A Critique of Antinomies as Justification for the Usual Interpretation of Kant’s Epistemology

Abstract

The transcendental ideality of the objects of cognition is an essential part of Kant’s epistemology — at least, in its usual interpretation. In this article, the author proposes that (precisely because of the transcendental ideality thesis), the usual interpretation of Kant’s epistemology (UIKE) suffers from problems of incoherence, and plausibly so, and so is not clearly justified. In response to the suggestion that antinomies justify UIKE, the author claims that at least one antinomy should then be rationally compulsive, however, not one of them is. The author, therefore, concludes that antinomies do not justify UIKE and, that if antinomies are the only justification for UIKE, then it is not justified.