Episode 23: Quassim Cassam discusses transcendental arguments
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What is a “how‑possible” question and why does it matter in philosophy?
Hello and welcome to Elucidations, a philosophy podcast recorded at the University of Chicago. I'm Matt Tykman.
And I'm Mark Hobwooden.
With us today is Cassim Kissan. Professor of Philosophy at Warwick University. And he is here to talk with us about transcendental arguments. Kassim Kassam, welcome. Thank you. One topic that you've been especially interested in recently it seems, uh is what philosophers call how possible questions. What would be an example of a how possible question?
Uh well there are there are many questions of that form. In epistemology The canonical how possible question is how is knowledge possible? That's a very general how possible question, but then there are more specific variance on that question. So for example, you might ask, how is knowledge of the external world possible? Or how is self knowledge possible? Or how is knowledge of other minds possible? So these are how possible questions in the context of epistemology. But there are many other how possible questions. So for example you might ask how is uh freedom possible? How is it possible for any of our actions to be free? The idea, I think, with these questions, is that philosophers ask them because they think that there's something puzzling about the phenomenon in question, and these how possible questions give expression to a certain kind of puzzlement.
So in the freedom case, for example, you might think something along the following lines So we human beings are part of the natural world, we're just biological organisms, presumably our thoughts and actions and desires and so on are caused, like other natural phenomena. And if that's the case, how can anything that we do count as free? That's a classic sort of how possible question. In epistemology, there are particular routes to the how possible questions that I listed earlier which I'm interested in. So the general project is trying to understand what it is that leads philosophers to ask questions of that form about knowledge or about anything else. And then once we understand why philosophers ask questions of that form, to try and figure out how to answer them.
These are very general how possible questions then. They aren't like specific like, wow, I just saw a car go three hundred miles an hour and how is it possible for it to go that fast? These are you know much more fundamental questions like how is it even possible to know anything in the first place? How is it even possible that anything I do is a matter of my own choice?
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
So maybe to get to the the knowledge question, how is knowledge possible? You you know, you might find it kind of hard to imagine a situation in which you would ask that question. Uh it seems, you know, comparatively easier to imagine a situation in which you would ask a very narrow, how possible question about knowledge. You know, for example, if uh you know, Sherlock Holmes uh walks in and immediately says, Oh, you're you're from New Jersey and uh I say, How did you know that? I never told you that. So it seems like we ask these specific, you know, how did someone know such and such questions all the time, but How is it that someone would come to find the very idea of knowledge in the first place mysterious?
Well I like the Sherlock Holmes example actually.
How does the skeptic use the Matrix‑style scenario to challenge knowledge of the external world?
Um it illustrates a point about how possible questions which arises even in the very general case. So in your example of Sherlock Holmes says, Oh, so if you're from New Jersey and you you say, Well, how was it possible for him to know that? I take it that the force of asking the question in that form is you don't really see how he could have known it. There's no there's on the face of it no way in which he could have known it. But he does know it. So that's why you ask, well, how is it possible for him to know? So what you have there is an apparent obstacle to Sherlock Holmes knowing where you're from. But he somehow managed to overcome that obstacle. And when you ask how could he possibly have known, what you're really asking is, given all the factors which make it look impossible for him to have known such a thing, how was it nevertheless possible?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is a “how‑possible” question and why does it matter in philosophy?
0:19–3:13
2
How does the skeptic use the Matrix‑style scenario to challenge knowledge of the external world?
3:13–7:27
3
Why do philosophers distinguish between “how possible” and “whether possible” questions?
7:27–11:36
4
How does Kant’s “transcendental argument” aim to answer the external‑world skeptic?
11:36–16:04
5
What are the necessary conditions Kant claims are required for inner experience?
16:04–19:51
6
Why might Kant’s transcendental proof fail to explain *how* outer experience is possible?
19:51–23:31
7
How do G. E. Moore’s and other anti‑skeptical strategies differ from Kant’s approach?
23:31–27:21
8
What are the remaining challenges for answering skeptical “how‑possible” questions?
27:21–31:24
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Elucidations
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Episode 156: Oliver Traldi discusses political expertise
Episode 155: Rebecca Lowe discusses speaking freely
Episode 154: Greg Salmieri discusses free speech, "cancel culture," and "academic freedom"
Episode 153: Sam Enright discusses lifelong learning
Epsiode 152: Luca Gattoni-Celli discusses the housing crisis