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This dissertation provides a systematic account of the metaphysics of transcendental idealism. According to the proposed theory, appearances are understood as intentional objects, while phenomena are considered as logical constructs that are grounded in noumena, whereby the grounding relation can be modelled by means of a coordinated multiple-domain supervenience relation. This framework is employed to provide a vindication of metaphysics, by giving dual-level explanations that explain how the world can have ontological structure, making intelligible the applicability of metaphysical concepts, such as unity, persistence, causation and mind-body interaction, to the empirical realm. The key claim that is advanced in the dissertation is that in order to be realists we have to be transcendental idealists. In particular, transcendental arguments are provided that establish that if realism about science, metaphysics and ethics is to be possible, then (i) the world must have a transcendental structure that integrates the fragmented perspective-dependent spatio-temporal frameworks into a unified perspective-independent space-time manifold, (ii) space and time must be forms of intuition that give rise to correspondences between appearances and phenomena, making it the case that we can have non-trivial scientific knowledge of the world, and (iii) we must have a priori concepts, namely the mathematical and dynamical categories, that allow us to cognise the empirical as well as ontological structure of the world. The ‘fact of experience’ as well as the ‘fact of reason’ are then brought in to strengthen the case for scientific, metaphysical and moral realism, thereby warding off the threat of nihilism. Moreover, a refutation of the more attractive versions of scepticism and idealism is provided, namely of those versions that claim that a subject’s representations or episodes of awareness can be temporally ordered even though they deny or doubt the existence of a law-governed external world. The conclusion then is that a realist stance is to be adopted and that we should consequently accept transcendental idealism and hold that the world has a transcendental structure.

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The Critique of Pure Reason inaugurated Kant’s Critical Philosophy. Commentators commonly distinguish between Kant’s Positive Project (PP), that is, his epistemology as laid out in the Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Analytic, from his Negative Project (NP), expressed in terms of the destructive implications his epistemology has on speculative metaphysics and rational theology. Against this tradition I will argue that the whole of the Critique is largely a negative-destructive enterprise. I will focus on what is commonly taken as the centerpiece of the PP, that is, the Transcendental Deduction, and demonstrate that even here the NP is given normative priority. Though, to be sure, certain passages tend to encourage an interpretation of the PP as primary, I contend that this view is myopic and fails to pay sufficient attention to Kant’s global concerns in the Critique. I will demonstrate that a clear exposition of Kant’s metaphilosophical aims, commitments, and convictions is in fact corrosive to any such reading. The objective of this thesis, then, is two-fold: 1) to provide an account of Kant’s metaphilosophy in the Critique, and 2) to argue for what I will here and elsewhere refer to as the Primacy of the Negative Thesis, that is, that Kant prioritized boundary-setting over principle-generating.

ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I occupy two realms of philosophy that have not been commonly associated. On the one hand, I enter into debates about the proper interpretation of Kant, specifically having to do with the very fractured debate on the nature and applications of transcendental idealism. I adjudicate on the matters of the relationship between appearances and things in themselves, i.e. whether it is epistemological or ontological, the way in which TI resolves the antinomial conflict of reason as it thinks the unconditioned in its exploration of cosmological questions, and the way Kant applies TI to articulate the intelligible and empirical characters in his metaphysics of agency. In addition to this historical research, I also turn to contemporary formulations of libertarian freedom. Libertarianism in free will debates is the view that free will is incompatible with determinism (i.e. incompatibilism), and free will exists. Libertarianism is a competitor to compatibilist views that claim that free will is compatible with determinism, i.e. the view that there is a unique outcome given a past and laws of nature characterizing the past. Within libertarianism, there are important differences in terms of the metaphysics of free will. Most contemporary libertarians opt for a reductionist metaphysics, in which causation consists in relationships between events and does not involve underlying grounds or substances. Both event-causal and non-causal libertarianism accordingly ground their views of freedom on the interplay of psychological events conceived of as states of affairs at instants in time. Event-causal accounts locate free will in indeterministic causal series, involve conflicting sets of motivations that resolve themselves probabilistically into a certain kind of action. Non-causal accounts do not attach free will to causality at all, instead associating it with a spontaneously occurring event. ECL and NCL struggle with establishing how the agent actually settles her action. If the action is merely the indeterministic byproduct of a set of psychological processes or process, then what ultimately occurs is not up to the agent but a product of chance. ECL and NCL nevertheless object that even an action settled by chance is done consciously and according to reasons. But these criteria are aligned with compatibilist criteria for free will. Compatibilists deny to the agent the unconditioned power to choose, which is independent of any prior determination but also not subject to chance. They point out, though, that the action is externally unconstrained, or that, if the reasons had been different, the agent would have acted differently. Since contemporary libertarianism deprives the agent of control, and creates a kind of pseudo-agent that acts ultimately according to chance, I explore other metaphysical frameworks for free will. Agent-causal libertarianism involves the agent directly causing her action as a substance. It is not some state of affairs that causes the action—a desire or belief characterizing the agent’s psychology at a certain time—but the agent herself. Agent-causation promises to resolve the problem of control associated with event-causation. The agent-caused action is neither produced deterministically from a prior event, nor is it an indeterministic fallout from probabilistic causation. Instead, it is caused by an agent-substance able to act independently of events. Timothy O’Connor is a well-known and articulate defender of agent-causation, but he also subscribes to the naturalistic framework popular in contemporary metaphysics. Even though he accepts the reality of emergent properties, the agent-cause, which has a special capacity for self-determination, is supposed to be causally united to a microphysical level where there is only passive event-causation. In this dissertation, I seek to frame agent-causation in terms of transcendental idealism. Rather than establishing the level of event-causation as metaphysically fundamental, I explore an idealistic metaphysics in which the empirical world in the spatiotemporal framework of human experience is not an absolute measure of reality. The human person is a hybrid creature, spanning two domains. On the one hand, the person exists in the empirical order in space and time. It is characterized by events subject to a causal law, by which they are accounted for in terms of prior events. On the other hand, there is a deeper level to the person, not encompassed within the limited structures of human experience. On this deep intelligible level, the human person is able to serve as the unconditioned ground of its empirical character. / Philosophy

Thesis advisor: Marius Stan / This dissertation is about the immortality of the self and whether from a transcendental idealist perspective, one could sustain this notion based on theoretical grounds. It is well known that Kant closed this door in the Critique, and this is the position that Kantian scholars defend. But has Kant set up a series of dogmatic premises that presuppose that we accept conclusions for which Kant offers no argument? Thus, this dissertation aims at a minimal ontology of the human self within an idealist framework. To do this, I turn to Schopenhauer’s ‘perfected system of criticism.’ Without abandoning idealism, Schopenhauer introduces an objective perspective that suggests a more ontological robust understanding of the self. Although Schopenhauer’s position can be interpreted in a way favorable to theoretical arguments for the immortality of the self, his commitment to an identity of brain/mind, and the consequences that he draws from this, obscures some of his most important contributions. To tackle this issue and others, I analyze the Plotinian perspective, a philosophical position that blends epistemology and ontology which I think solidifies my interpretation of Schopenhauer and breaks the supposed identity between brain/mind. Thus, theoretical arguments for the immortality of the self are possible when idealism is an account in which epistemology and ontology intermingle. Specifically, an argument is supported by a premise that is accepted by both Plotinus and Schopenhauer, namely, that of the existence of Ideas, real objects external to the human mind which are responsible for the existence of sensible individuals. These ideas are in themselves unified by a higher principle which Plotinus names the One and Schopenhauer the Thing in Itself. In absolute terms, this ultimate reality is the root of our true self, but we are not identical to it because in human beings there is multiplicity which manifests itself in us by how we cognize things as external to ourselves (understanding) and how we desire things that we do not find within us (will). Chapter 1 opens with a discussion about the ‘true self’ according to Kant. Although this true self could be identified with the pure apperception of the Transcendental Deduction given that Kant argues that it is the source of unity of experience, after examining the different degrees of unity in representations, I conclude that the unifying principle of all sensible experience and the subject itself exist in a non-sensible world. The intelligible character of the Third Antinomy could be that principle, but I reject this in favor of the thing in itself. Nevertheless, the intelligible character’s residence as an individual in the non-sensible world hints at the construction of theoretical arguments for the immortality of the true self. Chapter 2 argues that Schopenhauer also rejects the role assigned to the pure apperception: only the thing in itself is the original source of unity. Schopenhauer accepts the Kantian intelligible character with clear indications that it is an ontologically real entity. The ontological import of the intelligible character reinforces its role in seeking a theoretical argument for the immortality of our true self. I propose that a pathway to a theoretical argument in favor of the immortality of the true self is also suggested in Schopenhauer’s doctrine of Ideas. The subject of cognition, through the alteration of its cognitive faculties in aesthetic contemplation, discovers itself as the correlate of a Pure Subject of Cognition whose objects are Pure Objects or, as Schopenhauer calls them, Ideas. In this alteration, the empirical subject of cognition is ‘elevated’ to the intuitive grasping of Ideas as a Pure Subject. Among Ideas, I argue that Schopenhauer points to something that can be interpreted as an idea of individual. Given the immortal nature of Ideas, we must also be immortal. Chapter 3 focuses on the question about immortality in both Kant and Schopenhauer. On the one hand, I show that Kant has not abandoned the notion of the human soul or its immortality. Instead, he claims to have clarified the origin of all disputes regarding the human soul while laying out the rules for guarding ourselves against future errors. On the other hand, Schopenhauer has no problem accepting that immortality is a fact of common sense, but he rejects that the individual survives. He bases this conclusion on his conviction that individuality emerges with the intellect, while the intellect only emerges with the brain. The subjection of the intellect to the brain is one of the most salient features of Schopenhauerian psychology. However, I propose that Schopenhauer’s objective perspective, a perspective whose implications are hardly at the center of attention in Schopenhauer’s studies, cannot be used to its full potential – as for example to defend that the individual human being is immortal too – unless this identification of intellect and brain is abandoned. To find arguments that can be used to differentiate the mind from the brain, I propose the study of Plotinus. Chapter 4 aims to provide a framework to illuminate the possibilities built into Schopenhauer’s objective perspective. The survey of Plotinus’ philosophy of self and immortality in this chapter suggests interesting starting points for a new interpretation of some of Schopenhauer’s insights. An important consequence of this study is the formulation of arguments to show that the mind or intellect cannot be characterized as identical to the brain. After studying Plotinus, a fact becomes clear, namely, that Schopenhauer, although critical of the concept ‘soul’, does not discard its content; instead, he finds ample use of it for his own unique purposes. Chapter 5 concludes that the discussion of Kant’s and Schopenhauer’s psychology reveals the flaw in their respective projects, namely, their demand that cognition of the human soul should mirror cognition of sensible objects. This is a conclusion that is also revealed by the study of Plotinus. However, I reaffirm my position that Schopenhauer’s idealism is a step forward in the right direction. I discuss four ‘great themes’ – born from the encounter between Schopenhauer and Plotinus – which provide the general context that helps me propose how the theoretical argument for the immortality of the true self works in transcendental idealism. I argue that these four great themes, areas where ontology and epistemology intersect, refocus not just Schopenhauer’s philosophy by helping us to become aware of the nonverbalized implications of his metaphysics, it even suggests that Plotinus’ metaphysics could benefit from the Schopenhauerian reflection. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Philosophy.

I interpret and defend Kant's criticism of traditional metaphysics and his indirect proof of transcendental idealism in the first Critique's Antinomy of Pure Reason. Throughout my thesis, I focus on the role of the principle "P2" in the Antinomy ("If the conditioned is given, then the whole sum of conditions, and hence the absolutely unconditioned, is given"). I first defend Kant's use of the principle to motivate the proofs of the Thesis and Antithesis arguments in the second antinomy, which concerns composition, and the third antinomy, which concerns causality. I then explain how the role of P2 in the proofs exposes Kant's indirect proof of transcendental idealism to a significant challenge, to which I develop a response. Finally, I pose the question of whether Kant ultimately argues that the unconditioned exists, or whether he argues that it is merely possible that the unconditioned exists. I explore both options and outline avenues for further consideration of this question, which I argue is crucial to understanding Kant's critical project.

Submitted by Irene Nascimento (irene.kessia@ufpe.br) on 2016-08-24T17:24:33Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Felipe Arruda Sodré - 2010 - Doutorado em Filosofia UFPE-UFPB-UFRN.pdf: 1039429 bytes, checksum: e9651daa9c7bf789b76aabcbeffd3de4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-24T17:24:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Felipe Arruda Sodré - 2010 - Doutorado em Filosofia UFPE-UFPB-UFRN.pdf: 1039429 bytes, checksum: e9651daa9c7bf789b76aabcbeffd3de4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-07 / Capes / A pergunta central dessa tese é: qual o sentido da Matemática na Crítica da Razão Pura? Assim, antes de tudo, é preciso deixar claro que na própria pergunta está implícita a informação de que esse é um problema de Metafísica que vai ser tratado ao modo kantiano. Nesse contexto, apresentar o sentido propedêutico da Matemática representa o resgate de um tema metafísico que, apesar de presente, parece que permaneceu latente e inexplorado, pelo menos na forma como o apresentamos nessa tese. Assim, no primeiro capítulo, o nosso tema é definido e resgatado a partir de uma breve história das interpretações da filosofia de Kant. Isso, por sua vez, projeta a nossa investigação no horizonte da tradição filosófica, conduzindo-nos até Platão, através do neokantismo de Cohen. Contudo, a leitura cientificista de Cohen joga sombra sobre o nosso tema. Por isso, o nosso distanciamento de Cohen permite, ao mesmo tempo, que a nossa investigação incida diretamente sobre os Diálogos de Platão, especificamente a República. O recurso a Platão revela a estratégia argumentativa capaz de subordinar o sentido epistemológico da Matemática ao seu sentido metafísico. Isso determina um modelo interpretativo que  sem comprometer-se com os princípios filosóficos de Platão  serve para mostrar, no segundo capítulo, como a Matemática, ao ser submetida ao crivo da filosofia crítica, impulsiona a razão na sua totalidade a se reposicionar voltando-se sobre si mesma. O idealismo crítico da Matemática descreve o primeiro impulso propedêutico do pensamento em direção ao interior da razão pura. Portanto, no último capítulo, mostramos como o sentido metafísico da Matemática para Kant não pode servir como método para a Metafísica, mas, ao contrário, determina uma legislação negativa para a razão pura. Essa é, precisamente, a centralidade da Matemática no Idealismo Transcendental de Kant: a crítica da Matemática desencadeia o processo de educação da razão, regulando o seu uso teórico e esclarecendo o caminho metodológico da própria Filosofia. / The central question of this thesis is: what is the meaning of Mathematics in the Critique of Pure Reason? So, first of all, it must make it clear that is implicit the information in this question that this is a problem of metaphysics that will be treated to the Kantian way. In this context, to show the propaedeutic sense of the Mathematics represents to regain a metaphysical theme that, despite to be present, it appears that remained latent and unexplored, at least in the way we presented in this thesis. Thus, in the first chapter, our theme is defined and regained from a brief history of the interpretations of Kant's philosophy. This, at its turn, projects our investigation into the horizon of the philosophical tradition, leading us back to Plato, through Cohen's neo-Kantianism. However, the Cohen’s scientistic reading throws shadow over our theme. Therefore, at the same time, our detachment of Cohen allows our research focuses directly on Plato´s Dialogues, particularly the Republic. The use of Plato reveals the argumentative strategy capable of subordinate the epistemological sense of mathematics to its metaphysical sense. This determines an interpretive model that - without compromising it with the philosophical principles of Plato - goes to show, in the second chapter, how the mathematics, when submitted to the appraisement of critical philosophy, gives impulse to the reason in its totality to reposition itself coming back to itself. The critical idealism of Mathematics describes the first propaedeutic impulse of thought into the direction of the pure reason interior. So in the last chapter, we show how the metaphysical sense of Mathematics for Kant can not serve as method for Metaphysics, but rather, determines a negative legislation to the pure reason. This is precisely the centrality of Mathematics in Kant's Transcendental Idealism: a critique of mathematics triggers the education process of the reason, that regulate its theoretical use and that clarify the methodological way of the philosophy itself.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present dissertation has the purpose of exploring the conflict between natural causality and causality through freedom in the Critique of Pure Reason. More specifically from the Transcendental Dialectic, where the conflict is presented as an Antinomy of Reason, and from the Transcendental Doctrine of Method, where the notion of freedom is regarded as the nucleus of his moral thinking. Kant s critical reflection points out to a distinction which is essential for this work: the distinction between noumenon and phenomenon, that is, the distinction between things as existing by themselves, independently from our faculty of knowing, and things such as they present themselves in the exercise of this faculty. Such distinction is the central thesis of the doctrine of Kantian Transcendental Idealism and provides a solution to the impasse of reason in the trial of making compatible the natural necessity (without which Science is not possible), with the possibility of an spontaneous causality, which would provide the genesis of the transcendental idea of freedom, and under which is founded freedom in a practical sense (without which moral is not possible). The central point of the present analysis indicates what Kant claims in the preface to the Second Edition of the Critique of Pure Reason that conflict between nature and freedom does not exist, as the natural necessity belongs to the phenomenical ambit and the freedom (belongs) to the noumenal ambit. / A presente dissertação tem como proposta explorar o conflito entre causalidade natural e causalidade por liberdade na Crítica da Razão Pura. Mais precisamente a partir da Dialética Transcendental, onde o conflito é apresentado como uma Antinomia da Razão, e da Doutrina Transcendental do Método, onde a noção de liberdade é anunciada como núcleo do seu pensamento moral. A reflexão crítica de Kant aponta para uma distinção fundamental, que é essencial expor neste trabalho: a distinção entre númeno e fenômeno, isto é, entre os entes tal como existem por si mesmos, independentemente de nossa faculdade de conhecer, e os entes tal como se apresentam no exercício dessa faculdade. Tal distinção é a tese central da doutrina do idealismo transcendental kantiano e proporciona a solução para o impasse da razão na tentativa de compatibilizar a necessidade natural (sem a qual não é possível ciência), com a possibilidade de uma causalidade espontânea, que proporcionaria a gênese da idéia transcendental de liberdade e sob a qual estaria fundada a liberdade em sentido prático (sem a qual não é possível a moral). O núcleo da presente análise indica o que Kant postula no prefácio à segunda edição da CRP, de que o conflito entre natureza e liberdade é inexistente, já que a necessidade natural (antítese) pertence ao âmbito fenomênico e a liberdade (tese) ao campo numênico.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In this work we intend to develop an analysis about the concept of freedom in Kant. For that, we propose running the way since the Critical of Pure Reason to the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, looking for rebuilt the Kant argument in some of its aspects. The concept of freedom appears in the Critical of Pure Reason in a cosmologic conflict that intends to decide if in the world all the casualty is only natural or if together with the natural casualty can be admitted a casualty for freedom. In this sense, Kant characterizes the transcendental idea of freedom as a spontaneity that is able to begin a series of events that occurs on nature. Conceiving the transcendental idea of freedom is problematic, because the ideas, for Kant, are creations of the reason, when it doesn t find out the solution to its tie-ups. The reason necessarily looks for a condition of the condition until the unconditioned, that would complete its knowledge. The problem is that the unconditioned and, therefore, the ideas, are out of the field of the possible knowledge. Based on the transcendental idealism doctrine, Kant comes to the conclusion that the conflict between freedom and nature is only apparent, and there is no contradiction about thinking in these two kinds of casualty working at the same time. The transcendental idea of freedom, although doesn t work to enlarge the knowledge in a constitutive way, it works as a regulation principle that establishes the architecture of the reason. The reason has a particularly interest about seeing a guaranteed idea of transcendental freedom because comes from it the possibility of thinking in a practical sense of freedom, that is related to the actions of the human beings. The Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals presents the concept of transcendental freedom as a key of explanation for the autonomy of the will of the human beings or for the practical freedom. Conceiving the will as autonomy reveals the formula of the categorical imperative, the principle for the excellence in morality. The freedom of will has no other principle than acting on the maximum of having itself as the object for the universal law. This statement identifies free will and the will submitted to the law as one and same thing. The freedom must be presupposed as property of the will of all the thinking beings. Thus, the human being is capable to take the morality as a law while rational being. The determined concept of morality must be related to the idea of freedom without it can be showed as something real, but only implied to think about a rational being, conscious of the casualty of its actions. The trouble that it shows, for Kant, is that freedom and morality don t match to the human being, that is affected by the inclinations of the sensibility. Kant presents as a solution to this tie-up, the doctrine of the double point of view under what the human being should be considered. / Neste trabalho pretendemos desenvolver uma análise acerca do conceito de liberdade em Kant. Para isso, nos propomos percorrer o caminho desde a Crítica da Razão Pura até a Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes, buscando reconstruir a argumentação kantiana em alguns de seus aspectos. O conceito de liberdade aparece na Crítica da Razão Pura no interior de um conflito cosmológico que pretende decidir se no mundo toda causalidade é somente natural ou se junto com a causalidade natural pode ser admitida uma causalidade por liberdade. Nesse sentido, Kant caracteriza a ideia transcendental da liberdade como uma espontaneidade capaz de dar início a uma série de eventos que se desenrola na natureza. Conceber a ideia transcendental de liberdade é problemático, pois as ideias, para Kant, são criações da razão, quando esta não encontra solução para seus impasses. A razão necessariamente procura a condição da condição até o incondicionado que lhe completaria o saber. O problema é que o incondicionado, e, assim, as ideias estão fora do campo do possível conhecimento. Com base na doutrina do idealismo transcendental, Kant chega à conclusão de que o conflito entre liberdade e natureza é apenas aparente, e que não existe contradição em pensar esses dois tipos de causalidade atuando ao mesmo tempo. A ideia transcendental da liberdade, embora não sirva para alargar o saber constitutivamente, serve como princípio regulativo que estabelece organizadamente a arquitetura da razão. A razão tem um interesse particular em ver garantida a ideia transcendental da liberdade, pois, advém daí a possibilidade para se pensar num sentido prático de liberdade, que diz respeito às ações dos seres humanos. A Fundamentação da Metafísica dos Costumes apresenta o conceito de liberdade transcendental como chave de explicação para a autonomia da vontade dos seres humanos, ou seja, para a liberdade prática. Conceber a vontade como autonomia revela a fórmula do imperativo categórico, o princípio por excelência da moralidade. A liberdade da vontade não tem outro princípio senão o de agir segundo a máxima de ter a si mesma por objeto como lei universal. Essa declaração identifica vontade livre e vontade submetida à lei como uma e mesma coisa. A liberdade deve ser pressuposta como propriedade da vontade de todos os seres racionais. Pois, o ser humano é capaz de tomar a moralidade como lei somente enquanto ser racional. O conceito determinado da moralidade deve ser relacionado à ideia da liberdade, sem que esta possa ser demonstrada como algo real, mas tão somente pressuposta para se pensar um ser racional consciente da causalidade das suas ações. O problema que se apresenta, para Kant, é que liberdade e moralidade não coincidem para o ser humano que é contingentemente afetado pelas inclinações da sensibilidade. Kant apresenta como solução para esse impasse a doutrina do duplo ponto de vista sob o qual o ser humano deve ser considerado.