Transcendental idealism and direct realism in Kant

Abstract

Kant scholarship has a long, rich history of disagreement and interpretive reservations regarding the Critique of Pure Reason. One disagreement is over whether the first Critique contains a sufficient proof of the doctrine of transcendental idealism. Another disagreement revolves around the question of whether Kant’s doctrine of transcendental idealism and its associated metaphysical/epistemological terms conflict with direct realism – a view that Kant also appears to be committed to. This thesis evaluates what Henry Allison, in his work entitled: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: an Interpretation and Defense (1983), sets forth as the direct proof for transcendental idealism given in the first Critique. The inter-theoretical relation between transcendental idealism and direct realism is also evaluated, and argument is given for considering the two doctrines as consistent with one another after all.