Kant, the Paradox of Knowability, and the Meaning of ‘Experience’

Stephenson, Andrew

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Kant, the Paradox of Knowability, and the Meaning of ‘Experience’

Andrew Stephenson

October 2015, Volume 15, No. 27, pp. 1-19

Permalink: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3521354.0015.027

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Abstract

It is often claimed that anti-realism is a form of transcendental idealism or that Kant is an anti-realist. It is also often claimed that anti-realists are committed to some form of knowability principle and that such principles have problematic consequences. It is therefore natural to ask whether Kant is so committed, and if he is, whether this leads him into difficulties. I argue that a standard reading of Kant does indeed have him committed to the claim that all empirical truths are knowable and that this claim entails that there is no empirical truth that is never known. I extend the result to a priori truths and draw some general philosophical lessons from this extension. However, I then propose a re-examination of Kant’s notion of experience according to which he carefully eschews any commitment to empirical knowability. Finally I respond to a remaining problem that stems from a weaker, justified believability principle.

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In §1.1, I present evidence that suggests Kant is indeed committed to a knowability principle and I show that a Fitch-Church style proof can be constructed on this basis. Kant does not think that all truths whatsoever are knowable, but it can seem as though he is committed to the claim that all empirical truths are knowable, and on moderate background assumptions this entails that no empirical truth is unknown. In §1.2, I show that with a few additional assumptions we can also prove that all a priori truths are knowable and that no a priori truth is unknown. This is an interesting result with more general philosophical lessons concerning how certain classes of truth relate within a framework of knowability. But it is a little unfair to Kant. Arguably, we ought to further restrict our candidate Kantian knowability principle to what I call purely empirical truths, and doing so blocks the seepage into the a priori realm. However, this move would still leave Kant forced to concede that there are no unknown purely empirical truths, which is hardly more palatable.

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