Limits of Intelligibility: Issues from Kant and Wittgenstein

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The chapters in this volume investigate the question of where, and in what sense, the bounds of intelligible thought, knowledge, and speech are to be drawn. Is there a way in which we are limited in what we think, know, and say? And if so, does this mean that we are constrained—that there is something beyond the ken of human intelligibility of which we fall short? Or is there another way to think about these limits of intelligibility—namely, as conditions of our meaning and knowing anything, beyond which there is no specifiable thing we cannot do? These issues feature prominently in the writings of Kant and Wittgenstein who each engaged with them in unique and striking ways. Their thoughts on the matter remain provocative and stimulating, and accordingly, the contributions to this volume address the issues surrounding the limits of intelligibility both exegetically and systematically: they examine how they figure in Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s most significant works and put them in touch with contemporary debates that are shaped by their legacy. These debates concern, inter alia, logically and morally alien thought, the semantics and philosophy of negation, disjunctivism in philosophy of perception and ethics, paraconsistent approaches to contradiction, and the relation between art, literature, and philosophy. The book is divided into four parts: Part I gives a first assessment of the issues, Part II examines limits as they feature in Kant, Part III as they feature in Wittgenstein, and Part IV suggests some ways in which the questions might be reconsidered, drawing upon ideas in phenomenology, dialetheism, metamathematics, and the works of other influential authors. Limits of Intelligibility provides insight into a theme that is central to the thought of two of the most important figures in modern philosophy, as well as to recent metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, epistemology, and ethics. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: Where Intelligibility Gives Out 1. What Limits? 2. Kant and Wittgenstein: A Shared Sensibility 3. A Critical Project and Some Implications 4. The Chapters of This Volume Notes Bibliography Part I: Limits Assessed Chapter 1: Metaphysical Dissatisfaction 1. 2. 3. 4. Notes Bibliography Chapter 2: The Bounds of Sense 1. Introduction 2. The Tractatus 3. Kant 4. Logical Positivism 5. Quine 6. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Part II: Limits in Kant Chapter 3: Kant on Why We Cannot Even Judge about Things in Themselves 1. Kant’s Argument 2. Cognition of the Soul, or the World, or God? 3. The Lack of Objective Validity 4. No Synthetic Judgement of Pure Reason Is a Judgement at All 5. The Antinomies as Counterexamples? 6. Analytic Judgements 7. The Practical Postulates 8. Ignorance of Things in Themselves Notes Bibliography Chapter 4: The “Original” Form of Cognition : On Kant’s Hylomorphism 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Notes Bibliography Chapter 5: Logical and Moral Aliens within Us: Kant on Theoretical and Practical Self-Conceit 1. 2. 3. 4. Notes Bibliography Part III: Limits in Wittgenstein Chapter 6: Wittgenstein on the Limits of Language 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Notes Bibliography Chapter 7: The Threefold Puzzle of Negation and the Limits of Sense 1. The Threefold Puzzle of Negation 1.1. The First Puzzle about Negation 1.2. The Second Puzzle about Negation 1.3. The Third Puzzle about Negation 2. The Dilemma of Privation and Gratuitousness 2.1. Two Objections to the Threefold Construal of the Puzzle of Negation 2.2. The Peril of Indifference 2.3. The Significance of the Form of Infinite Judgment 3. Conclusion: Prolegomena to a Treatment of the Threefold Puzzle of Negation 3.1. First Steps Towards a Way Out of the First Puzzle 3.2. First Steps Towards a Way Out of the Third Puzzle 3.3. First Steps Towards a Way Out of the Second Puzzle Notes Bibliography Chapter 8: Truth and the Limits of Ethical Thought: Reading Wittgenstein with Diamond 1. Introduction 2. Truth and the Clarification of Thought 3. The Undeniability of Logical Truth 4. Truths and Apparent Truths 5. Truth and the Shaping of Ethical Thought 6. Neither Realism nor Relativism 7. Disjunctivism in Ethics 8. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Part IV: Limits Reconsidered Chapter 9: On Transcending the Limits of Language 1. Introduction 2. Kant 2.1. Phenomena and Noumena 2.2. The Categories of Judgment 2.3. The Applicability of the Categories 2.4. Noumena Are Beyond Language 3. Wittgenstein 3.1. Language and Reality 3.2. Saying and Showing 3.3. Structural ‘Facts’ 3.4. Saying the Unsayable 4. Responses 4.1. Kant’s Response 4.2. Wittgenstein’s Response 5. The Logic of Ineffability 5.1. And So? 5.2. Approaching the Problem 5.3. A Formal Theory 5.4. Reflections on the Theory 6. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Chapter 10: Art, Authenticity, and Understanding 1. Introduction 2. Judgment, Genius, and Art 3. A ‘Big Nothing’? 4. Carnap and Wittgenstein: Is Talk about the Nothing Meaningless? 5. Art, Authenticity, and the Limits of Expression Notes Bibliography Chapter 11: No Limit: On What Thought Can Actually Do 1. 2. 3. Notes Bibliography Chapter 12: On the Speculative Form of Holistic Reflection : Hegel’s Criticism of Kant’s Limitations of Reason 1. Speculative Geographies 2. Determinations in Differentiations 3. Problems of Understanding Generic and Speculative Ways of Speaking 4. Transcending Limits in Conceptual and Actual Domains 5. Objectivity in Real Reality vs. the Thing as Such 6. Further Examples of True and False Speculative Judgements 7. Definite Predication, Indefinite Negation, and the Ascents of Reflection Notes Bibliography Index