Abstract

The Kantian notion of truth is one of the most unclear in the first critique. This lack of clarity is evidenced both by the elliptical nature of Kant's remarks on the subject and the diversity of the various readings of his view in the literature. Interpretations range from those which fail to explicate fully Kant's view of truth, to those which maintain that Kant requires transcendental realism or empirical idealism to preserve the consistency of his theory of knowledge. ;In my dissertation, I consider some of the major trends in interpreting Kant's conception of truth, and I examine some of the problems in these interpretations. I then show that Kant has a coherent conception of truth, which must be understood as a global conception comprised of several local conceptions. Finally, I explain how this interpretation fits into an accurate reading of Kant's transcendental idealism, taking into account some more recent developments in logic and linguistics.