Remarks on the transcendental deduction of the categories as a Kantiananswer to Hume

Abstract

This paper intends to identify a core point regarding the difference between Hume’s and Kant’stheory of knowledgment. I suggest that Kant should not be read as a philosopher who struggled to refuteHumean proceedings to justify beliefs, but as a philosopher who endeavored to ground the principle thatunderlies such proceedings. By analyzing the purpose of the eight Humean rules thereby we can knowwhether objects are in a causal relation, I suggest that Hume may be a reliabilist. In the following, I arguethat such a reliabilism can only postpone the problem that underlies attempts at justifying the principle of induction or principle of the uniformity of nature. At last, I provide a sketchy account for the transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of understanding as a Kantian attempt at justifying theprinciple of uniformity.