Things in themselves and naturalism: Kant’s debt to Locke

The framework of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason consists of ‘things in themselves’ (Dinge an sich), ‘affection’ (Affektion), ‘senses’ (Sinne), ‘representations’ (Vorstellungen) and ‘appearances’ (Erscheinungen). This framework is isomorphic to Locke’s framework in the Essay, which consists of ‘things themselves,’ ‘affection,’ ‘senses,’ ‘ideas’ and ‘appearances.’ If we examine in detail how Kant read Locke’s works, how he criticized Locke’s thoughts, and how he explicitly accepted some of Locke’s views, the possibility emerges that Kant not only inherited Locke’s dual structure of the Essay but also that the German terms that make up Kant’s framework of transcendental idealism were translations of Locke’s terms in the Latin Essay (De intellectu humano). In this article, by examining these topics, I consider the possibility that Kant inherited the dual framework consisting of ‘things (in) themselves’ and ‘ideas’ or ‘representations’ from Locke and argue that the framework of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason implicitly presupposes the naturalistic way of thinking since Descartes. If Kant were to acknowledge this implicit naturalism in the first Critique, he would significantly weaken his foundationalist claims. However, by positively acknowledging his naturalism, various natural-scientific views often secretly included in his propaedeutic to metaphysics would take on new positive meanings.