Title
The Divorce of Reason and Experience: Kant's Paralogisms of Pure Reason in Context
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-2009
Source
Journal of the History of Philosophy
Volume
47
Issue
2
First Page
249
Last Page
275
URL with Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hph.0.0115
Abstract
I consider Kant's criticism of rational psychology in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason in light of his German predecessors. I first present Wolff's foundational account of metaphysical psychology with the result that Wolff's rational psychology is not comfortably characterized as a naïvely rationalist psychology. I then turn to the reception of Wolff's account among later German metaphysicians, and show that the same claim of a dependence of rational upon empirical psychology is found in the publications and lectures of Kant's pre-Critical period. Considering the Paralogisms in this context reveals Kant's conception of rational psychology to be distinctly novel and has important consequences in shifting the argumentative focus of the chapter.