Pragmatism, Kant, and Transcendental Philosophy

Philosophers working within the pragmatist tradition have pictured their relation to Kant and Kantianism in very diverse terms: some have presented their work as an appropriation and development of Kantian ideas, some have argued that pragmatism is an approach in complete opposition to Kant. This collection investigates the relationship between pragmatism, Kant, and current Kantian approaches to transcendental arguments in a detailed and original way. Chapters highlight pragmatist aspects of Kant’s thought and trace the influence of Kant on the work of pragmatists and neo-pragmatists, engaging with the work of Peirce, James, Lewis, Sellars, Rorty, and Brandom, among others. They also consider to what extent contemporary approaches to transcendental arguments are compatible with a pragmatist standpoint. The book includes contributions from renowned authors working on Kant, pragmatism and contemporary Kantian approaches to philosophy, and provides an authoritative and original perspective on the relationship between pragmatism and Kantianism.

Introduction Gabriele Gava & Robert Stern 1. German Idealism, Classical Pragmatism, and Kant’s Third Critique Sebastian Gardner 2. The Fallibilism of Kant’s Architectonic Gabriele Gava 3. A Kant-Inspired Vision of Pragmatism as Democratic Experimentalism David Macarthur 4. Peirce, Kant, and What We Must Assume Cheryl Misak 5. Peirce and the Final Opinion: Against Apel’s Transcendental Interpretation of the Categories Daniel Herbert 6. Forms of Reasoning as Conditions of Possibility: Peirce’s Transcendental Inquiry Concerning Inductive Knowledge Jean-Marie Chevalier 7. Kant and Peirce on Belief Marcus Willaschek 8. Round Kant or Through Him? On James’s Arguments for Freedom, and their Relation to Kant’s Robert Stern 9. Consciousness in Kant and William James Graham Bird 10. Concepts of Objects as Prescribing Laws: A Kantian and Pragmatist Line of Thought James R. O’Shea 11. Subjectivity as Negativity and as a Limit: On the Metaphysics and Ethics of the Transcendental Self, Pragmatically Naturalized Sami Pihlström 12. A Plea for Transcendental Philosophy Wolfgang Kuhlmann 13. Transcendental Argument, Epistemically Constrained Truth, and Moral Discourse Boris Rähme

Gabriele Gava is research associate at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany. He is the author of Peirce’s Account of Purposefulness: A Kantian Perspective (2014). Robert Stern is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, UK.