Kant and Rational Psychology

Abstract

As printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, cr0 4yy Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only.Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.foundations they do not require, nor would they repay, closer consideration.It is even suspected that an understanding of the particular treatments of these figures would only prove to be an obstacle when it comes to making sense of Kant's discussion in the Paralogisms, since taking him to be addressing the sometimes eccentric, and always philosophically less sophisticated, doctrines of the soul advanced by Wolff and those influenced by him would be to needlessly sharpen the point of Kant's criticism in the chapter.Indeed, Kant himself apparently warns the reader off of such an approach when he asserts that the KrV is not a critique of particular "books and systems, " but rather a critique of reason itself (Axii).As a result, many Kant scholars have come to believe that, when it comes to our understanding of rationalism's theory of mind and of Kant's subsequent incisive criticisms of it, there is nothing significant to be gained, and much to be lost, through a detailed consideration of these and other historical representatives of rational psychology.This neglect of Kant's immediate predecessors is, however, unjustified, especially when it comes to understanding his criticism of rational psychology in the Paralogisms.In ignoring Wolff and the philosophers influenced by him, we ignore the tradition that would have invariably been called to mind for the readers of the KrV which is, after all, a book written in German for a German audience.More importantly, we ignore a tradition that developed a radically new methodology in investigating the soul, one that (as we will see) serves to distinguish it in a number of ways from that narrowly rationalistic approach to the soul attributed to Descartes and Leibniz.Far from dismissing this conception of rational psychology as the preserve of philosophical eccentrics and second-tier thinkers, Kant himself would adopt it well into his decade of work before the publication of the KrV, thus making the rational discipline of his immediate predecessors among the most natural, and important, targets of Kant's mature criticism.In addition, key features of Kant's discussion of the soul in the Transcendental Dialectic, including his characterization of the illusory ground for the rational psychologist's erroneous claims but also the specific arguments he targets, can only be fully understood once the psychology of this tradition is taken into account.Indeed, considering Kant's Critical treatment of rational psychology in its most proximate context is entirely consistent with his denial that the KrV is a critique of "books and systems, " since I assume that Kant casts a net wide enough in his criticism in the Paralogisms that rationalist psychologies of every stripe, including the distinctive approach to the soul developed by the 18th-century German tradition, are caught up in it.Accordingly, this study will elaborate and defend a rather different approach to Kant's discussion of rational psychology, though one that follows the lead of a number of recent studies that have shown that significant insight can be gained into a number of areas of Kant's thought by considering it in the context of the Wunderlich, Kant und die Bewusstseinstheorien des 18. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 36 n115.4 As in, for instance, Georg Meier's Pneumatica qua Scientia Spirituum Dei, Angeli & Animae hominis separatae Naturalis, 2nd edn.(Wittenberg: Fincelius, 1666).Regarding pneumatology, Leibniz claims that it comprises "knowledge of God, souls, and simple substances in general" (NE 57).5 See also AN §104 and DP §112.

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