Sachmittel- und Betreuungskostenzuschuss Forschungsstipendium (Pauschale) 2024/25 DAAD-Stipendiat Joshua Williams

Kantian Mind-Dependence: A New Interpretation of Transcendental Idealism.

Kant notoriously upheld the view that objects of experience depend on the mind while also being empirically real. While these central doctrines are difficult enough to understand on their own, it is even more difficult to propose an interpretation in which both theses are explained in a way that eases the apparent tension between them. The account that I think best accommodates these competing commitments can be roughly summarized as an interpretation in which: (i) things in themselves are transcendentally real from the transcendental perspective and empirical objects are empirically real from the empirical perspective, (ii) things in themselves and empirical objects are ontologically distinct kinds, (iii) finite minds such as ours are disposed to represent outer empirical properties given the forms of our faculties, affection by things in themselves, and various synthesizing activities, (iv) our dispositions to represent outer objects are tokens of dispositional types, (v) each empirically real property is identical to an intersubjectively valid dispositional type, and (vi) dispositional types are abstract particulars. I call this interpretation the Third-Order Property view. My dissertation project is the attempt to work out this Third-Order Property view in all necessary details.