Kant, Manifest Realism, Weak Transcendental Idealism, and The Refutation of Digital Idealism: A Podcast.

by June 21, 2026

(Bramesco, 2021)

In Robert Hanna’s view, Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism is most charitably and defensibly interpreted as a version of realistic idealism in two parts: first, manifest realism, and second, weak or counterfactual idealism. In “Kant, Manifest Realism, and The Refutation of Digital Idealism,” Hanna spells out manifest realism, demonstrates weak or counterfactual transcendental idealism, and then uses manifest realism and weak or counterfactual idealism to refute what he calls the skeptical thesis of digital idealism, which says:

Possibly you’re consciously living inside a digital simulation, or a virtual reality, and nothing exists outside it.

REFERENCE

(Bramesco, 2021). Bramesco, C. “Are We All Living in the Matrix? Behind a Documentary on Simulation Theory.” The Guardian. 4 February. Available online at URL = <https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/feb/04/a-glitch-in-the-matrix-documentary-rodney-acher>.

You can find an accessible but also fully detailed podcast on Hanna’s “Kant, Manifest Realism,and The Refutation of Digital Idealism,” created by Scott Heftler and other friends of Philosophy Without Borders, HERE.

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