A transcendental argument is a distinctive form of deductive argument that reasons from some feature of experience, thought or discourse taken as undeniable to the necessary conditions that must hold for that feature to be possible at all. Such arguments are used most often against philosophical skepticism, attempting to show that a skeptic who denies some substantive claim about the world is thereby committed to denying something presupposed by the very experience or reasoning the skeptic relies on to state the denial. Transcendental arguments are commonly distinguished into a progressive form, which argues from an accepted starting point forward to a substantive conclusion about what must also be true, and a regressive form, which argues backward from the denial of a conclusion to show that the denial is self-undermining; both forms trace their philosophical lineage to Immanuel Kant's arguments concerning the necessary conditions of experience.
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1. Transcendental Arguments (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyTranscendental Arguments (SEP), introduction
As standardly conceived, transcendental arguments are taken to be distinctive in involving a certain sort of claim, namely that X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y.
Transcendental Arguments (SEP), on Kant
Kant nonetheless formulated what are generally taken to be the central examples of such arguments, so the history of the topic is usually assumed to start here, with the Critique of Pure Reason and its Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, Second Analogy, and Refutation of Idealism.
View the Source Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a progressive and a regressive transcendental argument?
A progressive transcendental argument reasons forward from an accepted starting point to a substantive further conclusion, while a regressive one reasons backward from the denial of a conclusion to show the denial is self-undermining; both trace their lineage to Kant.
A transcendental argument reasons from some feature of experience, thought or discourse taken as undeniable to the necessary conditions that must hold for that feature to be possible at all, and is used most often against philosophical skepticism, attempting to show that a skeptic who denies some substantive claim is thereby committed to denying something presupposed by the very reasoning used to state the denial. Transcendental arguments are commonly distinguished into a progressive form, which argues from an accepted starting point forward to a substantive conclusion about what must also be true, and a regressive form, which argues backward from the denial of a conclusion to show that the denial is self-undermining. Both forms trace their philosophical lineage to Immanuel Kant's arguments concerning the necessary conditions of experience, formulated in the Critique of Pure Reason.
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