J Kevin Quinn wrote:
> "Humans perceive causal relationships between objects of
> experience" is not analytic, chez Kant, but instead it is
> "synthetic a priori." It is transcendentally justified, as
> a condition of the possibility of any experience - not
> a truth about language and thus not self-evident.
To clarify, I am making two substantive claims:
i. Humans perceive causal relationships between objects of
experience
ii. (i) is self evident
I also indicated that I see this as a Kantian example.
(That is, Kant influenced, as opposed to the view of Kant.)
However I make these claims independent of any
transcendental deduction.
That said, since you raise the issue of Kant's view, I will
ask for an explanation. (It has been some time since I read
Kant.) You use some language that does not match my
recollections. Specifically, where does Kant say something
equivalent to "only truths about language are self evident"?
To give a specific example, "3+4=7" is certainly for Kant
synthetic and a priori, and I believe he would also say that
it is self evident and not a "truth about language".
More generally it seems you are conflating "self-evident"
with "tautological", which is a conflation I do not recall
in Kant.
I also think you overstep in saying that Kant would consider
causality "a condition of the possibility of any experience".
For Kant, this is true of space and time (pure forms of
sensibility) but not of the categories. (E.g., chapter 2 of
the Analytic of Concepts.) However if you were to change
this to "a condition of the possibility of any experience of
an *object*" I would of course agree. Indeed, this is why
I would find Kantian my claim that it is self evident
that humans perceive causal relationships between objects of
experience: Kant's transcendental deduction involves a claim
that we cannot experience *objects* without the categories,
including of course the category of causality.
I do not pretend to be Kant scholar (or even an avid
reader), but I hope at least that clarifies my claim.
Alan Isaac
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