Kant seems to be saying both that the world must have such and such a character for us to have experience and that in order to have experience we must think of it as having such and such a character. You have a particular example here.
He is making two claims, called by Strawson austere and meaty.
Kant tried to show at least that we couldn't have experience at all without thinking of that experience as possibly being experience of the objective world.
But more than this. He thought he was showing that to have experience at all a person must belong to an objective world - to a 'world of things … which exist independently of his own perspective.' (Scruton, Kant, p.33)
There is an austere claim here, and a meaty one.
The austere claim is about our concepts.
The meaty claim is about our actually belonging to an objective world.
Both claims seem to be in Kant.
Strawson's attempt is to pull them very firmly apart.
He thinks that when you have done so you will probably not think much of the meaty claim - you will not think there is much to compel in the argumentation Kant offers for it.
But if you consider just the austere claim, the claim about our conceptual framework, then you may think Kant offers strong considerations for it.
Strawson says that if you think of Kant as analysing our conceptual scheme you will find him interesting and challenging, but if you regard him as trying to argue that we actually do live in an objective world you will think his support for this weak, and that his discussion has historical interest only.
BUZZ
Just to help settle this point in, please jot down an example of a conceptual claim, a claim about our conceptual framework.
And then write against it a corresponding claim which purports to be about not our concepts but about reality as it is independently of our concepts.
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Try thinking of your own examples before mousing over the boxes.
Here is Strawson picking out what he thinks of as the bones of Kant's discussion.
'Experience must include awareness of objects which are distinguishable from experiences of them in the sense that judgements about these objects are judgements about what is the case irrespective of the actual occurrence of particular subjective experiences of them.' (Strawson, The Bounds of Sense, London, 1966, Methuen, p.97.)
So: two interpretations of the thesis of objectivity.
The meaty interpretation of the thesis of objectivity is that there must be an objective world.
The austere interpretation says this:
To have experience at all we have to conceive of ourselves as relating to a world independent of us.
So much for thinking about how to understand the thesis of objectivity in Kant.
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