Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in Themselves

by Rae Langton

Overview

In this refreshing and exceptional work, Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defense of Kant's doctrine of "things in themselves." Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, thus making a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Langton argues that his claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility; we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to be superior even to modern day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199243174
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/29/2001
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	9.21(w) x 6.14(h) x 0.52(d)
Lexile:	1310L (what's this?)

About the Author

Rae Langton is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. She has been affiliated with Monash University, the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University, Sheffield University, and the University of Edinburgh.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. An Old Problem2. Three Kantian Theses3. Substance and Phenomenal Substance4. Leibniz and Kant5. Kant's Rejection of Reducibility6. Fitting the Pieces Together7. A Comparison with Locke8. Kant's ‘Primary Qualities'9. The Unobservable and the Supersensible10. Realism or Idealism? Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"Langton's book is a significant contribution to the recent literature on Kant's idealism, and will be widely discussed."—Times Literary Supplement

"A novel attempt to elucidate and defend a central Kantian thesis....A most interesting, impressive, and scholarly exercise in Kantian interpretation"—P. F. Strawson

From the Publisher