In this paper I diagnose the modest 'connective analysis' advocated by Strawson and Stroud. If the underlying Conceptual Frameworks which connective analysis analyzes are unstable, both the Strawsonian and Stroudian projects will be undermined, I argue. Even a merely descriptive analysis of the connections between our concepts and cognitive faculties will yield only historically contingent results.
In this paper I diagnose the modest 'connective analysis' advocated by Strawson and Stroud. If the underlying Conceptual Frameworks which connective analysis analyzes are unstable, both the Strawsonian and Stroudian projects will be undermined, I argue. Even a merely descriptive analysis of the connections between our concepts and cognitive faculties will yield only historically contingent results.
In this paper I diagnose the modest 'connective analysis' advocated by Strawson and Stroud. If the underlying Conceptual Frameworks which connective analysis analyzes are unstable, both the Strawsonian and Stroudian projects will be undermined, I argue. Even a merely descriptive analysis of the connections between our concepts and cognitive faculties will yield only historically contingent results.
Conceptual Frameworks without Validatory Metaphysics:
A Critique of Strawson and Stroud on the Prospects of Connective Analysis
Jason Gabriel Rheins Philosophy 564 Professor Paul Guyer May 31, 2005 Abstract: Here I diagnose the modest 'connective analysis' advocated by Strawson and Stroud in the wake of the latter's proof that transcendental arguments can only generate metaphysical conclusions on the assumption of strong, anti-realist metaphysical assumptions. I go further and claim that even a merely descriptive analysis of the connections between our concepts and cognitive faculties will yield only historically contingent results, unless validatory metaphysics (realist or idealist) is used to bulwark claims to the stability of our conceptual schemes. 1 A Critique of Strawson and Stroud on the Prospects of Connective Analysis
0. Abstract In this paper I describe and critique the philosophical project of connective analysis advanced by Peter Strawson and Barry Stroud. I discuss the emergence of their views from the collapse of Strawsons earlier intentions for the use of transcendental arguments in Individuals and The Bounds of Sense, and I consider the similarities and differences of their present conceptions of connective analysis (I). I then argue that if the underlying conceptual frameworks which connective analysis analyzes are unstable (i.e. historically contingent or open to revision), then both the Strawsonian and Stroudian projects will be undermined (II). While Strawson and Stroud can meet one type of objection presented by historicism, a deeper worry persists that their ontologically agnostic positions underdetermine the stability of connections which are synthetic (III). Transcendental subjectivism or some form of idealism could underwrite the stability of such frameworks, but Strawson and Stroud would be unwilling to engage in validatory and revisionary metaphysics of that nature (IV). If, putting aside Quinian worries, we imagine that such conceptual connections can be presented as analytic judgments, then we will still need to accept the truth of the Principle of Non-Contradiction to infer that no change in the analytic truths of our framework could take place. This means that connective analysis will have to rely on the literal truth of certain metaphysical/logical propositions or the objective validity of the concepts composing them (V). I conclude that if connective analysis must rely on either idealism or realism to ensure the requisite stability of the frameworks it uncovers, then its hopes for ignoring or disarming skepticism without recourse to validatory metaphysics will have been undercut (VI).
2 I. The Historical Development of Descriptive Metaphysics and Connective Analysis Peter Strawson played a critical role in reinvigorating metaphysical inquiry at a time when it was deeply out of favor in analytic philosophy. 1 Perhaps the most promising idea Strawson advanced in his Analytic-Kantian program of descriptive metaphysics was a strategy for refuting several forms of skepticism through the use of transcendental arguments. In Individuals (1959) he presented a method of proving the existence of the external world and other minds from premises about the possibility of experiencing particular objects and persons. These premises that we have certain sorts of experience- were such that even a determined skeptic would have to concede them in order for his doubts about the external world or other minds to be meaningful. The power of transcendental arguments was thought to be their ability to prove that key metaphysical facts were the preconditions of experiences which even the skeptic would admit to having. Then, reflecting more directly on The Critique of Pure Reason, in The Bounds of Sense (1966) Strawson argued that Kants own successful work of descriptive metaphysics could and should be extricated from the blunder of transcendental idealism. He suggested that the transcendental method could yield major philosophical results without having its findings restricted merely to appearances. Without appealing to controversial metaphysical commitments such as idealism, facts about the world could be proven from the conditions of experience. Soon after, the transcendental method endured intense scrutiny and criticism, most notably in Barry Strouds Transcendental Arguments (1968). Stroud argued that there is a key assumption in all transcendental arguments that is needed to bridge the gap between psychological premises about experience and non-psychological or metaphysical conclusions about the world. He characterized this premise as a crude form of verificationism. For example,
1 Cf. Hacker: 2003, 43-52. 3 it might be a presupposition of identifying particulars (or thinking that we can do so) that we think or believe that we can identify and reidentify them in an external, spatiotemporal world. However, this would imply the actual existence of such a world and the (re)identification of objects in it if and only if this thought would be incoherent or meaningless unless it could refer truly to such actual facts. Alternatively, one could suppose that what we must believe to explain experience must be true of the world, but this wildly anti-realist premise seems even more objectionable than the crude verificationist one. By anti-realism, I mean here the rejection of the view that the [external] world is mind-independent. If we do not accept such a premise we can at most show that connections exists between certain cognitive capacities and beliefs. 2
Rejecting such wanton verificationism, Strawson was forced to concede that transcendental arguments could neither be used to refute skepticism successfully nor to prove metaphysical conclusions about the world from the possibility of conceivable experience. In Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties (1985) Strawson gave a more humble description of the possible uses of transcendental arguments. 3 He claimed that transcendental arguments are capable of representing the relations between our fundamental concepts and cognitive capacities. Transcendental arguments cannot be successfully used to prove the objective validity of the concepts which skeptics call into question, but our naturalist commitments are such that we cannot sincerely doubt the fundamental elements of our conceptual schemes. Strawson thinks that we simply cannot believe that induction is invalid or that there is no external world, and so we cannot and should not try to argue with the skeptic that induction is valid or that there is an
2 Stroud: 1968, 20-24; 1994, 161-163; 1999a, 160ff. Strawson: 1985, 9-10, 21ff. 3 Strawson: 1985, 21-23. How, in this [naturalist] perspective, should we view arguments of the kind which Stroud calls transcendental? Evidently not as supplying the reasoned rebuttal which the skeptic perversely invites. Our naturalism is precisely the rejection of that invitation. So, even if we have a tenderness for transcendental arguments, we shall be happy to accept the criticism of Stroud and others that either such arguments rely on an unacceptably simple verificationism or the most they can establish is a certain sort of interdependence of conceptual capacities and beliefs: e.g., as I put it earlier, that in order for the intelligible formulation of skeptical doubts to be possiblewe must take it, or believe, that we have knowledge of external physical objects or other minds. (21). 4 external world, for these beliefs are the framework within which we argue and reason but for which we do not reason. 4 Transcendental arguments, therefore, will be used in connective analysis to analyze the fundamental aspects of our conceptual schemes, but the naturalist/descriptive metaphysician will not try to use them to rebut skepticism as in validatory metaphysics. A further limitation of connective analysis that Strawson concedes is the looseness of the connections it draws. An opponent of transcendental arguments can pose to the transcendental arguer the objection that what he takes to be necessary conditions of experience are at best sufficient conditions, and his inability to imagine other conditions yielding experience is merely his own lack of imagination. 5 While Strawson believes that some transcendental arguments really do uncover necessary relationships, he is content to engage in an inquiry that cannot guarantee connections as rigid as necessity or, perhaps, even sufficiency. 6
However, Strawsons position remains immodest in at least one respect. Just as he maintained in Individuals and The Bounds of Sense, 7 Strawson continues to think that there are fundamental elements of our conceptual framework which are universal and incorrigible. Positioning himself against what he dubs historicism, Strawson claims that not all of our conceptual framework is relative to our present culture, language, or science. It is doubtless that some and even some central elements of our worldview may change, e.g. the Copernican
4 Strawson: 1985, 19-20. 5 Ibid., 22-23. 6 Ibid., 23. 7 Strawson: 1966, 120-121, 271; 1959, 10. there are categories and concepts whichchange not at all. Cf. p. 29 our concept of reality mighthave been different, had the nature of our experience been fundamentally different. However, I presume that Strawson thinks that since the nature of our experience will not fundamentally change, e.g. we will not begin to see or rather hear the world like bats, neither will our concept of reality. For an analysis of Strawson as holding a conceptual invariance thesis (but with some internal tensions) cf. Haack: 1979, 364-366. 5 revolutions shift from geocentric to heliocentric cosmology, 8 but certain parts may never change. Strawson writes, The human world-picture is of course subject to change. But it remains a human world-picture: a picture of a world of physical objects (bodies) in space and time including human observers capable of action and of acquiring and imparting knowledge (and error) both of themselves and each other and of whatever else is to be found in nature. So much of a constant conception, of what, in Wittgensteins phrase, is not subject to alteration or only to an imperceptible one, is given along with the very idea of historical alteration in the human world-view. 9
The very notion of historical change, Strawson is arguing, occurs within an underlying framework whose most fundamental aspects are unchanging. These aspects, e.g. experiencing some sort of spatiotemporal world of physical objects and persons, are inherent to any human world-view. Given Strawsons naturalistic aversion to validatory metaphysics, this notion of inherence should not have to appeal to the imposition of a priori forms of cognition, and so I will return to this point in my discussion of his rejection of transcendental subjectivism. For now it will suffice to merely note that the invariance of our fundamental framework is an important but potentially problematic part of Strawsons newer views. Strawsons chief critic also endorses a form of connective analysis, but Barry Stroud is dissatisfied with Strawsons new approach to skepticism. 10 He worries that the naturalistic stance which Strawson adopts does not take the threat of skepticism seriously enough. At the same time he is hopeful that transcendental arguments, despite their limitations, will be capable of disarming philosophical skepticism by showing it to be inconsistent within the conceptual frameworks from which it can be generated. Stroud agrees with Strawson that transcendental arguments can be used in connective analysis to reveal the basic presuppositions and connections between our most fundamental
8 Strawson: 1985, 26. 9 Ibid., 27. 10 Stroud: 1985, 664. This [new, naturalist position] will come as something of a disappointment to those who aspire to descriptive metaphysics of a special Kantian kind without the excesses of transcendental idealism. Loose connections between cognitive capacities are a far cry from the logically adequate criteria for ascribing psychological states to others promised by Individuals, or the knowledge of a unified objective world promised by The Bounds of Sense. 6 beliefs and our cognitive capacities. 11 But once revealed, Stroud thinks that our fundamental conceptual structure may prove capable of precluding the possibility of a self-consistent belief in skepticism, for the presuppositions of the premises which ground skepticism about X may, in our framework, include the belief in X. For instance, to be skeptical about the external world we must think that there are believers who believe that there is an external world but that they are or may be mistaken in that belief; yet if in our conceptual scheme the concept of a believer is that of a physical entity possessing conscious, doxastic states, then we can never hold the skeptical position consistently. 12 Such arguments do not prove that Cartesian skepticism is false or that there truly is an external world, but rather that such skepticism could never be consistently held in a conceptual scheme such as ours wherein the fact of doubt presupposes a belief in physical entities and, therefore, an external world. 13
Stroud accepts the connective or purely descriptive use of transcendental arguments, and he continues to deny that they can be used for the purpose of validatory metaphysics in the sense of proving skepticism to be literally false. Nonetheless, he still believes that they can be used for the epistemological purpose of disarming skepticism. The differences between the two philosophers views are less pronounced than either Strawsons or Strouds own comments suggest. 14 Both deny the possibility of a successful, validatory metaphysics based on transcendental arguments, and both accept their use for the descriptive metaphysical project of connective analysis. Finally, both think that within our conceptual framework skepticism need not worry us, though admittedly for different reasons. Stroud holds the more robust epistemic view, claiming that transcendental arguments can prove
11 Stroud: 1994, 163ff.; 1999a, 163-6. 12 Stroud: 1994,168-169; 13 Strawson: 1999a, 168. 14 Strawson: 1985, 21-22. Stroud: 1985, 664; 1994, 163-165. 7 skepticisms incoherence within our framework, whereas Strawson thinks that such skepticism can be safely ignored. For simplicitys sake I will henceforth refer to the common elements of their views as the project of connective analysis (CA), and where they differ I will specify either the Strawsonian naturalist variety (NCA) or the Stroudian epistemological variety (ECA). For the remainder of my paper I will explore what I take to be a critical objection to CA. Neither Strawson nor Stroud wishes to appeal to basic ontological beliefs of either a realist or anti-realist/idealist variety in order to ground the connective analyses of transcendental arguments. NCA and ECA both analyze conceptual frameworks without recourse to validatory metaphysics, i.e. without proving that skepticism is literally false or that our fundamental concepts such as physical entities or (other) minds have objective validity. I will argue presently that CA, considered as a means of conducting descriptive metaphysics and disarming skepticism, is no more reliable than the frameworks that it analyzes are stable. Yet the best and perhaps only explanation or grounds for such stability would be either transcendental subjectivism 15 or realism. Therefore, strict metaphysical ambivalence or agnosticism will underdetermine the validity and value that Strawson and Stroud esteem NCA and ECA to have. II. Historicism and the Threat of an Unstable A Priori The project of CA will be undermined if the fundamental concepts and conceptual relations it uncovers are mutable or revisable, where revisable here means capable of being altered in light of contrary observations. If we are cautious in our usage, it will be helpful to discuss these conceptual frameworks and the threat of historicism in terms of the a priori, though I do not mean to imply that either Strawson or Stroud would ascribe to these frameworks those specific attributes that Kant or any of his subsequent critics and followers held to be marks
15 For an explanation of this term see 4 below. 8 of a priority or a posteriority. Both seem willing enough to understand the subject of Strawsons descriptive metaphysics, the essential framework of experience, to be the analog of Kants synthetic a priori, 16 even if Strawson claimed to reject the coherence of this notion as Kant developed it. 17 If we may speak of the fundamental concepts and propositions of our conceptual framework as the a priori - not in all of Kants senses, but at least in the general sense of being more schematic and constitutive of the rest of experience than various empirical and revisable parts within the framework - then CA is the investigation of the synthetic a priori by transcendental arguments, but not the attempt to prove its objective validity. Historicism, as it concerns us here as a threat to CA, is the denial of the universality and/or immutability of the allegedly a priori components of our framework. The position derives its name from the fact that it claims that concepts, beliefs, or elements of experience that we take to be universal, i.e. ubiquitous and inherent in all human cognition, are actually idiosyncratic to particular languages; cultures; or stages in scientific, social, and even political/economic development. 18
Strawson directly states the problem this position raises for descriptive metaphysics: it might be suggested thatadmission of a dynamic element in the collective belief-system puts the whole approach in question.If our frame of reference,can undergo such radical revolutions as the Copernican (the real, not the Kantian, Copernican revolution), why should we assume that anything in it is fixed and unalterable? And if we drop that assumption, must we not be content to cast our metaphysics for a more modest a historical or historicist-role.Metaphysical truth would be relativized to historical periods. 19
16 Strawson: 1966, 44. The programme [of the Critique] was that of determining the fundamental general structure of any conception of experience such as we can make intelligible to ourselves. Whether or not we choose to entitle the propositions descriptive of that structure synthetic a priori, it is clear at least that they have a distinctive character or status. Cf. Strawson 1987 and 1994 wherein Strawson explains the sense in which many contemporary philosophers have essentially accepted the Copernican revolution. Cf. Stroud [1999b], especially pp. 229-230. 17 Strawson: 1966, 43. Stroud argues persuasively that what is incomprehensible to Strawson is not the status of the synthetic a priori or the use to which Kant puts it. Rather, Strawson is saying that the incoherent doctrine of transcendental idealism can do nothing to help explain the possibility of synthetic a priori judgments. Stroud: 1999b, 229. 18 Haack: 1979, 366-7; Hacker: 2003, 54-57; Stroud: 1999b, 233-4. 19 Strawson: 1985, 26. 9 Historicism poses a threat to Strawsons NCA in at least two respects. First, if our fundamental conceptual schemes are revisable and historically contingent, then we have little reason to believe that transcendental arguments will reveal to us any lasting truths about the human condition or our ways of conceiving of it. Thus the connections NCA will be transient as well as loose. They will appear ephemeral against the march of the centuries, 20 and while it may still be valuable to investigate the structure of historically contingent worldviews, this transience will be able to cast doubt on every element of our world-view which we had navely assumed to be necessary. This doubt raises a second problem for NCA. Strawson claims that we can safely ignore those forms of skepticism which simply cannot become live options for us. Yet if we suppose our basic frameworks to be open to potentially radical changes, then such skepticism may not always be completely unmoving. Strawson could respond to this problem by saying that a potential threat is not an actual one, and he would be right up to a point; but a potential threat may be sufficient to shake us from the comfort of our naturalistic position. If, for good reasons, I am worried that something currently harmless could become a danger to me, then it does not make much sense for me to call it unthreatening. For instance, someone in a high risk group for developing skin cancer has less to fear for his health than a patient currently suffering from melanoma, but he has much more to fear than another healthy person who is not at any risk for the disease. Conceptual instability itself may not make skepticism an imminent threat for the naturalist, but it may make it threatening enough to be impossible to ignore.
20 It is difficult to imagine how any culture could undergo massive conceptual revisions on the order of the Copernican revolution at a rate faster than once a century. Individual pillars of our world view may fall one by one every few years, (e.g. consider the myriad radical developments in logic, mathematics, and the physical sciences between 1900 and 1940), but it seems preposterous to imagine that a culture could transition from Ptolemaic medieval scholasticism, to Copernican-Newtonian mechanism, to post-Darwinian and Einsteinian modernism in a matter of a few years. 10 Stroud seems less committed than Strawson to the thesis that our basic framework is invariant 21 , yet the stability of our conceptual framework is even more vital for ECA than for NCA, and Stroud does note the importance of stability for defending connective analysis against historicism. 22 Recall that in ECA skepticism is to be disarmed by showing that within our conceptual framework it is impossible to consistently endorse; the facts themselves which motivate or lead to skeptical doubts presuppose that which the skeptic questions. For instance, imagine construing an extreme form of materialism, e.g. property-physicalism, to be skepticism about the existence of minds as irreducible properties or substances. If the concept of belief is itself a concept of consciousness in our framework, then it will be inconsistent to think that the belief that there are minds could be wrong. Indeed, the belief that there are no minds would be inconsistent with the fact of believing it, just as the speech-act of saying, I am silent, is inconsistent with the meaning of that very statement. 23 But now suppose that our conceptual framework changes, and our basic concept of belief becomes one that does not prejudge the truth or falsehood of radical materialism. Belief is otherwise construed and defined, say as disposition to act, so as not to presuppose consciousness. This would mean that believing in extreme materialism is no longer inherently inconsistent in our conceptual framework, and so the disarmament of skepticism about minds will fail.
21 Stroud: 1999b, 238-9. To the historical metaphysicians caution that there could be forms of thought and experience of which we so far have been unable to form any coherent conception, it is best to concede that, yes, perhaps there could be. 22 Stroud: 1999b, 237ff. Establishing that some elements of our conception of the world have the kind of standing that guarantees invulnerability to unmasking requires absolute or non-conditional understanding of the necessities discovered by metaphysical reflection. The indispensability of certain ways of thinking must be indispensability for any possible thought or experience at all, not merely for this or that conception of the world which we, or some other culture or epoch, happen to have. The historical view challenges the assumption of this conception of the metaphysical task. 23 I use this analogy here because Stroud presents it as a model for what a self-justifying belief might be, i.e. one that would imply facts about the world from the psychological fact of believing or asserting it without relying on the crude form of verificationism he singled out in Transcendental Arguments. Stroud: 1968, 22. 11 The defender of ECA might at this point insist that, as there has been no such change (the opinions of many philosophers of mind notwithstanding!), skepticism about the mind can still be claimed to be inconsistent. But as with NCA, no actual conceptual change is necessary to undermine the treatment of skepticism here. If we know our concepts or the relations between them to be revisable, then we will know that there is a possibility that skepticism about the mind will one day be consistent and that its present inconsistency is contingent, lasting only as long as the relevant parts of our conceptual framework remain unmodified. Indeed it is to just such a possible, future re-conceiving that Paul Churchland appeals when defending his eliminative materialism against the argument above. 24
What is more, if any concept is in principle revisable, then logical relations will be mutable. If the very ideas of identity, affirmation, negation, and contradiction are open to change, then inconsistency of the sort which ECA demonstrates may cease to be significant. In a radically different logical system skepticism might be konsistent even if is not consistent in ours. This final, Quinian point is not necessary to undermine ECAs anti-skeptical strategy. To jeopardize ECA it is enough to show that our fundamental concepts for framing experience could change. However, if our basic logical concepts can change, then ECA will be in an even more threatened position. III. Two Sources of Instability for the Synthetic A Priori To defend their respective forms of connective analysis, Strawson and Stroud ought to deny historicism and hold some version of what Susan Haack calls a conceptual invariance thesis. 25 Strawson continues to do so in his present view, saying that, In fact, there is no reason
24 *** 25 Haack: 1979, 365. The bridge from the modest to the ambitious enterprise [of describing and proving invariant conceptual schemes] is the conceptual invariance thesis, a thesis introduced when Strawson replies to the anticipated objection that metaphysics should resist, or promote, conceptual change, that there is a massive central core of 12 why metaphysics should tamely submit to historicist pressure. 26 As in the quote I presented on p. 5, Strawsons defense of conceptual invariance seems to rest on his distinction between what is a fundamental part of any human point of view and what is a contingent way of conceptually representing particular content within that human experience. The question I now wish to consider is whether Strawson can hold onto this position consistently while abandoning validatory metaphysics. Does he have the metaphysical resources necessary to meet historicist objections? Does one need validatory metaphysics to respond to such relativism? To answer that question we need to say something about the historicist objections that have been leveled at his program of descriptive metaphysics. There are essentially two kinds of objections. The first is a local skepticism about the particular methods CA uses to identify a priori structures. It suggests that the frameworks CA describes are or might be historically contingent because CAs methods of analysis focus on the conditions of contingent elements of experience as against experience as such. I call this the methodological argument for conceptual instability. The second objection is a global worry about conceptual instability that demands an explanation for the immutability or necessity of synthetic conceptual connections since they are not logical necessities. This I will refer to as the metaphysical argument for conceptual instability. The methodological objection begins from a distinction between what is constitutive of any experience and what is constituted within that framework, which mirrors certain aspects of Kants a priori / a posteriori distinction. Strawson himself claims that descriptive metaphysics studies universal elements that underlie all experience, but it is asserted by the methodological objector that Strawson and others like him confuse particularly important contingent elements of
concepts which have no history.So, our conceptual scheme is common to different times and different languages. 26 Strawson: 1985, 26-7. 13 experience with a universal structure. For instance, Susan Haack raises the worry that Strawsons treatment of predication in Individuals, on which he bases his account of particulars and universals, might not be an ubiquitous part of all human experience, but merely an idiosyncrasy of Indo-European languages and the subject-predicate structure of their grammars. 27 A descriptive metaphysician might claim that a precondition of experiencing particular physical objects is, say, the ability to distinguish their properties from their substantive being, and he might be identifying this from the deep conceptual and grammatical structures of our language. The historicist will respond to him that it is possible that such distinctions are to be found only in certain languages. Hence, important elements of our language that are not universal but appear so lead us to mistakenly posit correlative metaphysical points as universal conditions of human experience. 28
Is this methodological objection sound? I believe that Strawson can defend himself against this charge. First, we may wish to reject the alleged counter-examples of alternate structures of thought. For well known Davidsonian reasons, any analysis of another cultures
27 Haack: 1979, 368-9. Haack does not explicitly endorse this objection. She merely uses it to stress troubling issues that she thinks descriptive metaphysics must address. 28 An alternative form of this objection is to claim that Strawson picks out elements of experience which, while common to all people, are not common in all experiences. For instance, all human beings make use of predication, but not every experience or even every discernible sequence of experiences makes use of this cognitive ability. Graham Bird suggests that in this way Strawsons method of identifying a priori elements is more empiricist than Kants. Where Kant identifies truly schematic features, ones that are common to all experiences but not readily pointed out as discernible items within experience, Strawson refers to fundamental but not formally constitutive elements of experience. Bird: 2003, 77-8. Strawsons project has no such model [as Kants schematic one]; it identifies fundamental aspects of experience just as they empirically occur in that experience. The fundamental roles outlined for external objects and persons are fundamental roles for our conception of those items just as they figure in ordinary experience. This is why, for example, Strawsons account of persons places such weight on embodiment, and, by the same token, why Kants does not. Kants abstract appeal to personal identity in transcendental apperception has no more need to acknowledge our embodiment than Euclids abstract appeal to points and lines in plane geometry needs to acknowledge the thickness of their empirical realizations in experience..Strawsons project is an empiricist project, rather like Lockes, which Kant thought inappropriate for his purposes; Kants is explicitly anti-empiricist.Whichever of these procedures, Strawsons empiricist or Kants anti-empiricist, is acceptable or preferable, at least Kant offers such an explanation of his method and of the relation between our contingent experience and its necessary structure. p.78 [Emphasis mine]. Strawson can respond that if a particular feature of experience is used to explain the possibility of a general one, then the particular feature can only be called into question if the critic is able to explain the possibility of some alternative. Strawson: 1966, 272. 14 language or conceptual framework which reports them to have a radically different logical structure in their thinking will raise serious questions about translatability. We have no better reason to think that the culture in question has a fundamentally different approach to the world than that the Whorfian historicist has misinterpreted their discourse, perhaps confusing surface level properties of their grammar for deep, structural elements of their thought. Secondly, we may recognize that while certain parts of our framework are variable, the most general features of it are less likely to be so. The more general the feature is, the less likely it will be that the historicist will be able to present us with an alternative form of understanding the world. 29 The ability to reidentify a particular is one such cognitive capacity that we simply cannot imagine any person or group of people not to rely on, howsoever it should be recapitulated in their speech. Does anyone seriously believe that there has ever been or could ever be a human culture which made no use of the idea that the thing one is currently identifying is the exact same thing that one identified earlier? 30
To this the historicist will respond that he is not persuaded by the fact that we cannot conceive of alternative experiences. This, he claims, is indicative of the entrenchment and fundamentality of certain core concepts and capacities that we have in our framework, but it does not rule out the possibilities of alternative frameworks. Strawson and Stroud can try to shift the burden of the argument at this point back onto the historicist by claiming that his arguments do
29 Strawson: 1966, 271-2. 30 This is a place where Strawson might fruitfully return to his naturalistic stance. The so-called Problem of Change raised by the Heracliteans was a philosophical problem precisely because what it called into question, the endurance and reidentifiability of particulars, is something that everyone relies on everyday of their lives. No one can literally take himself to be experiencing the world as a flux anymore than he can cease to make inferences about the future no matter how persuasively Heracliteanism or Humean skepticism undercut their reasonableness. 15 not rule out the possibility that there is no alternative framework and that he should therefore give us reason to think an alternative really is possible. 31 The historicist has the onus of proof. That is a reasonable response on their part, but perhaps it does not go far enough, for at this point the historicist may introduce a deeper type of skepticism about stability: the metaphysical argument. The connections that CA establishes are not merely analytic. They are synthetic, and consequently their certainty cannot be established merely through the analysis of their terms in a strictly formal way. Therefore, their denial does not constitute a contradiction in the purely logical sense. This leaves CA with two possible defenses. The first is to claim that there is some other type of necessity which synthetic a priori claims can have than logical necessity. The second defense is to argue that connective analysis reveals analytic truths which do have logical necessity. I consider the first defense in IV and the second in V. IV. Transcendental Subjectivism and the Synthetic A Priori What other kind of necessity might be found for the synthetic a priori? A defense of synthetic a priori cognitions as following from, for instance, the forms of our faculties would defend these claims in terms of a different type of necessity than purely formal, logical necessity. In one sense Strawson is in agreement with Kant about the nature of non-analytic necessity. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kants central goal is to show how synthetic a priori judgments are possible; i.e. he wishes to explain how there can be certain, non-empirical cognitions which are not simply analytic, but ampliative. 32 According to Kant a synthetic a priori judgment is one which is necessary for the possibility of any object of experience and thus the possibility of experience as such. Since experience presupposes a synthetic unity of appearances,
31 Strawson: 1966, 272. Strawsons argument, however, is only that if a particular feature of experience is used to explain the possibility of a general one, then that particular should not be ruled out as contingent unless another can be supplied. 32 A9-10/B13-14, B19ff., 4:276ff. 16 it therefore has principles of its form which ground it a priori, namely general rules of unity in the synthesis of appearances. 33 In other words, the rules by which appearance are synthesized are a priori principles of experience because it is only through them that experience in its full, unified sense is possible. 34 Thus, Kant formulates the supreme principle of synthetic principles as: Every object stands under the necessary conditions of the synthetic unity of the manifold of intuition in a possible experience. 35
Strawson agrees to this sense of necessity for the truths of descriptive metaphysics. They are the conditions necessary for experience. He writes, How is it, after all, possible to establish that experience must exhibit such-and-such general features? We may reply that this is just an abbreviated way of saying that we can form no coherent or intelligible conception of a type of experience which does not exhibit those features. 36 So Strawson agrees with Kant about what the synthetic a priori is necessary for. It is what is necessary for intelligible experience. However, this is not the sense of the necessity of the synthetic a priori cognitions that is needed to respond to historicism. We want to know why they are necessary, in addition to what they are necessary for. Kants explanation of the fact of their necessity is transcendental idealism. The necessity of synthetic, mathematical truths in guaranteed by the pure forms of our intuition 37 , and the laws of nature are guaranteed by the a priori constitution of the understanding that is necessary for the unity of experience. 38 Formulated in terms of stability, Kant thinks that our fundamental framework is assured to hold universally in all experience by the basic constitution of our
33 Without a synthetic unity of appearances we would have merely a rhapsody of perceptions, not cognition. A156-157 /B195-196. 34 as a priori cognition it [experience] also possesses truth (agreement with its object) only insofar as it contains nothing more than what is necessary for the synthetic unity of experience in general. A157/B197. 35 A158/B197. 36 Strawson: 1966, 271. cf. pp. 15, 43-4. 37 A26/B42, A39/B56ff cf. 4:283-284, 318 38 4:296-7, 318-9. 17 faculties of awareness. Of course, as Kant frequently reminds us, the necessity of the synthetic a priori is guaranteed only for appearances, not for the things in themselves which affect our faculty of sensibility. Nevertheless the synthetic a priori is universal and unrevisable. No experience could force the revision of the synthetic a priori because there can be nothing in experience which does not comply with the a priori forms of sensibility and the understanding. Nor will those forms change so long as the constitutions of our faculties remain what they are. 39
Transcendental idealism seems well defended against historicisms metaphysical objection. But it is precisely in these aspects that Strawson thinks Kants philosophy becomes incoherent. Strawson draws attention to the inveterate problems and contradictions that seem to plague the theory. What could the affecting relationship of things in themselves be on our sensibility prior to causality or time? How can space be known to not be the form of things in themselves even if it is a form of intuition, and how can we even be sure that there is a thing in itself? How can there be identity between the self both prior to experience and in inner sense? 40
Transcendental idealism, Strawson concludes, is incoherent. Is there a weaker and more reasonable form of the theory that Strawson could adopt to secure the synthetic a priori? We can distinguish the part of transcendental idealism which holds that our faculties have a constitution which sets limits on possible experience from the commitments to the pure ideality of space and time or the existence of things in themselves. This view - following Strawson let us call it Transcendental Subjectivism 41 - would suffice to ensure the stability of our framework if transcendental idealism does, but Strawson refuses to
39 Wont the constitutions of these faculties slowly change as a result of evolution? If these faculties of the agent have their constitutions prior to experience, then they should be logically prior to time and causality as well nature and its biological laws. Would it then make sense to speak of the evolution of human beings with respect to the constitution of their faculties? This is perhaps one more problem with the relationship between the transcendental and empirical self. 40 Strawson: 1966, 247ff. 41 Strawson: 1966, e.g. 22. 18 accept even this more limited doctrine, which he regards as mysterious and unexplanatory. 42
Stroud is ultimately no more sympathetic to doctrine than Strawson. 43
Idealism is ruled out by Strawson and Stroud, but would realism suffice? If synthetic a priori judgments hold good of experience because they are necessary truths about the world if they are true qua realism then these judgments will not be revisable because any object in the world which could be experienced would be subject to these principles as natural laws. This would give them at least physical necessity. The challenge for this type of realism is to explain how we could confidently know that these truths hold necessarily in the world. We know from Strouds criticisms that transcendental arguments will not suffice for this. But should there be some other method of their demonstration, then there would be no need for connective analysis. If Strawson or Stroud had this kind of knowledge, then surely they would tell us instead of restricting themselves to the more modest project of CA. They would be telling us what metaphysical truths hold true in the world and what methods establish such truths. It seemed that transcendental idealism or subjectivism offered a basis of stability for the synthetic a priori, but a defense from a theory that is contradictory is not a defense, and an explanation by a theory that is incoherent is not an explanation. Realism might suffice to explain and defend the stability of certain fundamental aspects of our framework, but Strawson and Stroud do not feign to be able to validate such a position. CA avoids either option, as both are forms of validatory metaphysics. Dispensing with Kants explanation, Strawson claims that no validation is necessary for the fact that we cannot conceive of intelligible experience without certain elements. He writes: And if we nevertheless discard, as incoherent in itself and failing in its purpose, the Kantian explanation of the feasibility of the programme [of descriptive metaphysics], what other are we prepared to offer? To this I can only
42 Strawson: 1966, 247-249. 43 Stroud: 1994, 159-160. 19 reply that I see no reason why any high doctrine at all should be necessary here.it is no matter for wonder if conceivable variations [in our conceptual framework] are intelligible only as variations within a certain fundamental general framework of ideas, if further developments are conceivable only as developments of, or from, a certain general basis. There is nothing here to demand, or permit, an explanation such as Kants. In order to set limits to coherent thinking, it is not necessary, as Kant, in spite of his disclaimers, attempted to do, to think both sides of those limits. It is enough to think up to them. 44
It is true that an historical account of our present limits of thought would not require such an explanation, but CA aspires to more than this. To be universal and to be able to respond to skepticism, CA needs some high doctrine to secure the stability of our fundamental frameworks. V. Logical Ontologism and the Analytic A Priori We can see why Strawson and Stroud will have difficulties in answering the metaphysical objection to conceptual stability. CA rules out the reliance on transcendental subjectivism or some other form of validatory metaphysics, idealist or realist, to guarantee the stability of synthetic truths. So suppose, ignoring Quines arguments for the moment, that we grant Strawson and Stroud the use of the analytic/synthetic dichotomy, and, for the sake of argument, we accept the possibility that the complex network of connections between concepts, cognitive capacities, and beliefs which CA is purported to reveal can somehow be represented analytically without sacrificing its richness. If our fundamental conceptual framework is analytic, then the metaphysical objection need no longer concern us; our basic conceptual relationships are logically necessary, so we need not search for some other metaphysical explanation of their invariance. However, we must ask why analyticity implies any kind of truth or necessity for claims which possess it. Kants answer, and the answer that Strawson and Stroud must presumably give as well, is that analytic judgments, whose predicate concepts contain nothing that was not
44 Strawson: 1996, 44. 20 already contained in the concept of the subject, are true according to the principle of non- contradiction. In the second chapter of the Analytic of Principles Kant writes: For, if the judgment is analytic, whether it be negative or affirmative, its truth must always be able to be cognized sufficiently in accordance with the principle of contradiction. For the contrary of that which as a concept already lies and is thought in the cognition of the object is always correctly denied, while the concept itself must necessarily be affirmed of it, since its opposite would contradict the object. Hence we must also allow the principle of contradiction to count as the universal and completely sufficient principle of all analytic cognition. 45
So long as we accept the principle of non-contradiction and the analytic/synthetic dichotomy we can accept the truth or at least the immutability of our analytic conceptual frameworks. A determined historicist will now object that we must give some account of our acceptance of the Principle of Non-Contradiction. We need not prove its truth, but we must at least account for why we take it to be stable. One answer might be that it is an inherent condition of all cognition because it is imposed by the mind on experience. This position let us call it logical transcendentalism - gives a transcendental subjectivist justification for the Principle as a law governing experience. But if CAs rejection of validatory metaphysics proscribed Strawson or Stroud from claiming that the stability of synthetic a priori relationships was guaranteed by imposition, then mutatis mutandis it will ban explaining the stability of the analytic a priori as the imposition of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (PNC). If logical transcendentalism has been ruled out, and logical constructivism too clearly concedes victory to historicism 46 , then we might try turning to logical ontologism, i.e. the belief that the PNC is a metaphysical truth or that its truth as a logical law governing predication depends on the truth of a correlative metaphysical fact that there are no contradictions in the world. So described, logical ontologism is a form of realism, namely realism about PNC. It avers
45 A151/B190-1. What Kant calls the Principle of Contradiction I am referring to as the Principle of Non- Contradiction. These two names, as well as the Law of (Non)-Contradiction, are all variant titles for the same principle, though Kant distinguishes his formulation of it from the traditional Aristotelian form which includes time conditions. (A152-3/B191-3) 46 Logical constructivism is here understood to be the view that the rules of logic are conventions. 21 the literal truth of a non-psychological, ontological claim about the world. But once again this is incompatible with a basic tenet of CA. CA was meant to deal with skepticism and describe the basic structure of our experience without having to commit itself to the literal truth or objective validity of the framework it reveals. The reliance on PNC by CA is problematic even if we do not interpret our basic conceptual framework as an analytic a priori. If CAs transcendental arguments reveal allegedly stable, synthetic cognitions, these will do nothing to quiet skepticism unless contrary statements are ruled out, too. This is normally guaranteed by PNC. For instance, if in our framework the concept of belief is a mental concept, then skepticism about the mind is inconsistent if and only if in that same framework it cannot also be true that belief is not a mental concept. The belief in PNC is at least one belief in our framework which must be assumed to be literally true and stable if CA is to be conducted. If logical ontologism and logical transcendentalism are the basic candidates for explaining why PNC as a logical rule must hold universally, then CA will have to rely on at least that much validatory metaphysics. 47
VI. Conclusion: Can Connective Analysis Dispense Avoid Validatory Metaphysics? Connective Analysis requires some metaphysical commitment to PNC for either the naturalistic or the epistemological response to skepticism to be feasible. Perhaps this is not very troubling for Strawson or Stroud since very few opponents would seriously challenge them on the legitimacy of assuming PNC. However, many of the rich connections between our beliefs and our conceptual capacities which CA hopes to describe are clearly not analytic truths, even
47 I might be taken to be assuming here that realism (in a very broad sense) and idealism (also in a very broad sense) exhaust the positions that can explain the stability of our basic categories of experience. E.g. all experience must be causal because either the universe simply is a place full of entities that follow causal laws, or because the human mind (or Gods mind) by its nature imposes such structure on experience. I am willing to entertain alternatives, e.g. that experience has certain necessary features due both to realitys intrinsic nature and the nature of our faculties, but what I am assuming is that any such alternative will itself be an ontological position of revisionary or validatory metaphysics. The onus of proof is on the advocate of CA to adduce a counter-example which both explains and underwrites conceptual stability and is non-metaphysical in the relevant sense. 22 assuming that the analytic/synthetic dichotomy is at all a valid distinction. That a world of sound would or would not be sufficient for the identification and reidentification of particulars is not something one can determine by consulting the intensions of the terms hearing, identification, and particular. 48 Even if it were, these concepts would still have to be relatively stable for the connections between them to be stable. It is perfectly useful to describe components of the conceptual framework of our experience which are open to change. The worthy field of intellectual history might be characterizable as the study of the development of our world view. But if connective analysis aims to be more than history if it is to be universal and capable of dealing with skepticism- then it must have some reason for believing in the stability of our concepts and their relationships, be they analytic or synthetic. To do this validatory metaphysics must be exercised. We cannot blithely assume that even our most fundamental categories are fixed unless that is in the nature of reality or the forms of our experience. The latter Strawson and Stroud reject because of its incoherence, while the former is more than transcendental arguments can give us. That suggests that transcendental arguments on their own are insufficient both to reveal the fundamental connections between our cognitive capacities and basic concepts and to tell us why such structures are stable and undisrupted by skepticism. My argument has not proven that there is no significant use for transcendental arguments to serve. Coupled with certain prior ontological assumptions that we may well wish to avoid, e.g. transcendental idealism, they potentially could be very powerful. However, stripped of the realist or idealist ontological premises given by validatory metaphysics, transcendental arguments are insufficient for the tasks to which NCA and ECA put them. If Strawson or Stroud wish to continue their projects of descriptive metaphysics by transcendental argument, then they will
48 Cf. Strawson: 1959, Chapter 2. 23 either need to supplement their systems with methods for validatory metaphysics or to reconcile themselves to merely historical metaphysics. 24 VII. Bibliography of Works Cited and Consulted Bird, Graham. [1999] Kant and the Problem of Induction: A Reply to Walker, in Stern [1999], pp. 31-45. . [2003] Kants and Strawsons Descriptive Metaphysics, in Glock [2003b], pp. 67-85. Glock, Hans-Johann. [2003a] Strawson and Analytic Kantianism, in Glock [2003b], pp. 15-42. . [2003b] ed. Strawson and Kant. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Grice, H.P. and P.F. Strawson. [1956] In Defense of Dogma, Philosophical Review, LXV, 2, April 1956, pp. 141-158. Guyer, Paul. [1987] Kant and the Claims of Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Haack, Susan. [1979 ] Descriptive and Revisionary Metaphysics, Philosophical Studies, XXXV, 4, May 1979, pp. 361-371. Hacker, P.M.S. [2003] On Strawsons Rehabilitation of Metaphysics, in Glock [2003b], pp. 43-66. Hookway, Christopher. [1999] Modest Transcendental Arguments and Sceptical Doubts: A Reply to Stroud, in Stern [1999], pp. 173-187. Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Trr. and Edd. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. . Prolegomenon to Any Future Metaphysics. Tr. and Ed. Gary Hatfield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Stern, Robert [1999] ed. Transcendental Arguments: Problems and Prospects. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Strawson, P.F. [1959] Individuals. London: Routledge, 1959. . [1966] The Bounds of Sense. London: Routledge, 1966. . [1985] Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. . [1987] Kants New Foundations of Metaphysics, reprinted in Strawson [1997], pp. 232-243. . [1994] The Problem of Realism and the A Priori, reprinted in Strawson [1997], pp. 244-251. . [1997] Entity and Identity and Other Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. . [2003] A Bit of Intellectual Autobiography, in Glock [2003b], pp.7-14. Stroud, Barry. [1968] Transcendental Arguments, reprinted in Stroud [2000], pp. 9-25. . [1984] Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge, reprinted in Stroud [2000], pp. 1-8. . [1985] Metaphysical Meditations,: Review of P.F. Strawsons, Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties, The Times Literary Supplement, 14 June 1985, p.664. . [1994] Kantian Argument, Conceptual Capacities, and Invulnerability, reprinted in Stroud [2000], pp. 155-176. . [1999a] The Goal of Transcendental Arguments, in Stern [1999], pp. 155-172. . [1999b] The Synthetic A Priori in Strawsons Kantianism, in Stroud [2000], pp. 224-243. . [2000] Understanding Human Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Walker, Ralph C.S. [1999] Induction and Transcendental Arguments, in Stern [1999], pp. 13-29.