Rationalism Self-Restrained: Kant, Autonomy, and the Bounds of Sense

Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason famously purports to preclude rational cognition of objects beyond possible experience (“rational ignorance”). On the prevailing approach (popularized by Strawson’s Bounds of Sense), the conditions on immediate, experiential cognition explain why rational cognition cannot extend beyond it. Yet I argue that the prevailing approach risks surrendering reason to heteronomy, shackling reason to external constraints that no self-respecting rationalist could accept. I argue that Kant instead develops an autonomous approach to rational ignorance, on which reason’s own principles and the conditions proper to rational cognition jointly explain why rational cognition cannot extend beyond possible experience. I sketch a reconstruction of his argument for rational ignorance based on this approach. In brief, even if rational principles that would take us beyond possible experience are true (and cognizable as such), it is impossible for us to subsume any cognitions under them.