What is Transcendental Idealism? - Epistemology Video 27

This is video 27 in an introductory course on epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge. In this video, I explain what Kant's transcendental idealism is... and what it is not. In particular, I argue that it is NOT the idea that the true reality is hidden from us by the distorting powers of our mind. That is an interpretation of Kant that fails because:

1. It can't account for Kant's definition of intuition.
2. It can't explain why Kant believes transcendental idealism is an answer to external world skepticism.
3. It has to claim that Kant was making a huge blunder when he claimed that things in themselves are not in space and time (that is, he forgot the 'forgotten alternative').
4. It cannot make sense of the transcendental deduction.

I suggest that we should understand transcendental idealism as the claim that finite thought is answerable only to its own standards, not to externa; ('divine') standards. In other words, the standards of reality (what it is for something to be real) can only be understood in relation to the standards of finite thought. We do not have an independent grasp of what it is to be real, only the bare idea of standards that are not ours (which gives us the bare idea of things in themselves). I show that this interpretation doesn't run into the four problems mentioned above. I also suggest that it means we should think of Kant as a direct realist about perception.

Victor Gijsbers teaches philosophy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. You can follow him on mastodon: @[email protected].

This video is part of a lecture series originally recorded for my students during the 2023/2024 spring semester. The entire playlist is here: Course in Epistemology