Transcendental and Linguistic Idealism

Abstract The chapter takes Realism to be the claim that representation is responsible to a reality which is independent of our representations of it. Two broad Idealist strategies for rejecting Realism then emerge: one strategy rejects the idea that reality is independent of our representations; the other rejects the idea that representation is responsible to reality. Without wishing to attack the first sort of strategy, the chapter notes that it proceeds by attempting to find our contribution to the nature of reality and thus treads the path of Transcendental Idealism, encountering well-known difficulties en route. The second Idealist strategy incurs no such obligations. The chapter’s investigation turns to consider two versions of this strategy: one version focuses on mental representation as primary and the other focuses on linguistic representation as primary. It notes that the former has difficulty accounting for the normative structure of the conceptual—of mental representation—without appealing to the reality to which mental representation is responsible. So, the prognosis for a rejection of Realism in this direction is bleak. The chapter turns then to versions of the strategy which take linguistic representation as primary, labelling these Linguistic Idealism. It closes by garnering support for the position from Wittgenstein’s later writings, in particular, from his arguments for the autonomy of grammar.