Understanding Kant's Transcendental Deduction: Differences and Unity

1. Philosophy 190: Seminar on Kant Spring, 2015 Prof. Peter Hadreas Course website: http://oucampus.sjsu.edu/people/peter.hadreas/courses/Kant/index.html

2. The Second Edition Version <B> (1781) of the “Transcendental Deduction”(pp. 245-266).

4. Some Differences Between the First and Second Edition Versions of the Transcendental Deduction 1) distinguishing the phenomenal self from the transcendental self; 2) remarks on the deduction of the categories as epigenetic, that is one is born from seeds, or more primitive structures that grow into their mature form; 3) that 'is,’ the copula, has its objectivist force because of the objectivity implied by the transcendental unity of apperception.

5. §15 On the possibility of a combination in general Here, Kant distinguishes between ‘synthetic unity of the manifold’ and the ‘category of unity.’ “This unity, which precedes all concepts of combination a priori, is not the category of unity (§10); for all categories are grounded on logical functions of judgments, but in these combination, thus the unity of given concepts, is already thought. The therefore category already presupposes combination.” (p. 246)

6. §16 On the original synthetic unity of apperception (Formulaically: ‘Ein’ [one] entails ‘Mein’ [mine]) "Therefore it is only because I can combine a manifold of given representations in one consciousness that it is possible for me to represent the identity of the consciousness in these representations itself, i. e. the analytical unity of apperception is only possible under the presupposition of some synthetic one.”(pp: 247)

7. §16 On the original synthetic unity of apperception [continued] (Formulaically the also the converse: ‘MEIN’ [mine] entails ‘EIN’ [one]) “. . . only because I can comprehend their manifold in a consciousness do I call them all together my representations; for otherwise I would have as multicolored, diverse a self as I have representation so which I am conscious” (p. 247)

8. §17 The principle of the synthetic unity of apperception is the supreme principle of all use of the understanding “The supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to sensibility was, according to the Transcendental Aesthetic, that all the manifold of sensibility stand under the formal conditions of space and time. The supreme principle of all intuition in relation to the understanding is that all the manifold of intuition stand under conditions of the original synthetic unity of apperception.” (p. 248)

9. §17 The principle of the synthetic unity of apperception is the supreme principle of all use of the understanding [continued] Space and time is not enough for an experience. An intuition must be conceptualized. “Thus the mere form of outer sensible intuition, space, is not yet cognition at all; it only gives the manifold of intuition a priori for a possible cognition. But in order to cognize something in space, e.g., a line, I must draw it, and thus synthetically bring about a determinate combination of the given manifold, so that the unity of this action is at the same time the unity of consciousness (in the concept of a line), and thereby is an object (a determinate space) first cognized.” (p. 249)

10. §18 What the objective unity of self-consciousness is “The transcendental unity of apperception is that unity through which all of the manifold given in an intuition is united in a concept of the object. It is called objective on that account, and must be distinguished from the subjective unity of consciousness, which is a determination of inner sense, through which that manifold of intuition is empirically given for such a combination.” p. 250

11. §18 What the objective unity of self-consciousness is [continued] Kant calls subjective is not only the empirical self, that we experience through the inner sense. He also recognizes an empirical ‘I think’ or apperception which is also subjective. Only the ‘transcendental’ unity of apperception is objective. “. . . the empirical unity of apperception, which we are not assessing here, and which is also derived only from the former [the empirical self], under given conditions in concreto, has merely subjective validity. “ p. 250

12. §19 The logical form of all judgments consist in the objective unity of the apperception of the concepts which they contain therein(pp. 251-2) The ‘is,’ the copula, in a judgment relates the judgment to the transcendental unity of apperception. It thereby obtains objectivity. “If, however, I investigate more closely the relation of given cognitions in every judgment, and distinguish that relation, as something belonging to the understanding, from the relation in accordance with laws of the reproductive imagination (which has only subjective validity), then I find that a judgment is nothing other than the way to bring given cognitions to the objective unity of apperception. That is the aim of the copula is in them: to distinguish the objective unity of given representations from the subjective.” (p. 251)

13. §19 [continued] The ‘is,’ the copula, in a judgment relates the judgment to the transcendental unity of apperception. It thereby obtains objectivity. “For this word [the copula: ‘is’] designates the relation of the representations to the original apperception and its necessary unity, even if the judgment itself is empirical, hence contingent, e.g., ‘Bodies are heavy’ . . . Only in this way does there arise from this relation a judgment, i.e., a relation that is objectively valid, and that is sufficiently distinguished from the relation of these same representations in which there would be only subjective validity, e.g., in accordance with laws of association. In accordance with the latter I could only say ‘If I carry a body, I feel a pressure of weight,’ but not ‘It, the body, is heavy,’ . . . (p. 251-2)

14. §19 The logical form of all judgments consist in the objective unity of the apperception of the concepts which they contain therein (pp. 251-2) Note: Frege and Russell, thought that propositions were neutral. They took on truth values only when asserted as judgments. Proposition were thereby referred to as ‘bivalent.’ Wittgenstein in the Tractatus thought that propositions had to convey truth or falsity. The term ‘bi-polar’ was used to distinguish Wittgenstein’s view from Russell’s and Frege’s. Of course ‘bipolar’ currently less happy associations.

15. Gardner on Kant’s relating judgments to the transcendental unity of apperception to account for their claims to objectivity. “As regards Kant’s position -- quite apart from the fact that the Analytic denies the epistemological priority of our sensible objects required by phenomenalism -- no coherent marriage of transcendental idealism with phenomenalistic ontology can be envisaged. A phenomenalistic ontology cannot be part of the basic conception of transcendental idealism, since transcendental idealism precisely eschews any foundational commitments. Nor can phenomenalistic ontology enter in at a later point.” In other words, Kant’s solution to how our judgments make objective claims, could never come from phenomena alone.”Gardner Sebastian, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 276.

16. §20 All sensible intuitions stand under the categories, as conditions under which alone their manifold can come together in one consciousness.(p 252) “Therefore all manifold, insofar as it is given in one empirical intuition, is determined in regard to one of the logical functions for judgment, by means of which, namely, it is brought to a consciousness in general. But now the categories are nothing other than these very functions for judging, insofar as the manifold of a given intuition is determined with regard to them (§ 13). Thus the manifold in a given intuition also necessarily stands under categories.” NOTE: Categories pertain to manifold of intuitions as “determining them.” Kant will later refer to the relation of the two Tables as the ‘Metaphysical Deduction.’

17. §21 Remark (253-4) This section explicates further the nature of the Categories of the Understanding. “They [the categories] are only rules for an understanding whose entire capacity consists in thinking, i. e., in the action of bringing the synthesis of a manifold that is given to it in intuition from elsewhere, to the unity of apperception, which therefore cognizes nothing at all by itself, but only combines and orders the material for cognition, the intuition, which must be given to it through the object.”

18. §22 The Categories have no other use for the cognition of things in its application to objects of experience (pp. 253-4) Elements of Kant’s analysis: intuition + concepts cognition and cognition experience. Kant writes p. 254: “Consequently all mathematical concepts are not by themselves cognitions, except insofar as one presupposes that there are things that can be presented to us only in accordance with the form of that pure sensible intuition.” Question Is Kant right about this? There are many proofs and theorems in mathematics dealing with prime numbers, e. g., that they are infinite, how they are distributed, whether there infinite 'twin primes' that is primes like 11 and 13 that are just separated by one integer. These theorems do not seem to connected in any obvious way with sensible intuitions. Are they, then, not experience?

19. §23 [No title] Topic: Boundaries of Categories of Understanding “Our sensible and empirical intuition alone can provide them [the Categories of Understanding] with sense and significance. . . . But it is not yet a genuine cognition if I merely indicate what the intuition of the object is not, [e. g. a non-sensible intuition]without being able to say what is then contained in it; for then I have not represented the possibility of an object for my pure concept of the understanding at all . . . for I would not even know whether there could be anything that corresponded to this determination of thought if empirical intuition did not give me the case for its application. “ (pp. 255-6)

20. §24 On the application of the categories to objects of the senses in general (pp. 256-9) Question arises as to the relation of inner sense to apperception. "Here is now the place to make intelligible the paradox that must have struck everyone in the exposition of the form of inner sense (§6): namely how this presents even ourselves to consciousness only as we appear to ourselves, not as we are in ourselves, since we intuit ourselves only as we are internally affected, which seems to be contradictory, since we would have to relate ourselves passively; for this reason is it customary in the systems of psychology to treat inner sense as the same as the faculty of apperception (which we carefully distinguish). (p. 257)

21. §24 On the application of the categories to objects of the senses in general (pp. 256-9) Kant now further fills out how the Transcendental Categories connect to intuitions. A concrete determination of an intuition requires the figurative synthesis, which also takes place in one consciousness.. “Apperception and its synthetic unity is so far from being the same as the inner sense that the former, rather, as the source of all combination, applies to all sensible intuition of objects in general, to the manifold of intuitions in general, under the name of the categories; . . . and thus it does not yet contain any determinate intuition at all, which is possible only through the consciousness of the determination of the manifold through the transcendental action of the imagination (synthetic influence of the understanding on the inner sense), which I have named the figurative synthesis. (p. 258)

22. §24 On the application of the categories to objects of the senses in general (pp. 256-9) Kant now further fills out how the Transcendental Categories connect to intuitions. Concrete determination of an intuition requires the figurative synthesis, which also takes place in one consciousness. Examples: “We cannot think of a line without drawing it in thought, we cannot think of a circle without describing it, we cannot represent the three dimensions of space at all without placing three lines perpendicular to each other at the same point, and we cannot even represent time without, in drawing a straight line (which is to be the external figurative representation of time), attending merely to the action of the synthesis of the manifold through which we successively determine the inner sense, and thereby attending to the succession of this determination in inner sense. “ p. 258

23. §24 On the application of the categories to objects of the senses in general (pp. 256-9) Kant now further fills out how the Transcendental Categories connect to intuitions. Concrete determination of an intuition requires the figurative synthesis, which also takes place in one consciousness. More examples: “Motion, as action of the subject (not as determination of an object), consequently the synthesis of the manifold in space, if we abstract from this manifold in space and attend solely to the action in accordance with which we determine the form of inner sense, first produces the concept of succession at all. The understanding therefore does not find some sort of combination of the manifold already in inner sense, but produces it, by affecting inner sense.” p. 258

24. §25 [Untitled] Topic is the identity of the self. (p. 259-60). ". . . and I therefore have no cognition of myself as I am, but only as I appear to myself.” (p. 260) The point is that I cannot bring my objective self, which is the Transcendental Unity of Apperception, into the governance of the categories. Made clearer in the footnote on p. 260:  "Now I do not have yet another self-intuition, which would give the determining in me, of the spontaneity of which I alone am conscious, even before the act of determination, in the same way as time gives that which is to be determined, thus I cannot determine my existence as that of a self-active being; rather I merely represent the spontaneity of my thought, i. e., of the determining; and my existence always remains only sensibly determined, i. e., determinable as the as the existence of an appearance. Yet this spontaneity is the reason I call myself an intelligence."

25. §26 Transcendental deduction of the universally possible use of the pure concepts of the understanding in experience (pp. 261-4) NOTE: Kant refers for the first time here to the Metaphysical Deduction: “In the metaphysical deduction the origin of the a priori categories in general was established through their complete coincidence with the universal functions of thinking . . .” (p. 261P)

26. §26 Transcendental deduction of the universally possible use of the pure concepts of the understanding in experience (pp. 261-4) Kant offers examples as to how space and time and the categories interwork to produce an experience. First space, the perception of a house: “Thus if, e.g., I make the empirical intuition of a house into perception through apprehension of its manifold, my ground is the necessary unity of space and of outer sensible intuition in general, and I as it were draw its shape in agreement with this synthetic unity of the manifold in space. This very same synthetic unity, however, if I abstract from the form of space, has its seat in the understanding, and is the category of the synthesis of the homogeneous in an intuition in general, i.e., the category of quantity, with which that synthesis of apprehension, i.e., the perception, must therefore be in thoroughgoing agreement.” (p. 262)

27. §26 Transcendental deduction of the universally possible use of the pure concepts of the understanding in experience (pp. 261-4) Kant offers examples as to how space and time and the categories interwork to produce an experience. Second time, the perception of water turning into ice: “If (in another example) I perceive the freezing of water, I apprehend two states (of fluidity and solidity) as ones standing in a relation of time to each other. But in time, on which I ground the appearance as inner intuition, I represent necessary synthetic unity of the manifold, without which that relation could not be determinate1y given in an intuition (with regard to the temporal sequence). [continues]

28. §26 Transcendental deduction of the universally possible use of the pure concepts of the understanding in experience (pp. 261-4) Kant offers examples as to how space and time and the categories interwork to produce an experience. Second time, the perception of water turning into ice: [continued from previous slide] “But now this synthetic unity, as the a priori condition under which I combine the manifold of an intuition in general, if I abstract from the constant form of my inner intuition, time, is the category of cause, through which, if apply it to my sensibility, I determine everything that happens in timein general as far as its relation is concerned. Thus the apprehension in such an occurrence, hence the occurrence itself, as far as possible perception is concerned, stands under the concept of the relation of effects and causes, and so in all other cases.

29. §27 Result of this deduction of the concepts of the understanding (pp. 261-4) [NOTE: Herein Kant argues for the development of the categories by ‘epigenesis’] “Now there are only two ways in which a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects can be thought: either the experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make the experience possible. The first is not the case with the categories (nor with pure sensible intuition); for they are a priori concepts, hence independent of experience (the assertion of an empirical origin would be a sort of generatio aequivoca). Consequently only the second way remains (as it were a system of the epigenesis of pure reason): namely that the categories contain the grounds of the possibility of all experience in general from the side of the understanding.” (pp. 264-5)

30. What is epigenesis? It’s a biological term, which applies to the reproduction of plants, animals and fungi. According to epigenesis, life-forms develop from a seed, spore or egg through a sequence of steps in which cells differentiate and form organs as well as other bodily systems.  The theory of epigenesis was already proposed by Aristotle in On the Generation of Animals. Today, the theory seems obvious, but the debate between the epigenetic versus the pre-formation theory of animal and plant reproduction was debated for centuries, well into Kant’s day. According to the pre-formation theory, a pre-formed animal or plant was present in reproduction – for humans as a ‘homunculus’ in semen. The pre-formation theory appealed to the Creationist account of reproduction.

32. In the first pages of the transcendental analytic of concepts, Kant writes: “We will therefore pursue the pure concepts into their first seeds and predispositions in the human understanding, where they lie ready, until with the opportunity of experience they are finally developed and exhibited in their clarity by the very same understanding, liberated from the empirical conditions attaching to them.” [emphasis added] (p. 203, A66/B91)

33. What is the relation between the Table of Judgments and the Table of Categories of Understanding: A Metaphysical Deduction reliant on the ‘epigenesis’ of the Categories

34. TABLE OF JUDGMENTS: p. 206 four heads and three moments. S = Subject; P = Predicate. Completeness regarding Quantity insofar as three moments comprehends extent of S; Quality, extent of of P; Relation, possible combinations of SP’s; Modality as possibilities of the copula ‘is.’

35. TABLE OF CATEGORIES: p. 212 Table of Judgments are discursive. Table of Categories of Understanding are proposed as a complete list of the metaphysical possibilities of objects.

36. The Category of Causality provides the ready occasion for understanding the relation between the Table of Judgments and Table of Categories. In the Table of Judgments we find under Relation, ‘Hypothetical.’ Consider the example: “If sun shines on a rock, then the rock becomes warmer.” This judgment is removed from the manifold of intuitions. We may approach in degree a conceptualization of the manifold of intuition. Regarding the a priori intuition of space: “Wherever sun shines on a rock, the rock becomes warmer. Or the a priori intuition of time: “Whenever sun shines on a rock, the rock become warmer.” But these statements express a less fully developed (epigenerated?) category of causality. The full application of the Category of Causality appears in the statement: “The sun shining on a rock causes it to be warm.” Note the increased sense of objectivity as we shift from, the hypothetical statement to the second, third, and finally the explicitly causal statement.

37. Pre-formation Systems in the History of Epistemology Descartes, Berkeley, and Leibniz require what Kant calls a pre-formation system, a state of affairs whereby our agreement with reality is guaranteed prior to our forming them. For all three thinkers this involved the Deity operated as a kind of deus ex machina. Descartes’ proof of the existence of God as a perfect being allows him to overcome hyperbolic doubt. Leibniz assumes a ‘pre-established’ harmony to explain the interrelation of monads. Berkeley’s overcomes his doctrine that ‘to be is to be perceived’ by presuming that God perceives all. But we can accept such hypotheses only if we have a true representation of the system itself (a true idea of God and his place in out reality). But then we are assuming what needs to be explained.

38. Is a Problem with Kant’s Doctrine that all experience needs to be capable of apperception, that is, that it’s possible to say ‘I think that E, where ‘E’ is some experience? Current cognitive psychology recognizes experiences in which we have recognition but no conscious awareness, for example in cases of ‘blindsightedness.’

39. Blindsightedness1 Lawrence Weiskrantz and colleagues first discovered blindsight while studying a patient, DB, who had become blind in his left field of view following surgical removal of his right occipital lobe. Weiskrantz found that DB was able to point with relative accuracy towards an object occupying the blind area of DB’s visual field, and further, that DB was able to guess as to the shape and orientation of these objects with greater accuracy than chance alone would permit. During these tests, DB sincerely maintained that he could not see these objects. 1. Dowloaded fromhttp://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/373 See Weiskrantz, L., Blindsight: A case study and implications, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).

40. NOTE: The Subordinate Role of Theoretical Reason in Kant’s Systematic Philosophy “Thus, in the union of pure speculative and pure practical reason in our cognition, the latter has primacy, assuming that this union is not contingent and discretionary but based in a priori reason itself ad therefore necessary. For, without this subordination a conflict of reason with itself would arise, since if they were merely juxtaposed (coordinate), the first would of itself close its boundaries strictly and admit nothing from the latter into its domain, while the latter would extend its boundaries over everything and, when its need required, would try to include the former within them. But one cannot require pure practical reason to be subordinate to speculative reason and so reverse the order, since all interest is ultimately practical and even that of speculative reason is only conditional and is complete in practical use alone.”1 1. Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Practical Reason, Gregory trans., in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 5:124, p. 239

41. Slides #1 and following, Portrait of Immanuel Kant in mid-life: http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/philosophy/courses/100/Kant003.jpg Slide #31, drawing of a homunculus: https://aintnohothouseflower.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/homunculus-by-nicolaus-hartsoeker-1694.jpg