Towards A Rational Reconstruction of Kant’s Metaphysics of Experience

Abstract

There are two possible approaches to a historically given philosophical system. Let us call them the method of direct interpretation and themethod of rational reconstruction. Whenever we try to analyse and describe in a systematic way what a philosopherreally meantwe follow the first line of thought. And only if we are convinced that this procedure will be successful can we look for thetrue interpretationof his ideas. In many cases, perhaps in most cases where we deal with a philosopher of the past’ we’ll be quickly at a loss in such a search for a true interpretation. This is mainly due to the fact that our standards of clarity and precision with respect to a philosophical conceptual framework are stronger than were the standards in his time. So more often than not we would be forced to say that the concepts he used were mostly vague and ambiguous and therefore did not have a clear meaning at all. The same criticism would carry over to his formulations and solutions of the problems he was concerned with. Our only appropriate reaction would then be to reject this philosophy, not because of the falsity of its conclusions but, more fundamentally, because of its abstruseness and incomprehensibility. Some of the main points of the philosopher in question could still somehow be reproduced but only in a picturesque way which would satisfy some of our merely historical interests but certainly none of our serious philosophical intentions.