| I examine the account Kant provides, in the two I ranscendental Deductions of the Categories, of our relation to the world as thinkers. Kant is often read as presenting an indirect model of this relation, with our thought acting upon content given independently through the senses. I argue that this model is flawed, both as a reading of Kant and as a philosophical account in its own right. By way of a close examination of the first and second edition versions of the Deduction---and consideration of Kant's reasons for rewriting this central argument---I show that Kant actually rejects this indirect model, correctly seeing it as leading inevitably to skepticism. Instead he defends a direct model of our relation to the sensible world, one in which objects are given to us through a conceptually-shaped sensibility.; I draw several conclusions from this comparison of the two versions of the Deduction. First, although it is often suggested that the second edition Deduction represents a radical change in Kant s position, my account shows that this is not the case. In both versions Kant defends the same necessary connection between our sensible and intellectual faculties. The second version simply offers a fuller explanation of the possibility of this connection. My account thus supports Kant's own claim that the two Deductions are not fundamentally different in aim. Second, the comparison of the two Deductions helps elucidate Kant's general purpose in the Deduction, for it reveals that in both versions Kant's central concern is to explain the possibility of experience by appeal to the tight integration of our sensible and intellectual faculties. This Kantian strategy has deeply influenced the work of recent analytical philosophers such as Sellars and McDowell, suggesting that Kant's Deduction remains quite relevant to contemporary attempts to understand our cognitive relation to the world. I aim to provide a reading of the Deduction that makes perspicuous how it is that Kant's work can continue to be relevant in this way. |
