Note 20 — II THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM OF KANT’S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

Geschichte der Neueren Philosophie, Vol. v., p. 60. Volkelt is mistaken about Fischer when he says (Kant’s Erkenntnistheorie, p. 198, n.) that “it is not clear from Fischer’s account whether, in his opinion, Kant takes for granted only the psychological fact of the occurrence of universal and necessary judgments, but also their objective validity and truth.” For, in the passage referred to above, Fischer says that the chief difficulty of the Critique of Pure Reason is to be found in the fact that “its fundamental positions rest on certain presuppositions” which “have to be granted if the rest is to be valid.” These presuppositions consist for Fischer, too, in this, that “first the fact of knowledge is affirmed,” and then analysis reveals the cognitive faculties “by means of which that fact itself is explained.” ↑