MATTHEW M.

BRAICH

MBRAICH@LCLARK.EDU

STRAWSON AND ALLISON ON KANTS TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

MATT BRAICH
LEWIS & CLARK COLLEGE
PORTLAND, OREGON
MAY 2008
PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT
SUBMITTED in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

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STRAWSON AND ALLISON ON KANTS TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

ABSTRACT: Kants doctrine of transcendental idealism is no stranger to controversy. A primary source of the
controversy is the question whether Kant regards the distinction between things in themselves and appearances as
metaphysical or epistemological. Advocates of the metaphysical interpretation (specifically, P.F. Strawson) insist
that things in themselves and appearances are distinct entities occupying different ontological realms: the
phenomenal realm and the noumenal realm. By contrast, advocates of the epistemological interpretation
(specifically, Henry Allison) insist that things in themselves and appearances are numerically identical entities
considered from different perspectives: the empirical perspective and the transcendental perspective. While both
interpretations offer plausible accounts of transcendental idealism, neither is completely compatible with the text.
The question, then, is: what elements of Kants philosophy must we sacrifice in order to adopt either interpretation?
In this paper, I answer this question and argue that, though each view fails to cohere fully with the text, the problem
may not lie in the details of the interpretations. There is another possibility: transcendental idealism may not itself
be a single, self-consistent doctrine.

Kants doctrine of transcendental idealism is no stranger to controversy. As one of

Kants earliest critics, F. H. Jacobi, famously writes: the thing in itself is the kind of concept
without which it is impossible to enter Kants system, but with which it is impossible to get out
of the system.1 Jacobis remarks highlight an apparent tension in the first Critique: on the one
hand, Kant restricts the range of things we can cognize to possible objects of experience, while,
on the other hand, his system relies on uncognizable entities. For many critics, this tension tolls
the death knell for transcendental idealism. In The Bounds of Sense, for example, P.F. Strawson
jettisons things in themselves in an effort to absolve Kant from what he regards as
inconsistencies. The only element in transcendental idealism which has any significant part to
play in those structures, Strawson writes, is the phenomenalistic idealism according to which
the physical world is nothing apart from perceptions. 2

If we accept this metaphysical

interpretation of Kant, the dilemma is twofold: should Kant continue to talk about things in
themselves, his system runs into apparent contradictions; yet, should he abandon things in
themselves, as Strawson urges, his system operates exclusively at the phenomenal level.

F. H. Jacobi, David Hume ber den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus. Ein Gesprch,
Breslau: Gottlieb Lwe, New York and London: Garland (1787).
2
P. F. Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, London: Methuen (1966), page 246.

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More recently, however, this interpretative tradition has lost favor among Kantians.
Since the publication of Henry Allisons Kants Transcendental Idealism, commentators have
increasingly regarded the distinction between things in themselves and appearances as
epistemological, rather than metaphysical.

By contrasting things in themselves with

appearances, Allison insists, Kant means only to underscore the limits of our cognitive powers;
he is not, importantly, distinguishing between two ontologically distinct sets of entitiesi.e.,
appearances and those supersensible entities that lie, as it were, outside of our cognitive field.
Consequently, Jacobis original criticism is avoided: Kant can coherently talk about things in
themselves because those entities just are appearances considered in abstraction from the
conditions of our cognizing them.
The question, then, is whether Kant himself regards the distinction between things in
themselves and appearances as metaphysical or epistemological. Unfortunately, the text cannot
answer this question. Allen Wood notes this problem:
I think much of the puzzlement about transcendental idealism arises from the fact
that Kant himself formulates transcendental idealism in a variety of ways, and it is
not at all clear how, or whether, his statements of it can all be reconciled, or taken
as statements of a single, self-consistent doctrine. I think Kants central
formulations suggest two quite distinct and mutually incompatible doctrines.4
Compare, for example, the following two passages:
We should consider that bodies are not objects in themselves that are present to us,
but rather a mere appearance of who knows what unknown object; that motion is
not the effect of this unknown cause, but merely the appearance of its influence
on our sense.5
We can have cognition of no object as a thing in itself, but only insofar as it is an
object of sensible intuition, i.e. as an appearancewe [assume] the distinction
3

Henry Allison, Kants Transcendental Idealism, Connecticut: Yale University Press (1983).
Allen Wood, Kant, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing (2005), pages 63-64.
5
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood,
New York: Cambridge University Press (1998), A387; my italics.
4

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between things as objects of experience and the very same things as things in
themselves.6

Because such inconsistencies preclude the possibility of arriving at a univocal interpretation of

the text, commentators, including Wood, have been forced to rely on such extra-textual
considerations as charity when adjudicating between the metaphysical and epistemological views.
Though this approach has benefits, it raises the question: what elements of Kants philosophy
must we sacrifice in order to adopt either interpretation?
In this paper, I address this question in three sections. In section one, I outline three
central roles things in themselves play in Kants philosophy.

In section two, I examine

Strawsons interpretation (commonly called the two-worlds view) and argue that he fails to
account for the role things in themselves play in Kants moral philosophy. In section three, I
examine Allisons interpretation (commonly called the dual-aspect view) and argue that he
fails to account for the role things in themselves play in affecting the faculty of intuitiona
crucial aspect of Kants theoretical philosophy. I conclude by arguing that, though each view
fails to meet all of these constraints, the problem may not lie in the details of the interpretations.
There is another possibility: transcendental idealism may not itself be a single, self-consistent
doctrine.
I. THE ROLES OF THINGS IN THEMSELVES
Though Kant is quite clear that we can cognize (and hence know) only appearances, and
not things in themselves, he uses the notion of a thing in itself throughout his philosophy. In
Things in Themselves, Robert Adams outlines the four roles this notion plays in Kants work,

KrV, Bxxvi-Bxxvii; my italics.

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but I am here only concerned with three.7 The first role (the negative role) arises in the context of
Kants theoretical philosophy, specifically, the Transcendental Aesthetic, in which Kant
specifies the a priori conditions under which we intuit the matter of experience. The second role
(the affecting role) arises in Kants transcendental account of how appearances occur. Lastly, the
third role (the moral role) arises in the context of Kants practical philosophy, specifically, in his
attempt to ground the possibility of freedom, God and the soul in the noumenal realm. We shall
consider these three roles in order.
1) The central thesis behind the Transcendental Aesthetic is that the faculty of intuition
comprises two a priori forms: space and time. An object, for Kant, counts as a possible object of
experience if and only if it can be given in intuition, and hence ordered in time and, if it is an
outer intuition, space. Against this picture of what possible objects of experience are, Kant
contrasts things in themselves. He holds that we experience objects not as they are in themselves,
but only as they appear in relation to our faculty of intuition, in time and space. This use of the
thing in itself to clarify what appearances are not constitutes the negative role the concept plays
in Kants philosophy.
2) Kant bases his transcendental psychology on primarily two faculties of the mind: the
intuition and the understanding. In terms of producing experience, the understanding plays an
active part; it actively organizes the manifold of intuition under the rubric of a priori categories,
e.g., causality. By contrast, the intuition plays a passive part; it receives the manifold through an
interaction with something else, presumably beyond the range of our experience. Kant identifies

Robert Adams, Things in Themselves, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 57,
No. 4 (1997), pages 801-825. I have left out the regulative role because it does not directly
pertain to my discussion of Allison and Strawson.

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things in themselves as the source of this interaction, and perhaps to avoid illicit metaphysical
commitments, he characterizes that relation in terms of affection or grounding.8
3) One of Kants central concerns in the first Critique is reconciling Newtonian physics
with morality. At the level of appearances, Kant is a Newtonian: he holds that everything in the
empirical world happens in accordance with the laws of nature. This includes not only natural
events, but also human action. Consequently, Kant asks: given that physical laws (as specified
by Newton) determine all events in the empirical world, how are freedom and morality possible?
Kant answers this question by positing the noumenal realm. He argues that so long as there could
be a realm independent of the empirically determined order of our experience, there remains at
least the logical possibility of God, morality and the soul.

These moral postulates, then,

constitute the third role things in themselves play in Kants work.

Of these three roles, the first two the affecting role and the negative rolehave the
largest influence on how Strawson and Allison respectively formulate their interpretations of
transcendental idealism.

Strawson emphasizes role (2), and, as a result, his interpretation

presents the relationship between things in themselves and appearances in terms of a quasicasual A-relation, i.e. the relation that holds between things in themselves and intuition. 9
Conversely, Allison emphasizes role (1), the negative role, and as a result, his interpretation
maintains an identity between things in themselves and appearances, where the two differ only
insofar as the latter is considered as a thing in space and time and the former as a thing in the
abstract.

See, e.g., KrV, A380. Regarding the locution ground, Wood writes that Kant uses this
perhaps because it seems to him more abstract and metaphysically non-committal, better suited
to express a relation that can never be cognized empirically but only thought through the pure
understanding. Wood, Kant, page 64.
9
Strawson, Bounds of Sense, page 236.

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II. The Two-Worlds View

The two-worlds view proceeds from a metaphysical interpretation of transcendental

idealism. Advocates of this view hold that things in themselves and appearances are numerically
distinct entities related to one another through a casual process, which Kant articulates in terms
of affection. Experience, then, is in part the result of things in themselves affecting the intuition
such that they produce in us spatiotemporal representations, appearances. This leaves us with
two distinct realms: the noumenal realm, from which the process of affection proceeds, causing
in us mental representations of things; and the phenomenal realm, in which these representations
are structured by the active faculties of the mind, appearing to us as objects (bodies in space and
time) governed by the physical laws of nature.
Strawsons own interpretation of transcendental idealism agrees with this general picture
of the two-worlds view. He begins with the basic two-worlds thesis there exists the sphere of
supersensible reality, of things, neither spatial nor temporal, as they are in themselves.10 In the
realm of things in themselves, he continues, there obtains a certain complex relation (or a class
of cases of this relation) which we can speak of, on the model of a causal relation, in terms of
affection and being affect by.11 Strawson refers to this complex relation as the A-relation
and explains that while the A-relation holds only in the noumenal realm, it is responsible for
producing phenomena (hence, experience): experience is the outcome of this complex quasicausal relation holding in the sphere of things in themselves; and the co-operation of all the
elements so far mentioned [i.e. the intuition and understanding] is essential to its production.12
While the objects of experience are real in the sense that they enjoy their own states and

10

Strawson, Bounds of Sense, page 236.

Strawson, Bounds of Sense, page 236.
12
Strawson, Bounds of Sense, page 236.
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relations irrespective of the occurrence of any particular states of awareness of them, their
existence wholly depends on the operations of the mind; and thus, apart from perceptions, they
are really nothing at all.13 Such ideality, then, gives appearances a distinct ontological status:
though grounded in the noumenal realm, they remain nothing over and above perceptions
metaphysically dependent on the mind (but not any particular mind).
Once we consider this doctrine in relation to Kants epistemology, however, difficulties
arise. The following schema of the two-worlds view illuminates these problems:
a) Things in themselves exist.
b) Things in themselves cause appearances.
c) We can cognize only appearances.
A tension arises between claims (a) and (b) and claim (c). If we accept (c), then it seems we
must accept the following two corollaries:
C1) We cannot cognize things in themselves (and hence cannot know whether
they exist).
C2) We cannot know whether things in themselves cause appearances.14
Both corollaries conflict with the metaphysical claims above, so we must either deny (a) and (b)
or deny (C1) and (C2). If we deny (C1) and (C2), then Kant begins to resemble a rationalist,
insofar he would have to hold that we can cognize the true nature of things by virtue of reason
alone.

Kant would doubtless resist such a conclusion, since he considers the rationalists

dogmatic and prone to metaphysical speculation.15 However, if we deny (a) and (b), then Kant
becomes a kind of idealist, in that he would have to reject the existence of extra-cognitive objects
13

Strawson, Bounds of Sense, page 237.

This schema, with a few minor changes, comes from Rae Langton, Kantian Humility, Oxford:
Clarendon Press (1998), pages 7-8.
15
KrV, Aix.
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in favor of mental items. Though Kant regards his philosophy as a form of realism, at least at the
empirical level, Strawson resolves the tension above by opting for this alternative, thus rendering
Kant an idealist. Before considering Strawsons conclusion, however, an overview of Kants
epistemology is required.
The contradiction between claims (a) and (b) and claim (c) derives from Kants doctrine
that the categories of the understanding have legitimate application only with respect to objects
of possible experience, not things in themselves. Experience, on Kants view, consists in the
interplay of the understanding and the intuition.

Though both faculties are necessary for

experience, neither is by itself sufficient: the intuition only receives the matter of experience,
while the understanding only provides structures (concepts) for organizing ithence, Kants
famous dictum, thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.16
One condition for our ability to cognize objects, then, is that the object be given in intuition.
Since things in themselves cannot be given in intuition, it follows that the categories of the
understanding cannot be applied legitimately to these things. Indeed, Kants criticism of the
rationalists, and, specifically Leibniz, consists in his claim that the pure concepts of the
understanding, e.g., God and the soul, are by themselves insufficient for real knowledge, and that
something else is needed, namely, empirical content.
The problem, however, is that claims (a) and (b) specify a categorical relation (causality)
that obtains outside of experience. By claiming that things in themselves affect intuition, Kant
thus appears to violate the basic tenet of his epistemology, that the concepts of the understanding
apply only to appearances, not things in themselves. Moreover, Kant cannot claim that things in
themselves exist, since, on his view, existence is also a category. Hence, not only does the

16

KrV, A51/B75.

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doctrine of affection violate his epistemology, but so does the basic claim that things in
themselves exist. On these grounds, Strawson rejects (a) and (b), the metaphysical theses, and
argues that Kant is at best an inconsistent Berkeley. 17 The only element in transcendental
idealism which has any significant part to play in to structures, he writes, is the
phenomenalistic idealism according to which the physical world is nothing apart from
perceptions. 18
Consequently, Strawson dismisses the practical role things in themselves play in Kants
philosophy, role (3). His point is that, without things in themselves, Kant does not face the
problem of contradicting himself when talking about things at the transcendental level. However,
Kants talk about things in themselves is not as contradictory as Strawson thinks, and much of
the problem here rests on Kants semantic theory. Strawson takes the standard interpretation of
this theory, arguing that, on Kants view, a concept (or lexical item, for that matter) is
meaningful just in case its object can be given or instantiated in possible experience.19 Kant
articulates this theory in various forms throughout the first Critique, though perhaps the most
concise articulation occurs at (A239/B298-A242/B300):
It is also requisite for one to make an abstract concept sensible, i.e., display the
object that corresponds to it in intuition, since without this [intuition] the concept
would remain (as one says) without sense, i.e., without significance.
If Kants point is that a concept without empirical application lacks meaning or sense altogether,
then any proposition about things in themselves, including, importantly, those that arise in the
context of Kants practical philosophy, become meaningless.20

17

Allison, Kants Transcendental Idealism, page 4.

Strawson, Bounds of Sense, page 246.
19
Strawson, Bounds of Sense, pages 263-270.
20
This would, then, be a point of overlap between Kant and the Logical Positivists, who tried to
reduce meaningful propositions to only those that are analytic or empirically verifiable.
18

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However, this is not Kants considered viewor, at least, not of all it. Rather, Kants
point is that our concepts of things in themselves lack a use, not a meaning. 21 In the
Transcendental Analytic, for example, he writes: even after abstraction from every sensible
condition, [the pure concepts of the understanding have] significance, but only a logical
significance.22 As this passage suggests, Kant deploys two levels of meaning: logical meaning
and empirical meaning. We can think of the former as something like syntactic meaning and the
latter as something like semantic meaning. Though our concepts of noumena and things in
themselves have no use in the empirical world, they retain meaning at a syntactical level. It is
mistaken, therefore, to attribute to Kant the view that all concepts that lack empirical use are
meaningless, since such a view disregards the distinction between the two types of meaning.
Furthermore, Kant holds that while we cannot cognize things in themselves, we can
nevertheless think them. In the preface to the second edition, he articulates this distinction:
To cognize an object, it is required that I be able to prove its possibilityBut I
can think whatever I like, as long as I do not contradict myself, i.e. as long as my
concept is a possible thought, even if I cannot give any assurance whether or not
there is a corresponding object somewhere within the sum total of all
possibilities.23
Unlike cognizable objectswhich include only those objects for which we have concepts that
could, at least in principle, be instantiatedthinkable objects are those whose concepts can be
thought without contradiction.24 The range of objects we can think is, therefore, far broader than
the range of objects we can cognize. Indeed, it may be infinitely broader, for we can think
21

J.P. Nolan, Kant on Meaning: Two Studies, Kant-Studien, Vol 70 (1979), pages 113-130.
KrV, A147/B186.
23
KrV, Bxxvi.
24
I say in principle to include concepts like UNICORN. Though no unicorn is actual, we
could nevertheless specify the empirical conditions under which UNICORN could correctly pick
out an object in the world. Hence, unicorns count as possible objects of experience, and are
therefore cognizable, at least in principle. In other words, the extension of possible objects of
experience includes objects in all possible worlds, near and far.
22

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anything that is logically possible, but can cognize only those things that are really possible.25 In
turn, this distinction plays a central role in Kants practical philosophy. Insofar as we can think
the concepts God, the soul and freedom consistently, that is, without logical contradiction, then
we can believe, though not know, that morality is grounded in the noumenal realm. By opening
up this possibility, Kant is not contradicting his epistemology, as Strawson would have it, but is
instead stressing the extent to which our moral commitments are based on faith, rather than
knowledge, and hence, his famous expression, I had to deny knowledge in order to make room
for faith.26
A coherent view begins to emerges once we consider (a), (b) and (c) in relation to the
thought/cognition distinction. Recall that claim (c) entails only that we cannot cognize things in
themselves, though it makes no mention of our capacity to think them. If we read (a) and (b) as
deriving from thought alone, and not cognition, then Kant can consistently hold all three claims;
that is, he can think things in themselves exist, and he can think things in themselves affect the
intuition, as logical possibilities, while at the same time maintaining minimal metaphysical
commitments. Henry Allison proposes a version of this reading, and though it presents a
deflationary view of Kant, who, at times, appears to lament the fact that while we can think about
things in themselves, we cannot know much about them, his interpretation does absolve Kant
from many of the charges the two-worlds view raises.
III. THE DUAL-ASPECT VIEW
Unlike the two-worlds view, which identifies transcendental idealism as the centerpiece
of Kants theoretical philosophy, the dual-aspect view holds that the distinction between things

25

Adams, Things in Themselves, pages 801-825. Adams provides an analysis of how logical
and real possibility work in Kants critical philosophy.
26
KrV, Bxxx.

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in themselves and appearances is motivated by Kants overall epistemic concerns. Advocates of

this view insist that Kants Copernican revolution consists not in the claim that there exist two
distinct realms, of which we can know only one, but rather in his epistemic doctrine that the a
priori principles of the mind determine how humans experience objects. 27 Given how we
necessarily structure experience, this view holds, it is epistemically possible that objects of
experience would have an existence in themselves, outside of space, time and the categories of
the understanding. To talk about things in themselves, then, is to talk about the things we intuit
but from a different perspective: the transcendental perspective.

Hence, Kants distinction

hinges not on metaphysical concerns, but on how we consider the objects of experience: either
we can consider such objects in relation to the conditions of our cognizing them, i.e., as
appearances, or we can consider these very same things apart from those condition, i.e., as things
as they exist in themselves.28
Allisons interpretation of transcendental idealism takes a stronger stance regarding the
ontological nature of things in themselves, arguing that they are not real in any rich sense but
rather serve as mere methodological postulates.

His strategy is to show that the concept of a

thing in itself (as well as other associated concepts, such as noumena, the transcendental object
and the object in general = X) derives from transcendental reflection, and is thus only a product

27

KrV, Bxvi, Here Kant famously compares his philosophy to a Copernican revolution. For a
dual-aspect interpretation of this remark, see Henry Allison, Kants Transcendental
Humanism, The Monist (1971), pages 182-206.
28
Gerold Prauss offers a dual-aspect reading of Kants use of the terms things in themselves
and things as they exists in themselves. He argues that the frequent occurrence of the adverbial
things as they exists in themselves in Kants work designates a special way of considering the
very same objects of our experience. When Kant uses thing in itself, Prauss further argues, it is
only meant as an abbreviated form of the adverbial locution. See Gerols Prauss, Kant und das
Problem der Dinge an Sich, Bonn (1974), and for a nice assessment of Prauss, see Karl Ameriks,
Recent Work on Kants Theoretical Philosophy, American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 19,
No. 1 (January 1982).

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of Kants methodology.

In the Amphiboly of Concepts of Reflection, Kant defines

transcendental reflection as:

The action through which I make the comparison of representations in general
with the cognitive power in which they are situated, and through which I
distinguish whether they are to be compared to one another as belonging to the
pure understanding or to pure intuition.29
Such reflection establishes Kants epistemic procedure for distinguishing objects; what makes an
object an appearance rather than a thing in itself is, in other words, its relation to our cognitive
faculties, i.e., how we consider it. Just as we consider objects as appearances, standing in a
determinate relation to our cognitive faculties, so too can we consider those very same objects as
things in themselves, standing apart from those faculties. Moreover, that we consider objects in
this way does not commit us to the existence of non-spatial, atemporal, non-causal entitiesand
this line of thinking finds an analogue in the sciences.

As Allison points out, physicists

frequently consider bodies in abstraction from certain properties, such as weight, but this does
not show that weightless objects exist. Rather, it merely shows that bodies can be conceived
although not experienced apart from their relation to other bodies. 30 Thus, if we accept
Allisons methodological approach to things in themselves, the problematic metaphysical theses
drop out, leaving us with only an epistemic procedure for distinguishing objects.
As this sketch of Allisons interpretation suggests, his view emphasizes the negative role
things in themselves play in Kants philosophy, but does not account for the positive roles,
29

KrV, A261/B317.
Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, pages 53-54.
Allison acknowledges that this analogy cannot be pressed too far, since in the case of the
sciences we are dealing with a determinate, empirical concept. Nevertheless, he argues, the fact
remains that the transcendental context does involve a genuine example of considering.
Moreover, our ability to consider objects in this way is precisely what is meant by the claim that
we can think things as they are in themselves; while the unique features of the transcendental
context is the fact that it involves an abstraction from everything empirical explains why we
cannot know them as such.

30

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including, specifically, the role of affection. It should be made clear here that affection is not a
problem at the empirical level: insofar as the mind, considered as an empirical entity, can be
affected by other (empirical) objects via the senses, no difficulties arise for Kant. Not only is it
the case that Kant can, Allison writes, but also that he does, talk about the mind as affected by
empirical objects.31 Difficulties arise only when we are dealing with transcendental affection,
that is, the affection that holds between things in themselves and intuition. Allison, then, must
reconcile his negative formulation of what things in themselves are (or, perhaps more accurately,
are not) with Kants positive remarks about these things. Indeed, if things in themselves are
appearances considered in abstraction from our cognitive abilities, how can we account for
Kants (positive) assertion that they affect the mind?
Allisons answer to this question is ingenious and swift. He argues that, as conceived
through transcendental reflection, the proposition something affects the mind expresses a
purely formal, a priori condition of our having representations. Furthermore, we can substitute
something with things in themselves without changing the cognitive value of the proposition:
for a thing in itself just is, by definition, that non-spatial, atemporal and hence purely intelligible
something that is said to affect the mind upon transcendental reflection.32 Consequently, the
proposition things in themselves affect the mind does not express a synthetic truth about things
in themselvesthat is, it does not yield knowledge that, as Kant articulates it, goes beyond the
conceptbut rather states an analytic truth about how such a ground must be conceived.33
Nor does such a proposition introduce unknowable entities.

As Allison argues,

transcendental reflection provides only a formal, a priori account of how we must conceive of

31

Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, page 67.
Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, page 68.
33
Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, page 76.
32

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affection in general; it does not, contra the metaphysical interpretation, specify a causal relation
that obtains outside of experience.

Thus, when Kant says transcendentally that things in

themselves affect the mind, he is not speaking of a new set of entities, but is instead talking
generally about the familiar objects of experience considered in an abstract way. If we are asked
to explain at the transcendental level what that something of affection is, we can legitimately say
nothing more than this: it is something that cannot be described spatiotemporally, i.e., a thing in
itself. However, if we move down, as it were, to the empirical level, we can answer the question
in more substantive terms: light, particles, air, etc., these are the things that affect our minds. In
neither case, however, are we dealing with different objects. Rather, we are dealing with
numerically identical objects considered in different ways: one abstractly and the other
empirically. Allison, thus, writes that the key to the Kantian response to this objection of
objections must be the affirmation of the merely analytical nature of the claims involved, which
is itself a consequence of their purely formal, i.e., methodological, status.34
Allisons interpretation, then, renders claims (a) and (b) of the two-worlds view into the
following:
d) We can consider things in themselves at the transcendental level.
e) A thing considered at the transcendental level can be considered only as something
that affects the mind.35
Claim (d) reiterates the methodological nature of transcendental idealism. Unlike claim (a),
which states that things in themselves exist, claim (d) entails only that there are two ways of
considering the objects of experience, one of which requires abstracting away from our cognitive
powers. Claim (e) turns the statement something affects our minds into an analytic truth about
34
35

Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, page74.

This schema is again barrowed from Langton, Kantian Humility, pages 8-9.

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things in themselves.36 Consequently, the claim (b) that things in themselves cause appearances
is false. If things in themselves are identical with the class of empirical object, described in an
abstract, transcendental way, then they cannot cause appearances, for to say otherwise makes no
sense. The two-worlds view, thus, mistakenly construes the proposition something affects our
minds as a synthetic, metaphysical thesis about things in themselves, when it is, according to
Allison, merely a methodological claim about how causal relations in general must be conceived.
Though perhaps more charitable than the two-worlds view, Allisons interpretation first
encounters problems at the exegetical level.

Under Allisons analysis, all transcendental

propositions concerning affection express an analytic truth about the class of empirical objects
considered abstractly, as things in themselves. A consequence of this approach is that it leaves
no room for our ignorance of things in themselves, and hence it turns claim (c)the claim that
we cannot cognize things in themselvesinto the following tautology:
f) Things considered at the transcendental level just are things considered in abstraction
from their relation to our cognitive powers.
Such an approach to things in themselves is indeed difficult to reconcile with the text. If we
accept (f), then we must accept that the concept of a thing in itself contains no substantive
content beyond the negative predicates which transcendental reflection permits, i.e., that things
in themselves are non-spatial, atemporal and purely intelligible. However, Kant appears to hold
that, if our cognitive faculties were constituted otherwise, we could say more about things in
themselves. At A565/B593, for example, he writes that while we cannot know a thing in itself,
we can nevertheless think it as a thing determinable by its distinguishing and inner predicates.
The question, then, is: if things in themselves just are appearances considered abstractly, how

36

Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, page 68.

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and why would Kant think of them as possibly possessing distinguishing and inner predicates?37
Moreover, Kant frequently laments the fact that we cannot know such predicates. In the Canon
of Pure Reason, for example, he writes of our unquenchable desire to find a firm footing
beyond all bounds of experience.38 It is indeed difficult to see how this unquenchable desire
could be a desire to disprove the analytic (f).39 Could we desire, in other words, to show that
things considered at the transcendental level are not things considered abstractly? The problem
both passages highlight is, in short, a problem with analyticity. If Kants considered view is that
(f) exhausts all possible knowledge of things in themselves, then he would not be further
compelled to treat the concept of a thing in itself as if it contained content of which we cannot
know. But he does treat the concept this way, and this is no doubt a problem for Allisons
interpretation.
To be sure, Allisons interpretation is a rational reconstruction of Kants philosophy, and
as such, it need not square with everything the text says about things in themselves, but only
present a coherent account of transcendental idealism.

Nevertheless, there are reasons for

questioning whether Allisons is a coherent interpretation, and this is the second problem his
view encounters.

In one sense, Allisons account of transcendental affection succeeds; by

rendering claim (b) into claim (e), he shows that there is no longer the problem of non-spatial,
atemporal and unknowable entities affecting the mind. Though this strategy saves Kant from the
difficult task of explaining how things in themselves cause appearances, it does not eliminate the
problem of transcendental affection altogether. In the place of the old, metaphysical problem,
there is a new, methodological problem: though produced by transcendental reflection, claim (e)

37

Langton, Kantian Humility, pages 10-11.

KrV, A796/B824.
39
Langton, Kantian Humility, page 10.
38

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still smuggles in a category of the understandingsomething, in other words, is still affecting the
mind.40 At the end of his analysis, Allison addresses this problem: This concept [affection]
does, indeed, involve a use of the categories, but the use is purely logical, defining how
something must be conceived in transcendental reflection.41 This is a curious remark, since
transcendental reflection requires that we abstract away from space, time and all categories of the
understanding, including, of course, causality. There is a sense in which Allison, then, fails by
his own lights; he fails, that is, to abstract completely away from the categories when analyzing
transcendental affection. Consequently, while Allisons interpretation accounts for roles (1) and
(3) of things in themselves, it does not provide an adequate account of (2), the role of affection.
IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, I have argued that neither Strawsons nor Allisons view accounts for every
role things in themselves play in Kants philosophy. Strawsons interpretation accounts for (1)
and (2), but it does not meet (3), the role things in themselves play in Kants moral philosophy.
The source of this problem lies in Strawsons attempt to eliminate things in themselves. By
turning Kant into a Berkeleian of sorts, Strawson obscures the central role the noumenal realm
plays in grounding the possibility of God, the soul and freedom. By contrast, Allisons view
accounts for (1) and (3), but it does not meet (2), the role things in themselves play in
transcendental affection. The source of this problem is twofold. First, Allisons attempt to turn
claims about things in themselves into analytic truths does not square with Kants talk of our
inability to know the inner predicates of these things. Second, his attempt to explain away the
problem of transcendental causality in terms of transcendental reflection fails, since engaging in

40
41

Langton, Kantian Humility, page 11.

Adams, Things in Themselves, Noumena, and the Transcendental Object, page 76.

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transcendental reflection is eo ipso engaging in the consideration of things abstractly, away from
space, time and the categories of the understanding.
The exegetical difficulties associated with transcendental idealism have consequently
forced commentators to assess the adequacy of each interpretation in light of extra-textual
consideration, e.g., charity. On these grounds, the dual-aspect view is preferable. Not only does
it avoid the metaphysical problems elicited by the two-worlds view, but it also captures the
overall epistemic concerns motivating Kants theoretical philosophy. Wood, for example, writes:
The identity interpretation [i.e. the dual-aspect view]helps us to recognize the
real nature of transcendental idealism, by presenting it metaphysically as a form
of unremarkable realism, but one conjoined with the distinctive epistemological
thesis that our knowledge is subject to limits.42
Though these kinds of considerations are virtually indispensable when deciding which version of
Kants doctrine to adopt, the fact still remains that the text underdetermines both the dual-aspect
view and the two-worlds view. Plainly stated, Kant formulates transcendental idealism in both
metaphysical and epistemological terms, resulting in the disparate roles things in themselves play
and, concomitantly, the current debate between Allison, Strawson and their respective traditions.
To undercut the debate, one may, then, ask: is transcendental idealism really a single, selfconsistent doctrine? Metaphysically speaking, it might be the case that it is not; it might, after
all, just be a set of incompatible doctrines. Though epistemically, it is nonetheless conceivable
that an alternative interpretation may come along and succeed where the two previous traditions
have failed. For methodological reasons, then, I think the proper question to ask is not whether
transcendental idealism is, in fact, a single, self-consistent doctrine, but rather whether we ought
to regard it as such. The answer to this question, I believe, should be in the affirmative: for
regardless of whether transcendental idealism actually is a unified doctrine, it is nevertheless
42

Wood, Kant, page 76.

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helpful, perhaps as a regulative idea of Kantian exegesis, to think of it as if it were such a

doctrine.43

43

For their endless support and guidance, I thank the Philosophy Department at Lewis & Clark
College. Specifically, I thank Rebecca Copenhaver and J.M. Fritzman, without whom this paper
would still be somewhere in the noumenal realm.