Kant, Hamann, Voloshinov: Three Criteria on the Refutation of Idealism

Abstract

This article draws a connection between Valentin Voloshinov’s (Bakhtin Circle) critique of neo-Kantianism – which locates the origin of ideology in consciousness and its laws – and Johann Georg Hamann, one of the earliest critics of Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism. Sharing the same touchstone, both Voloshinov and Hamann attribute language to the concreteness of empirical experience. As a result, Voloshinov advocates a dialogical conception of consciousness, said to be supreme by the neo-Kantian idealists; at the level of knowledge, on the other hand, Hamann argues that Kant presupposes a priori forms only by neglecting the a posteriori concreteness of language. Notwithstanding, Kant himself dedicates a passage in the Critique of Pure Reason to the refutation of Idealism and to argue that inner experience depends on the external, empirical experience. Within these three criteria on the refutation of Idealism – consciousness, knowledge and inner experience – this article highlights the unanimity of inner experience’s dependence on the external. It identifies the main quarrel as the polysemy of the term “consciousness” and argues that signification, insofar as it is tied to language, does not apply to a priori forms, such as space and time (sensibility) and, therefore, there could be circularity in the argument: a priori forms could explain the formation and stabilization of both language and the ideological sign as objects of consciousness.