DOI: 10.1111/ejop.

12138

Book Symposium on Lucy Allais’

Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and His Realism
An Overview
Lucy Allais

At the heart of Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy is an epistemological and

metaphysical position he calls transcendental idealism; the aim of Manifest Reality
is to understand this position. Despite the centrality of transcendental idealism in
Kant’s thinking, in over 200 years since the publication of the first Critique, there
is still no agreement on how to interpret the position. Not only is there still dispute,
there is not even a tendency towards convergence, and recent publications
continue to represent a wide spectrum of views. Dominant interpretations seem
to pendulum between two extremes, both of which seem to have textual and
philosophical support. This book aims to present what I call a moderate
metaphysical interpretation of Kant’s transcendental idealism that makes sense
of the textual evidence that seems to pull in different directions.
The book has three parts. The first part goes through the basic textual claims
Kant makes concerning transcendental idealism, as well as summarizing and
responding to what I see to be the main competing interpretations in the literature.
The second part presents my interpretation of the nature of the mind-dependence
of Kantian appearances, as well as his argument for the position. It is this part of
the book that presents the account of manifest reality that the title refers to. The
third part presents my reading of Kant’s commitment to there being a way things
are in themselves and the relation between this and his idealism about
appearances. The way I see this part of the book is that it tries to understand the
balance between realism and idealism in Kant’s account. As part of this, I present
an account of his argument in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories that
I see as compatible with realism, and as well as an account of the relation between
Kant’s idealism and his explanation of the possibility of metaphysics.
As everyone knows, interpretations of Kant’s distinction between things in
themselves and appearances vary wildly. They include those who understand
Kantian appearances as constructions out of sense data and his things in
themselves as a different kind of object from the objects we sense in space and time.
I use the label ‘phenomenalism’ for those interpretations that hold that Kantian
appearances exist as constructions out of what is merely in minds and the label
‘noumenalism’ for those who hold that his notion of things as they are in
themselves should be understood as a commitment to non-spatial-temporal, non-
sensible objects, distinct from the spatio-temporal objects of our knowledge,
objects of a kind that could be grasped only by a different kind of mind than ours

European Journal of Philosophy 24:1 ISSN 0966-8373 pp. 235–240 © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
236 Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism. An overview

(intelligibilia). On the other extreme, there are interpreters who argue that Kant’s
distinction between appearances and things in themselves is meant merely to
concern two ways of thinking about the objects of our experience. Some who hold
this view see Kant’s distinction as epistemological or methodological and do not
think there is any kind of metaphysical idealism (mind-dependence) in Kant’s
account of appearances. I call these deflationary interpretations. Many also deny
that his notion of things as they are in themselves is meant to involve a
commitment to an actually existing aspect of reality that we cannot cognize; I call
these ‘mere empirical realist’ interpretations. In my view, because they deny that
Kant has a metaphysical commitment to things as they are in themselves, these
positions account for only part of his position (his empirical realism).
There are good reasons that both interpretative extremes have so much support:
the textual evidence is very complex. With respect to the mind-dependence of
appearances, Kant says repeatedly that appearances are representations (B45;
A101; A104; A490-491/B518-519; A369; A370; A383; A492/B520) that exist in us
(A42/B59; A370; A490–1/B518–9; A492/B520) and that have no existence apart
from a connection to possible experience or a possible perception (A376;
A493–4/B521-2). I take these claims to express some kind of idealism: that
appearances depend on our minds. These texts are a problem for deflationary
interpretations.
On the other hand, although Kant says that appearances exist ‘in us’, he also
very clearly distinguishes between empirical and transcendental senses of ‘in us’.
He says that in the empirical sense, things that are in us are in our minds and
things that are outside us are in space, while in the transcendental sense, things
that are in us do not exist distinct from us. Thus, appearances are not entirely mind
independent—they do not exist distinct from us—but are not merely in our minds.
There are reasons to think that Kant is not a phenomenalist. In chapter 2, I discuss a
number of arguments for this; I mention one of these here. In the Refutation of
idealism (B274–B279), Kant says that he wants to reject the view that our
experience of our own minds is more immediate than our experience of outer
objects, and he wants to establish the reality of those very outer objects whose
existence (he thinks) Berkeley denies and Descartes renders doubtful. While some
defenders of phenomenalist interpretations have argued that Kant misunderstands
(or misrepresents) Berkeley, it is much harder to argue that he misunderstood
Descartes on this point. The external objects whose existence Descartes renders
doubtful are neither mental items nor constructions from mental items, and Kant
does not suppose that they are. Irrespective of the details of how the argument
in the Refutation is supposed to work, it is clear that Kant is trying to establish
the reality of the spatial objects that Descartes doubts and Berkeley denies and that
he is trying to do this by arguing that immediate experience of outer objects is
necessary for knowledge of the temporal order of my inner states. The fact that
Kant argues for the existence of the very external objects that Berkeley denies
and Descartes doubts is not compatible with an interpretation on which external
objects are merely constructions out of the mental entities or states that Berkeley
and Descartes admit.

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 Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism. An overview 237

The textual evidence with respect to things in themselves also seems to pull in
different directions. In support of deflationary interpretations, Kant very
frequently talks about objects as we experience them and these same things as they
are in themselves (Bxx; Bxxvii–Bxxviii; Bxvii-xixn; A38/B55; A39/B56; A42/B59;
B69; B306; A288/B333; A546; B574; A366; B307). He argues that we cannot cognize
supersensible objects or even know that there are such things. In the Amphiboly,
he argues that we might have thought we were entitled to conclude that there
exists something like Leibnizian monads (non-spatio-temporal objects) but that
we are not so entitled, and in the section on noumena and phenomena, he argues
that we might have thought that his distinction between appearances and things in
themselves leads us to posit a sensible and a supersensible world, but that this is a
mistake and that we should not understand things in themselves in this way. On
the other hand, Kant very frequently speaks as if he has an unquestioned
commitment to there being a way things are as they are in themselves (Bxx;
A26/ B42; A30/B45; A42/B59; A43/B60; B66–7; B68–9; B164; A190/B235; A191/
B236; A366; Proleg 5: 289). He says that things in themselves ground appearances,
cause appearances and affect us (A44/61; A190/B235; A251–2; A288/B344;
A379–80; A393; A494; B522; A496; B524). Some think Kant should not have said
these things, but he does.
Those deflationary and merely empirical realist interpreters who deny that Kant
is actually committed to things in themselves existing argue that his notion of
things in themselves functions merely as an unavoidable posit of our thinking,
not a metaphysical commitment. The problem with this is that it assimilates Kant’s
notion of things in themselves to the ideas of reason Kant discusses in the Dialectic.
Kant has a whole section of the Critique explicitly devoted to discussing
metaphysical ideas to which, he thinks, our thinking unavoidably leads us but
with respect to which we are not entitled to assert metaphysical commitments,
yet he never says that his notion of things in themselves should be understood
in this way. On the contrary, he frequently speaks as if there is a way things are
as they are in themselves, without in any way comparing this to the ideas of reason
he criticizes. Not only does Kant say that there is a way things are in themselves, in
my view, he needs this to resolve the Antinomies. In the first and second
Antinomies, he argues that thinking that spatio-temporal objects are metaphysically
fundamental and complete leads to unavoidable contradictions. He says that we
can explain them not being metaphysically fundamental and complete if they are
mere appearances that depend on our minds. This explanation only makes sense
if there is also something that exists independently of us that is metaphysically
fundamental.
My aim is to present an interpretation that does justice to the textual evidence
that appears to pull in different directions. We need a way of understanding the
mind-dependence of appearances that does not involve understanding them as
constructions out of what exists literally in the mind. With respect to things in
themselves, we need a way of understanding a commitment to an aspect of reality
that is independent of us, that grounds the appearances we cognize, but which we
cannot cognize. At the same time, we need to respect his denial that we know that

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238 Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism. An overview

there are supersensible things and to make sense of his repeatedly speaking of
things in themselves and these same things as they appear to us. Noumenalism,
in my view, goes too far in trying to characterize that which is not appearance.
Kant thinks that when we try to do this, the only way we manage is by thinking
of a different kind of object: things that would be objects for a different kind of
intelligence than ours, such as Leibnizian monads and Cartesian souls, but he
denies that we could have knowledge that such things exist, and with respect to
such things, it would be hard to make sense of calling them the same things as
the things that appear to us. A stable interpretation requires an account of the
mind-dependence of appearances that is not phenomenalist and an account of
there being a way things are in themselves that is not noumenalist. I present what
I call a moderate metaphysical reading that sees Kant as holding that the things of
which we have knowledge have a way they are in themselves (have mind-
independent natures) that is not cognizable by us, that grounds their empirical
appearances and that the appearances of these things are genuinely mind-
dependent, while not existing merely in our minds.
Part 2 of the book aims to present an account of mind-dependence that does not
involve existence merely in the mind and is compatible with the things that have
mind-dependent ways they appear to us also having mind-independent ways they
are in themselves. (Mind-independent here means independence of our minds;
they could be dependent on God’s mind.) There are two central parts to my
approach: one, starting with a non-Cartesian account of perception, and two,
emphasizing Kant’s account of cognition, and in particular, the role of intuition
in cognition.
What I call Cartesian views of perception understand perception in terms of
merely mental, inner states with external causes. I argue that, in contrast, we need
to understand the mind-dependence that characterizes Kantian appearances by
starting with direct realist or relational views of perception, which hold that
perception involves mental states that involve objects outside the mind as
constituents of the mental states. These views give us a way of understanding
something that is mental but not merely in the mind. I argue that within this kind
of account of perception we can make sense of two thoughts that are helpful in
understanding Kant. One, we can introduce the possibility that there are features
of the object as experienced that the object does not have independently of the
possibility of its being perceived, without thinking of such features as existing
merely in the mind. Two, we can introduce the idea of manifest qualities of objects:
qualities objects have in our perceptual experience of them (as opposed to, for
example, properties that are merely theorized or postulated). Putting these two
thoughts together, I then introduce the idea of essentially manifest qualities: these
are qualities of objects that are presented to us in perceptual experience and that
objects do not have apart from the possibility of their being presented to us in
perceptual experience.
In the Prolegomena, Kant presents an analogy between his account of the mind-
dependence of appearances and secondary qualities like colour. Clearly, this
analogy will give rise to different accounts of Kant’s idealism depending on how

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 Manifest Reality: Kant’s Idealism and his Realism. An overview 239

we understand the status of colour. I argue that the account we need is a possible
view of colour that understands it as an essentially manifest quality. On this
account, colour is a visual quality (something presented to us in visual experience,
rather than, for example, a micro-physical surface property postulated by physics)
and is an essentially visual quality. One way of expressing the metaphysical status
of such properties is through the rejection of experience-transcendence. While
colour, on this account, does not exist literally in the mind (in mere sense data),
it also does not exist in objects independently of the possibility of their being
visually experienced by us: it exists in the possibility of our experience of it. I argue
that this enables us to see the possibility of a kind of mind-dependence that does
not involve existence merely in the mind (or as a construction out of what is merely
in the mind). This, I argue, is key to understanding Kant’s idealism and his
empirical realism. Kant holds that our cognition is limited to what is essentially
manifest.
The second key part of my account is my emphasis on the role of intuition in
Kant’s account of cognition. Kant holds that what he calls cognition has two
essential and distinct ingredients, concepts and intuitions. He holds that intuitions
are singular and immediate representations that give us objects. The way I read
this is that intuitions give us acquaintance with the objects of cognition. Kant holds
that we can cognize only objects with which it is in principle possible for us to have
acquaintance and that conceptual thought without acquaintance fails to connect to
an objective world. This account of the role of intuition gives us a further way of
characterizing Kant’s idealism. He explains the limits of possible experience in
terms of what could be presented to us in an empirical intuition; thus, he limits
empirical reality to that with which it is in principle possible for us to have
acquaintance.
I show that once we understand intuition in this way, Kant’s argument for his
idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic goes through at just the point he thinks
it does (granting his assumptions). On this reading, the argument for idealism is
not that it closes a justificatory gap by postulating that it is because our minds
make objects in a particular way that we can know certain a priori claims about
them. Rather, the idea is that Kant holds that intuitions are representations that
give us acquaintance with their objects and he assumes that we can have
acquaintance with mind-independent things only if they affect us. He then argues
that our representations of space and time are a priori intuitions: they give us
acquaintance with their ‘objects’ independently anything affecting us. It follows
that these representations do not present us with mind-independent features of
reality.
On my reading, it is important to keep separate Kant’s explanations of synthetic
a priori cognition with respect to mathematical and metaphysical cognition. As I
understand him, his fundamental problem with cognition of synthetic a priori
claims is not how we could justify or establish them, but how they could qualify
as cognition: how they can concern objects with which we can have acquaintance.
His answer is that this is possible only if we have a priori intuition. He takes
showing that our representations of space and time are a priori intuitions to lead

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to idealism. This idealism then enables us to explain the possibility of metaphysics.

In neither the case of metaphysical or mathematical synthetic a priori claims is the
explanation that we can know these claims a priori because our minds make
objects in such a way that they come out as true. This account of Kant’s argument
for his idealism fits with my account of manifest reality: the idea is that space and
time are limited to what can possibly be given to or presented to us, rather than
that they are limited to what can be constructed.
In Part 3, I discuss the tightrope Kant walks between realism and idealism. I
argue that the spatio-temporal objects that constitute empirical reality for Kant
are essentially sensory and are relational or non-categorial (although not merely
in minds). Like anti-realism in philosophy of language, I argue that Kant’s idealism
can be understood as rejecting experience-transcendent reality rather than
asserting that objects exist as ideas in our minds. Like anti-realism in philosophy
of science, Kant can be understood as limiting our cognition to what is, in some
sense, observable (what can be presented in a possible intuition). Like structural
realism in contemporary philosophy of science, Kant argues that science gives us
knowledge only of structural or relational features of reality. I then argue that Kant
does not think that a coherent ontology can contain only essentially manifest,
essentially relational features: he holds that there must be something non-relational
that grounds appearances, although we cannot cognize this something.
I complete my account of Kant’s idealism by looking at (one part of) the
argument of the Deduction and his explanation of the possibility of metaphysics.
I argue that in the Deduction, Kant argues that the categories are priori conditions
of empirical concept application and that this argument is epistemological and can
be read separately from Kant’s idealism. I then show that putting this argument
together with the idealism argued for in the Aesthetic enables Kant to give his
explanation of the possibility of metaphysics. The Deduction (and Principles)
argues for the application of certain concepts (and principles) to all objects of
which we can have cognition. Because (Kant takes himself to have shown that)
spatio-temporal objects are limited to the conditions of our cognition, this shows
that these concepts (and principles) apply to all spatio-temporal objects.

Lucy Allais
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
and UCSD
lucy.allais@wits.ac.za

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd