Gram, Moltke S. - Kant, Ontology, and the A priori.pdf

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Kant, Ontology,
& the
A Priori
MOLTKE S. GRAM
Northwestern University Press
EVANSTON · MCMLXVIII
COPYRIGHT © 1968 BY MOLTKE S. GRAM
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 68—29324
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Moltke S. Gram is Assistant Processor of Philosophy
at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
CONTENTS
PREFACE • vii
CHAPTER ONE • Introduction • 3
CHAPTER TWO • Kant and the Problem of Predication • 15
CHAPTER THREE • Synthetic and Analytic Judgments • 43
CHAPTER FOUR • Intuitions and Schemata • 83
CHAPTER FIVE • Schematism and the Analogies • 130
CHAPTER SIX • Ontology and the Transcendental Method • 167
INDEX • 191
PREFACE
THIS BOOK has grown out of a dissatisfaction with the concen-
tration on Kant's theory of dialectic as the source of paradigm
cases of metaphysical propositions. This has made it possible
to look upon the Kritik as offering on the one hand a theory of the
propositions which are the basis of natural science and mathematics
and on the other hand a theory of propositions which metaphysicians
had falsely thought to be verifiable. And the result of this division is
to obscure what I believe to be Kant's own theory of metaphysical
propositions as distinct from the propositions which may form the
presuppositions of a special science or the propositions which are meta-
physical in character but unverifiable. Kant tells us that metaphysical
propositions are about an object in general. But the propositions which
Kant examines in the Transcendental Dialectic are about particular
vii
viii Kant, Ontology, and the A Priori
objects: the soul, the totality of appearances, and God. And the prop-
ositions which form the basis of particular sciences are not about an
object in general but rather about particular kinds of objects. Neither
of these kinds of prop