Yesterday, I offered a quick summary of what folks like Stroud and Stern understand by the term ‘transcendental argument.’ Today, I want to outline the four major criticisms that emerge in light of this general form (the Verificationism objection, the Idealism objection, and the Modal objection,). Recalling the previous post, we’ll remember that transcendental arguments are characterized by a regressive mode of analysis: from some incontrovertible feature of experience, we abstract a set of conditions that must obtain in order for this uncontestable feature to obtain. The necessity of these conditions, moreover, can be neither formal (i.e. analytic, logical), nor natural (causal), for both kinds of necessity still admit a contingent feature; What follows from a concept (analytically, via some form of entailment) , for example, is contingent upon its precise meaning (or logical form), which is subject to change. So if, pace Kant, we think mathematics proceeds analytically, then it not a transcendental discipline, does not argue transcendentally (this feature might be interesting for folks working on Badiou). Similarly, the precise conditions of possibility for some causal interaction may be necessary for producing a particular outcome, but that outcome is still contingent; said differently, causal necessity is relative to a particular interaction and outcome, not a structural feature as such. There are no causal necessities in any deep, metaphysical sense (which might be interesting for folks thinking about Meillassoux’s emphasis on ‘the necessity of contingency,’ which is effectively built into the idea of causal necessity in the first place). Rephrased, transcendental arguments move from the alleged indispensability of some non-empirical (Stern) or psychological (Stroud) feature inherent in ’subjectivity,’ to the invulnerability of that feature’s condition(s) of possibility in a manner that doesn’t hinge on either a purely causal account or a merely analytic one. According to Stroud and Stern, any argument that possesses this basic structure, is a transcendental argument. Notice a peculiar corollary: any further specification of the structure of a transcendental argument, appears to require the specification of a specific content (along the ligns suggested by Stern’s typology — see yesterday’s post), which would imply that transcendental arguments are inherently contextual (and, one might further say, employ thick concepts). that is, they respond to a specific kind of skeptical worry or perceived lack of justification, rather than to the general problem of skepticism as such or of legitimacy as such. Sounds straightforwad enough, doesn’t it? So what are the objections? read more…
In a previous post, I gestured at the features of the short argument to Idealism as part of a larger effort to understand how the concept of criticism evolves from 
Kant’s transcendental deductions and Hegel’s logic of the Notion. Rather than returning to that post to rework some of the less successful aspects of it (some vague formulations and suppressed premises came up in the discussion), I want to move forward and see whether I can bring the notion of a ‘transcendental argument’ as analysed by Barry Stroud and Robert Stern into view, so as to allow us to evaluate and compare it with the short argument. I’m not going to fuss too much over the subtle transformations and realignments that that Stroud’s position undergoes (and to which Stern’s work responds). Instead, I want to offer a synchronic picture that cuts across Stroud’s essays on the subject, while remaining consistent with Stern’s 4 versions of transcendental arguments. On the horizon of these notes is the idea that Kant’s transcendental deductions may actually be distinct from both the Short Arguments sketched before and from the kind of transcendental argument being analyzed by Stroud and Stern. But for now, I just want to get the basic structure that Stroud attributes to transcendental arguments into view, and then (probably tomorrow), fill out his criticisms of it. read more…
In a series of posts at Grundlegung, Tom has been working through the ‘fine structure’ of some of the arguments motivating Meillassoux’s project. His work is far and away the best to appear (in print or on the web) on the subject so far, and I can’t recommend it enough. Without trying summarize his analyses, Tom effectively shows that Meillassoux’s ‘correlationism’ is a red herring, because it’s argument reproduces what Karl Ameriks has termed (after Reinhold) ‘the Short argument to Idealism.’ Tom also shows that Meillassoux’s discussion of truth in ‘Kant’ is misleading, if not hopelessly wrongheaded. I want to pick up on something that Tom doesn’t actually address: the nature of the short argument and the general style of argumentation that it leans upon: Transcendental Arguments. There is a cottage industry surrounding them, but it struck me that there’s something fundamentally wrong headed about their abstract presentation (say in Barry Stroud’s famous paper, “Transcendental Arguments” [.pdf] and everything that follows thereafter). That is, I’m beginning to think that what typically goes by the name ‘transcendental argument’ may in fact be a version of Ameriks’ Short Argument. What follows is an attempt to make sense of the structure of the Short argument, with an eye on Transcendental arguments more generally
Worth sharing, I thought (not the accompanying photos, which are ok, but the music).
On the recommendation of a friend of mine, I started reading EM Cioran in my spare time. I’m convinced now that the suggestion was triggered by my recent whinging about how difficult I find academic writing — not, mind you, simply expressing ideas, but rather the stylistic considerations that attend successfull expression. With a certain sense of delight, then, I came across the passage below in the first section of Cioran’s Histoire et utopie. I’m sure there’s an English translation of this work available. The translation (to the right of the original french) is mine. Hopefully it’s not too far from the mark.
I’m pretty sure someone — citing Spinoza, to be sure — wrote that one must have thought similar thoughts in order to sympathize with, or understand another. I sympathize with Cioran’s (fictional no doubt) struggle with French. Although English is in fact my native tongue, a writerly English, an unventriloquized style, still remains foreign to me for pretty much the exact reasons Cioran refers to here.
Anyway, for those of you, imaginary readers, who aren’t familiar with him, you can find out a little more here. He’s worth reading, if only for his style (that, and the fact that no one else is reading him at the moment…).
