From: "Louis Irwin" <LIrwin1-AT-ix.netcom.com>
Subject: BHA: Re: Kant's realism
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 20:19:15 -0500


Ruth,

I would like to add my two cents on your question as to why "science is
unintelligible from a Kantian perspective."  Basically I argue that science
is no more intelligible for Kant than it is for Hume, so if you accept the
CR critique that science is unintelligible for for Hume, then etc.   I have
to say this is my own construction and I did not consult Kant or Bhaskar.

Hume famously analyzes causality as constant conjunctions of events
supplemented by our inductive expectations, which are based on nothing more
than habit.  On the ontological side, Hume says that there is nothing to
causality other than constant conjunctions of independent events.  On the
epistemological side, Hume says that we unjustifiably project our subjective
habits onto reality.  Kant basically tries to correct the epistemological
side of Humean causality with a theory that shows why the cause/effect nexus
is not arbitrary but built into the structure of subjectivity.

Kant makes transcendental deductions from our experience to structures that
govern subjectivity. He argues that we could not have the experiences that
we do have unless our perceptual and cognitive apparatus were structured in
certain ways.  The perception of the world as a spatio-temporal manifold is
a necessary presupposition for any kind of experience at all, outside of a
"buzzing, blooming confusion" (to use William James' phrase).  Equally, the
understanding of the world as governed by cause and effect is a necessary
presupposition of being able to cognize the world at all.  To elaborate
slightly, for Kant the ability to describe the world coherently presupposes
that our descriptions of the world fit into a cause/effect nexus.
Descriptions that systematically elude incorporation into a cause/effect
paradigm will eventually be seen as incoherent.

A critical realist does not have to dispute Kant's transcendental
deductions, which simply require that our subjective and cognitive apparatus
be structured in certain ways.  What is unacceptable to a critical realist
is the further Kantian claim that those subjective structures, necessary to
experience and cognition, exhaust the nature of space/time and cause/effect.

Notwithstanding, the question is why, according to critical realism, science
is not possible under transcendental idealism.  The answer is fairly easy
once one has accepted the critical realist critique of Hume.  For, all Kant
does is to replace the epistemological side of Hume with an argument that
the expectation of constant conjunctions of events, rather than being
arbitrary and based on subjective habits, are built into the structure of
subjectivity.  On the ontological side, there is nothing to distinguish Kant
and Hume, so the CR critique of Humean science applies equally to Kantian
science.

Louis Irwin






     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---