My Master's thesis from May of 2006. This graduate thesis is by far my most comprehensive work, being 118 pages long. It is divided roughly into two sections, the first of which works as an extensive introduction to Kant's transcendental idealism, whereas the second part compares Allison's epistemological and Westphal's metaphysical interpretations of it. The two lines of interpretation have been under heated discussion since the publication of Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism - an Interpretation and Defense in 1982. Westphal's book Kant's Transcendental Proof of Realism (2004) is the newest attempt to criticise Allison's interpretation that has since established itself as something of a standard. In my comparison I show that Westphal's interpretation has a lot of severe problems, of which three shall be discussed more thoroughly, whereas Allison's interpretation can be seen as very plausible and relatively coherent. The introductory part goes as follows. The second chapter explicates Kant's transcendental idealism and its central features and theses, as well as gives a brief overlook on Kant's structure of mind. The third chapter considers the division of judgments into analytic and synthetic in an indepth manner, focusing on Kant's conception of judgments and concepts, the understanding of which is necessary for grasping the distinction. The fourth chapter examines Kant's proof of synthetic a priori through the ideality of space and time and through transcendental deduction.
See the abstract in Finnish or in English for more details.
The thesis is only available in Finnish at the moment. This will hopefully be remedied during the summer. In the seven-step Latin grading system the
thesis has received the grade Eximia cum laude approbatur, which is the second best. Basically this means that you can trust what is being said in
the essay - which is not to say that you must agree with everything you find in it ;).
An essay from January of 2006. It is the first systematic presentation of Westphal's whole line of argumentation for (unqualified) realism and against
Kant's transcendental idealism. Most of it is merely restating of what has been said in the previous essays, but now it spans the whole of Westphal's thesis.
Because of this, it concentrates less (basically it does not concentrate at all) on the epistemological interpretations of Kant, as well as is a bit light
on the basics of Kant. Those who are interested on the matter should first read a presentation of Kant's system, such as the essay Immanuel Kant and the Proof of
Synthetic a priori and then read this - the earlier essays dealing with Westphal are included here and should be of no particular interest, unless one
wants to read about epistemological interpretations in relation to the Westphal's metaphysical one, in which case one would do well to read the essay Kenneth R. Westphal on Kant
as well, for suitable parts. It should be noted that my graduate thesis on the subject is forthcoming this spring, which means that I will work a full
investigation on Kant's transcendental idealism as well as its epistemological and metaphysical interpretations. Unfortunately for the English-speaking majority
of the world, that will be in Finnish like this essay here ;). At least before I find the energy to translate these theses.
This is an essay from December of 2005. In it I will have two goals: first I will show that for instance Plantinga's argument against Lewis's Counterpart
Theory fails due to a misrepresentation of the theory. It is important, for Plantinga's argument is just one form of the standard argument presented in
many contexts. I consider this refutation of the argument conclusive. The second part of the essay develops another argumentative strategy to bring down
Lewis's theory. I purport to show that Counterpart Theory lacks pragmatic value and therefore Lewis's pragmatic proofs for it fall.
This is a seminar paper from the fall of 2005. In it I will examine Westphal's interpretation of Kant's philosophy as well as try to provide an
understandable overlook on Kant's basic philosophical points. Westphal tries to show that Kant's philosophy is able to provide a genuine proof for
(unqualified) realism, but also holds that the arguments for it undermine Kant's arguments for transcendental idealism. This is closely related to the
earlier seminar paper. I hope to translate this to English some day so that those who have read the earlier could also read this.
This is a seminar paper from the spring of 2005. In this I will examine Kant's conception of the thing in itself and the problem of noumenal causation
associated with it. I will consider two very distinct proposed solutions for the problem, the other by Henry Allison, the other by Kenneth R. Westphal.
Henry Allison treads the more common paths by interpreting Kant's transcendental idealism in an epistemological way and so avoiding the problem altogether.
Westphal on the other hand takes a more radical approach and tries to solve the problem itself - and according to him, he manages to do exactly that with
rather disastrous consequences for Kant: it turns out, or so Westphal says, that this completely undermines Kant's own theory of transcendental idealism.
My Bachelor-essay from the fall of 2004. This is basically the synthesis of the proseminar-essays providing a thorough and profound analysis of Kant's
synthetic a priori and the way he attempts to justify its existence via the transcendental deduction. It contains basically the same stuff as
the proseminar-essays, but in a more condensed and advanced way. If you are familiar with Kantian philosophy, then this is all you need. It provides
a thorough and detailed analysis of Kant's conception of analyticity and syntheticity, the relevance of synthetic a priori to his philosophy and
a detailed step-to-step walkthrough of the transcendental deduction.
My first proseminar-essay from the spring of 2004. The title might be a bit misleading, as it is more like a profound
survey on Kant's Transcendental Deduction. The issue about scepticism is given little attention due to the restrictions on length. All questions are
more than welcome! I might even be able to explain these things in an understandable fashion, even though both me in this essay and Kant in his
Critique hardly managed to succeed in attaining such a goal.
My second proseminar-essay from the summer of 2004. I will here examine how Kant himself actually performs this famous and often misunderstood division. I will pay particular attention to synthetic a priori judgments and attempt to show that the existence of said judgments is dependent on the success of the Transcendental Deduction. This combined with the previous proseminar therefore forms a kind of continuum. In addition I will examine Kant's conception of mathematics as synthetic a priori.