This essay aims to analyze the challenge that McDowell poses to Kant’s Transcendental

Idealism (TI) and respond to it on Kant’s behalf. First, a general definition of TI will be
provided, with which McDowell’s critique can be contrasted. A response can then be
advanced as a counterchallenge based on Kant’s own explanation of TI of the assumptions
in which McDowell’s interpretation of TI and his critique are founded. Finally, some
conclusions will be drawn about how effective this response can be.

According to Allais (2004, 656), transcendental idealism is built upon three main claims:

“(1) Kant’s distinction between things as they appear to us and things as they are in
themselves; (2) Kant’s humility – the claim that we do not and cannot have knowledge of
things as they are in themselves; (3) Kant’s idealism – the claim that things as they appear
to us are mind-dependent...”

Arguably, McDowell regards TI as an attempt to make compatible two particular accounts of

experience and reality. First, a conception of experience that integrates the idea of an
objective world within the realm of thinking. On the other hand, a conception of reality that is
somehow beyond that objective (sensible) world and which constitutes a separate,
extra-conceptual realm that nonetheless affects our receptivity to make possible the
objective world in the first place. For McDowell, this is both unnecessary and a failure.
Unnecessary because it is seen as an arbitrary distinction corresponding to the
subject-object dualism that arises in the particular context of modern philosophy, according
to which cognition of the object is always mediated by the ideas or representations of it that
the subject possesses (Habermas, 2003, 178).

Kant’s would also be a failed attempt insofar as it is incapable of preserving genuine

cognition once the distinction between the empirical and the “supersensible” worlds is
posited. The argument that supports this claim goes as follows. For McDowell, Kant’s way of
positing the world of things in themselves entails that genuine reality resides in a realm that
is radically independent from both our senses and our thinking (our use of concepts). Hence,
the world of things in themselves “as soon as it is in the picture, strikes us as the seat of true
objectivity” (McDowell, 1996 42). McDowell thinks it follows that the existence of a thing in
itself that carries the weight of true objectivity necessarily entails the deflation of the
objectivity that the empirical world can offer. It then becomes “fraudulent” in its alleged
independence from us, showing itself as mind-dependent in comparison to that external
reality, and thus remaining subjective, only able to provide an “illusion” of objectivity at most.
Jointly, these two claims do render TI a failure, because the claim of cognition that the
subject can claim from the empirical world can not be regarded anymore as objective or
genuine, and at the same time the possibility of achieving cognition of the world in itself
through our conceptual activity is negated.

McDowell’s attack on TI can be summarized as follows: his interpretation of (1) as a radical

and sharp distinction based on the objective primacy of the supersensible allows him to state
that the mind-dependence (3) of our empirical world is too strong in contrast with the
external reality, thus deflating the former to a point where Kant’s humility (2) ends up
entailing that we can not have any genuine cognition whatsoever. His argument seems to
rely on several assumptions which are in accordance with what Allais (2004) calls
“two-world” interpretations of TI, which are based in the combination of a) the “noumenalist”
reading of Kant’s description of things in themselves as distinct entities from the ones
belonging to the empirical world (Allais, 2004, 358) and b) the phenomenalist interpretation
of phenomena (as mere mental entities) (Allais, 2004, 360).

Regarding a), McDowell seems to imply exactly that when he calls noumena “the
supersensible” and draws the conclusion of it being the “seat of objectivity” from its
description as radically independent from our thinking. However, the latter does not
necessarily follow from the former. The language McDowell uses recalls the hierarchical
distinction between essence and appearance, the former being non-sensible, distinct entities
which are the criteria for absolute objectivity and that are nonetheless non-cognizable
through our senses (according to the ancients) and through our thinking at all in Kant
(because of the necessary tie of cognition to the realm of possible experience and thus to
the conditions of sensibility). However, the way in which the world of noumena is radically
independent from our thinking is not by being the realm of another kind of objects whose
content is more objectively real (essential) and thus the source of explanation of the
empirical world’s appearances, these being manifestations of the former which constitute our
objects. That would falsely assume that we can positively think of the nature of noumena as
having determinate, cognizable content, and that we can expand the use of the categories
beyond our sensibility (attributing causation to something beyond possible experience)
(Emundts, 2010, 188). Rather, Kant explicitly denies the possibility of understanding
noumena in its positive sense, and urges us to restrict ourselves to the negative sense, thus
thinking of it merely through the abstraction of the conditions of our experience from the
thing-for-us (B307). However, if, as it is described in the Deduction, those conditions are the
ones that make the thing-for-us arise from the manifold of intuition as an object of
experience, then it seems that noumena, in its negative sense, can not guarantee that its
own nature is that of an object at all (A253).

Then, as Kant himself says, the concept of noumena is to be completely undetermined

(B307). Accordingly, Putnam is then right to affirm that Kant, when claiming that noumena in
the negative sense involves thinking of something in general (A252), denies the one-to-one
correspondence theory of truth between things in themselves and things-for-us (Putnam,
2010, 63), thus the possibility of noumena being the source of objectivity in contrast with the
subjective objects of experience.

It could be objected that the lack of that kind of correspondence for us between phenomena
and noumena does not imply the same for any kind of intuition. Indeed, Kant says that there
could be a different (intellectual) intuition for which its objects correspond to things in
themselves. Moreover, it could be objected that the lack of one-to-one correspondence does
not entail that noumena are not more objectively real, whatever their nature or number.
However, since the concept of noumena in a positive sense cannot be assumed as actual or
even possible and it is rather problematic (B310), and the concept of objectivity presupposes
the possibility of a subject for which the object is to be, it seems impossible to claim that
noumena is a source of objectivity, let alone the primary source in the distinction
phenomena-noumena. The most that could be said is that noumena could be a source of
objectivity if there existed another kind of intuition in another being that is not us. In
conclusion, the idea of radical independence of the world of things in themselves does not
seem to make it more objective than the empirical world but makes it a boundary concept for
Kant (B311). Arguably, Kant regards this boundary concept as necessarily arising from the
very idea of perspectival cognition through sensible intuition, which leads reason to oppose
to it an alleged intellectual one (B306) which would fulfill in practice the requirements for a
non-perspectival cognition (one that could be transcendentally real).

Turning to b), the previous section has already undermined the idea that it is in comparison
with the supersensible that the objectivity of appearances is deflated. However, a response
to the claim of the lack of objectivity of appearances in their own nature is still to be provided.
Positions like McDowell’s are founded on the phenomenalist interpretation of phenomena,
namely, the inflation of Kant’s idealism (3) to the point of conceiving phenomena as mental
entities. That allows them to claim that the empirical world is not truly independent of us and
therefore can not provide any true cognition. That is because its “fundamental structure” is
itself subjective to a great extent, and what is not subjective comes from the external,
non-cognizable reality which affects us (McDowell, 1996, 42). This would devalue Kant’s
empirical world to a position similar to Berkeley’s illusory nature of external objects.
However, again, from the partial mind-dependence of phenomena it does not necessarily
follow a lack of objectivity. Thus, I will first outline the main arguments provided by Kant
showing that his idealism does not mentalize appearances’ existence, to then reconstruct
how those appearances are a source of objectivity in Kant’s thought.

The first of these arguments is found in the Transcendental Aesthetic. In it, Kant rejects
equating appearances (phenomena) to mere illusions. Kant defines appearances as things
that physically appear rather than things that seem to exist or to be in a certain way (B69). In
contrast, he attributes the rise of illusory objects to Berkeley’s dogmatic idealism, which
takes space and time to be properties of objects in themselves (transcendentally real rather
than ideal) and thus has to degrade all objects as illusory to avoid “absurdities” (B70).

The second argument shows the independent existence of phenomena by emphasizing the
publicity of the objects of experience (Allais, 2004, 662), clearly making them entities existing
beyond individual (psychological) subjectivity. Moreover, the Analogies show that
appearances exist not only publicly, but also unperceived. This is, for instance, ground for
the simultaneity of empirically real objects, which is proved by the possibility of their
reciprocal perceptibility (B257).

Finally, the claim of objectivity that enduring appearances makes sense in Kant precisely
because objectivity is understood not in terms of the “inner truth” of the object, but through
the possibility of lawfully determining it as object (Emundts, 2010, 189) (i.e., according to the
proper use of the categories). This, in turn, can only be done if the categories are involved in
the fundamental structuring of experience. Thus, what for McDowell signals the subjectivity
of appearances is for Kant precisely the opposite, namely, what makes them empirically real.
Moreover, the reason in which Kant grounds the empirical reality of appearances is the same
that allows him to reject the objectivity of noumena: the lawful range of application of the
categories to the world of possible experience. However, without the concept of noumena we
could never delimit that lawful range, for we would not know where to stop if we did not
possess the concept of something that lies outside that world of possible experience. Thus,
this concept is precisely what allows us to claim the empirical reality (objectivity) in the world
of things-for-us.
Then, if cognition depends on the objectivity of the empirically real appearances and not, as
McDowell sees it, on a conception of an independent, “more true” reality, we can conclude
that we can and do have real cognition of appearances while conceiving another
undetermined realm that makes possible the empirical existence of those phenomena but
the nature of which we could never cognize. This does not need to imply a devaluation of our
knowledge, but only an emphasis of the fact that knowledge of objects can not exist without
assuming that it is influenced by the position of the subject, and that nonetheless there has
to be a mind-independent ground for objects in the first place to guarantee their empirical
reality. Thus, McDowell’s objection to Kant TI as being a failure can be effectively rejected.

The objection of TI as unnecessary, however, is more difficult to reject on Kant’s behalf. It

could be said that in order to respond to McDowell’s main challenge to TI, I have delivered
an interpretation of it that renders his humility (2) somehow trivial. While this is not
completely true (the idea that we can not know the experience-independent reality (Allais,
2004, 667) while other kind of being could still preserves a sense of loss), I do believe it is
necessary for Kant’s response to reject the idea that noumena could be a greater source of
objectivity than the empirical world, and in that sense it is not a complete loss for us to not
know the nature of things in themselves. Thus, regarding the challenge to TI as being
unnecessary, the most we can say is that it is a general trait of Kant’s thought and of his
philosophical paradigm to believe that there has to be a non-cognizable, mind-independent
ground for experience that is somehow given to us through our receptivity in intuition
(Emundts, 2010, 189). Whether this is in fact a metaphysical remnant in Kant’s thought that
we can dispense with is not something that can be answered in Kant’s own terms.

Bibliography

Allais, L. (2004). “Kant's One World: Interpreting 'Transcendental Idealism'”, British Journal
for the History of Philosophy, 12 (4), 655-684.

Emundts, D. (2010). “The Refutation of Idealism and the Distinction Between Phenomena
and Noumena”, in Paul Guyer (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant's Critique of Pure
Reason. Cambridge: University Press.

Habermas, J. (2003). Truth and Justification, translated by Barbara Fultner, 175-179.

Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Kant, I. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Guyer, P. and Wood, A., Cambridge:
University Press.

McDowell, J. (1996). Mind and World, 41-44. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Putnam, H. (2010). Reason, Truth and History, 58-64. Cambridge: University Press.