7AAN2039 Kant I: Critique of Pure Reason – 2013/14  

MA Syllabus

Lecturer: John J. Callanan Email: john.callanan@kcl.ac.uk

Lecture Time: 11am-12pm Monday, Semester 2 Lecture Location: STD/S-1.01
Seminar Time: 12pm-1pm, Monday, Semester 2 Seminar Location: AAN 605
Office Hours: Wednesdays, 12-1 pm (no appointment necessary, term time only)
Office Location: Room 710, Philosophy Building, Strand Campus
Web:http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/philosophy/people/staff/academic/callana
n/index.aspx

Course Description

This course introduces students to the epistemology and metaphysics of Immanuel Kant.
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is examined in detail. Topics include Kant’s treatment of the
relation between experience and concepts; the nature of space and time; the concepts of
substance and causality; knowledge of the external world, and Kant’s refutation of
scepticism; the self and the unity of the thinking subject; human freedom, and its relation
to the thesis of determinism and doctrine of transcendental idealism.

Evaluation
• Formative assessment: one x 2000-3000 word essay due by 12 noon on 28th
March.
• Summative assessment: one x 4000 word essay, due by 12 noon 7th May.

Policy regarding late work

• Assignments are due in class on the day specified on the syllabus. I will not
accept late assignments past the due date.

Notes
• There are 10 lectures in total.
• There are 10 accompanying seminars - each seminar will have 1-2 pieces of
secondary literature set as reading, which will be discussed in class. Every student
must be prepared to discuss the material in the seminar. A schedule of reading
will be circulated in Admin Week.
• Plan your reading for each class ahead of time.
• This module may be, but need not be, taken in conjunction with 7AAN2040
Kant II: Ethics

Prerequisites
• There are no prerequisites for this course.

Plagiarism Policy
• We’re against it. What constitutes plagiarism? See here:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/philosophy/current/plagiaris
m.html

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7AAN2039 Kant I: Critique of Pure Reason – 2013/14  

Set Text

Students must obtain a copy of this for the required reading for every lecture and
seminar. The Cambridge edition is my preferred edition of the Critique of Pure Reason:

Critique of Pure Reason (ed. and trans. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood) (Cambridge, 1999)

Two alternative editions are:

Critique of Pure Reason (trans. Norman Kemp Smith) (Palgrave, 2007)

Critique of Pure Reason (trans. Werner Pluhar) (Hackett, 1997)

Note: the Critique came out in two editions (the ‘A’ edition in 1781, and the ‘B’ edition in
1787) and most versions available today are an amalgamation of both. So long as your
copy of the Critique has the correct referencing (e.g. A94/B127) on the side of the text,
any edition will be usable. However, I strongly recommend one of the three editions
mentioned above.

Primary Reading

• Students are expected to read all the primary material assigned for each lecture.

Secondary Reading

• I list an awful lot of secondary sources below for each lecture and seminar. Don’t
try to read all, or even most of it. The list is there is to give students an idea of a
range of approaches, and for those who want to look at certain topics in more
depth, or for the purposes of their essays. Students are not required to do so, but
I’d expect you to have familiarised yourself with at least one of the secondary
readings listed in preparation for each class (e.g. the relevant section of one of the
general introductions listed below). The best places to start are with the
Cambridge Companions and the introductory works by Buroker and Gardner
(see below).
• Note that among the secondary readings for each meeting, there will always be
readings available online on either of KCL’s subscriptions to three different
Eresources – Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO), EBook Library (EBL), and
Cambridge Companions Online (CCON) Access through your king’s email account –
search for the resources under the ‘Databases’ link. There are physical copies
available of all the books listed below in the Maughan Library (even those that
are also available online).
• All the other secondary materials listed are either (a) books available in the
Maughan Library at KCL or at the Senate House Library, or (b) articles available
online through your KCL username or through Senate House Library E-
Collections. It is the student’s responsibility to acquire access to Senate House
Library in time for the beginning of the course.
• The only internet resource I occasionally note here is the Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/). However, it is not an adequate
substitute for reading the secondary readings listed. So please use it sparingly.
Note also that they have their own very clear citation policy – stick to it if you are
using it for written work. Use no other internet sources.

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Some General Introductions

Buroker, (EBL)
Burnham, (EBL)
Dicker, (OSO)
Gardner, (EBL)
Guyer, (EBL)

Some Collections
Bird, G (ed.), A Companion to Kant (Blackwell, 2006) (EBL)
Guyer, P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant (Cambridge, 1992) (CCON)
Guyer P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy (Cambridge,
2006).(CCON)
Guyer, P. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge,
2010). (CCON)

Some Advanced Works

Allison, H.E., Kant’s Transcendental Idealism (Yale, 2004)
Ameriks, K, Interpreting Kant’s Critiques (OSO)
Guyer, P. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (Cambridge, 1998)
Strawson, P.F., The Bounds of Sense, (Methuen, 1966) (EBL)
Kitcher, P., Kant’s Transcendental Psychology (OUP, 1990), (EBL)

Lecture Schedule

Lecture One – The Peculiar Fate of Reason: Kant’s Pre-Critical Philosophy

Lecture Two – The Queen of all the Sciences: The Project of the Critique

Lecture Three – Time Out of Joint: The Transcendental Aesthetic

Lecture Four – Method and Metaphysics: Transcendental Idealism

Lecture Five – Less than a Dream: The Transcendental Deduction

Reading Week

Lecture Six – Ships and Houses: The Second Analogy

Lecture Seven – The Land of Truth: Phenomena and Noumena

Lecture Eight – The Game of Idealism: The Refutation of Idealism

Lecture Nine – The Thing that Thinks: The Transcendental Subject

Lecture Ten – God, Freedom and Immortality: Transcendental Freedom

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Lecture One – The Peculiar Fate of Reason: Kant’s Pre-Critical Philosophy

Topics and Questions

• What was the nature of the influence of Hume upon Kant?

• Is knowledge primarily an achievement of our rational faculties alone?
• Is time real?

Required Readings

The Preface to the A Edition, Avii-Axxii.

The Preface to the B Edition, Bvii-Bxliv.
The A Introduction, A1-A16/B30.
The B Introduction, B1-A16/B30.

Further Readings

Beiser, Frederick: “Kant's intellectual development 1746-1781” in The Cambridge

Companion to Kant, 26-61.
Guyer, Ch. 2.
Hogan, Desmond, ‘Kant’s Copernican Turn and the Rationalist Tradition’ in The
Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, 21-40.
Schönfeld, Martin, ‘Kant's Philosophical Development,’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).,
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/kant-development/

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Lecture Two – The Queen of all the Sciences: The Project of the Critique

Topics and Questions

• What is the meaning of Kant’s analogy with Copernicus’s method?

• How are we to distinguish between the a priori and a posteriori?
• What is the distinction between concept and intuition? Are they both necessary
for knowledge? Are intuitions the same things as sensations?
• What is the difference between analytic and synthetic judgments?
• Are there any examples of synthetic a priori judgments?

Required Readings

The Preface to the A Edition, Avii-Axxii.

The Preface to the B Edition, Bvii-Bxliv.
The A Introduction, A1-A16/B30.
The B Introduction, B1-A16/B30.

Further Readings

Beiser, Frederick: “Kant's intellectual development 1746-1781” in The Cambridge

Companion to Kant, 26-61.
Burnham and Young, 9-36.
Buroker, Chs. 1 & 2.
Dicker, Ch. 1.
Gardner, Chs. 1&2.
Guyer, Ch. 2.
Hogan, Desmond, ‘Kant’s Copernican Turn and the Rationalist Tradition’ in The
Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, 21-40.
Schönfeld, Martin, ‘Kant's Philosophical Development,’ The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).,
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/kant-development/
Walker, Ralph: Kant (Routledge, 1978), Ch. 1.
Van Cleve, James, Ch. 2.

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Lecture Three – Time Out of Joint: The Transcendental Aesthetic

Topics and Questions

• What is an ‘exposition’?
• What is the argument of each exposition? Are they convincing?
• What are Space and Time?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Aesthetic
(Space) A19/B34 – A24/B40.
(Time) A30/B46 – A32/B49.

Further Readings

Bennett, J. Kant’s Analytic (Cambridge, 1966) ch. 5.

Burnham and Young, 36-63.
Buroker, Ch 3.
Dicker, Ch. 2.
Falkenstein, Lorne, “Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic” in A Companion to Kant, 140-153.
Gardner, Ch. 4
Guyer, 51-70.
Parsons, C. “The Transcendental Aesthetic”, in The Cambridge Companion to Kant, 62-100.
Shabel, Lisa, “The Transcendental Aesthetic” in The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique
of Pure Reason, 93-117.
Van Cleve, Ch. 3.

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Lecture Four – Method and Metaphysics: Transcendental Idealism

Topics and Questions

• Why does Kant think that mathematics is a body of synthetic a priori knowledge?
• How is the so-called ‘Argument from Geometry’ supposed to work? Is it
convincing?
• What is the meaning of Kant’s conclusions drawn from the argument?
• What does it mean to say that we can have no knowledge of things in
themselves?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Aesthetic
(Space) §3: Transcendental Exposition of Space, B40-1.
Conclusions from the above concepts, A26/B42-A30/B45.
(Time) §§6-7: Conclusions from these concepts, Elucidation, A32/B49-A41/B58.
§8: General Remarks on the Transcendental Aesthetic, A41-B59-A49-B73.

Further Readings

Allison, Chs. 1, 2
Bennett, J. Kant’s Analytic (Cambridge, 1966) Ch. 2.
Burnham and Young, 9-36.
Buroker, Ch. 3.
Dicker, Ch. 2.
Friedman, M. (1992). Kant and the Exact Sciences. (Harvard University Press: 1992),
Chapter 1.
Gardner, Chs. 1&2.
Guyer, 51-70.
Potter, Michael, Reason's Nearest Kin, (Oxford: 2002) Ch.1.
Van Cleve, James, Ch. 2.

Transcendental Idealism

Matthews, H. 'Strawson on Transcendental Idealism' in .Walker (ed.) Kant on Pure

Reason (Oxford, 1978)
Falkenstein, L. (1989). ‘The Non-Spatiotemporality of Things in Themselves,’ Kant-
Studien
Van Cleve, J. Problems From Kant (OUP, 1999). Ch. 10
Collins, A. Possible Experience (University of California, 1999), Chs. 1, 2, 3.
Langton, R. Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves (OUP, 1998) Chs. 1, 2, 10

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Lecture Five – Less than a Dream: The Transcendental Deduction

Topics and Questions

• What is the Transcendental Deduction attempting to show?

• What is the meaning of the quid juris/quid facti distinction?
• What are transcendental arguments? Does one have to be a transcendental
idealist to use transcendental arguments?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Analytic
§§13-14. A84-95/B116-129.
The B-Deduction. §§15-27. B129-B168.

Further Readings

Allison, Ch. 7
Burnham and Young, 63-138.
Buroker, Ch. 5.
Ameriks, Karl. ‘Kant’s Transcendental Argument as a Regressive Argument’ Kant-Studien
69 (1978): 273–285.
Buroker,
Cassam, Q. (1987) ‘Transcendental Arguments, Transcendental Synthesis and
Transcendental Idealism,’ Philosophical Quarterly
Dicker, Ch. 4.
Edgar, Scott (2010)
Engstrom, Stephen
Henrich, D. ‘Kant's Notion of a Deduction and the Methodological Background of the
First Critique’ in E. Förster (ed.) Kant's Transcendental Deductions (Stanford, 1989),
Gardner, Ch.
Guyer, 70-95.
Guyer, Paul, ‘The Deduction of the Categories: The Metaphysical and Transcendental
Deductions’ in Guyer (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,’ 118-
150.
Longuenesse, Beatrice, ‘Kant on a priori concepts: The metaphysical deduction of the
categories’ in Guyer (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Kant and Modern Philosophy, 129-168.
Pereboom, Derk, ‘Kant’s Metaphysical and Transcendental Deductions’ in Bird (ed.) A
Companion to Kant, 154-168
Strawson, P.F. The Bounds of Sense (Methuen, 1966), 85-117.
Van Cleve, Ch. 7.

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Lecture Six – Ships and Houses: The Second Analogy

Topics and Questions

• What are the Principles of the Understanding? What are the supposed to show?
• What is an Analogy for Kant?
• What is the transcendental argument here?
• What is the argument of the Second Analogy?
• Does Kant engage with Hume’s scepticism regarding causal knowledge?
• Does the argument of the Second Analogy contain a non sequiter?

Primary Readings

The Transcendental Analytic

Second Analogy, A189/B232-A211/B256.

Further Readings

Allison, H.E. Kant's Transcendental Idealism (Yale, 1983). Chapter 10

Beck, L. 'Once More Into the Breach' and 'A Non-Sequitur of Numbing Grossness?'
in Essays on Kant and Hume (Yale, 1978)
Bennett, J. Kant’s Analytic (Cambridge, 1966), Chs. 11 & 15.
Buroker, Ch. 7.
Dicker, Ch. 7.
Friedman, Michael. ‘Causal Laws and the Foundations of Natural Science’ in Guyer (ed.)
The Cambridge Companion to Kant, 161–199.
Guyer, P. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge (CUP, 1987), Ch. 10.
Melnick, Arthur. Kant’s Analogies of Experience. (University of
Chicago, 1973), Ch. 3.
Melnick, A. ‘The Second Analogy’ in Bird (ed.) A Companion to Kant, 169-181.
Strawson, P.F. The Bounds of Sense (Methuen, 1966), 133-146
Van Cleve, Ch. 9.

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Lecture Seven – The Land of Truth: Phenomena and Noumena

Topics and Questions

• What is the meaning of the distinction between phenomena and noumena?

• What are the positive and negative senses of the notion of a noumenon?
• Is Transcendental Idealism a metaphysical theory?
• What kind of realism is involved with Transcendental Idealism?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Analytic
On the ground of the distinction of all objects in general into phenomena and noumena,
(A edition) A235/B294-A260/B315.
(B edition – same) A235/B294-A260/B315.

Further Readings

Allison, Ch. 11.

Dicker, Ch.
Emundts, Dina, ‘The Refutation of Idealism and the Distinction between Phenomena
and Noumena’ in Guyer (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,’
168-189.
Gardner, Chs. 5 & 6.
Guyer, Ch.
Van Cleve, Ch. 10.

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Lecture Eight – The Game of Idealism: The Refutation of Idealism

Topics and Questions

• What is the difference between dogmatic and problematic idealism? Which is the
Refutation concerned with?
• What are the premises of the argument?
• Does the Refutation represent a change of mind on Kant’s behalf regarding
Transcendental Idealism?
• Is the Refutation a promising anti-sceptical argument?
• What’s the relationship between the Refutation and the Fourth Paralogism?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Analytic
Refutation of Idealism, B274-B279.
B-Preface, Bxxxix-Bxli – note.

The Transcendental Dialectic

The Fourth Paralogism (A-edition), A366-380.

Further Readings

Aquila, R. ‘Personal Identity and Kant's “Refutation of Idealism”’, Kant-Studien 1979

Bennett, J. Kant’s Analytic (Cambridge, 1966) Ch. 14.
Buroker, Ch. 7.
Carl, W., ‘Kant’s Refutation of Problematic Idealism: Kantian Arguments and Kant’s
Arguments against Skepticism’ in Bird (ed.) A Companion to Kant, 182-191.
Cassam, Q. (1993) ‘Inner Sense, Body Sense, and Kant's “Refutation of
Idealism”’,European Journal of Philosophy, (1), 111-127.
Dicker, Ch. 1.
Emundts, Dina, ‘The Refutation of Idealism and the Distinction between Phenomena
and Noumena’ in Guyer (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason,’
168-189.
Guyer, 116-122.

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Lecture Nine – The Thing that Thinks: The Transcendental Subject

Topics and Questions

• What is a paralogism?
• Is there anything wrong with rationalist metaphysics?
• Could the soul be a substance?
• What is the nature of the self according to Kant?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Dialectic
Paralogisms of Pure Reason, A341/B399-A348-B406.
B-edition, B406-B432.

Further Readings

Bennett, J., Kant’s Dialectic (Cambridge, 1974) ch.3-6

Brook, A., Kant and the Mind (Cambridge, 1994) Chs.1, 2, 7, 8.
Burnham and Young, 138-169.
Buroker, Ch. 8.
Gardner, Ch. 7.
Guyer, 134-138.
Kitcher, P., Kant’s Transcendental Psychology (Oxford, 1990), Ch. 7.
Strawson, Ch.
Thiel, U. ‘The Critique of Rational Psychology’ in Bird (ed.) A Companion to Kant, 207-
221.
Van Cleve, Ch. 11.
Wuerth, Julian, The Paralogisms of Pure Reason,’ in Guyer (ed.) The Cambridge Companion
to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, 210-244

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Lecture Ten – God, Freedom and Immortality: Transcendental Freedom

Topics and Questions

• What is an antinomy?
• What are the topics of the different Antinomies? Is there a discernible pattern of
argument in each case?
• Does Kant’s analysis provide an ‘indirect’ argument for transcendental idealism?
• What is the status of freedom, according to Kant’s theory? Are free actions
explicable in terms of empirical causal grounds?

Primary Readings

Transcendental Dialectic
The antinomy of pure reason, A405/B432-A425/B453.
Third Antinomy, A444/B472-A451/B479.
On the interests of reason in these conflicts. A462/B490-A497/B525.

Further Readings

Allison, H.E. Idealism And Freedom (CUP, 1996)

Allison, H.E. ‘Morality and Freedom: Kant’s Reciprocity Thesis’, in P. Guyer (ed.) Kant’s
Groundwork Of The Metaphysics Of Morals (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998)
Allison, H.E. Kant’s Transcendental Idealism : an interpretation and defense (Yale,
1983), ch.11-13
Bennett, Jonathan, “Commentary: Kant’s Theory of Freedom,” in A. Wood, ed., Self and
Nature in Kant’s Philosophy, 102-112.
Burnham and Young, 138-169.
Buroker, Ch. 9.
Dicker, Ch. 1.
Gardner, Ch. 7.
Guyer, 138-145.
Van Cleve, James, Ch. 2.
Walker, R.C.S. Kant (Routledge, 1978) Ch 10, part 3 `Freedom’ pp. 147-150
Bennett, J. Kant’s Dialectic (CUP, 1974). Chapter 10
Strawson, P.F. ‘Freedom and Resentment’, in Freedom and Resentment and Other
Essays (Methuen, 1974), 1-25.
Walker, R.C.S. Kant (Routledge, 1978). Chapter 10, Part 3 `Freedom’ pp. 147-150
Wood, Allen, “Kant’s Compatibilism” in A. Wood, ed., Self and Nature in Kant’s
Philosophy, 73-101.

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