Date of Award
5-8-2009
Degree Type
Closed Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Philosophy
First Advisor
Melissa McBay Merritt - Chair
Second Advisor
Jessica Berry
Third Advisor
Sebastian Rand
Abstract
In this paper I argue, with many leading commentators, that Kant is a conceptualist. I support this conclusion, argued for independently by Hannah Ginsborg and John McDowell, by appeal to the analyticity of Kant’s apperception principle in the transcendental deduction. I argue that the apperception principle, if taken as an analytic proposition, implies that any mental representation that figures into discursive cognition is the product of a priori synthesis. I further argue that making a priori synthesis a condition for the possibility of any mental representation is sufficient to make mental representation conceptual in the relevant sense. This, I argue, strongly suggests that Kant is a conceptualist.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/1059789
Recommended Citation
Miller, Raleigh S., "Kantian Conceptualism and Apperception." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2009.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/1059789