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Replies to Commentators 111 by external objects. The mistaken idea that Kant is trying to combat is that our knowledge of the external world is acquired by reasoning from the premise that we have inner experience. Kant’s idea is that consciousness of one’s own existence is an immediate consciousness of things outside me. As Ritter puts it on Kant’s behalf, ‘there is no purely inner experience’ and this means that ‘there is no independent basis for a proof of the external world’ (p 13). Furthermore, since the idealist’s position has been disproved ‘by means of a direct refutation, that is, by establishing that consciousness of external objects is immediate, the how-part has already been covered’ (p. 14). In what sense has the ‘how-part’ already been covered? Perhaps the idea is this: the question ‘How is outer experience possible for us?’ is equivalent to the question ‘How is it possible for us to have perceptual knowledge of spatial objects?’. Kant’s answer is: ‘By being immediately conscious of such objects’. Immediate consciousness is, in other words, the means by which we have outer experience. Given that we have inner experience, the availability of such means is guaranteed by the argument of the Refutation. So Kant gives what I call a means response to the how-possible question, one that explains how outer experience is possible by specifying means by which it is possible, but a means response that is underpinned by the transcendental argument of the Refutation. The question that now arises is this: how is immediate consciousness of objects in space possible, if immediate consciousness is the kind of thing that is supposed to yield knowledge of such objects? The sceptic’s introduction of various alternative uneliminated possibilities makes it look as though immediate consciousness of objects is not possible, so the challenge is to explain how such immediate consciousness is possible. The Refutation is of limited use in this context. It tells us that we must be immediately conscious of objects in space but it does not tell us how such a thing is possible. It assures us that the supposed obstacles to immediate consciousness of objects in space cannot be genuine but it does not tell us how they can be overcome. Explaining how outer experience is possible is, or should be, a matter of explaining in detail how the sceptic’s possibilities can be eliminated or why their elimination is not necessary for outer experience. Since the Refutation does neither of these things it cannot be said to explain how outer experience is possible. Showing that outer experience is necessary is not the same as showing how it is possible.
Quassim Cassam 112 None of this is to say that transcendental arguments are of no use in epistemology. If the question is whether knowledge of the external world is possible then a transcendental argument of the kind that Kant develops in the Refutation of Idealism would be very much to the point, at least on the assumption that anti-sceptical transcendental arguments have any chance of success. My concern is not with whether knowledge of the external world is possible but with how it is possible. If we cannot understand how it is possible then that might lead us to question whether it is possible. But merely being satisfied that it is possible does not entitle us to conclude that we have a proper understanding of how it is possible. I contend that it is the multi-levels model, with its emphasis on means, obstacle-removal, and enabling conditions that provides the kind of illumination that those who ask how-possible questions in epistemology are, or should be, seeking. References Quassim Cassam University of Warwick q.cassam@warwick.ac.uk Austin, J. L. (1979). Other Minds, In Philosophical Papers, 3 rd Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ayers, M. R. (1991). Locke, volume 1, London: Routledge. Boghossian, P. (2008). ‘Content and Self-Knowledge’, In Content and Justification: Philosophical Papers, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cassam, Q. (2007a) The Possibility of Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ________. (2007b) ‘Ways of Knowing’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. ________. (forthcoming) ‘The Basis of Self-Knowledge’, to be published in Erkenntnis. Davidson, D. (2001) ‘Comments’, In P. Kotatko (ed.) Interpreting Davidson, Chicago: Chicago University Press. Dray, W. (1957) Laws and Explanation in History, Oxford: Oxford University Press. McDowell, J. (1998) ‘Response to Crispin Wright’, In C. Wright, B. Smith and C. Macdonald (eds.) Knowing Our Own Minds, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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ABSTRACTA Linguagem, Mente e Ação
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Editorial We proudly present the fo
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Precis 3 is an obstacle-dissipating
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Precis 5 priori knowledge, the key
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Denis Bühler 9 A similar ambiguity
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Daniel Dohrn 23 which can be remove
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Comments on Possibility of Knowledg
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