Revisting Kant and Husserl on the Copernican Turn

Resumen

In the following paper, I argue that none of the recent criticisms of Kant’s transcendental idealism offered on behalf of Husserl scholars such as Dominque Pradelle give us reason to think that Husserlian phenomenology moves beyond Kant’s Copernican turn. I begin by first providing an interpretation of Kant’s Copernican turn before outlining three issues with Kant’s transcendental idealism that scholars like Pradelle (following Husserl) take as reason to reject Kant’s revolution in philosophy: it makes the reference to the thing-it-itself, Kant construes the subject of the turn along psychological lines, and Kant’s transcendental idealism results in skepticism. I then provide reasons why these supposed issues with Kant’s theory ought not motivate us to think that Husserl’s phenomenology does not operate with the underlying assumption of the turn or move beyond it. Finally, I make the case that if we take into the consideration the role played by the unity of apperception in Kant’s account of object constitution, then Kant and Husserl, far from differing on the turn, are in fact, and contra thinkers like Pradelle, closer on the topic of objects of consciousness than is typically appreciated.