A transcendental argument is a kind of deductive argument that appeals to the necessary conditions that make experience and knowledge possible.[1][2] Transcendental arguments may have additional standards of justification which are more demanding than those of traditional deductive arguments.[3] The philosopher Immanuel Kant gave transcendental arguments both their name and their notoriety.
- ^ Transcendental-arguments and Scepticism; Answering the Question of Justification (Clarendon Press: Oxford, 2000), pp 3-6.
- ^ Strawson, P., Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985) Premise-10.
- ^ "Transcendental arguments… have to formulate boundary conditions we can all recognize. Once they are formulated properly, we can see at once that they are valid. The thing is self-evident. But it may be very hard to get to this point, and there may still be dispute… For although a correct formulation will be self-evidently valid, the question may arise whether we have formulated things correctly. This is all the more so since we are moving into an area [experience] that the ordinary practice of life has left unarticulated, an area we look through rather than at." Charles Taylor, "The Validity of Transcendental Arguments", Philosophical Arguments (Harvard, 1997), 32.