ABSTRACT
The topic of this paper is a criticism ventured by Heidegger against Kant’s attempt to prove the objective reality of the objects of experience. This proof is given by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason as a refutation of psychological idealism.1 It has been further elucidated by Kant in the preface to the second edition, where he calls it ua scandal of philosophy and of human reason in general that the existence of things outside us must be accepted merely on faith, and that if anyone thinks good to doubt their existence, we are unable to counter his doubt by any satisfactory proof.”2 And Kant expresses the hope to have made up for this scandal by a strict proof.3 It runs as follows:4
Since unanimity among scholars on the interpretation of this proof, its stringency and function within the Critique, has not been achieved (in fact, no two interpretations I have looked at are quite in agreement6), I will not even try to give an interpretation of my own but merely want to draw attention to some of the problems involved in the
proof so that we can see more clearly what Heidegger refers to in his criticism. Various questions come to one’s mind when one looks more closely at Kant’s proof.
