990115 2128 - conforming of objects and knowledge

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Von: B Merrill <merrillb@crisny.org>
An: Multiple recipients of list <kant-l@bucknell.edu>
Betreff: Re: conforming of objects and knowledge
Datum: Freitag, 15. Januar 1999 21:43

Marco,

Yes, the constitutive /regulative distinction lines up with the one I was
noting. My point was that the regulative serves to enforce that empirical
receptivity which Kant pursues in the appendix to the dialectic, a more
passive receptivity which contrasts to the more active prior imposition of
the categories in the analytic (as well as the imposition in the aesthetic).

B:it strikes me that the transit from transcendental idealism to=20
>> empirical realism (which you take note of) is, to an important
>> degree, articulated as the distinction and transit between these
>> two different conformations.

M:
>This seems to me a very important consideration, but I am not sure if I =
>understand it correctly. Could you elaborate on this ?What strikes me, is
that transcendental idealism, which was "work in =
>progress" (Ermanno Bencivenga), was suddently abandoned (the desert) and ="
>substituted by idealism, phenomenology, empirical realism or other.

Here you cite a thesis concerning the evolution of Kant's doctrine which I
am not familiar with.

>I see in this shift from Kant to post-Kant the UNAWARE ELIMINATION of =
>the above mentioned disitinction and its replacement with various =
>modified kinds of the second conformation, like: "the pure concepts of =
>reason put the INVENTED / GIVEN object into a systematic order".This
elimination was the consequence of abandoning Kant's method of =
>investigation ("Zergliederung des Verstandesverm=F6gens selbst" B 90) =
>for the restoration of the old method of dissecting the content of =
>concepts ("Zergliederung der Begriffe ihrem Inhalte nach"): in this =
>regard all post-Kantian philosophy can be considered as "pre-Kantian". =
>Hegel made one of his most vehements attacks against Kant precisely in =
>this point and was one of the great master of that restoration.

I am not sure if I follow you. I.e. I'm sure I don't follow you, to some
degree. Certainly a crucial distinction between Kant and Hegel is the
latter's denigration of the regulative which he disdains as merely
"subjective" and thus not capable of overcoming the subject /object
distinction to Hegel's satisfaction.

>One reason why Kant's work in progress was abandoned seem to me what =
>Kant calls "a natural and inevitable illusion" (B 354): that we "take =
>the subjective necessity of a connection of our concepts ... for an =
>objective necessity in the determination of things in themselves".Another
reason could be that (most) scientific work is done at the =
>second level (regulative conformation), because it is only after having =
>constituted the different objects of my new investigation that I can try =
>to integrate them into the system of existing knowledge.
>
>What these two reasons have in common is - as Silvio Ceccato has =
>suggested - the unaware elimination (from the philosophical and =
>scientific reflection) of the first conformation which is the first =
>stage of any mental act: that of the mental CONSTITUTION of its =
>components (objects, relations, etc.)

Again, I'm not following you very well.

My impression is that the Kant > post-Kant turn does not focus on this
topic, though it certainly bears upon it. Rather, the focus of the Kant >
Fichte > Schelling > Hegel sequence (if that's what we're talking about?)
appears to me to pertain to the desideratum of consolidating and
systematizing philosophy itself, beginning (e.g.) with Fichte's effort to
consolidate theoretical and practical reason.

Bruce Merrill