Hans Vaihinger, in the late nineteenth century, posed a now famous trilemma for Immanuel Kant's theory of affection: If things-in-themselves are the affecting objects, then one must apply the categories beyond the conditions of their application . If one holds that appearances are the affecting objects, then one must hold that these appearances which are the effects of affection are themselves the causes of affection. If one holds that things-in-themselves affect the noumenal self in parallel with appearances affecting the empirical (...) self, then that which is a representation for the noumenal self must serve as a causally efficacious thing-in-itself for the empirical self's production of an empirical representation of the very same object. (shrink)

Kantian Humility (KH) holds that the intrinsic properties of objects are unknowable for agents such as ourselves. Categorial properties, such as being an object, present a potential threat to KH. Cowling (2010) argues that knowing KH to be true requires knowledge of categorial properties. However, if such properties are shown to be intrinsic properties, then KH is committed to their being unknowable. I defend KH by presenting three alternative responses to this challenge. First, that categorial properties are not properties in (...) the sense relevant to KH. Second, that if they are properties, they are not intrinsic properties. Third, that if they are intrinsic properties, KH is not committed to their being unknowable. I also show how these responses can be applied to a related objection to KH offered by Moore (2001). (shrink)