Understanding Kant's Transcendental Deduction

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 First Edition Version <A> (1781) of the “Transcendental Deduction”(pp. 219-244).

4. TABLE OF CATEGORIES: p. 212

5. Differences Between the First and Second Edition Versions of the Transcendental Deduction “The Second Edition deduction differs from the first edition in omitting any detailed account of the synthesis, and in inserting a passage which shows clearly the connection between the metaphysical and the transcendental deductions (B141-3) and also a discussion of the phenomenal self and its relation to the transcendental unity of apperception.” (B153-9).1 1. Ewing, A. C., A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, (1938, reprinted 1996) p. 114

6. General Remarks about the Transcendental Deduction The Transcendental Deduction is at the heart of the Analytic. Even by Kant’s standards, it is one of the most original abstract and taxing parts of the Critique. Certainly it is the most enigmatic: the text is of such complexity that it may be reasonably doubted that a single line of argument comprehending all its themes and theorems can be extracted from it. Kant recorded dissatisfaction Gardner Sebastian, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 135.

7. General Remarks about the Transcendental Deduction [continued from previous slide] with its exposition in the first edition and rewrote it entirely for the second (Bxxxxviii, Proleg 381), but as with other major changes between the editions, the B Deduction is far from being a mere clarification of its predecessor, and we are left with two contrasting versions of the Deduction whose relation raises many questions.1 1. Gardner Sebastian, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason, (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 135.

8. Heidegger on the Difficulty of the Transcendental Deduction <A> “Kant repeatedly stressed the ‘difficulty of the deduction and sought to ‘remedy’ its ‘obscurity.’ The diversity and complexity of relations involved in the problem of the deduction, properties which become increasingly apparent as the content of the problem is made precise, prevented Kant from the very beginning from remaining content with a single point of departure for the deduction and a single way of carrying out. 1 1. Heidegger, Martin, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1962), p. 73. Original German: Kantbuch, 1929.

9. Heidegger on the Difficulty of the Transcendental Deduction <A> “continued from previous slide] But despite the diversity of his approach to the problem of the deduction, Kant still found his labors immense and unceasing. Often it is only on the way thereto that the objective pursued by the deduction is clearly perceived and expressed. And what should first be disclosed in the course of the deduction is often anticipated in a simple ‘preliminary observation.’1 1. Heidegger, Martin, Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1962), p. 73. Original German: Kantbuch, 1929.

10. The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding • Second Section • (pp. 226-236 • One the a priori grounds for the possibility of experience • Preliminary Reminder • §1 On the synthesis of apprehension in he intuition • §2 On the synthesis of reproduction in the imagination • §3 On the synthesis of recognition in the concept • §4 Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions.

11. Transition to the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories “[There are, however, three original sources (capacities or faculties of the soul), which contain the conditions of the possibility of all experience, and cannot themselves be derived from any other faculty of the mind, namely sense, imagination, and apperception. On these are grounded 1) the synopsis of the manifold a priori through sense; 2) the synthesis of this manifold through the imagination; finally 3) the unity of this synthesis through original apperception. In addition to their empirical use, all of these faculties have a transcendental one, which is concerned solely with form, and which is possible a priori. We have discussed this with regard to the senses in the first part above, however, we will now attempt to understand the nature of the two other ones.]” (p. 225)

12. The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding “If every individual representation were entirely foreign to the other, as it were isolated and separated from it, then there would never arise anything like cognition, which is a whole of compared and connected representations. If therefore I ascribe a synopsis to sense, because it contains a manifold in its intuition, a synthesis must always correspond to this, and receptivity can make cognitions possible only if combined with spontaneity. This is now the ground of a threefold synthesis, which is necessarily found in all cognition: that, namely, of the apprehension of the representations, as modifications of the mind in intuition; of the reproduction of them in the imagination; and of their recognition in the concept. Now these direct us toward three subjective sources of cognition, which make possible even the understanding and, through the latter, all experience as an empirical product of understanding. ) pp. 227-8.

13. Three syntheses are required to constitute an object: The Synthesis of Apprehension, of Reproduction and of Apperception. I. Through the the Synthesis of Apprehension in Intuition we are able to "run through" and "hold together" the many discrete synthetic appearances given through sensibility. Only as such can we ‘apprehend’ the appearances as a single object (representation), e.g. a roan horse.

14. Three syntheses are required to constitute an object: The Synthesis of Apprehension, of Reproduction and of Apperception. I. [continued] The Synthesis of Apprehension presumes the intuition of time. "Every intuition contains a manifold in itself, which however would not be represented as such if the mind did not distinguish the time in the succession of impressions on one another; for as contained in one moment no representation can ever be anything other than absolute unity. Now in order for unity of intuition to come from this manifold (as, say, in the representation of space) it is necessary first to run through and then to take together this manifoldness, which action I call the synthesis of apprehension, since it is aimed directly at the inuition, which to be sure provides a manifold but can never effect this as such, and indeed contained in one representation, without the occurrence of such a synthesis.” (p. 228/A99)

15. Three syntheses are required to constitute an object: The Synthesis of Apprehension, of Reproduction and of Apperception. II. Through the Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination i.e. we areable to "re-produce" the unities formed in the synthesis of apprehension as we progress through time (and its necessary succession). Thus, for example, the roan horse that we see at t1, as a unity is the roan horse that we see at time t2 as a unity (on the ‘subjective side’ we must recall or recollect it). Note: The synthesis of Apprehension includes the synthesis of the Reproduction (p. 230/A102). Thus the two combined give us the full sense of the role of the Imagination.

16. Three syntheses are required to constitute an object: The Synthesis of Apprehension, of Reproduction and of Apperception. III. These unities which progress through time always progress according to concepts (brown, color, cube, shape, etc.) and these concepts necessarily presuppose (p. 231/A104) a unitary consciousness which sustains the whole movement of knowledge. This unity of consciousness is called apperception.1 1. Note: ‘Apperception’ is a term that Kant appropriates from Leibniz. It means consciousness of one’s own mental activity, i. e., self-consciousness.

18. Second Section, §4, Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions, pp. 234-236 1. Like space and time, perceptual experience is a unity. “There is only one experience, in which all perceptions are represented as in thoroughgoing and lawlike connection, just as there is only one space and time, in which all forms of appearance and all relation of being or non-being take place.” (p. 234)

19. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 2. Diverse experiences are part of one universal experience. “If one speaks of different experiences, they are only so many perceptions insofar as they belong to one and the same universal experience. The thoroughgoing and synthetic unity of perceptions is precisely what constitutes the form of experience, and it is nothing other than the synthetic unity of the appearances in accordance with concepts.” (p. 234)

20. Change Blindness: a change in a visual stimulus is introduced and the observer does not notice it.

21. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 3. The synthetic unity of experience is due to some manner of conceptual format. “The thoroughgoing and synthetic unity of perceptions is precisely what constitutes the form of experience, and it is nothing other than the synthetic unity of the appearances in accordance with concepts.” (p. 234) This follows because experience is made of intuitions and concepts and intuitions themselves cannot provide the unity of perceptual experience. Hence the unity must be the result of concepts.

22. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 4. If the concepts that unify perceptual experience were empirical, the perceptual unity would be contingent, and would fall short of experience. “Unity of synthesis in accordance with empirical concepts would be entirely contingent, and, were it not grounded on a transcendental ground of unity, it would be possible for a swarm of appearances to fill up our soul without experience ever being able to arise from it.” (p. 234)

23. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 5. If the concepts that unify perceptual experience were empirical, the perceptual unity could never obtain the cognition of ‘objects’ “But in that case [the unity of perceptual experience based in empirical concepts] all relation of cognition to objects would also disappear, since the appearances would lack connection in accordance with universal and necessary laws, and would thus be intuition without thought, but never cognition, and would therefore be as good as nothing for us.”1

24. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 6. So it follows that the conditions of experience are at the same time the conditions of their being objects which we experience. “The a priori conditions of a possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility of the objects of experience.” (p. 234)

25. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 7. The categories of the understanding, like the pure intuitions of space and time, are necessary conditions to think a possible experience. “Now I assert that the categories introduced earlier are nothing other than the conditions of the thinking in a possible experience, just as space and time contain the conditions of the intuition for the very same thing.” (p. 234)

26. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 8. But the possibility of applying the categories of the understanding rests upon the unity of self-consciousness, i. e., the unity of apperception. “However, the possibility, indeed even the necessity of these categories rests on the relation that the entire sensibility, and with it also all possible appearances, have to the original apperception, in which everything is necessarily in agreement with the conditions of the thorough-going unity of self-consciousness, i.e., must stand under universal functions of synthesis, namely of the synthesis in accordance with concepts, as that in which alone apperception can demonstrate a priori its thoroughgoing and necessary identity.”

27. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 9. The unity of the apperception could not be cognized unless there were an identity of its action as subjects the manifold of intuition to its syntheses. The identity of this action also accounts for the unity of the object. ““ . . . for the mind could not possibly think of the identity of itself in the manifoldness of its representations, and indeed think this a priori, if it did not have before its eyes the identity of its action, which subjects all synthesis of apprehension (which is empirical) to a transcendental unity, and first makes possible their connection in accordance with a priori rules."

28. “Subject and Object as Making One Another Possible” Gardner, Sebastian, Kant on the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 157-160 “. . . So far Kant’s account of the grounds of each [the transcendental unity of apperception and the transcendental object] is merely negative: neither, he argued, is merely empirical. Kant’s master stroke in the Deduction is to propose that each explains the other. First, the subject makes the object possible. The relation od representation to object is, Kant says, constituted by the necessary unity of representations, and this unity is in turn identical with the necessary unity of consciousness (A 109).

29. “Subject and Object as Making One Another Possible” Gardner, Sebastian, Kant on the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 157-160 “[continued]. . . . . . “Second, the object makes the subject possible, again through a priori synthesis. Because I cannot become aware of my identity directly, by intuiting a single continuing thing, consciousness of self identity can be achieved only through awareness of myself as the source of the synthetic unity of objects: ‘the mind could never think its identity in the manifold of its representations . . . if it did not have before its eyes the identity of the act, whereby it subordinates all synthesis of apprehension . . . . to a transcendental unity, thereby rendering possible their interconnection’ (A108) . . .

30. “Subject and Object as Making One Another Possible” Gardner, Sebastian, Kant on the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 157-160 “[continued]. . . . . . “The result is a picture of self and nature as mirroring one another, and a reconception of self-consciousness. If Descartes may be credited with having discovered the significance of subjectivity for philosophical thought. Kant’s achievement is to have transformed the Cartesian approach by suggesting that self-consciousness be viewed, not as a relation in which a pre-existent object of a special kind becomes known to itself, but as the encompassing ground of the world of objects. Descartes sought to bring out the distinguishing features of subjectivity by isolating it from the world of objects, yet continued to regard it as a content of that world. Kant, by contrast, conceives self-consciousness as something not included in the world of objects.”

31. A thought experiment to convey how subject and object interrelate. Eco, Umberto, Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition, trans. McEwen, (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1999), pp. 320-1. “On the other hand, we shall see in 6.10 that we have no problem in imagining that we have a third eye on our index finger, with which we can observe the nape of our neck or see cavities inaccessible to our normal eyes. The inconceivability arises when we try to imagine what would happen if we were to point the third eye toward our face. Would we see the index finger with the eyes in our head, or the eyes in our head with the index finger? Once more either we go by zones of focus (we imagine, alternatively closing the eyes in our head and the eyes in our finger) or we slip into complete imaginative confusion.”

32. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 10. The apprehension of a cause and effect, for example, requires not only a temporal ‘before’ and ‘after’ as well as concepts of cause and effect. It also requires the unity of consciousness to be aware as one experiential piece cognition of a cause followed by an effect. “Thus the concept of a cause is nothing other than a synthesis (of that which follows in the temporal series with other appearances) in accordance with concepts; and without that sort of unity, which has its rule a priori, and which subjects the appearances to itself, thoroughgoing and universal, hence necessary unity of consciousness would not be encountered in the manifold perceptions. But these would then belong to no experience, and would consequently be without an object, and would be nothing but a blind play of representations, i.e., less than a dream.”

33. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 11. Every attempt to find an empirical origin of the categories of understanding must be doomed to failure. “All attempts to derive these pure concepts of the understanding from experience and to ascribe to them a merely empirical origin are therefore entirely vain and futile. I will not mention that, e.g., the concept of a cause brings the trait of necessity with it, which no experience at all can yield, for experience teaches us that one appearance customarily follows another, but not that it must necessarily follow that, nor that an inference from a condition to its consequence can be made a priori and entirely universally.” (p. 235)

34. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 12. The manifold of intuition would seem to have an inherent propensity to unification. That might be called the affinity of the manifold. Why should there be such an affinity? “The ground of the possibility of the association of the manifold, insofar as it lies in the object, is called the affinity of the manifold. I ask, therefore, how do you make the thoroughgoing affinity of the appearances (by means of which they stand under constant laws and must belong under them) comprehensible to yourselves? ” (p. 235)

35. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 13. The explanation for the affinity is quite easily comprehended, Kant says. It’s due to the identity of self-consciousness or in more strictly Kantian language: ‘the transcendental unity of apperception.’ “On my principles it [the affinity of the manifold] is easily comprehensible. All possible appearances belong, as representations, to the whole possible self-consciousness. But from this, as a transcendental representation, numerical identity is inseparable, and certain a priori, because nothing can come into cognition except by means of this original apperception.” (p. 235)

36. But is there necessarily a ‘unity to apperception? What about cases Dissociative Identity Disorder – what is commonly called ‘split personalities.’ Do such people experience a unique unity of apperception. Consider Chris Sizemore, the patient of psychiatrists, C. H. Thigpen and H. Checkley, in Three Faces of Eve. Eve White, Eve Black and Jane, the three multiple personalities portrayed in Three Faces of Eve. Theyconflict disapprove and finally put an end to other alters. Don’t they each have their own ego

37. But, Eve White, Eve Black and Jane all have their own Ego. If anything, cases of MPD would provide support for the uniqueness of the Ego. In the case of multiple personalities there still is one Ego to a customer. It's just that the customers occupy a crowded body.

38. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 14. Since appearances are all subject to the possibility of self-consciousness, they are subject to a priori principles following from the identity of apperception. “Now since this identity must necessarily enter into the synthesis of all the manifold of appearances insofar as they are to become empirical cognition, the appearances are thus subject to a priori conditions with which their synthesis (of apprehension) must be in thoroughgoing accord.” (p. 235)

39. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 15. Whatever a priori conditions the unity of self-consciousness may posit, can be thought of as ‘rules’ if they are possible and ‘laws’ if they are necessary. “Now, however, the representation of a universal condition in accordance with which a certain manifold (of whatever kind) can be posited is called a rule, and, if it must be so posited, a law. All appearances therefore stand in a thoroughgoing connection according to necessary laws, and hence in a transcendental affinity, of which the empirical affinity is the mere consequence. ” (p. 235-6)

40. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 16. Perhaps it seems nonsensical that nature should arrange itself according to the subjective grounds of self-consciousness, i. e., apperception. “That nature should direct itself according to our subjective ground of apperception, indeed in regard to its lawfulness even depend on this, may well sound quite contradictory and strange. (p. 236)

41. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 17. But it will cease appearing nonensical and strange when one considers that nature is but a sum of appearances. “But if one considers that this nature is nothing in itself but a sum of appearances, hence not a thing in itself but merely a multitude of representations of the mind, then one will not be astonished to see that unity on account of which alone it can be called object of all possible experience, i.e., nature, solely in the radical faculty of all our cognition, namely, transcendental apperception; and for that very reason we can cognize this unity a priori, hence also as necessary, which we would certainly have to abandon if it were given in itself independently of the primary sources of our thinking.” (p. 236)

42. Part 2 Transcendental level Provisional explanation of the possibility of the categories as a priori cognitions §4, pp. 234-236 18. And if we didn’t supply the unity of nature a priori, we would need to obtain it from nature itself. This could happen only empirically. As a result nature would not ‘have a nature’, as we say, that is, an inherent structure or ruled behavior. “For then I would not know whence we should obtain the synthetic propositions of such a universal unity of nature, since in this case one would have to borrow them from the objects of nature itself. But since this could happen only empirically, from that nothing but merely contingent unity could be drawn, which would fall far short of the necessary connection that one has in mind when one speaks of nature. ” (p. 236)

43. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 1. The previous arrival at the a priori primacy of the transcendental unity of apperception and the unity of perception will now be expanded to include the function of pure imagination in cognition. “We now want to unify and represent cohesively what we presented as isolated and individual in the previous sections. (p. 236)

44. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 2. There are three subjective recognition sources: sense, imagination and apperception. Each of these can be considered empirically, but all have a priori elements. “The possibility of an experience in general and cognition of its objects rest on three subjective sources of cognition: sense, imagination, and apperception; each of these can be considered empirically, namely in application to given appearances, but they are also elements or foundations a priori that make this empirical use itself possible. Sense represents the appearances empirically in perception, the imagination in association (and reproduction), and apperception in the empirical consciousness of the identity of these reproductive representations with the appearances through which they were given, hence in recognition. “(p. 236).

45. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 3. There is an a priori basis to each of the three of these sources of cognition. “But pure intuition (with regard to it as representation, time, the form of inner intuition) grounds the totality of perception a priori; the pure synthesis of the imagination grounds association a priori; and pure apperception, i.e., the thoroughgoing identity of oneself in all possible representations, grounds empirical consciousness a priori.” (p. 236).

46. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 4. If we want to comprehend the point at which these three sources of cognition merge so as to produce the unity of recognition for a possible experience, we must begin with the pure apperception. “Now if we wish to follow the inner ground of this connection of representations up to that point in which they must all come together in order first to obtain unity of cognition for a possible experience, then we must begin with pure apperception.”(p. 237).

47. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 4. [continued] Now if we want to comprehend the point at which these three sources of cognition merge so as to produce the unity of recognition for a possible experience, we must begin with the pure apperception. “All intuitions are nothing for us and do not in the least concern us if they cannot be taken up into consciousness, whether they influence it directly or indirectly, and through this alone is cognition possible. We are conscious a priori of the thoroughgoing identity of ourselves with regard to all representations that can ever belong to our cognition, as a necessary condition of the possibility of all representations (since the latter represent something in me only insofar as they belong with all the others to one consciousness, hence they must at least be capable of being connected in it). (p. 237)

48. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 5. Necessarily then my recognition of any experience must belong to one consciousness (myself). “We are conscious a priori of the thoroughgoing identity of ourselves with regard to all representations that can ever belong to our cognition, as a necessary condition of the possibility of all representations (since the latter represent something in me only insofar as they belong with all the others to one consciousness, hence they must at least be capable of being connected in it).” (p. 237)

49. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 6. Only the productive synthesis of the imagination can take place a priori because the reproductive synthesis depends on conditions of experience. “But only the productive synthesis of the imagination can take place a priori; for the reproductive synthesis rests on conditions of experience. The principle of the necessary unity of the pure (productive) synthesis of the imagination prior to apperception is thus the ground of the possibility of all cognition, especially that of experience.” (p. 238)

50. Of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding Third Section. On the relation of understanding to objects in general and the possibility of cognizing these a priori pp. 236-243 7. The synthesis of the manifold in the imagination is transcendental if, without regard to any distinction in the intuitions, it aims merely at the connection of the manifold a priori. And the unity of this synthesis is called transcendental if, with reference to the original unity of the apperception, it is represented as a priori necessary. “Now we call the synthesis of the manifold in imagination transcendental if, without distinction of the intuitions, it concerns nothing but the connection of the manifold a priori, and the unity of this synthesis is called transcendental if it is represented as necessary a priori in relation to the original unity of apperception. ” (p. 238)