's TD, it is important to note, first, that the traditional ontological reading came onto the philosophical scene first – as it has its roots in the writings of Kant's own contemporaries, as we have already discussed And, secondly, the methodological reading came next, for it was a direct reaction against the ontological interpretation, and what some Kantian commentators had then perceived to be its most unfair treatment of Kantian idealism Accordingly, there is considerable lee-way with respect to the order in which we present the remaining interpretations of Kantianism, namely, the aspect reading and the intrinsic nature reading The reason for this is that both of these views have been formulated within the past twenty to thirty years as alternatives to both the ontological reading as well as the methodological reading of the TD

12 See Hoke Robinson, “Two Perspectives on Appearances and Things in Themselves,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 3 (1994): 411-412, where Robinson notes that the very first review of the first edition of CPR to appear

in 1781 expressed a concern that the Critical philosophy was a kind of Berkeleian idealism according to which the stuff (or matter) of the world is nothing but a species of representations And, to be sure, the TD was at the center of these concerns, for this is where (so it was thought) the Berkeleian Kant begins to reveal himself All I am trying to

convey here is the thought that the controversy surrounding the TD goes as far back to the very publication of CPR itself One could also see Frederick Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987), for more on this

our experience, the metaphysically-ultimate foundation or set of elements our experience is to have

if it is to be the kind of experience it is Moreover, as we will come to see, once we accept thethesis, universal among metaphysical accounts of the TD, that things in themselves act as the

metaphysical ground (“Grund”) of our experience, this leads to a sort of “one-to-one”

correspondence theory in which Kant's TD acts as a philosophical correlate for that age-oldmetaphysical distinction between appearance and reality, a contrast of “how things merely appear tous” on one hand, as opposed to “how things really are” on the other

This furnishes us with a model of the TD according to which its basic import andsignificance is fundamentally metaphysical or ontological in character, and this is tantamount toclaiming that the TD represents a straightforward ontological distinction between two mutually-incompatible classes of thing or object (viz., the two-object view) or two non-overlapping spheres

of being entirely (viz., the two-world view), each of which has its own distinct set of properties.According to this view,13 then, in the first place, there are appearances, or spatio-temporal objects ofsense, the existence of which Kant accepts, and which, moreover, are made cognitively accessible

to us through the use of the most basic concepts of our faculty of understanding, the categories Onthe other hand, though, there are things in themselves, or non-spatio-temporal objects of purereason, the existence of which Kant also (in some sense) accepts, which obviously cannot berendered intelligible to us by means of any formal, categorial imposition Now let me explain: onthe ontological reading (as we will come to see more of later on), there is a certain sense in whichappearances or representations are appearances (or representations) of things in themselves (orbetter yet, things as they are in themselves) – the latter being that which underpins the former as its

Ground (“Grund”) It is in this way that objects of perception, or phenomena as Kant calls them, are constituted in some sense by the way things are “in themselves” – the other of course being the a

priori structures our minds employ to represent or intuit objects external to us As Priest remarks:

“For Kant, a horse is a spatio-temporal representation of an object; but what the representation is arepresentation of (which the rest of us might call a horse) is neither perceived nor in space andtime.”14 That, I take it, is how the ontological theorist conceives of Kant's TD, in this casespecifically the relation between our empirical representations on one hand, and that which theseempirical representations are representations of (viz., things in themselves) on the other hand Eventhough Kant never denies the actual existence of this latter type of object on the ontological reading– that which our representations purport to be representations “of” – he nevertheless claims that

13 I take both the two-object view and the two-world view as ontological views of Kant's TD

14 Priest, Beyond the Limits of Thought, 83 It must be noted that all metaphysical readings of the TD construe the

distinction between representations and things in themselves in these basic terms, in terms of the idea that our spatio-temporal, categorial representations are in some sense representations “of” intrinsically non-spatio-temporal, acategorial things in themselves

knowledge of such objects is impossible One final remark: one must note that the traditionalontological reading accepts each of the three essential theses, which I had outlined earlier asconstitutive of the Kantian doctrine of things in themselves basically conceived, with the provisothat things in themselves, which act as the source of our sensations, affect our sensibilities in somefashion, and it is that which explains the way in which the manifold of empirical intuition isconstituted

Clearly, what I have said thus far relates only to what I have herein referred to as thetraditional ontological interpretation of Kant's TD – the reading which claims that Kant's TD ismeant to denote a basic ontological distinction between two different classes of entity: appearances

or phenomena, and things in themselves or noumena And, even though there are still sometraditionalists, among whom include F H Jacobi and G W F Hegel in Kant's time, to P F.Strawson and James Van Cleve in our own, I think it safe to say that the majority of Kant scholarstoday are anti-traditionalists, or what Bird famously calls the “revolutionaries.”15 Among this lattergroup of revolutionaries, I obviously include Bird himself, as well as Gerold Prauss, Henry Allison,and Robert Pippin, to name a few others More specifically, all of these revolutionaries subscribe tosome form of what is generally termed the methodological16 reading of the TD, alleging that this notonly represents a far more charitable interpretation of Kantian idealism and of Kant's TD but also afar more accurate interpretation of the intended meaning of the TD itself

The methodological reading of Kant's TD is at bottom a formal interpretation of the meaningand import of Kant's TD that does not recognize any sort of implicit metaphysical implications the

TD has for Kantianism in general According to these merely formal or conceptual readings of the

TD, Kant's metaphysics admits the existence of only one kind of thing or object, namely,

spatio-temporal objects of experience which conform to both the subjective a priori forms of our empirically-sensible intuition, as well as to the pure a priori categories of thought It is important to

15 Any Kantian philosopher who accepts some sort of metaphysical interpretation of Kantianism according to which the TD is meant to denote two existent things, regardless of the way in which they are understood, I class as a traditionalist On the contrary, however, anyone who rejects the metaphysical interpretations of Kantianism, whose central idea is that things in themselves necessarily exist in some manner, in favor of a merely formal or conceptual

interpretation of Kantianism, which emphasizes the centrality of the a priori epistemic conditions for best

understanding Kant's TD, I class under the “revolutionary” label Very simply put, metaphysical interpreters are traditionalists, since they accept the existence of things in themselves, whereas methodological or epistemological interpreters are “revolutionaries,” since they do not But, of course, this will all become clearer in the stages to come

16 It is important to note at this time that some philosophers refer to Allison as a “two-aspect” theorist, in the respect that he subscribes to what they term the “two-aspect” reading of the TD Indeed, even Allison himself tends to think

of himself in just this way But, as we will see, to think of Allison in these terms is highly misleading for the simple fact that neither Allison himself, nor any other “methodological” theorist for that matter, actually argues that Kant's

TD should be understood in terms of a distinction between different “aspects,” “features,” or “sets of properties” of one and the same object It is, rather, a purely conceptual position whereby the TD is meant to denote two different ways of considering one and the same object of experience; that is all As such, it has no underlying metaphysical implications, as the reader will recognize in due coarse

remember that, just because there is only one type of existent thing we can know of, this does notpreclude us from thinking about these things in various, and oftentimes conflicting, ways Morespecifically, the methodological reading stipulates that we can think of spatio-temporal objects ofsense in one of two ways: either we can think of them in terms of the empirical objects of sense that

they are, in which case they are necessarily subject to the a priori, and thus wholly subjective,

conditions of a possible experience, or we can think of them in the illusory terms of purelyintelligible objects of reason, which can be accessed by means of a pure intellect alone, and in

which case they are not subject to the a priori subjective conditions of a possible experience Kant

identifies in the forms of our empirical intuition (space and time) and the pure categories of ourunderstanding Whereas in the former case we are considering the object as a mere appearance, inthe latter case we are considering the object as a thing in itself; moreover, it is this latter way ofconsidering things that denotes the transcendental, as opposed to the merely empirical, represented

in the former, level of discourse As we will see, this latter method of considering things is alsorejected by Kant as wholly illegitimate and therefore intrinsically problematic With thisunderstanding that methodological theorists do not even accept the most basic tenet of Kant'sdoctrine of things in themselves that things in themselves exist, it becomes clear that themethodological conception of things in themselves is such that it severely, and some would evensay to the point of “triviality,”17 minimizes the role the thing in itself plays in the architectonic ofKant's Critical system

To adequately understand the methodological reading, specifically how it understands therelation between appearances as mere representations on one hand, and how these appearances quarepresentations stand in relation to things as they are in themselves on the other, one must first notethat, on the formal, methodological line of thought, our spatio-temporal representations are in noway constituted by the way things are in themselves as they are on each of the metaphysicalreadings As such, our representations cannot be said to be representations “of” things in themselves

in any meaningful way at all In line with this, whenever Kant claims that appearances are mererepresentations,18 he is not claiming – as some traditionalists have supposed19 – that all objects ofsense are mental representations, and for that reason, have no independent existence outside our

17 See Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 333, and Langton, Kantian Humility, 8-9

18 See CPR, A101, A104, A190/B235, A191/B236, A369, A370, A372, A375, A375n, A377, A383, A386, A390, A390,

A392, A490-491/A518-519, A492/B520, A493-494/B522, A498/B527, A507/B535, A563/B591, A793/B821 This

list is by no means exhaustive These are only those passages in CPR in which Kant makes most explicit the

identification of appearances with representations (or vice versa), not those in which such an identification is merely suggested or inferred

19 See P F Strawson, The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (London: Routledge, 1966), 238; Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, 335; and Van Cleve, Problems from Kant, 136-137

thoughts; rather, what he is claiming is that, as mere representations, appearances must first

conform to the a priori subjective conditions of a possible experience, and then to the various

phenomenal/empirical laws governing and regulating that very experience20 – the latter of whichbeing set out in Kant's transcendental theory of experience, which includes: the “Axioms ofIntuition,” the “Anticipations of Perception,” the “Analogies of Experience,” and the “Postulates ofEmpirical Thought in General.” It is in this way, then, that the methodological reading of Kant, asopposed to the various metaphysical readings, escapes the unfortunate charge of Berkeleianphenomenalism traditionally associated with Kant's TD in particular, and the theoretical aspect ofhis Critical philosophy in general However, I'm afraid I must now pass on to more pressing matters,the first being to offer a more comprehensive explanation of this view's particular understanding ofKant's conception of things in themselves

As I noted, it is important that I expound upon the basic themes or elements of themethodological reading of Kant's TD a bit further here, for one might be concerned that I have notbeen as clear as I should be on exactly what the TD consists in, and how best it can be understood.One might ask: what does it mean for the methodological Kantian to claim that, in addition toconsidering things in terms of the things they are, as spatio-temporal objects of an empiricalintuition rendered intelligible with the aid of the categories of thought, we can also consider thosevery things in terms of something that they most assuredly are not, namely, as non-spatio-temporalobjects of reason accessible through the use of a pure reason alone? For one thing, the

methodological theorist relies on the chapter of CPR entitled: “The Ground of the Distinction of All

Objects in General into Phenomena and Noumena,” where Kant outlines the terms in which thenotion of things in themselves are to be understood, not only for the purpose of lending support tohis preferred interpretation of Kantian transcendentalism, but more importantly, for the purpose ofmaking their preferred interpretation of things in themselves intelligible What is important is thathere Kant explicitly identifies things in themselves with the idea of a noumenon, or an intelligible

object of reason At CPR, B307 Kant explains the difference between the two different forms or

conceptions of the noumenon: the positive sense and the negative sense Whereas the former,positive sense of the noumenon denotes anything of a specifically non-sensible (and, byimplication, wholly intelligible) form of intuition, the latter, negative sense denotes a thing only

20 See Arthur Collins, Possible Experience: Understanding Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (London: University of

California Press, 1999), 31-60, where he attempts to repudiate the traditionalist notion that Kant was an goodness, old-fashioned” idealist by claiming, in effect, that he was a robust, empirical realist for whom the existence of the mind-independent world, that is, the field of appearances in general, was never in question One of the principal tactics by which Collins attempts to corroborate his non-idealistic (and thus wholly realistic)

“honest-to-“revolutionary” reading of Kant was by undermining the idea that, as a mere species of our (mental) representations, appearances consist of nothing over and above our transient, mind-dependent contents, contents which cannot exist unperceived

insofar as it is not an object of our sensible form of intuition, with the added caveat that the formerconception is to be rejected, Kant alleges, on the grounds that it illegitimately and erroneouslypresupposes a non-sensible form of intuition, the logical possibility of which is in doubt We alsocome to learn in this chapter, the methodological theorist argues, that Kant putatively identifies hisconception of things in themselves with his related conception of the negative form of thenoumenon, and this means that a thing in itself is just anything that bears absolutely no relation tothe form of our (sensible) intuition

Earlier, I noted that Kant's concept of things in themselves, or negative noumena, is, verybasically, a concept which refers to nothing other than those intelligible objects of reason

(“intelligibilia”) which are accessible by means of a pure reason alone; essentially, the thought here

is that the concept of things in themselves, on the methodological reading, represents a mereconcept, nothing more, for it is a concept our minds inevitably form in relation to a certain kind ofthing or object I cannot fail to note that, in the very same chapter cited above, Kant also associatesnegative noumena, things which are not to be thought of as objects of the senses but as objects(things) in themselves, with three essential, oftentimes related, features or characteristics They arenecessary, problematic, and finally, limiting, concepts of our human understanding First, noumenaare necessary for they:

prevent sensible intuition from being extended to things in themselves, and thus to

limit the objective validity of sensible knowledge The remaining things, to which it

does not apply, are entitled noumena, in order to show that this knowledge cannot

extend its domain over everything which the understanding thinks.21

Second, noumena are problematic for they “are not in any way contradictory For we cannot assert

of sensibility that it is the sole possible kind of intuition.”22 Third and finally, noumena are limitingconcepts as they function “to curb the pretensions of sensibility; and it [their concept] is thereforeonly of negative employment At the same time it is no arbitrary invention; it is bound up with thelimitation of sensibility, though it cannot affirm anything positive beyond the field of sensibility.”23

What we have just said indicates, among other things, that the methodological conception of things

in themselves is, in a very important sense, a mere abstraction, for it can only be attained, or arrived

at, by means of a process whereby we consider an ordinary object of sense, and then abstract from

that ordinary object of sense the a priori epistemic conditions under which it is represented and

cognized by us Concluding our discussion of the methodological reading, then, it is important torecognize that, in constructing a plausible reading of the TD, methodological theorists such as

Allison and Bird appeal to the discursive nature of our cognition, and thus to the importance of the

subjective a priori epistemic conditions of a possible experience – as the specific epistemic

conditions of that discursive intelligence – for the purpose of understanding Kant's position withregards to the TD rather than to any metaphysical theory regarding the way in which our cognitionmust “causally” interact with transcendent realities in order for us to have determinate experience ofobjects

I think we are now in a position to take stock of a few things In order to be as clear aspossible about how the methodological reading conceives of the TD, and of how they conceive ofthe idea of things in themselves in particular, I think it would be most beneficial to return to thephilosophical outline I noted earlier in part I We saw that traditional ontological readings of the TDbasically conceive of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves as it was therein presented, with veryfew modifying details, and so can be understood in the following way:

1 Things in themselves exist (as objects)

2 Things in themselves are necessarily non-spatial, atemporal things (objects, or even

spheres of reality) of some kind, which cannot be understood in terms of the pure a

priori concepts of the understanding (i.e., the categories)

3 Human cognition is discursive, meaning that it requires both sensible intuitions, as

well as concepts

4 (From 1, 2, and 3) Things in themselves (as objects) cannot be known by us

However, the situation changes considerably in the event that we adopt the methodological reading

of the TD, in which case it looks something like the following:

1 Things in themselves do not necessarily exist (qua things), rather it is only our

thought about such things that is necessary.

2 The concept of things in themselves refers to those things, which (if they were to

exist) would be non-spatial, atemporal things of some kind, and which would not be

comprehensible in terms of the pure a priori concepts of the understanding (i.e., the

other.24 Having considered the two most widespread ways of reading the TD, which, as we haveseen, are in direct opposition to each other, it is now time to consider the two remaininginterpretations of the TD in relation to this very framework The first we shall consider is thereading that is oftentimes conflated with the methodological reading to which both Allison and Birdsubscribe

The third reading of the TD, which we will now consider, is what I term the “two-aspect”reading; as its name implies, the two-aspect reading conceives of the TD simply in terms of twomutually-opposed “aspects,” “spheres,” or “fields” of our reality, one of which we cannotexperience as it lies outside (what Kant deems to be) the bounds of a possible experience, the other

of which we can certainly experience as it lies within the very field of a possible experience, andwithin our very experience as such Moreover, the two-aspect reading, unlike the revolutionarymethodological reading considered above, is without doubt thoroughly metaphysical, and thereforetraditionalist, as it emphasizes the hidden metaphysical dimension to the conception of things asthey are in themselves by accepting, however implicit, the actual existence of such things That iswhat makes it metaphysical in import and significance; regardless of the exact manner in whichthey are understood, the point is that the two-aspect reading in no way denies the metaphysicalthesis that things in themselves exist, and exist necessarily for that matter

Furthermore, the two-aspect reading has its roots in the writings of Lucy Allais, who, inaddition to Paul Guyer, is one of the most prominent aspect theorists today Notwithstanding Allais'sagreement with certain facets of the methodological approach, specifically, with the way in which

such readings emphasize the importance of the a priori epistemic conditions of our knowledge for

adequately understanding Kant's TD, especially why we supposedly cannot obtain knowledge ofthings in themselves, she nevertheless argues that there is still a way “things are in themselves,” a

way that is wholly removed from the subjective a priori epistemic conditions of any possible

experience, and which is therefore intrinsically unknowable to us Evidence of this can be found inthe following passage, where Allais remarks that:

from the facts that Kant is not committed to the existence of intelligibilia and that he

is not a Berkelean idealist, it does not follow that he is not committed to there being a

way things are in themselves, which we cannot cognise, or that he is not committed

to appearances being genuinely dependent on our minds in some (non-Berkelean)

sense And while the claim that we cannot know things in themselves is of course an

epistemic claim, this does not mean that it involves no metaphysical commitment –

24 Since these two interpretations are by far the most common interpretations of Kant's TD, in order to highlight their fundamental differences, I have here outlined the contrasting ways in which these readings conceive of the essential theses of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves Let it be known, however, that going forward, I will generally refrain from outlining this philosophical account in relation to the particular transcendental reading under consideration mainly because each of the readings we have yet to consider bears a close resemblance either to the ontological interpretation or to the methodological interpretation of the above account

such as a commitment to the existence of an aspect of reality which we cannot

cognise … Kant is committed to the claim that the things we cognise have, in

addition to the way they appear to us, a nature that is independent of us, which we

cannot cognise.25

Now, with respect to Kant's doctrine of things in themselves in particular, this suggests that theconcept of things in themselves, or more appropriately, “things as they are in themselves,” verybasically, denotes nothing more than mind-independent reality, meaning reality outside the field of a

possible experience, and thus by implication outside the a priori subjective conditions of that very

experience This is why the aspect reading is an aspect reading: as we saw, it conceives of the TD interms of different “fields,” “spheres,” or “aspects” of our reality, corresponding to the mind-dependent sphere of appearances on the one hand, and to the mind-independent sphere of “things asthey are in themselves” on the other Finally, the only difference between the aspect reading of the

TD, and the ontological reading of the TD, is that the former conceives of things in themselves interms of a mind-independent aspect of our reality, which is intrinsically non-spatio-temporal, andnon-categorial, and which we thus cannot cognize, whereas the latter conceives of things inthemselves in terms of super-sensible, non-spatio-temporal things of a kind we cannot cognize (i.e.,

“intelligibilia”)

But, before I proceed to the third metaphysical reading of the TD, viz., the intrinsic naturereading, I think it is important for us to note exactly why Allais endorses such a view Apart fromconsiderations of the texts, one reason Allais gives for formulating, as well as endorsing, the two-aspect reading of the TD is that, in spite of Kant's manifest opposition to traditionalist procedures in

metaphysics, of attempting to derive a priori knowledge of the nature of God, the immaterial soul,

human freedom, etc., Kant is nonetheless committed to the view, according to Allais, that the things

we cognize have, in addition to the way they appear to us, a way they are in themselves that isindependent of the former, and as such, independent of the way we experience them The suggestion

is that, although Kant abhors some forms of metaphysics, especially those which purport to derive

knowledge of super-sensible realities by means of pure a priori concepts of reason, this does not

mean that Kant abhors all forms of metaphysics And, this is why Allais argues that methodologicalmodels of the TD, as advanced in the writings of Allison and Bird, among others, are fundamentallyinadequate as putative explanations of Kant's TD: they do not justice to the implicit, but notnecessarily minimal, sense in which the TD is a metaphysical distinction between different types of

thing, or as she alleges, “aspects” of things Just because the a priori epistemic conditions of

knowledge are invaluable for understanding the basic meaning of Kant's TD, and his doctrine of

25 Lucy Allais, “Transcendental Idealism and Metaphysics: Kant's Commitment to Things to Things as They are In

Themselves,” Kant Yearbook 2 (2010): 2-3

things in themselves in particular, that does not mean that Kant's TD is solely an epistemological, oreven meta-philosophical position according to which there is no putative instantiation of things as

they are in themselves, there is no way things are in themselves Even though I certainly cannot evaluate the prima facie strength or weakness of this argument yet, it is still important for us to

make note of it here as it demonstrates that not every Kantian scholar is satisfied with the traditional

“either/or” approach to interpreting the TD, and why some scholars have felt this way, whyinterpreting the TD either as a straightforward ontological distinction between two kinds of thing, oreven realms of being, on one hand, or as a merely epistemic, meta-philosophical distinctionbetween the various ways in which things (empirical objects) can be considered on the other aredownright inadequate as explanations of what Kant's TD ultimately means

At least on the face of it, the intrinsic nature reading of the TD bears a striking resemblance

to the reading just considered, the two-aspect reading To begin with, the intrinsic nature reading

was originally formulated by Rae Langton in her (relatively recent) book Kantian Humility The reason why there is a prima facie close affinity between the two-aspect reading and the intrinsic

nature reading is that the latter reading can be said to be as much of an aspect interpretation of the

TD as the former Evidence of this can be found in the fact that the Kantian conception of things inthemselves, on the intrinsic nature reading, denotes a substance, specifically a substance that hasintrinsic, non-relational, non-causal powers, whereas phenomena are nothing more than theextrinsic, and thus wholly relational, properties of these very substances The suggestion here is thatKant's TD once again functions as a distinction between two different “aspects” of things (empiricalobjects), in this case the aspects of things are conceived specifically in terms of their contrary sets

of properties, features, or characteristics: the intrinsic and non-relational, as opposed to the extrinsicand relational There are thus two non-overlapping aspects of everything, of every spatio-temporalempirical object: first, the intrinsic aspect of things (or more appropriately, substances), whichcorresponds to things as they are in themselves, and there is also the extrinsic, phenomenal aspect ofthings, corresponding to things as they appear to us (what Sellars would call their “manifestimage”26), each of which has its own distinct realm of being and discourse To conclude, then, theonly significant difference between the two readings, between the two-aspect reading and theintrinsic nature reading is that the latter is in a sense a more determinate version of the former:whereas the former remains relatively agnostic about the precise character of things as they are inthemselves, or mind-independent reality, the latter makes a lot of additional claims about things asthey are in themselves (as well as about things as they merely appear to us) by claiming that they

26 See Wilfrid Sellars, “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man,” in Robert Colodny, ed., Frontiers of Science and Philosophy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962), 35-78 passim

correspond, respectively, to the intrinsic, non-relational properties of substances on one hand, and tothe extrinsic, relational-causal powers of these very same substances on the other

To repeat what I said earlier: the intrinsic nature reading is a metaphysical reading of the TD– since it in no way denies the existence of things in themselves – according to which Kant's TD isunderstood in terms of an aspect distinction between the intrinsic, non-relational properties ofsubstances on one hand, and their extrinsic, causal powers on the other More needs to be said here;but, instead of outlining the intrinsic nature reading's conception of things in themselves in terms ofthe philosophical outline, noted above, which most accounts of Kant's doctrine of the TD attempt to

do justice to, as we did both in the case of the ontological reading and the methodological reading, Iwill outline it in a somewhat different fashion by drawing on what Langton herself had perceived to

be the most important theses for making sense of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves in relation

to Kantian idealism proper

At least as Langton conceives of the intrinsic nature reading, the four essential theses toKant's doctrine of things in themselves are not what we had termed earlier as the existential thesis,the non-formal, non-categorial thesis, the discursivity thesis, and the inscrutability thesis, but rather

what she terms as the receptivity thesis, the distinction thesis, the irreducibility thesis, and fourth and finally, the humility thesis, respectively They can be understood in the following terms:

1 Receptivity: Human knowledge depends on sensibility, and sensibility is receptive:

we can have knowledge of something only insofar as it affects us “In other words, the basis of our knowledge are relations that consist in the way in which things affectus.”27

2 Distinction: Things in themselves are substances that have intrinsic properties;

phenomena are the real, albeit relational, properties of substances

3 Irreducibility: “Relational properties, and in particular causal powers, do not

supervene on intrinsic properties and are hence not reducible to intrinsic properties Consequently, if substances affect us, they do not affect us by means of their intrinsicproperties.”28

4 Humility: We have no knowledge of the intrinsic (i.e., noumenal) properties of

substances.29

The significance of these claims lies in the fact that they collectively point to the nature of oursensibility as that which determines what we can and cannot know about things in themselves orsubstances; or, in other words, one might say that, because the relational properties of things are the

27 Michael Esfeld, review of Kantian Humility Erkenntnis 54 (2001): p 400

28 Ibid

29 Cf Esfeld, review of Kantian Humility, 400

only properties of things that affect us, and because we can obtain knowledge of things only insofar

as things affect us, it is only the relational properties of things (i.e., substances) that we can know asthey are the only properties that factor into our empirical experience This also explains the non-overlapping nature of these two types of properties: the relational, causal powers of things on onehand, and the intrinsic, non-relational properties of things on the other They are non-overlappingprecisely because we can cognize only one of them, that is, the former, while the other (the latter)remains forever outside the scope of our cognitive apparatus

Additionally, if we keep the aforementioned theses in mind, it becomes clear that theinscrutability thesis, the idea that “we cannot know things as they are in themselves” can be re-

translated simply in terms of the idea that “we cannot know things (“substantia noumena”) as they

are in themselves (or as they are intrinsically and non-relationally) rather than the way these things(substances) are extrinsically and relationally.” In fact, Kant's inscrutability thesis can beunderstood not as the theory that we cannot know anything at all about things in themselves, butrather as the theory that we just cannot know how things in themselves are constituted independent

of, or apart from, the empirical-causal relationships in which we ordinarily experience them and inwhich they (at least in part) inhere Basically, the aim of the intrinsic nature reading, according toLangton, is to provide an interpretation of the TD, specifically the inscrutability thesis, which is, atleast on the face of it, intuitively attractive in a way that the methodological reading does not Now,let me explain: the intrinsic nature reading combines the receptivity thesis mentioned above, thethesis that we can only cognize things insofar as they affect us, with a thesis of the irreducibility of

relations according to which relational, causal powers (the realm of phenomena) are not reducible

to the intrinsic properties of substances (the realm of things in themselves) to yield an interpretation

of Kant's famous inscrutability thesis that cannot be said to suffer from the charge of “triviality” –

in the way that (we will come to see) the methodological reading of this thesis arguably does In theend, it must be noted that this view does not in any way claim that we cannot apprehend things in

themselves at all, but rather that we cannot apprehend the intrinsic natures of things, viz., how they are “in themselves;” it is thus only the “in itself” or, indeed, the noumenal aspect of reality that we

cannot in any way apprehend

To recapitulate: there are four possible readings of Kant's TD in relation to the broadertheoretical context of Kantianism proper In no particular order, some readers of Kant (e.g Jacobi,and Van Cleve) see him as a traditional Berkeleian metaphysician, at least in the formal idealistsense, for whom the realm of appearances is nothing but the realm of our inner, transient, mentalcontents, or in more Kantian terms, mind-dependent representations which cannot existunperceived, in which case the TD becomes a straightforward ontological distinction between the

realm of “mere appearances” on one hand, and the realm of “reality,” as it were, on the other – viz.,things as they merely seem to be to us, as opposed to things as they really are “in themselves.”Other philosophers, such as Allais, reject the (for them unfortunate) idea that Kant was nothing but

an “honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned” idealist for whom the external, mind-independent world(viz., the realm of appearances) is nothing over and above the realm of our mental representations,but who nevertheless retain the sense in which Kant's TD is at least partially a metaphysicaldoctrine about the nature of penultimate empirical reality on one hand (the realm of appearances),

as opposed to the nature of metaphysically-ultimate, mind-independent “reality” on the other, inwhich case the TD becomes a simple “aspect” distinction between the two fundamental aspects ofreality as such: mind-dependent reality, and mind-independent reality By contrast, otherphilosophers, like Langton, will keep the Allaisian sense in which Kant's TD functions as an aspectdistinction between the penultimate sphere of appearances on one hand, and the metaphysically-ultimate sphere of things in themselves on the other, yet add substantive content to the way inwhich the latter sphere can be understood by claiming that the realm of things in themselves is therealm of substances, the underpinning substrate of our experience In this case, the TD transformsitself into a property-type distinction between intrinsic, non-relational properties on one hand, andextrinsic, relational causal powers on the other And finally, still other philosophers (e.g Allison,Bird, and Collins) see Kant as a robust empirical realist for whom the realm of mind-independentobjects – in this case empirical objects of sense (or appearances) – actually exist, and whichimpinge upon our senses in such a way as to “stir-up” or “arouse” our faculty of sensible intuitioninto action, thereby giving rise to our spatio-temporal representations (of mind-independentobjects); in this case, the TD becomes a merely formal contrast between either contrastingconceptual “considerations” or “perspectives” within the confines of our very experience, ratherthan within a transcendent realm instantiated somehow over and above our experience These arethe four most significant readings of Kant's TD, and I will now consider each of them on the basis

of the texts

Part 3: An Examination of the Texts in Relation to the Four Transcendental Construals of Kant's TD

As I said, I will now consider each of the four possible readings of the TD in relation to thetexts; but before I proceed to the textual evaluation portion of this chapter, I must note that, instead

of adopting a chronological order of explication with respect to the various interpretations of the

TD, as I had done previously, I shall now adopt what I think is a more intuitive order of explication

at this point, beginning with the traditional ontological construal, followed by the aspect construal,

the intrinsic nature construal, and ending with the methodological construal – the only formalreading of Kant's TD

One of the reasons why the traditional, ontological reading of the TD has had its fair share

of supporters, both in Kant's time as well as in our own, is that some Kantian scholars have thought(if not assumed entirely) that the concept of things in themselves, first and foremost, refers tosomething that exists – for, after all, if things in themselves do not exist, then how can they exist asthings? And, in order to corroborate this claim – which is presupposed in all metaphysical accounts

of the TD – ontological theorists of all stripes have typically relied on the following passages, the

first of which is taken from the preface to the B edition of CPR at Bxx, where Kant famously says:

This situation yields, however, just the very experiment by which, indirectly, we are

enabled to prove the truth of this first estimate of our a priori knowledge of reason,

namely, that such knowledge has to do only with appearances, and must leave the

thing in itself as indeed real per se, but as not known by us.30

Likewise, just a few paragraphs further on, Kant says:

But of further contention must also be duly borne in mind, namely, that though we

cannot know these objects as things in themselves, we must yet be in position at least

to think them as things in themselves; otherwise we should be landed in the absurd

conclusion that there can be appearance without anything that appears.31

It is these passages, among others, that form the (textual) basis on which the traditional ontologicalaccount of Kantianism rests Simply put, the reason for this is that these passages seeminglycommit Kant to the wholly metaphysical view that things in themselves exist in some sense, exist asobjects, exist as worlds, or exist as aspects of things Yet, I would argue that, in neither case dothese passages commit Kant to such a view, as I will now show

Let us take each of these in turn Even though some methodological proponents32 have

claimed that at CPR Bxx Kant is not insisting that things in themselves actually exist, I find it rather

hard to reject that notion All I can do at this point, then, is to bite the bullet and claim that once we

step-back and take a holistic perspective of CPR, this passage is an anomaly; it is the only passage

in the entire CPR itself in which Kant seems to commit himself to the actual existence of things in

themselves On the other hand, in line with the methodological interpretation of Kant's TD, in thesecond passage listed above, Kant commits himself to the notion that it is the thought of things inthemselves that is necessary, not their actual existence In other words, as Kant claims therein, eventhough we cannot know things as they are in themselves, we must still be able to think of them inthat way, namely, in terms of purely intelligible objects of reason, which are neither formal nor

30 CPR, Bxx

31 CPR, Bxxvi-xxvii

32 See, for example, Bird, The Revolutionary Kant, 210

categorial, and which are thus unknowable – that is all; Kant never says that things in themselvesexist in that way Now, to the more controversial claim made in the second clause that the denial ofthe mere conceivability of things in themselves is by implication the denial of the existence ofappearances – the thought being that we would have appearances without anything that appears! – it

is far from clear that it is the actual existence of things in themselves that Kant is positing here,rather than, as I said above, their mere conceivability All Kant is claiming here is that the existence

of appearances entails the mere “conceivability and meaningfulness of references to things inthemselves,”33 as Bird claims For, as the transcendental correlate of appearances, the notion ofthings in themselves is entailed by the notion of appearances; in very crude terms, the existence of

things of a sensible faculty of intuition, which therefore conform to the a priori forms of our intuition, and which are thereby rendered intelligible with the aid of the a priori categories of the

understanding, entails the thought that things may be other than they are, that there may existcertain things that have no relation to the form of our empirical intuition, and as such, are neitherformal nor categorial in the manner just outlined

At the same time, though, if the traditional, ontological reading of the TD is to get off theground, it still needs to be shown not just that things in themselves exist – for all metaphysicalreadings make this assumption – but that things in themselves exist as “things,” “objects,” or even

“worlds” of some sort Typically, ontological theorists have appealed to passages such as the

following, which is taken from the chapter of CPR entitled: “The Ground of the Distinction of All

Objects in General into Phenomena and Noumena:”

Now we must bear in mind that the concept of appearances, as limited by the

Transcendental Aesthetic, already of itself establishes the objective reality of

noumena and justifies the division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and so

of the world into a world of the senses and a world of the understanding (mundus

sensibilis et intelligibilis), and indeed in such manner that the distinction does not

refer merely to the logical form of our knowledge of one and the same thing,

according as it is indistinct or distinct, but to the difference in the manner in which

the two worlds can be first given to our knowledge, and in conformity with this

difference, to the manner in which they are in themselves generically distinct from

one another.34

According to James Van Cleve, Kant is here arguing against the Leibnizian position that we canapprehend things as they really are, or are “in themselves,” even if only in a confused, distortedmanner.35 In other words, here Kant is simply reaffirming his famous “Restricktionslehre” which

essentially says that no matter how acute our senses and/or sense faculties may be, no matter how

33 Bird, The Revolutionary Kant, 210

35 Van Cleve, Problems from Kant, p 146

much knowledge of empirical reality we may in time acquire, we are never going to be able tocognize things as they are “in themselves” for the two are totally distinct from one another Ourcognition is thus completely and thoroughly cut-off from knowledge of things in themselves.Regardless, the crucial point, for Van Cleve, is that, as this passage suggests, Kant sometimes

“expressly repudiates the notion of a single domain of objects to which we have two modes ofaccess,”36 which, by implication, is to say that there are two domains of objects – only one to which

we have cognitive access

However, this passage is by no means decisive with regards to the fundamental import ofKant's TD: for I would argue that Kant's above characterization of the realm of phenomena and therealm of noumena as a division between a “world of the senses” and a “world of the

understanding,” respectively (“mundus sensibilis et intelligibilis”), is a merely rhetorical device for

what (as we will see) is clearly a methodological view I am certainly not of the opinion that weshould take this characterization seriously because, as we will also see, Kant will also use languageequally suggestive of the merely formal, methodological reading of Kantianism

In addition to the passages just cited, one might argue that the entire “TranscendentalAesthetic” itself, whose primary purpose is to map, in accordance with Kant's transcendental topic,the most basic elements of our experience belonging to our faculty of sensibility, is essentiallynothing but an implicit affirmation of the ontological interpretation of Kantian idealism, which, torepeat, claims that the TD is at heart an ontological distinction between two numerically distinct,and thus mutually opposed classes of thing, object, or worlds In line with this, one could say thatKant's “Aesthetic” contains unequivocal expressions of the ontological thesis that things inthemselves exist not merely in the conceptual sense in that they exist in our minds as thoughts ofpossible objects, but rather in the metaphysically-robust sense in that they exist qua things, and arethus instantiated in the manifold of intuition

The passages one might look to in this context are those where Kant explains what he

means in designating space and time, the a priori forms of our empirical intuition, as being

“transcendentally ideal.” More specifically, these passages are contained at the end of the

“Aesthetic,” in a section entitled the “Transcendental Exposition of the Concept of Space,” the first

of which reads as follows:

(a) Space does not represent any property of things in themselves, nor does it

represent them in their relation to one another That is to say, space does not

represent any determination that attaches to the objects themselves, and which

remains even when abstraction has been made of all the subjective conditions of our

intuition For no determination, whether absolute or relative, can be intuited prior to

36 Ibid

the existence of the things to which they belong, and none, therefore, can be intuited

a priori.37

At first glance, one might think that this passage corroborates the traditional, ontological view ofthe TD according to which Kant's conception of things in themselves is more than a mere concept,and as such, denotes entities of an intrinsically inscrutable sort, comprising an ontologically-

distinct sphere of reality independent from that which we can and do cognize But, as we all know,

things are not always as they appear because, on closer inspection, this passage actually exhibits a

far more methodological reading than one might have imagined In fact, pace the ontological

interpreter, Allison even goes so far as to argue that, when Kant claims that space is not a property

of things in themselves, all he means is that space – as one of the subjective conditions of ourintuition – cannot attach to things independent of the subjective conditions of intuition; and assuch, “the representation of space does not contain any properties (including relational properties)that can be predicated of things qua considered in this manner.”38 That seems to be enough forAllison to conclude at this point that things in themselves are things considered in abstraction from,

or independently of, the subjective conditions of our empirical intuition All that I hope to haveshown here is that, contrary to the traditional, ontological theorist's assumption, it is certainlypossible to read the most ontologically-suggestive passages in the “Aesthetic” – the above in

particular – in such a way that is not only prima facie wholly compatible with, but in fact actually

lends support to, the methodological reading of the TD – the details of which have already beenoutlined above However, if the methodological account of the “Aesthetic” is to hold much water,then it is safe to say that it must be able to do full justice to any other passages in the “Aesthetic”that could be said to be equally suggestive of the ontological interpretation of Kantianism In whatfollows, I hope to show that this is the case

Kant's second main point with regards to the transcendentally ideal status of space can beseen to follow directly from his first point To begin with, we saw above that the first thing Kantestablishes in regards to the form of space is that it is a merely subjective condition of ourexperience, and as such, it can neither represent a property of, nor a relation among, things as theyare in themselves Having already established the subjective nature of our empirical representation

of space, Kant now purports to establish its status as an a priori condition of our experience – an a

priori condition for intuiting things outside of us – by showing how the latter follows directly upon

the former, how the subjective character of the form of space entails its status as an a priori

condition of experience The passage reads:

38 Henry E Allison, Kant's Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2004), 119

(b) Space is nothing but the form of all appearances of outer sense It is the

subjective condition of sensibility, under which alone outer intuition is possible for

us Since, then, the receptivity of the subject, its capacity to be affected by objects,

must necessarily precede all intuitions of these objects, it can readily be understood

how the form of all appearances can be given prior to all actual perceptions; and so

exist in the mind a priori, and how, as a pure intuition, in which all objects must be

determined, it can contain, prior to all experience, principles which determine the

relations of these objects.39

On the character of space as a merely subjective condition of our experience, Kant is here merely

claiming that space is not an actual thing, it is not an object per se, but rather it is an a priori form

or mode by means of which we, or to be more precise, our faculty of sense, represents things

external to us And, in the end, the reason why space is an a priori condition of our experience, rather than an a posteriori condition derived from experience, is that the form of space necessarily

precedes our empirical intuitions of particular objects, and in that way, is necessarily presupposed

by our experience as such But, the important point as regards to the above is that there is nothing

in Kant's remarks about the form of space, here outlined in terms of a merely subjective (and thus a

priori) condition of our experience, that lends support to the ontological reading of the TD.

Furthermore, since Kant does not mention anything about the character of space in relation tothings as they are in themselves, or even in relation to things as they appear to us, I would argue

that, although this passage is significant in that it outlines the basic a priori subjective nature of the

form of space, it contributes very little to the debate regarding the TD

But surely this is not the case when we consider the concluding sections of the “Aesthetic,”which I would argue do far more to advance the formal methodological interpretation of

Kantianism than they do to repudiate it To be specific, at CPR A26-27/B42-43 Kant clarifies

exactly what the doctrine of the transcendentally ideal status of space actually means when he

claims that (the a priori form of) space is real only insofar as we consider space (as well as the

form of time for that matter) from the finite human perspective, in which case space is taken as

nothing more than a merely subjective form of our empirical intuition – an a priori condition of a

possible experience – and not from some putative “God's-eye-perspective,” in which case spacewould be taken for more than it really is, that is, as a necessary ontological condition that attaches

to things in general independently of their actually being given In this way, space cannot be said torepresent an objective property of, nor an objective relation among, things as they are inthemselves, and thus for one to claim that the form of space is ultimately real, rather than merelypenultimately real, as many of the rationalists clearly would, is highly misguided, according toKant He explains:

It is, therefore, solely from the human standpoint that we can speak of space, of

extended things, etc If we depart from the subjective condition under which alone

we can have outer intuition, namely, liability to be affected by objects, the

representation of space stands for nothing whatsoever This predicate can be ascribed

to things only in so far as they appear to us, that is, only to objects of sensibility.40

As far as I understand it, the meaning of this particular passage is in complete accordance with theformal, methodological reading rather than with any of the metaphysical readings For, what issignificant here is that Kant is not claiming that space represents a merely apparent, as opposed to areal, property or determination of things, which is what, I imagine, Kant would be claiming in theevent that he espoused some form of the ontological model of Kantianism, in which case the TD isreducible to a straightforward ontological contrast between distinct entities Rather, Kant's claim issimply that the form of space is wholly real, albeit real only from a certain predeterminedperspective, namely, the finite human perspective which takes into account the nature of the forms

of our empirical intuition, and by implication, the importance of these very forms for any putativeattempt at acquiring knowledge (of objects)

But this is only the tip of the iceberg, for when Kant finally concludes his thoughts on the

transcendental concept of space at CPR A28/B44, when he explains how the a priori form of space,

a mere form of our empirical intuition, can be both transcendentally ideal and empirically real, heexplains it in such a way that it lends credence to the formal methodological interpretation ofKantianism, saying that:

Our exposition therefore establishes the reality, that is, the objective validity, of

space in respect of whatever can be presented to us outwardly as object, but also at

the same time the ideality of space in respect of things when they are considered in

themselves through reason, that is, without regard to the constitution of our

sensibility We assert, then, the empirical reality of space, as regards all possible

outer experience; and yet at the same time we assert its transcendental ideality – in

other words, that it is nothing at all, immediately we withdraw the above condition,

namely, its limitation to possible experience, and so look upon it as something that

underlies things in themselves.41

Again, the thought here is that space, as a mere form of our empirical intuition, is real only insofar

as it is considered in respect of things from our finite, “man's-eye-view” of things according towhich things are presented to us outwardly as objects, as Kant says himself, and thus it is idealwhen it is considered from that “God's-eye-view” of things, in which case we consider space, aswell as the things to which it belongs, in abstraction from any consideration of the particular form

of our (empirical) intuition, which is just to say that we disregard the manner in which things aregiven to us To my mind, the reason this passage is significant from the standpoint of the debate

regarding Kant's TD is that the meaning of this passage is once again in complete accordance with,rather than in utter opposition to, the formal methodological reading of Kantianism On the reality

of the a priori form of space, it is not that space is real only in respect to a certain (instantiated)

domain of thing or object, that is, in respect to things in themselves (or noumena) which exist overand above empirical objects of sense; rather, space is real only insofar as it is thought or

“considered” in a certain way, namely, in a way that does justice to the sensible nature of ourempirical intuition, which requires the object being given to us prior to any putative attempt toacquire knowledge of it

Moreover, to further corroborate the thesis that the “Aesthetic” is actually an expression ofthe formal methodological interpretation of Kantianism, in which case the TD is a merely formal orconceptual distinction between ways of considering things (empirical objects), emphasizing thenecessity of the epistemic conditions for the possibility of our experience, one need only note thatKant's conclusions with regards to the our empirical intuition of space, therein contained, are in

complete accordance with his conclusions regarding the a priori form of time, also therein

contained, as the following passage demonstrates:

This, then, is what constitutes the transcendental ideality of time What we mean by

this phrase is that if we abstract from the subjective conditions of sensible intuition,

time is nothing, and cannot be ascribed to the objects in themselves (apart from their

relation to our intuition) in the way either of subsistence or of inherence This

ideality, like that of space, must not, however, be illustrated by false analogies with

sensation, because it is then assumed that the appearance, in which the sensible

predicates inhere, itself has objective reality In the case of time, such objective

reality falls entirely away, save in so far as it is merely empirical, that is, save in so

far as we regard the object itself merely as appearance.42

One could just as well read the second sentence of this paragraph as follows: “What we mean bythis phrase is that if we consider it in abstraction from the subjective conditions of sensibleintuition, time is nothing, and cannot be ascribed to the objects in themselves (apart from theirrelation to our intuition) in the way either of subsistence or of inherence.” Much like the passage weconsidered before it, this passage highlights the sense in which Kant's ideality thesis (here withrespect to the form of time) can only be understood in conceptual terms as a formal contrastbetween different ways of considering things, in this case space, as well as spatial things – which isexactly what one would think if the formal reading of Kant's TD were true! In the end, with theabundance of textual evidence in favor of the formal methodological reading of the TD, I find itvery difficult to put much stock in the traditional ontological reading of the TD as well as any of the(textual) arguments advanced on its behalf

At the beginning of my examination of the texts in connection with the ontological reading

of the TD, I pointed out that one might be prone to argue that the primary import and significance ofKant's “Aesthetic” for his theory of things in themselves is thoroughly metaphysical or ontological,

in the respect that Kant's thing in itself is there said to represent a second class of object numericallydistinct from ordinary things or appearances, that is, the objects which factor into our everydayknowledge-claims In showing that the “Aesthetic” can be read methodologically, with its emphasis

on the status of space and time as mere forms of our sensible intuition rather than putativeproperties of, or relations which obtain among, things as they are in themselves, and how these factsabout our cognitive apparatus preclude us from ever obtaining knowledge of things in themselves,what I have essentially shown is that the “Aesthetic” is anything but an expression of theontological reading of Kant's TD; in fact, almost all of the passages we have considered here, whichthe casual, uninformed reader may take as confirmation of the traditional ontological picture ofKantianism, whereby the TD becomes reducible to a distinction between mutually opposed types ofthing or object, are in fact representative of the purely formal reading of Kantianism, the

methodological reading For, even if the passage at A26/B52 of CPR could be interpreted in an

ontologically-suggestive way (which I wholeheartedly reject), one has to take into account thebroader theoretical context of the “Aesthetic” as a whole, which I have shown is downright formaland epistemological rather than ontological or metaphysical To be more specific, in interpreting themeaning and import of the “Aesthetic,” one must keep in mind the way in which Kant explains the

transcendental ideality (as well as the empirical reality) of the forms of our intuition, and more

specifically, the way in which these conceptions are inextricably tied to, and must be understood interms of, the various ways in which space and spatial things can themselves be considered, orsimply thought And, by doing so, it becomes easy to see why one might reject, as I have done here,the argument, made on behalf of the ontological interpretation of Kant's theoretical philosophy, thatthe “Aesthetic” corroborates this interpretation, and why I therefore reject all traditional ontologicalreadings of the TD

In the previous section, I addressed the textual arguments put forward in support of theontological interpretation of Kant's TD And, what we saw is that many of these arguments stand onvery shaky grounds For, in contrast to the traditionalist's belief that the “Aesthetic,” one of the

most important sections of the entire CPR itself, in which Kant is said to map the a priori elements

of our experience, can be read as an affirmation of the ontological reading of the TD, we have seenthat the “Aesthetic” can actually be read in a way that is not only ultimately compatible with, but infact even downright lends credence to, the formal, methodological reading of Kantianism, which(as we have also seen) highlights the centrality of the epistemic conditions of a possible experience

for the Kantian conception of things in themselves Now we must address some of the othermetaphysical readings of the TD in this connection, starting with the two-aspect reading: for eventhough the case made on behalf of the ontological line of thought has herein been shown to betextually inadequate, this is not to say that all of the other metaphysical readings of the TD, theaspect reading included, are equally inadequate as interpretations of the basic meaning of Kant's

TD But it is to say that, if the aspect reading is to have much force, it still has to be shown thatthere is an important sense in which the TD is fundamentally ontological in import, in the respectthat things in themselves are more than “just” a conception of things, which is just what Allais, one

of the leading aspect theorists, attempts to do The task before us then is to see whether she iscorrect on this score, whether there is evidence to suggest that Kant's TD is not just ontological inthe sense that the conception of things in themselves refers to something that exists, and cantherefore be classified as a metaphysical or ontological entity in the fullest sense of the term, butmore importantly and specifically, that things in themselves, as this existent “something,” represent

an “aspect” or “realm” of reality that we cannot in any way cognize, in which case the aspectreading can be said to hold water

We saw that Allais is of the view that a close reading of CPR suggests that Kant's TD is

fundamentally metaphysical in character and import, and that things in themselves represent that

“aspect,” “set of properties,” or simply “realm” of our reality that we cannot in principle cognize.There are two claims here: first, the claim that the TD is metaphysical in the straightforward senseaccording to which things in themselves (as well as of course appearances) exist, and second, theclaim that things in themselves can roughly be understood in terms of an “aspect” of our reality, anaspect, moreover, which is intrinsically non-spatio-temporal and non-categorial The reason I pointthis out is that, in order to accurately assess the textual situation with respect to the aspect

interpretation of the TD, I will examine whether there is any prima facie evidence for either of

these two claims, beginning with the claim that things in themselves exist

Apart from those passages in both the B preface as well as in the “Aesthetic” that suggestthat things in themselves exist, and that things in themselves exist as “objects” or “worlds,” thereare others which suggest, with some qualification of course, much the same thing In particular,Allais essentially claims that, taking into account the sheer frequency with which Kant asserts thatthings in themselves “cause,” “underlie,” or even “ground” the empirical realm of appearances, onecannot deny that Kant's commitment to things as they are in themselves is at least partiallymetaphysical in the respect that Kant believes in the “real” existence of things in themselves,regardless of the manner in which they are understood The use of the idea that things in themselves

act in some obscure metaphysical sense as a “cause” or “ground” (“Grund”) of the realm of our

ordinary experience thereby effectively allows Allais – as well as any other supposed “aspect”theorist – to make the case in her favor that Kant's doctrine of things in themselves is at leastpartially metaphysical in that things in themselves are said to be necessarily instantiated in somefashion In support of this idea, Allais turns to the following passages, the first of which comes

from Kant's Prol, where he says:

In fact, if we view the objects of the senses as mere appearances, as is fitting, then

we thereby admit at the very same time that a thing in itself underlies them, although

we are not acquainted with this thing as it may be constituted in itself, but only with

its appearance, i.e., with the way in which our senses are affected by this unknown

something Therefore the understanding, just by the fact that it accepts appearances,

also admits to the existence of things in themselves, and to that extent we can say

that the representation of such beings as underlie the appearances, hence of mere

intelligible beings, is not merely permitted but also inevitable.43

And, in the second passage, this time coming from CPR, Kant makes much the same point,

claiming that:

But if we consider that the two kinds of objects thus differ from each other, not

inwardly but only in so far as one appears outwardly to the other, and that what, as

thing in itself, underlies the appearance of matter, perhaps after all may not be so

heterogeneous in character, this difficulty vanishes, the only question that remains

being how in general a communion of substances is possible.44

Even the most fervent methodological theorist such as myself finds it difficult to argue against thewholly metaphysical claim that these passages suggest that the TD is fundamentally ontological innature by manifesting Kant's overarching commitment to the actual existence of things in

themselves For example, in the first passage listed above, taken from Prol, Kant seems to be

claiming that, underlying the realm of appearances there exists a realm of “real,” mind-independentobjects (things in themselves) of which our appearances are said to be “appearances of.” Thus,

insofar as the idea of a Grund is interpreted in a traditional metaphysical sense, it represents the idea that there is a certain “realm” of our experience – which cannot be derived from that experience, yet nevertheless can be said to inhere in that experience – providing our experience with a safety-net, so

to speak, against the skeptical idea that we cannot be sure there is anything “out-there” to which ourrepresentations actually correspond This view finds further support in the second passage when weconsider, first, Kant's claim, made therein, that the thing in itself underlies the appearance of matter,and second, his claim that these two entities, viz., things in themselves and appearances, may

43 Prol, 4:314-315

difference between the passages I quoted in the body of the text and the ones I list here is that in the latter Kant

seems unsure about what exactly it is that functions as the “cause” or “ground” (“Grund”) of our (immanent) experience, which is evidenced in Kant's manifest oscillation between the idea of the thing in itself as this Grund on one hand, and the idea of the transcendental object as this very same Grund on the other

ultimately not be as different from one another as one may have assumed

But there is no doubt a problem here, for a closer examination of CPR as a whole reveals that, contrary to the way in which I outlined it above, where it was assumed that the Grund of our

experience represents the notion of a metaphysically-ultimate “realm” of our experience, therebysecuring that experience from a thorough-going skepticism which regards the existence of theexternal, mind-independent world either as doubtful, or as an impossibility altogether, a strong case

can be made on the formal Kantian's behalf that Kant was merely committed to the idea of a Grund

of our experience, not to an actual Grund per se After all, at CPR A681/B709 Kant says:

We misapprehend the meaning of this idea if we regard it as the assertion or even as

the assumption of a real thing, to which we may proceed to ascribe the ground of the

systematic order of the world On the contrary, what this ground which eludes our

concepts may be in its own inherent constitution is left entirely undetermined; the

idea is posited only as being the point of view from which alone that unity, which is

so essential to reason and so beneficial to the understanding, can be further extended

In short, this transcendental thing is only the schema of the regulative principle by

which reason, so far as lies in its power, extends systematic unity over the whole

field of appearance.45

The suggestion here is simply that, as a regulative principle by means of which our faculty of reason

“structures,” “orders,” and “unifies” the field of appearances, the notion of a Grund of our

(immanent) experience is not a constitutive principle, and so cannot be said either to necessarily

“refer” to or “determine” any “object” or “realm” of our experience as such It is simply an idea,which, insofar as it is used in reference to the empirical realm of sensible objects, renders thatempirical realm intelligible to us in a manner which we can all understand, viz., by subsumingempirical objects under certain necessary concepts, such as that of an “event” or of an “objectivetime order,” without which our experience would be impossible for us

Again, the thought seems to be that Kant's notion of the Grund of our experience is a

problematic concept, the existence of which is by no means a given; by virtue of the fact that, as amere transcendental idea of reason, viz., a necessary concept of reason for which no correspondingobject can be given, some46 have argued that the notion of a Grund is equivalent to the notion of a

negative noumenon Now, while I agree with this argument as far as it goes, I cannot defend it here.The point of this discussion has been to show that, in spite of the fact that the thing in itself

functions as the necessary metaphysical Grund of our experience in some sense, Kant does not necessarily commit himself to the actual existence of the thing in itself qua Grund, as Allais has

supposed This is because there are equally legitimate reasons to believe that Kant was committed

merely to the (“regulative”) idea of a Grund of our experience, the function of which is to

46 See Bird, The Revolutionary Kant, 752-756

systematically “order” and “unify” the field of a possible experience under necessary principles ofreason without which our experience would be impossible for us, rather than to the constitutiveprinciple according to which there really is a thing or an object “out-there” corresponding to our

idea of a Grund So, in the end, Allais's use of the notion of things in themselves as the Grund of

our experience for the purposes of advancing her so-called “aspect” interpretation of the TD is aquestionable strategy at best

Within the context of our assessment of the degree to which Allais's “two-aspect” view ofthe TD can be said to fit the texts, we have seen that, in order to make a strong textual case for thisview, Allais needs to have established two things: (1) that Kant was committed to the actualexistence of things in themselves; and (2) that there is a further sense in which things in themselvesrepresent a putative “aspect” or “realm” of reality which we cannot cognize What our previousdiscussion primarily illustrated was that Allais largely fails to establish (1) that Kant was committed

to the actual existence of things in themselves, for the tactic by means of which she attempted toestablish this claim could just as easily be said to establish its exact opposite, the claim that Kant

was only committed to the idea of things in themselves qua Grund of our experience, in a purely

conceptual way that gives structure and order to the field of our experience, rather than to any

putatively instantiated Grund of our experience per se I am half tempted to conclude my discussion

of the texts in relation to Allais's aspect interpretation right now; but so as not to unduly prejudice

my investigation, I will still consider whether there is any evidence to suggest that, insofar as wegrant Kant's commitment to the existence of things in themselves, there is a way in which such

things can be said to represent a prima facie “aspect,” “realm,” or “sphere” of our reality as such

that we cannot in any wise cognize

One could make the argument – which is just what Allais does – that the basic terms inwhich Kant uses to define the TD, or better yet, the way in which Kant contrasts appearances withthings in themselves, is meant to suggest that the TD is at root an “aspect” distinction between theway in which things appear to us on one hand, and the way in which these very same things are “inthemselves” on the other More specifically, Allais thinks it is Kant's frequent use of the “as”locution to contrast the two conceptions that gives weight to her “aspect” argument That is to say,

since Kant so frequently refers to a thing as it appears to us, and then contrasts this notion with the idea of that very same thing as it is “in itself,” Allais is of the view that Kant is not just speaking

about one and the same thing – an uncontroversial claim – but that he is speaking about themutually contrasting metaphysical “aspects” or “features” of one and the same thing – a much morecontroversial claim In this connection, Allais would quote the following:

But if our Critique is not in error in teaching that the object is to be taken in a

twofold sense, namely as appearance and as thing in itself; if the deduction of the

concepts of understanding is valid, and the principle of causality applies only to

things taken in the former sense, namely, in so far as they are objects of experience –

these same objects, taken in the other sense, not being subject to the principle – then

there is no contradiction in supposing that one and the same will is, in the

appearance, that is, in its visible acts, necessarily subject to the law of nature, and so

far not free, while yet, as belonging to a thing in itself, it is not subject to that law,

and is therefore free.47

Later on, Kant makes much the same point, when he claims:

For in an appearance the objects, nay even the properties that we ascribe to them, are

always regarded as something actually given Since, however, in the relation of the

given object to the subject, such properties depend upon the mode of intuition of the

subject, this object as appearance is to be distinguished from itself as object in

itself.48

In these passages, Kant's thought – so Allais would argue – is not just that there are various ways ofconsidering the object – either considering it as an appearance or as a thing in itself – but that theseconsiderations correspond, in the fullest metaphysical sense that is, to the various ways in which theobject is actually constituted This means that, to consider what something is like as it appears to us

is to consider that thing in terms of the conditions under which it is given to us, whereas to considerwhat something is like “in itself” is to consider that thing in terms of the way that it really is,independent of the conditions under which it is given to us Or, otherwise put, there is a way thatthings appear to us, and a way that these very same things are “in themselves,” each of which canonly be considered on its own terms, according to Kant

But there is a fundamental problem here, and one that should not be too difficult to spot For,even though the above passages demonstrate that Kant's TD is largely a conceptual distinctionbetween the various ways that things can be considered or conceived, there is almost nothing tosuggest that the TD is anything more than that To explain: we have seen that Allais not only has toestablish that things in themselves exist, but that things in themselves exist in the metaphysicalterms of a fundamental “aspect” or “realm” of our reality, an aspect that we can by no meanscognize However, what I am saying here is simply that there is nothing to corroborate this furtherwholly metaphysical claim that the “as” locution has the secondary, and entirely implicit function ofdenoting the various ways that things exist, the various forms or determinations of being, as it were.There is thus nothing to suggest that the TD is a contrast between modes of being in the fullestmetaphysical sense, only that it is a contrast between modes of considering things in the merelyformal terms, underscored in the methodological view of the TD So, in the end, there is very little

47 CPR, Bxxvii-xxviii

48 CPR, B69

evidence to suggest either that things in themselves exist, or equally importantly for Allais'spurposes, that such things exist in such a way that they can be understood to denote mind-

independent reality, reality as it is outside the cognitive imposition of both the a priori forms of our intuition as well as the pure a priori categories of thought The aspect reading, much like the

traditional ontological reading, thus stands on very shaky textual grounds

Now that we have examined the textual situation with respect to both the ontologicalreading and the two-aspect reading of the TD, we come now to the intrinsic nature reading Again,

as a metaphysical interpretation of Kant's TD, the intrinsic nature reading presupposes the actual(indeed the necessary) existence of things in themselves; bearing this in mind, it becomes clear that

it falls squarely on the shoulders of the advocates of such a view to show that Kant is prima facie

committed to there necessarily being a way things are in themselves independent of the way theyappear to us Since, in various connections, we already saw that there are major issues with this line

of thought, I do not wish to rehash them here, concluding that the intrinsic nature view is thereforejust as improbable an interpretation of the meaning of Kant's TD as the other metaphysical viewsproved themselves to be

Yet, for the sake of argument, let us grant the veracity of the above claim, namely, thatthings in themselves actually exist Given this, it still needs to be shown (1) that the TD is at root ametaphysical distinction between the two essential “aspects” of things: first, the way things appear

to us (which one might call their “as-appearance” aspect) and second, the way they are “inthemselves” (which one might refer to as their “in-itself” aspect), each of which, by implication, isendowed with it own unique set of properties In addition, it needs to be shown (2) that there areonly two kinds of properties: the intrinsic/non-relational on one hand, and the extrinsic/relational onthe other, with the latter being irreducible to the former And finally, it needs to be shown (3) eitherthat the former corresponds to their “in-itself” aspect, in which case the latter is thereby implicitlyproven to correspond to their “as-appearance” aspect, or that the latter corresponds to their “as-appearance” aspect, in which case the former is thereby implicitly proven to correspond to their

“in-itself” aspect – to establish the one is by implication to establish the other, its opposite Oncethese three claims can be corroborated, it could then be shown that Kant's TD could best beunderstood in terms of what Langton called the distinction, that is, the notion that things inthemselves are substances that have intrinsic properties; phenomena being the relational properties

of these substances

Let us take claim (1), the claim according to which Kant's TD can best be understood inmetaphysical terms as at heart an “aspect” distinction between the way things appear to us on onehand (their “as-appearance” aspect), as opposed to the way these very same things are “in

themselves” on the other (their “in-itself” aspect) The passages from CPR which Langton

emphasizes in this connection are dubious at best This is because the meaning of those passagescan be interpreted in a way that undercuts, rather than supports, the intrinsic nature view to whichLangton herself subscribes Take, for example, the following sentence from the “Aesthetic,” which

reads: “This object as appearance is to be distinguished from itself as object in itself.”49 According

to Langton, this is meant to demonstrate, in some metaphysically-robust sense of the term, thatthings have two essential “aspects,” “features,” or “sets of properties:” first, an “as-appearance”aspect, and second, an “in-itself” aspect

However, the major problem with this passage is that Langton fails to account for thebroader theoretical context within which the passage itself occurs, for as I will show, read in itsentirety, the passage suggests a purely formal, epistemic distinction between the various waysthings (empirical objects) can be considered On the one hand, objects can be considered in terms

of the relation they bear to our sensible form of intuition, in which case they are subjected to the a

priori epistemic conditions of a possible experience; but, on the other hand, objects can also be

considered in abstraction from, or independent of, the outward relation they bear to our sensible

form of intuition, in which case they are considered apart from, and without any reference to, the a

priori conditions of a possible experience Kant says:

When I say that the intuition of outer objects and the self-intuition of the mind alike

represent the objects and the mind, in space and in time, as they affect our senses,

that is, as they appear, I do not mean to say that these objects are a mere illusion For

in an appearance the objects, nay even the properties that we ascribe to them, are

always regarded as something actually given Since, however, in the relation of the

given object to the subject, such properties depend upon the mode of intuition of the

subject, this object as appearance is to be distinguished from itself as object in

itself.50

The “this object as appearance is to be distinguished from itself as object in itself” locution towhich Kant here refers is nothing more than a conceptual way of considering objects of a possibleexperience; it expresses the necessity (which is bound up in the very nature of our faculty of reason

as such) to “think” or “contemplate” things (empirical objects) independent of the way they “affect”

us It is a clear indication that Kant's use of the “as” locution in this passage is not intended toconvey anything metaphysical with respect to the TD; it is not meant to suggest that there really is away things are “in themselves,” which is independent of the way they appear to us To reiterate, itdenotes a purely formal, epistemological contrast between the various ways in which objects can beconsidered; that is all

49 CPR, B69

50 CPR, B69

There are other issues, however For, an essential part of the intrinsic nature reading, and ofthe distinction thesis in particular, is the thesis that noumena represent the intrinsic, non-relationalproperties of things (or of what is the same, substances), whereas phenomena represent theextrinsic, relational properties of these very same things But, in order for this claim to get off theground, it needs to be shown, very generally, that there are only two “sets,” “classes,” or “types” ofproperties: intrinsic, non-relational properties on one hand, and extrinsic, relational ones on theother, with the former being irreducible to the latter And, this brings us to claim (2) To support thismore general claim that everything is endowed with two non-overlapping types of properties,Langton points to the following passage from the “Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection,” where

Kant says: “Concepts of relation presuppose things which are absolutely [i.e independently] given,

and without these are impossible.”51 In the first place, not only does this sentence fail to support theintrinsic nature view's claim that there are only two types of properties: the relational and non-relational – for Kant seems to be referring here to concepts of relation(s), not to that which standsunder these concepts; but more importantly, there is a fear that the passages which Langton quotesfrom the “Amphiboly” (this one included) do not even represent Kant's own views, but rather theLeibnizian views Kant explicitly rejects.52 The passage most often quoted in connection with this

issue is the passage at CPR A274/B330, where Kant says: “Substances in general must have some

internal nature, which is therefore free from all outer relations, and consequently also from

position The simple is therefore the basis of that which is inner in things-in-themselves.”53 In light

of these difficulties, my claim is just that claim (2) has little to no foundation

Furthermore, there are issues with claim (3), with the claim that both phenomena andnoumena are not things, but rather the properties things have The most important of these issues israised by Bird,54 who acknowledges that, even though Kant sometimes refers to phenomena asrelations/relational properties, he also refers to them as “objects,” as “objects of experience,” and as

“objects of the senses.”I am in full agreement with this view, for one of the passages Langton uses

to lend credence to her theory that phenomena are not objects, but the relational properties ofnoumena, is the following, which reads: “The understanding, when it entitles an object in a[certain] relation mere phenomenon, at the same time forms, apart from that relation, a

representation of an object in itself, …”55 According to Langton, this passage means that “we must

52 See, for example, Lucy Allais, “Intrinsic Natures: A Critique of Langton on Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXIII (2006): 143-169; Graham Bird, review of Kantian Humility The Philosophical Quarterly 50 (2000): 105-108; and Ralph Walker, review of Kantian Humility Mind: A Quarterly Review of Philosophy 111 (2002): 136-143

54 See Bird, review of Kantian Humility, 105-108

distinguish between a thing as it is in relation to something else, and a thing as it is 'absolutely,' or

(with Kemp Smith's gloss on schlechthin) 'independently' of that relation.”56 Essentially, Langton

believes that the only way to save the passage at CPR B306 from gross incoherence is to read it

metaphysically in terms of the idea that, by an “object in itself,” Kant means to denote a type ofthing which actually exists, and which exists independently of all outward relations

In relation to the issue of incoherence just noted, to be sure, the passage at CPR B306

conveys the incoherent idea that an object can exist in a certain relation to something else, and apartfrom this very same relation at the same time And, this is what motivates Langton's claim that thereare certain things, substances that is, that exist apart from, and independent of, any outwardrelation(s) to other things; it is what motivates her claim that certain things can exist all on theirown, and as such, the existence of such things is compatible with the idea of loneliness, that is, theidea that certain things can be the only things there are But to combine the idea of a thing existing

“in a certain relation” with the idea of that very same thing existing “apart from that relation” isanything but incoherent; the “apart from that relation” locution expresses nothing more than theconceptual or logical necessity, inherent in our faculty of reason itself, to “think” or to “consider”what an object may be like if it were to exist outside the (sensible) relation in which it inheres, and

to which Kant refers at B306, in which case it would no longer be considered an object ofknowledge for us There is nothing incoherent here

But, before I conclude my discussion of the texts in relation to the intrinsic nature reading, Imust make one final point Central to the intrinsic nature reading of the TD is the claim that theKantian notion of things in themselves is equivalent to his notion of the substantial, in which casethings in themselves are thereby rendered intelligible in categorial terms, and this presents us with ahost of conceptual issues, as we will come to see in the next chapter Regardless, it is curious that

Langton cannot point to a single passage from CPR that supports this claim In her search for such a passage, moreover, she has to go entirely outside CPR to a relatively obscure set of reflections entitled Reflexionen zur Metaphysik (R), to find the following claim: “The substantial is the thing in

itself and unknown.”57 Yet, if we are to take Langton's distinction thesis seriously, and moreparticularly, if we are to take the notional equivalency of things in themselves and substances(bearers of properties) seriously, then surely we need a more concrete expression of these thesesthan that which Langton here relies on, as it seems implausible that Kant ever would have put forth

a theory regarding things in themselves without ever expressing it in CPR This no doubt is a

serious problem, and one which Langton never addresses It is for all of the above reasons, then,

56 Langton, Kantian Humility, 17

57 R, 5292