Complete Issue in PDF - Abstracta

Daniel Dohrn 23
which can be removed by recurring to intuitive claims to knowledge which a sceptic is
not disposed to grant.
In order for this project to be successful, Cassam must counter the tradition of
analytic interpretations of Kant which aim at developing transcendental arguments from
Kant´s work.
2. Cassam against Transcendental Arguments
Cassam argues that the ML approach is the appropriate way of answering Kant´s
original question how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible. In contrast,
transcendental arguments are neither necessary nor sufficient to to provide such an
answer. Where Kant offers transcendental arguments, their function must be different
from answering the question how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible if they are to
have a significance at all (Cassam 2007, 56). Ultimately Cassam must endorse a
stronger claim: If epistemology is to answer the question “What is knowledge?”,
transcendental arguments are not mandatory. The ML approach is sufficient to answer
this question:
once we have seen the possibility of a multi-levels response to (HPek) and (HPpk), with
its emphasis on means rather than on necessary conditions, we no longer need
transcendental arguments. (Cassam 2007, 61)
This does not mean that transcendental arguments are futile or meaningless. But
epistemology can in principle do without them.
Cassam provides a thorough distinction of his ML approach from transcendental
arguments. The general form of such arguments as Cassam envisages them is given by
the following quote:
[...]there is experience, necessarily if there is experience then p, therefore p. On an antisceptical
reading, p is a proposition which is the target of sceptical attack, and the
argument proceeds by showing that the truth of p is a necessary condition for something
which the sceptic does not and cannot doubt. (Cassam 2007, 54)