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David Lüthi 47
the very existence of the means; and ‘type B explanations’, which specify relevant
necessary conditions for the means to generate the kind of knowledge in question (cf.
16). To judge from various passages of the text (e. g. 16ff., 40), Cassam seems to think
that type A explanations can be either empirical or philosophical, whereas type B
explanations are exclusively philosophical. Note, however, that any type A explanation
must, trivially, also be a type B explanation: if condition c must be fulfilled for the
means m to exist, then c must also be fulfilled for m to be able to generate the relevant
knowledge (as Cassam notes himself on p. 46; cf. Bühler, this issue, for a sharp analysis
of a whole range of problems surrounding Cassam’s notion of an enabling condition).
(Cassam furthermore uses level 3 to distinguish between two kinds of epistemologists
(cf. 19): ‘minimalists’, who hold that the philosopher’s job is done after level 2, and
‘anti-minimalists’, who think that philosophical level 3 answers are also necessary
(‘extreme anti-minimalism’), or at least possible (‘moderate anti-minimalism’). This
distinction can be ignored for my purposes.)
So much for Cassam’s general structural schema for understanding and
responding to EHPQs. Let’s see then how he envisages the instantiation of this structure
in specific EHPQs. I first turn to Cassam’s account of Kant’s EHPQ regarding synthetic
a priori knowledge. It strongly appears that this is the guiding example Cassam had at
the back of his mind when devising his general schema. In any event, it would seem to
be the one case where the schema fits best; still, as we shall see, the difficulties start
already here.
Kant’s question ‘How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?’ (henceforth
HPsap) would indeed appear to be ‘obstacle-dependent’ much in the sense introduced
above: Kant wonders about the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge in the face of
the obstacle that there seems to exist no means by which such knowledge could be
acquired. For Kant, experience and conceptual analysis are the two basic sources of
human knowledge, but neither can yield synthetic a priori knowledge (cf. 11). So HPsap
is motivated by the obstacle that there appears to be no means to synthetic a priori
knowledge – a ‘problem of sources’, as Cassam (12) calls it.
Note, however, that this is an obstacle that obtains, so to speak, at a level 0 that
is not recognised by Cassam; it is an obstacle that is removed by giving the means
response on level 1 (‘problem of means’ would actually have been a more coherent